Lost planet: Equestria

by MoonShine

Snow pirates

Chapter 2: Snow Pirates

Last chapter: Moonshine and the male pony jump down as Nix and Treacle head over to them, a helicopter with four rotors quickly comes into view, Moonshine waves her hooves in the air to guide it down, it lowers down and the snow around them starts to fly past them from the force off the helicopter, it lands down meters ahead of them and they run up to it and get on, Nix still holding the Gatling gun for support.

Moonshine then jumps on and pipes up on the radio channel, “Let’s go, time to get out of this hell-hole, I could do with a drink too....oh and Treacle, thank you.” The helicopter takes off and they leave the dreaded place to head back home to their command base.

The helicopter quickly finds its way back to base despite having to navigate through a rough snow storm; the base was in fact a large fort built into the side of a large hill, the fort being half inside the hill but most of it poking out of it, below the fort is a snow filled city and is the only passage to the fort, the only other way is by helicopter.

The helicopter slowly makes its way over the city towards the fort which suddenly lights up and landing lights flash in sequence to light the runway for them, some VS’s quickly activate and aim at them as they home in on the landing area.

The helicopter slowly lowers as it comes in to land, the VS’s guiding it in, and the pilot then calls in through the head piece, “Command, this is Osprey-037, I have them, we have one pony down, the others are fine. I will have them inside within a few minutes.”

A voice then replies over, this one female and a little crackly, “Roger than Osprey-037, I hope to see the dead to wish then a safe passing before we leave them, as for the others, tell them to come to me, I wish to see them.”

“Yes ma’am...” he says before the channel goes dead, he checks about as the storm gets pretty rough and the wind blows the osprey about, thankfully he manages to get low enough for the VS’s to grabs hold and guide it down safely, “Ok, Claire and Nix, you take the body....guys, where’s the dead guy?”

Nix and Claire looks about to see that the dead pony isn’t with them, “Oh guys, Commander Luna wanted to see the pony to give him a safe passing, you’ve screwed that up, now he’s fresh meat for the Akrid....anyway, Commander Luna wishes to see all of you, so make your way there right away.” He orders, Moonshine grabs the door and slides it open, only for them to be hit with gale force winds and freezing temperatures, she covers her face with a hoof to stop the snow from bombarding her face then jumps out, Treacle and Nix close behind, all followed by Claire.

They all make their way off the landing strip and into the fort, thermal energy barrel scattered all over for refuelling of the many ospreys that lay on the strip, and for the many VS’s that guard it, Treacle dashes ahead and strains to twist the bulkhead door open due to the cold, she then suddenly jerks round as it gives way and she pulls the door open, instantly they are hit by a wall of warm air and they head inside, Nix closing the door behind them.

They take a few seconds to savour the lovely warm air before heading off down a long corridor marked with a sign saying ‘Commander this way’, on the way they pass many other ponies, some of them wounded from other skirmishes, some of them happy and ecstatic about the many victories they have had recently against NEVEC.

They reach the end of the corridor and open the door to be presented with a large staircase, Moonshine steps forward and looks over the barrier and looks up to see at least 20 flights of stair, “Is it me or am I going to hate these stairs?” she asks, Treacle groans in agreement, Nix giggles to himself and Claire says nothing as she looks at Nix, she has always had a crush on him.

“You may hate them Moonshine but we have to go up them to get to the Commander, no other way.” Treacle says as she walks past her, patting her on the shoulder and starts to make her way up the first flight. Nix follows and gives Moonshine a beaming smile as Claire follows him up but stops next to Moonshine and whispers to her.

“You leave my Nix alone, I see the way you look at him, he’s mine ok?” she then heads up the stairs while keeping an eye on her, Moonshine looking confused as she had never like Nix in that way and she has no clue why Claire would say something like that.

<NEVEC high-command base, location unknown>

“The General wishes not to be disturbed right now Lieutenant, you will have to come back later.” A guard says to the Lavender mare who is in full armour with the high-tech thermal pack on her back, but no helmet on, that is clipped onto her side for ready-use, the four lines going down it and meeting at the front are lit up with bright lavender lights, on her other side is a rifle and a couple of magazines.

“I don’t care; we just got report of some activity in the plain land area, some snow pirates and ex-NEVEC. I wanted to ask if I would be able to....wait why am I telling you?” she says to herself before pushing past the guard who tries to stop her but she just barges past him. She enters the room and walks into a large office.

“I thought my guard was to tell you that I wish to not be disturbed.” The large, white pony in front of her sternly comments, the lavender mare then walks over to a chair and sits.

“General, I have some news; we have just had word that a fight between ex-NEVEC forces and some Snow pirates...”
“Why are you telling me this Lieutenant Sparkle?”

“Hear me out General, the snow pirates, they have now acquired harmonizers somehow, they had come under fire from the ex-NEVEC soldiers but then were able to turn the tides after one of them revived and a Chrysalis Akrid joined in the fight.”

“Harmonizers you say, how have they got such tech on them?”The General asks her.

“I don’t know but we have also got pictures from NEOS of a Cat-G Akrid, I’ve never heard of such things before...”

“What....what do you mean?”

“This Akrid General...has been reported to be in space, the Cat-G was in space, it passed right in front of NEOS.”

“I see, that is rather odd....see to it that you keep surveillance of it, but for now I want to you to go sector 6 location 4, I have heard of some snow pirate activity in the area.”

“Yes Ma’am, I will take my team right away.” Twilight replies before saluting and walking out of the room.

<Snow pirate fort>

Moonshine opens the door panting, holding onto the door handle to keep her up, Nix and Treacle just walk past her like nothing happened, “Moonshine, you should try just walking next time, not running up them then sliding down the rails then running up again...no wonder you’re out of breath.” Treacle lectures her as they all enter the room.

Once in Moonshine closes the door, now having caught her breath, the Commander stood looking out of a window out to the snow covered land, “Commander, you wanted to see us?” Nix asks as they stop just ahead of her desk.

“Yes, I have some bad news, I sent two Ospreys to survey sector 6 location 4, they went out four days ago, they haven’t returned...now I know you have just come back from your last mission but you’re going back out, I want you to see if you can find out what happened to them.” She orders.

“Ma’am” Nix replies before leaving, Moonshine sighs as she thinks of the dreaded stairs; Treacle looks at her and pats her on the shoulder.

“At least you can slide down the rail this time Moonshine.”

“Yeah, I guess. Right let’s go, some friends need saving.” She says before running out the room, Nix following, Claire keeping close to her love, and Treacle slowly walking out.

She stops at the door and turns to look back at the Commander, “We will try our best, if anything goes wrong, will we have support?”

“I can try to get a couple of Ospreys to you within five minutes if all doesn’t go to plan. Now get to that jungle and find them.” She orders, Treacle salutes and leaves closing the door behind her.

All of them quickly get down the stairs, Moonshine sliding down the rails, Nix and Claire running alongside her, once they reach the bottom they stop to notice treacle missing, they wait a couple of second to see a orange blur that slams into the ground, stands tall and faces them, “What you lot looking at?” she says to them as they stand shocked that she had just dropped 20 flights of stairs and now even gave to winks about it.

“That...was...epic.” Moonshine comments.

“Never mind that, we have to go.” Nix says as he heads out the door, pulling on Moonshine to get her moving, the others follow them to the Osprey which is already powering up and roaring to go. They jump aboard, the engines whir faster as they slowly take off, the storm now a bit calmer than before, once in the air the Osprey turns and heads to the left of the city and heads off at full speed.

<Exactly 32 minutes later>

“We’re coming over the area now, get yourselves ready, I’ll circle the area first then drop you down.” The pilot says to them before cutting the channel, Nix gets out of his seat and walks over to the door, grabs the handle and slides the door open, he is right away hit by a heat-wave, the area has no sign of ever being covered by snow, “Yeah, should have told you, the area has been completely melted, there is no snow here.”

“Aww, smells like shit.”

“You’re not used to it, snow has no smell but this...this is something different.”

“Yeah, sure is...” he says before seeing a crashed osprey in the middle of bowl like area with a deep pool of water in the corner, there is a large column of rock poking out of the bowl and a small mound of rock just to the left of it.

Treacle walks up next to Nix and looks, “Down there...look!” she shouts as she points at a crashed Osprey next to the small mound, it looks trashed, like something crushed it, “Looks like something big tore it apart...we should go down, see if we can find anyone.”

“Roger than, landing now.” The pilot says before pushing the joystick forward, the Osprey head down towards the ground and Treacle jumps out to land down next to the crushed helicopter, Moonshine follows her bit jumps further to land on top of the mound. The Osprey stops and hovers only meters above the ground, Nix and Claire jump out and run over to Treacle who is already searching for survivors, the Osprey lifts up and leaves the area.

Moonshine runs over to the far side of the downed helicopter and rummages through the wreckage, Treacle searching the cockpit, Nix goes and climbs the mound of rock to get a higher view of the area, and Claire starts to look about seeing if she can see anypony about.

As they search, the ground starts to shake; Treacle is half inside the cockpit and pokes her head out, “Is that and earthquake, or another Chrysalis?”

Nix gets to the top and looks about to see the pool of water starting to rise; he looks through the sights of his rifle to see a large, six-legged something, it’s black and has two large, forward-pointing horns on the front of its head, the giant Akrid emerges from the water and roars as it lifts out of the water, standing on its hind legs.

“AKRID, WE GOT A CAT-G AKRID!!” Nix shouts down to the others who scramble to get out of the helicopter, Claire dashing for the column of rock, a VS is perched up against it, it had seen better days but will have to do, she dives and slides in front of it and starts to repair it with her portable repair kit.

Moonshine uses her anchor to get up the mound of rock, Treacle finds a small mound of mud and starts to dig just as Nix starts to open fire on the Akrid but has no effect, the Akrid lowers down to slam on the floor with four legs, the knees then glow orange along with some spires on its back but the larger one in the centre glows bright yellow, this was its core, its weak spot.

Nix throws a grenade and lets it hit a leg before shooting it, the grenade explodes and the Akrid roars, faces him and its mouth opens, the top jaw splitting into two piece revealing three tongues, one tongue shoots out and impacts the ground just in front of Nix causing him to fly back off the mound, Moonshine runs forward past his flying body and jumps off the mound towards the Akrid and uses her anchor to get atop of it, she holds on for a bit as it starts to run ahead, she then runs along the top of it and fires at the many spires on its back, many of them shattering but the main core lowering down into the body as it takes hits.

Claire finally finishes and climbs into the VS, it is a GTF-11 class, and the right weapon is a Gatling gun while the right is a rocket launcher. She activates it and the frontal plate slides down from above, she grabs the controls and the VS runs forward, she aims at one of the legs and lets rip, the Gatling gun spraying rounds into the weak spot, she stops to steady the aim and fires the launcher, the large rocket flies forward and hits on of the legs as one of the tongues heads for Treacle who is shooting at another leg from below.

The leg flies off and the tongue misses Treacle who had already rolled out of the way, the Akrid roars with pain and faces Claire, she fires again but this rocket hits the Akrid right in the mouth as its roaring. Soon another leg falls off as Nix and Treacle concentrate fire on it.

The Akrid roars again as Claire fires on another leg with the Gatling gun, Moonshine firing on the core on its back, Nix and Treacle now firing on the last leg on its right side. The Akrid charges for Claire, she jumps up into the air and hovers to get a better aim, its mouth open and the tongues flying past her as she dodges in an attempt to not get hit.

Nix fires a rocket and the last leg falls off, the Akrid falls with a loud thud, the mouth open and tongues flailing about, Moonshine runs over the head and jumps down, she quickly turns round 180 and dives into the mouth, Treacle shouts her but then sees her alive inside and running down the body of the Akrid, she too then runs up and dives in, both of them run through it and come to the core, they both open fire on it while being swept to the back of the Akrid my a mini-river inside of it.

Nix and Claire wait as the weak spots have hardened, Moonshine and Treacle fly out of the tail end and land on the floor, the legs the regenerate and burst out, allowing the Akrid to stand back up and continues its rampage.

Claire and Nix then take aim as they get ready for a long fight, “CLAIRE, GET READY, HERE IT COMES!!” he shouts as it charges right for them, mouth open.

Comments

[GuyWithAJetPack]

Go ahead

[GuyWithAJetPack]

Wait, is this still in year twelve of after trial era?

[MoonShine]

785290 Yes, all based on LP2