Chapter 12

Location: Canterlot/ Equestria

Date: September 13, 2530

Alex stood on the landing pad waiting for the gunship to come in for a landing. As soon as it touched down he said goodbye to Luna and the twins, he walked towards the gunship, followed by Ensign Glenn, Leuitenant, and a squad of clones. They were all heading off to Dodge Junction to assist the local company of guards with calming down the population after they had almost rioted after the dissapearence of a number of their population went missing over the last week. Alex wasn't going to be staying there, he was only going to make introductions and then he was going to head back to Canterlot. As he stepped aboard, Alex looked back towards Luna and the others. When he did he saw the twins waving towards him. Smiling to himself, Alex waved back. Sitting down Alex strapped himself in. He just wanted to get his over with so he could get back to Luna. Closing his eyes Alex quickly fell asleep.

ALEX'S DREAM

A hauler jackknifed in a roadside ditch, smoke belching from its burning engines. An initial round of cheers from the other marines in a checkpoint tower, thinking Alex had just nailed a Unitologist bomber. Then the realization that their ARGUS unit had malfunctioned- that the hauler's dead civilian driver had done nothing more than pick up the wrong load.

If you listened to the carefully packaged EarthGov propaganda, Unitologist radicals were all the same sort of bad apple: after three centuries of common cause, isolated groups began to agitate for greater autonomy- for the freedom to act in their individual worlds' best interest, not those of the empire at large.

In the beginning, there were sizable numbers of people who felt sympathy for the rebels cause. The rebels were understandably sick of being told how to run their lives, what jobs to have, how many kids to make, by EarthGov bureaucrats who had an increasingly poor understanding of each colonies unique challenges. But sympathy quickly evaporated when (after years of frustrating negotiations that went nowhere) the more radical factions abandoned politics for violence. But as EarthGov began its counterinsurgency operations, more and more innocent people were caught in the crossfire.

With all the resources at its disposal, Alex had wondered why EarthGov hadn't been able to pacify the rebels before things got out of hand. FLEETCOM on Mars, Circumstance's universities and courts of justice, Venus's industrial zones- couldn't these powerful institutions and engines of economic prosperity have come up with a plan palatable for both sides? As the 'war' had dragged on Alex realized that all these resources was exactly the problem, EarthGov just had too much to lose.

Pockmarked houses whipping past gun slits. An unexpected boom. Bodies strewn around the burning shell of the convoy's lead armored transport. Muzzle Flashes from rooftops. A run for cover through the carnage. Ricochets and radio chatter. Phosphorous plumes from ordinance dropped by gunships. Women and children running from burning houses, leaving footprints in blood as thick as caramel.

And then came the Necromorphs. Abominations created and controlled by the Marker. EarthGov had believed that they could be controlled. How much of a mistake that had been. The Necromorphs had ravaged entire star systems before EarthGov grew some balls and finally admitted its mistake. They gathered any known survivors from any of the colonies, gave them military training, and then set them loose. Alex had first encountered the Necromorphs on Titan Station, while on leave.

"Dad" Vivian yelled as she ran to her father to give him a hug. Alex wasn't known as 'daddy' anymore. No, Vivian said she was too old for that now.

"Hey sweetheart." Alex said as he dropped his bag and picked her up.

"Look daddy." she said as she pointed over his shoulder. Turning around, Alex saw a large human slowly making its way towards them. It was crouched down and kept its arms raised above his head.

"Hey buddy. Why don't you head on home?" Alex called out to the man. Standing at his full height the man charged towards them. With his right hand he reached down for his pistol while he set Vivian down. Yanking the pistol out of its holster he fired a round at the man's foot to try and scare him into stopping. But he kept going. So Alex fired two rounds into the man's hip. This seemed to work, but he kept pulling himself forward. Alex fired off two more rounds into his chest and then another three when that didn't work. Hearing a scream from behind him, he turned to see Vivian being dragged off by something that looked like it was an over grown bat. Alex fired his pistol until the slide locked back when it ran out of ammunition.

Running down the corridor and towards the waiting soldiers. There were the monsters, Alex had nothing else to call them, chasing behind them, Vivian held in his arms. He was only a couple dozen feet away when something snagged his leg and he went down. Kicking his way free from whatever had grabbed him, Alex tried to stand up. But a staccato of gunfire caused him to keep his head down. Something grabbed the neck of his jacket and started dragging him away. At first he struggled but stopped once he realized that he was being dragged towards the gunship. Once inside, the door shut and the gunship lifted off the hangar bays deck.

"Where's Vivian?" Alex asked, looking around. When no one answered he started looking around frantically.

"We have to go back." he said to no one in particular. Once the realization that he would never see her again finally sank in, tears flowed freely from his eyes.

Awaking with a start, Alex wondered why it was so hazy and why it was so hard to breath. Then a figure ran past him and he saw a blaze of fire. Struggling, he unstrapped himself and staggered outside, where he was greeted by a completely different scene. The squad was desperately trying to hold off a hundred or so human civilians that were heavily armed.

"What the hell's going on?!" he yelled at the Lieutenant as he pulled out his pistol.

"Well, the gunships trashed, we're outnumbered, and outgunned, so we're pretty much fucked." he yelled back.

"Did you try and contact Canterlot?"

"That was the first thing but we're being jammed!" a clone yelled back.

"Okay here's what we're going to do..." Alex said.

Location: Saddle Arabia

The doctor looked through the six inch window at the patient lying on the metal table. Her comfort was only secondary now. They didn't have to worry about the virus escaping the room. The entire building, doubly so for the room in front of the doctor, could survive a fifty megaton nuclear strike, and was built to contain a Class Five BioChem threat, Ebola Zaire was only a class four. The doctor watched as a medic entered the room to take the fillies blood pressure. This was completely unnecessary, her survival was only secondary. They had what they needed. They were now milking her body for all its worth. All her bodily excretions, from her saliva, to her urine, was taken to a lab where it was tested for the virus. If it had the virus, it would be cryogenically frozen, for safe keeping. After he was done the medic exited the room and took off his HAZMAT suit. Another medic took the discarded HAZMAT suit and took it to an incinerator, where it was burned to ashes, and then bathed in high intensity Ultraviolet light. The doctor turned back to the container in front of him, which contained a large amount of the Ebola Zaire virus, which was kept frozen by a small amount of liquid nitrogen. Suited in HAZMAT gear, the doctor walked into another room where ten convicts were hand cuffed and had their feet strapped to the metal beds they were on. The room was nothing special, it was twelve meters long and six wide. Walking to the center of the room the doctor set the container, which was shaped, and looked like, a shaving cream dispenser, on the floor, pressed the button on top of the container, and then walked out of the room. Ten minutes later there was a soft click and then a hiss as the container released its deadly contents. "What is the purpose of this experiment doctor?" one of the military officers asked. After writing down several observations on the unwilling participants, the doctor stood up.

"To see if the Mazinga strane, that's what kind of version of Ebola Zaire we have, can be transferred through the air." the doctor replied.

"And what of the test subjects?" the other one asked.

"Five of them have been convicted for murder and given the death sentence. The others are also felons, rapists, Robbers, and the like. We made sure that they had no family ties. No one will miss them if that is what you're asking."

"Good, good." the officer said and then walked out. The convicts didn't show any symptoms until the next day. Once the doctor noticed this he wrote this down and walked into a large room where ten more convicts sat on metal chairs. They wore the medical scrubs of nurses, except that none of them had a facemask.

"You are going to be trained to be nurses so you can assist in your prisons hospitals. We will begin with a test. You are to take care of ten convicts until they get better. That is all." the doctor told them and then he walked out of the room.

Location: Canterlot/ Equestria

A lone human strode down the hallways of the palace. Stepping up to the proper door, he knocked three times and then took a step back. The door slowly opened to reveal a midnight blue alicorn.

"Princess Luna." the human officer said.

"Yes?" the princess replied, a look of confusion on her face.

"My name is Ensign Jackson. I am here, regretfully, to inform you that Commander Alexander James Styx's gunship was shot down over the Everfree forest earlier today. So far as we know, there were no survivors..." the Ensign told her. She was silent for a few moments and she sat down on the floor.

"Leave." she told the officer. Without another word, the officer turned and walked away. As he did he could hear her start to cry.

"Phase one is complete. Phase two can begin whenever you're ready." he said into a one way radio channel.

A/N: This is probably going to be my last chapter for a while, which is the reason why it was shorter than usual. Those of you who know what's happening with Denice… I'll let you put two and two together. Hopefully you'll get for.