"The system's records tally a grand total of 3017 deaths, 32 of which were crew members 124 have been injured and are being attended to. Those colonists in suspension never even felt it."
The command station's mood was anything but cheery; an emergency meeting between the officer staff and science team was hurriedly called once the Promise was out of any further danger. Some of those attending sported wounds, grim reminders of the catastrophic event. Tobias himself had broken his nose when he toppled over and hit on a hard desk. Even the commodore had a noticeably large dark blotch indicating a bad bruise on his left cheek, compounding his disconcerted appearance. "Do we have any inkling as to what exactly happened?" he asked the crew's lead engineer.
The response was not reassuring: "We believe that a fault in the gas conducts caused the blasts. Due to a significant weakness in the ship's starboard structure the explosions caused more damage than normal, resulting in the catastrophic failure which we've experienced Commodore. We still don't know why it failed only now when all of the requisites were present for at least twenty years."
"What systems have been affected?" another officer queried.
"Fortunately life support is intact and so are the main power generators. Both the internal and external scanners have been rendered inoperable, same with the communication relays. Some of the stasis chambers and vehicle bays have been destroyed, damaging others. Thankfully most are unaffected. The engines did give way temporarily but that issue has resolved itself."
Addens rested his chin on his hand in a pensive posture, tapping his fingers in anticipation for the engineer to finish his report. "Can we repair the damage?"he posed to the engineer when he finished, hoping to hear the answer he wanted. By the looks of the others everyone was hoping for the same.
The engineer scratched his sideburns, unsure as what to say. "Well, yes Commodore; the lost hardware can be fabricated by the ship's automated factories (which were left untouched) and so can the hull pieces. But mending the damage will take time. At best we're looking at five to ten months, and that's only if we wake the colonists suited to help in the task."
"So you're saying that the ship has no way to send a distress call and that it is going to be blind for months?" Addens asked, his tone grave.
The engineer dropped his gaze. "Yessir," he responded quietly, disheartened of being the messenger of such bad news.
Murmurs and hurried whispers made their way in the meeting between the attending members. Tobias heard snippets of worried talk from the officer staff, science team and crew. The situation was very grim. These quiet conversations went on for a minute before Angus made himself heard.
"Gentlemen. We are in no condition to make the scheduled scan of Krig 7B from afar. So now we're left with two choices: take no further action until the repairs are complete or send a reconnaissance team down to Krig 7B to set up a landing zone and base of operations. The team would be composed of science team members and a company of infantry with no vehicles whatsoever: the more discreet we make such an operation, the better.
"Any questions before I initiate the vote?"
The members of the meeting held their peace so Addens went on and began the poll. After a one-minute round of voting the results were displayed by the central hologram: eleven had voted for sending a team down to Krig 7B while eight had decided to stay put until the ship was functional. Only two abstained.
Tobias and some of the other scientists were displeased with the results. Waldvogel had voted against sending a survey team in fear of a possible pathogen or some form of toxic agent. Without a scan from afar the only way to check for such threats was for the team to be exposed while they set up their camp of operations. It was clear that the others from the science team had similar, if not the same, concerns.
"Of course, we will make sure that all of the members will be safe from any possible risks," the commodore spoke, as if he had tasted the scientists' concerns, "all personnel will be given the best protective gear which we own: CBRN suits to be issued to military personnel and Level A Hazmat suits to non-military staff. The suits should provide the adequate protection for each person while on Krig 7B during the experiments."
Part of Tobias' mind relaxed. That was one possible threat which was accounted for and would've been dealt with accordingly. Other scientists appeared equally relieved. The meeting adjourned soon afterwards and the various officers and staff dispersed into the hallway outside of the command center. Tobias caught up with the lead engineer and called him over. "Something on your mind Tobias?"
When most of the others had left, he spoke to the engineer.
"Damon," Tobias began, using the man's first name, "is it really true that it was the gas conducts that caused the explosions?"
The engineer shifted uncomfortably. "I promise you, if it was not the gas I will keep it a secret."
Damon kept quiet, unsure as to what to say. "Please," the elderly Tobias pleaded, "you know that you can trust me."
Damon looked behind him to see if there was anyone who could've heard them discussing. Once he confirmed that there was no-one besides the two in the hallway he turned to the biologist.
He began with a sigh, "To be frank Tobias? Me and the other engineers have no fucking clue as to what caused the blasts. The gas thing was the only scenario that could have realistically led to an explosion, but when we checked the conducts we found that they were functioning as expected when the explosions went off: No leaks, no rusty vents, nothing. Even the hull structure didn't seem to have any flaws before the blast."
"But then what caused the blasts?" Tobias insisted, his curiosity urging him to press for more.
Damon lit a cigarette before answering. "I already told you Tobi," he said with a puff of fine water vapor, frustration rising in his voice, "I. Don't. Know. For all I know it could've been the goddamn aliens who decided to blow up big chunks off of our ship for no good reason other than for shits and giggles." He left Tobias, afraid to pursue the matter any further.
But how could they have done it? Waldvogel wondered, alone in the hallway, and why?
Lashonda Angelus let out a big yawn. She had been awakened from cold sleep an hour before and still felt groggy from the common symptoms associated with awaking from cryogenic sleep. The fact that she was waiting for her shuttlecraft to be fully loaded didn't help her sluggish state. She had done all of the pre-flight checks and had nothing else to do but to sit and wait. In fact, Lashonda almost regretted leaving her stasis chamber: in one second she fell in a deep sleep, and woke up in the next to find that a third of the ship had been blown to bits along with hundreds of colonists. That was reason enough to keep sleeping, but now with rumors going around within the crew about aliens Lashonda would have gladly stayed in cold sleep for eternity instead of having to deal with goddamn aliens.
Her headset's speakers crackled with life when the flight control technician contacted her. "Firefly 12 Firefly 12, this is Control. Your cargo's now onboard and I've uploaded your flight coordinates. Please acknowledge, over."
Lashonda smacked her lips, temporarily uninterested in what the technician had to say. What I'd do for a good ol' cup 'a Joe, she thought to herself. She made a mental note to get some after her return flight. She brought up her cockpit's HUD and checked the trajectory vectors; everything seemed good. "That's a solid copy Control, requesting clearance for takeoff, over."
"Roger Firefly 12, you are now clear for takeoff. Have fun down at planet-side. Out."
Shaking off the suspicion that the technician was perhaps making fun of her, she switched to the cabin's radio channel to address the passengers. "Welcome aboard Angelus Airways," she joked, keeping a straight tone, "we're about to take off. Please remember to always keep yer seatbelt fastened for the duration of the flight. If you get an instance of motion sickness and feel the need to release yer lunch, please do so in the assigned waste bags, I don't want to have to clean up my ship."
Lashonda heard some laughter from her chatter and with a smile finally began the takeoff procedures. With careful use of the dropship's maneuvering thrusters she eased herself out of the Promise's outer hull. She kept a close eye on her flight and instruments panel. Her Pegasus class shuttle, like the ship which she had just left, had traveled for nearly 90 years. Of course the revived engineers have revised the shuttlecraft again and again: that's what protocol required them to do anyways. But Lashonda was no more inclined than anyone else to leave anything to chance.
All proceeded as expected when she finally saw Krig 7B across her cockpit's viewing screen. The first thing that popped in her mind was the ancient Blue Marble pictures, images which she must've seen countless of times in holobooks and in other media. The blue oceans were not as planet wide as the Blue Marble photos showed, but the land seemed to be far greener and there was considerably less cloud cover. If anything, Krig 7B looked more pristine than the Earth. Not a bad place to visit, Lashonda thought jokingly to herself, but I wouldn't live there with all of them alien neighbors. If any aliens decided to knock her off from the skies, she hoped that the dropship's automated dual-link chain cannons would protect it: they weren't much, but hopefully they would at the very least scare them off.
Moments slipped past. Lashonda spent them aligning the dropship with fussy precision. When the job was done, she waited till it was time to leave orbit. Her hand hovered over the manual override control, in case the onboard automatic pilot didn't begin the burn at the time. It was very unlikely, but both training and instincts held. Never take anything for granted.
Deceleration slammed her back into her padded seat. It seemed to hit harder than she remembered, though all of the instruments showed the burn to be completely normal. As the automatic pilot had begun the burn in the proper instant, so the machine shut it down when it needed to. The shuttlecraft's flight vector was flawlessly followed through by the automatic pilot, and Lashonda was soon in the lower atmosphere of Krig 7B, dropping down to the speed of sound. Even at this altitude she could see that she was speeding above rolling hills, grasslands, and then forests.
She began to worry: despite having followed the flight vector plan with unwavering care, she feared that the dropship would end up being on top of a forest with no clearing for her to land in. As she slowed, Lashonda was relieved to see that craft was approaching a large enough area of flatland to land on. Taking over from the automatic pilot she leveled the dropship so it could land with the jets. She eyed the instruments, once more ready to use the manual override if the shuttlecraft's landing legs did not extend or if the rockets failed to ignite at the proper moment. No such emergency developed. Again, Lashonda had not expected for one to happen. But preparedness was never wasted.
Flames burned the grass of the landing area, scattering any wildlife that just so happened to be there, and then winked out as the automatic pilot cut off the rocket motor. "Welcome to Krig 7B," she announced to the passengers as she opened the craft's cargo bay ramps. "Try not to get yourself killed out there while you play."
Ignoring the chatter she looked out of her cockpit and saw that flight engineers back on the Promise that the landing zone they had decided to use was in the middle of a wetland forest. Lashonda was surprised that the craft wasn't sinking in a water hole, but was thankful that it was so. The forest itself was nothing that she had seen, so much greenery with the sun just peeking atop of it; she had never seen so much greenery in her life. Yet it all eerily felt familiar for some reason unbeknownst to her.
From her chatter she heard a startled cry from one of them men.
"Oh shit!"
The radio channel soon filled with hysterical laughter. What just happened?
"What's so darn funny?" she asked. She couldn't see the ramps from her position.
"One of the soldiers just made first contact with Krig 7B; literally!" someone explained, "he tripped and fell over face first!"
"This'll be one for the history books!" another exclaimed, putting on a mock tone for his next bit, "'Oh shit!' fine words from the first man on the alien planet of Krig 7B."
The others roared with laughter as they descended the ramps with their equipment. Even Lashonda couldn't help it; she guffawed in unison with the others. It was too bad that she didn't see it. Ah well, she passively sighed, yet another great moment of life lost to history.
Maybe this mission on the planet wouldn't have gone bad after all.
Deep in the morning meditation, Zecora was perfectly balanced with her head holding the rest of her body in the air on a bamboo pole. The inhabitants of Equestria had found her pastime (and essentially everything else about her) strange and unusual but thought nothing ill about it after they got to know her properly. What they didn't realize about her meditations was that they were deeply ingrained in the zebra's lifestyle and her culture; everyone back home did it and they were better zebras because of that. What was truly surprising to the foreigner was how the arts of meditation around these parts were widely unheard of. None of the ponies seemed to be able to reach a calm state of mind as Zecora could when after one session of deep thought.
Yet during that morning a noise unlike anything that she has ever heard before tore her from that state of mind and, from the shock, she collapsed onto the ground. She winced slightly in pain and shot off a curse in her native tongue. Zecora got herself back on her hooves as the noise which had so suddenly interrupted her morning meditation it diminished itself in intensity though still apparent. If her ears didn't lie to her, whatever was making the sound was close to her hut. In a fast paced trot she left her hut and headed deep into the Everfree forest in roughly the same direction of the source, curiosity driving her actions. While trotting she was surprised that different animals like the birds and rabbits, panicked, got as far away as possible from whatever was beyond the trees. She got past the trees and came into a clearing.
That's when she saw it:
It was incredibly large and stood impossibly still. It had a muted coating of a dark and metallic blue-green and had a rounded box-like body and its underbelly was cloud-like white. What looked like a tail - which appeared ridiculously small - seemed to have been stuck on the back lazily by somepony. A cutie mark of sorts on the side of the body depicted a white five-pointed star on a blue circle with a red outline with white symbols of which Zecora couldn't recognize. It had no visible head or eyes, only what seemed to be the neck stump. Underneath the 'neck' was a very strange set of appendages which looked like two tubular structures which were connected to each other. Smoke seeped out of protrusions on the back much in the same manner as a dragon snout after it had used its fiery breath; the charred earth underneath it seemed to indicate that it had just done something similar. The three legs seemed like twigs that could somehow support the whole weight of the being. No, this was no living creature Zecora realized: this was a machine.
The design was unlike anything that she had seen from what the machines that the ponies of Equestria constructed and used: pony design had a fanciful flair about it with bright colors and rounded angles. In contrast, this contraption's angles were far sharper and the whole look of it was just downright depressing to Zecora. It was a completely alien machine.
The noise which had led her to this monstrous machine had finally died out. In its stead a mechanical hiss blew steam from the underbelly, revealing openings that were not there before: someone was coming out metallic beast. Zecora stood still in her hiding spot, waiting to see who could possibly have been piloting such a thing. A figure appeared at the openings. It stood on its hind legs.
Granted, this wasn't the first time that she has seen an animal walk on its hind legs, but the figure stood incredibly erect, even more so than dragons. It also had similar fore limbs - arms and hands, she recalled - but it didn't share the claws which were typical of dragons. No fur, hair or scales were visible: the creature wore some kind of clothing which covered its entire body, blending it with the forest background. On what Zecora assumed was the head, the creature wore a sort of black mask: for eyes there were black-tinted lenses and the mask jutted at the left side and chin. If Zecora's masks unnerved her friends from Ponyville, this mask would send them galloping in utter fear. The creature carried a metallic stick-like tool by its arms, its use as mysterious as the being that carried it.
It seemed hesitant to continue out of the machine, clearly frightened to leave the protective shell of the contraption from which he had appeared. It looked back behind its haunches (or its equivalent) for one more time then turned back to the outside. It raised its leg and took the first step out of the machine, only to fall over and crash into the ground, making a startled noise. Zecora didn't know why, but she felt as if the creature had just disappointed someone or something. More figures began emerging from the belly of machine, some who looked identical to the first while others were strikingly different.
They had the same body proportions but the clothing was some kind of reflective bright blue fabric, worlds away from the forest colors of the others. Instead of wearing a mask the head seemed to have been an extension of the neck, hidden within the fabric and a dark lens. In contrast to the other beings, these seemed less aggressive, probably due to their coloration and that they didn't carry the same stick-like tool like the others. They pushed and pulled strange boxes along with them.
A series of guttural bark-like laughter filled the air and for a while she thought that it had been ponies laughing. Only after a moment did Zecora realize that it was the creatures themselves who were laughing at the one who tripped. The noise was muffled from the masks and the clothing, but laughter was universal; they were definitely amused by their less fortunate kin who was still on the ground. Some spoke in a language completely foreign to her, it sounded like a combination of paste-like barks and hisses.
More beings similarly clad and carrying a variety of strange tools and machines left the bigger machine. Eventually she counted as many as sixty and the number grew still. Judging by the size of the machine there could've been well over a hundred still inside.
The masked beings, the variety with metal sticks in hand, began to spread out from the group. They seemed to be forming a perimeter around the machine, their poses showing an aggressive behavior. It dawned on Zecora that those metal sticks were an unknown type of weapon, literally worlds apart from the ones she was more familiar with. And those clad with the colors of the forest were ensuring that the area was devoid of any possible intruders like her.
Deciding to take no further risks she slinked away from the clearing and stopped to see if they would enter into the tree line. None of them seemed willing to venture out of the safety of the clearing but still kept watch for anything from the forest.
Zecora had seen enough. She carefully made her way out and returned to her hut. She needed to warn the others back at Ponyville. Saddling herself some supplies for the journey through Everfree forest, she took off, sealing her hut on her way out.
She trotted at a fast pace, still thinking about how the locals would react to her tale. Hopefully they would heed her more than the last time…
Dozing above on a cloud, Rainbow Dash took one of her famous naps after a long period of exercise and of clearing the skies of clouds. If there was anything that she truly enjoyed besides going fast and winning, this was it. It was late morning, but for the most part Ponyville was still dormant. Even Rainbow Dash, for all of her boisterous antics and behavior, still enjoyed the occasional quiet moment to wind down for her next spurt of energy. The day promised to be an exciting one, but for now Dash just wanted to get a little shuteye.
Something decided to put a damper on Dash's plan however. Quiet at first, an ongoing shriek grew rapidly louder and awoke her from her nap. Irritated that she had been rudely awoken, she searched the skies for the source of the now near-deafening noise. A huge body swept by her, probably no more than twenty hooves above her head. The distortion of air shook Dash off of her cloud, suddenly inside the trail of clouds left by the wake of whatever had passed by. She stabilized herself and stared in shock the now distant...
What was it anyways? It had dark blue-green color, and the shape vaguely reminded Dash of a dragonfly, but it was far more nose and body heavy and had a tiny tail when compared with the rest of the body. What struck her most about it were the two fiery azure-like circles by either side on the backside by the tail shining intensely. They made it seem as if the thing stared back with an angry look about it. Had it been anypony else they would've turned tail and galloped away in fear with such an unnerving stare.
Dash, on the other hand, took it as a challenge. Finally, she thought cheekily, something almost as fast as me.
It already had a huge head start but she wasn't discouraged, after all, they didn't call her Dash for nothing. A flap of the wings and she was off at lightning speed. She chased the strange creature, her wings working furiously to keep her speed maintained, fueled by each breath of air that she took. Wind rushed past her muzzle and mane making it flutter wildly along with her tail, a multi-colored trail left behind in her wake. The only thing that Dash felt was the adrenaline rushing throughout her body and the need to win this dangerous game of aerial tag. While she wasn't going as fast as her personal best it still was so fast as to push her body to the limit; nevertheless, she was catching up with it, slowly but surely.
They both flew for miles, racing through the clouds and sky, neither one showing any sign of slowing down. Dash crept closer and closer to the dragonfly-like creature when it suddenly dived upwards. She followed suit only to stop almost immediately: it had gotten beastly cold, her lungs were not receiving enough air and her wings refused to lift her up any further; it was just too high for her to fly. To her disbelief she saw the creature continuing its upward journey seemingly unaffected by the extreme conditions of high altitude, its eye-like lights mocking her. That thing had just done something that was considered to be realistically impossible, but most importantly, it had beaten Rainbow Dash.
Feeling incredibly humbled and demoralized, she dropped back down to earth. Dash didn't know what to make of that flying creature except for how it had outdone her in an aerial display of flight prowess. At least nopony saw that, she told herself glumly; otherwise I would've looked 60…50…45…44.8% less cooler. She supposed that she should tell someone about that creature. Right now though, she wanted to crawl back to bed.
She wanted to make herself as small as possible and cry the day away.
AN: Sorry for the delay for this chapter, but I lost a lot of this chapter TWICE and I was going through some personal issues. And hey, look: somepony has seen a human for the first time! What will happen I wonder. Don't feel too bad for Rainbow Dash, she'll get her shining moment in an upcoming chapter. Thanks for the review TheArchive! As Angus said, war is the ultimate last option for me. It hasn't come to that point, but there is a chance (it'll take a while for it to happen anyways). Keep on sending those reviews!