Ant Hill
ECY 1008.5
Antara System
Rainbow Dash had never felt so alone. She knew that, in reality, she was far from alone, especially with the remainder of Manticore Squadron surrounding her, Hurricane set to emerge from FTL drive 34 seconds after she did, and the rest of the combined Equestrian Fleet following closely behind. In reality, Lieutenant Dash was just a piece of a puzzle over two hundred thousand ponies strong.
She still felt very, very small. Space was still very big and very empty, no matter how many ponies you stuffed it with.
The timer on her display showed fifteen seconds of FTL remaining before her Falcon-II emerged in orbit around Antara. She had no idea what to expect upon arrival. The previous four engagements Manticore Squadron had flew in consisted of arriving in system, making initial contact with the Antaran fighters, and watching them turn tail as quick as she and her mates had arrived. The strategy was somewhat confusing and, for Rainbow Dash, at least, annoying, because she remained the only Manticore on the flight deck without a confirmed kill, or that glowing red “X” spray painted under her canopy.
Twelve seconds left. Her back legs, locked in place sticking horizontally behind her, gave the impression that she was indeed flying on her own. They shook, the vibration buzzing through the cockpit. She toggled a switch below her, tightening the restraints, and the shaking stopped.
Ten seconds. This time would be different, she thought. No way the Ants run from their own home world. Not when the might of Celestia’s finest was bearing down on them.
Seven. Although she’d come a long way from the paralysing nerves and fits of self doubt that plagued her in her youth, Rainbow Dash still felt a nagging bit of self consciousness. She had almost no combat experience. What was to say that she’d even last a second in a real battle, let alone get a kill?
Five. “Relax,” she said aloud, knowing that her comm was off. “You were picked for the Manticores over hundreds of applicants. Only the best even get invited to try out, and I beat them all. I can do this.”
Three. Rainbow suppressed a gulp for air and checked her readouts. Green all across the board.
Two. She looked at the picture taped to an empty space in the cockpit. It was faded, but she could still make out the six figures posing for it.
One. She touched it for good luck, as she’d done countless times before.
Zero. The empty space around her canopy flashed a brilliant white.
----
Applejack clambered into the transport and buckled in. She felt squished the moment she sat down, what with the fifty odd pounds of equipment she carried pressing at her. The closure of the transport’s door, sapping any light from the compartment, only made the feeling worse. Never had she felt so trapped.
The lights flickered on, and Steal Beam stood in the middle of his platoon. Focus had addressed them all earlier on the plan. Land after the MI secured somewhere to set down, establish a beachhead, as it were, and let the unicorns do their thing with specially designed long range guns. The designated drop area, codenamed “Rico”, was to serve as an artillery post for the long haul, set with covering the rear of the Third Army Group, and Cadenza’s Spear was tasked with defending it. Luckily, the spot was a hundred square kilometers of solid rock with iron deposits underneath it, allowing the ponies to work without fear of Antarans burrowing up from underneath them. Most of the Equestrian Invasion Force was not so lucky.
Applejack had gone through the plan dozens of times during her week of solitude. It was a good plan, she thought. It covered nearly every eventuality, including retreats, or “reverse advances” as they liked to call them. Only one thing really bugged her- the isolation of it all. The Spear was very alone, hundreds of kilometers west of any other unit. EqCom obviously thought that they’d be able to handle themselves, and that the Antarans wouldn’t commit too many troops to attacking them whilst leaving their underground cities in the east. If, Applejack surmised, the Ants really wanted them gone, though, the position could be surrounded quite easily.
Still, there was little she could really do about it. She hadn’t had time to chat with Focus, so she stowed her concerns for the time being. She perked her ears as Beam began addressing his platoon.
“Remember what the Princess said. Stick to the plan, watch each other’s backs. We don’t need any heroes. Just keep your ears up, heads down, and make sure you’re there when we leave. By the numbers. Understood?”
“YES SIR!” came the reply, Applejack joining in.
“Good. Do it for yourselves, for the Princesses, for Equestria. I have faith that each and every one of you will absolutely shine. We have a few minutes before we enter the system, so you can unbuckle.”
He sat down. A few of Applejack’s companions got up to stretch their legs, joke around, or talk to friends. Cracker Barrel nodded at Applejack from across the room. She smiled back.
The colt to her right got up, allowing Applejack some space to readjust herself and her equipment. Seeing that it was satisfactorily arranged, she reached into her ammo pack and withdrew a faded, yellowing envelope.
“Now or never.” She said aloud, tearing it open.
----
Momentarily dazed by the explosion of light, Rainbow Dash recovered quickly and checked her 3-D display. Seeing that she had room to maneuver below her, she dove, hitting her afterburners for good measure. The rest of the squad scattered as well, breaking off in twenty different directions. They had expected the flare, and Rainbow was annoyed that she’d allowed it to affect her, even if it was just for a split second. A split second in the cockpit was all it could take.
She checked the long range scanner and smiled, the pre-combat nerves draining and being replaced by pure, honed adrenaline. Sixty large contacts clocked in orbiting the planet, and hundreds of smaller ones began spewing from the largest. Luckily, they wouldn’t reach Manticore’s position for several minutes.
Much closer to home, she registered the source of the flares-- two Antaran frigates and a complement of fighters with a bearing on her. She kicked the burners again and sped towards the approaching force, the cockpit filling with flashing red indicators. A missile launch was detected, but Rainbow saw the trajectory and shifted shield strength to compensate. The blast rocked her port deflector, but the shield held. Two targets clicked into focus, but Rainbow ignored them. She had bigger fish to fry.
Leaning on the burner toggle, Rainbow’s fighter leapt forward, one of the two frigates coming into range. Her computer scanned it and found her target- the nerve control center. The Manticores had learned the hard way that the only way to disable an Antaran ship completely was to neutralize its link to what they thought was the hive mind somewhere else in the system. She logged the target and calculated the trajectory needed to hit it precisely. The computer displayed it on the holo projector, and she throttled forward.
The Antaran vessel noticed her, and anti-aircraft fire started pinging off of her shields. Rainbow set her Falcon-II on a slight roll to starboard, keeping the flak from hitting her in one place for more than a moment. She changed trajectory, leaping up above the frigate. She was in range of hitting it, but needed to get closer to ensure that the flak wouldn’t knock her bombs out mid-flight. As she reached the apex of her climb and used the retros to turn towards the frigate, a warning sounded that Hurricane and its escorts would be in system in five seconds.
“As if speed was ever my problem!”
She hit the burners again and launched towards the Antaran vessel, shield power rerouted to the forward deflector grid. Indicators lit up, signalling that she’d picked up two tails behind her, but she paid them no heed. If this trick worked, she’d not have to worry about them. If it didn’t, well....
She drove the thought from her mind and willed her fighter to dive faster. The forward shield was taking an absolute hammering, and starting to buckle under a constant stream of red starbursts from the deck of the frigate. The deflector couldn’t take much longer, but Rainbow wasn’t close enough to launch yet. With her shield power meter at 8 percent, however, one of the guns pasting her cut out, and then the other. Two Falcon-IIs below her flashed by, strafing the guns to confirm their handiwork. The coast was clear.
Rainbow Dash pulled the trigger just as Hurricane warped in off of her port bow. Two torpedoes leapt from her undercarriage, each finding their target, drenching it in flames. As Rainbow pulled out of the dive, away from the frigate, it went completely dark. Her two hangers-on disappeared as well.
She checked the short range radar and saw that the other frigate had gone dark, too. The nearly empty screen light up bright green a second later, and Rainbow looked about her canopy.
The sight was truly something to behold. In quick succession, blue points of light crackled around her, as hundreds of shapes materialized around Rainbow, from ten meter long Falcon-II’s like her own to the colossal forms of Celestia and Luna, which appeared at the center of the Equestrian Line. In all, Rainbow saw one hundred and ten capital ships enter the system. She allowed herself a moment to take it all in, as she-- nor anyone else, for that matter-- had never seen such an armada. It was, in a word, awesome.
Her comm clicked on, breaking her from the trance.
“Manticores, return to ship by wings. Refit, and recharge. Back out in ten.”
Rainbow smiled. This was shaping up to be a good day.
----
Applejack,
You know that I’m no good with letters or words. I couldn’t even get Spike to write this one, so enjoy my drool all over it.
I understand why you said what you said, and I’m not angry at you. I just thought that, with so little time left, if it were going to ever be between us, it should have been then, you know? It just felt, I don’t know, right.
But I guess it wasn’t. And we both know that our goodbyes in public will be awkward, so I just wanted to tell you, while I could, that I’m not mad at you. I still love you, AJ, but you don’t have to return the favor. Just keep being my friend, okay? Please?
I understand if you never want to see me again, but if you get the chance, send me a letter? I’m sure you can figure out how to get it to me.
And if we never see each other again, you will always be my best friend. Always.
Love,
Rainbow Dash
Applejack read the letter, once, twice, three times. By the third go through, tears began streaming down the page. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t this. And what a horrid time for it, too.
She had thought that their conversation was, once completed, forgotten. Hadn’t Rainbow agreed that things were best as they were, and no further? Hadn’t they parted with the pegasus disappointed but understanding? And if they had, why didn’t Rainbow keep it that way?
A wave of emotions overtook Applejack. Her famous temper flared for a few brief seconds. How could she do this to me, she thought, when we had settled the matter? Hadn’t she made herself clear on that issue? Nothing could ever happen between the two best friends. It would upset the natural order of things. Wouldn’t it?
She looked over the text a fourth time, and it distracted her from Starswirl exiting FTL drive. She was still buckled in, so the impact wasn’t jarring enough to disrupt her thought process.
“If you get the chance, send me a letter?”
She became physically sick after reading that sentence. How could she, the most dependable of ponies, neglect her best friend that way? Rainbow was out there somewhere, dead, for all she knew, and probably had thought that Applejack was ignoring her. Why hadn’t she opened the letter sooner? Why had she been so selfish? So stubborn? So afraid?
The view screen atop the transport’s entrance flashed on, with a fifteen minute counter beginning. Steel Beam stood up.
“First Platoon, lock and load! Welcome to Operation Ant Hill!”
----
The brilliant gold of one of Celestia’s turbo-lasers tore through yet another Antaran cruiser, shedding its outer hull like Rainbow Dash shredding through a cloud. The cruiser went dark, then exploded in a burst of greenish flame. Were Rainbow able to hear the explosion, she would have been even more impressed.
She noticed the cascade of emerald as she let another missile fly, this one finding its target with the accuracy she’d come to expect in the Harpoon model. Most of her squad mates preferred the newer, sexier Tornado swarm missiles, but the Harpoons were much faster. Naturally, Rainbow Dash had taken quite a shine to them. She’d racked up three kills already with the projectiles, and another two with her guns. The fleet seemed to be doing just as well, as the rather large red patches she saw on her displays upon entering the system were halfway gone by now. The readout to her right showed that four Equestrian ships had gone down, but that over forty of their Antaran counterparts had joined them. Even the largest of the Antaran vessels, a dreadnought her computer labeled “Sathanas” had crumpled under assault from Luna and her cruiser escorts. Even better, none of the bombers targeting Hurricane had got so much as a radar lock on the carrier before Manticore Squadron smote them.
Rainbow was searching for something to sink her final missile into when the comm clicked in, and Lieutenant Swivel, the flight deck operator on Hurricane’s bridge, addressed her.
“Manticores. Mission update. The carrier carrying the 39th Escort Wing just went down. Reroute to these coordinates to escort landing craft, then remain on station for support roles. Bridge out.”
Sighing, Rainbow checked her 3-D display to find the coordinates. She punched them in and let the autopilot take her there, giving her a chance to stretch a bit. It had only been twenty odd minutes, but it felt like a lifetime since they’d warped into the system. Guard duty would surely make things slow down, though, and by a considerable degree.
After a few minutes of cruising, her escortee appeared on the radar. She read the ID tag below its avatar and chuckled. She hadn’t even considered that there would be a Starswirl the Bearded in the fleet.
“If only Twilight could see this!”
----
Applejack felt Starswirl shudder at constant intervals as the MI drop pods were launched towards the surface. She did not envy those ponies. If they didn’t get smeared on the way down, they’d be surrounded and alone, with nobody to rely upon but themselves. Still, she thought, it could be worse, and if any unit could handle such a task, it was the Mobile Infantry. They wouldn’t have given it to anyone else.
The shuddering stopped, and she could feel the momentum of the cruiser begin to slow. The timer above her read one minute. Beam stood up from his harness in the middle of the transport.
“This is it ponies! Remember, the Princesses expect you to shine!”
Applejack swallowed hard and buckled her helmet, switching on her heads up display. All of the readouts showed green except for the safety on her weapon, which was strapped to her right shoulder. She left that one red for the time being.
At fifteen seconds, a female voice piped in to her comm up-link.
“My Royal Subjects,” cooed the voice of Princess Celestia. “Go now with honor and bravery. We are so very proud of all of you. Best of luck, and we will see you when you return. Luna and I thank you for your dedication.”
Surprised, Applejack took the message in silence, as did the rest of her platoon. This was no time for bravado. As the timer hit zero, she made eye contact with Cracker Barrel across the room, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.
She’d never experienced anything this intense. The platoon could tell instantly that this was the real deal, as the transport immediately engaged in evasive maneuvers. Even their practice drops weren’t taken with such ferocity, as the transport ducked and dodged unseen projectiles. A very close impact shook the cabin as it dropped, seemingly in free fall. Suddenly the landing craft went vertical, and Applejack was lifted upwards, now facing down at the planet’s surface; if she wasn’t strapped in, she’d have fallen to the other side of the cabin. She again made eye contact with Barrel, who was facing upwards at her. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable. Applejack tried to smile, but the force pushing back against her face made it difficult. Looking around the room, she saw ponies in various states of excitement, some screaming or enjoying the ride, others looking as horrified as Cracker Barrel. One colt was vomiting, sending the sick throughout the cabin. Applejack was glad she hadn’t been able to stomach breakfast. Another very close, and loud, impact, this one much more forceful, spun the cabin, but the pilots were able to regain control and continue the descent. Finally, after an eternally long two minute ride, the transport righted itself and touched down on Antara.
The first thing first platoon felt was the biting cold. As transport door lifted upwards, an almost unnatural chill swept into the compartment, followed quickly by an even crisper wind. Through shrieking gusts, Applejack was able to hear Steel Beam shout as he unbuckled and rushed down the platform. Her armor, magically enhanced to counteract the incredibly strong gravity of Antara, groaned under the strain.
“Come on you donkeys! You wanna’ live forever?”
The platoon rushed onto the frigid surface, hooves digging into the soft dirt. Several other transports were down already, and the soldiers they were disgorging were running about, shouting orders, firing weapons into the air. Applejack reached the ground and looked to her left, expecting to see second platoon’s transport. It wasn’t there. With a start, she realized what that second impact her boat had felt must have been. The laser fire, directed upwards from the surface all around the landing zone, silently confirmed her fear.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, as the mass of ponies behind her forced movement away from the landing zone. To think that there were forty ponies on that transport, all gone. . .
She shook her head violently, trying to buck the thoughts from her mind. Grieve later and do your job is what she’d been taught. She’d been doing it her whole life, now that she thought of it. She never mourned her parents, or Granny Smith, but just got right to working the next day. She’d have to maintain that dedication here. And if she couldn’t mourn the loss of Rainbow Dash’s friendship, she thought, maybe there wasn’t a part left in her that was capable of feeling loss. Was there?
She stopped short, and was knocked to the ground by the soldiers behind her. Avoiding a certain trampling beneath the hooves of her highly amped compatriots, she crawled over a rock, off of the path the company was taking to the rendezvous point. The mare tried to hold it in, but the tears started coming anyway. Nothing had ever hurt this bad before. She had abandoned her friend, and there was no excuse but her own fear.
Applejack lay there, shaking, for a few minutes until the company moved past her. She peeked her head above the rock serving as her cover and came face to face with Laser Focus. He glared at her, and was choosing some choice words to chew her out with, until he realized that what paralyzed her was something completely different from fear. Her face was not the one of a coward, but of a victim, helpless and numb. He sighed and extended a hoof.
“I don’t know what happened, but we can’t worry about it now. We have jobs to do. Understand?”
When she didn’t stir, he jumped behind the boulder with her.
“Come on trooper, on the bounce. I need you, Applejack.”
He smiled at her. It was a warm, genuine smile, not the kind he gave before inflicting misery, but one of true concern. The force of the smile alone picked her onto her hooves.
“Thatta girl. Now lets go do this thing and get off this rock, alright?”
She put on a brave face.
“Yes, sir.”
----
Manticore Squadron had never had such an easy day. Sure, they’d lost one of their assigned escort transports, but that was from ground fire, and, as the Falcon-II’s weren’t capable of atmospheric flight, it wasn’t their fault. Regrettable, of course, but unavoidable. Besides that hiccup, though, it was a banner day for the squad. Over fifty confirmed kills, including six capital ships, would be added to the killboard that day. And Rainbow Dash could lay claim to eight of the little ones, plus the frigate she bagged earlier. It was a downright enjoyable afternoon.
Rainbow stood on the flight deck of Hurricane and watched the killboard light up. Her brilliant day tied for second best in the squad, and finally allowed her to order some spray paint for her fighter. Even better, she’d be allowed into the officers lounge that night for the first time. It was, once again, simply awesome.
The killboard was replaced by a 2-D model of Antara, showing the progress of the battle below. It had been three hours since the first MI units had touched down, and things were progressing decently. She’d been told that EqCom had been concerned about Antarans digging up from underneath the soil to ambush entire divisions, but the ground-pounders hadn’t seen such tactics yet. In fact, Operation Ant Hill itself was turning into quite a digging expedition, as Equestrian Units were finding themselves having to dig several hundred meters to make contact with quickly withdrawing Antaran soldiers. But, the model showed, they could only dig for so long before the Antarans were backed up against their own cities. Until then, the Diamond Dog units would keep digging, and the grunts would smoke out any Ants that stuck out their heads.
Rainbow Dash almost wanted to join them. Her adrenaline hadn’t ebbed one bit since she’d jumped into the system, and she was chomping at the bit to get another swing at the Antarans. Her Falcon was being recharged (and the mechanics were not happy about her burning out three more shield generators), but any second now she’d get the call from Captain Fox to get back out there.
But first, she decided, she would hit the head. It got hot in that cockpit sometimes, and she had “accidentally” replaced her vitamin water pouch with Sweet Apple Acres cider, so the trip was long overdue. She barely made it out of her flight suit in time.
Her business concluded, Rainbow returned to the flight deck to find Captain Fox waiting for her and wearing his normal scowl. She beamed her best smile, and he shook his head towards the hangar opening. Still beaming, she saluted, and zipped to her fighter.
“This gets better and better!”
----
It had been four hours, and nothing had happened anywhere in sector “Rico”. Cadenza’s Spear arrived, met up with the MI that secured the place, set up barriers and began to wait. No Antarans had been sighted, no tremors felt. Even the artillery was silent, with nothing above ground to shoot at, and the absence of second platoon was hardly noticed at all. Everypony was coping in their own way, but the stillness was unsettling. The planet had rotated into daytime while they were waiting, and the warm rays of the local star had taken the chill out of the alien atmosphere, making it nearly comfortable, if slightly irradiated. Some ponies had even managed a nap.
Applejack sat, watching the perimeter and letting the Antaran soil flow through her hooves. She felt no connection with it, as she did on Home. At Sweet Apple Acres, she could feel the life coursing the soil, and it usually lifted her spirits to silently witness the power of the bond between pony and nature. Over time, she had come to understand this power, and to draw strength from it. The dirt here, on Antara, gave no such warmth. As a pile slid from her loose grip, the aura of death was all she could feel.
The mare still felt sick, and not just from the rad-away pills. All this inaction had given her too much time to think about Rainbow Dash. She had stopped hating herself hours ago, but the feeling that she had abandoned her best friend when she needed somepony was still a heavy weight to bear. She still couldn’t wrap her head around why she hadn’t opened the letter earlier.
“Probably because I was terrified of this happening.”
Hearing her speak for the first time since they’d landed, Cracker Barrel looked up at her friend. She had dozed off while Applejack watched the perimeter.
“Anything to report?”
“Nothing at all, sugarcube.”
Cracker giggled. “Sugarcube? That’s a new one.”
Applejack blushed. “Sorry, Cracker Barrel, my head was somewhere else. Anywhere else, really. I was. . .”
She tailed off, looking into the sky above the horizon. The atmosphere was thinner on Antara, so despite the sun’s glow, she could make out distant stars and the flashes of impulse engines hanging in orbit. But something else caught her eye.
It was a flash of red, followed by two, then dozens more. Soon, much of the eastern sky was alight with dots of red in all different sizes.
Then the proximity alarms went off, and everything went to hell.
----
If Rainbow Dash hadn’t been staring at her radar, searching for something to shoot at, she wouldn’t have noticed them. First a small dot, appearing very near the planet on the opposite side of the horizon, where much of the fleet was orbiting. Then more dots began to appear in all directions, and before she could count them, the entire radar was solid red.
The comm exploded, with cries of alarm, laced with fear, filled the network. She switched off of the main band and on to the Manticore frequency as dozens of ships began to materialize around her. There wasn’t an alarm in her cockpit that wasn’t sounding, but she tuned them out to listen in to the comm.
“Mayday, mayday! All units scramble! All units scramble!”
It was Swivel, but his normally calm voice was cracking with tension. He sounded panicked. Terrified, even.
“All Manticores get back to Hurricane! We are under attack, repeat, under attack. Several dozen Antaran fighters are inbound! On the double, pilots!”
Mouth agape, Rainbow punched in the coordinates and gunned the burners. She’d make it in two minutes, after she rounded the planet to the fleet held side. When she crested it, the pegasus could tell that Swivel was lying.
There were hundreds of Antaran fighters, enough to send her targeting computer haywire. The radar counted over four hundred fighters on scope, and even more spewing from the ungodly multitude of Antaran capital ships now in system. She had never seen so much metal in one place, and most of it was gunning for her. As if on cue, the target lock indicators shrieked in alarm. Rainbow licked her lips and gripped the control stick tighter. The Antarans would need to try a lot harder to catch the fastest flyer in Equestria.
----
Cadenza’s Spear was being overwhelmed. The Spear had designed their entire strategy, their entire purpose, even, around defending a solid point of ground. What they hadn’t counted on was needing to put a roof on their fortress, as the Navy was supposed to handle that dimension of things. But, for the 402nd at least, the Navy had abandoned them.
Not that Applejack could blame them, though. In the few minutes between the appearance of the enemy fleet and the attack on their position, she and Cracker Barrel had counted hundreds of new vessels in the system. Even the might of the combined fleet above them was really going to struggle with numbers of this scale.
They obviously were not coping well. Within minutes of the new arrival, Antaran drop pods were assaulting their position from above. Dozens of aliens fell from the sky, razor sharp, jagged claws beckoning. During the week that she had stared at the plans for Ant Hill, she had never once guessed that the Antarans would end up invading their own planet hours after trapping the Equestrians on it. The mare shuddered. Thousands of ponies were underground at that very moment, with blood lust bearing down on them from all angles. Some of the units the furthest down were out of comm range, and would have no idea what was going on on the surface. It would be a bloodbath for sure.
Applejack had tagged two aliens before she and Cracker had been forced to abandon their outpost, falling back towards the center of sector “Rico”. The rest of the brigade was moving that way, clustering around the still silent artillery pieces or hopping the metal wall forming a poor pony's perimeter around them. There was no cover and no place to hide between the outskirts of their position and the center, though, and the resulting carnage was maddening. Startled and confused, organization was rapidly breaking down. Ponies were clustered into small groups, being herded into corners and torn apart with extreme prejudice. Applejack managed to get a good look at the attackers while covering Cracker as the two withdrew, leap frogging towards the center of the formation. Two meters tall and dark green, the creatures stood upright, their four sharpened legs giving them extreme mobility. Two more pincer equipped appendages rose horribly to pierce the skin and armor of any pony in their way. A circular maw rife with over one hundred teeth completed the horror show. Applejack reasoned that these creatures looked a lot more formidable in the field than they did in the simulations.
Perhaps the numbness she had felt for the past few hours had relaxed her, because Applejack’s aim was steadier than usual. She’d hit two more of the creatures as she and Cracker edged closer to the artillery pieces. The mass of ponies grew denser, but the returning fire became shakier as more targets presented themselves. Applejack knew that only a head shot could really cripple an Antaran, and even blowing off a limb would just leave one slightly annoyed. Her compatriots knew that as well, but they seemed to be forgetting. The horde of Antarans continued their approach.
Fifteen meters from the makeshift defensive perimeter, Applejack stopped to turn and suppress the oncoming onslaught, yelling for Cracker Barrel to get inside. She lined up a shot, and was about to give her helmet’s neural scanner the command to fire when an impact behind her shook the ground. She turned in time to dodge out of the way of slicing death, missing decapitation by inches. The creature slashed again while she recovered, and caught her front left leg, leaving a bright crimson gash half a foot long. Luckily, it missed the bone, and the impact turned Applejack away from the creature.
“Big mistake, partner!”
She reared up, allowing years of experience and instinct to take over. The wound on her leg seared, but didn’t buckle under her weight as she reared back, unleashing a solid bucking upon the Antaran. The impact felt soft, unlike an apple tree, and she felt her hooves sink into the creature. She spun to see it fall with a satisfying, sickening crunch. She gathered her composure and turned towards the wall surrounding the big guns.
Laying in front of the wall was Cracker Barrel, her insides splayed about on the ground, a look of abject terror still on her face, betraying her final thoughts. Her blood continued to leak out of the body, but lacked the forceful spurts of a heart beat. Applejack barely had a chance to comprehend the sight before being pulled through a gate, the heavy metal door shutting behind her.
----
“Manticore one, come in.”
“. . . .”
“Manticore two? You there, G?”
“. . . .”
“Manticore three? Four? Anyone? Manticore Squadron, where are you guys?”
“. . . .”
“Anyone? Please?”
Rainbow Dash was a pilot without a home, and, it now seemed, without a family. Hurricane had gone down before she could reach it, taking half of her squadron before they could get to their fighters. Swivel’s frantic cries for assistance continued until the hulk finally burned up in the atmosphere.
The fleet was in shambles. Rainbow Dash had long since run out of missiles, and her shields were more or less null. She had only survived this long by weaving in and out of the wreckage of what was once the greatest fleet in the galaxy. She counted three confirmed kills, possibly four, and at least two more if steering enemy fighters into debris counted. More frequently, though, she saw the frozen bodies of ponies bounce off of her canopy.
She had two tails, but they were merely patrolling the bone yard. They’d been on her for a few minutes, and each time she sprung a trap, they bugged out before she could get a lock, only for them to bring reinforcements. Five fighters waited for her above the junkyard that was once Celestia.
The dreadnought had fought valiantly, taking on two Sathanas class giants at once, and nearly crippling the first. But with Helios having burned up and Firefly snapped in half, her fighter cover was nonexistent, and her beam cannons were disabled. As far as Dash could tell, her reactor had gone critical, although it wouldn’t have surprised her if the captain had pulled the self destruct button. If he did, it was worth it, as the explosion had also fragged the Sathanases on either side of Celestia.
It didn’t seem to matter at this point, unfortunately. The fleet had regrouped over where Dash had flown earlier on her escort mission, which seemed lifetimes ago. From what she could tell, Luna was still kicking, as well as Manehattan and Blueblood. The radar showed twenty six friendly capital ships alive, with still over two hundred Antarans closing on them, although scores were breaking off to launch infantry at Equestrian positions on the surface.
Dash looked at her console. Most of her systems were still intact, including her warp drive. She could bail if she wanted to, and fall back as far as the neutral zone, where she could signal for help. Somebody had to, right?
But she knew that that was not an option. Element of Loyalty or not, she wouldn’t abandon her brothers and sisters in arms. As long as she had air in her lungs, she’d do her job. Having power left in her chain gun didn’t hurt, either.
The pegasus considered her options. She could reach the fleet with power to spare, and then do what she could from there. She only needed a way to escape the debris field and lose her tails-- eight of them now. A plan came to mind, and Rainbow shifted power from nearly every system to engines. She turned the radio off as well.
Her hoof found its way to the picture of her friends. She touched it, just below an orange earth mare, as she had done so many times before.
“Love you guys.”
Her hoof found her missile countermeasure toggle and spammed it for all she was worth. Six CMs, her remaining supply, shot from beneath her cockpit. Picking up on the radar signals, the Antarans dove at the drones. Before she could talk herself out of it, the cyan pilot throttled the afterburner and shot in the opposite direction.
It only worked for a few seconds, which, thought Rainbow, might be all she needed. She kept pressure on the accelerator and willed the fighter to move faster. It obliged, pushing itself well past its intended top speed. The frame started to shake, but it held. The pilot grinned to herself.
“Take care of your ship, and it will take care of you, right old boy?”
The fighter groaned in response, the strain of its speed taking a heavy toll. She was nearly thirty seconds from the relative safety of the fleet when her port side engine began to fizz out. The Falcon-II sputtered for an agonizing split second, allowing the generator to catch up, and soon regained full speed.
As any pilot knows, though, a split second is all it takes sometimes. A blast of green energy caught the port engine, knocking it out completely. Rainbow dove, trying to lose her pursuers, but it was to no avail, and her starboard engine was shot out as well. She still had maneuvering thrusters, but for all practical purposes, Rainbow was dead in the water. The momentum of her dive pushed the Falcon-II into the atmosphere, and the Antaran fighters let her go, turning towards the rest of the fleet.
Luckily for the pegasus, her power generators were largely intact, and she was able to redirect everything into her shields. If they could hold long enough, she could tempt fate with a crash landing. She could try to bail and fly herself down, but a readout of the atmosphere showed that the much stronger gravity of Antara would overcome the strength of her wings immediately. She grinned with determination.
“Lets do this the hard way!”
----
The Antarans had stopped falling from the sky, at least. Applejack could take credit for that, as she had suggested, rather forcefully, that the unicorns cowering underneath the big guns turn them on the Ant cruisers above them. Two were swatted from the sky before the remaining three withdrew. Applejack had also suggested that the surviving soldiers man the walls and attempt to hold their position, instead of crowding around the comm system screaming for extraction.
Steel Beam was gone. He had been the one to pull Applejack into the compound, and he had climbed the wall after closing the gate behind her. The mare sat on the ground for a few seconds, catching her breath, when his body fell back on top of her. His head, however, did not.
She was about to give up on Focus as well when he somehow hopped over the wall. His armor was torn in a dozen places, many of which were bleeding profusely, but he was alive, and immediately sought someone to tell him what was going on. Applejack noticed that he looked relieved when somepony pointed at her. He trotted her way, half a dozen pairs of dog-tags hanging from his neck. His mane was splattered with green gunk and blood.
“Apple! Glad to see you. Take these,” he said, handing her the tags, “and this.”
He hoofed over the night black Shadowbolt emblem, which Applejack recoiled at. Focus laughed.
“You’re just borrowing it. Get to the comm station, use this to activate the subnet. Don’t ask what it is,” he added, seeing her confusion. “It will patch you to anypony you want up there. Get whoever you can, tell them that we need an extract. The emblem has some extremely important information, but we can’t transmit it. It needs the pickup, not us. Understand?”
Applejack nodded, but he was gone before she could respond. Still confused, she sprinted to the now empty comm shack, closed the door, and looked at the transmitter. As she had suspected, it did not have a crescent moon shaped slot to fit the emblem in. Her presence, though, seemed good enough for the machine, as the view screen went dark. The chatter of the fleet, broadcasting on the emergency channel, died suddenly, and Applejack picked up the microphone.
“This is Private Applejack in sector “Rico” and we need immediate extraction. One company of ponies, a few wounded, extremely important intel. Repeat, we need a pickup now, over.”
The screen remained black, but nothing else happened. A reply came from an agitated sounding mare.
“Private, in case you hadn’t noticed, we have bigger problems up here. Stay off this frequency.”
“But. . . I. . . we have very important. . .”
“Shut it!”
The comm went dead, and the chatter of the fleet was replaced by the sound of an object falling very fast. Applejack hung her head, and the room shook from the concussive force of a powerful impact what sounded like a high speed smashing into the ground very nearby, knocking her to the floor. The noise level outside picked up, and the shouts of ponies added to the din of screeching Antarans and small arms fire. Without her noticing his entry to the room, Focus’ voice added to it.
“Fleet, this is Shadowbolt one fifty six, and you had best recognize the penalty that comes from disobeying an order on the subnet. We suggest a retrieval boat be sent down, or your families will soon come to understand that Luna’s wrath can haunt even from beyond the grave. Over.”
There was a pause before the mare from before spoke up.
“Boat coming down, sir.”
He dropped the mic and smiled at Applejack.
“Sometimes its good to have a reputation.”
She rose to her hooves and tried to smile back when a scything claw punched through the comm room wall. Two more claws tore through the metal, and finally the wall gave way, an Antaran still clinging to it as it fell. Applejack turned to open fire when a second beast tore through the hole, slicing a gash across her face. It disrupted her aim, enough to prevent a headshot but not enough to keep the Antaran from taking a direct hit to the torso. It raged at her, only to be taken down by fire from Focus. He stepped in front of her as two more Antarans tried to enter the room.
“Go!”
“But sir. . .”
“I’ll catch up! Just go!”
The pain in her face searing hot, Applejack ducked out of the room and rounded the structure. Two more Antarans were attempting to gang up on Focus, but she flanked them and put a bullet through the first’s brain. The second would have fallen had she not run out of ammo.
The creature lunged at her, and swung through air on the first go. The second found skin, and Applejack fell to the ground, the green monster standing over her. Just above it, she could see the metallic shape of the retrieval boat beginning a final descent, two gunships providing cover fire around it.
“Almost made it. . .” she whispered, the strength draining from her as quickly as the blood from her newest wound. Her killer reared up to put the finishing touches on the farm pony’s life, and Applejack closed her eyes. There was a commotion above her, and when she looked up, the Antaran had been knocked to the ground, Focus laying on top of it. The alien had speared him through the chest with a spare limb, and the two ponies made eye contact. The sound of the transport landing behind Applejack resounded through the small compound. Focus ripped the limb off of the Antaran, and stood up while two more approached him from behind
“Sir!”
“Shut it, Apple! Get the data to command!”
He grinned at her through his wince, and winked a swollen eye.
“Well done, Private.”
Focus turned and charged at the Antarans, tackling one, then disappearing beneath two more. Applejack wanted to go after him, but she found herself being dragged by two ponies towards the transport. As the doors closed on Laser Focus and operation Ant Hill, Applejack collapsed on the steel grey floor. A cyan pegasus in a flight suit lay next to her.
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I'm seeing referrences all over the place. Awesome.
2044358
2113708 You're absolutely right.
That said, it was always the goal to get there. I only get three chances, though (If you already knew that, forgive me) so I need to make each one count.
I guess there is a bit of personal pride to it, ya know? I was always taught that the best way to prove somebody wrong is to beat them at their own game, so to speak. So if the reviewer says one thing, its going nag me constantly until I sort it out, regardless of what I thought of the critique. Good or bad, that is just what I do, how I operate.
I keep telling myself that I'm not writing Past Sins or Fallout here, but its hard to not want to aspire to those heights. If I have to make some sacrifices to get there, well, perhaps I am willing to do so. But you are absolutely correct. I will stay on the path for my vision of Applejack and her story as best as I can. The point of the thing is to have fun and to grow as a writer, so I will continue to do that regardless of what the Trixie Variety Show says.
Anyway, it isn't all bad. I swear, the review is probably my father- only he can push my buttons to get results out of me that fast! And he (or she, I suppose) did point out some other, possibly more relevant things, though, so I can address those. And the Prologue was fun to write, and even gave me some ideas for future plot lines.
And still, thanks for the support! I really, really, really appreciate it. Thanks also for the opportunity to vent a bit