My Little Starcraft: Friendly Fire is Magic

Chapters

D02: And here I thought it said "Nuclear Lunch Detected"
D03: Quid-Pro-Quo
D04: Mare Sara... just add water
D05: Is this another bug-hunt?
D06: Always expand before the two week mark
D07: Have I mentioned how heterosexual I am, today?
D08: The wind in your mane and the bugs in your teeth
D09: Any sufficiently advanced magic
D10: The truthiness is out there
D11: In the front, with the gear
Dirt Pony Cinematic 1
Prologue
D01: Those dang, dirty dirt ponies

D02: And here I thought it said "Nuclear Lunch Detected"

Admiral Brigadier Captain General Commodore Corporal Commander Pinkie Pie gazed down at the hustle and bustle of the primary command center’s main operational theatre: the control stations were arranged in a series of tiers, and a vast array of giant holo-screens depicted scenes of battle throughout the massive metropolis. The city had been a constant warzone for nearly a decade, but damage reports had begun to spike sharply in the last twenty minutes alone.

She let out a yawn and tightened the belt on her fuzzy, oversized bathrobe. She crossed the raised walkway, came to the central chair in the center of the hall, and flopped into the seat.

Somepony approached her, politely. “Um, there’s—”

Pinky Pie waved her away, irritated, and pointed at the deck officer to her immediate left. “You there: deploy the alpha protocol! With extreme prejudice!”

The officer nodded and pressed a button on his console. Pinkie Pie’s command chair leaned back and a footrest extended from the base. The chair was reclined far enough that she was laying flat on her back. She kicked her legs in the air in a failed attempt to sit upright.

“Excuse me, Admiral Brigadier Captain General Corporal Commander Pinkie Pie?”

“That’s Admiral Brigadier Captain General Commodore Corporal Commander, to you!” She waved a hoof in the air. “Couldja maybe reel in the extreme prejudice just a bit? Call it... excessive prejudice, maybe.”

The officer adjusted a dial and the chair propped her up at a forty-five degree angle.

“Almost there,” she said.

The chair lifted a few more degrees.

“Ahh, perfect!” she stretched her back with a satisfying crick. “How much prejudice is this, anyways?”

The officer glanced at the labels on the dial. “ ‘Severe’, Commander.”

“Perfect. Somepony write that down.” She pulled a can of soda out of a mini-fridge built into the base of the chair, then glanced at the busy crowd all around. “So what’s the big deal?”

“The city of New New New Ponytropolis is currently under attack.”

She tossed the can at him, bouncing it off his visor. “Yeah, no duh. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“...By aliens.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes snapped open. “Aliens? Like... from outer space?”

“Our main ground force reports visual confirmation of ‘freaky-ass crystal ponies’ that flew down in a ‘giant hovery crystal-ma-jig’ of some sort.”

“Flying? Why didn’t the missile thingies take them out? What am I pretending to give them full-medical-partial-dental for!?” She pointed at the array of holo-monitors. “Gimme a vid-feed on the main screen!”

The largest holo-screen flickered and switched to a direct video feed of the city’s main highway: a small army of marines and heavy vehicles were unleashing their combined firepower with reckless abandon. A squadron of aircraft circled the enemy like vultures.

Pinkie Pie squinted at the screen. “Drop a com-sat scan on quadrant three. Zoom and enhance!”

The view centered on the intense battle and closed in. The enemy was almost completely obscured by the constant barrage of bullets and explosions: the screen switched to a composite view of the command center’s sensor array: thermal-imaging, radar, and energy signatures all merged into a single video feed, bringing every little detail into view.

The enemy targets were a pair of normal-sized ponies with crystalline bodies and gemstone manes. They were advancing on the command center at a leisurely stroll, squinting at the barrage all around them. The one in front, a female, paused to take out a fancy-looking parasol made of gold and jewels: she opened it and leaned it against her shoulder, and a dome of energy glimmered into existence above her. A thick swarm of heavy assault gunships circled overhead, but the streams of machinegun fire plinked against the glowing hexagonal pattern harmlessly. Even the constant deluge of artillery blasts splashed off with no noticable effect.

“There’s just two of ’em!?” Pinkie Pie slammed her front hoof against the cushioned armrest of her chair. “We’re getting our flanks kicked by just two dudes!? I thought I told you to zoom and enhance!”

“We... we did, commander! This is the highest resolution we can manage!”

“Well do it again! And this time, enhance it so we’re winning!”

The officer went back to his console, frantically. “I could... replay a recording of a previous battle where we win! Would that work?”

“No... it hasn’t come to that. Not yet at least.” Pinkie Pie leaned forward and steepled her hooves. “What about those air dudes? I don’t recognize them.”

The pony to her right cleared her throat, very softly. “Um. Actually, they’re—”

“Ut-ut-ut!” Pinkie Pie waved the pony away again. “Don’t bother me with the details! I’m trying to think of a super-awesome battle plan!”

“That’s okay, but... well... I think—”

Pinkie Pie pointed at one of the officers on the lower deck. “You there! Army commander dude! Do we have any marines on the battlefield?”

“Indeed we do, Admiral Brigadier Captain General Commodore Commander Corporal Pinkie Pie. Seventeen whole battalions of marines.”

Pinkie Pie slapped her forehead. “Of course! I know what’ll work: we’ll send out even more marines!”

The army commander shook his head. “Impossible, Commander! We can’t—”

“Don’t you talk back to me! Marines solve everything!”

“Obviously,” he said, “but we don’t have any more in reserve. We’ve deployed every last one.”

Pinkie Pie flopped back into her chair. “Welp, I’m all out of ideas.”

Somepony tapped Pinkie Pie’s shoulder very gently. She turned to look, and flinched in alarm as she saw the bright yellow pony standing beside her chair: She had long pink hair and was dressed in a grey, skin-tight wetsuit covered with straps and stealth gadgets.

“Aaah! Fluttershy!?” Pinkie Pie leaped up and hid behind the back of the chair. “How long have you been there!?”

“Oh, not too long.” She looked away and pawed at the floor. “You, uh... told me to stay here while you went to the bathroom. Yesterday. They locked the doors and turned out the lights.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’re here now,” said Pinkie Pie. “What took you so long, anyways?”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak but Pinkie cut her off with a wave.

“Never mind that. We’ve got a pair of freaky-deaky aliens to wipe off the planet, and I’m all out of ideas!”

Fluttershy pointed at the main screen. “Those aircraft are pegasus units, and they’re attacking the aliens instead of us... right?”

“Yup. So?”

“Well, if the Pegasus are willing to help us, maybe the Unicorns will as well.”

Pinkie Pie frowned at her. “Unicorns...? How do you know if they’ll help us?”

“Well, we—”

Pinkie Pie spun around and pointed a hoof at Fluttershy’s nose. “You’re a filthy Unicorn spy, aren’t you!? Admit it! That’s how you know so much about unicorns! You’re one of them!”

“But—”

Several nearby officers whipped out giant rocket launchers and pointed them at Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie marched towards her, furious. “I knew I couldn’t trust anypony! Even after I took you in and cared for you all those years, you betrayed me!”

Fluttershy glanced to each side. “I-i-it’s not true! I can prove it, too!”

Pinkie squinted at her. “Oh yeah? You got two seconds.”

Fluttershy pointed at her forehead. “I don’t have a horn.”

Pinkie Pie stared at her forehead. “Hmm... so it seems. But! Are you a spy?”

“I’m your spy. I work for you.”

“Right, right. Very well then. Your trust is restored.” Pinkie Pie pointed at her own eyes, then at Fluttershy’s face. “...For now.”

The deck officers tucked their giant missile launchers back under their consoles and went back to work.

Fluttershy stroked a lock of her hair aside. “Right. So.”

Pinkie Pie bounced back into the command chair. “Yeah, the whole aliens thing. You got any bright ideas?”

“One.” She tapped at a nearby control panel, and a viewscreen lit up with a picture of a giant space-station in low-orbit: most of it was built to serve as a shipyard. “The Pegasus have just finished constructing a giant experimental battleship: the whole thing is practically made of guns, and nothing else. Its primary armament is a new plasma cannon that can punch through three and a half meters of neo-steel plate armor. It’s powered by a new type of fusion reactor, so it can only fire once or twice before recharging. If the plasma cannon can penetrate the alien’s energy shields, its secondary weapon batteries should be enough to finish them off.”

Pinkie Pie tilted her head. “Wow, you sure know a lot about experimental pegasus technology. We didn’t know that thing even existed before now!”

Fluttershy let out a rapid, staccato laugh. “Me? No! Why would... I mean, it’s not like I’m...” She stepped backwards and her eyes darted from side to side.

Pinkie Pie grinned at her. “You must be the best super-spy ever! Great work!”

She nodded. “Exactly right! I... am great spy! Thank you!”

Pinkie Pie stood up and gestured grandly. “Open communications with Pegasus High Command!”

A chorus of gasps echoed through the command center. Eventually, the main screen switched to a view of the Pegasus leader, Grand Admiral Hurricane, seated at the operational theatre of her impregnable orbital space station. She was dressed in a full admiral’s uniform, complete with epaulettes and a decorative helmet.

“Good afternoon, Admiral Brigadier Captain General Commodore Corporal Commander Pinkie Pie.” She turned to the side slightly. “Oh hey, Flutters. How’s it hangin’?”

Fluttershy gave her a slightly clenched smile. “I wouldn’t know, since we’ve never met!”

“So!” Hurricane said, “have you finally decided to surrender unconditionally and give us all your sweet, sweet minerals?

Pinkie Pie waved cheerfully at the imposing figure. “Ha, nopes! We’ve got a full scale alien invasion on our hooves. Busy busy!”

“Aliens?” Hurricane arched an eyebrow. “Like, from outer space and everything?”

She nodded. “Yup. They’re super-duper powerful, and we can’t fight ’em off alone. And if they aren’t stopped soon, they’ll probably try to blow up the world or something like in that one movie.”

“So what are you bothering me for? Deal with it.”

“Are you kidding? We got tanks and marines out there, and we didn’t even scratch ‘em!”

Hurricane gasped. “Tanks and marines? But... that blows up anything!”

“Yup. If we wanna survive, we’ll need flying dudes.” Pinkie leaned on her armrest and offered her rival a sultry look. “...Up for some two-vee-one?”

“You want me to team up with my worst enemy?” Hurricane stroked the chin of her helmet. “I dunno... has that ever been done before?”

“Probably not,” Pinkie Pie said, “but if we don’t do it now, we’re all toast.”

Hurricane gave her a single severe, solemn nod. “Very well. Two-vee-one.”

Pinkie Pie nodded back. “We got tanks and marines.”

“Surprise, surprise. Listen, did Flutter tell you about the battleship?”

Fluttershy smiled brightly. “Ha ha yes of course I told her that! Because I’m her spymaster, and I spy on pegasuses all the time!”

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Look, just launch that battleship thingy.”

Hurricane grinned. “It’s on its way.”

“Captain on deck!”

The bridge crew all stood up and saluted as Captain Spitfire marched to the helm. “Status report?”

“The HMS Unwieldy is go for combat operations! Primary magazines are fully loaded, and the anti-missile point defence grid is online. The ‘Naginata’ mega-blaster is ready for deployment, but the blue-fusion reactor core is only at forty five percent energy. We only have enough power for one shot.”

“With this ship, we’ll only need one shot.” Spitfire nodded to the communications officer. “What about the playlist?”

“We loaded everything from your iPod and set it to play each album randomly.”

“Switch to manual override and queue up the soundtrack for ‘Legendary Star-Fighter Laser Saga Thirteen’.”

“Yes ma’am!”

Spitfire pointed at the tactical officer. “Divert all power from shields and dump the energy into the core weapon systems!”

“We, uh, don’t have any shields. Ma’am. You stripped them out to make room for additional guns and ammunition.”

“Well that saves us some time.” Spitfire tapped a button on her console and opened a communications channel. “Tac-Com: this is the HMS Unwieldy, requesting permission to embark.”

Grand Admiral Hurricane’s voice came through the speaker. “Permission granted, Captain. I hereby charge you with operation ‘Hammer of Heaven’. Your objectives are as follows: Locate the enemy dudes and blow them up... by any means necessary.”

Spitfire saluted. “It’ll be my honor.”

“Grand Admiral out.”

Spitfire pointed at the communications officer. “Contact the station and have them release all docking clamps.”

The officer nodded. A moment later, all sense of gravity gave way: the ship fell into the atmosphere below and began tipping forward, and the bridge crew struggled to keep ahold of their consoles.

Spitfire climbed back into her chair and held on tight. “This ship isn’t flying... it’s plummeting! What the heck’s going on?” She looked around, watching the officers tumbling through the air and bouncing off the walls. “Helmspony!! Where the heck is the helmspony!?”

One of the officers looked back at her. “We don’t have a helmspony!”

“Why not!? Nevermind! Somepony grab ahold of the navigational console!” Spitfire scanned the various panels and controls. “Wait a second... we don’t have a navigational console! Why don’t we have a navigational console?”

The officer swam over to her chair and shouted over the roar of atmospheric entry. “The HMS Unwieldy doesn’t have any maneuvering thrusters!”

“Why not!?”

“You told the designers to remove all mobility systems to make room for more guns!”

“Hey, yeah... I did say that.” She slammed her hoof on the armrest. “Everypony, fire all weapons! I want our entire ammunition supply expended before we hit the ground!”

“Yes ma’am!”

The few officers still at their posts began pressing every button in sight. Massive streams of cannon fire surged out of the vessel, filling the upper atmosphere with a thick cloud of red-hot ordinance.

Spitfire slammed a hoof against her armrest. “Fire faster! Mash dem buttons!”

“We’re mashing as fast as we can, ma’am! We can’t—”

The intense heat and pressure of atmospheric entry wreathed the nose of the ship with flames, and the bridge’s viewing windows shattered apart. Spitfire clung to her chair as the bridge crew went tumbling into the wild blue yonder. The surface of the planet loomed below them: the ash-grey skyscrapers of New New New Ponytropolis seemed like a tiny model city.

Spitfire clenched her teeth and climbed up to the front of the bridge, her mane whipping about wildly. She reared up and thrust a defiant hoof to the sky as her battleship plummeted.

“I! Regret! Nothing!”

Pinkie Pie watched the display screen as the armored hull of the HMS Unwieldy fell through the lower atmosphere and crashed into the city. The vessel impacted the ground nose first with a deafening thud and its spine bent at an angle. The vessel remained balanced upright for a moment, then fell onto its back with enough force to quake the city.

Pinkie Pie tossed aside a half-empty bag of popcorn. “Talk about a disappointment... if Dirt Ponies had built that thing, it would have exploded in a huge ball of fire! It would’a been mushroom shaped, with a bunch of expanding fire-rings and everything.”

Hurricane sighed, exasperated. “Whelp, I’m all out of ideas.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Yeah, same here. I say we hide a underground for a million years and devolve into horrible mole-ponies. Anyone else game?”

Fluttershy cleared her throat, gently.

Pinkie Pie flinched in alarm. “Fluttershy! Didn’t see you there. What took you so long, anyways? We’ve got a full scale alien invasion on our hooves here!”

“We, uh... we have a launch silo, right?”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Like, fifty of ’em. Why?”

“And are they armed...?”

“Yeah. So?”

Fluttershy nodded her on, encouragingly.

“I’m not seeing your so-called point here, Flutter. Why don’t you stick to spy-stuff, and leave the strategic thinking to us commanders?”

“Never mind.” Fluttershy took out a sniper rifle and activated the built in laser target designator. “Call off the attack and bring the forces back to a defensive position at least five hundred meters away from the enemy. I’ll try and take care of this.”

“Yeah, like a single sniper rifle will do us any good.” Pinkie Pie glanced back just as Fluttershy spread her wings and flew towards the exit. “Whoa! You can fly!?”

Fluttershy immediately dropped to the floor. “Aaah-ha-ha! Jumping! I was jumping! Spies can jump like, really good! We all get special jumping training in spy college and I gotta now go excuse me!”

Pinkie Pie settled back into her seat. “Wow. Jumping and invisibility? Being a spy must be totally sweet.”

Silence descended upon the battlefield. Executor Rarity peered out from under her parasol. The sky was clear of projectiles and the rain of chemical explosions had come to an end.

She folded up the parasol and put it away. “Well, finally! This planet has the strangest weather phenomenons I’ve ever seen. But environmental hazards are just another part of being an interstellar diplomat, I suppose.”

Blueblood scrunched his eyes shut and tapped the bridge of his nose. “Executor, I very much doubt this barrage was a naturally occurring—”

“Ut-ut-ut,” she said, “still another eleven minutes of gratuitous denial left. Shall we press on?”

“Of course, Executor.”

They continued walking down the main thoroughfare at a leisurely stroll. The crowd of soldiers and vehicles pulled far back enough that they were barely visible.

“Not much of a welcome party so far,” she said.

“Do you think we frightened them?”

“I don’t see why. We have yet to take any hostile action at all.”

“But what of our advanced technology? Perhaps they...” Blueblood’s voice trailed off and his pace slowed. “Executor? What’s that on the ground?”

Rarity looked ahead at a tiny dot of intense red light. She jogged towards it and knelt down for a closer look. “How odd... it appears to be a beam of light, optically amplified via the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.” She looked back at Blueblood “Warp in a ‘Lense’, would you? There’s a dear.”

His eyes flared with psionic energy and a swirling vortex of blue light appeared in the air nearby. The warp field collapsed and the light faded, revealing a large hovering diamond attached to an articulate gold lattice. The gemstone twitched left and right, alert and observant. It focused on the tiny red dot, then turned to them with an affirmative bleep.

Blueblood nodded to Rarity. “Point of origin has been identified. Shall we go?”

“Indeed.”

Blueblood’s eyes flared again, and a field of blue energy surrounded them both. When the bubble faded away, they were standing in a different sector of the city. The Lense nodded towards a nearby lifeform: a yellow pony with pink hair, dressed in a skin-tight grey suit. She was crouching behind a short wall of rubble and pointing a long metal weapon down the street.

Rarity stepped forward and cleared her throat. “Pardon me?”

The yellow pony squealed and spun aroun, weapon at the ready. The bright red dot glowed on Rarity’s forehead for a moment longer, then vanished as the weapon let out an affirmative bleep. The pony stared at it for a moment, then rapidly pushed a button. “Oh-no-no-no-abort-abort-abort oh pretty please abort!”

Rarity offered her an elegant bow. “Greetings and well met. I know our sudden appearance must have startled you greatly, but we mean you no harm.”

Fluttershy’s eyes darted to the sky briefly, and sweat dripped down her forehead. “Oh. That’s... nice.”

“We are the Crytoss, and we come to form a peaceful alliance. Would you be so kind as to introduce us to your world leaders? There is much to discuss, and time is precious.”

“Oh? Oh! Yes of course! I’ll... go get them! Right now!”

Rarity smiled. “Marvelous. We’ll wait right here.”

“S’cuse me!” The native pony snapped her wings out and glided low across the highway at a breakneck pace.

Rarity watched her go, smiling politely. “There, see? There’s no problem that can’t be solved with a little courtesy and understanding.”

“As you say, Executor.”

Templar Blueblood took a moment to smooth out his mane. Rarity shuffled her hooves and adjusted the collar of her robe.

A moment later, the roof of the distant command center opened up. Rarity watched as a cluster of over fifty white contrails streaked into the sky and arced high overhead before descending directly towards them.

She leaned towards Blueblood and pointed at the trails of white smoke. “What do you suppose those are?”

Pinkie Pie watched the main viewscreen intently: the massive barrage of cruise missiles slammed into district seven of New New New Ponytropolis, incinerating more than a dozen city blocks with a mountain of radioactive fire. A series of tightly packed mushroom clouds rose up, many of which had even more mushroom clouds rising from their tops. The change in temperature and air pressure dispersed the densely polluted clouds above for the first time in a century. Flash fires washed across the roads like a tsunami, but sputtered out soon after they spread: there was no oxygen left to burn or breathe.

Pinkie Pie thrust her hooves upward. “Whoooo! Now that’s what I call blow’d up!”

The command crew all cheered together, and paper streamers and confetti filled the air. The celebration halted immediately as Flutteshy’s voice came over the loudspeakers.

“Um... commander?”

“Hey, you made it out!” said Pinkie Pie. “So how’d it go? Did the aliens get totally blow’d up, or super-duper-extra blow’d up?”

Fluttershy pressed herself back against a wall and smiled nervously at the two crystal ponies in front of her: Their elaborate golden robes were scuffled and grease-stained and their manes were now singed and tangled.

Fluttershy lifted her walkie-talkie. “Yeah... about that.”

Blueblood cleared his throat. “Personal plasma shields are holding at eighty-nine percent.”

“Eighty...!?” Fluttershy swallowed. “So... um. You’re probably... wondering...”

“Let’s try this again.” Rarity stepped forward, cleared her throat, and spoke emphatically. “Weee. Are heeere. To heeelp you. Take us...” She paused to point at herself. “...To your leeeader.”

Fluttershy tapped the buttons on her walkie talkie. “Well, there’s a lot of a lot of protocol to go through. I’m not sure if—”

A shimmer of blue light gleamed over the alien’s bodies.

“Personal plasma shields fully regenerated,” Blueblood said.

Fluttershy grinned at them both. “I’d be perfectly happy to help you right away!”

“Thank you,” said Rarity. “Now then. Your leader?”

“Well, um... which one do you mean?”

“Your world leader.”

Blueblood cleared his throat, politely. “Pardon, Executor. The surveyance data suggests there are three primary factions, all vying for dominance.”

“Ah yes, of course. Silly me.” She nodded to Fluttershy. “Who are the leaders of each major faction?”

“Well. Let’s see. There’s Commander Pinkie Pie, in command of the Dirt Ponies. Then there’s—”

“Wait-wait-wait,” said Blueblood. “Did you say Dirt Ponies?”

“Yes. They’re... that is, we’re named after the planet.”

“And what’s the planet named?”

“Dirtonis.”

Blueblood stared at her for a moment. “You named an entire planet after earth? After soil and rocks!? Who even does that?”

Rarity raised a hoof. “Let us not be judgmental, shall we?” She nodded to Fluttershy. “Please, continue.”

“There’s Grand Admiral Hurricane, who leads the pegasus ponies. Finally, there’s Professor Trixie, dean of the Unicorn University Ministry. They’re a very small group, but very powerful.” She leaned close and whispered harshly. “They have magic!”

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “You mean psionics?”

“I guess. We just call it magic.”

Rarity bit her lower lip and said nothing.

“So! Which leader did you want to meet with?”

Rarity nodded. “All of them.”

“Right. I’ll just...” Fluttershy gasped, eyes wide. “All of them!? You mean at the same time, all in the same place!?”

Rarity shrugged. “Why not? We’re here to speak with all this planet’s sapient races, as friends and allies.”

“No-no-no! You can’t just—”

“I don’t see why not.” Rarity walked towards the distant command center, head held high. “I’m sure they’ll understand as soon as they hear what we have to say.”

D03: Quid-Pro-Quo

The command center at the heart of New New New Ponytropolis, the capital of planet Dirtonis, reverberated with furious voices and stamping hooves. Its main amphitheater was packed with ponies of all races, all types and colors, and all were dressed in a dazzling variety of uniforms: military officers, government officials, scientific experts, and ultra-wealthy business executives. The ruling class of an entire world had been assembled overnight via the Crytoss’s advanced teleportation technology... though the technology had mysteriously failed to include any weapons or explosives they might have carried. Everypony was shoving and yelling at each other, and a steady stream of soda-cans and plastic bottles sailed through the air.

Executor Rarity and Templar Blueblood stood on the central stage, watching the sea of utter chaos and hostility. Rarity cleared her throat several times, with no results.

“Excuse me?” Rarity leaned closer to the microphone, tapped it twice, and cleared her throat. “Excuse me, ponies?”

A glass bottle sailed out of the crowd and struck her shoulder. The bottle shattered instantly, and her skin-tight forceshield rippled with light.

She nodded to Blueblood. “Would you please?”

He took a deep breath, stuck the tip of his hoof in his mouth, and let out an ear-splitting whistle that vibrated the floor slightly. The crowd settled down and stared up at them.

“Thank you.” Rarity turned back to the microphone. “Now you’re probably wondering why we’ve teleported you all here today. There’s—”

“Professor Trixie has an even better question!” shouted the leader of the Unicorns. “What’s up with those nukes? Trixie distinctly remembers agreeing to no nukes—and no rushing—for at least twenty minutes!”

The pegasus leader, Admiral Hurricane, let out an exasperated sigh. “If you’re getting attacked by the twenty-minute mark, it’s not a rush anymore. It’s just a regular attack.”

Trixie pounded her hoof against the podium. “Twenty minutes no rush no nukes! How complicated is that!?”

Commander Pinkie Pie spoke through a mouthful of corn chips. “Yeah, no, that was me. My bad.”

“We had a deal, you guys! We had a deeeeal!!”

“What are you complaining about? We were nuking aliens in our own city! We didn’t hit any of your dudes, even by accident.”

Hurricane nodded. “Intel from the pegasus air corps confirms that statement. The alpha commando team assigned to assault force Prometheus lost no dudes whatsoever to nuclear bombardment.”

Trixie glowered at Pinkie Pie. “Why would you even build nuke silos in the first place if you promised not to use them?”

Pinkie Pie tossed the bag of corn chips over the balcony. “Listen, you believed that whole ‘no nukes’ thing because it was a lie we told you. Now, we need you to believe a different lie: We knew about the aliens all along and built nukes to save the planet from an invasion.”

Hurricane snorted. “Well you did a bang-up job of that, didn’t you? You didn’t even scuff their manes.”

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Listen, we’ll take care of it. We’ve got a super-secret science project that should wipe ’em out completely. Whatever it is, it’s gonna make nukes look like sugar cookies.”

“We’re standing right here,” said Rarity. “We can hear you.”

Pinkie Pie smiled at them brightly. “It’s cool! I promise we won’t use any super-sciencey weapons for at least twenty minutes. Seriously.”

Rarity stared up at her, slack-jawed.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Forget about her,” she said, “Trixie is sure there’s much more productive things our races can achieve if we work together.”

Rarity smiled up at her. “Oh, certainly! I’d be happy to discuss the philosophical ramifications of—”

“So you’ve got spaceships, right? What are they powered by?”

“Well... if you must know, we use crystal Pylons to power our technology.”

“Magic crystals?”

“Psionic crystals.”

Trixie arched an eyebrow. “Sounds kind of new-agey. You’re not a bunch of space-hippies, are you?”

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “...Space hippies?”

“Nevermind. How do the crystals work?”

“Our technology allows us to transmit matter and energy over vast distances: Our nexae act as receivers that draw energy out of the ‘great psionic matrix’. Our Pylons then distribute it amongst nearby structures and vehicles, without the need for fuel or cables.”

“Yeah, yeah. But where does that power come from? How do you generate it?”

“Well, it’s solar energy.”

“Solar...?” Trixie shot upright in her seat, wide eyed. “Holy crap! You really are space hippies! You’re all ‘eco-friendly’ and stuff, aren’t you?”

The crowd murmured rapidly.

“That’s not exactly—”

“Answer the question!” Trixie shouted. “Are you now, or have you ever been a space-hippie!?”

Rarity cleared her throat. “We gather solar energy by constructing a megalithic quantum-crystal and teleporting it into the center of a main-sequence star. As long as the crystal remains in physical contact with superheated plasma, it draws energy directly from the process of thermonuclear fusion. We only do this to uninhabited stars, because they tend to go supernova after a few dozen millennia.”

The amphitheater fell silent.

“No way!” Trixie said. “We gotta get us some-a dat!”

Rarity cleared her throat. “We will happily show you how to draw energy from the great psionic matrix, but first we must discuss—”

“Forget the energy: Trixie bets we could use it to build an even bigger nuke! That’d be sweet-ass!”

Pinkie Pie slammed her hoof against her own podium. “We’ve been over this before! Nukes are exclusive Dirt Pony technology. It’s our thing, it’s what we do. You can’t just go building nukes without asking us first. It’s rude!”

“Oh, sure. Trixie promises not to.” Despite her best efforts, she broke into a sputtering laugh. “...For at least twenty minutes! No rush, right?”

The crowded amphitheater burst into laughter.

Rarity cleared her throat, firmly and loudly. “We can discuss the application of new technologies at a later date. There are more important issues to discuss.”

All three world leaders gasped in disbelief. “More important than weapons!?”

“Yes. Much more important.” She raised her voice and spoke with an elegant, well-rehearsed tone. “Our galaxy is poised on the very verge of catastrophe. A terrible, ancient evil has begun to gather its strength, devouring whole worlds in its insatiable lust for power.”

“So why don’tcha blow ’em up?” Hurricane said.

“It is not so simple as that. The Great Devourer cannot be slain by conventional weapons.”

Hurricane shrugged. “Nah. You just need bigger guns.”

Rarity clenched her teeth. “The Great Devourer is a flawless fusion of both biological and psionic evolution. It’s ‘body’ is comprised of a network of infested planets. It’s ‘mind’ is pure cosmic energy, distributed throughout an endless swarm of horrific monsters. It is immortal.”

“Wow, that sucks. Whaddya expect us to do about it?”

“Join us,” she said. “The Crytoss’s beloved home planet has fallen. Our once-great armada has been scattered and weakened. We do our best to sever the devourer’s tendrils whenever they reach for new worlds, but can do little more than slow its progress... we are helpless to defeat it entirely.” Executor Rarity gestured grandly at the gathering of ponies before her. “We cannot do this alone. My task, as Executor, is to seek out fledgling civilizations—those on the verge of discovering space travel—and approach them as allies. We must stand together, united as one, or we will surely fall into oblivion.”

Pinkie Pie cracked open another can of soda. “What’s in it for us?”

Blueblood darted forward, furious. “You dare exploit us for your own selfish—!?”

Rarity shoved him aside. “Great rewards and opportunities await you!” she said. “If you agree to aid us, we will share with you our great wisdom. You will gain the weapons and defenses needed to safeguard not only your own planet, but countless others in need!”

Pinkie Pie arched an eyebrow. “Weapons, huh?”

“And more! Spacecraft, to explore the stars and acquire vast natural resources. Terraforming tools, to cleanse your planet of pollution and build entire colonies. Philosophies that will bring bring friendship and harmony to all your species. Never again will your people know war, hunger, or poverty!”

There was a tense silence as Pinkie Pie regarded the glittering crystal pony.

“So... what kind of weapons?”

Blueblood frowned. “This enemy cannot be defeated by mere weaponry! If we are to achieve victory, we will require discipline. Valor. Honor. A weapon is merely one tool of many, and those who rely on one tool—to the exclusion of all others—are weak in both mind and spirit.”

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Ooooh! That’s some tough talk coming from a stallion in a prom dress!”

Hurricane sputtered. “Oh wow... seriously? I thought it was a bathrobe or something! It really is a dress, isn’t it?”

Blueblood looked down at himself briefly, and held up a hoof-full of the shimmering gold fabric. “This is a ceremonial robe! It’s a sacred tradition!”

“Whatever floats yer boat,” said Pinkie Pie. “Did your husband buy it for you?”

The crowd broke into laughter.

Rarity pursed her lips. “Have you even listened to a single word I’ve said?”

“Oh, I heard it,” said Pinkie Pie. “I just can’t get over how funny you sound... you’re almost as stuffy as a unicorn. Seriously, you’re all like... hold on. Just a sec.” Pinkie Pie ducked behind her podium, rummaged through a few cardboard boxes, and came up with a monocle and a tea-cup. “We ahh not amused!”

Rarity clenched her jaw. “That’s hardly—”

“No-no-wait, here we go. This is what unicorns sound like!” Pinkie Pie put on a top hat and a plastic moustache. “Cheerio, chaps! Smashing good time, eh? Evening, Guv’nah! Nevermind the bollocks!”

The crowd below immediately feel to raucous laughter. Several ponies slapped each other on the back, and a few grew faint from exertion.

Pinkie Pie waved the teacup around. “Am I wrong? I mean, somepony... anypony... tell me if I’m wrong!”

Trixie struggled to stay upright: she was laughing hard enough that tears were streaming down her cheeks. “No, you’re totally right! We’re so lame!”

Rarity stamped a hoof. “The galaxy is in danger! This is serious!”

“Right, right.” Pinkie Pie tossed her costume aside and sat down. “Serious times are serious. So, let me see if I understand this: You Crytoss hippies got your home planet blow’d up, along with most of your space fleet, and now you’re running around like chickens. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To beg for help.”

Rarity clenched her jaw. “Of all the—!”

“No-no-no, we’ll totally help you out. Here’s the deal.” She leaned back in her chair. “We’ll let you join us. We’ll be in charge of everything, and you have to give us all sorts of cool new laser guns and spaceships and anti-matter thing-a-majigs.”

“And battleships,” Hurricane said.

“And nukes,” Trixie said. “And they have to be bigger than the ones we have now.”

“Yeah that too,” said Pinkie Pie. “Give us all that stuff, and we’ll beat the stuffing out of your great devourer by the end of the week. Then, if we win, you have to give us all your sweet, sweet mineral crystals. And do whatever we say. Like... forever.”

Rarity stared at her, slack jawed.

Pinkie Pie slurped up the last of her soda and tossed the can aside. “So? Is it a deal?”

Rarity took a deep breath. “If we do grant you access to our weapons technology—and I want you to be utterly forthright with us—will you promise not to turn them on us as soon as the war is over?”

“Oh, I absolutely promise. Totally. For real.” A smile crept over her face, and she struggled to speak through the laughter. “pfff no rush twenty minutes!”

All three world leaders fell to the floor, laughing uncontrollably. The amphitheater once again echoed with giggles and guffaws.

Rarity and Blueblood stared at the gathering for a full minute. They then looked at each other, very gradually; only their eyes moved.

Ensign Sapphire stepped onto the bridge of the Executor’s Flagship, but hesitated when he saw the Executor herself standing at the helm. “Executor Rarity? You’re back?”

“Mm hmm,” She said without looking up from her command console.

Sapphire glanced to Templar Blueblood, who was levitating a clipboard and filling out paperwork. “So... was the operation a success?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Not exactly.”

Sapphire’s eyes widened. “They declined!? But that’s never happened before!”

Rarity stroked a lock of curly hair aside. “Well, you know how it is. There’s a first time for everything.”

“Such a terrible shame,” he said as he approached the observation window. “I suppose there’s nothing we can do about...” His voice trailed off as he saw the planet below: the Diplomatic fleet was moving in a line and bathing the surface of the planet with pillars of searing blue light: the raw energy of an entire star splashed against the planet, boiling oceans into steam and charring mountains into cinders. The fleet left behind a wide swath of glowing green emerald in its wake: a vast ocean of smooth crystal, its surface frozen for all time in the midst of a turbulent storm.

“And we’re... glassing the planet. Okay. Why are we glassing the planet?”

The Executor’s voice remained bland. “Well, you know how it is. There’s a first time for everything.”

Sapphire stared back at the Executor and her Templar bodyguard. “So. How are we going to explain this to the Conclave?”

Rarity and Blueblood spoke together, sternly, without looking up. “We don’t.”

One month later, the colony ship “Percheron” glided through the far reaches of space. The vessel’s hull had been cobbled together from the few orbital space stations that survived unscathed, and it now carried the last surviving members of the three pony races. Pegasus, Unicorns and Dirt Ponies all huddled together, wrapped under blankets or hiding in rickety shacks made of spare fencing and sheet metal. Despite the Percheron’s massive interior, conditions were filthy and overcrowded: for every system the engineers brought online, two others collapsed or sputtered out. The strictly rationed food and water left the ponies with precious little energy to spare, but they still found things to argue and complain about. The issue of race or species was not discussed.

A small group of ponies had gathered in the ship’s briefing room to assess the situation. The main screen showed a video replay of the grand amphitheatre where the leaders of Dirtonis had negotiated with the visiting Crytoss dignitaries. The video zoomed in—momentarily shaky and out of focus—on Pinkie Pie as she took up her monocle and teacup.

The ponies crowded around the table all turned to look at Pinkie Pie, who was giggling uproariously. She clutched at her sides and beat her hoof against the table repeatedly.

“Miss Pie?”

“No-no-wait!” she said. “Just... just wait! There’s another bit!”

They turned back to the screen, and the video showed the commander adding a top-hat and plastic mustache to her repertoire.

“Pfffsh... ‘Nevermind the bollocks!’ I swear it gets funnier every time!” she leaned against the table, struggling to breathe. She finally regained control of herself and leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “Ahhh... good times!”

“Miss Pie, please.”

“Yeah, what?” Pinkie turned to look, and flinched in alarm as she caught sight of Fluttershy. “Whoa! How long have you been there!?”

“Since we evacuated,” she said.

“Well don’t sneak up on me like that.” Pinkie Pie pointed at the monitor. “Hey, can we play it again? Just set it on loop or something.”

“We have enough food and water for two months, and only enough breathable atmosphere for seven days. I’ve been correlating as much data as I can, and I have a couple different plans that might help us survive.”

Pinkie Pie opened a small foil package and began munching on candy corn. “Yeah, cool. Lemme know how it goes.”

“I don’t know which plan is best, so I gathered everypony here to help decide.” Fluttershy tapped the data-pad and began reading aloud. “First plan: contact the Crytoss fleet and apologize for—”

“Nope.”

“Why not? The Crytoss seemed genuinely—”

“The short answer? Cause it’s lame.”

Fluttershy pursed her lips. “And what’s the long answer?”

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes. “Cause it’s laaaaaame.”

“Oh. Well...” Fluttershy skipped to the next datafile. “Second plan: take all the weapons we brought with us—for reasons I don’t understand—and disassemble them to build a large hydroponics facility inside the colony ship. This will provide not only food, but breathable air. The only thing we need is water and energy: we’ll have to collect ice from a nearby comet, and build solar panels on the surface of the—”

“Wait-wait-wait. Hydroponics? Solar panels? That sounds environmentally friendly. What are you, a tree-hugging space hippie or something? Spend all day hugging space-trees? What’s next: a recycling project?”

“But it’s—”

“I’ll tell you what it is: Laaaaame! Next plan.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “We land on a nearby planet, harvest vital resources, and use our combined technology to build a fleet of battlecruisers.”

“Battle... cruisers?” Pinkie Pie quirked an eyebrow. “What’re those?”

“They’re like battleships,” Fluttershy said, “but with less ‘battle’. And more... ‘cruise’. They have enough armor and weapons to defend against enemy fleets, but enough endurance to sustain our population while we search for a habitable planet.”

Pinkie Pie snapped upright in her seat. “Awesome! Let’s do that one! Then, once we have a colony, we can finally wipe out those ugly pegasus and unicorns once and for all!”

“We, uh. Need their help.”

“What?”

Fluttershy set the data-pad in the middle of the table and projected a holographic model of a battlecruiser in the air. “If we’re going to build a battlecruiser that can survive in deep space, we need to combine all our technology and expertise. We need pegasus shipwrights to design and construct the hull. We need Unicorn scientists to develop a new energy reactor, and invent weapons that can damage the Crytoss’s indestructible energy shields. And we’ll need Dirt Ponies to cultivate supplies and provisions, and train Marines that can repel boarding parties and capture ground targets.”

Pinkie Pie stared at Fluttershy for some time.

“Wow. That’s... a lot of big words. What does it mean?”

“It means that if we want to survive, we all have to work together.”

Pinkie Pie reared up in her chair and let out a fearsome cry. “Never!!!” She shook her foil bag in the air, defiantly. A single piece of candy corn fell onto the table and spun on the hardwood surface.

Pinkie Pie shook the bag again, but nothing came out. She hopped off her chair and rummaged through a nearby stack of boxes, tossing empty bags and bottles over her shoulder. After several minutes of fruitless searching she went back to the table and rested her chin on the edge. Her eyes fixed upon the single piece of candy, and her lower lip trembled.

“We, um, could make more,” Fluttershy said.

Pinkie Pie looked up at her, eyes wet and glittering.

“I mean... if we had battlecruisers.”

“Gimme dat.” Pinkie Pie swiped a microphone off a nearby control console.

The beleaguered refugees of the once proud Dirtonis looked up as the colony ship’s intercom carried the voice of a cheerful Dirt Pony.

“Ponies of Dirtonis! I know you’re all scared and stuff, but I have a wonderful, amazing announcement to make: Our battle against the Crytoss has ended in total victory! Thanks to all our brave soldiers, we sent the Crytoss armada running like a bunch of little babies and saved Dirtonis from an alien invasion!”

The refugees looked around, quizzically, but nopony had anything to say.

“Now before you celebrate, I want you to know that this total victory came at a great sacrifice: In order to save the planet, we had to blow it up. But that doesn’t matter, because we’ll find new planets! Planets with even cooler stuff on ‘em! The stars are out there, waiting for us, and I have a plan to take us there: by building the greatest super-battlecruiser ever! This wicked-cool experimental spaceship will house and protect us on our long voyage, and will be the ultimate weapon against our true enemies!

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, guys... who is this great enemy? Is it the Unicorns, and their cowardly, sneaky magic spells and invisible dudes? Or maybe the Pegasus, and their I’m-gonna-launch-airstrikes-before-you-even-have-a-single-missile-tower shenanigans? Or maybe it’s the brave and noble Dirt Ponies with their invincible tanks-and-marines combo that never-ever fails to blow everything up! Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s none of these! The real enemy is the filthy space-hippie Crytoss, and they will pay for this totally-not-provoked attack on our innocent and defenceless homeworld! This will not stand!”

The crowd of ponies, bedraggled though they were, stood up with their heads held high and a new glint in their eyes.

“I hereby declare a new government: a lean, mean, space-fighting machine that will henceforth be known as ‘The Confettiracy’! And I, as Chancellor Pinkie Pie, hereby declare war... on outer-space! Are you psyched? ‘Cause I’m psyched! Who’s with me!?”

The ponies forgot their weary hunger in an instant, and let out a mighty cheer. Members of all three races hugged each other. Full-grown stallions cried manly tears of concentrated liquid pride. The love they each felt for their own races felt small and distant now... insignificant compared to the burning passion than now pulsed through them.

Pinkie Pie clicked the Microphone off and tossed it to Fluttershy, who frantically juggled it in the air a few times. “She’s all yours, Flutter. Divert all resources to the construction of a machine that makes candy corn. And lemme know when that battlecruiser’s done, too.”

The ponies at the table watched Pinky Pie head towards the exit, humming to herself.

“Wait,” one of the stallions said, “why do you get to be the leader?”

Pinkie Pie shrugged. “I’m the only high ranking official who managed to escape from Dirtonis before it was blow’d up. Admit it: I’m the only pony experienced enough to make the tough decisions!”

The stallion frowned at her. “How did you get off the planet?”

“Great question! Have a present!” Pinkie Pie tossed the pony a brightly colored box with a shiny ribbon. The present exploded in a cloud of streamers and glitter, and when the debris cleared the stallion was wearing a T-shirt that read ‘Pinkie Pie is Best Chancellor’.

“Awesome!” the stallion said. “That totally explains everything!”

“Anytime, sugar!” Pinkie Pie left the room and closed the door behind her.

The remaining ponies turned to Fluttershy.

“Um... so,” she said. “Does anypony here know how to invent battlecruisers?”

There was a moment of silence. Somepony coughed.

She lowered behind the table slightly and nudged her long, pink hair over her face.

One of the pegasus nodded to her. “Actually, I was part of the engineering team that invented the HMS Unwieldy. I guess we could start with that.”

Another pegasus lifted a hoof. “Except this time, maybe we should put thrusters on it. You know... so it can fly around and stuff.”

Fluttershy took her datapad and opened a new file. “Thrusters! Good idea! Anything else?”

“Guns?” Everypony said at once.

“Right, right. Excellent.” Fluttershy added ‘hydroponics facility’ to the list. “Anything else?”

D04: Mare Sara... just add water

~ One year later ~

New Dirtonis, as colony planets went, was a rugged and unforgiving environment: the vast majority of its surface was arid plains and craggy mountains. There were no seas or oceans, and precious few lakes and rivers. The only two kinds of weather were sandstorms and smog. The only vegetation to speak of was sparse, prickly shrub. None of the local lifeforms were edible to the colonists, and the atmosphere was too thin for unprotected travel. The colonists had managed to crash several icy comets into the planet’s surface, adding precious water to the environment, but even these massive engineering projects had produced no noticeable effects. Scientists had insisted, publicly, that any form of terraforming would take several generations to complete. If the populace were angered by the apparent waste of time and effort, they were too weary and disheartened to revolt.

New Dirtonis’ capital city—still unnamed, as it was the only major city—was comprised entirely of environmentally sealed structures connected by a web of underground tunnels and highways. The environment wasn’t toxic, per se, but fresh oxygen and ideal air-pressure were costly to maintain. Although the buildings were structurally sound, they all looked faded and corroded: even brand new buildings tended to look scoured and patchwork by the time their construction was finalized.

The central structure, the command center itself, was the heart and brain of the colony. The place was always teeming with government officials and engineering technicians, but today was even busier than usual: the doors of the strategic briefing auditorium had been thrown open to the public. Ponies from all across the city now crowded into the massive hall video feeds ensured that the momentous event would be viewed by all.

The main lights dimmed and the noise from the crowd settled down immediately. Floodlights lit up the main presentation area, and the crowd watched as Chancellor Pinkie Pie entered the stage: she bounced along cheerfully, throwing presents and hoof-fulls of confetti into the crowd. She came to the central podium at last and leaned in front of the microphone.

“Heya, ponies! I just hopped back from our top-secret orbital research station, and boy are my hooves tired!” Pinkie Pie smiled at the audience. “Hey, just kidding! Actually, the station’s real purpose is to invent top secret new ships or the Confettiracy! While I was visiting, I had the honor of being transported by a special new dropship they came up with: it has an emergency medical facility built right into it, to keep our troops healthy. They’re calling it a ‘medivac’, and they asked me if I liked the design... y’know what I told ’em? I never medivac I didn’t like!”

She paused for a moment, grinning. The ramshackle crowd of burly, grizzled ponies remained quiet.

Pinkie Pie took the microphone off its stand and walked across the stage at a leisurely pace. “Seriously, folks, I learned a lot of interesting stuff while I was surveying all the new secret projects and upgrades being developed. Our scientists spend most of their time building cool new guns and bombs and stuff, but there’s other stuff too... civilian stuff. Stuff we can use to improve our medicine and industry and all that. I got to know the medivac pilot really well—great mare, great mare. We’re great friends. She’s thinking of retiring after the project is finished, and maybe becoming a scientist herself someday. She has a lot of experience as a battlefield medic, so you know what she wants to study?”

The loudspeakers played a recording of a drum roll, followed by a cymbal crash.

“Marine biology!”

Several seconds of silence passed. Somepony in the audience coughed.

Pinkie Pie slammed a hoof on the floor and the back wall of the stage flickered to life with a giant holographic projection: images of a massive military vessel loomed over the crowd and fast-paced patriotic techno-music boomed over the loudspeakers.

“I know what you ponies really came here for,” Pinkie Pie said, “and here it is! The very first super-ultra battlecruiser ever constructed: the DSS Terpsichore! Bristling with heavy burst lasers, dozens of anti-air chainguns, and the absolutely devastating Naginata plasma super-blaster, this is one spaceship that says: ‘look out, universe! If you don’t get out of my way right now, I won’t have to turn slightly to the side to blow you up!’ ”

The crowd cheered loudly enough to drown out the music, and the floor thundered with stamping hooves. Pinkie Pie waved at the crowd, taking the time to bask in the attention. It took several minutes for the audience to settle down.

“Now maybe you look at this thing and say, ‘dang, Pinkie! that’s a whole lot of guns, and nothing else.’ But you’d be wrong! The battlecruiser also has enough support systems to keep a thousand ponies safe and comfy, through even the longest deep-space voyage! It’s got huge cargo holds for storing raw materials, and internal factories that can make awesome tanks and guns! It’s everything you need to start a war!”

The holo-display switched to a slideshow presentation: a simple wireframe animation of the battlecruiser landing on a planet and building a progressively larger base of operations. The crowd oohed and aahed.

“Now I know what you’re thinking, guys and gals... you’re thinking: ‘Pinkie Pie? How can I get me summa ’dat?’ Well I’m gonna tell you right now! The Confettiracy’s great military geniuses have decided that if we want to step up the pace on the War on Space, we’re gonna need like a zillion of these things... and that means sweet, sweet minerals! The time has come, my ponies, for us to build new colonies. And we need your help!”

She waved a remote control at the screen and brought up a star-map of the local area.

“The New Dirtonis Space-Navy is now recruiting ponies to help expand our borders! We’re asking for the best of the best of the best to step forward and become the proud new owner of your very own planet!”

Pinkie Pie leaned against the side of her podium. “Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Pinkie Pie, I’m not nearly brave or tough or awesome enough to become a base Commander—”

A rainbow-maned pegasus, significantly smaller than her comrades, bounced up from the crowd and waved her hooves in the air. “I’m not! I’m totally not thinking that!”

“—But don’t give up hope! With the help of Chancellor Pinkie Pie’s elite fast-track military training, you too can become a brilliant strategic leader! Most military academies require ten years of advanced training, but if you volunteer for this special operation we guarantee you’ll be promoted to the rank of Elite Planetary War-Battler in minutes... nay, seconds!”

The rainbow-maned pegasus began shoving her way through the crowd. “Pick-me-pick-me-pick-me!!”

Pinkie Pie pointed at the crowd. “Okay now, I’m gonna need a volunteer. How about... you?”

One of the grizzled stallions in the front row—rippling with muscles and covered with scars—opened his mouth to speak, but the rainbow-maned pegasus slammed a hoof against his face and sent him tumbling backwards. “Mememe!”

“Sounds like we got a pony with spirit! Get on up here!”

The pegasus flew up onto the stage and waved at the crowd, smiling giddily. Pinkie Pie held the microphone towards her. “Hey there! Why don’t you tell us a little something about yourself?”

“Hi, everypony! My name is Rainb—”

Pinkie Pie pulled the microphone back. “That’s great! Now just follow along, and I’ll show you all of Chancellor Pinkie Pie’s super secret strategies for Elite Planetary War-Battlers!”

Pinkie Pie hugged Rainbow Dash around the neck and pulled her to one side of the stage. She went back to the podium and tapped at the controls: the main display screen went blank.

“First, we need to explain the fundamental rules of planetary war-battle engagements. Rule number one is: don’t get blow’d up!” A diagram of a Dirt Pony space marine appeared on the main screen. “Our scientists have discovered a powerful energy field that sustains all living things... we call this phenomenon ‘hit points.’ When your bod gets shot with bullets and lasers, your hit-points go flying off into space—along with your blood and organs and stuff. Scientists have discovered that getting blown up is a direct consequence of having lost all your precious hit points. Always remember to protect your vital hit points as if your life depended on it! Unless you’re standing next to something even more expensive than you. Then, try to protect its vital hit-points as if your life depended on it. Seriously, that stuff’s pricey.”

Pinkie Pie tapped the remote control and the screen went blank again.

“That’s it for rules. Next we need to explain the various objects you may encounter while war-battling. The first object is: Dudes!” Pinkie Pie pointed a remote control at the screen, and a line of text swished into view. “The ‘Dude’—sometimes referred to as the ‘Metric Dude’—is the fundamental unit of war. Remember: If it moves around and shoots the other guy, it’s a dude.”

Rainbow Dash stared up at the screen. “Should I be writing this down?”

“No worries!” Pinkie Pie said, “this training method is so effective we’re giving you the final exam before the lesson is even over! Now pay careful attention.” Pinkie Pie clicked the remote, and three black-and-white silhouettes appeared on the screen: a cute little puppy, a potted plant, and a CF/A-17 ‘Wraith’ space superiority fighter. “Now. Can you tell me which of these is a ‘dude’?”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes flicked between each of the silhouettes rapidly. “Okay. So. Dudes can move around... and they shoot the other guy.”

“Clock’s ticking!”

The audience hushed for a moment, then began chanting out suggestions: ‘the puppy, the puppy!’

Rainbow Dash pointed at the screen. “I’m, uh... I’m gonna go with the Wraith.”

Pinkie Pie locked eyes with her. “Is that your final answer?”

“...Yes.”

“You’re absolutely correct!”

Rainbow Dash reared up. “Woo!”

“Always remember that the ‘Dude’ is the fundamental unit of war! In order to win a planetary war-battle, you have to send your dudes over to the other guy and blow him up! It’s important to remember that dudes do not have great big sacks of hit-points, so you’ll need to build a whole bunch of ’em.” Pinkie Pie clicked the remote, and the images disappeared. “There are two more objects you may encounter: the second is the ‘Tower’, and the third is the ‘Thingy’. They definitely have great big sacks of hit-points, but neither of them can move around at all.”

Two pictures appeared on the screen: a stationary artillery cannon, and a command center.

“The object on the left is a ‘Tower’: it shoots the other guy, but can’t move around. Why would you ever build these things? Because the other guy also has dudes, and sometimes they’ll come over and try and blow you up!”

The crowd gasped.

“I know, I know... war is complicated. Anyways. The other object is a ‘Thingy,’ and they don’t move around or shoot the other guy. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Pinkie Pie, why would I ever build a thingy? They’re a complete waste of time!’ Well it turns out that Thingies allow you to build more dudes, and better dudes... sometimes referred to as ‘more-better’ dudes. You’ll have to build at least a few thingies whether you like it or not, but don’t go too crazy with ’em.”

The screen went blank again, and three new silhouettes appeared.

“Now for the second part of your exam. Can you tell me what kind of object each of these is?”

Dash looked up at the silhouettes, stroking her chin. “Okay. Yeah. That’s a missile turret, which... doesn’t move around... but does shoot the other guy. So it’s a Tower.”

A loud ding played over the loudspeakers. “That’s one!” said Pinkie Pie.

“That one is a barracks. It doesn’t move around, or shoot the other guy. So... I’m gonna say ‘Thingy’.”

Another ding. “That’s two! You’re more than halfway done!”

Dash hopped in place. “Okay. That one is a Dirt Pony space marine: it can walk around, and it carries a heavy battle-rifle. So it’s gotta be a dude!”

A series of rapid dings played over the intercom, and Pinkie Pie hopped over to her. “That’s absolutely correct! Amazing! Now, it’s time for the bonus round. For the third and final part of your exam, can you tell me... what this is?” She pointed the remote up, and a picture of a bunker appeared on the screen. Thoughtful yet urgent music played over the speakers, accompanied by the sound of a ticking clock.

Rainbow Dash bit her lower lip, and a bead of sweat dripped down her forehead. “Okay. Okay. It’s a bunker, and bunkers... don’t move around. If it doesn’t move around, it can’t be a ‘Dude.’ But...”

“Time’s half up!”

Dash glanced back at the crowd, then at Pinkie Pie. “Excuse me, Chancellor, but... there’s gotta be some sort of mistake!”

Pinkie Pie gasped, and the music stopped with a jarring scratch. “Mistake? Whaddya mean!?”

“Well, you see, a bunker doesn’t shoot the other guy unless there’s dudes inside of it. It could be a Tower, but if you took the dudes out it’d just be a thingy again. It can be both.”

A burst of exciting music blared through the hall, and clouds of confetti fell down from the top of the stage. Pinkie Pie grabbed Rainbow Dash and hugged her tight. “That’s absolutely correct!”

“It... it was!?”

“It means you’re actually thinking with the inside of your brain instead of just memorizing a bunch of facts and words! You’re obviously prime, strategic material!” Pinkie Pie stepped close and her voice softened. “Now, before we go on, there’s something important I have to show you. Something very special.”

Dash glanced around the stage. “Really? What? What is it?”

“Dash my boy—

“I’m a mare.”

“No-you’re-not. Now Dash, my boy, you know I always love to give away one of these... a brand new tank!”

The crowd cheered louder than ever as the back wall of the stage lifted up like a curtain, revealing a massive armored vehicle with a pair of main cannons. The vehicle was sitting on a raised, circular stage of it’s own that rotated in place: the shiny armor plating glittered in the floodlights.

“Thaaat’s right!” Pinkie Pie said, “the brand new AAV-5 ‘Arclite’ siege unit is a main battle tank with the heaviest firepower and armor plating ever developed! Fully enclosed and sealed, the Arclite is capable of operating in any hazardous terrain, from super-dense acid rain to the cold, hard vacuum of space! Nominally armed with a pair of 80 millimeter PPG-7 plasma cannons, and standard air-conditioning and targeting electronics, the Arclite seats three in comfort and style!”

Rainbow Dash let out a piercing squeal. “Oh-mi-gosh oh-mi-gosh oh-mi-gosh!”

“But that’s not all!”

The crowd gasped as the tank sprang to life: a pair of heavy struts extended from each side of the chassis and the dual cannons folded back. A single barrel, heavy and wide, lifted up and swiveled around to face the crowd.

Rainbow Dash stared, slack-jawed. “No way!”

“Yes way!” said Pinkie Pie. “Because you passed the bonus round, you’ve proven you can handle advanced military technology: dudes that turn into towers! By clamping itself into a fixed location, the Arclite can also deploy a massive 120 millimeter Shock Cannon capable of bombarding enemy targets from extreme range! Whether you want to protect your own base from invasion or shatter an unbreakable defensive line, the Siege tank fulfills all your artillery needs!”

Dash pointed at the tank. “Is that mine? Like, can I drive it around and everything?”

“Sorry, Dash, but this one is just for display. It doesn’t actually have any real weapons on it.”

The shock cannon let out a deafening blast of streamers and confetti, and a smattering of individually wrapped candy products and party noisemakers sprayed into the audience.

Pinkie Pie rolled her eyes and touched the tip of her hoof to the corner of her mouth. “Oopsie! Did I do that?”

A ripple of laughter rolled back.

“Seriously though,” she said, “before I pass over the keys there’s just one more thing you need to do. Are you ready?”

Dash jumped in place, eagerly. “I was born ready! Bring it on!”

Pinkie Pie pointed at the far end of the stage just as a stallion in a tuxedo pushed a large colorful wheel towards them: the circle was propped upright, and its surface was divided into a hundred narrow little pie-slices, each with a different label.

“Before we promote you to Commander and give you your very own Arclite tank, we need to find out where you’ll be deployed. Just give the ‘wheel of planets’ a spin, and all this will be yours!”

Dash approached the wheel, staring at the hundreds of different planets, moons and asteroid fields listed across its surface. She took a deep breath, spit on her hooves, and gave the wheel a mighty pull. The pegs along the circumference clicked against a plastic pointer fixed to the edge. Dash clenched her jaw as the names blurred past. The audience leaned forward, rapt.

The contraption decelerated, ever so gradually, and the clicks became less rapid. The plastic pointer leaned against one last peg, and the wheel came to a halt.

“Okay, let’s see what we got here...” Pinkie Pie ran over and examined the wheel. “Very interesting. It looks like you’ve won the planet ‘Mare Sara!’ It’s a pretty rough place, but it’s also rich in sweet, sweet minerals! Congratulations!”

The stallion in the tuxedo walked over, passed Rainbow Dash a fancy looking diploma, and placed a glittery tiara on her forehead. Dash giggled like a school-filly and waved at the crowd.

“Your mission,” said Pinkie Pie, “is to travel to Mare Sara and build a kick-ass military base! Once you’ve constructed your very own Battlecruiser, all you have to do is fly it back here and your mission will be complete. You’ll spend seven luxurious days being transported by the DSS Terpsichore, and will be provided with your very own Command Center. Everything else is up to you! Do you have what it takes to conquer a planet?”

Rainbow Dash gave her a crisp salute. “You can count on me, Chancellor!”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Pinkie Pie turned to the crowd with a broad smile. “That concludes this advanced strategic training session. Congratulations, everypony! Form a line by the wheel and take turns giving it a spin, but remember that supply is limited: first come, first serve. Once you have your assignment, wait over by the copy-machine to receive your diploma in ‘Elite Planetary War-Battling’. When you sign on the line, be sure to print your name in clear block letters. And don’t steal any of the crayons, either! I put exactly twelve of them in the mug this morning and I expect there to be twelve by the end of the day. Don’t make me count them.”

~ One week later ~

Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth, scrunched her eyes shut, and pressed back against her chair. Her recently-constructed command center rumbled violently around her, but the chair’s heavy harness kept her secure. Buildings very rarely shook this violently, but most buildings weren’t designed to survive atmospheric entry. The Dirt Pony command center, of course, was not ‘most buildings’.

There was one final impact, followed by utter silence. Dash pried one eyelid open and glanced around: the computer terminals were slowly blinking to life and the dim red emergency lamps were giving way to bright fluorescent lighting.

“Hey!” she shouted, “are we there yet?”

A nearby speaker crackled, and a stern voice came through. “This is the DSS Terpsichore. We have successfully dropped your command center on the surface of Mare Sara and are detaching the towing cables now. Readouts show green across the board, but you should have your chief engineer do a full diagnostic just in case.”

“Right... right.” Rainbow Dash looked around the empty command room. “So when can I drive that tank around?”

“The schematics for the Arclite Siege tank have been loaded into your engineering database.”

“Schematics!? What the heck am I supposed to do with those?”

The voice continued, terse. “If you want a tank, you’ll have to build it yourself. I’d suggest you get started as soon as possible. Terpsichore out.”

“Hey, wait a sec!” She jabbed at the buttons on her arm-rest as rapidly as she could. “How do I build it? How do I... hey! Can you hear me?”

Rainbow Dash unclasped her seat harness, flew to the nearest sealed door and threw it open. She rushed outside and stood on a ringed balcony built on top of the command center’s domed roof. She looked up and waved at the battlecruiser above.

“Heeeey! How do I freakin’ build stuff!?”

The vessel tilted up and passed through the upper cloud layer, eventually vanishing into the distance.

She took in a deep breath, then let out a long sigh. Okay... don’t forget your training. You can do this. First thing first: gather some intel and take stock of the situation.

She gazed out at the arid, earthy plains that stretched on for miles in all directions. There were a few small rivers and lakes in the distance, and sparse patches of prickly scrub.

Wow. A brand new planet, all to myself. So new and exciting! Her smile faltered. Actually, it looks pretty much the same as New Dirtonis. But it’s still mine! That’s gotta count for something.

She leaned against the railing and cupped her hooves to her mouth. “Helloooo? Anypony out there?”

She spent a minute listening to the gentle whistle of wind and the faint buzzing of insects.

“Oh... kay then.”

She went back inside, leaving the door half-open behind her, and began exploring the command center. She strolled through the cramped industrial corridors and poked her head into every room she passed: most of them were empty, though a few were packed full of dedicated factory equipment or power generators. She went into one of the rooms—chosen completely at random—and began poking control panels. Nothing seemed to be active.

“Oughta be a tutorial or something,” she said. “How do they expect me to—”

She froze in place as mechanical sounds echoed through the walls. She scrambled into the corridor and followed the noise, and came at last to a cavernous storage bay in the heart of the command center. A massive garage door on the other side of the bay was opening up and folding against the roof. A single pony stood at the foot of the entrance, her silhouette clear against the planet’s horizon.

“Hey, you!” shouted Dash.

The pony turned and waved at her.

“Whaaaat?”

A faint voice echoed back.

“Whaaat?”

The pony waved again.

“Hold on!” Rainbow Dash spread her wings and flew across the bay, landing in front of her: she was a bright orange dirt pony with a pale blond ponytail and bright green eyes. She was dressed in baggy cargo pants and a lightly armored vest, and had a shovel leaning against her shoulder.

“Howdy there,” she said. “Pleased to meet’cha!”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure.” Dash glanced around the empty bay. “So, what are you doing here? What’s going on?”

“Mah friends jes’ call me Jack,” she said. “I’m chief engineer of this here base.”

“Chief...?” Dash hovered in the air and glared down at her. “There’s only one chief, and that’s me. I’m in charge!”

“Hey, you’re the base commander, ain’tcha?” Jack smiled and held her hoof out. “Well, I can’t wait to get started on—”

Rainbow Dash slapped her hoof aside. “Oh no you don’t! If we’re gonna work together, we need to get one thing straight from the start: I’m the chief. I wanna hear you say it.”

“But—”

Dash shoved her face against hers. “Say it!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Whatever you say, chief.”

“Darn right!” Dash paced back and forth in front of her, marching briskly. “Now that we’ve landed, it’s up to us to conquer this planet and build a giant army of tanks and battlecruisers and stuff. Do you think you’re up to the task?”

Jack nodded. “W—”

Dash spun around and pointed a hoof at her nose. “Well I sure am, and I’m not going to let some loser rookie hold me back! If you want to be a part of ‘Team Dash’, you gotta prove you’re good enough!”

Jack frowned slightly. “Say... have we met before? You seem kinda familiar.”

“Stop avoiding the issue!” Dash slammed a hoof against the floor. “I want you to show me what you can do... and I’d better be impressed!”

“Yes Ma’am!” Jack gave her a quick salute. “Just give me a moment to suit up and I’ll be ready for action!”

She ran across the bay at a full gallop and went into a side room. Dash watched the door patiently, and an disturbingly loud mixture of mechanical sounds and abrasive alarms echoed back. A minute later, a section of the wall opened wide and a huge, pony-shaped robot entered the bay: it hovered through the bay via a set of hoof-mounted thrusters, exited the command center, and landed on the ground with a thud. It reared up and balanced on its hind legs, and its forelegs transformed into a pair of giant tools: a gleaming rock drill on one side and a huge industrial vice-grip on the other. Despite the vehicle’s bulky, boxy appearance, the pilot moved it with grace and efficiency.

Rainbow Dash followed it outside, wide eyed. “No way! Is there anypony in there?”

The front window opened up and Jack waved at her from the cramped cockpit. “Ess-See-Vee, reportin’ fer duty!”

“We have giant battle-robots!? This is gonna be awesome!” Rainbow Dash pointed towards the bay’s front door. “I hereby order you to go and find the other dude right away!”

Jack blinked a few times. “...Other dude?”

“Yeah, the enemy. The bad guys. The freaky-deaky alien space-hippies. Go find em and blow ’em up. Blow up their dudes, their towers, their thingies... the whole deal. Leave nothing standing!”

“But this is the only engineering unit we have. And without any minerals, we can’t build replacements.”

“So?”

“This here mech ain’t a combat machine. It doesn’t have any offensive capabilities.”

Dash quirked an eyebrow. “Wha? What do you mean?”

Jack cleared her throat. “No guns means no shooty.”

Rainbow Dash stared up at her for a moment.

“One moment, please, whilst I refer to my database of strategic operational protocols.”

“Yess’m.”

Dash turned away, opened her vest and took out her diploma for Elite Planetary War-Battling. She unrolled the paper and turned it over, glancing at the diagram scribbled on the back.

Rainbow Dash looked up from the diagram. “Hey,” she said, “do we got any other dudes?”

“Nope. And unless we find some crystals, we can’t build any. At all.”

Rainbow Dash stared ahead, eyes wide and unfocused.

Uh oh.

D05: Is this another bug-hunt?

“Aaaaaaaah! Aaaaaah! Aaah aah-aaah, aah aah aaaah aaah; aah aaah!!”

Jack peered down from the cockpit of her construction vehicle, watching Rainbow Dash as she ran in tiny little circles. Her hooves beat a faint ring in the dirt and kicked up a cloud of rust-brown dust that lingered in the air.

Hm.

She looked up at the massive command center directly next to them: the main bay was wide open to the elements, and completely devoid of crates or barrels. She turned to look at the vast horizon all around them, identical in all directions: jagged, dusty mountains under a pale blue sky.

“Aaaaah whadda we do if we don’t have any dudes and we can’t get any more and we’re so totally screwed it’s not even funny not even a little!!”

Jack cleared her throat.

“I can’t believe they just dumped me here without any dudes! They said I’d get a super-cool tank, but all I have right now is diddly-squat, and diddly just left town!!”

Jack cleared her throat, loudly. “Commander?”

Rainbow Dash fell on her back and rolled along the ground, kicking her legs in the air. “Aaaaarghle-barghle-garghle-zarghle-we’re all gonna die on a rock in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing we can do about it! Why didn’t they cover this in the training? Whyyyy!?”

Jack opened the cockpit, extended a ladder, and climbed to the ground. She walked over to where Rainbow Dash was lying: the pegasus was lying on her side and spinning in circles by kicking her legs.

“You really oughta pull yerself together, sugarcube.”

Dash let out a strangled, panicky gurgle.

Jack leaned away slightly. “You, uh... might wanna inhale soon. Yer turning a little blue.”

She continued to flail about on the ground.

Jack rolled her eyes and strolled back into the base. “You jest lemme know when yer ready to get this shindig started.”

Jack sat in the command center’s cafeteria: a massive hall filled with long tables and benches. She lifted a mug of piping hot apple cider to her mouth and paused to inhale the aromatic steam. She closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh before taking a sip.

“Ahhh...”

She leaned back in her chair and laid a couple sheets of printer paper on the table: maps of the local terrain, gathered from the command center’s survey scanners. The data was limited to topography and weather, but it was more than enough for an experienced prospector to make an educated guess.

The very tip of Jack’s left ear twitched. She listened carefully and heard a steady, rhythmic clanging from outside... dull and distant.

She took another sip and turned back to her printouts. The clanging continued. She finally stood up, tucked the printouts into her saddlebag, and carried her mug with her. She followed the sound out of the cafeteria and into the central supply bay. She opened the main door, stepped outside, and walked to where Rainbow Dash was banging her forehead against the roof of the command center.

“Ya’ll okay, up there? Can I getcha anything?”

“We! Are! So! Totally! Screwed!”

Jack glanced over her shoulder and regarded the approaching sunset. She turned and went back inside. It’s her first day... I’ll give ’er another couple hours to adjust.

Jack sat in the command center’s supply bay, leaning against an empty crate and strumming a homemade banjo. She heard hoofsteps approaching and nudged her wide-brimmed stetson up: Rainbow Dash stared back at her, covered in bruises and dirt-stains. Her jaw was clenched tight.

“Howdy.”

Rainbow Dash cleared her throat. “So. It has come to my attention... that we are totally screwed.”

“Are we, now?”

“Yes. Yes we are.” Dash started pacing back and forth. “However, after some long and serious deliberation, I have had a periphery.”

“Epiphany,” said Jack.

“Epiphany,” said Dash. “The truth is, we ain’t got nopony to depend on but ourselves.”

“Seems so.”

“So if we’re going to get ourselves out of this disaster there’s no point in whining or procrastinating.”

“True dat.”

Dash locked eyes with her. “So. Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and do what needs to be done?”

Jack set her banjo aside and stood up, grinning proudly. “Can’t wait to get started, Commander!”

“That’s what I like to hear!” Dash passed her a long metal tube with a clumsy trigger mechanism duct-taped to the side. “Take this and follow me.”

Jack took the tube. “Wait. What?”

“If we’re going to blow up the enemy, we’ll just have to do it ourselves. Now get ready to move out!”

Jack stared at the metal tube. “What the hey is this thing?”

“Every pony will be issued a potato bazooka! I made it myself. I know it’s not much, but it’s better than nothing.”

“A potato gun. Have you lost yer marbles?”

“Potato bazooka,” she said. “We only have the one weapon so we’ll have to take turns... y’know, like a sniper team: one pony shoots and another keeps lookout. We’ll be elite potato sniper veterans! Our first mission is to locate some potatoes.”

Jack leaned away slightly. “...Though that does imply that you had any marbles to begin with.” She tossed the potato gun aside. “Listen, we—”

“Hey!” Dash ran over and scooped up the bazooka, examining the seams for signs of breakage. “That’s our only weapon! Show some respect for the equipment: A true soldier takes care of her gun the same way she takes care of her own self!”

“Y’know, we could just—”

“Respect, soldier! Respect!” Dash whirled the tube around and stood at attention. “Now repeat after me: This is my potato bazooka. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My potato bazooka is my best friend, and friendship is magi—”

“Stop it! Just stop!” Jack took her hat off and swatted Rainbow Dash on the nose several times. “Look, I’ve been waitin’ all day fer you to come to your senses, but that clearly ain’t gonna happen. We have a perfectly functionin’ construction mech sitting around collecting dust and cobwebs! I’d be out there right now if it weren’t for the fact that the SCV’s crystal harvestin’ tools won’t function without your authorization codes!”

“Construction work!?” Dash shoved her shoulder. “We don’t have time to build stuff! We need to blow up the enemy as soon as possible, before they blow us up!”

“Yes. Yes, we do.” Jack pointed out of the main bay door, gesturing to the swift-approaching nightfall. “And gatherin’ up some crystals is the very first step in that grand strategic plan.”

Dash glared at her, furious. “Hey, don’t you lecture me about strategy! You don’t know a thing about strategy! Not one thing!”

Jack crossed both sets of legs, leaning to one side. “Yeah, but at least I’m willin’ to admit it.”

“You shoulder your potato bazooka right now, soldier! If I hear one more snippy word out of you, I’ll knock you back down to corporal so fast it’ll make your head spin!”

“I’m a private. That’s one step below—”

Rainbow Dash squinted at her, intensely.

Jack opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it. “Okay... fine. You’re the boss, Commander.”

“Dang skippy, I am. Now get ready to move out!”

“Yes’m.” Jack picked up the potato gun and held it out to her. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

“Granted, I guess.”

“I bet if we carried the bazooka on the SCV, we could convert it into a combat-capable vehicle. I could be the pilot, and you could be the gunner... since yer such a crack shot and all.”

“I am?” Rainbow Dash straightened up. “I mean... yeah. Of course I am. Good idea, corporal! Get on that right away.”

“One thing first,” she said. “The operational authorization codes?”

“Right, right. I’ll go plug the numbers into the main computer. Be right back!”

Half an hour later, the pony-shaped SCV marched out of the command center and activated its hoof-mounted hover-jets. Rainbow Dash flew up and landed on the SCV’s back, which was built like the loading deck of a cargo ship. She strapped a pair of flight goggles against her forehead, used one wing to hold her makeshift taterzooka, and gazed out at the last rays of sunset.

“Gonna be dark soon,” she said. “Got any floodlights?”

Jack’s voice boomed out of the SCV’s external speakers. “Yes’m, but this cockpit has a built in night-vision filter. I can navigate just fine.”

“That’s great and all, but I’m the only one with a weapon. I can’t shoot what I can’t see. Be prepared to turn the lights on as soon as we’re attacked.”

Jack let out a half-suppressed sigh. “...Yess’m.”

Dash held on tight as the SCV picked up speed, gliding over the arid plains with an eerie silence. A minute later the sunset faded completely: The hover-boosters lit up the ground beneath them with an amber glow, but everything else was pitch black.

“How far away is the enemy zone?”

“The what?”

“The enemy zone-sector-place,” said Dash. “How much further do we have to go to reach the enemy?”

“The...? Oh, right! Yeah, the enemy. Sure. Not much further.”

“Do we know what’s there?”

“No idea. It’s probably... a patrol point. They might only visit the area once in awhile.”

“Ya mean they might not even be there? Oh, come on! Why are we even bothering!?”

“Yeah,” Jack muttered, “been wonderin’ that myself.”

“What was that?”

“Nuthin’! Nevermind. Oh, hey lookit that!” The SCV tilted to one side and changed course. “Target zone dead ahead.”

“Perfect!” Dash flew up onto the SCV’s head and hefted the taterzooka. “Turn the lights on so I can open fire!”

The SCV’s eyes flared up and two narrow beams of fluorescent light pierced the night. Dash leaned forward and squinted at something ahead: when her eyes adjusted, she saw a massive chunk of bright blue crystal growing out of the ground.

“Where’s the, uh... where’s the enemy?”

“Oh, gawsh. Looks like we got here a mite late. Better luck next time, I s’pose.”

“Late!?” Dash flew down to the ground and kicked at the dirt. “They must’ve known we were coming and ran away. Talk about sneaky.”

A shrill, metallic squeal pierced the silence. Dash let out a yelp and spun around: the SCV had reared up on its hind legs and its front hooves had transformed into tools: a shimmering drill and a giant vice-clamp. The drill was currently slicing into the side of the crystal formation, letting off a spray of incandescent sparks.

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

“Well, I mean... we’re here, right? It’d be a shame to leave it behind.”

Dash stowed her taterzooka across her back and walked over, curious. “No, I really mean it. What’re you doing over there? What are you up to?”

“What’s it look like I’m doin’?” Jack said. “I’m gatherin’ up some sweet, sweet minerals so’s we can bring’em back to base.”

“You can do that!?”

“Sure as shootin’. Mah family built a whole bunch of apple orchards from the ground up, so I know all about harvesting and building. I’ve been piloting skee-vees since I was a little filly... though this is the first time I’ve ever had the pleasure of operatin’ a fancy-schmancy deluxe model like this.”

Dash giggled. “Heh... you pilot in your skivvies?”

“Try to stay focused, commander.”

The SCV finished carving up a piece of crystal and set it on the loading platform on its back: Dash flew up and watched, rapt, as a mechanism packed the minerals away in a sealed crate.

“Whoa... that’s pretty cool.” She looked back at the remaining crystals, glittering brightly in the floodlights. “This is so weird. I’ve spent my whole life dreaming about sweet, sweet minerals, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen any up close.”

“Shiny, huh?”

“Yeah.” She stepped closer and peered at her reflection in the smooth, glassy surface. “Blue, too. Blue’s classy.”

“Heh. If you say so, ma’am.”

Dash pointed at the rest of the crystal formation. “Hey, is this a lot of minerals?”

“Not even a drop in the bucket. We’re gonna need a whole lot more than just this.”

“Really? What for?”

“Building stuff. Dudes, towers, thingies, all that.”

Dash’s left eye twitched. “You mean we coulda built some dudes all this time, if we’d just grabbed some crystals!? Why didn’t you say something sooner!?”

The SCV’s head tilted slightly, as if rolling its eyes.

Dash’s ears perked up. She spun around and scanned the pitch black shadows. “Did you hear that!?”

The SCV’s massive, plasma-tipped rock drill continued to bite into the crystal formation, echoing across the empty plains for miles in every direction. “What was that, ma’am?”

“I think there’s an enemy here!” Dash’s eyes snapped open. “Oh, man... if we don’t get these crystals we’ll never build any dudes, and then we’ll be screwed for realsies!”

“S’pose so.”

“I’ve only got three shots with this thing. Better make each one count.” Dash hefted her bazooka. “I’m gonna scout out the area for hostiles. Cover me!”

“Cover you? With what?”

“I said cover me!”

With that, Dash sprinted into the darkness. Her heart pounded, and her breath burned hot and heavy. She ran over a small hill, somersaulted behind a rock, and laid her weapon across its top. She lowered her flight goggles over her eyes, and gasped as the terrain came alive with bright green lines.

“Whoa, cool! Night vision!” She waved her hoof in front of her face, staring at the glowing scan-lines. “This’ll even the odds!”

Jack’s voice cracked through the earbud of her headset. “Are you talkin’ to me?”

“You can hear me? Even cooler!” She tapped her headset a few times. “I better go silent... don’t want the enemy to pick up on anything.”

“Yeah, sure. You just... yeah.”

Dash pressed against the boulder and slowly peered over the top. The night vision goggles were blurry, but she could still make out a large, distinct shape up ahead.

“Whoa!!” She ducked back down and tapped her headset. “I’ve made visual contact with the enemy. Target is big, lumpy, and ugly. It’s probably an alien of some sort. Some kind of xeno... morphy... dude.”

“Or it’s a boulder.”

Dash took another look, then darted back down. “Nope... it’s definitely an alien. Time to shake things up with a lightning-fast rush attack, before it can get its economy rolling: nopony expects a potato bazooka at the two minute mark!”

Dash braced the launch tube against the top of the rock and took out a long-tipped barbecue lighter. She scrunched one eye shut and locked the xenomorph in her crosshairs. The taterzooka kicked like a mule, and Dash let out a startled squeak as the recoil knocked her forward: the potato blasted out the back end of the tube and sailed through the air, splattering against the windshield of Jack’s SCV.

“What in tarnation!?”

“Oh man, oh man! Sorry! Are you okay? Talk to me, Jack! Can you make it back to base in one piece!?”

Jack activated the wipers. “I’ll be fine. Just gimme a sec.”

Dash scrambled to load a second potato into the weapon. “There’s no time! You fall back to the command center, and I’ll hold ’em off as long as I can!”

“I’m not even half full,” said Jack.

“No time!” Dash reared up and pointed the other end of the bazooka at the xenomorph. “Eat carbohydrates, alien scum! Potato away!!”

The missile streaked through the air with a shrill whistle and splattered against the alien’s thick, knobbly hide. The beast paused in the midst of chewing a mouthful of prickly shrub, then turned to look at Dash.

She offered it a feeble little wave. “Oh... hey. So.”

The animal turned towards her, let out a snort, and charged.

Dash tossed her bazooka aside and scrambled back to the SCV. “Aaaah! It’s a bug hunt, man! A freakin’ bughunt! Run for the hills! I mean the command center!”

“What is it now?”

Dash glanced back as the massive herbivore charged closer, shaking the ground with its blunt claws. Dash slid down a hill and leaped over a boulder: the beast lowered its head and smashed the boulder apart without slowing down.

Dash screamed over the comm. “It’s gainin’ on me! Do something!”

“Well whaddya expect me to—sweet mercy!”

Dash sprinted close and slipped between the SCV’s legs. The alien slammed into the side of the SCV, shoving it along without breaking pace. Jack struggled to regain her balance and managed to swing the vice clamp around the beast’s armored neck: she threw all her weight into a single heave and managed to throw the creature to the ground. It fell on its side with a loud, raspy grunt.

Jack hauled her SCV back upright. “That’s one busted bronco. You still there, commander?”

“Raaa!”Rainbow Dash leaped onto the beast and kicked its head furiously. “Aww, yeah! That’s what you get for messing with Team Dash!”

“Its just asleep, y’know.”

Dash dove off the beast and clamped onto the side of the SCV. “Don’t scare me like that!”

The SCV turned around and hovered back towards the crystal. “Come on. We’re almost done here... for now. It’s gonna take a couple trips before we can build anything useful.”

“What was that thing, anyways?”

“Rhynadon, looks like. Seen ’em around.”

“Are they... dangerous?”

“Yer kiddin’, right? They’re...” The head of the SCV turned slightly to look at her. “Oh yeah. Real dangerous. Deadly predators, y’know. We’re lucky to be alive.”

“Oh jeez, I knew it! What if there’s more of ’em? I don’t even have my bazooka anymore!”

“Oh, they don’t hunt in packs. Now that you took out the alpha leader, the others will be wary of us... for now.”

“In that case, we better take advantage of this while we can... as soon as we drop off those crystals, we’re coming right back out and grabbing some more. And we’re not going to stop harvesting until we’ve got enough to build something dangerous. Something with a gun... a big one.”

“Really?”

Dash flew ahead and hovered in front of the SCV’s head, crossing her front legs. “And I don’t care how dangerous it is, so don’t even think of arguing about it.”

The SCV nodded to her. “I guess I don’t have much choice... we’ll do it your way.”

“Darn skippy.”

The next day, just after dawn, the SCV hauled the last of the minerals into the Command center and stacked it next to several other crates. Rainbow Dash hovered nearby, holding a replacement taterzooka she’d cobbled together.

“Whoa... that’s a whole lot of minerals.” She looked at the SCV. “How much is this? Is this a lot?”

The front of the SCV opened up and Jack climbed out. “It’s a start. Most crystals grow in great big patches, but they seem to be spread pretty thin in this area... we’ll have to scout around for more.” She went to a control panel by the wall and began pulling switches. A huge crane lowered from the ceiling, picked up one of the crates, and carried it to a hatch in the wall.

Dash hovered over her shoulder. “Whatcha doin’, huh? Aren’t you gonna tell me what’s goin’ on?”

Jack grinned at her. “I can do better’n tell ya. Follow me!”

She led her to a nearby side room and turned the lights on: the entire back wall of the room was made up of a series of giant machines. Dash watched as chunks of crystal fell into a giant grinder, were crushed to gravel, and dumped into a giant rotating cylinder. Jack pushed a big button and a row of gas torches lit up beneath the cylinder.

“Whoa... a refinery?”

“Refineries are for chemicals,” said Jack. “Technically, this is a foundry.”

Dash walked to the end of the giant cylinder and watched as a gelatinous blue goo oozed out a nozzle and filled up a barrel. “What the heck? I thought we were harvesting minerals. This is just... goo.”

“The crystals you see growing outside have all sorts of trace elements in ’em... but this goo is the only part we need.”

“Whoa... what is it made of?”

“Sugar,” Jack said.

Dash glanced back at her. “...Sugar?”

“Eyup. Pure, concentrated sugar.” Jack tapped a few buttons and threw a switch. “The unique ionic properties of the sugar atom make it an extremely flexible element: if you cook it at just the right temperature and apply just the right electrical charge, the sugar atoms fuse into long chains of hyper-carbon nano-tubules. Nearly indestructible, but light as plastic. It’s also a little malleable: it doesn’t shatter or snap under pressure, and it’s super-easy to repair. Just warm it up, spackle on a fresh layer of sugar gel, and it’ll fuse together good as new. It’s pretty much the key ingredient of every piece of military or industrial hardware in the galaxy.”

“Whoa...” Rainbow Dash watched as the barrels of liquidized hyper-sugar rolled down an assembly line and disappeared into a hatch in the wall. “So does this mean we can build tanks?”

Jack cleared her throat. “Well... it may be the key ingredient, but it’s not the only one. To build anything really advanced we’ll need to harvest some vespene.”

Dash looked up at her. “What’s that?”

Jack smiled at her. “One thing at a time, chief. Don’t worry... I’ve got a little something we can use in the meantime. First, though, I need to build a logistical pastry depot.”

Dash tilted her head. “A what?”

“It’s a kind of ‘thingy’.” Jack slapped her on the back and pointed up. “Just head on up to the central control room. I’ll walk you through it from there.”

“Right... right!” Dash ran across the room and out the exit. She spun around and peeked back through the door. “But I’m still the base commander, got it? Don’t get any funny ideas.”

She nodded. “Ah’course you are, ma’am.”

“Cool.”

Rainbow Dash burst into the command center’s main control bridge and flew to the commander’s seat: a heavily reinforced chair that bristled with panels and levers. She strapped herself in and kicked a pedal, and the chair rotated a hundred-and-eighty degrees. Monitors and screens lowered down from the ceiling—each suspended by a spindly robotic arm—and formed a ring all around her. Streams of data and information flashed across every surface.

She tapped the side of her headset. “Hey, anypony there?”

A voice crackled over the loudspeaker. “Yes ma’am. SCV, reportin’ fer duty!”

“Right. Cool. So. How do I... do the... stuff? With the thingy?”

“It’s easy as apple pie, ma’am. D’you see me on your map view?”

She glanced around at the various screens. “Map view? What map view?”

“There should be a great big map of the area. At least, there used to be... the new command center might have a different interface.”

“Map. Map, map, map...” She kicked a pedal and spun the chair around full circle, several times. Her eyes locked on one of the monitors: the only screen with a picture on it. “Woo! Got it! There’s a map here. It’s mostly black, but theres a tiny little blob of brown.”

“I guess that’s it. Can you see me?”

“I see a... hold on.” Dash pushed a button on her seat and the monitor moved up close. She leaned forward, squinting, until her face was nearly pressed against the glass. “I see a blue dot. Aaaaaand... a littler blue dot. Wow, this sucks.”

“I guess it’s all you got. Okay. The big dot is probably the command center, and the little dot is probably my SCV. Click on the little dot to select me.”

Dash took out a sleek, grey remote control and aimed the laser pointer at the dot. She clicked a button several times, with no results. She reached out and tapped her hoof against the dot. “Click. Click, darnit!”

“Is it working?”

“It’s not... it’s not clicking, darn it!” She pushed the end of the remote control right up against the glass screen. “Oh, come on! This is getting stupid!”

Something in the room bleeped. Dash shoved the screen aside and looked at another monitor, currently showing a pair of green icons.

“Okay, there we go.” Dash pulled the monitor in close and squinted at the icons. “We’ve got a little picture of the command center, and another little picture of your robo-dude.”

“It looks like you selected both at the same time,” said Jack. “Just click on my icon, and it should select only me.”

Dash aimed the remote’s laser at the icon and clicked a button. The screen filled up with a wireframe schematic of the SCV on one side and a long list of statistical data on the other.

“Kay, got it. Now what?” Dash glanced around, and let out an excited squeak. “Hey, there’s buttons and stuff! Check it out!”

“Good, perfect! Now pay very close attention, and do exactly as I say.”

Dash nodded. “Right, right.”

“There should be a button labeled ‘Basic Structures’. Click it once.”

Dash pointed the remote control at the button on the screen, and clicked a button. “Whoa... there’s even more buttons now.”

“Each button is a different kind of ‘thingy’ you can build. One of ’em should be labeled ‘Pastry Depot.’ Click it.”

“Done. Now what?”

“Now that you’ve got the Pastry Depot selected, you can click on the map. That’ll send me a message telling me where to build it.”

Rainbow Dash grabbed the map screen and pulled it close, squinting. “Where, uh...”

“Anywhere is fine. Just click anywhere near the command center.”

Dash pointed the remote and clicked a button, and a loud buzz played over the intercom. “Aaaah! What’d I do? I swear it wasn’t me!”

“It’s okay, Dash. Calm down. Nothing’s wrong.”

“So... did it work? Are you building a thingy?”

“That’s a negatory,” said Jack. “It’s blocked. Just keep clicking until it works.”

Dash clicked repeatedly, producing a series of abrasive buzzing sounds. She finally pressed the remote directly against the screen, held the button down and dragged it around in little circles. Eventually, the intercom played an affirmative bleep.

“Well, butter mah buscuit!” Jack said, “You’re a pretty quick learner, ain’cha?”

“Well I do have a pretty good teacher, don’t I?”

“Aw, shucks.”

Dash grinned at the map screen. “But hey. I’m still the boss, got it?”

“As y’say, ma’am. As y’say.”

Dash leaned back in her chair with a sigh, but froze as she looked up. The domed ceiling of the main control bridge was one giant panoramic screen, lit up by an array of holographic projectors... it generated a perfect scale model of the planet’s surface, alive with color and motion. There was depth to it: rolling plains and rocky cliffsides stood out sharply. Even the command center itself, resting in the middle of a rocky plains, was a three-dimensional color-coded object. The detail was insane... she could see every shrub and bush, and even the individual armor plates on the side of the command center.

Dash stared up at the massive holomap, awestruck. Her chair reclined fully and her wings twitched with the raw instinct of flight. She half expected to fall up and into the scenery, plunging through the wispy cloud layer and into the real world.

“Unbelievable...!” she whispered.

Jack’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t quite catch that.”

Dash’s eyes flicked to the holographic image of Jack’s SCV. She reached her hoof out and swept it to the left, and the panoramic view scrolled to the side and zoomed in slightly. The lone construction vehicle had just finished building a metal gantry and was busy excavating earth and soil to make way for thick metal plates. Dash pointed at the gantry with her hoof, and a glowing green outline lit up the structure. One of the spindly-armed view screens moved into her field of view and displayed a full list of statistical data.

“Pastry Depot... construction requires one hundred units of minerals, and forty standard galactic seconds. Provides an additional eight metric units of pastry-related logistical upkeep and supply for all forms of military-industrial crew. Includes minimal armor plating, and can continue functioning after suffering up to 500 hit-points of structural damage.”

“...Dash? What’re you up to?”

“You’re not gonna believe what I just...” Dash’s smile faded. She waved a hoof at the screen and the view zoomed in slightly. “Wait a second... what’re all those little grey dots?”

“Grey dots? Whaddya mean?”

“Computer?” Dash said, “enhancificate the viewerizational screen-ummy-jig.”

The projected hologram sharpened. Dash’s eyes widened as she saw a massive horde of huge, lumpy xenomorphs surrounding the command center.

“Aaaaaah!” Dash slammed her hoof against a big red button on the chair’s control panel. The command center’s interior lights flashed bright red, and alarms and sirens blared out of every loudspeaker. “Our base is under attack! It’s an all-out invasion! Everypony, retreat to the command center immediately!”

“What in tarnation are you talkin’ about?”

“No time! There’s hundreds of them!” Dash pointed at the holographic representation of Jack’s SCV and issued it an order to enter the command center. “Get inside right now: we gotta close the doors before they get inside!”

“But the pastry depot—”

“Forget it! Cancel construction immediately!”

“I can’t,” said Jack. “It’s already finished.”

Dash watched as the SCV loaded itself into the safety of the command center. Her eyes settled on the lone pastry depot, cut off and vulnerable. A drop of sweat trickled down her brow. “Damn you filthy Rhynadons... damn you for making me do this!” She selected the depot and—without a moment’s hesitation—triggered the self-destruct mechanism. She stood up and issued a solemn salute as the structure blasted apart in a plume of wreckage and fire.

Jack kicked the door open and stormed into the main control bridge. “What the hey is wrong with you!?”

“No time to explain!” Dash pointed up. “We’ve got a massive army of Rhynadons right on our front doorstep! If we don’t do something right now, we’re both toast!”

Jack took her heat off and threw it on the floor. “Are you completely off yer rocker!? They’re totally, utterly, absolutely harmless!”

Outside, the herd of Rhynadons gathered around the edge of the command center’s exhaust vent. They took turns rubbing their armored hides against the heavy grating in an attempt to scrape off dirt and mud. They chewed on several nearby prickly shrubs, devouring the thorny plants at a bored and tedious pace.

A big, plump insect buzzed through the air, flying little circles over one of the rhynadons. The beast’s ear twitched. The fly zipped away for a moment, then hovered closer and landed on its ear. The rhynadon shook its head and let out a grunt, but the fly returned momentarily. The Rhynadon paused mid-chew and glared directly ahead.

The beast’s blunt tail whipped out and splattered the insect against the side of the command center, inadvertently crumpling a delicate weather-detection device. It let out a satisfied snort and returned to its meal.

A siren blasted through the command center’s intercom, momentary drowning out all the other sirens. A calm, robotic voice played over the loudspeakers. “Warning: Our base is under attack. System diagnostic reports 0.02 Hit Points of damage to tertiary sensor array.”

Rainbow Dash stamped her hoof on the floor. “Now do you believe me!?”

Jack stared up at the holo-display and scanned the vast herd of aliens. “Under attack!? But... but that’s impossible! They’re just herbivores!”

Dash glared at her. “Herbivores, eh? We’ll discuss your faulty intelligence at a later date. Right now, our only concern is to get out of this warzone alive!”

“Faulty intelligence!?” Jack sputtered, “I was only tryin’ to... I mean, I wasn’t... Don’t you call me a liar!”

“I said we’ll talk about it later! It doesn’t matter now!” She pointed at a nearby monitor. “According to this, we still have a hundred and forty minerals stowed on board. Is that enough to build weapons and stuff?”

Jack bit her lower lip. “Yeah, but we’d need a barracks or a factory for that! All we can build now are SCVs!”

“Aaaargh!” Dash ran around the room, frantically. “There’s only one thing to do: start pushing buttons!”

Jack glanced at the various nearby consoles. “W-w-which one!?”

“All of ’em, as fast as you can! Panic! Go nuts! Freak out! Mash dem buttons!!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Jack ran to the nearest control panel and began pushing buttons at random. Lights turned on and off. Doors opened and closed. Radio stations played randomly over the intercom. A massive sensor array on the roof of the building extended and retracted. A calm, robotic voice began reading off the ingredients for spinach quiche.

“It’s no good,” shouted Rainbow Dash. “Mash ’em faster!”

Jack darted around the room in a flurry. “That’s all of ’em! There’s no more buttons left!”

“What? No! Never give up!” Dash slammed her hoof against the wall in frustration. “There’s gotta be a button here somewhere that’ll fix everything!”

Jack looked up, and gasped. “Hey, look! There’s more control panels on the walls up there! Think you could fly up there?”

Dash flew up and resumed mashing, but paused when her eyes caught sight of a familiar console. “No way... I’ve seen one of these things before!”

“Seen what? What does it do!?”

Dash flew over and activated the console. “It’s a flight control system for a vertol hovercraft. I used to be a pilot myself, back in the day.”

“Flight control!? That’s crazy! We’re in a building!”

“Sometimes, crazy works. Hold on to something!”

Rainbow Dash grabbed a pair of control sticks and heaved with all her strength. The building shuddered violently, and a completely different set of alarms blasted through the speakers.

Jack stared at the floor in shock. “W-w-what’s goin’ on!? Whoaaa!”

The command center tilted to one side. Jack slid across the floor and slammed against the wall. She clamped her legs around a nearby set of heavy pipes and scrunched her eyes shut.

The herd of Rhynadons looked up lazily as massive jets of fire blasted from underneath the command center. The structure slowly lifted into the air and its supporting struts folded up and out of sight. The external speakers belted out a piece of orchestral rock-opera with a chorus of voices singing in latin. Rainbow Dash’s voice could barely be heard over the music, laughing triumphantly.

The herbivores paused in their chewing and gazed up, emotionlessly, as the massive structure loomed overhead and levitated towards the sunset. One of the Rhynadons went slack-jawed, dropping a mouthful of cud in the process.

“Wooooo! Ya like that, huh? Do ya? Try and get us now, you big ugly lumps!” Dash swiveled the controls sideways, and the command center banked sharply to one side. “Evasive maneuvers! Wooo!”

Jack stared out the windows, slack jawed and bug-eyed. She finally let go of the pipes and made her way across the bridge, desperately trying not to slip on the gently tilting surface. She looked up at Rainbow Dash and waved at her. “This thing can fly!?”

“Guess so! Cool, huh?”

“Buildings ain’t supposed to fly!”

“Dirt pony buildings, maybe,” she said, “but pegasus have been building hover-platforms for as long as we can remember. We keep our cities way up high, so we can hide ’em in the clouds. Pretty cool, huh?”

Jack looked around. “But this is a Dirt Pony command center!”

“Well I guess we must’ve given you a couple suggestions, then.” Dash grinned down at her. “At least we’re alive! You can complain about anything, can’t you?”

“Yeee-haw!” Jack tossed her hat in the air, grinning broadly. “This changes everything! All we have to do is land this building right next to some minerals, mine ’em all up in a matter of hours, and move on to the next bunch! Why didn’t you tell me about this before!?”

Dash looked away. “...Actually, I didn’t know about it. I guess I got lucky.”

Jack smiled at her. “Well I guess you turned out to be good for something after all. Was wonderin’ how long it would take!”

Rainbow Dash laughed, and Jack joined in. After a minute or so, Dash set the autopilot control and landed on the floor. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh...” She rubbed one knee against the inside of her leg. “Am I really the commander? I mean... I don’t really know a whole lot about—”

Jack gave her a stiff salute. “It’s been an honor.”

“You really mean that? You’re not just trying to make me feel better?”

“Well... maybe I was before. Sorry for that. But something tells me you got a real knack for this sort of thing. Sorry I doubted you.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one with a talent for actually building stuff. Sorry I didn’t listen to you before.” She held her hoof out. “Friends?”

Jack clapped her own hoof against hers, still smiling. “To the very end.”

D06: Always expand before the two week mark

Jack stood atop the ring-shaped balcony built around the roof of the airborne command center. She raised a hoof to shield her eyes from the sun, and peered at the terrain far below: This region of the planet was a maze of winding rivers and small lakes, interspersed with the occasional flat-topped butte. The vegetation here was thicker, with a few large trees scattered here and there.

Rainbow Dash’s voice crackled through her headset. “See anything interesting?”

“Not so far,” she said, “but we can’t give up yet. Maintain present course.”

“Y’know, it’s real cool and all that our buildings can fly... but is there anything we could do to make ’em go faster? We’re moving at a snail’s pace!”

Jack shook her head. “It’s the only way,” she said. “This whole area is a honeycomb... nothing but islands of land separated by rivers and lakes. Land-based dudes would never be able to cross this sort of terrain, and we don’t have time to build any bridges. Just keep the command center flyin’ and we’ll find something eventually.”

Dash let out a groan. “Soooo... bored!”

“Yeah, I know. Just try to... wait a sec. I think I see somethin’.” She nudged her goggles down and zoomed in on a herd of huge armored beasts wandering across one of the isolated land-sections. “Check that: we’ve got Rhynadon activity!”

“Whoa! All the way out here!?”

“Looks like they live all over the planet.” Jack squinted at the beasts, menacingly. “I don’t think these ones can fly. We should be safe up here.”

“What if they spit acid or shoot spines or something?”

“Good point... we’d better take evasive action, just in case.” She ran along the balcony and watched the herd as a whole. “Seems like they can swim between the islands.”

“Great. Just great! They’ll be able to get us no matter where we build.”

Jack nudged her goggles back up onto her forehead and took out a clipboard. “Looks like they swim pretty slow. If we can surround an island with bunkers, we should be able to pick ’em of before the reach land.”

“Hey, I have a better idea! Why don’t we build a base on one of those little mountains? They can’t get up there, can they?”

Jack glanced at one of the nearby buttes. “Not a bad idea.”

“Whoa! Okay, there’s... hold on! There’s a whole bunch of blue dots on the map.”

“Are you sure that’s not us?”

“No, it’s a different kind of blue. And there’s a whole bunch of them, all in a line.”

“Sounds like sweet, sweet minerals to me!” Jack put her clipboard away and walked back to the entrance. “Head straight for it and land as close as you can. Not too close, though... a hundred meters oughta do it.”

“Gotcha.”

After half an hour, the command center levitated overtop of a particularly large section of land: a peanut-shaped island with a large butte that blocked off the middle part. They came to the far end of the island and lowered to the ground, deploying the support struts and opening the main bay door.

Rainbow Dash stepped onto the ramp dressed in baggy cargo pants and an armored leather vest. She kept her taterzooka at the ready as she scanned the horizon. The station had landed directly next to a long row of bright blue crystals growing out of the ground.

“Looks clear,” she said over the com. “No Rhynadons in sight... for now.”

The floor shook as the boxy SCV stepped up behind her. Jack’s voice came through the external speakers. “Ready to deploy, commander.”

Dash pursed her lips. “You go ahead and get started. I’m gonna do a fly-around while you work. Can’t be too careful.”

“Yes’m.”

The SCV hopped into the air slightly, and its hoof-mounted thrusters burst to life. Dash took to the air, swift and nimble, and circled around the command center. She scanned the terrain for any sign of motion.

“Hey,” she said. “Is this a lot of crystals?”

“Oh, yeah!” said Jack. “This is definitely somethin’ to write home about. If I was a prospector, I’d cash in and retire rich.”

“And what if you were a military commander?”

“Well... I’d bunker down and start buildin’. We’re gonna need a couple patches like this if we want to build anything serious.”

“It’s a good start, I guess.” Dash flew over the crystals and watched as the SCV carved them up into bite-sized chunks. “I don’t like this... the crystals are really close to the water. What’ll you do if the Rhynadons swim up close?”

“Dunno.”

Dash flew back and forth a few times, searching the water. “I’ll keep an eye on things for now,” she said, “but we gotta get some firepower as soon as possible. How do we do that?”

“Barracks,” Jack said, “but we oughta build a pastry depot first.”

“Again with the depot! Listen: the command center provides some supply, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, but only a little.”

“And that’s all we need right now. It’s just the two of us, right?”

“Well... I guess. But shouldn’t we plan for the future?”

“We’ll deal with the future when it gets here.” Dash flew back to the Command Center, took out her remote control, and pointed it at the terrain. “Okay. So how many minerals we got now?”

“Hundred’n sixty four.”

“Perfect.” Dash landed on the SCV’s head and tapped the remote against its thick, metal hull. “Step one: Select an SCV...”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Yer supposed to click my icon in the interface. It’s—” Jack flinched as the SCV’s console bleeped. “Oooh... kay. I guess you can just click on me for real. That works too.”

“Okay. Step two, push some buttons... step three, pick a spot.” She pointed the remote at a nearby patch of level ground and clicked a button. “Did ya get that?”

“Yup!” The SCV’s thrusters burst to life once more, and she moved towards the designated location. “I’ll take a little while to build it, mind.”

“Right, right.... eighty standard galactic space-seconds.” Dash tucked the remote away and took to the air. “This place seems safe enough for now. I’ll go scout out the rest of the island, real quick-like.”

“You be careful out there,” Jack said.

“Don’t worry about me. Just let me know when that ’rax is done.”

Dash flew low over the terrain, scanning the surface for anything of interest. The island they’d landed on was large and long, but the narrow middle part was blocked off by a butte. The minerals, as well as their current base of operations, were situated on the very tip of the western side.

She tapped the side of her headset. “You there, Jack?”

“Yes’m. ’Rax is almost done.”

“Already? Wow... seems like only yesterday we landed on this island.”

“We landed thirty seconds ago.”

“Yeah, I know... but it seems like only yesterday!” She slowed down and hovered in place. “I’ve just finished scouting the island: it looks like there’s another patch of minerals on the very opposite side.”

“That’s good to know. We’ve got plenty to last us, but more is always better.”

“I also saw one of those mountain thingies—the ones with the steep sides and flat tops—right in the middle of the island. I’ll take a closer look on the way back.”

“Y’know, even if there ain’t nuthin’ special there, it’d still make a mighty fine defensive position. We can build our vulnerable structures there and defend ’em with missile towers.”

“Hey, yeah... and then we can just fly our command center back and forth. Good idea!” Dash caught sight of the butte ahead, and began gaining altitude. “Huh. Looks flat enough to build on. No minerals, but there’s something... some kind of... whoa. Talk about weird.”

“Weird? What’s weird?”

“Just a sec. I’m gonna take a closer look.”

Rainbow Dash landed on the butte and walked over to a massive, gnarled tree. The branches were big and thick, and they all curled up into the air to form a tight bundle. Despite its barren, somber appearance, Dash could see bright green fruit and flowers budding along its surface. The tree cast a faint, greenish glow on the surrounding area.

Dash tapped her headset. “Jack? You’re not gonna believe this.”

“Tell me what yer lookin’ at. Take yer time.”

“It’s a big ugly tree, and it’s got these glowing green fruit. Can’t really get a good look. Maybe if I flew up and—”

“Negatory!” Jack shouted. “Do not approach the tree! If that’s what I think it is, it’s incredibly toxic!”

Dash flapped her wings and darted backwards. “Oh, jeez! Should we burn it?”

“No-no-no, don’t touch it! That there’s a Vesp-Apple tree: they’re incredibly valuable!”

“What do they do?”

“You gather up the fruit and turn it into vesp-apple juice. Then you turn that into vespene gas, and... why am I babblin’ about this!? There’s no time to waste! Get back to base, pronto!”

“Right! On my way!”

She leapt to the air and streaked back to the outpost in a matter of seconds. As she made the final approach, she saw a new structure next to the command center: it was divided into three vertical sections, and the whole thing was built like a fortress. As she watched, a series of construction gantries snapped apart and fell away from the building, disintegrating harmlessly.

Dash landed next to the SCV, and Jack opened the cockpit and climbed down next to her.

“Construction complete, commander!”

“Finally, we can build some dudes!” Dash reared up and rubbed her front hooves together, grinning eagerly. “Oh man, this is gonna be totally wicked! What kinda dudes can we build? Pegasus commandos, ya think?”

“Don’t you fret: if we got dirt pony marines, there ain’t no problem ya can’t solve!” Jack put her stetson on and marched up the ramp.

Dash followed after her. “Yeah, but pegasus commandos can fly. Think of all the rough terrain around here: they can jump up cliffs and cross over rivers! There’s nowhere to hide!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “That’s good for harassment, maybe, but Marines are tough as bricks, with plenty of firepower to boot. You’ll change yer mind once you see a bunker full of ’em!”

They walked up the ramp and into the barracks’s main hall: a long, five-story gymnasium with rows of shelves along every wall. They both stared at the massive stockpile of weapons on display: rifles, shotguns, machine pistols, grenade launchers... there were even a few shoulder-mounted rocket launchers here and there.

“No way!! Would you look at the size of this thing!?” Dash ran over to a shelf and grabbed a rifle as long as she was, nose to tail. As soon as she pulled the weapon off the shelves, it dragged her off balance and fell to the floor with a deafening clang. “How the heck am I supposed to carry this thing!?”

Jack grinned at her. “You’re supposed to wear a suit of powered armor first. But we can get you a tripod instead, if you’d prefer.”

Dash stroked her hoof along the side of the weapon. “C-14 ‘Impaler’ Gauss rifle?”

“You're pronouncing it wrong: ‘Gauss’ rhymes with ‘house’ or ‘mouse’.” She hauled the weapon off the floor and set it back on the shelf. “It’s a huge improvement over the C-13 ‘Eviscerator’: much better cooling system, and a bigger magazine capacity... and don’t even get me started on the C-12 ‘Stabs-You-Full-Of-Pointy-Metal-Spikes’ variant.”

“That’s cool and all, but I like flying. Is there anything smaller?”

Jack walked to the far end of the shelf. “This here’s the light infantry section. Help yerself!”

“Ooooh!” Dash flew up and took a smaller, boxy-looking weapon off the rack. “What’s this?”

“Nice choice,” said Jack. “That there’s a P-22 ‘Sickle’ machine pistol.”

“This is a pistol!?”

“A marine can hold it in one hoof,” she said, “but it’s a good defensive option for lighter infantry. Crewponies and technicians use ’em in case of emergencies.”

“Hey, check this out!” Dash reared up and grabbed a second machine pistol off the rack, aiming both at the same time. “Say hello to my leetle friends!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Would you put that away? You’ll never hit anything like that.”

“Awww!”

“Seriously, Dash, the recoil is just too much. You’d have to be some kinda crazy psychopath to go into a real fight with two at once.”

“Fine, fine.” She stowed the second pistol, latching it to one side of her harness. “But I’m keeping a spare just in case. Now let’s quit noodling around, and start building dudes!”

They grinned at each other, excitedly. Rainbow Dash took out the remote control, tapped the nearest wall, and issued a build command. They turned around and watched in awe as a panel in the floor opened up: a circular platform raised into view and an array of mechanical arms began assembling a massive suit of armor, piece by piece. A vast collection of frames, pistons and cables snapped together, bit by bit, and a seamless sheath of armor layered overtop of it all. The mechanical arms retracted.

They both stared at the suit of mechanized armor for some time. It was huge, built like a battleship, and covered with little vents and glowing thrusters. They walked around it in a circle, staring at the seamlessly curved armor plates. The suit had a pair of saddlebags built right into it: there was a massive box-magazine on one side, and a colossal battle-rifle on the other... the same kind they’d seen earlier.

Jack let out a long, low whistle.

“Yeah,” said Dash, “I’m starting to think Pegasus Commandos might not be ‘all that’ after all.”

“I dunno,” said Jack, “this seems an awful lot bigger than the Marine suits I’m used to.”

Dash glanced around. “So... where’s the pilot?”

“Right,” said Jack. “Let’s check the mess hall.”

She ran to a nearby door and went into the next hall. “Hey! Where mah boyz at, y’all?”

Dash walked up behind her and looked at the empty, unused cafeteria.

“So...?”

Jack tugged her hat down. “Dang it, they’re probably loungin’ in the bunk-rooms. There’s jest no excuse for sleepin’ on the job.”

She ran back through the arsenal and into the last section of the barracks: a series of large bunkrooms connected by hallways and stairwells. She ran to each, poking her head in and rattling the door. “Come on, now! Ain’t no time to be sleepin’ on the job!”

They finished searching the last hallway and came to a balcony overlooking the main arsenal. Jack slowed to a halt and stared down at the empty hall.

Dash cleared her throat. “So... where’s the dudes?”

Jack frowned and leaned against the railing. “Ah don’t rightly know what’s wrong. There should be dudes here.”

“So... you built this whole barracks, right?”

“That ah did.”

“And you just expected a bunch of ponies to just magically appear once you were done?”

Jack stared at the main hall below. Eventually, she slumped against the railing. Dash gave her a gentle, reassuring pat on the back.

Bright red lights flashed across the ceiling, and a calm, robotic voice played over the loudspeakers. “Warning: Our base is under attack.”

Jack stood up straight. “Aah! Enemies? Where!? Who!?”

“Yeah, I told the main computer to register the Rhynadons as a hostile enemy force.” She flew to the ground level and readied her machine pistol. “We both knew this day would come. It was only a matter of time!”

Jack glanced around, nervously. “W-w-what do we do!?”

“Just like before: it’s up to us.” She pointed at the suit of powered armor. “One of us will have to suit up. There’s no other way!”

She set her jaw. “I’ll do it. We need you in the air.”

Dash nodded, resolutely.

Jack sprinted back through the corridors and down the stairs, and ran to the freshly assembled suit. “It’ll take me a few minutes to suit up! Can you hold ’em off till then?”

Dash hefted her bulky machine pistol. “You bet your flank I can.”

Dash hit the switch for the main bay door and somersaulted underneath it before it fully opened. She came out of the tumble in a kneeling posture, with her machine pistol at the ready. There were no Rhynadons in sight... instead, there was a giant mechanical robot standing in the clearing nearby. It had four legs and a pair of wings, but was only vaguely pony shaped. Its armor plating was patchy and ramshackle, but it bristled with a wide variety of heavy weapons.

Dash lowered her weapon. “Where’ve I seen that before?” she whispered.

The bay doors opened fully. Jack stepped up to the ramp clad in the powered armor, but took a nervous step back. “What the hey is that thing?” she said.

“Dunno. It doesn’t seem to be active, though.”

“Lan’ sakes, I hope not... It looks like it could chew us up for breakfast!”

Dash waved at her to stay put, then flew into the air and searched the outpost. There was nothing else out of place.

“Heeeey!” she shouted. “Anypony out there?”

There was no response. Dash scanned the horizon a while longer. Her ears twitched slightly.

“Hey,” Jack said over the comm, “see anything weird?”

“Sh-shush.” She closed her eyes and cupped her hooves by her ears. “I think I hear something. Just a sec.”

She flew down towards the command center, following her ears. As she approached, the sound became clearer: squealing electric guitars and a thumping drum baseline, rendered faint and squeaky by a set of cheap, tiny speakers. She looked down and saw a small, ragged hole in the roof of the command center. Every now and then, a bundle of cables or a bit of broken electronics flew out of the hole and fell to the ground below.

Dash pointed her weapon into the hole and cleared her throat, clearly and deliberately. The rummaging sounds ceased, and a strange creature poked her head out of the hole: half eagle, and half lion. She was wearing a tattered flak vest and a pair of extremely thick goggles.

“Wake up,” said Dash.

The Griffon stared at the barrel of her gun for a moment. “Grab a brush and put a little makeup,” she said.

“Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup.”

Jack marched over to the side of the command center and climbed up a ladder. “Who’s this?”

Dash tossed her head back and waved at the sky. “Why’d you leave the keys upon the table? Here you go create another fable!” she slammed her hooves back on the roof and glared at the griffon intensely. “You wanted to!”

The griffon climbed out of the makeshift hole, tossing aside a cutting torch and a set of giant bolt cutters. “Grab a brush and put a little makeup! You wanted to!”

Dash darted forward and pressed her face right up against the griffon’s. “Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup. You wanted to!”

“Why’d you leave the keys upon the table? You wanted to!”

They each held each other’s shoulders and sang together, sad and soulful.

“I don’t think you trust... in... myyyy... self-righteous suiciiiiide... I cry... when angels deserve toooo...” They both slammed their heads up and down, shaking their manes violently back and forth and screaming the last word with a guttural roar. “Diiiiiiiie!”

Jack climbed up the last rung of the ladder and watched, slack jawed, as Dash and the Griffon began slamming invisible electric guitars while taking on dramatic postures.

“What.”

Rainbow Dash laughed, and gave the griffon a vigorous hug: they held each other tightly, their heads turned away, and slapped each other on the back vigorously. “Oh, man it’s been years, mouse-breath! How’d you even get off of Dirtonis, anyways?”

“It takes more than that to knock me out of the game, hay-brain! I’ve been flyin’ around space for years now! How’d you get way out here?”

Jack cleared her throat. They turned to look at her, mildly annoyed.

“Would somepony tell me... if’n ya please... jest what the sam hill is goin’ on?”

“This here’s my best friend and hetero-life partner, Gilda the Griffon!” Dash gave her a friendly shove. “Back when I was a Pegasus Trooper, we’d hire her now and then for a little extra muscle. She’s the best in the biz!”

“You know it!” said Gilda. “But I never woulda made it through alive if I hadn’t had your sweet little butt watching my back.” She put Dash in a friendly headlock and rubbed her scaled knuckles against her head. “Seriously! This here is the best drop pilot you’ll ever see!”

Jack watched her, warily. “Yeah, so... does that mean we can trust her?”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Nah. Gilda’s always been a mercenary. A sometimes-good-girl, sometimes-sexy-bad-girl who only has one loyalty...”

“...And that’s to whoever’s got the sweet, sweet minerals!”

Jack watched as they both performed a complicated, half-hoof-half-talon fist-pound.

“That’s not exactly encouraging,” she said. “Does that mean we can hire her to work for us?”

“Oh yeah,” said Dash. “This is gonna rock!”

Gilda scratched the back of her head. “Actually, I’m already working on a job right now. It shouldn’t take long, though. You can hire me then if you still need the help.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “A job? Who is it for?”

Dash shook her head. “Don’t even try asking. Once she’s been bought, she stays bought: She’d never betray her employer.”

“Pretty much,” Gilda said. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

There was an awkward pause. Gilda and Dash broke out laughing, and Jack nervously joined in.

Gilda pointed a talon at her. “Seriously, though. If you do find out who I’m working for, I will kill you.”

Dash pushed her talon away. “Aw, don’t mind her. She says that to everypony.”

“Right. So.” Jack pointed at the ragged hole in the roof of the command center. “And what about this?”

Gilda wiped her nose on her sleeve. “You might wanna get an SCV or something to patch that up. Might rain soon.”

“Good point.” Dash pointed at Jack. “Hey, could you get on that? Great. I’m gonna catch some hang-time with Gilda.”

Jack frowned at her. “Aren’t we a little bit curious to know why she was digging a hole in the roof of our command center?”

“Jeez, would you calm down already?”

Gilda nudged Dash with her elbow. “Hey, your new girlfriend seems kinda paranoid.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Yeah, tell me about.”

“Now hold on a jest a cotton-pickin’ minnit. Just because I’m—” Jack’s eyes snapped open. “Girlfriend!? That’s not...! We’re...!”

“Well, you’re a girl. Right?”

“Yeah, but—”

Dash nodded. “And we’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“See? Paranoid.” Dash bonked Jack on the head with her command remote, then pointed it at the hole in the roof. “Less talky, more fixy.”

Jack stared, slack-jawed, as they took to the air and hovered back to the main bay, talon-in-hoof. Their voices grew faint as they drifted away. “Hey, are you still any good at martial arts? It’s been forever since I had a sparring partner.”

“That’s sounds fun! I’ve got some wrestling moves I’ve been meaning to practice... I can’t wait to get all sweaty together!”

Jack stared down at the hole for a moment. She scrunched her eyes shut and let out a frustrated sigh.

D07: Have I mentioned how heterosexual I am, today?

Jack finished spackling a layer of hyper-sugar gel over the hole in the command center’s roof. She retracted the high-powered, laser-guided cyber-trowel back into the SCV’s left leg. She activated the construction mech’s thrusters and hovered back into the main bay. She opened the cockpit just in time to watch Gilda fly her giant robotic griffin inside as well: it was three times the size of the SCV, and its stylistic design resembled that of a fighter jet. The wings were articulate frames that supported a pair of giant jet turbines, but they flexed and moved like real wings.

Gilda popped the cockpit and flew to the floor, waving at Jack. “Top it off for me, wouldja? There’s a babe.”

Jack clenched her jaw. “You ain’t my boss, civvy. You don’t get to give me orders.”

Gilda stopped in her tracks. “What did you just call me?”

Jack shrugged, nonchalant. “If you ain’t signed up with the military, you can’t rightly call yourself a soldier. Just sayin’.”

“Have you even seen my ship? It’s got freakin’ missiles on it. I’ve flown more missions than you could even count.”

“Oh, I’m sure you got guns and skills. But you ain’t part of the chain of command. You don’t stand for nuthin’... all you care about is yourself.”

“That’s just crazy talk,” she said. “I also care about sweet, sweet minerals.”

Jack stamped her hoof. “So is that all you are? A selfish, greedy, mercenary? Someone who fights for nuthin’ but profit!?”

They locked eyes for a moment.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Gilda glanced around the command center’s bay. “So where’s the spa? It’s been months since I had a real bubble bath.”

“Spa? Bubble...?” Jack shook her head. “We don’t got room for luxuries like that! This here is a military outpost!”

A side door opened up and Rainbow Dash flew into the bay, waving cheerfully. “Hey, when are you gonna finish stowing that thing?”

“Just finished up now,” said Gilda. “Hey, does this place have a spa?”

“Not officially, but the commander’s quarters comes with a giant jacuzzi. We can totally share!” Dash pointed at Jack and nodded towards the griffon mech. “Top it off for her, wouldja? There’s a babe.”

“Top it off!?” Jack pointed at the mech. “We’re not exactly made of experimental mecha-jet fuel, y’know! How is she gonna pay for all this!?”

“Aww, don’t worry about it! She’s a friend, right? We can help her out just this once.”

“That’s not what I’m—”

Dash waved the remote in her face. “Come on, Jack. Don’t make me use the clicker again.”

“Yes... ma’am.”

Jack watched as they flew off together, hoof-in-talon, singing loudly and off key. She ground her teeth together, but walked over to the refueling station and dragged a giant hose out of a hatch in the wall.

An hour later Jack stood next to the griffon mech, watching the diagnostic computer as it printed out data. She glanced at the fuel gage every now and then, but focused on the diagnostic. Damage reports, mechanical stats, internal components... nothing particularly unusual.

Come on... there’s gotta be something here I can use. Anything.

A door on the far side of the bay opened and laughter drifted back. Jack straightened up and poked a button on the console, hiding the display. Dash and Gilda landed nearby with fuzzy towels draped around their necks.

“Heyyy!” Jack leaned against the console, obscuring it with her body. “So, what’re you two doin’ back so soon?”

Dash nodded outside. “Gilda and me were gonna go raid the ’rax and plink bottles for awhile.”

Jack stared at the Griffon. “You want us to give you guns.”

Gilda hugged Dash’s neck. “Calm down. Just goin’ on a playdate with my numbah-one playmate.”

Dash shoved her aside with a giggle. “Oh, you!”

Gilda nodded up at the mech. “So is it all gassed up?”

“It’s, uh... not yet.” She shook her head and looked away. “Still needs a little more time.”

“Cool.” Gilda glanced at something behind her. “Hey, is that a diagnostic computer?”

Jack rolled her eyes. “Yeeeee... nope. It’s a... soda... ball... detector.”

Gilda and Dash stared at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. Jack shuffled her hooves.

“You got a funny streak after all!” said Gilda. “Seriously, thanks for giving it a tune-up. It’s been years since I had a really good engineer take a look at it.”

“And she’s the best engineer there is, too!” said Dash. “You’re lucky to have her.”

“Well... shucks.” Jack managed a hesitant smile.

“I really appreciate the help,” Gilda said with a smile, “but if you reverse-engineer any of its internal systems I will kill you. Like... so dead.”

“Yeah, she’d do it, too.” Dash nodded outside. “Want a tour of the barracks?”

“Would I ever!” She followed Dash outside. “Hey, you got any more of those P-22 Sickles lyin’ around? I love shooting two of those at once. Makes me feel like I’m in that one movie.”

“What, seriously? You’d have to be some kinda crazy psychopath to try that!”

“Naaah, I do it all the time. You just gotta install the right recoil modification... they’re gonna make that standard when the P-24 comes out next month.”

“No way! Cool!”

Jack walked into the mess hall and opened up the refrigerator. She took out a jar of applesauce and set it on the counter. What a day.

“Hey.”

She looked up and saw Gilda rummaging in a nearby cabinet. “Oh... hey.”

Gilda took out a box of breakfast cereal and poured it into a bowl. “Got any milk?”

Jack opened the fridge again and looked inside. “What kind do you prefer? Skim, two percent?”

Gilda put the box away and carried her bowl to the table. “Homo?”

Applejack pushed her head into the fridge and scanned the cartons, looking for homogenized milk, but saw none. “Sorry. No homo.”

“Aww.” Gilda looked down at her bowl. “Two-percent is fine, I guess.”

“No wait! I didn’t mean—” Jack’s head snapped up and banged against the underside of the freezer door. “Aaaugh!!”

Gilda stood halfway out of her chair. “Jeez! You okay there?”

Jack hugged her head and scrunched her eyes shut in pain. She simply waved at her, dismissively.

“Kay.” Gilda sat back in her chair. “What’s the big deal?”

Jack staggered out of the kitchen as quickly as she could, groaning in pain.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Aw, come on. Don’t make me get the milk myself.”

Jack put the industrial floor-polisher in park mode and twisted around in her seat. The floor of the command center’s main bay sparkled brightly, and a fresh pine scent filled the air. She drove the polisher into a side garage and took out a portable line-painting machine. She tied the harness around her shoulders and began pulling it across the floor like a plough. She measured out the distance, positioned the sprayer perfectly, and turned it on. She took one step forward just as Dash and Gilda marched past, both covered from head to tail in a thick layer of slimy, filthy mud that tracked on the floor.

Dash laughed. “Man, I can’t believe you did that! I mean, at first I thought you were joking about pushing me in... and then you went and actually did it, and I was all like ‘duuude, no way’!”

Gilda took hold of her wing and wrung it like a sponge, dribbling mud all over the floor. “Aw, that was nothing! Remember when you started climbing back out, and I reached over to help you up? And then you were all like ‘I’m gonna pull you in here too’ and I was all like ‘no way!’ And you said ‘had you going there didn’t I?’ And then... and then...!” she doubled over, laughing.

“And then I actually pulled you in!” Dash said. “Was that priceless or what!?”

“I wish I’d seen the look on my face!”

“Hey, you wanna take another bubblebath together? We’re both pretty dirty after all that sweaty mud wrestling.”

“Sounds like a great idea, you dirty girl you. I’ll grab some snacks while you start the water.”

They walked out of the bay together. Jack stared down at the thick trail of mud and filth they’d left in their wake. She took the harness off and threw it against the ground with a light clatter.

Gilda walked out of the commander’s private quarters, releasing a wall of hot steam into the corridor. She paused to stretch her wings out with a satisfying crick. When the steam cleared up she saw Jack directly in front of her, dressed in a heavy suit of powered armor and armed with a massive, boxy assault rifle. A pair of headlights on the front lit up, casting bright cones through the remaining mist.

“Hey,” Gilda said with a wave. “You know where they keep the snacks? We’re all out.”

Jack’s voice crackled through the external speakers. “I’ve got a few words for ya.”

There was a savage feline roar, followed quickly by the sound of a steel blade being sharpened. A trio of glowing swipe-marks hung in the air for a moment, and Jack watched as the front third of her rifle slid apart into several neat little slices.

Jack stared at the weapon, then at Gilda. She was already walking away, waving at her from behind.

“I’m so glad we had this talk,” she said.

Jack stared at the smoothly shaved pieces of her rifle scattered about the floor.

“Warning,” said a calm, robotic voice inside her helmet, “internal biowaste collection system is at full capacity. Please visit nearest pastry depot to request standard upkeep and maintenance.”

Jack crept to the end of a darkened corridor and peered into the command center’s secondary resource bay. The lights were off, but she could hear the faint rustle of feathers and the scrape of talons against metal. She glanced back over her shoulder one last time before sneaking into the room.

Come on... I know yer in here somewhere!

She hid behind a set of shelves and snuck around the edge of the room. She froze when she caught a slight trace of motion. She lifted a video recorder and turned it on: she could make out a bird-like silhouette standing across the room, next to a huge stack of sealed crates. The griffin glanced about casually, then grabbed one of the crates.

“Aha!!” Jack switched the lights on and leapt between the shelves. “I caught ya dead to rights, ya no good mineral-rustler!”

Gilda gave her a bored look. “D’you mind? I’m kinda busy here.”

“You don’t fool me,” she said, “I worked as a sheriff for six years before I joined the army and I know the law like the bottom of my own hoof! That there crate is full of refined, military-grade hyper-sugar, and it’s the property of the Confettirate space-navy!” She patted her video recorder. “And if I show this to the Commander, she’ll have no choice but to throw you in prison forever!”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. Whatever will I do now?”

Jack stepped towards her. “Look, I know you’n Dash go back a ways, but ever since you showed up discipline has been thrown out the window. You’re a security risk and a liability, and we can’t afford to have you around anymore.”

“And what’re you gonna do about it? Have you seen my mech?”

Jack shook the camera at her. “If you agree to go away and leave us alone, I promise not to show this to Dash.”

Gilda stared at her, shocked. “You’re... blackmailing me? You used to be a sheriff, and now you’re blackmailing someone?”

“Well, ah... I mean...” Jack pawed at the floor. “It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

Gilda darted forward and put her in a headlock. “Aww, that is so adorable! You’ve never done this before, have you? I can kinda tell when it’s a mare’s first time.”

Jack struggled against her iron grip. “It’s not...! Let go of me, dag-nabbit!”

The door flew open with a clang and they both froze in place.

Rainbow Dash stormed in. “What’s goin’ on in here!?”

Gilda dropped Jack on the floor with a thump. “Nuthin’. What’s it look like?”

Jack shot upright and held out the video recorder. “I caught her stealin’ from us! She’s a no-good, low-down-dirty thief and a smuggler!”

“Yeah, so?”

Jack stamped her hoof. “You’re the commander aren’t you? So do something about it!”

“Fine, fine.” Dash marched over to Gilda and swatted her with a rolled up newspaper. “Bad griffin! Bad, evil, wicked griffin! You’re lucky I don’t give you a spankin’ for this.”

Gilda frowned at her. “A spanking? Seriously?”

“With a whip and everything, you naughty, naughty griffon! I’ll take you down to the brig and tie you up myself if I have to!”

Gilda stared off into space, blankly.

Dash swatted her on the beak. “Well? Whaddya have to say for yourself?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. What were we talking about? I was totally thinking of something else.”

Jack glowered at them both, grinding her teeth. “You can’t just let her off the hook for this. She broke the law! I’ve shot ponies for less than this!”

Dash put the newspaper away. “Yeah, well, I’m sure she’s learned her lesson.”

“What? No I haven’t! I’m naughty!”

“Awww, you!” Dash reached up and ruffled her feathers.

Jack cleared her throat. “If’n y'all will excuse me, I gotta get back to work now. At least somepony here has to keep an honest day.”

“Yeah yeah,” said Gilda. “Good luck with that.”

“I’ll be in the main storage gay of the command center if y’need me. Try not to cause any more trouble.” She turned to the exit, but spun around at the last second. “Bay! I said bay!”

Dash and Gilda watched her for a moment. “Yeah, we heard you. So?”

“Nevermind I gotta go now s’cuse me!”

Jack bolted out of the room, but stopped in the hallway. She went back to the door and peered inside: Rainbow Dash was hauling the discarded crate off the floor and putting it back on the stack.

Maybe I’m wrong about her... maybe it’s just me.

Dash kicked the stack of crates with her hind leg. “Oopsie!” she said as one of the crates tumbled to the floor next to Gilda.

Gilda cracked her knuckles and tapped the crate. “Well, lookie what I found!”

Jack bolted off down the corridor. I knew it.

Jack turned to the micro-engineering bay’s only table and unfurled a massive sheet of shiny paper, then set a mug of hot cider on one of the corners to keep it from curling up. She stroked her hoof over the detailed blueprints and scanned the densely packed lines. She stroked her other hoof against her chin.

A deep tremor shook the room. Bits of dust fell from the ceiling, and the hanging lights swung back and forth. Jack slammed a hoof on the table, then stormed out of the room. Alarms and klaxons blared over the intercom, and the calm, robotic voice began reading off damage reports. She grabbed a heavy shotgun with a massive drum-magazine and stormed outside muttering to herself.

A shadow flitted across the ground and a massive spray of fiery explosions wracked the clearing: a few stray missiles smashed into the domed roof of the command center, raining hot shrapnel everywhere. A sleek space-fighter zoomed overhead, transformed into a griffon-shaped robot, and flew low over the ground: the mech hovered in place, wobbling slightly, and strafed an empty patch of ground with a pair of heavy assault autocannons. Several of the shells went wide and spattered the wall of the barracks with giant searing holes.

Jack threw her hat on the ground and marched down the ramp, firing her shotgun at the giant mech. “This is the very last straw! You come down here this instant!”

The mech turned towards her, wobbly, and dropped to the ground with a shuddering quake. Jack ignored the impact and continued marching towards it, still firing her shotgun. The solid metal slugs pinged off the armor plating with a spray of sparks.

“I don’t wanna hear a single word out of you! You may be Dash’s best friend since forever, but I think you're the most irresponsible, untrustworthy griffon I’ve ever met in my entire life! We’re trying to fight a war of survival, and all you can think about is bubble baths and stealin’ minerals! If I were the commander, I wouldn’t even bother to bring you back to prison: I’d jest drag you out to the wastelands and put a slug in your head, right then and there, because that’s all you’d deserve!”

The mech reared up slightly. Its missile launchers shifted position.

Applejack tossed her shotgun aside and waved at her. “Go ahead and gun me down, all helpless like! See if I care! Maybe then Dash will finally realize what a horrible, selfish varmint you are! Maybe after she learns the truth about you, she’ll get back to her real job... saving the whole dang galaxy! She might even be able to do it, too, even if it cost her her life... but I wouldn’t expect you to understand that sort of honor!”

The front of the cockpit opened up, and Rainbow Dash looked down at her.

Jack worked her jaw back and forth a few times.

“I asked if I could play with it,” Dash said, quietly. “She was thinking of giving us the blueprints so we could make our own anti-air dudes”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I didn’t... I mean... aw, shoot.”

Dash’s lower lip trembled. “Well tell me how you really feel, why don’t you?”

“Look, I didn’t mean it that way!”

Dash flew out of the cockpit and landed next to her. “You really believe all that, don’t you? You really meant it.”

Jack looked at the ground. “This wasn’t how I wanted it to go down.”

Gilda flew out of the command center and landed nearby, holding up a laser target designator. “Hey, wanna try calling down an air-strike? It’s just like launching a nuke!”

Dash looked away. “I dunno.”

Gilda glanced between them. “What’s goin’ on? Something wrong?”

“Well... y’see...”

Dash stepped forward. “Jack thinks you might be... a bad influence.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re the one that taught me how to smuggle stuff through blockades and sabotage thingies with homemade bombs.”

“Yeah, and that’s cool and all, but... you’re also distracting me from my duties as a commander.”

“So? We haven’t seen each other in years.”

Dash scratched the back of her head. “Yeah, I know, but we’re kinda... fighting a war. Sort of.”

Gidla spread her arms to each side. “You’re always fighting a war! You think that’s ever gonna change?”

“But this one’s different! A whole planet got blow’d up, and now there’s aliens everywhere. That’s never happened before, and if we don’t win... well...”

“Yeah? What?”

Dash pawed at the dirt. “Well, I don’t know what’ll happen if we don’t win. But I don’t think we’ll get a second chance.”

Gilda stared at her, silent.

“Look, we’re still friends... right?”

Gilda nodded. “For sure. I didn’t know things were so heavy right now, and I didn’t mean to distract you or anything. It’s just been so long since we got to hang out, and... I really missed you. I guess I got a little carried away.”

“Aww!” Dash chucked her chin, gently. “Why don’t you call me up when we’re done with the mission? We can hang out then!”

“That’d be great.” Gilda glanced at Jack. “I mean, if I’m still welcome here.”

“Aw, shucks. Yer welcome back anytime.” Jack picked her hat off the ground and dusted it off. “I think I misjudged you somethin’ fierce... I’ve met a lot of low-down dirty rascals before, and I guess I thought you were just more of the same. Sorry I judged ya like that.”

“Nah, it’s cool. I know I act all hard and stuff, and I’ve done some things in my life...” She grabbed Dash and put her in friendly headlock. “...But I never forget my friends!”

Half an hour later, Gilda set out in her vehicle’s mecha-mode and walked across the island. Jack followed along in her SCV, and Rainbow Dash circled overhead at a leisurely pace.

“Gotta say, that’s a mighty fine ride you got there,” Jack said over the intercom. “Were you kiddin’ about giving us the schematics?”

“Ha! Are you serious? This old thing is a total junker. It’s nowhere near as good as what the pegasus air force was using ten years ago.”

“Maybe so, but it’s better than nothing.” Jack grinned. “Besides, it’s not the vehicle that matters... it’s the pilot.”

“You got a point. Hey, how about I give you the schematics for just the missile launchers? You can design your own vehicle, then slap ’em right on. They’re great for anti-air.”

“Anti-air, huh?” Jack stroked her chin. “Vehicles are cool... but I bet it’d look even better on a turret. Maybe throw some advanced sensors in there, just fer good measure.”

“There’s the butte,” Dash said. “That means we’re halfway across the island.”

“I’ve got a dropship parked up there,” Gilda said. “Just gimme a few minutes to load up my mech, and I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

Dash waved at the SCV. “Hey, can that thing fly?”

“Naw. I’ll wait down here while you finish up.”

Gilda’s mech extended a pair of thrusters and hovered in the air while it transformed. The space fighter flew up and landed on top of the mountain, right next to a heavily modified dropship. There was a camp set up around the glowing green tree: little more than a portable communications tower surrounded by sealed barrels and fold-up work tables. Dash landed nearby and wandered through the makeshift camp while she waited, poking at the various tools and bits of equipment.

Gilda came over, wiping her talons with a rag. “Hey.”

“Yeah. Are you gonna be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, babe. I can take care of myself. Though you might wanna have a talk with that engineer of yours... she’s pretty overprotective of you.” Gilda leaned close and whispered. “I think she might be a little gay, too. Are you cool with that?”

Dash nodded. “Of course I am. I just don’t think she’s figured it out herself, yet. I’ll try to let her down easy.”

“Hope it doesn’t come to that. She’s got some serious self-confidence issues.” Gilda set a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You take care of her, alright? It’s rough crushing on somepony who just isn’t into you.”

“True, dat.” Dash smiled at her. A moment later, she looked away. “Hey. That mission you’re doing. I know you can’t talk about it, but—”

Gilda smirked. “It had nothing to do with you. Don’t worry: I promise I won’t come gunning for you.”

“Cool. I didn’t want there to be any bad blood, y’know?” Dash glanced at a nearby barrel. “Hey, what are you doing up here?”

“Just grabbing some vespene.” Gilda opened the barrel, revealing a bubbling mass of glowing green syrup.”

Dash set her hoof on the edge of the barrel and peered inside. “Freaky. Hey, should we be wearing masks or something?”

“Yeah, probably.”

Dash nodded down. “What’s it do, anyways?”

“It’s good for all sorts of super high-tech stuff. Advanced vehicles, upgraded weapons and armor, high-powered fuel... there nothing in the galaxy that can’t be improved with a little vespene.”

“Whoa... how much you got here?”

Gilda wiped her nose. “About a hundred units. It packs up pretty tight after you refine it.”

“Huh.” Dash stared into the liquid. A rippling wave of green light lit her face from below.

“Anyways, I gotta get going.” Gilda took hold of the barrel and tried to pick it up, but Dash’s hooves stayed on the edge. “Like. Soon.”

“Right, right. Sorry.”

Gilda gave the barrel another tug. Dash’s grip held.

“Dash?”

The pegasus looked up, slightly dazed.

Jack sat bolt upright as an alert sounded through the SCV’s cockpit. “Whoa! What’s goin on out there? We under attack or somethin’?”

She turned towards the sheer rock walls of the butte behind her. She saw Rainbow Dash dive off the edge of the cliff at full speed, struggling under the weight of a chemical barrel.

“Whoooo-whoop-whoop-whoop!”

Jack activated the external speakers. “...Commander?”

“Get back to base! Go-go-go now-now-now!”

A long chain of red-hot bullets streamed down from the top of the cliff and tore divots out of the ground. Jack adjusted her camera view and zoomed in on Gilda, armed with with a massive assault cannon. She had a black eye and appeared to be swearing profusely.

“What’d ya do!?”

“No time!” Dash shouted. She ran over, balancing a giant barrel on her back. Bright green liquid sloshed out of the top and splattered on the ground, sizzling. “We gotta get back to base as soon as possible!”

Jack swung the SCV’s vice-grip around and loaded the barrel onto her cargo deck. Dash landed on the SCV’s head and pointed forward. She reared up and shook her hoof defiantly as assault shells peppered the ground around them. “Yeah, that’s right! Who’s the boss now, bird-brain!?”

“You stole from her!? After all that, you stole from her!”

Dash leaned back on the SV’s head, resting comfortably. “Naw, s’cool. We prank each other all the time. She’ll get over it.”

“You call this a prank!?”

Dash shrugged. “Who cares? It’s not like there’s anything she can do about—”

“Sweet merciful Celestia tap-dancin’ on the tea-table!”

“What?” Dash looked back just as a sleek, metal shape lifted off from the butte and streaked towards them. “Oh, yeah... forgot about that.”

“You forgot? You forgot!?”

“Ooh... missile pods.” She kicked the top of the SCV’s head. ‘Yeah, you’re gonna wanna speed up pretty soon, Jack.”

“This is as fast as it goes! You can’t expect me to out-race a freakin’ space fighter!”

“Huh.”

The space fighter bored down on them and unleashed a swarm of missiles: bright white contrails curved through the air, and a barrage of explosions devastated the area all around them. Dash pointed both of her P-22 ‘Sickle’ machine pistol at the sky and sent out two streams of low-caliber bullets. Sparks ricocheted off the ship’s lower hull and several tiny fragments of armor fell through the air.

“Yeah, you like that? Well do ya? I didn’t think so! Try that again and we’ll see what happens!”

One of the missiles slammed into the SCV directly, blasting its midsection apart in a fiery explosion and sending all four legs flying through the air. Dash landed on the ground, then grunted in pain as Jack landed on top of her. They rolled onto their backs, covered in ash and gasping for breath.

“Y’owe me a new hat,” said Jack. “So what’s the plan now?”

“Okay... yeah, I can still fix this. All I need is a flashlight, a boomerang, a bag of flour, and two ballpoint pens.”

They both winced as the barrel of vespene gas slammed to the ground nearby, spinning slightly before settling into an upright position.

“New plan,” said Dash.

For the next fifteen minutes the two ponies carried the barrel between them, moving as quickly as they dared. The barrel wobbled back and forth and the contents sloshed about wildly, leaving a splattery trail of radioactive bio-chemical sludge. Gilda’s space fighter wheeled overhead and its thrusters howled like a hound come hot from hell.

“Left! Left!” Jack screamed.

Two rows of explosions bombarded the ground to either side of them, filling the air with shrapnel and smoke. The barrel leaned to one side, threatening to tip.

“Other left!!”

“Stop complaining!” Dash shouted back, “we’re almost there! Besides, she’s almost outta missiles!”

A storm of metal spikes tore apart the ground ahead of them.

“And when’s she gonna run outta bullets, huh!? Answer that one!”

“Just keep going! We’re almost there! Just a little more!”

They ran up the ramp of the command center, and a streak of ricochets followed their heels. They leaped inside and collapsed in a heap. The barrel tumbled forward and fell on its side, clanging like a bell. The remaining vespene splashed across the floor in a large pool of sticky, hissing sludge.

Dash leaped outside and dove into a nearby bunker: she grabbed the handles of a gigantic minigun bolted to the window, and a steady stream of fire blasted out of the muzzle. She swept the weapon across the sky several times and Gilda’s starfighter swerved back and forth slightly. A segment of its starboard wing exploded violently, and the ship flew away from the outpost trailing smoke.

Dash climbed onto the roof of the damaged bunker and reared up high. “Wooooo!”

“Ahem.”

She looked down at Jack, standing at the base of the bunker. She was staring up at her, sternly, and most of her face and neck were covered in glowing green goo.

Dash glanced around, and her smile faded slightly. She climbed off the bunker and stood next to Jack for awhile. She looked at the barracks across the way, then pawed at the ground. When she looked back at Jack, she was still glaring at her, waiting for a response.

Dash cleared her throat. “I feel so irrational.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “What?”

“So confrontational,” she said, nodding her head. “To tell the truth I am... gettin’ away with murder!”

Jack stood perfectly still, glaring straight ahead, while Dash hopped around her in a little circle.

“It isn’t possible! To never tell the truth! But the ree-ality is I’m gettin’ away with murder!”

Jack turned to the command center and trudged up the ramp without a word. Dash continued to follow alongside her, simultaneously head-banging and moonwalking.

“Nah na-na-nah na-nah! Nah na-na-nah na-naaah! Gettin’ away with mur! Dur!”

Jack threw a mop at her stomach hard enough to knock her onto her floor with a grunt, then dumped an empty bucket on her head.

“What the...? Hey! What’s the big...” She nudged the bucket up and looked around the bay. The floor of the command center was covered with a gooey pool of bright green slime. She lifted her hoof up and wiped it against her side, smearing herself even further.

“Aww fudge,” she said. “Now I’m radioactive or something. That can’t be good.”

D08: The wind in your mane and the bugs in your teeth

Dash stared up at a half-constructed building, currently covered in a dense layer of metal struts and gantries. Automated cranes swiveled back and forth. Robotic arms jabbed at the understructure with massive arcwelders.

She pushed a button on her headset. “Hey, is it done yet?”

Jack’s voice crackled back. “Nope.”

Dash took to the air and circled around the structure, landing on the opposite side. She watched Jack’s SCV hover in the air beside the gantry. She was shuffling huge metal plates back and forth.

“Soooo... when is it gonna be done?”

“Soon.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said before.”

“I know.”

Dash stepped in place rapidly, and glanced around. “Hey, I’m gonna check on the command center. Just in case.”

“S’cool.”

Dash trotted away but spun around at the last second and came back. “So how soon are we talking, here? Real soon, or just regular soon?”

“Dash, I’m tryin’ to work here.”

“Right. Right. Sorry. You’re... yeah, prolly.”

Dash watched as one of the cranes spun around, picked a metal box off the ground, and dropped it into the middle of the structure.

“Hey, is it done?”

“Yes.”

“Eeeee!!”Dash ran in little circles. “Man, this is gonna be so freakin’ awesome! I can’t wait to build our first tank! Do you think it’ll look cool? I mean sure it’s got that giant artillery cannon, but I bet it’d be even cooler if it had missile launchers and stuff! Or better yet: stealth invisibility! Nopony expects a tank to be invisible! And maybe put a bunch of thrusters on the bottom so it can hover around: if we can get buildings to fly, we can totally do the same thing with a tank, right? Or maybe we can have it transform into a robot with a pair of giant laser guns! Pew-pew-pew!”

She ran over to the building and waved up at the SCV. “Hey, are you listening? Can you do all that? Flying, invisible robo-tank with missile launchers and laser-beams and flame throwers and giant claws that pick up the enemy and smash ’em together, and... and...”

Dash paused to look at the construction gantry.

“Hey.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You said it was done.”

“Yes, I did say that.”

Dash pouted at the SCV. “You lied to me.”

“If you can plainly see whether it’s finished or not, you don’t need to ask me about it.”

Dash turned away, tossing her mane. “That’s it. I’m going back to the command center... all by myself.”

“Yes’m.”

“In fact, I don’t even want you to tell me when it’s done. I don’t even care anymore.”

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“Hrmph.” Dash marched back to the command center.

Jack paused her work and peered over the top of the building, just long enough to see Dash enter the command center. She let out a sigh of relief. As soon as she did so, a blast of rainbow-colored light streaked out of the command center and landed on a nearby crane.

Dash leaned towards her, bright eyed. “What was that? Did you say something?”

The front of the SCV’s head—a faceless, rectangular chunk of featureless metal—turned to look at her.

“Soooo... now is it done?”

Rainbow Dash sat in the main bridge of the command center, with her chair reclined all the way back. She stared at the planetarium-sized display screen that covered the domed roof: the display showed a random patch of rocky, craggy dirt. A herd of large, armored herbivores meandered about, chewing on thorny bushes.

Dash’s eyes narrowed. Don’t worry... you’ll get yours.

Jack’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Job’s finished.”

Dash bolted upright. “I wasn’t sleeping!”

“That’s... great. It’s good to set goals.”

Dash waved her remote at the roof and moved the viewpoint back to their base: a command center, a barracks, a half-demolished bunker, and a single pastry depot. She nudged the view over slightly, and saw a new structure: a big, boxy building made of a lighter, more polished metal. It had one large ramp and no windows, and its surface was peppered with exhaust ports.

Dash leaned back in her chair. “Eh. Took you long enough.”

“I built the whole thing in exactly eighty standard galactic space-seconds, just like I said I would. Anyways, I’m gonna build our first real dude now. You sure you don’t want to be here for it?”

“It’s just a big metal boxy thingy, just like all the other thingies around here. Hardly cool at all. Though I might show up if you apologized...” Dash paused to examine her hoof. “No promises.”

“S’cool,” Jack said, cheerfully, “I’m sure you’re busy with all sorts of important commander duties. I’ll take care of this myself.”

Jack winced as a whirlwind of air and color buffeted her and sent her mane whipping to the side. She looked up from the factory’s front door and saw Dash standing behind her, grinning.

Jack pulled her mane back and re-tied her ponytail. “So. Commander. Would you care to inspect the new facilities?”

Dash rolled her eyes and pushed past her. “Well, if you insist.”

They went inside, marveling at the massive interior: the main area was dominated by a gigantic conveyer belt, surrounded on both sides by a rows of mechanical arms. Giant cranes hung from rails attached to the ceiling, and the walls were coated with giant engine blocks and exposed machinery. They walked to the middle of the factory, staring all the way.

Jack stopped by a control panel and paused to admire it. “Whoa.”

“What are you so excited about?” said Dash. “Didn’t you build the whole thing?”

“I guess... but it seems different now that it’s done. I’ve never actually been in a factory before.”

Dash wiggled her eyebrows. “So! Taaaaanks?”

Jack grinned at her, and threw a switch. The factory came alive all at once; cranes slid back and forth on their rails and mechanical arms stood at attention with perfect synchronicity.

Dash turned in place, watching the machinery in awe. A moment later, an alarm played and the machinery came to a halt. Dash glanced at jack. “What the...? What’s going on? Make with the tanks already!”

Jack flipped the switch several times, rapidly. “I don’t get it! This should work!”

Dash stamped a hoof. “Well, fix it!”

Jack pointed at her. “Well you’re the commander, aint’cha? There must be somethin’ you can do to figure this out!”

“Aaaargh! I gotta do everything around here, don’t I!?” Dash took out her remote, tapped it agaisnt the floor of the factory, and squinted at the tiny built-in screen. “Requires... a... machine... shop? What the heck is a machine shop?”

Jack glanced around. “I thought this was a machine shop!”

“It’s some sort of thingy,” Jack said. “Go build one, and let me know when it’s done.”

“But I... I don’t even know what a machine shop is!”

“Well figure it out. And this time, don’t waste my time.”

“Waste!?” Jack pointed at her. “I worked my legs to the bone to build this thing in record time! If this thing is broken, it surely isn’t my fault!”

Dash spun around and pointed a hoof at her. “How am I supposed to save the galaxy if you can’t even build me one stupid tank!? Every time I give you an order, you come right back with some stupid excuse that turns it around and makes it all my fault: First we need a thingy! But we can’t build a thingy until we have minerals! But we can’t collect minerals unless we have some weird kinda worker-dude! Nopony ever told me about any of this, and we could all be attacked by horrible face-eating aliens any second now, and I don’t have a clue how any of this junk even works!”

Rainbow Dash reared up and held her remote control aloft, trembling with rage. She stopped before actually hurling it to the floor. She clenched her eyes shut. A tiny tear beaded on the corner of her eye.

Eventually, her breathing calmed. The tension in her muscles faded. She dropped down and stared at the floor. “So, what can we build?” she said, quietly.

Jack worked her jaw back and forth. “Aw jeez, Dash. I didn’t—”

Dash cleared her throat. “Just tell me what we can build.”

“Yes, commander!” Jack ran to the console. “I managed to bring along the schematics for my old ride back when I was a sheriff: the Buzzard. It’s a hoverbike, and it’s quick as a flash! Ya like quick things, right?”

Dash watched the conveyer belt move. “What’s it do?”

Jack threw a switch and the factory churned to life again. “It’s designed for patrol work and quick response. It’s faster than anything, and it even has a nitro-boost that lets it jump over obstacles: you can use it to hop up cliffs and across rivers. Cool, huh?”

Dash walked further along the conveyer belt and watched as a vehicle chassis moved through it. Each set of arms added a new component or a new layer of armor. “What’s it got for guns?”

“Concussive grenade launchers,” she said. “Good for lightly armored units, like infantry, but it’s not tough enough for a stand-up fight. You gotta hit ’n run.”

“That’s... not too great, actually.”

“Don’t you worry,” she said, “it’s got one more trick up its sleeve!”

The vehicle reached the end of the assembly line and rolled onto the floor: It was a long, needle-nosed chassis with a pair of heavy turbines on the back. The vehicle drifted gently t oa stop, hovering a meter off the ground. Jack jumped into the seat and threw a switch. The rear of the vehicle opened up, and a small turret unfolded from the top of the rear chassis.

Dash tilted her head. “A turret? But where’s the gun?”

Jack leaped onto the turret and leaned back against the railing. “It’s a gunnery platform! A single infantry dude can hop on and catch a ride, and shoot to their heart’s content! It even has a weapon stabilizer that increases accuracy and automatically reloads.”

Dash walked around the Buzzard: She watched as Jack used a pair of pedals to rotate the turret. “So... it basically lets infantry zip around, super fast?”

“Yup! And if the buzzard gets blow’d up, the infantry pops out safe and sound.”

Dash stroked her chin. “I guess that’s... kinda cool.”

“It’s really versatile,” she said. “If you need a different kinda firepower, all you have to do is load up a different kinda infantry dude.”

Jack hopped off the Buzzard and walked over to Dash. “Wanna go for a ride?”

“That’d be cool. I guess.”

Jack gave her a pat on the back. “We’ll have tanks soon. I promise.”

Dash managed a faint smile.

The sleek buzzard bolted out of the factory’s main door and landed in the dirt clearing, kicking up a cloud of dust. Its twin-turbines roaring like a jungle cat and its mega-loudspeakers belting out country-western music. Jack let out an ear-splitting whoop as the bike arced through the air. They swerved between the outpost’s few buildings, leaning and tilting like a standard motorcycle

They streaked out of the base at top speed and headed directly for the edge of the island. Jack pointed the nose of the vehicle directly at a nearby river, and pulled a lever at the very last second. The engines roared even louder and left behind twin trails of searing hot fire: a violent explosion of raw force knocked the vehicle high into the air, and they sailed over the river.

They landed on the small island ahead with a shudder, and the rear of the vehicle slammed against the ground with a spray of sparks and a cloud of dust. Jack spun the nose of the bike around for a sharp turn, and the vehicle slid sideways.

Dash braced her hips against the gunnery turret’s railing and tried to keep her Impaler gauss rifle steady. It was surprisingly easy: the gunnery turret had a robotic arm that clamped onto the weapon and supported its weight. She pressed her hoof against a floor pedal and rotated the turret around so she could see the driver’s seat.

“Heeey!”

Jack turned the music down and glanced back at her. “Yeah?”

“You know that whole nitro-jump-thing? With the flaming trails?”

“What about it?”

“It’s actually pretty radical.”

Jack grinned.

There was a rapid beeping noise. Dash fumbled with the inside pockets of her armored vest and took out her remote control. “What the...? What is it now?”

“Is the base under attack?” called Jack.

Dash squinted at the tiny display screen. “The computer says there’s something approaching the planet. Whatever it is, it’s coming in fast... and it’s sending out a distress signal!”

“That can’t be good! Any idea where it’s headed?”

“It’s landing in our ‘zone’, whatever that means. Maybe we can—”

Her voice trailed off as the clouds parted above them and a massive black object descended from the heavens. It was shaped like a colossal metal gyroscope: a central disk with curved struts ringing it’s circumference, all conforming to the shape of a sphere. Large segments of it were red-hot from entering the atmosphere, and a vast trail of oily black smoke billowed from its hull. Massive chunks of it crumbled away and burned into dust. The noise of the Buzzard’s twin turbines seemed to fade into insignificance as the space station plummeted towards the ground, shrieking like a chorus of twisted metal.

Dash pointed at the far end of the island. “Go, go, go!”

Jack swallowed a lump in her throat and kicked the Buzzard into overdrive. They streaked across the terrain like a hawk going into a dive, racing the crashing vessel to ground zero. Its colossal size gave it the illusion of ponderous slowness, but Jack knew better: the space station was no doubt plummeting at nine times the speed of sound.

“We gotta take cover!” she shouted. “Even if we get there in time, there’s nothing we can do!”

“Don’t give up now! Whoever they are, they need our help!”

She watched as the station neared the surface. She clenched her teeth, and swerved the Buzzard hard to the side: the vehicle skidded sideways and landed right behind a rocky outcropping mere moments before the station touched down. Jack leaped out of her seat and tackled Dash to the ground, covering her with her own body. They never saw the impact directly: they only heard the meteoric explosion, like an erupting volcano, and felt the force of the blast-wave as it scoured the terrain and surged against their rocky cover.

Two full minutes passed before the dust storm subsisted. Dash and Jack peeked out from behind the rock: a massive mushroom-cloud of smoke and debris obscured the far half of their narrow island. The cloud slowly drifted in the wind, revealing the very tip of one of the station’s curved spires.

Jack glanced at the devastation between herself and the impact site. “We... we should—”

Rainbow Dash bolted over the rock and flew towards the crash site.

Jack reached after her. “No, wait! We don’t even know what’s—”

Dash’s voice crackled through her headset. “Take the Buzzard back to base and load the SCV onto it. Bring it back here as fast as possible, and start doing some emergency repairs!”

“But... but what about you!?”

“I’ll circle the area for hostiles, then see if I can’t find a way in. If there’s any survivors, I’m their only hope!”

Jack watched Dash’s rainbow trail grow ever more distant. There station let out an booming alarm loud enough to vibrate the earth. A voice-recording, electronically distorted to the point of gibberish, echoed across the plains... something about an imminent core meltdown.

Jack leaped onto her Buzzard, gunned the turbines and headed back for the command center.

Rainbow Dash circled over the fallen space station, taking care to avoid the pillar of dust and smoke that hung in the air. Huge chunks of the station were twisted and broken and patches of the armor plating were still ablaze. The central disk seemed mostly intact.

She scanned the surface of the hull but saw no obvious doors or entrances. She noticed a hull section that had been torn open, and dove towards the makeshift entrance. The jagged metal edges were hot as a furnace and stank of acrid chemicals. She lowered her goggles into place and pressed on, slipping through the opening and into a small storage bay.

“Hellooo?” she shouted. “Anypony down there?”

She yelped as a massive bulkhead slammed shut behind her, blocking off the entrance and plunging her into total darkness. Tiny neon lights blinked to life all around the room: nearly every surface was covered with flickering buttons and bleeping consoles.

“Oh… kay.” She walked further inside. A second wall slammed shut in front of her. there was a loud hiss, and a thick cloud of white mist filled the area. Dash ran to the wall, kicking frantically. “Hey, what gives!? I’m tryin’ to rescue you!”

She fell to the floor, coughing violently. Eventually, the mist faded away and the wall retracted. The sweltering heat was instantly replaced by a blast of chilly air. The sheen of sweat on her hide suddenly felt clammy.

She stared at the corridor ahead, wide open. “Kay... so. I’m coming in. Is that cool?”

A faint, metallic sound reverberated through the station, followed by a low gurgle.

Dash swallowed, hard, and walked forward. The entire station was slanted at an angle, and the metal floors were much smoother and cleaner than she was used to. The lights were all off but the tiny neon lights gave her a rough layout of the area.

Dash tapped the side of her headset. “Hey, Jack? Are you back yet?”

The headset produced a quiet hiss of white static.

“Great.” Dash went to a nearby panel in the wall and pressed a few buttons at random. “Hey, anypony listening?”

The panel bleeped at her. She pushed the buttons harder, with the same results.

“Great. Just great. Best rescue plan ever, Dash. I can’t imagine how this could possibly get any w—”

A shape flitted across the very edge of view, perfectly silent. Dash froze in place and held her breath for a minute. Her eyes darted back and forth.

“H-h-hello?”

A second blur. She spun around, drew her P-22 Machine pistol, and pointed it back the way she’d came. She backed up and bumped against the wall behind her, and there was a wet, gooey splorch. What the...!? She looked up, very slowly, and saw gooey green slime dripping down from the ceiling.

“D-d-don’t make me use this thing, okay? I’m not afraid to use it!” She bolted into a side room and slammed the door shut behind her. “You think I’m afraid of you!? Well!?”

A raw, primal roar pierced her ears and slammed her back against the wall. She let out a terrified shriek as the creature drew close: its huge, circular eyes glinted white from beyond the shadows, and its deafening voice rippled the very air. The sound was a tangible, crushing force that paralyzed her limbs and stole the breath from her lungs.

The sound cut out abruptly. The silence that followed was absolute. Dash lay on the ground helplessly as the glinting eyes drew near.

“Who... are you?” a voice whispered, smooth as velvet.

Dash clenched her teeth. “D-d-d-Dash! C-c-c-commander Dash!”

“Commander? Who sent you?”

“I d-d-don’t—”

“Answer me!” she roared. “Who sent you? Why are you here!?”

Dash scrunched her eyes shut and looked away. “I-work-for-the-Confettiracy-and-I-saw-your-ship-crash-and-I-thought-you-might-need-help-so-I-came-to-checked-it-out-but-you-seem-to-be-okay-so-I’ll-just-leave-you-alone-and-please-don’t-eat-my-face-off!”

“The Confettiracy? A rescue mission?” The creature’s eyes tilted slightly. “Are you Commander Rainbow Dash, by any chance? Are you in charge of the nearby military outpost?”

“Yes! Totally! Please don’t eat my face off!!”

She heard something click rapidly against the floor, and a moment later the lights turned on. The ‘creature’ walked towards her: A purple unicorn wearing a long, shiny labcoat with a high, rigid collar that obscured most of her neck. She was wearing a large pair of electronic sensor-goggles, and there were a pair of odd-looking pistols hovering in the air nearby: sleek, metal weapons tipped with tiny satellite dishes.

“You... you’re not... an alien!?”

“If I am, you’ve got much bigger problems.” The unicorn lifted her goggles and smiled down at her. “Sorry about the dual dubstep emitters. Can’t be too careful, these days.”

Dash stared at the pistols. “...Sonic stunners? Are they non-lethal?”

“The technical term is ‘reduced lethality’,” she said. “This is dubstep we’re talking about, after all.”

She holstered the weapons, then levitated a heavy saddle bag onto her back. “I’ve been locking down all the thermal cores, but it’s only bought me some time. We’ve got about twenty ticks before the reactor goes critical and lemme tell ya, that’ll ruin your entire day. Deploy an SCV so I can coordinate some emergency repairs.”

Dash stared in shock as objects levitated around the room, each surrounded by a faint aura of pink sparkles. “You... you’re a unicorn!”

“An astute observation. How’s that Scee-Vee coming?”

Dash frowned at her. “Hey, you can’t just boss me around like this! I’m the freakin’ commander!”

The unicorn levitated a gadget and tapped several buttons in rapid succession. “Command center alpha, override code alpha-niner-niner. Issue emergency command protocol ‘Vae Victus’ and transfer all command privileges immediately.”

“Hey!” Dash bolted upright and stamped her hoof. “You can’t do that!!”

The gadget beeped, and a calm robotic voice spoke. “Command privileges transferred.”

“Clearly, I can.” The unicorn offered her a shrug. “Your grasp of logical causality needs work.”

“Oh yeah? Well whaddya think of this!!”

Dash reared up and drew her machine pistol, and a sparkly aura of light pulled it out of her grasp. She swiped at it several times, but it danced through the air just out of reach.

“Hey! Gimme! No fair! Mine!”

The pistol flew to the unicorn, who took out a toolkit and tinkered with part of the mechanism. “Let’s review the facts, shall we? You don’t have the technical skill, the practical knowledge, or even the brute power required to stop me. Why should I listen to you?”

“Well.. because... I’m the commander!”

“And why are you the commander?”

Dash glared at her. “Because I just am. That’s how it is in the military! Chancellor Pinkie Pie made me a commander, and if you don’t like it you can take it up with her!”

The unicorn watched her intently. Her eyes were cold and calculating.

“Good. That’s exactly the sort of attitude we need our commanders to have. ”She closed up the pistol and tossed it back to her. “It should fire on full-auto now, without overheating so quickly. Might want to carry a few extra magazines from now on.”

Dash stared down at the gun. “Lady... seriously. Who are you?”

“Professor Twilight Sparkle, chief science officer of the Confettirate deep-research division. Your command center’s computer indicates that you have accumulated a small supply of Vespene gas. Is that correct?”

Dash chased after her. “Yeah, but we don’t have much. And to be honest, we don’t really know what it does. Do, uh... you have any idea?”

Twilight Sparkle stopped in her tracks. “You want to know... what it does?”

Dash shuffled in place, nervously. “Um. Yeah.”

She looked back at her with a predatory grin and lowered her goggles into place over her eyes. “It does the science.”

D09: Any sufficiently advanced magic

Jack’s SCV dragged a giant tub of purified hyper-sugar onto the roof of the heavily damaged science vessel. She extended her fusion-tipped welding trowel, dipped it into the tub, and began spackling the substance over the nearest hull breach. The gelatinous goo hardened almost as soon as it was applied and took on a grey metallic texture.

Jack paused to activate her comm unit. “Professor Sparkle? I’m almost done patching up sector seven, but it’s slow going. I’m not sure we have enough raw materials for the whole ship.”

Twilight's voice came through loud and clear. “No worries. If we can restore at least twenty-five percent of the overall structural integrity, I can reactivate the central reactor without any risk of a meltdown. Once that happens, the auto-repair micro-bots will kick in.”

“Well that’s good to... wait. Did you say micro-bots?”

“Indeed! The Gigalith is equipped with a full suite of nanotech reactors. They can repair almost any mechanical dude in a matter of minutes.”

“That’s... neat. But where will you get the spare minerals?”

“Don’t need any,” she said. “All they require is energy. And when you have a blue-fusion reactor, there’s plenty of that!”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “Talk about fancy. All’s I got is a torch and a trowel.”

“Just a thought,” said the Professor, “but I bet you could use nanotechnology to enhance your SCVs, allowing them to build and repair mechanical dudes and thingies at a distance.”

Jack chuckled. “That sure sounds neat-o, but I’d rather stick with what works. If this SCV was good enough for my pappy and his pappy before, It’s good enough for me.”

Professor Sparkle nudged her goggles. “Good point. It can be dangerous to tinker with foundation technologies. Perhaps we could incorporate the nanotech into your factories? Or a dropship of some sort? You could even make a dedicated ‘repair turret’ to bolster your defenses. The possibilities are endless!”

Jack finished patching the hole and dragged the tub to the next fissure. “Lan’ sakes, mare. For a science vessel, this thing sure took a beating.”

“Most of the damage you see was sustained while visiting our other colonies. There’s been a lot of combat lately. Fortunately, the Megalith is designed for extremely hostile environments.”

Jack spackled shut a series of long, ragged tears. “Hostile environment? It looks like you ran it through a blender! Who were ya running from?”

Before she could answer, Rainbow Dash flew in close and hovered in front of Jack’s SCV. She wiped some sweat off her brow and hefted her machine pistol.

“Change in plans,” she said. “We’ve got major enemy movement approaching this area. I tried to thin their numbers with an aerial assault, but it only slowed their progress.”

“Dag nabbit! Those things are dang near fearless, ain’t they?”

“Enemies?” said professor Sparkle. “What kind of enemies?”

“We’ll explain it later,” said Jack. “How’s the science vessel doing? Are the repairs helping at all?”

“Hull integrity is at twenty three percent. Just a little more, and the auto-repair will kick in.”

“How long until the reactor thingy goes critical?”

“Thanks to the repairs, almost all of the dispersal rods are locked in place. We’ve bought ourselves a few more days.”

Jack glanced at her display screens. “How long until the enemy arrives, Commander Dash?”

“Minutes.”

Jack retracted her tools and hoisted the tub of hyper-sugar onto the back of her SCV. “That tears it. We’re pulling out for now.”

“But won’t they attack the vessel?”

“Not likely... these critters attack dudes on sight but they tend to ignore stationary thingies completely. As long as the vessel doesn’t move, they won’t even notice it.”

“Very well,” said the professor. “Just give me one more minute to finish up, and I’ll be right out.”

Jack moved her SCV into one of the science vessel’s empty launch bays and then climbed out of the cockpit. She ran back outside to where she’d parked her Buzzard, yanked a camouflage tarp off its hull and leaped into the driver’s seat just as rainbow Dash landed on the gunnery turret behind her.

“Awwright lez do dis!”

Jack shook her head. “Sorry commander, but you’ll have to fly on your own.”

“What? Why?”

“The professor’s gonna be riding with me. It’s the safest way to get her back to base.”

“Aww, come on! I bet she doesn’t even know a single thing about gunnery!”

“This isn’t about combat effectiveness,” Jack snapped. “We need to keep her alive!”

Dash looked away and grumbled.

Professor Sparkle ran over, dressed in the same full length, shiny-plastic lab coat and techno-puter goggles as before, but with a new pair of shiny plastic saddlebags with durable metal frames. “I’m here! I’m here! Did I miss anything?”

“Yer right on time, professor.” Jack looked up at Dash. “Isn’t she, commander?”

Jack climbed out of the gunnery turret and hovered nearby, grumbling. The professor climbed into the turret herself, stumbled briefly on the foot ladder, and strapped herself in. The Buzzard’s twin turbines roared to life and the hoverbike streaked across the plains.

Dash flew alongside them and waved at Jack. “Enemy units dead ahead! They must be trying to cut us off!”

Jack looked ahead and saw a vast field of massive beasts, gnarled and tough, lounging about idly. “Those varmints musta been smarter than we gave ’em credit for. Is there any way around?”

“Not that I can see.”

Jack clenched her jaw and slammed her hoof against the accelerator. “Then we go straight through. Give us some air-support, wouldja?”

Dash swept her wings back and surged forward, leaving a rainbow-colored trail in her wake. She drew both machine pistols and brought them to bear on the foe: streams of white-hot bullets slipped through the air and splashes of vile alien blood stained the dirt. Jack’s Buzzard swerved between the beasts nimbly, and its twin grenade launchers peppered them with clouds of shrapnel. Even as they cleared a path through the herd, the surviving Rhynadons remained calm and placid.

“It’s like they don’t even care how many losses they suffer!” shouted Dash. “How are we supposed to demoralize an enemy like this!?”

Jack clenched her teeth. “They don’t give us much choice, do they? We’ll just have to wipe ’em out. Every last one of ’em.”

Twilight Sparkle looked around as they rushed through the herd of animals. “Is this really necessary? They seem to be harmless herbivores.”

Dash flew low. “We don’t have time for your touchy-feely eco-crap! Those monsters killed my father!”

“They did?”

“Well... not really. But they did attack our command center, and they forced us to blow up a pastry depot as we escaped.”

“It’s true,” shouted Jack, “and we’ve got the records to prove it. They look all slow and stupid, but you can’t trust ’em for a second.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Sparkle took out a clipboard and jotted a few notes. “Just a thought... I bet I could help you build a laser-fence that’ll fry anything that passes through it. It’s a great way of quickly blocking off large areas, and it’s especially effective against lightly armored dudes.”

“Laser fence?” said Dash. “That sounds... kinda awesome, actually!”

Jack pulled a hard right and drifted sideways for a moment, then swerved between three Rhynadons in rapid succession. She reared the nose of the hoverbike into the air and kicked the nitro-boost pedal: a blast of fire propelled the vehicle into the air and sent it sailing over a densely packed wall of hostiles. The bike landed hard and its rear section scraped the dirt and kicked up a cloud of dust.

Professor Sparkle adjusted her goggles. “I say, this is rather exciting. Do you think we could collect a few samples for later study?”

“Let’s worry about that later,” shouted Jack, “right after we get home alive!”

A few minutes later, the buzzard drove into the midst of their outpost and parked by the factory. Jack climbed out of the seat and stretched her back. Twilight hopped down from the turret with an excited grin.

“Not bad for my first day here,” she said. “I’ve visited a dozen other colonies and most of them were pretty boring.”

Dash landed nearby and holstered her pistols. “How are the other colonies doing, anyways?”

“Mostly on schedule. A few hundred factories here, a couple dozen starports there... nothing serious.” She glanced around. “Say, nice expy you got here.”

“Expansion. Riiight.” Dash bit her lower lip. “So, uh... are you gonna wanna visit our main base?”

Professor Sparkle shook her head. “Shouldn’t be nessecary. If I’m going to teach you how to use Vespene to do the science, it’s better to start with a clean slate.”

“Right, right. Good idea.”

Twilight Sparkle took out a clipboard and passed it to Jack. “I’ll need you to prepare a few things. As soon as you’re ready, we can get started.”

Jack scanned the list. “What’s this science you keep talking about, anyhow? What’s the big deal?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll see soon enough.” Twilight walked towards a side door, but paused to look at the interior of the bay. “Just a thought... I bet if you attached a couple vanadium-core gyro stabilizers to the superstructure of your primary thingies, you could probably build dudes and research new upgrades even while a building is in flight. Just something to think about.”

Jack and Dash watched as she left the bay. They turned to look at each other.

Jack walked through the cafeteria and checked each of the items laid out on the table. She turned to her clipboard just to be sure, even though there were only four items on the list: a box of refined hyper-sugar, several canisters of concentrated vespene gas, an avocado, and a bowl of nacho chips.

Dash walked along the other side of the table and peered at the items on display. She reached for the canisters of vespene, but Jack slapped her hoof. “Those are for guests.”

“Why? What makes her so special?”

“She’s a science officer,” said Jack. “Matter of fact, she’s the science officer. She knows Chancellor Pinkie Pie personally.”

Dash pouted. “She’s not that cool, y’know. She’s just some brainiac.”

“I don’t care if she’s—” Jack lowered her voice as she saw the Professor walk into the cafeteria. “Listen, Dash. She’s the only pony who can explain how most of our stuff even works. We need her help, and that’s that.”

Dash rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

Professor Sparkle walked over, smilight brightly. “Sup, girls?”

Jack pointed at the table. “We got everything you asked for, Professor.”

“Excellent.” Twilight set an empty bowl on the table and began cutting up the avocado. “The first thing you need to know about science is that it is awesome. All other scientific laws stem from this one, universal principle.”

Dash arched an eyebrow. “...Awesome?”

“Indeed. If it’s not awesome, it’s not science.” She put the avocado slices into an empty bowl and mashed them into a light green paste. “And because science is the study of absolutely everything, we can deduce that everything in the universe is awesome. Even stuff like dirt and rocks.”

Dash glared at her. “Rocks aren’t awesome. At all.”

Twilight pointed at her. “If something doesn’t seem awesome, you’re not looking at it properly.” She rummaged through her saddlebag and took out a chunk of shiny black rock. “Behold! Perfectly ordinary carbon. Is it hot, or is it not?”

Dash shrugged. “Not, I guess.”

“Wrong!” Twilight set a complicated looking gadget on the table. She broke the rock in half and stuck part of it into the gadget. “Under the right conditions, carbon atoms will arrange themselves in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure. It becomes a metastable allotrope of carbon. By applying the appropriate pressure and temperature, we can accelerate the process artificially...”

The gadget hummed and whirred, and the buttons on its display blinked rapidly. A moment later, Twilight opened the gadget and dumped the contents onto the table.

Jack leaned down and peered at the shiny white gem. “Is that a diamond?”

“Astute observation. You are correct.”

“But... but the...!” Dash pointed at the gadget. “Did you just turn a plain old rock into freakin’ diamonds!? How’d you do that!?”

Professor Sparkle set the diamond next to the remaining chunk of carbon. “These two objects are made of the exact same material. It’s wicked incontrovertible. They have a different physical structure, but that’s all. And if you built a proper armory thingy, with a full sized meta-foundry, you could make much larger diamonds in any shape you wanted.” Twilight grinned at them. “How’d you like to cover your whole entire everything with diamond plated armor?”

Dash and Jack stared at her, then at each other, awestruck.

“This is cool and all, but... what’s the vespene got to do with it?”

“See this gadget? I had to use some vespene to invent it, and then some more to actually build it.” She picked up the diamond. “Once it’s done, I can diamond plate as many mechanical dudes as I want, and it doesn’t cost a thing.”

Dash bit her lower lip. “Can you... can you build tanks?”

“Sure. Can you show me to your machine shop?”

Jack nodded. “We’d be happy to! The factory’s right outside of the Command Center, not even a stone’s throw away. Want a full tour?”

“That’s cool, but I only need to see the machine shop.”

“But... the factory is a machine shop. Isn’t it?”

“You still don’t have any add-ons?” Professor Sparkle nudged her goggles onto her forehead. “No wonder you’re having so much trouble.”

Jack furrowed her brow. “I’ve gone through every button in the SCV’s cockpit, and I’ve never even heard of add-ons before. How do I build one?”

Twilight nodded towards the exit. “Why don’t you and the Commander head up to the main bridge? I’ll visit the factory myself and walk you through the science, step by step.”

“If y’say so, ma’am.” Jack stood up and walked towards the exit.

Dash followed after her, but paused to look back. “Hey, prof?”

“Yes?”

“What’s the avocado for?”

“Guacamole,” she said, lifting up a bowl full of light green mush. She took a nacho from the bowl, dipped it in the sauce, and ate it with a crunch. “You go on ahead. I’ll save you some.”

Half an hour later, Jack and Rainbow Dash walked out of the command center and headed towards the factory. They stopped halfway across the field and stared at an additional building neither of them recognized: a small, blocky structure covered with spinning gears and pumping pistons. It was connected to the factory by a huge pipe.

Rainbow Dash nodded towards the new building. “She, uh... told us to meet her inside, didn’t she?”

“I don’t see any doors on it,” said Jack. “Wanna check the factory first?”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Jack followed her to the building. “You don’t seem too excited about this. You know we’re getting tanks, right?”

“Tanks are cool... It’s the prof I’m not too excited about.”

“Why not? She seems nice.”

“I dunno... I just get the feeling she’s not as cool as she thinks she is. It’s like she’s trying too hard.” Dash rolled her eyes, and her voice became slightly mocking. “Ooh, I’m all sciencey and stuff! Science rules!”

Jack gave her a pat on the back. “Just hold out a little longer. She’ll go on her way, and things’ll be back to normal.”

They walked up the factory’s main ramp and opened the heavy garage door, and a hurricane of raw, untempered sound blasted against them: they scrunched their eyes shut and their manes flew back in the wind.

“What the...!?”

Dash opened one eye and saw a pair of colossal robotic arms holding a forty-foot long electric guitar painted with pink and purple stripes. Twilight Sparkle was standing between them on a raised platform, and the armatures mirrored her every motion: the manipulator pincers moved across the strings with alarming speed, and Twilight screamed into a microphone:

What if I say I’m not like the others?

What if I say I’m not just another

one of your plays? You’re the pretender!

What if I say I will never surrender!?

The armature slammed the strings and generated a devastating power chord, then seamlessly transitioned into a lightning-fast barrage of hot licks. Jack braced herself against the deafening wave of force, but was sent tumbling back down the ramp. Rainbow Dash took to the air and pushed forward, hovering like a jet chassis trapped in a wind-tunnel. She glided sideways along the wall, broke open an emergency panel and threw the cutoff switch inside. The engines powered down and the lights shut off. The giant armatures froze in place and the guitar’s strings let off a low, lingering vibration.

Twilight lifted her goggles and glanced around the factory. “Oh, hey.”

Dash walked towards her, staring in awe as she walked alongside the guitar. “Did you... make this?”

Twilight hopped down next to her. “Yeah. It’s a good way to test the machine-shop’s macro-assemblers. And it’s way easier than hauling the same Fat-Strat from planet to planet.”

“A fat...?” Dash’s eyes opened wide. “A Fender stratocaster with a humbucker! You mean you can actually play this thing? It’s not just some robot doing it!?”

Professor Sparkle nodded. “Electric guitars are a key component in making things awesome, which is absolutely vital for science. I’m actually the lead guitarist in a drum’n bass band my science buddies started: it’s called ‘Our Bass Is Under Attack’.”

“Oh-mi-gosh, I think I know which song you were playing! That’s the, uh... ‘The Pretender’, by the Hoof Fighters, isn’t it?”

“Close,” she said, “but this one’s a cover by Infected Mushroom. A mix of drum’n’bass and psy-trance. I’m still calculating the exact ratio needed for maximum optimization.”

Dash’s left ear flipped up. “...Infected mushroom?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty obscure. You’d have to be really into music to know ’em.”

“I, uh... yeah, I guess.” Dash’s eyes darted to each side. “You know, I’m... I’m a fan of music.”

Sparkle arched an eyebrow. “Just ‘music’?”

“No, I mean... you know what I mean! The original ‘The Pretender’ is one of my fave songs ever! Like, you know, the part with...” She reared up and played air-guitar. “Na-na-na, naaaa! Da-da duhnnn, da nana... you know the one! I still have that album somewhere.”

“Album?” Twilight tilted her head slightly. “You mean ‘Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace’?”

“Wha? No, it was... the other one.”

“What other songs were on it? Did it have ‘Wheels’ and ‘Word Forward’?”

Dash smiled. “Yeah, those too!”

Twilight Sparkle arched an eyebrow. “That was a greatest hits album, ya poser.”

“It was? I mean... well...” Dash ran a hoof through her mane. A droplet of sweat trickled down her brow. “That’s not bad, is it? I mean, I wasn’t—”

Sparkle smiled and gave her a hug. “Aw, I’m just messing with ya. It was a pretty good album. Really.”

A series of clumsy, erratic hoofbeats approached them. They both looked up as Jack stumbled over, both eyes spinning. “Who... wha...?”

Twilight took out one of her sonic stunner pistols, adjusted a knob, and pointed it at Jack. There was a barely-audible whine, and she immediately snapped to alertness.

Jack frowned. “What the hey’s goin’ on in here?”

“Just testing the macro assemblers,” said Twilight. “Now that the machine shop is plugged in and ready to go, you can build big dudes.”

Dash reared up and pulled an invisible train whistle. “Yes!!”

“That’s wonderful!” said Jack. “Can you show me how it works?”

“That’s what I’m here for!” Twilight nodded to Rainbow Dash. “You may as well go back to the command center and kill some time. Jack and I gotta talk nerdy to each other for awhile.”

“Wha...? But I wanna see the tanks! Can’t I at least watch?”

“Sorry, but the construction process is pretty technical.”

Dash stepped in place, nervously. “But... I’m cool, right?”

Twilight nodded. “Sure you are. But you’re not nerdy.”

Twilight and Jack walked off together, chatting about engineering and science. “Just a thought,” said Twilight, “but if you connected an orbital uplink thingy to your command center, I bet you could use spy satellites to scan the planet’s surface for tactical information.”

“Well shucks! That’d be right useful!”

Dash walked out of the factory, staring at the floor.

The halls of the command center were dim, and the only sound was the faint hum of air conditioners. Most of the structure's interior space was taken up by the expansive main supply bay, but there were still plenty of other smaller rooms all connected by ring-shaped corridors. The rooms in this particular command center were mostly empty, with only a few folding chairs or plain cardboard boxes scattered about randomly.

The door to one such room opened wide, momentarily filling the corridor with flashing lights and pulse-pounding techno-electronica music. Jack and Twilight Sparkle stepped out of the room, talking excitedly.

“I gotta build one ’a them engineering thingies you were talkin’ about,” said Jack. “I can’t believe we got along without one!”

“It’s definitely a key structure. Even if you don’t intend to upgrade your infantry dudes, you can still use it to build missile turrets. Even just one or two placed behind the mineral line is enough to dissuade air harassment and identify stealth dudes.”

“Stealth dudes,” Jack whispered. “We never even knew they could do that. Say, do ya think we could get some stealth dudes of our own?”

“Oh yes! I you can get a starport up, I can give you the schematics for—”

Rainbow Dash darted out from behind a bulkhead and stood in front of them. “Heeey, girls! How’s it goin’? With the science?”

Jack grinned, broadly. “It’s amazin’ stuff, it is! The next time our base is attacked, we’ll have a couple surprises ready.”

“Cool, cool.” Dash leaned on the wall. “So, Jack. Does that mean you understand all this sciencey stuff, now?”

“Twilights’ teachin me how to build stuff with Vespene, if that’s what ya mean. It couldn’t be simpler. Alls we gotta do is plug the right data core into the command center’s computo-box, and we’ll gain access to new thingies and dudes.”

Twilight nodded. “I’ve already provided you with the data required to build level one infantry upgrades and missile towers, and we’re working on a com-sat add-on for the command center. It should help you immensely.”

“Awesome. Really. Soooo... how do we get new kinds of dudes?”

“Well, you can construct Siege Tanks now.”

“Yeah, that’s cool, but I was thinking about something else.”

Twilight tilted her head. “Is there a specific unit you had in mind?”

“Ta-daa!” Dash took out a rolled-up piece of paper and unfurled it before them, showing an extensive array of pictures scribbled in crayon. “The Wonder-Volt Commando! It’s twice as tough as a marine, and it can fly and walk! It has a lightning rifle that shoots bolts of electricity, and they can make typhoons that suck in whole bunches of air dudes and then rips ’em apart! Cool, huh?”

Twilight stared at the crayon sketches for a moment. “I’m... not sure I recognize that particular air unit.”

“Well duh, because I made it up myself. It’s gonna be wicked awesome!” She pointed at one of the figures. “That’s their official military rank, too: ‘Wicked Awesome’. It’s just below ‘Captain’.”

Jack cleared her throat. “You can’t just make up new dudes whenever you want.”

“Oh, come on! Lightning rifle? Super typhoons? They’d be great anti-air!” She poked at the paper. “I’m, uh, not sure how to make it actually... do any of that stuff. But I bet you could figure it out!”

“It’s an interesting design,” said Twilight, “and I really like the idea of an electricity-based weapon—it’d be especially effective against metallic armor—but I can only give you new dudes if I have the proper data-core.”

“Well, how do you make the data-cores?”

“I made a lot of them myself,” she said, “but it’s a very complicated process that requires a lot of resources. And a great deal of scientific knowledge.”

“So, why don’t you invent it for me, then? You invent new dudes all the time, don’t you?”

“We don’t have time,” said Jack. “She’s too busy teaching me how to use the equipment we already have.”

Dash pointed a hoof at Twilight. “But you said science is always awesome, right? What if we add some lasers on there?” She set the paper on the floor and scribbled on it with a crayon. “Add some holograms and glowy-lines, put chainsaws on the wings, make it all shiny... now is it awesome enough?”

“Except that this particular class of dude would be completely ineffective in space. Lightning bolts and typhoons can only occur in an atmosphere.” Twilight’s horn glowed, and an aura of psionic force lifted the paper and rolled it up. “It’s not just a matter of pure awesomeness,” she said. “It has to be balanced. It takes years of experience and conditioning to know exactly how much awesomeness to add.”

Dash glared at the paper. Her lower lip trembled slightly. “I just... wanted to...”

“Don’t worry,” Jack said, “We’ll have all sorts of cool new things for ya soon enough. why don’t ya just sit back and relax while we take care of the busy-work?”

Dash ripped the paper in half and tromped past them. “Whatever!”

“Dash, wait!”

“Just lemme ’lone!”

Dash marched down the corridor. She slowed to a halt, and glanced back over her shoulder. Neither of them had followed her. She sat on the floor with a sniffle.

“...Stupid sciencey stuff. Who even cares?”

After a minute, she stood up and tossed the torn paper aside. She looked back again, but this time her eyes lingered on the door that Jack and Twilight had walked out of. She walked over and took a closer look: there were no labels or signs. She tapped the lever.

A panel by the door lit up, and a calm, robotic voice spoke through a tiny, scratchy speaker. “Identity required.”

“Uh... it’s me.”

“Voice recognition confirmed: Commander Rainbow Dash. Military rank: Supreme Planetary War-Battler, First Class. Clearance accepted.”

The lever clicked and the door went slightly ajar.

She stared at the door for some time. Then, with a glance to each side, she opened it wide and stepped inside. Rows of fluorescent lights activated in series, and the faint scent of cloyingly-sweet window-cleaner filled the air. There were shelves and tables everywhere, all full of tools and gadgets. She walked between the tables, peering at the items on display: it was impossible to tell if they were complete devices, or bits and pieces of larger mechanisms. Some of it looked like useless junk. Most of the items were mechanical in nature, but there were several complicated chemistry kits here and there, filled with bubbling, brightly colored liquids.

Wierd... but nothing in here is what I’d call super-cool.

She walked to the end of the room, and her eyes caught something familiar: an avacado pit with a pair of metal needles thrust through it crosswise, to suspend it over a glass beaker filled with glowing green liquid. The top of the large seed had a sprout growing out of it... instead of leaves, there were twisting, thorny tentacles laden with glowing green buds.

Where have I seen a tree like that before?

Dash leaned closer. The tree twitched at her, and she stumbled backwards with a gasp. She bumped up against an armored refrigerator behind her and the door opened slightly. Rays of green light came out, casting an eerie glow on her face. She looked inside and saw a six-pack of mini-sized soda cans. One was missing.

She tugged one of the cans out of the plastic loop and held it up. There was no label.

Eh. What the heck.

She popped the tab open and chugged the contents in one go. It fizzled like soda, and the taste was incredibly sour... like unsweetened apples mixed with raspberries. When she finished, she smacked her lips and worked her jaw back and forth. She stared at the wall for a few seconds.

Huh.

She tossed the empty can in a nearby trash receptacle and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Jack’s voice echoed over the command center’s intercom. “Commander Dash?”

Dash took out her personal communicator and clicked a button. “Yeah... Dash here.”

“Can ya meet us over by the factory? We got a surprise for ya!”

Dash scratched her nose.

“Commander?”

“Still here,” she said. “Sorry. I’ll be right over.”

Dash flew across the base and landed next to the Factory. Jack waved at her, and waved at somepony inside. Moments later, a massive armored vehicle rolled down the ramp and onto the dirt: the tank had four independent tank treads, allowing it to roll over the terrain gracefully. The main turret was loaded with a pair of stubby, wide-bore energy cannons.

“Whoo-ee! Tell me that ain’t awesome as all-get-out!” Jack hopped over and gave one of the tank’s treads a kick.

Dash looked up at the main battle tank and stroked her chin. “Huh.”

Twilight Sparkle ran over, grinning. “The AAV-5 Arclite comes equipped with a pair of eighty-millimeter plasma cannons, but that’s only a support weapon. It’s primary purpose is to provide a mobile platform for long-range bombardment!”

“It’s an artillery cannon that you can move around whenever you like! That means it can defend our own base like a tower, and we can use it to blow up enemy bases too. It’s offense and defence in one tidy package!”

“We’re making it standard for all commanders,” said Twilight, “but you’re the first to actually use it. Chancellor Pinkie Pie insisted that only the best commander should be allowed to test in in the field!”

“Ya hear that, commander? Only the best!” Jack nudged Rainbow Dash’s side. “So, how’d you like to take it for a spin?”

Dash offered a half-nod, half-shrug. “Sure.”

Professor Twilight spent the next half hour giving Rainbow Dash a crash course in basic tank operation. Jack, in the meantime, used her SCV to set up a shooting range full of dummy structures, all different shapes and sizes. When they were finished, Dash took control of the vehicle and piloted it to the edge of the base without difficulty.

Twilight’s voice boomed through a loudspeaker. “Clear down range!”

Dash threw a switch, and the tank’s main turret retracted under a sheath and swiveled in place. A much longer canon with a wide, slit-shaped barrel extended in its place. Dash braced her front hooves against the twin throttles and swiveled the cannon around, pointing it down range. She mashed the trigger button.

A massive plume of white-hot flame blasted out of the mouth of the canon, and the entire vehicle rocked under the incredible recoil. A splash of fire consumed several dummy targets at once, sending chunks of seared shrapnel flying in every direction. The turret turned, slightly, and proceeded to obliterate each of the other targets in turn: tiny mushroom clouds of superheated, incandescent hydrogen spattered the ground. Within a matter of seconds, the firing range was nothing more than a field of charred craters.

Rainbow Dash frowned intently. “Huh.”

Jack opened the rear cabin door, grinning. “Wooo-ee! Can’t wait for them Rhynadons to show their ugly mugs around here again! Whaddya think? Wanna go huntin’?”

Dash blinked a few times. “What?”

Jack walked over and leaned against the back of her seat. “The Rhynadons. Do you wanna go launch an attack or something?”

Twilight Sparkle walked in behind her. “The Arclite’s weapons are specifically designed for use against large, heavily armored targets. It should be especially effective against Rhynadons.”

“You can drive it,” said Jack. “It is your tank, after all. Sound like fun?”

“Right, that.” Dash undid her harness and stood up. “You two go ahead. I gotta... yeah. S’cuse me.”

Jack and Twilight watched her walk out of the back of the tank. They turned to each other, worried.

Rainbow Dash sat in the command center’s central chair and stared at the holographic map that covered the massive domed ceiling. She had her front legs folded behind her head and her hind hooves resting on a nearby monitor.

A voice echoed over the main speakers. “Commander?”

She lifted a hoof and scratched her nose, sniffing slightly.

“Commander Dash? You there?”

“Right. Sorry. What?”

“This is Jack. Me and the Prof are fixin’ to do a few more repairs on the downed science vessel. We’ll probably be gone for a few hours.”

“S’cool,” Dash responded.

“So, do you want to come with us?”

“Nah.”

“You’ll give us a move order, right? Cause the Buzzard and the SCV won’t activate without the commander’s permission.”

Dash tapped a few buttons. “It’s cool. I’ll send you the codes and you can do whatever.”

“Wait. You’re letting me do stuff on my own? Seriously?”

“Well, it’s repair work. You know more about it than I do. It’ll take forever if I have to tell you to do every little thing.”

“You’re... absolutely certain? You really won’t mind if I’m in charge of things?”

Dash stretched her leg slightly and settled back in her chair.

“...Commander?”

“Don’t worry about it. I can always change the codes tomorrow.”

“If y’say so. Jack out.”

Dash stared up at the map. A fly buzzed over her head and eventually landed on her ear. After awhile, she twitched her ear and the fly buzzed away.

Huh.

Rainbow Dash strolled down one of the command center’s numerous corridors, paying no attention to the various signs and room-numbers. She stared at the floor the entire time, frowning intently.

Alarms blared over the loudspeakers and flashing red lights cast spinning shadows across every surface. A calm, robotic voice came over the intercom, talking about biohazard this and containment breach that. The sound of shearing metal echoed off the walls, and a heavily armored door twisted apart in front of her: a massive deluge of translucent slime poured into the hallway. Its surface rippled and flexed, and tendrils stretched out of it and grasped at the air randomly.

The tidal wave of goo surged towards Dash and swept her along, engulfing her entirely. The goo dampened all sound to a muted roar. Dash floated in place, her posture unchanged, and ignored the brightly colored blobs and spheres hovering around her randomly. Bubbles dribbled up from her nostril.

Huh.

A shrill, supersonic concussion pierced the liquid like a needle: the liquid lost all surface tension and splashed to the floor with the viscosity of ordinary water. Dash landed on her back, her legs still stuck in an upright posture.

“All right, who let the science out?” Twilight Sparkle walked over and peered down at her. “Commander!? I’m so sorry about this!”

Dash looked up at her. “Sorry, what?”

Twilight’s horn glowed. An aura of psionic energy levitated Dash off the floor and set her back on her hooves. “This is all my fault. I’ve been working on an upgrade for my amoeba launcher: it’s been acting funny lately, but I never thought it would break through the containment door.”

Jack marched towards them, slogging through the shiny, ankle deep layer of slime. “What in tarnation!? This better not be some kinda new-fangled biohazard!”

“No-no-no, not at all,” Twilight said, “it’s completely harmless... once it’s been neutralized by an appropriate sonic frequency. I’ll have it cleaned up in no time, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

“Well I should hope so.” Jack eyed Rainbow Dash, still covered in shiny, clear gel. “You, uh... might wanna get a shower or something.”

Dash’s eyes focused for a moment. “A shower? Why?”

“Just... go on. Get yourself cleaned up.”

Dash nodded, and walked down the corridor.

Rainbow Dash stood in her shower stall, under a continuous stream of hot water. Steam filled the air and obscured the glass doors. The drain was clogged with gelatinous goo mixed with long strands of brightly colored hair: the water was up to her knees and pouring over the edge of the tub, flooding into the nearby kitchenette and dining room.

Dash stared at the wall. Her brow furrowed slightly, and she turned to a nearby bottle of shampoo. She lifted a hoof and opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated at the last moment.

Huh.

She stepped out of the shower without turning the water off and stumbled straight to bed. She laid on the mattress, soaking wet, and stared at the ceiling.

The next morning, Rainbow Dash, Jack and Twilight Sparkle shuffled into the cafeteria and assembled their breakfasts from the vending machines along the counter: salads, bottles of juice, pretzels and snacks. They carried their trays to the same table and sat down together.

“So,” Jack said through a mouthful of crunchy granola, “Anypony wanna explain why we’re outta hot water?”

Twilight shrugged. “I could check the desalination plant, if you like.”

“I’m worried there might be something wrong with our pastry depot... I wouldn’t wanna run out of vital supplies in the middle of a battle.”

“Could always build a second one,” said Twilight. “You don’t really need it, but it’s good to have backups in case one gets blow’d up.”

Jack pointed at her with a spoon. “Good idea. Personally, I’d rather get started on one of those engineering bays you were talking about before... Tanks are nice, but we’re hurtin’ for anti-air.”

Twilight held up a datapad. “I have the schematics for a couple different missile turrets. We haven’t settled on which one is best. Maybe we could go over them together?”

“Actually that sounds like a decision the commander should make, since she’s the strategic genius and all.” She turned to Dash. “I could still give you my opinion, if you want. Whaddya say?”

Dash leaned on one hoof and stirred her mashed potatoes. “Just a thought,” she said, “but I bet if you crafted a Colossus's focusing lenses out of the Khaydarin crystals found in the Vray-Sakur mountain range of the sixth moon of the planet Ga’atar Uum-Nojar, you could probably extend the maximum range of the thermal lance by at least fifty percent.”

Jack set her utensils down. “What.”

“Yeah. Those particular crystals are especially attuned to thermal energy, so they’d be perfect for it.” Dash waved her spoon in the air and rolled her eyes. “Of course, the fanatical Crystal Ponies of the lost Sokar Ja’an tribe revere ’em as sacred above all other artifacts left behind by the ancient Cel’Luna progenitors... I guess you’d have to wipe ’em out first, but they’re total jerk-face stupid-heads anyways. Nopony’s gonna lose any sleep over them.”

Jack stared at her, blankly. “What the sam-hill is a Colossus?”

Rainbow Dash’s chewing slowed, and her eyes focused. “I... don’t... know!”

Twilight Sparkle gasped and put a hoof to her mouth. “My missing vesp-apple cider! You used it, didn’t you!?”

Dash’s eyes darted to each side. “I dunno what you’re talking about!”

Twilight shot out of her seat and slammed her hooves on the table. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done!? That stuff is dangerous! You have be a specially trained scientist to use it properly!”

“W-well so what? Ever since she got here, you two have been doing all sorts of crazy science stuff! All I wanted was to invent one little thing, and you wouldn’t even let me try!”

“Because this is what happens!” shouted Jack. “You just invented something we can’t even use! You don’t have the slightest clue what it’s even for, do you?”

Dash looked away, nervously. “Maybe I do! Did you ever think of that, even for a second?”

“Then go ahead and tell us,” said Jack. “What the heck is it, and what does it do?”

“It’s... a focusing... doohickey. For extending... thermal... stuff. Dang it!” A drop of sweat trickled down Dash’s brow. “Look, maybe I haven’t worked out every single tiny little detail yet! So sue me!”

“Sue you!?” Twilight said, “vesp-apple cider is a top-priority military resource! You could be stripped of your command for stealing it!”

Dash pointed at Twilight. “You can’t do that!”

“I assure you, I have the authority! We have to figure out—”

Dash slammed a hoof on the table. “Oh yeah!? Well I’d like to see you try!”

Twilight tapped a button on her datapad. Her voice was frigid. “Command center, revoke all strategic privileges from Commander Rainbow Dash and reduce her to civilian status until further notice.”

“Acknowledged,” said the calm, robotic voice.

“Wha...? Buh...!”

“Civilian!?” said Jack. “But then who’s in charge of this here base? What if we get attacked!?”

“I’ll assume control of the outpost. It’s a temporary measure.” Twilight stood up, ignoring the rest of her breakfast. “I need to report this to Strategic High Command immediately. Excuse me.”

They watched her leave the cafeteria. Dash stared off into space, slack jawed. Her pupils were tiny.

Jack gave her a firm pat on the shoulder. “Listen, Dash... I’ll sort this out. You got mah word. Just try not to do anything too hasty until then, okay?” She bolted across the cafeteria and out the exit.

Rainbow Dash sat by herself, alone.

D10: The truthiness is out there

The halls of the crippled science vessel were dark, with only a few blinking lights decorating the walls and door frames. A low, fluctuating hum filled the air. Faint sounds of distant machinery reverberated through the walls.

A searing burst of light lit up the far end of the hallway: a white-hot pinpoint that slowly traced its way along the edges of a doorframe, showering the walls and floor with bouncing arcs. A calm, robotic voice played over the loudspeakers, warning of a hull breach.

The armor-plated door fell inward and struck the floor with a clang. The sun shone in, and a pony stood framed in the doorway... a black silhouette bleached by the cold light of dawn.

Rainbow Dash stashed her portable fusion cutter on the side of her harness and marched into the corridor. She made no attempt at stealth, and glared at every door she passed.

I just need a little bit, she thought. She’s gotta have a personal stash around here somewhere. If I work quickly enough she won’t even notice it’s gone... not until it’s too late.

As she moved further into the vessel, she saw more and more rooms filled with clutter. Laboratory equipment was scattered across tables and counters, and there were stacks of half-opened crates everywhere. Not once did she see any trace of movement, mechanical or otherwise. She passed by a bunk room large enough to house a hundred ponies.

What’s going on here? Twilight couldn’t have been the only survivor... and even if she was, where’s all the bodies?

A faint green light on the wall up ahead caught her attention. She rushed down the corridor and threw open a pair of sealed doors that had been left ajar. Inside, she saw a dark laboratory room dominated by a massive tank of bubbling green liquid, with the number 616 stenciled across the front of the glass. The luminescent substance cast the entire room in a pulsating viridian glow.

“Yeee he-he-he essss!” Dash rubbed her hooves together. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

She turned the lights on and rushed towards the tank, but hesitated as she saw a stack of binders scattered across the floor. Loose sheets of paper fluttered in the sterile, air-conditioned atmosphere, and yet the smell of dry-erase markers hung heavy.

She turned one of the binders over and read the title: ‘The Psychotropic Effects of Vespene Solution 616 on the Parietal Lobe.’ She opened the front cover and saw numerous diagrams of a Pegasus pony’s brain, each labeled with a different time and date.

“What the...?”

She glanced at some of the other titles on display: ‘The Effects of Solution 616 on Unicorn Nerve Tissue.’ ‘A Preliminary Study of Crytoss Energy Matrix Technology.’ ‘The Amplification of Telepathy and Telekinesis Via Solution 616.’ ‘Potential Military Applications for Forced Evolution via Biochemical Stimulation.’

Rainbow Dash reached down and picked up the heaviest binder of all. She wiped a thick layer of dust of the front cover—all the books were dusty. Everything in the room was dusty. The title was short, and scribbled more hastily than the others.

‘Ling Mutagenics.

Dash swallowed, hard, and opened the binder. It was full of pictures... terrible, terrible pictures. Not diagrams or sketches, but photos and x-rays. Some depicted things that had been carefully dissected, others that were charred or blown apart by weapons fire. Each series of pictures was plainly labeled: The Drone. The Banefly. The Devourer. The Purifier. The Nervebreaker. The Hallucinox. The Nydus Lasher. Glowing antennae, insectine wings and shiny black carapaces. Teeth, claws, spines... uses forced evolution to adapt to any environment... devours the genetic data of other species... a sentient, shapeshifting parasite... slays the host and assumes their identity... can easily bypass retinal scans and blood tests... leaves no survivors.

The further she read the less hard data there was, and the less legible the writing became. Dash flipped to the very last picture and her blood ran cold: a blurry, haphazard image of a slender black mare covered in riven shells. It had been photographed midway through a flurry of activity, and only its eyes—those slitted, baleful eyes, green as poison and hot as acid—were clearly visible. There were no labels on this page. No names or dates. No tables full of data. Merely a single phrase written in a drunken, jagged scrawl: ‘The Queen’.

Dash dropped the binder on the floor and looked back at the laboratory walls behind her. Every available surface was plastered with printouts and maps and pictures. There were X-Rays of hideous alien bodies, blurry scans of glittering, golden spaceships, and newspaper photos of prominent Pony politicians. There were lengths of color coded string hanging between each page, with many more leading to particular points on a large map of the known galaxy’s local spiral arm. At the center of this vast network was a blurry picture of the Queen, situated under a banner that bore a single question. ‘Who is the Queen of Pyres?’

Dash stared at the books on the floor and the pictures on the wall. There was a thick layer of dust on almost every surface. She thought about all the empty rooms, and the terrible rips and tears that riddled the science vessel’s armored hull.

Leaves no survivors...

Her eyes locked on the tank of liquid Vespene.

Only one thing to do.

Jack walked through the command center, glancing at all the empty rooms as she passed. She paused by the door to the commander’s quarters but there was no point in knocking. Rainbow Dash had been gone for two days and all of her messages had gone unanswered. She hadn’t even logged into the communication network... though there wasn’t much point to that if you were listed as a civilian.

It’s only been a few days, she thought. Maybe she just needs some time to cool down.

She looked further down the hall. She nudged her hat up, took a breath, and marched to the central control bridge; the nerve center of the entire (admittedly very small) outpost. She stood in the doorway and watched Professor Sparkle, currently seated in the commander’s chair. There were dozens of control monitors hovering nearby, and she manipulated the interface with alarming speed and grace.

“Professor? I think we need to talk.”

“A little busy here,” she said. “It’ll have to wait.”

Jack stepped into the room. “Listen... about Dash.”

“We’ve been over this before. It was a temporary measure. As soon as I’ve sorted out a few things, her command will be restored in full.”

“A few things, huh?” Jack glanced at a nearby monitor. “Whatcha up to?”

“As I said before. I’m trying to make contact with Strategic high command.”

“What for? If ya don’t mind me askin’?”

“I need more information.” She tapped a sixteen-digit code into a control panel. “It’s the most important element of any war. Whoever has the most information... wins.”

“Y’know we’re just an outpost, right? We’re just buildin’ things. We’re not really prepared for a real fight.”

“Every little bit counts, doesn’t it?” Twilight paused to stare at the map above. “In fact if you have the right information, you can win a war before it even begins. Clean sweep.”

“Ohhh... kay.” Jack glanced back at the exit. “So, what about Dash? When do you think she’ll be back in business?”

“That’s a complicated question,” said Twilight. “As soon as I’m done with this one little task, I’ll deal with Dash myself. Promise.”

Jack sighed and turned to the exit. Her headset bleeped, and she quickly tapped a button on the side. “Dash? Is that you? Where’ve you been all this—”

“No time to explain!” Dash shouted back. “I’m on my way right now, but it’s gonna take awhile! You gotta try and stop Twilight Sparkle yourself!”

Twilight looked up from her control panel. “Jack? Who are you talking to?”

Jack held her headset close and whispered harshly. “Stop Twilight? Are you outta yer blinkin’ mind!?”

“That’s not the real Professor Sparkle! It’s a freaky alien spy!”

Jack reached into her flak vest and whipped out a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. Twilight Sparkle threw a switch and activated a series of armored doors, but Jack somersaulted into the room just as the massive plates slammed shut.

Twilight held her hooves up. “Now, Jack, let’s not—”

She pointed the shotgun at her. “You get the hell outta that chair this instant!”

“Okay! Okay, I’m getting out of the chair! Let’s just calm down and think about this rationally.”

“Move!”

Twilight stepped down from the chair. Jack rushed over and activated the main communication array. “Can ya hear me, Dash? Talk to me!”

One of the main screens lit up, showing Rainbow Dash seated in the cockpit of a heavy vehicle. She was dressed in a leather vest, and had a pair of bronze-colored aviators sunglasses—the kind worn by fighter pilots and small-town sheriffs. She was wearing a beret with three aluminum cans strapped to each side, with bendy straws reaching down to her mouth in place of a microphone headset.

Jack’s eyes widened. “What the hey!?”

“Golden goddess,” whispered Twilight, “she found the vespene cider reserve!”

“Yeah, that’s right!” sneered Dash. “You think you’re the only one who can play with the science? Well I’ve got a quarter-million tons of heavy-metal that says otherwise!”

Jack stared at the screen. ”Dash, what have ya done!? What’s goin on!?”

Twilight pointed at the screen. “She’s ingested—”

Jack pointed the gun at her face. “You jest stay right there, ya filthy alien spy!”

“I’m not an alien! I swear!”

“Don’t listen to her!” Dash shouted. “I found a secret laboratory in the science vessel that’s filled to the brim with top-secret conspiracy stuff! Aliens, psychic powers, genetic mutations, the whole enchilada!”

“Of course I study that sort of stuff!” said Twilight. “I’m a scientist! It’s what I do!”

“Except for one little detail: the real Twilight Sparkle got munched by some new kind of shape-changing doppelganger, and it took her place! That’s why the science vessel was damaged: it was attacked by aliens!”

“You don’t understand! It’s not what you—”

Jack stepped towards her, keeping the shotgun level with her nose. “You got twelve seconds to prove her wrong. Professor.”

“Okay. Yes. The changelings are real. But I’ve been researching them!” Twilight slowly took out a gadget and held it towards her. “Here, take this changeling detector I just invented: it’ll tell you whether or not a pony is actually a changeling spy!”

Jack and Twilight glared at each other, sweat trickling down their brows. Jack took a few short steps closer, shotgun at the ready, and swiped the gadget: she pointed it at Twilight, and the device whirred for several seconds.

A bright blue button lit up and a display read “Totally not a changeling. Seriously.”

Jack turned her head towards the screen, without taking her eyes off Twilight. “Dash? The gadget says she’s not a spy. Maybe we oughta think about this.”

“It’s gotta be a trick or something!”

“But it’s just a machine!” said Jack. “Machines don’t lie!”

Dash slammed her hoof against the control panel of her vehicle. “I want that alien blow’d up this instant! That’s an order!”

Jack stared at Twilight’s face. Her lower lip was trembling.

“Please,” she whimpered, “your friend isn’t thinking straight! She needs help!”

“What sorta help?”

“Vespene gas is a universal catalyst. You can use it to improve anything at all: technology, psionic power, even genetic enhancements. Every sentient race in the galaxy uses it, but if you aren’t a specially conditioned scientist there’s all sorts of side effects... paranoia, megalomania, emotional instability... you start to think you can do anything, and that the whole universe is out to get you!”

Jack bit her bottom lip. “How do I know that’s true? What if yer lyin’ to me?”

Twilight held up a plastic binder. “It’s all right here in this book I just wrote! It proves everything!”

Jack swiped the binder, set it on the floor, and flipped through the pages. Her brow furrowed. “Dash? Some of this is startin’ to make a lot of sense. How much of that vespene cider have you had so far?”

“A few,” she said. “...Barrels. I guess.”

Twilight gasped. “You’re drinking it straight!? Dash, please! You need immediate medical attention!”

Dash reached to the side and cranked a throttle lever all the way down. “More like you’ll need immediate medical attention! Because I’ll be blowing you up momentarily!”

Jack lowered the shotgun and turned to the screen. “Dash, she’s in the command center right now!”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to blow up the command center first.” Dash stroked her chin. “Yeah, I should have more than enough flamethrower-powered chainsaw rockets to do that.”

“You... wha... buh!?” Jack’s left eye twitched in unison with her left ear. “You’re gonna blow up your own base to keep an alien from blowing it up!? You’re completely bonkers!”

“Doesn’t mean I’m wrong!” Dash opened a fresh can of Diet Vespene, downed the contents in one gulp, and crushed the can against her forehead. “I’m not paranoid, Jack. Not one little bit. And I’ll prove it, even if I have to blow up everything in my way!”

The screen blinked off.

Jack climbed into the commander’s chair and took control of the massive, three-dimensional map being projected on the domed ceiling. She scrolled the view over to the crashed science vessel and zoomed in: a section of the vessel’s hull crumbled apart, and she and Twilight stared in shock as something emerged from the wreckage.

The vehicle was a perfect fusion of land and air superiority: a colossal fighter jet fixed to the top of an ultra-heavy main battle tank. The tank’s armored, segmented tracks were wrapped around monster-truck tires instead of wheeled gears. The fighter jet’s wings appeared to be made out of fully-functional Gibson Flying V electric guitars, and there were a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses affixed to the front of its cockpit. The entire vehicle was painted in rainbow-colored lightning bolts, with an airbrushed illustration on the front that depicted a dragon suplexing a great white shark into a basketball net affixed to the mouth of an active volcano.

“Unbelievable,” Twilight said, “crushing the can against your forehead must amplify the awesomeness of vespene gas by at least eighty percent...”

“You did this.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’ve never seen this sort of vehicle before. Rainbow Dash must have consumed enough vesp-apple cider to invent—”

Jack grabbed Twilight by the shoulders and shoved her against a wall. “This is all your fault! You see what you and your science has done!? It’s driven a good mare completely bonkers, and now she’s comin’ to blow us all up!”

“I... I didn’t know! Please, we never imagined Vespene was this powerful! We didn’t even know non-scientists could use it at all!”

Jack gave her another shake. “How do we stop this!?”

“The effects of vespene are temporary,” she said. “We’ll have to keep her in a hospital bed and wait for the biochemicals to filter out of her system.”

Jack looked up at the map screen. “Then we gotta capture her alive. Got any bright ideas?”

“Here, let me try.” Twilight grabbed a nearby control panel and began typing. “If I can hack into the vehicle’s main computer, I might be able to trigger the emergency ejection system. Then, we should be able to—”

There was a deafening buzz, and every screen on the bridge flashed bright red, displaying the word “Nope!” It soon gave way to animated pixel art of rainbow Dash sticking her tongue out.

“A class seventeen firewall!?” Twilight stamped a hoof. “Dangit! She’s thought of everything!”

Jack stared at the flashing screens. “She never told me she was a programmer!”

“She isn’t,” Twilight said, “but vespene amplifies the raw power of science... and with enough science, anything is possible!”

Jack grabbed Twilight and dragged her out of the command bridge. “Come on. If you want somethin’ done right, you’ve got to do it yerself!”

Jack and Twilight climbed into the outpost’s lone Siege Tank and took up positions as driver and gunner, respectively.

“Status check!” Jack shouted.

“All systems nominal,” Twilight said. “All weapon systems are online. Siege tech actuators are fully functioning.”

“Good to hear. Now what do we know about the enemy so far?”

“Rainbow Dash’s prototype mega-tank has unknown range and firepower, but it has extremely limited mobility: very slow top speed and target tracking. We can outrun it if necessary.”

“Running away won’t do us no good if she keeps going for the base,” said Jack. “Can we outmaneuver it? Maybe get behind it, and avoid the big guns entirely?”

“That might work. Its turning rate is very poor, and most of its firepower is forward mounted. And if we’re lucky, the armor will be weaker from behind.”

“Lucky, huh?” Jack gunned the engine and slammed her hooves against the dual throttles. “Let’s make our own luck.”

The Siege Tank roared to life and moved across the rocky flatlands, tearing apart the arid field as it went. After a few minutes, they reached the raised butte that blocked off the middle of the long, peanut-shaped island.

Jack parked the tank right by the base of the cliff. “This is as far as she goes,” she said. “The rest is up to you.”

Twilight climbed out of the tank and took out a bulky flare-launcher. She fired a glowing micro-probe high into the air, and waited for it to fall on the top of the butte.

“Wink Beacon deployed,” she said.

“You sure this is gonna work?”

“The theory is sound,” she said. “Though to be honest, I’ve never actually teleported anything this big before.”

“First time for everything, right?”

Twilight climbed back into the tank, strapped herself in tight, and clenched her eyes shut. Her horn glowed with raw psionic energy, and a cylinder of electricity formed around the tank. There was a flash of light and everything turned white for a moment. When their vision recovered they were atop the mountain.

Twilight pumped a hoof in the air. “Yes!”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Jack drove the tank across the top of the butte, parked at the edge, and activated the tank’s siege mode: a pair of heavy metal clamps extended from each side of the vehicle and braced against the ground. The dual plasma cannons retracted into the turret and a single massive barrel extended in their place.

Twilight pulled a periscope-viewer down from the roof and pressed her face against the viewfinder. “I have visual confirmation of the enemy dude.”

Jack peered out of the tank’s narrow window. “Celestia have mercy on our souls... it’s as big as a barracks!”

“It’s just entered range. Permission to fire?”

“Permission granted,” Jack said, “but remember to aim only for the tracks. If we can stop it, we won’t have to blow it up completely.”

The tank’s main battery spat out a jet of white-hot plasma and the entire vehicle rocked violently. A plume of incandescent fire splashed against the front of the target’s tank tracks.

“Give ’er another shot!” shouted Jack. “If we can take out one of the other tracks as well, she’ll—”

Twilight gasped. “There’s no damage!” she said. “Not even a scratch!”

“What!?” Jack looked out the window just as the giant tank emerged from the cloud of smoke, moving just as slowly as before. “Impossible! That was a direct hit from a siege tank!”

Rainbow Dash’s laughing voice came through the comm channel. “Is that all you’ve got!? This thing’s nearly invulnerable!”

“Invulnerable!? But... but how!?”

Dash grinned at her from the view screen. “Easy! It’s a simple, scientific fact that the bigger and tougher a dude is, the slower they move... right? Well I designed this tank to be as slow as possible! And because it’s the slowest land vehicle ever created, that means its physical durability approaches infinity times ten! Your siege tech is useless!”

Jack glared at the display screen. “That don’t make a lick of sense!”

“I am done making sense!” shouted Dash. “I’m giving you five seconds to exit the vehicle and run away. I don’t wanna blow you up, Jack... but I will if I have to!”

“You think y’can scare me like that? Well, you’ve got anoth—”

Dash’s prototype tank reared up slightly, and a pair of giant rotary cannons popped out of the hull and began spinning: each of the twelve barrels was a full-sized siege cannon.

“Oh lawsey,” Jack whispered. She twisted around in her seat and shouted at Twilight. “Activate the escape doohickey! Now!!”

Twilight whipped out the gadget and pressed a button.

The twin rapid-fire siege cannons opened fire, bombarding the entire surface of the butte with a constant rain of destruction. The siege tank detonated almost instantly, exploding in a cloud of flame and twisted metal. A massive chunk of the cliffside crumbled apart, and the landslide of broken rock slid into the shape of a ramp. The Megatank trundled towards the freshly made entrance.

Jack and Twilight lay on the floor of the command center, gasping for breath. They were both covered with ash stains and their manes were slightly singed and frazzled.

Twilight held up the doohickey. “Emergency teleport... seems to work.”

“Shame we couldn’t save the tank,” said Jack. “What else we got?”

Twilight struggled to stand up. “An experimental problem requires an experimental solution. If we can get close enough, I could use my amoeba launcher: the blob bypasses the victim’s defenses and attacks their vital hit-points directly. No amount of armor upgrades will stop it.”

Jack stood up and stretched her back. “What’s the catch?”

“It’s a damage-over-time attack so it’ll take awhile to kick in. It’s also optimized for groups of small dudes, so it’ll probably be less effective against a single big dude.”

“Sounds like we got a hit’n run to carry out.” Jack ran to her Buzzard and activated the twin turbines. “No time to waste, is there?”

Twilight leaped onto the rear-mounted turret and clamped her amoeba launcher into the robotic gunnery mount. Jack stamped the accelerator, squealed a one-eighty, and shot out of the command center’s bay doors like an arrow.

Twilight shouted over the roaring wind. “My launcher only has a range of fifty meters. That’s not even close to the range of a siege cannon.”

“Guess I’ll just have to dodge ’em until we get close.”

“Dodge a siege cannon? Can you do that?”

Jack squinted. “Only one way to find out.”

They drove towards the distant cliffside in silence for awhile.

“Hey,” said Twilight, “when you said ‘only one way to find out,’ were you trying to sound totally badass in the face of unspeakable danger?”

“Nope,” she said. “I genuinely have no idea if it’s possible to dodge a siege cannon.”

“Well... do you know what our odds are?”

“No idea. None whatsoever. At all.”

“But if you really, really really had to guess, what would your best estimate be?”

“If I had to?” Jack stroked her chin. “Siege cannon projectiles are pinpoint accurate, they travel almost instantly, and they’re totally invisible before they land. So I guess our odds are probably nothing percent, times zero.”

“Zero?”

“Yeah. Just a guess, mind you.”

Twilight glanced back at the command center as it faded into the distance behind them. “I had a thought. Why don’t we go back to the command center, lift off, and fly away?”

“Well, because...” Jack worked her jaw back and forth. “ ’Cause there’s... well, I mean...”

Twilight nodded, encouragingly.

“The principle!” she said. “It’s the principle of the thing, mainly.”

“What principle is that, exactly?”

“Dirt Ponies never run away, and we never give up! If we run away now, then we’ll throw away our whole legacy.”

“Yeah... I guess so.”

They continued driving for awhile.

“You know,” said Twilight, “I’m not a Dirt Pony. D’you think I could—”

“Battle-zone sighted!” Jack shouted. “Everypony prepare for turbo jump!”

They streaked towards the sheer cliff wall. Jack popped a wheelie and activated the turbo boosters, and the Buzzard sailed high into the air: they landed just shy of the edge. Rainbow Dash’s Megatank had just finished climbing to the top of the makeshift ramp it had blown out.

Twilight struggled to keep ahold of her amoeba cannon. “Aaaah! Lookout!”

“Ah see it, ah see it!”

The Megatank’s twin rotary-siege cannons quickly began to spin up. Jack popped a wheelie for several seconds, waiting for just the right moment. Just as the rotary cannons reached full speed, she triggered a boost and jumped into the air: the massive barrage of siege blasts tore up the ground behind her. The Buzzard landed just behind the tank.

“Quick, before she can turn around!”

Twilight swiveled her amoeba launcher and fired a continuous stream of gooey, translucent liquid at the tank’s massive treads. The slime quickly seeped between the armor plates and into the machinery beneath, sizzling and wriggling.

“It’s working!” shouted Twilight. “Just keep us steady!”

Jack kept the Buzzard directly behind the Megatank, easily outpacing its ponderously slow turning speed.

Rainbow Dash’s voice boomed through a loudspeaker. “Aww, come on! Quit movin’ around, wouldja?”

“You don’t leave us much choice!” shouted Jack. “Once this is over and done with, you’ll see it was for your own good.”

“Like heck I will!”

A short, stubby cannon extended from the roof of the vehicle and pointed straight up. It let of a small puff of white smoke, and a shiny silver projectile sailed high into the air. It fell straight back down and impacted against the hull of Dash’s own vehicle, producing a massive ripple in the air: the shockwave of distortion washed over the ground and knocked the Buzzard slightly off course.

Jack regained control, and stared at the controls in shock. “My nitro booster... it’s completely drained!

Twilight hefted her amoeba launcher and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.

“I’m out too... that blast must’ve been an electro-magnetic pulse!” Twilight shook her hoof at the Megatank defiantly. “You stole that from my science vessel, didn’t you!?”

“I didn’t just steal it,” Dash called back, “I improved it! Not only does it neutralize the enemy’s shields and energy reserves, it also strips away debuffs on friendly units!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You...! Wha...? But how!?”

“Fools! You said yourself that science is a way to harness the awesomeness of the universe... but you’ve forgotten it’s just a tool! I don’t need your gimmicks and gadgets: I am the awesome!”

Jack looked back over her shoulder. “Twi! Get that emergency teleporter ready!”

“Okay, but I’ve only got one more shot with it!”

“That’s jest fine...” Jack clenched her teeth and pointed the nose of the Buzzard directly at the Megatank. “We’ll only need one more.”

The hover-bike streaked across the terrain, bearing down on its target like an arrow.

Twilight held up a gadget. “Now?”

“Not yet!”

The massive Megatank loomed larger with each passing moment. The sound of its churning tracks became overwhelming.

“What about now!?”

Jack clenched her jaw and squinted her eyes.

“Applejack? Applejack!?”

Twilight leaped out of the gunnery turret and tackled Jack, pulling her out of the driver’s seat. They tumbled across the ground, bruised and dusty, just as the Buzzard crashed into the side of the Megatank in a ball of flames.

“Are you crazy!?” Twilight shouted, “You could’ve gotten us blown up!”

Jack shoved her aside. “Don’t you tell me how to pilot! I had things perfectly under control!”

Twilight shoved back. “If that thing can shrug off a siege tank, than a direct collision with a Buzzard would be less than useless! The amount of kinetic force isn’t nearly—”

Jack shoved her aside and stormed a few steps away, glaring at the Megatank. Twilight bit her lip, and watched the smoldering wreckage of the bike. She walked up next to Jack but couldn’t bring herself to give her a pat on the shoulder.

“Aw jeez, Jack. I...”

The sound of shorn metal and crumpled machinery cut her off. Twilight peered through the greasy smoke that billowed from the ruined Buzzard: one of the Megatank’s heavy, armored tracks crumbled apart and the monster-truck wheels fell to the side. The tank lurched forward a few yards, but settled back with a whine.

Jack’s ears perked up. “It’s stuck! We stopped it!”

“Impossible,” Twilight whispered. “And yet...!”

Dash’s voice crackled through the loudspeaker, but bursts of static rendered her words broken and illegible. The top half of the experimental vehicle transformed in a whirling ballet of metal plates and gears. When the process finished, a pair of colossal artillery cannons swiveled around and arced towards the sky. The twin barrels crackled with electricity.

“Get down!”

Jack tackled Twilight Sparkle from the side and held her against the ground, shielding her with her own body. Twilight jabbed a button on her gadget just as the Megatank’s weapons discharged. A burst of light and sound overwhelmed Twilight’s senses. For a moment she couldn’t be sure whether it was the emergency teleporter or the massive artillery cannon that had blinded her.

Slowly, her vision returned. She was in the main bay of the command center. She staggered to her feet, knees wobbling. She took out her emergency teleporter but the gadget was charred and smoking. She tossed it aside.

“Jack? Are you okay?” She looked around the bay. “Jack, we’ve got to get moving! We don’t know how long it will take her to fix the damage!”

Twilight ran through the bay and finally caught sight of Jack, standing by the ramp and staring out across the plains.

“Jack?”

“It shouldn’t have to be like this,” she said.

Twilight walked up beside her. “She’s not your commander anymore,” she said.

“She’s mah friend,” Jack said. “I’ve spent mah whole life trying to wipe out them pegasus, and now Rainbow Dash is the only friend I’ve got.”

Twilight reached over her shoulders and gave her a hug.

“We’re not gonna lift-off the command center,” she said. “I know we could just fly away and wait it out... but I’m not going to.”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Twilight said. “Dash has consumed so much vespene by now that I don’t think she’ll survive without medical attention.”

Jack looked at her, sharply. “Whaddya mean?”

Twilight held up a sheet of paper. “According this pie-chart I just drew, Rainbow Dash has become a self-sustaining quantum singularity of pure awesomeness. The only thing holding that tank together is sheer force of will, and if we don’t extract her soon—”

“She’ll explode in a blaze of glory,” said Dash. “It’s the most awesome way to die... even if it’s a senseless waste.”

Twilight’s communicator beeped, and she checked the tiny screen. “Unbelievable... she’s on the move again.”

“Hurry! This way!”

Jack bolted through the corridors of the command center, and Twilight followed behind. They burst into the main bridge and looked up at the holo-map of the island: The Megatank swiveled its main artillery cannon away from the command center and opened fire. The massive discharge blew a new crater in the ground, and the weapon’s overwhelming recoil sent the entire vehicle flying through the air. The Megatank landed on its side and tumbled a few hundred feet further, finally coming to rest in an upright position. The artillery cannons slowly swiveled around, preparing to repeat the process.

“No,” Jack said, firmly. “Just. No.”

Twilight tapped at a nearby control panel, and a stream of data flowed across several nearby monitors. “I don’t know what kind of weapon that is, but I think I recognize the energy source... she must be using the power of rock’n’roll to redline the vehicle’s reactor.”

Jack frowned at the data. “Is there any way to hear what’s goin’ on out there?”

Twilight nodded. “Establishing real-time audio feed now.”

The bridge’s main speakers switched on, transmitting several bars of hard-rock, new-wave music: a swell of electronic synth raged on behind a cool saxaphone solo.

“I recognize that bass,” Twilight whispered. “It’s a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer!”

Jack waved a hoof at her. “Shh!”

They listened. There was a voice following along with the beat, screaming out lyrics with the savage, burning passion of a natural born fighter pilot:

You’ll never say hello to you

Until you get it on the red line overload!

You’ll never know what you can do

Until you get it up as high as you can goooo!

Jack glared at the monitors. “It’s not just rock’n’roll,” she said. “It’s karaoke.”

Twilight gasped. “Oh god. We can use that! If we can dampen her music with a sonic neutralizer, we might be able to distract her!”

“And if she can’t sing, she can’t boost the Megatank’s power.”

Twilight took out her sonic stunners and plugged them into a console. “Just gimme a minute. I need to calculate the kind of music that’s the exact opposite of what she’s singing.”

Jack shook her head. “I’ll handle this myself.”

“Do you want another Buzzard? I can build one at the factory.”

“No time,” she said. “I’ll jest have to grab whatever’s lying around.”

“Lying aro...? We don’t have any combat vehicles left! What are you going to do, go out there and fight her with your bare hooves!?”

Jack jogged towards the exit without a glance back. “Desperate times,” she said.

The armored garage door of the command center’s main bay slowly opened, and the golden light of sunset crept across the floor. A large, pony-shaped figure stood near the ramp, cast in sharp silhouette: its two shoulder pylons were fitted with a pair of loudspeakers, and the vertically-mounted cockpit slid down and sealed shut.

A calm, robotic voice played over the loudspeakers, too faint to understand. The mech went to a nearby supply shelf and slung a huge violin case across its back and a broad-brimmed stetson to the roof of its head-shaped cockpit. It turned to face the ramp, and its bulky, oversized legs shifted with subtle skill.

The front window of the cockpit deployed an additional layer of heat-shield armor plates. The pilot’s face was visible for a moment, though only from the nose down. A massive explosion detonated across the horizon, rendered almost insignificant over the distance.

The calm, robotic voice broke the silence. “SCV ready for deployment.”

Private Applejack put a toothpick in her mouth and clamped her teeth tight, working it side to side for a few seconds.

“Hell,” she said, her voice a guttural drawl. “It’s about overtime.”

D11: In the front, with the gear

Private Applejack’s SCV burst out of the command center’s main bay, leaping through the air and activating its hoof-mounted hover-thrusters. The mech stormed through the tiny outpost at full speed, swerving between the other buildings like an ice-skater. It reached the edge of the wilderness and swept over the flat, arid plains. Jack scanned the horizon, and her eyes fixed on a small, dark speck. The object arced high into the air and landed on the ground: even at this distance, the ground trembled under the impact.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. She sped directly towards the object, leaning into the wind. A few moments later there was a deafening explosion and the object leaped high into the air. It sailed almost a kilometer towards the outpost, close enough for Jack to make out the details. Rainbow Dash’s megatank was much as it was before—a massive siege tank with an equally oversized fighter jet fused to the top, with V-shaped electric guitars for wings and a pair of mirrored aviator’s sunglasses attached to the front of the cockpit. The artillery cannon was new... a pair of massive rails arranged side by side, with arcs of electricity playing between them. Rainbow Dash’s voice echoed over the plains, singing triumphantly:

Revvin’ up your engine; Listen to her howlin’ roar!

Metal under tension, beggin’ you to touch and go!

Jack’s eyes narrowed. Her gaze fixed on the Megatank’s left track, damaged beyond repair.

You ain’t invincible, girl.

She brought the SCV to a sudden halt and reached up to keep the over-sized stetson from falling of the mech’s head. She watched the Megatank swivel its main cannons away from her. She took a moment to scan the distance and judge the wind, then hovered backwards a few dozen yards. She took a deep breath and pressed her hooves firmly against the controls.

The Megatank fired its main weapon and the sheer force of recoil catapulted the entire vehicle through the air. Jack watched it loom closer, but held her position: only now was the Megatank’s true size apparent: it was as large as a barracks.

The Megatank slammed into the ground like a meteor, but the SCV’s hover-boosters rendered it immune to the shuddering quake. The tank gouged a furrow in the ground as it skidded along, and sent up a thick tidal wave of dirt and soil. Jack leaped forward, surfed against the curving wave of earth, and leapt onto the top of the massive tank tracks.

The SCV’s communicator blinked and Twilight Sparkle’s voice came through, slightly scratchy. “Jack, are you okay? Did you make it?”

Jack hopped between each of the individual treads, wringing every drop of agility she could out of her clumsy engineering mech. “Still alive,” she said, “but I’m a little busy at the moment. Keep it quick.”

“Right. According to this sensor device I just made, Rainbow Dash is definitely using mid-eighties karaoke to increase the awesomeness of her vehicle’s reactor.”

Jack leaped over a series of chainsaws inexplicably built into the side of the tank. “Tell me somethin’ I don’t know!”

“The problem is that she’s shoved it into overdrive! If you don’t stop it in the next fifty five seconds, it’ll go super-critical!”

Jack rolled her eyes. “As if regular-critical wasn’t bad enough.”

“Don’t be silly,” Twilight said, “a reactor is supposed to go regular-critical. That’s the whole point. It reacts.”

Jack somersaulted under a series of flaming exhaust ports. A heavy metal strut swung out of nowhere and slammed her against the wall: her wide-brimmed hat flew off and vanished from sight. She struggled to free herself, and her mech’s hull warped and bent. “Now’s not really the time, Twilight!”

“Right! Sorry! Is there anything I can do to help?”

Jack managed to free one of her legs, and used the cutting torch to slice through the strut. “Just tell me where Dash is! I gotta find her!”

“That’s easy! She’s right—”

The Megatank’s main cannons fired and the vehicle launched into the sky with the force of a million atomic bombs. Jack stabbed her SCV’s rock drill into the side of the tank and braced herself, but the force nearly ripped the SCV’s limb apart. She swung around, extended the other limb’s heavy vice-gripper, and clamped it around a chunk of exposed pipe. She worked her way along the armored hull of the fighter jet, meter by meter, even as they hurtled through the air.

This whole thing is gonna roll when it lands... things’ll get mighty ugly for me if I can’t find some cover by then. She glanced around, but saw nothing. No luck there... I’ll just have to make my own luck.

She reared up on her hind legs, using the SCV’s magneto-clamps to keep steady, and extended a full set of tools from the front hooves. A compartment opened up in the SCV’s back and crates of minerals ejected straight up: Jack juggled the crates in the air, slicing and molding them into shape and slamming them against the Megatank’s hull. She danced around the structure with the speed of a mongoose, jabbing with her tools and slamming new struts or plates into position.

She complete the bunker and dove inside without an instant to spare. The Megatank crashed to the ground nose first and tumbled along for several seconds. The roof of the bunker crumpled inward, but Jack braced herself against it to keep it from collapsing entirely.

“Not mah best rush job,” she said to herself, “but It’ll do. You still there, Twilight?”

“Yes,” she said. “The Megatank’s main controls are located in the cockpit of the fighter jet section. You can’t miss it.”

Jack stepped out and climbed onto the roof of the bunker. “All right then. Let’s—”

A gust of wind and dust blew over her. The SCV’s vice-grip snapped out and plucked her stetson out of the air as it fluttered past, and she set the torn and dirt-stained hat on the SCV’s head.

“Much better. Now then... where was I?”

The SCV marched along the back of the fighter jet, pulling the violin case off her back as she approached the cockpit. She snapped the case open and pulled out a six-meter long Thompson submachine gun with a drum-magazine and a finished wood stock. She then ripped the machine gun in half in a spray of wood and metal splinters, revealing an oversized five-string bluegrass banjo hidden within. She plugged a cable from the banjo into the side of the SCV’s shoulder and slammed her fusion torch against the strings.

Rainbow Dash sat in the Megatank’s spacious cockpit, surrounded by impossibly complex controls and displays. A series of loudspeaker towers fixed behind the chair filled the enclosed space with crushingly loud music, drowning out any sound the interface was making.

“Out along the edges, always where I burn to be... the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity!” Rainbow Dash shoved both throttles forward and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Hiiighwaaay to the danja zooooo—”

The speakers let out a momentary burst of static. Dash scrunched her eyes shut and her ears twitched. “What the!?” When her senses recovered, she heard an unfamiliar audio sample playing overtop of her music. It was hard to make out anything through the jumble of competing noise, but as her eyes adjusted she heard a familiar voice... a brutal, guttural scream from the back of the throat.

Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-A-lam; Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-A-lam!

She really gets me high, bam-A-lam; You know that’s no lie, bam-A-lam!

She’s always ready, bam-BA-lam; She’s all rock steady, bam-BA-lam;

Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-BA-lam; Whoa-ohh, black betty, bam-BA-lam!

Dash activated a rear-facing view camera, and the display screen brought up a video feed of Jack’s SCV. She was standing just behind the cockpit and picking away at an electric banjo: the tune was lightning quick and pitch perfect, but the instrument had a lazy, arrogant attitude about it.

Dash flicked the external speakers on. “Hey! Buzz off! You're harshing my style here!”

“Oh yeah? Well why dontcha come out and make me!”

Dash slammed a hoof against the control panel. “I’m not falling for that!”

“Well then I guess I’ll just sit here and mind my own business a while longer. I’m sure y’all appreciate good music, after all.”

“Good music!? That’s—” Dash scrunched her eyes shut and sighed. “It’s not gonna work!”

Dash focused on her own song, concentrating on the synthesizer and the overdriven guitar, the clean, over-produced melody and the pulse-pounding drum beat... but the twanging, curly notes of Jack’s five-string penetrated her mind at every opportunity. The Megatank’s movements became slightly more sluggish. Dash glanced at the reactor core readout and watched the needle slowly drift lower.

“Would you just shut up for a second I’m trying to concentrate here!”

Jack continued playing. “This fight’s already over, Dash. You’re the only one who hasn’t figured it out yet, is all.”

“You think the fight’s over!?” Dash broke open a glass panel and yanked a switch down. “We haven’t even started yet!”

Jack gasped as the Megatank rumbled and shook beneath her. The lower tank-body began crumbling into a cloud of wreckage, and the fighter jet’s turbines came to life with a burst of flames. The top half of the Megatank flew up above the ground and soared into the sky. Jack clung to the armor as the aircraft looped and rolled. The ground and the sky wheeled around her wildly, shattering any concept of up or down.

The Megajet executed a series of tight barrel rolls. Jack clung to the hull with her vice-clamp and the SCV flailed back and forth. “Yer only makin’ it harder on y’self, girl!”

“You still haven’t given up yet? Fine... let’s finish this your way!”

The Megajet’s nose tilted up sharply. Its guitar-wings extended fully and the strings crackled with electricity, replicating the guitar notes in the song Jack had played. Jack slung her banjo once more and engaged her commander in an all-out, no-holds-barred, one-on-one duel. They played together for minutes that stretched on like hours, filling the upper atmosphere of the planet with devastatingly powerful chords. The jet continued to streak straight up, its controls locked into place, and the two guitarist’s notes began to blur and intertwine.

Rainbow Dash’s voice was strained with exertion. “You’ve... got some moves... don’t you?”

Jack shook some of the the sweat off her mane. “I didn’t want it to come to this, Dash.”

“I know what you’re doing,” she said, “but it’s not enough! Why won’t you just get the message!? You’re still not as awesome as me, and neither is Twilight! ”

“Message!?” Jack spit her toothpick aside. “Oh, I got your message, Commander, and frankly... I don’t care what you have to say about awesomeness! You damn pegasus hipsters are all alike: don’t know where yer loyalties lie!”

Dash clenched her teeth. “W-w-what did you say?”

“We’ve got a galaxy to save, and all you care about is your own dang self!” Jack redoubled her effort and her music quickened. “You coulda been the best commander there ever was! I woulda been proud to follow you into certain death! Now here you are, thinkin’ everypony in the world is out to getcha: I trusted you, Dash! The Confettiracy trusted you! And now that you broke that trust, yer nuthin but a traitor!”

Dash’s eyes widened and her pupils shrank to tiny dots. Her hooves stopped moving over the controls, paralyzed with tension.

...Loyalties?

She clenched her jaws tight. A scream of pure agony caught in her throat and she slammed both hooves against the controls, smashing the buttons and dials apart. Eventually, her hoof came down against the biggest, reddest button in the cockpit. She continued destroying the control panels all around her, ignorant of the blaring sirens and flashing red lights.

The Megajet swerved wildly off course. Jack looked down at the vehicle’s hull: the thrusters were sputtering out flames and the guitar-wings wobbled erratically. Bits of armor plating peeled away to reveal the delicate machinery beneath. Jack stopped playing and struggled to keep her footing, but there was nowhere to stand.

“Twilight? You there?”

She tapped the SCV’s comm unit, but got only static. She looked out the window and gasped in shock at the world below. The Megajet’s locked-out controls had carried them just beyond the highest reaches of the mesosphere, eighty kilometers up... the surface of the world below had the undeniable curve of a sphere, covered with wispy layers of cloud. The stars behind her were clearly visible despite the full light of day.

The hull of the jet shuddered violently, and her attention snapped back into focus. “Dash! Are you still there? Talk to me, Dash!”

A voice came back, scratchy and faint. “Get away! It’s gonna blow any second now!”

“I’m not leavin’ you here, Commander!”

“You don’t have much choice!”

Jack stabbed the SV’s rock drill into the hull and crawled her way towards the cockpit, one meter at a time. All around her, armor plates peeled apart and flew into space. A halo of pressurized fire formed around the nose of the jet as they plunged further into the atmosphere.

“Almost... I’m almost there! Jest hang on!”

Jack reached for the cockpit, but an explosion of force knocked her to one side and tore the SCV’s leg out of its mechanized socket. Jack tumbled away and her view spun wildly, occasionally giving her a glimpse of the crumbling Megajet: its wings had broken off and begun to burn up, and the central chassis was glowing red hot.

Jack jabbed at her comm unit, desperately. “Twilight! Pick up, Twilight! You gotta find a way to teleport us outta this! There’s no time to waste!”

The comm produced only static. Jack scanned the control panel and saw over a hundred damage indicators light up: the outer hull of the SCV had been melted into slag, destroying all of its tools and support systems. The mech’s micro-reactor exploded with enough force to snap the SCV in half, and the cockpit immediately lost all power.

Guess the hover-boosters wouldn’t have been any help anyways, she thought as she leaned back in her seat. I’m sorry, commander... sorry I couldn’t save ya.

The SCV continued to disintegrate around her, absorbing the brunt of the atmospheric pressure in the process, and the auto-eject system propelled Jack away from the razor-sharp wreckage. The chair snapped apart and left her to flail about in the air, with only her flack jacket and worn leather vest to protect her. She glanced up at the wreck of the Megajet above her, still plummeting in a ball of fire.

Things were happening too quickly to think about... but for a brief moment she caught sight of a glint of light. The next instant, a multi-colored band of light streaked down at her. A silhouette of a pegasus drew close, wings outstretched, forelegs reaching out. Jack reached out towards the shape but their hooves slammed together clumsily, inadvertently executing the most epic bro-hoof ever shared between two ponies of differing races. The ruined Megajet’s core reactor exploded at just that moment, framing them against the backdrop of a cloud of incandescent fire the size of a small city.

Their hooves locked together at the ankles, hard and fast, and they glided down together. They landed on the ground and tumbled a short distance, then collapsed from raw exhaustion. It took several minutes for Jack to regain her breath.

Finally, she propped herself up and looked at Dash. “Now that’s what I call a danger zone,” she said with a chuckle.

Dash rolled onto her side with a strangled groan.

“Dash?” Jack shot to her hooves and bolted to her side, ignoring the pain in her legs. “Don’t worry, Dash, I gotcha! You’ll be fine!”

She turned Dash onto her side and spread her stylish leather jacket open: the sweat-stained cotton shirt underneath had a bright red blotch on it. Jack stared at the stain as it grew in size.

“Medic! Medic!”

She turned to look at the vast, empty plains all around her. There was nothing insight. She leaned down and hugged Dash’s head.

A shadow slid over them and blotted out the sun. A field of sparkling energy gathered around them, forming a cylinder of pink and purple light. Jack ignored the light entirely, as well as the snap of dimensional energy that followed it: it was all she could do to hold her friend close.

Dirt Pony Cinematic 1

Rainbow Dash lay in her hospital bed with a heavy, hard-cover book in front of her. Daylight shone in through the window and soft classical music played in the background. She paused to look to the narrow vase of flowers sitting by her bed.

The doorbell issued a soothing tone, and she looked up with a smile as Jack and Twilight Sparkle stepped in. “Hey, strangers! What took you so long?”

Jack ran to the side of her bed, frowning. “ I woulda visited you days ago but little miss fuss-budget here wouldn’t allow it, even though she said the operation was a complete success.”

Twilight Sparkle set a clipboard on a nearby counter. “The surgery to remove the shrapnel from between her ribs was a complete success. The detox procedure to remove the vespene from her cardiovascular system was an altogether different issue.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Twi told me to avoid being awesome for a while. Lying in bed, listening to classical music, meditating...” She lifted the book up. “She even has me reading books without pictures.”

“Actual literature?” Jack arched an eyebrow. “Careful you don’t accidentally enjoy yourself there. Wouldn’t want you turning into some sorta egghead or somethin’.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “No worries. It’s horrible.”

Twilight smiled. “Marecel Proust was one of the true masters, and her works will no doubt be celebrated for all time. They’re also slightly less painful than a visit to the dentist without the benefit of anesthetic. I had to do a book report on her, in university... I begged one of my friends to slam my head in a door until I couldn’t recognize written language anymore.”

Jack blew a raspberry at her.

“Oh I believe it,” said Dash. “Though I gotta admit, the music’s kinda growing on me.”

Jack went to the window and opened the blinds, giving them all a view of the island outpost. “Still feeling lazy, are you?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Dash tossed the book onto a nearby end table. “I haven’t stretched my wings in over a week now. Starting to go a little stir crazy.”

Dash and Jack both turned to Twilight.

“She looks clean to me,” she said. “She’s made a full recovery from the surgery and I’m not picking up any residual vespene contamination. As long as you don’t stress yourself too much, I think you can afford some exercise.”

“Finally!” Dash sat up and climbed out of the bed. Jack went to her side, but she waved her away. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re sure?”

“Totally. I can’t wait to hit the command center and see what you’ve been up to.”

Twilight and Jack shot each other quick glance.

“What was that all about?”

Jack cleared her throat. “So, if we did build something without asking you... would ya be angry about it?”

Dash looked away. “Hey, Twi? I’m sorry I lost my temper before. If you really think I’m a bad commander, then I guess... that’s the way it is.”

Twilight shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve restored your rank and returned you to active duty. The base is yours again.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “After all that ’tude I gave you before!?”

“The attitude was never a problem,” she said, “it was the vespene symptoms I was worried about. I had every intention of restoring your command after we got it out of your system.” Twilight’s horn glowed and an aura of sparkles levitated a small badge over to Dash. “Here’s your official insignia. Sorry it took so long for us to get it to you.”

Dash stared down at the badge for a while.

“I’ve got to get going,” said Twilight. “The Megalith has been repaired, and I’ve got a lot of other colonies to inspect.” Twilight walked to the door, but paused before leaving. “One last thing, commander.”

Dash looked up from the badge. “Yeah?”

“You saw some of my research papers, many of which are classified above top secret. I’ll have to ask you not to share what you learned under any circumstances.”

Dash frowned. “Don’t ponies have a right to know?”

“The government has a right to protect its citizens,” she said. “The Confettiracy is aware of this new threat, and is working on a number of solutions. If those secrets become public, it will only undermine our ability to prepare a defense.”

Dash clenched her jaw, but kept her tone respectful. “Understood.”

Twilight Sparkle nodded, and left the hospital room.

“Stupid conspiracies,” muttered Dash. “Now I’m a part of this whole mess.”

Applejack shook her head. “You already were, since the day you signed up for the space navy. Come on... let’s get you back to your outpost.”

Jack and Rainbow Dash walked out of the room and through the corridors of the science vessel. Halfway through, Dash glanced at a nearby door and stopped in her tracks.

“Dash?”

“That’s... that’s the...” Dash ran to the door and stared at the lever. “I swear it was this very room! You believe me, don’t you?”

“I believe we need to get back to base. Just do yourself a favor and forget the whole thing ever happened, okay?”

“How can you say that!? You’re asking me to lie to everyone I know about the fate of the galaxy! It’s like lying!”

Jack glared at her. “It’s not lying. It’s for the public safety. Ponies might panic and throw riots if they found out, and then we’d be in a complete state of higglety pigglety.”

“But... you believe me, don’t you?”

Jack bit her bottom lip.

“Well let’s prove it! You’ll see!”

“No, wait!”

Rainbow Dash pushed the door lever down and threw the doors open, charging into the featureless white room beyond: the shelves and counters were all empty. The floors had been scoured with cleaning chemicals and the walls had been recently painted over. The big cylindrical storage tank in the wall was an ordinary water-heater.

Dash stared at the room in shock. “But the books... the pictures! It was all here, I swear!” She looked back at her friend. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

Jack waited by the door, quietly.

“It wasn’t the vespene,” said Dash. “I know it makes you all paranoid and stuff, but I swear it really happened! Twilight Sparkle must have cleaned everything up and hidden it away somewhere!”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “This again? You still think Twilight’s a... something else?”

“No, of course not. But... well...” Dash pawed at the floor with her hoof.. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Jack walked over and gave her a hug. “Y’all don’t worry that pretty little head of yours, Commander. Everything’ll be just fine.”

“What do you think about all this? Is there any truth to it, or am I just... crazy?”

“Honestly?” She gave Dash a pat on the back. “I think the truth always comes out in the end. By the time we really need it, we’ll know all about it.”

Dash and Jack walked out of the room and continued down the corridor.

“So,” said Jack, “I don’t suppose you’re up for a surprise?”

Dash lifted her head a bit, and her ear twitched up. “Surprise? What kind of surprise?”

Jack grinned at her.

A few minutes later, Rainbow Dash walked into the darkened assembly hall of the barracks. Jack followed behind her and flipped a wall switch, bathing the main hall in fluorescent light. There in the center of the room stood a recently assembled suit of pony battle armor, painted sky blue. It was about the same size as a standard space marine outfit, but with some key additions: a pair of wings with built in jet thrusters, and a pair of high-tech rifles strapped to its sides.

“Whoaaaa...” Dash walked around the suit in a circle, marveling at the sight of it. “When did we get this?”

“Twilight invented it. She said you had a lot of good ideas, and she couldn’t get them out of her head... so she finally sat down with a design computer and worked out the details.”

“My drawing? No way! But I thought she said it was dumb?”

Jack walked over to the suit and pointed at the dual rifles. “Not exactly. She came up with a new kind of field-jacketed electro-laser Rifle and a micro-gravity vortex generator that creates typhoon-shaped gravity wells. They’re both powered by a pegasus’s innate weather control magic, and they’re equally effective in air and space.”

“Wow... she did all this for me?”

“She said we needed a high-mobility infantry option... and she was getting bored waiting for you to recover.” Jack nodded to the suit. “She said you could pick a name for it.”

A smile crept over Dash’s face. “The ‘Wondervolt Commando’ suit,” she said.

Jack smiled back. The two of them turned to the suit and simply watched it quietly.

“Wanna give it a test run?”

Dash nodded, but her smile faded. “That’d be... great.”

“Yer leavin’, aint ’cha?”

Dash continued to gaze at the suit.

Jack took her hat off. “Listen. I can’t claim to understand you... but I won’t try to stop you.”

“All I can think about is what you said earlier: that I don’t know where my loyalties lie.” Dash turned to her. “And now I know. I know exactly what I have to do. I know exactly who the real enemy is. And I can’t sleep easy until I’ve finished them for good.”

“I’ll keep the base running ’till you get back.”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Maybe a month, maybe a year... maybe forever.”

Jack nodded. “It takes as long as it takes. You can count on me.”

She held her hoof out, and Rainbow Dash thumped her own hoof against it. She walked out of the barracks without a second glance, leaving Dash alone with the suit.

Later on in the day Jack toured the outpost as part of her routine inspection. When she came to the barracks, the main hall was empty. She continued about her duties without a second glance.

It takes as long as it takes. No more, no less.

The vast, empty plains of Mare Sara stretched on in all directions, from horizon to horizon. A gentle, intermittent wind swept up dust and sand in little whorls. Faint, wispy clouds dotted the sky, offering no rain to the prickly weeds scattered across the craggy soil.

A great armored beast lowered its head and slowly clamped its teeth around a particularly gnarled bush: it tore off a branch and chewed for some time, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. The rest of the herd was scattered about randomly, content to stand around doing nothing more exciting that scrape at the dirt or swat their tails at insects. Occasionally, one let out a long, gurgling belch.

A heavily armored hoof slammed to the ground nearby, crushing a tiny green sprout into the dirt. A few of the beasts looked up at the disturbance, utterly placid: A suit of gleaming, vacc-sealed powered armor was flexing its wing-shaped thrusters. The high-performance turbines let out a low rumble and their inside blades glowed with the bright blue flame of an acetylene torch.

The helmet’s visor slid open, slowly, and Rainbow Dash squinted at them. “I’m lookin’ for the Rhynadon that attacked my base,” she said. “I got no quarrel with the rest of you.” Dash’s rifles crackled with a galvanic burst of neon-blue electricity, and her mouth twisted in a vicious, cruel grin. “Of course, you all look the same to me... ain’t that a shame?”

The Rhynadons stared back at her, frozen midway through their chewing. One of them went slightly slack jawed and dropped a mouthful of half-chewed slime on the ground.

Rainbow Dash leapt forward. The loudspeakers built into her shoulders blasted epic, techno-trance orchestral music with a choir of voices chanting in latin. Her twin rifles spat thunder and judgment.

The heavens exploded.

Private Jack walked across the command center’s main bay, dragging a large metal washtub behind her. She opened the massive front door, went to the edge of the ramp and dumped the tub onto the ground: a heap of garbage tumbled out, adding to an ever growing pile of foam plates, plastic cutlery, and half-empty snack packages.

Something heavy landed on the ramp beside her, and she glanced up: Rainbow Dash tromped over in her commando battlesuit. She was completely covered in dirt and dark-purple alien blood, and her electric rifles hissed with a faint trace of steam. Dash opened her visor and walked up the ramp, whistling cheerfully.

“Morning,” Jack said with a tip of her hat.

“Hey. Miss me?”

Jack glanced at her ankle-watch. “You’ve been gone for all of twenty minutes.”

“It took no time at all to sweep this entire sector. Man, I love this suit! I might have to start sleeping it it. It’s got air conditioning and everything! Hey, we got any popcorn? I feel like popcorn.”

Jack nodded towards one of the side corridors. “Main mess hall. Second shelf on the left.”

“Cool.” Dash tromped inside, whistling to herself as she trailed purple blood across the floor.

Jack shook her head with a smile, and went to the closet where the industrial floor-sweeper was stowed.

Hours later, the plains were still awash with the detritus of total war. Barren craters and rows of scorch marks littered the landscape. Thick trails of oily black smoke drifted up through the air. Huge swaths of land had been swept with gale force winds and crushing gravitic storms. There were bodies everywhere... the ruined, smoking husks of once living organisms, too numerous to count. Apart from the dust and ash stirred up by the breeze, there was no sign of motion. Nothing had been left alive.

No... one thing yet lived. A single Rhynadon dragged itself along the ground, gasping for breath. Its lumpy, armored hide was riddled with electrical burns and both of its hind legs were limp and crippled. Each step it took was more painful and exhausted than the last.

It reached out to drag itself one step further, but stopped as its clumsy hoof bumped against something solid. Its beady eyes squinted up at the new obstacle, and the beast let out a strangled gurgle: A tall, slender creature loomed over it like the spectre of death. Its armored carapace was dead black, and shot through with with crags and crevices. A slight mist of vile green gas exhaled from its fanged mouth. Its eyes—those slitted green eyes, green as poison and hot as acid—fixed upon the beast, cruel and uncaring.

A huge zipper opened up along the front of the Rhynadon and its body collapsed into a heap of painted canvas as a trio of changelings tumbled out. Two of themimmediately fell to the ground in a tangled pile, gasping for fresh air and glistening with grimy sweat. One of them stood at strict attention.

“Queen Chrysalis,” he said in a hissing voice, “we live only to serve.”

“Report,” she snapped.

“The enemy has constructed a small defensive expansion near the north-eastern plateau, and has been gathering resources at a slow pace.”

The queen gazed aside, disinterest. “Build order?”

“One ’rax one fac, with a bunker for defence and an ‘engie’ under construction.”

“And what of their forces?” she said. “What troops have they deployed, and where are they located?”

“Unknown, my Queen. For weeks now the enemy has been slaughtering the local wildlife without the slightest hesitation or provocation. They have nearly exterminated every living beast on the continent... even those that pose no threat whatsoever! There are no living things left for us to impersonate. Even some of the trees have been bombarded with artillery.”

The queen arched an eyebrow. “They would annihilate an entire species of peaceful herbivores, simply to deny us an opportunity to gather intelligence?”

The drone bowed his head and knelt on the ground. “Forgive us, Queen of Pyres... we have failed you.”

“Such ruthlessness... such merciless, bloodthirsty brutality...” A sly, lopsided smile crept across her face. “At last. A species worth killing.”

The drones looked up, puzzled. “My queen?”

She turned away from them and walked over the crest of a hill, pausing to admire the vast horde of monstrous black aliens swarming across the terrain behind her: insects of all sizes crawled across the ground and buzzed through the air, and massive spires of jagged black chiton thrust up from the ground like talons. Bursts of vile green fire occasionally belched into the sky, searing the atmosphere with corrosive biochemicals.

A crack opened in the ground before her and a segmented limb rose into view: a bud on the end bloomed open, revealing a massive, pulsating eye with a slitted green pupil.

The queen nodded to the eye. “Take a small force to the north-western plateau, find a suitable location, and spawn a Hatchery and a trio of Shmooze Colonies. I will arrive shortly thereafter to lead our forces in battle.”

The eye let out a deep series of vibratory growls, varying sharply in pitch and volume. Its vertical iris flexed and changed shape in time with the sound.

The queen frowned. “I intend to spearhead this assault myself. It is the only way to judge this new enemy’s genetic value. Or, failing that, their nutritional value.”

The eye drew close and let off another series of gurgles and hisses, much lower in pitch. The queen pursed her lips. The two monstrosities stared at each other in silence.

“Very well. We will approach the initial battle with subtlety and efficiency, as you insist.”

She looked back over her shoulder and gazed at the distant horizon. Her pristine white fangs glistened, and the tips of her crown-shaped antennae pulsed with an ominous green glow.

“We shall devour them ourselves, in a fashion befitting the swarm... from within.”

Prologue

~ Once upon a time, in a galaxy called Equestria ~

“Executor Rarity?”

The glittering, crystal-clear pony offered no response. She simply gazed out of the curved observation window at the planet far below: a patchwork sphere of emerald forests and sapphire oceans, all teeming with natural life.

Blueblood, an elite high-templar of the Crytoss armada, walked across the flagship’s arboretum—a magnificently cultivated jungle of silicon and gemstone designed to assist in the meditative needs of the crew. He stood beside the executor and gently cleared his throat, and her eyes darted to him at last.

“The planetary surveyance is complete, Executor.” His eyes shimmered with psionic energy and a crystal data-core hovered between them. “The archivists were quite thorough in their initial assessment.”

Executor Rarity took the crystal and touched her mind to it: an array of three dimensional images appeared in the air around them, displaying many close up views of the planet’s steel grey fortresses and smog-choked industrial factories. She turned back to the planet below and looked at the shadowy crescent of night that obscured the far side: a spiderweb of tiny lights flickered through the darkness, frail and fragile compared to the monolithic structures depicted in the images.

“An industrial-military world,” she whispered, “divided between three indigenous species. How long have they been locked in war?”

“Impossible to discern,” said Blueblood. “Most planetary civilizations advance to a higher degree of enlightenment after only a few centuries, but a cursory search of their public records revealed no pre-war datums. Their lifespans are so brief that the current generation has never known peace.”

Executor Rarity set the data-core crystal aside and turned to the planet once more. “So much hatred... so much violence.”

Blueblood straightened his stance. “I know the Crystal Empire is in need of allies, Executor... especially those with the military strength to combat our great enemy. But surely these primitive beings are too savage for—”

Rarity whirled about and fixed him with a burning gaze. “It is not our place to judge other races as worthy or unworthy, nor to choose whether ponies must live or die!”

He straightened up. “Forgive me, Executor, I meant no offence! But even if these ponies can assist in bringing about galactic peace... what then? Have they any relevance in a galaxy bereft of war?”

Rarity turned back to the window, but her gaze remained stern. “We once viewed ourselves as superior because of our intelligence and enlightenment... but we must never forget that it was our own conceited arrogance that allowed the great devourer to rise to power in the first place.”

“But these ponies fight each other!” he said. “How can we condone such senseless violence?”

She turned from the window and marched towards the command deck. “It was not so long ago that we, ourselves, were locked in civil war. Had our fleets not been sundered by decades of inner strife, perhaps we could have stopped the great devourer in its tracks.”

Templar Blueblood followed alongside her. “We know, Executor. We’ve all read the historical records a hundred times.”

She stopped and set a gentle hoof on his chest. “Then you will know that our great power does not make us kings or tyrants, but teachers. We must be patient and humble. And above all else, we must be generous.”

He nodded and let out a slight sigh. “Generous. As you say, Executor... frequently.”

She smiled back at him. “If I say it often, it is because it is worth remembering.”

They walked across the arboretum, passed through a shimmering portal of energy, and arrived at the flagship’s bridge at the numbing speed of thought. The Templar officers on deck all stood at attention as she approached. “En taro Starswirl!” they called out in perfect unison.

Rarity approached the central command post and regarded the vast array of holographic displays. Her bridge crew remained at attention.

“My disciples,” she said at last, “we go forth this day not with the banner of war, but of peace. Our sisters struggle across the galaxy even now, sacrificing their lives to hold back the darkness. Our fleets, though scattered and weakened, patrol the far reaches of the cosmos in search of infested planets. Our homeworld, once a shining bastion of culture and philosophy, has turned its great temples and workshops to the production of deadly weapons. But we must never forget that the Crytoss empire was not built upon the fires of war, nor the wreckage of destruction! The Crytoss did not become strong through conquest or plundering! We are a race of peace!”

She gestured grandly to the planet below. “Soon, we will make contact with a fledgling young race poised on the verge of enlightenment. We will share with them our great wisdom and give them the tools they need to enrich their culture and reach for the stars. We will not sway them to our cause with threats or ultimatums, but by embracing them as friends and allies! We must stand beside them, as equals, or we all will fall. No matter how savage and primitive they may seem to us, there lies a seed of peace in all living things... for it is the spirit of loving friendship that makes us strong!”

The bridge officers all raised their heads high and let out a cheer. Their crystalline bodies gleamed with the light of harmony, and their psionic voices resonated as one.

Executor Rarity gestured to the main console. “Bring us into low orbit, my sisters, and prepare a transport for me.”

One of the officers looked up at her. “What manner of escort do you require, Executor? A squadron of Crusaders? A pair of heavy carriers, perhaps?”

Rarity lifted her head slightly. “A single Warp Prism will suffice.”

The templar gasped. “No combat escort at all!?”

“I must act as a diplomat,” she said, “in the spirit of utmost trust. To bring weapons of war—even for self-defence—will increase the risk of deadly misunderstanding.”

Templar Blueblood nodded to her. “I will go with you, to serve as a bodyguard.”

“Please no,” she said, “the danger is mine to accept. Where I go, I go alone.”

He lifted his chin. “Do not think to dissuade me, Executor: if you are to risk death in the name of the Crystal Empire, then I shall die alongside you. My honor demands nothing less.”

After a moment, she nodded.

“Executor!” one of the bridge ponies called out. “A Warp Prism is prepared for launch.”

Rarity nodded to Blueblood. They turned and exited the bridge, side by side.

D01: Those dang, dirty dirt ponies

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

Private Rainbow Dash grabbed the handles of a massive rotary assault cannon built into the door of the transport gunship. She pointed the weapon at the ultra-dense metropolis below and unleashed a stream of armor-piercing explosive hardcore discarding-sabot plasma-charged depleted-plutonium cyanide-tipped fin-stabilized bullets. A thick chain of explosions wracked the skyscrapers and multi-level highways below: clouds of wreckage and plumes of smoke scattered through the air around them. The weapon’s muzzleflash strobed against her face.

“Take that, you blasted Dirt Ponies!”

A pegasus behind her, dressed in a massive suit of powered armor, shouted over the noise of wind and bullets. “How many hostiles are there?”

Rainbow Dash looked back at her without releasing her grip on the trigger: the stream of bullets flailed aimlessly into the dark clouds above. “Whaaat?” she shouted.

“I said, how many—” She waved a hoof. “Could you turn it off for a second?”

Rainbow Dash released the trigger. “What?”

“How many enemy forces are there on the ground? How many hostiles?”

“Hostiles...?” Dash quirked an eyebrow. “Y’mean dudes? Haven’t seen any so far. Why d’you—compressed gas silo!!”

She spun the weapon around and unleashed another storm of explosive, radioactive metal. A collosal ball of fire bloomed up from the city and a flash of light and heat momentarily washed over their heavy assault dropship.

“Eat that, you Dirt Ponies!” Dash shouted. “That was for my father!”

The pegasus commando clamped a large box-frame rocket launcher onto the oversized shoulder-plating of her powered armor. “Isn’t your dad still alive?”

“Yeah, I know. It just sounds so cool when I shout it, y’know?” She let go of the weapon and began rummaging in a nearby stack of armored crates. “Hey, we got any more belts left? Starting to run low.”

The pegasus commando rolled her eyes. “You really gotta learn to conserve, Dash. We only have so many—pigeon!!” She spun around and fired a guided micro-missile from her shoulder box, missing Dash by mere inches. The launcher splashed the rear wall with a fiery jet of backblast and filled the interior of the vehicle with a cloud of acrid smoke.

Dash coughed for a few seconds, but the smoke quickly drained out the open door. “Gimme some warning next time, will ya? Not all of us have gas masks.”

The commando ran to the door and looked outside. “Did I get’em? Did I?”

They saw a sharp explosion in the air, twenty meters away, accompanied by a brief, startled squawk.

“Bloody rats with wings.” The Pegasus commando took out a marker and added a line to her left shoulder. “Anyways, you gotta learn to conserve ammo. That’s all we have for the operation.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dash hauled over a massive belt of bullets and fed one end of it into the cannon. “Hey, you think they’ll have any dudes to fight? I haven’t shot up actual dudes in, like, forever.”

The commando shook her head. “Just an empty, undefended base. Nuke and pave.”

The door to the front cabin opened up and the pilot waved at them. “Sensors are picking up ten squadrons of elite infantry dudes, dead ahead!”

“What?” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

“What?” the pilot shouted

Dash tapped the side of her helmet. “Use your comm-unit!”

The pilot frowned for a moment, then tapped a button on the side of her own helmet. “We have comm units!?”

“Yeah. What was that you said before?”

“Sensors are picking up ten squadrons of elite infantry dudes, dead ahead. Prep for a hot drop!”

“Wait a sec, there’s dudes?” Dash frowned. “Wait a sec. We have sensors!?”

“The assault dropship will be hanging around to give the commando team air support,” the pilot said. “I want that giant-ass gun-thingy spun up and ready to rain hot metal in thirty seconds!”

“Sorry, sergeant! Ammunition is running dangerously low. We’ve only got one belt left.”

“Low!? Were there any hostile dudes on the way?”

“Well, there were some buildings,” Dash said, “and sometimes dudes go inside buildings. So there coulda been dudes. I guess.”

“Good point. Better safe than sorry.”

“...And there was a compressed gas silo.”

The pilot gasped in shock. “A silo!? Did it get blow’d up?”

Dash issued a salute. “It blow’d up good, Sergeant. Real good.”

“Excellent work, soldier.” The pilot frowned. “Wait... sergeant? I thought I was a captain. I pilot a thingy, don’t I? Pilots are always captains.”

Dash scratched the side of her head. “I... guess?”

The pilot turned to the commando. “Hey, what’s better? Sergeant, or captain?”

“ ‘Captain’, Captain.”

“Yeah, that one,” she said. “I’m totally a captain. Anyways, get that gun warmed up and ready for air support. We still got one belt left.”

The commando stood up and pointed out the open door. “Wait a sec. My squad-dudes are all flying commandos: we can just jump out of the ship now, then fly over there and shoot ’em up. Why are we bringing the dropship all the way in?”

“Change of plans,” the pilot said. “They’ve got a ring of missile thingies around the perimeter of the zone of the area of the sector. They’d tear your forces to pieces before you ever got close. Fortunately, missile thingies only shoot flying dudes: we’re going to drop you off directly onto the ground, and then you’ll be safe.”

“Good idea, Captain!”

“Of course it’s a good idea!” she snapped. “I’m a freakin’ captain! We’re all, like, super-geniuses and stuff. Now prep for battle!”

The pilot went back into the front cabin. Rainbow Dash double-checked the ammo feed, while the commando finished sealing her helmet shut.

Dash frowned. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I, uh... I feel like there’s...” Dash scrunched her eyes shut and tapped her head. “Okay. So. Missile thingies...”

“Yeah?”

“...Only shoot flying dudes.”

“Yeah.”

“And we’re... in a dropship.”

“Yeah? So?”

They stared at each other for awhile.

“Don’t dropships fl—”

An explosion rocked the aircraft and knocked them both out of the gunnery compartment, tumbling through the air and screaming in panic. Their transport veered away with a broken thruster and crashed into the side of a nearby skyscraper, destroying itself in a ball of greasy black fire.

The pegasus commando’s wing-mounted thrusters burst to life and she immediately leveled out of her mid-air tumble. Rainbow Dash waved at her, frantically.

“I don’t got a parachute!” she screamed. “Ya gotta catch me!”

“You can fly!”

“Fly!?” Dash set her hooves on her hips and frowned. “I don’t have a freakin’ commando suit! What am I supposed to do, just flap my...”

She paused. The air was quiet for a moment, except for the deafening howl of wind.

Rainbow Dash snapped her wings out and leveled off. They swooped low over the city’s sixty-lane highway and caught sight of their destination: a massive artificial island of steel and concrete suspended over the volcanic hole that led to the city’s subterranean geothermal generator. The island supported only a single structure: a colossal command center, bristling with enormous sensor dishes and communication towers. A ring of relatively tiny missile turrets spun to face them and a swarm of missiles streaked through the air, leaving slender grey contrails behind.

“Land-land-land!” Dash shouted. “Everypony land, right freakin’ now!”

Dash and the six surviving commandos landed on the ground and crouched low, hiding behind chunks of concrete or the rusted wrecks of age-old tanks. The swarm of anti-air missiles swept overhead. They came around for a second pass and hovered in place for a while, peeking around corners and into alleyways. They finally shrugged to each other and wandered away.

“Good call,” the pegasus commando said. “What next?”

She glared at her. “Whaddya askin’ me for!? What do I look like, a super-genius captain or something?”

“Hey... where is the Captain?”

They all looked up at the burning chunk of twisted assault dropship imbedded in the side of the skyscraper.

“Whoa,” the commando said. “I guess the boss-mare got... blow’d up.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Dibs on promotion!” shouted Rainbow Dash.

Several of the other marines lifted their hooves. “Di... aw, dangit!”

Rainbow Dash reared up and kicked at the air. “Aww, yiss... too slow, girls!”

“So, Captain,” the commando said, “are you gonna give us orders?”

“Orders? You want orders!?” Captain Rainbow Dash pointed down the main highway. “I say we march right over there and blow up all their dudes! And then, we blow up all their... thingies! And then we’ll take all their mineral crystals and use’em to buy nice things for ourselves! Things like hot tubs and flatscreens and pinball machines! Who’s with me!?”

One of the marines glanced around, nervously. “But what if they have more dudes than us? What if we get blow’d up?”

“Then we won’t have any nice things!” Dash thrust a hoof in her face. “But that’s not going to happen, soldier! Not on my watch! We’re gonna show those stupid Dirt Ponies who’s boss!”

The troops thrust their weapons skyward and let out a fearsome battlecry.

“Our moment of glory is nigh, my battle-buddies! We now march forward, to... to the...” Dash glanced around. “Hey, where the heck are we, anyways?”

The commandos looked at each other for a moment, then at the abandoned city all around them. They finally shrugged.

Dash struck a dramatic pose. “We march, my fellow soldiers... to over there!”

The marines cheered again.

“Get your guns ready,” she said, “because yer gonna need ’em... to shoot bullets!”

“What about you?” one of them said. “Don’t you have a gun?”

Dash paused to look at herself. She opened her flak vest and looked inside: a tiny flare gun fell out and clattered on the ground.

“Okay, change in plans. You girls cover me while I fly the heck away.”

“But you can’t fly. There’s missile turrets.”

“Yeah... hm.” Dash stroked her chin. “Man, being a captain is way harder than I thought. Too bad I couldn’t bring that big ’ol machinegun with me when the dropship blew up.

A heavy metal object crashed into the helmet of one of the commandos, shattering the armored visor. The commando fell to the ground, unconscious or worse, and the errant assault cannon rolled next to Rainbow Dash’s hoof.

“Schweet!” She hefted the weapon, latched it to the side of her composite kevlar saddle, and slung the massive belt of ammunition over her back. “We’re good, girls!”

The six pegasus commandos charged down the road roaring at the top of their lungs. The massive command center was dead ahead but there was still at least a kilometer of highway to go. A horde of Dirt Pony marines charged to meet them, hiding behind cover and shooting out of windows and bunkers. The commandos brought their frag-grenade launchers to bear, shredding the enemy with savage efficiency. They fired bouncy-sticky grenades into nearby windows, and Dirt Pony marines were hurled out of eighth-story windows by concussive explosions.

“Buzzards, six o’clock!”

Dash spun to look at the commando. “Don’t bother me with that now: it’s not even three thirty in the afternoon!”

The commando pointed backwards at a half-dozen hoverbikes zooming close. “Are you crazy? You’re the only one with an anti-light-armor weapon! There’s—” The commando sputtered and laughed over the comm line. “Oh, yeah! I said... and you meant like...!”

Dash grinned. “Yeah. You get it now?”

“Yeah, that was pretty good. Totally worth it.” She pointed backwards. “But we still got Buzzards.”

Dash looked back and saw a half-dozen hoverbikes zooming towards them, weaving between patches of rubble as they glided over the road. Dash swung her weapon around and yanked the trigger.

“Yaaaaaaaaaa!” she screamed over the comm-line, “take that, you filthy Dirt Ponies! You killed my father! I mean pilot!”

The massive spray of metal shredded the lightly armored hoverbikes in a matter of seconds. One of the bikes swerved back and forth, avoiding most of the damage.

Whoa... this one’s pretty good.

Dash tightened her grip on the weapon and employed a special technique known only to a few elite gunners: ‘aiming’. The buzzard continued to swerve side to side, gradually accumulating damage as it drew closer and closer. With less than thirty meters to go, the pilot leaped off the bike and tumbled across the asphalt. Her discarded vehicle skidded out of control and slammed against the side of a building with a fiery explosion. The pilot leaped sideways and hid behind the rusted hulk of a demolished tank left over from a previous battle.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted, “come out and get shot in the face like a mare!”

“Wrong comm-channel, Captain,” said the commando beside her.

Dash poked at the buttons on the side of her helmet. “How about this?” Dash’s voice boomed out of the built-in loudspeaker. “Hey, cool! Check this out: Echoooo!”

“Captain?”

“Right.” Dash pointed her gun at the tank hulk. “Come out and get shot in the face like a mare, you dang dirty Dirt Pony!”

“Ain’t gonna happen, ya filthy varmint! Ah got’s ya completely surrounded!”

“Oh yeah? Well we got you outnumbered! Whaddya think of that?”

“What do ah think? Ah think one Dirt Pony’s more’n a match for ten Pegasus ponies! Why don’t y’all go get some more pals, and make it a fair fight?”

“We...? The...! Wha? Are you giving me ’tude!?” Dash looked back at her commandos. “Is she giving me ’tude? Was that... was that ’tude?”

They nodded back at her, mumbling affirmatively.

Dash turned back to the tank wreck. “Don’t you give me ’tude! We got guns and bullets and stuff!”

“It’s gonna take more’n that to put me in the ground fer good! You filthy Pegasus killed mah mammy, and I won’t stop till I’ve paid y’all back ten times over!”

Dash stamped her hoof. “Oh yeah? Well you Dirt Ponies killed my father!”

“Yeah? Well you Pegasus killed my mammy and my pappy!”

“Well you dirt ponies killed my father, my mother, and like seven of my brothers and sisters!”

“...And my granny!” the Dirt pony called back. “Did I mention that? You killed both pairs of my grand parents, all of my aunts and uncles, and a hundred ’n thirty six of mah cousins!”

Dash hopped in place. “Oh yeah!? Well, you... like... killed my parents before I was even born, and then sent a super-kill-robot back in time to kill ’em again! And then there was an infinite time loop paradox, so they actually got killed infinity times forever!”

“Yer makin’ that up!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yuh huh!”

“Nuh uh!”

One of the pegasus commandos tapped Dash’s shoulder. “Should we, uh... keep moving towards the command center?”

Dash shoved her hoof away. “Shut yer toothpaste-hole! No pegasus ever ran away from a Dirt Pony, and I won’t be the first!”

“But the command center’s behind us,” she said. “Isn’t that more important?”

Dash turned back to the Dirt pony’s hiding spot, her voice booming over the loudspeaker. “All right, let’s settle this like mares!”

“And how’s that?”

“Just you and me! I’ll tell my commandos to stay back, and you’ll come out from behind that cover! Then it’ll be just you ’n me, duking it out for the fate of the universe!”

“How do I know ya won’t pull any dirty tricks? What’s to stop you from shootin’ me before I’m ready?”

Dash reached up and offered a salute. “I swear on my honor as a Pegasus... no rush, for at least five minutes!”

“And no nukes? Ah can’t stand those things.”

“Yeah, me neither. No rush, no nukes. Is it a deal?”

“It’s a deal. Ah’m a comin’ out!”

Rainbow Dash turned off her microphone and glanced back at her commandos. “As soon as she comes out, everybody frag her.”

“We ran out of grenades,” one of them said.

“You ran out!? How do you run out of grenades!?”

“Well, there were a lot of bunkers and buildings and stuff on the way. Grenades are great at blowing up dudes in buildings.”

Dash frowned. “Were there actually any dudes in those buildings?”

The commando shuffled her hooves a bit. “Well... there coulda been.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, sagely. “Good point, soldier. It’s the play I woulda called. So what do you have?”

“Armor piercing rockets,” she said. “They’re great against tanks, but completely ineffective against infantry.”

Dash stared back at her, utterly expressionless.

A smile crept over her face. “Do those rockets blow up?”

The commando nodded. “Yes ma’am. They blow up real good.”

Rainbow Dash charged down the road, screaming at the top of her lungs. The Dirt Pony leaped over the tank wreck and charged towards her, screaming at the top of her lungs. Dash let loose with her assault cannon, and the dirt pony fired a pair of sawed-off shotguns at her. Dash’s pegasus commandos unleashed a massive barrage of armor piercing rockets into their general area, filling the entire roadway with a constant wave of explosions.

The two combatants ran out of ammunition without landing a single shot on each other, then tossed their weapons aside and tackled each other at full speed. They fell to the ground, kicking and biting and tugging on each others’ manes in a cloud of dust.

After a quarter-hour or so of sweaty brawling, Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony fell to the ground and gasped for breath.

A voice crackled through Dash’s headset. “Captain?”

“Whuzza?”

“We’re out of rockets.”

Dash looked at the massive field of craters all around. “Did you hit anything?”

“...Does the road count?”

Dash propped herself up and looked back at the commandos. “Did I look totally awesome, fighting with explosions all over the place?”

“Yes you did, Captain. Yes you did.”

Dash twisted around to look at the Dirt Pony. “Seeing as I’m an honorable pegasus, I’m giving you one last chance to surrender.”

“This here’s mah home and birthright and I’d sooner die than let anypony else take it from me.” She tried to stand up, but her knees wobbled and she collapsed. “Ah don’t expect a pegasus to understand how important a home really is.”

Dash looked around. “What is this place, anyways? What are you trying to protect?”

The dirt pony pulled off her bulky helmet, unleashing a huge mop of unruly, straw-blond mane. “Ya came all this way to fight a war, and ya don’t even know what yer fightin’ for?”

Dash shrugged. “I just like shootin’ machineguns. And mineral crystals: those are cool too. So what is this place, really? What’s so important?”

“Well it’s the, uh... it’s a...” The dirt pony looked around, dizzily. “Lemme get back t’you on that one.”

They lay on the ground together for several long, quiet seconds.

The dense black clouds parted far above them and a single point of brilliant blue light glided down from the sky. Rainbow Dash squinted at the strange object.

Dash glared at the Dirt Pony. “I thought we agreed on ‘no nukes’?”

She shook her head, slowly. “Not one of ours. And it definitely ain’t a nuke.”

The point of light zoomed in close, and the details of the object became laser sharp: it was a giant faceted crystal, long and pointed, with a golden framework of struts and antennae that spread out like a pair of butterfly wings. The crystal was massive, and had no obvious mechanisms or moving parts... it simply floated in the air, luminous and glittering. The crystal turned in place and pointed its tip straight down. The articulate lattice of wings spread out to each side like an umbrella.

There was a swirling vortex of light and a pair of ponies appeared on the ground. They were like no other beings Rainbow Dash had seen before: their white bodies were solid gemstone, gleaming and sparkling like pristine diamond. The female’s mane and tail were both magnificent amethyst spirals that defied euclidian geometry; the stallion’s, a flawlessly styled mane of spun gold. They were both dressed in robes made of satiny gold and decorated with sweeping patterns and exotic symbols.

Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony stared at each other for a moment, equally confused. They looked back at the crystalline ponies, who were now walking towards them at a sedate pace: the stallion remained one step behind the mare at all times.

The female crystal pony nodded to them. “We—”

Rainbow Dash and the dirt pony whipped out a pair of heavy pistols and opened fire at point-blank range, screaming at the top of their lungs. The guns cracked like lightning and the storm of fiery muzzle flashes lit up the immediate area. The projectiles ricocheted off the crystal pony’s hide with splashes of bright blue sparks.

The crystal pony pursed her lips. “This isn’t a bad moment, is it?”

Something heavy clunked to the ground in front of her, and she looked down at the round metal device resting near her hoof. She glanced at her companion, who merely shrugged. By the time she looked up the two indigenous ponies were running away at a sprint.

Her eyes glowed with psionic energy and the metal orb levitated in the air next to her head. “Wait!” she called out, “You forgot your—”

The device exploded and engulfed them both in a plume of white-hot fire and ultra-sonic neo-steel fragments. The asphalt immediately melted and caught fire, and a large section of the raised highway crumbled and collapsed to the ground six stories below.

Rainbow Dash scrambled away at top speed, with the Dirt Pony close beside her. “Think we got’em!?”

“No idea! Never seen nuthin’ like ‘em before!”

They ran around the street corner and hid behind the fortified wall of a nearby skyscraper. They pressed their backs against the wall and spent a few minutes gasping for breath.

“Aliens,” the dirt pony said. “Those were real live, honest-to-gosh aliens back there!”

Dash clenched her teeth. “We’re being invaded by outer space? Cuh-razy!”

“Are they still there?”

“Dunno. Hold on a sec.” Rainbow Dash sidled over to the edge of the wall and peeked around the corner.

Executor Rarity waited patiently as the dust and smoke were dispersed by the wind. She and Templar Blueblood were standing on a glowing, disc-shaped forcefield currently floating in the air where the surface of the collapsed highway had been moments ago. She looked down at the rubble far below, the chunks of asphalt still burning. She checked herself over briefly: her crystalline skin glowed with the light of a recently stressed forceshield.

She looked back over her shoulder. “Templar Blueblood?”

“Personal plasma shields are holding at full strength,” he said.

“Hm.” She gazed down the remaining length of highway and stroked her chin. “My, what a strange and peculiar greeting custom these natives have.”

“Greeting custom?” Blueblood said. “Executor, that device was obviously—”

“Hush,” she said and waved a hoof. “You can at least give me another twenty minutes of gratuitous denial. Besides: our defensive technology seems to exceed theirs by an order of magnitude. We can afford to be a little forgiving.”

Blueblood clenched his jaw, but nodded. “As you say, Executor. Shall we proceed?”

“Quite.”

She stepped forward, and her hooves clicked against the gleaming disc of force. The disc moved with them as they walked to the edge of the highway.

Rainbow Dash ducked back behind the building, eyes wide, teeth clenched. “Got any more grenades?”

“Fresh outta tater-mashers,” the dirt pony said, “but we’ve got a lil’ somethin’ waiting right around the corner: A whole squadron of heavy tanks, loaded to the brim with an experimental new artillery tech. All’s I gotta do is give the word, and they’ll rain fire’n brimstone like nopony’s business!”

Dash gawked at her. “Artillery!? So cool!”

“Yeah, well, they don’t got no anti-air guns on ’em. If that big floaty crystal thing-ummy-jig decides to join in, them tanks’ll be picked apart in seconds.”

“Hey, we can help with that! We got like a dozen Flying Commandos in the area, and three heavy-assault dropships waiting outside the city!”

The dirt pony’s eyes brightened. “That’d be jest dandy! How soon can they get here?”

“There’s, uh... well actually, they can’t get here. There’s missile thingies all over.”

“Oh. Right.”

They looked down at the ground, sheepishly.

“Five minute truce?” the dirt pony said.

Dash stared at her. “You’re asking me to team up with my worst enemy? I dunno... has that ever been done before?”

The dirt pony grinned. “You’ll get to see the taaaaaanks!”

“I’m sold.” She tapped at her headset again. “So what’s the code for the security grid?”

“Password123” she said.

Dash rolled her eyes. “That’s just pathetic.”

“Yeah, but it’s a capital ‘p’ instead of a lower case one.”

Dash stared at her in awe. “Whoa... talk about devious!”
The dirt pony took a bulky walkie-talkie out from under her flak vest. “I better tell my boss about this. We’ll need all the help we can get.”