Population Control
Chapter 4
By Blobskin
Contains: pony, mercenary, sci-fi, micro humans
Version: 1
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Imelda finished getting ready by tucking the nanobot syringe into a pocket under her barrel. The unicorn then closed the locker and glanced at the mirror. It was strange to see herself in this kind of armor. She sighed. No steel plate for her. Not for a while at least. The mare shuffled out of the equipment room and into the narrow corridor that ran almost the entire length of her ship. It was a bit dark, but she liked it that way.
Imelda sat down so she could more easily navigate her data pad's menus for a moment. She quickly brought up a satellite image of the landscape between her and the refinery. What was the best way to do this? The distance from where her ship was currently parked straight to the refinery was a little over 500 kilometers (300 miles) south-west. The mercenary hummed in thought. There were two ways to go about this.
The first way was obvious, just move the ship. However, that would take Imelda away from the mine she had already stolen, so she'd have to move the ship back after she got the oil. She still needed more iron after all. But Imelda didn't really feel like moving the ship near the city and then moving it back. Did she have an actual reason not to? It was a trivial thing. Yeah, but she still didn't want to.
Alternatively, the unicorn could simply walk there. It would take Imelda a little less than half a day to hike 500 kilometers, so it was definitely doable. March to the city, get the oil, return to the ship. It would use up the whole day. Would she be vulnerable during the trip? Technically even if she came under heavy fire she could call the ship to herself for an emergency extraction. Imelda felt drawn to this option too. She could make the excuse that she was scouting the land, but maybe she just wanted to see more of this tiny world. Looking at it on a screen or through a window simply wasn't the same as touching it.
Move the ship or walk?
Imelda sighed. She decided to walk.
It was a bad move from a strategic standpoint. It would waste a lot of time. But she wasn't a machine. Ponies were meant to run.
The mercenary soon found herself in the hanger with the two mine carts behind her. She had thought about having them remade into proper tankers so she wouldn't risk spilling any oil, but in the end she shelved that idea. If Imelda made them into tanks she'd also have to bring a pump which would require her to figure out a way to suck the oil out of the silos the humans kept it in. Brute force was her solution. She planned to just steal entire silos, oil and all. Imelda knew she was going to spill a ton of oil on the way back, but eventually surrendered to that fact. It wasn't like she needed that much and taking it away from the humans might have been enough of a reason to attack the refinery by itself.
The mare opened the hanger door and stepped out into the morning. She was immediately on alert as experience had taught her to be. Her eyes swiveled left and right, her shoulder turret following her gaze just like it was supposed to. No movement. No change to the environment that she could spot. The area was still a barren wasteland speckled with weeds and bushes, though it now also sported sharp cuts in the soil from the treads of her machines coming and going yesterday.
No ambush. Imelda was clear. She turned back to the ship and whistled. The robot mine carts rolled out, actually able to go a bit faster than herself while they were empty. That realization made Imelda consider riding in one of them, but she shook her head at the mental image. She'd look way too dumb doing that. She was not a little filly anymore. The mare consulted her data pad and deftly oriented herself. There was nothing but orange dirt and rock all the way to the horizon. For the pony it was relatively flat terrain with the occasional wide mounds, but a human might have called it hilly.
Then Imelda paused. Here she was, two mine carts behind her and a fight ahead of her. For the next couple of hours she'd be marching deeper and deeper into enemy territory. She could be attacked at any time. Somewhere in that desert was a city. She wasn't after the city itself yet, but she'd have to cut across a fair amount of it to reach the refinery that was her target. This was it. As soon as Imelda left this hill she'd officially be declaring war. The refinery would be the first battle. She was an army of one, the enemy of an entire planet.
The mare stared at her hooves all wrapped up in body armor. She felt the sun shining on one side of her face as it rose in the east. She felt the wind blow through her mane. Her lips tightened. She took a deep breath through her nose.
Imelda Noble took a step forward. Then another. Her automatic mine carts followed behind her on light treads. She was cutting straight across the desert of Australia. The mare's destination was on the opposite side of the city of Perth. The only oil refinery on this side of the continent.
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"They failed to make contact," one of the younger men at the meeting criticized arrogantly.
"Did you even watch the footage?" a woman in formal attire hissed. "Clearly it wasn't interested in talking."
"What was it doing?" someone asked.
"Mining, duh," someone sniped.
"Why travel a million light-years to the only inhabited planet in this star system just to dig up some metal? Why not mine Mars?"
"It's an invasion. Not even the movies predicted an attack like this!"
"What are you talking about, old man?"
"It's going to go from mine to mine, stealing our resources, while we sit here debating and doing nothing. It's weakening us!"
"Whoa whoa whoa," a gentleman in the room called for calm. "We are jumping to conclusions. This is an alien life-form. We need to consider that its mind and motives might not be so easy to understand. All we know is what we saw. And what did we see?"
The woman sighed. "It was digging."
"Mining," someone added. "Those were mine carts. It was taking the ore and rock back to its ship. That's mining. It's not simply moving dirt around out there."
"But why?" another asked insistently. "It makes no sense."
The room was silent for a few moments.
"How do we talk to it?" the gentleman asked the others.
The silence persisted. His brow creased in frustration.
The youngest man at the meeting threw his hands up. "Someone needs to walk up to it and just try. That's what I say."
"What we've seen so far wasn't even the real alien," the oldest man in the room rebutted. That got a few uncertain glances.
"What do you mean?" the gentleman grilled him.
"No living thing could be that big."
"What makes you say that?" the woman challenged.
"The largest land animal alive today is the African Elephant. The largest ever was a dinosaur that was at most twice that size. The thing our scouting party saw? Was closer to 10 times the size of an African Elephant. That thing could juggle elephants!"
"Looked pretty organic to me. And it's an alien. Who knows what evolution could have produced on another planet."
The old man continued as though the younger man hadn't said anything. "That thing is a robot. A mech suit probably. The real alien is likely inside, tucked away behind layers of armor."
The gentleman massaged his temple. "Whether the thing we saw was the alien.... or some sort of armor, that doesn't change the question. How do we talk to it without provoking it?"
"Can we even provoke it? The thing is huge. I doubt it's scared of us."
From there the meeting picked up as ideas were thrown back and forth. Though the gentleman at the head of the table contributed little to the conversation as it progressed. Somehow the talk evolved into an argument of the best way to keep the alien's arrival a secret. Or if they even could keep first contact secret from the people. It was during those discussions that an aid rushed into the room and whispered in the gentleman's ear.
"Sir, we have a situation. The Visitor is making its way across the desert. The Ministry of Defense has a live satellite feed ready for you."
"What?!" he shouted, making everyone in the room stare. "Where is it headed? How fast is it? How much time do we have?"
The aid hesitated, briefly eyeing the room's other occupants. "We're not sure where it's headed."
Everyone was stunned. You could have heard a pin drop.
"Show me the live feed now!"
Another room, this one packed with men in military uniforms and computer monitors. The far wall was a single large screen currently displaying a map of Australia. More specifically, it was showing Western Australia. Highlighted at the center of the screen was a large red dot that was slowly moving south and which had a faint yellow cone of possible routes projecting from it. In the bottom right-hand corner was a column of words and numbers. One was speed. It was fluctuating a bit, but seemed to be hovering around 80 kph (50 mph).
"It seems to be loosely following the 95 Greater Northern Highway," a thin man with gray hair explained. "Though it obviously isn't on the road and is cutting across the open desert right now."
"Where is it going?" the gentleman demanded simply.
"We can't be certain, but if it continues on a straight path like this it will run right into this place." The thin man nodded to a tech who typed something into her terminal.
The main screen scrolled downward and highlighted what might have been a town. Then a label appeared. "Mount Gibson Mine".
"It's possible the Visitor is heading for another iron mine."
The gentleman covered his mouth as sweat began to roll down his forehead. "How long?"
"About one hour."
"Can we evacuate the area?"
"Easily. There is no town near the mine. So we just have to tell the workers to flee. Though we don't have time to get any equipment or personnel there to enforce it."
"Do it," the gentleman ordered immediately. "And send the scouting party in again. Tell them to watch this thing closely."
---
Imelda didn't let her guard down as the minutes slowly turned into hours. There was a road to the left her data pad was telling her was a highway. It only had two lanes, one going north and the other going south. She didn't see any vehicles using it though. Either it wasn't an important route or it had been closed by the locals when she landed. It did lead to the town just beyond the hills of the mine she'd pretty much landed on. In-between searching for threats, Imelda wondered if the town had been evacuated. What did primitive species tend to do when advanced races first made contact? She wasn't really a student of history. She'd barely attended school herself. Maybe she could have gotten a job that didn't involve killing people if she had. Then again, she made a lot more money and got to travel far more than the vast majority of people in the universe.
She sighed to herself. Life was all give and take.
As she strolled across the desert she passed a few unusual things. Lone buildings seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Random circular patches of pure salt. And other oddities that didn't show up on her map. She didn't have time to investigate any of them and was fairly certain her mine carts had destroyed a few of them as they followed her, so she wasn't going to be examining them later either. Speaking of destruction, she also cut across a rail line that ran east-to-west. She hadn't planned on it and hadn't even known it was here, but she also couldn't find a reason not to sever the connection. She was here to wage war against mankind after all. Other than that, the trip was incredibly mundane and the terrain didn't slow her down much.
For some time the only thing Imelda had to guide her was her data pad. The highway to her left kept twisting with the natural grooves of the landscape and often disappeared around hills or even curved way out into the east. It wasn't useful to her as a guide or as a road. She could barely fit on it if she tried. Each of her hooves were as wide as a lane. So she mostly ignored it and trusted her satellite map as she cut across the open desert.
Then it appeared right in her path.
The highway had wound back from its journey east and turned directly into her way. Along with some kind of facility with gleaming white metal roofs and well-worn dirt roads. They looked like garages for large land vehicles, though large was relative on this planet. None of the buildings were taller than her knees. There was a chain-link fence surrounding an expansive area with steep dirt mounds and other structures she'd have to get closer to identify.
For a moment Imelda paused standing on the opposite side of the highway from this facility. It was the largest and most interesting thing she'd encountered so far and she'd been walking for a while now. The mare quickly checked her data pad and was mildly surprised that it had been about two hours and she was roughly half-way to the refinery. The remaining journey promised to be much more interesting however. She already knew that civilizations always congregated around the coast and this planet was no exception. Populated areas were coming up.
For now, Imelda decided to take a little break to investigate this place.
"Wait here," she said to the mine carts which immediately paused. Then she faced the facility and the one road leading off the highway and through a gate. She stepped onto the road, cracking it but not fully destroying it beneath her. It felt kind of like stepping on a thin piece of wood that was just barely able to take her weight. But that wasn't what her mind was focused on. She lowered her head, bringing her muzzle down to the fence gate.
The fence was only two meters tall and made of probably the thinnest wire she'd ever seen. It was like it had been braided from hair. This fence was taller than a human? This barrier could stop one of the natives? She lifted a hoof and stared at it. Her eyes flicked to the fence. Gently, she nudged the metal.
The barrier bulged inward and one of the poles that anchored the fence in place bent and even began to rip out of the ground.
Imelda froze. It was that easy? She applied a bit more force and another pole began to bend. A whole section of the fence was deformed from merely poking it. The mare withdrew her hoof and marveled at her work. She swallowed. This was incredible, but she wanted to try something else. The unicorn stepped forward, deliberately lowering her hoof onto the next section of fence.
Effortlessly, her foot bent and crushed the metal and drove it into the ground.
Imelda gawked at the destruction she had unleashed using zero energy. A defense like this, while minor even if it were scaled for her, still would have slowed her down. Even with wire cutters this would have stopped a team for a minute or two. Yet, here she was able to completely wreck it with only a touch.
Imelda felt something. Empowered might have been the word for it. What else could she do?
She took a deep breath and eyed the rest of the facility. What was this place? The mare consulted her data pad briefly which notified her she had reached the "Mount Gibson Mine". She quirked a brow. Another mine? It could be useful. Maybe a little inspection wasn't such a bad idea.
Imelda stepped forward, one of her back hooves crashing through yet another section of the fence as her attention latched onto the white arch roofs to her left. She lowered her head and discovered that they were indeed open front garages. Some kind of trucks were inside the three buildings, one boxy yellow vehicle to each. Interesting.
To her right was a variety of strange objects. There was an enclosed area filled with boxes wrapped in some kind of packing material like plastic. There were two long rectangular buildings that did not look particularly durable. And there was a large white cylinder on its side that just screamed "I'm full of water". She didn't do anything about these things.
Ahead of her was a sizable gray building with a fairly flat roof. She figured it was a warehouse. It was barely shorter than her knees, but it was about as wide as she was tall. Imelda mostly ignored it too. Instead she followed the dirt road that curved around the building and deeper into the mine, towards the dirt mounds and yet another structure.
It was a crusher. Where the dump trucks deposited their loads to be broken down into more manageable pieces. Standing next to it gave Imelda that strange feeling again. She knew this was a major piece of equipment. To a human this thing was huge and the conveyor belts leading away from it would have taken a while to follow to their respective dumping sites. Yet the tallest tower barely reached as high as her barrel. In just a few steps she could circle the entire thing. It was like a toy. A plaything she'd give a growing colt.
She was tempted to touch it, but a sense of awe kept her hooves firmly planted on the ground. Instead her eyes latched onto the dirt road that led even further east, away from the highway. Where was the mine itself? The mare stepped up a hill and followed the line for a minute or two until she stumbled upon the dig site.
It wasn't your typical open pit mine. It was more of an open canyon. Maybe 100 meters (300 feet) wide and about a kilometer (0.6 miles) long, with multiple levels running back and forth towards the bottom. Obviously so the mining vehicles could get back up.
Imelda nodded. This was a mine alright. And it was potentially valuable to her. She'd have to make a note of this for when the mine she was currently using ran out, which probably wouldn't be more than a few days if she was aggressive about extracting the ore.
However, as Imelda was turning back to return to her mine carts, her data pad began beeping. The unicorn immediately spread her hooves and perked her ears. Her eyes jumped from point-to-point as she looked for threats. Her turret whirred to life and the safety clicked off. The mercenary was ready for a fight.
Her heart raced and her breathing became deep. Yet she couldn't detect any immediate danger. Carefully, she raised her left foreleg to her face and read the warning. There were five aircraft heading her way. The mare glanced in the direction they were coming from. She didn't see anything yet, they were still too far away. But they'd reach her in a few minutes.
It was the helicopters again, but last time there had been only three. Were they going to shoot her this time? Should she attack them first? Imelda licked her lips. Dirt tickled her taste buds so she quickly spit. Like before she decided to let them set the mood. She gave her turret the mental command to return to resting position, but left the safety off. Then the mercenary stood her ground and waited.
Like a flock of bugs they appeared. Five black helicopters. Military vehicles. It was hard to imagine that each one was carrying several humans. The helicopters were only slightly bigger than her head, and that was only thanks to their long tails. However, Imelda's plan to let them do as they pleased immediately smacked her in the face. The helicopters weren't heading for her. They were aiming for her mine carts back by the highway!
The mare's eyes widened at the realization she'd left her transports alone and completely undefended. If the humans brought rockets a single well-aimed shot could cripple their mobility. So the mercenary dashed back the way she'd come, stumbling around the mounds of dirt and buildings as she raced to intercept them. Two of the human helicopters seemed to notice and steered toward her. She instinctively sent a mental command to her turret to take aim.
Imelda reached her carts before the humans did and she boldly placed herself between them. The helicopters stopped their advance and backed away from her warning glare.
A standoff began. The helicopters hovered a short distance away and she stood guarding the first cart.
Imelda felt a bead of sweat run down the side of her face. The sound of whirring rotor blades filled her ears. The wind calmly blew across the desert. Neither side made a move for some time. The mare eyed each vehicle carefully. They were all identical and she didn't see any obvious weapon mounts. They really were the same model as the first group that watched her yesterday. It was unlikely they had anything to shoot her with beyond small arms stored inside. She lowered her head and snorted. She'd made a mistake. She had simply assumed the humans had interpreted her actions so far as hostile. However, if they were sending scouts again, it was more likely the humans were confused. They weren't sure what to do about her yet. The mercenary could have taken advantage of that fact and gotten all the way to the city before revealing her true intentions, but she'd gone and blown it with this maneuver. It was almost a certainty they viewed her as an enemy now. So what should she do?
One of the helicopters landed.
Imelda was dumbfounded a few moments later when a little human in a green speckled uniform approached her.
It was the most ridiculous and bizarre scene she could imagine. The creature was tiny. If she were to turn her hoof sideways the bottom of her foot would have been twice as tall as this being. And it was just waltzing right towards her. It didn't appear to have a weapon. She didn't see any equipment beyond basic clothing, but it was hard to be sure due to its size. When it was about two steps away from her it stopped. It met her eyes. They stared at each other. Then it shouted something at her and held up its arms.
A display of dominance or surrender? It depended on the species.
Some races raised their limbs to appear bigger and seem more threatening. Some raised their limbs to prove they were unarmed or harmless. Which was this? Imelda wouldn't have felt threatened by this tiny thing even if it was holding a weapon. Unless humans were insane it was a stretch to think any would be stupid enough to try intimidating her. Trying to appear large when you were the size of a tube of lip-balm was a ridiculous thought. It was more reasonable to assume this was an attempt at... surrender?
No, it was a request for peace.
Imelda narrowed her eyes at the human. Her ship was still exploring the human internet and chewing on a translation program. It would be a few more days at least before it had a prototype for her that wasn't just the names of places. So she had no idea what the human had actually said to her. However, that didn't matter. This human's wild stunt had given her something she wanted. A way to diffuse the situation.
Imelda let herself visibly relax.
She stood straighter, her weapon dropped back into resting position, and her scowl faded. Imelda glanced at the human aircraft pointedly and they soon scattered. The mare attempted to follow one with her eyes, but the human on the ground tried to speak to her. She looked down at it and it immediately went quiet. What was the best course of action here? Imelda tilted her head and gave the little creature a bored stare. It tried to say something again. She cut it off after a few seconds. "You are wasting your time. I can't understand you." The human seemed surprised by her response. Mysteriously, it attempted to tell her something yet again. The unicorn raised a curious brow. This was unexpected. She thought it'd shut up and leave after she spoke in her own language.
She peeked over her shoulder and caught two of the helicopters making wide circles around her mine carts. The third seemed to be inspecting the damage to the fence she had caused. The fourth was flying off to look at the rest of the mine. The last one was still grounded in front of her. Interesting.
Imelda chose to ignore the human attempting to make contact with her and sat down. Now with her fore-hooves free the pony began poking her data pad. She'd rested, discovered a new mine, and managed to avoid starting the fight early. It was about time she got moving again. She brought up her ship's map and easily located herself. It took Imelda a few taps to determine her route from here, meanwhile she could hear one of the helicopters drifting somewhere behind her. It was spying over her shoulder at what she was typing. Did it matter? Probably not. Imelda continued with what she was doing, which was simply figuring out what direction she needed to head next.
Now oriented, the unicorn stood up and stretched. The human beneath her stumbled back, stuttering something that sounded like begging. She focused on it and snorted once. She flicked her head to the side as if saying, "get out of my way." Surprisingly, the human spun around and rushed back to his helicopter which then rejoined the others flying around her. It made Imelda uncomfortable to have five enemy aircraft tagging along, but they hadn't done anything but block her path or study her. So the mercenary did her best to ignore them and continued on her way towards the city of Perth.
