When Equestria is threatened from without, their only hope comes in the form of their long-time allies: humanity. And despite the differences of race, one thing stands true about humanity: we protect our friends.
For the past twenty years, humanity and Equuskind have traded through a portal which opens once a month in deep space: technology, letters, food and so much more. This trade has fostered an incredibly friendly relationship between the two civilizations, only stopped by their inability to send anything living through the portals. But all that is about to change.
When word comes through the portal that our allies on Equus are threatened by a sentient race bent on destruction, the leaders of Equus send a plea for help of any kind. Humanity will give its answer.
EDIT: ( This work is fully worked on now by the NightsongWrites creative team. We are really excited to keep working on this story that has really brought in a lot of viewers. Please give us whatever comments and critiques you wish, but try to keep them helpful, please. )
EDIT: Big thanks to marking for the AWESOME piece of fan art and the new cover art! :D
"My fellow Terrans. I come to you today with the gravest of news. As you know, the monthly portal between our great republic and our friends on the planet Equus has recently opened, and we received their transport pod successfully. But what we must tell you now is disturbing. Where usually our friends pack their trade goods, there were only messages. Letters, scrolls. All begging for one thing..."
Marcus Tanbor, President of the Terran Republic and its surrounding colonies, blew a deep breath from his nose as he reached up to rub his eyes. The Indian-American man had recently reached his fiftieth year, and he could feel everyone of his years pressing down on him now. Through the lens of the cameras glaring down at him, Marcus could see a distorted mirroring of his features: his greying shock of hair, a neatly trimmed goatee, with a few streaks of silver as well. Usually, the odd image helped ease his mind with a bit of humor, but after all he had learned about with the goings on in Equus...
"Help. They are asking... no, begging us for help. We have learned today that Equus is under siege by an alien race previously unknown to either of our species. According to Princess Celestia, they are highly advanced and, even after just half a month of fighting, Equus is on the verge of defeat. The surviving militaries of their world have congregated at the Equine capital of Canterlot, and have managed to push the invaders back... for now. They have pledged that they will die fighting, a viewpoint shared by all of us out there."
Marcus tightened his lips, just a fraction. He had been a salesman in Chicago before the fateful day that had begun to spring him up the societal board towards Terran President. He had sold cars for the most part- a vital part of life in America, even in an age where spaceships had become damn near as ubiquitous. Today, however, was going to be the ultimate test of his salesman spirit. He sucked in a deep breath, and gave his best authoritative glare at the blank eye of the camera.
"We all know what Equuskind have given us. The cancer cure that saved millions, if not billions, of lives from a slow and painful death. The conjecture and knowledge that helped us create the first shielding technology for our starships. The potions that have made lives easier for millions of Terrans who wished to change some part of themselves. The science and arcanotech that helped jump up our terraforming projects on Mars, Venus, and Titan from hundreds of years, to decades. Millions of Terrans, every month, receive letters and gifts from our Equus brothers and sisters across the portal. We owe them a debt we could not have repaired, even by sending our own technology through the portal. They have helped uplift humanity into the golden age we now are experiencing. It is a debt we could never repay... until now."
Here we go, Marcus. Crunch time.
"My fellow Terrans. No true leader seeks out war. Peace is always preferable, you and I both know this. But this... this is not a war for resources. These creatures, these Seraphs as the Equus call them, are not after resources. They wish to butcher every single inhabitant of that world. To take it for themselves. And we as humans would be remiss if we did not do something. Humanity has gotten to this point in its life, not by a small group of individuals driving it, but as a collective of wills. Of bonds made by friendship, and camaraderie. The Equines have a philosophy of life they live by, Harmony. Many of you out there are practitioners of this philosophy, and I must admit, I have read up on it myself. Friendship and Harmony. We were a cynical world once, and in many ways we still are. I like to think that can change."
"Loyalty. Are we, as human beings, going to sit on the side lines while millions are butchered and abused? Millions of our friends? They have given much for our people, and now, we must return the favor. Kindness. Even if they were not our friends and pen-pals, humanity has an obligation to fight injustice, wherever it is! We took on this duty the first time a caveman stopped his neighbor from killing another. Generosity. Equus has already proven its generosity to us. Is it not time for humanity to do the same, to show our friends just what their gifts have done for us? Honesty. For too long, human honesty has been shoved aside for material gain and the building of nations. Today, I call for a true vote among all of our citizens. You all will receive vote requests on your bio-digital communication devices at the end of this speech, to decide how our Republic will respond, in the most honest way possible."
Marcus closed his eyes for a brief moment, and licked at his lips. The air in this building was so damned dry.
"Laughter. As odd as it may seem, people of Terra Prime and our colonies, could you imagine a world now without videos of our Equus brothers? Videos, pictures, the artwork and culture they have sent us. Of seaponies frolicking in the waves like our own dolphins, now valued members of our Republic. Of griffons soaring among the clouds, regaling us with tales of their history and drinks. Of unicorns performing feats of magic that can astonish even the most jaded mind. Magic... the last Element of Harmony. Humanity, I am sad to say, does not hold magic. In the same way that Equus does, at least. But we DO have technology. My fellow Terrans, I will be the first to inform you... we now can go to Equus. Humanity. Our scientists, as of early this morning, have perfected a shield that will protect us from the deadly radiation of the portal, as well as a technique that will keep the portal open full-time. We... can go to Equus. But only if there is an Equus left."
"Today, I am calling for a vote amongst the population of Terra Prime, Mars, Venus, Titan, and even our brave workers and explorers of the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter's cloud cities, and the mining outpost on Pluto. Today, humanity must vote on the biggest armed call-up in the history of our entire species. If this bill passes, we will ask that anyone willing to fight report directly to your local Armed Forces recruiter. If you have a starship and wish to include it, then we will find a way to arm it fittingly. This is a citizen army; a militia, to defend our friends and neighbors from death. My fellow Terrans... please. Do not forget who we truly are. Thank you."
As Marcus stepped away from his podium, he quickly wiped a small tear from his eye, turning back towards his aides. Now, he could only pray.
****************************************
"Today, after the landslide victory of the President's Call to Arms, billions all over the worlds have reported for duty at the local Arms Recruiters. Thousands of privately owned starships have been turned over to the Terran Space Command, and the Fleet has grown by leaps in bounds in only days. Some believe that this Call is a mistake... but I do not."
"Julian-!"
"No. I'm sorry viewers, but this will be my last day on the air. You see this photo? This is Rarity; she has been my pen-pal for the last ten years, and I will be DAMNED if I left her world to die while sitting here. I handed in my recruitment papers this morning, and I beg all our viewers to do the same."
*****************************************
"Some believe that a single month's training is hardly adequate to make a proper soldier, but the Admirals in charge of the Space Command had this to say."
"We will not be sending our militia out on the front lines. No, their job will be to act as paramedics, explorers, scouts, and a stop-gap force between our professional front-line troopers, and our support flotilla. Most private starships are getting shield generators, on-board medical suites, and light weaponry. The vast majority, we hope, will not see heavy combat, but if it comes down to it... well, these aliens are about to see a little human ingenuity up close."
******************************************
"As the month has come to an end, we now look upon the largest space fleet ever gathered in Terran history. Three thousand starships, ranging from the kilometer long battleship Yamato, to over two thousand standard personal freighters. Today, humanity marches to war. Not just one nation, but one people. Today, over four million human beings sail forth to rescue our friends and allies from death. We go now to the President, aboard the Yamato. Julien?"
"Thank you, Tom, the president is about to begin."
"Ladies and gentlemen, I will make this brief. Words cannot express just how proud I am of my race at this moment. And by race, I do not mean Indians. I do not mean one singular people... for we are beyond that now. We are all... simply... human. This fleet proves that. And today, we shall prove that to our allies on the other side of the portal. Many of us may die in this attempt. I may die. But let it be known... that all those that die this day are heroes, for they go forth bravely to fight an unknown enemy, to save the lives of-"
"Heh. Looks like that's our cue, folks. Everyone not coming with the fleet must leave immediately. It's time to begin."
*******************************************
In the heart of Canterlot Castle, five figures floated in a beam of purest light, attuned at the deepest level by the strongest magic of their world, each lending their power to the defense to the last bastion of Equuskind. Celestia, her face weathered and wrinkled from strain and worry, grit her teeth lightly. Her magic suffused the very bricks and stones of Canterlot and her recently built defenses, repairing themselves as they were damaged or destroyed by the Creatures' missiles. Golden magic drifted up like a heat haze all over the city, lending itself to her siblings' own magic. Luna, her wings spread wide and glistening with moonlight, was keening: in frustration, in pain, and in concentration. Her magic was doing its damnest to keep a massive shield in place over the Castle and the caverns where the refugees were hiding. Not too far away from the edge of her silver shield, a purple one glistened in the sunlight as the Captain of the Guard did his best to protect the Canterlot Academy and its students from destruction. Both Cadence and Twilight Sparkle were quite interested in keeping the purple shield intact, but their minds were drawn elsewhere by the pillar of magic. Cadence's magic was attached to each and everyone of their fighters on the frontlines, healing them as best she could. Tears matted her silken cheeks. There was just so many dead...
Twilight Sparkle floated alongside a twitching, buzzing form in the pillar: Queen Chrysalis. Old hatreds and rivalries had died away in the face of annihilation, and now both alicorns led the offense: beams of purple and green leaped from Canterlot Castle to smash the Creatures' smaller ships and their flyers as they got too close. But there were so many. Too many. Even as Twilight obliterated a turtle-shaped craft that always carried dozens of bladed Creatures, she sobbed quietly. What could they do against this? Her friends were out in the thickest of the fighting, but they were nearly our of magic, and out of ponies still able to fight.
A fluctuation in the magical field caught Twilight's attention, and she gave it as much focus as she could. It was small, and almost like a void. Facts flew through Twilight's analytical mind in a whirlwind of speculation and theory, none leading over the others... till she checked just where the fluctuation was. The Portal.
"To the Princesses of Equestria, and to all those still alive. I do not know if you can hear this message. But if you can, just hold on. Humanity is on its way."
"P... princess...?"
"I heard it, Twilight."
As Twilight turned to mentor, she was startled and elated to see a smile curving Celestia's lips, tears matting her own cheeks.
The skies above Canterlot were ablaze. The very air hung heavy with static, and every beat of Rainbow Dash's wings crackled the air and filled her nose with ozone. There was just so much dust and smoke in the air from the ruins of Manehatten and Los Pegasus; it'd take practically a hurricane to wash it all away.
Even if Cloudsdale was still around, the young flier thought morosely, tears filling her maroon eyes.
The... the Creatures, these Seraph, had decimated Cloudsdale during the opening days of their campaign. Beams of bright blue light had rained from the skies... and fire had followed them. All Rainbow Dash could do was stare from her cloud-home in Ponyville as the seat of pegasi power and culture shattered before her eyes. Nopony knew just how bad the damage to her race was. Alot of pegasi nowadays lived outside of the ancient home... but still. To see it all... wiped away...
"Rainbow, on your right!" Spitfire's gravelly, stricken tone yelled out, shattering Rainbow's memory even as her body instinctively rolled.
Fire hissed overheard, heating up the edges of her armor, but the Pegasus paid that little mind. She looped once before whipping her body back around, a move that would shatter the spines of lesser pegasi. A Seraph, all blades and lithe form on a panther-like body, was screaming down at her at full speed, bat-like wings spread wide. They were generally naked, though this was one of their ranged fighters- two of his blade arms were replaced by odd, tube-like growths that could launch beams of fire. Seconds from Rainbow Dash, she turned sharply to the right, launching both forehooves in a vicious double uppercut. Normally, such a strike would merely stun the larger creature. But with a pair of razor-sharp blades attached to said hooves, well...
Rainbow Dash did not look back as the decapitated Seraph fell limply towards the ground. She had bigger worries. The Wonderbolts and the Wonderbolts Reserve were all that truly defended the skies between Ponyville and Canterlot; hundreds of well-trained, high-flying pegasi, armed to the teeth. Rainbow Dash herself was mailed from head to hoof, segmented armor protecting each foreleg, up to the blades. Her wings were protected by a thin layer of runed steel, and razor-sharp wire stretched over the edges. More than once, Rainbow had decapitated a Seraph just be flying past. But even with all their training, all their equipment...
Helplessly, Rainbow Dash stared down at the ground, and the technicolor bodies of her friends and battlemates that littered the crushed, burned grass amidst a field of Seraph. The enemy never seemed to end, and there were only so many ponies able to fight. Could they possibly win against such odds? Images of friends, dead among the field of blood and bodies, burned into her mind, and Rainbow Dash gave a tiny, angry sob. She wouldn't see that. She couldn't let-
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Rainbow Dash's senses were set alight as the sound barrier broke over and over above her, like so many drums beating out a deep, almost tribal beat. Spreading out her wings and ears to try and triangulate the source of the barrier break (did the Seraph have more ships like the one in orbit above?), she found herself looking straight up. And watched, awe-struck, as gods dueled with fire.
************************************
President Marcus Tabor glared down through the viewport of the Yamato, struggling to hold in his temper. Equus had been beautiful, once. Had been being the key phrase of it all. Dark reds and blacks obscured large swaths of land now. Judging from maps and pictures sent in earlier Trades, the nations of Griffonia and Elkheim were utterly devoid of life, almost all of them coated in black, or still smoldering reds. In many places, even the seas were poisoned; formerly pristine waters deep, sickly greens. Equestria itself, the home of the princesses that had spearheaded the movement to communicate and trade freely with the Terran Republic, was badly damaged. Reds and blacks encompassed some areas of land, while green was getting very rare, very quickly. And Marcus was staring right at the cause of it all.
The Seraph ship rivaled the Yamato in length, and was easily twice as wide, three bulbs attached to a single, long stalk. It was a soft silver color, and was strangely beautiful to look at it. Until a beam of light sliced down from the middle bulb of the craft, a bloom of red erupting across Equus. Marcus' teeth clenched; thankfully, he managed to keep his calm, even as officers on the Yamato cursed and whispered soft prayers. His gnarled hand tightened on the shoulder of the first officer in front of him, an older British gentleman by the name of Benjamin... something. Odd that he could remember first names so easily, yet...
Marcus lightly shook the thoughts distracting him away, and gave the first officer's shoulder a squeeze.
"Send them the standard greeting we translated into Equush, and then demand that they cease fire immediately."
"Aye, aye, Mr. President. Comm officer, send-"
"Power surge along the port line, sir!" Someone shouted, voice practically a scream, "Radiation alarm!"
"Holy fuck it's firing!" Another officer, a woman, yelled over the din, "Plasma burst!"
"Shields up!" Marcus roared, stepping forward to get a better view, "All ships, SHIELDS UP!"
A beam of bright white light was coursing through the air towards the human fleet, even as more and more ships poured through the swirling portal leading back to Earth. The ship was turning; turning far faster than anything the size of a city had any right to, and right at them. When the beam crashed into the fleets' overlapping shields, it splayed across like a beautiful, swirling nebulae... and set off alarms all over the bridge.
"Fuck that was strong!"
"Shields down to sixty percent across the board."
"Two of the medical frigates have lost shields, they're falling back behind the line! Damage reports coming from the American and Canadian battlelines, two more from the Pan-Asian-"
"Enough!" Marcus barked; he had earned his voice through a lifetime of use and practice on a sales floor, and it certainly carried now.
Even as his voice echoed among the wailing klaxons, not a person on the bridge said a word. Striding forward with a firm, powerful step, Marcus Tabor, President of the Terran Republic, firmly pressed down on the switch that connected his voice to every ship of the line.
"This is the President. All ships. Open fire."
********************************************
Applejack cursed herself and her damn stubbornness (under her breath, of course), as she jinked and ducked her way through the mass of screaming, panicking ponies and roaring, blood-thirsty Seraph. The Apple family had done their damnest to organize a mass exodus from Ponyville when it became apparent that the Royal Guard could no longer hold the Seraph ground forces. For a month, they had all done their best to provide as much food for the refugees, to give everything they had so that the ponies and other races hiding in Canterlot wouldn't start. But they had waited too long, and now... now they were paying for it.
Yelling herself hoarse, Applejack tensed her hind-legs, giving all the power she could to launch herself into a flying tackle, tearing a Seraph right off a flailing, panicking Cheerilee. It was like hitting a bag of bricks, and Applejack could feel the Seraph's sharp spines digging into her skin. She would worry about that later. Spinning rapidly on her front hooves, the farmpony's hind hooves, tough as steel from a life-time of work, shot out like a pair of cannons.
Crack!
Spittle and blood spewed from the Seraph's gaping, feline maw as it flew away, landing in a heap and not even twitching. Mentally, Applejack gave her belt a notch before racing back to Cheerilee. The wine-colored mare was struggling to her hooves, which was usually a good sign, even if blood was pouring from her sides and legs.
"Git, git!" Applejack yelled hoarsely to the dazed mare, "Git behind the lines! The children'll need'ja!"
As she expected, that got through to the teacher, and Cheerilee nodded, galloping for the line of silver and gold-armored ponies many yards away. There weren't nearly as many as Applejack wished there were.
"How the hay are we gonna come back from this?" she whispered to herself, ears slowly laying back as Applejack took a good look around.
It was harvest season, after all, and they had barely managed to get down a third of this year's crop before the Seraph had come calling. Everypony in Canterlot would starve without this food. They'd-
"Applejack! APPLEJACK!"
The farmpony spun in place, quickly grabbing her father's Stetson, blood-stained as it was, before it could fly off. Pinkie Pie, looking utterly freaked out and more shaken than Applejack had ever seen, was sprinting towards at full speed. To Applejack's horror, she could see a gaping gash carved out of one of her side, and she was certain that she could see the white of bone...
"Pinkie Pie! What the hay are you doin'?!"
A frantic whimper tore out of Pinkie's mouth as she tumbled to a stop in front of a stunned Applejack, her chest rising and falling rapidly and sweaty foam coating her flanks.
"S-seraph... chasing... Crusaders and M-mac... W-whitetail Woods..."
With a shudder, Pinkie Pie passed out... and Applejack was already galloping, eyes wide and face pale, even as Roseluck and Carrot Top grabbed their friend, tossing her onto their backs, and sprinting onwards towards the line.
"N-no... not, not my family! NO!"
******************************************
"Assault ships, move in!" The President's voice barked over the comm, "Pass under the fields of fire, and get down to the Equush lines! Protect Canterlot with your lives!"
Victoria Lunding chuckled in the back of her throat as the men and women around her screamed in approval.
"Now THAT's a Commander-in-Chief!" Someone shouted, and Victoria had to give a fist pump and a Hoorah! at that, as did nearly two-thirds of the First Terran Tactical Assault Company onboard the assault frigate Radiant Thunder.
Having trained extensively aboard the craft for the past month for the Mission, and a further two years before that as a Tactical Assault Officer in the Terran Stellar Police Force, Victoria knew her way through the frigate like her own home on Terra. The thought made her chuckle quietly. The home she had sold in preparation for this trip. Upon reaching her personal drop center, Victoria slid the privacy glass shut and quickly began to strip out of her uniform. A life-time of training and service had toned all of Victoria's body in practically one pale, sleek, rippling muscle that fit snugly inside her armor. Her rainbow-colored hair, cut down into a boy's spiky cut in order to fit her helmet, was her one vanity. Victoria grinned softly as she tucked a photo of another rainbow-haired creature into the side of her helmet before slipping it on.
Connecting neural implants...
Online.
Connecting Dermal Regen System...
Online.
Power Generator...
Online.
Welcome back, Victoria.
Powered Personal Armor had became something of a fad back in 2100, but once the Stellar Police Force was formed fifty years later, the use of the armor stuck, especially among the Tactical Assault Troopers. The armor was built like the armor of ancient knights, though the helmet was sleek, with a plexiglass faceplate that could stop a rifle bullet at point blank rage. Servos whirred quietly with each movement Victoria made- back up hydraulics would allow her to keep moving if the power generator was hit, but not with as much alacrity. The HUD, something that had taken Victoria awhile to get used to, was used by eye movements and blinks, something she had long since mastered. Flexing her hands, all her armor-born weapon systems green-lighted, and Victoria bared a feral smile. This was going to be fun.
"Ten seconds to launch, ladies and gentlemen."
Closing her bright blue eyes, Victoria let out a deep breath, remembering just how this had all led up. She had grown up hearing about the portal, and had enrolled in the Pen-Pal Program at eleven. The first letter had gotten her hooked- her pen-pal was a pegasus pony, which in itself was just pure awesome. Like most kids, they had learned about the various pony types and races in school, and Victoria had known that pegasus ponies could fly, and change the weather, and just generally oozed awesome like rainbows. And this particular pony, Rainbow Dash, was the epitome of her species. Throughout their childhood, Victoria and her pen-pal, one Rainbow Dash, talked each other through school, and kept each other reassured of their goals. Victoria had always wanted to be a soldier, or a police officer, while Rainbow Dash had wanted to be a trick flier, a "Wonderbolt." Victoria definitely could not blame her there. Flying was awesome.
Opening her eyes sharply, Victoria grunted as the pod doors slammed open in front of her, exposing a rush of blue sky and white clouds before the thrusters in the pod blasted her out.
Jetpack and thrusters...
Online.
Victoria let out a scream of exhilaration as her jetpack kicked on, letting her tear through the sky like a fighter jet. In the right side of her HUD, blue dots indicated the others of her squad launching out after her. The assault frigate they had flown in was dagger-shaped, gunmetal grey like a pistol and a million-times more deadly. Not twenty seconds after the PPA squad launched, larger metallic shapes began to fall from the hull. These were vaguely humanoid in shape themselves. The Mechanized Armor section. And finally, the drop pods of the rest of the First Terran Tactical Assault Company blasted out, heading for the battlefield like the spears of the gods themselves.
Turning her attention back to the forefront, Victoria spotted a contrail mix of storm clouds and, oddly enough, a rainbow. Those must be the Wonderbolts! And the winged shapes around them, almost looking like mythical dragons...
"Seraph," Victoria hissed the word like the curse that it was, among humanity.
Seraph. The race that believed that they could steal away the race that had saved humanity from itself, its greed and need for war. The race that wanted to obliterate the hopes of millions of Program participants, like herself. The billions who wanted to thank them, as one united voice.
"Target lock. Screen, all matching Seraph body structure."
Scanning...
Targets locked.
Red-outlined cross hairs lit up over a score of the creatures, while six smaller outlines were blued out as friendlies.
"Cluster rocket, one each, fire!"
Holding out her wrists, micro-rockets, each the size of a finger but packing enough explosive power to punch through steel, ripped from their holders in a mist of fire and smoke. At the top of her hood, twenty was quickly subtracted from the several hundred micro-rockets stored in the armor's depths, and Victoria allowed herself a grim smile. The Seraph never knew what hit them. Explosions rippled across the blue sky, and Victoria pulled herself up to a stop in front of six armored, incredibly stunned ponies. But only one had Victoria's undivided attention.
She's a little smaller than I thought...
Rainbow Dash, standing on all fours, would probably come just up to her chest in height. She looked pretty damn cool covered in mail, like some kind of medieval flying horse, almost heraldic. Her maroon eyes were massive, nearly comical, but Victoria adored them, just as she had from the first day she had seen Rainbow Dash's picture. With a flick of her eyes, the plexiglass faceplate went translucent, and Rainbow let out a choked cry, then launched herself into Victoria's chest for a bone-crushing hug.
Oof! FUCK she's strong!
But Victoria didn't push her away. No, she had waited too damn long for this, and the pair shared an embrace in the war-wracked skies of Equestria...
The cold, mechanical voice of the computer shook Emma Sinclair out of her awestruck stare at the battle going on kilometers away, the young blonde quickly leaning back in her pilot's seat and sounding the battle stations alert. The klaxon was piercing, and even after a month of trying to get used to it, it made Emma wince. They were like wailing banshees from her mother's old tales, and considering what was waiting for them down there... Hell, what was fighting them up here... A lot of good men and women were going to lose their lives today. Possibly a good deal of those on her own starship.
The Aegis Program was one of many civilian-sector projects that had sprung up in the month leading up to the Rescue. Civilian yachts and freighters all, they would be equipped with heavy armor and shielding and packed full of medical gear. Their brave captains, Emma included, had all volunteered to be in the second wave of landers, to get down on the ground and try to protect the refugee population Equus was sure to have. It was going to be damn dangerous. They had no idea of the scale of the Seraph land assault, or what their forces were capable. The reports from Equus had described mass suicidal charges that could break walls of pikes, spears, and even walls of actual stone. The vision that brought into Emma's mind made her shudder. Goddamn, were they fighting smart zombies?
And now, in space above the near-ruined world they had come to defend, Emma was beginning to have some doubts that there would be anything worth saving after this conflict.
"I want a system's check!" Emma barked out, voice scratchy from lack of water- she needed a damn drink.
"Shields at full capacity."
"Sensors online and ready."
"Medical suite fully operational, as are escape pods, and defense turrets."
Emma's second, a statuesque African woman in a Terran Stellar Police uniform, chuckled faintly from her standing position on the far side of the bridge.
"My men are eager to get down on the ground, captain. Our weapons are primed and ready, as is the surprise."
Emma let a deep breath hiss from her nose, eyes focused on the screen in front of her. That Seraph ship was taking an utter pounding. The Yamato and its battleship line had closed in on the gargantuan vessel, and each side were trading blows shot for shots. Several smaller human frigates were limping back behind the lines, and one was a shattered mess of metal and escape pods. The first casualties of the battle, and certainly not the last. Emma would just have to put some faith in her crew and her old bird that they would all make it through. A small smirk wound its way onto her lips. And her own flying skills, at least.
Emma Sinclair knew without any form of arrogance that she was a damn fine pilot, even at her tender age of twenty-four. She had been flying freighter-sized craft since she was fourteen and living a true spacer's life with her parents, trading ores from some of the independent mining companies on Neptune's moons to refining companies on Mars and Venus. She knew this brand of craft, the GS-3 freighter, like the back of her hand, which is why she had chosen it for the Aegis Project. Her family's GS-3 had once taken a direct hit from a car-sized asteroid, and they had all lived to tell about it. She was more confident in this ship than in any military-built corvette.
A bright blue light lit the window, and Emma jerked upright in her seat, habitually brushing back a lock of hair. Something had changed. The Seraph vessel was beginning to list towards the planet, and a faint stirring of glee began to rise up in Emma's heart.
"This is our chance. All Aegis Teams, launch! LAUNCH TO THE PLANET!"
"Full power to engines, go!" Emma snapped over the cheers of her crew, hands gripping and pressing the controls down hard as the ship leaped forward.
Emma was in her zone now. Her periphery vision was keeping track of the thousands of yellow dots simulating her brothers and sisters of battle flanking her, surrounding her, while her focus was latched firmly onto the viewport in front of her. They were heading straight into the thickest of the black smoke surrounding the battlefield of Canterlot; this would not be pleasant. Some of the Aegis Teams were beginning to break; that was according to plan. Emma's ship was in the Central A squadron, and would be heading for wherever the fight seemed thickest. The others were be looking for pockets of resistance to reinforce and mark on the charts so the ground troops would have some idea where to go. Others would be assisting the initial Assault teams in rescue and medical work. And others would be directly engaging any atmospheric flyers they came in contact with.
"Breaking through the dust layer... NOW!"
"...holy fuck..."
It was worse than anything Emma had ever imagined. Fires ran rampant through what had to once be massive fields and orchards, the sheer size of them boasting of incredible organizational skill. At this height and this speed, Emma had not expected to see any of the true horrors of ground warfare. She was sorely mistaken. Red... coated entire roadways and fields, and great chunks of red. Pyres and body-piles burned with acrid black smoke, filling the sky along with the fires that raged in the food supply. Buildings and entire villages were seemingly swept into piles of burning rubble- stone and thatch and wood and their inhabitants... all so much kindling and flame. Nausea burned in Emma's belly... but was scrubbed aside by a quickly rising tide of white hot rage.
Why? What could possibly have driven a race to do this to one such as the ponies?
Unlike many people of her generation, Emma did not have a pony pen-pal: with so much traveling around the solar system, Emma's family were simply not around enough mail carrier systems to reliably send the required packages. That had not upset Emma too badly, really. They still get plenty of news about Equus when they were in port, and were able to reap the benefits of the Trading Agreements. Emma's sister Codi had been able to get the physical body she had always longed for thanks to the potions of the Zebras, which had saved her from a horrific bout of depression at the tender age of twelve. And working around early, unshielded engines all his life had left Emma's father with a fast-acting form of bone cancer that had nearly killed him... till the treatment plan from Princess Twilight and Chief Medical Officers Fluttershy and Zecora led to a cure. Emma's father, at sixty-two, was still alive and kicking back in his homestead on Mars, getting fat and jolly off a lifetime of achievement. Though she had never met a pony face to... snoot, she owed them so much.
"Captain, to your left, grid square L-4!" One of her bridge officers yelled, not needing to point as Emma's eyes quickly looked up.
A circle of ponies, at least two to three hundred, were clustered together, technicolors behind a line of white and gold-clad soldiers. Puffs of gunpowder smoke hazed the air above the mass... while blasts of bright red would often light up the cloud. A tide of writhing black surrounded the ponies on all sides, undulating like wave as they crashed down onto the pony lines again and again, driven back... but each time, wearing down the circle into a tighter and tighter formation. It was going to be a killing field.
"Spool up the guns!" Emma roared, eyes blazing as her hands clenched on the controls of her beloved craft, "When I say so, drop that shield around the ponies!"
"Yes ma'am!"
A high-pitched whine of whirring machinery filled the bridge section as the four forward-facing heavy chainguns began spooling up into firing position. On the rear of the freighter, four more began to spin... and on the port side... the starboard... the aft. Heavy thunks signaled the grenade launchers dropping into their open positions, and ammo redoubts began to form on Emma's screen. She gave a feral grin as she punched the stick forward.
"Gunners! LIGHT 'EM UP!"
"Aye, aye, captain!"
The feeling of flying a multi-ton death machine laden with enough killing power to make an army brigade piss itself was... heady, Emma had to admit. White fire tore at the edges of her vision as her forward chainguns responded to her clench on the controls, the tracer rounds embedded with every third bullet letting her track her fire up and into the edges of the black tide. Red mist filled the air, and the closer they got, the easier Emma could see the deadly aftermath of her dive. Seraph bodies, looking ever-so-much like upright panthers, rippled and blew apart in great gory chunks as the 30mm x 113 caliber rounds ripped into them, their lines falling away in a dead panic.
"Die you motherfuckers!" Someone screamed behind her, and the lines blew apart further as the grenade launchers went into action.
High explosive and incendiary shells sent up great balls of dust, blood and fire as they ripped into the Seraphs, the creature tripping over themselves to get away from the deadly hail that had seemingly come out of the blue. It was amazingly satisfying, Emma found.
"We've got aerial incoming! Looks like airborne Seraph!"
"Drop the shield, and I'll touch us down," Emma replied, frowning deeply and immediately tapping her comm unit, "Any Assault units in the area, this is Aegis Team One. We are settling down near a group of refugees, but we've got a flood of enemies on both ground and sky. Any help would be mighty appreciated."
The shield emitter had been settled on the aft compartment of the freighter, and when activated gave out a bright blue light. The dish on the top of the ship gleamed so brightly that the glare even reflected on the forward viewport. According to Emma's charts, all the energy reports from the shield were nominal as it settled down in a wide area around the ponies, stretched out to its limit, but still an adequate defense. Bursts from the chainguns took care of any Seraph that had managed to survived the initial sweep and were within the shield. They didn't have to worry about the bullets ricocheting inside the dome- their bullets were specially charged to be able to pass through the energy layer.
Thankfully, the ponies seemed to realize en masse just what the ship was, and quickly made way for Emma to settle it down on the blood-caked ground; armored boots rang out on the metal floors as the Security marines raced for the lowering ramp.
"Give 'em hell boys!" Emma yelled out, grinning despite herself, "Tell the ponies to get their wounded on board! Doc, are-"
"We're ready, captain!" came the reply in an instant, the older woman sounding amused over the com, "Hell, we've been ready."
Emma merely smirked at that, turning back to her controls. The doc was right. They were ready for this. Come what may, the human shield was here, and they would defend this planet with their lives.
"Aegis One, this is PPA squad one! We have rendezvoused with the Wonderbolts and several units of the pony military!" Emma's com barked at her, "Give us ten minutes and we'll be there to help. What's the situation? Can you hold?"
Emma looked to her viewport, squinting her eyes. The Seraph had not taken long to get their act together; claws, blades, and fangs were already pressed tightly to the shield, utterly ineffective but for the mass of numbers behind each one. A sea of teeth and death. And with a thumb on her controls, her chainguns roaring in her ears to turn the mass of killing machines into a smokey cloud of red mist and dust, Emma laughed. No... no, she cackled.
"Oh, take your time, ma'am. We'll hold them as long as you need."
Parts of the Everfree were in flames. It was hard to imagine, considering all the controlled burns Applejack had been apart of in the past had been miserable, fizzling failures, but now... Now, as she galloped frantically down the forest paths, foamy sweat flecking off her coat, Applejack could see the flames licking up into the air all around her. Lumps in the flames were recognizable as Seraph, by the cartload even, but others... others were ponies, or gryphons, curled or hunched into husked shapes that would haunt Applejack's dreams for a lifetime. And her family was somewhere amongst this devastation.
As she passed one clearing, terror and horror filled Applejack's eyes: Zecora's hut, the mysterious yet strangely hopeful little place that it was, was engulfed in flames. But as her sharp eyes flicked around it, Applejack managed to force herself to relax and run on- many of the fetishes and objects hanging on the outsides were missing. Zecora was long-gone, and hopefully with the refugees under the Princess' shield. For whatever relief that that could give them in such a dark time. Sometimes being the Element of Honesty was a curse, and this was one of those times. Every little thing her mind could bring up to try and lessen the impact of the devastation was immediately smacked down by her Element, the stark truth burned into her brain. If she was totally honest with herself, Applejack knew, deep down, that everypony was doomed.
A crackle of musket fire drew Applejack's attention; the deep roar of the noise managed to break through the more monotonous crackle of the blazing fire around her, and with a desperate cry, she shoved through a fiery bush, thankfully nothing of herself catching fire in the process. Big Mac, dressed in his massive steel armor embossed with the insignia of the Ponyville Militia, stood at the forefront of a thin line of admittedly ragged militia ponies. His bulk was inspiring, like a living god he strode through the stallions and mares, directing their well-rehearsed routine of reloading and firing en masse. Dozens of Seraph had fallen in front of the militia, more than likely their initial tactic of mass charge having failed. But now they had managed to get behind the cover of so many fallen trees, red lights flickering out to stab and kill ponies indiscriminately. To Applejack's horror, one light stabbed out and hit her brother full-on in the chest. He merely paused mid-step, took a deep breath, and continued to move down the line, ignoring the deep black mark staining his chestplate. It did little ease Applejack's worry, however. Her brother was just as stubborn as she could be, and in a situation like this...
As Applejack began to sprint towards the line, she spotted a flicker of purple magic as several sharpened branches and even balls of flame flung out from behind the militia lines and towards the Seraph. Standing behind the line and gleaming like a goddess of battle, Rarity was in full-on unicorn magical stasis, rising up in her own purple magic, eyes gleaming a bright white. Fallen muskets, bayonets, musket balls, and various forest debris hung in the air around her like a cloud, and small bunches would launch out to shred any Seraph that stood standing above their cover too long. It was a strangely beautiful sight, one Applejack cataloged for later study. Her concerns were deeper than that at the moment, as beneath Rarity, laying huddled together...
"Applebloom!"
At the sound of her admittedly ragged voice, Applebloom's singed head shot up from the pile of multi-colored fur that was her and her friends, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. Her eyes were bloodshot from fright and smoke, but for now, she was alright. That was all that mattered to Applejack. The two sisters embraced in a pile of sobbing, squeezing pony flesh, Applejack's hooves jerking out to hold both Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle in the hug as well.
"Are ya'll alright?" Applejack managed to choke out, gazing at them wide-eyed.
Scootaloo managed only a tiny nod, hugging onto Sweetie Belle's neck; Applebloom however, was wailing softly into Applejack's neck with all her heart, tears soaking the fur and washing away the soot from the burning forest. She could hardly speak, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what had her so upset. The only home she had ever known blasted away in a blink of an eye, Granny's grave on that little hill behind the barn, their orchards... all gone. All aflame. Closing her eyes for a moment, Applejack rested her chin softly on her little sister's head, snuffling her mane tenderly. Applebloom needed some kind of reassurance. Applejack knew that, she just... could she really outright lie to her, tell her it was going to be alright?
"Appleb-"
"They're coming back!"
Rational thought blasted away in a split second as Applejack flung her sister and her friends back behind a tensing Rarity, charging up to muscle her way into the militia lines. She had gone through the same drills as all the ponies in Ponyville, and once she had found a fallen musket, she had quickly managed to rip off the gunpowder paper and pour it into the pan, readying the weapon. Across the smoldering field, littered with bodies both equine and Seraph, the black mass was beginning to surge out, screaming gutturally in whatever language they called their own. The firelight was reflecting off their strange arm-blades and glinting hellishly, grating the ponies' already frayed nerves, and as they charged, soot and dirt flung themselves up in a cloud. There were so many... So many... Applejack's hoof tightened in the trigger...
Something big and arrow-shaped screamed overhead at speeds only Rainbow Dash could possibly reproduce; so massive that Applejack, for a split second, thought that Canterlot had exploded, and she had witnessed a building screaming by. Following it with her head, all she could see before it vanished in the trees were three brilliant points of fire. And the world ended around her. With three distinct, almighty thuds, three objects slammed into the no-man's-land between the two opposing forces. Frightened and dismayed, disjointed musket fire rippled up the pony ranks, while confused, broken screeching erupted from the Seraph as they ground to a halt in the midst of the dust cloud. Applejack managed to hold her fire, raising the body of the thick musket to shield herself from the dust.
From within the cloud, three blasts of wind erupted, clearing the dust away from the ponies, and allowing them to see the intruders to their last stand. They were gigantic, easily six meters tall, and humanoid, with a body vaguely reminiscent of minotaurs, including two standing legs, and two arms at the side. The heads were box-like, and from Applejack's perspective at the edge of the line, she could see a straight line of red taking the place of eyes. Large backpacks seemed to rest on their metallic backs, with gaping vents on each side of these. And resting in their hands with the largest, strangest muskets Applejack had ever laid eyes on. Another blast of air rushed from the three metallic automatons, and she paled at the deep bass voices that issued from the strange intruders.
Online.
**********************************************
It was an utter cacophony outside the freighter. The chainguns were roaring away at full speed, brass flying away from the barrels and pinging to the ground like so much rain on a tin roof. If the ground hadn't been muddy enough for them to pressed into the dirt, walking would have been quite difficult. Thankfully for Christie Franklin, Medic of Aegis Team 265, is WAS muddy, as she was racing all over the battlefield. The Seraph had done a horrific number on their equine allies; when 265 had set down in one of the major choke points between the Canterlot highway and the mountainside, Christie simply had not imagined the sheer number of casualties they would be faced with. Slash wounds, amputations... Triage was the only way to work through them all. And the Seraph did not discriminate. Stallions, mares, foals, male and female gryphons and Diamond Dogs... Any they did not kill, they maimed. And it left Christie with a nearly overwhelming of the screaming, praying, whimpering near-damned.
Earth had not suffered a major conflict in nearly one hundred years, not since the founding of the Terran Republic. Medical practices nowadays usually dealt with no wound more serious than from industrial accents or accidental spaceship crashes. Christie had been working as a field medic and paramedic for ten of her twenty-six years of life; she thought she had seen the worst scenes the galaxy had to offer. She had been so very wrong. And she was so very committed to her task.
"Keep the families together!" she barked to several of the surrounding teams, "They need to keep each other calm! Hey, HEY! Focus on the patients, NOT the battle!"
People did not expect the four-foot eleven, mousy little woman with goggle-glasses and freckles to have as powerful a set of pipes as she did. But Christie typically only had to shout once before someone would listen to her on a scene. And on this day, that remained the same. Dozens of medics rushed about the triage center, obediently keeping their heads down and eyes focused on their patients, not paying the red mist outside the shimmering shield any mind. After giving the scene an once over, Christie gave a firm, grim nod, and turned back to the crowd.
"Please! Please, for the love of the Sisters, somepony HELP US!"
"CHRISTIE!"
Christie's head jerked to one side in surprise as one of the Security detail raced over to her, cradling a little white unicorn in his arms. For a moment, she thought it was another foal, till the mare's liquid ruby eyes opened to peer pleadingly at her. The face quickly clicked in place, even as Christie took the white mare from the Security grunt, racing towards a tent with a grey Earth Pony in hot pursuit. DJ Pon-3, also known as Vinyl Scratch, had become something of a sensation among Terran youth in the past ten years. Her various styles of music, coupled with those of her wife Octavia Melody, had grown wildly popular during the Trade, and Christie herself was a rabid fan. But she had business to take care of first: namely, saving this VIP from bleeding to death from her cleanly amputated hind legs.
"What happened?" Christie asked quickly as she raced into the sterile medical center inside the Aegis freighter, trying to keep her voice calm and not too terse.
"The... t-the Seraph cornered us on the r-road," Octavia managed as calmly as she could possibly manage, tears tracking trails down her dusty cheeks, "About t-ten of them. We... we tried to f-fight, but... one picked Vinyl up..."
To Christie's surprise, Octavia sucked in a deep breath, fighting back what she could tell was a powerful wave of panic; after a moment, she continued, voice quiet, calm, and nearly dead, "I kept the wounds as clean as possible. A team of your humans saved us, and gave Vinyl morphine. They said not to give her anymore."
Nodding grimly, Christie managed an impressed smile for the traumatized Earth Pony as she turned to her wife, letting out a slow breath. Vinyl Scratch had passed out, twitching faintly and whimpering every few moments. In all her photos and posters, the little white unicorn had always seemed in control and strong, a wide smile always splitting her muzzle. Christie would be damned if she was going to let some overgrown mutant cats take another star out of the galaxy.
***************************
"Mr. President, there's more of them!"
Marcus Tanbor tore his eyes away from the sun-bright, plasma-leaking enemy to glare over at the technician in charge of the sensor console, a small, black haired man no older than twenty-five. The man, practically a boy, quailed under the questioning glare of the President of the Terran Republic.
"C-computer counts over five hundred ships, sir! Just jumped in from FTL."
"How big are they?" Marcus asked tersely, dreading the answer.
If they were all the size, and strength, of the battleship they were dueling now, the human mass fleet would take more casualties than Marcus could have ever guessed. But to his utter relief, the sensor technician quickly shook his head, turning back to peer at his moniter.
"The biggest seem to be no larger than one of our frigates, and most could be classed as corvettes, sir," he replied, sounding somewhat relieved himself, "But they're incredibly fast. They'll be within range in fifteen minutes."
Nodding to himself, Marcus turned back to the viewscreen, gazing thoughtfully down at the blazing battleship; as he thought, hundreds of missiles launched from the Ameri-Canadian battle line impacted along her port side, a few managing to punch through enough to add to the quickly growing plasma-blue brilliance burning within the ship. So far, he had lost ten ships to the monstrosity: all frigates, but one of the Venusian battlecruisers was the current focus of its wrath, and they were preparing to pull back for emergency repairs. Killing this one ship was taking far too long- every minute he waited deploying the bulk of their ground forces, the more Equusians would be butchered on the ground, Aegis and Assault teams or no. He had not wanted to risk the transport ships, but...
"Tell the Martian and Pan-Asian battlelines to turn into the newcomers and hit them head-on!" Marcus barked to his officers, "The main battle line will power forward, and engage the battleship at point blank range. While we do that, give the greenlight for the Venusian transports to make for the planet's surface, followed by the Martians, and finally the Primaries. We'll draw the battleship's fire and keep the ground troops safe."
And lose a few of us in the process, Marcus mused grimly, glaring hatefully at the beautiful, deadly enemy they had come to face.
His hands gripped his chair tightly as the lights from the consoles around him registered his orders, and the Yamato began to rocket forward. Twitching a finger, President Marcus Tanbor opened a channel to the pony military officers and their princesses waiting below. After a moment, he directed side channels to the communication hub ships for both the Assault teams and the Aegis Program ships. They needed to hear this too.
"Equus? Our main force has begun landing procedures for the main ground force. Might want to cover your ears; this is going to get loud."
The battlefield around Canterlot was quickly becoming something more than just a hell of blood and flame. Blue shields had sprouted across the killing fields like gigantic mushrooms after a hard rain, and flights of frigates and personal powered armor rocketed across the sky, shredding black clouds of flying Serpah and blasting their turtle-like ships out of the sky in multi-colored explosions. Every few moments, beams of brilliant purple and bright green would lance out from the Tower of Canterlot, crashing into some of the Seraph hordes, or racing into the sky to strike at the badly damaged Seraph mothership. Slowly but surely, hope was returning to the battlefield, and the hearts of the Equusians.
In the Canterlot streets, Cervines and Lupines, once mortal enemies, were racing about in great herds and packs, carrying supplies to the cannon emplacements or leading Assault Team humans to vulnerable sections of the city. Ancient blood feuds, such as those between the various Minotaur and Griffon clans, were cast aside in the face of a monstrous enemy, one that had killed so many. Many Cervines carried pictures depicting the brilliant Deer Queen, who had given her life to teleport the citizens of Elkheim to Equestria as the first mighty blasts from above obliterated her kingdom. Lupines, many of them Germane, had once scoffed at the Queen's attempts to foster peace between the two lands and peoples. Now, more than a few honored her memory by wearing her picture tucked into their fur.
Donkeys, once a nearly second-class citizen in both Equestria and Stalliongrad, had risen to prominence in this hour of need. As strong as earth ponies, they took their place in pulling wagons laden with vital supplies across the quickly forming lines of battle, allowing the earth ponies to focus on their earth magic to make stone fortifications. And woe be to any Seraph that managed to sneak through and ambush a group of donkeys; their kicks and teeth were incredibly strong, and more than one Seraph would be found with snapped spines and crushed skulls. Working closely with the Donkeys, once a prey species, were the Griffons; wielding lever-action rifles from their homeland, the gargantuan avians flew in tight formation around the donkey convoys, blasting out at any Seraph warband that attempted to stop them. Any one griffon was a physical match for a Seraph, and more than a few avian screams of challenge echoed out into the dimming day.
Even Diamond Dogs, once the mortal enemies of ponykind, had brought their full-strength to bear against the monstrous Seraph. Having been spared a direct attack or bombardment, the entirety of the Diamond Dog clans had risen up to fight, wielding axes, mattocks, and great cannons that sprayed metal balls in a cone of death. Their ability to "swim" through stone allowed the Dogs to strike across the battlefield, or to rescue groups of ponies trapped outside the Aegis shields. The casualties they were taking were horrendous, but the Dogs did not know the meaning of the word retreat. This world was their home too, and they would all die to defend it, if they had to.
But a new race had entered the picture on this day. A race not native to Equus, and had little stake in its survival. Humanity. The most advanced species Equus had ever come across, with a massively diverse culture and people; it had shocked the world when Equestria had announced their find, and the negotiated Trade Agreements. Leaders from across Equus had gathered together to send their own messages to the humans, and what this new species had sent back... Electricity had been flowing across the world before the Seraph, even in places without a magical species, thanks to the humans' generating methods. The Seaponies had massive underwater turbines, and even now survived by clustering around the turbines and desalination plants. On the aeries of Griffonia, wind turbines still turned in the howling winds, providing power for all. Equestria had become enamored with solar and moonlight generated power, and even now, many citizens and soldiers fought in front of, or among, the farms of panels and generator buildings.
While medicines and potions had been sent out to the humans, the humans had sent back technology that would have reshaped the known world in Equus. But... then the Seraphs came. And everything changed. Now, many were unsure if their world could ever be saved. But humanity was not about to give up. In a rolling, continuous sonic boom, great ships began to power down into the atmosphere. Long, rectangular, and bristling with sensors and guns, the troop transports began to hover over various parts of the battlefield, drawing the stunned gazes of many ponies and their allies. And, on some kind of unseen signal, the transports as one began to fire. Missiles streaked down into Seraph hordes, followed closely by streams of horrific fire from spiraling chain guns and pumping heavy cannon. Red mist and fire erupted from the screeching lines of Seraph, and they retreated en masse from the withering fire from both the ships and the Aegis ground positions. And this was exactly what the ship captains had wanted.
On each side of the mighty ships, great doors opened up with blasts of venting air. And as one, screaming "Banzai!" to the heavens, thousands of Venusians leaped from the sides of the troop ships. Colonized by the Pan-Asians of Terra, Venus had become a sort of haven to the old ways of the various Asian races across Terra. Cambodian pyramids rose into the sky alongside Japanese and Chinese pagodas, and a mix of Shinto-Buddhism had overtaken the planet as its regional religion. With modern views mingling with traditional ideas, Venus had become a historical time machine. But even Venus had its crime; with firearms completely banned on the surface, criminals had been forced to come up with interesting ways to defend themselves. With PPA suits and melee weapons constructed from starship-class metals, they had done battle with the police forces and military, which quickly had adopted the same for their own use. Now, trained mostly by Japanese scholars, military technicians, and Chinese technologists, the typical Venusian soldier wore dark-colored powered armor, carried a large caliber pistol on his hip, and wielded large katanas, or no-dachi. Racing into battle on jetpacks built into their armor, they were the ultimate mass-assault force.
Screaming mightily they smashed into the Seraph line, blades singing and raising clouds of red mist high into the air. Their armor shrugged off direct hits from the Seraphs' blades, and their lasers could only slow them down for a few moments. They had not come to die. The Venusians had come to win, to live, and to protect. And there was nothing stronger in the universe. All across the battlefield, hundreds of thousands of Venusians joined their pony, dog, minotaur, and avian brothers and sisters in glorious combat. Above them, flights of Assault PPA teams streaked overhead alongside Wonderbolts, their rockets and wrist guns joining in the glorious slaughter. More than once, a rainbow-maned mare streaked in low before snapping into a powerful rise, leaving behind a massive sonic rainboom that only further destabilized the current mob of Seraph. Her cheers and whoops roused those below who could hear, and all across the battlefield, Equusians looked to the rainbow in hope.
From out of the Everfree, deep, constant booms roared out; mecha rifle rounds sang out of the flames and trees, crashing into the Seraph mobs like rapid-firing artillery pieces. And at their feet charged the Ponyville Militia, screaming and hollering insanely as they followed their saviors. Armed with human weapons made for pony bodies, automatic fire rippled out of their lines, gunning down swathes of Seraph, while a smaller group, namely a white unicorn and several small fillies, raced back towards the nearest Aegis shield. As the Seraph turned towards this newest threat however, something new entered the battlefield. And by entered, one means that it crashed down with a dull roar in the very center of the Seraph horde.
Shaped like a massive tear-drop, the metallic craft slowly opened up on all sides, its heavy doors crushing even more of the bestial foe. But it was inside that the true weapons lied. Mars had been a desert world, and even with the addition of water to its ancient waterways, it would always be the red planet. But that had been fine to its colonists. For the red sands hid treasures unimaginable. With a mineral wealth considered nearly obscene, Mars had become a powerhouse of wealth, industry, and independence. Factories churned out new creations daily, their pollutants launched into the sun to keep up the health of their world. And defense contractors on Mars, mostly of German or American descent, always had thought... big. Very big.
With a hiss of hydraulics and whirring servos, a Titan-class Force-Equalization Unit raised up out of its delivery mechanism. As tall as some early skyscrapers, the FU Titan had been designed to dig deep into the massive mountains of Mars for further mineral glory. Replacing its drills and mining explosives with cannons, chain guns, early laser designs, and enough missiles to threaten frigates had been simple enough. Now the gigantic "box-on-legs" as it was affectionately called, rose up to its full height, the crew inside scanning across the battlefield... and linking up digitally with the twenty-four others the Martian troop ships were raining down across the Equusian battlefront. The cheers from Canterlot were only displaced when the Martians began their assault. It was time to end this battle. For ponykind. For humanity. For all.
Exhaustion was tearing at the corners of Victoria's mind as she roared through the smoke-laden skies over Ponyville. The battle had been raging for thirteen hours; the PPA had already burned through its fuel and ammo reserves twice, and Victoria had yet to take a break. Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts needed her, and she could not, she would not, take a break till they did, or the Seraph lay defeated at their feet. And the Wonderbolts were not going to take a break, not over the burned out remains of Rainbow's home. According to Rainbow Dash, during the brief interludes when they could talk, the Seraph had struck Ponyville just hours before humanity had arrived en masse. Lasers and claws had made short work of their thatch homes and their police force; Rainbow Dash's home had been utterly obliterated by Seraph aircraft, and Twilight's tree-home was now nothing but ash. Dozens had been killed, butchered, in their homes before the Elements could organize a retreat. At one point, Victoria had pointed out a large scorched furrow on the outskirts of the town, and was surprised to see Rainbow cringe.
"That's where Twilight found out her home was gone," Rainbow had replied quietly, "She... she was not happy..."
No kidding...
Victoria's power alarms began to sound off in little warning beeps inside her helmet: twenty-five percent power left, roughly an hour's worth left. Victoria's teeth gritted; she had used her suit so hard that the internal battery must be corroding. She would need to get that switched out ASAP, or her suit could... A flash of color on the ashen field caught Victoria's attention, and she quickly zoomed her camera down onto it, expecting to see more pony refugees. What she saw instead stunned her; they were Seraph, all three of them, but... far different than those they had been fighting. These Seraph stood straight and tall, unlike the predatory hunch of the others, and were coated in armor- the leader was clad in gold, while the other two were silver-armored. And on each of their backs rested a large container, with the silhouette of a foal submerged in fluid easily visible.
No. No, no, FUCK no!
With a snarl, Victoria began to dive-bomb towards the strange Seraph, her suit's targeting tracking and scanning the three as they lithely loped through the devastation. With the foals in the containers on their backs, Victoria dared not use her suit's micro-rockets. Instead, she held up her gauntlets, the servos inside whirring as they brought the railguns inside to bear. Using highly condensed slugs, the railguns were tailor made to shatter enemy armor; so far, Victoria had yet found the need to really use them. Now... The on-board targeting green-lighting the heads of the three Seraph, Victoria's gauntlet roared as it rapidly launched the slugs. Everything happened so quickly after that...
The heads of the two silver-armored Seraph exploded in a fountain of brain matter and blood, dropping their bodies limply to the ground, containers undamaged. But the golden Seraph turned towards the slug, and molten metal showered off some form of shimmering, just-visible shielding. His feline face spread into a wide, toothy grin, golden eyes tracking Victoria as she cursed, landing at a full sprint, still firing railgun slugs at the strange enemy. Hardly able to even track his movements, the Seraph yanked a glowing pistol-shape into his hand, a green blob of plasma flinging out at a speed no human could hope to dodge. Striking Victoria in the chest, she had expected her armor to absorb some of the impact- but instead, the heat and stopping power of the plasma slammed her backwards, feet flying out from under her.
"Holy FUCK!" Victoria screamed, stunned and in a great deal of pain; something was trickling down her chin.
A clawed hand gripped Victoria's neck before she could hope to react, the protective servos in her armor screeching and whirring as they began to be crushed. The Seraph's bloody, toothy maw grinned in her faceplate like a horrific Cheshire Cat for a moment.. before he drove a fist into the weakened armor plates of her chest with a sickening crunch. Victoria screamed as she felt several ribs snap like twigs, and she desperately kicked and shot at the Seraph with the one gauntlet she could still aim up at him. With a loud pop, the shield around the monster fell... and his free hand shot at in a blur, slamming Victoria's left arm into the ground and snapping it cleanly. Her scream nearly deafened herself, and was still going when the Seraph ripped off her helmet in a spray of sparks and metal.
Victoria had been a police officer and soldier all her life; during her training, she thought she had learned the amount of pain the human body could dish out to her nerves. She was sorely mistaken; this was like being on fire, and Victoria was dimly aware, as she stared into the widening, toothed maw of the Seraph, that she was about to die. Little tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, to her faint shame. The smell of rotted meat rolled out to overwhelm her... only to be obliterated as a grey blur slammed into the Seraph. The sheer power and speed of the newcomer flung the Seraph back several feet, and he roared in pain and surprise as the blur kept coming, bladed hooves slicing and stabbing and hacking with a speed Victoria could never hope to match. It was like watching a storm, and to her shock, small lightning bolt were arcing out from the blur, burning holes in the ground and trees around it. The Seraph finally leaped away from the deadly blur, body crouched down and covered in oozing wounds, matching glares with his assailant. Soarin' Windsong, second-in-command of the Wonderbolts, stood on his hind legs, hoof-blades and chest covered in the red mist of the Seraph's blood; his eyes were blazing, and his wings stood proud, lightning still arcing between them. As the strange Seraph hissed challenge, Soarin' replied in kind- few understood just how avian pegasi truly were, and their battle hiss, a sound halfway between a whinny and growl, was absolutely horrible to listen to.
"She is ours," Soarin' hissed to the Seraph, rolling his shoulders slowly, "And we will not let you take her from us."
Ours?
Victoria let out a yelp as a blazing pegasus zipped overhead, and for a moment, she was filled with horror. Spitfire was on fire! The Captain of the Wonderbolts team was completely ablaze, from her already fiery mane to her wings, to her streaming tail, smoke trailing off her like a demon from the pits of hell. And as the Seraph turned to meet this newest challenge, Spitfire flared her wings, flapped once... and screamed. And hell followed in her wake. Fire roared from Spitfire's mouth, all of the searing flames from her body soaking in and then blasting back out onto the Seraph, who had crouched and tried to cover himself from the flames. Victoria tried to scream out, to warn them about the foal tank, only to realize the tank was no longer on its back. A sky-blue mare with a pure white mane was holding the tank close as she powered for the closest Aegis shield, two other Wonderbolts following in her wake, holding the other two tanks. And coming in from the west was a mighty rainbow contrail...
Spitfire screamed down at the Seraph for several long seconds, all of the gathered fire on her body transferring down to her enemy in a display that made the very ground bubble and warp. Finally the flames petered out, and Spitfire quickly launched back to stand protectively in front of Victoria, her wings spread wide as she glared death at the shaking, blackened creature. Slowly, he stalked out of the molten, fiery pit, looking all the world like a demon from Earth's darkest myths... and he began to laugh. A terrible, aweful, yowling laugh.
"Is that all you can muster, ponies?" he roared in a deep horrifically accented Equush, "You cannot kill me! I am immortal! I am a god to my kind! I... AM..."
"Fucked," Soarin' interrupted with a smirk, and dove back to cover Spitfire and Victoria with his wide wings.
The Seraph, stunned and somewhat confused, never saw the Rainbow coming. Nearly deafened by the Rainboom so close to them, the two ponies and Victoria huddled together as the shockwave and cacophony of lights washed over them. Victoria was stunned by the protective gazes of the ponies around her and, to her later shame, began to cry. Sob, even. Each body-wracking sob sent a stab of pain through her mangled body, but she couldn't stop herself. For all her bluster, Victoria had always been terrified of death. And to have come so close, only to be dragged from the very edge...
"T-thank y-you," she blubbered, tears mingling with the blood and snot welling from the terrible claw wounds the Seraph had left across her boyish face, "I-"
Both ponies nuzzled her gently, utterly ignoring the mess of body fluids as they struggled to calm down their newest flock members. Neither spoke as they gathered her up carefully; an exhausted Rainbow Dash, coated in blood and somewhat warped armor, joined them moments later, locking eyes with Victoria as she helped her friends gather her up.
"Just hold on," she whispered, the depths of her strength and care for her friend stunning Victoria, "We'll fix you right up, Victoria. I promise..."
Tanbor tore his gaze from the damage report list, squinting past the sweat stinging his eyes to see the viewscreen. The battle had been hard fought; at such close range, the Yamato and the alien vessel had traded horrific broadsides with one another for several long minutes, resulting in heavy casualties for the great capital ship, and a loss of several key systems, including eighty percent of their life support systems. Landing on the surface was now a necessity.
The haze of destroyed electrical systems on the bridge clouded his vision, but the burning brilliance of the alien craft cut through it all. Indeed, large pieces of the craft had begun to break away from the main hub, blue fire and plasma hissing out and fizzling in the vacuum of space. Shields had dispersed from the craft, and it was falling into the atmosphere, to be incinerated on re-entry. Tanbor gave a feral grin, running a shaky hand through his hair.
"Take that you-"
"Mr. President!" One of the weapons officers, a young Asian woman, disheveled and sweating from the long hours at her post, yelled out, "Their shields are still up around the central hub, and I'm detecting engine signatures!"
"They've set up a course for Canterlot!" a nav-officer added, his middle-aged face pale, "Goddamnit, they're going to kamikaze it!"
Tanbor froze for a split second, eyes wide in disbelief as he stared at the unbelievable dedication to destruction these aliens had. Even, clearly beaten, they were going to fight and kill as many as possible.
"Open fire!" he roared out, "We have to stop them! The Princesses and the rest of the Equush leaders are in Canterlot!"
"They're using the debris field as a shield, sir!"
"Then get us through it!"
The Yamato rumbled as its distressed engines began to power it forward, but the alien craft was far swifter in its untethered state. Great blobs of plasma began to rocket down into the upper atmosphere.
Tanbor scrambled down to the comm station, shoving its attending ensign to one side- he would apologize later.
"Attention all craft, the enemy is trying to ram itself into Canterlot! Anyone who can respond, we have to take it down, NOW!" he cried as he lit up every comm in the fleet, "This is President Marcus Tanbor, and this is a direct order! WE HAVE TO STOP THAT SHIP!"
"Mr. President, this is Captain Jonathon Lucas of the USSV Enterprise," a firm, calm voice replied within moments, "We have this, sir. Helmsman, intercept course with the alien vessel. All power to shields and engines."
Marcus blinked slowly as he stood up, mildly confused for a moment as his mind ran through the list of ships in the military fleet of the United States of the Americas.
The Enterprise... wait, THE Enterprise!?
"Bring that ship on viewer, now!"
The USSV Enterprise had been the flagship of the Terran Republic's fleet until the construction of the Yamato, built by the USA as a comet-cracker. With a heavily armored forward hull and two seperate power plants to run the forward shields, it had been used to ram into soft-bodied comets to break them up for mining or protective purposes. Having been out-sized and out-armed by more modern vessels, the Enterprise had been relegated to protecting the troopships of the Primary Landing Force. Cigar-shaped but with a sharp, ram-like stern, the Enterprise looked like a flying submarine as it knifed through the atmosphere of Equus. Captain Lucas had left the com channel open for the entire fleet.
"Captain. they've opened fire on us!" The Enterprise's nav-officer informed him, voice a strained shout.
"Stay on target."
Blue and green blobs of super-heated plasma struck the forward shields and splashed off, streaming behind the speeding Enterprise. To Marcus' horror, one shot broke through the starboard shields, and a mighty explosion tore through the side of the aging craft.
"Hull breach on C and D deck!"
"Seal it up, but keep on target. Give me all the speed you can, aim for the center mass of the craft. Spool up FTL!"
"Charging, Captain!"
"Zoom out, just a little bit," Marcus whispered, eyes wide in awe.
The alien craft, looking all the world like a giant, off-blue manta ray, had begun its dive towards Canterlot, plasma bolts streaming out as fast as it could fire at the charging human vessel. More plasma tore into the Enterprise, explosions rocking the aging craft and taking large chunks out of its upper decks, and annihilating two of its main guns.
"Mr. President!"
Marcus glanced back in surprise as First Officer Benjamin, who had been manning the station for the Yamato's main railgun, jerked to his feet, eyes glued to his screen.
"I have a shot on the alien craft, sir!"
"Take it! Bring that bitch down!"
The Yamato roared as its main armament opened up, the heavy slug tearing through the atmosphere and shredding a piece of debris, hardly slowing down for a second. Marcus gripped the console in front of him tightly, the metal cutting into his fingers and the brightness of the console burning his eyes. The railgun round tore into the front of the alien vessel, plasma blooming out as its bow and upper deck were ripped away. No more plasma balls rocketed out to meet the Enterprise.
"FOR THE REPUBLIC!"
The Enterprise tore into the alien vessel like a speeding missile as its FTL drive kicked in, blasting both vessels out into the depths of space, close to the still ongoing battle between the frigate line and the alien corvette fleet. Fire bloomed from both vessels as the Enterprise emerged from the depths of the alien craft. Horrific scars and gouges were rent in the aging vessel, entire decks stripped clean and exposed to the vacuum. As it cleared the enemy vessel, the engines sputtered to life, slowly turning the Enterprise towards the alien vessel. Radialogical alarms began to sound over the Yamato, and Marcus stepped back slowly as the viewscreen polarized. The com unit crackled to life once more.
"Mortibus... nostris... adduco futurum..." Jonathon's voice, wheezing and pained, hissed over the channel, "Go... to hell, you monsters..."
And as one, every one of the thirty nuclear weapons stored on the vessels detonated; the shields of the Enterprise held in the explosion for just a fraction of a second, tripling the yield when it finally burst. A miniature sun overtook the sight of the human fleet, and the massive explosion enveloped the alien vessel, which had feebly attempted to launch small pods away from itself. When the light finally cleared, not a trace of either vessel could be found. They had been wiped clean from the face of the universe.
Christie awoke with a shaky cry, rubbing at her eyes blearily. The operation to save, and repair, Vinyl Scratch had taken a lot out of her. Her mana-capillary system had flummoxed the experienced doctor, but she had been lucky enough to find an unicorn surgeon amongst the refugees, one Careful Eye. Working together for several long, stressful hours, they had managed to save Vinyl Scratch's life, and get a pair of working cybernetics into place for her hind legs. Though the gun-metal grey and soft yellow lights along the servos did not exactly match Vinyl's natural fur tone, Christie was sure that they could figure something out. A few centimeters to the right of Vinyl's horn was a small metal implant, entwined directly with her brain, to allow control of her new legs.
Cybernetics were a fast growing part of humanity back in the Solar System; direct brain-to-network implants were common among youths, and many engineers and scientists had at least one cybernetic eye, with the ability to zoom in to microscopic levels, or bring up heads-up displays directly to the eyeball. What had started as sophisticated ways to repair damages wrought by accidents had quite quickly turned into a consumer market. Christie herself did not have any cybernetics, but after such extensive work, she was re-thinking her stance on the subject. Having an implant that could have directly linked with Vinyl's new legs to check the connections, instead of running diagnostics from her smartpad, would have saved Christie and her assistant an hour's work.
Careful Eye was long gone, likely to find his own family in the chaos; Octavia was flopped out on her side, snoring loudly and quivering, little tears in her eyes. Christie's heart really went out to her; it had been touch and go several times, with the extreme amount of blood loss Vinyl had suffered. The fact that Octavia had kept her composure at all till Vinyl had been put under spoke to the cellist's inner strength. Of course, once Vinyl was asleep, Octavia had broken down into heart-broken sobs, crying her eyes out till she too had passed out. It was probably for the best. Cybernetic implantation was a rather... messy procedure. But all in all, it had gone swimmingly.
"Aw damn... my head..."
Christie yelped a bit and turned to Vinyl Scratch in shock. She was up? After that kind of procedure? She should be out for days! But the little white mare was indeed wide awake, one crimson eye clenched as she slowly rubbed at the metallic implant.
"W-what... what is..."
Moving quickly, Christie knelt down and gently held Vinyl's hoof, giving her a gentle smile.
"It's an implant, to help control your prosthetics," she explained quietly, "The pain will fade in a few days. It's just getting used to your head right now."
"Prosthetics?" Vinyl asked slowly, almost as if tasting the word, "Like... w-wooden hooves or somethin'?"
She sounded dull, shaken even; Christie couldn't blame her. If the Equuskind only had wooden or simple metal replacements... She gave Vinyl a kind smile, and reached down to, very slowly, lift her hind hoof. Peering down, Vinyl froze, eyes widening slowly as she looked the hoof over.
"Holy shit," she breathed, brightening as she managed to flex the hoof slowly, "Dude it... it feels real! H-how..."
Christie grinned, just a little pride coloring her being. She was a damn good surgeon, and perhaps had the makings of a cyberneticist after all! Vinyl was moving the hooves smoothly and with no noticeable hesitations or pain. That meant that all of the nerves had been successfully integrated and were not grating on the filaments leading to the servos. She had been afraid that, with the... not quite ideal circumstances of the operation, that she might have made a mistake.
Vinyl blinked and smiled tenderly when she managed to tear her gaze away from her new hooves enough to spot Octavia, now having rolled onto her back, front hooves drawn up to her chest. This close, Christie noticed that a good deal of Octavia's fur was patchy; possibly from nerves, or an infection. She would definitely need to do some blood work on the both of them.
"She always works too hard," Vinyl whispered faintly, wincing as her horn gleamed a soft blue.
Magic... real magic... Christie watched, utterly fascinated, as Vinyl's soft blue magical field wrapped around Octavia's sleeping body, gently dragging her over to her arms. Of course, Careful Eye had been using magic all throughout the surgery, but Christie had been far too busy to appreciate it. Maybe, once Vinyl was healed more, she could convince her to undergo some testing. If humans could harness the same magic, the applications could be enormous!
Octavia gave a soft mewl as she was drawn into the warmth of Vinyl's fur, nuzzling closer to the source and slowly blinking her violet eyes open. The utter relief in her expression when she and Vinyl locked eyes nearly brought tears to Christie's own eyes, and she quickly stood up to give them a little privacy... only to meep when a firm, warm force wrapped around her middle, yanking her back to the bed.
"Oh no you don't, doc," Vinyl teased, grinning widely when Christie turned back towards the pair, "Get in here."
Like she was going to turn down that offer. Careful not to brush the implant, Christie carefully reached out to hug both ponies, blushing deeply as two sets of forelegs firmly wrapped around her. They were stronger than she would have thought, especially Octavia! Unable to help herself, she carefully entwined her fingers their puppy-soft head fur, gently scratching behind their left ears. The effect was both amusing and surprising; squeaking at nearly the same tone, both mares went limp against Christie, shuddering.
"Holy shiiiiit," Vinyl mumbled, a blissful grin turning her muzzle, "Riiiight there, girl. Mmf."
"Need to keep you around, doctor," Octavia teased, tail flicking around them in a wave of somewhat spicy-scented hairs, "This is a nice way to wake up from a nap."
"I'm happy to oblige," Christie replied sheepishly, blushing just a bit.
With a hiss of compressed air, the med-bay door slid open, and Christie instinctively lurched to her feet, battlefield adrenaline still coursing through her system. The Seraph had been driven out of this area, but that didn't mean saboteurs couldn't still be skulking about. But what entered was most certainly not a Seraph, or human. Indeed, she wasn't even a "regular" pony. Princess Luna, a black cloak fluttering from her withers, frantically galloped inside the medbay, sides heaving. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, and Christie was horrified to see her ribs clearly protruding, even through her soft fur. Apparently, so did her other pony guests.
"Luna!" Octavia yelped, scrambling off the bed and darting over to hug onto the princess tightly, burying her nose into her flowing mane.
Vinyl squeaked and stamped about on the bed and, to Christie further horror, leaped down onto the floor. She slid about a bit, gritting her teeth as she struggled to get her footing again; the mare was a fast learner however, and quickly managed to charge forward to join Octavia and Luna. Christie slowly sat down near them, watching nervously as Princess Luna sobbed quietly, holding the two close. Every human knew of Princess Luna; of the two ruling Princesses of Equestria, Luna was in charge of their military, their spy networks, and the protection of their dreams. Her powers had captured the imagination and reverence of many young minds; Christie's including. When Luna's teal eyes turned towards her, etched with curiosity, the young medic was quick to bow low to the ground.
"Princess," she whispered, blushing slightly... only for warmth to quickly surround her body, and tug her into the hugging ponypile.
"You saved her," Luna whispered huskily, sniffling, "Dr. Eye sent me the m-message. Y-you saved her life... my Vinyl..."
Luna gently kissed Vinyl behind the ears, then turned to lightly peck a blushing Octavia on the lips. A teensy bit of panic rose up in Christie's mind; she had been operating on the... girlfriends? Concubines? Whatevers, of the princess!? If she had screwed up...
"I-I did my best, Princess," she replied modestly, rubbing the back of her head, "I-I'd do the same for a-any pony."
Luna smiled faintly, looking her over slowly; her gaze was piercing, the wisdom behind them showing back to ages seen and lived that would destroy most minds. Christie gulped, doing her best to seem stoic, in charge, like a good medic. But in front of such ageless insight, she felt simply like a child. It was this feeling that led Christie to be stunned as Luna began to giggle, and leaned forward to nuzzle the doctor's cheek lightly.
"I'm glad you feel that way," Luna told her warmly, "Because I do believe that the Lunar Court could use your services, Doctor. Will you come with us, please?"
The battle was winding down. Or at least, Trixie Lulamoon prayed it was. The magician-turned-battlemage was down to the last of her strength; days of fighting with only to barest of rests had worn her down to nothing, and she was dangerously low on mana reserves. Already she could feel the worrisome sharp pains of strain in her horn- hence why she was currently resting inside one of the human’s Aegis safe zones.
It was quieter now; the horde had shifted away from this part of the battlefield, and the rapidfire weapons of humanity had stopped firing; they sounded like buzzing bees tearing cloth, and it grated on sensitive pony ears. The devastation they had left behind had been worth it though.
The short, thin unicorn laid curled up just inside the human ship, breathing in slow, deep breaths to relax herself. The coolness of the metal was nice against her overheated fur, reminding her of winters in Hoofington. Trixie’s jaw clenched.
Hoofington…
Someone outside screamed. Not the low, long scream of emotional agony Trixie had, horrifically, grown almost used to. This was the sharp, edgey scream of pure panic. As Trixie scrambled to her hooves, the scream was cut short by a sharp whine, and a too familiar snarl, and the clattering roar of human small-arms.
“No, no, no,” Trixie muttered to herself, galloping down out of the starship and reflexively casting a shielding spell.
That spell saved her life. A bronze-armored Seraph slammed into her side with a snarl, a knife skrring off her shield and into the muddy earth. A reflexive buck didn’t move him an inch, but kicked Trixie several feet away into the mud. If she still had her cloak and hat, they would have been soaked through. Wild eyed, Trixie looked around frantically as she got back to all fours.
A squirming earth pony mare was covered by the limp body of a human medic, who's back sizzled from a blackened circle over the spine. Six human soldiers were viciously fighting three bronze-armored Seraphs in close quarters, knives and fists and claws flashing. One human went down with a gurgle as a Seraph weapon flashed green, their armor plates warped and cracked. The human’s battle-partner grabbed at the weapon, struggling frantically as it began to charge-
Only to disappear from the Seraph’s hand, reappearing with a blue flash in Trixie’s magical grasp. She couldn’t figure out the technology in a hurry, but triggers were, thankfully, rather easy to find. Squeezing with her magic, the weapon hummed ominously- and unleashed the green bolt of superheated plasma half a second later. The Seraph’s head disappeared with a flash of red mist, the body limply toppling in front of the stunned human.
Turning the weapon, bolts slammed into the two other Seraphs, sending them sprawling back through the shields of the Aegis into the blood-soaked mud outside, with the bodies of their unarmored fellows. Ragged panting and coughs replaced the sounds of violence, one of the humans collapsing onto their backs. Trixie gulped thickly and rushed to the shot soldier, tucking the weapon into her belt.
But he was gone. The plasma had punched right through his armor and into his chest; the human’s eyes were dull and lifeless, and a quick spell… From what she knew of humans, he had been young, possibly in close to the same stage of life as Trixie herself.
“Damnit,” she whispered, looking over at the somber soldiers; tears pricked at the edges of her eyes, “I’m so s-sorry… this…”
“Is war, ma’am,” a female soldier spoke up quietly, shaking her head, “Richards knew that when he came here. We all did. ...and at least those fuckers are dead.”
Indeed, they were. But they weren’t a type Trixie had seen. They had somehow breached an Aegis shield; a human-tech and class A2 pony defensive shield, and had attached with… weapons. Not a mass lasering, or a horde-charge, but...
“Those… were not like the others,” Trixie whispered, frowning as she looked the pistol over, “Just… what is going on…”
****************************
A rhythmic beeping slowly drew Victoria out of her dark, dreamless sleep. Victoria knew a drugged sleep when she had it, and was grateful for it. Without those painkillers, she was sure that her body would have been in a world of hurt. That Seraph... commando, commander, something... whatever it was, Victoria had underestimated it, badly. That would not happen again; as soon as she got the chance, she would watch the fight from the suit's housed camera. Victoria would not lose like that again, no way.
Blinking her eyes open slowly, Victoria gazed around in surprise at the darkened, white-tiled room. There was a large window close by, but the blinds were drawn closed. It was a surprisingly human-like hospital room, just missing a TV or a big monitoring station. In its place rested a little stand with a glowing green ball floating atop it. Flexing her body, Victoria hissed at a wave of pain from her chest and stomach, though her left arm was oddly stiff and still; glancing towards it, she saw that her arm was wrapped firmly in a strange vat of opaque green goo, immobilized. She... would have to ask a doctor about that.
Warmth that she had assumed was a blanket shifted slightly, and she gave a squeak, peering down quickly.
Wha...
Four sets of large, luminous eyes opened and peered up at the human. Spitfire had draped herself over Victoria's legs, her incredible body heat travelling up Victoria's body like a space heater. When their eyes met, Spitfire gave Victoria a wide, warm grin, amber eyes shining in the dark. Soarin' had laid himself over her waist, wings perked just lightly in a take-off position, eyeing the door protectively. His long, dark-blue tail was draped over Victoria's free hand, and she couldn't help but stroke the soft, long hairs. Blinking, he turned to grin over at her, chuckling quietly.
"Good morning," he whispered, ears perking forward as he leaned over to nudge Rainbow Dash behind one ear.
Rainbow and Fleetfoot had draped themselves on either side of Victoria's chest, most of their bodies covered by Soarin's' bulk, but their snouts were lightly pressed against their human's neck. Their eyes blinked open nearly at the same time, practically like flashlights in the dark room as they peered up at a rapidly blushing Victoria.
"H-hi," she whispered to them, trying to will her blush away.
Showing off a wide orange-ish tongue, Rainbow yawned loudly, stretching out and pressing herself firmly into her friend.
"Mornin'," she whispered back, smiling softly, "Good to see you up."
"Is she coherent this time?" Fleetfoot asked quietly, lightly stroking along Victoria's free arm with a surprisingly soft and pliable hoof.
"I-I think I am," Victoria managed shakily, a chuckle to the end of the response, "W-what happened? Where are w-we?"
"We got you out of the battle," Soarin' replied, smiling warmly, "Brought you to Ponyville General. Can't believe the place was still operational..."
"Humans had gotten here before us, bolstered the defenses," Spitfire added, "So they were doing triage. We made sure the medics got to you."
"What's with the, uh... goo?" Victoria asked curiously, peering back at her immobilized arm.
In the corner of the human's eye, she saw Rainbow Dash make a slight face, but it was Soarin' who responded, his wing stroking down Rainbow's back.
"It's Changeling healing gel. We found that it is the best natural healing agent in the known world, especially for broken bones."
Changelings, huh?
"I th-thought you guys fight them?" she asked curiously, remembering well the reports about the Battle of Canterlot that had been sent on one of the Trades.
In fact, information on changelings had been included in their mission briefing, in case they were a part of the attack on Equus. Victoria had not looked forward to fighting a creature that could change their physical body at will. Or both fly AND use magic.
Thank God for small blessings...
It was Rainbow Dash who responded this time, though she seemed very much less than enthused, "Nah, there is an armi... armater... a peace treaty going on, right now. The Seraph were kicking their asses just as hard as they were ours, so we all joined forces. I don't trust 'em, but Twilight apparently does, so..."
She gave a little shrug (which Victoria found adorable), and laid her head back on her human pillow's shoulder. Fleetfoot gave a quiet chuckle, nosing Rainbow's ear fondly before turning her gaze up at Victoria, shooting her a wink.
"Don't mind Dashie, she tends to hold grudges against those she fights," she faux-whispered, snickering as Rainbow lightly bapped her nose with a wing tip.
Dashie, huh?
Clearing her throat, and hoping she wasn't crossing some kind of line, Victoria grinned down at Fleetfoot, a tinge of pink covering her cheeks.
"Sooo..." she started sheepishly, "Are uh... you two...?"
"Herdmates, yep," Rainbow replied quickly, grinning faintly, "Remember those, right? Pretty sure I went over some of that in the letters..."
Victoria smiled softly and nodded, “Y-yeah, you did. Several females typically courting, then living with one or two males. But in your modern culture, that has been somewhat muddled. Right?”
“Very good,” Soarin’ piped up with a smile, “But yeah, I mean, it’s not always about stallions and mares now, not with all the magic. I’ve seen the complete opposite of that in Clou-”
He paused, visibly stricken as his ears and wings lowered; the powerful pegasus seemed to droop in place. All three females winced in turn, Rainbow and Fleet carefully lifting off Victoria and maneuvering about to nuzzle against Soarin’s sides, while Spitfire draped her broad wing carefully over his back. Victoria gulped and bit her lip as she stared at the shaking pegasus.
So that’s why we didn’t see it on the scans…
Hesitating a moment, Victoria reached out to grip and gently squeeze Soarin’s shoulder in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. To her surprise, the pony pile turned on her in an instant, four pegasus ponies piling atop Victoria warmly and cuddling her back down into the bed. Soarin’ nuzzled his cold nose to her shoulder, snuffling quietly.
“Thank you,” he whispered quietly, and she could feel his muzzle curling slightly in a little smile.
The door to the room creaked open, the sounds of a busy hospital flooding in as another pony stumbled inside. She was taller than the pegasi by at least a head, and was a light purple color, her shimmering mane blowing with a nonexistent wind. She turned her horned head towards the bed, a tired smile appearing on a slim, feminine muzzle.
“There you all are,” she murmured sleepily.
“Twilight!” Spitfire was off the pile and bed in an instant, nuzzling Twilight Sparkle’s cheek before nudging her over to the bed.
The Princess?!
Twilight Sparkle lifted herself onto the bed with a grunt, flopping on top of them, making most of the ponies oof or giggle. She was /warm,/ and sweaty, her head laying lightly on Victoria’s shoulder, careful of her injuries.
“Gonna… knight you, and hug you…” she murmured blearily, yawning widely beside Victoria’s blushing ear, “M-might kiss you… s-saving my herd… gonna sleep now though...”
Trying to control her wildly thumping heart, Victoria glanced sheepishly over at Rainbow Dash; the flyer gave her a small grin and laid her head beside Twilight’s, nose nuzzling Victoria’s chin.
“Welcome to Equestria.”
**********************
The battle was over. The Seraph hordes had broken and scattered with the destruction of the capital ship, and the repulsion of its back-up forces. Over a hundred of the vessels had jumped out of system, leaving a devastated outer ring of hulks in the far corners of the Equusian system. Both Seraph and human. Seventy-five frigates had been lost in the knife-fight of close quarters combat in space; the Seraph craft had matched the humans’ in maneuverability, if not quite in strength. Tenders were hunting down escape craft, but casualties from the frigate line were climbing close to seventy-five hundred souls…
Marcus Tanbor stared out at the savaged human fleet from the bridge of the Venusian battlecruiser Qianshan, having transferred over from the stricken Yamato, which was still setting down planet-side. The Qianshan had been in the thick of the fighting with the Yamato, its battleplates scorched and shield system fried. The bridge was quiet but for the clacking of keys and soft whispers between crew. The mood was joyful, for Venusians, but… tense.
“Mr. President?”
Marcus glanced over and nodded acknowledgement to Admiral Zhou, a Venusian-born man in his late sixties, black hair crested with white. He looked exhausted, despite his stiff backed demeanor and freshly re-cleaned uniform. He saluted smartly, a fist over his heart.
“The Equusian nobility have arrived. Where shall you see them?”
“Here,” Marcus replied quietly, “Where we can see their world, and our fleet.”
The leadership of all the surviving races had been brought up by well-protected frigates, with full security details- more for the emotional well-being of their people, than any lack of trust in humanity. Seraph were still in the wilds, and some had launched small raids on the surface. When the doors opened, every Republic sailor stood in unison, saluting to the nobility.
The old-fashioned monarchies of Equus had seemed strange to the fiercely democratic Republic, at first, but had grown on them- most of the kingdoms had strong parliaments as well, and laws restraining their monarchy- unless under emergency. It made some nervous, but others had enjoyed seeing the old world traditions, and monarchs that truly cared for their people. As these did, which was plain to any that could see them.
Celestia of Equestria led the party, with her sister Luna close behind her. Neither were dressed in any sort of royal regalia- adornments Marcus had seen in videos and photos in past trades. Their fur did, however, shine, and it was only through careful observance that the president could seen the recent strain and its effects- lost weight, bags under the hollow, pained eyes… Both sets of which stared into Marcus, holding his gaze for several moments. Marcus swallowed a lump in his throat, emotions threatening to rise to the surface from sheer respect for the beings.
Stepping to the side allowed the beings behind them to step through: three male Diamond Dogs, hulking canine-humanoids, all of the same coal-black coloration. Their leader, just slightly taller and more armored than his compatriots, nodded to the human leader before stepping to stand opposite of the Pony Sisters. Crown Prince Roughstone, Marcus recalled; reports from the surface were saying that he led a pack of his people in an assault alongside a company of Primary troopers, showing fearlessness. He could respect that.
The sole Griffon in the party limped after the Dogs; from what Marcus knew of their people from those on the ground, the Griffons had suffered heavy losses, and their mountain homeland had been devastated by Seraph fliers. This Griffon was young, with golden feathers and dusky fur. He had cleaned himself up, but the injuries and scars were still fresh across his face and chest. Amber eyes met Marcus’, and he nodded slightly.
The rest of the commanders, nobles, and princes marched in after their fellows- some, like an old Donkey matriarch, needed to be supported by human sailors that had volunteered. Very few of the Equusians were uninjured, and many were quiet, eyes hollow and staring. Marcus reminded himself to assign psychology experts to the next caravan through the portal. Among the terraformers, farmers, construction companies, medical personnel…
Marcus let out a breath and removed his glasses to rub at his eyes. They had quite alot to do. Preparations, rebuilding… not how he wanted to spend his first trip to Equus, but.
Albion-class Assault Frigate Class: Albion Role: Escort, Point Defense, Transport, and Aerospace Warfare Size: One hundred meters Armament: Four heavy missile launchers. Six light missile launchers. Twelve point defense gatling cannons (Earth Defense Subsidiary DK-2). Four chaff launchers. Compliment of fifty high-yield Luna-class armor-piercing missiles; one hundred low-yield Valkyrie-class high explosive missiles. Ten fifty-megaton Damocles-class nuclear-tipped missiles. (Special assignment only) Shields: Four Einstein-class shield projectors: electromagnetic plasma screens. Engine: Three Heidelmann drives; full power reaching near 75 percent of lightspeed. One Rosenburg wormhole drive. Gravity: No. Crew complement: Fifty Naval Personnel; twelve Marine security detail. Can fit up to fifty ground-assault troops, and three ground-assault mechs. Auxiliary craft: One Jersey-class dropship; fifty drop pods, fired from ten aft-placed drop pod tubes.
The Albion-class is the newest in a long line of Terran built and designed frigate classes, following the Terran doctrine of large numerical superiority when deploying fleets, mostly made up of adaptable frigates. The Albion-class is a versatile platform, able to work a variety of roles, typically as a screening vessel or a fast-attack support craft on the ground.
In space, the frigates act in packs of six, engaging with long-range missile fire and covering each other with their PD cannons as they close in with the enemy, upon which the armor-piercing rounds of said cannons tend to make short work of shield tech and light armor. While not as heavily armed as the Venusian Samurai-class, or as heavily armored as the Martian Tungsten-class, packs of Albions have a well-earned reputation among pirates and political dissidents for the damage they can inflict in a short amount of time, with the only counter being overwhelming firepower.
As an aerospace assault craft, the Albion truly shines; it’s low-yield missiles make for deadly long-range weapons, and the cannons are well-suited to supporting ground assault by the complement of marines aboard. Unable to hover, the Albion uses its engines on low power to rocket over the surface, delivering its drop pods or cannon-fire in strafing runs. The angular wedge-shaped design allows it, unlike most other spacecraft, to move easily in an atmosphere, and to just as quickly return to orbit. When used in packs, Albions can quickly deliver its marines into the thickest of fighting and support them in building a beach-head.
If forced to land, the reinforced keel allows the frame to absorb some of the worst of shocks, allowing the crew a degree of expectation of safety in the case of an atmospheric crash. In the Ceres Insurrection, a pack of Albion-class frigates crashed on purpose to break the Ceres defensive line, as they were still mostly functional as missile-firing, cannon-packing platforms!
Knight-class Mechanized Walker Class: Knight Role: Ground Assault and Defense. Size: Six meters Armament: A Marstech Alpha-pattern 25mm autocannon. Two arm-mounted 10mm rotary machine guns. One Marstech Martanium/Tungsten alloy Utility blade. Shields: N/A Engine: One tritium-powered Langley-class power plant, with two Raleigh-class auxiliary power plants. Gravity: N/A Auxiliary units: Two Oculus-class scout drones.
The Knight-class is the sum total of joint Terran and Martian cooperation in the creation of mechanized exoskeletons for use on both Luna and Mars. Started in 2143, one hundred years from the present day, the first mechanized walkers were built to be used in construction and mining across the Sol system, but many were retrofitted in order to support ground troops during the formation of the Republic, and against the threat of pirates in the outer belts. They have become mostly symbolic, not often used except in rescue operations where great strength is needed.
While in combat, the Knight’s heavy armor protects the driver from nearly all forms of small-arm fire, and can mitigate the damage of light anti-armor rockets and heavy weapon fire. In low to no gee, the suits can be very fast, utilizing a series of thrusters to maneuver, then their great strength to launch them off a surface. They are not, usually, fitted to work in vacuum without any kind of support platform. Working in squads of three typically, Knights were used among the belt to make the initial breaches into pirate strongholds, then hold the beach-head until Albions or other transports could off-load their troopers. Damaged components could be jettisoned during combat, including up to two of the power cores.
During one particularly fierce battle during the last days of belt piracy, a damaged Knight launched a cracked power core into the main bunker of the pirate defenses. The resulting blast, nuclear in nature, compromised the integrity of the ice asteroid and helped its final breakup. It put quite a period to the end of rampant belt piracy, and the birth of the Pax Republica.
The palace had not yet been cleaned from the prior battle. Scorch marks and burned out wrecks of Equestrian magical flying craft littered the grounds, crushing many of the lovingly planted gardens. Mana swirled about in glittering clouds, lifting up from glowing, pulsing lines of raw magic that hugged the walls of the central tower. So much magic in one place had nearly overwhelmed the leyline nexus that the city had been built on, which would have been disastrous for the defense of the Canterlot. And the structural integrity of the planet itself.
But despite the damage and signs of battle, Christie found the Royal Palace of Canterlot one of the most beautiful structures she had ever witnessed. Beneath the marks of war, white marble and banded granite had been magically infused during the shaping process, and gold gilded every window, along with every roof of every spire. The human had grown up on a service colony in the Jovian belt, on an asteroid colony that supplied the Titan terraforming project with ice water and precious minerals. Frequent flights had shown her the glittering station-cities among the belt, but this place…
“Hey, you’re up early,” Vinyl’s voice slurred from behind her.
Christie smiled behind her shakily, blushing; she had left a bed where she had been stuffed between a cuddly Earth Pony, a nuzzly Unicorn, and the warm wing-embrace of Luna herself. The alicorn was gone- she had explained the night before that she had to leave early to accompany her sister to meet the President; Octavia was still fast asleep, her hooves now occupied by a warmed pillow. Vinyl was sitting up on her haunches, rubbing her ruby eyes with a shaky hoof. The unicorn had not slept well- Christie had been woken up a few times by whimpers and weak twitches. She couldn’t blame the poor thing at all.
“I didn’t mean to wake you, Vinyl,” she replied quietly for Octavia’s sake, moving to sit down beside her.
The alabaster unicorn gently laid across Christie’s lap, tail swishing from side to side. She was very warm, like a space heater all on her own, especially when Christie began scritching her ears.
“Nah, s’fine,” she mumbled, clumsily spreading out her cybernetic hind legs over the sheets, “I should be up anyway. ...S… sorry, about last night.”
Christie sighed softly and leaned down to give Vinyl a gentle hug.
“After what happened, I would be surprised if you slept well, Vinyl,” she whispered to the unicorn quietly, shaking her head, “Don’t be sorry.”
Vinyl Scratch let out a weak breath, twitching an ear, “So uh… these… cyber-things… do a lot of pon- err, people, have them?”
“Yes, actually,” Christie replied, giving her a winning smile, “Sometimes to upgrade parts of themselves, even. I know a few people who replaced one or two eyes in order to see more, and to connect to the system-net.”
The unicorn had tilted her head in thought, “Heh… gotta look into that, maybe. Do my legs do anything special?”
“Well, those are medically produced, so not at the moment. They won’t ever break, though. And your implant can work with just about anything else on the market.”
Christie smiled sheepishly, “I think I might look into the procedures and science more, honestly. I… it felt good, helping you, Vinyl.”
The woman blushed as she ran her fingers through Vinyl’s mane- and meeped as a warm, fuzzy body hugged her from behind, Octavia’s muzzle resting on her shoulder.
“Trying to steal my mare, doctor?” she whispered teasingly, giving her a reassuring squeeze as Christie tensed.
Vinyl smirked back at Octavia and nuzzled into Christie’s hand, “I might just run off with Christie for her hands, Octy. Sorry!”
Octavia laughed softly and nosed Christie onto her side before pouncing onto Vinyl; Christie blushed and smiled over at the couple before laying her head back on the bed. She was not quite sure… what she would be doing for Princess Luna. Medical work? More cybernetics? She stared down at her hands thoughtfully, then back at Vinyl.
The unicorn had gently curled against her mate, enjoying a gentle tongue-grooming; her hind legs twitched softly, glowing a soft amber in the morning dimness. Christie smiled to herself. Whatever these ponies needed, she would do it. They deserved that much.
*******************
Much of Canterlot had been turned into a triage center, Equusians and humans alike being brought to its vast tent cities and prefabricated medical facilities, many of them brought down from the human support fleet. It was dusty and filled with a cacophony of the post-war- the cries of the injured and frustrated, the scream of engines rocketing overhead or from low-flying transport craft bringing new supplies to the medical staffs below. For the film crew on the ground, it was a lot of noise to cut out while filming, but they were well motivated to do so. Most had been apart of the Aegis teams, and seen the warfare up close. They could not film then, but they certainly wanted to catch the aftermath for history’s sake.
Julien Strange cursed under his breath as he led his team towards one of the newer medical tents; he had heard rumor that one of the Elements of Harmony had been brought to this area, and seeing as that Rarity was an Element… He and Rarity had been pen-pals through the Trade since it first started. It had been her advice that had gotten him through school and helped win his first placement in news. ...probably would not be too happy that he quit to come here, but.
Julien pulled the tent flaps aside as he peered in, ready to leap back if anypony challenged him. He certainly did not want to offend. The young man sucked in a sharp breath. Three ponies were settled inside; a very pink earth pony was curled up on a mat, sleeping fitfully- her right side was shaved down, parts of her barrel replaced with the shining silver and white of extensive medical cybernetics. A blanket had been thrown over her, but had been kicked off, bunched around her hind legs.
Beside her, a larger orange-and-blonde earth pony was holding tightly onto a white-and-purple unicorn mare, both of them crying softly into each other’s fur. Bandages covered a good bit of their bodies, and they were terribly thin- but Julien knew the three diamond cutie mark by heart.
“Rarity?” he whispered- the young man hated to ruin a moment, but emotion was welling up in his own heart.
The unicorn froze for a moment before whipping her head around; her blue eyes were bloodshot, face a mess of stress lines and little sleep, but the shaky smile that grew on it showed the alien beauty Julien remembered from photos. The earth pony mare blinked over at Julien in surprise, but grinned as well, rubbing her eyes clear with a fetlock.
“Julien! Darling, you’re here!” Rarity gushed, voice still thick, and turned to rush to Julien, hugging tightly to his legs.
The ex-newscaster laughed shakily as he rocked back, trying to keep his balance, and reached down to gently hug her neck and withers. She smelled distinctly of gunpowder and smoke- it did not suit her.
“Of course I’m here,” he replied softly, not wanting to wake up the pink pony, “Had to make sure you were alright. These your friends?”
Rarity blushed and stepped back, clearing her throat daintily before waving a hoof back at the pair of mares, “Yes, in fact. This is Applejack and Pinkie Pie. I wrote you about them, I do recall.”
“An’ she’s talked plenty about you,” Applejack added with a faint chuckled, doffing her hat slightly, “Nice ta meetcha.”
Julien smiled. Rarity had indeed talked about Applejack, more than a few times. They had been prepping for Rarity asking her farmer friend out during the last Trade, before all of… this. She had not mentioned Pinkie Pie all that much, but… well. He was here now. And as his team hurried in with their gear and supplies, Julien was having an idea.
“Rarity, Applejack? What do you guys know of human television?”
*****************
The sleek, matte black corvette zipped through the clouds of Equestria with only the quiet roar of its twin Heidelmann drives marking its presence in the dark of the night. The Shadow-class craft had been developed by the Office of Solar System Intelligence, or OSSI, for missions just like this- black-ops, seek and destroy, or, such as now, find and capture. Though they typically called for crews of five to ten, they could be piloted by as few as one. Nathan Hallen was leaned forward in the pilot’s chair, eyes locked on the controls- and his brain focused on the readouts from the various sensors placed across the craft. All OSSI operatives were given military grade brain-to-network cybernetics, allowing for quick access and processing to most systems; field agents like Nathan were also given enhancements to the eyes and ocular nerves, and reinforcement for bones and tendons. Coupled with field agent PPA, a superior version to the Terran military class, and OSSI agents were an expensive but powerful asset.
Nathan suppressed a smile at the thought. Expensive indeed, which was why he was alone for this mission- to find and capture one of the Seraph commandos that had been launching raids on aid stations and Aegis sites. The rest of the OSSI agents in-system had been spread around to protect key sites. Nathan couldn’t blame command- everyone had heard of the three Aegis craft lost around Appaloosa, and the one site nearby that had managed to kill their attackers. These things needed to be studied.
His sensors focused instantly on a section of ground as they picked up the unique energy signatures left whenever Equusians used magic- Nathan was still waiting for the scientists to figure out just what the hell was magic. There surely had to be some kind of scientific explanation for it all. Zooming in, he spotted three unicorn mares back to back to back, horns glowing brightly- every few moments, Nathan’s readings would spike as they cast spells, fending off… off…
Nathan’s heart leaped as he saw what they were fighting. A single Seraph- tall, a good seven meters, encased in gold armor. Gold. He had seen the fight with one just like that, between a gold Seraph and a Terran Assault Trooper, that the trooper had lost handily. No one else had reported seeing golds since…
“Activate auto-pilot,” he snapped firmly, pulling his mind back from the sensors and rushing back to his drop pod.
Sliding inside, his body was quickly encased by the powered arms in the pod, sliding the armor into place and activating their seals. OSSI armor was sleeker than Terran trooper armor, with no wrist rockets- they relied on railgun slugs and whatever weapons they brought with them. In this case? Nathan held out his hand, gripping the boxy rifle as it was pressed into his palm. He was going to try a weapon full of the amusingly named “taser balls,” an electrified gel that worked to great effect as crowd control in the distant past. It had not been a popular weapon by any means, but OSSI had kept it- just in case.
“Prepare to drop.”
Nathan let out a breath, stretching- his black hair was cut short, tucked into the tight fitting helmet. With a soft buzz and flash of light, the HUD appeared, tracking his vitals, the amount of ammo in his various weapons, and linking him to the sensors of the Shadow. With a jerk of weightlessness, the launcher opened- then propelled Nathan out with a kick of propellant.
“Never gonna get used to that,” he grumbled, baritone voice echoing in the helmet, before turning on his thrusters with a mental command.
Nathan was not much of a flyer, to be honest. His specialty was groundwork, or flying a ship. His instructors had not really enjoyed the attitude of turning the PPA into a powered landing gear or something to make jumping easier, but no one could speak ill of Nathan’s record on the zero and full-gee courses during training. His thrusters launched the agent down towards the surface, sensors still focused on the fight below. One pony was down and weakly moving against a tree, with the two standing protectively in front. The Gold Seraph was standing several feet away from the trio, seeming to study them. It did not have the plasma weapon that had taken down the trooper, as far as Nathan could tell.
The agent landed at a run, snapping up his rifle and firing- only to curse as the Seraph jerked out of their path and dashed for him. A golden blast of light slapped into the side of the alien and sent it skidded to one side; several more gel balls followed it, sparking on its shield.
“It’s too fast!”
“Stand with us, quick!” The two unicorns, mares by their body type and voice, scrambled to stand on either side of Nathan, horns glowing gold and a soft blue respectively.
Nathan kept his sights trained on the Seraph, frowning; it was glaring back at them, panting softly- but focused on his weapon. Shit.
“We can’t hurt it,” one of the mares, a yellow mare with a mix of red and golds in her mane, whispered, scowling angrily, “That shield is really strong.”
“And it’s really strong,” the other mare, a more periwinkle coloring with a three tone mane, added, looking nervously back at the collapsed two-tone blue pony.
“I’m going to take it alive,” Nathan replied quietly, having turned his speakers on low, “Can you use this weapon? I’ll get it’s shields down; when they do, spray it with this, and try to hold it with your magic.”
The mares stared at Nathan like he was insane for several seconds- until the Seraph began to move- golden magic wrapped around the rifle as Nathan let out, bringing his wrist-railguns up to bear. Two slugs slammed into the Seraph’s chest-level shield- and it kept coming. Nathan jerked and twisted under the Seraph’s claw swipes, putting two more slugs into the back of its legs- and a light blue glow punched into its face. A screeching snarl roared through Nathan’s audio receivers; he winced at a squeal of feedback, and quickly stepped back- avoiding another powerful swipe.
Damn thing, he snarled in his thoughts, skipping back and firing another two shots into his shield; the slugs sparked and flung molten metal into the grass.
The beast smirked; there was too much intelligence in its eyes, and it chilled Nathan to his core. The alien snarled as it launched itself forward; Nathan began to twist- and grunted as its claws dug into his shoulder-armor, pain lancing through his left arm. With barely a thought, the agent smashed his helmet into the creature, at the same time as his right gauntlet fired point blank into its stomach. The shield popped, the force of which sent the human sprawling onto his back.
Nathan had to admit, the ponies could follow orders. He heard the crackle and pops of the gel rifle the moment the ringing in his ears dimmed, and the Seraph was down on his knees, snarling. A large tree branch, wreathed in blue magic, lifted high into the air, and then slammed down into its spine. The Seraph was slammed forcefully into the dirt, twitching once before finally going still.
“Fuck,” Nathan growled, racing over to place his hand on the creature’s deck.
He had not cracked a bone, probably, just to kill the damn thing… But thankfully, his suit could pick up the heartbeat of the creature. It was alive.
Thank god for that, he grumbled to himself, then glanced up.
The three mares were standing in front of him, though they were all eying the Seraph warily. ...couldn’t blame them there. The blue one was swaying on her hooves, bleeding from her snout and several slashes over her side. There was a gentle golden glow around her barrel, holding the injured pony upright.
“Is it still alive?” the golden mare asked quietly, still aiming the rifle down at it.
Well, one has potential.
“Yeah, it is,” Nathan replied quietly, nodding to her, “Thank you, by the way. Heh, all of you. This thing could save alot of lives.”
She nodded, passing him back the rifle, “No problem. I uh, I’m Sunset Shimmer. This is Starlight Glimmer, and Trixie Lulamoon.”
Nathan blinked a few times. Yeah all three of those names had sent up alerts on his HUD. Two apprentices to Princess Twilight Sparkle herself, and a mare wanted for debriefing for one of the Aegis attacks a week prior? ...well, well. Today really was looking up.
“Nathan Hallen,” he replied, holding out his hand to shake each of their hooves, while sending alerts with flicks of his eyes, “What were you all doing out here?”
Starlight Glimmer chuckled softly and shook her head, looking embarrassed, “We were trying to be heroes.”
Sunset rolled her eyes, “We’ve been coordinating the defense of a refugee camp north of here. Trixie told us about these Seraph. Heard about attacks out here, and… well, tried to stop it. Didn’t know it could fight like that. ...thanks for jumping in though.”
Above them, the Shadow began to descend, thrusters firing as its limited AI piloted it down to a nearby glade; Nathan couldn’t help but grin at Starlight’s startled gasp. ...hrm.
“Come on, all of you, help me get this inside. Then we have a few meetings to make. Might finally get some questions answered…”
Salvage craft: Three Rio de Janeiro-class heavy freighters. Six Paris-class light freighters. One Medusa-class heavy destroyer- the Lucius.
Command: Commander Jason LeGrange; Martian Colonial Navy.
Timetable: Two standard Solar weeks.
Summary Report: Material wise- Useful minerals, some salvageable technology. Information wise- Negligible. Danger: Negligible.
Full Report: Our initial scouting probes found no life forms, or any kind of inner defenses among the remnants of the alien craft. The two bulbs were broken apart, but scans put the inner structures as surprisingly bare. Three major holds in each bulb, with minimal life support systems. The outer hulls were lined with thick water holds, piped into each area. Any kept food were long since gone, though trace residues were tested- some kind of protein paste, we believe.
The makeup of the craft is interesting. The hull seems to be made up of alloys we are not familiar with, but bear slight resemblance to Martanium, titanium, and ferro ceramic. All shield emitters were annihilated, and not by incoming fire- they seem to be melted from within, a possible fail-safe. The same can be said of its engines, though from what we see, the sub-lights utilize plasma generation, and they have a Heidelmann style wormhole-engine. The weapon systems were still intact, and salvaged for later review: cursory scans show them to be plasma emitters. Other wise, little technology was salvaged outright. Addendum: Unknown containers found in several holds; they are bound in lead-lined ferro ceramics, and are being brought under guard on the Lucius.
Without access to the main bulb, we can only speculate. But as far as we can tell, the two outer structures were not crewed like any starship the Association has come across. These structures seem to be holding units. Our scans also found openings in the lower keel of each bulb, numbering in the thousands, each with carbon scoring. Possible drop pod chutes?
All salvaged materials are being brought through the portal during the next Opening, and will be brought to the Mars Naval Research Facility on Phoebe. As instructed, we bathed everything not sensitive to intelligence gathering in x-ray radiation and EMP- no contamination have been detected to date.
Final thoughts from Command: I would classify this vessel as some kind of super-heavy troop carrier. In future engagements, envelopment by fast-attack frigates and destroyers should be the tactic for this class of vessel- plasma casters cannot target our faster vessels as well, and bombardment by low-yield nuclear weapons will overwhelm the vessel’s shields. All fire should be focused on the central bulb, as the forward and aft sections seem to be troop holds.
I would suggest caution in any future salvage arrangements. We detected several odd energy signatures in the wreckage around the containers. Possible weapon cartridges. We do not know these creatures, Fleet. And they have certainly given us quite a few surprises already.
Victoria winced as she looked herself over in the hospital mirror, doing her best to keep her legs from shaking with exertion. A few days off her feet should have given her plenty of rest, at least in Victoria’s mind, but she was pushing herself. She had dressed herself in a uniform provided by the colonel that had personally debriefed her- it was Terran military, blue and green jumpsuit with a silver shoulder pad. Pips for honorable service, a valour award, the Equestrian ground assault award, and award for honorable injury all shown on the collar, which had her… conflicted. That fucking alien had whipped her, and good.
The soldier slowly reached up to trace the two reddened claw scars that ran from the bridge of her nose over her left eye, trailing up to her partially shaved scalp. They still stung, and tugged slightly at certain expressions, but it was bearable. Her left arm had been transferred out of its large tank, and was now merely casted, the plaster encasing a soft bag of the changeling healing goo. It was an annoying necessity of healing. She smiled shakily at herself in the reflection, standing to attention. Victoria would get passed this. She had to; she had a new job to do now.
Immediately after her debriefing, the colonel had assigned Victoria to be the personal attache to Princess Twilight Sparkle; usually, Victoria would have been livid to being shunted off the field. But these were… special circumstances, weren’t they? According to the colonel, talks in orbit were going well, and there was even rumors that the Equusians might be joining the Republic in an official capacity. It would be up to Victoria to show Princess Sparkle just what a Terran soldier embodied.
The door clicked open, a familiar pony head peering in. Rainbow Dash grinned up at Victoria, flapping her wings to hover at eye level.
“Nice look on you,” she told her sincerely, grinning wider, probably from the blush Victoria could feel climbing up her neck and cheeks.
Definitely had to get that response under control.
“Thanks, Rainbow,” she managed to reply without stammering, “Have to look the part and all. How’re the others?”
Rainbow shrugged a bit, but the grin stayed put, “Ready to get out of here with you; c’mon down, we’re just waiting for Twilight to get back. She said something about a decision being made.”
Victoria nodded, letting out a breath before turning to walk outside; pain twinged through her legs, but she blocked it out. No worse than boot camp. Rainbow Dash hovered alongside her, wings flapping slowly and somehow keeping her aloft. Looking her over, Victoria noticed the pony’s own scars- scrapes and slices at specific spots around her legs and neck- probably where her armor didn’t cover.
“How’re your hooves?” she asked her friend quietly, “Any stress fractures?”
Rainbow blinked at her approvingly but shook her head, “Nah, I had the doctor take a look. Be happy to rest ‘em, though.”
“What about your wings, though? You were in the air for, like…”
“About a day straight, yeah.”
Rainbow Dash nudged her- gently, and shook her head, “Pegasi wings don’t need a lot of rest. Our hooves and magic are usually what get worn out faster.”
She grunted and stretched her spine, which popped a few times, “And I burned a lot of that. No more Rainbooms for awhile.”
Those had been fucking impressive. Rainbow Dash had told Victoria about her first Rainboom, and all those since, in her letters, but actually seeing one up close…
“I can’t wait,” she replied, grinning.
Outside the hospital, the Wonderbolts were all sunning themselves on the hospital lawn; they looked relaxed, but Victoria noted the perked ears, and Soarin’ was settled on his haunches in the middle of the herd, head tilting a new direction every few moments. He noticed the two females quickly, grinning and waving them over. The herd opened up to let them into the middle of the group, Soarin’ scooting to give them room to settle down.
“Twilight should be back soon,” Spitfire called out- she was on the outside of the herd, facing away- looking more to the sky, Victoria noted, “I see a human ship heading this way.”
Victoria blinked curiously, peering up at the sky herself. Through the thick clouds, it was hard to see much, but in places where pegasi had cleared flight paths, one could see the vague outlines and lights of the fleet in orbit. The wormhole would be opening up in a few days time, when most of the Aegis and volunteer forces would be heading back to Sol. Victoria imagined the aid fleet would start coming through, these next few months. Equus needed it.
Even around the well defended hospital, the battle had raged- from their spot on the hill, Victoria and the ponies could see the blasted scape of the battlefields: trees were smashed flat or burned, and smoke from the great Seraph body fires rose into the sky, funneled into specially formed clouds for safe-keeping. Pastel shapes, pegasus ponies, were zipping around in the distance, working hard on the vast cloudscape. ...Victoria hoped that the race could recover. Cloudsdale had been the seat of their culture and power; in human history, when cultures lost those sites, their civilization often suffered heavily or outright disappeared.
“Here she comes,” Rainbow spoke up suddenly, ears twitching.
An Albion-class frigate rumbled through one of the flight paths minutes later, and Victoria blinked respect at her pegasus friend.
Wish I had ears like that.
As the Albion flashed overhead, a Langley dropped out of the support bay, roaring as it powered down to the surface. Both ships looked fairly beat up; the Langley’s gunmetal grey exterior was streaked with carbon scoring, and even the bright scars from blades in places. The squat, bulky craft did not look pretty; but Terran’s built tough. The herd all leaped to their hooves as the craft moved to set down at the cleared landing zone in front of the hospital; the Langley was built as a VTOL, its thrusters tilting and scoring the ground beneath it.
“Come on!” Rainbow called out cheerfully, zipping over to it, Fleetfoot following close behind.
Victoria smirked and shakily got back up; Soarin’ and Spitfire stood on either side of her, both grinning at her.
“Don’t mind them,” Soarin’ told her, shaking his head in amusement, “Rainbow and Fleet are still all worried about Twilight.”
“Not that we aren’t, mind,” Spitfire added in, chuckling, “But Twilight is a strong mare, and an alicorn at that. If she’s standing, she’s okay.”
Victoria nodded, letting out a breath, “Can you give me a uh… quick summary on the Princess?”
Soarin’ snorted out a laugh, eyes sparkling as he looked up to catch Victoria’s eye, “That won’t be easy; there’s no quick guide to Sparkles. But pro-tip? Be honest. She hates it when ponies waste her time. Remember, princesses gotta deal with bureaucrats and nobles.”
...I think I might like this Princess, then.
The rear-hatch of the Langley opened up as it settled down; two cyan-armored stallions rushed out, making way for the Princess, who was in gold-and-purple regalia herself. She looked a lot more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than Victoria had seen those few days prior- she was standing tall and smiling kindly, her wings preened and sleek. Her regalia gleamed in the sun, purple light spilling off the edges.
“Unicorn magic?” she muttered in surprise.
“Alicorn, technically,” Spitfire corrected softly, “But this is probably your first look at it? Don’t worry, you’ll see lots more, hanging out with us.”
“Is that how you guys did the lightning and fire thing?” she blurted out, “Scared me half to death…”
That got a toothy grin from the mare, “Nah, that was pegasus magic. All ponies have a connection to one element or another, but sometimes that’s stronger than in others. Twilight and I are attuned to fire; Soarin and Fleetfoot are attuned to the sky and lightning, while Rainbow is attuned to sky and friendship magic. And yes.”
She raised a hoof to stop Victoria, still grinning, “Friendship is magic. Twilight can explain it better than me.”
“And I will!” Twilight called out, voice brighter and more clear than the other day, ears tilted forward towards them while she hugged onto Rainbow Dash.
Victoria could not help but smile as she watched the Princess interact with her fellow ponies, all but glomping Rainbow Dash and Fleetfoot in hugs from hooves and wings. Ponies were a more touchy-feely species, she had figured out; from what she remembered of pony physiology, their fur was extremely sensitive to touch, more than their hooves. It was a little odd for the human, but Victoria imagined that she could learn to deal with it. And goddamn was it cute to watch.
The soldier stood up straight and gave a quick salute to the Princess as she turned her attention to the human. The smile Twilight Sparkle gave was dazzling, though Victoria only saw it for a split second before she was firmly hugged by the very warm pony, and she had to quickly hug her back to keep them both standing.
“Nice to meet you again,” Twilight spoke softly, giggling a bit after a moment’s thought, “Now that I’m not delirious.”
“I-it’s good to meet you properly, princess,” Victoria managed sheepishly, though she couldn’t help but smile around Twilight, “Did uh, did the meeting go well?”
Eyes all but sparkling, Twilight Sparkle nodded as she dropped back to all fours and settled on her haunches, “It did! The Equusian nations have signed a treaty with the Terran Republic- we will be joining you, with our leaders taking the place of senators until we can organize a proper vote. There’s more to it, but-”
“Hey Twi!” Rainbow butt in, glancing over at the Guards and the waiting ship, “Are we going somewhere?”
“Let her finish, Dash!” Spitfire barked, and Victoria couldn’t help but stand up just a bit straighter.
That was a fine drill instructor voice!
“Yes, Rainbow,” Twilight answered, not seeming phased in the slightest as she grinned around at her herd, “We’ve all been invited to tour the Sol System, for a diplomatic mission. Victoria will be coming with us as an attache.”
As the Wonderbolts burst into excited chatter, Victoria nodded firmly to Twilight, “I will do whatever I can to help. Sol will be happy to have you.”
With a flick of her tail and wings, Twilight nodded and waved them all back onto the Langley, looking somewhat troubled.
“I’m hoping I’m what you humans were expecting,” she replied to Victoria softly as they walked aboard, the rest of the Wonderbolts on their heels, “We… I… owe you all so much. The rest of the girls kind of feel the same.”
She held up a hoof towards Rainbow Dash without looking, “They’ll be joining us in orbit.”
The Princess turned to peer thoughtfully at Victoria, seeming to chew on her thoughts before continuing softly, “Am I what you expected, Victoria?”
Oh yeah, don’t put me on the spot or anything.
The soldier took a moment to think as she took a seat in the Langley, running her fingers through her partially shaved hair. The rest of the Wonderbolts hopped into seats around them, purple magic from Twilight buckling them in tight, though her gaze hadn’t left Victoria’s.
“No,” she finally answered, smiling faintly to ease any initial sting, “You aren’t. You’re alot more personable than any royal I’ve ever seen. You feel… real. And the rest of humanity will see that, and appreciate that.”
The Princess moved to settle in a seat beside Victoria, gently laying a fetlock over her casted arm; warmth swelled in her heart at the smile that had spread over the alicorn’s muzzle. A quick look around only worsened a quickly growing blush, as the pegasi were giving amused, if pleased, grins at her.
Terra Prime. Earth. The jewel of the Republic. The shining green-blue marble was everything Twilight had heard from the humans she had met. She had, of course, seen pictures in the Trades, but being in orbit… that was far different. The Princess of Friendship had stood on her hind legs, forehooves pressed to the viewpoint as she stared out at the human capital world.
“Incredible,” she whispered, awe coloring her voice.
“Welcome to Terra, Princess Twilight.”
Twilight Sparkle barely heard Victoria’s voice as she stared out the human warship’s main viewpoint- a large screen fixed to many camera points on the outer hull, giving a panoramic shot of the planet and its space. It was beautiful.
“Looks so much like Equus,” she muttered, eyes squinted in thought, “Maybe smaller…”
There was more water, certainly; deep azure oceans covered the surface, darker in color than the old seas of her own homeworld. ...before the invasion, at least. From Twilight’s vantage points, silvery lines criss-crossed parts of the water in concentric circles and long, thin lines heading off towards islands and continental landmasses. Her wing twitched to tap Victoria’s side- very gently. Twilight’s magic made her painfully aware of the human’s injuries.
“What are those structures, down on the oceans?” she asked, glancing up thoughtfully at her attache.
Pride brightened the young soldier’s eyes- her joy at seeing her homeworld was positively infectious, pulling a grin out of the alicorn.
“Those are the Atlantic Ocean-Roads,” she explained with a hearty grin, “They link up the Atlantic under-cities and orbital elevators with the mainland, and all the research stations. Alot of undersea research comes off Terra, so Equestria will see quite a few Terrans.”
Victoria hesitated a moment before giving a small chuckle, “Though Triton and Titania have us beat, working with a nitrogen ocean or a fully frozen one, and their ecosystems.”
It boggled the mind; Twilight was thankful for Celestia’s lessons on controlling facial expressions, because…
‘Damn.’
The galaxy was more varied than Twilight could have ever imagined. Liquid nitrogen oceans was only the start. She had eaten up every report during the Trades, especially of Solar history and the worlds within their system. The Taming of Luna, which had always (and still did) made Twilight giggle, where humanity had moved the vast majority of their industry to the Lunar surface. Or the terraforming of Venus from a poisonous pressure cooker to a foggy, alien jungle world. She could not wait to see the entirely man-made ocean on Mars…
Twilight was chuckling before she could stop herself, ear flicking as she heard Victoria shift.
“Apologies,” she spoke up quickly, physically controlling her blush response, “Just thought of all your race has accomplished. I hope we can impress you all too, in time. Where will we be landing?”
“At the main orbital dockyards, then taking the elevator down to New Atlantis, in the Atlantic Ocean near the North American coast.”
Twilight nodded and frowned; from what she remembered, eco-terrorism had caused several large tsunamis and widespread flooding of North America’s coasts during the formation of the Republic, causing the destruction of the mega-cities of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Manehatten had drowned much in the same way on Equus, though to Seraph claws.
‘Seraph…’
Hate was a bitter pill, and a foreign one that Twilight was doing her best to control. She and her friends had fought more than their fair share of villains in the past, some of them dark or downright evil. But she had never hated them. Sombra? Twilight had pitied the formless old monarch more than anything. Chrysalis, now that she was an ally and they had time to speak one on one, she could understand as a dutiful queen and a being with little experience with others beyond her own kind. Even Tirek, she could not truly hate, despite all he had done Tirek at least had not killed anypony.
‘Unlike the damn-’
“Woah!”
The Cutie Mark Crusaders zipped past the pair of adults to press their faces up to the viewpoint, beaming widely. Warmth bloomed and brushed away the anger and melancholy thoughts in a heartbeat. The teens had seemingly passed through the stress of the war more or less no worse for wear. They were still too thin, in Twilight’s opinion, and she noticed Applebloom twitching at any loud noise, but… it was good to see them excited again.
Turning around, Twilight could let herself smile widely, tears pricking her eyes at the group coming down the hallway. Her friends. She had been so worried about them, and her heart ached at how she had forced herself to keep Canterlot alive without going out to save them. Twilight’s choice had cost them all. Pinkie Pie was not her usual pronking self, though her hair was perked up- she walked slowly, limping just slightly, her left side covered in the white of human prosthetics, along with her left shoulder. She was more sedate, her smile small but genuine as she gazed around in curiosity. Applejack was sticking close to her cousin, giving a reassuring smile to the Princess, which eased her mind. ...somewhat.
Fluttershy was in full submissive pegasus mode, nestled into Rarity’s lean side with her eyes closed, and a wing over her back. Her marefriend was, for one, standing tall, but keeping a slow pace for Fluttershy. Twilight had seen the reports, and could see the marks on all of them. Her friends…
No. Twilight mastered her emotions, keeping her smile in place as she stepped up to greet her closest friends in all the universe. She was here now; they were together, and Twilight had learned her lesson. No matter what happened, they would not be separated again. Ever.
*************************
Orbiting the Terran sister-planet of Mars were a pair of oblong, rocky moons, Phobos and Deimos. Neither had been those old shapes in the night sky of Mars for a long time, however. The Phobos Research Center had been built in the early days of the Mars Project, inventing technologies to aid the first Martian colonists in the early days of settling, and later to kickstart the terraforming project that dominated Martian society and culture for nearly a century.
It had been thanks largely to Phobos that an atmosphere now hazily protected the chilly desert world; that a light-green sea was settled across the Martian desert, spreading year after year, a few miles each time. Phobos had been intrinsically linked with Martian identity, taking a rightful place on Mars’ colonial seal. As did its brother.
Deimos. The warrior-moon of Mars, its protector. While Phobos’ many research satellites gave it a hazy gleam in the night sky, it was Deimos that shined brighter, despite its distance away. Gantries and permanently docked defense stations and vessels encircled the reinforced plating and rocky surface of the small moon, and four Deimos-class light assault carriers flew formation with the station at all times.
It was one of the most heavily defended stations in the inner system, and was the ironic home of one of the most secretive branches of the Terran Republic: the Office of Solar System Intelligence. Originally stationed as a none too subtle reminder to Mars of Terran reach, the OSSI and Martian military now enjoyed a very close relationship. Much of Martian military technology passed through OSSI hands before reaching the Republic at large.
Nathan Winters reckoned Deimos to home. He had lived and trained on the Martian moon since he was sixteen, and was now in his fifth decade, though he barely looked thirty. With OSSI implants and prosthetics, gene therapies and medical coverage, Nathan could expect to remain operational for another three. Perhaps more, depending on technologies progression, and he was willing to do so. The OSSI’s work was important to the protection of the Republic.
The OSSI had played its defining role during the formation of the Republic, and in the years after, dealing with Belter separatists and pirates. Indeed, Nathan’s first mission was the final war for Ceres, in which his strike force paved the way for Belter Loyalist forces to land and put down the rebel terrorists once and for all, and take back the capital of the Belt, sounding the death knell of any organized rebellion against the Republic. And before the Trades, the OSSI had continued on as intelligence and research operatives for the Republic- which, admittedly, had not changed much since the Trades. Simply the targets of said research.
Nathan grinned as he stood in an observation room inside the main training facility on Demos, overlooking one of its gyms. The operative was slowly becoming rather glad that he took up the transfer to the Equusian-focused branch- this was too interesting to pass up. Sunset Shimmer, Trixie Lulamoon, and Starlight Glimmer had taken only a few minutes to agree to undertake OSSI training as a form of foreign relations- with Princess Luna’s blessing of course. And honestly? They were surprisingly good.
All three mares were in good physical shape, and knocked out the obstacle courses in due order. The range, however, was taking a bit more time…
“But Trixie aims better with magic!”
“I know, but this is-”
“Observe!”
Nathan chuckled quietly and shook his head. Trixie had been… fairly grating on his ship, at least to start with, but the way she was taxing the low patience of the infamous instructors was making her grow on him. He turned to peer at another feed- and smirked. Sunset Shimmer had taken the weapon apart with magic to study, much to the arm-crossed annoyance of her trainer.
“How’re they doing, agent?”
“Very good, all things considered, Director. They’re bright. Need direction, but I think that can be said for all the Equusians.”
Director David Goddard chuckled quietly as he joined his agent at the viewscreens- Goddard was well into his nineties, though his appearance more resembled a 21st Century man in his late fifties. The director had deepened the focus of the OSSI on scientific research, giving them closer ties to the Phobos Research Center. And now, quite possibly, to the first alien world they had access to.
“Indeed they do,” Goddard replied quietly, “As do we, in many ways. The Seraph is awake.”
He waved a hand as Nathan tensed, anticipating the worry, “Partially sedated and strapped down- the power armor tested ones. It’s not getting out. But it’s not speaking either.”
“The one that attacked that Trooper spoke Equus, even basically,” Nathan muttered thoughtfully, “We still assuming it’s some kind of caste system?”
“For the moment. That armor is… not what we expected. It’s bonded to their skin. We sent samples to Phobos for analysis.”
Nathan… couldn’t help but blink questioningly. The OSSI eggheads were not always so free with information, and the Director doubly so. The older man grinned at his expression.
“Your security clearance has been updated, Agent Winters. You’re now my got-to in the field for Seraph caste leaders.”
“It’s… it’s an honor, sir.”
Nathan suppressed a grit of teeth. It certainly was an honor; a dangerous honor. His shoulder still ached in the morning.
The Director let out a breath, “Once your ponies pass the trials, and I’m sure they will, I want you to take them down to Engineering. Get the fabricators working on pony armor. I have a feeling it’s going to be needed, and soon.”
“Think there will be another push on Equus, sir?”
Nathan was not enthused by the look in the man’s eyes, or the way he did not respond…
*******************
Remote Outpost 21-PLS
Command: AI Kensington-class, serial number 1021021.
“The last of the aid fleet has made it into orbit, Admiral, Captain. All ships in the green.”
“Good. Give word to control and release the civilians to begin landing procedures. Captain, the bridge is yours.”
Rear Admiral Drew Lewis stared down at the holographic map positioned in front of his command chair, just behind the captain’s ops center. Admiral Lewis and Captain Johanes were old shipmates, and it helped the running of the flagship of the newly minted Battlefleet Equus stay smooth. AR-glasses were settled over the eyes of the two command staff, special gloves allowing them to control their various stations while seated comfortably, and not in each other’s way. New technology straight off Luna, much like most of the tech aboard the supercarrier Daedalus, a Hurricane-class, one of the newest designs off Luna’s various tech-works. She hadn’t seen much action during the Rescue, but now she had a role.
Lewis let out a slow breath before tapping a control, bringing up displays of his Battlefleet, with rundowns of the ship capabilities, and the history of both the ships and their captains. One supercarrier, the Daedalus, four battleships, twelve cruisers, and thirty destroyers. With a focus on Terran and Belter patterns, it was a substantial force, with a focus on laser technologies to avoid undo and potential damage to Equus during any skirmishes or holding actions.
The Rear Admiral gave a small grunt as he looked each ship over carefully. A pair of Terran Minoan-class battleships, the Republica and the Nova Terra; torpedo tubes and heavy laser batteries- they were short and stubby for line battleships, but with a good reputation among Terran circles. And two Endeavor-class Belter battleships: heavily armored and with massive power plants to fuel their primary weapons- spinal-mounted boring lasers. Like most Belter vessels, Endeavors were adapted from civilian craft, but even so were nearly unmatched laser-based bombardment vessels.
But that might just be the problem. Their fleet was heavy on long range firepower, with only his packs of Albions and the carrier’s fighter complements giving them any real close quarters combat power. The cruisers were recently retrofitted themselves with lighter laser batteries and torpedos- and were admittedly old Europe-classes, outdated but in large supply.
The admiral sighed and ran his fingers through his close-cropped brown-red beard. It was not a mistake by High Command, by any means; keep the battleships and supercarrier over Equus and between the only warp route into the system and the portal, while keeping fast reaction packs of Europes and Albions stationed around the system. But it was inflexible. And as a Belter, it ate at Lewis. His people kept adaptability and flexibility as bywords.
“Sir?”
An ensign was standing ramrod straight, saluting smartly when Lewis turned towards the young officer.
‘Heh, Martian.’
“Ensign? At ease.”
A grateful look flashed over the woman’s face for a split second as she eased back; Lewis had built his career on relatability, and hence producing loyal and hard-working crews. It just took time for the word to spread.
“The Equusian cadets are aboard, sir, and waiting for you in the briefing room.”
Another plan by High Command, but one Lewis fully agreed with. The surviving Equusians had pledged themselves to the Republic, and they had to be trusted to reflect that. And, more importantly, they had to be trained, and fast. It had taken the Belt twenty years to properly field a professional military, and the Equusians had even less time to adapt. Lewis felt for them, he really did, and would do his best to help.
“Thank you Ensign. I’ll be down shortly.”
*****************************
Ceres Station. Capital of the Inner Belt. To the naked eye, Ceres was in fact a hodge-podge of asteroids, prefab stations, and decommissioned ships all linked by high-strength travel and freight tubes. Aesthetically, it was not beautiful. Indeed, it was downright ugly; a dozen architectures melding and clashing, lit up by bright neon lighting. But to a being such as Princess Mi Amore Candenza, it was a masterpiece- not the construction itself, but those doing the construction.
Relaxing against her dozing husband, the young alicorn smiled down at her notes happily, peeking from them to the station in the viewport. Humans were fascinating. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind for her family. Nominally they were scouting out locations for a security colony, to protect the Crystal Pony race from extinction. But for herself and her own studies into the subject, Cadence had been interested in how humanity viewed love.
On Equus, love was largely polygamist, and steeped in tradition. Especially among her Crystal Ponies; from what she had seen on Terra, their traditions fascinated and delighted many humans- namely because things were rather different. Venus and Terra seemed to be largely, though not entirely, monogamous, while Mars seemed to be split right down the middle between lines of class, with the lower classes being more open to group marriages. The Belt though…
The two sets of the Belt, the Inner and Outer, were an interesting amalgamation of human ideals and wants, at once close to Pony traditions- and yet, so different. Polyamorous relations were the norm here- but not for the reasons of breeding large families like ponies, or for security in griffon aeries, or even as a colonizing group for Diamond Dogs. Belter humans mated amongst their professions for sex, love, and shared labor. Cramped living arrangements on stations could not handle large bursts of new children- from what Cadence had read, several families on said stations would come together discuss making children, who would be raised among the families, sharing in their cultures and dynamics.
Cadence glanced thoughtfully over at her soundly sleeping daughter, curled up on her own seat. The eight year old had been largely sheltered from the worst of the war- she and Shining had done all they could to be there for her during the crisis. The servants and guard were as close to her as relatives, but… how would things he different, she wondered.
“Attention: we have docked at Ceres Station. Passengers may now disembark.”
Cadence chuckled quietly to her, beaming. Time to learn!
*************************
The Prey-Hunters were not watching. Orange eyes opened, narrowing in the unlight. A membrane flicked over the alien eyes, heat showing to the Alpha’s sight. Fur Prey-Hunters, unnoticing, moving away. The Spirit whispered in his mind, needs and commands flowing through his thoughts.
He must learn more. The membrane flicked again- his sight shifted to that of the Spirit Realm; pride billowed in the Alpha’s heart for this gift, even as he bit into the flesh of his cheek. An Eye watched, unblinking, at his restrained body from atop the nearby wall, but well within his range. The Spirit-blessed spittle splattered onto the Eye, and he could See.
A Hunt-station. Armed, filled with Prey-Hunters. Several Prey-Hunter voidcraft in orbit, not ready to hunt yet. Several Escaped Prey with these new Prey-Hunters, several floors away. Alarms sang through the Alpha’s mind. Alliance. Danger. The Spirit spread further, accessing Prey-Hunter oracles. Hunt grounds, dozens of them. Prime worlds among them, several ready to become Breeder-worlds. Spirit worlds among them, even. The Spirit flared.
Ascension. He must ascend- return to Home, bring the Hunt fleets. Prey alliance had been found; Prey-Hunters among them. Death of young must be avenged! Ascension!
Fire burned in his mind, in his claws. Good pain, strength-pain. Fog lifting from his thoughts. Eyes… mind… seeing…
Everything. The restraints of the Prey-Hunters gave way as he stood. Thumbs sliced open palms as he touched the metal of the construction, his Spirit shaping them. The Prime knew that the Prey-Hunters would come soon, and he needed tools. Once he had returned to Home, the true Shapers would give him proper Hunt-weapons. Or, should they prove needed, the dread weapons of War itself.
White eyes constricted at the thought, a hiss bubbling free. War. Cleansing war, the fire that protects the People, and cleanses the void of Prey-Hunters, should they not see the true Way. He would show them here. Before it was all too late.
*********************
“This technology is so impressive,” Twilight whispered as she looked the vessel’s holographic star map over, occasionally peering beneath to scan the emitter over with both sight and magic.
Each trip had been brief, but incredibly informative. Twilight’s datapad, a gift from Victoria while on Terra, was jammed to near capacity with graphs, charts, and countless articles about the Republic’s many planets and colonies in the Sol System. Everything from their economy and culture, down to more classified defense documents, though those were fewer in number and only meant to improve Equus up to a basic Republic standard of defense and technology.
One section of her tablet’s memory was given over wholly to ship manufacture and design. Twilight had never thought herself much of an industrialist, but the sheer ubiquity and need of starships for her people made it a necessity. And it was a little fun to make plans, she had to admit!
They were currently on a Crane-class light transport, made in the area of space known as the Belt. As they had crossed the System, the party had transferred between ships that bore the mark of each different human culture, each with their own quirks. From the sleek yet traditional Venusian craft, to the venerable Terrran, to the militaristic and new Martian, and now to the utilitarian Belter. Perhaps Equusian ships would have a style all their own, one day…
“We’re coming up on Titania, Princess,” the Captain spoke up, breaking Twilight’s concentration.
The alicorn perked up as the map shifted to bring up a view of the moon. This was one of the Sol System’s outermost colonies, but of deep importance to the Outer Belt, from what Twilight had read. The icy moon had a deep ocean of, surprisingly enough, water- cold water, mind you, but a nearly inexhaustible source to be shipped out to asteroid colonies and those without water sources of their own. In the Belt, water was one of the most valuable resources they had, and this shipping capability made Titania nearly a second Ceres in importance. The white and greys of the moon was lit up in concentric circles and lines- dome cities and highways leading out to various spaceports, mining enclaves, and research stations. It was beautiful.
“Does Titania have an atmosphere?” Twilight asked curiously, glancing over her shoulder.
Victoria had been a lifeline in understanding much of the system, and her patience, for someone untrained in governance or even leadership, was admirable.
“Not yet,” the young soldier replied quickly, “But they’re trying for it. A lot of Martian engineers are hired on-planet to get one going. Last I heard, there was a good decade before they’ll start seeing results.”
Victoria let out a breath back on a bulkhead, “There’s some bad blood between Terrans and Belters over the past, so I may not talk too much when we land, Princess. I don’t want to cause a scene on their turf.”
That got a thoughtful frown out of the Princess. The comment almost pleased the Princess, deep down- sometimes it took a bit to remember that the humans were not perfect, and every bit as flawed as Equusians. Maybe-
“What the hell…”
Twilight glanced up in alarm- the pilots had been quiet and nothing but professional during the past weeks. Now both were fiddling with dials and controls, their captain leaning over them to look at their own control boards. The view of the planet shifted, zooming in on the horizon, the white curve lit up by the blue backdrop of Uranus. And partially blocked by a grey dot, slowly swelling as the image zoomed further.
And all hell broke loose. Alarms blasted in over the speakers, the holographic map focusing on the object- a spheroid grey asteroid, lit up in red. With three sets of quite massive engines strapped to one side, glowing a brilliant blue. Silver lines criss-crossed the asteroid, weapons bristling along said lines, and lighting up on the display with soft flickers. A trail of pods was following the rock, or just launching from the surface around the engines. Twilight felt all the blood in her body rush to her hooves, ears nearly deafened in a roar of panic.
“It’s passed the zero barrier!”
“Launch a communication buoy, now! Get word to Ceres Command!”
“Mass impactors on course, starting evasive maneuvers!”
“Spooling up FTL!”
And Princess Twilight Sparkle watched, helpless from near orbit, as the asteroid impacted the colony of Titania. Without any atmosphere, there was nothing to shield it, or even slow the rock down. The miles long piece of metal and rock came down on the main cluster of lights on the surface, snuffing them out in a heartbeat. One could watch the impact ripple out from the site, the crust breaking and riding on the ocean beneath. Entire landmasses were drowned in an eyeblink; more lights on the surface blipping out of existence.
“Titania Command is down. Captain, I… gods above, there’s only…”
In several places across the planet, blue-white explosions flashed for split seconds before fading away- Twilight dimly recalled reading about the planet’s cold fusion experiments. Plans for the future, for the people of the Republic…
A cyan foreleg wrapped around Twilight’s neck and chest, pulling her back. Rainbow’s voice was in her ear, urgent, but Twilight could not focus on the words- her entire mind was focused solely on the planetary map- and to the voices of the command staff.
“Titania Defense is gone, sir, not even on the scopes! Ships must have been in drydock.”
“SOS signals on the surface- service domes in the west, looks like.”
“Mark their location, we’ll tell-”
“Sir! Seraph lifesigns on those pods, and they’re landing near the domes.”
“Log it; nav, get us back to Ceres, we have to protect the VIPs.”
“No.”
The three person command crew started, the captain blinking back at the mare. Their eyes met.
“Princess, we’re only a light transport, not a warship,” he responded slowly, voice shaking despite his put upon calm, “We aren’t equipped-”
“Dump everything not essential and get us down to one of those domes, Captain. We can evacuate as many survivors as possible.”
Was this how Celestia felt? During the war?
Twilight’s horror and rage roared- locked away in her stomach, away from her heart and brain. She knew her face betrayed nothing but cold confidence and command. She had to keep her emotions away- lives depended on it now. The captain did not have her training- she could sense the shock and worry.
“Ma’am, my orders-”
“Are countermanded, in light of the situation. The communication buoy will make sure the alarm is sounded- we now have to save lives. I am a Princess, and a Senator, yes. But that does not make my life anymore important than their’s.”
Twilight’s mates and friends were close to her, their friendship washing over her back in a palpable way, like the sun’s rays. She needed that; it steeled her nerves.
“Republic citizens need our help now, Captain,” Twilight insisted quietly, eyes having never left his own, “We’re the only hope they have.”
For a pregnant moment, wills were matched. Twilight could not fault the man- they had witnessed the same catastrophe, and felt the same horror. Orders had been what he fell back on. Twilight had fallen back onto her principles. Principles forged on the fire of a lifetime fighting for the good of Equestria, with her friends by her side. Principles she needed to share, and to instill in others.
“...nav, take weapons. I’ll pilot us in.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Strap in!” the Captain barked as he moved to sit heavily in the pilot’s chair, and Twilight obeyed instantly, letting Victoria guide her back to her seat.
I will save as many as I can this time. I swear it.
Supercarrier: Hurricane-class Class: Hurricane Role: Supercarrier, Flagship, and Planetary Assault Carrier Size: Six hundred and fifty meters Armament: Eighteen heavy torpedo batteries; twenty heavy missile launchers. Fifty point defense chainguns (Mars Armory M-21). One spinal-mounted Olympus pattern mass driver railgun (Mars Armory M-100). Compliment of five hundred Deimos II-class armor-piercing missiles. Shields: Twelve Vinci-class shield emitters: electromagnetic plasma screens Engine: Four Olympus pattern Heidalmann drives; full power reaching 75 percent of lightspeed. Gravity: Simulated Mars-like gravity; rotating living area. Crew compliment: Three thousand Martian Navy personnel; two hundred and fifty Martian Marine security compliment- maximum capacity at four hundred Martian Marines. Auxiliary craft: Up to one hundred Fury-class Fighter-Bombers; without fighter compliment, can fit six Huntress-class corvettes; two Javelin-class destroyers, or one Deimos-class light assault carrier.
The Hurricane-class is a brand new class of starship out of the Mars Pattern shipyards orbiting Jupiter, and the pride of Martian naval technology. Built during the time of the Trades, the supercarrier classes of star vessels were meant to become flagships for future extrasolar expeditions to the Centauri system, or to make the portal trip to the Equusian system. Now during the time of the Equusian Rescue and inclusion into the Republic, Republic Command has decided to contract Mars to use their supercarriers as future Battlefleet command vessels.
Currently, only three Hurricanes are operational- two serving as Inner Belt guard and control ships, while one, the Daedalus, tests its role as a C&C vessel as the flagship of Battlefleet Equus. This was under some controversy, as Mars contains more than a few anti-alien groups, with power on the Republic Senate floor. Regardless, their objections were overruled, and the Daedalus sent under the command of rising Martian star, Rear Admiral Drew Lewis. Whether or not it succeeds in its role as a C&C vessel may yet determine any further roles the Hurricane-class may have in future conflicts.
The battle stance alarms woke Rear Admiral Lewis out of a deep sleep; jerking up, Lewis’ eyes quite literally lit up as his command implants activated, text scrolling across his line of vision. The voice of the Daedalus’ AI, Icarus, spoke quietly through his cochlear implant.
“A ship bearing Seraph drive signatures has been sighted on sensor, Rear Admiral.”
‘So it begins.’
Rolling out of his bunk, Lewis slid back into his shoes and affixed his cap, before rushing out of his cabin. At least the crews would be well-rested. The fleet had been running AR drills at station, but with plenty of R&R in between; the construction crews on the lunar surface, working on defense stations, were on strict shift-loads, to keep them from overworking. It’d likely be too much a risk to bring up the currently working teams. They would simply have to hunker down and wait.
The command bridge was tense, its crew settled at their battlestations and typing furiously. Few words were spoken; data was passed station to station; implant to implant. Lewis’ command implant interfaced with C&C as he sat in his chair, AR screens popping up as he pulled on his goggles, feeding his suite the collected data.
A monitoring station had spotted the craft, seconds before it was annihilated with a volley of plasma-type weapons by a cruiser-style Seraph craft, built in the style of the Lander that had attacked Equus. Other stations in system Legrange points reported the craft on a deceleration into the system- on a course towards the wormhole.
‘Of course.’
“Maneuver the fleet to face the cruiser. All heavies are to fire once the target is at maximum range. Have the CAG load strike craft with anti-capital munition and deploy to engage on my command.”
Furthermore, Lewis sent orders for four of the escort frigates to move into formation around the portal. This was a new kind of Seraph vessel- he did not like unknown variables. With a flock of his fingers over the AR screen, he ordered the remaining Albions into a loose claw formation, and the heavier capitals into a tight X in line with the portal. Once in position, they would lock down into fortress mode- EM shields would activate, and their modular armor systems would shift to cover the various weak points in their designs. They couldn’t move quickly in this formation, but their overlapping shields should protect one another. He glanced back at the scopes.
The Seraph craft had not changed trajectory; it was within the Daedalus’ own scanners now- power was building along spine and aft. A weapon? The signatures vaguely similar to their own Heidallman drives, but…
“All Albions, move into torpedo range and fire at maximum yield.”
‘Need to see how this thing moves.’
At the first battle, the Lander had seemed bulky and slow in comparison to its reinforcement corvettes, which had been armed with smaller versions of the lance weaponry the Lander had been using. This craft outsized those corvettes by several margins, but if they all used the same kinds of weapons… heh, what he wouldn’t give for one to mount on a battleship. Lewis stared down at the frigates as they powered into position, their formation mathematically perfect, thanks to their onboard AI. Hopefully those AI would be just as precise with their fire.
The Albions had been five hundred kilometers out- knife fighting range when talking about railguns or laser batteries. That had rapidly increased in the ten minutes since the order- Albions were speedy little Terran machines, and ate up distance for breakfast. They were closing on the craft, but it had not altered course, and the power kept growing. Like the pit in Lewis’ stomach. Johannes’ hand settled on Lewis’ shoulder.
“Admiral…”
“I know. Captain, you-”
The moment the Albion’s torpedos left their mother ships, the Seraph ship seemed to wink out of existence for several seconds- and reappeared two kilometers away from the Daedalus and its formation. Lewis’ heart seized. A wave of plasma blasted from the fore of the cruiser- Lewis focused on the scans of the vessel, trusting the captains to engage now.
‘The power surge must have been its charging a tactical jump,’ he thought with a subvocal growl, though physically keeping his face passive, ‘That’s insane. Even our AI’s can’t jump us in that close.’
The expanding wall of hot gaseous matter detonated the first reflexive torpedo barrage from the capital ships, then washed over the line. The Daedalus’ EM field barely fluxed- but its alarms flared regardless. Lewis’ vision was quickly brought up to the screen as three Europe’s reported failing shields, their older EM emitters frying from the sudden strain. Still closing with the line at full speed, and barely balking at two mass driver hits from the Daedalus, four plasma lances launched from the vessel and struck each unshielded cruiser and burning across the EM shields of an Endeavor battleship, the Ceres’ Pride. The star-hot material punched through two of the vessels, fore to aft; they flexed and glowed from the inside, and began to drift. Dead.
The third lance struck its cruiser midship and cut it cleanly in half. Escape pods began to quickly flow from the forward ventral hull, but everything aft was an inferno. Lewis grit his teeth; the lance had been absorbed by the Ceres’ Pride, who had quickly returned fire, though only at a partial charge. The cruiser soaked it up, its own mobile shield flickering, as it punched through the line. Aft torpedoes were launched- and promptly obliterated by a another, if smaller plasma pulse, fired in advance.
The Admiral switched over to the CAG’s screen- the strike craft were starting their run. SF-1’s, they were Belter strike fighters from the Unification period- old but sturdy, with multiple missile pods and a torpedo launcher when fitted for anti-capital work. Lewis had pushed for their inclusion- now he’d see if that was a mistake or not. He tapped into their comms.
“No PD, Command, just that plasma wave.”
“Stay away from its fore or aft, watch your fire- tight formation.”
“All flights, primary targets are the engines- watch for overlap from the caps.”
Lewis blinked. ‘No point defense weapons?’
“They’re launching ships!”
Lewis frowned and waved the SF sensor screens to the forefront- four corvettes had seemingly appeared from under the cruiser- long, thin craft brimming with energy. Two fighters winked out as the ships launched forward in a cloud of plasma- they had the same kind of wide-wave emitters then.
“Fox three, fox two!”
The torpedo slammed midships of one corvette, while its follow-up missile was burned away from a plasma wave- and the craft detonated like a nuke. The firing fighter winked out of existence. Lewis’ eyes went wide and he moved to radio the CAG-
“All flights, those are suicide craft- new primary target, leave the cap to the caps.”
‘Good man.’
The admiral switched back to a tactical view of the battlespace- in time to see the cruiser fire again, four lances bisecting the defending frigates. Three reactors took direct hits and went critical at once, the force blasting armor and debris off into the portal’s aperture. The fourth spiraled away in dead pieces, its escape shuttle blasting away after a tense moment and rocketing towards the moon for safety.
“Fire!”
Captain Johannes had stepped up to his command console, hands gripped tightly to his chair arms as he stared at the ship screen.
“Full power to the auto-loader and let ‘em have it!”
Both boring lasers from the Endeavors were on target now, joined by the laser batteries on seven Europe-class cruisers- two had malfunctioned and were stuck in fortress mode, power shunted away from engines and only able to slowly turn on RCS thrusters. The mostly invisible lasers were causing the cruiser’s shields to flare and flex- a lance snapped out, punching through the Pride’s hanger and several half-decks, but she kept firing.
The massive depleted uranium shells of the carrier’s mass driver punched clean through the cruiser’s weakening shields and into its spine, plasma venting in pockets on the dorsal surface. The next laser blasts had no shield at all to dissipate their energy, and melted through the vessel’s engine, practically cutting the module free of the ship. Eight torpedoes, ripple-fired from the Terran battleships, zipped under its fore emitter array and impacted- four forward armor-piercing rounds to cut open the ship, and four high explosive warheads behind that to detonate inside. Fire rippled up the craft’s body, pieces blasting free from the force of the detonations. The port of the craft glowed a bright white, a lance arching out to splatter against the Ceres’ Pride- before the entire cruiser detonated in a wave of plasma energy and surviving debris.
“Fox 2!”
“Watch that wave!”
The released corvettes were fast, and almost constantly firing behind them to ward off the fighters and their missiles. One had taken an indirect hit, leaking fire, but its shields were now entirely down, all power seemingly routed to the engines. A boring laser from the other Endeavor, Titania, glanced a juking corvette, which began to spin and break apart. The other two pulled up sharply, inexplicably breaking apart as well. And then Lewis’ saw it.
The Daedalus’ sensors lit up like the sun as they detecting the dozens, the hundreds of small spheres that launched into the portal, magnetically sticking to the swirling masses of debris. Nuclear signatures, each sphere bearing several megatons of nuclear fire. Nuclear mines now infested the fleet's only way home, and the only protection Equus really had. Lewis slowly leaned back in his seat, unable to help from paling.
Twilight Sparkle’s ears flattened as she galloped out of the airlock, eyes going wide as she looked around at the chaos surrounding her. Humans in blue and red jumpsuits were sprinting across the broad open space of the dome, lit only by the dim yellow emergency lights on the walls. Masses of crates and boxes had been set up as barricades at several large entrances and hallways, and two looked to be armed, with a few armored humans wielding rifles and pistols set up in defensive positions. Dozens of unarmed humans, many of them injured or children, were cowering behind other defensive positions, made of shipping containers, further in the dome.
The alicorn’s heart seized- it was so much like some of the villages she had seen during the invasion…
“A pony? Here?”
One of the armed humans, a male soaked in sweat and with wide blue eyes, had skidded to a stop in front of her party, looking up at them all with near tearful relief. Victoria and the captain of their transport stepped in front of the Princess- Victoria had put on her power armor, and was clutching a long rifle given to her by the crew. The man’s eyes flicked to her in surprise; he visibly stifled more emotions as he nodded to her.
“Yes, sir, we’re with the senatorial Crane transport Echidna,” the captain spoke up, “We’re here to evacuate you all.”
“A Crane?” the man repeated, scowling, “That’s all they could send?! I’ve got over two hundred people here! Why-”
“We were approaching Titania when the attack began,” Victoria interjected calmly, “No one sent us- we sent out a beacon to ask for more ships, though.”
“That’s just fucking great,” the man growled, rubbing his eyes before turning to several other jumpsuited men who had rushed over, “Start bringing the people in- families first, keep them together. We have to get all the kids and injured off station, that’s top-”
A loud, wailing alarm drowned out his words, and all of the men immediately turned to sprint for the defensive positions. Twilight’s blood turned to ice, recognizing the desperation in the run- one she even now was copying. Scrambling to the crates and stairs and flapping a few times so she could see over the humans, Twilight grit her teeth. Down a long, already bloodied and burned out partially, hallway, they came. Screeching, roaring; swinging their bladed arms and snapping their maws. Scrambling over one another to get at the fresh flesh arrayed before them.
Seraph.
**************************
The alarm quite firmly aroused Nathan out of his bunk and slumber, well-honed instincts having him halfway dressed before he was really aware. The subtle pitch of the alarm, something drilled into all Intelligence operatives trained on the Deimos, told him something rather… alarming. Full general quarters.
“Ugh, what is that?” Sunset Shimmer groaned, pulling herself out of the ponies’ shared bunk, thankfully followed by the grumbling forms of her compatriots.
Nathan smirked slightly to himself- they were learning, at least.
“It’s the station alarm, girls. Get dressed, we need to report, ASAP.”
The techs, in the weeks since the battle for Equestria, had begun development of Equusian-style bodysuits, for both utility in the Republic, and to study unicorn physiology. In a week, the mares would undergo surgery, to implant Terran AI units, and the military-grade neural package that would allow them power armor usage, and to interface with most military hardware. They were odd recruits, but Nathan was starting to see just how useful they might be, and so was command.
The operative’s eye flicked upwards as an icon flashed in his implanted eye-HUD- a communique from Command. He blinked to send it to his cochlear receiver.
“Operative, report to the command center with your charges, immediately. Station is now on Alpha Security level.”
A bolt of ice shot down the human’s spine.
‘Alpha… oh fuck.’
“We’re ready.”
The mares stood at attention- legs straight and heads held high, the tech-suits covering all but their heads in red-black polymers. Nathan grinned weakly.
‘Huh.’
“Let’s get moving. Something big is going down.”
**********************
Throughout the Unification period, Ceres had remained a vastly important hub for defense for the Outer System of Sol. Covered in the best communication hardware money could buy in the Belt, Ceres Command had kept a close eye on the ever-changing, ever-packed space of the travel lanes and mining/service colonies within Ceres space. And it was because of this hardware that it was among the first to realize that something was going wrong.
On any given day, the transponder signals flowed into the command and control computers at Ceres Command, on steady and rarely changing flightpaths. Most would switch off when they reached their destinations, but even those had trackable subsystems, for crime prevention. But out in the dead of space, they rarely ever just disappeared entirely, not with piracy being a null point since the last days of the Belt campaign. And yet, an alarm sang as nearly a dozen transponders on the fringes of Ceres’ space switched off in an instant, leaving both human crews, and the few Belter AI’s confused and alarmed. There was no call for radiation waves or comet storms of any size- malfunction could be attributed to one, but eleven?
Sensors were trained on that section of space; probes launched… and they saw them. Asteroids had always been a problem in the early days of the Outer System colonization and exploitation attempts, being unpredictable for human minds. The bouncing, crashing, gravity-dependant rocks had destroyed more than a few starships and service colonies before they had been mapped out by AI systems from Terra, or properly moved and locked with thrusters by engineer teams. These asteroids, however, were unlike anything the sensors of their masters had ever seen before. A mix of sizes, some rivalling Ceres itself, these space rocks bristled with mass driver systems, constantly putting out a cloud of projectiles into the void of space. At the rear of the strange vessels sat three massive fusion engines, powering the mass along at rates rivalling purpose-built starships. Within microseconds of these scans, AI Wellington, Charity, and Benson were firing off message buoys towards the closest FTL wormhole-point.
But the last had another purpose. Designation, Persephone; the command and control AI of Ceres itself, Persephone was a purpose-built military AI, and was devoting nearly all of her processing power towards the defense of Ceres’ main control space, and pulling in any and all nearby defense fleets in around the city-station. One of the asteroids, the largest, had begun to turn slowly towards the station, slowing down… but on a direct collision course. And the space between the heavenly bodies was quickly filling with the barely visible radar flickers of incoming mass drivers…
******************
Mana was heating up the metal up and down the Titania hallway- it was starting to glow a dull orange, and would surely have burned any of the defenders had they cause to go down it. Twilight Sparkle’s legs shook as she stared ahead, horn glowing and sparking in a prepared overcharged kill spell. Repeated use was burning through her mana reserves, but it was all that was keeping the Seraph back- from this walkway. Near constant automatic fire thundered from the other defensive position, humans shouting to one another while fighting, or rushing to get more ammunition. Desperation and fear… The princess gulped.
‘Not again…’
“We’re loading up the last families now!”
The captain had rushed back to the position, sweating profusely and tightly clutching his pistol as he glanced back and forth between the hallway and his tablet, “Princess, we need to load you and your people.”
Blink. Incredulousness filled Twilight as she turned on him; she could feel herself scowling, but did not have the energy to correct the rude expression.
“We’ll be the last to board, captain; get everyone else on first, we aren’t-”
“We do not have room for everyone, ma’am.”
Twilight’s heart seized at the captain’s firm stare, his jaw set.
“My orders were to keep you safe, and to get you back to Terra. I will do so, with or without your agreement.”
“I am not leaving these people to die,” she returned with a growl, hoof pawing the deck, “They’re dying for these people! They have families! We have magic, we can-”
“Rarity!”
The alabaster unicorn had collapsed at her position, body soaked in sweat as she struggled to catch her breath; beyond her, several enterprising blue-armored Seraph lay in pieces, bisected by sharp pieces of metallic flooring. Applejack was doing her best to lift the mare up, but her own body was shaking. She and Pinkie Pie had been scrambling to help the survivors onto the ship, or helping to fix up the barricades in between waves of Seraph. Her green eyes met Twilight’s own, and she slowly shook her head. They had been pushed to the edge before, and none had properly healed before this kind of battle. The princess gulped thickly, ears flattening.
“I…”
“Get out of here, princess.”
The jumpsuited man, whom Twilight had come to find was named Jeremy, and was a security chief on Titania, was staring at them, holding up a crate of ammunition. His face was grim, bleak even, but set. He motioned to the ship.
“Sol needs you; my people need you.”
The crate thudded to the ground as he stabbed his finger towards her, hand shaking.
“You keep them safe, you hear me?” he growled, practically chewing his words, “Make sure they are safe. And make sure Titania isn’t forgotten. We…”
Jeremy lowered his hand, staring at her for several moments before picking the crate up again, “We’ll hold them as long as we can. Hopefully the fleet will get here. But I’m not willing to risk losing everyone. Go.”
Twilight wanted to say something, anything. But her mouth was ashen, and she could only stare as he turned to Victoria.
“Hope that bot in your head was recording this, Terran,” he spat, “Try to make the footage worth somethin’, got it?”
Victoria’s face couldn’t be seen past her armor, but she nodded slightly, turning to lift Rarity up in her arms.
“Princess…”
“Get in the ship.”
******************
Victoria stared out the viewport as the Crane began to pull away; she and the rest of the crew had been packed into the cockpit, as every inch of available space in the rest of the transport was jam packed with survivors. Vaguely she was aware that they would have to find a berth soon; the live support system couldn’t tend to all of them like this, not for long. But her main focus was on the view of Titania- and Princess Twilight Sparkle.
It was dark. Without an atmosphere, any fire was quickly extinguished by the void of space; the only light came from the screen, and the flickering blue of the asteroid’s engines, in the distance. And it was quiet- the captain had the comms open, but there was nothing coming out from the moon’s surface. It was dead.
“What did he mean, Victoria?”
Twilight’s voice was hoarse, tight with emotion that the human could understand entirely. She had yet to move, eyes locked on the surface they were rapidly leaving behind. Victoria slowly reached to open her visors, then reached for Twilight’s shoulder- only to pull it back. She sighed.
“Terrans are implanted with AI minders when we’re young. Part of the surgery is a small camera in my eye that I can turn on and off at will. It’s… the culture is complicated, but ah…”
“Was it? Recording?”
Victoria sighed again, hands resting behind her as she stepped up beside the alicorn.
“Yes, it was.”
She peered down at her, biting her lip at the piercing, calculating look on Twilight’s face. She glanced up to meet her attache’s eyes.
“Send it to my pad, please. The… the country needs to know about this.”
“Of course, Prin-”
“Senator.”
Twilight turned away from the viewport, heading back towards a worried herd of pegasi settled near the far wall.
“I am a Senator of the Republic now. Time I started thinking that way. Come, Victoria. We need to talk.”
Soon after the final battles of the Unification period, the nascent Terran Republic formed a fleet to protect the Outer System from threats, both within and without. While at the time a very serious assignment, boasting over a hundred ships from across the Republic client states and handling everything from rogue asteroids to pirate clans, by the present day the Outer System Defense Flotilla was made up of three dozen aging cruisers, many of them Europe-class or Belter made Isle-class missile destroyers, retrofitted for logistical roles. Many of the Europe-classes had also been refitted, replacing many weapon systems with high end sensor suites and scout probe launch points. It served them well when it came to discovering rogue heavenly bodies or incoming radiation storms, moving on fairly predictable paths.
It did not, however, serve the ships of the OSDF well when said heavenly bodies dropped out of FTL practically on top of them. An asteroid roughly the size of Phobes, powered by a single fusion reacter engine, had dropped out of FTL within a thousand kilometers of the OSDF headquarters station orbiting Neptune. This station had only just received, and dutifully passed on, the news of Titania’s death, and began training their powerful sensors towards the moon. They never stood a chance. Railgun projectiles within that range struck almost instantaneously when fired, slugs punching even through the tough outer shell of the Belter made station. Eight rounds shredded the station within seconds, fires breaking out as subsystems were annihilated and atmosphere and personnel being vented out the holes. One round of the second firing wave struck the station’s reactor; from the outside, the station would have flared brilliantly for a split second, then began to drift apart in dozens of pieces, to be caught and pulled in by Neptune’s gravity well.
A flotilla of six Europe-class cruisers had been in high orbit around Neptune, running training exercises, when this occured, and their upgraded sensor suites reported their base’s initial annihilation- and gave them a greater strike distance with their torpedo batteries. Under the command of their battle-AI, Destiny, torpedos roared around the planet’s atmosphere and began their attack course, while their mother craft followed them to get a path for their own railgun rounds. And flew directly into a cloud of mass driver projectiles.
Moving into a more battle-ready X formation, only two cruisers took direct hits; the Palmyra buckled as three heavy railgun slugs punched through just above the bridge, cutting through its sensor suites and annihilating its main crew quarters. The ship to its starboard and slightly aft, however, was much less lucky. A projectile directly struck and vented out its bridge, then continued through to hit its aft torpedo bay- a flash of light would have blinded anyone outside, and a now aft-less cruiser began its slow descent back into Neptune’s gravity well.
The OSDF salvo had some luck, however. Four torpedos, loaded with high yield explosives, had impacted against the main body of the small asteroid, shredding many of the railgun emplacements that had so badly mauled their motherships. The other torpedos, under the guide of their AI handler, had rocketed into the vessel’s engine system. A shield flickered as the first six armor piercing torpedos struck and blasted over its surface. The seventh, eight, and ninth got through, however. The engine flared- and detonated like a massive bomb, turning the asteroid into dust- and further annihilating the OSDF fleet base.
Nothing was to be salvaged from either, and unfortunately, the battered fleet could not detect any lifepod transponders from the wreck. Now under the command of Lieutenant Commander Devon Tracer, the OSDF fleet launched all of their message buoys, and even their scout probes, towards the rest of the system, while turning to make their way towards the Jovian system, one cruiser staying behind to attempt rescue of their fallen brothers before they were destroyed by Neptune’s gravity…
*******************
The sacrifice of Titania and the OSDF headquarters did, however, give the rest of the OSDF and the Jovian defense fleet time to deploy. The moons of Jupiter and its own small asteroid belt and rings was one of the richest zones in all of the Sol System, which was why it boasted the largest shipyard in all the Republic, leased out to each of its constituencies. Situated just outside the main gravity well of Jupiter itself, and close to the moon Ganymede, the shipyard was made up of ten large scaffold platforms, attached to a single hub, built out of a captured Ceres-class asteroid, and built into the main living and command and control center of the shipyard. This station, known as Jovia Central, was also playing host to the Cervine senators, who were interested in setting up a small test hub for building designs for their people.
When the asteroid cluster detected by Ceres broke off, two major asteroids had targeted the Jovian system- one aimed for Jovia Central, and the other for the densely populated Titan. Impacts from either would destroy their targets utterly, not to mention the clouds of mass driver shells being flung out ahead of them. Half an hour after their detection, the first railgun rounds were streaking in system- and largely spattering against EM shields utilized by blocking heavy cruisers of Martian design and build, having been moved by their captains and AI to intercept the now radar painted clouds. Jovia Central’s own shields rippled as two fairly large, almost battleship-style railgun rounds, slammed into them. But thankfully, no casualties were initially reported.
Initially.
**********************
“The Northern Star is gone!” A human shouted, and Cadence’s eyes widened- before she realized what he meant.
‘A starship name, right. ...doesn’t make me feel better though.’
Humans were dying. The Ceres’ Command staff had ushered them to one side of the C&C room, allowing the royals-cum-senators to watch, but needing them out of the way. Cadence could tell that Shining was listening closely, his soldier eyes trained on the readouts and tactical map the humans were going on. Cadence did her best to keep up, worrying her lip. She had learned more about war in the past year than she ever thought she would.
“They have ten ships around Ceres,” Shining explained calmly, eyes flicking over the display, “One just disappeared, so I’m guessing it was destroyed. The tremors are those Seraph things firing on the station.”
“They can’t ever leave us alone,” Cadence growled, hugging Flurry Heart close while she leaned against her husband, “Monsters…”
Shining’s scent had always calmed her, but she could scent his own stress, and that of the humans rushing in front of them. Things weren’t going well.
*********************
Persephone had positioned all responding ships around the station, to give them the best chances of dodging the asteroid’s railgun strikes- but as it got closer, that was quickly becoming a moot point. The AI was… annoyed, as angry as AI were ever allowed to get. Mars’ Command was unable to send any ships, as they were preparing their own defense, and a major security breach had their faster craft scrambling in Mars orbit. The OSDF HQ was not answering her tight-beam communiques, and the majority of its fleet was out of position to come to Ceres’ aid. All she had were Ceres’ own defenses, and now nine various Belter warships.
The Northern Star, an Endeavor-class battleship, had been absolutely savaged by the full might of the asteroid’s railgun arrays; its EM shields overwhelmed and main laser battery leaking, along with much of its air. Its captain was attempting to pull the ship behind an asteroid for emergency repairs, while its sister ship, the Evening Star, moved into its place. Its fully charged boring laser snapped out, gleaming in Persephone’s technical “sight,” and began to scorch along the asteroid’s surface.
“Captain, aim at the vessel’s engines,” Persephone communicated to the human, watching her scans of the asteroid closely, “The craft is reinforced- you will be unable to burn it away in time.”
“Acknowledged, Ceres’ Command.”
Persephone watched as the laser turned to burn across the engines’ shields, and trace along a fat silver line that encircled the rock- only to start as the asteroid began to pick up speed. Hundreds of pods had launched from the silver line, rocketing ahead of the asteroid on paths whose G’s would have destroyed the internal workings of any human. Still…
“Attention- boarding parties on path to Ceres’ Station; updated time to impact- one minute, twenty seconds.”
The imminent threat unlocked more of Persephone’s shackles- two Damocles-class nuclear torpedos rocketed from their silos, their payloads blindingly flashing over the stern. As an AI, Persephone had no need to shield her “eyes,” and watched in annoyance as the nuclear payloads simply wiped out the forward railgun systems, and turned the rock into a glowing slag-pit.
‘Very well.’
Persephone’s prime directive was the preservation of Ceres and her people- in that order, unfortunately. Ceres’ EM shields could not hold an asteroid of that mass or speed with its current energy allotment. Using drones under her control, the power from Ceres’ life support and main power began to be re-routed towards the EM. Very likely, this would kill many thousands of humans, but-
*******************
Ceres’ flared with a pinkish light as the Seraph asteroid closed in; well before it would have struck the EM field, the asteroid began to buckle against a shimmering field. Its disembarked boarding pods screamed in- and impacted against the shield as well, shattering and spilling many feral Seraph into the void of space. Other pods veered off, heading for the closest human vessels- and most were quickly obliterated out of existence.
The reinforced asteroid stayed largely intact for several moments, pressing firmly on the unexpected shield. But it could not break through. The stone and metal buckled and crumbled, pressing back and into its hollowed out spaces, and into the flaring engines. Once the crumbling reached said engines, however, the damage was done. The fusion became entirely uncontrolled, buckled- and exploded outwards, shattering the new shield- but not the flaring EM shield beneath it, which protected Ceres from any debris and radiation. The threat… was gone.
Inside, Ceres’ Command clustered around the crumbled, barely breathing bodies of the Crystal Royals, all clutching each other tightly and still surrounded in nebulas of magic. Cadence shuddered softly as they called for medics, a weak smile on her slender muzzle as her head fall back to the floor.
**********************
Five minutes after the initial railgun strike on Jovia Central, the shipyards were in serious trouble. The asteroids had picked up speed seemingly at random, rocketing for their targets; the EM shields of Jovia Central were holding well, but Ganymede’s surface had no such protection. Atmosphere-less, impactors buckled and blew chunks out of rocky moon- and destroyed several service colonies, though the main colony was on the other side of the moon and thus protected- for the moment.
Jovia’s defensive fleet had redeployed; twenty capital ships split between the two sizeable asteroids- largely made up of Endeavor-class battleships and several Martian Olympus-class battlecruisers. But the railgun arrays had been half-targeting the capital ships since coming into range, and they were not faring well this close together. Two battlecruisers were adrift, dead in space and barely reporting any life signs. An Endeavor, the Liberator, had attempting a close range boring laser assault on the Ganymede targeted rock, but was now in three separate pieces, surrounded by fleeing lifeboats. Another Endeavor had taken a direct hit to the reactor, and its pieces would be found on the moon for decades to come.
But coming straight out of drydock was a very new vessel, a Hurricane-class supercarrier- recently renamed the Tanbor, captained by the Jovian system’s main military commander, Rear Admiral Rebecca Tsan. Over one hundred strike craft, Fury-class fighter bombers, were launching in two squadrons while their mothership powered with all speed towards the pair of hostile engagers.
Standing with her hands behind her back, the stately fifty year old Admiral stared ahead at her tactical screen, AR goggles flashing with rapid-fire updates to the Battle Net. To her right, perfectly still but for her lightly buzzing wings, was the insectile Changeling Queen, Chrysalis- her eyes also covered by goggles as to keep up with the quickly unfolding battle. Her jaw was set in thought, but she remained quiet and respectful, something that surprised the Admiral somewhat, but was grateful for.
“Alpha Squadron on approach.”
“Roger that, Alpha Leader. Expend all Fox Five on primary target, then engage secondary if the main is intact. You are cleared to fire.”
“Fire on my mark…”
The Fury’s settled into a loose claw, pulling up and behind the asteroid as to get a proper and full target reading on its shielded engines. Railgun fire was targeted back at them, but they were quickly finding that the Seraph targeting suites could not get a lock on such small craft. A small cloud flicked through the formation, and one fighter spiraled away at a glancing strike.
“Mark!”
Fifty Damocles-class nuclear tipped torpedos roared ahead of the fighters from their heavy hardpoints, dipping and weaving around the asteroid’s railgun fire, guided by extremely limited onboard VI’s. As they closed on the engines, they broke off into a circle to evade the fusion emissions- and darted down and in. The fighters’ viewport cameras immediately cut out to protect their pilots’ eyes as the torpedos detonated.
The CAG’s voice cut back into their comms almost immediately.
“All strike craft break starboard and let the AI take over; mission priority beta in effect.”
Well-trained, the pilots allowed the battle AI to guide them towards the second asteroid and their sister squadron- there was no need to attack the expanding ball of dust and radiological debris now. The EM shields of the Jovia Central, bolstered by gleaming blue magical fields from the Cervines within, would be more than adequate to repel the cloud of debris.
Rebecca couldn’t help but smirk in no small amount of pride at the low chuckle emanating from her guest. Chrysalis had a holed hoof to her muzzle, trying to hold back her amused, and very interested, giggles.
“Very, very impressive, Rear Admiral. I think I would like to study those craft at the first opportunity, if I may be so bold?”
“I think that can be arranged, Senator. But let’s watch them blast the second one. Communication, send a message buoy to Solar Command, let them know these things’ weakness.”
The main power flickered before Nathan and the ponies got anywhere near the command room; Nathan pulled up short and cursed quietly to himself as he looked around. In the distance, his enhanced hearing picked up the screech of tearing metal and the rapid popping of automatic fire. His cochlear implant came to life.
“Operative, our visitor has broken free, and is heading for the communication center. Kill it.”
‘Of course it has.’
“On my way, sir.”
Nathan snapped his Martian-made C-90 heavy pistol into his hand, checking the slide before waving the mares along after him as he sprinted down a side corridor. Sunset Shimmer galloped forward to keep pace with him, giving the human a serious side eye.
“Do I want to know?”
Nathan smirked and did his best to suppress a chuckle. He liked this one.
“The Seraph escaped, and we gotta kill it.”
“Oh is that all?” Starlight deadpanned, smirking after a moment.
“Trixie does not like that look, Starlight. What are you-”
Down the corridor where the holding cell had once been looked like a charnel house; at least four guards lay in bloody heaps, some in several pieces. One in power armor lay still, his chest and helmet caved in- and another was covered in bullet holes. Nathan scooped up one of their assault rifles and a few grenades, frowning. One was missing…
‘It knows how to use our weapons?’
Mana was snapping angrily off Sunset’s horn as she looked the dead men over, angrily pawing the ground. Her fiery eyes stared up at Nathan.
“I want this thing dead. All of them…”
“You and me both,” he replied quietly, “But we have to keep our heads. We win because we out-think them- remember that.”
Thankfully, she forced a cool down, the magical aura spreading over the rest of her body but seeming more in control. They had practiced group fighting, at least the basics of it. Sunset was out of practice with most of her magic, but was talented with a shield. Her magic expanded outwards around them, feeling like a warm breeze over Nathan’s skin, even through his armor. Trixie was a whiz with minor teleports, transmutations, and cantrips- Nathan was relying on her for distractions and opportunistic attacks. Starlight though… Starlight was their ace, and she knew it- grinning up at Nathan eagerly. They turned as one to race down the corridor, following the trail of bodies and destroyed machinery.
The doors to the communication bunker looked as if they had been wrenched open by claw, and smashed bullet fragments lay in piles around it. Through the hole, just visible, was the tall, broad figure- clad head to toe in white armor, soaked through with blood. He was not typing- indeed, his hands were simply pressed to the screen, but the screen was scrolling and flickering at a break-neck pace. The Seraph seemed entirely focused on the task at hand.
Three fragmentation grenades magically zipped into the confined space, slamming into the screen and body of the communication suite- and erupted. Fire and smoke billowed throughout the room, and the Seraph’s snarl was ferocious.
“Starlight!”
Nathan and Starlight Glimmer charged into the room at magically ludicrous speeds; when they had first tried Acellero, Nathan had found out the hard way that G-forces still applied. But with a tight, body-fitting shield from Sunset acting like an inertial dampener, it was bearable for the trained operative. They had to assume that unicorn bodies were just used to acting along to their magic. Trixie had given them both a cat-eye spell, charged as far as she could push herself. Nathan’s vision was hazy, but keen enough to pick out the Seraph’s outline, now turning to face them.
His assault rifle snapped up and barked, the Seraph’s own shield sparkling as the bullets skittered off; a magical blast from the unicorn sent the Seraph back a step- and he struck back. Even with Acellero, Nathan barely dodged the claw-swipe that would have taken his arm clean up, and a spinning back-hand nearly caught a flipping, floating Starlight. This creature was much faster than before, that was obvious.
The cat-eye spell suddenly caught out, and a small bit of panic built in Nathan’s throat- until a flash spell set off inches in front of the Seraph’s eyes, and it yelled in pain. It hurt Nathan’s eyes as well, and Starlight yelped out a curse- but both began to fire again. Bullets pinged off Nathan’s shield, and he was dodging again- the Seraph had picked a rifle of his own off the ground and was spraying the room. Another claw-swipe sang through the air, and Starlight yelped as it caught her, flinging her several feet through the air, but did not break the sweating, cursing Sunset’s shield.
“Keep it up!” Nathan yelled- and then he was in front of the snarling beast.
Their rifles slammed into each other, and Nathan let it go, bringing up his pistol in one hand, and combat knife in the other- but it had cost him time. The Seraph’s claw swung down- and was encapsulated in a blue glow, straining mightily- Trixie yelled in pain from the doorway. The pistol barked as it its .50 AE rounds tore into the Seraph’s shields at point blank range, spattering Nathan with near molten fragments- until the fourth punched through, and into the Seraph’s thickly muscled shoulder.
The beast didn’t roar in pain- it launched forward, and Nathan’s eyes went wide as he felt teeth crunched around the shields and his shoulder, and /flung/ him back towards the door. Pain lanced up Nathan’s side as he landed and rolled, doing his best to get back up- his left arm was responding sluggishly. The alien had turned away from its assailants, its uninjured arm clawing open the side wall in a hail of sparks, ripping itself bodily through. Trixie stared in horror at the severed fingers it had left in her magical grip as it pulled away, dropping them with a shudder.
“Command, it’s-”
“We see it, Operative; it’s heading for the escape pods. Your left clavicle is snapped, and your shoulder-”
Nathan tuned the director out as he surged forward, still under Acellero’s power; Sunset and Starlight kept pace with him, horns lowered as they skidded through the wreckage and tore after the beast. They had to stop this monster, now.
*********************
Aboard the Phobos, the declaration of Defcon 2 had sent the research station into a tailspin, metaphorically. They had been hosting a few different Equusian species, showing them the non-classified projects that they hoped might be of use with terraforming Equus back to a more livable state. Deer especially, but there was even a dragon ambassador in attendance. The command staff of the Phobos was watching only for incoming asteroids of Seraph identified boarding pods slung off them. They paid no attention at all to an escape pod screaming at full speed away from the Deimos, or to the other escape pods drifting lazily away. Their transponders had been disabled, and so they resembled only trash modules haphazardly abandoned.
No one noticed as the one functioning pod turned itself towards the floating hulk of the Seraph Lander.
******************
Rear Admiral Lewis was getting rather tired of the alarms on the Daedalus- especially when they went off while he was asleep. Then the gravity of the current situation smacked his brain back into full consciousness, and he was racing to the command center. The Equestrian Defense Fleet, what was left, had been monitoring the situation Sol-side for about half an hour now; it had been agonizing, listening to the fall of Titania, and the near destruction of Ceres itself. Lewis was happy to admit he had shed a few tears at the word of the Crystal Royal’s protection of his home.
A few of the weaponized rocks were still in system, but the fleet was mobilized now, and Lewis had every confidence that they could wipe out the weapons with little more loss of life. Hence, allowing himself to sleep for the first time since the mine ship had attacked. But…
Captain Johannes met Lewis as he entered the bridge, handing him his AR goggles and directing the admiral to his command seat. The AR screens and controlled lit up as he sat down- and cursed. Sensors had picked up a Ceres-class asteroid roaring in system, followed closely by a pair of Seraph vessels. Cruisers, much like the mine ship from before, but slightly bulkier in tonnage, and with a fatter bow. They were on a high velocity burn away from the asteroid, and heading straight for his battered fleet.
“Fighters are prepped and waiting for your orders, sir.”
“Good man. Get them launched and in a position to engage the asteroid. We’re going to take those cruisers head on. Have we got word on the Ceres’ Pride?”
“She can fight, admiral, but won’t be moving much. The lance damaged her reactor system, and the captain doesn’t want her out of fortress mode.”
Nodding, Lewis reached out to begin typing out commands for each vessel; the battleships would stay staggered, as would the cruisers and frigates- a straight battle line would only allow another of those short range jumps to bypass them again. The battle AI would take control of any mass driver weapons, calculate flight paths, and began to fire salvos- maybe forcing the Seraph to move would negate their ability to battle jump, but he couldn’t be sure. Heidallman drives just couldn’t… do that.
Messages had already been sent down to the surface, and their sensors lit up as a shield began to form around Canterlot and the vast refugee camp at its base. Celestia was acting fast- good. The door behind them opened, and Lewis perked in surprise at the voice that piped up.
“Captain; Admiral. Might I join you?” Princess Luna asked softly, stepping forward and dipping her head in respect.
Lewis had not been made aware that she was aboard; a glance at Johannes told that he had not either. Huh. He held a hand out and beckoned the princess over, passing her a set of AR goggles made for ponies.
“Of course, princess. My apologies, I wasn’t aware you were here.”
The alicorn daintily settled the glasses over her luminous eyes and smiled, “I teleported myself and the Lunar Guard to this vessel- I wanted to check on our recruits after the initial battle, and to offer whatever aid I can.”
‘Teleported… from the planet? ...damn.’
“Well it’s an honor to have you, but the Seraph are-”
Jumping. It was faster this time, with the Seraph beyond where the last cruiser had been by several minutes. Both cruisers jumped just in front of the lead battleship, the Republica, which had luckily gone into fortress mode; the plasma lances spattered across the EM fields, and the battleship replied with an equally ineffective battery of nigh-invisible lasers that flared across the Seraph shields as the cruiser zipped past. They were in a gauntlet now; torpedos racing in to explode against shields, or be wiped out by small plasma flares. But the Seraph weren’t focusing on the smaller ships. The AI recognized their plan quickly, relaying this to a stunned Admiral.
‘Shit.’
“Launch all fighters, now! Everything out, and power away from the Daedalus!”
Even as the CAG relayed the orders, the cruisers got a firing line on the supercarrier; lances and waves streamed out to blast and tear at their forward armor. Their railgun was knocked out in the first salvo; the forward EM emitters, down to allow the fighters to launch, were hit and disabled, and alarms screamed as air was vented from the stern. Johannes was yelling orders over the din, and the supercarrier turned to show its broadside torpedo and missile ports, firing as fast as their machinery could load new ammunition.
From his position watching the sensors, Admiral Lewis stared as the bulbous forward heads of the cruisers exploded outward- they hadn’t seen the seams. The bows of each cruiser were hundreds of boarding crafts, now screaming in to lock onto the Daedalus’ hull. He reached out to tap the ship-wide communique command.
“All crew, prepare for boarders. I repeat, all crew of the Daedalus, prepare to repel boarders!”
He turned to order the princess to the VIP bunker- but the alicorn was gone. Only her goggles lay on the floor, still displaying the Seraph life-signs on the pods.
Luna- “a.k.a the Moon, or Terra Secundus.” Surface: Lifeless Moon Atmospheric conditions: N/A Gravity: Provided by centrifugal engines running through Lunar core Population: Two hundred million (roughly) Affiliation: Terra Military presence: Four million active and reserves Main export: Helium-3, platinum, and regolith Major landmark: Lunar Shipyards
Settled in the year 2017, Luna is the longest settled off-planet world among the Republic, and looks the part. By the present day, Luna is almost entirely covered in hab-blocs, factories, mines, or combinations of all three. What started as a scientific outpost turned, rather quickly, into the repository of all Terra’s manufacturing waste, and soon become its very source. Terra proclaimed, in 2080 AD, that Earth was a protected treasure, and extreme measures would be put in place to ensure the long-lasting preservation of humanity’s homeworld. This would be the beginning of Terra’s Core World laws, and the exodus to the forming colonies on Mars and Venus’ upper atmosphere.
By 2101, Luna held the entirety of Terra’s manufacturing might, and dozens of gantries floated in the space around the shining rock. People who did not wish to go to Mars, but still wished to work the manufacturing fields they knew so well, settled there, where the Core laws were not as strictly enforced (during that time.) The population of Luna boomed, and as the present day, Luna’s population of miners, manufactory technicians, and Fleet cadets rivals that of Terra’s own inhabitants. Lunar citizens are technically Terran citizens, and as such are given the GUIDE-class implant suites upon birth, and are entitled to the same Safety Net benefits.
Luna is also the hub of Terra’s defense. Lunar Shipyards boasts, at all times, at least twenty ships in drydock, construction, or routine maintenance. Since the start of the Seraph War, production has begun to pick up, mostly in frigate and cruiser construction, or building new ordinance to ship to the fleet. On the moon’s dark side, large swathes of land were turned into heavy railgun emplacements, torpedo launch silos, and massive communication and scanning arrays. These stationary defense bases are linked closely to Terra’s many orbital platforms- the Terran Defensive Division makes up a good portion of Luna’s inhabitants.
A large portion of Trade participants came from Luna; supplies and technologies pioneered on the Moon were sent through the portal, and an embassy was quickly formed in the Moon’s main capital of First Landing. Though the Lunar Princess was not often on the planetoid, her Lunar Guard formed a training and research center there in the first few months after the Battle of Equus, open to visitation by Lunar citizen, scientist, and soldier alike.
Unfortunately, at least for the Terrans, there is a powerful call in recent years for full Lunar independence from Terra; mostly by the younger generations, who believe that Terra has long taken advantage of Lunar prosperity and power, while giving little back to their home-moon beyond stringent birth control and social laws. Whether or not this continues in the light of the Equestrian acceptance into the Republic and the onset of the Seraph War remains to be seen, but Terran and Lunar relations, like many colonies, are strained at the moment…
Mars- a.k.a the Red Planet Surface: Terraformed Desert Atmospheric conditions: Earth-like mix. Lighter oxygen in high altitude areas. Gravity: Lesser than Earth Population: Five hundred million (roughly) Affiliation: Mars; Jovian system Military presence: Ten million active and reserves, including Martian space forces Main exports: Martanium, heavy metals, uranium, precious metals, etc. Major landmark: Olympus Mons Municipium
First settled in the year 2051, Mars rivals Terra itself in the present day for power and influence in the Republic, and it is entirely through the hard work of its intensely loyal citizenry. While the first spaceport was fully up and running by 2070, it was only a decade later that the first mass migration from Terra arrived, fleeing the, to the fiercely independent migrants, draconian birth control and forced AI-implanting of those left on Terra and Luna. Mostly a mix of North American and Europeans, the first Martians spread across the planet, and their entire society focused on the terraforming of their cold, then-lifeless world.
By 2200, a vast saltwater sea stretches across the planet, thriving under its thin but breathable oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, due in part to herculean efforts in the Jovian system, a Martian client state shared with the Belters, to mine out ice, water, and the needed gases. Because of their efforts, which left the Jovian system one of the most built up and colonized sectors in the Inner Belt, Mars’ now flourishes, and green belts can be seen running along the rivers, streams, and lakes of its surface. Its food, however, mostly are imported from various orbital farming stations, and the aquaculture colonies on Ganymede.
The Trade brought many changes to the culture of Mars, and much of their technology can now be found on Equus’ surface. Many of Mars’ younger generation subscribe to the Equestrian philosophies of Harmony and Eros, much to the chagrin of Mars’ more dominant and conservative upper class. Still having bitter memories of the Flight from Terra in their cultural memory, any change is looked on with suspicion.
Despite this, Equusians were allowed onto Mars’ surface, and granted many clearances- Diamond Dogs and Changelings, especially, took interest in Mars’ mineral wealth, and have set up exploratory mines and research facilities in the first few months of their stay in the system. In turn, Mars has begun the wholesay study of Equusian magic, and how it might be applied to wider technologies in the Republic.
In the present day, Mars can be looked to as supplying the vast majority of naval technology to the nascent Republic and its allies, and they are well aware of this. While there is no true breakaway faction in play, many conservative, and hyper-liberal, groups in Martian politics do not fully trust the Equusians. Whether or not they make those concerns more well known in the future depends entirely on how the war with the Seraph goes.
Starfighter: Fury-class Role: Space Superiority Fighter-Bomber Size: Twenty-five meters Armament: Twin-mounted rotary chainguns (Mars Armory M-1), two torpedo launch tubes, one ventral bomb launch tube. Single Damocles grade nuclear hardpoint. Compliment of ten Luna-class armor-piercing missiles, ten Valkyrie-class high explosive missiles, and two Phobos-class light anti-capital torpedos. (Normal assignment only) Shields: N/A Engine: Two Heidallman-Light drives. FTL: N/A Crew: Two pilots
Developed during the Unification Wars as a counter to the anti-capital weaponry of many Belter asteroid bases, and a hard counter to the older SF-1 used by the Belt, the Fury was designed to be multi-roled from the get-go. Shaped like a dart, with two sets of “wings” that could act as atmospheric stabilizers and weapon hardpoints, the Fury gave a low target profile that made it difficult to hit in a dogfight, even with the sophisticated targeting systems of most modern day starfighter AI’s. This is doubly so with the Deimos-produced stealth paneling, though stealth technology is still in its infancy.
Flights of Fury’s were typically used as a clearing force during the Wars, and later the eradication of pirate clans in the Belt; wiping out isolated defensive platforms or capital ships without heavy PD placement. It was largely thanks to the fighters that the fleets, heavy on capital ships like the Europe-class, did so well against an entrenched and prepared enemy, despite the disdain that the Republic Admiralty held for the various starfighter corps of each colony.
During the time of the Trade and the Inclusion, the Fury proved to be inspirational to the newly added Equusian races, especially those with access to flight. The first Griffon clans requested training in the use of Fury-class fighters, and studied the craft, hoping to reproduce something similar for their race. Similarly, the Changeling Queen Chrysalis outright bought a Fury -class starfighter for her own study, partnered with a Martian admiral’s own office. What this means for the future of starfighters in the fleet is currently unknown, but highlights the differences of opinions and doctrines within the Solar Fleet…
The power and air both had been knocked out when the boarding pods hit, venting a good bit of the forward superstructure of the Daedalus. The bloody remains of the crew here were a testament to the violence of the act, most having been sucked out into space. But the lack of air, or gravity, did not seem to bother the feral Seraph that scrambled forward, light glowing just in front of their snapping maws. Behind them, loping along smoothly, were a phalanx of blue-armored Seraph, the plasma weapons in their hands glowing a dull purple; they scanned the darkness with enhanced eyes, only moving forward once the ferals had moved past.
Seraph arm-blades could not pierce the metal of the doors in their path, but their united strength slowly began to push it open; the blue Seraph shifted uneasily. No air vented from the corridor ahead- only darkness yawned ahead, a shadow even their eyes seemingly could not cut through. Several ferals skittered into the hallway ahead of the main group, yowling silently into their masks.
Interior cameras tracked the boarding parties, the dozens that began to enter the undamaged parts of the Daedalus’ bow- unmolested. Gunshots did not meet the silently snarling, scampering monsters, only the same, inky darkness. It frustrated the Ferals, who blindly hacked out; lasers flicked out to paint the walls, and burn away panels in showers of sparks that only briefly lit up the maze of hallways and rooms. More than a few Ferals fell silently as a kin’s blade or superheated particle beam cut them down, floating limply through the space, which only added to the confusion.
The intelligent Seraph broke away from the Feral group, seemingly being led towards more important subsystems- in this area, an important power conduit to the broadside torpedo and missile systems, housed in an armored capsule deep within the living area. Plasma shots weakened the door’s frame and electronics, and the enhanced strength of the Seraph began to wrench the weakened sliding doors to one side. Two of the Seraph, the smallest of the group, moved to slip inside- as the darkness was lit by an intense, neon-blue light.
Globules of blood sprayed out in the zero-gravity at high speed, followed close behind by the Seraph; gleaming blades of light were stabbed through their heads, from throat to out of the top of their skulls, and disappeared as they floated free. The same light engulfed the doors, slamming them aside as the other Seraph raised their weapons, plasma glowing ominously as they aimed.
A set of fangs gleamed in the darkness.
*******************
Magic and bullets met the Ferals as they entered the vast, multi-leveled Atrium in the heart of the Daedalus’, scrambling over each other in surprised panic at the ambush. Slit-eyed unicorns glowed brilliantly in the darkness, joined together in magical matrices as they enhanced and protected both human and pony. Eyes gleamed in the darkness, allowing the humans to see in the magical gloom- marines had taken firing positions far above the Seraph horde, small caliber weapons spraying down into the aliens. Batponies zipped nimbly through the maelstrom, protected by both armor and magic as they tore through the outer fringes of the horde, bladed wings and legs ripping out throats or disabling limbs. Several were hit by frantically fired particle beams, but few fell from the weak hits to their brother and sisters’ shields.
The horde, panicking, turned to race for the doorways built into the lower levels- and slamming into a line of broad, armored Earth Ponies. Sharp toothed and slit eyed, the dark armored stallions charged into the horde; their bulk and shielded bodies trampled Seraph underneath. More than a few of the Earth Ponies gripped onto Seraph necks with jagged, serrated teeth, tearing them out, while at the same time shoulder-checking the felinoid aliens back into the firing arcs of the humans and unicorns overhead. The defenders were outnumbered, but was the exact reason for the Atrium- a bottleneck before invaders could reach the deeper, more important parts of the carrier.
Heaving against the Earth Ponies below, the horde roared and snarled as one; several Seraph seemed to suddenly burst out of the crowd, bat-like wings unfurling to leap up and power towards the assailants above. Only to be met by the snarling, screeching batponies; the Seraph were larger, but found themselves matched in strength by the flying equines. Several batponies were carried down into the heaving tide of blades and teeth- they did not rise up again. Gunfire sprayed where they fell. For now, the defenders were holding.
*********************
“Well this is cathartic.”
The Seraph, his blue armor rent and leaking thick red blood, glared hatefully up at the Princess, panting breathlessly. A silver sword was buried in his chest, having pierced a lung; the wing attached to the weapon twitched slightly, and he coughed, blood spattering to the floor. Luna was smiling down at him, fangs coated red; she licked them clean, and tilted her head just slightly.
“Interesting. Why are you all so different from the others, I wonder…”
The alien allowed himself a strained laugh, blood dribbling from his wounded palette- a kick had destroyed his jaw, though it could be seen knitting slowly back together. The other Seraph had been cut apart, or entirely burned to ash; their weaponry had tested Luna’s personal shielding. She would have to add onto them in the future.
“Earned… this.”
The Seraph croaked out the response in passable Equestrian, blue eyes locked onto the surprised princess, “Armor. Blessing. Earned it.”
Luna was quiet, seemingly considering the words.
And she smiled.
“Yes, I suppose you have.”
The silver blade retracted swiftly, the wing folding back; and a silver-clad hoof stove in the Seraph’s head. Blood sprayed out in thick globules in the zero gravity, the body quickly going still. Luna growled quietly to herself, the slitted eyes staring down at the body before she turned away. It was time to end this.
*****************
“Tango One is breaking up!”
Lewis glanced up from watching the fighter squadrons in his screen, baring his teeth in a feral grin; one of the cruisers had started to vent plasma in a superheated cloud after a prolonged boring laser strike from both the Ceres’ Pride and Republica, and the strain had finally seemed to break its supports. Its plasma lances finally died out as the cruiser drifted into three glowing pieces, dead in space. The Daedalus was glad for it; both cruisers had focused their full might on the supercarrier, plasma lances spattering over the EM screens every few moments. Thankfully, the Martian made emitters were top of the line, able to withstand the blasts- barely. But with a boarding action ongoing, and power draining significantly…
At least they had scrambled the fighter wings in time. All ten flights, close to sixty fighters, had formed into a loose formation, letting the cloud of mass impactors from the weaponized asteroid pass through them. All of its weapons seemed to focused on them now, the clouds getting thicker and thicker. Which was good for Equus- but not so much for the fleet. EM shields were rippling from the impacts; a Europe, a Belter-manned called the Nautilus, shattered as three shells punched through its shields amidships, and tore the cruiser into chunks.
‘This is what we get for not modernizing,’ Lewis growled subvocally, ‘My cruiser line is getting demolished.’
At least the frigates were doing better; allowed to move, the remaining Albions had formed into tight wolfpack formations, running under the Seraph vessel in showers of heavy missiles and PD sprays- some managed to punch through the shields to rip into the ventral hull, but it wasn’t doing the damage Lewis would have liked. He filed his ponderings away for a later time. His com lit up, listening in to the CAG and his squadron leaders.
“We’re in range, sir. Starting our run.”
“Fire when ready. Godspeed.”
“All craft… Fox Five.”
********************
A silver-armored Seraph heaved his way out of the Seraph horde with a snarl, gripping one of the Earth Ponies by the neck, and promptly lift-throwing him into his compatriots. Wings beat from his armored back and lifted the alien into the air. A batpony leaped for him- and crumpled with a screech, wing rent by the lightning fast claws and falling limply into the line of his brothers.
Human gunfire met him as he landed, sparkling off his personal shield and ricocheting along the metallic flooring. A marine, too close, reached for his knife- and was clawed in the chest, armor parting like paper. Several of the partially power armored men and women leaped to grapple and try to pin the alien down- only to be flung away with little effort, cartwheeling to the ground or over the edge.
A glowing Seraph plasma weapon snapped into his hand, the purple superheated matter tearing through the humans firing back; a brutal firefight, smoke and dust billowing up to block the sight of both sides. Several humans began to run forward, toggling weapons to full auto- only to find themselves surrounded by the magic of the Night Guard unicorns, holding them back from the dust cloud. Which was no longer flinging plasma back at the defending marines and their allies.
A tall quadrupedal form walked through gloom, grunting as she shoved the limp, headless Seraph off her horn, banishing her gleaming mana-blades with a small flash of her horn. Princess Luna found the human commander and gave a short nod, grinning- for the sake of the soldiers.
“Inform the captain…”
*******************
“We took heavy casualties, sir, but the fleet is intact. My remaining ships are maintaining high orbit above Canterlot. The debris from the asteroid weapon were destroyed by Celestia’s ah… magic, from the surface. The remains of the two cruisers are under guard by the fleet- my teams are studying the technology. Any word on the portal?”
Twilight Sparkle was only partially paying attention to the dialogue between Rear Admiral Drew Lewis and the Grand Admiral, an older human male whose name Twilight hardly cared to know. Admiral Lewis was defending her world, and so… she cared. The alicorn’s lips were pursed together as she stared from the armored viewpoint at the swirling maelstrom that was the Portal. The blue-purple mass of magic and condensed space looked the same as it always had, but now… now there was danger. Danger that left her trapped from the majority of her people.
The Princess’ horn glowed a soft violet and she closed her eyes, stretching out her mind. Sensing power was not hard- she was surrounded by it, by other ponies and magical creatures, and the technological power of the starship they were on. It was finding the right source of power that was the true issue. If the portal looked like a maelstrom to the eye, it was a swirling, howling realm of chaos to her magical senses. Determining what energy was what would normally be impossible- but Twilight had long worked with chaos magic, and through the madness, she could just barely sense a more organized, if destructive power. The nuclear weapons.
A victory, but a hard fought one. The Princess of Magic found herself panting shakily, huffing faintly as she felt a hand on her shoulder. She grit her teeth.
‘If just sensing them took that kind of power…’
“Twilight?”
A pair of warm pony bodies pressed to either side of her, and Twilight’s vision was all but filled with warm orange and rainbows. The Captain of the Wonderbolts and her personal guard was looking to her worriedly; Rainbow Dash was nestled under Twilight’s tensed wing, tail wrapped around her back leg. Twilight couldn’t help but blush under the gaze, ducking her head and chuckling faintly.
“I’m alright, I’m fine,” she told them quietly, “Was just testing something.”
She could sense Victoria close by, and twitched a wing up to brush her hand, turning to meet the human’s gaze. Her nigh permanent presence with her herd had become almost normal in the past few months, and she was thankful for it. Hrm.
“Victoria… seems we’ll be here a little longer than we planned. Mind we, ah…”
The young soldier grinned, nodding faintly as she stood to attention, “It will be an honor to host you all, ma’am. I can find us all a place in Terran orbit.”
“As long as it’s close to Luna.”
Twilight grinned at Victoria’s surprised expression, nodding slightly, “I need to make use of their shipyards. Come, all of you.”
An idea was building in her mind, and she set aside the surprised inquiries of the Admiralty as they walked away. ...never again would she lack the ability to act when she was needed. Twilight was going to make absolutely sure of that.
“Senator Graham, representing the Olympus Mons state of Mars, you have the floor.”
“Thank you, Speaker.”
The Republic Senate was packed. Hundreds of Senators sat in their assigned booths, or were represented by shining holographic images of themselves. Many of these gleamed throughout the crowd; rebuilding was still ongoing, even two years after the asteroid strikes against the Sol System, and refused to make the trip to the Terran Senatorial compound on the Atlantic Ocean-City. This was especially true of Belter senators, whose constituencies had taken the hardest brunt of the attacks.
Off to the right side of the Senate, in a newly constructed seating wing, sat the various members of the Equusian constituency, those who had been on the Sol side of the portal when it had been mined, at least. Cadence, Shining Armor, and Twilight Sparkle were the representatives for Equestria and the Crystal Empire; Twilight had spoken with Luna and Celestia over tight band comlink just before the session- unfortunately, they could not be holographically present.
Beside Twilight sat Chrysalis; the Changeling Queen was dressed much in the Jovian style, translated onto her kind’s form- dull greens and blues, hugging her frame tightly, and her mane done back in thick braids. The Changeling Hive that had formed on Titan and Ganymede had intertwined with the local human populations, at least from what Twilight had heard from her sources in Jovia Central’s shipyards. The Changelings had invested much time in rebuilding the aquaculture farms on Ganymede, and a full on hive, led by a newly born princess, had been settled in Titan’s capital city.
Chrysalis caught Twilight’s glance and grinned, shooting her a wink. They were not… friends, exactly, but they had mutual respect for one another, all things considered. And Twilight had found herself working more and more with the Changelings in her own projects. Speaking of…
The alicorn peered thoughtfully towards the Griffons; three large males, dressed in Martian military-inspired jumpsuit uniforms- tight fitting black and silver coloring, with the claw and beak symbol of the Griffon Empire emblazoned on their shoulders. They were staring hard down at the human preparing to speak; griffon faces were hard to read for those not trained in it. Twilight could read the anger in their gazes, however. From what she had heard, Mars’ elite had not taken well to the influx of Equusians on their world.
“I stand here today to speak against this budget proposal. In specification- the ten trillion credit line to be opened to the Equusians. I am sorry, but in a crisis such as this, I refuse to see a reason to spend money on experimental starships. Designed by, and with no offense intended, beings with precisely no working technical knowledge of those craft. If anything, they should be buying proven designs from us.”
Twilight’s ears twitched; the condescension was palpable. She glanced back at the Griffons, nodding to herself as their leader, the former Prince Stormfeather, pressed down on his own buzzer to be heard. The speaker, an older Terran man, turned to nod towards the booth, tapping a control.
“Senator Stormfeather, speaking for the Griffon peoples, you have the floor.”
Stormfeather’s visage appeared on the central , holo-podium. The humans would not be able to tell a Griffon’s emotions, at least not at current, but he was still keeping an admirable control. Silver eyes stared out over the Congress, and he bowed his head, just enough for politeness sake.
“Esteemed members of the Republic. I am honored to be here before you today. Like my colleague, I too wish for what is best for the Republic. Because what is best for the Republic, is the best for griffon kind.”
An aide passed him a small drive, which he plugged into his emitter, replacing his face with that of a set of readouts, and the slowly spinning holographic image of a starcraft. Twilight perked up immediately, peering at it. Much like griffon aesthetics, it was simple and inelegant. The bow was tear-drop shaped, tapering to a point at the stern and boasting two large engines, underslung the stern. The teardrop fanned out on either side to reveal weapon hardpoints built into the wings. Glancing at the information transferred to her own podium, Twilight nodded slowly- a pair of medium torpedo tubes, a pair of light missile tubes, and Terran-style autocannon in the chin of the craft. The craft file name was “Quaestor.”
Interesting…
“As you can see at the bottom of our files, a single Quaestor costs two-thirds that of a Martian Fury, with nearly the same maneuverability and firepower. As of right now, the Griffons have one hundred semi-trained pilot teams. If granted the funds, we can produce a full wing in a month’s time.”
Stormfeather replaced the image after several minutes with his own; the crowd was chatting lowly to one another. His beak quirked in a slight smile, and Twilight peered over at Senator Graham. His arms were crossed, face slightly red as he stared almost thoughtfully at the design. After a moment, he pressed a key to speak.
“Have the other Equusian races brought any designs to the table?”
And the floor exploded in a flurry of activity. The mixed Cervine and Lupine senatorial bloc had been working with Venusian designers on freighter designs; massive ships with improved carrying capacity, that could double as transports for refugees and potential colonists. Twilight felt a pang as she studied it, ears laying back slightly. If they had that back at Titania…
To the surprise of a few, the Changelings had worked with the Jovians on a design for drone carriers- small freighters boasting launch bays for hundreds of small (human sized) semi-autonomous mining, repair, and recon drones. Twilight hid a small grin- its engines boasted a few upgrades the senator had come up with for her own projects, and had borrowed Chrysalis’ primary prototype on Luna. It had come quite in handy!
The Equusians quieted quickly as Twilight rose to her full height, tapping her buzzer to be heard before slipping her own contributory disk in. She had her own ideas to show- but unlike the others, she was not asking for their funding. Not at all…
************************
“Come on Dash, pull up! This isn’t Equestria!”
Rainbow Dash gave a rictus grin as she twisted the twin hoof-controls in the cockpit, which twisted in turn to bring the craft up sharply. Alarms screamed in her ears; ahead of her, the grey-blue ground on the lunar surface roared into view. The control couch the pegasus was laying over shifted to mold to her twisting body, and her rear hooves ground down on the throttle controls. The engine roared in her ears…
And the ground roared away from view; Rainbow grinned wider, cackling.
“Made it!” she crowed triumphantly.
“You snapped the damn thing in half!” Spitfire roared back, yanking open the VR pod’s hood and glaring down at the suddenly sheepish rainbow pegasus.
Scruffing her, the larger pegasus lifted Rainbow up and pounded a hoof against the Scenario Failed screen- outlined in red were the various reasons why. In this case, “g-force sheared craft into separate pieces. Explosive decompression. Pilot killed.”
Rainbow Dash blushed furiously as she dangled from the jaws of both her superior and the head mare of their herd, peering around. Misty Fly and Soarin’ were watching her with wide, playful grins, while Fleetfoot did her absolute best to hold back her snickers. She hung her head submissively, ears and wings folding back.
“Heh, sorry Captain.”
Spitfire sighed softly, the warmth breath tickling Rainbow’s nape as she gently sat her down on her haunches, giving a gentle lap to show all was forgiven.
“S’allright Dash. But you have to study your craft, just like knowing your body’s limits in flight. You might paste yourself on a moon, and then Twilight’ll have my fuckin’ flank.”
“It was, however, quite cool, Mr. Dash.”
Rainbow tensed and growled audibly, glaring up at the ceiling. A small turret with a glowing silver eye stared back at her. Victoria’s minder AI, named Rhea, had full control over their apartment block, and ran most of the functions of it- including VR pod controls. It also seemed to have a sense of humor.
“I am a girl, damnit!” Rainbow snapped, hoof pawing the ground while the rest of her herd broke into amused giggles.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Dash.”
“Be nice to Rainbow, Rhea.”
Victoria smirked as she walked back into the apartment, shaking her head, “Before she tries scrapping you for parts. Hey guys.”
“Hey there, sexy,” Spitfire called with a grin, nudging a fuming Dash over to the calming ponypile on their bed, “How’d the meeting go? And where’s Twi?”
Victoria was still working on her blush response, rubbing the back of her head and clearing her throat. Things had… progressed somewhat, but she was still unsure of what the relationship they all shared… was. And it was definitely something best kept private, something she had each pony promise. Shrugging out of her uniform into her underarmor, the human woman sighed faintly and moved to settle down at a chair.
“It went… alright. A partial budget was pushed through. Twilight unveiled the Leyfinder Project, but it didn’t get quite the reception she wanted. The Belters and Jovians were all for it. Even got a majority vote from Mars. But Venus and Terra seemed pretty… well, I think they wrote off the idea.”
Soarin’ grunted and shook his head slightly, “She on the ship, then?”
“Mhm.”
The Leyfinder Project had been their main drive these last two years- Twilight and Victoria had scoured the system to find investors, and thankfully found them in several Lunar foundry companies, and in a Belter design firm… whose head office had at one time been on Titania. The public support from Senator Twilight Sparkle’s daring rescue of Titanian survivors had been very helpful in building trust, especially for a project that was largely secretive. The gantry was not hidden, but Twilight had been loathe to give out many details to prying eyes, as of late. Now though…
“Miss Victoria. A communique has just arrived from Twilight Sparkle. She asks that all of you report to the Leyfinder Project Gantry at once, dressed in your best. It was noted as being quite urgent. This report was also flagged by the OSSI.”
Welp, Victoria was now awake, and scrambling to get her practical uniform; she could hear the pony herd outside also rushing to get dressed, but not at the same speed as the human. They were not quite aware of the subtleties of the message. The OSSI was a mysterious branch, and one Victoria had tried to stay well away from in times passed. If a Terran soldier attracted their attention, it was generally because they had broken some kind of rule, either militarily or a Terran ordinance.
‘Why would they be interested in the Leyfinder…’
*******************
Nathan suppressed a whistle as he looked the ship over, only nodding slightly as he looked it over. He was in his business jumpsuit, the black and gold of the OSSI running in lines down the arms and legs, pips on each shoulder denoting rank. Both eyes gleamed softly in the low light of the operations deck, implants having brought up the technical readings on the craft, and he was idly scanning over them. Starlight Glimmer, standing to his left, would be doing much of the same- she was a sponge for information, even more so than Sunset. Sunset Shimmer was quickly becoming an expert on the various weapon systems the techs had been coming up with to work with the ‘pony squad.’
Glancing off subtly to his right, Nathan smirked- Trixie was bored, and was rapid-fire casting mini-versions of her various cantrips. He had managed to get her invested in their technology and gadgetry that made the squad more effective- flash bombs and spells, distractions, hacking tech… His ponies were well trained now, and motivated, almost more so than most rookies Nathan had met in his lifetime. Especially after the Seraph’s escape. His hand clenched for a brief moment.
“Welcome to my Project headquarters, Special Agents.”
Twilight Sparkle was in a form fitting blue and purple bodysuit as she trotted into the room, grinning over at the perked up and smiling ponies around Nathan. Sunset scurried over to hug onto her neck, and Nathan couldn’t help but grin. He was still getting used to the touchy-feely culture ponies shared among each other- and their friends. Trixie playfully bumped his leg as she passed him, and he snorted, thumping her dock with an index finger before walking towards the Senator.
“Thank you for having us on such short notice, Senator.”
Twilight peered up at him- though not by much. She seemed to have grown a bit since Nathan had last seen her, and came up to his throat. She didn’t return his smile, but did not seem overly hostile. That was fine with him- he much preferred honesty to the false kindness portrayed by most politicians.
“It seemed like something I should not refuse, coming from the intelligence office. How can I help you?”
Starlight grinned as she moved to sit on Nathan’s side, ears perked up, “The OSSI think we can help you with the minefield. We know about the Leyfinder’s Magical Array. Amazing work, by the way.”
At a raised eyebrow from Twilight, Trixie chuckled softly and waved a hoof, “The higher ups do not know much about magic, but we certainly do. And with the four of us in a magical matrix…”
“You believe our combined abilities in the array will allow us to remove the mines.”
Twilight smiled faintly, walking past the group to stare out the viewport. The Leyfinder was an arrow-shaped, destroyer sized craft, with a broad, rounded forward superstructure, thinning out towards the back, till widening for the trio of barrel-like Heidallman engines at the aft. On gantries surrounding the main ship were several large modules, most of them similar in appearance. According to intelligence, OSSI knew that Twilight had developed a hanger module, one loaded to bear with missile and torpedo tubes; another that was simply a massive storage and transportation bay. And others were in the works. It was impressive.
“And if I said yes, in helping your idea, when would we move?”
“Immediately; as soon as the Leyfinder could be moved to the Portal Point.”
Twilight’s right ear flicked slightly, voice curious as she responded, “Why the rush? I was under the impression that the OSSI tended to operate at a snail’s pace.”
“Only when we have intelligence to gather, ma’am. And we…”
Nathan let out a slow breath. The Director had given him permission only to divulge what was absolutely necessary to gain the Senator’s assistance. But…
“...have good reason to believe the Seraph have good intelligence on Earth and its system. We need to re-open the portal, and quickly, before they strike at us again. We believe Equus will be hit again, and soon.”
Nathan kept his face carefully impassive as the Senator’s head whipped back towards him, eyes burning into his soul.
“What has happened?”
*********************
In the darkest regions of space, unknown to man living in his own star system, a probe roared along on its own momentum. Scored and scarred by its ancient journey, the probe still carried out its duty, scanning for radio signals, driven by the most basic and simple of early AI.
Attention. Signal detected. Activating AI Amelia.
AI core activated. Scanning. Scanning.
Signal identified: human origin. Preparing handshake protocols.
Scanning.
Military frequency. Unpacking data. Code: SSF-201. Operation: Move to signal. Received.
Telemetry: Locked to signal source: SSF-201 flagship, codenamed Daedalus. Transmitting.
