MLP FIM/Halo: Towards the broken dawn…

by Evident Disaster

CH10

CH10

XXXXX

Unto the Broken Dawn

XXXXX

(Okay this is probably going to be the hardest written chapter for me as I am going to have to drag out this one for the set up for the coming climax, which will involve some rather unexpected guest to arrive, can you guess who it is?)

XXXXX

The trundle of the wagon made the marines jump out of the way as the Spartans and the helldiver's rushed to stop the oncoming vehicle with everything they had. Jace, Miguel and 2 other helldiver's formed a barrier and waited for the incoming wagon, Zaro was going to jump in, but with a broken wrist and sprained ankles he doubted he could do much aside from breaking his remaining stressed bones.

The Spartans also joined in halting the wagon and got onto either side of the helldivers and braced for the shock. The 5 individual bodies on the wagon continued rushing at them minus James who had jumped onto the back to anchor them enough to slow the impact. As the wagon slammed into the wall of humans the passengers of the wagon were suddenly tossed into the air, the blue mare flung across where a UCAF marine was waiting.

The mage landed in his arms as he reached out to grab her, however the force of the throw plus the added weight and no power armour for the helldiver it was a rather tricky catch, especially if you have a gun in your hands. He tipped over after catching the mare. Skyline flipped off the wagon on top of Jace who hadn't been expecting to catch a face full of pony, she knocked him flat on his face.

As for the three griffons they happened to fly off and glide back down in neat group with Gilda asking. "Why the heck didn't we do that in the first place?" The others shook their heads and watched the dust settle from the wagon's trail.

Miguel pulled away immediately and noted his fellow helldiver lying on the ground with a strange blue mare on top of him. His first instinct was to ask.
"You okay?"

The blue earth pony shook her head of the dust and looked at Miguel and smiled nervously before eking out a response.
"Y-yes, thanks…"

"Good to know, now could you please get off of Jace?" He asked pointing at the human she was currently sitting atop of.

The woman jumped off in surprise and apologised.
"Oh dear me, I'm sorry I never knew you were there."

"That's fine, I've had worse." Jace replied getting up with the help of Miguel, he dusted himself off and then recomposed himself and walked back to get his bearings.

James popped from the back of the wagon and then hurried forwards to salute Colonel Jackson and Major Miguel.
"Miguel, well this is a certainly pleasant surprise." He said in his still passive voice.

"Good to see you too you migratory bastard, I never knew you'd still be with us when the Iron Clad went down." Miguel said with some exuberant sense of judgement.

The helldiver's eyed each other for a moment until Twilight and the other Equestrians came along in wonder of what was going on.
"Miguel, wait, is that-." Twilight appeared to ask about what happened, and didn't manage to get through her sentence as a puff of smoke appeared where Trixie had been sitting and now the wagon rumbled to life.

The wagon popped out all sides and then a massive puff smoke and noise as fireworks weaved by magic and enchantments went out. "Lo and Behold the GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE!" The smoke cleared as the mage was now at her homemade stage pulling off that flawless move of light once more, but at the worst time.

The Spartans cleared off and so did the helldiver's they had better things to do. One could say that the largest sweat drop rolled off the side of Trixie's head and her ego as the humans of the UCAF went back to the main problem at hand.
Jackson decided to summarize the whole thing.
"Okay, so could someone for the love of the Forerunners please explain to me what the hell is going on?" He shouted.

"Do you want the long version or the short version?" Miguel asked.

"Short preferably but the long one would have to do." Jackson replied.

Miguel began his explanation.
"Sir, I have with me a number of local being's and now another local species with some random chase the rainbow of an actor on her damn stage and a lot of confusing things." Trixie in the background indignantly shouted. "HEY!"

Miguel continued on with his explanation.
"The local leadership would like to speak with you, and they are ruling monarchs of the kingdom we are currently occupying, as for 6 other's and the amount of guards, let's just say that they're here as merely reassurance from possible dangers to their leaders. Aside from that, I'd like to mention that these locals have rather interesting abilities."

"And also I can break the laws of physics and randomly make appearances and talk to the audience." A pink blur suddenly said from outside the frame next to the ear of Jackson. The colonel jumped back and saw only the top half of Pinkie who then jumped back out of frame and popped out next to the other girls.

"And yes now that I can see that, I'll have to raise questions with the whole UCAF research division on what to do about that." Jackson said wide eyed at the strange anomaly of a pony who just appeared.

"If I might interject… I think we're missing the rather dubious point here is that we are currently in the presence of one or more races on this world that have not reached full FTL capabilities, why exactly didn't you just avoid trying to get them involved?" Anders asked Miguel.

"It's rather hard to do so when they're absolutely insistent on helping, and they did make the point that this was technically their world. I couldn't stop them from coming to help, or for that matter see to it that they speak to the colonel and whoever else might be in charge." Miguel replied to Anders question.

"Okay that's about as logical as you can make this situation. What do we do now?" Jace asked as he tried getting his head around the amount of mind-fuck he was having at this point in time.

"Well we should probably do this in order, might I suggest speaking to the high and mighty goddesses of their race first?" Miguel suggested.

"Probably the best course of action for now, Anders you may join me for this discussion at the command tent, as for the rest of you, keep those Equestrians from causing any further damage or trouble for the time being. I'll need to debrief the major as well, Miguel you'll need to join me for this meeting with the 'princesses'. Jace just monitor the situation and see if you can get the troops packing for our move out of here, I don't need us to sit around for another covenant attack on our position." Jackson then remembered that there was also Zaro.

"Zaro, if you'd respectfully ensure that your troops are packed, just prepare your troops within the hour, and contact Lt Harter he'll be able to do some clean up on the corpses, so get him on it." Jackson finished his calm organisation of the whole mess and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a Tylium Cig.
"I'm getting too old for this shit." He puffed a few breaths from the electric cigarette.

Miguel took the Colonel over to the princesses and James went over to Skyline. The other went as where they were ordered. Jace began getting the troops into shape.
"Okay boys get it packing; Anthony, Luke and Mike get your platoons on the move in the hour we need to square away anything we don't need. Anderson, Alcon, Jamie get your teams on those bulldogs ready to move in the next hour, I want them up and running hot when we finish packing. Squadron leaders get your birds ready and in the air ASAP, over pattern watch on the area for any remaining covenant birds in the skies and keep out a sharp eye for possible covenant tracker teams." He ordered to all UCAF personnel.

Marines and pilot marched to and began a rapid change from their exhausted battle pose to a well drilled military core in moments, gunners mounting their turrets and marines packing their gear into the transports to move on a dime, the UNSC marines watched in silent amazement at the sheer efficiency of a whole division being mobilized so quickly.

As Miguel and Colonel Jackson went over to the Equestrian monarchs Twilight went over to Miguel and asked.
"So I guess you've made up your mind?"

"Probably, it doesn't sit right with me dragging your people into this war, but if you're so insistent on this the Colonel had decided to go and ask about what your military would be able to help us in." Miguel replied.

XXXXX

Meanwhile James was dressing out of his heavy armoured apparel into his open metallic skin; he had to get his gear dusted off. Skyline joined him in the change room of a tent, she watched him from a nearby crate as he adjusted his equipment, or in anyone else's mind 'strip' from his heavy helldiver armour. James wasn't in the normal for good reasons, firstly never having much female contact aside from professional military women made it rather hard for a helldiver like himself ever to know of privacy outside, and also he had very minimal social interactions besides partying marines and the peace and quiet of a forest world that was his home back in the colonies.

Sky watched as he revealed his bare skin, it was a rather embarrassing sight for the young woman, but it was also rather surprising how many scars he had. Many faded battle wounds across his back from painful falls, a shoulder scar where he had been impaled through the arm, and one long scar from a direct cut from an energy sword left its apparent mark across his torso. His figure however seemed to only be enhanced by such wounds; his pale face was still unmarred apart from a few minor faded cuts on his face.

His pale skin seemed to be illuminated brightly in the change room it was ghostly like, wisps of steam from his pale skin made her wonder what it was like to be inside a suit that would make a person sweat profusely, however she noticed that there wasn't the same smell as any local colt or stallion from a hard day's work, it was steam. The air was a little misty and she noticed that it wasn't just coming off of James; it was coming from his armour.

"Hey what's up with your armour?" She inquired as he began to pour water over his back.

"Coolant and heating syncs are all venting, they've been concealing my body temperature and hiding me from heat sensors, they also work to keep me cooled in hot environments. The suit needs time to blow off the excess moisture, I'll be using it again, and I just need time to re-equip the next set for the armour." He said as he sat on a bench and began to open a case with the markings 'IVX'.

Sky watched fascinated at the steam produced by the suit and asked.
"Ya know, I've been kinda curious, but you don't seem to mind that I'm watching you… change."

"I don't normally wear clothes Sky." He corrected her.

"Right well, I mean re-equip." She amended.

"I'm used to being in people's company who don't mind this mostly because we don't have time to look and stare unless you're in the marine corps or the regular military, for everyone in the helldiver's and certain higher class branches of my military this is pretty normal." He said as he began to file through his next set of armour adjustments.

Sky seemed to blush at the thought of how the marines would change, it seemed funny and rather awkward to her, she remembered how high school went, those teens used to make fun of her rather visible choice of lingerie and she imagined how it would be with all those other people all together in a cramped room.

'Jeez, that's really not the thing I want to think about now brain! James is still in the room.' She thought to herself as she watched and closed her eyes and tried getting the image out of her head before James noticed her blushing.

XXXXX

Meanwhile outside the commotion of the day was slowly subsiding as the marines continued to pack, they'd be ready to move by night and reach their next designated waypoint if given to them by the locals. One marine was busy trying to sort out the mess of the wagon which nearly ran over the commander and a few other members of the UCAF and UNSC. He had to however get a statement from the owner who happened to be a rather stubborn blue skinned woman with a horn; she kept talking to herself and referred to him in second person.

"I have not time for such pestering, why do you keep insisting that I provide any sort of statement?" She asked.

"Let's see, there was a near accident the marines of my higher command almost got hit and the princesses said to one of my CO's that the vehicle if insured, probably would require a statement and provided evidence to be given, that said, I've been in motorway patrols back where I come from and no one else happens to have that sort of experience." He said in a rather exasperated fashion.

"Fine, I'll give an email to my insurance company, but that statement will come later, right now I the Great and Powerful Trixie need my rest, and if you have finished pestering me, could you direct me to the nearest temporary accommodation?" She asked.

He face palmed and replied. "We have none, while you've been yapping I was trying to add that we finished packing up camp nearly 1 hour ago, you've been caught up busily getting your things and complaining about the statement the guys at the camp have finished getting their things together, we're to leave in the next hour after the talks." He droned at her.

"What? This is outrageous I demand a temporary accommodation until my wagon is fixed!" She finished with a huff.

The marine thought to himself.
'Wow this girl's a bitch, but you gotta admire her determination to show off, I wonder if Ken and the other guys would mind her. Hmm…' An idea sprung in his head a very cruel idea.

"Okay just to avoid going into any further discussion about this, I can give you accommodation with us, just go over to that transport over there by the cars we have, it's the large one with the white fang marked on it." He told her.

She then asked.
"Why would I need accommodation within a vehicle?"

"Well you said temporary and we don't have any other place, and also you're going with us if I do recall." He replied.

"Very well, then I shall be off!" She said and left the young corporal holding back a laugh until she was out of ear shot.

XXXXX

Back in the change room Sky continued to ask questions and delve into what James knew of his life. She decided to ask a different question.
"Umm, I kind of noticed that the guys in your alliance seem to be rather young, is there a reason for that?"

James looked at her and thought of a good response that wouldn't reveal too much about what the UCAF was like, of course she'd eventually find out, but he'd soften the blow of his reality to her rather than hit her with the whole truth. He replied.
"The UCAF have a need for good troopers so we recruit at any age we can get, this resulted in many young teens and young boys who wanted to fight to join us rather go into further specialised areas of education, there are a few who do go into further education, however many of those are either in medicine, engineers or operators, others usually stay to fight."

"Do they get discharged after their terms?" She asked.

"Rarely, only because they continue to fight, as I said many would rather continue fighting for the alliance, it's the only thing that they believe in, of course it isn't an easy fight, but still they persevere." James replied getting his armour sorted.

He pulled his suit back and this time began a rather dubious process of removing plates and bits of circuitry off of his armour and replacing them, he was methodical in his work, just like his usual cold silent means of avoiding talking too much about things with people. His social isolation was kicking in only because he was back with the marines, and it seemed that they were in a tight bind with the mysterious UNSC, he could tell that there was going to be rather arduous talks with the UCAF and them.

He removed a canister from a crate and pulled out a polished bit of armour and looked at the reflection, it showed Sky lying on the bench waiting for him to get his suit re-equipped, he knew that she was going to be following him around and asking rather simplistic questions and thoughts on the UCAF and ask what the UNSC is, but the one thing he didn't want for her was to join in on the coming talks. The UCAF and the UNSC have many deep secrets and sensitive details and with only the briefing with the higher members of the command staff to be present meant that there were a lot of things that only the Equestrian princesses were to know of.

He took his time and waited as Skyline finally began to nod off as he suited up, the 30+ additional plates took time as he liberally spent his time waiting for the young woman to fall asleep, she did eventually slumber as he finished the 2 hour long period of suiting up. He carefully made his way from the locker and to the sleeping woman, she was a troublesome girl, and yet he had a connection to her, she wanted to see the universe and he had wanted something to occupy his mind, and that was her, she gave him some sense of warmth in his heart maybe it was just him feeling more human, she was young and interesting, but that was just Sky. He could only assume she appealed to him.

He took the sleeping woman through the setting sun shaded camp, the UCAF marines had begun to finally wrap up the last of their equipment, the UNSC personnel were getting to their pelicans for the relocation, he himself would be joining the command team and the members of Equestria on the large UNSC carrier, he'd leave Sky in the safety of the UCAF 2nd platoon, they had their orders and they'd look after her.

He put her down at the armoured Bulldog transport whose operator named, Chet; was busy with the radio he was also the only person who had heavy sound buffers and sound proofing material for his vehicle. James let her sleep on the bench of the vehicle and he headed off to the command tent, he'd be going in with the command staff and then sort out what was to happen to Equestria and what these princesses needed to know of the alliance. The talk was going to take some time.

XXXXX

As they gathered in the command tent, the marine commander in charge, Colonel Jackson was busy bringing up maps and charts of the surrounding area and pictures taken by his Falcon squadrons, there was also a large variety of tactical data on all covenant forces in the ranks of the various separatist movements.

The data on the UCAF and its deployments in space was also there only for the princesses to see, they'd be the only ones to know of what the UCAF knows, and a small glimpse to the members of the UNSC. There were a lot of cards to play, and the hand was in favour of the UCAF, at least for now.

Miguel waited aptly tapping his fingers on the table and Twilight eyeing everything that was in range, she seemed to love the amount of technology that the alliance had at its disposal. The other girls in the tent were also gaping at the sheer amount of tech in the room, aside from Pinkie who was rather busy poking at the screen of the author once more which was disguised as a shield guard hanging from the side of the tent.
The good doctor was also keeping a keen eye on UCAF holotech and screens, but didn't bother to inquire about them. As for the other members of the command team, there was Jace and three other lower ranked officers in the tent.

James walked in from the base with his new gear on; it wasn't much of a difference, aside from multi-sensor nodes and modules attached to his helmet. The 4 lens mask seemed to make him look like an insect of sorts. Twilight and the others seemed to eye James out of curiosity he had arrived with a mare from some place and of course the great and powerful Trixie which only made them even more intrigued about his exploits.

Celestia and Luna discussed between themselves of what the marines knew of them and what might be happening soon, especially with the Covenant now here in Equestria with an armed force ready to invade, or simply exterminate. There was a com officer who was busy getting a line to the Spirit of Fire, Captain Cutter was going over some earlier reports that Anders had sent over about their new arrivals not to mention the discussion about to take place, Cutter wanted a secure line over for what the UCAF was going to reveal.

Colonel Jackson decided to begin.
"Okay ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we as the UCAF had arrived here earlier because of an emergency drop from our ship which had been in FTL transit to a very different region of space. Why we ended up here is purely coincidence. What we intend to do, is do our job, and that is to protect civilian lives, even if non-human primarily out of goodwill, but also because of our sentient rights act, our founders saw the necessity to build bridges with our neighbours if they should be under threat of invasion and so forth. The UCAF hasn't backed down on its reasons for this act and surely with the given situation we will withhold this duty even now. That said I'd like Princess Celestia and Luna grant us permission in aiding the people of Equestria and formally recognise the intervention of the UCAF in emergency relief and intervention act, we as soldiers of the UCAF municipally will protect and serve the state of Equestria until this crisis is adverted or overcome."

He pulled forward the UCAF intervention act, a single white sheet of paper with a holo signature of Jackson, and the blank spaces for Luna and Celestia. The princesses had written contracts and decrees along with legislation, but this seemed to make them slightly cautious. Luna seemed inclined, but Celestia went over the paper first.
"Is there content within this act between your governments and military that we should know about?" Celestia asked.

Jackson thought it through.
"Not that I can possibly think of, all I know is that UCAF military is still representative of the UCAF government to a branch of authority, but only so high within it, what we do now can only be recognised by you until the UCAF government does get into contact with us. And this is formal to be given to the UCAF should we ever return to human space, or we might get into some trouble later with our government. They wanted to make a proper impression, even if it maybe a little inconvenient at times."

Celestia had something telling her that everything would be fine; another side said that things might get hectic for a while, but she decided it was necessary. She signed with Luna and followed on her signature. She and Luna gave back the signed treaty. Jace put in a suggestion.
"You might want to try a public signing for later, sure it'll raise morale up, and public opinion might ease once they know that they're under threat. But it's better than the alternative at this moment in time."

They looked at him and he shrugged.
"I know morale; I was a morale officer where I came from so it's easy for me to understand implications between military and government appeal to the public. At least what I can assume that you and your people would share in relation to ours."

Luna stated clearly.
"The ponies of Equestria have never faced conflict with its neighbours in over 1000 years, if anything this would shock them more than raise their hopes, but yes we will keep your suggestion in mind should the need arise. It might swing well for our army, they never had been tested, but they are loyal."

"Good to be of help." Jace leaned back on a table.

"Okay now that's over, I'd like to begin the main topic of our problems." Jackson began, he brought up a hologram of the data.
"The covenant loyalists, led by Zealot Master Vesdarea, this means that we'll be up to our necks in vicious killers. Vesdarea has been well known to be the best at precision assault missions, and led hundreds of raids against the UCAF front lines, at least until Zaro and Rebas rebelled and brought the Zealot Master to his knees."

Zaro nodded with his second in command. Jackson continued.
"Our situation is simple, we are equal, at least in some sense, and Captain Cutter's force holds a total force of over 9000+ personnel. With our troops we just barely match the covenant in the sense of bulk troops, and this isn't the same covenant I might add, they've adjusted their troops over time, so what we'd face is going to be worse than a bunch of lightly armed grunt packs and jackals."

"What might we be expected to face?" Cutters asked.

"I was just getting to that, the covenant zealot force we saw out there was any indication, there was one corvette, and possibly something much larger."

"What exactly do you mean by larger?" Twilight inquired.

The hologram of the corvette was replaced by the shape of what he had meant by larger, the ship which had come with the corvette.
"A covenant assault destroyer, or more specifically a Tyrant class Destroyer, Vesdarea personal flagship, he's been using this mother of destruction to break through UCAF lines constantly. But it seems that he's gone and hidden with his vessel, at least, that's what I would do."

Zaro agreed.
"Vesdarea would never abandon his Tyrant, and this force of his troops would only continue to fight if it was him. I am certain that he must possess his ship, but after our last battle, I would suspect that it is not in the best of conditions."

"If this destroyer is nearby, then why hasn't it come along to fight?" Luna asked.

"Probably because we crippled the shit out of it." Jace commented.

Jackson explained.
"Zaro and James went aboard during our battle and set charges on the ship when we went into slip-space, we detonated the charges, but Vesdarea and his psychotic belief of vengeance ordered his remaining ships run into our vessel in transit to spare his anymore damage. His tactic worked and we got forced from slip-space, but his ship was still crippled."

"And the fact that we didn't see it destroyed is another reason why we are sure he's still around, we have to make sure to confirm his death, or he's probably alive." Jace shrugged.

"Wow this fella sounds mighty tough." Applejack said concerned.

"That's because he is, Vesdarea is one of the few zealot masters that few people deal with, and since he's gone AWOL from the ranks of the loyalists, he's even more violent now." Zaro hissed.

"Okay now I need to ask, how the heck is it that you know of this Vesdarea?" Anders asked.

"We were both in command of the same ship and force of troops, a few years ago. He grew insane with his belief of the great journey that even others in his command were executed for disobedience and lack of strength or so he kept saying. He was paranoid to insanity and only I and Rebas managed to deal with him."

"Oh… how did you manage that?" Anders asked.

"We challenged him in his command after our last attack, he glorified over slaughtering a whole colony with burning his mark upon that world, he also destroyed a marker point of the holy forerunners out of anger that he could not secure it, and planned to place blame upon his subordinates for failure in battle. We could not believe it and confronted him." Zaro seemed to tense his body.

Rebas his second in command finished up for his angered battle brother.
"Zaro was in the front for a very long time since our first encounter, once we were assigned to Vesdarea, we couldn't believe the sheer insanity of our commanding officer and finally the time came when we all agreed to overthrow him. We challenged him and escaped, but he ordered us to be hunted. That thirst for vengeance and his own insane ego has aided in him destroying his forces ever more."

"So you stand as a moral and more honourable side of your race?" Anders analysed.

"In that sense yes, honour comes in accepting one's own personal defeat as a commander and must learn, however Vesdarea hasn't learned a damn thing and has only grown further impatient with his own troops. It leaves a rather serious gap between him and his brothers, but he ignored any attempt at changing his personal opinion. We gave up after the last slaughter." He sighed.

"Okay an insane alien with a thirst for vengeance, paranoid and incompetent, that sounds like a winning edge for us." Anders stated.

"If it were that easy, Zaro would have beheaded the damned fool years ago, but no, he's managed even afterwards to stay a step further from death even when we have him cornered." James commented upon Anders.

"So if this commander and his vessel are here, why hasn't he attacked?" Luna asked.

"Probably because it's still damaged, even a week later, it's doubtful that he can get his engines to work right, not to mention most of the navigations on the ship were ripped to pieces when we were finished, so it's unlikely he'll be bringing his ship to us." James explained.

"That means we'll be looking for his ship?" Twilight asked.

"Pretty much, we don't have much other option, once we've located his ship…"

"We bring the Spirit of Fire down on its head?" Cutter finished.

"No, that's actually the worst thing you could do at this point in time." Jace told the captain.

"Why?" Cutter asked.

"Because the destroyer wasn't completely disabled, and we saw your MAC gun, it's not going to be enough to bring down that destroyer." Jace told him frankly.

"What are the specifics of his vessel anyway?" Anders asked.

Jackson brought out the layout of the ship.
"The Tyrant is one of the few ships to be modified for a zealot strike force, so it doesn't have the same design layouts compared to many covenant vessels. It's also not the same size as a normal destroyer, it's over 3.6km long and possesses over 4 main batteries, a ton of guard points and a crew of nearly 40,000 aboard, and not to mention that corvette alone carries nearly 5,000. The Tyrant also has fighter compliments and drop-ships and a single scarab, pattern 44 which is a heavy assault pattern, incredibly heavy armour, it would withstand more MAC blasts than you could produce within a day."

"Sheesh these things sound pretty bad." Rainbow said observing the scale models.

"Yeah, well at least we don't need to worry about the whole enemy fighter compliment and troops, we depleted over half of his troops in our last engagement and wrecked a lot of his vessel's main guns, but even then, and just one main gun could gut the Spirit, seeing as you have no shields." Jackson told Cutter.

"And you possess shields?" Anders asked sarcastically.

"Yeah actually we do have shields, but none of them are meant for ship's our ship's been sunk and I don't think yours can be adjusted with a shield anytime soon." Jackson replied.

Anders seemed surprised, their counterpart race had shields. Cutter wanted to press things along.
"Then how would we proceed to attacking the destroyer?"

"I'd suggest we don't, at the moment. We have their corvette to deal with, and once we remove it from the picture we should focus on the destroyer and its force. At least hoping Vesdarea isn't going to stand scattering his troops out to engage us, if he does then we're going to have problems." Jace explained.

"We'll this is just great, so if they attack a town or city you'll be stretched to fight them at all?" Rainbow summarised.

"That does sound like a serious flaw…" Rarity said.

"Don't worry too much about us; the thing is that the UNSC forces would be the ones getting into a serious problem if they have to engage." Jackson replied.

"Why would we be in trouble?" Anders asked.

"Because you're using basic combat armour and standard military gear, you don't have shields or the medical gear to keep your forces in a prolonged fight with the covenant we face, and if you did engage them, you'd suffer heavy casualties before it ends." Jackson explained.

"Much like our own situation?" Twilight asked.

"Pretty much, exception to magic." Miguel replied.

Anders huffed at the notion of magic.
"Then are you going to provide us with your gear?" Anders asked.

"Yes and no… that's going to depend." Jackson said.

"Depend on what?" Anders asked.

"If we can eliminate Vesdarea soon with a precision strike with Zaro being able to take command, we might avoid a prolonged conflict, but we need to go through this stage by stage or, we'll have a really nasty fight on our hands." Jackson told her.

It was then that the com officer entered into the room.
"Sir we have something on long range com lines…"

"What?" Jackson said.

The marine placed the com unit over the main speakers and had it relayed.
"Can you patch the com through the Spirit?" Jackson asked Cutter.

"Very well, please wait." Cutter went to Serina to ask for the line to be secured.

The speakers blared to life.
"This is Recon 81, Helldiver unit, Midas, Echo emergency line 3, can anyone receive, hostile engagement at location, 344-231, town identified at Appleloosa by locals; we have hostiles engaged at location and are waiting backup. Is there anyone there? This is Helldiver Echo, Midas, we have marines on the ground and hostiles engaged, requesting any assistance!"

XXXXX

Location: Appleloosa

Time: 8:22PM

Echo and Midas were both small Helldiver units, they were made for fast recon and attack, but nothing like what they were facing. The town they had entered into was strange, to say the least. They had been observing it for about 4 days until they saw the covenant arrive, this patrol seemed to be on a sweep for humans, and found the town nearby.

The marines hadn't been too sure of what to do, but this seemed like the right thing, they had to engage the covenant; this town as much as it was alien did have civilians. Helldiver's tended to keep their distance, but it seemed that they didn't have much of a choice. The town had the only civilisation within reach.

They engaged on the outskirts the first patrol at least, until they called in reinforcements, then things got serious. Three drop-ships landed over a dozen more units and a wraith force, they were now pinned at the town with their marines. 2 young blood marine squads which had joined them since their separation from the ship had followed them to here. The young teenage shock troops had experience, but they lacked the capacity to withstand this firefight with so many covenant.

The commander of Echo was Daniel Lorenkovski, a Sargent Major and one hell of a veteran.
"Tih, get a signal out, we need any backup from wherever you can get them!" He yelled as he fired his AR-45 and blew apart an elite's face.

The com officer continued to repeat the message to whoever might hear. Meanwhile the marines in the town formed a defensive perimeter to keep the covenant at bay. They weren't having too much luck though. 8 squads of covenant against the 2, not to mention the 4 wraiths bombarding the town didn't make it easy for them to fight.

The locals had gathered at the town hall and others were in their homes with arcane rifles, blasting out at oncoming covenant with ease, the only problem was that their rifles didn't seem to work on jackals or the elites very well. It distracted the covenant at least until they decided to blast away at homes.

Helldiver unit Midas was engaged on the other end of town securing a train, of sorts, they were getting passengers aboard while also assigning their 'ally' a specialised officer named Grant with his own personal squad of marines to the train. They had a priority to reach the surviving marines, which they assumed were south east of their location, from their radio burst they received.

Midas and Echo were sceptical of the transmissions, but allowed them to leave. Midas's commander was Lt Gerard Matthis. His unit was holding the other end of town, but having to handle the evacuation as quickly as possible. Daniel had to handle the heavy fighting with the elites; at least that's what he was capable of doing.

"Mack, get Joey and take sniping positions behind me and the others, cover us as we fall back!" Daniel ordered as the next wave of covenant engaged.

His squad did as it was told, the marines hustled back and set up covering positions right behind him, the fight was wearing out his men and he had to fall back, Daniel pulled them back a squad at a time to the snipers while they fended off the continued attack. Tih continued to transmit.

"Let's just hope help arrives soon, or we're going to have covenant up our asses!" One of his fellow marines commented.

XXXXX

It was a shocker alright, the contact from Appleloosa had sent in an emergency communications right to them, Helldiver unit Echo and Midas were trapped there with 2 young blood units waiting for response, and the news that a covenant attack being launched so soon seemed to make Jackson cringe.

"Damn it all! I thought we had more time…" He said through his teeth.

"Sir what are your orders?" Miguel inquired.

Captain Cutter also added to the situation.
"We have pelican teams on standby ready to deploy, but I doubt that they'd stand much of a fight, they haven't been upgraded to the extent of your own gunships."

Jackson thought this through, this was a fine mess alright, there were too few marines left and those he hadn't the manpower to take on anything more than a small task force. Civilians were in risk, and his men he had over in Appleloosa were on their own. If the task force was large enough to threaten 2 helldiver units and 2 young blood forces then it was damn serious.

"No need Captain Cutter. Miguel, get on the coms with the falcons take Jace and marine units, Jericho and Otto to Appleloosa." He ordered.

"Yes sir!" He saluted.

The equestrians didn't want to be left out.
"Wait what about us?" Rainbow Dash interjected.

"What about you?" Jackson asked.

"We can fight too! No feather flying alien can just walk over us, this is our home!" Rainbow replied.

"And my cousin lives in Appleloosa!" Applejack added.

"And you do realise that you have little to no armaments that can barely drop a covenant shield let alone take an elite down? How do you expect to fight with no weapons? And the covenant in hand to hand are just as vicious… it would end up a slaughter until you have the ability to help." He replied to them aptly.

Rainbow and Applejack were going to reply, but Twilight stopped them.
"Girls please, the alliance know what they're doing. They're right, we don't have the ability to fight yet, and I'm sure that we will be able to sooner or later." She threw a glance at Jackson.

Anders asked.
"You're not suggesting that the alliance arm and train civilians, especially those who are not of human origin?"

Jackson knew that this was going to be raised one way or another.
"It's all semantics Dr Anders, the UCAF have a policy in its original foreign interstellar colonisation and independence act, that any world that has proven hospitable and have reached a level of understanding and proven capable of tier 4 to tier 3 are to be granted low level military training based on species and variable necessities of said species, this does not limit to human occupied worlds. And that was amended by 3 more additions; however the original was never removed and it is the very reason why Celestia and Luna signed that act. It gives us permission to do so now." Jackson recalled from his time at officer school.

"You're kidding right? Why would you even have such a policy in your alliance or to that extent within your entire government?" She asked.

"It was when we first expanded and we thought we'd might run into a friendly alien species that might want to join us from high tier 4 to early tier 3, so it left us with a bit of a hole in our foreign interstellar policies. And such it was never revisited when the war began, because we had never tested it. And such it couldn't be just removed." He shrugged.

Twilight was thankful she had retained the memories from Miguel about the alliance and its laws, the Equestrians had proven hospitable and there was an urgency to get them into active status to defend their world. The alliance could win by themselves, and surely the UNSC doesn't have the equal forces to do so either.

"That is possible but I wouldn't doubt us for being weary." Cutter defended.

"Not to be offensive Captain, but you do have the troops but not the gear, for this it would drain you of most of your troops, I'd consolidate your men with ours for the time being. We better get on the move, meanwhile, I'll have James contemplate the resources necessary to arm the Equestrian forces with alliance gear, but the training itself might have to be on the backburner until we can resolve the skirmish at Appleloosa. As for our current base of operations, would situating us at Ponyville suffice?" He asked the Equestrian princesses.

"It will have to do for now, the situation is turning ever more critical, you'll have to reveal yourselves publically, as for the ponies of Equestria, we shall have to calm our citizens down. And Luna shall prepare our military to deploy as soon as she can bring them from their posts. I'm sure Shining Armour will be there for event." Celestia stated.

"My brother's going to be coming along as well; I thought he and Cadence were out on a diplomatic trip to Neighpon?"

"They were, at least until this incident occurred, we told them they had to return earlier than expected, due to the severity of the situation." Celestia explained.

"Well at least we have a means to protect Canterlot." Twilight mumbled.

"Wait you have a brother?" Jace asked.

XXXXX

(Okay now that was a chapter in storage, I will be editing this when I revisit hopefully in August or September, I don't have enough time to go fixing thing's if there are inconsistencies please identify for rectification later, aside from that I've got a lot of work and little time for everything. So please be patient!)

Comments

[Nightmare]

Ah Updates Yes Also Trixie....

[Deathpony]

new chapter yay! and wait what kind of rifles do the Equestrians have would they be comparable to 20th-21st century Human civilian and military rifles, tanks and other weapons? Do they have WMDs?

[Evident Disaster]

791870 WMDs? I think she'd be about the equivalent of one.

[The sad mare]

awesome new chapter it felt so long since I seen this fic (that or I just leave it sitting in the favorites all day long)