Chapter One

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Scientific progress makes moral progress a necessity; for if man's power is increased, the checks that restrain him from abusing it must be strengthened.

~ Madame de Stael

The UEGS Clarke decelerated from faster-than-light speed with a barely noticeable tremor of its streamlined hull. Small pockets of the atmosphere that had traveled with it from the planet of New Haven began to disperse in the vacuum of space. Within the bridge of the expeditionary cruiser, bridge personnel puttered about, finishing up the final check on all systems.

"Hull integrity, Ensign?" Commander Rainford asked from his command station, simultaneously queuing all of the thirteen decks' status reports.

"Hull is at ninety eight percent of the norm, sir," the female officer reported as she read the diagnostic panel at her station. "Slight compression of the aft section bulkheads. They will recover in three minutes, sir."

"Good. Everything's still here," Rainford acknowledged as he got up from his seat. "Engines?"

"Cycling at a rate of one-point-five percent per second," came the update from the lower platform of the bridge. Though it was hard to tell from the obvious chaos of movement around the relatively small and gray-painted room, everything on the ship was operating at nominal. The bustle was simply an uncontrollable symptom of making sure everything was working as it should.

"Lieutenant Hixon, inform the science teams they have an hour to get their toys aboard the transports. Also, remind the marines to not unsettle or aggravate them," Rainsford said gruffly as he picked off a stray piece of lint from his neatly pressed gray uniform. As was clearly advertised by the commendations pinned to his chest, this wasn't his first expedition drop-off. Nor, he noted sourly, would it be his last.

In that day and age of the U.E.G., most military awards were usually nothing more than congratulations for a successful completion of transporting scientists to a new planet and providing escorts as well as supplies for their use. Actual battle was scarce ever since the final civil war between Earth and the Mars colony forty nine years ago, officially marking a unified human species towards the pursuit of more scientific and idealistic goals.

While it was a truly noble endeavor, it left the surplus of military personnel and equipment without much of anything to do but explore. It didn't take an analyst to see that the Marine Corp and even a sizeable portion of the Navy wanted to see some kind of action. The Clarke was no exception to this observation. Rainsford, as well, wished to do more with his service than act as a glorified transporter.

He knew and constantly thought of the mid-twenty-first century and the extreme turbulence that had existed. Low on their stock of natural resources, many of the major powers of the world had finally come to the agreement that Earth was quickly becoming unable to support Humanity's exponential expansion. A summit had been called, iterating the severity of the situation to the now defunct U.N. that the need for a supernational organization that had the power to actually impose laws with active force instead of passive negotiation.

As one could well imagine, the sudden call for the dissolution of every state's government did not go over well with many nations. Without the option to leave the newly formed United Earth Government, the independence-seeking countries such as China, some parts of Eastern Europe, and much of South America took to the offensive. Numerous bushfire wars began springing up around the globe, entire armies collapsing from attacks on all fronts.

What was known then as World War III, but presently referred to as the Unification Wars, allowed the newborn U.E.G. to prove its authority. After, of course, both sides had suffered a combined number of half a billion casualties. With its power set and collective economy suddenly booming, the colonization of new worlds became the top priority. Mars had been the first choice to terraform, its ice caps, size, and distance favorable to that of Venus or Earth's own moon.

The method had initially succeeded twenty years later, the rewards of new living space and agriculture bringing thousands of colonists to, at the very least, try living on the newly habitable world. Though most textbooks held controversy over if the path the U.E.G. took during the Unification Wars and the years after them was the best, no one could deny that its intervention between the squabbling factions had created a brighter future for mankind.

"The scientists are requesting that we provide a complete climatic, atmospheric, and gravitational report of the planet before they begin moving their equipment," Lieutenant Hixon reported.

Commander Rainsford sighed softly as he turned to the tactical sensors officer. "Give me the full report, Lieutenant Tobler."

"Aye, sir. Gravity is approximately ninety seven-point-nine of Earth. Atmosphere shows around seventy seven percent nitrogen, twenty one percent oxygen. The rest is a mix of gases with a strangely high amount of neon," the officer said. "Planet B4-D4 is mostly temperate with sparse deserts and tropical areas around the equator. The research teams shouldn't find many problems living down there."

Rainford couldn't argue with the Lieutenant on that one. Aside from the harsh-looking scars of desert that were slashed across the equator, the planet was the near spitting image of a younger Earth. The supercontinent of B4-D4 covered around a third of the planet's surface, save for a few scattered pockets of land off its coasts. Small and scattered clouds were visible on the bridge's view screen.

"Let us hope not, son," Rainsford agreed as he motioned for Hixon to report the findings to the scientists. "Helm, prepare to take us out of system and on a course to Aegis when the shuttles have all cleared the hangar."

"Aye, sir."

The sooner we're back to known space, the better, Commander Rainsford thought to himself as he sat back down in his station.

"I'm just saying. We could always just fake our deaths," Corporal Richardson said to his fellow marine as they walked through the hangar deck to their dropship, their matte black helmets held at their hips. "Chain of command won't post a formal inquiry or nothing. We'd seal ourselves in a cargo container and wait until we hit Aegis. Smooth sailing from there on."

"You're an idiot," Specialist Nelson scoffed as they passed a group of scurrying engineers. "And I mean a big idiot."

"I think its a great alternative to babysitting some eggheads for six months," Richardson countered. "I've seen my share share of pre-colonies to see that there's nothing-," he had begun saying before bumping into a large, intimidating figure.

"Nelson. Richardson," boomed their commanding officer, Captain Wesner. Unlike the two of them, Wesner was already suited up in his gear and full-body armor. The black metal was dark enough to mistake with the vacuum of space and the glowing red eye lenses from his helmet-covered head seemed to bore into Richardson's very soul. "Put your helmets on, damn it."

"Yes, sir!" The two marines sounded off before scrambling to comply with Wesner's order. The eye lenses of their helmets glinted to life as soon as they got them on, signaling that they were readied up. Wesner glared at Richardson intensely, which was extremely unnerving even within the bullet-proof suit.

"You do realize that for the past thirty standard minutes, your helmet mic has been turned on and transmitting on your platoon's communication channel?" Wesner finally spoke after what seemed to be eternity. "I had the pleasure to listen as you ate in the mess hall and as you told Specialist Nelson your brilliant idea of leaving my beloved corp. I'm sure the rest of your platoon was given this enlightening opportunity as well. What do you have to say for yourself, Corporal?"

Richardson choked on his words, his voice coming hesitantly. "No excuse, sir."

"Very well. You have just earned yourself latrine duty for the next two months of this mission." Wesner said calmly. "Your ration card is also revoked for the next two days. Hunger, as I understand it, is surprisingly effective in erasing opinions and desertion, Corporal."

"Understood, sir." Richardson saluted.

"Now get the hell out of my sight," Wesner ordered, pointing off to Richardson's assigned dropship. The two marines wasted no time in hustling towards Transport Fourteen, not daring to even look back in the Captain's general direction. By the time they had gotten there, most of the packed equipment had already been loaded up onto the vessel. The people on the hangar had mostly evacuated the drop-off compartment. Loose tools and fuel pipeline were in the process of being retrieved off the deck.

The two entered the ship through the boarding ramp directly into the seating area. A wave of muttered insults and jeering came from the marines already inside and strapped into their seats. The rest of Squad Two had obviously overheard what the Captain had of Richardson earlier. The faceless helmets made it impossible to tell who Richardson would have to beat the crap out of to shut them up, but he had a pretty good idea of who was who.

"Hiding in a cargo container. Yeah, that sounds like a great plan, Rich." came the voice of Corporal Nguyen over the crowd. "They don't teach you very much on Mars, do they?" This comment earned scattered bouts of laughter from Squad Two.

"Shut up back there!" yelled the pilot over the transport's intercom. "We can't do a systems check if you fools just keep yammering!"

As Richardson found his empty seat near the entrance to the cockpit, the noise level across the room had dropped from an uproar to soft conversations and muttered curses. On the other side of the troop bay, looking very out of place with their white jumpsuits and respirator masks, were the three scientists squads Two and Three were supposed to escort on B4-D4. Keeping to themselves while reading their own tablets, they looked positively dull to Richardson.

A sudden pinging sound came over the squad mates' suit communication systems, followed by the light three-toned sound of a company-wide communication.

"EarthGov would like to remind its military personnel that the unwarranted termination of researchers and scientists is counterproductive," came the sweet and cheerful female voice of an automated U.E.G. announcement. The scientists aboard, however, were not getting the message over their communication headpieces. "In addition to receiving an appropriate court-martial, you are only increasing the time that your unit is assigned to the planet."

The tone changed suddenly from the tart notification to the gruff Captain Wesner. "Alright, marines. I know most of you slept through both orientation videos, so I'll break it down for you. We are heading to planet B4-D4, a few thousand light-years from Aegis and the rest of civilization. As you may have noticed from the fact that you're sitting inside of a damned dropship, we're going to spend the next six months or so holding the Lab Boys' hands."

A few of the troopers scoffed at the researchers in the far corner of the bay, but they simply hadn't heard them or were ignoring the marines.

"Hopefully, most of you have the common sense to not hunt the local wildlife or eat anything the ground produces. You all remember Private Vickers," Wesner paused for a moment before continuing. "Do not be Private Vickers. Not that a few of your stations are likely to provide any kind of resource whatsoever, but still make sure you don't go eating cacti. I'm talking to you, Squad Seven.

"In any case, your squad leaders will probably fill you in on any details I'm missing," Wesner said before pausing once more. "B4-D4 is a hell of a lot better than New Macedonia, marines. Take a moment after you touchdown to take in your surroundings and notice the presence of oxygen in the air. Maybe even take a swim. That is all."

The three-toned chime played again to signal the communication channel shutting off and the dropship began to shake slightly as the engines roared to life.

"Engines online and ready," Richardson could barely hear the pilot's talking in the cockpit. "All ships, check in and prepare for decompression. After a few seconds of reports signaling readiness, a sudden boom shook the shuttle violently. "Atmosphere vented and hangar depressurized. All birds are cleared for departure. Good luck."

On the outside of the hangar, the blast doors that separated the bay from the empty vacuum retracted back into the hull of the Clarke. The fourteen dropships that departed from the bay were like insects leaving a recently opened box, their plasma thrusters glowing brilliant blue as they accelerated towards the planet. Before long, the Clarke's visual cameras could no longer see the flight group.

Without skipping a beat, the hangar doors slid back into place, the bow of the Clarke turning to the opposite direction of B4-D4. Its three massive vertical engines radiated intense indigo as they accelerated out of the system, gradually gaining speed. Once the cruiser was a good few hundred kilometers from B4-D4, the faster-than-light engine kicked in and warped the Clarke to its next destination.

Like any other time during which the sun of Equestria had set and the moon taken prevalence in the sky, Princess Luna stood on the balcony of the castle's astronomy tower. The air on this night was particularly chilled, a sign of the near onset of winter. While gazing at the stars, Luna debated whether or not to go inside to warm up a bit and write an entry in her constellation journal.

Just as she had decided to venture inside for a moment, a glint in the far corner of her vision attracted her attention to another part of the sky. The glint itself was nothing more than a shooting star or a light meteor shower. However, the bizarre thing about this particular shooting star was that it was traveling at a slightly slower velocity compared to a regular one.

She carefully noted this phenomena before entering the castle finally for a cup of cocoa and a warm blanket.

Chapter Two

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The hull temperature of Transport Seven was increasing rapidly, the fires slightly lighting up the night sky. On the inside of the cargo bay, insulating materials and heavy-grade cooling systems struggled to keep the atmosphere inside from rising too much as to cause failures in the delicate electronics and other mechanisms that the shuttle would desperately need if it were ever to fly again. Considering that the amount of metal between the humans and the flames outside was a mere three centimeters in length, this was somewhat more important than what one would imagine.

"Exiting dead-fall in five seconds," Richardson heard the pilot say from within the cockpit. "Fire up the engines again on my mark, Ed."

Though a very basic way of transportation to a planet, falling like a brick didn't require very much energy besides gravity. The shuttle had been speedily falling through the sky without engines for a good thirty seconds so that fuel could be conserved and so that engine temperatures didn't rise to critical levels.

"...two, one, mark." The pilot said, prompting the entire ship's velocity to shift from downwards to sideways. The change in motion jerked the marines and scientists to the side and into the support bars that rested across their chests. Nguyen had been jerked so hard that he began coughing in response to the pain in his chest.

"Engines are back online and we're descending towards the landing zone. We'll be landing one minute, so get your suitcases ready," the pilot came onto the ship's intercom. "Welcome to the ass-end of the galaxy, marines."

Just as they were ordered to, the marines pushed the support bars off of themselves and began gathering their equipment. Emergency MREs, rucksacks, weapons, and ammunition. Richardson brought his things off from the rack over his seat and slung his pack over his soldiers. He retrieved his FAR-11 assault rifle and checked to make sure the magazine was still in place and that none of the parts were broken.

Though meant for simple border control with the local wildlife, the marines had enough arms and ammo to be mistaken for an invasion force. Nguyen and Private Hendricks grabbed the two portable automatic turrets from the rack, the large square machines taking the places of their rucksacks. The sound of rounds cycling in their weapons filled the air like a chorus.

"Peterson, you're taking point," Nelson patted the shoulder of the marine. "Alright, form up on me, people. Standard exit procedure."

"Where do you want us to be, Specialist?" Inquired one of the scientists, the other two placing crates of tech onto trollies.

"Wait for us to clear out and start unloading your stuff," Nelson answered. "We'll need to make an analysis of the air for pathogens before you get out."

"Understandable," the scientist noted as he pulled out his personal datapad and walked back over to his colleagues. Nelson, in turn, returned to his squad and took his place right after Hendricks.

"I always hate explaining everything to first-timers," Nelson muttered over the squad's communication channel. Grunts of agreement came from the rest of the unit. The shaking of the transport became less noticeable as it began to decelerate. Hendricks raised his rifle in anticipation of any hostile animals that could exist beyond the transport ramp. The floor of the ship shook once more and the ramp door emitted a pop-hiss as the air within the cabin escaped to the outside.

"Moving out!" Peterson announced as he walked down the ramp, the rest of the men following suit. The night sky was slightly illuminated by the planet's full moon. Even so, it was still dark enough for critters to be lurking. Hendricks pressed a button on the side of his helmet. "Switching to night vision."

Peterson finally stepped off the ramp and onto the hard dirt, large untamed grasses collapsing under his weighted boot. A full look around revealed nothing but the wavering branches of large deciduous trees. Hendricks signed an all-clear hand signal and motioned the rest of the squad to move forward.

"Air readings?" Nelson inquired from Private Friedman, his rifle scanning the heavily forested area where they landed. The squad began dispersing to cover the edges of the clearing.

"No pathogens detected on the initial scan," Friedman answered while staring down at his portable biomonitor. "Give the pad a second to- never mind. Scan shows nothing is harmful in the air."

"Good," Nelson waved over to the transport and turned his communication channel with the scientists on. "You're clear to exit the ship, doctor."

"About time," Came the gruff reply of a scientist Nelson didn't have the pleasure of meeting on the flight down. "The sooner we get the lab station running, the sooner we can get to work."

Nelson sighed as he turned the channel off. Few scientists held a sense of superiority over the military, but it was easy to tell that this particular man wasn't planning on waiting for standard procedure. Trollies of boxes and other sorts of containers were pushed onto the earth and had begun being unpacked.

On the marines' side of progress, a defensive perimeter was created by the two portable turrets on opposite sides of the landing area. Huxley and Peterson had already begun placing barricades between the gaps, making a wall of sorts around the compound.

As per the Captain's orders, Richardson had already gone off to dig the latrines further into the forest. Nelson smirked as he heard Richardson muttering curses and whatnot over his still open communication channel. Hopefully he would learn to be more subtle in the future.

Nelson slung his rifle over his shoulder and walked over to Nguyen and Hendricks to help set up the tents.

Latrine duty. Great, Richardson thought as he pushed his spade into the cold, firm dirt. Nothing like taking a stroll through a dank forest.

Richardson had to admit that this forest was remarkably similar to one on Earth. Most large expanses of vegetation he had seen on New Macedonia had been nothing but enormous ferns and moss-like grass. He was tempted to take his helmet off and breathe the night air, but regulations required him to keep his helmet on at all times in case of an emergency broadcast or something abruptly hitting his head.

His train of thought came to a crashing halt as he heard a large amount of rustling of tree branches and thuds of what could interpreted as footsteps. He tossed his spade into his hole and readied his rifle. His night vision wasn't reveling anything, but the noises were getting much louder and in constantly changing directions. He decided to fire a few warning shots into brush in order to scare off the possible predator.

Three round left his rifle and a monstrous roar came from the direction where he had fired. Yep, I hit you, Richardson thought with a smirk. Now just walk away and-

Bursting through the foliage was a creature Richardson had never even imagined would exist. A head and body similar to that of a lion or some other feline, a tail of a scorpion, and demonic wings were somehow combined into a very pissed off organism.

"Fuck!" Richardson said as he dived to the side to escape the creature's charge. The beast overshot its target, and Richardson was able to get a clear shot. He switched his rifle to full automatic and let loose on his target without a second thought. Bullets impacted on all parts of the beast, quickly overpowering it. Brass casings littered the floor as Richardson finally went through his sixty-round magazine.

The strange organism let out a final roar, its tone much softer and less aggressive than the first. It slumped to the ground with a large thud, its wings and tail losing their muscle tension and drooping. Richardson waited a few seconds to make sure the creature wasn't getting up.

"What the hell are you doing out there?!" Nelson yelled over the comm channel.

"I just got attacked by a fucking beast, what're you doing?" Richardson shot back, reloading his FAR.

"What'd it look like?" Nleson inquired.

"It's kind of like... a lion thing. Wings and a scorpion tail. It's weird shit." Richardson responded. Nelson didn't say anything for a minute, but he could hear the scientists yelling in the background.

"We're sending Doctor Carsiri to you," Nelson sighed out of exasperation. "He's the xenobiologist of the group and wants to examine whatever you just killed."

"There might be more of them out here, Nelson. Not that I have a problem with a Lab Boy becoming lunch meat, but still," Richardson said.

"Just shut up and transmit your coordinates." Nelson said before turning off the channel.

Doctor Ronald Carsiri, unlike his "esteemed" colleagues back at the camp, didn't relish the fact that he was on a planet far enough away from the core colonies that it had been dubbed Unknown Space. The fact that the journey between Aegis, the most distant colony from the core, and B4-D4 had taken a standard week had not lightened his spirits.

He would have preferred New Macedonia even in light that its atmosphere was almost entirely hydrogen and a protective environment suit was needed at all times. At least there he could go back onto a ship and take a hot shower whenever he pleased.

He pushed his bitter thoughts aside for a moment to make sure he was heading in the right direction to the marine Corporal Nelson had directed him to find. Carsiri wanted to make sure he was able to examine the corpse before it began decomposing.

Unless, of course, the animal had been mutilated beyond observation by the inane amount of bullets the marine had seen fit to kill it with.

"Doctor? Over here," came the voice of the soldier Carsiri was looking for. Carsiri navigated the shrubs and other vegetation that separated him from his specimen. He finally found the marine sitting next to a gargantuan mammal. It was difficult to see the soldier with his dark armor in the night. "I'll leave you to poke around the remains. Mind the blood."

That, actually was Carsiri's first reaction. The blood on the ground was red, signifying that this beast had a similar oxygen-carrying protein to hemoglobin. He pulled out a small plastic slip and retrieved some fresh blood from the animal's rancid smelling corpse. Once the slip had been thoroughly covered, he slid it into his bioanalysis pad.

Interesting, Carsiri pondered as he viewed the results. This animal actually uses hemoglobin like Earth mammals! He ran his hand through his balding blonde hair as he tried to make sense of the analysis. All vertebrae fauna that research teams had found on other planets had used a different compound than hemoglobin such as coboglobin. This would suggest that a similar evolutionary path had been taken between Earth and B4-D4 mammals.

Another odd note was that this feline-like animal had an arthropod appendage, the tail. He took a sample from the base of the stinger and packed it away for future study.

"So what the hell are you going to call this thing?" Richardson asked from behind. "Lionus Deathicus?"

"I would actually go as far as to call it... a manticore, Corporal." Carsiri responded as he took a step back from the animal. "Part lion, dragon, and scorpion. This organism completely resembles the description of the mythical creature. That's uncanny."

"Whatever you say, Doc." Richardson said, looking over his soldier to view the trees behind him. "Can we hurry this along? There's probably more things like this out there."

Carsiri chuckled as he knelt down beside the manticore. "The man in the metal suit is afraid of a few animals. Where is this fearless soldier I was told would be protecting me on this expedition, hmm?"

"Watch it, egghead," Richardson threatened. "I could always say you fell off a cliff."

"Because that is obviously believable," Carsiri said sarcastically as he took another sample of the creature. He lifted himself from the ground and smiled at Richardson. "I am done here. You may escort me back, fearless soldier."

Carsiri couldn't determine if the marine was frustrated behind the face-encompassing helmet he wore, but he was pretty sure he had struck a nerve. Carsiri followed the Corporal through the forest back to the camp, taking notes on his personal journal.

"There's a lot of plants here, wouldn't you say?" Richardson said, trying to make small talk.

"Forests are known to contain a lot of vegetation, yes." Carsiri answered.

"I meant that there are a lot of strange plants here. For instance, I walked through a load of blue flowers on the way here. I think I saw a rainbow-colored plant too." Richardson continued.

"There are plenty of blue flowers on Earth," Carsiri replied. "It's plausible that rainbow flowers are just as common here."

"I'm just saying that these plants are really weird compared to-" Richardson spoke before a rustle in the brush captured his attention. Carsiri heard the noise as well but continued to move.

"Not all of the fauna can be predators, Corporal. Relax," he said as he walked nearer to the landing zone.

A sudden shadow in the moonlight streaked across Carsiri's peripheral vision. Quickly turning to see what the mysterious figure was, he didn't notice that there was more than one of the phantoms behind him. Pouncing onto his unprotected back was a wolf-like animal, two more of them waiting as the leader took down the scientist. Struggling to get away, Carsiri flipped himself onto his back and tried to move away.

The wolf began clawing and biting at his face with unrelenting speed. Carsiri could barely summon his hands to try and prevent the creature from achieving its kill. The texture Carsiri felt was not fur at all, but coarse, solid material. Almost like wood.

Just as Carsiri had begun to prepare himself for his near demise, a loud bang resounded through the woods from Richardson's pistol. Splinters rained onto Carsiri's face, the paws of the attacking entity suddenly becoming limp. Frenzied yelps from the other wolves became softer and softer as they rushed back into the depths of the forest.

Richardson removed the wooden wolf's body from Doctor Carsiri, offering a hand to the dazed intellectual.

"I can honestly agree with you now, Corporal," Carsiri muttered as he accepted the hand. "There are some very weird plants here."

Chapter Three

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The rest of the first night on B4-D4 had been uneventful. Most discussion over what had transpired in the denser part of the woods was between the three scientists, sequencing the DNA from the two creatures and trying to make sense of it. The marines, on the other hand, had decided to leave the subject alone for the time being as there was nothing more to be said.

Though this code of silence kept the more experienced marines satisfied, the newer recruits were left with a sense of both anxiety and adventure towards the prospect of exploring the planet further.

"You think Squad Three found anything?" Private Jessup asked his bunkmate, Private Peterson. Richardson woke at the sudden noise of conversation.

"Who knows?" Peterson replied as he finished putting on his boots. Richardson tried blocking the beams of sunlight coming through the slight opening between the tent flaps. Usually on any other deployment, marines were meant to be up and ready at sunrise. However, with the addition of the civilian scientists, schedules had been all but thrown out of the airlock.

"I guess we'll find out when we meet up with them," Jessup shrugged as Richardson sat up on his cot. "Oh, mornin', sir."

Richardson ignored the pleasantries and peered past the tent flaps to get a glimpse on the outside. The only two people up and about were the pilots, sitting on the loading ramp and munching on energy bars. "I'm guessing the civvies aren't up yet?"

"No, sir," Peterson answered. "Corporal Nelson and a few others are awake and on the ship, though."

Richardson stared at his silver wristwatch, which read 1633 hours Earth time. This meant that he'd been asleep for the past nine hours, which was an unprecedented amount of downtime as far as he was concerned. Richardson sighed as he got up and began searching for pieces of his armor.

"Do they make any MREs with bacon, sir?" Jessup asked, rummaging around his rucksack for breakfast.

"No way in hell. You'd have a better chance getting something edible from whatever's out there," Richardson motioned towards the trees. "Dammit! Any of you seen my boots?"

Both of the rookies shrugged, prompting Richardson to continue tearing the tent apart.

"I thought I placed them under my- what the hell?" Richardson said as he reached under his cot. What he pulled out were definitely not combat boots, but bright blue high heels. "Who thought this was funny? Give me back my boots, Jessup."

"I didn't take 'em, sir! I swear," Jessup answered quickly, turning to Peterson. "Did you, Walter?"

"Heck no."

Richardson gritted his teeth. "I'm going to pick at random if you don't figure it out."

"Sir, I don't know what to tell you," Peterson said carefully. "Jessup and I didn't touch your boots. They probably have spares on the ship, though."

Richard sighed in exasperation as he looked once again towards the ship and back to the two men. "I'll let it slide, but if any of my gear starts 'disappearing' again, you're both going to get shot in the foot." Leaving the thought to simmer in the rookies' minds, he walked barefoot to the transport, wincing in pain as his foot continuously landed sharp sticks and small rocks.

Walking up the ramp into the cargo hold, Richardson could already tell that something was up. Nelson, the appointed squad leader, was at the comm station near the rear of the ship, the ear piece covering one ear, his left hand on the other. Not wanting to interrupt, Richardson opened one of the armory lockers as silently as he could. He could see spare helmets and weapons, but no boots.

Three lockers later, he finally found a pair of boots. Thankfully, the footwear was "one size fits all", eliminating the need to look for something of his exact size. These armories were meant to keep a unit clothed and armed for months at a time, even in a heavy combat zone.

As Richardson began putting the boots on his feet, Nelson finished his call and hung the earpiece on the station.

"Calls from command?" Richardson asked as he forced his left foot into a boot.

"Wesner and Squad Three want us to meet up with them closer to the edge of the forest and set up an outpost. We're splitting the squads in thirds and placing each part to a post. He wants to make sure that the area within the triangle is secure," Nelson answered.

"Anything from the rest of the squads?" Richardson grunted as he slid into the other boot.

"Nothing yet. I'm sure the Captain will give us an update when we meet up," Nelson assured. "We're leaving in three minutes."

"Nice, do you want to give the wake up call?"

"I've got it. Grab a candy bar from that pile over there. Pilot's brought that and a bunch of other contraband with them," Nelson said as he walked into the ship's cockpit and keyed on the intercom. "Plans have changed, Marines! You've got two minutes to get your crap together!"

Richardson smirked before peeling the wrapper of one of the candy bars.

The trek through the woods was rather uneventful when compared to the previous night. The area was well lit and the only animals to be heard were birds. Insects were very scarce, but this may have been a symptom of the cold weather on B4-D4. If it was anything like an Earth winter, most animals would be getting close to hibernation.

"Boy, It's chilly," Nguyen pointed out as most of Squad Two marched themselves to their rendezvous point.

"Your powers of observation are amazing, Leo," Nelson commented a few meters ahead.

"I'm just saying, why couldn't the Clarke drop us off on the other side of the planet? Or near the equator?" Nguyen responded.

"Because people are usually smart enough to wear more than a tank top," Nelson answered, noticeably putting an end to Nguyen's complaints. Most of the soldiers were indeed not wearing much of their armor they had arrived in. The only people fully clad were Nelson and Jessup. Even then, Nelson hadn't equipped his helmet or backpack.

Considering the weather outside, it was odd that the trees had not even begun to change in color. It was as if the place was frozen in time.

"Jessup, you're lagging behind," Nelson called over a comm channel to the idle soldier. "Feeling bloated from those MREs already?"

"No, sir. I'm just looking at this really weird mound of dirt over in this clearing," Jessup replied, still anchored to his spot. "It's like something was digging a big hole in the ground."

"Well then, it sure as hell wasn't Rich. His latrine hole was microscopic," Nguyen muttered.

"No, it's not a latrine. It's more like a mole hill..." Jessup trailed off.

"Rich, Nguyen. Go take a look and get Jessup's ass back in gear," Nelson ordered. "Alonso, show me the coordinates of the rendezvous again."

The two jogged straight towards Jessup, simultaneously getting a better view of the clearing. Standing almost smack in the center of the elliptical space was a very large mound of dirt and a equally large hole.

"Think it's another one of those animals?" Jessup asked.

"No, it looks a lot like a hole my dog made when he buried his crap," Richardson answered with a raised eyebrow. "Question is: where's the dog?"

No sooner had Richardson asked this question had a dog-like being popped head-first out of the hole. It wore a gem encrusted collar and a vest of sorts around it. It patted away the dirt that had settled itself on the dark red vest and began digging another hole right next to the first one. Though initial reactions were mixed, Nguyen was the first to point out the obvious.

"That is one ugly ass dog," Nguyen said, his face contorted in disgust.

"You can say that again," Richardson agreed.

"That is one ugly ass d-"

"Shut up, Nguyen," Richardson sighed as he walked into the clearing, closely followed by a wary Jessup. "We need to get one thing addressed here. How and why does this dog have a collar and vest?"

The other two shrugged, providing no suggestions to explain the oddity.

"You think Intelligence forgot that they sent a colony ship here?" Jessup offered as they neared the recently created hole, dirt flying out rapidly like ice from a snow machine.

"I have no idea," Richardson responded simply as he peered down the dark opening. "Maybe if I call for him he'll come back up?"

Rex the Diamond Dog was feeling rather uppity that day. During his late afternoon nap the day before, he had inadvertently come up with a brilliant idea. He had been fed up with constantly having to share his claims with the few dozen other members of his pack. Hiding his finds didn't seem to help very much, the others always somehow finding his secret hiding place under his sleep mat.

His idea was that instead of digging in the already mined out areas outside of the Everfree Forest, he would start his own operations within the expanse of trees. The ground was actually much softer and easier to dig out, and the trees shaded him from the intensely bright sun.

His first dig within the forest had yielded nothing, but Rex was sure he would eventually reap the crystalline fruits of his labor. After finally making his way completely through a particularly dense layer of bedrock, a noise came from the surface. It wasn't one of his packmates, thankfully, but the noise seemed to call to him for some reason.

His curiosity piqued, he decided to inspect the source of the sound.

Richardson whistled sharply down the burrow, beckoning to the canine that had dug down into. "Here, boy. Come here." He called.

Almost instantly, the gray-furred, vested dog popped its head out of the hole, causing Nguyen to fall on his backside in surprise. The canine stared at Richardson for a good few seconds, and Richardson did so as well. He noticed that the dog's forelegs were considerably larger and more developed than its hind legs. It opened its mouth in a way that could almost be called surprise.

Without warning, the dog dove back into the hole. Dirt rapidly filled the hole like lava flowing upward in a volcano, creating a massive cloud of dust that both blinded and disoriented the two marines. Richardson coughed violently as he tried getting the dust particles out of his eyes.

The cloud of sediment had dispersed a few seconds after and the chorus of coughing became gradually softer and slower.

"Should've worn a helmet," Jessup said rather triumphantly, patting his covered head. "Need help, sirs?"

"I'm good," Richardson waved off the Private as he coughed a final time. "We should tell Nelson what happened. Those dogs didn't just get up and dress themselves. He probably went back to his owner. If only we could track him..."

"Right," Nguyen coughed. "Let’s get back."

Rex had panicked, there was no denying it. He had fled out of a mixed sense of fear, surprise, and joy. The first two feeling were reasonable and expected. These creatures that had called him out of his claim were at least thrice the size of him and were clad in metal clothing similar to the guard dogs of his pack. Simply put, they looked outright intimidating.

His third emotion, joy, was something of an entirely different nature. One of the three two-legged things was wearing rubies on its metal helmet! They had shone radiantly in the sun's beams, almost as if they were making the light themselves. If these things were so casual as to put rubies on their clothing, who was to say they didn't have great stashes of gems hidden where their pack was?

He wanted desperately to reach these stashes as soon as possible. The only problem was that he had no idea where the creatures kept their gems, much less where their home was.

Just like during his sleep the previous night, an idea woke him from his daydreams with a smile. He needed only to simply follow these beings until they arrived at their homes and sneakily rob them of their crystalline beauties. He waited a few moments before loosening himself from his mound of soil and followed the departing bipeds.

The trio of marines regrouped with the rest of the team further away from the small clearing. Nelson frowned at a datapad Alonso was holding up for him.

"Hey, Nelson," Richardson said as they approached. "We've got something weird going on here."

"Join the club," Nelson grunted, snatching the tablet from Alonso's hands. "The Clarke must not have taken a good look during the geographic scan. The mapping it made has a lot of blotted out sections on it, like someone had decided to turn it off during their lunch break."

"Meaning what, exactly?" Nguyen asked, shouldering his rifle.

"Meaning neither we or the Captain can-"

"The Captain can't do what, Corporal?" came the unmistakable voice of Wesner. He and his own cadre of troopers came from the stretch of trees on Richardson's right, all of them fully geared and armed. "I had hoped a little map error wouldn't have provided you too much trouble. We've been waiting for you five for the past half hour."

"Sorry, sir," Nelson saluted.

Wesner looked over the piece of Squad Two, obviously noticing the lack of armor the marines wore compared to his group. Any mention of it, however, was withheld. "We might as well set up here. I assume you've brought your half of the equipment?"

"Yes, sir," Nelson responded, turning to his group. "Set up the barricades and sentry turret." The four other marines nodded and took off their bags of various objects such as tents and compacted cots. The members of Wesner's group did the same.

Wesner pulled Nelson aside and spoke as he watched the men erect their new outpost. "My understanding from the red-flagged report I received from Doctor Carsiri last night is that there is a little bit more to encounter than what he provided."

"There's not very much to say, sir. Richardson spotted some animals and shot them. Not much beyond that."

"Fair enough," Wesner said. "I had hoped you might be able to provide me with a reason why your site in particular was near so many of the creatures while every other squad had a fairly peaceful night on B4-D4."

"I... really can't offer too much. Richardson might be able to, though," Nelson answered.

"Alright then," Wesner sighed. "I've kept you long enough. Go help unpack." Nelson saluted and Wesner returned the gesture. Once the Corporal was a good distance away, Wesner pulled out his personal command pad, a device meant to help commanding officers better manage their troops and communicate with them.

He opened up a recent message from Squad Seven which was located in the Central Desert region of the supercontinent.

The message itself was comprised of only two parts. The first was a photo taken from a scouting mission sent out just a few minutes ago. It showed a small predominantly yellow equine creature with a blue mane. The being in particular was wearing a stetson similar if not identical to the ones commonly associated with the old Southern United States. Emblazoned on its hindquarters was an image of a sledgehammer.

The other part of the message was a simple caption that read: Prepare for Section Three? Wesner typed his response on the holographic keys of his tablet. Negative. Remain-In-Shadows. Wait for orders. Once Wesner had finished and sent his reply, he walked over to the construction site to micromanage the team.

Chapter Four

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"I'm assuming that you had fun," Private Peterson remarked as Jessup strutted back into camp, helmet clenched to his side and rifle carried by its barrel. From the look of the sweat that covered his face, he seemed as though he had just run a kilometer. Unlike his worn compatriot, Peterson was sitting comfortably on a portable stool near one of the sentry turrets, snacking on a candy bar he had grabbed from the dropship.

"Yeah, tons," Jessup replied facetiously as he tossed his helmet on the ground near Peterson. "Remind me to stick back here next time and have you volunteer for base construction."

"It's cold as balls out here, how the hell are you sweating?" Peterson asked, thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in a while.

"You kind of sweat when you do this thing called 'working'," Jessup replied as he popped off a seal from the right side of his suit. "You should try it sometime."

"The suits have air conditioning, you know that right?"

"Effing Wesner wouldn't let us! Said something about 'conserving the suits' energy' or whatever," Jessup said as he opened the other seal on his chestpiece. The entire upper portion of his armor split vertically with a hiss of air and fell to the ground in two pieces, leaving only his sweat-stained gray tank top . "Oh, sweet relief..."

Peterson snickered before taking another bite of chocolate. The turret he was sitting next to swiveled to the right and began firing into the brush, the rounds sending a group of woodland animals fleeing from where they had been. The sentry continued firing at birds, their carcasses falling to the ground after each successful hit.

"Damn, these animals just don't learn, do they?" Peterson snorted. "They just keep coming and coming. I'm getting a headache from the noise it makes when it fires."

"Then turn off the sentry gun, man," Jessup offered as he grabbed a stool and sat down. "Just keep it on manual for a bit."

"And leave those wood wolves to come and tear up the camp? No. You're an idiot," Peterson dismissed the idea.

"We're both here to watch over if anything big moves in," Jessup explained. "And there's still the other sentry on the other side of the camp. Nothing's getting in, man."

Peterson contemplated the idea for a moment before shaking his head. "Wesner or Nelson will have me on latrine duty with Richardson if they find out."

"Wimp."

"Shut up."

"Pansy."

"Fine!" Peterson exclaimed. He slammed a fist on the control panel of the turret, and hit the deactivation button as well with five others. A retreating whir emanated from the sentry as it powered down. "Happy?"

"Elated." Jessup responded. "Now hand me a chocolate bar."

Rex didn't fully understand why the bluebirds had suddenly fallen to the ground, but he knew that the loud noise coming from the strange settlement was the cause. He had been following the metal-clad creature for many minutes, making sure to stay out of its way. Luckily, the sounds of the forest had diluted his own noise of breaking twigs and crunching leaves.

Even from a short distance away in the shadows, Rex could see that the "settlement" was extremely small. Save for one large metallic building near the center of the camp, all he could see for housing were a mere four tents. He reasoned that if there was any plunder to be found, it would most likely be located in the metal construct.

Seated on one side of the encampment were two of the bipeds, eating what appeared to be mud bricks wrapped in paper. He carefully circled around to an area where he was just out of their field of vision. Looking around twice to make sure there was nothing patrolling the area, he finally made a mad sprint to the center of the clearing.

As he carefully moved up the ramp that led into the interior of the building, he could hear more of the beings conversing in their unintelligible language. He took great care in making his steps as light as possible.

The only things to be found in the cavernous, dim interior were seats and large lockers. The lockers seemed to be his best bet at finding any kind of treasure, but the doors did not budge at his attempts to open them. With a final huff of annoyance, he tore off the doors from their hinges. Carefully setting the panels onto the floor, he peered inside to view the contents they had protected.

Sure enough, five helmets hung from hooks in the back of the locker along with dozens of black rectangles and cylinders. Rex smiled as he pulled a helmet out of the locker and examined the eyepieces. They were much less brilliant than what he had seen outside, but they still glinted a bright red in the scarce light.

Not trying with surgical precision to remove the rubies from where they rested, Rex began clawing at them in a crazed frenzy. The helmet became dented, pieces of plastic were chipped of the side, but the gems would not come out. Disappointed but not yet deterred, he tried again on another helmet. And another. And another.

He was about to begin bashing the fifth helmet when he heard something yell from behind.

"What the- is that-" Jessup sputtered as he and Peterson stared confusedly at the canine inside of the cargo hold. Shattered electronics and pieces of black plastic littered the floor along with the helmets they had come from. "Is that the dog?"

"What are you talking about? What dog?" Peterson asked. The intruder retreated slowly towards the back of the ship, looking around frantically for escape.

"I'll explain later," Jessup answered. "This guy's been going through the supply lockers for something. How the hell did he open one of those in the first place?"

"Maybe the guy who did it is still here," Peterson offered, drawing his side arm.

With the humans' attention momentarily diverted, the mutt ran down the loading ramp and out of the ship. Neither Jessup or Peterson went after it, much too concerned about the possibility of a human intruder.

Jessup walked over to the cockpit doors and pressed the open command on their control panel. He found one pilot reading a magazine and the other taking a nap. Jessup's sudden appearance startled the awake crewman and he threw his magazine to the ground hastily.

"What the hell is going on? You guys are supposed to be looking after the ship," Jessup berated.

"Nothing's wrong with the ship, ground pounder. Ed and I would know about any intrusion," The pilot said defensively.

"Oh, really?" Jessup grabbed the pilot by his shirt collar and shoved him into the cargo hold. "You know about that?" The pilot took one look around and instantly knew what Jessup was referring to.

The pilot swore as he walked back into the cockpit and smacked his co-pilot across the head. Jessup groaned as he walked over to the comm station in the back. Peterson was already there, scanning the area for who he thought had opened the storage lockers.

"I gotta get Nelson on the horn. We need to figure out where that dog's owner is and how the hell he got here without EarthGov knowing about it," Jessup explained as he picked up the ear piece and began keying the codes for a long-range transmission.

"And find out what the hell they wanted with those helmets," Peterson added as he holstered his pistol.

"The whole turning off the sentry thing is going to be our little secret, okay?" Jessup said as he remembered who's fault it was for allowing the dog to wander into the camp in the first place.

"Fine. But you owe me one."

The UEGS Clarke was relatively fast compared to other ships of its size. Capable of traveling at most three hundred light-years per day, it was magnitudes more advanced than the first spacecraft mankind had created. Even with the knowledge of this, however, Commander Rainsford wished his cruiser could go just a bit faster.

They were still a good four or five standard days away from New Haven, and there was not much on the agenda for the crew until then. As the commander of the ship, Rainsford was to be on the bridge at long intervals during travel. The other bridge officers had much lower expectations. Only three of the usual fifteen officers were currently on duty.

Rainsford had another hour before his scheduled break, so he tried occupying himself by going through the ship's maintenance reports and supply manifests. There was a slight hiccup with the life support on deck two, but nothing entirely major besides that. Indeed, without any true action to put the ship into harm's way, the Clarke was around the same condition it had been when it had rolled off the shipyard almost two years ago.

Supply manifests, surprisingly, always held some kind of hidden adventure in them. Rainsford had noted at least three cases of having unauthorized containers of luxuries within the cargo bay in the past month. These things ranged from Swiss chocolates absentmindedly placed there to attempts at smuggling contraband hunting rifles on exploration missions.

However, the manifest contained something he knew for a fact was not supposed to be there. Nine satellites had been requisitioned for the mission on B4-D4 in order for GPS and mapping systems to operate. He had ordered the satellites to be sent into orbit before the marines had ever left the cruiser.

And yet, here they were still in their shipping crates.

"Hixon, the manifest is saying the mapping satellites are still in the cargo hold. You said you requisitioned and had them launched," Rainsford said, still staring at the readout.

Lieutenant Hixon looked up from his console with a look of surprise. "I did, sir. They were launched thirty minutes before we left."

"Then someone down in logistics forgot to flag them as delivered," Rainsford sighed. "Go down to deck five and check up on it."

"Aye, sir." Hixon nodded and left for the elevator down to the cargo bay.

"... so I think if we can find whoever owns the dog, we might be able to find out if there are any more illegal colonists on the planet," Jessup finished giving his report of what happened at Base Two to Nelson over the squad comm channel. Wesner and Richardson were also on the call, trying to come up with a strategy to find the canine trespasser.

"Jessup, if we don't know exactly where the dog is, there's almost no chance we're going to find it," Richardson sighed.

"And I doubt whoever wanted to break into camp won't try sending it again," Nelson appended.

"I know he couldn't have gotten far, sirs," Peterson chimed in. "At the rate it was running and where it was heading, the only place it could possibly go would be just outside of the forest."

"Then our plan should be to scout out beyond the forest," Nelson nodded and looked over to the other two. "Captain?" Wesner was completely silent. He hadn't spoken once during the entire call, simply staring out towards the edge of the forest. "Sir? We need your authorization, sir."

Wesner finally looked back to the two Corporals. "Permission granted, Nelson. Scout out the area and look for these phantom colonists. The team will consist of myself, Richardson, Nguyen, Dekowski, and Jenkins."

The other marines nodded.

"Dekowski, you'll take point," Wesner said to a member of Squad Three. "Richardson, you're in the back."

"Understood, sir." Richardson replied.

"Then let's move it, people. We've got fugitives to nab," Wesner said as he cycled his FAR and put his helmet back onto his head.

Sierra Mist, Weather Pony-in-training, was rather bored with her current assignment. Preparing for winter didn't require too many volunteers nor energy, but indeed took a very long time. It was tradition for newcomers like herself to be the first called upon the task of transporting low-level clouds higher up in the sky.

Unfortunately, the only recruit this year was herself. With every cloud she stacked near the sun, she could feel the air get cooler and cooler. This had been the trend for the past week or so. Many clouds had already been there from autumn, considerably lessening the load she had to carry.

After unit seven hundred fifty-one, she decided that a break was in order. She personally enjoyed resting upon tops of trees, unlike other pegasi who preferred clouds. She liked the slight crunch of the leaves when they gave under her weight.

Today, she had been rounding up clouds near the Everfree Forest. Sierra knew she only had another day of constantly moving the puffy water droplets from one area to another. Hopefully then she would be given the full title of Weather Pony.

Just as she was about to drift off into a peaceful nap, she heard the tall grasses beneath her tree rustle and hoofsteps head out of the forest itself. Recalling that numerous scary creature lurked within the Everfree, Sierra was starting to regret being so close to it.

She carefully pulled herself to one side of the tree to observe what moved below. Walking slowly in a straight line out of the dense brush were five black bipedal creatures, kind of like Minotaurs. However, they were shorter, had no horns or fur, and looked down right menacing with their cold red eyes.

Whatever these things were, they couldn't be friendly. Even if they were, she was sure warning everypony in Ponyville was a smart move. She had to tell somepony, perhaps Mayor Mare or Twilight Sparkle. They would know what to do.

Standing back up on her hooves, she readied herself into a take-off stance. She wasn't the fastest flyer, but it was good enough to escape without the creatures realizing she was there.

Without another thought, she shot off the top of the tree and towards Ponyville.

Chapter Five

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Samuel Hixon hummed quietly to himself as the elevator to Deck Five descended. It was for quiet moments like this that he had joined the Navy. His duties never really generated much fuss, and he preferred the simple rut of his schedule over the hectic hassle of any other position.

And people hated him for it.

If there was even a minor infraction or delay in the ship's day-to-day processes, Hixon was the first to point them out and demand punishment towards the perpetrators. He had few friends at his position, needless to say.

The elevator came to abrupt stop as it reached its destination, causing Sam to lose his footing and nearly fall over. If there was one wrong thing aboard the Clarke, it was without a doubt the elevator. The doors slid open, revealing the large cavern-like interior of the Storage Deck.

The few powerful florescent lights nearly fifteen meters overhead barely penetrated the canopy of crate towers. Sam had to squint in order to find the Chief Logistics Officer on the far side of the room, operating on the only computer terminal in the cargo bay.

"Tucker, what are you doing?" Hixon asked as he walked closer, mentally making a list of all the safety violations in the Storage Deck.

"Damn thing's caught some kind of bug," Tucker replied from behind the large console of monitors and buttons. "Something's messing with the administration login, so I'm rebooting the whole system."

"I actually needed you to retrieve some ordnance deployment records from it," Sam sighed. "Commander says the ship's computer isn't registering some data from logistics correctly."

"Well, I have been on duty since we arrived at our last drop off. I'll tell you anything you need to know," Tucker said. "What's the corrupted data about?"

"Order... 543-A: GSI and GPS satellites. Orion-class. You reported that you deployed those," Sam read off the supply report from his datapad. "System didn't register it, though."

"Huh. Yeah, I sent that out a few minutes after the order came from the bridge," Tucker said as he clicked something behind the monitors. "I'm sure it has something to do with the bug in the admin programs. Like I said, I'm going to fix it with this reboot."

Hixon raised an eyebrow. "Right. I'm going to need more than your word to finish up the documents. I need something more official."

"I don't know what to tell you, man," Tucker responded as he slid himself out of the gap. "All the data is going to be purged with the reboot. Even the backups."

"That seems a bit extreme for fixing a login screen," Hixon folded his arms. "Have you tried getting anyone from maintenance on this instead?"

"Well, yeah. I just... think that it would save time to do it myself," Tucker said hesitantly. "I don't want anyone else working on this."

"Irrelevant. Let me operate that console."

"The administration login isn't working anyway, Hix. You won't be able to get-"

"Just watch me," Hixon scoffed as he pushed Tucker out of the way. "The datachips are still intact, yes? Regardless if the console isn't working, I'll just access the chips and everything on them."

Hixon began pulling out one datachip at a time from the exposed circuitry, being quite thorough in making sure he got every last one out of the computer. It was actually helpful of Tucker to go and remove the casing in the back and allow Hixon to go straight to work. From the corner of his eye he saw Tucker pacing around the deck frantically.

"Hix, pal, you need to just calm down and get back to the bridge. Just take my word for it," Tucker sounded defeated.

"No can do. Now stop pacing around like a lunatic before I call security on you for suspicious behavior," Hixon sighed as he plugged in the first chip from his pile. "Let's see what our dear computer recalls."

Shipments of food items to the mess hall, requests for a fresh supply of engine coolant, and other such normal things composed most of the logs imprinted on the chip. However, closer to the end of list he found a few things very out of place.

"Tucker..." Hixon's voice trailed off as he looked down the list is astonishment. "Why is there high-explosive ordnance on the-"

His sentence was cut short as Tucker whacked the back of Hixon's head with his sidearm. Hixon's vision blurred from the sudden pain, but he rolled with the blow and landed on the deck. Barely clinging onto consciousness, he clambered back to a standing position to face his attacker.

"I told you to stop snooping, Hix!" Tucker exclaimed as he lunged again with his free hand to strike. Hixon ducked and missed the punch by mere centimeters. He quickly ran into the forest of cargo containers. "Damn it! Get back here, you idiot!"

Clutching his head with his right hand, Hixon tried his best to get as quiet as possible. The dimly lit interior of the room meant that he could evade his unexpected assailant as long as he didn't broadcast his whereabouts.

"Shit shit shit. Get out here Hix, damn it. I'm not gonna- I mean I won't hurt you, man. I can't let you get out of here until- arrgh, I fucked up!" Tucker rambled incoherently. Hixon racked his brain trying to figure out what was actually going on while hiding in the shadows.

He moved silently past an enormous rack of cargo as quick as he could, trickles of blood dripping from between his fingers. Resting his back against the metal support, he slid down slowly onto the floor. On the far side of the rack, Hixon could see the silhouette of Tucker and hear his ramblings.

"Sam, I can't let you get off this level. I'll kill you if I have to, man. Please don't make me kill you," whined the distant voice of Tucker. "I'll find you one way or another, Hixon. That's a promise!"

Ignoring the constant curses and jumbled death threats, Hixon began searching the rack for any light containers he could throw. He hoped to trick Tucker into investigating the noise while he made a mad dash to the elevator. Unable to find any such objects where he was, he moved to the next shipping rack one to his right.

The first container on the bottom was far too heavy for anyone to pick up without aid. Hixon could barely make out the bold label printed on the side: ORION-class Satellite Unit. Number Six of Eight. Hixon's mind reeled as he tried to comprehend what was happening in addition to trying to survive. His fears and suspicions would have to wait until he was safely out of Deck Five.

"If you even take a step to the elevator, Hix, I'll gun you down. Just come over to me and I'll just knock you out until it's safe for you to leave," Tucker bargained.

Hixon put his hand on top of one of the levels and began moving his hand about to find any loose articles. He finally grabbed hold of a wrench and chucked it several meters in the opposite direction of the elevator. He could hear Tucker's loud footsteps race towards the origin of the noise.

Hixon jumped up from his crouching position and ran towards his only escape route, ignoring the pain of his injured head. The elevator opened automatically at his approach, almost seeming to wait for Hixon to enter and escape...

His accelerated stumbling was interrupted suddenly as Tucker jumped onto him from behind, wrestling him to the ground. Hixon tried desperately to get off his stomach and into a more defensive position, but Tucker pinned him to the ground with remarkable strength.

Tucker hit Hixon over the head once again with his handgun, quelling his desperate movements. Hixon's vision darkened and his body became strangely numb. Still, he could feel the restraints being tied on his hands and feet as well as being dragged across the room towards another section of the deck.

"It has been three hours," Commander Rainsford muttered bitterly. "Where is Lieutenant Hixon? His break isn't for another hour still."

"He hasn't checked in on any deck, sir. Reports show he didn't check in on Deck Five either," A young Ensign replied. "Should I order a security detail to find him, sir?"

"Yes," Rainsford sighed as he nodded his head. "Hixon wouldn't forget to make a report unless something was terribly wrong. Order four men down there and try to raise communications with Deck Five. Someone has to have seen him."

"Aye, sir."

"Sir? Engineering is reporting a cascade failure in the FTL drive. We're losing speed quick," reported the helm officer from the lower platform.

"Get a maintenance team down there now. What's causing the engine failure, Ensign?" Rainsford inquired as he got up from his command station. It wasn't normal for engines to suddenly shut down with modern fusion drive engines. They were too well made and maintained to suddenly start acting up.

"Unknown, sir. The engineers are saying have no idea what's going on."

"Wonderful," Rainsford grumbled quiet enough so that no one else in the Bridge could hear him. His ship was falling apart all around him, and he had no idea why. "Where's our projected endpoint?"

"Empty space, sir. We're still four hundred lightyears from Aegis," he reported with a hint of disappointment.

"Then we wait there and hope that the engines get repaired quickly," Rainsford nodded as he watched the distant stars decelerate as the ship itself slowed. Indeed, the sector where the ship had ended up was indeed "empty space". Very few particles of matter littered the black void outside of the ship. Even the closest star system seemed impossibly distant.

"Sir?" the communications officer said in what seemed to be complete amazement. "We're receiving a priority hail from the Admiralty. Private band spectrum."

"Confirmed sighting of friendly ship off our stern. IFF tags say its the UEGS Asimov!" reported a surprised Lieutenant Tobler.

"What the hell is the Admiralty doing out here?" Rainsford thought out loud. "Patch the communication through, Lieutenant."

"Aye, sir."

On the Bridge's main holoterminal, a robust yet fairly old officer appeared. If his graying mustache was any indicator, the hair hidden behind his peaked cap was also losing its youthful color. Menacing brown eyes seemed to pierce Rainsford's very soul.

"This is Admiral Ivan Zaroff of the UEGS Asimov. Your ship has been disabled as per order of the United Earth Government Expeditionary Fleet. I am coming aboard along with an escort of marine squads to speak with Commander William Rainsford. Any attempts at preventing our boarding will be met with severe court-martials," the Admiral's voice came in crystal clear through the hologram. "This is not a request. Asimov out."

"What the hell is going on?" Rainsford muttered once the projection had fully disappeared.

Chapter Six

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"What the hell was that?" Corporal Ngyuen inquired as an agile figure of yellow and green zoomed overhead. The creature was already beyond sight before anyone could get a good look at its specific features.

"Binoculars, corporal," Wesner said, poking Nguyen's backpack with his rifle. Luckily, Jenkins was already handing the pair he had already pulled out for himself. He brought the lenses to his eyes and focused them to the general area where the figure had disappeared to. "I'm not seeing it. Anyone?"

"Negative. Looks like it was heading north past those hills," Sergeant Dekowski replied as he brought his binoculars down. "It's trajectory was smooth, though. There's probably a nest or some sort of roosting area at the base of 'em."

"You think it was a bird, sir?" Richardson asked, still squinting towards the hills.

"Biggest damn bird I've ever seen if it is," Dekowski answered. "Not a whole lot of other things to compare it to."

"We're heading in that direction anyway. Whatever it is, the xeno scientists will probably be scrambling over each other to get a look at it," the captain said, handing the binoculars back to Jenkins. "Nguyen, get the forward CP on the horn and tell them to head back and get the scientists geared up. We'll rendezvous at the forests' edge in twenty minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"In the meantime, we might as well find our little flying friend," Wesner added and began heading towards the hills.

As the team of five traversed the hills, Nguyen let out a rather audible sigh. "This planet is boring as hell. I remember back on New Macedonia that we had at least seven wildlife attacks within the first few days. I remember with Private Vickers, he-"

"Shut up, Corporal," Wesner interrupted, bringing his index finger to his lips. "Do you hear that?"

Richardson listened more carefully, the air no longer cluttered with boisterous sounds of equipment clattering or of grass crunching. Surprisingly, he heard sounds of objects grinding across gravel, wood hitting against wood, and boisterous whinnies of what actually sounded like...

Horses?

"That doesn't sound like birds," Nguyen remarked.

"Thanks you for the stating the blatantly obvious, Corporal," Wesner replied, grabbing Jenkins' binoculars again. "It fills me with enthusiasm."

"Sounds like horses, sir," Nguyen continued.

"Yeah..." Richardson agreed.

"Keep moving and be quiet," Wesner scolded, walking further up the hill. "We don't need to scare the damn things off."

The rest of the men followed the officer to the top of the hill, falling into a single file line. As the group of marines neared the top of the hill, the captain abruptly stopped. Even with his helmet concealing his facial expression, Richardson could tell that something was askew at the bottom.

"Sir?" Richardson asked as he quickened his pace to reach Wesner. "What do you-? Holy crap..."

Richardson fell into the same awe-induced stupor as the captain. The three others who had been quite unconcerned just seconds ago rushed up the steep hill as well. Once the entire group was finally at the top, the same general reaction was apparent with every one of them: amazement.

At the foot of the hill was no brooding ground for birds or grazing area for any other animal, but an actual village complete with thatch-roofed hovels, town square, marketplace, and all the other attractions a primitive human settlement would have.

Though to everyone's great surprise, there were no humans to be seen.

The streets were littered with quadrupedal animals colored with countless combinations of the color spectrum. Tables for what seemed to be an eatery were filled with the creatures, all of them doing the same as a human being would. Streets were abuzz with activity from carts pulled by the creatures themselves. Two such organisms sat on a bench, resting in differing positions, and looked as though they were communicating with each other.

Richardson opened his mouth to try and ask something, but his mind drew a blank as to how he was supposed to address the scene. Luckily, Corporal Nguyen knew exactly what to say, albeit rather bluntly. "What the fuck is this?"

Commander Rainsford paced about in his quarters, attempting to come up with a reason why an Admiral had gone out of his way to stop and speak with him. He had already ruled out the possibilities of both a random ship inspection and new mission objectives. Neither of those would have required the Admiral to be present, much less an armed detachment.

He came to stop at his antique wooden desk, his eyes trained on the datapad he had been using to fill out the operation's after action report. He picked it up gingerly and keyed to view any updates from Deck Five. Nothing. Not even a confirmation of Hixon reporting to Cargo Bay.

Strange, he thought.

The door leading to his quarters retracted into the wall with hiss. Rainsford placed the datapad back down onto the desk and turned around to watch the Admiral walk in. Though slightly shorter than the Commander, Zaroff still appeared every bit as menacing as he was on the holoimage. His vanguard of Marines took position outside the door as it slid back into place.

"Admiral," Rainsford said with a salute.

"At ease," Zaroff returned the salute, grabbing himself one of the seats in front of the desk. He gestured for Rainsford to take a seat as well. "By all means, sit down. We have some bad business to discuss. I doubt you will want to talk about it standing up."

"Right. Yes, sir," Rainsford fumbled for his own chair, bumping the desk as he pulled it out. "Can I get you a drink, first?"

"Not quite in the mood for liquor, son. Sit down."

Rainsford did as he was instructed and pulled the chair closer in. "What do you mean by 'bad buisness', sir?"

"Naval Intelligence discovered something a week ago pertaining to the duty roster of numerous ships in the fleet," Zaroff began. "Apparently, some of the newest servicemen brought into the duty from around four years ago featured an odd similarity in their civilian records: they all worked as private military and security forces prior to joining."

"Mercenaries?" Rainsford asked dubiously.

"Correct. Though this normally wouldn't be grounds for any real concern after the recruits had their thorough background checks, Intelligence actually found that they had all been hired previously by the Weyland Corporation," Zaroff continued. "Supplemented by additional factors such as close times of recruitment and convenient deployments, we have begun to believe that there are some underlying purpose to these soldiers."

"Are you saying my ship has Mercs serving aboard?" Rainsford inquired.

"Truth be told, your ship has the highest proportion of Mercs in the entire Fleet." Zaroff answered. "Around one-third of those serving under you are to be taken before a board of inquiry to find any ulterior motives they may have. This will cut you down to around half-shifts, if I understand it correctly."

"Sir? The crew can't operate this ship with that many personnel gone. We're having a rough time as it is dealing with our FTL." Rainsford explained.

"There's nothing wrong with your FTL, Rainsford," the Admiral cracked a smile. "The Asmiov is outfitted with a new gizmo straight out of R&D. It can burn out the drives of any ship at the press of a button. Tricky little thing, but it gets the job done. We'll send over the kill code when we're finished here."

"The engineers were wondering what was wrong with engines." Rainsford muttered. "Still, sir, this is a crippling loss of men."

"I'm sure you'll make do. It's been a long time since anyone in the fleet had to do any real work. Maybe you'll appreciate the challenge later when this is all sorted out," Zaroff replied. "In the meantime, my Marines will go and roundup those-"

The lights in the room suddenly died simultaneously before he could finish his sentence and a slight tremor was felt underfoot. Blast shielding now covered the few windows located within Rainsford's quarters, orange emergency lighting beginning to come online. Warning klaxons reverberated throughout the ship, hinting Rainsford that something was amiss.

"All hands, clear Decks Three through Five! Damage control teams, report to Deck Six," The ship's intercom crackled to life. "Marine teams, hold all uncompromised deck checkpoints. Critical order. Commander needed on the Bridge. This is not a drill."

"Rainsford, stop standing there and help me open the damned door," The Admiral huffed, already trying to pull the door open. As Rainsford got out from behind his desk, he abruptly stopped as he heard gunfire from the outside hallway, closely followed by incoherent yelling. The two men pulled with all their strength trying to break the emergency seal that kept the door in place. After a satisfying CRACK was heard, the door slid open easily.

All but one of the original four marines were still standing while the other was on the floor tending to a bullet that had pierced his forearm. "Sirs, six engineers from the ship's crew just passed us with small arms weapons and AP ammunition. They disregarded orders to halt and opened fire. They escaped into the main elevator."

"We need to get to the bridge, Marines," the Admiral said. "Bandage up that wound and let's get moving."

Mayor Mare was indeed a busy mare. Ponyville, unlike many other normal towns, suffered an unusually high amount of disasters on a regular basis. Much more so than it had ever been before Princess Twilight Sparkle had settled down here. There was an obvious correlation between the rather unexciting pony and the crises that Mayor was left to deal with, yet nopony really gave it much thought.

Things had been quiet for the past few weeks, much to Mayor's relief. Yet at the same time, it was rather nerve-racking to expect the unexpected as the Mayor had learned to do over time. Always having to keep a mindset that anything could go wrong at any moment. Some would call this paranoia. She called it intelligence.

The Mayor paused once she had finished her thought. Perhaps she was being a tad bit paranoid. Moreover, all of the Elements of Harmony were out of town on other business. Whatever supernatural force that usually caused Ponyville so much panic would have no reason to pay a visit without them.

She looked around the room for a moment, almost as if she was making sure nopony was bursting in to report something out of the ordinary happening in town. Satisfied that this was the case, she closed her eyes. Maybe she could take a nap for a change...

"Mayor Mare!" a pegasus exclaimed as she burst in from an open window in her office. "Mayor Mare!"

Typical, she thought. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"There's some really tall, big black things just on the edge of town," the pony wheezed as she tried to recover her breath. "They were scary with beady red eyes, big stick-things, and-"

"Of course, of course," Mayor Mare said, trying to keep the pegasus on track. "Did they try to hurt you? Did they threaten you?"

"Well, no," the mare replied. "I mean, they didn't really talk at all. At least not in Equestrian."

"So it seems that these creatures are just new to Equestria," Mayor Mare sighed with relief. "They're probably just exploring the land."

"I guess."

At least it's not an invasion of Hydras, Mayor Mare thought. "I'm sure the Princess will be able to help these newcomers with all there is to know about Equestria. I'll send a letter to her at once."

"These things don't really look like they want a grand tour," the pegasus said. "They looked pretty dumb with those sticks and brown bags."

"Everypony thought the same thing when the Griffins first arrived here," Mayor Mare insisted as she got back to her desk to begin her letter. "The Princess will work her magic this time just like that."

"So we are all on the same page here, right?" Richardson asked the group. "There some kind of village of bright multicolored horses at the bottom of this hill."

"Yep." Nguyen replied. "So that rules out drugs."

"And what kind of drugs would you be gettin' your hands on anyway, Corporal?" Sergeant Dekowski growled.

"None, sir. Just being hypothetical," Nguyen replied.

"Lock it down you two," Captain Wesner ordered. "There's always been the possibility in our line of work that we could encounter an entirely new civilization. First contact should be conducted peacefully and carefully monitored by a xenosociologist."

"And the only one we've got is in the northern desert," Jenkins chimed in. "Gonna be hell trying to convince them to give up their only supply transport to move him here."

"We'll send in one of our own instead, Private," Wesner replied. "Dekowski, I want you to belay my previous order. Tell Camp One to prep Transport Seven for take-off. They're to set the waypoint for the northern desert and wait for further instruction."

"Yes, sir."

"I need all of you to keep low and follow me back to the forward CP. Until we are set for First Contact, there is no need to be spotted prematurely," Wesner explained. "Move it."

"Sir? There's something flying a mile out. Heading towards us. Looks like... a chariot?" Jenkins said with uncertainty, peering through his binoculars.

"What? Give me that," Wesner ordered and grabbed the lenses from the Private. "A horse in a chariot being pulled by other horses. Yeah. We're leaving."

"It's heading our way, sir..."

"I've noticed."

"Coming up awfully fast."

"You ran track in high school, right Jenkins?"

"Yes, sir."

"Start jogging."

Chapter Seven

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Princess Celestia of Equestria hadn't particularly expected hordes of new creatures to rush towards her in an attempt of First Contact. The Griffons had kept their distance for a moderate amount of time and the original Changeling hives many centuries ago had avoided it as long as they could. Regardless, would it be too much to ask for a quick and easy meeting for a change?

Still, it was better than having to defend her subjects from said creatures. The fact that they were keeping their distance was proof enough for her that these new beings were at least wary of outright violence.

"They're changing direction again, Princess. Shall we continue pursuit?" the closest royal guard reported with a hint of annoyance. She understood that pulling the royal chariot wasn't the most honored or the most comfortable of positions, but the guard had very little reason to be irked so early into their flight.

"It does seem that they aren't going to give up any time soon," Celestia admitted. Perhaps it was wrong to ignore somepony's desire for privacy and seclusion. But given all the recent events, especially those from this week alone, it was best to ensure that these weren't the same creatures that were causing her ponies such distress. "You and your stallions can rest, lieutenant. I'll just take us to them."

Celestia's horn began to glow bright yellow as she called on a teleportation spell, focusing it on the position directly in front of the escaping newcomers. In no more than a flash of light, she and her escort were on the forest ground in the midst of the bewildered bipeds.

Celestia herself was stunned by the physique of these creatures. All of them were quite muscular and stood at least a head over Celestia herself, the tallest of all the ponies, giving them an intimidating look. This was coupled with the fact that they wore metallic plates over their bodies somewhat similar to her own guards, but more bulkier and less decorative.

They're speech was completely different from Equestrian as well. It was free-flowing yet gruff and forceful. There was no real way to describe it or anything to compare it to. Even the Changeling language was somewhat similar to modern Equestrian, albeit with more hissing and buzzing.

One of the bipeds pointed at her with one of its digits and pointed back up into the sky. They must be confused about the teleportation, Celestia mused. Non-magical species were hard to come by. Even the Griffons ad some exposure to it. These things must have been living under rocks for the past millennium.

More apparent bewilderment began to arise within the group of five. Their facial expressions, if they were anything like Ponies', betrayed their feelings of exasperation, confusion, and perhaps anger as well. I must find out what they're saying if this is going to go anywhere. Throughout the introductions with the Griffon Kingdom, Celestia used a one-way translation spell to try and move things along past the language barrier. It proved to be far more effective than a game of charades might have been.

She would be able to understand their language through means of the spell. The only problem was that they still wouldn't understand her. It was worth a try, regardless. She drew upon her magic again and focused it on the creatures' speech. As if she could suddenly hear again, the words began to flow smoothly and with meaning:

"Fuck. That. Shit. Those horses were up in sky two seconds ago. Aren't unicorns magic or some shit?"

"Shut up, Nguyen."

"Get Nelson on the line and tell him to hurry his ass up."

"Seriously? Why horses? Of all things?"

If she could only tell them to calm down. What were they really afraid of with contact of a new civilization? She just needed to start conversation, but she couldn't. The bipeds would have to be nudged into it. Celestia nudged the nearest one with her forehoof, prompting the creature to turn around.

"Sorry, pal. I haven't brushed up on my horse-speak in a while," It said with a uncomfortable smirk. "But I guess it isn't any easier for all of you either, huh?"

Celestia shook her head in response: "No."

The creature smiled a bit and turned around. A whole second had past before it had turned around, its eyes wider than before. "Oh, shit! Captain, this thing understands us! I think..."It turned back quickly to face Celestia and asked, "You do understand us, right?"

Celestia smiled and nodded.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and call bullshit, Jenkins," another creature wearing significantly less armor responded. "Are you suddenly a horse whisperer? Like in that one book? What was it called, again?"

"The Horse Whisperer, Nguyen..."

"Yeah. That one." Nguyen confirmed.

"Captain, you really need to see this. It's not much, but he or, well, she is nodding and stuff. Go on and ask something." Jenkins said to another armored figure.

"Goddammit, Jenkins. It's a horse. An intelligent horse, granted, but..." the Captain was interrupted as Celestia teleported herself directly in front of the apparent officer. She glared up at the creature's mostly hairless face calmly, though at the same time masking her discomfort. It was strange to look up at somepony for once.

"There it goes again, sir," Jenkins pointed out to his commander. "It's zipping around like it's teleporting or something."

Celestia nodded at Jenkin's remark repeatedly to confirm the point. The officer looked down at Celestia skeptically, but kept quiet for a while. After a few uneasy seconds had passed, he asked, "This... teleportation is because of what? Magic, I suppose?"

Celestia nodded again, relieved that these beings had heard of magic before. It would be so much easier if they weren't scared out of their wits from her displays like the Diamond Dogs.

"Wonderful. Just when things can't get any weirder..." the Captain said with a sigh. "So what's the deal? If your all magical and such, can't you just talk to us?" Celestia shook her head in response. "So much for the easy way out of this."

"Sir, uh... what do you want us to do, sir?" one of the other beings asked.

"Tell the damned doctors to stop fiddling their thumbs and get the hell over here." the officer responded in an irritated tone, his face distorting into a frown. "It's bad enough that this is happening to begin with. The good doctors have had more than their fair amount of time packing their lunchboxes."

Understood, Cpatain."

The captain turned to Celestia once more and let out a sigh. "Now we can get down to business, hmm? I'd prefer a private spot away from the men and preferably your as well, if you wouldn't mind."

Celestia looked at the biped curiously.

"There's a few things that I need to tell you privately that aren't privileged to anyone else, even your own personnel," it answered in a whisper, quickly deciphering her question even with the language barrier. "EarthGov and all its Sovereign Colonies send their regards in this First Contact situation, Princess."

"From what the sergeant said, it looks like shit hit the fan with meeting the natives," Private Friedman said as the band of marines and scientists brushed past yet another patch of ferns and bushes.

"Yeah, well, most missions with good old Dekowski are just a long sequence of fans and shits," Nelson snorted. "Don't let it get to your head Doc. Just think about meeting the exotic naked native girls."

"Sergeant says they're horses, sir."

"Then look forward to moving your ass for once, instead." The corporal's smile faded into a wry smirk. "It's not every day you meet a new civilization, you know. Do we even have a protocol for that, Dan?"

"You got me." Private Hendricks replied.

"Section Three." Friedman answered, drawing looks from the other two. "It's called Section Three, Protocol One."

"Do you just study the goddamn Handbook in your free time, Doc? Or are you naturally just filled with useless trivia?" Hendricks asked, shoving the Friedman's head forward.

"That's how us medics get the job, Dan," Friedman replied with a sigh. "We have this huge Q and A session, seminar, and meet-and-greet over coffee. It's great, really. You should look into it."

"Whatever."

"I tell you what, this is going to get so much simpler once this whole First Contact thing blows over," Nelson said as they cleared a clearing populated almost entirely by four-foot grass. Hendricks, who was not wearing his helmet at the time, suppressed the urge to violently sneeze.

"How so, sir?" Friedman inquired.

"You think the brass are going to let a bunch of knuckle-dragging jarheads like you lot deal with delicate shit like this?" Nelson asked rhetorically. "We'll be off this rock in a week tops, you mark me."

"And leave us with all the fun, Marine?" Doctor Carsiri said a few feet behind. It was strange that he was trying to make conversation at all given the circumstances, let alone with Marines. "Oh, no. You're staying here to aid us in the wonderful field of diplomacy and sociology."

Nelson scoffed. "I thought you would be ecstatic to dive into this new scientific discovery and whatnot. You know, 'One big step for Mankind' and all."

"Criminey! I'm a biologist for heaven's sakes," Carsiri retorted irritatedly. "This is not my field of expertise."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, shut up." Nelson hushed, placing a finger to his lips. "They're over here, guys."

The men closest to the front of the group passed some more low tree branches to the right of where they were previously heading and found themselves in the clearing they were looking for. Richardson, Wesner, and all the others turned around to the rustling. Wesner turned back around to a bright white four-legged creature. Nelson could see why tehy were so quick to call them horses, but they were a little too small.

"Christ, did you stop for lunch on the way over here?" Richardson asked with a white smile as he approached Nelson.

"Not like there was anything worth rushing to, right?" Nelson replied sarcastically.

"Doctor Carsiri, I need you and your colleagues help over here," Wesner hollered. "I think this one is their leader. Or at least something like it."

Nelson could here incomprehensible muttering coming from Carsiri as he and two other scientists walked over to the white horse and Wesner.

Suddenly, in a flash of yellow light, a round, wooden table appeared between them all. Five seats appeared at different points around the table, one for each representative. By the look of the doctors' faces, they hadn't been expecting that at all.

"Rich, where did that table come from?" Nelson asked, his mouth open wide.

"I have no fucking clue." Richardson replied in a defeated tone. "There's so much random shit happening here, I need to sit down for a minute. Maybe once I'm totally crazy I'll go and start talking to some of those armored horses over there."

"Just go take a walk, Rich. We have to keep an image here." Nelson said. "Nothing good's going to come from sitting down and taking a nap at a time like this."

"Yeah, okay," Richardson nodded, not looking at Nelson. "I could use a good stretch anyways."

"Take Jenkins with you, too," Nelson ordered, grabbing his friend's shoulder. "He's looking pretty spaced out. I don't want him to be-"

Several percussive bursts from explosions cut Nelson short, deafening everyone and everything in the clearing. Nelson was able to keep his eyes open enough to see a half dozen cylindrical canisters bounce off the ground and roll around. One by one, each canister began to seep indigo gas with a low pop-hiss.

Nelson's overstimulated brain recognized this gas almost instantly: CHO-3 knock-out gas. The same gas he and every other marine had to endure and immediately recognize back in their basic training all those years ago.

Nelson could already feel his breaths becoming more congested as his eyes began to water. In a few mere seconds, his chest was starting to burn with every ragged breath. He crumpled to his knees and began hacking violently.

No one else was faring any better. They were all either fallen completely to the ground or were almost collapsed. Richardson was on his stomach trying to cover his mouth to protect it from the gas, coughing violently.

CHO-3 gas was nasty and cruel to the human body, but it did its job well. Nelson could feel himself begin to drift off into unconsciousness, despite his will to stay awake. Every muscle in his body ached, and his hearing was dull. He tried to stay awake long enough to see what had just unleashed the barrage unto them, scanning the sky with blurry vision.

There. Cruising several dozen meters above was some dropship, but not one that he recognized. It wasn't military or EarthGov issue at all. The only thing that adorned it that was even remotely recognizable was painted on its side, colors fading:

Weyl d Cor ration

Adjunct 1: EarthGov Manifesto

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Accessing Folder//
Date of Publishing: 2192, March 10.
Author: Cumulative Data of Regional Officials
Subject: [CENSUS DATA, ECONOMIC REPORTS, AND MISSION DATA OF ALL SOVEREIGN COLONIES.]
\\WARNING//
ACCESSING THIS DATA IS RESTRICTED TO TIER-2 GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.
VIOLATION OF THIS DIRECTIVE IS PUNISHABLE UNDER SECTION 3, PROTOCOL 2.
\\WARNING//
Opening File Label "CURRENT STATUS AND MISSION DIRECTIVES".

Aegis (11 of 13)
Status: 27% increase in urban growth over the past year. Increased mining operations and manufacturing. Agriculture is lacking. Attempts to terraform to Earth-like conditions are succeeding with minimal obstacles. Estimated time of completion: 23 years.

Mission Directives: Secure sector in case of insurgent activity. Increased military presence may be required. Colonial Militia is proving to be stretched too thin.
...
New Macedonia (12 of 13)
Status: Under direction and exploration of Science Bureau branch. Two Marine detachments currently residing on the surface with another scheduled in seven months. Teams report a wide away of exotic plant and animal species. Reserving specimens for further study.

Mission Directives: Continue procedures as enacted by Protocol Six. Marines are to be shuffled within a two year period. Colonists to be sent within the next decade.
...
B4-D4 (NAME PENDING) (13 of 13)
Status: RESTRICTED-SPACE. Patrols are to regularly be swapped out and tasked with patrolling the next closest star-system under the guise of "Border Control" and "Resource Analysis". Entering the sector without direct authorization from EarthGov is punishable under Mandate One.

Mission Directives: Shadow Protocol is in effect. Service of Strategic Intelligence has full jurisdiction of sector and will perform their reconnaissance without disruption or question.

End File.

Opening File Label "SSI Reports of B4-D4".

Private communication to: ADM. Zaroff, T.
From: AGT. Ericson, P.

Begin Playback//

Admiral. Initial reports of B4-D4, as you know, have already revealed a large quantity of (WITHHELD) with much more of them scattered around the planet. Mostly around the temperate Southern Hemisphere. Even more surprising than the fact that they are so widely dispersed is that in addition to (WITHHELD) there are also (WITHHELD) and (WITHHELD) that all seem to have social relations with each other.

As per the Government’s request, mining samples were taken discreetly by an insertion team two weeks ago. The area is relatively barren of any useful ores or compounds. So far, the barren area extends well over a quarter of the planet. More scans will be conducted, but the reports look grim. Titanium and iron ores, though scarcely present, are substandard and riddled with impurities. Any attempts at retrieving them will prove more costly than they’re worth. This might explain why these (WITHHELD) are not very technologically advanced, but the theories are numerous.

There are a surprising amount of phenomena around this planet, but that will be reported in more description with the monthly status report of the operation. Forgive the lateness of this communication, but something on the planet seems to be interfering with our channels on the E-Band. We will correct this problem within the next report.

-Peter Ericson.

Chapter Eight

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Richardson barely felt himself being dragged by the legs across the grass. He had a vague idea that he was conscious, but really still felt like he was sleeping. The sunlight shone through his closed eyelids, creating a almost majestic white background for his semi-conscious mind to dwell.

His head ran over a rock and quickly brought him back to his senses. His legs were shoved down onto the ground. His hands were bound by plastic restraints. He struggled against them with his returning strength, but to no avail. His chest suddenly became heavy and he began coughing violently.

"Alright, that's all of them," a voice said. "On their knees, on their knees."

Richardson was tugged by his shoulders onto his knees, as per the man's orders. Richardson stopped coughing long enough to keep his eyes open and observe the area.

All the marines on scene, including the three scientists, were lined up across the clearing. Directly across from them, a dropship had landed and a separate line of the horse detainees had been formed. Men clad in what looked almost identical to the riot control gear used by Colonial Militia were patrolling the area or maintaining the lines. What struck Richardson as odd was that the men were in a completely different camouflage than what was appropriate for a forested area: Digital Arctic.

A single man stood out amongst the others. He wore little more than a few plates of armor on his front and back. Judging from the fact that he wasn't doing any of the heavy lifting, it was easy to guess that he was the leader.

"Well then. Good job, boys," the man said. "I figured the Marine Corps would have figured a way to filter the gas by now, but it's of no real concern now."

"Who in the hell are you?" Wesner said a few meters to the left of Richardson. "Some executive asshole, obviously."

"Captain, who I am is of no importance whatsoever. I am just a man," he replied.

"Spare me. Weyland-issue gunboats? Armed bodyguards? I don't know anyone else who would have that besides Michael Weyland," Wesner rolled his eyes. "I thought you were confirmed dead a decade ago after a ship wreck on Aegis."

"The military actually cares about my personal life, eh?" Weyland grimaced. "No. I'm still alive and kicking. The SSI always never really do particularly well in their field of work."

"This planet is under exploration of the EarthGov Expeditionary-" Nelson said from Richardson's right.

"Oh, I know. That little tidbit of information made sure I wasn't coming here to a fight," Weyland said. "Suffice to say, I know everything EarthGov told you and more. Much, much more."

Richardson had begun to zone out again. The gas didn't seem to have completely cycled from his body and the effects of it was still in effect. Before he could fall asleep, a guard hit the back of his head with the butt of a rifle. Blood dribbled down Richardson's neck.

"You will release us, including the horses, now." The look on the Captain's face was stern and cold. "You are overstepping your bounds, Weyland."

"I am not restricted to your 'bounds', Captain, nor EarthGov's." Weyland kept a relatively stoic expression amidst the severity of his actions. He walked over to the largest white equine, which was still unconscious. "And these things are going to make sure it stays that way no matter what."

"What are you even talking about?" Wesner grunted, making one last futile attempt to free himself from the restraints. "If you know as much as I do, then you should remember that there's nothing on this planet you can use. All ore and minerals on this planet are worthless."

"This isn't about petty corporate squabbles over natural resources, Captain." Weyland sighed. "It's about the advancement of Mankind. The hope of a new future."

Wesner rolled his eyes. "Oh good God in heaven..."

"You already know what I'm talking about, Captain. Don't pretend like this isn't important," Weyland said irritatedly. "These things have what the ancient civilizations of Man only dreamed of."

"If you're talking about-"

"I am."

"Then you should know that we have no way in hell of getting that ourselves." Wesner also somehow was keeping his cool, given the circumstances.

"But we already have." Weyland's smirk turned into a white smile. His expression conveyed all the pride he had towards whatever they had accomplished.

"Sir, what is he gibbering about about?" Nguyen asked.

"The fool thinks that he can get magic like the horses use for himself," Wesner said. "I don't buy any of it."

"Ten years with nothing to do but study them helped us along significantly." Weyland shivered. "I still get chills thinking about it."

"Sounds like an interesting story. Unfortunately, you're about to shoot us all," Wesner said.

"Not all of you," Weyland chuckled. "Men, free Dekowski. Welcome back to the loving arms of the Weyland Corporation, Sergeant."

Two of the bodyguards sliced the restraints off of Dekowski's wrists. "Good to be back, Mr. Weyland. Squad Three is ready for your orders."

Most of the men lined up and bound were freed at the sergeant's prompting. There were around a dozen of them before this sudden betrayal, but now there were only seven of them left: Nguyen, Richardson, Wesner, Nelson, and the scientists. Something didn't quite add up to Richardson, though. Where were Friedman, Jenkins, and Hendricks?

"Alright, Dekowski. Kill them and let's get moving. The rendezvous point is at site Alpha and Squads Four through Six are already there and waiting," Weyland said.

"Understood, sir." Dekowski nodded.

"Keep the larger white pony alive and stow her in the cargo area. Terminate the rest."

"You motherfucker," Nguyen spat. Dekowski grabbed the sidearm off one of Weyland's bodyguards and pointed the muzzle to Nguyen's forehead. He unceremoniously pulled the trigger and watched at Nguyen dropped backwards as the bullet impacted.

The rest of the men under Weyland's command aimed their weapons into the line of targets, ready to terminate at their discretion. Dekowski moved onto a scientist to his left and killed him just as suddenly as Nguyen.

Before he or any other person could fire another round, a small cylinder smashed itself into the back of Dekowski's head and plopped onto the grass. As he reached back to soothe his new lump, the cylinder detonated.

A brilliant blue ball of ionized energy sent him, two of the bodyguards, and the bodies of the recently deceased hurdling into the forest. Amidst the sudden confusion, rapid-fire gunshots began to fill the air. Men raced towards the gunship in hopes of finding some sort of cover as well as to get their lone hostage packed up. Weyland was nowhere to be seen.

Three fully-armored marines stepped out of the brush, firing selectively at their foes. Rounds that managed to hit them were deflected easily by the reinforced titanium carbide plating. The bastions dropped one guard after another as they inched their way closer to the gunship.

The detained in their lines, however, were not faring as well. A few of Weyland's forces must have decided that it was best to kill as many of the prisoners as possible in response to not being able to kill their attackers. The equine guards closest to the gunship were quickly offed as was one of the remaining scientists.

One of the marines came running over to the hostages, knife drawn. He cut plastic binding's of their wrists as the last of the Weyland guards lost morale began to retreat into the gunship.

"Here you go, sir," the soldier said, slicing his restraints. Nelson recognized it to belong to Jenkins. The enemy gunship had started its engines with a deafening roar, kicking up dust and debris as the they scorched the vegetation underneath.

Another set of boisterous engines could be heard coming closer from the east, but they seemed to be of a different pitch and decibel. All the remaining riot troopers had managed to board their gunship and the landing pad began to retract as it lurched meters high in the air.

"They're getting away! Transport Seven, tail them and bring it down!" Jenkins shouted through his helmet mic.

"Belay that, Private!" Wesner ordered. "The pony leader is in that gunship. We're not going to kill our only avenue for diplomacy."

"Belay that, Transport Seven. Belay that," Jenkins said quickly. "Sorry for coming in late, sir. We tried to get everyone mobilized as soon as we could."

"No time for that, Private." Wesner said, snatching his helmet from the top of the negotiation table. Nelson and Richardson did the same. "We need to follow them and secure the pony hostage."

A transport zoomed over the heads of the marines with a crack of a sonic boom. Heading, it seemed, to follow the Weyland corporate gunship.

"Transport Seven, where the hell are you going?" Wesner yelled over his com.

"Not us, sir. According to the transponder, that was Squad Seven's transport." the pilot said.

"Damn it. They've already mobilized." Wesner muttered. "We need to know where they're going. Search the bodies for anything that might give us a clue. Nelson, make sure everyone is loaded up into the gunship in the next ten minutes."

"Yes, sir." Nelson saluted.

Richardson turned over one dead body guard after another, searching for any sort of datapad, document, or other device that would help find the destination of Weyland. He stumbled across Nguyen's body slumped onto his back and staring at the sky.

"Damn it, Nguyen..." Richardson muttered, restarting his search.

"Found something, sir," Jenkins said over the com after ten minutes of searching. Most of Squad Two and the lone Doctor Carsiri were loaded and waiting on the transport.

"What is it, Private?" Wesner asked.

"Data disc, sir. Gives a location of Wyland Corporation troop deployments."

"Bingo. Give it here, Jenkins." Wesner outstretched his hand and Jenkins tossed it over. He plugged it into a datapad and keyed the disc's data to appear onscreen.

"Permission to speak, sir?" Jenkins asked as Wesner sifted through the data.

"Granted."

"How- Why did our own guys betray us? How did this happen?"

"They never were one of us, Private." Wesner paused. "I don't know or understand why, either. But I'll be damned if I don't beat that answer out of Weyland when we catch up to him."

Jenkins nodded and shifted around as the Captain continued.

"There. Look's like their 'Site Alpha' is located at the south pole of the planet," Wesner said. "Huh. Break out the snow shoes, Private. We're going skiing."

Idle Curiosity

by AwkwardTaco

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Adjunct 1: EarthGov Manifesto

Chapter Eight