New Caledonia

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“Hit! Bandits 1,5 and 6 are down!” The tactical officer of the Pacific Alliance Ship Washington says which is met with cheers within its square CIC.

It is June 4th 2188 AD and the Lankies, 20 metre tall quadruplets have sent a fleet of 36 Seed ships, three kilometre black cigar-shaped ships through the Alcubierre shoot at Williby the first human colony to fall to the Lankies in 2108 and the Washington along with its Battlegroup have just destroyed three of them as soon as they left the shot.

“Bandits are accelerating out of the node! New York is moving to engage bandit group designated alpha and California is engaging bandit group designated Foxtrot!” The Tactical officer says again as the Tactical Orb in the centre of the CIC updates regularly.

“Status on the Particle mounts?” A rough voice from the command pit in the centre of the CIC said, he was Brigadier General David Bosh of the Pacific Alliance Oceania Defence Corp’s Battlegroup Zata.

Turing from his post the Tactical officer replied “Alpha, Bravo and Charlie mounts are recharging but Delta mount is still primed sir!”

Nodding the General focused his gaze on the Tactical Orb which is the name for the holographic projections from the holotable which takes up most of the command pit. Every Orb shows its parent ship in the centre of the holographic display with all other items either moving or reorienting as the host ship moves in combat. On the Tactical display the Washington Class Battle-Carrier PAS Washington CVB-21560611 is displayed in the centre of a wedge formation of 12 other warships, two space control cruisers, four frigates and six Destroyers.

A few thousand kilometres away on either side of the Battlegroup are the sister-ships of the Washington, PAS New York and PAS California both Washington class Battle-Carriers with similar sized escorts. About One-thousand kilometres away which would classify as CQB in the vastness that is space, the remaining 33 Seedships are scattering on all sorts of vectors. Some were gathering in small groups, others going alone but all were burning one way or another.

Foucing on the 2 Seed ships that were burning on a head on course to Washington David Bosh called out to the helmsman and said.

“Helm engage ventral and aft engines get us above the two bandits coming at us head on designated as Bandit group bravo, Comms task the Colonel Yiman and Sergeant Fallon to go full power on their radios and keep the enemy’s attention whilst we target one of the bandits.”

“Aye sir!” Both officers said in unison and went to work.

On the Tactical Orb the Washington begins to rise and accelerate away from her battlegroup before the rest accelerate as well, forming up on the two space control cruisers Colonel Yemen and Sergeant Fallon.

Lanky Seed Ships in the first half decade of the war were seen as unstoppable by the two space powers at the time, the NAC and SRA, this was because their Seed Ships had about twenty metres of protection on the dam things and the only way to kill a Seed Ship back then is to either fly a huge concentrated mass near light speed towards the Seed Ship head on or fire a highly ionised particle beam at the thing and melt the armour away slowly.

Because of this for the longest time of the war until the late 2140s Battle-Carriers were the primary anti-Seed-Ship weapon both because of its Particle mounts and racks of orion missiles which were missiles that were propelled by Nuclear detonations whilst carrying a vast amount of ice to deliver the kinetic energy needed to kill a Seed Ship. In those days all the Non-Battle-Carriers would basically act as second-line units mostly acting as a screen force for the BCs however that changed in the late 2140s as both humanity’s technology and knowledge of the Lankies grew so did Mankind’s ability to fight them.

The result is that whilst most ships can’t kill a Lanky Seed Ship by themselves outright, they can still do good enough damage to make them a threat that can’t be ignored. So when the Colonel Yemen and Sergeant Fallon begin to engage one of the Lanky ships they didn’t do so with their secondary railguns but with their two primary high-ultraviolet-Laser arrays mounted on the bow section of their hulls, one array on the dorsal (topside) hull and one on the ventral (bottom) of the hull.

As the SSCs melted the armour of the Seed Ship away the Destroyers of both the Yemen and Fallon groups brought their railguns and small missiles to bear on the melted spots of the Lanky’s eggshell textured-like hull in the hole of penetrating the superstructure.

Though this kind of tactic has worked in killing Lanky Seed Ships in the past it required the coordination of all ships of at least a Seven ship strong battlegroup to be effective.

Whilst the Wasington only needs itself and enough power from her reactors or distance to kill a Seed Ship as is the case today.

As her battlegroup engages the first Lanky the Washington costs ballistic above the second one with her bow (front) section which contains the Particle guns pointed towards the Lanky’s dorsel hull armour as it slides in front of the veteran Battle-Carrier.

Before long at only 2,340Km the Washington’s delta particle mount fires point-blank at the lanky, for a short few seconds a new sun appears above Williby, its white-hot energy of untold giga guilles of ionised hydrogen and other particles slamming into the mesly twenty metre hull of the Lanky who despite their size in space and on the ground are not immune to physics, the blast at such close range would have blinded anyone looking at it but fortunately human warships don’t use windows.

“HIT!” The tactical officer says again which is again met with cheers all around the CIC.

General Bosh took a moment to have a look around the CIC.

Most of the men and women on the Washington had only one engagement under their belts minus the onboard brigade that modern Battle-Carriers have, the CIC crew were another exception as they were here when her Captain was in charge.

Speaking of which.

“Another kill to add to your ship’s kill list ay Captain?” Bosh said to the man sitting in the XO’s seat to his right.

Because of the Unified Service Act back during the NAC days the commander of a ship ranked as a colonel instead of a Captain however the term has still been in use as an informal gesture.

Colonel Jack Harason has been in command of Washington for three years and has earned a reputation for being an easy to work with, hard to understand kind of leader. Able to make his crew feel relaxed just enough to perform their duties in combat whilst outside combat he seemed hard to approach at times.

General David Bosh by contrast was a strict man in the face of the enemy, tolerating only the barest of laid back behaviours such as the cheering and the occasional joke or jab. When they weren’t being shot at or not in a formal strategy meeting however, to the crew Bosh can emit a fatherly aura, able to hangout with the enlisted not as a high-ranking officer of the Corps but as just an old soldier that can laugh and joke like the rest of the crew.

Turning his head in response to the General’s earlier comment Harason said “Two if we’re able to snag that second bandit before the Yemen and Fallon do, how many is that now?”

“Kills under our belts or kills under HER belt?” Bosh asked, referring to Washington.

“Our belts? But knowing the brass they’d probably put her kill count as the official one so I’d say hers” Jack answered in a familiar informal tone that was not only calm but had an amount of professionalism in his voice.

“Well if we managed to tag the second bandit that’ll make-” Bosh said before a voice came over the comms.

“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! THIS IS THE PAS NEW YORK! WE’RE CAUGHT IN A TWO PRONG! OUR ESCORTS ARE DOWN BY NINE SHIPS AND WE HAVE BREACHES IN OUR ENGINE BAY! NEED IMME-” The voice on the comm link cut suddenly as the blue icon on the tactical orb for PAS New York blinked out being replaced by a white sphere of explosive energy created by the breaching and detonation of the New York’s two main reactors.

“FUCK!” Bosh cursed looking over at the New York’s battle group to see that the situation is indeed as dire as the voice said.

9 of the New York’s battlegroup were out of action, either destroyed outright or crippled to combat ineffectiveness whilst the three remaining ships were a Space-Control Cruiser the PAS Archer, a Frigate the PAS Pittsburg and a Destroyer the PAS Hunter. From the looks of things on the tactical orb the New York’s battlegroup went up against five or more seed ships and downed most of them however the two remaining Bandits designated 8 and 2 respectively were able to thread the needle enough to gut the New York and put pressure on her remaining escorts.

On the Tactical Orb the Archer and Hunter are speeding away from the seed ships at a steady burn with their blue icons having a red outline around their icons indicating that they are heavily damaged, the Pittsburg is positioned between the Cruiser and Destroyer but decreasing its burn to put itself between the Seed ships and its comrades. However as the Seed ships close the distance due to their acceleration advantage the PAS Hunter turns around and starts burning in the direction of the Seed ships, due to its smaller size it was able to catch up to the Pittsburg…and overtake it.

It soon became clear to Bosh what the Hunter was doing and thus said “Helm! Turn us away from our second Bandit and burn towards the New York’s battle group, Tactical ready the last of our Orion missiles for a fire mission on the bastard!”

“Yes Sir!” came back the reply.

“It's too bad we came here for a resupply and not for a fight” The XO says which was correct.

The Washington in recent weeks have been on deployments that have meant more than a few regular resupplies, which was why they were at Williby to begin with. Normally a few Orion stations and a much larger force was stationed here for exactly this kind of situation but the platforms were in the middle of some vastly needed upgrading and the assets that were in the system were redeployed for some other offensive ops.

“Which is exactly what we SHOULDN’T be doing right now” Bosh thought as the last three of Washington's Orion 5 missiles separated from their racks and drifted away from the ship for a few seconds before they were in a safe range to launch but before that.

“Comms! Tell the Hunter to disengage and burn away and that we are Orions hot!”

“Aye s-” The Comms officer said just before Bandit 8’s icon blinked for a second and then the Hunter’s Icon turned from a blue sphere to a red cross with the word LOST next to it.

“Heavy Seed ship confirmed!” The tactical officer cried out.

Heavy Seed ships as humanity categorised them are the Lanky’s answer to humanity’s long ranged weapons, whilst not at all different from normal or “light” Seed ships they do have one thing that many captains fear, a large bow mounted penetrator launcher. Whilst only one can fired at a time the size of the Heavy penetrator compared to the small ones used in broadsides meant that a Destroyer would sustain heavy damage from just a near miss.
In this case the massive projectile almost obliterated the PAS Hunter, only serval small and a couple of big fragments remained.

“GODDAMMIT!” General Bosh cursed, slamming his left fist into the left armrest of jis command chair.

“Tactical launch Orions 5 and 4 at Bandit 8 and have Orion 7 take Bandit two” Colonel Harason said, temporarily taking over command whilst their commander got his shit back together.

On the Tactical Orb the blue inverted Vs representing the launched Orions suddenly began to speed away from Washington and towards the Lankies. Each second of their acceleration is met with a detonation of a Nuclear device that accelerates the missile to near light speeds along with many tons of ice packed tightly within, as the two Vs heading for Bandit 8 cruise along towards their target suddenly one of the Vs blinks out.

“Fuck! Orion 4 suffered a malfunction in its detonation pattern, it's gone!” The Tactical officer cursed.

Jack Harason also cursed underneath his breath, though he knew that a propulsion system that uses the detonation of nukes is bound to have a few accidents even with the newer model of Orion 5s.

“Let’s hope one is enough'' Jack thought as he watched the two remaining Orions speed towards their targets.

Ten seconds later there is a white sphere on the Tactical orb where Bandit 2 was, a few seconds later and no second sphere appears on the Orb.

“Shit Orion 5 missed sir, the bastard slowed down two seconds before impact.” The tactical officer said, nobody commented about how much force was needed to slow a three kilometre object down in just two seconds because the Lankies have done this before a couple of times and it was agreed that both their Seed Ships have really powerful engines and that the Lankies themselves are that tough to survive the Gs that such a manoeuvre generated.

“That’s still one less Seed Ship to worry about,” General Bosh commented.

The last Seed Ship then turned away from the last two vessels of the New York’s battlegroup and began burning away into deep space away from Williby.

“Bandit 8 is burning away! It's heading in line with ours so we hav-” The helmsman starts but is cut off abruptly when the whole CIC shudders like an Earthquake. On the Tactical Orb the hologram zooms in on the blue icon representing Washington until it become a 3D replica of a Washington Class Battle-Carrier, its starboard side lighting up in bright orange with a few pockets of deep blood red spread out amongst the orange patch which contrasts heavily with the bright blue hologram of the rest of the ship.

“Status!” General Bosh shouts as he tries to stop from shifting out of his seat to the portside.

“We’ve been hit! Damage reported on multiple decks!” The Comms officer answers.

“Hit from what!?” Colonel Harason asks, sounding very pissed at the moment.

“Judging form the Sensors, limited cam footage and the reports I say we were hit by a Flak Pen which must have been launched right as Bandit 2 went up in atoms, we didn’t see it because we were focused on Bandit 8 and were increasing our burn to speed up our interception thus limiting our method of evasion.” The Tactical Officer concludes before adding “We’re still combat capable sir the damage is mostly on the starboard ventral hull, Particle guns are still functioning and all our engines with the exception of the starboard manoeuvring thrusters are green.”

Another counter-tactic by the Lankies, Flak Penitrators or Flak Pens as they called by the enlisted were basically Penitrators that explode near a target and send out shrapnel at high speeds to either kill a wounded target or wound a target.

“Then bring us into the pursuit helm, don't lose the bastard! Comms inform California to take command of all able ships whilst we pursue and engage the straggler” General Bosh orders which are met with crisp replies.

Sometime later all that the Tactical Orb shows is the Washington and Bandit 8 in a straight line moving away from Williby, despite being 4 thousand Kilometres away the Orb was so zoomed out that the two icons were practically touching.

“Bandit 8 is commencing a deceleration burn! He’ll enter Particle gun range in 300 seconds!” The Tactical Officer notes.

“He could be preparing for an Alcubierre jump” General Bosh muttered before shouting out “ARTIMUS!”

Then a blue hologram of a human 21 year old girl in a military uniform appeared on the left arm rest of Bosh’s command chair.

“Sir?” The Pacific alliance AI Artimus asked whilst giving a crisp salute.

“Prep the sensors and our drive for an Alcubierre hack, I think this bastard is making for a node” Bosh answered.

“Aye sir” Artimus acknowledges before disappearing back into the neural network of the ship.

An Alcubierre hack was a technique developed in response to humanity not only discovering a Lanky Alcubierre node but also that the Lankies perceive time differently than humans resulting in a time dilation as with the case with the Avenger class Battle-Carrier NACS Washington in late 2120 where it reappeared three years later in 2124 but to the crew only six weeks have past. After some research into the subject via the Lanky node at Williby human scientists created a way to not only allow human ships to use Lanky nodes but also use them without the time dilation, the key components of this method are a type-10 Alcubierre drive and a smart type Artificial Intelligence.

“He jumped!” The Tactical Officer said 160 seconds later.

“So the bastards found more A-nodes in Capella huh? Comms inform California that we found a Lanky A-node and will be pursuing at best speed, will return if met with overwhelming force” General Bosh ordered.

“Aye sir” Comms replied as the Washington moved to the same part of space as the Seed Ship a few moments ago.

“Commencing deceleration burn” The helmsmen announced.

On the Tactical Orb the Washington slowly slides into the sphere representing the Lanky A-Node.

“Commencing Alcubierre hack now” Artemis said when Washington was finally in position.

Now it was just a waiting game which fortunately wasn’t long, just ten minutes after the hacking had started Artemis chimed in again with a satisfied voice.

“Hack completed sir!”

“Good all hands prep for Alcubierre jump!” General Bosh said as he fiddled with the straps on his command chair.

“All hands stand by at Condiation Level Red, I repeat all hands stand by at Condiatation Level Red and prepare for Alcubierre jump!” The Comms Officer announced.

As the alert sounded across the ship, crewmen who weren’t in the middle of an important task began to strap themselves into a seat or brace on a bulkhead. A few moments later a sense of electricity flared through the crew of the Washington and just as quickly as it came it went, and then they were in an Alcubierre bubble.

June 4th 2188 AD: PAS Washington: Hallway D35

I sigh as the electric feeling leaves my body, unlike my Grandfather whenever we go into Alcubierre I feel relaxed, the electricity acting as some sort of massage for my atoms.

“We in Alcubierre?” The voice of my patient brings me back to reality.

I looked at him for over a second to see if the jump had any effect on him, when the penetrator came into our hallway it caused a mess of electric explosions brought on by the overload and sudden change in power done by the impact.

The First class private I’m attending was next to one of those explosions which burned his left side, his face was mostly okay apart from the burns to the left side of said face but nothing the medbay can’t handle. His left arm however took a few pieces of shrapnel to the elbow and nerves next to the hand which siad limb looked like it would fall off at any moment if I had not applied the appropriate bandages and medication for it.

His left leg took the brunt of the explosion, sections of skin were missing and in one part of the leg you could see the bone. His right leg was spared the worst but is still burned along with the lower right side of his torso, his right arm and right side face are the only parts of his body still mostly intact.

“Seems like it” I replied as I finish bandaging the private’s left arm, which was hard enough in my Battle Armour what with my hands and fingers being a bit bigger due to the layer of Polychromatic-Combat-Hardshell but was even more hard due to the red emergency lights that were blinking being the only source of light in this part of the Battle-Carrier.

“Don’t suppose we’re heading to the nearest hospital?” The private asks weakly with a smile, despite my best efforts he already lost a lot of blood before I could stop it in most of his wounds and because he wasn’t in a VAC suit and in his usual BDU fatigues his organs are likely to be FUBAR.

He would need to be very lucky or have a miracle granted to him if hes to survive long enough to get treatment because despite the ship’s medical bay being pretty advanced it can’t treat the kinds of wounds my patient has and sadly I don’t think the Washington is leaving the system due to damage, if the damage was that bad we would’ve gone to Williby itself for repairs so factoring all those together my patient will probably be KIA in less than 5 hours if he’s lucky but if not…any moment now.

“Wouldn’t bet on it sailor-” I started to reply to his question before noticing the far off look in his eyes.

“Corpsmen!” I yelled to the officer down the hallway to my right even though it would be pointless.

A few seconds later the ship Corpsmen came to check on my patient though even before he shook his head at me I knew the poor kid was gone.

“Dammit” I thought as I stood up from the private’s body and let the Corpsmen do his thing.

To my left and up towards the bow of the ship is a closed bulkhead, where beyond is a hole leading to vacuum and the hazardous subspace within a Alcubierre bubble. The penetrator came through in a straight line and probably went through another hallway or two before passing ours and thus all bulkheads were shut to protect the rest of the ship's insides from the outside.

And to my right down the hallway to the aft of the ship a dozen other crew members in various states of injury are lined up on either side leaving some room in the middle for people to walk by, a few couple Combat Medics from one of our ship’s on board SI Battalions are helping out our ship’s medical crew though given the fact that we were meant to come to Williby for R&R and thus not prepared for combat many of these people won’t be going home without a body bag.

“Grayson!” A rough but familiar voice calls out to my right.

Coming towards me from down the hall is another soldier in GEN2 Battle Armour like me though he has a fancy computer on his right wrist but other than that his BA is the same as mine with the same colour camo and pattern.

“Hey Fallon!” I greet my friend before grabbing his wrist in a viking-like handshake.

“You know what the fuck happened?” I asked, given his job as a Combat Controller he would have had a better view of whatever fight Washington got in. I know for sure that the Lankies made an incursion as they have done ever since we took the Capella system back in 24 but that's about it.

“As we walk the Major wants to debrief the STT ASAP” Staff Sergeant Fallon says as he mentions to me to follow him and I do so glad to be away from the increasingly depressing sight.

“Long story short a Lanky Seed ship came in an hour before combat started, after we blasted that poor bastard we waited before 36 more Seed Ships came through one of which was a Heavy Seed Ship. We lost the majority of the New York’s Battlegroup including the ship herself before we turned from our little fight and blasted one of the two Seed Ships responsible but the Heavy Seed Ship jumped before we could finish him off, now we are in Alcubierre to wherever that bastard jumped to” Fallon says giving a brief rundown as we walked to the STT briefing room.

I’m sure that's not all there is to the story but I decided not to pry, for one I’m not an officer I am a Pararescue man or PJ. My job is to rescue downed dropship or fighter pilots and provide medical aid. My friend Fallon here however is a Combat Controller whose job it is to call down the thunder, Kinetic strikes, Air strikes whatever the fleet can give CCs direct which gives them the added perk of being linked to the Tactical-Network giving them an idea of what's happening around them.

Needless to say, we have very different jobs.

Later that day we arrived in our STT’s briefing room in Washington's grunt country, which is the nickname for the area assigned to the ship’s SI contingent.

Within is the rest of the Washington’s STT or Special Tactics Team which is the name for the group comprising all the special forces on a given ship, from simple specialists like me and Fallon all the way to Tier One Spec-Ops like the Fleet’s elite SEAL and SCAR teams and SI’s Force Recon, Helldivers and their Raider teams.

Currently STT Washington consists of 75 men and women about half a company, the makeup of our STT consists of a team of SEALs, two squads of SCARs, a Platoon of Force Recon troopers and a Squad of Pararescuemen plus a squads worth of other Specialists including a couple of Combat Controllers.

At the head of the Briefing room is our commanding officer Major Graves, an imposing man amplified in his Battle Armour nevermind his rough and scared face.

“Staff Sergeants Ben Grayson and Avery Fallon reporting sir!” I announce as we salute our superior officer before he dismisses us and motions for us to take a seat.

I took my place with the nine other members of the Pararescue Squad, next to our Squad leader First Lieutenant Hawkins.

“Staff Sergeant” Hawkins says as I took my seat amongst my fellow Pararescues.

“Lieutenant” I replied before Major Graves clears his throat to get our attention.

“Alright now that everyone is here here’s the situation as it stands right now-” The Major starts and he then gives a much more detailed version of what Avery told me.

After the Major gives his rundown, a soldier probably one of the SEALs asks “What's the situation on Williby?”

“From what we could tell our neighbours weren’t interested in helping out their space buddies in any way so pretty much the same old same old” Major Graves replies.

Ever since Humanity reclaimed the first colony to fall to the Lankies, we never really did pushed them off the planet; instead we drove them underground like the Lankies on Mars a few years after the battle of Earth in 2113. Because they’ve learned a few things about how we fight them they have made countermeasures which include making the tunnels inaccessible to Armoured Vehicles and ambushing the Infantry only forces deep within the cave network.

Those things and more made attacking the Lankies underground a almost impossible task but it can be done as with the Second Mars Offensive in 2166 though not without cost. As such due to the fact that the big bastards can attack from underground the Alliance only has a single massive base on Williby to act as both a guardpost and as a staging point for interception missions on Lankies that poke their heads out of their holes.

After answering a few more questions Major Graves got to business.

“When we come out of the shoot we’ll most likely be engaging the Lanky as soon as he knows we’ve followed him, as such I want all of you to remain in Hardshell until I order otherwise. However you all deserve some R&R so you're dismissed until we come out of Alcubierre Understood?”

“Yes sir!” We all replied at once and soon we were pilling out of the room at a steady pace with our Combat Hardshell still on.

Unknown System: Three Earth days later: June 7th 2188 AD

“We’re through!” The helmsman said amongst the loud klaxons of Combat Condition One.

“Status on Bandit 8!?” General Bosh shouted as he eyed the Tactical Orb again.

“There’s a Seed Ship in orbit of a planet deadhead, can’t tell if he’s our Bandit though” The Sensor Officer answered.

On the Tactical Orb straight ahead of the Washington 10,000KM away between her and the planet is their pussmed Seed Ship.

“Any other Lankies in the neighbourhood?” Bosh asked, gaining control of himself.

“Negative sir the bastard’s alone but I’ve pinpointed our location” The Navigation Officer said enlarging the Tactical Orb until it encompassed the whole system and then it was just a bright star amongst a hundred more, then a thousand.

“New Caledonia!?” Colonel Harason shouts what the whole bridge crew thought at that exact moment.

Although Capella A was the first system to fall to the Lankies in 2108 it wasn’t the only colony to fall that year, New Caledonia was like New Svalbard a shared system with the SRA back before the Pacific Alliance days. With the old NAC sharing one half of the system and the SRA the other, just four weeks after Williby was lost the NAC colony of Nova Tenis was lost to the lankies with the SRA colony world of Kherson falling in 2110 which left the New Caledonian system in Lanky hands.

“And now we get a chance to take it back at last” General Bosh thought as he observed the Tactical Orb.

Their Seed friend was making a burn towards the planet 20,000KM from Washington, although it's impossible to tell if he was already burning or just started burning when Washington came out of the shoot.

“Bandit’s breaking!” The sensor Officer informs.

On the Orb the Seed Ship was indeed breaking and before long his heading was directly towards the Washington.

“Artimus prep for evasive action the SECOND we are about to be hit Understood?” General Bosh orders.

“Aye Sir” The blue AI answers appearing on the General’s left arm rest once more.

“Sir Bandit is accelerating fast! He’ll be within firing range of the mounts in 80 seconds!” The Weapons Officer reports.

40 seconds later just halfway before it's in firing range the Lanky Seed ship pulls one last trick up his sleeve.

“He’s breaking again-no wait! He’s just reorienting” The Sensor Officer reports only for him to shout three seconds later

“HE’S TOSSING MINES!!”

“EVADING!” Artemis shouts as the ship shudders using its manoeuvre thrusters to dodge and weave between the incoming mines.

Using one of their most effective planetary defence weapons the Lankies launch their penetrator mines in an arc as their mothership accelerates giving them the speed they need to reach their target before they have time to evade.

On the Tactical Orb dozens then hundreds and then thousands of little red dots come streaming out of the Seed Ship before despairing in a wide area in front of the Washington.

Despite Artimus best efforts the Washington got too close to a couple of the mines, violent shudders rumble throughout the ship with a few sparks flickering within the CIC.

“Arrrttiimmuss?” Bosh asked, straining under the pressure of the Washington’s various evasive actions.

Artimus didn’t respond for a few seconds before she flickered on his left armrest again, clearly the damage was severe as she was somewhat affected.

“C-Cleared to-to f-f-fi-fire Tactical”

“Take this you son of a bitch!” The Tactical Officer screamed at the top of his lungs whilst he pulled the trigger under the stress of acceleration.

The shudder of the Particle guns was the last thing General Bosh felt before he passed out.

I woke up to the sound of a heartbeat monitor, my eyes staring at a red tinted ceiling from the emergency lights of the Washington. As I struggle to sit up in my bed a hand, which is in combat-hardshell, pushes back at me slightly to stop me from getting up too much.

“Easy there General Bosh” A young voice says, I follow the gloved hand on my left shoulder to my right and come face to face with a man around his late twenties. He doesn’t have a helmet so I could see his jet black buzz cut even in this darkened environment and he has baby blue eyes, all that to go along with pale skin very lighter than my own.

Overall he looks better than me who will hit 70 in a few months.

I check for his name plate which should be on his left breastplate which is the closest to me at this angle but the lack of light plus the pain I’m suddenly feeling dispels that plan and I follow the Young man’s pushing hand and lay back down on the bed.

“Artimus?” I call out my throat groggy, signalling to me that I may have been out for far more than a few hours.

“I’m sorry sir but Artimus is..” The young man said and immediately I knew the hard truth.

“She’s gone, isn't she Sergeant?” I asked noticing the rank insignia on the shoulder pads of his Battle Armour.

“Grayson sir, Benjamin Grayson” Sergeant Grayson answered before answering the bigger more impactful question.

“Just as the Seed ship was destroyed our ship took multiple penetrators from most angles, which not only ripped most of our remaining armour off but also disabling our particle guns effectively rendering us combat ineffective. Artimus’s core was one of the areas hit in the first few seconds of Washington entering the minefield that was swung at us, she was killed just after you lost Consciousness sir”

I sat there on the bed for a moment taking it all in.

Just then the door to the medbay across from my side of the room opens up and my XO Colonel Harason walks inside.

“Ah I see our resident CO is awake, diagnosis Sergeant?” The good Colonel asked

“He’ll need to take it slow for a bit to get his bearing back and take it easy on the movement to stop his head from spinning but other than that? He’s good to go” Sergeant Grayson said as I carefully got out of my bed with more success.

“Good carry on Sergeant. General first off your needs in the CIC, Major General Adams and the California are in system and he’s calling a meeting to discuss our situation. I’ll get you up to speed as we walk sir” Jack said as the Sergeant went back to work as me and my XO headed back to the CIC in the centre of the Washington.

We pass by dozens of men and women in uniform working on the walls, circuits and wiring all along the hallways as we near the Combat and command Information Centre.

“How long was I out Jack?” I asked my XO as we walked.

“A week sir, how much do you know at present?” He asked back and I told him what Grayson told me.

“Then I’ll start with this, after you got incapacitated I took command and ordered our drones to be launched whilst we wait for both reinforcements to arrive and repairs to complete, our Alcubierre drive was shot to along with Artimus’s core you see.” Jack begins.

“The drones that were first to the planet we found our Seed ship over found out that it appears to be the Lankies base in this system.”

“What about Nova Terris?” I asked, from what I saw on the Tactical Orb back in the CIC the planet we are orbiting must be Terris B which acted as a resupply point between Nova Terris and the Old NAC Alcubierre Node.

Jack’s face becomes uncomfortable for a moment as if I’ve touched upon a topic that's best left to someone else.

“It-It’s best if General Adams briefs you on that sir, that’s certainly what's being discussed at this meeting” Was all my XO said.

The CIC on the outside was shaped like a box in the Centre of the ship but in actuality on the inside it was a sphere-like shape with the space between the actual room and the outside occupied by thick armour belt which at the widest from the walls of the CIC to the nearest hallway was four metres thick.

We enter the CIC through the bulkhead towards the aft of the whole ship, where on the Tactical Orb on the holotable in the centre of the room is various windows revealing the faces of various ship commanders, most notably Major General Alex Adams the commander of both the Washington Class Battle-Carrier PAS California and her Battlegroup, Battlegroup Sera.

“Ah General Bosh, glad to see you up and about again, everyone I need to bring the Good skipper up to speed. Proceed with your orders and be ready for combat by 1450, Dismissed!” The Major General said as the holographic windows of the other ship commanders disappeared from the Tactical Orb, leaving Adam’s window and the hologram of the Alliance fleet as the only holograms on the Tactical Orb.

“I’m guessing we’re striking the Lankies in this system sir?” I asked as I took my seat in the command pit again.

The General gave me a look for a moment before giving me a smile.

“Don’t worry Bosh your old girl is sitting the invasion out, not just because there’s much you can’t do in your state but also because there’s a small mission I need you to put together. You specifically because you're the only asset we have to spare at the moment.”

“What’s our strength at present?” I asked, focusing on the hologram of the fleet in the centre of the orb.

“Battlegroups Zata and Sera plus the Archer and Pittsburg, a Carrier Task Force is also here carrying the 45th Tactical Brigade aboard the PAS Enterprise.” Adam says as each of the groups or ships are highlighted as he points them out.

The 45th is what caught my attention though “Have my passengers gone back to their friends then?” I asked.

Whilst a Battle-Carrier can carry a sizable ground force of two Space Combat Battalions an Assault-Carrier like the Enterprise can carry a full Brigade which is four to eight Battalions strong depending on their type. The 45th Tactical in particular because the Washington had been transporting its 3rd and 5th Battalions during its combat missions against the Lankies.

Of course a single Brigade isn’t enough to take a world held by the Lankies, the Battles to retake Mars during the earlier stages of the war proved that unless Humanity is willing to spend large amounts of munitions and time which they usually can’t afford, a very large ground force is needed to at the very least contest the Lankies. This ground force is usually a Army Corps sized formation which takes time to deploy, as such the 45th’s mission or missions is likely to launch raids of platoon or company sized to both soften the Lanky defences and to perform reconnaissance in force operations to ascertain where the Lanky Seed settlements are.

“Indeed they have and are in the final stages of preparation for their first few raids as we speak.” Adams answers.

“So I’m putting together a mission that somehow doesn’t involve Lankies?” I asked putting a little joke there for good measure but..

“Indeed it doesn’t” Adams replied with no hint of humour in his voice.

The Tactical Orb then pans away from the fleet and the planet we’re orbiting towards the planet of Nova Tenis where there were more hostile icons in a patrol orbit, however what got to me was the fact that instead of the icons being the usual bright red for hostels these icons were bright orange for unidentified presumed hostile.

“Sir are they?..” I started putting the pieces together.

“Another Alien race? Yes indeed Bosh they are” The general replied.

I lay back in my seat to take all this information in, the last time we encountered sentient alien lifeforms they’d tried to kill us and are still trying.

“So is it strictly recon your wanting or?” I asked, wondering for a moment why the diplomats aren’t here to take charge.

Straightening out his uniform in the window Adams said “The ROE will be ‘fire only if fired upon’ but depending on what the recon team finds they can use their better judgement as long as they understand that the higher ups, both military and civilian want to avoid fighting a two-front war if possible. But given that this new race has been around Nova for from what the drone gathered a few decades right next to the Lankies we can’t discount the possibility that they could be allies however small chance that is.”

Standing up from my seat I gave my superior a salute before saying “Understood sir I’ll have the mission underway soon”

“Good that’s what I want to hear, Godspeed General California out” And with that the window closes before I leave the CIC to prepare a mission package.

Prism’s Flank: 2022 of the Imperial Calendar: Planetary Capital: 10 days later

“Out of the truck bitch” One of my guards says as I am pushed out of the truck and onto the pavement of the main street running through the city.

I was halfway in getting myself up still chained when two of the Imperial Guard decided I was taking too long and grabbed both of my thinned arms and dragged me through the street.

I looked to either side of the street, each side housing two bipedal races one of whom I belong to.

The first were a race of herbivores who have a wide arrange of coloured coats as well as snouts on their faces and hooves on the ends of their legs, they were further divided between those with horns, those with wings and those without either. Compared to the other race they wear very modest clothing with a few having more exotic pieces such as jewels and gold rings.

They form the majority of the people gathered on this day and to many they thought this day would never come, that I who lead the resistance against their reign on this planet would be captured and brought before their masters to be judged all for a split second before continuing with my execution.

The second race who wore mostly rags and were the minority in the crowd were humans, the natives of this planet though their elders would state otherwise. To them they see a champion brought before their oppressors in chains, one who a few decades ago was one of the very people who oppressed them but using a reverse variant of the conversion potion I became a member of humanity.

My reasons were many and in a few minutes they won’t matter anymore.

“Ladies and Gentlecolts!” The voice of the lord governor boomed over the air as we entered the colony plaza in front of the Government palace where in the middle is a raised platform with a single pole being the only feature aside from the Lord governor himself standing with a microphone in his hand.

“Today is one where many of us believe would never come!” His speech continues as I am brought upon the platform and soon after tied to the pole facing back down the street I came from.

“For we have finally captured the leader of the Human terrorists cells here on our beautiful world” He continued before stepping out of the way and presenting me as if I’m a item up for auction.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!!” There was resounding applause following that declaration.

If only they knew the truth.

If they knew who I really was or what really happened in the distant past, then perhaps their attitude towards the Imperial Government would be very different.

“Not like that’ll matter soon” I thought to myself as the lord governor continued his speech which I stopped listening to and focused on my surroundings before the two guardsmen from before blindfolded me, drowning my world into blackness.

The last thing I would probably see was movement from an alley to my left, it wasn’t that important as I know that somebody from the resistance would be here to see me off or maybe try and rescue me.

As futile as that sounds.

“-Ready!?” The lord governor shouted as I heard five sets of footsteps and five Lasguns being charged simultaneously, I then began bracing for the end.

“AIM!” I began thinking of memories from long ago, friends, family and loved ones that I would give anything to be with again.

“FIRE!” My last thoughts would be of my friends and I after we dealt with nightmare moon, together always.

But instead of the familiar sound energy discharges I heard what could best be described as an explosion.

And then screams, many screams.

Recon Run

View Online

Prism’s Flank: 2022 of the Imperial Calendar:EINS Destiny’s Light: Ten Days earlier

When Flintlight first saw space he remembered how vast it was, all those stars millions upon millions of them existing and many more approaching their time of end. Such first thoughts did not leave the First Ensign Stallion even as he took his post for the ship’s bridgewatch cycle, having a full unobscured view of those very stars didn’t help matters.

“Aye Ensign you on watch?” A rough old voice called out to Flint as he entered the bridge from the door behind the Captain’s chair opposite the main window.

Over by said windows in the centre where the ships helms is sat a tall and old Stallion, a Earth Pony to Flint’s surprise when he first met the pony as the Imperium nowadays tends to treat its none-unicorn subjects less but better then those who were not of ponykind. His coat was green though dull in colour in stark contrast to Flint’s own which was still bright minty green, he has no mane unlike Flint’s own blood red mane and his one good eye was gold compared to Flint’s baby blue ones.

His white and crisp Uniform and the fact that he is seated means that his cutie mark is hidden from view though the more important feature is that he has the insignia for an imperial navy Second Ensign on his gold lined shoulder-pads.

Moving to take his place beside his senior on the ship Flint replied “Indeed Second Ensign Mint Bronze and so is Lamplight”

Upon hearing that particular name Bronze snorted out “Humph! That zealous youngster?”

“I wouldn't call her ‘Zealous’ Second Ensign unless you want to be blind completely, more like…‘Dedicated’ would be the right word I guess” Flint said as he logged into the Light’s computer systems for the watch.

“Destiny’s Light this is Silvercrown confirmed watch change, see you in the next one.” A voice calls over the fleet channel.

Pressing a button on his console Flint replied “Rogor that Silvercrown over”

Bringing out his PDP from his side pocket Flint began to check off various systems as is the norm for an on-duty bridgewatch officer.

“Say did you hear the word from the mud-slogers?” Mint Bronze asked keeping the Heavy Frigate steady within the seven ship formation.

“About?” Flint responded focusing more on the readouts than anything.

“Mud-slogers” was the Imperial Navy’s nickname for both the Imperial Army and Imperial Guard, though many of them would say that it was a insult which from a certain point of view probably was.

“They say they captured the leader of the terrorist cell of this planet” Bronze simply said.

Flint almost misclicked at that bombshell.

“Are you serious Ensign?” The First Ensign asked.

“Indeed lad, even saw her with my own eyes being dragged to the Governmental Palace whilst I was down there” Bronze affirmed.

Despite his duty at the moment Flint couldn’t help but simply sit there dumbfounded, ever since the Imperium discovered the human homeworld eighty years ago they have been the source of one of the most troublesome terrorist cells in imperial space but it actually wasn’t until a human woman known as Twilight Sparkle appeared that the humans really started to hurt Imperial administration efforts on Prism’s Flank. Whilst there was no evidence to suggest that the cell on Prism’s Flank was connected with the wider terrorist network when Twilight Sparkle was in command the humans were more organised and equipped then they were before, although not to the extent of the Imperial Army but they were able to handle the Imperial Guard before the Imperium decided to send a full five regiments of the Imperial Army to quell the terrorist threat.

As far as Flint knows, capturing the terrorist leader was the most important and ONLY thing the IA has ever done since coming to this frontier planet.

“What did she look like?” Flint couldn’t help but ask.

Despite the fact it's well known that she was born some twenty years ago, there was not much else that could be known about Twilight Sparkle. Many claim that it was due to the Imperium lacking a dedicated intelligence service and instead relied on local means such as informats and scouts. Others claim it was due to the terrorists being very crafty and secretive though many more which included many high ranking officials doubted this second claim.

Bottom line was, nobody really had any idea who Twilight Sparkle was other than the given information from the events of the past fifthteen years.

Not even what she looked like.

“She looked very young, almost didn’t believe she was Twilight until she herself confirmed it. Had purple hair with a pink streak in it and…ah! Her eyes were sapphire.” Mint Bronze indulged him.

“How’d they do it?” Flint then asked.

“Ah couldn’t stomach more of their ‘Army is better’ nonsense to get an answer, not as if they would’ve told me if I did ask. Though I did learn that however it happened it was agreed that it was mostly luck that they’d captured her.” Bronze replied leaning back into his seat whilst still keeping his hands on the helm.

Flint himself went back to his screens monitoring readouts, checking system reports, all the minor things that the Captain of a flagship can’t be bothered to do 24/7 but his mind couldn't help but question…

“What would happen if they had time?” He muttered.

“What’s that?” Bronze asked, overhearing Flint’s question regardless.

“I-I was just wondering Bronze, ever since we integrated the humans eighty years ago they’ve been a thorn in our side both directly and indirectly. From battering the Imperial Guard during many of their raids to even stealing the Wind’s destiny and destroying the last garrison fleet, they’ve proven to both be aggressive and creative which begs the question. Could the humans have proven to be an independent power if they had more time to establish themselves?” Flint says but before Bronze could answer the third member of their Bridge Watch comes in.

“Even if they could have time to establish themselves in the stars, the fact that they lack magic means they can not overcome the difficulties that come with relying on technology.” Lamplight states as she sits down in her station next to Mint Bronze opposite from Flint.

Her coat is snow white compared to Flint’s and Bronze’s green coats which blended with the white Naval Uniform that all three wear.

“What makes you ever so sure Lampy?” Bronze asked.

“Because without magic they can’t overcome many of the problems that come with operating an interstellar empire, many of those problems simply can’t be solved with technology alone.” Lamplight answered, her tone carrying an ounce of annoyance due to Bronze using her most hated nickname.

Seeing the potential conflict that could erupt Flintlight decided to speak up.

“Alright enough you two! I would like to get through ONE bridge watch without having to call SHIPSEC!” He shouted trying to exert his authority.

Which works.

“Of course/All right lad” They say at the same time before carrying on with the watch.

“Celestia help me” Flintlight thought to himself.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson:PAS Washington: New Caledonia:Kherson: June 14th 2188

I aim the muzzle of my towards the bulkhead one final time before being satisfied with its link with my Battle armour.

My rifle coined the Joint Modular Battle Rifle or as the troops call it the “JUMBO” is a series of combat rifles first co-developed by the NAC and Euros and has since become the main firearm of humanity’s armies which include the Pacific Alliance, United European Federation and the South American Federation with the africans being the only ones not using the Jumbo.

The rifle itself more specifically the Mark 3 variant or J-3 for short is a coilgun based design using magnetic coils to propel a high density penetrator at high speeds, once the round hits a Lanky the explosive charge riding shotgun explodes inside the Bastard. Unlike the first model of JUMBOs the J-3 can hold 30 shots in a single magazine which is three times the amount of the J-1s.

Though the rifle itself isn’t the full beauty of a trooper’s combat kit, the second most vital piece is the Poly-ceramic-Hard Shelled Armour. Because of its Poly-ceramic material most 21st century chemical propelled ammunition can’t penetrate it leaving either explosives or high speed flechettes as the only way to kill the trooper though a good swing of a Lanky arm can easily swat a whole company of SI troopers in Battle Armour. The real magic of the armour comes from its internal computers and Neural Network integration, inside the T-shaped visor of my fin-topped helmet there’s a special optical that goes over the right or left eye depending on which one you use to shot, this optical displays icons over items marking allies and enemies as well as anything that a trooper might deem necessary to victory and through a integrated Data-link all that information is shared with the squad or even the company if the situation requires it.

In short if one trooper sees something we all see it.

Of course if you were to compare my GEN2 Battle Armour with my Grandfather’s GEN1 Hardshell he used to wear you’ll notice a few key differences.

One of the main ones is the ratio between performance and cost, see when comparing the GEN1 and GEN2s the first generation beats the second generation in raw performance but it also due that performance that prevented the military from equipping all its soldiers with the best gear possible, because despite the advances in technology unless you have a ridiculous industrial complex having millions of men and women in state of the art battle-rattle is just a dormant fire waiting to be lit.

GEN2 Battle Armour whilst lacking in performance is able to be produce 10 times as much as GEN1 and is easier to maintain allowing the Corps to supply the millions of troops with Battle Armour, of course the GEN2 Battle Armour has its version of the Hostile Environment Battle Armour or HEBA suit which was designed to fight on Lanky worlds but unlike the GEN1 version the current version of our HEBAs lack the invisible whsit thing did on account of the fact that the Lankies don’t need sight to survey their surroundings, other then that our HEBAs have what their GEN1 cousins had, lager built-in O2 tank with advance scrubbers to defend against the high CO2 of lanky worlds, improved cooling to help against the high humid temperature and retinal projections in place of a visor to save on defogging stuff for said visors, with the small bumps on the forehead being the sensors the suits have continued to earn the name “Bugsuits”.

“All set Grayson?” My friend Avery Fallon asks as I place my JUMBO on the magnetic clamp on my back.

We along with the other members of our STT team are in the Washington’s armoury next to the hangar.

Our mission is to recon the former NAC colony of Nova Tanis to recon potential enemy forces, their numbers, locations and other facts and relay them back to the fleet whilst the higher ups figure out what to do.

Yes POTENTIAL enemy forces not Lankies, a new species! When I first heard this I was tempted to ask the Major himself if it was true before quickly remembering who Major Graves is.

The reason why they’re sending recon is threefold.

One: We know nothing about this new potential enemy, how they live, how they fight or how they talk. For all we know these people could just be innocent bystanders who know nothing about the struggle our people have to endure but the opposite could also be true, the race could be simply allies that we didn’t know about until now. Whilst WE can’t talk to the Lankies that doesn’t mean other races can’t which is why despite having orders not to fire first we are going armed.

Two: If we are going to attack this new race we need to have intel on the current lay of the land planetside, where they live where they can’t live, where’s the biggest group of them and where’s the smallest, it's these questions that we hope to answer to minimise the casualties we’ll take on D-day if it ever comes to that.

Three: Because we didn’t bring any diplomats.

“Yeah AF just thinking about this situation.” I said to Fallon as we both made our way through the armoury towards our new team for now.

The whole STT will be deployed for this mission in teams of six, five Spec-Ops and one specialist. The SCARs will be getting a Combat Controller for each of their two teams due in part to the fact that they are “Recon Snipers” and won’t be in the thick of any action but they will be finding targets for their CCs to tag and mark.

The Force Recon Platoon will be getting the rest of the specialists to share amongst their six Fireteams, their modus operandi is “Reconnaissance in Force” which will inevitably involve shooting their way out if things go FUBAR though given who the SpaceBorn Infantry were before the Lankies showed up the shooting will probably happen regardless.

As for me and Fallon we are assigned to the SEAL team which due to being a Tier One Spec-ops unit the Major decided to assign two specialists, one Pararescueman and a Combat Controller. Our CO for this mission is one Captain Oscar, a decent soldier in terms of Character, informal to a point, cares for the men under him and is an excellent shot with his JUMBO.

“you guys all good? Ammunition? Medpacks? Food?” Oscar asks to which me and Fallon answer yes every time, it may seem repetitive but better double check then get checked yourself down the line.

With our answers satisfactory the SEAL Captain gathers us around in our small area of the armoury.

“Okay people we’ll be taking one of the Akumu’s for this mission, SCARs will get the other two and the fourth will act both as full air support and our mobile command centre whilst the Force Recon guys will be taking the older Hayabusas. We’ll be gone for a while so the dropships are being stacked as much as they can with whatever we might need, Ammo, meds, weapons you name it we got it. Anything to ask that you couldn’t in the briefing?” Oscar always likes to make sure his men know what they got at hand, again may seem repetitive but you don’t get to be one of the Alliance’s Tier-One Special Operations guys by being all gunho and that.

“No sir!” We all replied, the four other SEALs seemed to put more emphasis on the former word then me or Fallon. Which makes sense, unlike them I don’t mind the Captain’s habit doing things twice over, it means he doesn’t take any chances and from my experience that saves lives.

After that little conversation we head out of the armoury through the bowmost hatch and into the Hanger Bay, which looks like a mess.

Debris was mostly cleaned up but various bits and bobs can still be seen in out of the way areas, many of the lights that dotted the ceiling were out as well as many holes, those that were in the way of the hanger’s operations and safety were given priority for being patched up. Many of the booths that housed the Strike Craft and Dropships were empty aside from fourteen dropships that the Recon teams were using, the rest were either transferred to other ships due to the Washington’s battle damage or were damaged themselves and had to be hauled back for repairs.

“Hey Grayson!” A familiar voice called out to me as the rest of the team moved on ahead.

“Lieutenant Hawkins!” I saluted my CO as he returned the gesture.

“The boys are getting the birds fixed right now, we’ll be ready when it's time to fly” He says gesturing over his shoulder to the Dropship behind him, an Osprey.

Unlike most dropships the Osprey has two doors on its sides in addition to its rear ramp, allowing its occupants to quickly descend to the ground. The Osprey was designed for Medevac duties and this particular Osprey is one of four other Ospreys of the 34th Rescue Squadron which me and Hawkins are a part of, their job will be to act as mobile field hospitals in addition to Medevacs.

“Understood sir, does the Major know?” I asked but knowing Hawkins he probably just told me to get a weight off his chest.

“He does, take care of yourself, understand?” He said, patting me on my shoulder.

“Wilco” I replied before catching up with the rest of the team in front of our dropship.

The Type-35 Akumu is the latest in a line of Stealth Dropships by Fujo Digital Industries, a Japanese company in the Pacific Alliance. Like most Dropships its main exit/enter way is a rearward ramp compared to the Osprey, which as I said before has two additional side doors.

“You ready brother?” Avery asks from the top of the ramp just inside the dropship’s interior.

“Better than never” I replied as I boarded the Dropship whose call sign was Shadow 2.

As we made our way through the dropship to our seats I noticed a very big something in the centre of the dropship amongst the various supply crates.

“An AMP suit?” I asked the SEAL working on the EXO.

The Amplified Mobility Platform or AMP suit is a second generation EXO replacing the PACs in 2163, it is four metres tall and 1.83 metres wide. Unlike the PACs the AMPs have much more versatility due to their hand-like manipulators allowing them hold not just weapons but also cargo making them combat rated forklifts which comes in real handy when you need to off load stuff fast, their weapon of choice is what many call “Daddy JUMBO” the look and design is different but the idea and purpose is the same, firing a high speed high density projectile with a explosive charge behind it which will allow it to tackle Lankies making it a good support platform. Back in the days when my Grandfather was in the NACDC the interstellar infrastructure wasn’t steady enough to haul armoured vehicles like the Maul APC to other worlds and deploy them fast enough via dropship, EXOs however provided our soldiers with the fire support platform needed to hold the Lankies.

Nowadays with ships capable of hauling armoured vehicles to other planets in service some people believe the time of EXOs was over but reality was the EXOs were small and light enough to be fitted on a dropship much better then a APC or MBT would ever be and with their capacity to perform non-combat jobs like rearming fighters or dropships to carrying loads of cargo the importance of EXOs was increased not decreased as some feared.

“Sure is Sergeant, I’m EXO-trained and the major wanted to use as much as our skills as possible during this deployment due to the many unknowns” The SEAL replied before hopping into the open see through cockpit, inside was a set of metal that was in the shape of a human with two wrist-locks were the wrists would be, this was the motion capture harness that allows AMP drivers to control the suit like they would with their own body.

After getting strapped in and booting up the suit the SEAL brought the AMP’s arms up to his head, then he started doing jabs and hooks as if he were in a boxing match to ensure his unit is working.

“Badass” Avery says amazed as the suit does a one-two-one hit combo in perfect sync with the SEALs movements, the cockpit is fairly open with the occupant protected by 3cm of hardened polymer glass that would be used on bases, dropships and other stuff that required windows.

“You fucking said it brother” I say as the SEAL does one last swing before deactivating the suit and then climbing out of it.

“Strap in boys!” Captain Oscar shouted as he sat in the command chair next to the doorway to the cockpit.

Me and Avery soon find our seats and strapped in as ordered before I hear Major Graves over the company channel.

“Ranger actual to all units, Operation Phantom Plan begins in 40 top off, strap in and get ready to rise hell if things go FUBAR down there Ohra?”

“OHRA!” We all shout our acknowledgement back over the comms.

“Shadow Leader to all units check in!” The flight leader of the Akumus said and one by one the other “Shadows” responded in kind.

“Shadow 2 systems burning bright”

“Shadow 3 green”

“Shadow 4 ready”

“Alright people, prepare to drop!” And with that the Machines of the Washington whine and crack as our Dropship is moved into position.

As with Starships of the early 22nd century the way craft are launched from ships is via a airlock system, the dropship is moved into the airlock which in the case of Battle-Carriers or Assault-Carriers is located at the bottom of the ship and after the airlock is depressurised the clamps holding the dropship in place release allowing the craft to fall until it comes outside both the hull of the ship and its gravity field.

There was talk about equipping ships with force-fields to make launching and recovering craft easier but the lack of redundancy and the reliance on a energy field to pressurise a interior space made them not suited to military warship design, to the dismay of my grandfather if you can believe it.

“Express elevator to hell! GOING DOWN!” Was all our pilot said before I suddenly felt myself being pulled upwards into my harness as our Dropship was released from its clamps.

“WAAA-HOOOO!” I couldn’t help but yell out, fortunately my helmet comms were off so the rest of the team couldn’t hear it but knowing Avery he probably knows what I’m doing.

Soon we were away from the Washington and I felt weightless due to the lack of a gravity field which was soon rectified by the Dropship activating its own G-field.

“We are away” Our pilot says over the comms.

Switching on my suits data-link or TAC-LINK as my Grandfather called it I brought up one of the dropship’s external cameras, the feed pops on my HUD and shows the PAS Washington slowly moving away as our dropship increases the distance.

As we do I could make out the other Akumus and Hayabusas launching from the ventral side of the Carrier.

“Get settled in people!” Oscar says after a while, during that time the squadron of dropships have begun their journey to Nova Tanis.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Type-35 Akumu Stealth Dropship: New Caledonia system: Approaching Nova Tanis: June 17th 2188: Three Days later.

“Hey! Gray wake up brother!” The voice of my best friend since boot brings me out of my sleep, my eyes open to see two of the SEALs working on the AMP that stands in the centre of the hold.

I turn to my left towards the cockpit to see Avery and Oscar on the command chair working on the screen.

“Yeah..Yeah! I’m up I’m up! What is it?” I say groggily as I try to get the sleep out of my tired system.

“We’re there” Oscar says, sitting in the chair and tapping away at the screen.

“Looks like the number of ships is the same,” Avery said, noting the seven lights in orbit of the former NAC colony world.

“That good or bad?” I asked whilst getting myself cleaned as best as I could in full Battle-rattle.

“If we end up having to fight them then I say that’s a good thing but god forbid it comes to that” Oscar answers.

Our fleet strength includes two Battlegroups Zata and Sera and a Assault-Carrier Task Force, the two Battlegroups add up to 28 ships whilst the Task Force adds another five. So if a fight did break out it would be 7 starships versus 33 Pacific Alliance Warships, which would be a very uneven fight for the defenders.

“This is Ranger Actual to all units, we are approaching Nova Tanis. Break formation and head to your entry points, once planetside reestablish comms and proceed with phase 2 understood?” Major Graves' voice boomed over the company channel by the time I got my helmet back on feeling refreshed and ready to rock.

“Yes Sir!” Came the collective reply.

The formation of Dropships were in a line formation with the Akumus in front, Ospreys in the back and the Hayabusas in the middle. Once Major Graves’s order went out however the line began to disperse as each dropship adjusted their course to enter the planet’s atmosphere from various different approaches.

The Akumus with their stealth Abilities will be entering the planet in places near the garrison fleet whilst the rest will enter the planet beyond the horizon from the fleet.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Type-35 Akumu Stealth Dropship: New Caledonia system: Approaching Nova Tanis: June 17th 2188: 2 hours later

By the time I get the feed from one of the dropship’s external cameras up on my HUD I could see Nova Tanis in half of the shot, the rest is taken up by the void beyond and a large warship in the middle of six others.

“Do they have windows?” Fallon said, sitting next to me as our dropship made its descent.

Panning the camera to focus on the larger of the ships I could see there were a lot of lights, far more than just positioning lights.

“Yeah they do,” I said in mild surprise and confusion.

Since the start of the first Interstellar War in the late 21st century between the SRA and NAC, Warships have always been built without windows relaying on external cameras to see out into the black void and their bridges or CICs were located in the centre of their hulls for maximum protection.

However these people judging by their lights and silhouette appear to not have learned about the finer dangers of space yet.

“On the bright side…” Fallon started as I switched off the link to the outside allowing me to see the inside of the dropship again, I then turned to my left where Fallon is sitting next to me closer to the cockpit.

“The fact that they have lights means they have eyes, which means we may not be at so much a disadvantage as with the Lankies” My best friend Avery Fallon concluded.

“Hold on BOYS!” Shadow Two calls over the comms as all around us the Akumu shakes and rattles and the thermometer on my HUH spikes in temperature slightly.

“Soon we’ll be the first humans back on this planet in eight decades!” Captain Oscar says as we descend into Tanis’s atmosphere.

Prism’s Flank: 2022 of the Imperial Calendar:EINS Destiny’s Light

“How was planetside sir?” Flintlight asked his Captain as he entered the bridge for today's bridge watch.

The Captain in question was a big stallion, about three heads taller then he and five heads taller than the average human. His coat was white as snow and his mane black as space, his eyes were blood red and he wore the standard imperial Navy uniform with Flag Captain markings.

“Same as last Ensign though the discussion about the Terrorist leader was a shock.” Flag Captain Iron Raid said as he took his place on the Captain’s chair in the centre of the room.

The Commander of Prism’s Flank’s Garrison Fleet was down on the planet for a meeting with the planetary governor and representatives of the Imperial Guard and Imperial Army.

“So it’s true then?” Flintlight asks as he takes his place back next to Mint Bronze.

“About what?” The Captain asked though if Flint didn’t know any better he could swear that Bronze was manoeuvring the ship a bit too sharply all of a sudden.

“About the Mud-sloggers capturing Twilight Sparkle” Flint clarified.

“Ah” was all Iron Raid said before adding “That is meant to be classified First Ensign understood?”

“Understood sir….” Flintlight said before continuing his duties.

Though as he did so he could’ve sworn he’d seen something outside in the area of the planet below.

“Probably just me” He thought and went back to work.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Type-35 Akumu Stealth Dropship: New Caledonia system: Nova Tanis Atmosphere: June 17th 2188

“Alright we’re through! Get your asses ready whilst I find us a spot to land” Shadow Two”s voice booms over the Squad Channel as our Akumu settles itself in the Atmosphere of Nova Tanis.

“You heard him boys” Captain Oscar says as he gets out of his seat.

We then all got out of our seats and got ready to disembark very soon.

“Captain” I hear Avery say as I check the link between my suit and my JUMBO rifle.

“Yes sergeant?”

“Do we have any FLY drones?” My friend asks.

“About a full box of them, once we touch down we’ll set up the network and get a lay of the land” Captain Oscar says as I finish my inspection of my gear.

The Firefly drones or just FLY drones are small handheld sized drones used by recon troops from all Spec-ops tiers to help map out the terrain of the Area of Operations, whilst the drones themselves were new additions the idea went as far back as the second battle of Mars during the Siege of Sol. One of the SEAL guys even has a NAT rack which stands for Naviganional Automated Tracking Drones, unlike the FLYs NATs were designed to be deployed from a trooper Combat-Hardshell this allowed troopers to either scout areas that FLYs can't reach or provide tactical support in the form of showing us were the enemies are.

Though I never understood why we needed that second option until now.

“Get strapped in again guys found us a LZ” Our pilot says and we quickly find our seats again before our Dropship does a sudden dive before stalling and then landing gently.

“Out and about gogogo!” Oscar says as we filled out of the Dropship’s ramp whilst the EXO SEAL gets his AMP unclamped and moving.

As the remaining six of us got out of Shadow Two we formed into a semi-circle facing forward away from the dropship which on my HUD says east at the top where the compass is.

A few moments later the AMP came striding out and took up a defensive stance a few feet behind our screen ready to fire its “Daddy JUMBO” onto anyone dumb enough to get in its way.

Once the AMP joined us Captain Oscar and another SEAL raced back into the Dropship returning a few moments later with a small crate carried between them.

“My cue” Avery says as he moves over to the crate from our small defensive envelopment.

Opening the crate Avery pulls out one of the sixty FLY drones stored within, as he gets the drone fleet ready I took the moment to get a good look around whilst I have the chance.

The second I stepped off that Akumu I almost thought I was on the wrong planet as Nova Tanis as discussed in the briefing was a 20 year old NAC colony by the time the lankies came, which meant that aside from having a converted atmosphere the planet was mostly a world of rocks and stone and soil with a small town of 700 people with a small Marine Platoon.

The Nova Tanis I’m looking at now is nothing like that.

For one there’s trees, lots of them, our pilot found us a LZ in a clearing deep within a forest somewhere on the planet under the nose of that garrison fleet we passed and secondly there’s animals or at least some insects from what my suit’s microphones can pick up. During the age where spacecraft cargo was sparse, transporting livestock to other worlds was viewed as too costly despite the help they would bring in terraforming the planet, however in just 8 decades since we were gone some other alien race has made life thrive on this once barren rock.

“All systems are go Captain” Avery said as I noticed the swarm of FLY drones circling our landing zone using the Akumu’s own power source as fuel for batteries via wireless transfer. Since he’s trained in neural networking Avery is the obvious choice to take control of a fleet of around sixty drones.

“Good, just got in touch with the others Operation Knowzone will continue to phase two” Captain Oscar says as he is most likely reviewing the locations of the rest of the STT via his TAC-LINK though I couldn’t for obvious reasons.

I watch as Avery directs 40 out of the 60 drones towards four different directions North, South, East and West. Ten per direction and spreading out as they gain distance from us, the remaining 20 acting as a reserve to fill in the gaps of our growing network or to scout locations of particular interest.

“And we are away!” Avery celebrates as I watch the drones fly off into different directions.

“Good work Staff Sergeant, okay people last chance to top off before Shadow two here leaves before any of the locals can come and ask questions” Captain Oscar advises.

We took his advice and rechecked our gear and ammo whilst the drones did their work.

After two minutes of gathering extra ammo and gear as needed our pilot’s voice chims over the comms again

“Well boys time I head off stay sane out there!”

With that the Akumu rises into the evening blue sky with its rear ramp raised before blasting off into the sky.

“Hey Captain, come and look at this,” Avery said, holding out his data-port for the Captain to see.

“A city?” Oscar asks as the rest of us gather around the two.

“Yeah 60 klicks to our north-east from what drone 23 sees but check this” My old boot camp buddy says before tapping on his port, which must transfer what caught his attention to the Captain’s HUD.

“A camp site?” he asks.

“Hard to tell given the terrain but it's worth investigating.” Avery concludes.

Standing up straight whilst Avery turns the screen back to himself the Captain then says “Okay Fallon have the reserve drones fly overwatch whilst the rest continue their mission, Mike take point, Robert behind him, Jonathan and the specs behind Obama and Obama behind me. Column formation understood?”

“Yes sir!” We all replied and then we moved out into the forest.

“Man I wouldn’t want to fight a Lanky in this dense shit” Mike says as we stroll through the forest at a steady pace.

“Yeah same” Robert says and I couldn’t help but agree.

The amount of vegetation and cover within this forest would make fighting Lankies more of a nightmare then they already are, mostly due to the lack of visibility that comes with forests.

“Quiet!” Avery says as we halt for a moment.

“What is it Sargeant?” Captain Oscar asks.

“Movement drones overhead count 30 plus tangos in two groups to our flanks and a few more in a clearing up ahead.” Avery replies before sending an update to our TAC-LINKs which update with new icons on our maps representing the newcomers.

“Keep moving but act natural, as if we didn’t see anything.” Oscar orders and we continue our march.

Soon enough we enter the clearing Avery pointed out.

On the TAC-LINK the mass of Tangos separates a bit and forms a circle around the clearing staying in cover as best as they could.

“What’s the ROE Cap?” Obama asks as he swivels the AMPs chassis from one side to the other keeping his human eyes peeled.

“No shooting back unless one of us is wounded, we don’t know if they have weapons that can penetrate Battle Armour and odds are these guys are the new owners so best we don’t make a bad first impression” Oscar replies as we form a circle of our own around the AMP suit.

As per the Captain’s orders, we didn't act like there was something wrong so as not to alert our encriclers but we made sure to keep our fingers close to our triggers despite the Captain’s ROE.

Hey given that we’ve been fighting aliens that were the size of building some caution is warranted.

“FLASHBANG!” Robert shouts as a couple of cylinders fly out of the fouleage.

Immediately after they rolled to a stop they let out a harsh and violent BANG! Which is designed to both deaf and blind the enemy making them easy prey to the attacker.

Unfortunately for OUR attackers modern Battle Armour has software that is designed to counteract flashbangs by darkening our visors and cutting our audio receivers whilst still keeping our TAC-LINKs open for squad communication and retaliation.

As soon as the bangers went off we immediately sprayed the forest with our JUMBOs but arcing our shots so we don’t hit any of the natives, just we could get the message that we are WAY out of their league.

“NOW listen! We didn’t come all this way for a fight despite what this looks like!” Captain Oscar shouts once we were sure the natives weren’t gonna try anything again.

“And what pray tell are you here for alien and why should we believe you?” A woman's voice said, surprisingly in perfect English.

Turning our gaze to a rock ledge across from where we entered the clearing we saw… humans!? Three to be precise two guys in their early teens and a woman in her late teens, the two boys have weapons that look like rifles but something tells me that they aren’t your regular boom sticks.

“The fuck?” I heard Avery say and I couldn’t help but emulate the statement.

Just then the other members of our welcoming committee started coming out of their cover weapons raised.

“How the fuck are there humans here!?” Obama asked over the comms.

“I…don’t know” Oscar mutters and I couldn’t blame him.

When a Lanky Seed ship comes in orbit above a undefended colony that colony is pretty much doomed, the Lankies deploy a nerve gas that kills anything that doesn’t breathe their atmosphere and since Nova Tanis was taken back in 2108 their Marine garrison wouldn’t have been equipped with Bug Suits or any Anti-Lanky gear. Even if the new owners were able to beat the Lankies off world there was no way any of the colony would’ve survived long enough for that to happen.

And yet here were 33 young teenage humans staring down six Pacific Alliance troopers in full Battle-Rattle and one AMP driver with nothing but the clothes on their backs and weapons in their hands.

“Well?” The Woman asks seemingly noticing our shock and from the look on her face she intends to use that.

“W-We Because-” The Captain tries to explain but well, even Spec-Ops can be surprised every now and then.

“STAND DOWN ALL OF YOU!!” A loud but old voice rang out across the clearing.

Turning towards the source I couldn’t help but do a double take.

Standing there with a cane in his right hand, a young girl holding his left was an old man with grey and white hair and wearing underneath a thick overcoat was an old North American Commonwealth Armed Forces Uniform.

“Elder Maxson!?” The woman atop the rock shouted before she and everyone of her party ran towards “Elder Maxson”

Smiling at the woman Maxson said “Its alright Sarah these are friends and our salvation”

The woman looked at Maxson for a second before looking at us and then back to him before saying “Elder with respect the last time Aliens said they would help us-”

“Who said they were aliens?!” Elder Maxson interjected before looking at us and passed the rest of the teenage soldiers who were locking rifles with our Battle Rattle.

“You can lose those now, I can guarantee the air here is fine! Better than it was on Earth in any case” Maxson suggested and we did as requested.

Surprisingly I was the first one to get my helmet off and instantly there were gasps and shocks.

“T-They’re!”

“Humans!?”

“The Legends were true after all!”

Those were just some of the comments that were going around the group as we uncapped our headgear.

By the time the Captain undid his helmet Elder Maxson walked up to him noticing the rank insignia on his breastplate, the woman named “Sarah” was walking close with him but she too had a look of shock and even awe.

Noticing the Elder’s outstretched left hand Oscar shook it with his right saying “Captain Timmy Oscar, Pacific Alliance Oceania Defence Corps Joint Special Operations Command SEAL team Five”

Smiling with a bit of tear to his eyes Maxson replied “Private Jack Maxson, North American Commonwealth Marine Corps 35th Regiment, 4th Battalion, 3rd Company, 2nd Platoon”

Rescue Op

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Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Nova Tanis: June 24th 2188: Seven days later

I push the cloth door of my tent open with the morning sleep still in my system and Battle-Rattle on my person, the sun peeking through the holes of the large cave.

“Time to make the rounds” I thought as I began my trek through the Rebel Camp.

When Private Maxson brought us here we were all stunned at how this place was hidden for so long until Maxson explained that this place was in the works long before the Imperials came.

The Camp itself is in a large came that was hollowed out by the crash of a NAC cargo ship back when the Lankies came knocking, the Equestrians came only a few months later but they were so busy with establishing themselves that they couldn’t find the ship before the locals covered her up with mud, wood and whatever else they could find and only improved that camouflage as the years went on.

As for how there were more humans here then what was here 80 years ago, the Elder explained that the Equestrians used genetic engineering to vat grow new humans and clone the existing population which until they’ve done a certain term of service are treated like objects and slaves rather than people and even then those not of a certain sub-race of Equestains are treated as second class citizens which-

“Mister Grayson!” A collection of little voices brought my attention out of my mind with a smile on my face.

“Hey you three!” I say to the three little kids that came to a stop in front of me as I kneeled down to their level.

They were all nine or so years old, with one girl and two boys. The one girl whose name was Evie was the tallest of them by a head and had pale skin with blonde hair tied into a ponytail and crystal blue eyes, like the rest of the people here she wears two leather pieces of clothing with colourful knitting woven into the cloths to set her apart.

The shortest of the boys is called Blake and he has jet black raven hair, Grey eyes and slightly tanned skin whilst wearing a different styled leather outfit dyed black.

The last of the two boys was named Sam and what separated him from the other two completely is his blue skin colour, red hair and yellow eyes.

Sam was a hybrid you see, a kid born out of a relationship between a human and an Equestrian. His kind ever since humans came under the reign of the Imperium had a bad relationship with those Equestrians that were stanched loyalists to their empire, the only Equestrians that didn’t view the hybrids with disgust were the ones that were either in low standing in the Imperium or are outright traitors.

“Miss Evergreen wanted your help in the med-tent, some of the hunters got into a fight with the prey and came back with some nasty pains!” Evie said her voice was a bit high for her age but I’ve learned to pay it no mind.

Chuckling I said “Alright I was just about to head there anyways but thanks for the urgency”

I then got up and walked towards the tent whilst the three little ones ran off somewhere else to play.

As I walked through the camp to the medical tent I noticed the residents giving me a glance, not a suspicious glance but a curious glance. Which I can understand up to a week ago things like Earth, Sol, the NAC and our technology were just kid stories and legends to them, so having a person wearing Armour unlike anything they’ve seen just casually walking through their camp is bound to raise some eyebrows.

The rapid FLAK FLAK FLAK FLAK of weapons fire draw’d my attention to the camp’s firing range where members of our STT are training on “new” weaponry.

The M66 Flechette rifle was phased out of use by the time the Pacific Alliance was formed due in most part to the fact that the Lanky’s skin was very thick and required a lot of kinetic force and explosives to even wound one hence the JUMBO but given the possibility of hostilities between us and the Imperials thanks to the information we gathered over the past week, many of us thought it necessary to have a weapon designed to hit small and fast targets.

Luckily for us Elder Maxson along with the rest of the Elders have stored and maintained a small amount of M66s along with their ammo and spare parts, the range was nothing more than a few sandbags and tables on one end of the narrow stretch of land in this corner of the cave and a couple of cardboard painted targets on the other end.

At the range were three of the SI Force Recon guys and Avery.

My Bootcamp buddy fires his M66 in rapid but single shot bursts since ammunition is in short supply and we need to get used to the weapon as fast as possible.

The rifle itself is a bullpup design with the rear of the weapon being the most angular then the front which is more curved which gives it a mean looking appearance, after he pops the magazine and places both it and the weapon on the table in front of him he turns to me.

“Hey Grayson doing the rounds again?” Avery asks

“Actually Evergreen wanted my help at the medical tent so I’ll probably spend the day there” I replied.

“Well I’ll be in the command tent if you need me brother” Avery said before walking off into the camp.

I look back to the Force Recon troopers for a moment before continuing my trek towards the Medical tent.

“Ah Sergeant Grayson thank goodness” The old woman with bright green eyes and greyish hair says as I enter the Medical tent.

“What’s the problem Madam?” I asked, taking note of the three men on their separate beds, the beds themselves were quite thin with many small holes in them and they lacked blankets.

Kneeling over the oldest of the three Elder Evergreen explained “Mason and his group were out hunting for extra food for you and the other soldiers when they were ambushed by a ragsor”

I took note of the boy’s condition before turning my gaze beyond him and Evergreen to the two younger boys behind them.

“That’s the Tigerish animal right?” I ask as I get my medical gear unclipped from my webbing on my Battle Armour.

The Ragsor was an alien animal from some other planet within the Equestrian Imperium, it looked like a Tiger but with thick skin like a Rhino instead of fur and was able to….not so much breath fire but able to let out a breath so hot it was able to wear down its prey to the point of almost being immobilised.

From the looks of it all three of them were caught in the Ragsor’s heat breath but only Mason the eldest of the three had any scratch marks or wounds.

“Yes that's right, I did my best for Robbin and Max but I ran out of my usual medicine before I could tend to Mason” Evergreen says as she places a wet towel on the young boy's forehead whilst giving him plenty of water.

“And the only remaining medication you do have is what we brought” I said not as a question but as a matter of fact, whilst there were many of the original colony that survived to this day they either almost completely forgotten how to use modern medical equipment relying on more basic methods or are unfamiliar with the current medication we brought.

Soon enough I found what I was looking for in my medical kit, a tube of cooling gel that is used when somebody has touched a really hot surface and needs something other than water to cool down.

Before I applied the gel however I first worked on Mason’s wounds, disinfecting them first then applying skin-plasters which are like regular plasters but contain the same liquid that the human body deploys to repair damaged skin, this helps the body heal a bit quicker.

After a few moments I was able to bandage Mason up with the help of Miss Evergreen before finally applying the cooling gel being careful of his bandages.

After a few moments I was done before moving on to the other two boys, applying the gel a bit quicker this time and making sure the two each got enough water to help cool them down.

It was during this time that I began to feel at ease, not just in the fact that I saved lives today but also in the fact that I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. Despite my current occupation I never wanted to be a soldier, I dreamed of becoming like my mother Fibe Grayson who is a nurse in my home town’s clinic.

It’s only through a case of high school bullying and self-doubt that I chose to join the corps and even then I made sure to ace my medical exams and by the end of boot I joined the fleet as a medical officer before two years later becoming a Pararescueman.

My mother was supportive of my choice though I know for a fact she didn’t like it. It was actually my Grandfather who was the most vocal against my enlisting but he soon adopted the same stance as my mother.

“Right that should about do it” I say as I finish tending to the wounded hunters.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on them and let you or the other PJs know if they need more help, and thank you Sergeant” Evergreen replies as I pack my medical gear back into my webbing

“No Prob-” I was about to say before a familiar face came barging in.

“GRAYSON!” Avery shouted at the top of his lungs startling me and Evergreen

“A-Jesus Avery what the fu-!”

“NO TIME ASSHOLE! MAJOR WANTS THE STT IN THE COMMAND TENT LAST WEEK! CODE-346A!” Avery said before I could complain and I froze when he mentioned that specific code.

A Code-346A is only issued when a high mission critical objective has been identified, usually on short notice and has a LWO or Limited Window of Opportunity for short.

“Gotta go” I simply say to Evergreen before sprinting out the medical tent with Avery Fallon towards the Command tent.

When the news of there being humans on the planet reached the rest of the STT Major Graves decided to have our HQ in the natives camp which they call Heaven, reason being that whilst a mobile HQ is hard to find it needs fuel to keep moving and having a place to rest not inside a dropship wouldn’t hurt anybody.

So with the help of the locals we turned one of their bigger tents into our command post, with small portable computers on tables lining the outer side of the tent’s interior and a big table with a Holomap able to display information in 3D in real time.

When me and Fallon arrived it was packed with not just our STT but also many of the Elders and rebel leaders of the various resistance cells on this planet.

“Staff Sergeants Ben Grayson and Avery Fallon Reporting sir!” I say as me and Fallon enter the tent.

“Gather around men and let's get started” Major Graves says and thus starts the briefing.

“At 2300 hours yesterday a rebel contact within the colony capital infomed Elder Maxson that a VIP who was captured in a past operation will be executed in the next 5 hours” Graves started before tapping a few buttons on the holomap’s projector.

The holomap then changes its current projection to that of the main imperial settlement on Nova Tanis.

“This is the Capital city known as City-348C” The Major explained.

The City itself was situated between a group of hills to the north and northeast whilst our own very large forest sits to the west of the settlement, the city is pretty large with a size of 26 square kilometres from the farthest building to the city centre though its actual shape is kinda like a boomerang with the western side curving up to the north along the forest and the east curving down the south.

“This is the only settlement with commercial, industrial or governmental abilities and is the largest on Nova Tanis” The major continued.

“And this is who we are extracting” The holomap then changes to show a full body picture of who we are rescuing.

SHE looks about twenty or so and her face has a soft look to it, her hair is purple with a pink strip and her eyes are sapphire coloured.

“Her name is Twilight Sparkle and she’s sort of a legend amongst the resistance both here and in the wider imperial territories” I raise an eyebrow at that as she looks pretty young.

“Why’s that Major?” One of the members of the SCAR teams asked.

“I’ll answer that” Elder Maxson intervened.

The elder private then moved to the centre of the tent opposite the major on the table holding the holomap.

“As I’m sure most or some of you are aware, the Imperium has the ability to transform humans or any other compatible species into Ponies. This procedure is called “Conversion”, however this procedure can also do the reverse and turn a pony into a human or any other compatible species.” Maxson explained first.

“How does that tie into her being a legend despite her age? Is it because of her strategy and tactics?” Another member of the STT asks.

“Yes but that’s not the most important part,” Maxson said. “Not only was she once a pony but she was also a member of a rare sub-race called Alicorns which had the traits of all the three other common sub-races and have superb regenerative abilities”

“Which in other words, makes them immortal” The Major was the one who dropped that bombshell on us.

For a moment we were all silent well expert the rebels, looking at them I could tell they at least heard of what the Alicorns are capable of but still…

“Sir are you fucking with us?” Avery asked this time.

“No Staff Sergeant I am not though to clear they can still die from things like gunshots or organ failure just not of old age and they can still take a beating, which still makes them as close to a demi-god as they can be” The Major replied.

“If they’re like demi-gods or something then that must make them pretty important right?” I ask to which Maxson nodded

“So why’s she with you then?” I continued.

The Elder hesitated for a moment before saying “It's personal for her so I won’t answer but I will say that “history is written by the victors” and that she has more than enough reason to be the enemy of the Imperium, as well as being friends of us”

“If there are no more questions about our VIP here’s the plan” Major Graves took the lead again.

“The SEALs will go in and perform the extraction whilst SCAR team 6 will will use their “LONGBOs” to swat any enemy close air out of the sky should things go loud whilst the rest of us prepare for a retaliation because make no mistake people once we extract this VIP they’ll be on us like hornets understood!?”

“YES SIR!” We all replied.

“Sir! What’s the top brass’s word on this?” someone else asks.

The Major was quite for a bit before saying “Due to the fact we had to use laser coms to transmit our findings to the task force we currently don’t have a up-to-date situation of what's happening over on their end and thus after this mission we indeed may end up making things worse but I’ll be damned if we let an opportunity like this slip by”

We spend the next hour drawing up a battleplan, discussing various points of entry, ROE and exit plan.

What we came up with was for Shadow Two to make a nuke run on the defence base north of the city as a distraction once we’ve located the VIP, then after we’ve secured her we board Shadow Two and proceed back to the camp and prepare for a retaliation strike.

Not the most detailed plan sure but it was something and that’s better than nothing.

With time against us as soon as we got the plan finalised the SEAL team plus me and Avery went towards the city whilst SCAR team 6 headed to a hill to the south that overlooks the city to provide overwatch.

“Never a dull moment in the corps aye Grayson?!” Avery says as we sprint through the thick woods in our servo-assisted Battle Armour.

“You say that as if that’s a good thing!” I reply as we continue our stride.

Three Hours later

“Hold up” Captain Oscar says as we neared a small stream.

To the right of our team is the stream going deeper into the forest whilst to our left the stream transforms into a small lake, beyond that are the small buildings of city-348C.

The Captain does a sweep with his borrowed M66 over the other side of the stream before turning his gaze to the city.

“Move” he said over the squad channel.

We moved along the bank of the stream for a minute before coming upon a swage exit pipe, our point of entry.

“Obama, Mike take point” The Captain says keeping his flechette rifle trained on the entry point.

The two SEALs then climbed into the pipe followed by the rest of us.

The pipe was only large enough for a two man abreast to move forward so we moved forward in a two man column formation with the Captain in the centre of our formation.

“Sarah and her team should be further in,” Captain Oscar said as we proceeded deeper into City-348C’s sewer system.

Earlier in the day Sarah and her crew went ahead into the city to try and rescue their VIP by themselves, fortunately Elder Maxson got in touch with her and the rebel cell in the city and told them we’d be on our way.

“Hold up” Mike said after we spent a few minutes travelling in the city sewers.

We came to a stop by a corner of an area the pipe runs by, in that area were a few guards and a ladder that leads to the surface. My guess would be that these guys were acting as security since from what we know from the rebels they make use of the sewers to both hide and attack important targets, as to why the imperials haven’t yet cleared this place out yet well it probably be too much of a headache to handle with collateral damage.

“No way we are sneaking by these guys Captain” Mike says as he sends his helmet cam footage to our TAC-LINKs.

The area where our sewage tunnel and the guard area connects is completely open and the light by the ladder is able to shine into our tunnel, meaning unless we want to get spotted we can’t move forward in the tunnel.

“Got eyes on five hostiles, a full fireteam. Two by the ladder, one by the hallway in the right corner, one in the centre of the room and one right next to us” Obama chimed in marking all the hostiles in the room as he calls them.

The hostiles in particular have hands and feet much like humans but they have fur in addition to skin and have heads that share a resemblance to ponies, the armour they wear reminds me of the romans a fair bit mostly in the helmets but they do have a few modern features that I could recognise such as military webbing, a visor covering the face and a couple of pouches on the chestplate.

“Don’t suppose these things have a “Keep the fuck quiet” setting?” Robert says as he inspects his M66.

“Afraid not-” I say before I’m interrupted by Mike.

“Contact right corner”

Eyeing Mike’s helmet cam again I could see that the hostile that was guarding the hallway was gone and in his place out of the light of the room and in the darkness of the hallway was a familiar face.

“She’s good” I hear Avery say as Sarah makes a couple of hand signals towards us.

“What’s she saying?” Robert asks.

“I think she wants Mike to take out that guard in front of us quietly” The Captain concludes.

“How?” Mike asks both over the squad channel and through the use of signing.

Through the feed of Mike’s helmet I could see Sarah pulling a knife from her thigh and showing it to us across the room.

“Anybody got a knife?” Mike asks over the squad channel

“Do you SEE us using a knife on Lankies!?” Obama said back.

“So how the fuck-” Mike asks before Captain Oscar interjects.

“We waste them hard” He says, pulling the action on his M66 back to slide in fresh rounds.

“You sure Captain?” I ask.

“There’s four of them and five of us, I’d say we have a good chance and let's face it Sergeant we’re bound to get into a fight sooner or later so best get a few shots in to get used to it.” Oscar says before moving up to Obama and Mike’s position.

“Obama Mike, take the two by the ladder and I’ll take the last two. Rest of you follow behind us and keep your heads on a swivel” He said, raising his rifle.

“Ready?” The two SEALs nod in return.

“Three. Two. One. GOGOGO!”

Immediately we charged out of our cover and began to move to different ones whilst spraying our M66s.

The one closest to us and the one in the centre of the room were the first to fall, peppered with flechettes from Captain Oscar but the two guards by the ladder were quick and took cover by some railed walls on their elevated position across from us.

Then one of them began blind fire his weapon from his hidey hole.

“Ahgh! Ahhh!” The Laser was quick and hitted Robert square in the head, on instinct his limp body fired its M66 on full auto.

“Shit!/Robert!” Jonathan and I say as I moved to Robert's body as it falled to the ground with a clang, even though I knew he was gone.

As I knelt by the Fallen SEAL I could see that the Laser blast melted through the Polymer-ceramic shell of the helmet, setting the wiring a light and completely frying his head. Through his T-shape visor I could see the aftermath and…well I never want to see that sight again if I could help it but-

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!!” Sarah shouted as she and a couple other Rebels came out of their spot in the hallway.

The firefight lasted only five seconds but given our location I could understand why she’d be mad, for all we know we just lost the element of surprise.

“Ma’am I know this is-” Oscar tried to explain but-

“I’LL TELL YOU WHAT THIS IS! THIS IS THE MOST DUMBEST THING YOU “Spec-Ops” NUTJOBS COULD’VE DONE! IF THE IMPERIALS HAVEN’T BEEN FOCUSING ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE CITY WE WOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD IN A FEW MINUTES FROM NOW! WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINK-” Sarah’s loud but justified rant was interrupted by one of the other Rebels cloging her mouth with a “Handed” gesture.

“Whilst I do agree with Sarah that your actions could have endangered our mission, might I suggest we move on before we run out of time?” He said to which our Captain just nodded and gestured us to follow the rebels.

“Fallon, stay here and keep our exit route open as planned. And make sure our fallen doesn’t get into the wrong hands” Oscar said just as I got up to follow.

Before I could raise my opinion Oscar raised his unused hand and said “We’ll need you Grayson in case our VIP needs medical assistance, besides there’s no special training needed to bring our dead home”

I nod in understanding even if I don’t like it and soon we are on our way.

“Up here” Sarah says as she climbs up the ladder.

We were deeper in the city now, about a few hundred metres away from the execution area.

We passed by many more humans on our way here, a few other rebels ready in case things go south but most were just people surprisingly. Sarah says that those who don’t want to live under the imperials but can’t go to Heaven hunker down here away from the patrols.

Oscar and the rest of the SEALs took turns in climbing the ladder until I was the last one left.

By the time I was up topside I could see that it was a bit past midday on Nova Tanis.

We were in an alleyway between two of the larger buildings in the city, meaning we are somewhere deeper in the city near the plaza.

“It’s gonna be close” Oscar says, noticing the crowds on the street in front of our ally.

“Keep low, to the shadows and follow us” Sarah said as we moved through the city via the alleyways whilst avoiding any alley patrols if possible.

It took only a few minutes before we came upon an alley that sits right outside the plaza where the execution is supposed to happen.

“Thief to BoomDog, store in sight awaiting confirmation on the cash. Are the fireworks ready over?” Captain Oscar says using the code words for our operation.

“Thief this is BoomDog, fireworks are ready and Hunter confirms that they are at their nest over” BoomDog AKA Shadow Two with two members of SCAR team 6 replied before “Hunter” which is the codename for the last three members of SCAR 6 chimed in.

“Roger Boom-” Oscar began to reply before Obama got his attention.

“Visual on the Cash” He said referring to the VIP Twilight Sparkle.

Through Oscar’s feed I could see our target as she led up the stairs towards a pole in the centre of the platform.

“BoomDog gets ready to light the fireworks, visual on the Cash over” Oscar said.

“Match ready” Came the reply.

As the VIP was tied up and blind folded I could see a team of five Imperial Soldiers match up upon the platform.

“Light!” Oscar ordered.

“Roger firing” Was the response

“Grayson, as soon as that fireball goes up you smack that group of assholes with your JUMBO and secure the VIP understood?” Oscar ordered even though I already knew that I was the one to go first.

“-READY!?” The voice of what Sarah calls the “Lord governor” calls out and the five ponies stand at attention.

“BoomDog!?” Oscar said fearing the worst.

“AIM!”
“Impact..”

Time seems to slow to a crawl for me as the stress of the whole situation tries to get to me and I look at Twilight’s face, eyes closed with a face that has no regrets.

“FIRE!
“NOW!”

To the north over yonder a brief flash followed by a massive mushroom cloud appeared as the pure fusion warhead detonated over at the main imperial defence base.

“GO!GO!GO! COVERING FIRE!” Oscar shouted over the squad channel just one second later and immediately we rushed out of our alley but not before I put a JUMBO round into the execution squad, whilst the SEAL team moved to cover me and kill anyone that had a firearm I sprinted up to the platform.

By the time I got up on the platform I could see the Lord Governor struggling to maintain his balance after the nuke went off.

Without breaking my sprint I pulled my right arm back and as I was just inches away from him I thrusted by servo-assisted arm right into his face.

The force of my punch, combined with the sprint and my Hard Shelled arm send the guy flying off the platform across the plaza and into one of the buildings, if the impact of my punch didn’t kill him then the impact of him crashing into a building most definitely would.

“Nice one Grayson! Now quickly get the VIP and let's book it! We won’t have much time!” Oscar’s voice called over my helmet and I turned back to the VIP and her would-be exactionors.

The projectile I fired that was designed to pierce the tough hide of Lankies was able to tore straight through the first three soldiers before detonating in the fourth soldier killing both him and the fifth soldier, leaving quite the mess.

“Hunter to Thief you got a flight of routers incoming from the city’s perimeter-” Said one of the SCARs as I approached the VIP before hearing the sound of helicopters coming from all directions.

Then I hear a loud explosion before I hear the sounds of an aircraft losing control before hearing a loud CRASH followed by another explosion.

“Make that three” The same SCAR says as I concluded that they just shot one of those choppers down.

I then forced my attention on the VIP I.E my patient.

She was knocked out by the force of the JUMBO round but other than that she seemed fine, which given the circumstances was good enough for me.

“Incoming!” I hear over the Squad channel and look to where the threat was indicated on my TAC-LINK, down the boulevard away from the plaza were at least an over strengthened company of Imperial troops with a tank in support.

I quickly grabbed the VIP bridal style and jumped off the platform back towards the alley right as several beams sprayed the platform.

“COVERING FIRE! GRAYSON GET TO THE LZ!” Oscar shouted through the TAC-LINK as the roar of M66s added to the symphony of battle taking place.

I did as ordered and ran like hell back towards the man-hole we came out of earlier, though not literally as I have to make sure the rebels were with me as I obviously can’t fight back with my precious cargo in hands and arms.

Soon enough I got back to the man-hole with the rebels right behind me.

“Captain!?” I shout back over the comms as I hand the VIP to one of Sarah’s men whilst they head down and I act as a rear guard.

There was nothing but static, gunfire and sounds of agony and death. My suit can tell me how the others are doing but because of the damage to their suits (possibly from the enemy’s lasers) mine can’t link to theirs and display their information on my TAC-LINK, all I do know for sure is that they haven’t left the plaza yet.

“Grayson!” Sarah shouted from inside the sewers.

I took one last look at the direction of the SEALs before jumping into the man-hole.

“Where’s your buddies?” Sarah asked as I took our VIP from her man and let him take rear guard duties.

“Don’t know but we can’t wait for them, not if we want to face the whole of the garrison’s remnants” I said regrettably.

“G-Gr-Grayson” I suddenly hear Oscar’s voice over the comms.

“Captain!?” I shouted in surprise as I scanned my HUD for Oscar’s vitals, unfortunately his BA must be in bad shape as my suit can’t connect to his but judging from the warning sounds and other noises I could hear from Oscar’s side he must be in bad shape.

“F-Fh-Finish the m-m-mu-miss-” Then the comms cut suddenly.

For a moment I just stood there with our VIP in my arms.

“Was that-?” Sarah began to ask before I cut her off.

“They're dead. We need to move, NOW” With that we made our way back to Avery’s position.

Arriving back at Avery’s position sometime later I noticed a couple of SCARs carrying the body of Robert out back through the pipe with Avery watching them before turning towards us.

“Hey Gray!” I nod to him as he greets us.

“Shadow Two got SCAR 6 after they took down that flight of helicopters and are waiting outside the sewer entrance” He explained before looking over at me and the Rebels as they made their way towards the Akumu.

“Where’s the other SEALs?” He asked before I shook my head and moved past him into the pipe.

“..Goddammit” Was all he said as he stood in the room where we lost Robert, his M66 in Avery’s hands whilst his own JUMBO was slung over his back.

“Come on Ave” I say to my best friend before he nods and we both made our way out of the sewer before boarding the Dropship.

The pilot then made best speed back to Haven, leaving four brave SEALs behind.

Retaliatory Strike

View Online

Prism’s Flank: City-348C: Two hours after the attack

“HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED!?!?” The commanding officer of all Imperial Army units on the planet shouted across the conference room.

Situated around the central table of the room were the various Regimental Commanders of the EIA and EIG with their staff officers along with the Captains of the defence fleet plus their aides.

As the Flag Officer Captain Iron Raid answered the general’s question “I have no excuse General, it's clear that those who attacked the plaza were of alien origin and working with the humans but as to how they infiltrated the planet without us noticing..”

“Clearly the space haulers have gotten soft with no real threat to fight unlike us” One of the Army officers muttered but it was loud enough for one of Iron’s captains to hear.

“You want to say that again, Mug-slugger!” He said.

“I said clearly-!”

“ENOUGH!” The General said before things can escalate further.

“Were we able to identify the attackers?” He asked, leaning back into his chair once things had settled down.

Another Officer this one in charge of the Army’s intelligence branch stood up, cleared his throat before saying “I’m afraid not sir, out of the five that were in the plaza one got away with Twilight Sparkle and the rebels whilst the remaining four were killed by a plasma grenade which apparently made it impossible to salvage the technology from their gear much less see what kind of race they are.”

That bit of news brought the already foul mood down even more.

“Seven Regiments..” One of the officers began.

“We lost almost seven regiments worth of Stallions and Mares we had for only four of their own!?” Another one shouted

The current strength of the Imperial Army on Prism’s Flank before today was Seven Imperial Army Regiments and Seven Imperial Guard Regiments, normally a colony like Prism’s Flank would only have two EIA Regiments to act as the heavy reserve for the EIG garrison but since the resistance had become more troublesome in recent times five more Army regiments were deployed.

And now some of those very regiments are gone.

“Whilst much of the 356th, 357th, 358th Line Regiments and the 708th, 910th Tank Regiments as well as the 450th and 350th Guard Regiments were destroyed along with the defence base, many of their subordinate units were out on patrol and thus with time could-” The Intelligence Officer started trying to put some light on the news before he was interrupted by another of his fellow officers.

“WE READ THE AFTER ACTION REPORT CAPTAIN! And even if there were enough survivors at best we could create a reinforced regiment or at worst two battalions!”

The Army Intelligence Officer hung his head down, not saying anything before sitting back down in his seat.

“This is getting us nowhere” The General thought as he rubbed his hands over his face to keep himself awake before saying

“Were we able to at least trace where they went?”

Captain Iron Raid then spoke up “Indeed we have General”

He then pressed a button on his end of the table before a hologram appeared above the centre of the table, it showed a 3D representation of a section of Forest with a red shape underneath the treeline.

“We were able to track the presumed Dropships responsible for the attacks to RB23, 40 Kilometres to the east of the city and judging from the activity we’re seeing they appear to be evacuating” Iron said standing up at attention despite the difference in service branch.

“Evacuating? Where could these scum possibly escape to that we can’t possibly reach them?” Another Army Officer asked.

“The aliens that are helping these humans are clearly an interstellar civilization, to that end it's very likely these aliens that are on planet are but a scouting force sent from a nearby starship or even a small fleet Celestia forbids” Iron Raid replied before the hologram zoomed in on a clearing near the rebel base known as RB23.

“Judging from the dropships amassing here we can tell there are fourteen dropships, not enough to transport the whole base in one run” The Naval Captain explained

“What about their magical signatures? How different are they to ours? How well do they fare against ours if you were to guess?” The same Officer from before asks.

“There are none” That statement gave pause to the whole room for a full 30 seconds before the officer said.

“But you just said they were evacuating! Given the fight those four we killed put up we can assume to a degree that they are not idiots so why!-”

“Because they have NO MAGICAL SIGNATURES COLONEL!” Iron Raid said understanding the colonel’s disbelief in such a phrase.

“The reason why we didn’t notice these aliens entering the planet was because they weren’t using magic to power their ships! I know this is hard to believe but we must act now, once my ships have completed preparations we will-” He continued before he was interrupted by the General

“YOU WILL DO NOTHING!”

Iron Raid said nothing for a moment before saying “But sir-”

“Not only did you fail in preventing this attack from happening despite your sound if off reasoning but you also failed to realise that our weapons can destroy whatever kind of technology they use, technology that we need to secure and study if we are to stand a chance in the worst case we become at war with each other and we can only do this if we have boots on site not a lance strike!” The General countered.

“...I see General but does the army have the men?” Captain Iron Raid asks.

“The 560th Line Regiment along with some extra support should be enough to overwhelm RB25 but in case it eases your mind Captain your fleet will be ready to provide air support when called upon” The General replied.

“Humph we should be sending as much force as we can given how well those aliens fought” One of the Army officers comments.

The General looked at his subordinate for a moment before saying “Whilst that is true given the threat of these aliens we must also keep in mind that these aliens could have more elements in the system, enough to lay siege to this planet. As such we must not waste too much of our strength when the threat of invasion is not outside the realm of possibility, in light of this threat Captain Iron Raid as acting Lord Governor I want you to send a messenger ship through the warp bubble to the homeworld and inform his majesty of our plight.”

With that the Navy Captain stood up, straightening his uniform before saying “I will do personality General and I’ve make sure the Defence fleet is ready for a attack if these Aliens do come in force”

Nodding the General then addressed the rest of the officers “Gentlecolts this is a moment many may remember for years to come, never before has the Imperium encountered an alien race that is not bound to their homeworld much less one that can stand up to us without the aid of magic if that is really the case. Conflict may be inevitable now but if we could come to an understanding and show these aliens that these humans are not worth the effort we may yet avoid a war with a powerful opponent and usher in a new age.”

He then turned to one officer in particular and said “Colonel Brickfield, your Regiment must make the capture of even one of these aliens a top priority understood?”

“Yes Lord General” Brickfield replied.

“Good dismissed!”

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Akumu dropship Shadow Two: Haven: 5 minutes after the attack

“We’re coming in on Haven now, get ready to disembark” The voice of Shadow Two’s pilot jolted me out of the daze I was in since we left city-348C.

I’m currently sitting on the row of seats to the left of the Akumu’s cockpit with Fallon sitting to my right and the SCAR team that was with Shadow Two sitting across from us with their nuke launcher beside their feet.

Beside our feet on a medical stretcher was our VIP who remained unconscious since our fiery exist.

I gave her my best but it would be better to get her to a proper facility ASAP.

At the announcement my old boot camp buddy turned to me and said “Well grey? Let’s find out what kind of ten fucks of hell are we in today”

A moment later the dropship rocked with a loud THUD and soon we were all unstraping ourselves from our seats and gathering our gear.

After we all gathered our gear the SCARs immediately left the dropship whilst Fallon and me moved to carry the stretcher and follow them.

As we all filled out of the Akumu and onto the clearing near Haven, the dropship itself closed its ramp and started to lift off from the ground.

“You guys hang tight, rest of shadow and I will be on station for CAS after we get re-armed. Godspeed” Came the voice from Shadow Two as his dropship sped off into the sky.

Then a Rebel came out of the woods near the edge of the clearing before saying “Major Graves wants you guys at Haven, follow me”

“Where’s the evac zone?” I asked, intending to get our VIP on the first osprey I can find.

“Just down that way at the next clearing sir” The man said pointing behind him.

“Fallon and I will handle the VIP you guys get to the major” I said to the leader of the SCARs who nodded before his men began following the same man through the woods back to haven before me and Fallon began heading to the Evac site with our VIP in towe.

As we made our way through the woods I noticed a couple of rebels messing around the foliage, with my HUD I could see that they were setting traps both along the path and deeper within the woods.

Given that Equestrians would likely come from multiple directions in small numbers whilst the bulk of their force comes from the east it makes sense to put some defences to harass them.

“Why’re they setting traps in this direction?” Fallon asked behind me as we both continued to carry the stretcher holding Twilight Sparkle.

“In case the enemy tries to outflank us, even if they can only send a few guys through these woods” I said back to him over our private channel as we continued our trend through the woods before eventually we reached our destination.

The scene before us as we entered the second clearing was one of organised chaos, all of the Ospreys were packed together being boarded by the civilians from Haven being mostly women, children and elderly.

Looking over the crowd I could see Evie, Blake and Sam with their parents being loaded onto one of the Ospreys. I sigh with relief as the trio noticed me and waved not really caring if they recognise me or not, I only spared my hand a second for the kids to see before focusing on the task at hand.

We soon made it to our destination, the flag Osprey of the whole effort where my commanding officer Lieutenant Hawkins was chatting with one of the pilots.

“LT!” I shouted over the comms to get his attention, he nodded to the pilot before turning to us as we set the stretcher down.

“Graves told me you guys got her out, good job” He said, grabbing my shoulder in the process.

“We lost five of the Alliance’s best sir, she’d better be worth it.” I said as Hawkins let go of my shoulder before turning to our sleeping VIP.

“I’ll have her on the first bird to the fleet, she’ll get the best care there” He said.

I nodded before asking “What’s the status of the evacuation?”

“Since this spot is the only one that can hold more than one dropship we had to prioritise, our Ospreys will take the first batch out of here and then the Hyabusas will come in flights of fours to take the remaining civilians to the fleet. However because those same Hyabusas are busy both spreading word to the other camps about Haven’s situation and getting some reinforcements we won’t be able to fully start the evacuation until tomorrow” Hawkins explained.

I cursed under my breath, if the enemy mobilised fast enough they could be here as early as tomorrow.

Fallon and the Osprey pilot from before were bringing our VIP into the Osprey when I noticed some of the Pararescuemen running back towards haven.

“I asked anyone if they wanted to stay and hold down the fort, given that we need as much space as possible sending a few of our own wouldn’t hurt and the guys there are gonna need them more then these fooks at the moment” Hawkins explained as two more of our PJs run past us towards Haven.

“You want to join them?” He then asked me.

I was a bit conflicted about that, on the one hand the STT will need as much help as it can get and I don’t see anyone amongst the evacuees that’ll need medical attention right away. On the other hand however, given that the enemy’s laser weapons can melt hardshell our odds of surviving the coming battle are slim and what’s worse my term of enlistment will be over in a few months and I plan on helping my mother in our family cafe.

As I pondered this Fallon came out of the Osprey with a browed M66 in hand and told both of us his answer

“Well I’m not missing out that party if their that low on helpers getting the decorations ready for the party guests”

Seeing my best friend from boot stating his intentions I sighed before saying “Make sure my seat gets used”

With that I followed Fallon as we both made our way to haven to get ready for the battle to come.

We soon entered the tunnel that leads to the main part of the camp, the tunnel itself was bare except for the support struts holding the ceiling up.

The main camp was a different story, with the help of the rebels we were able to turn much of the sanctuary into a killbox for any attacker with choke points, IEDs, and sandbags the whole nine yards.

Soon we arrived back in the command tent where the rest of the Special Tactics Team were huddled around Major Graves at the command table along with several rebel leaders.

Once the Major was sure we were all in attendance he began the meeting.

“Situation; currently we are preparing this base for a lengthy siege whilst most of our air assets evacuate all non-combatants and those who can’t fight.”

The Major then activates the projector on the table which lit up to show a 3D hologram of the surrounding forest with Haven marked with a blue NAC logo.

“As you know gentlemen much of the forest is too dense for any large force to advance without running the risk of being bogged down via guerrilla warfare and the terrain.” The Major continued as the North, South and West areas of the forest were highlighted in red showing their density.

“However the section of forest closest to the city is less dense both due to the Imperials past efforts to expand the city and past operations the rebels under took which resulted in this area housing signs of battle and removing the density that would normally make this approach just as dense as the others in the past”

“Instead this is where the Imperials will make their push right?” One of the Force Recon guys asked as the East area of the forest is highlighted in orange.

“We’re hoping they’ll put all their eggs in one direction but better to expect the worst then be unprepared for the worst” The Major replied as several blue dots appear on the holomap.

“A couple fireteams of rebels will watch the few approaches from the north, south and west to make sure the Equestrians don’t outflank the main defence line but if things get dicey then we’ll pull them to the front and let the traps slow the enemy down.” He continued.

It sounds simple enough to me but no plan ever survives contact with the enemy.

“How long do we have to hold them off sir?” Another of the Force Recon guys said.

“Once the Ospreys leave with the first batch of civilians we’ll have to wait until the Hayabusas get here to fully start the evacuation and that’ll take a while as they are busy with informing the other rebel camps and have to fly low to avoid being spotted and shoot down, but once those civilians are clear we and any surviving rebels with us will disengage from the Imperial forces and scatter to avoid being captured or killed until the fleet arrives.” The Major replied.

“If the fleet comes” I thought, given what little I know of the wider strategic situation I doubt the Alliance or the wider United Nations Defence Forces would risk opening a second front against a completely new enemy when we are focusing much of our forces and industry to reclaim our old worlds.

“Here’s our battleplan.” The major said breaking me out of my thoughts and getting to the meat of the briefing.

“The SCARs will be positioned here” As he said this a deeper blue dot appeared on the eastern end of haven within one of the thicker patches of trees.

“They’ll be our shield against any of the imperial’s Close Air Support with their JUMBOs and most of our ammo for them, given that our targets aren’t LHOs it’d be a waste of ammunition to use them against their Infantry when there are more juicy targets” The Major continued.

“Captain Andrew as the head Force Recon here you’ll take the lead in the defence at the front whilst I stay back as mission control call sign Hunker One understood?” He said to the SI Captain to his side.

“Understood Major Graves,” Andrew replied.

The rest of the meeting was details about our OOB or Order Of Battle, who’s going where and where to fall back to ect.

Before long many of us including me and Fallon had to hit the hay, because it's gonna be a very long day indeed.

Next Day: 560th Line Regiment mustering area: Outside of the western edge of City-348C: Early Morning

The area which sits between the city and the forest was aloft with the military personnel of the Imperial Army like bees in a beehive, soldiers ran from one spot to another in order to find their parent unit, engineers checked the heavy equipment to make sure they run and vehicles moved from the city to their assigned dropoff points to off load men and material coming from the regiment’s post on the other side of the city.

The Regiment itself housed five Battalions of a thousand men each, six if one counts the Headquarters and its attached assets.

Within a large tent somewhere in the muster area stood the Officers of the Regiment’s battalions including the Regimental Commander Colonel Brickfield.

Brickfield himself is a big stallion standing two heads over the average Unicorn in the tent, his fur is pitch black with a short white mane under his IA helmet which allows his red eyes to survey the gathered officers.

“Now that we are all here we can begin” Brickfield starts as the last officer fills into the tent.

“As many of you know we are to mount an assault on RB25 with three operational aims.” He held three fingers of his right hand up for emphasis.

“The first is finally to wipe out this threat so close to the planetary capital” He first said before lowering one of his fingers.

“The second is to possibly retrieve the rebel leader Twilight Sparkle, out of the three however this is the lowest as we have already lost many brave mares and stallions so if retrieving her is impossible then you won’t be at fault” Brickfield continued lowering another finger leaving only one upward.

“The third and final and arguably most important objective is to capture any of the aliens that are embedded with the rebels or at the very least capture their equipment for study.” Brickfield concluded.

“Fine by me Colonel, bout time my company and I got some action.” A rough but respected voice said.

Said voice belonged to Major FlatStone, commander of the only Power Armoured Infantry Company on the planet.

PAIs or simply Stromtroopers as they are more well known are a rare sight in the Imperium due in no small part to the large amount of resources required to not only make the massive suits of Armour but also to implant the users with the necessary interfaces to properly control them.

The Implants could be seen on either side of the massive red Stallion’s neck, their black material a stark contrast to FlatStone’s bright red coat. His golden eyes showing little lines within their irises showing their implantations.

“Your unit will be the first ones in Major Flat-” Brickfield started before being interrupted by one of the battalion commanders

“Sir, is it wise to deploy the Stormtroops, especially since our forces have taken severe losses?”

Brickfield nodded to the stallion, understanding his concern. “Under normal circumstances I’d agree but given that we are facing soldiers that are more advanced than anything the Imperium has faced in the past it’s best to be safe than sorry.” He replied before looking over the map before them.

“As I was saying Major Flatstone, you and your company along with the third Battalion will be our Vanguard followed by the First and Fourth. Fifth Battalion will stay behind and act as a reserve whilst Second Battalion will split into its component units and attempt to flank the rebels from the north, south and west.”

The Colonel then looked to the commander of his Second Battalion.

“Because of the density of the other approaches, your troops won’t be able to bring their heavy equipment and be able to move in large groups but there is the possibility that our enemy will attempt to flee through these areas.” The Colonel said to which the commander nodded.

“As such we need to cover as much of the other areas as possible to ensure maximum impact, right sir?” The Commander verified.

“Correct” Brickfield confirmed.

“What about the dragons sir?” Another of the Battalion Commanders asks.

To compensate for any lack of defence, each outer colony was given a squadron of five Adult Dragons to help with either ground support or air superiority and Prism’s Flank was no exception.

“Glanorth will be stationed with Second Battalion in reserve but if things get desperate he’ll be called in.” Brickfield answered.

Glanorth is the second most powerful dragon on the planet, his scales were as white as snow with some silver mixed in and his eyes were a crystal blue but he was no less deadly with over 300 years of battle under his belt. He was only succeeded by Mothrul who was as beautiful to Male dragons as she was deadly like Glanorth.

The meeting continued for an hour to iron out all the too small to mention but no less important details with the various commanders giving their thoughts and conversing with each other before the Colonel got their attention again.

“Alright, head to your units and get them ready, we move out in two hours and commence the attack in one hour after that. Dismissed!”

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: Three hours later: Heaven Forest Eastern Zone

“Contact front, eight plus foot mobiles” The SI Fire Team leader said over our squad channel as eight red icons popped up both in my field of view and on my map as I took cover behind a large tree, M66 Flechette Rifle in my hand primed and ready.

Looking to my left I could see the blue icons representing the SpaceBorn Infantry Force Recon Troops taking cover in similar positions with a couple of rebels with us though without modern gear I could only see the icons of where they last were and not where they are now which may be a problem in the coming fight.

Earlier in the day the Haybusasas came and started loading the rest of the residents of Heaven which given the small landing area only allowing for four dropships to land at a time is proceeding slowly.

So slowly in fact that when our FLY drone network noticed the mass of Imperial troops heading our way, only half of the civilians were evacuated.

So here we are a force of 250 Rebel fighters with 70ish Special Tactics Team operators going up against an Imperial force of a few thousand give or take.

“Make that ten, 30 metres and closing.” The same fireteam leader said as two more icons popped into existence.

Looking around my cover I could just barely make out the silhouettes underneath the icons through the vegetation and what I saw made my brow rise.

Unlike the standard Imperial Soldier which has basic armour and helmet with military webbing, these troopers appear to be encased in heavy armour, maybe even with the help of a powered exoskeleton. They carry weapons that’ll look massive in the hands of a regular sized Equestrian and they appear to be projectile based not the energy based weapons that they and the Rebels used.

They look like some Miniatures that a neighbour of mine collects, I think they were called Space Marines but fortunately aside from the looks these troops don’t have the genetics that the Space Marines were supposed to have.

“Shit!” I hear a whispered curse near me and I look over to see another Rebel cover right behind another tree.

“Their Stormtroopers! Second best outfit in the entire Imperial Military underneath the Royal Guard!” He explained as quietly as he could whilst I just peeked around my cover again to get a look at these “Stormtroopers”.

The Squad is now in full LOS of our little group of fighters and I could see that they also noticed something ahead of them.

Reacting on reflex I aimed my rifle at one of the leading troopers, finger slowly pressing on the trigger before I heard the order over the comms.

“All Units engage!”

I squeezed the trigger and thanks to the computers in both my suit and the weapon itself, my rounds were accurate, clean and dead on.

The first shots hit my target straight in the chest through whilst they did penetrate the armour the guy was still alive to brace his feet against the ground to keep himself upright from the shots. Acting on my Drill Sergeant’s words of “If they don’t die in the first place, hit another place” I shifted my aim to the guy’s head just as he brings his gun to bear on me.

My 66 cracked whilst his weapon boomed, my burst found their mark in the Imperial’s helmet, piercing right through the thin armour and making his whole body jerk back with only the powered armour preventing him from toppling over freezing him in place like a statue.

I turned to where the deceased Stormtrooper fired his weapon, only to see the lower half of the Rebel from before on the ground a few metres away from where I last saw him, his upper body nothing more than blood and gore.

“Note to self; never get hit by one of those.” I thought as I shifted my attention back to the firefight.

In the few seconds since the start of the shooting, four out of the ten Stormtroopers were already dead, their bodies becoming statues and makeshift cover for the remaining six as they regrouped and started to return fire.

Like their comrade I first killed their weapons boomed like rapid firing tank cannons, firing 60 times before having to reload, I was able to bag another Stormtrooper during such a manoeuvre his body going limp but his armour keeping him upright like the rest.

By then the remaining Stormtroopers began to fall back as regular Imperial soldiers came forward no doubt in response to the Stormtroopers calling for reinforcements.

As I duck back behind cover to reload my rifle I took stock of whose left.

We had 10 rebels augmenting our reinforced fireteam of six STT troops, out of the ten I know for sure that one was KIA.

As for the others I couldn’t say without a way of linking their vitals to my Battle Armour’s computers.

In terms of Force Recon team however there were no fatalities aside from one of them being knocked off his feet by one of the Stormtrooper’s rifle shots.

“This Hunker One to all callsigns” Major Graves’s voice comes over my comlink loud and clear despite the growing battle.

“This is it Drones are seeing massive enemy troop movements, get ready to dig in and fight hard. Let’s show these fuckers how REAL human soldiers fight!”

I couldn’t help but let out a small howrah as I slam the fresh magazine into my rifle before getting out of my cover again to tag another target, a quick look at my TACT-LINK shows that all of our reinforced squads are engaging Imperial units of platoon size or greater to which I’m thankful for until I noticed that we are gonna face one of those companies as well.

“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” I thought as I returned my focus to the very much growing battle at hand.

560th Line Regiment: Fifth Battalion Headquarters Company: 30 minutes since contact with the enemy began

The atmosphere within the command vehicle was one of both optimism and frustration at the same time.

Whilst the Vanguard was able to slowly advance through the forest, they paid a heavier price then was previously expected with half of Third Battalion being wiped out in the first fifteen minutes of the battle with the First and Fourth taking a lesser beating but still enough losses that any rush advance would be ill-advised.

And that wasn’t the worst part.

Because if some reports are accurate then the entire Stormtrooper company was wiped out in the first five minutes of the battle.

Stormtroopers are hand picked from the best the Imperial Army had to offer and received the best gear in return, because of that they are a rarity numbering ten thousand at any one time and are rarely deployed in anything above company strength numbering around 50 Stormtroopers.

To lose just one Stormtrooper is a blow in of itself but to lose a whole company, that would be a loss not heard of since the earliest days of the Imperium when they were still cleansing their homeworld.

On the bright side however they were killing as much as they were losing with 1-2 rebels for every 2-4 Imperial soldiers through werther that was due to the rebels own skill or the efforts of the aliens is impossible to tell at this point.

“Major! Message from the Colonel!” A computer operator shouted out, gaining the Fifth Battalion’s Commander’s attention.

“Send” He simply ordered.

“Message simply reads “Cloud Cover” sir!” The operator replied.

“Cloud Cover”, that was the code phrase to begin sending in the reserve force. Which included Fifth Battalion and their assigned Dragon Glanorth.

“Call Glanorth’s handlers and tell them to send him to Third Battalion’s position, Lieutenant Gleefield! Tell Captain Star Wood to get his Second company moving as they are the closest to the fighting. The rest of you pass the word to the rest of the Battalion that we are moving to support the Vanguard clear!?” The Fifth’s Commander ordered.

“Clear!” Came the crisp reply as the operators got to their work.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: 40 minutes since battle commenced

“GET THAT MARS LAUNCHING NOW!” I shouted over the roar of battle as I spotted an Imperial Tank which bears resemblance to the ancient WW2 Sherman Tank coming into sight of our position with Infantry support.

It's been over half an hour since we’ve first engaged the enemy and…well things are very slowly but surely going downhill for us humans.

Out of the 250 Rebel fighters that were with us last I’d check we were down to just 37, along with 40 out of the sixty SST members though the SCARs are still in the fight and it's thanks to them that we haven’t been overruned yet.

I fired my M66 into the Infantry Squad escorting the tank killing two in a spray whilst the rest dived for cover.

I paled inside my helmet as One; my last magazine for my Flechette rifle runs dry and Two; the tank is turning its main gun towards me.

“ANYTIME NOW!” I yelled at the MARS handler.

“ON ITS WAY!” He yelled back as I heard the familiar sound of a MARS Anti-Tank round leaving its launcher.

A few seconds pass by as the rocket arches skyward whilst the Tank finishes traversing its turret with its Infantry Squad popping out of their cover to suppress the squad of Pacific Alliance soldiers in front of them, completely oblivious to the Anti-Tank round overhead.

“Maybe they think it's just an Anti-Air muniton? Or they don’t have guided minions yet?” I thought to myself as the MARS round slammed into the Tank’s turret and vaporised the whole vehicle, the Infantry squad being killed by the force of the explosion.

“This is Hunker One to all Hunker victors” Major Graves' voice sounded over the comms as I rejoined the Force Recon team that handled the MARS strike.

“Finally” One of the FR troopers exclaimed and I could understand why, unless something bad happened then the only reason Graves would be calling all of us would be..

“All evacuees have left heaven I repeat, Heaven is now empty..”

I could feel the smiles coming off the Special Forces guys and I couldn’t but smile as well until..

“..Be advised we are picking up a massive contact along with additional hostels closing on the combat zone, all Hunker victors fall back to the final defence line and pepeare to disengage Hunker One out”.

“Shit!” The fireteam leader cursed as he got us together and soon we made for the final defence line.

5 Minutes later

“Holy shit!” One of the Fireteam members behind me shouted as I turned around along with the rest of the fireteam and I couldn’t help but stare dumbfounded.

Hovering above us with a target maker above its head courtesy of our TAC-LINK was a dragon.

Its scales were a bright silver with some areas being a slight grey, its wingspan was probably about ten to twenty metres in length and its tail was fifteen metres in length but most importantly for some reason..

It was mad and bloodthirsty.

“COVER!!” Somebody shouted over the comms but I couldn’t remember who.

Next thing I know I was helmet first in the dirt with my suit telling me that the temperature was quite high all of a sudden.

Lifting my head out of the dirt I took stock of my surroundings, I appear to be on one side of a massive wall of fire where my HUD tells me that four out of the five SI FR troopers are located. It doesn’t take a computer to figure out their condition.

I turned around to lay on my back and right away I found the last trooper of the fireteam, the one carrying our MARS launcher.

He’s laying flat on his face like I was, his body pointing to my right. At first I figured he was unconscious but a quick look at my HUD and a closer look at his helmet tells me he isn’t getting up again.

His back was exposed to a lethal dose of fire which melted a good portion of it and the resulting micro-explosions probably killed him long before he hit the ground, even if he did somehow survive long enough to get to the ground it wouldn’t help him as his head fell right on top of a sharp rock, penetrating his visor and killing him instantly if he wasn’t already.

I took a look at my HUD again to see how long I was out, the fire to my left was dying down so I must have been out for a bit.

To my surprise I was apparently out for a full half minute.

“Then where’s-” I thought for a moment before a loud crash brought me to the front and I froze.

Surveying its handy work directly in front of me was the same dragon from before, in its mouth a poor SI grunt trying to use his knife to break free.

But all that wasn’t the reason I froze, it was who was in the dragon’s maw that my suit was able to identify.

Captain Green Andrew.

He looked in my direction and I was sure he was about to say something before the dragon tossed him into the air and as he was falling the dragon opened its maw and let out a torrent of flames.

At that moment I was glad that the Captain didn’t try to talk with me, as I wouldn’t be able to get the nasty image out of my head otherwise.

After a few moments the dragon closed its mouth and swallowed as if it just ate a tasty meal before looking back at me.

Quickly I began to think of a way out before I noticed that between me and the dead MARS trooper was that trooper’s MARS launcher.

The Multi-Armament-Rocket-System or MARS was considered by many to be the pinnacle of MANPAD development, capable of firing both Anti-Air and Anti-Armoured munitions including a special Anti-Lanky round known as a “Silver Bullet” capable of penetrating the Lanky’s tough hide.

The MARS launcher in front of me had one such bullet load and ready, it just needed somebody to pull the trigger.

“And if I’m lucky that’ll be m-”

“HEY UGLY!” A familiar voice boomed over the air as me and the dragon looked towards the source of the voice.

To my left beyond the fires that were now dimmed enough to cross over was Fallon and his fireteam of five SI Force Recon and two Pararescue men.

“WHY DON’T YOU GET A TASTE OF THIS!?” My bunk mate shouted as he and the fireteam fired their weapons at the massive dragon.

The vast amount of M66 Flechettes don’t kill it but do wound it, making it angry and then.

“Nononono-SHIT!” I thought as the dragon pounced on the fireteam whilst letting loose its deadly flames.

For a moment all I could hear was the screams of the SI troopers, Pararescuemen and Fallon whilst I watched, my mind filling up with anger.

Avery Fallon, my best friend from Bootcamp, one who I periodically survived hell with is gone.

With that and rage filling my thoughts I quickly turned back to the MARS launcher and with adrenaline fueled reflexes I grabbed the heavy weapon and aimed it right at the dragon’s head whilst he feasted on another SI trooper.

When it finally turned around to face me its face morphed into what I could guess was shock, to which I took great pleasure in.

“EAT THIS YOU OVERGROWN LIZARD FUCKER!!” I yelled with all my might as I pulled the trigger.

The round went and hit the dragon square in the eye, it then started to jerk wildly, flapping its wings and flying out of control before landing in the forest behind me.

I dropped the now empty launcher as I lay on the ground numbness from the whole experience, my mind racing with all sorts of thought trying to piece my situation back together until.

“MEDIC!” The pain but familiar voice of Fallon booms over my comm channel.

Checking my HUD I found to my surprise and immense relief that my best friend is still alive but in need of medical attention.

Springing to my feet I ran as fast as my legs could take me, up to the top of the ledge where the fireteam was.

I ignored the other melting and gored corpses and focused on Avery.

Other than his armour steaming hot from being exposed to that kind of heat he was relatively fine…except his left arm.

It was completely ruined having taken the majority of the punishment and if left unchecked he could die from blood loss or worse. Reacting quickly I used a medical knife meant to cut bone and removed Fallon’s arm before bandaging the stump and applying other medical fluids.

“Fal hey Fal!” I said to him trying to keep him awake.

With a gasp and grunts of pain Fallon awakes though thanks to his armour injecting painkillers and morphine the pain isn’t too much to bear.

“Yeah YEAH! I hear ya-ack!” Fallon says still in pain but alive to my relief.

“EASY there you jackass! I was able to stop the bleeding but-” I said, pulling Fallon’s right over my left shoulder to get him upright when I heard a loud shriek.

Turning our gaze across the clearing both me and Fallon couldn’t believe our eyes.

“Oh you have got to fucking shiting me!!” Fallon voiced my utter disbelief as the dragon I shot down began to slowly but surely rise back into the air, its left eye completely mush, blood and fluids.

“Well shit-” I began to say before a torrent of explosions appeared all over the dragon’s body before it fell to the ground a second time, this time unmoving.

A familiar roar of engines greeted our ears as a flight of FA-23M8 Strider fighter craft zoomed over our heads.

“-Repeat this is California Actual to STT Washington, friendly craft inbound to provide CAS and Evac to your location please respond!” A female voice cracked over our comms links as I looked at Fallon still relying on me to support him, he was quiet for a moment before saying with no doubt a smile on his face.

“Well that went a complete 180 didn’t it?”

June 25th 2188 AD: Battlegroup Sera: 10 Minutes earlier

Compasion

X2 Mars-Class Space Control Cruisers.

X2 Gwam-Class Assault Cruisers.

X4 Echo-Class Frigates.

X6 Grand-Class Destroyers.

X1 Washington-Class Battle-Carrier.

“Targets are coming into particle cannon range, ETA 70 seconds.” The California's weapons officer declared as the Task Force approached Nova Tanis.

“Confirm” General Alex Adams said as his eyes were focused on the tactical orb.

When they received the intelligence from the Washington’s STT six days ago High command and indeed the rest of the upper echelons of the Pacific Alliance spent the whole day arguing about what to do about the alien civilisation known as the “Equestrian Imperium”

Some say they should just leave them alone and focus on the immediate threat of the lankies whilst others in the government say they should try to seek an alliance with the Imperium.

However the one party that won out in the end was the one that pointed out three flaws in the other two approaches.

Firstly the Alliance has built up its public image as a nation for freedom and Liberty, when the public finds out however that the same Alliance allied with a nation that goes against everything they stood for whilst it may not have an immediate impact it will have consequences down the line.

The second flaw is that the Pacific Alliance has made a promise to reclaim all the NAC and SRA star systems that were lost during the earlier stages of the war with the Lankies and whilst the enemy isn’t the same, they can’t just leave New Caledonia in the hands of a another alien power otherwise it’ll damage the PA’s image in the public eye about them not being tied down by the old political landscape.

And finally according to the information the STT gathered tells of how in the Imperium’s eyes humanity is their property by Imperial decree, which means that if or when they discover the true territory of mankind they’ll try to fold those “Rogue” elements back in if not peacefully then by force.

And so High Command gave the go-ahead for hostile actions against the Imperium to quote “Remove the Imperium’s ability to threaten the Alliance and her allies by any means necessary” and Nova Tanis is to be but the first step.

“Ten seconds!” The officer warned.

“Weapons target the second biggest vessel in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, FIRE!” General Adams shouts from his command station as the ship shudders from the firing of all four of its particle guns.

On the Tactical Orb in the centre of the CIC the icon representing one of the three largest enemy vessels turns into a second sun for a second before the heat and light dissipates.

“Hit! The enemy vessel designated as Bogie two has been splashed!” The Weapons officer shouts and a brief cheer washes over the CIC.

“Okay everyone calm down and ready for action, they won’t just be sitting there to get shot a second time.” The General reminded everyone as indeed the enemy garrison fleet begins to take evasive action and with them being so close to the planet as well as the Battlegroup’s trajectory towards the planet means that using both the particle guns and the Orion missiles are out of the question.

“Helmsman get us within QCB range and Tactical have the cruisers focus on their size equivalents and have the frigates focus on the other ships, the Destroyers are act in support of either” He then ordered as the fleet decelerated when they got to 1,800 kilometres of the Garrison fleet.

His plan was basic true but other than facing pirates no human ship in recent memory has engaged in battle with other human vessels and since these Imperials bare the most resemblance to humans it is reasonable to assume that they use tactics similar to humans to which the men and women of Battlegroup Sera have almost no experience with.

The Cruisers began to attack their equivalents in pairs one Mars and one Gwam for each enemy vessel, the Mars being Space Control Cruisers were designed for fighting space threats with the class in particular having two batteries of seven Mk 13 railguns and two laser arrays to be used both offensive and defensively. The Gwam Class Assault Cruiser being designed to support planetary assaults didn’t have lasers instead they have eighteen more powerful Mk 14 railguns and four batteries of six tubed missile launchers capable of firing both high explosive and low yield nuclear warheads.

Whilst all the Pacific ships have missiles in some form or another most of them were designed to take advantage of the openings in Lanky Seed ships left by the Battle-Carriers as such Command advised against using them, plus its unknown if missiles would even work at all especially now that the Alliance fleet was too close to launch them.

“At least we know our Particle guns work.” General Adams thought as the first duo of cruisers opened up on the enemy ships.

The duo consists of the Mars cruiser Hyperion and the Gwam cruiser Texes, the Hyprion struck first with its forward railgun battery. Six of the first seven shot went wide as the enemy cruiser turned to port whilst raising its bow up in a arch but the seventh shot hit an area near the main engine block, the hostile cruiser returned fire just before it took the hit firing a barrage of what appeared to be particle beams but of a less destructive nature.

They were fired from turrets but unlike human ships most of them were on the ventral hull limiting their field of view. Though in this case much of the guns on the bow section of the ship had a clear line of fire on the Hyperion, the resulting barrage tore through much of the Hyperion’s hull its armour being designed to withstand the kinetic punch of Lanky penetrators doing little to stop the energy from melting the hull. Within a few moments of the enemy weapons making contact with the Hyperion, the ship was battered, bloodied and trying to speed away from the engagement.

But her sacrifice allowed the Texes slipped behind the enemy cruiser whilst it was duelling the Hyperion and was able to send a full alpha strike into the rear of the enemy, obliterating the main engines and gutting the cruiser but not before the only rear turret on the enemy ship was able to let out a single shot that whilst didn’t do as much damage as what was done to the Hyperion it did leave a nasty mark on the Texes.

Whilst that was going on the second duo of Pacific Alliance Cruisers the Mars Class Talent and the Gwam Class Luna were actually in a running battle with what would later be described as the enemy flag ship.

Four of the Grand class Destroyers were in support as the Talent opened up with three of her forward railguns before using the time to reload those guns to fire the remaining four, the Talent would repeat this process whilst the Luna would disengage after only a few shots to engage planetary targets of opportunity.

The duel between the enemy flagship and the Talent plus her destroyer escort would continue for the next four minutes whilst the aforementioned cruiser would speed away from Nova Tanis performing evasive action whilst the Talent did its best to avoid the fire of the cruiser’s single rear mounted particle gun until the cruiser did an unexpected starboard turn bringing its frontal armaments to bear on the Talent and her escorts.

Three out of the four destroyers were destroyed instantly whilst the fourth was heavily damaged and forced to crash land on Tanis.

The Talent didn’t fare any better, whether it was due to some divine intervention or simply luck one of the beams was able to hit the Talent directly in the reactor vaporising the Cruiser and what was left would burn up on rentrying the planet’s gravity well.

With its pursuers destroyed the enemy flagship would make its way out of the planet’s orbit and would later escape the system entirely to carry news of this attack to its superiors.

The four remaining Imperial ships were destroyed in good order by the Frigates with the help of the two remaining destroyers and the Battle-Carrier’s secondary armaments.

Overall in the span of seven minutes the Pacific Alliance Fleet engaged and destroyed six out of seven enemy ships of the garrison fleet whilst losing four destroyers, one Space Control Cruiser and one Space Control Cruiser suffering heavy damage.

“Sir! Picking up contacts coming from the planet!” The sensor tech yelled as the CIC crew of the California went about checking in on the rest of the fleet as well as their own ship.

“Enemy?” General Adams asked as he froze rising from his seat.

After a few moments the Sensor tech shook his head “Negative sir they’re Hayabusas!”

“The Washington’s Special Tactics Team!” Adams realised as his comms officer chimed in.

“I can confirm sir! They’re ours and they have refugees abroad whilst also requesting we give orbital support to friendlies currently engaged in a defensive action sir!”

Fully standing up now Adams turned to his flight control officer “Flight Officer get those dropships in and get our Striders down there ASAP, Comms try to get to Major Graves or anyone from the STT and tell them that Support is on its way.”

“Aye Sir!” was the collective reply as within the next few minutes Striders from the California would swoop in and save the last few survivors of the Washington STT allowing them to be extracted.

EINS Destiny’s light: enroute to warp bubble

“WE’RE JUST LEAVING THEM!?” Ensign Lamplight shouted as the rest of the bridge crew of the Destiny’s light began to receive damage reports from the rest of the ship’s crew.

When they saw the Silvercrown go up in a bright exposition the Captain ordered all ships to take evasive action and defend themselves, whilst during the fight the Destiny’s Light made best speed away from Prism’s Flank.

Sitting in his command chair Captain Iron Raid eyed the ensign before saying “If we stayed and tried to fight whatever fired a STAR at us we would just end up like the Silvercrown and given the amount of energy we were already producing there was no way for me to order a full retreat.”

Unlike human technology Pony technology relies heavily on magic from engines and FTL to basic items like firearms and communications. Whilst magic is not limited by the laws of physics because the comms systems rely on magic beams to send information between points, it meant that in a heavy magic environment like the one they just existed communications would be limited at best or non-existent at worse.

“Furthermore Ensign these aliens don’t use magic and thus we wouldn’t be able to effectively hit them at longer ranges, the best thing we could do right now is to warn the Imperium of these new aliens and make sure our comrades' deaths are not for nothing.” Iron Raid concluded.

Whilst the Imperium has fought against other non-magic civilizations in the past all of them haven’t been able to leave their homeworld and thus never developed a space force, the only fighting the Imperial Navy has endured since it was created was pirates and rebellious worlds that tried to succeed from the Imperium.

All of which used tactics that stemmed from the Imperial Navy, not these aliens however.

They were the first truly interstellar civilization that the Imperium has encountered and the Emperor must be informed.

“Ensign Bronze maintain course and inform me when we are about to jump, Ensign Flintlight with me we’re going to check on engineering. Everypony else as you were.” Captain Iron Raid ordered keeping an eye on Lamplight as she and the rest of the bridge crew continued their duties whilst he and Flintlight exited the bridge.

“That was not what I was expecting today sir.” Flintlight said once they were alone in the Light’s hallways.

“Me neither ensign” Iron Raid replied, his eyes focused on what’s ahead.

“Me neither”

Semper Fi

View Online

Staff Sergeant Benjamin Grayson :July 1st:2188 AD: PAS California: One week later

Grunt country, a name given to a section of a ship reserved for the ship’s SI complement, filled with living quarters for the enlisted, a small mess hall and a gim complete with workout gear and a sparring ring.

Said sparring ring is where I am getting my ass handed to me by my friend Avery Fallon.

Since we got back from Nova Tanis the Docs were able to give him a prosthetic left arm to replace his old one that got melted off by a fucking dragon, after a couple of days adjusting to the new limb I offed to spare with him to help speed things up a little.

You would think I would regret such a decision but I knew going into the match that I would get my ass handed to me anyway as I was never a good hand-to-hand fighter and it's not like we had any need to get up close with the lankies.

“Getting winded yet Gray!?” Avery said as he delivered a right low jab at my abbs whilst I swung my left fist towards and passed his head.

I jumped back a few feet to get my bearings, by now we gathered a small crowd cheering from outside the sparring mat. Both of us had gym shirts on plus shorts and boxing gloves, Avery was sweating and had a few bruise marks but other than that he looked way better than me.

“I’ll get back to ya on that!” I said readying my stance again as I tried to figure out a plan of attack.

But before I could a voice rang out “Hey Grayson! Would just say uncle already, some of us want a turn to let off steam!” It was one of the SI grunts and he looked interested in our fight but clearly wants to have a few rounds himself.

Avery and I looked at each other for a moment before he said with a smile “Well guess I have to wait till next time to have my 70th victory in the sparring ring.”

With that we shook our hands and made our way out of the ring and towards the changing room to change back into our usual fatigues.

Before long we were out of the gym and into the hallways of the PAS California.

“So watcha want to do now?” Avery asked me as we passed by a couple of SI troopers in full battle-rattle.

“Well since the Doc will want to see how your new arm’s holding up we should probably head to Medbay” I said with Avery nodding in agreement as we made our way to the Medical Bay.

After Me and Avery were saved from that Dragon thing back on Nova Tanis we went to the evac point only to discover that aside from us the Major, SCARS and a few of the Rebels were all that's left of the defence at Heaven.

Since then we got debriefed on what was going on since we left the Washington, apparently the Alliance along with the other signatories of the United Nations Defence Force decided to commit to a second Front with the Imperials.

From what I was told it will be a small front, small enough that it won’t take a lot of resources away from the Lanky front but big enough to fix the Imperials in place until we could spare the manpower for larger offensives and given the casualties we sustained during that last operation I can definitely get behind our current strategy.

Which leads us to today, currently the California and her battlegroup along with escort ships for transports of two full Tactical Divisions from the 7th Space Combat Army are in Orbit of Nova Tanis getting ready for the full invasion.

Spec-Ops forces like Force Recon, SEALs and SCARs are currently on missions to get in touch with many of the smaller rebel cells to both get a better idea of the terrain and defences as well as what we’d be facing and to launch attacks on the smaller outposts scattered throughout the planet whilst the main force will attack the Capital.

As for me and Avery? Well we’ll be on standby, giving the hell we’ve gone through. High Command decided to give us a bit of time off but we will be participating in the full Invasion.

We soon arrived in the medbay. Aside from the staff, not many were in today but I did notice over the week that the Staff were busy in various things like checking medical supplies and what not, possibly in anticipation of the Invasion.

“Doctor Hillson!” I called out, catching the attention of the oldest men in the bay.

He was a tall man able to reach the top of most bulkhead doors and he had a military approved haircut, he was also sixty and had the rank of major.

“I see the new arm is working as advertised Sargent Fallon?” Doctor Hillson said as if I wasn’t even here.

Giving me a glance before turning his attention to the good doctor Avery said “Yeah just as responsive as my old arm but I keep feeling this..uh buzzing feeling I guess? I wouldn’t mind if you gave it another look.”

Hillson nodded before finally turning to address me “I’ll handle Staff Sergeant Fallon Sergeant Grayson but would you mind giving my staff some assistance?”

I nodded before me and Avery went our separate ways for now.

That was until we all heard a noise coming from one of the doors across from us.

“Ah HELP!” A muffled woman's voice came from the other side.

“GET SECURITY!” I yelled to Doctor Hillson who nodded before gesturing to his staff to leave the bay whilst Avery and I moved in with our Goodbyes at the ready.

The Goodbye was a nickname for a emergency sidearm that all combat troops have, officially it's meant to be a backup just in case the trooper in question losses his JUMBO and whilst it's capable of penetrating a Lanky’s hide it only works at short range and has only one shot before needing to reload. The more common unofficially reason we use the Goodbye is because in many situations where death is all but certain it's best to go out quick as such the weapon nicknamed the Goodbye by the troops, of course the Goodbye is only used in the event you know that you’ll not be making it home alive but in this very unlikely situation I’m glad we have them.

“ROE?” Avery asked me as we stacked up on either side of the door.

“Don’t fire unless I say so, given who's supposed to be in this room it's likely she’s confused and doesn’t know where she is.” I explained which got me a confused look from Avery before his eyes widened in realisation.

“The Princess?” He asked

“Who else?” I replied before opening the door and me and Avery stormed in.

Twilight Sparkle:Moments earlier

“Why couldn’t you save us?”

My eyes opened as my mind recognised that voice and my surroundings soon after.

I was in a large room with stained-glass windows on either side with a large double door in front of me. The room itself was in ruins with four of its six pillars having collapsed and the floor having cracks in it from falling debris. The carpet in the centre leading from the door, once a bright red with gold highlights, was now a dull maroon colour with no sign of any gold. The windows were no better with many having holes in them and some were completely shattered, their depictions of my home’s history and friendship ruined.

“What’s the matter Crylight!? Tongue tied!?” Said another voice as I hesitantly turned around to face the opposite side of the room.

Standing between me and the two broken thrones across from me were five mares, all of them had some form of armour on but like the rest of the room their armour was damaged and broken whilst their bodies had many wounds such as bruises, cuts and whatever.

I breathing picked up as I stared at these mares who looked back at me with venom in their eyes, my friends those whose lives I couldn’t save that day-THIS DAY right in the centre of Canterlot.

“I-I wanted to stay, to at least die with you guys b-but” I tried to say through my own emotions and the sudden shaking that tuned like a heartbeat but Rainbow, the mare whose loyalty was always to her friends yelled at me saying.

“BUT YOU DIDN’T PUSH HARD ENOUGH! YOU KNEW WE WOULDN’T MAKE OUT OF THAT TUNNEL BUT YOU LET FAITH WIN OVER REASON!”

“I-” I couldn’t say anything to that either because I had nothing to counter that or that I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.

“And now our home has turned into something terrible” Fluttershy said, her eyes just as full of hatred for both me and the modern imperium alike.

I tried closing my eyes and turning away from them but they kept shouting at me as if they were everywhere. Their words becoming jumbles of sounds as I’m reminded of that day, the day I left my friends to die and the day I let the Equestrian Imperium form.

I was so lost in the noise of what I’d assume was hell that I didn’t notice that same noise fading away until that same heartbeat shaking turned out to be beeping, a heartbeat monitor.

“I’m alive?” Was the first thought that came to me as my eyes opened and quickly closed to stop the bright light from killing me.

Soon enough though my eyesight adjusts and I could tell I was in some sort of hospital room laying on the softest bed I’ve been on in years, the room itself was small so I was probably its only occupant.

“Heart rate dropping back to stable levels, better keep the sedatives just in case.” The voice was female and confirmed I was not in fact the only one in the room.

Slowly I turned my head to the right whilst simultaneously sitting myself reluctantly up upon the bed. There was a mare with a white overcoat hiding what features she has underneath, currently she was looking at something in her hand distracting her from the heartbeat monitor in front of her.

Carefully but quickly thanks to a thousand years of living I got out of my bed as quietly as I could whilst grabbing the nearest sharp object I could find.

As I noticed her looking back at the heartbeat monitor I pounced.

“AH! HELP!” She shouted before I put my left hand over her mouth whilst my right holding the sharp object went to her throat, I then turned us to the left facing the door in anticipation for the guards to come storming in.

“Listen here bitch you’re gonna tell me what I want to know or..” I whispered but trailed off at the end as I noticed the mare I was holding wasn’t a mare but a human woman.

Her gold eyes were laced with fear and confusion all over her pale face.

I began to slowly lower the sharp object from her throat before two other humans burst into the room with large heavy looking pistols.

The first was a man who had very short black hair and baby blue eyes with pale skin like the woman I was holding, the second human was also a man whose hair was also very short but appeared blonde and had blood red eyes.

The man with short black hair lowered his weapon slightly whilst holding one of his hands up in an open palm gesture.

“Take it easy ma’am nobody is gonna hurt you unless we’d have to” The man then said in a young voice, probably in his twenties or something.

I began to back away from the human woman to my left in full view of the two human soldiers.

“My name is Twilight-” I began to say before the black haired blue eyes interrupted by saying.

“I know who you are ma’am, I was the one who helped rescue you.”

40 minutes later

“And what of possible reinforcements?” One of General Adams' aides asks the supposed Alicorn who stands next to a holo-screen across the table ahead of the General in question flanked by officers of the Oceania Defence Corps, from the fleet and Military Intelligence to the Spaceborn Infantry.

Over half an hour ago Adams was introduced to Twilight Sparkle who if Private Maxson was to be believed was over a thousand years old and an arch enemy of the Equestrian Imperium, a valuable asset to be sure though Adams himself was sceptical about the woman’s origins.

Still Twilight was being cooperative in shedding some light on what the SI would be facing down on Nova Tainis. Unit compassion, how they deploy and what sorts of tactics they could expect, which painted an uphill battle even in the most favourable conditions.

The reason being that most of humanity’s military forces have been geared to fight large hostile threats such as the Lankies which doesn’t translate well to fighting humanoid threats.

The aide from before then clarified his question “How fast can we expect the Imperium to send reinforcements and in what numbers?”

Looking at the aide directly Twilight said ”Given that the Imperium hasn’t encountered a spacefaring civilization before I’d wager they send a full three squadrons one of which would be a full Battleship Squadron, as for time I can’t say sirs but given current levels of Equestrian Technology I would put an estimate of about two to four months”

“On the topic of Equestrian Technology” An MI Major stated before looking at the former princess.

“We analysed several of the weapons we were able to salvage a week ago, so far we have been able to identify the lens and the power source but have been unable to get them to work despite the fact that we’ve quadruple checked them for any damages or faults.”

“The only fault you’ll find is that all high grade Equestrian Technology runs on magic and only those who can use said magic can use those weapons, we had to juari-rig most of ours to get around the problem.” Twilight said deactivating the holo screen for a moment.

“Magic..” the Major repeats, despite the reports they’ve read and having eye witness accounts many within the California’s CIC briefing room can’t believe that something like Magic exists.

“Will the Lab Coats be able to learn what they can about this “Magic?” Adams said, looking at the Major as he shook his head before saying.

“Even with Miss Sparkle’s help we have few samples to give them to study, unless Miss Sparkle you know where we could acquire more”

“As a matter of fact I do” Twilight says as she held up her hand before concentrating, before long a burst of light erupted from her hand and an image of crystal with some machinery appeared.

“This here is a data crystal the linchpin of most of the Equestrian electronics in the imperium, if your technology was based on Ones and Zeros then the Equestrian equivalent would be emotions and energy.” She explained.

“So we get our hands on one of those we could fast track our understanding of the enemy tech, that right miss?” The MI Major asked, if the Lankies have taught humanity anything is that the faster you know your enemy the better you can fight him without suffering yourself.

Displacing the image from her hand Twilight replied “Not just any data crystal, but the one in the capital city as it has the most relevant information on the Imperium’s military forces, troop deployments, fleet composition. Anything both military and civilian of moderate importance will be on there.”

“Will they try to wipe it?” General Adams asked.

Twilight nodded “As soon as it looks like their position will become untenable they’ll wipe the crystal, so I’d suggest a quick strike hard and fast to grab it before the imperials have a chance.”

“It would be the most logical thing to do but.” General Tomus Oscar in charge of the 203rd Tactical Division began.

“But most of our people have been trained and equipped to fight large slow moving targets like the Lankies, even if we had the right gear we’d still need to train them in tactics that would be best suited to combat the Equestrians which takes time we don’t have.” Oscar concluded before General Andrew Markulles of the 98th Tactical Division spoke up.

“Not a full division no but a company sized force could be outfitted with the M66s we have from the rebel base and be deployed during the initial landings, whilst the Equestains are distracted with the main landing force this small strike team will infiltrate the city via Dropships and secure the target.”

“How long will it take to get this force trained?” General Adams asked.

“About a week and that’s pushing it, especially if we want people down there who can handle the data crystal properly.” General Markulles replied.

“With respect General Markulles” Twilight said, getting the General’s attention.

“I think it would be best if I go with the strike team personally to retrieve the crystal, as I owe you for saving not just my life but the lives of the rebels whom I have trusted. Plus I don’t like sitting out of a mission that MUST succeed.”

“That’s too risky!” General Oscar said, sitting up from his chair.

“Even if you’re our best chance to get a treasure trove of information you’re also a VIP with much needed first hand experience on the Equestains, we can’t afford to lose you”

“We don’t have many other options General Oscar” General Adams interjected.

“Whilst we have the enemy contained on Nova Tanis the longer we wait the more time they have to prepare and the more time we give for whatever reinforcements are coming, it's in our best interest to take the city soon preferably in the next month and as such we can’t wait for miss Twilight to train up even a single specialist.”

“If I may, General Adams?” Major Graves asked, stepping forward from his position to Twilight’s left.

Nodding General Adams gestured to the Major to continue “I suggest me and Sergeants Grayson and Fallon form a fireteam to protect Miss Twilight whilst she accompanies the strike force.”

“Given your experience with her and lack of other options I say go for it Major, we’ll contact you when the strike force has been assembled.” Adams agreed as he dismissed the four whilst the rest of his staff worked on the rest of the details for the invasion.

“That went well as could be.” Staff Sergeant Fallon said once they were in the hallways.

“It's not ideal, but given the overall strategic situation this course of action is the best one.” Major Graves says before looking over his shoulder at Grayson who had a downcasted look on his face. “Guess you’ll be late for your end of service party, sorry Grayson” he says with sympathy written all over his face.

Twilight who was walking next to Grayson looked over at him just in time to see him reply “It’s nothing Major, I’m pretty sure I’d be stuck in this system for a while anyway due to my experience with our VIP here what with her used to being a alien of near Demi-god proportions and the fact that she’s our best and only credible source of intel on the Imperials at the moment.”

“In short command are assholes.” Avery Fallon said uncaring if anyone heard his crude comment.

“Heh well anyways until they decide who to send with us into the meat grinder we might as well get Miss Sparkle ready.” Graves said drawing a look from Twilight.

“Ready for what?” She asked before she noticed the grin on the Force Recon’s face.

“If you're gonna fight with us then you need to look like us starting with your hair.” He simply said.

Twilight Sparkle:PAS California: July 1st:2188: 20 minutes later

There was something odd about seeing myself without my long purple and pink striped hair, for one it reminded me of that incident with my “future” self, the same future that no longer exists. Another thing was that despite the reverse conversion I underwent to gain the trust of the Human rebels my human form actually looked rather young, roughly twenty years old if I hazard a guess.

I was currently in the women's room (onboard the “California” as I later learned) getting myself ready for training.

Major Graves told me that if I’m to fight alongside them I'm to look like them which involves having my hair done to be about the same length as theirs and having myself dressed in their “fatigues” as they called them.

The ones I’m wearing include a grey patterned T-shirt, a pair of trousers that are similarly patterned and metal boats that are compatible with the “Battle Armour” I would be wearing during our assault on the Governmental Palace.

Looking at myself one more time in the mirror I then began to make my way out of the restroom to the hallway where the others were.

“You ready to get your Hardshell on?” Major Graves asked to which I nodded.

Apparently “Hardshell” was the nickname for the Battle Armour the humans used so with a nod I followed the three humans to the ship’s armoury which was next to the hangar.

The armoury was massive, capable of housing much of the combat gear that the Carrier’s two onboard SI battalions have, as we entered a couple of technicians waved us over towards one of the armour stands where presumably my suit was being kept.

“We were able to get your basic measurements whilst you were unconscious so it wasn’t at all difficult to get the suit to your size but we’ll still need to take secondary measurements to be sure before we help you put this on.” The lead technician said, gesturing to my BA.

“No problem.” I said before the rest of the “Techs” as the human crew called them sometimes began to use various lasers to measure my body, soon enough I was suiting up in what was perhaps the most advanced piece of kit I’ve ever seen.

Not only is it made of some very strong material but it also features systems that are only available on the Imperial’s Stormtroops, the fact that the base Alliance soldier has such advanced gear makes me optimistic about our chances in the coming week.

A while later I had just about finished fasting my armour on minus the helmet when I noticed Benjamin Grayson looking at me.

“What?” I asked whilst putting the helmet on and waiting for the techs to walk me through how to use it.

“Ah nothing, just watching that awed look on your face brings back memories.” He said with a small smile.

Before I could ask what he meant the techs got to work on teaching me how to work my helmet along with its many features.

“Is she up to tabs?” Major Graves asks a while later as I began to take the armour off.

“Yes sir, she’ll be as ready as she can be and better once she has time in the simulators.” The lead technician said after I was out of the armour he and a few other techs were storing it along with the other armours.

“What’s the situation sir?” Avery Fallon asked whilst he and Grayson were checking out some sort of AT-rifles. Though I noticed that there were a lot of them onboard the ship, I couldn’t tell at the time if they simply had a greater focus on Anti-Tank tactics or that the ship just happened to have a surplus of them.

“Briefing brass has selected the unit that’ll be dropping with us so we have to make our acquaintance ASAP so we can move on to simulator training.” The Major said as he led us out of the Armoury and back into the hallways of the starship.

“So who's dropping with us, Major?” Grayson asked as we passed through the hallways of the California.

“Third Company of the 5th Space Combat Battalion, 2nd Tactical Brigade, 98th Tactical Division.” Graves said as we finally entered the briefing room.

“Also known as Reject Company.” He added as I took a moment to survey the room.

To my left was a screen mounted on the wall with a slightly raised podium in front of it whilst to my right were rows of folding chairs with only a few dozen occupied by Alliance Spaceborne Infantry Troopers.

“Is this all of them?” I asked as we took our position to the group’s left in the corner.

“Nah just the team, squad and platoon leaders a less complicated briefing would involve the whole company but for important shit like this?” Grayson said, gesturing to the whole room before continuing.

“It's best to have only the NCOs and Officers know so they can break it down to their enlisted.” He finished.

“Officer on deck!” Someone in the room shouts and all the seated SI shot to their feet.

At first I thought they were referring to us but then a voice came from the door.

“As you were.”

I looked to the door to see three men walk in, one had a more complex insignia on his shoulders so I assumed he was the highest ranking officer though it wasn’t him who took centre stage, it was one of the lower ranked men with him.

“Now then introductions are in order, these lovely fleet boys and their girly guest are Major Graves SI Force Recon, Staff Sergeant Grayson Pararescue, Staff Sergeant Avery Fallon Combat Controller and Advisor Twilight Sparkle.” He said his voice carried a very distinct accent which is very different from what I’ve normally heard here on this ship.

“These fine officers will be a critical point in our mission in the coming days, as I’m sure you're all aware we will soon be invading Nova Tanis which has been occupied by a non-Lanky race. A race that the Alliance and her allies have deemed too hazardous for our health and as such we are launching an invasion in a week to take back this colony.” He stated which got some mumbling to occur amongst the seated SI troopers.

“However due to many of the Spec-Ops guys having been indisposed of for the time being Command has chosen our company to conduct a very vital raid on the day the invasion begins in the enemy HQ to retrieve enemy data and our guests will be critical in the acquisition of said data.” The officer continued before one of the seated SI troopers raised his hand.

Nodding to him the Officer allowed the SI to speak.

“Sir all of us here were trained to fight Lankies, if the rumours are true then we’d be at a very distinct disadvantage when it comes to tactics and experience. Sir.”

“That’s why for the next six days we will be doing large amounts of training both in the simulators to relearn some old tactics and on the firing range to get used to the M66 Flechette rifle that we’ll be using.” The officer said.

“Why not the M67?” Another SI asks.

“Because Sergeant only the HD has those and we are a long way from Earth and Arcadia so we have to make do with the small stockpile of M66s that the Rebels were able to maintain over the years.” The officer replied.

The rest of the briefing was mostly about the details of the operation, the training regime and our objective overall which I had to fill in.

After a while we were told to head to the simulator area whilst Reject Company’s officer Cadra informed its enlisted personnel of the upcoming events for the next week.

“You alright Miss Sparkle?” Grayson asked

Turning to him I said “Yeah I’m fine Sargeant just getting used to..all this, and please call me Twilight.”

Nodding he then said “Then call me Ben Twilight.” before we resumed our walk towards the simulator rooms.

Prism’s Flank: Planetary Headquarters: Same day

The mood within the HQ of both the Imperial Army and Imperial Guard was tense to say the least, ever since the failed operation to take out the rebel stronghold a week ago the entire garrison was put on high alert and preparations were being made to withstand a siege until reinforcements arrived.

The plan is to hunker down in the capital city which houses the planet’s only planetary defence cannon, which can easily destroy one of the enemy warships.

City-348C has undergone much change within the last week.

Barricades were placed in key areas of the city, trenches and bunkers were built in three main defence lines outside of the city and the civilians were quickly moved to underground shelters.

Because five out of the seven regiments of the Imperial Army were rendered combat ineffective a week prior the Imperial Guard had to be the first line of defence in the outskirts whilst the remaining two Army regiments focused on defending the inner city with the remaining five that were basically smaller independent units at this point either helped with the main defence lines and attached themselves to Guard regiments or were sent out to the smaller installations across the planet to protect them.

The 560th Line Regiment had been badly mauled during the operation a week ago, out of five thousand combat capable Stallions and mares only eight hundred remained combat capable with another thousand badly wounded.

As a result the 560th is assigned to protect the Govermental Palace whilst the 549th Mobile Regiment guards much of the inner city.

Colonel Brickfield stood on the steps of the palace overlooking the plaza, soldiers were erecting barricades and setting up firing positions for heavy weapons along the front of the palace both in the structure itself and over the steps.

Despite his stoic outer appearance on the inside he was as nervous as a green recruit on his first deployment, this was mostly due to what they learned soon after the failed assault a week ago.

“Humans, we’re fighting humans” He thought dreadfully as he watched a few trucks pass by.

They were able to retrieve a couple of the alien bodies during the operation on the rebel stronghold despite their best attempts to recover their dead, the following examinations reveal the advanced aliens to actually be humans or at least related to humans.

The implications were not lost on any of the high ranking officers on Prism’s Flank.

“Colonel!” A voice shouted from the top of the stairs over the sound of military activity.

Turning to the soldier in question Brickfield walked up the stairs to the young stallion to better hear him over the noise.

“The Lord General requests your presence urgently!” he said before saluting Brickfield.

Nodding and returning the salute Brickfield went back inside the palace to see the General.

The inside of the palace was just as it was on the outside with soldiers guarding various points in the hallways, rooms having their furniture rearranged to provide maximum cover for the defender and heavy weapons set up at key points to hold down multiple hallways simultaneously.

“Yet it may not be enough.” Brickfield thought as he arrived at the Lord General’s office.

The stallion himself was at his desk talking to one of the IG officers, they both turned to Brickfield as he entered the office before the IG officer saluted the Lord General and then exited the office.

“At ease Colonel.” The Lord General said when Brickfield was about to give him the same salute.

“You wanted to see me sir?” Brickfield asked.

The Lord General then got up from his seat before placing both of his hands on the table and said “Normally I’d get all the flag officers here to everything done at once as per protocol but given the fires we had to put out, from organising a defence to intercepting the enemy raiding parties I had to brief everyone one at a time which is inefficient as buck.”

He then sighed before straightening up with his hands behind his back.

“But the humans won’t care about our problems when they invade so we have to make do.” The Lord General said.

Colonel Brickfield shifted uncomfortably at the mention of “Humans” and “Invade” in the same sentence.

“There’s no use in denying it since the docs have studied the bodies we were able to recover.” The Lord General continued.

“The humans are more advanced than we gave them credit for and have enough offworld resources to field twenty starships at least, on top of that we’ve been enslaving the ones here for eight decades. Not the kind of thing you’d just forgive were it us we would have come to the same conclusion, war.”

He then turned to his left looking at a painting of Aurora the Equestrian homeworld before saying “A war that our people will not be prepared for.”

Brickfield’s face showed confusion before saying “Even if the rest of the Imperium has no knowledge of our enemy now doesn’t mean we can’t-”

“It's not just about the nature of our enemy Colonel.” The Lord General interjected before continuing.

“In the entirety of our military history since the Unification Wars a thousand years ago we’ve only had face advisories that either the strength to contest us in the void and can barely contest us at all, this new enemy however whether they are humans or not have not only the ability to contest us both on planet and in the void but surpass us because we never had to face an enemy on equal footing before.”

“We still have 55,000 or so vessels across a thousand systems and millions of soldiers of both the Army and Guard surely-” Brickfield tried to counter but-

“Doesn’t matter if all those ships weren’t made or organised for war and the logistical systems in place currently won’t get the troops to where they are needed fast enough with what they need and that’s before we get into the troops themselves.” The Lord General said before he shook his head.

“The sad truth is our ancestors never believed there was a force in the galaxy that could rival us without the use of magic and this war will shatter that belief”

Brickfield said nothing, just standing there awaiting his orders.

“Enough of that however on to the actual reason I called you here, I read your status reports and whilst I share your reasons for extra time training the militia troops I’m afraid your regiment must be redeployed.” The Lord General said before tapping a button on his desk and a hologram of the city and its surrounding areas appeared.

A small section a few kilometres to the southwest of the city is then highlighted before the Lord General continues.

“You and your regiment will be stationed at the Orbital Defence Cannon outside of the city, this weapon is the only thing keeping the enemy fleet out of view of this side of the planet which in turn is preventing them from simply blasting us back to the stone age.”

Colonel Brickfield did a double take before saying “Sir but, what about the palace? If my regiment isn’t here to defend it it’ll only be the local militia and security forces, what if they strike at the palace?”

The Lord General shook his head “I doubt the humans would be crazy enough to make such a deep strike without complete void supremacy and given the state of your regiment I can’t just have you split your stallions up when we need as many soldiers in the best locations as possible. Is that understood Colonel?”

It took a few moments before Brickfield straightened up and saluted the Lord General before saying “By the Goddess’s name Lord General”

The old stallion nodded before dismissing the Colonel and went to look at some work on his desk.

Brickfield for his part made his way out of the office before taking out a comm-link from his pocket and contacting his 2IC.

“Major, gather the brass we have new orders.”

Staff Sergeant Benjamin Grayson: July 7th:2188:PAS California: One week later

“Drop stations! Drop stations! All hands to drop stations!” The voice sounded over the PA as everyone on the Battle-Carrier began calmly but hurriedly reporting to their assigned duties whenever we have such a large drop such as this.

Me, Graves, Avery and Twilight were in the armoury getting our combat gear on, the past seven days were rough evidenced by our slightly sluggish nature. We only had six hours of sleep just before the announcement along with the rest of Reject Company, their CO Captain Jimmy Rims or Rimmy to his friends is much like other company commanders I had to work with whenever I was assigned away from my parent unit. A competent officer who takes time to know the men under them and willing to balance the line between completing the mission and getting their men home.

“Grayson help our guest would’ya?” Major Graves ordered as I noticed Twilight struggling to click the chest piece into place.

I walked over and began to help her get the chest piece on.

“Uh thanks.” she says moments later as I finished getting her chest piece on properly.

“You okay?” I asked out of curiosity.

She hesitates for a moment whilst she finishes putting on her helmet before saying “I’m just a bit nervous, whilst I have fought for many centuries all those years in battle were informal at best. This’ll be the first time I’m going into battle with a professional fighting force like yours.”

I nodded understanding her concern before Captain Rimmy began to call us all to his attention.

“All right! You lazy gits and wits! Listen up!” He started whilst jumping onto a nearby ammo crate, his Australian accent clear as day.

“We have our orders, inserting into enemy lines and retrieve a HIO vital to this new front of the war!” He said receiving a round of “Oo-Rah”s in return.

“Everybody knows what's going on? Everyone knows where we’re going?” He asked receiving a second round of “Oo-Rah”s.

“EVERYBODY READY!?” He shouted.

“OO-RAH!” We answered at the top of our lungs as the PA system announced that it was Reject Company’s turn to board the dropships.

“THEN LET’S DO THIS! DIGBY! SECOND! LEAD OUT!” The Captain shouted whilst gesturing to the airlock to his left.

“You head the man! Second Platoon on me!” A posh British voice sounded over my platoon channel.

Soon enough the members of Reject’s 2nd Platoon marked by my helmet began to fill through the airlock, as our fireteam was assigned to 2nd Platoon for this op we too began to fill out through the airlock behind the SI grunts.

Out on the hanger deck was the entirety of the California's SI Battalions loading into the dropships with CAS craft loading up on ordnance and fuel.

“Try to keep up fleeties.” Lieutenant Digby said as our platoon filled into our Hayabusa.

As I strap myself down in my crash crouch I couldn’t help but think about the LT’s words.

This wouldn’t be just another mission.

It would be an initiation.

For all of us.

“Charlie Actual to Alpha Actual, all eggs are in the basket and ready for frying over.” The LT said over the comms a few moments later after the whole platoon was present and accounted for.

I look to my right towards the rear ramp seeing Major Graves sitting beside me with Avery on his right.

“I synced your suit's TAC-LINKs to mine so you could hear and see what's going on.” Graves said whilst checking his M66.

I nodded in thanks, normally in these kinds of ops I wouldn’t be able to see the wider picture through my TAC-LINK because I’m not an officer nor a Combat Controller like Avery.

With Graves giving us access through I’ll be able to oversee other parts of the operation without trouble.

“All units, all units this is spaceman standby for drop, repeat standby for drop.” A voice said over the TAC-LINK.

“This is bumble 2 roger.” The voice of our dropship pilot responded whilst the other dropship pilots are no doubt saying the very same thing.

We’re soon in one of the many airlocks of the California awaiting the clearance to detach from the Battle-Carrier.

On the TAC-LINK which shows a 2D map of the fleet with the California at the centre, I could see a few dots representing dropships and strike craft leaving the Troop ships, Assault Carriers and Battle Carriers alike.

The small craft soon formed up into small groups before heading away from the fleet. By that point the 2D map changed to a 3D map with the planet in the centre, half the space around it was covered in a red glow indicating where the enemy’s defence cannon can spot and shoot down starships. Which is why the fleet is on the other side of the planet away from the cannon’s line of sight, this does mean however that all those dropships and Strike craft have to travel further whilst also entering the atmosphere.

Normally during a drop op the mothership would park itself as close to the target LZ as possible so that the pilots won’t have to worry as much about having enough fuel to go to and from the surface and their mothership.

When fighting against the Lankies that tactic still worked given the Lankies lack of terrestrial based ranged weapons, the equestrians however because of their Orbital Defence Cannon don’t have to worry about our ships flying over their heads bringing death from above.

“This is Spaceman to all units Second wave drop in T-minus 40 seconds!”

“Forty seconds!” Digby shouted over the platoon channel as we got ready for another round of russian roulette.

“What can I expect when we drop?” Twilight asked who was sitting to my left towards the cockpit.

I hesitated for a few seconds in trying to come up with what she could expect but I couldn’t think of any advice except…

“Well your stomach will probably try to claw its way up your throat and feel like your sent flying into the ceiling but other then that-”

“-TWO, ONE DEPLOY DEPLOY!!” Was all I heard before our dropship was launched into the black once again.

I looked through one of the dropship’s cameras on my suit’s HUD, the familiar sight of a Washington Class Battle-Carrier grew smaller as our Dropship sped away from the starship.

Other dropships and Strike craft were also launching from the Carrier, their lights and icons the only things that tell me that they are there at all.

“D-Does it get any better?” Twilight asks clearly, feeling a bit unwell from the launch sequence earlier.

Switching off the view feed I looked at her and said with a smirk “It gets tolerable, eventually.”

“MUSIC PALUESE PILOT!” LT.Digby shouted over the comms.

Before me or Twilight could ponder what he meant a song began playing over the platoon channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7LLdWdMVME&pp=ygUSc3Vydml2YWwgYnkgZW1pbmVt

“Oh yeah!” One of the SI troopers across the hold yelled.

“The Company’s favourite!” Another one commented just as the whole Platoon began banging one of their boots to the music.

“More like the division’s favourite!” Another SI laughed as the song continued.

“Do all these kinds of missions start like this?” Twilight asked as even Avery and Graves started to bang their boots along with the music.

“Uh sometimes? Mostly to relieve tension in the air and gives them something to do whilst they wait to land at an LZ” I replied.

“Yeah and this song is a classic!” Another SI trooper said over our channel.

“Oh please Ride of the Valkyries is more of a classic then Survival!” Avery argued.

The channel soon devolved into an argument about which song was the true classically of the two, which continued for a few seconds until just before the end of the song, where the pilot put on another song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGU1P6lBW6Q&pp=ygUVcmlkZSBvZiB0aGUgdmFsa3lyaWVz

“Oh come on!””Traitor!””Really!?” Were a few of the comments the SI grunts made after our pilot made his opinion clear.

Sometime later I began to feel the Hayabusa shake violently which told me we were finally entering the atmosphere.

“Hang on back there!” Our pilot commented as the shaking intensified before after a full minute it stopped and just like that I was back on Nova Tanis.

“Alright, let's review the plan one more time.” Captain Rimmy said over the company channel.

Soon a 3D image of the Capital city appears in my vision as I imagine the same happening to the rest of the company.

“We’ll be coming in through the east and land right next to the Governmental Palace in the plaza. The 34th Drop Wing from the Cal will be escorting us along with the majority of the Fast movers from the fleet. Their objectives are twofold, reducing the enemy’s capacity for defensive actions whilst also presenting more targets for the enemy’s guns allowing our company to complete its task.” Rimmy stated which inwardly I can understand.

The California's Air Wing consists of one Drop Wing and one Strike Wing, enough to ferry one of the Battle-Carrier’s two SI battalions down in one drop and provide air support but not enough for large scale landings like what the Assault-Carriers are capable of. Due to them being designed for planetary Assaults Assault-Carriers have six times as many wings as what a Battle-Carrier could ferry, as such it didn’t surprise me that fighters from other ships would be coming down with us.

The image of the city which had since been marked with various icons and arrows to give us an overview of our approach vector changed to a 3D image of the Governmental Palace itself.

“Once we land and unload, Bumble 2 and 4 will give us air cover as best as they could whilst also covering the north and South approaches.” Rimmy said as the icons representing our dropships appeared above the image circling like hawks.

“Bumbles 1 and 3 will run interference with the enemy and try to buy us time as well as strike targets of opportunity.” Rimmy continued, I nodded a bit understanding that the less enemies our rear guard had to face the better.

“As for us First and Third Platoons will form a defensive perimeter on the east and west sides of the palace whilst Second Platoon plus Fourth’s First and Second Squads enter the palace itself and secure the package, Fourth’s Third squad will divide into two fireteams and support the west and east lines.”

Fourth Platoon was our heavy weapons platoon with Third Squad being made up of AMP EXOs whilst first and second squads were command and security respectively. With me, Twilight, Avery and Graves that makes the total number of boots going in to be 54 an overstrength’d platoon.

“Once Second has the HIG we fall back to the dropships by platoon and dust off towards the rest of our comrades that landed, Clear!?” Rimmy concluded as we all shouted our acknowledgement back at him.

“Hold on back there!” Our pilot said as the images used from the briefing disappeared from my view and immediately I pulled up Bumble 2’s TAC-LINK.

The screen that occupied my vision was a 2D map constantly changing as we moved west from the east, the only thing remaining constant was the position of the icons that both represent our dropships and those of the Strike Craft accompanying us.

Before long however those Icons began bobbing and weaving to avoid the Anti-Air that was coming our way.

I cringed as I saw a few Icons representing the Strider blink out of existence, the FA-23M8 Strider was one of the first dedicated anti-Lanky strike craft developed by humanity. It was first rolled out in January of 2124 and saw its first combat deployment in April that same year, said deployment happened to be during the rescue of the Avenger Class Battle-Carrier NACS Washington in the Capella system where my grand-father was at the time.

Since learning of that fact I developed a respect for the craft and its pilots, to see them going out like that makes me feel bad but I steeled myself.

Better to make sure they’re sacrifice is worth it then feeling sorry for their deaths.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t those fighters launching countermeasures?!” Twilight asked, seeing the same data as me.

“Because the Lankies didn’t have any AA weapons to speak of so our current fleet of strike craft lacked countermeasures.” I answered back as we were finally entering the city and soon be touching down on our LZ.

“SHIT WE’RE HIT! BUMBLE 3 IS HIT!” I hear over the channel and my stomach drops.

Bumble 3 is the dropship carrying fourth platoon, if they go down..

“Port side wing took a hit, but we can make it to the LZ; however I don’t want to chance it taking off again over.” Bumble 3’s pilot said as I sigh in relief and then frustration, whilst Bumble 3 will be able to land with their cargo intact the fact they can’t take off again meant Bumble 1 will have to pull screening duty all by themselves.

“40 seconds to land!” Our pilot said as the whole Platoon got up and checked their weapons and gear, I had long since switched off my link to Bumble two and began to check my gear.

By the time we all had our things in order the light of the hold went red.

“RED LIGHT!” Digby said and soon after there was a hard THUD before the light went green.

“GO! GO! GO!” The lieutenant shouted as the ramp lowered and we stormed out in a textbook tactical formation.

And just like that I’m back on Nova Tanis.

Attached Asset: Twilight Sparkle

I followed Grayson out of the dropship remembering the training I received in the past week. I took the M66 in my hands and swung it to the right as we all came off the ramp.

I could see just a few metres away to my left closer to the palace, the Drop ship carrying Third Platoon callsign Delta, said platoon is getting ready to move through the ground floor of the palace to the eastern side after we cleared the way.

“Charlie! Forward to the X!” Lieutenant Digby ordered as we began running across the plaza towards the palace.

Charlie was the codename for Second platoon with Digby being referred to as Charlie Actual and the squads as Charlie 1, Charlie 2, Charlie 3 and Charlie 4 whilst the two squads from fourth platoon have the callsigns Charlies 5 and 6 respectively.

As we began to ascend the stairs I looked back over the plaza just in time to see First Platoon and their AMP support setting up defensive positions around the front of the palace which faces the west.

Across the plaza I could see Bumble 1 doing some attacks on Imperial troops supposedly hiding in the buildings.

“Charlie, prepare for breach! Charlie 2 goes first and clears the lobby and then proceeds to cover the main hallway directly ahead, Charlies 4 and 5 will then go in second and break off left and right to cover our flanks and Charlies 1 and 3 will be in last. Once we secured the looby Third Platoon will move by us and set up on the east side whilst 4, 2 and 5 secure the building and set up a casualty collection point, 1 and 3 will move below to secure the objective.” Digby said as our platoon stacked up on the double doors to the lobby of the palace.

Me, Grayson, his friend Avery and Graves were attached to the Platoon’s Third Squad Charlie 3

The platoon got into position and I could see the members of Charlie 2 getting ready.

“On my mark, MARK!” With that the ten SI troopers stormed into the palace.

I could hear brief bursts of gunfire over the comm channel and through the access granted by Graves I could see through the TAC-LINK what was going on.

There were about 7 guards in the lobby behind some of the desks and there were two more on the second floor. Charlie 2 was able to kill 4 of the guards before heading for cover but two SIs were just seconds too slow and were gunned down.

The remaining eight SI were able to dispatch the remaining guards but not without a further four had suffered some minor wounds. Charlies 4 and 5 were able to make entry with no problems and proceeded to quickly secure the left and right sides of the lobby before holding at the hallways.

It was then that Charlies 1 and 3 entered the three story building.

The scene before me as I entered behind Grayson was one of a quick but brutal firefight, the bodies of the two dead SI troopers had the trailsigns of a laser bolt on their heads whilst the ones that were still alive had marks on their chest plates with a single medic giving aid.

We then passed the remaining three members of Charlie 2 who were holding the main hallway that cuts through the palace and made it about halfway before we again stacked up on a door to our right with Charlie 1 taking the lead.

The door opened to a spiral staircase which leads to the lower levels of the palace where the data crystal is stored.

“Charlie 1 moving to the lower decks.” One of the SIs from Charlie 1 said as they opened the door and moved down the staircase.

Soon Charlie 3 was moving down the stairs at least a few metres behind with me moving behind Grayson and in front of Avery and Graves.

We spent about twenty seconds I think before I heard a voice over the main platoon channel followed by gunfire and laser blasts.

“CONTACT DOWN THE HALL!” I noticed a few steps down and away several icons that indicate enemy infantry.

“Charlie 1-1 advance on my mark Charlie 1-2 provide covering fire!” Digby says over the platoon net.

I look over the TAC-LINK and bring up a 2D map with data provided by Charlie 1, they’re in an intersection with the enemy on the other side of the hallway in front of the stairwell meaning we can’t move in to help without getting shot.

The enemy which were shown on the right side of the map numbered about 3-4 whilst Charlie 1 which was shown on the left had eight men standing with one of their icons glowing black with a silver outline signifying that they were dead and the other a yellow icon meaning they are wounded.

Putting my memory of the lower levels whilst I was here to good use I decided to try and even the odds.

“Lieutenant, there should be a power breaker at the end of that hallway to the right.” I told the LT over the comms remembering how our very Battle Armour has built in night-vision.

“Roger! NOW!” Digby says in quick succession.

On the map I could see five of the blue icons rushing across the hallway killing three of the now confirmed four hostiles.

“Clear move up.” One of Charlie 1’s SI troopers said as we made our way down the staircase and into the intersection.

“Found the breaker going dark in 3,2..” Digby said over the comms before the lights overhead suddenly went out.

“Charlie 1 will clear this side whilst Charlie 3 will take the overside.” Digby said as we headed down the hallway to the left of the stairwell with our night vision on.

“Keep it tight, if intel is right then we should be coming upon the prison cells.” The squad leader of Charlie 3 said over the squad channel. The hallways were tight only half a metre wide so we had to move in single file, when the forward elements of Charlie 3 got to the end of the hallway the pointman held up a fist that I could barely see from my position a few soldiers behind, he looked over the right side edge of the hallway before speaking over the squad comms.

“Contacts, four setting up and one on radio probably trying to call for help.”

“Smoke em.” The squad leader said as a few of the SI at the front moved around the corner and I could hear gunfire as well as cries of alarm.

“Clear! Moving to secure the cell blocks!.” The same voice said a few seconds later.

A team of Charlie 3 then went to the left as we were coming up around the corner towards the cell blocks.

The rest of us moved ahead, advancing through the black and picking off the Imperials one by one until we reached the main data centre.

“This is it.” I began as we prepared to breach. “Behind this door is the main data centre for the whole planet, it's probably well guarded so we should be aggressive but careful.”

“Nine troopers should be enough, Rico, Max, Typhoon, Zach and I will go first and get their attention whilst you fleeties give us covering fire set?” The Squad leader said as his team moved to stack up on the door.

“Set!” We replied before the door opened and the first three members of Charlie 3’s alpha team moved through the door.

Only to be shredded by a fury of lasers.

“BUCK MULTI-LASER!” I cursed on reflex as we all took a step back from the doorway.

“Could’ve warned us about fucking that before it started firing!” One of Alpha’s survivors Typhoon said as he and his squadmate Zach hunker down across from me, Graves, Grayson and Avery.

“It’ll overheat in a few seconds.” I said ignoring the comment from him

After a few seconds the laser fire stopped and we wasted no time in moving over the bodies of Alpha's Squad leader, Rico and Max and through the doorway into the data centre, firing as we went.

The centre itself was a squared room with one side across from us being raised slightly higher than the other. The imperials had the high ground and a heavy weapon in their favour but as I took cover I noticed that they were all staff personnel and not frontline troops, so we probably have an edge in training.

“I count seven of the bastards!” Zach said as he took cover behind a set of consoles to my right.

Facing the enemy I was in cover on the right side of the room with the two remaining members of Alpha team whilst Grayson, Graves and Avery were over on the left side.

“That turret is mine!” Avery said as he aimed his M66’s grenade launcher at the multi-laser just as it was about to fire on us again.

“Fire in the hole!” He shouted before I heard a small explosion where the multi-laser used to be.

“Careful!” I shouted over the comms as I sighted my M66 on another Imperial and pulled the trigger, the computers in both my armour and my rifle then calculated the number of rounds needed to ensure in the nano-second it took for my rifle to start firing and moments later my HUD told me I sourced a kill.

“We need at least one of them alive so I can-” I said before Typhoon shouted “GRENADE!”

In a span of a few seconds I was pushed onto my back by something or someone whilst hitting my head on something so head that if it wasn’t for my helmet I would have died, I could barely hear Grayson’s voice over the comms before I succumbed to darkness.

Staff Sergeant Ben Grayson: 17 minutes since landing

“How is she Sergeant?” Lieutenant Griff Digby asked me as I checked Twilight’s vitals once more.

It's been ten minutes since she was unconscious by that plasma grenade the Imperial Staff officers had and since then Charlie has regrouped in the data centre along with our prisoner.

Said prisoner was tied up near the corner furthest from the door with two SIs from Charlie 3’s bravo team standing guard.

Standing up from Twilight’s prone but still armoured body I turned to face the LT before saying “Well her suit is showing signs of brain activity so she should be waking up soon.”

Digby simply nodded before reaching to the side of his helmet to activate his comms to get in touch with the rest of the company, I could understand if he didn’t like that Twilight was still not waking up.

Every moment that she was asleep was a moment that we were staying in the Governmental Palace and at risk of an attack that could doom us all. The rejects had suffered greatly in the few minutes since we landed with Charlie being the most badly mauled by the Imperial defences, so far up top the Imperials have conducted one assault to retake the palace but it was repelled so far.

Digby then got off the comms before looking at me in the eyes or visor before saying.

“If she’s not up in the next ten minutes we’re pulling out, understood?”

I simply nodded before a certain Imperial prisoner started yelling.

“YOU WON’T BE GOING ANYWHERE YOU HUMAN DOGS! ONCE MOTHRUL COMES YOU SCUM WILL BE BEGGING FOR MERCY!”

His voice was loud and definite but one glance at his eyes would tell you that he was scared shitless and thus would say anything to try and intimidate us but we know better.

Not to say he wasn’t lying or telling half truths he was just telling us things we already know thanks to Twilight.

I know I would rather not go for round two with a Dragon.

“So what should we do about him if we have to bug out LT?” One of the SIs asked, referring to our prisoner as I went back to checking on Twilight.

“Smoke him obviously.” I smirked a bit as I imagined the Prisoner’s face once he heard Digby’s answer

I then noticed Twilight’s form shifting and one glance at her readings tells me that she’s waking up.

“Well that was convenient” I thought as I helped her into a sitting position.

“How-How long was I-” She started before I interrupted her with the answer.

“Ten minutes and so if you don’t mind we need to get what we came here for and “book it” as the LT would likely say.”

She nodded before standing herself up with my help and after she got her bearings walked under her own power towards the prisoner.

“If you think I’ll help you achiv-” He started to talk before Twilight grabbed his head with both of her hands and said “You won’t” before her hands glowed with a purple-ish aura and I could see from my place beside her that her eyes were glowing under her helmet.

During the week of training prior Twilight explained in brief how the Imperial computers work and from what I understand magic plays a key role in the same way electronics do, in order to access the data crystal we’ll need a magical signature from one of the personnel on site and once she has that all Twilight would need is time to gather all the relevant information into the crystal before disconnecting it from the “mainframe” of the imperial data centre. She says she can do this by using a spell that can copy specific memories and implanting them in her own mind. It was how she was able to learn how to pilot an AMP EXO when asked to demonstrate her abilities.

After just a few seconds the glow on Twilight's hands rescinded as she pulled her hands away from the prisoner who once again had a look of shock on his face.

“Wh-What did y-” He started to say before Twilight walked over to the crystal and started to literally work her magic much to the increasing shock of our prisoner.

“How long till-” I started to ask before Twilight’s magic disappears and she tucks the crystal under her arm.

“We’re good.” She simply says.

“H-How!? Humans are incapable of using magic!” The prisoner said trying again to sound definite but I can tell in his eyes that the event clearly shaken him, something to remember I’m sure.

“Who says I am human Grayshard?” Twilight asks the prisoner, by his name I figured.

The now named prisoner looked at her in even more shock.

“Y-You were an Equestrian!?” He shouted as the rest of Charlie began to pack up and head to the Evac point.

In response a glow appeared around Twilight’s armour and whilst I couldn’t see her face I understood that she was mad, well maybe not quite mad but definitely pissed.

“NO I WAS A ALICORN AND BEFORE THAT I WAS A UNICORN IN A TIME WHERE MANY RACES INHABITED AURORA, BEFORE THE SO CALLED “UNIFICATION WARS” BEFORE PONYKIND COMMITTED THE GREATEST CRIME IN THE MEMORY OF THE SO CALLED GODDESS CELESTIA YOU SO REVIER! NOT A SO CALLED EQUESTRIAN! ” She suddenly shouted and the tone and volume of her voice was unlike anything I heard before or since and in that moment in time I believed the stories about her being a demi-god for no normal being, human or otherwise could produce a voice that felt like it could shatter worlds and break souls just from hearing it.

The prisoner just sat there in silence as Digby got everyone’s attention.

“Alright listen up chaps! The EZ will be hot as the enemy isn’t interested in letting us go and wants to get a few more bloody noses, Alpha will board Bumble 1 alongside us whilst Bumble 4 will pick up what’s left of Delta and our EXOs. Bumble 2 and some extra wings from the fleet will give us cover as we make our way out but remember that priority One is Miss Twilight here, she gets out unharmed clear!?” We all responded with a series of “Clear”s before we made our way back towards the stairwell leaving our prisoner behind with a new hole in his face.

Once we began entering however.

“SHIT! DRAGON SIGHTED WE NE-” The soldier on the other end didn’t get to finish as I could hear and feel massive amounts of heat coming from the surface alongside the shaking.

“This is Bumble 2 weapons hot!” The muffled sound of a cannon firing full auto greeted my suit's microphone as we climbed up the stairs.

“This is Bumble 2 Dragon is EKIA, repeat Dragon is EKIA. Be advised Delta is KIA over.” I cursed as we finally made it back on the ground floor of the Governmental Palace, despite being down there for only a few minutes it feels like I came out into another place entirely.

The entire hallway we were in was starting to catch fire which was coming from the right or east depending on your view.

“Charlie Actual to Alpha Actual! Inbound to the X what's the situation over?” The LT asked as we gathered into the main lobby.

“Approaching FUBAR Lieutenant! The enemy has MANPADs and Bumble 4 is down, Alpha’s down to 7 men and two AMPs!.....Digby, anyone not on this bird in the next 50 seconds is gonna have to hope there’s another bird coming otherwise.” Captain Rimmy said and I felt my stomach clench.

One dropship isn’t enough to get our battered company off the X in just one run and by the time it could get back…it’d be too late.

Surprisingly Digby simply said “Yes sir” before addressing the rest of us.

“Platoon listen up! Bumble 4 is down and Bumble 1 is a sitting duck the longer it waits, the enemy has MANPADS of a sort and are not afraid to use them. Here’s the plan Charlie 1 and 3 will make a run for the dropship whilst the rest lay down covering fire, once we get onboard Bumble 1 will take off and hopefully take out enough of the hostile force to allow the rest of the company to break out and secure a secondary LZ. Not a good plan I know but it's a plan, am I clear troopers!?”

Again we respond with a cry of “clear”s before Charlie platoon excluding Charlie’s 1 and 3 took up positions on the steps outside of the lobby.

As soon as the first SI trooper began firing his weapon our little band began sprinting to the dropship which was parched right in front of the palace.

To our left I could see one of the two remaining AMPs firing its DADDY JUMBO into the distance against unseen Imperials whilst two of Alpha’s troopers to cover beside it behind some debris.

Quickly turning back to our front I was already stepping onto the ramp when I heard over the company net.

“SHIT MANPAD!” I could see through the bulkhead of the dropship thanks to the icon the position where the AA trooper was spotted.

Fortunately someone from either Charlie or Alpha was able to spot the danger and the icon winked out as quickly as it came.

“GET YOUR ASSES DOWN FAST!” The crew chief ordered as he help everyone both fit and wounded find their seats.

Surprisingly by the time we were airborne again I was sitting next to Twilight again.

“This is Bumble 1 package secured and inbound to the rendezvous point.”

“Is this normal?” Twilight asks as we sit in our seats in a strange silence, the cargo hold was full of both the survivors of Alpha and Charlie platoons as well as the whole company’s WIA.

“This outcome I mean, do missions like these end up like this?” Twilight clarifies and I’m suddenly confronted with the realisation that we went into a fight we weren’t ready for and came out with what 80, 90% casualties?

Normally nowadays if it were against the Lankies it would at average be 40 to 60% even at the best of times and that's only at the company level.

“I, I don’t know.” Was all I could say as I suddenly felt the past week’s fatigue finally catch up with me and I soon dozed off to sleep in my seat with many others following soon after including Twilight.

July 7th:2188: Day One

By the end of the first day of the invasion the 203rd and 98th Tactical Divisions of the 7th Space Combat Army had secured a rough perimeter around the city at the cost of 13,000 men and women from across the two forces adding to the 410 pilots lost.

For the next two months the situation on the siege would be reminiscent of WW1 with both sides constructing trenches and keeping to themselves with the occasional raid or prob, whilst back in the Sol system the Pacific Alliance HighCom is working on getting the training and equipment needed to fight small humanoid threats to the 7th Army as quickly as they can but with the Lanky front taking priority the wait will be long for the men of the 7th space army indeed.

Bastion (Rewrite under consideration)

by Blackwatch9

New Caledonia

Recon Run

Rescue Op

Retaliatory Strike

Semper Fi