Population Control
Chapter 2
By Blobskin
Contains: pony, mercenary, sci-fi, micro humans
Version: 1
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Imelda finished tightening a belt around her chest with a grunt. Standing tall, her wild mane jutting out in all directions like she had just been electrocuted, she felt horribly exposed. Imelda was used to heavy armor. Thick metal plate was her typical setup. However, all she had right now was this ridiculous cloth armor. It left a rotten taste in her mouth. Kevlar had a bad tendency to cause itching and she was already starting to feel it. Yet there was nothing she could do about it at the moment. She had been really stretching her finances with the ship and fabricators alone, so when it came time to grab her starting gear she had a choice to make. In the end she decided to trust her life to the shield generator mounted in the middle of her back.
Imelda didn't like it. Energy shields were amazing, there was no arguing that, but she was a mercenary and she knew their limits from experience. Shields had three flaws which often cost the overconfident soldier their life. Shields had limited batteries, a minimum reaction time, and the infamous "ghost shot" phenomenon. The older models also had problems with overheating, but hers was a newer version so that was unlikely to become an issue. Though she had weighed the risks and concluded the shield was by far more important than her armor, it still left her feeling like she was going to a battlefield naked.
Imelda shook her head, instead choosing to give the auto-turret mounted to her shoulder a once over. The mare couldn't help smiling at this little tool of death.
Bullets. Level two technology. Primitive. Simple. Smelly. Heavy. At least her weapon felt right. Blinking once, she confirmed that her up-link to the machine gun's targeting system was working. She turned her head this way and that way and the barrel of her weapon dutifully pointed at whatever her eyes did. The muscles in her leg tightened and the turret tried to fire. A satisfying series of clicks filled the small room. Imelda was often teased by other mercenaries for her choice of firearm, but it was such a staple in pony history. The shoulder mounted auto-turret. In use for longer than even the sword. It was one of the few sentimental things she allowed in her life.
Next she had to grab her grenades. The unicorn faced the three canisters with their simple twist tops sitting on a shelf in her locker. Another gamble she had taken. Imelda recognized that her turret wasn't meant for shooting small fast moving targets like human aircraft. They could easily become a nuisance for her. The mare intended to stay away from the ocean for now so human warships wouldn't be a factor, and ground targets would be turned to Swiss cheese in seconds against her, but she didn't yet have a good counter for aircraft. So she chose to have these three air-burst grenades made.
Air-burst grenades were not even considered a proper weapon. They were crowd control. Meant to be used by police to shut down riots. They worked by releasing a concussive blast that would deafen and stumble anyone nearby. That was the effect she was counting on. That explosion of air against another pony would have been little more than a shove, but against tiny human planes? It was likely these air-burst grenades would clear the skies if they got crowded. Maybe. Hopefully.
Imelda attached the grenades to her side. Then she pulled out a large gray box that rattled. The box attached to a hook on her other side and from it she extracted a belt of ammunition. Using her hooves rather than her horn, the mare loaded the first round into her turret with practiced ease. With a click, her gun was ready to fire as soon as she turned the safety off. Finally, the mare retrieved a data pad from her equipment locker. A simple screen with Velcro straps. It took her all of a second to slap the device to her left foreleg and secure it in place. Then she took a few practice steps to make sure it wouldn't move. And with that, Imelda was as ready for action as she was going to get.
She didn't have her heavy armor. The mare would have to mine some iron and use the fabricators to make her some steel plate. She didn't have her trusty backup weapon, an ion rifle. Level four tech that could punch through just about any infantry mounted shield. Though it was unlikely she'd need something like that against humans. She also didn't have her portable artillery, her mini-rocket launcher. Again, she probably wouldn't need that either anyway. Lastly, she didn't have any backup. She'd need to get her hooves on a lot of different metals before she could print some drones to watch her back.
She felt poorly equipped. Which was somewhat illogical. From the files she'd been sent the only gear she really needed to have an overwhelming edge in the coming war was her shields. As long as human weapons couldn't touch her she could simply crush or bulldoze whatever got in her way. Her size alone would be enough to destroy anything the humans built, whether it was a building or a vehicle. However, the one advantage the humans had happened to play against one of the major weaknesses of shield technology. The only way Imelda could realistically see the humans killing her.
Numbers.
Shield tech worked by sensing incoming attacks and then reacting by projecting a repulsion field. The key was that the shield was not constantly active. That would drain the battery or overheat the unit very quickly. Meanwhile, what the humans lacked in technology or firepower they certainly could make up for in sheer numbers. She was alone on their homeworld after all. If the humans simply fired enough projectiles at her in a short enough span of time, inevitably her shields would fail. However, while Imelda's shields were not the most advanced on the market, they were high quality. Draining her battery would take a tremendous amount of ammo. And it wasn't like the humans knew this either. So would they "waste" enough bullets that her shields failed? At some point the human military was going to get desperate and throw everything they had at her. So it was a safe bet the true answer was "when" rather than "if".
Which is why Imelda wanted her armor. While her armor could never protect her as well as her shield, it only needed to keep her alive long enough to either get her shield running again or for her to retreat. If she had a teleporter that would have been even less of a concern.
Imelda sighed and snatched the last thing she might need from the locker in front of her. It was a capped syringe full of healing nanobots. She didn't have anyone to pull her bleeding body back to the ship if things went badly, so the nanobots would be her second life. Working alone was always risky. It was times like these she wondered why she never signed up with a mercenary company.
She growled and slammed the locker door.
The equipment room was quiet for a minute.
Imelda exhaled slowly. The stress was eating her. The mare forcefully puffed out her chest and tried to remind herself that action was coming. That was something she enjoyed. For now though, she had to get to the hanger and grab the mining gear. It was time to head out. Her ship was about to land and she shouldn't waste any time.
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Most of those attending the meeting couldn't do so in person. Not on such short notice. So it was a conference call. Each member was "attending" through a computer and a microphone. And it was a mess.
"How could you confuse a meteor and an alien craft!?" someone barked.
"How do we keep this from going public?"
"What does that matter? Have you seen the looting? The world has already gone crazy. The damage is done."
"What is their intentions? What do they want?"
"Is NASA sure this time? How do they know it isn't a meteor? Maybe it was just captured in Earth's gravity."
"The craft is almost three kilometers long and half a kilometer wide. That seems pretty big for 'peaceful exploration'. I'm telling you they are hostile."
"We don't know anything yet people! Calm down and try to think rationally!"
One man sat at a desk, hands on his face, hunched forward. What was he supposed to do? Mankind had only entertained this possibility in movies and television. It was never supposed to happen. Not for real. He already had enough to deal with after the panic caused by the meteor announcement. Now they were going to tell the world it was actually alien visitors? What if they were wrong again? To announce something like that and turn out to be mistaken would be the greatest public embarrassment ever committed by a politician. Yet if he waited to announce the backlash of "trying to cover it up" could be just as damaging.
And that wasn't even touching the impossible question of First Contact itself.
Were they peaceful explorers or hostile invaders? The fate of humanity was now orbiting above their heads. The fact there did not seem to be even an attempt at communication was a bit worrying, but they had only just arrived. Maybe they were surveying the surface first?
The man rubbed the sweat that was beginning to pour down his face. There was no right answer. He didn't know what to do. Then a sudden revelation made his blood run cold.
"It's dropping out of orbit!"
"Where's it going to land?" the man demanded.
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The ship bounced once, making Imelda grunt. Her new ship didn't have the best shocks it seemed. Whatever. It was a cargo carrier, not a luxury cruiser. The pony waited a few seconds until a warm beep verified the ship was firmly settled. It was time to get to work.
Imelda deftly pressed a large red button in front of her which caused an entire wall to begin falling away. The hanger door was a bit loud and she pinned her ears with a grimace. Earth's atmosphere poured in along with a bit of dust no doubt kicked up from the landing. She coughed once and waved a leg in front of her face as the high pitched whine continued. After at least 10 seconds of holding the button the door-turned-ramp hit the ground with a thump. The pony then gazed out on a new alien world.
It was a wasteland.
Imelda snorted with amusement. The only plant life was the scattered specks that were weeds and patches of dry bushes. It kind of resembled moss due to the scale of life on this planet.
Imelda stepped out into the shadow of her ship, her hooves sinking into the orange soil. She was currently facing west and the sun was just rising in the east. Early morning local time. Her ship said it had landed a few short kilometers from an iron mine which was supposed to be right in front of her. Yet, she didn't see anything but desert. The pony raised her left leg and eyed her data pad. With a few taps she accessed the satellite she'd deployed earlier and checked her coordinates. It merely confirmed that an iron mine was less than three kilometers dead ahead. The unicorn raised a brow at this. Then she shrugged.
Imelda faced the open hanger and gave a quick whistle. Three robots began rolling out of the storage space. Two of them were just automated carts with treads. She intended to spend today mining and the heavy metal bins were meant to haul the ore back to the ship for deconstruction. They were each big enough to fit two ponies with a bit of room to spare. The last robot was her mining engine.
Imelda was a mercenary, not a geologist or a miner. She knew little about the process. So when it came time to choose a mining robot she wasn't sure what the best design would be. A drill? A saw? A jackhammer? The mare eventually concluded that she didn't need to get every last stone in a given mine and she wasn't going to be staying in one place for very long. She'd have to migrate as her... prey... inevitably fled. So the tool she settled on looked like a bizarre combination of a crane, a rolling pin, and a suspension bridge.
The business end was a very wide roller covered in sharpened buckets. Behind the main wheel was a thick arm supported by cables leading back to a car with treads. Another arm connected this part to a second car further back with an obvious conveyor belt leading off the back. This monster was meant to cut and scoop huge amounts of material off the surface then feed it down two conveyor belts to the back where it could be dumped into one of her carts. It was the most brute force method there was to mining. The most aggressive open pit digger there was. It was perfect for Imelda. Except that its top speed was barely a walk.
Step. Step. Step.
In moments the unicorn was bored. Here she was, marching across some alien desert, with two self-driving wagons and a huge digging machine. Even worse, it was enemy territory and all she had was Kevlar body armor, a portable shield generator, and a single turret. Her ears turned this way and that. Her satellite watched the skies. Her eyes danced across the horizon. No movement. She was alone. Imelda huffed. Where was this mine?
The pony easily stepped over a small crevice and her robot followers rolled through it like it was nothing. Then the mare paused. Imelda glanced down at the ground. At the crack. No, that wasn't the right word for it. It was a dry stream channel, something that would eventually feed into a river. It was maybe a meter or two deep and less than the width of her hoof. For a moment she stared at it. To her this was no obstacle. Barely even worth noting. Maybe if she was running for her life, remembering this was here would save her from tripping. However, it brought to mind the size difference. For humans this would be a ditch. While she could simply waltz right over this gap, humans would need to make a running jump. She had yet to see the little creatures in action so she couldn't be sure how physically capable they were though. Maybe this would be no problem for them. Were they like insects with incredible jumping abilities? Or would they have to drop down on one side and climb up the other?
Imelda lifted a hoof and gazed at it. A human could walk across her hoof. That's how much bigger she was.
The mare shook her head. She would not think about this right now. The unicorn continued looking for the mine.
She began climbing a small hill, brushing a few of what she guessed were dead trees out of her way. Behind her the digging machine chugged as its treads bulldozed the hillside. As the top of the rise drew near she felt her heart leap at the sight. The silver gleam of metal rooftops. Though the discovery created a mix of thoughts and feelings. She knew these were buildings, but they were shorter than herself, barely as high as her barrel. It was more like stepping into someone's model. There was joy at finding the mine, or at least the facility, but there was also tension. Would there be humans here? Would the fighting start now? The mercenary paused at the crest of the hill and analyzed the terrain.
No movement. The only sounds were from her digging machine coming up behind her and the wind. There were clearly roads leading into a few of the shorter buildings which she guessed were either dumping sites or garages. She'd have to get closer to be sure. There were silos and piles of gravel off to the side, though she doubted that was all the material from the mine. Speaking of, where was it? Her head swiveled left then right. There were orange hills and dirt roads leading to the horizon, but she didn't see an entrance. Was it a shaft mine and one of the buildings acted as a cap? It was possible. All she knew for certain was there was a "mine" here. She didn't intend to go scanning for underground ore herself. The plan was to let the humans point out where the iron was for her, but for that to be effective she had to find the entrance. Imelda groaned at the possibility she'd have to go wandering around these hills looking for a hole in the ground. At best one of the many twisting roads would lead her to the mine. But how long would that take?
She went to take a step to begin her investigation and nearly fell on her face. There was no ground beneath her hoof.
"Oh, there's the entrance," she mumbled aloud in surprise.
The mare felt her face light up bright red as she stepped back from the edge. That was embarrassing. Half the hill she was standing on had been cut away, forming a cliff. How had she missed that? A single defined road led straight into a huge round dark hole in the wall beneath her. It was hard to imagine a more obvious mine entrance.
Imelda sighed and felt a wave of tension leave her. She had found her supply of iron, among the many other trace amounts of precious metals she was sure to get here too. The mare turned to the digging machine which had stopped a few steps back. "Dig here," was her simple order. Without any warning or fanfare, the roller dropped to the ground and began grinding away at the topsoil. One of the mine carts quickly got behind the machine and began catching the river of rock and dirt that began spilling off the back of the digger. The mare considered just leaving this first load here, the ore was no doubt much deeper underground, but shrugged it off. It didn't really matter in the end.
Imelda was then faced with a different problem. What to do now.
The digging machine was working quickly and the roller was sinking further and further into the hillside. But what was she supposed to do in the meantime? She couldn't simply leave them alone. While the machines were capable of doing all the work by themselves, none of them had any defenses. No weapons, no armor, no shields. Whenever they were working she had to stay and guard them. No doubt they'd be targeted at some point. Even if she could infinitely repair them with her fabricators, that would require her to haul the machines all the way back to her ship. The pony couldn't help glancing at the boxy thing in the distance. Okay, it wasn't that far. But the point still stood. If she didn't want to waste time hauling broken equipment around then she had to protect them.
Imelda sat where she was and let the roar of tearing rock overwhelm her ears. At least this was a more exciting activity than watching grass grow. Unfortunately, she still found this to be incredibly boring. The unicorn eyed her shoulder mounted turret. It stirred to life from its resting position with the faintest whine of turning gears. She aimed up, then down, then left, then right. Yup. Her gun was working properly alright. Next she studied the circular shield unit on her back. It didn't seem to be doing anything. She grunted. Imelda didn't like it. Then she lifted a leg and began staring at the many fibers that wove together to form her body armor. The fabricators did a good job on this one. Like always.
Imelda sighed and glanced up at the sky. The sun for this world was a yellow color and gently rising ever higher. White clouds drifted across a baby blue ceiling. The daily temperature was rising, but she was used to a variety of environments.
Flashes of memories came to her. The calm before the storm. What would this mission be like, she wondered. Seeing weapons was very different from experiencing them, she knew that lesson well. She couldn't count how many times a situation had been described to her yet didn't seem to prepare her at all for when shit hit the fan. It was bad form sitting out in the open like this in enemy territory, but whenever she was on guard duty her mind always wandered. The fact it hadn't cost Imelda her life yet was probably only thanks to luck and her shields.
The Levels of Technology. There weren't solid lines between them. The whole idea was more of an estimate or a thought experiment that went too far. The border between two levels was vague and full of exceptions. For example, technically bullets were considered level two tech, but Imelda's own shoulder mounted turret was a level three weapon. Barely. Because of its automatic targeting system. The Levels of Technology mostly referred to the main energy source of a race or planet and to the inventions and technology that had a strong tendency to exist along with it. Level one tech was stone age. When the main source of energy was a campfire. It barely qualified as a tech level. Level two was built on the use of fossil fuels. The higher density energy source went along with the development of metallurgy and bullets. At the third level fission energy, nuclear, took over and laser weapons emerged as well as basic AI computers. The fourth level was called the Nano Level for a number of reasons. Nanobots, advanced AI control systems, and the extraction of energy from non-radioactive elements. It was also when shields, plasma, and mega-structures emerged. Finally, there was the fifth level, Hardlight.
Imelda didn't herself understand what defined Hardlight technology, only that it was the most sophisticated reality manipulating tech ever built. Only scarily powerful empires and companies had it. Though she also had a piece herself now. Her ship's drive was officially hardlight tech and it had a bizarre name she wasn't sure she could even pronounce correctly. Other than that, her fabricators were the next most advanced thing she had. Which was going to matter a lot in the coming war.
There was a major difference between nano fabricators and hardlight fabricators. Nano could only build on a molecular level, hardlight could build on the atomic. Because Imelda's fabricators were nano tech she was limited by the periodic table. If she had iron she had iron. Period. And while she could build any molecule or alloy she wanted, she needed to have the basic elements to do so. For example, she already knew that ammo was going to be a pain to make. Steel for the bullets themselves wasn't too hard, for that she just needed iron and carbon. But gunpowder was a mess of elements she'd have to have a steady supply of if she wanted to shoot a lot. Carbon, potassium, nitrogen, and sulfur.
Where was she going to get that mix of ingredients?
Imelda turned her attention away from the digging machine as it continued to dutifully eat dirt and instead focused on her data pad. The mare began furiously tapping away as she tried to determine the best source for each element she was going to need.
The device on Imelda's leg quickly informed the mare that potassium and nitrogen were common in Earth soil and rock. Though they were bound up in different salts and oxides, that wouldn't be a problem for her nano tech fabricators to sort out. With a hum Imelda realized sulfur could be tricky. She wasn't a genius, but even she knew most sulfur was concentrated in volcanic rock. She glanced nervously at her digger as it turned a hill into a field. Imelda didn't think chopping into a volcano was a particularly good idea even if she had a good shield. There were limits. So where else could she find sulfur? Her ship's computer began feeding her possible sources.
Volcano was its first suggestion. Which she expected, but immediately ignored. Farmland was the next suggestion and made Imelda quirk a brow. Apparently sulfur was common in fertilizers and pesticides. At least on other planets. It was more of a guess. The mare wasn't sure she wanted to waste time on a gamble and moved on to the third suggestion. Oil. Again Imelda was surprised. When she asked the computer for an explanation all she got was the simple answer "sulfur is a common contaminant in crude oil".
Imelda chuckled. She already planned to raid an oil field for the carbon. Learning that another troublesome ingredient would also be there was pure convenience. But that was a job for tomorrow. For now, she was mining for iron.
Suddenly the pony's ears perked and her body went stiff.
There was a sound in the air other than the wind or her digging machine. High pitched and artificial. Imelda turned toward the horizon and her eyes narrowed. Three flying specks were heading straight for her...
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Author's Note:
One of the things I love about writing stories that take place in the "real world"? The research they make you do. Like, I've learned so much in the past few days from asking basic questions. For example, I was trying to figure out how to scale ammunition for Imelda and I wanted to know a bit about how bullets are made. From there I learned a lot of cool stuff. Like WHY the standard metal for cartridges is brass. Or the importance of the bullet being made from a softer metal than the barrel of the gun. Really interesting stuff. Though Googling stuff like that probably got me on an FBI watch list...
