Strange Bedfellows

by BRBrony9

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Luna, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Adventure, Shining Armor, Tragedy, Violence, Princess Celestia, Crossover, Death, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 600554

MLP/WH40K Crossover- An Imperial Crusade discovers a remote planet and its unusual inhabitants, but it soon becomes clear they are not the only ones whose interests lie in Equestria....

The Imperium's Western Fringe Crusade discovers a remote planet and attempts to claim it for the Emperor. However, they encounter unusual local inhabitants, and they soon find that they are not the only ones who lay claim to this remote and strange domain....
MLP x Warhammer 40k Crossover

Published 2013-10-20 07:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-02-16 22:28:11 UTC

A Light In The Sky

Strange Bedfellows

Chapter 1

The stillness of space was shattered by a brilliant flash of light. To any observer, it would have appeared as though the very fabric of reality was distorting- for that was exactly what was happening. The tear in space, glowing a deep reddish purple, slowly widened as something emerged from within. It was a ship, and within seconds it had been joined by half a dozen others. More tears were opening around it, and soon an entire fleet had materialized where before there had been nothing.

‘We have arrived, Captain.’ Lord Admiral Marcos spoke softly, belying his great bulk. On the bridge of his flagship, the Emperor’s Judgement, the Admiral’s command staff was overseeing the return to realspace. The Emperor’s Judgement, one of the many stalwart Emperor-Class Battleships in service with the Battlefleets of Segmentum Pacificus, was, as the Admiral willed it, the first vessel into the warp and the first vessel out of it. Never let it be said, thought Flag-Captain Petr Bormann, that Admiral Arlen Marcos is not a brave man. The vessel was his to command, having worked his way through the ranks and earning his position through years of loyal service, but for now he had to suborn his ship to the will of the Admiral, although, he was quick to mentally remind himself, the captain of a ship always retained final say in its operations.

The Emperor’s Judgement lay at the head of a vast fleet, not just of warships, but of troop transports, tankers and bulk landers- an invasion fleet. For this was the main force of what had become known as the Western Fringe Crusade- a vast, concerted effort by the Imperium to push beyond its western borders, and to continue where the Macharian Crusade had left off hundreds of years before. Captain Bormann thought that Lord-General Tomaz Galen, who was standing nearby on the bridge, would not have been overly concerned that his name had not been attached to that of the Crusade like that of the Lord Solar had been all those years earlier. He is a modest man, but unlike so many of his rank, he has nothing to be modest about, thought Bormann. Emperor knows this Crusade would have fallen apart at the seams without him long ago. The rank of Lord-General, the highest in the Imperial Guard’s General Staff, placed Galen in command of all Guard forces assigned to the Crusade, while Admiral Marcos retained control of all Navy assets and, controversially in many eyes, held overall command of the Crusade, the reasons given by the High Lords of Terra being that the Crusade would be heading into relatively uncharted territory and so someone familiar with space operations should retain overall command. Unlike in many cases Bormann could name, there had been remarkably little friction between the two branches of the armed services, and the two men had rapidly become powerful friends. Which explains, he thought, why we have already conquered seven star systems.

‘All vessels have returned to the Materium successfully, sir. No damage reported,’ called the ship’s Comm officer.

‘Thank you, Lieutenant,’ Bormann replied. He noticed the Admiral nodding with pleasure.

‘A smooth run, Captain. Remind me to thank Navigator Pericles personally,’ he said.

‘Aye, most efficient, and no damage reported. The Emperor must have very little else to do today than watch over us,’ Lord-General Galen chimed in, eliciting a laugh from the Admiral.
Bormann could hear the metallic monotones of the servitor crewmen delivering reports on the star system they had arrived in, known to the Imperium as Kuda.

‘Current fleet location deep in-system. Single-planet system, one moon, G-Class Main Sequence star. Fleet distance from planet currently 20,000,000 miles.’

‘Planet is Gamma-class, subtype garden world. Planetary dimensions are as follows: diameter at Equator six thousand four hundred eleven miles…’

‘Well gentlemen,’ Admiral Marcos spoke suddenly. ‘As far as our records indicate, we are the first humans to ever set foot in this system. We are treading new ground here, and it would be wise to tread lightly. I want the fleet to hold at two million miles while we scan the planet.’ The bridge crew hurried to relay his commands to the other vessels as the Admiral beckoned Bormann and Galen closer.

‘We know very little about this system,’ he said quietly. ‘It is possible that an Explorator fleet may have made it out this far some time in the past, but as far as we know we are the first. Lord-General, I want you to keep our options open. Prepare two landing parties- one should be a scouting force, the other should be a first-contact party. There may be life down there.’
The Lord-General nodded. ‘As you say, so shall it be done.’
Admiral Marcos turned to Bormann.

‘Captain, take us to two million miles.’

Peering through the viewport, Captain Bormann could see the fleet hanging in silent majesty against the inky blackness. Out here on the galactic fringe there were surprisingly few stars to be seen in most directions. They were holding as ordered at a distance of two million miles from the sole planet, now being designated with the placeholder name of Kuda Primus. Why Primus Bormann could not fathom, since, being a single-planet system, there was no Secundus.

‘Captain, our scans of the planet are complete.’ Bormann’s reverie was interrupted by the ship’s Auspex officer. ‘Scans show there to be significant plant and animal life on the planet, Captain, but something seems to be interfering with the scanners. Almost like low-grade interference, sir, though I could not say from what. We cannot scan much of the main continent, sir, but from what we can observe we see no signs of intelligent life.’

‘Thank you, Lieutenant. Continue attempting to scan the main continent. I will inform the Admiral,’ Bormann responded. Walking over to the Admiral, he made his report.

‘Interference? Hmm. Perhaps we should move into orbit and rescan,’ the Admiral suggested. Bormann agreed, and directed the ship into orbit above the main continent. A short while later, the Auspex officer came to him with his second report.

‘Captain, we have rescanned the planet but are still experiencing the interference. We have been unable to scan the main continent, but visual observations do appear to reveal several settlements there, although much of it is under heavy cloud cover. I believe there is intelligent life down there after all, sir, or at least there used to be. We are not picking up any radio or electromagnetic emissions from the planet, which suggests that whatever is down there is at a low technology level. Could be a feudal world, sir. The climate appears to be ideal for supporting life.’

The admiral seemed both excited and troubled by the news. Standing over a holo-map of the planet, he spoke.

‘Lord-General,’ he commanded, ‘I want both your landing parties ready to go within the hour. Depending on the reception they get we may not need to deploy your troops at all. This world is ideal for supporting life and it would make a most valuable addition to the Imperium. Therefore, we shall claim it in the name of the Emperor!’

‘As you say, Admiral. My men are ready to drop immediately,’ Galen replied. The Admiral clapped his strong hands together in glee.

‘Very well! They go immediately. They are to land on the main continent. I want a first-contact party to approach the inhabitants at the two largest settlements we can see. The scouting party is to split into two also. One half will explore this large plain here,’ he indicated the central-southern part of the continent, mostly hidden by cloud, ‘and the other half shall provide escorts for the first-contact teams.’ Galen nodded and saluted.

‘It shall be done, Admiral,’ he said.

‘Excellent!’ Marcos replied. ‘Then let us see what awaits us down there.’

It had been a bright, clear night over Ponyville, but now the morning brought with it a thick coating of clouds. Spike was awoken by a knock at the library door.

‘Ugh,’ he exclaimed, rolling over in his bed. ‘Answer the door, Twilight!’ The knocking continued. Opening his eyes and looking round, the diminutive dragon could see that Twilight was not in her bed. Surmising she must be out somewhere, Spike realised he would have to answer the door himself. Reluctantly he hauled himself from his cosy bed and, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, made his way to the front door. A familiar orange pony greeted his gaze when he opened it.
‘Hay there Spike!’ Applejack said breezily. ‘Is Twilight around? She said she’d help me with the fancy math-er-matics and stuff for puttin’ up mah new barn today.’

‘Oh, hi Applejack,’ Spike greeted his friend. ‘I’m not sure where she is, I haven’t seen her this morning.’ He called out her name several times but got no response.

‘Maybe she’s upstairs,’ he said, stepping aside to let Applejack enter.

‘Well ah don’t mean ta pester y’all, but could ya find her for me? Ah really need ta get started on this barn today,’ Applejack said, taking off her wide-brimmed hat as she stepped through the door. ‘Big Macintosh has already got all the materials, but neither of us know the first thing ‘bout this here ‘geometry.’
Spike led the way upstairs, the orange mare following close behind. He called out to Twlight again, but still received no reply.

‘Hey! There she is,’ he said, catching a glimpse of purple through the door that led to the balcony. Sure enough, Twilight Sparkle, ever the studious pony, had apparently fallen asleep while studying her telescope. There were several books around her on the balcony, and some sheets of paper with scribbled calculations on them. The telescope was pointing at a jaunty angle up into the now overcast sky.

‘Twilight! It’s time to wake up,’ Spike said, giving her a gentle nudge. She stirred slowly, opening her eyes and giving a tremendous yawn that Spike would have been proud to give himself.

‘What…why am I outside?’ she asked, getting unsteadily to her feet.

‘Hey there missy,’ Applejack said. ‘Looks like y’all fell asleep while you were lookin’ through that there fancy telescope of yours.’ Twilight blinked, then something seemed to click in her brain.

‘Of course, the telescope! You won’t believe what I saw last night,’ she exclaimed, searching through the discarded papers until she seized upon one in particular, which she thrust towards Applejack. The earth pony took the sheet of paper and examined it.

‘Uh, Twi..’ she began. ‘Y’all are gonna have ta explain this to me, ‘cause it makes no kind ‘a sense!’
Twilight, now fully awake, pointed at the paper. Spike jumped up onto her back to get a view.

‘This…well, these are just calculations I made last night. Actually they’re not really important. What is important is what I saw.’

‘What did you see, Twilight?’ Spike asked, as puzzled by the contents of the page as Applejack had been.

‘I was doing some routine astronomy, star cataloguing and whatnot, like I do every week,’ Twilight explained. ‘While I was looking through the telescope, I saw some flashes of light. I’ve never seen anything like it before. They weren’t very big, which suggests they were quite far away, but I counted at least sixty.’ Spike and Applejack looked at her in anticipation.

‘I don’t know what they were. I thought at first it might have been shooting stars entering the atmosphere, but they didn’t seem to move so I discounted that theory. Then much later, I’m sure I saw something…it looked like it was floating up there. I could only see it because light was reflecting off of it from the sun. I don’t know what it was, but I made this sketch.’ She picked up another piece of paper with her magic and showed it to her friends. The object she had sketched was roughly rectangular. She had drawn a bulge at one end, and the other end tapered to a point. Neither Applejack nor Spike had any idea what it was.

‘I tracked it for an hour and then I must have fallen asleep,’ Twilight continued.

‘Do you know what it is?’ Spike asked. ‘An asteroid maybe?’ Twilight shook her head.

‘No, not an asteroid. I tracked it for an hour and it didn’t seem to move, which means it must be in orbit around the planet. An asteroid that was pulled into our orbit would not orbit nearly so close as this thing must be. I did some calculations, she gestured with a hoof at the first piece of paper, ‘and I worked out that whatever it is, it is around 3 miles in length.’

‘Well,’ Applejack interrupted. ‘If it ain’t an asteroid, then just what the hay is it?’ Twilight looked worried.

‘I…don’t know.’ Spike and Applejack shared a glance. ‘I don’t know,’ the unicorn repeated, ‘but I think I should tell the Princess. Spike, take a letter.’

Hell Breaks Loose

‘What is that?’ Rarity breathed. Fluttershy cowered behind her, peeking fearfully out at the sight in the sky.
The crippled Repulsive-Class Grand Cruiser, rudderless, had fallen into the atmosphere. The fires of atmospheric entry engulfed it, turning it into a fiery comet. Not designed to enter atmosphere, the ship was breaking up and burning. It had no ablative heat shield to protect it. Ponies all across Equestria watched in horror, only a few of them comprehending what they were seeing.

The ship, four miles long, speared towards the planet below. Caught by the flames, the damaged rear section began to disintegrate, spraying molten fragments out across the sky, like a trail of glowing snowflakes.
Shedding parts of itself, the Grand Cruiser blazed across the sky. The heat of its passage acted like a giant blowtorch, heating the air around and below it. Entire cloud banks evaporated in the blink of an eye. Had the whole cruiser smashed into the ground, it would have been a global catastrophe- four miles of steel and ceramite would be as good as any asteroid at bringing death and destruction. But it was burning inside from battle damage and the heat of entry, and the fires found its main ammunition magazines.

A stunning flash lit the sky. Ponies gasped and turned their heads away, momentarily blinded. In the palace gardens, Princess Celestia looked on in shock as the pulse of light drowned out her sun, flashing brighter than anything she had ever seen before fading slowly, leaving after images dancing across her eyes. The falling cruiser had gone, replaced by a storm of countless thousands of shooting stars, each but a fragment of the former whole. They filled the southern horizon. As they fell to earth, Princess Celestia saw her student and Shining Armour looking at her with horrified expressions on their faces. She spoke to her military commander.

‘Bring me the humans,’ she said. ‘Now.’

The torpedoes struck the Emperor’s Judgement amidships. The warheads detonated with silent fury, atomising bulkheads and buckling armour. Hundreds of crewmen were lost to the void, tumbling helplessly out of shattered compartments. Hundreds more were simply vaporised by the blasts.
On the bridge, Admiral Marcos knew his ship was in trouble. The angry moan of the decompression sirens echoed along every deck. There were still a few starboard gun batteries operational, and they flashed defiantly at the Chaos escort ships, knocking several out of the fight.

In orbit below them, the fleet of transport ships were coming under fire. The Chaos warships had passed through their line and were dealing out heavy blows. The Imperial escort craft raced back from their positions to defend them. There were still a dozen Imperial capital ships in the fight, and the Malleo Mortis was setting the example for the rest, its lances picking off half a dozen Chaos frigates and pounding one of the Grand Cruisers to a broken wreck tumbling off into space. Behind the Chaos spearhead, tucked in among the destroyer squadrons and ringed by the surviving cruisers, came their own transports, bloated, multi-mile long ships that hauled themselves along with underpowered engines, barely keeping up with their faster escorts. A Nova cannon blast from the Crusade’s remaining Mars-Class battlecruiser detonated in their midst, the cataclysmic blast annihilating four of the thinly armoured transports entirely. But the rest kept coming, passing through the Imperial fleet’s broken cordon and beginning their manoeuvres to take them into orbit around the planet.

‘Message to all ships,’ said the Admiral. ‘Focus fire on those warships. Protect our transports!’

‘Aye, sir, passing message,’ the vox-officer replied. Having burst through the Imperial line, the Chaos capital ships were braking and swinging round to bring their broadsides to bear, allowing them to fire at both the warships above them and the transports below. The panicked transports scattered and tried to flee. Fireballs blazed brightly as three of the largest bulk transports were blown apart, the funeral pyres of an entire Guard regiment being snuffed out instantly by the vacuum of space.

The Chaos battleships opened up with their lances, returning the fire of the Malleo Mortis. Explosions blossomed on the hulls of all three vessels, their shields long gone in the maelstrom of battle. The energy being exchanged could shatter mountains in a single volley, but against the feet-thick ceramite hulls even a lance would take more than one hit to burn through. The surviving Grand Cruiser was in a lance duel of its own, with the last Imperial battlecruiser. Individual battles were taking place, between the cruisers and escorts of both sides. Space above the planet was strewn with debris; the burning husks of destroyed warships, shattered metal, twisted bodies. A second sun blazed brightly as one of the Imperial Dauntless-Class light cruisers went up, its reactor breached.

The only thing the Emperor’s Judgement could now engage with its limited surviving armament was the stream of transports that were running the gauntlet between it and the Malleo Mortis, still engaged in its titanic lance duel with its Chaos counterparts. The guns of the flagship roared into life, smashing the paper-thin armour of two of the transports. The prow batteries of the Malleo Mortis joined in, and between them the two battleships destroyed six of the transports, killing tens of thousands of Chaos troops who had not had a chance to see their destination, let alone fight for it.

‘Message from the Indefatigable, my Lord,’ the vox-officer said, referring to the surviving Mars-Class battlecruiser. ‘They can no longer continue the fight. They are breaking off their attack, sir.’ Lord-Admiral Marcos swore loudly, drawing surprised glances from the nervous bridge crew.

‘Damn them! Damn them!’ he roared. ‘These heretics think they can drive us from our prize? Show them what fools they are! Bring us about!’

‘But Admiral…’ Captain Bormann began, knowing the state of his flagship and knowing it could not survive in a close-range fight.

‘But nothing! These dogs want a fight, then by the Emperor they shall have it! Bring us about, starboard batteries to stand by. I want those Despoilers dead!’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ Bormann relented. He knew the Admiral would not abandon the planet or the transports, even if faced with the loss of his flagship.

As the Emperor’s Judgement came about, Lord-Admiral Marcos could see on the holo-map that the situation had reversed itself. Now it was the Chaos fleet that lay between them and the planet, not the other way around. The surviving transports had fled to a higher orbit, placing themselves between the Imperial warships and the Chaos guns. Both sides had suffered heavy losses, but Marcos knew that, with a dozen capital ships and plenty of escorts still fighting, he had the advantage in numbers and firepower.

But the Chaos fleet had the advantage in another way. As the Imperial fleet regrouped, their sensors picked up strange readings coming from the Chaos flagship. if they had been looking out a viewport, the bridge crew of the Emperor’s Judgement would have been able to see the Soul Harvest start to shimmer, as if reality were distorting around it. Purple-red tendrils started to creep out of the void above it, between the two fleets, flickering and pulsing with unnatural energies. Dark lightning began to flash as if from nowhere.

‘Warp storm forming, sir!’ shouted the Emperor’s Judgement’s survey officer. ‘Between us and the planet, my Lord. It seems to be originating from near their fleet, but it is rapidly spreading around the entire planet.’ Lord-Admiral Marcos roared in anger.

‘Scum! Damn them and their witchcraft! They are trying to cut us off from the planet! It is that accursed Sorcerer Lord’s doing! Vox! Send a message to the fleet. Focus all fire on the Soul Harvest. We have to put a stop to this!’

The Imperial fleet sprang to obey his order, their thrusters glowing red as they manoeuvred onto the target, gun barrels swivelling and tracking. They unleashed hell across the void, but it did nothing. Torpedoes and missiles exploded prematurely as devilish black lightning flashed through the skein of reality and detonated their warheads. Energy weapon fire was simply absorbed by the roiling clouds of warp energy that were forming around the planet, like unholy nebulae floating in the void.

‘No effect on target, sir,’ the tactical officer relayed. Captain Bormann shook his head.

‘It is too late, my Lord. Our weapons cannot penetrate the storm.’

‘It is not too late until I say it is too late, Captain!’ the Lord-Admiral bellowed. ‘Fire again!’ The fleet complied, but again it was a waste of ammunition.

‘My Lord, the storms are spreading. I must urge you to retreat,’ Captain Bormann said.

‘Damn you, Captain! We are not retreating!’ Marcos roared.

‘Sir, please!’ his flag-Captain begged. ‘We can do nothing, and the fleet is in danger from the storm if we stay any longer. If you do not order the retreat, my Lord, then…I will have no choice but to exercise my prerogative as Captain of this vessel and order its retreat myself.’ The Lord-Admiral knew this was no empty threat, for, no matter who may be on board a ship or in charge of the fleet of which it formed part, it was the ship’s Captain who retained ultimate authority over any decision made that affected his vessel, though relatively few Captains would ever defy a Lord-Admiral even so. Being defied shook him from his anger at the Chaos trick and he came to his senses. To remain would be to invite the destruction of the remains of his fleet and the death of any chance of retaking this world.

‘You…you are correct, Captain. Sound the retreat!’ he said, his voice thick with bitterness. ‘Captain, take us to the outer system. The day is lost to us.’

The humans were led out into the palace gardens as the last of the fragments from the destroyed cruiser were thundering to the earth. The sound waves from the first impacts were just reaching Canterlot, a rumbling, crackling bass that made the ground beneath them tremble slightly. Although the cruiser had broken up, some of the larger fragments were still several hundred yards long, and they were smashing deep craters into the mercifully sparsely inhabited coastal plain of Equestria.

Captain Soren noticed the assembled ponies before he looked up at the fire raining from the distant sky. They had seen the falling ship from the window of the room in the palace where they had been waiting, and they had heard the blast wave reach them as they were hurried outside by the guards. Fearfully he gazed upward, wondering what catastrophe might have befallen the fleet, before he heard Princess Celestia speak.

‘Captain, is there something you wish to tell us?’ Caught by surprise, Soren hesitated. He had received no word over the vox of any developments in space.

‘I…I do not know any more than you, Your Highness,’ he stuttered, aware of the dozen pairs of pony eyes on him. ‘I have received no word from my superiors. I…do not know what has happened.’

‘Your best guess?’ the Princess eyed him with suspicion.

‘Well, Your Highness…I would think…well, it would appear that…one of our ships seems to have broken up in the atmosphere. Why, I cannot say.’ Possible scenarios raced through his mind. Navigation error, sabotage, attack, malfunction?

‘If you will permit me Captain, Your Highness,’ the Magos interrupted. Soren nodded and saw Celestia do the same.

‘Judging by my preliminary calculations on mass and length of the falling craft, I would suggest that it was a either a bulk transport, a heavy cruiser or a battlecruiser, though I obviously cannot identify the specific ship. Judging by the detonation that occurred I would suggest it was likely a warship, as the characteristics of the detonation match that of catastrophic ammunition explosions I have on file. From the descent trajectory and velocity, I would suggest that the most likely cause of its descent was some kind of malfunction or damage. Its velocity suggested that little or no attempt had been made to slow the descent.’

Princess Celestia shared a glance with Shining Armour, and with a midnight-blue pony with both a horn and wings that Soren had not seen before. He noticed that one of the multicoloured ponies he had seen on the airship and in the palace, a purple one, was staring at the Magos in astonishment.

‘Would you not expect your superiors to have informed you as to what was happening?’ Celestia said, nodding towards the vox-set on Hanlon’s back.

‘I would, Your Highness,’ he said.

‘Then the fact that they have not must tell you something.’ She glanced skyward. Soren had been thinking the same thing. He had a feeling something was very wrong up there.

‘If you will allow me, Your Highness,’ he said, ‘I will attempt to contact our landing site and see if they have received word from the fleet.’ Celestia gave her approval, and Soren took the handset from Hanlon.

‘Landing party, landing party, do you read? This is Captain Soren,’ he began. ‘Come in landing party, over.’ The vox was still crackly with static.

‘Go ahead, Captain,’ Lieutenant Jonas replied. Soren saw the small, purple pony staring at the vox with undisguised inquisitiveness.

‘Lieutenant, I trust you just saw that in the sky?’

‘We did, sir, but we have received no messages from the fleet.’ The feeling in Soren’s gut strengthened. Something was definitely wrong.

The three bulk landers swept down through the atmosphere, their undersides glowing white hot from the friction. They had been caught by surprise when the Chaos fleet struck. They had just launched from their transport mothership, their holds filled with Guardsmen, their vehicles and equipment, when they had been ordered over the vox to get down to the planet as quickly as possible. Their pilots had complied, swinging the landers away from the transport and setting them up for atmospheric entry. As they descended, the fleet above them had become embroiled in the battle, though they had heard no further news due to the communications blackout as they entered the atmosphere.

As they passed through the worst of it and began to slow, the pilots caught sight of a brilliant white flash off to their starboard side. Their passengers, however, saw nothing, for there were no windows in the troop compartments. In the bays of the landers, the men of the 1st Brigade, 4th Hydraxian Regiment waited, eager to set foot on solid ground again after months of space travel. There were three thousand men on board each one. Below them in the cargo space were several hundred vehicles; mostly tanks and Chimera APCs. There were similar numbers aboard the two other landers, and there were already dozens of other such craft that had made planetfall or were still in the process of doing so. An army was falling upon the Griffon Kingdom, but, with word of the fleet action taking place above them filtering down, some of the landers and dropships had been ordered to set down as soon as possible, rather than risk making the atmospheric flight to the northern regions of the continent. The three landers carrying the 1st Brigade were among them.

In the cockpit of the lead lander, Senior Commissar Van Meegen stood behind the pilot’s seat, holding onto its back as the craft rocked gently in a patch of turbulence. Resplendent in the Hydraxian Commissarial uniform, the braid of his peaked cap polished to perfection, his chainsword and las-pistol hanging from his waist, Van Meegen was the epitome of what the average Guardsman pictured in their minds when they heard the word Commissar. His face was stern and weathered from years of service in the field. His eyes had that quality all but required of a Commissar- they held a man’s attention, and they burned with his inner emotions, often saying more than his words ever could. His hair, once a rich, dark brown was beginning to turn grey around the temples, though physically he was fitter than many of the younger men in his Regiment.

As Senior Commissar, Van Meegen was answerable directly to the Regiment’s commander, Colonel Haas. Depending on the situation, however, he had full authority to relieve the Colonel of his command for a variety of offenses, the punishment of which the Commissariat had long specialised in.
But, Van Meegen mused, I have never had any cause to think that I would have to remove Colonel Haas from command. He is, after all, a fine officer, almost as experienced as I am.

The lander shook and rattled as it hit a more severe patch of turbulence, and Van Meegen swayed with it, keeping his balance. The servitor co-pilot emotionlessly rattled off a string of flight data as the pilot controlled the craft’s descent. They were over the southern edge of the main continental mass. Their original flight plan would have taken them north along the spine of the continent, a range of mountains nearly a thousand miles long, before turning and descending over the northern tundra to their landing point, to join thousands of other Guardsmen fighting the strange Griffon-like creatures. With new orders from the fleet, however, the three landers were now instructed to land as soon as they could and set up defensive positions to prepare for a possible invasion. They had received a signal from the first-contact party, who had picked up the inbound craft on their shuttle’s Auspex. They reported having received no news from the fleet.

Must have forgotten they were down here in all the confusion, Van Meegen thought grimly. The landing party had reported a large, flat plain to the south of their location that could be used for landing. They had marked it with infra-red strobes, and the pilot checked the lander’s navigation computer periodically, waiting to see them appear on the scope. They had been ordered to land as soon as possible, and that was just what he intended to do.

‘There, I see the beacons,’ the pilot said. ‘Twelve miles ahead. Commissar, you’d better take a seat.’ He gestured to the empty jumpseat behind the co-pilot. Van Meegen sat, observing the clouds float lazily past the cockpit windscreen. The landers descended slowly, floating down like giant metal whales. Their braking jets blazed, slowing them as they lined up for their landing.

The grassy plain below them was more than large enough to accommodate them all. At the northern edge stood men from the first contact party, ready to meet the reinforcements. The landers came down slowly, tentatively, probing beneath them with their braking jets. Their landing gear came down and they gently settled onto the ground, their enormous bulk compressing the ground beneath them and their jets scorching and burning the grass.

As the whine of the jets died away, Commissar Van Meegen stood and walked back into the troop compartment. The men were preparing to disembark, collecting their equipment, forming up as ordered by their sergeants. The Commissar was the senior officer on board the lead craft, and he addressed the troops from the top of the steps that lead to the cockpit.

‘Men of the first Brigade!’ he shouted, drawing their attention. ‘We have landed on an alien world,’ he began, ‘but the inhabitants that you are going to meet are not hostile to us.’ He noticed men exchanging confused glances with each other.

‘These creatures are, for the present at least, in a state of truce with us. Therefore, any man who engages or attempts to engage the horse-aliens in battle will be shot.’ That had the desired effect. The men were definitely listening now.

‘Our orders are to take up defensive positions, if possible around the alien population centres, and dig in to await a possible invasion by the forces of Chaos,’ he continued. ‘The fleet has been forced away from the planet by warp storms, which means we are on our own down here. All we have are the troops that are on the ground now. Therefore we must, out of necessity if nothing else, maintain our alliance with these horse-aliens.
I need not explain that, when fighting the accursed heretics, any advantage we can gain is one we must seek out. I know some of you will regard fighting alongside these Xenos as treasonous. May I remind you that the forces of Chaos are our one, true enemy. I know also that some of you have fought against them before standing side by side with the Eldar. This is no different. We will make use of these aliens now, and, if the Emperor wills it, exterminate them later.’ The front ramp of the lander began to open with a hiss of hydraulics.

‘First Brigade!’ he roared. ‘Move out!’

The Return

The dropships swept in, falling on the city as unmercifully as the Chaos troops had done days earlier. Men landed on the tiled rooftops and ornate balconies of the Royal and Old quarters, their transports cutting the ropes as they powered up and away, clearing room for the next wave to run in. Small arms fire and a few missiles flashed and spat at the attackers, bringing down a couple of craft before they reached the walls, but most of the defenders were in disarray, caught napping, literally in many cases. The ponies on the walls quickly found themselves under attack from below, with enemies trying to storm the stairs once they realised what was going on. But they resisted, forming firing lines at the top of each staircase, so that whenever a Chaos infantryman reached the last few steps and exposed himself to the walltop, he was cut down with a volley of accurate rifle fire.

The stunned defenders in the city were starting to formulate some kind of resistance, starting to regain their discipline and find some kind of order. Buildings were being occupied and barricades originally erected by the ponies manned once more, this time by the forces of the Archenemy. As the relentless dropship assault continued, the pony airships, heavy-laden with their own infantry contingent, drew ponderously closer. A missile from the final air-defence battery lashed out at the Canterlot, perhaps thinking such a large craft to be an easy target, but the missile burst harmlessly against the defensive shield.

A few scattered survivors from the encampment outside of the walls, blasted half-dumb by shellfire, stumbled back toward the safety of the city gates. But they were picked off one by one by the barrier of Pegasi infantry atop the walls, keeping those inside in, and those outside out. A number of armoured vehicles, shrugging off the shelling, began to advance toward the city. The assault infantry lacked artillery or magic, and had little defence against the tanks that began firing once they detected pony forces on the southern wall. Another flare went up, this time a purple one,arcing over the wall towards the enemy and hanging in the air like a strange star as it slowly descended.

Almost immediately, the bows of the Luna and the Starswirl began to swing out of formation to starboard. Though they were out of range of small arms fire, the bombardment cannon on the prows of the Starswirl was at almost optimum range. It roared, and a heavy-calibre shell was sent on its way. Seconds later, a plume of earth and rock rose from the plateau in the path of the few surviving tanks. They continued on regardless. Another round of shells from the Imperial artillery, directed by the spotters aboard the airships, laid precision rounds on the target area as the Luna and Starswirl swung themselves about to present their broadsides, the delivery of their cargo taking a momentary backseat. Their deck guns lines up and illuminated the port sides of both warcraft brightly, unleashing enough force to swing the bows of the huge gondolas to starboard, counteracted by an altered rudder and pitch angle of the propellers. The shells raced in to add their firepower to the Imperial bombardment. High-explosive and airburst munitions rattled the tank crews, causing superficial damage, but the vehicles pressed on, powerful engines driving them uphill toward the city's southern gate. But the purple tank-alarm flare had not only alerted the artillery and airships, and without warning to the crews, two of the tanks suddenly exploded, shrapnel raining down and pinging from the armour of their fellows.

One of the Valkyrie gunship escorts had spotted the signal and diverted from supporting the landing to protecting the southern flank from the enemy charge. Its missiles had found their targets, and it rotated switfly on its axis for another pass. Its wingman swooped in from behind the spires of Canterlot and let loose another pair of missiles that knocked out a personnel carrier and all but obliterated a flamethrower tank in a monstrous mushroom of fire as its Promethium tanks detonated spectacularly. Both craft remained well clear of the area being bombarded by the artillery, their long-range missiles allowing them to engage the tanks from a distance. A shell managed to shatter the track of one tank, and it slewed to a halt at an angle, only to have its turret ripped open by a missile a few moments later. The infantry escorting the tanks began to flee in panic as one by one their vehicles were destroyed. Shellfire cut most of them down, the last survivors from the encampment outside the walls.

Inside the city, a fierce battle had developed. The tight confines of the narrow streets, winding alleyways and fancy mansions of the elite and famous made for a confusing and deadly arena for such gladiatorial combat. The Imperial infantry had dropped on top of their enemy, sometimes literally, and dozens on both sides were already dead. The traitor forces were rallying, especially at key locations including the rail station and the royal palace, which dominated the Royal Quarter of the city. It was a prime target for the landing forces, with several hundred men dropping around the perimeter, in the main square outside and in the gardens to the rear. Las-fire met them from many of the ornate windows of the palace and its outbuildings. Snipers on the twin Towers Of The Princesses, the tallest spires in the city, picked off attackers with their long-las rifles. The towers had escaped all but the most superficial damage during the initial invasion, and Celestia had issued strict orders that they were not to be targeted with artillery or heavy weapons. The Imperials had reluctantly agreed, as they certainly understood the value of sentimentality regarding official buildings, the Ecclesiarchy taking a strong lead in such things, but something had to be done about the snipers.

Pinned down behind the statuary and low balustrade walls in the gardens, elements of the 40th Parvian Lancers, chosen for their previous combat experience alongside the natives, made vox-calls for air support. A Valkyrie responded. Mindful of the orders not to use heavy weaponry the towers if at all possible, the pilot brought VTOL craft in close to the Celestial Tower. His starboard door gunner swung his heavy bolter to bear and opened fire, explosive shells enough to chip the marble and gouge chunks from the stone, but not to cause any serious damage. One sniper went down, but his steel-eyed companion made a killing shot, and the door gunner slumped in his harness, his gun falling silent. The Valkyrie pulled away and swung around, multilaser flashing, striking the stonework and causing minor burn damage, but missing the sniper, who dove for cover inside the stairhead. A 'hotshot' high-powered las-round from the Lunar Tower cracked the cockpit glass of the gunship, and the pilot dipped away again, swinging between several of the shorter towers to try and bring the port gunner to bear.

That was when the missile sprung up out of nowhere, a trail of smoke with a bright pinpoint of light at the head rising from between the spires. It struck the gunship amidships, well-aimed by the Chaos gunner. The explosion ripped through the passenger compartment, killing the portside gunner and tearing up the hydraulic lines and control cables in the cabin roof. The pilot struggled with the controls to no avail as the gunship dropped toward the city below. It ploughed through the wall of a four-storey stone townhouse and exploded, bringing almost the whole building down on top of it.

The snipers returned their attention to the ground forces who were taking potshots up at them, but they failed to notice, or deliberately ignored, the approach of the primitive native craft. The EAS Canterlot drifted almost casually into view, broadside-on to the towers. Its artillery remained silent, but sharpshooters on its top deck could fire through the shield, and their aim was true. The other sniper on the Celestial Tower died unaware of the encroaching vessel. The two snipers on the sister tower heard the drone of its engines over the din of battle, and turned to engage. A snap shot punched through the magic shield and caused a tiny spot fire on the wooden deck railing. Half a dozen rifles fired in reply, shattering chips of stone from the tower as the snipers ducked for cover. As the airship drew closer, the swivel guns mounted on the railings were able to fire, short-range anti-infantry canister shot loaded instead of their usual explosive rounds, intended mostly for defence against enemy boarders. A spray of shrapnel blasted out in a broad cone, peppering the tower balcony and cutting into the flesh of one of the snipers, who toppled in a crumpled heap. The other sniper took careful aim and fired, his las-round putting a sizzling hole in one of the marksponies' heads. Her fellows replied with precision shots, striking the sniper several times. He slumped forward against the stone balustrade and tipped, toppling over and plunging hundreds of feet to the garden below, landing with a loud thud and a spray of blood.

Following the Canterlot came the Luna, back on track from its mission diversion to help engage the tank column. The Luna's objective was the palace, to support the human ground forces and to deploy her own pony infantry. With the Fillydelphia flying top cover, the Luna commenced deployment operations, coming in low over the palace gardens. The Pegasi assault detachment took to their wings and swooped down onto the rooftops and balconies of the grand building. The Luna engaged pitch reversal on its propellers, slowing the mighty craft into a steady hover. Ropes were dropped from both sides, ponies lined up in squads and, as a necessary step for a successful drop, the shields were lowered.

'Go, go, go!' the deck chief roared. Ponies climbed up, clipped on, grabbed the rope and stepped over the side. Fast-roping into a combat zone needed to be accomplished as quickly as possible, as the shield needed to stay down for the descending ponies to be able to pass through. leaving the airship vulnerable. As a result, the Air Corps trained with the Equestrian Army and Royal Guard regularly. The target was to have an entire Princess-Class airship emptied of its troop compliment within ninety seconds, using the more mobile Pegasi troops and supporting gunfire and magic to suppress enemy troops while the landing operation was carried out. The eager crew and passengers of the Luna accomplished the operation in just over seventy-five seconds, with just over five hundred ponies transferred from the gondola to the ground via the dozen ropes. With covering fire from the deck guns, the Canterlot and the Imperial infantry already on the ground, not a single pony was lost to enemy action during the landing.

With her holds empty, the Luna reengaged forward prop pitch and climbed away, the shield rising again like a bubble around the airship. The pony infantry spread out, taking cover alongside their human allies in the palace gardens. Their desire to retake their capital, retake their seat of government, retake the palace, the home of the Princess, drove them onward. The affront to Celestia and her sister could not be allowed to continue; to have these evildoers pollute the hallowed halls of the palace for even a second longer was a grave insult to the royal sisters. Not every pony was devout, but the overwhelming majority worshipped Celestia, if not as a goddess then certainly as a ruler worthy of their utmost devotion and loyalty, and everypony who joined the military knew that they may be called upon to die to ensure that her word was upheld, that her laws were enforced, that her will be done.

Las-fire lashed out at the new arrivals from the palace. Two ponies went down screaming, their fur and skin charred. Return fire cut scars and burn-marks into the stone and marble of the facade, but the enemy inside were mostly safe behind the thick walls. The men and ponies outside the walls were held at bay, but there were men atop the structure as well.

Sergeant Argan gave the wooden door another firm kick. The southwest balcony would, he was sure, have provided a pleasant view across the gold and marble spires of the city during the day, but at the present time it was not an ideal place to be. A few shots whizzed around his ears as he tried again to get through the stubborn door. His squad had been landed on the roof of the palace and had dropped down the few feet to the balcony, but now found themselves under sporadic fire from higher enemy positions scattered around. Their aim was to get inside, and Argan delivered, finally breaking the lock with a powerful kick. He urged his squad on and half a dozen men, including the vox-man Merkev, rushed through the doorway. He followed them in, out of the line of fire, but into an unknown world. The enemy could be a thousand strong inside such a vast structure. The palace covered numerous levels, including, their briefing had stated, dozen basement and sub-basement levels. There were so many hidden passages and boltholes that the majority of troops aboard the EAS Luna were from the Royal Guard, as they were the ones who knew the palace best of all. They waited outside, but needed access, pinned down by fire from the interior. That was where Argan, his squad, and others like him, came in.

The more he fought alongside the ponies, the more Argan begrudgingly began to respect their bravery and combat ability. He could watch as the assault forces jumped from the relative safety of their airship into the maelstrom below, unheeding of the web of las-fire and bullets that criss-crossed the palace grounds. Only those fuelled by fear, hatred of faith would charge so readily into battle.

Which was it for them? he wondered. Discipline seemed firm but not overly oppressive in their military; certainly he had seen no sign of corporal punishment or any Commissar-equivalent officers or barrier-troop units behind the line. Though they undoubtedly loathed the invaders, the ponies probably lacked the full knowledge of their nature and the impetus of their treasonous acts that the Imperium felt to truly hate them. Which left faith.

Faith alone could be enough, provided one possessed enough of it. The same force that drove countless billions of human soldiers across the vast expanse of the Imperium, the same force that sustained them, made their bravery possible, their sacrifices meaningful, that gave men on a million worlds succour in their last dying moments. Love and devotion to the Emperor was what kept the Imperium together.

But these ponies know nothing of the Emperor. Faith in someone else kept them going, and it could only be their princess. From the brief facts Argan had received from the ponies in Griffonstone in between combat, he had learned that there seemed to be some similarities between the Emperor and their princess. Both fought to unite and protect their species from outside threats, both had fought against demons or gods of Chaos and triumphed, both had suffered the betrayal of a close family member, a sister to the Emperor's son. Both were powerful psykers and extremely proficient in combat. That was where the similarities ended, of course, for no matter how powerful she might be, she was not the saviour of mankind, and she was still an alien. And yet here Argan stood, attempting to recapture her palace for her.

The room beyond the balcony door was dark, unlit save for the moonglow from outside. It opened out onto a short corridor, which his squad were already covering with their guns. Argan gave a few curt hand gestures and his squad moved out, securing the hallway. The point man indicated he had a staircase heading down, and Argan directed his men to proceed. Cautiously but quickly, they made their way downstairs, not using their lasgun's flashlights as it would give their position away. Below them lay a landing, with several large vases smashed into a thousand pieces. Since the rest of the room showed no signs of battle damage, Argan assumed they had been broken by the occupying forces out of boredom or spite. There was no sign of the enemy, and Argan directed the squad towards a door leading from the landing. It would lead, broadly, to the south wing, where the enemy was resisting against the Imperials in the plaza. The second man opened the door and the point man quickly moved through, his gun scanning the hallway beyond. Still nothing.

The squad continued on, along the wide marble floor of the hallway. The palace was unlit, but even in the dark its opulence was evident. Alabaster marble, gold filigree, the remains of mostly-shattered stained glass windows, all the finery expected of royalty. The colour scheme, Argan noted, matched that of the princess herself- white for her coat, gold for her crown and the spectral mass of colour of the stained glass matching her mane and tail. He idly wondered if the choice was deliberate, given that Celestia apparently was technically co-ruler with her sister, to reinforce the message as to which sibling was truly in command.

Gunfire inside the building was getting louder, the whip-crack of lasguns and the rattle of stubbers firing on full-auto. An intermediate doorway lay half open ahead, and suddenly flashes of light could be seen through it. The point man held up a clenched fist, a signal to halt. The squad complied, crouching with weapons ready or peeking out from behind pillars. The hallway would make for a fine killing ground given its lack of cover, and Argan moved up beside the trooper, intent on getting the squad out of it as soon as possible.

'Gunfire through that door, sergeant,' the trooper whispered. Argan nodded.

'Copy that. Standby to breach, bang and clear. Stack up,' he whispered to the squad, who quickly moved into position, three men on either side of the doorway with the rest standing back behind pillars. Argan lined up with the door, exchanging nods of readiness with both fireteam leaders. He gave a strong kick to open the door before swinging out of the way to the side. Two men lobbed grenades through the doorway, and after the short fuses ran down, they detonated. A gurgled scream came from inside as the pointmen rushed in, the squad entering the room, one man from each side of the doorway alternating until all six were through. The rest of the squad followed as a hail of gunfire erupted from the Imperials. Argan stepped through into the next room, checking for targets. It was a large room with a row of windows overlooking the plaza outside. Several Chaos infantry lay dead, while several more were scrambling to take cover and return fire from behind the furniture scattered around the room. A bipod-mounted stubber sat abandoned, mounted on the sill of one of the windows. The sudden attack had caught them by surprise, and they had posted nobody to cover the door, leading to a further surprise as the Imperials stormed in. One man charged forward wielding his bayonet like a knife, no doubt hoping for blood in a close-combat situation, but he was gunned down before getting anywhere near the advancing squad. Las-fire struck one of Argan's troopers in the arm and he staggered against the wall.

Accurate fire cut burning holes in the wooden chairs and tables the enemy were hiding behind, punching through and striking them. Two more went down, leaving just one Chaos trooper crouched behind a sofa in the corner. Argan's squad opened up, setting the sofa burning and sending clouds of feathers swirling from the cushions. The man gave a shout and a groan, but a second later something rose up from behind the sofa, arcing toward the squad.

'Grenade!' someone shouted, and men dived in every direction for cover. Argan, only just inside the doorway, flung himself back through it as the grenade detonated. There was another scream, a short burst of gunfire, and then silence. The sergeant picked himself back up and returned to the room to check on his squad.

The men were getting to their feet. Apart from a few scratches, all were unharmed save for the already wounded man, Kallas, winged by the las-round. Still standing against the wall, he had taken a blast from the grenade and lay twitching in a pool of blood, much of his face ripped away. Argan grimaced, but he had seen such things many times before and found it did not faze him anymore. 'Medic!' he called grimly, though he knew it was a waste of time. The squad's medic, Jourdane, came over, giving the dying trooper a quick glance as he knelt beside him. He checked his pulse and ragged breathing through a ruined throat, and gave Argan a shake of the head. Argan left him to administer a shot of morphia to ease the pain and went over to check the room. The enemies were dead, the room clear. They had no time to treat Kallas beyond the basics, even if they had the equipment. The rest of the palace needed to be retaken. Argan took a glance out of the window. A Valkyrie raced by overhead through the city spires. He could see his fellow infantrymen in the plaza crouching behind fountains, walls and wooden carts, firing up at the palace, and he backed away in case a stray round should find him.

'Alright, we're moving on,' he announced as his men gathered round. 'We're going room by room until we link up with another squad. Keep your eyes open and your wits about you. The enemy could be anywhere in here. They've had a few days to learn where to hide. We only know the basic layout. But we have to secure this building. Alright, move out.' With the squad ont he move, he grabbed the vox handset from Merkev.

'Forest Gamma 1, this is Forest Gamma 1-1 actual. We are inside the palace, making progress. Moving room to room now, fourth floor, south wing, over.'

'Forest Gamma 1-1, Forest Gamma 1, copy,' came the reply from the platoon's command squad, somewhere else in the building. 'Sweep and clear along that floor. Be advised, elements from Forest Gamma 2 may be on that floor also, over.'

Forest Gamma 2 was the second platoon of Gamma Company, inserted on a different section of the palace, but the prospect of running into another Imperial unit and opening fire accidentally was very real.

'Forest Gamma 1-1 actual, copy. Out.' Argan gave the handset back to Merkev and set off after the rest of the squad, leaving Kallas to die silently in the corner, a tragedy, yet also a statistic. He was not the first guardsman to die on this strange planet, and he would certainly not be the last.

The battle raged across the city, the humans fighting to eradicate the scourge of Chaos, the ponies to reclaim their capital in the name of the princess. The EAS Starswirl lined up for a run on the palace gardens, coming on low and slow. The shield went down, the ropes went out and the ponies went over the side, joining their comrades below. But the infantry were not the only passengers aboard.

Princess Celestia rose into her sister's night, slowly, deliberately, making sure her subjects below could see her. A cheer rose from their throats as they saw their princess above. The Starswirl pulled away, leaving her floating over her palace, her city, her capital. Using the Royal Canterlot Voice, she boomed out a message.

'Ponies! Hear me. Today, you fight for those that have fallen. Today, you fight for your freedom. Today, you fight for Equestria.' Her unmistakable voice carried far, across much of the city, even above the gunfire. 'I know you will fight well, fight hard, fight bravely, as you always have. Your Princess is with you, and together, we shall not fail!' Another cheer went up from the ponies on the ground. Celestia continued. 'And to our allies. Your courage and tenacity in aiding us will never be forgotten. And to our enemy...' she paused for a moment. 'If you can hear me, I suggest you throw down your arms and surrender. Your deaths will still be inevitable, but perhaps you may suffer a little less in the process.' Another wild cheer came from the throats of the pony infantry. Celestia was back in town, and she was not messing around.

'

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Argan looked up at the sudden, brilliant light. An angel hung above them, bathed in golden light. An apparition, a Saint of the Emperor, a manifestation of His divine will. come at the death to save His loyal followers...no, it was not Him, it was Her.

The horse-princess floated above the carnage, surveying the scene almost coolly. Had she come to watch the slaughter? To laugh like these Daemons as men died trying to recapture her own lands?

No. She had come to help. With a flash out of nowhere, the sky was burning, a golden glow illuminating the square as lightning flashed from the tip of her horn, leaping between the hordes of the enemy. Where it touched, it burned, Daemons bathed in flame. A blue creature lunged at Argan, but it was caught by the flash, bursting into flame and thrashing about. The lightning jumped toward him, but it passed him by, overhead, setting fire to another Daemon beyond, then another, and another. A beam of coruscating light erupted from the horn of the princess, cutting clean across the square like a blowtorch, vaporising those creatures it touched, shattering the cobbles and blackening them.

Whereas Argan and his men fought for the Emperor, this horse-princess was killing in the name of herself, and it was clear why her people had such love and respect for her. They would kill for Celestia, because she would kill for them, to keep them safe, to protect them and their way of life, just as the Emperor had done for humanity all those millennia ago. As the Sergeant watched the Princess cut down hundreds of foul creatures, he had to admit to a grudging respect forming for her. When he had seen her fight in Griffonstone, she was protecting her own, ponies as well as Griffons who, while not exactly the same species, were at least from this planet. But there were no ponies here save she. Only humans were under threat, but she was fighting nonetheless. Why? Did she know of some grander threat? Was this an attempt to forestall the total collapse of her society and culture in some fashion, or was she genuinely fighting to save human lives?

All Argan knew was that she was trying to keep them alive. Her horn flashed again and again, as she swooped across the square, her wings spread broadly, hardly needing to flap to keep her in motion, effortless grace and strength on clear display. Warp fire was flung up to intercept her. The few shots that were lucky enough to strike her simply burst against a glowing golden aura surrounding her. They could transform or kill a man in horrific ways, but had no effect on the princess as she wove her deadly dance through the sky. In return her golden fire and lightning proved equally effective against daemonflesh as it had against human skin and bone. The surviving guardsmen opened up with everything they had, the intervention of the princess turning the tide, but the advantage needed to be pressed. Lasfire and shells brought down more of the abominations, focusing fire on those separating them from their human reinforcements. A breach was made, and the princess dived down to widen it, lightning flashing and crackling, skipping perfectly over the guardsmen, only striking the Daemons. Her precision was amazing, and startling. Presumably she could reverse the targets and those spared, if she wished; say, if her ponies were the ones on the receiving end of Imperial aggression.

The gap stayed open as Celestia's horn glowed continuously, shining like a lighthouse, trying to guide the humans safely through the rocky shores to a calm harbour. The reinforcements were able to push into the square, linking up with the survivors, adding their firepower to the battle to push the Daemonic tide back. A lasgun could kill one of the creatures, a tank shell could kill a dozen. The princess killed them in their hundreds, no match for her power and precision. But even she could only be in one place at any one time, and the Daemons were sweeping through the northern industrial district and the southern suburbs as well.

Vox-messages were sent, alerting commanders to the actions of the princess and the turning of the tide in the west, allowing further reinforcements from outside of the city to be diverted to support the northern and southern flanks. Tanks and men were poured in. While they lacked sanctified weaponry or the specialised skills of the fabled Daemonhunters, sheer firepower proved to be effective. Despite heavy losses, the enemy was pushed back, slowly, steadily, on all fronts. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the Daemons were gone. Their survivors, all at once and apropos of nothing, turned and fled, their giggling laughter echoing through the empty streets as they disappeared to who knows where. Valkyries tracked them returning to the smouldering remains of the dockside district, and then they vanished entirely.
Fearing a trap or trick, Lord-General Galen ordered a halt for all Imperial forces. Licking their wounds and counting the cost of the heretical incursion, the guardsman held position, waiting for orders, waiting for the next storm to break.

Celestia returned to the Starswirl, her latest work completed. The humans below had gazed up at her almost reverently once the square was clear and they were safe. She was hopeful that some goodwill had been fostered, at least. While she had no desire to see these humans die, she had no compunctions about having them shoulder most of the burden for retaking Equestria. This enemy they had brought with them far outstripped the Equestrian military in strength, and she and her sister could not be everywhere at once.

The responsibilities of power had often weighed heavy upon Celestia's shoulders, especially in her sister's enforced absence. Having ultimate power over so many ponies, and ultimate responsibility for their wellbeing, was a tremendous weight to bear, But it was times like these, facing an existential threat, that made her course of action clear. There could be no qualms, no uncertainty about what she needed to do. Earlier in the invasion she had been reluctant to use her powers to their fullest, unsure of the nature or capabilities of the new enemy. She could never morally condone, in her own mind, the wanton destruction of a people of lesser or equal power to Equestria. In the past she had been reluctant to utilise the full extent of her powers because if she had, she could have all but annihilated her opponents. A wholesale massacre of the Griffons or Zebras was not something she desired on her conscience, and it was not something that would have been necessary to ensure the safety of her ponies. But this was entirely different. These humans, the Archenemy of the Imperials, had shown both their technological superiority and their own willingness and capacity for hatred and sickening violence. If they chose to live by the sword, then they must die by the sword, for the very future of the planet was at stake. If she were to be defeated, if she were to die, then so be it, but her conscience simply would not allow her to sit back and watch, not any longer. She would fight, she would kill, she would slaughter, if it was necessary to save Equestria.

The interrogation room was, naturally, more of a torture chamber. Dimly lit, somewhere in the bowels of the Hive, it had a foreboding atmosphere even from the first step inside. Twilight had again lost track of time. Chained to a metal rack upon the wall, her limbs stretched out, her horn fitted with a metal 'lock,' a magic-infused dampener to resist her magic should whatever counterspells had been placed on her previously fail. She was trapped in the darkness. The two Changeling guards had tried various methods of simple persuasion on her, from just directly asking her questions, slapping and stomping her, threatening her with disfigurement. She had told them nothing, despite the pain and the fear.

After a while they had given up, leaving her in the dark. Her thoughts immediately turned to home; or at least, her temporary home in Canterlot. Her friends were there, her family. No doubt Luna would have teams out scouring the countryside for her at this very moment, but she didn't even know if they knew who had taken her. It had been a human outside her door. Probably the princesses were under the impression she had been captured by the Imperials, or by their Archenemy, in which case, why would they ever be searching for a Changeling infestation?

She was alone, completely alone, more alone than she had ever felt before. Nopony knew where she was. They weren't coming for her. But someone else was.

The metal door of the chamber screeched open again. This time, the Queen herself stepped inside, her horn giving off a sickly green glow, providing illumination.

'Greetings, my dear,' she hissed. 'Forgive me for keeping you waiting so long. Other matters held my attention.' Her tongue flicked out. 'But fear not. Now is the time for you to tell me all your secrets, little one.'

'You know I'm not going to tell you anything,' Twilight replied quietly. 'I don't even know what you really want to learn. I'm not a soldier.'

'You don't need to be,' Chrysalis chuckled. 'You know all about Canterlot. You know about the princesses. And you're going to tell me.' She moved closer, menacingly.

'Anything I know about Canterlot, you must know already,' Twilight pointed out. 'You have spies there, don't you? Otherwise how would you have been able to capture me?'

'Yes, of course I have spies there,' the Queen answered, circling around Twilight, her tail flicking from side to side. 'But they cannot see everything. There are passages, are there not? Secret, hidden. Accessible only by the application of the correct magic at the correct location. There must be at least one inside the palace itself, perhaps many. I know you and your little friends, and the princesses, were inside the palace when the humans attacked Canterlot. You are going to tell me exactly where to find one, and exactly how to access it. It is easy to infiltrate a small team into the palace, but they need to know'

'I don't know about any passages!' Twilight lied. 'We teleported out,' she added, half-truthfully.

'Why yes, you did.' Chrysalis nodded. 'At least, you teleported once you were already out, correct? You were on a plateau just below the city? Hm? Is this jogging your memory?' she hissed.

Just how many spies does she have in Canterlot? Twilight's heart beat faster. She was sure Chrysalis had always had operatives inside the city, reporting back any important information. But for her to have such specific detail about where they had gathered after fleeing the palace was deeply disturbing. The Queen paced back around to face her.

'My scouts examined that plateau after the battle was over. Do you know what they found? Nothing. No door, no passageway, not even a sewer pipe. So tell me, my dear. How do I access that passage, and where does it come out?'

Twilight kept her mouth shut. If Chrysalis could get a small team into the palace so easily, as she had done to capture her Element, why did she need to know how to open the passage?

'You don't need any secret passage. You just said it yourself. You can get a team inside. Why would you care about some secret passage?' Twilight asked scornfully. 'What, need an escape route so you can run away with your tail between your legs when your plan fails?'

That drew a laugh from the Queen. 'Oh, please. Do you not remember your brother's wedding? What was it that kept my army at bay, hm? Yes, a shield. Were our infiltration to be detected, all that it would take is for one royal sister,' she used the term derisively, 'to hold up a shield while the other mopped up our force inside the walls. Even if Celestia remains away from the city, half a dozen royal guardsponies could do the same job, keeping my children outside. A team small enough to infiltrate is not large enough to capture the city, or even the palace, and a force large enough for conquest will be spotted immediately, disguise or no. So to answer your question, no, my dear, no. I do not intend to run away. I intend to strike!' She chuckled, licking her lips almost seductively. 'When the time is right, that is. Celestia may be my old enemy, but I have a new opportunity to grasp. She will be dealt with in good time, and your friends, too. That is, unless you choose to help me.'

'What?' Twilight frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'It's simple,' Chrysalis explained, leaning in closely to look her in the eyes, her black, slitlike pupils narrowing still further. 'If you help me get into the palace, then your friends will live. If I have to find some other means of acquiring this knowledge, then they will die. You don't want to be responsible for their deaths, do you?' she chided softly.

Twilight could hardly respond to that. Of course she didn't want any part in anything that might happen to her dearest friends, her second family, but nor could she betray the princesses and their trust in her.

'Why should I believe anything you say?' she spat coldly. 'Why should I think you'd do anything other than take that information and then kill them anyway?'

'I'm wounded,' Chrysalis hissed,chuckling, a hoof on her chest feigning injury. 'How could you think so little of me?I am sure this means nothing to you, but for what it's worth, you have my word that I will not harm your five friends...oh, and that ridiculous dragon of yours...if you tell me what I want to know.'

Twilight shook her head. There was almost no chance the Queen was telling the truth. Surely if Twilight revealed anything to her, she would make use of it, and then have her friends lined up and killed, probably while making her watch. Of course if she didn't tell the Queen what she wanted to know, and she found out from some other source, then that would be the certain outcome anyway.

'You're wasting your time with your lies, Chrysalis. I don't know how to access any secret passage, and even if I did, I'd rather die than tell you!'

'That can certainly be arranged...' the Queen replied with a flick of her tongue. Her horn glowed and searing pain wracked Twilight's body, from horn to tail, so intense she could not even scream. It lasted only a moment, but it left her dazed and twitching.

'You have a simple choice, my dear,' Chrysalis reminded her, leaning close once again. 'Either you tell me what I want to know and your friends will live, or you die here in agony, and your friends will meet the same fate. Which is it to be?'

Chyrsalis presented an easy target. In an uncharacteristic reply born of anger and impotence, Twilight spat at her. Her saliva did not strike the Queen, but flashed against a green wall a few inches from her face, drawing a chuckle.

'Such insolence toward your Queen...that must be punished now, don't you think?'

Her horn glowed, and Twilight knew pain once again.

The squad of infantry advanced cautiously through the woodland, weapons held at the ready. Danger could be lurking behind every tree in such an environment, but it was safer than approaching by air. What lay ahead, none of them could be certain, but they had their mission and they were damn sure going to complete it.

Major Spitfire, commander of the Wonderbolts flight demonstration squadron and member of the elite and secretive Special Tasks Group of the Pegasi assault infantry, led her ponies through the undergrowth. treading carefully to avoid snapping dry twigs or rustling bushes with their passage, taking to the wing when necessary for short hops as long as branches overhead were high enough. Gripped in her front hooves was an experimental Machine-Rifle, newly produced by the factories of the National Arsenal in Fillydelphia and only just issued to a few select clandestine and special operations units before the invasion had occurred. a heavily modified version of the standard-issue repeating rifle, the Machine-Rifle held twenty-five rounds in a box magazine and could discharge them all within a couple of seconds. It was the first rapid-fire pony-portable small arm manufactured in Equestria, light, accurate and deadily. Full-scale production had not been initiated, and now perhaps never would be.

A glade was up ahead, sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees that ringed it. With a few quick hoof gestures, Spitfire ordered her squad to split and move around, circling the grove but staying in the shadows. Nothing disturbed their movement. Rejoining, the two halves of the squad fell back into formation, eight ponies in dark green-and-brown camouflage uniforms, faces daubed with black and green paint, manes covered under combat helmets, tails and wings fitted with thin polymer covers of matching camo-schemes, covering their bright feathers and hair but allowing for the wings to still be used for flight. All carried the Machine-Rifles, save for one who had a sniper variant of the standard repeater, with a telescopic sight fitted.

The Special Tasks Group, given its innocuous name so as to avoid undue scrutiny in the military budget, was the clandestine-operations unit of the Air Corps, set up almost as a direct challenge to the Royal Guard's equivalent Special Operations Unit. The STG was the elite of the elite; only the best flyers and fighters were recruited. Many had been, or were currently, members of the Wonderbolts, the precision-flying demonstration team that acted as the public face of the Air Corps, their most recognisable squadron and always the star attraction at airshows or military parades. Spitfire served both as the current squadron leader for the Wonderbolts, and as leader of one of the STG battalions, having served in the ranks of the 1st Assault Division as a company commander before trying out for, and being accepted into, the Wonderbolts. Most members of the demonstration squadron were active-duty personnel in the Assault Divisions, with only a few ever coming from the ranks of the Airship Command. Promotion to Major saw Spitfire chosen to lead the Wonderbolts after its previous commander retired, and her distinguished combat record and excellent training and physical condition made her a natural choice to join the Special Tasks Group.

And so here she was, edging through the mud with her squad, seeking their prize. Their orders were to find the remnants of the Changeling Hive, since relocated to parts unknown, and search for any indication of where Chrysalis and her innumerable minions had gone. With the distraction of the invasion, surveillance of the Hive had been interrupted some weeks ago, but a rapid aerial survey carried out by reconnaissance Pegasi some days ago had shown that the Hive appeared to have been abandoned. Locating the new Hive was potentially vital, they had been told, to the defence of Equestria. The STG had been chosen over the Special Operations Unit because they were all Pegasi- speed was important in this operation, both to reach the old Hive quickly, and then to return with information to Canterlot as soon as possible. It was considered unlikely that they would run into any Changelings as the Hive was believed to be totally abandoned in favour of the newly constructed warren elsewhere, but there was always the chance a patrol had been left to guard the old site and ambush anypony seeking to carry out just such a task. The human enemy could also be lurking, as this Hive was located in the rocky terrain of northeastern Equestria. Beyond the trees lay uninhabited foothills, rocky outcrops of the eastern Hyperborean Mountains. Southeast of the Griffon Kingdom but north of all of Equestria's major cities, this region was almost devoid of pony presence, ideal for the former location of the Hive.

Abruptly, the point-mare raised her hoof. The squad stopped moving, guns scanning the treeline. Spitfire took a step forward slowly.

'Movement?' she whispered to Sergeant Sunflower, leading the unit's advance. She shook her head.

'Not movement, something up ahead. 12 o'clock,' she whispered back. 'Not natural colours. Can't tell what.'

Spitfire gestured for two of the squad to fan out, one left and one right, to try and get an angle on the target. She kept her eyes peeled, staring through the visor of her helmet. There was something up ahead, to be sure, something that stood out from the backdrop of green. Spitfire could not determine what it was, half-glimpsed through the bush and undergrowth.

The pony on the right flank got a look, and cast a whisper across to the next stallion, who relayed it down the line until it reached Spitfire.

'It's a cart, ma'am,' came the news. 'No contacts.'

Spitfire ordered the squad forward carefully, flankers out to watch for a possible ambush. But nothing happened. There was a cart, a simple wooden contraption, with one wheel broken and bent, evidently left behind. The Changelings were not known for using such transport methods themselves, but the contents of the cart perhaps explained it- expensive furnishings, chairs, carpets, rugs of bright colours, 'liberated,' no doubt, from the house of some well-to-do pony in one of the small villages that were relatively closeby, perhaps after the owners fled from the invasion, or the spoils from an opportunistic Changeling raid. Either way they had been abandoned, presumably during the relocation to the new Hive, when the axel had snapped and bent one wheel out of shape. It was a sign they were getting close. Spitfire ordered the advance to resume, and through the trees they came across their target.

Cut into the low overhanging rocks of the foothills, the former Hive looked desolate, windswept, the ground around it clear of foliage, with most of the stripped branches and leaves being deployed as camouflage around the tunnels and openings carved into the rockface. Several had collapsed, either deliberately blocked by the Changelings or the results of natural landslides or perhaps seismic activity. A number of skeletons, bleached clean by the sun, lay scattered, curious animals that had gotten too close; perhaps the odd intrepid pony explorer or surveyor drawn to the promise of mineral wealth or a rich vein of gold in the hills. Of the Changelings, there was no sign.

After holding at the edge of the woodland for several minutes observing, Spitfire was satisfied there was no threat, at least outside of the Hive. She ordered the squad forward, some trotting, the rest flying in overwatch. No bolt of magic greeted them, none of the birds wheeling overhead revealed its true nature and shed its disguise. They were alone.

One tunnel up ahead was not blocked by fallen rock. It seemed to offer a passage into the earth. Spitfire ordered the squad to proceed with caution. Flashlights mounted on their helmets were turned on, giving some kind of illumination. The darkness ahead of them was stifling. If anything was lurking inside the Hive, they would not be able to see it until it was almost upon them. Machine-Rifles gripped in steady hooves, the squad advanced, into the bowels of the mountain, seeking the clues they needed.

The chill northern air became cooler still as they entered the darkness, torches probing ahead, shining on the bare walls of rock. They began to descent almost immediately, the floor sloping downward, gently at first but swiftly getting steeper. It became slick with water, leaking out from some underground aquifer or stream, filtering through the rock. Within a few hundred feet of the tunnel entrance, they would have been in total blackness if not for their torches. The complex web of tunnels was, no doubt, easy for the Changelings to navigate with their hive mind and excellent eyesight and hearing. But for ponies, the darkness outside of the cone of light provided by their torches was at best disconcerting, and at worst downright oppressive. There was no light whatsoever, save for, in places, a faint phosphorescent shimmer from some bioluminescent algae clinging to the damp rocks. At regular intervals, the rearguard pony would toss a small plastic stick down behind him. These sticks would glow in the dark, giving off a yellow glow for a good twelve hours, and leading them on the correct path to escape should the squad lose their way or be forced to flee. Very soon the need for the chemical sticks would become evident, as the Hive descended into a chaotic mess of tunnels, passages and chambers. Some were blocked, others seemed to double back on themselves or lead to dead ends with no apparent purpose. Holes in the rock walls showed glimpses of large chambers beyond, flashlight beams not reaching the far walls. That was where their clues would likely be, in the main rooms, the congregation halls, barracks and cocoon chambers. That was where they needed to go. The tunnels led down, down, still farther down into the earth, deathly silent and dark as the grave.

Nopony spoke, intent on scanning the gloom for potential threats. It seemed clear that the Changelings had abandoned the site, but there could always be stragglers left behind, or a token force intending to kill any investigative teams such as theirs. The twisty, musty hallways, encrusted in places by dried, colourless remnants of the green goo-like substance the Changelings used for various functions such as building. A large chamber opened up ahead. Flashlights scanned around, locating several openings in the upper walls, presumably leading to side rooms or corridors. The room itself was bare, just rock floors and dust.

'Spread out,' Spitfire ordered. 'Start searching for anything of interest. Sunflower, Arcwing, perimeter security.' The two ponies in question spread out to cover the others as they searched around the large room. Spitfire kept a watchful eye over her squad. The room seemed to hold nothing of interest- no maps, no documents, no photographs. The Changelings had no need or desire for such items; having a Hive mind meant that they were able to share knowledge and discoveries among themselves. Their plans were mental, not written down. The darkness outside of their circle of light was total, apart from one small thing. Spitfire and Arcwing spotted it at the same time. A pair of eyes.

'Contact!'

Nothing Else Matters

Sergeant Argan found himself recuperating in a field hospital, set up in the shadow of the pony capital of Canterlot, which sat high above on the mountainside. It was a picturesque setting, perfect for convalescing if not for the war that remained to be won. The city itself gleamed in the sunlight, sparkling gold and marble, a vision of perfection.

It was the day after the disastrous attack on Ponyville. The Guard had fallen back to their initial line, thoroughly thwarted by the flood in their attempts to take the town. Once the waters receded, they would return. Men and tanks kept guard at the perimeter of the flooded area, to make sure the enemy was not able to regain a foothold. Not that there was anything left in the town worth taking. If it had been an empty shell before, it was almost totally barren now. It would be occupied more as a formality than anything else, a piece of ground that had to be moved through on the way to attack the city of Baltimare, which would be their next major target. The men and tanks who had assaulted the dam had been removed from their predicament, trapped above the washed-out road, thanks to airlift, dropships and Valkyries lifting up the airlanding troops, and bulk lander embarking the vehicles, bringing them back down safely to the valley floor. They had accomplished their mission; the dam complex and the surrounding hills had been swept and cleared of the enemy. Unfortunately they had arrived too late to prevent the sabotage of the structure itself. There was really nothing they could have done. Powerful explosive charges had evidently been laid throughout the dam at key structural points, designed to sever structural members, weaken or remove the outer surface at points where the water pressure was greatest, and destroy the pumping gear and sluice gates so that, even if the Imperials gained control, they could not reverse the damage and save the dam, or their men below. The pre-emptive raid was meant to have taken the dam and secured its controls before the main thrust drove down the valley into the danger zone, but although much of the complex had indeed been wrested from the hands of the enemy, they still held the interior of the dam itself, and some die-hard fanatics must have pressed the detonators manually, triggering the collapse.

In the grand scheme of things, the failure to take the town on the first attempt was of no real importance to the Imperium. Nor was the loss of the dam, although its loss would no doubt anger the princess. Commissar Birbeck travelled up the winding path from his Headquarters, at the behest of Lord-Admiral Marcos, to apologise in person for the destruction of the dam, much to his own chagrin. The operation had been planned by the command staff aboard the flagship, not by him directly. He resented having to apologise to a Xenos in any context, especially when it was not his doing in the first place.

He and his entourage, travelling in Salamander scout cars with a Valkyrie escort, were received rather frostily by the ponies at the city gates. They demanded to know his business and to see his credentials before they would even speak with him. A sensible precaution given the Changeling menace, but it rankled him even more. When he then stated his desire to speak with the princess, he was left fuming by the information that she wasn't even there. He had travelled all that way to speak with her, all for nothing? He spoke angrily to the guards at the gate, having evidently wasted his time.

'If the Princess is not here,' Birbeck demanded, 'then where the hell is she?'

The EAS Starswirl hung in the sky like a giant, silvery cigar, floating above the rallying point. The airship was not alone; they were accompanied by the Luna, the Las Pegasus, the Fillydelphia, and three cargo airships. The warship's holds were all filled to capacity with Assault Infantry, their cannons loaded and ready, their observers keenly scanning the skies. They had been flying all morning at top speed, but now they were playing the waiting game.

The airships were located some fifty miles south of the western fringes of the Hyperborean Mountains, north of Las Pegasus where the deserts turned to pine forests. They were also about fifty miles east of the city of Vanhoover, the coastal headquarters of the military's Western Command. Contact had initially been lost with the city after the invasion, but some two weeks ago a messenger Pegasus had finally made it through to Las Pegasus, and his message had been relayed on to the capital. Vanhoover had not fallen; rather, they had seen no human enemy contacts, but dragons had been reported in the air to the east and southeast of the city, which had limited their ability to send out messengers or airships. The reason for the sudden appearance of the dragons was unknown, but potential human activity was suspected by the garrison as the cause.

Western Command controlled every Equestrian military asset located west of the Foal Valley, where Canterlot was located, the seat of the military High Command and the chiefs of staff. The valley itself came under the overall command of the Royal Guard. Everything east of the valley was under the control of Eastern Command, headquartered in Manehattan. There was always a scramble for authority between the forces as to who should be in overall control of each Command. In general, the Air Corps had, historically, been assigned a majority in the Western Command, and the army received the largest share in the Eastern Command. The western terrain of desert in the south and rocky mountain wilderness in the north lent itself perfectly to the use of airships for patrol, while the generally more level and smooth plains and rolling hills of the east was good terrain for marching and ground-based logistical supply with wagons, towed artillery and plentiful rail lines.

The system had worked well against the Griffons in several wars and skirmishes in the past, as well as against the Zebricans, though the Air Corps was called to perform most of the operations across the sea, as the Navy had only limited capability, possessing but a few warships due to the long-time supremacy of the Air Corps as the senior of the military services. Against the threat of invasion from space, however, the very essence of the system broke down completely. An invasion from orbit could not be planned for, could not be protected against save for with the use of the sun as a weapon, though even that could bring debris raining down across the land, as had happened after the human's first battle in the heavens.

Their usual lines of communication were rendered useless when the enemy could strike from anywhere, at any time, with no warning. Unlike the Changelings, who could operate in a similar fashion, the human enemy could, if they desired, attack in a manner that was completely impossible to defend against. Their orbital weapons could hit almost instantaneously, and nothing short of a citywide shield could protect against them, and even that would only withstand it for a few seconds. The mares and stallions of the Western Command, however, had seen no evidence of the human's power themselves, which led them to continue the concentration of forces that would be practised normally, unaware that spreading out to present a smaller target might be a better idea against them. Luckily, they had not needed to put such measures into practice so far, as the human enemy had ignored them, at least up to this point, instead making their landing in the central and eastern areas.

While the Equestrian military, and the Air Corps in particular, had long been regarded as the finest practitioners of power projection, with their airships striking terror into the hearts of their enemies, there was a new leader on the block now. The airships could strike anywhere on the continent within a matter of hours, anywhere on the planet within a day; these human starships could destroy a town in seconds, and their landing craft could drop hundreds of soldiers at any point within minutes. There was simply no way to compete with that, and the Equestrian military was not used to being the underdog. They were used, however, to operations against the Changelings.

The fight against the insidious insurgency of Queen Chrysalis and her drones had been ongoing ever since the disruption to the royal wedding of Shining Armour and Princess Cadence. Minor raids and disappearances had preceded the event, but nothing had ever been seen on the scale of the force that attacked Canterlot. With Princess Celestia incapacitated by Chrysalis, Princess Cadence greatly weakened by her imprisonment, and Princess Luna absent on important but unspecified royal business, the defence of the city had fallen on the shoulders of the Guard, the Army, and the Air Corps. It had been a long struggle against superior numbers, but the firepower, discipline and training of the Equestrians had told eventually, and the Changelings forced back. Shining Armour and Cadence's huge energy wave had been enough to see off the remainder. It had been hoped it might be the end of the threat, but scouts quickly reported activity at the Changeling Hive of the day, located out in the badlands. Since then, the attacks had never ceased, popping up here and there across the country, killing or stealing or ponyknapping, but no major assaults on the scale of Canterlot had occurred. Nevertheless, airships, Guard detachments and army posts were always on alert, and had conducted a lot of combat operations against Changeling swarms when called in by the alert sirens, the three rapid, repeated blasts of steam from a train's whistle, or word of mouth from scouts, messengers or concerned citizens.

All of that training would be called into effect tomorrow. The scout airship had reported what appeared to be a confirmed, occupied, Changeling Hive at the location provided by the human observation equipment, in the foothills of the volcano, possibly extending somewhere into the fiery cone itself. Comings and goings had been observed- not of Changelings, but of mountain goats, deer, the occasional bear- all native to the region, but not known for going into a volcanic tunnel, and not exactly known to coexist with each other peacefully. Suspicions were immediately aroused and a messenger sent to Canterlot. Princess Celestia herself had received it, and together with her sister, had agreed that decisive action was needed. Messengers had been sent out, while the airships and troops at Canterlot prepared to depart. Now, here they were, floating seemingly in the middle of nowhere, waiting.

They did not wait in vain. Others came too. Vanhoover, being headquarters to Western Command, had a strong garrison, and they were on the move also. The drone of engines came from the west as more airships hove into view. There was the Cadence. the third of the huge Royalty-Class capital craft to enter service. There was the San Franciscolt, one of the newer City-Class air defence ships. There were the stalwart V-Class fast-attack airships, the Vengeance, the Vulture, the Vigilant and the Veteran. There came the I-Class patrol ships, the Indefatigable, the Invincible, the Indomitable and the Illustrious. There were a dozen troop transports also, not deemed worthy of the glory of having a name, but merely assigned a number- the R100, R101, R102 and so on. As the day wore on, not only airships arrived, but ground forces as well, great columns of ponies, towing artillery and supply wagons. Army stallions and mares, a few from the Royal Guard as well, all with the same purpose in mind, all with the same orders from the princess who now watched over their arrival.

Celestia stood on the deck of the Starswirl. her flagship of choice, keeping a sharp eye on proceedings. The human spotter team had been left behind in Canterlot; this was an Equestrian operation. No doubt the humans would discover what was going on eventually, and may even be tracking them from orbit with their fancy equipment, but the secret of the Elements had to be kept from them. They knew a weapon existed, but they knew nothing of its nature, location, or means of operation. Celestia intended to keep it that way.

Everything seemed to be going according to the plan and the timetable so far, but she knew that things could go awry at any moment when it came to such things as preparing a large scale military operation. Organising the movement of so many ponies and so much equipment was tricky even at the best of times, such as during a peacetime exercise. Doing the same thing under combat conditions, where the chance of running into the enemy at any moment was not insignificant, was challenging in the extreme. To do so in such a short space of time was even harder, but the mares and stallions of all the military branches had come together and performed wonders. As well as power projection and firepower, both mechanical and magical, logistics was probably the greatest strength of the Equestrian military. Rail lines criss-crossed the country, mile upon mile of track that provided access for heavy military cargo trains pulling entire Battalions of heavy howitzers and their ammunition, or long strings of passenger cars carrying several thousand ponies. Most, though by no means all, of the lines were double track, improving capacity and enhancing survivability of the connections between cities. Trains could be run in both directions at once, such as for bringing in supplies and shipping out the wounded from the frontline. Alternatively both lines could be used to surge ponies and equipment forward in case of a sudden large-scale attack.

The train network did not provide total coverage of the country, however, and where track could not be laid or where trains could scarcely be expected to make the climb, roads were used instead. They were generally constructed well, of gravel, sometimes paved or topped with concrete. Designed to be wide enough to accommodate a company of ponies marching in standard formation, the roads formed a network of capillaries to contrast with the railway's arteries; they could not move as much equipment as fast as a railroad, but they could serve a much larger area than the rails, which were relatively restricted by terrain. A road, even something as simple as a dirt track roughly delineated, could be followed by marching soldiers or by supply carts with ease.

When truly rapid transport was needed, however, the call went out for the cargo airships. There were two main kinds; the lighter, faster courier craft, mostly used for delivering mail, time-sensitive cargo such as fresh produce, and put to use as medical transports when necessary, to rush battle casualties to the nearest hospital. The larger transport craft were used as troop transports, carrying large numbers of ponies or relatively large amounts of equipment. If something had to be moved somewhere in a hurry, the Air Corps was on hand to provide the means. In addition to the dedicated cargo airships, the ships of the battle line possessed fairly spacious holds and could transport anywhere from a company to a battalion's worth of infantry, allowing an airship responding alone to an incident out on the fringes of Equestria to deal with the problem both from above and on the ground at the same time.

Celestia's gaze switched between the airships now arriving from the west, and the ponies below, trudging up the road, coming both from Vanhoover to the west, and the garrison at Las Pegasus to the south. While the forces there had been moved to aid in the recapture of Canterlot, once the city had been secured, most of them were returned to the desert town, just in case they might be needed- a prudent decision, as it turned out, since the march to the rendezvous point from Canterlot would have taken them at least three days by hoof. As it was, they were able to march overnight and arrive as planned in the early afternoon.

The plan was audacious, but it was necessary. Their forces were badly beaten, caught totally off guard by the invasion and outclassed by the human weaponry in a straight up fight, but they needed to muster up what strength they had left. There had still been no word from the Navy, not that it mattered in this case. They were not fighting a coastal battle. This would be a struggle for the airships, for the infantry, for the artillery.

The Changeling Hive lay a good number of miles to the north. The mountains hid the buildup of Equestrian forces from even the keenest of eyesight, and they were sufficiently far away that it could be reasonably assumed that the Changeling scouts would not go out that far when patrolling around. Most Equestrian military assaults were carried out at or close to either dusk or dawn, at least traditionally. If everything went according to plan, this time their raid would begin shortly before dawn, a move calculated to hopefully catch the Changeling defenders at their lowest ebb. Their alertness would be limited, hampered also by the glare of the rising sun. many would hopefully be resting, with a limited guard posted, although it was expected that they would strengthen their defences as dawn approached due to it being a common time for attack. Nothing could be guaranteed, but it was hoped that attacking slightly earlier than usual would catch the Changelings by surprise and lend an edge to the assault.

Celestia watched the ponies marching north. They would not have much time to rest once they arrived at the staging area. It would probably be dark before they arrived. They had been marching through the night with only short halts, and while some had been riding on carts and wagons, the majority had been using their own hoof power to get from Las Pegasus to the rendezvous point. A few scant hours of fitful sleep was all they could hope for before they had to rise for the assault in the early hours. The airship crews were somewhat luckier, as they operated a watch system which meant off-duty members could get some sleep while the duty watch manned the railings. Nevertheless, for the battle to come, every pony would need to be alert and ready.

An assault like this on what was presumed to be a fully occupied Hive had never been conducted before. There was a good reason for that; such an attack had always been deemed highly likely to result in huge casualties. The Changelings would be dug in, they would know the ground, they would know their Hive inside and out while its construction and layout would be a complete maze to the attackers. While the Changelings, so far as was known, lacked the ability to put up a magical shield around a Hive the way ponies could around a city, they could certainly fill the air with magic fire, a barrage of potential flak for the airships and Assault Pegasi to penetrate. Swarms of Changeling drones could smother any ground attack before it could really gather momentum, especially when their numbers were boosted, which seemed likely to be the case now. Scientists had theorised that the more love the Changelings were able to receive, the more drones they could spawn. It was possible that they could be extracting latent love energy from the hundreds of thousands of humans that had arrived in orbit and on the planet, though the range of their ability to do so was unknown. It was also possible that Chrysalis was sucking the love from Twilight, in a similar way to when she had Cadence held hostage while impersonating her. If she could obtain a similar level of strength as a result, she would prove a formidable foe, to say nothing of her minions.

Assaulting a Hive directly might be surprisingly easy, or it might be disastrous. Whatever the result, it simply had to be attempted, because the Element of Magic must be returned to its fellows, or else Equestria's ultimate defensive weapon would remain useless and impotent in the face of deadly dangers as yet unknown. They had saved the country and the planet from extremely serious threats in the past that nothing else could stop, and they may well be needed again in the future, potentially at any time, given the nature of the threats posed by the humans, both Imperial and Chaos aligned.

Princess Luna approached her sister's side, traveling with her on board the Starswirl. At Griffonstone, Canterlot and Manehattan, they had been apart, separated by duty and necessity. Tomorrow, however, they would fight side by side to defeat their old foe, to crush the Changeling menace beneath their hooves, hopefully for good. To delay and to dither over the decision would have been to invite the humans to vaporise the Hive and its inhabitants from orbit, with Twilight and the Element going with them.

'Sister,' Luna spoke softly. 'Do you believe we will be ready on the morrow?' Celestia did not turn her gaze from the columns of marching ponies below as she replied.

'Yes. We will be ready to fight. We will be ready to succeed. If necessary we will be ready to die. I have no illusions that this might be a simple victory. The fight will be long, it will be hard, it will be bloody.' She looked over at her sister. 'But we must recover that Element. Nothing else matters.'

Another day, or another two, or three, had passed in the darkness of her cell. Twilight had not been in contact with Princess Luna again; she had barely been able to sleep, only dropping off for an occasional brief spell every so often before waking or being woken. It was hot, it was uncomfortable, and the infernal water dripping did not cease, though she had mostly learned to tune it out. The cell stank of her waste; the Changelings did not bother cleaning it, nor did they wash her, save for throwing buckets of chill water on her once or twice, though mostly as a form of mild torture rather than to get her clean. The guards came at seemingly random intervals to bring her food or to drag her for more interrogations. There was no rhyme or reason to their varying eagerness and delay, probably just another method of making her disoriented and worn down.

As she sat, staring with tired eyes in the gloom at the hunk of bread her hoof was almost automatically raising to her mouth and lowering back down again, the cell door clanked open for the second time in a few minutes. The guards, the same familiar pair, unshackled her from the wall and dragged her out once more, the uneaten chunk of stale crust dropping away somewhere in the dark cell. Twilight made a mental note to find it and be sure to eat it later when she returned- not a morsel of the scant provisions she was granted could be wasted.

She was secured once again to the torture table, and the guards left. She waited in silence for the inevitable arrival of Chrysalis and the inevitable pain she would feel. Sure enough, the Queen arrived, sweeping into the room, looking almost rosy, and very pleased with herself.

'Good morning, my dear,' she greeted Twilight in her usual overly-familiar way. 'I'll come straight to the point. You've had plenty of time to think things over, haven't you? All alone in that pitiful cell. Such a sad sight to see. But you can be so much more than that, if you'll just tell me what I want to know. So, have you made your decision?' Her long tongue flicked as she eyed over the bound mare before her. 'Have you changed your mind, or will you still insist on being stubborn?'

'I told you my decision the last time you were here,' Twilight croaked in a hoarse voice. 'You won't change it, no matter what you do.'

'You really are going to be that stubborn? Tsk tsk, I thought you were smarter than that, my dear. Or at least, I thought Celestia would choose a smarter student to be her apprentice.' Chrysalis chuckled lightly. 'It is a very simple piece of information that I seek, although soon it may not even be needed. Imagine that, if I find that I no longer need what you know...well, there would be no point keeping you alive, would there?'

'Then why not just kill me now?' Twilight asked, her throat dry. Though they had given her bread this time, they had not given her water to go with it. 'Just get it over with.'

'Eager to meet your end? Once again I am disappointed. I thought you would be defiant to the last,' Chrysalis replied. 'Or perhaps you take after your brother, hm? He was so gullible, so easy to deceive. He had no inkling that the mare in bed beside him was not his fiancee at all. He is weak minded, Twilight. Are you weak minded as well?'

Twilight said nothing. Chrysalis was simply trying to bait her by insulting her family, a simple ploy she had tried before. It had not worked, and it would not work this time either. The Queen swished her tail as she circled around the table. 'You will know the truth of it all, one day. If you live that long, of course, and that depends entirely on you. So, will you tell me what I want to know?'

Twilight remained silent, and again she was riddled with pain all over her body as the Queen's horn glowed. 'You still insist on feeling more pain, Twilight Sparkle. Just speak, and it can all come to an end. All the pain, the suffering, the deprivation. It is warping your mind. I know it is. It is only a matter of time before you succumb.'

Chrysalis hit her again with the blinding agonies of her magic, repeating her question and getting no answer. She did it a third time. She asked the question once more, but abruptly and seemingly without cause, she took a step back. There was a momentary pause, and she turned, trotting rapidly out of the room, leaving Twilight alone. Something had distracted her, called her attention away. But what?

Eclipse

The Auspex arrays of the Emperor's Judgement had been working hard to provide continuous coverage of the volcano and the valley to its south where battle was raging. The pony attack seemed to have stalled, their airships, visible on the scanners, being stationary, their battle formation having been maintained the whole time, but making no progress. They were not getting any closer to the volcano, though there were countless thousands of flashes that signified the discharge of cannons or psychic energy- 'magic,' to use the pony terminology.

A fierce fight was underway, observed by the humans in orbit even as the volcano rumbled and shook, its tremors each detected in turn by the seismometer scans of the flagship. The mighty peak was getting set to erupt, and erupt it did, a brilliant flash overwhelming the thermal sensors as a huge gout of ash and magma launched itself free of its rocky confines. Quickly the ash cloud was caught by the wind, spreading out to the west as a pyroclastic flow raced down the hillside and into the valley, toward the pony ground forces. Lord-Admiral Marcos and his junior Auspex officers watched on, intrigued by the drama unfolding hundred of miles below them. The princess, her sister, and the Changeling Queen appeared to still be fighting. But even as Marcos watched, one of the figures broke away from combat. Where was she going? Was it the Queen fleeing? No, it must be one of the princesses, because they suddenly threw up some kind of barrier that appeared to be protecting the positions of the pony infantry on the ground. A massive spike in the unknown particle was registered by the sensors, evidence of the tremendous power needed to unleash such a shield that could protect against the great fury of nature. To hold back the flow of such a vast quantity of ash and rock took energy on a scale that could only be replicated by an Imperial void shield, and whichever princess was providing the power was doing so almost casually, simply holding position while their magic did its work.

Though he could only see vague silhouettes, Marcos was impressed once again by the work of the princess. It had to be Celestia, he assumed. He knew relatively little of her younger sister, but what he did know was that Celestia had been betrayed by her in the past, in the same way that the Emperor had been betrayed by his beloved son, Horus. It seemed more likely, he reasoned, that Celestia would be the one most concerned with the welfare of her subjects, and thus the most likely to have thrown up the barrier that now protected them. The airship fleet, however, had been lost to their view, engulfed by the smoke and debris thrown up by the eruption and the pyroclastic flow. A few surprisingly tense moments passed before the dust cleared enough for them to become visible again, evidence that their own shield, showing up as glowing spheres on the thermal scans, had protected them from the maelstrom. Marcos was impressed by their resilience. Even an Imperial Titan would have had trouble against such an onslaught of rock and ash, thousands of tons of debris having been ejected to race down the valley, or climb high into the sky.

Other sensors tracked the plume as it was carried by the winds towards the west. At least the eruption was not a threat to their own men on the ground to the south, nor would it impede any planned operations. Marcos still did not know, however, what its true purpose had been. There had been no contact with the princess or her sister, or anyone with any knowledge of the plan. At least, none who would admit to it. There had to be more to the story. The princess had shown herself to be too shrewd and wise of an operator to simply throw her forces into the fire, literally in this case. Such a frontal assault was not necessary, surely, just to destroy the Hive or lure out the Queen. To attack without alerting her Imperial allies first was even more suspicious. They had been working relatively well together, both at Manehattan and Canterlot. Why the sudden deception and lack of information when these Changelings were involved?

Marcos hoped to receive answers once the princess was back in Canterlot. Assuming she survived her run-in with the Queen, but he had little doubt that she would. She had fought against guns and daemons alike and not suffered harm. He doubted this Changeling would be any different. A big operation was being planned against the city of Baltimare, south of Ponyville, and the Lord-Admiral was hoping to be able to count on the support of the ponies, even though their assistance would likely not be needed. Given Celestia's demonstrated talents, however, it seemed wise to have her on hand and willing to offer assistance, assistance which had proven vital several times already.

A large mass on the visual sensors seemed to be heading to the east with some speed. Additional zoom revealed that it appeared to be the Changeling drones, departing the fight in large quantities. Marcos ordered them to be tracked, in the hopes of finding out where they were going so that, if they attempted to build a new Hive, it could be easily destroyed. Despite being cold blooded, as a large unified formation the drones were relatively easy to detect on the visual scans, but no sooner were they out of range of the battlefield than the large group began to split up. Individual drones could not be tracked from orbit, and soon the contact had been lost entirely, and with it any hope of following the drones to their new home, wherever on this planet that might be.

Despite the tracking failure, Marcos was still happy to have collected a significant amount of data regarding the Changelings, both in terms of their movements, the way they reacted to threats, and the way they fought in open battle. It would be very useful if Imperial forces found themselves in direct conflict with more than the mere handful of Changelings who were known to have infiltrated the ship. The Imperials, however, still knew only a bare minimum about the creatures. Their biology had been thoroughly gone over with a fine toothed comb by the Magi of the Ferrus Terra, but of their social, military and cultural ways and customs, it was almost a blank slate. The combat footage obtained by the Auspex cameras would help develop strategies against them, Marcos hoped, though he also hoped not to have to put those strategies into practice. Fighting the Archenemy and a few scattered infiltrators was enough to have on their plate, so far from home and with no chance of reinforcements.

He returned his attention to the battlefield displayed on the holo-map, and the vid-feeds from the Auspex arrays. The princess and her sister were still fighting, an intriguing contest of will and strength between the two of them and the Changeling Queen, their sworn enemy. The two sides seemed evenly matched. Who would emerge victorious remained to be seen.

With the force of the pyroclastic flow spent, Princess Celestia was able to return to aid her sister. She flapped higher in the sky toward the duel. Chrysalis and Luna were still swirling around each other, teleporting to and fro, hurling magic back and forth.

'Coming back for more after your oh so noble detour?' Chrysalis mocked as Celestia rejoined the fight. 'A fool's errand, as well you know. You may be able to save your precious subjects from this, but you will not save them from me.'

Celestia didn't bother replying, but merely lowered her horn and unleashed a great wave of magic in an attempt to catch Chrysalis off guard. It didn't work. The Queen was ready for a sudden attack and teleported out of the way, getting behind Celestia, who in turn anticipated just such a move, immediately turning and firing again. Chrysalis ducked before returning fire. Luna dropped down to add to the Queen's woes, but the Changeling was ready for that, too.

The stalemate between the royals had been continuing for some time, with neither side seemingly capable of achieving the upper hoof over the other for long enough to deal a finishing blow. Chrysalis was outnumbered, but the extra strength she had gained from so much extra love was helping her stay on an even keel while fighting both royal sisters at once. Her assaults were relentless, but the shields and teamwork of the sisters were equally unceasing.

Two of the airships left the battle line at the direction of the flagship's signal lamps to try and break the deadlock, or at the very least distract the Queen somewhat, while their fellows licked their wounds and conducted emergency repairs and medical treatment of the wounded. The Illustrious and the Vulture powered forward, noses swinging round to drive toward the melee before turning to present a broadside to the target. The Queen, however, was busily flitting here and there, and hitting such a target would be very difficult. The gunners crouched over their weapons, peering through their sights, eagerly awaiting a clear shot at Chrysalis. She was not keen to oblige.

One enterprising machine-cannon operator managed to get a bead on her as she happened to materialise directly in his line of fire after teleporting. He quickly squeezed the trigger and rattled off a burst of shells, in the fruitless belief that they would somehow manage to penetrate her shield, which even Celestia's strongest magic had so far failed to do. He was rapidly disabused of that notion as his shots bounced off with no effect, other than to alert the Queen to the presence of the airships and their attempts to attack her.

They succeeded in their objective, in the sense that Chrysalis turned her attentions away from the princesses to deal with the nuisance. Her shield held firm as she lowered her horn and let loose with a blast of green energy. The Vulture's barrier did not prove as hardy, as the powerful magic cut straight through, through the gasbag, and out the other side of the shield. Above the hopeful gunner, a great billowing mushroom of flame was erupting from the envelope, spilling down upon the deck. Ponies were covered in flame and became screaming torches. With the gasbag punctured and the fire spreading rapidly along its length, the airship began to lose height. The crew abandoned ship almost immediately, for a gasbag fire was the death knell for any dirigible. So it proved in this case, as the Vulture fell to earth, crumpling up into a flaming mass of metal and charred wood upon the valley floor. Chrysalis had immediately turned her attention to the Illustrious which had accompanied the other airship, and within moments, it shared the same fate. This time her shot struck the middle of the gondola, ripped straight through the wood and armour plating, and detonated one of the main magazines, ripping the whole gondola apart in a huge explosion. The gasbag was also punctured by shrapnel from the blast, and turned into another great fiery candle in the sky.

Even as the two airships burned, Chrysalis returned to engaging the two sisters directly in battle. More magic flashed and flew across the sky. Once more, the Queen focused her attention on the younger sibling. Luna's shield had already fallen once, and Chrysalis was determined to make it fall once again. She teleported behind Luna, fired, teleported away when she turned, appeared behind her again, fired, and repeated the process. Luna tried her best to counter the attacks, but Chrysalis was proving to be too fast. Celestia tried to intervene, but Chrysalis just changed her pattern, appearing below the younger sister instead of behind, pounding her with magical strikes.

Celestia managed to intercept Chrysalis and hurl a strong beam of magic at her, but she dodged and retaliated. Celestia's shield took a hit, but it held. Luna's, on the other hand, was weakening with every blow that Chrysalis managed to land upon it. It quavered with each impact, shuddering and wobbling like jelly under the repeated strikes of such powerful magic. Despite her best efforts, Luna could not get clear of Chrysalis, who stuck doggedly to her, somehow always managing to keep one step ahead, always keeping the advantage. Celestia's attempts to lure Chrysalis away by presenting an easy target failed, as did her attempts at knocking the Queen out of the fight. Chrysalis had a target in mind and she was not going to deviate.

A particularly strong blast of magic struck Luna's shield from behind, and it collapsed, the stress and the mental torture of such powerful and repeated strikes overloading Luna's ability to maintain her defence. She was vulnerable, and quickly teleported away while Celestia dove in to try and distract Chrysalis with a string of magic bolts that bounced off of her shield. But the Queen was not going to be denied this time. Luna reappeared after teleporting, and Chrysalis was ready for her.

A great blast of magic erupted from her horn and sped towards Luna. The younger sibling could not dodge away in time, and she was struck; only a glancing blow, but the magic scorched her left side, tearing through her wing and her flank. Luna let out a strangled cry of pain, and began to fall, spiraling to the ground far below to gasps from the surviving airship crews who were watching the battle.

Celestia was at her sister's side almost immediately, teleporting down to catch her. She gently brought Luna to the ground and laid her upon the earth. Chrysalis, floating above, gave a menacing laugh as she watched.

'How touching! The moon has fallen, and the sun rushes to its aid. Do what you will, Celestia, but know that I will be the victor, whatever you may plot, however you may scheme. I need not defeat you here today, on this battlefield. When I am through, you will die a thousand deaths when you see what I have done with your precious Equestria. And see it you shall, for you will be enslaved beneath my hoof, in your rightful place as you bow before your new Queen! Soon, this whole planet will be mine!'

Celestia's horn glowed a furious gold, but before she could unleash her anger, the Queen had gone, disappearing with a pop of magic and displaced air. This time, she did not reappear behind, above, or beside the princesses. She had vanished from the valley. Celestia turned her attentions to Luna.

'Sister...' She gently cradled Luna in her hooves. Luna's eyes were open, though faded, and she managed to turn her head to look up at her older sibling.

'I am alright...' Luna assured her. 'I am alright...' A quick glance revealed that she was not entirely accurate. Chrysalis's magic had burned and charred her skin along a good portion of her left torso, from her chest back to her flank. Many of her left wing's flight feathers were singed or entirely gone. Her wounds were not fatal, and with good care she would most likely make a full recovery, but to see her own sister in such a state clearly affected Celestia in a way that she had not displayed for a long time. Her voice was slightly shaky as she replied.

'We will get you home, dear sister...back to Canterlot. You will be fine...' Medics, appropriately from the Luna. flew down to assist, but Celestia waved them away with a message for the fleet. 'Have all craft fall back to the staging area except the Fillydelphia,' she ordered. 'They are to remain in position in case the infiltration team require extraction. I am taking my sister directly to Canterlot.' The ponies bowed their heads and returned to their airship to spread the word. Celestia held Luna tightly. 'We're going home, sister.' Her horn glowed, and the two princesses were gone.

Twilight, watching closely from the rocks of the western foothills, shared in the collective gaps of the onlookers as they watched Princess Luna tumble from the sky. The highly pyrotechnic destruction of the two airships had been dramatic and devastating enough, but they were only constructs of ponies, artificial, though loaded with crew. This was different, and she noted that even the battle-hardened Assault Infantry and special operations forces around her appeared visibly and audibly distressed at the development. The only time Twilight had seen one of the princesses defeated in battle, it had been as a result of Chrysalis's actions at the royal wedding, and now she had struck again. This time it was the other princess who was on the receiving end of her wrath, and Princess Luna who now lay down on the valley floor. Again, Twilight's first instinct was to run to her aid, but the steady hoof of Spitfire touching her shoulder told her that she had to hold back, to watch and wait. Princess Celestia was there, she was helping her sister. That would have to be enough comfort for now, despite Twilight's inner turmoil. It was Luna who had made contact with her, who had been the first to know that she was still alive and in captivity. She had come to help, and had paid the price in turn. Twilight had no idea of the extent of her wounds from such a distance, but she could only imagine Luna lying in agony, sharing her last words with her sister before closing her eyes for the last time. It took all of her willpower just to imagine anything else.

To the surprise of those around her, Queen Chrysalis, far from going in for the kill on a distracted and surely distraught Celestia, simply vanished from the battlefield instead. Moments later, Luna and Celestia also disappeared in a flash of white light. Twilight did not know where any of them had gone, but they did not reappear. She sank back down to rest against a rock, her deep tiredness returning. She had not known any true rest for- what was it Spitfire had said? Twelve days?- and had not slept for at least two, by her estimate, which could be wildly wrong. Her sense of time, normally fairly good thanks to her natural inclination to be anal and neurotic about timekeeping and being 'tardy,' had compltely failed her during her time in the hive. She had no idea how long she had been above ground, either.

The remaining airships that had been forming the battle line began to withdraw, turning and heading back down the valley, away from the smoking remains of the volcano, which had blown its top half apart with tremendous fury.

'Where are they going?' Twilight exclaimed, seeing their retreat. 'They can't just leave us here!'

'Don't worry,' Spitfire replied from beside her. 'Standard procedure. The battle here is over and there's no way they can get into the Hive now, if there's anything left to get into at all...which I doubt. They're falling back to the rendezvous point.'

'But what about us?' Twilight repeated nervously. 'Are they just abandoning us?'

'Of course not.' Spitfire shook her head firmly. 'Don't worry. See that one, over there?' She pointed with an outstretched hoof at one of the larger airships which, unlike all of its fellows, was not heading down the valley, but rather up it, towards them, its shield keeping it safe from the occasional swirling cloud of ash which wafted on some upcurrent washing over from the mountains. A signal lamp flashed from the main deck, though Twilight could not understand what it was trying to say. None of the ponies around her seemed to be returning the signals, but Spitfire produced something from her belt. It was a pistol, or at least it looked like it, a small brass hoof-held weapon. Spitfire cracked open the tube to check that it was loaded, then snapped it back into place. She raised it above her head, aimed it upward, and pulled the trigger.

A blazing red fireball shot skyward in a gently curving arc, a flare burning bright against the blue. The colour red had been chosen for two reasons; firstly, it would show up better against the sky, and second, green was the colour of Changeling magic, and it would not be a good idea to potentially be confused with an enemy. Spitfire cracked open the flare gun and loaded a second cartridge, raising it up again and firing. Another fireball arced across the sky. Upon seeing the second flare, the airship began to turn its nose towards them.

'Told you not to worry,' Spitfire reassured Twilight. 'Alright everypony! Grab your gear and get ready for pickup,' she called. The survivors of the assault force had been resting among the rocks, and those that were not on watch grabbed their rifles and helmets. The airship came in closer, turning again to come in sideways toward the mountain. Spitfire left Twilight in the care of Arcwing, and took off, flying over to the airship.

She found a good number of guns trained on her. The airship crew were clearly taking no chances; the possibility that she was really a Changeling infiltrator was quite real. She came to a stop near the gondola. On the quarterdeck, Captain Ironside called out the challenge, both the daily password, the operational password, and Spitfire's personal password, all of which she readily supplied.

Even with a triple check, mere words were not enough to confirm her identity- a Changelings who had taken over her body would have her memories as well. While a Changeling could manifest the appearance of wearing a dead pony's clothing, they could not create accessories or equipment; if Spitfire were a Changeling, she would be unable to remove her uniform, as it would be part of her magical deception. To prove herself the real deal, Spitfire removed first her helmet, then her wing coverings, and finally her tunic. From the pocket of the tunic she then produced the final confirmation, a passcode printed on a slip of paper that had been given to her before their departure from Canterlot. A crewpony flew out and retrieved it, returning it to Captain Ironside, who possessed the second half of the code on another piece of paper. The two halves matched up correctly, meaning it was the code she had been issued. While it was always possible that a Changeling could have killed her, rummaged through her uniform and found the passcode, then transformed itself into her and put on her uniform, all the evidence pointed to it being Spitfire herself. All reasonable precautions had been taken, and, as the ponies had found over the years, there was a certain point where one just had to accept that what they saw before them was the truth, and not a concealed lie. It was all but impossible to be absolutely, one hundred percent sure with cast-iron proof that anypony was not a Changeling, unless you had seen that pony die with your own eyes. The precautions carried out in this case were greater than would normally be used, since Spitfire and her ponies had not just engaged the Changelings in battle, but had actively entered their home, and as such the danger of an infiltration was high. There was no way, other than the confirmatory checks, of telling whether the entire assault force had been wiped out and replaced by disguised drones.

Ironside, at least, was satisfied that his old student and friend was real. He welcomed her aboard, shaking her hoof warmly. 'Did you succeed in your mission, Major?' he asked.

'Partly...' Spitfire replied. 'We recovered Twilight Sparkle, but there was no sign of the Element.'

'How sure are you that it's actually Twilight?' Ironside questioned. 'Could it be an impersonator?'

'I don't think so,' Spitfire shook her head. 'I'm pretty convinced it's really her. I've met her before a few times. She was in some kind of torture chamber, strapped down...doesn't confirm anything, I know, and I wouldn't put it past the Changelings to play a dirty trick like that, but the princess will be able to tell for sure.'

'Right.' Ironside nodded. 'Bring her aboard, and we'll set course for Canterlot.' Spitfire took off from the deck and returned to the mountain peak where Twilight sat.

'Alright, let's go. Arcwing, bring her aboard.' Spitfire offered a helping hoof as Arcwing lifted Twilight, and together, they flew her out to the Fillydelphia, setting her gently down upon the deck. Twilight looked around as a pair of Air Corps medics approached to tend to her. She was surrounded not by bare rock walls and snarling drones, but by ponies. Earth, Unicorn, Pegasus; all the familiar shapes that she had known since foalhood. All of them were in uniform, most of them were armed or manning weapons, but nevertheless, she knew that, for the first time in twelve days, she was safe.

Tipping Point

Lord-Admiral Marcos had retreated to his ready room. There was a lot to think about, a lot of developments of late. Baltimare was lost, and fallout was descending across Canterlot, the pony capital. He had warned the princess, and that was all he could have done. A cleanup team was down there right now, doing what they could to help out. They had protective suits and equipment that could wash away much of the radiation, but it seemed, from their reports, that the ponies possessed similar technologies. They had chemical protective suits, they had self contained oxygen gear, they had decontamination equipment.

For the most part, the ponies could take care of themselves, but any support was welcomed, according to the princess. Marcos felt it was only right to offer the help of Imperial technical skill and knowledge to these relatively primitive aliens whose home they had disturbed and invaded. He had to admit to himself, that was not normal. With any other alien species, he would have dismissed their cares and feelings outright, perhaps even wiped them out from orbit. It would not be the first time humanity had struck without warning, and it would most certainly not be the last. But something told him that was the wrong thing to do, ever since arriving in the system, and ever since meeting the princess in person, Marcos found that every sinew screamed at him to do what she said, to follow her lead.

After all, she knew this planet, she knew its inhabitants. That was his justification, and it was a reasonable one, wasn't it? That was what he had to keep telling himself. He could not bring himself to believe that Celestia was somehow manipulating him. He had never been fooled by a Xenos before, and he hoped he never would be in the future. But perhaps this was an exception? Something about her psychic powers...Marcos knew that there was a danger, whenever psykers were involved, of getting suckered in to their lies and deceit, whatever game they were playing and whatever their aims. But still, he felt that Celestia's intentions were pure, remarkably so. Even if she were playing them all for fools and getting them to fight the Archenemy, the Changelings, and whoever else might pop up and prove to be an old foe of the ponies, Marcos still felt that she was doing it not to cement her own position. That was where she differed from most, not just from most Xenos but from most humans, as well. Anyone in a position of power would use that power to make sure they kept it. Celestia, on the other hand, seemed to use her undoubted power to further the needs, desires and goals of her subjects, rather than herself. Maybe it was because she had achieved all she wanted; to be supreme ruler of Equestria might be the limit of her ambition. But perhaps it was from a true and pure sense of moral duty. She could easily have taken control of the whole planet, no ifs, no buts, no resistance to her formidable power, combined with that of her military. Yet she had permitted the Griffons, the Zebras, even the Changelings, to live and thrive. Very few, if any, Imperial governors would have allowed such things upon their planets.

But of course, Celestia was not part of the Imperium, and she did not live by their values. She lived very much by her own, and those of Equestria. Whether she had adopted those of her society or whether the society had adopted hers, Marcos did not know. Maybe with time he would discover her secrets, but for now, all he could do was to treat her as both a threat and an equal. He, and she, both wanted the best for those under their command. No leader could seek less or demand more. Their primary responsibility was to those who followed them, and thus it would always remain.

Marcos would never abdicate his responsibility to his men. It may not have seemed like it at all times to those under his command, but he really did care about them. He did not want to inflict undue casualties on them where it could be avoided. Sacrifice was necessary, of course, for humanity could not continue to stand without it. But to needlessly waste the lives of the Emperor's children would be anathema to Him. There was the pragmatic consideration, too; unnecessary losses weakened any fighting force, especially one so far from home and with no prospect of reinforcement. The fleet was already badly understrength as a result of the engagements with Chaos forces, and once they were done here at Kuda Prime they would be heading back to Hydraphur.

Their mission this far out was done, and a report on the nature of what they had found would make for interesting reading back at Segmentum Command. Or perhaps not. Marcos still had not decided exactly what he would say regarding the planet and its inhabitants. There were many factors to be considered in such a report; sometimes the truth was the least important of all of them.

The Lord-Admiral gathered his thoughts and strode out onto the bridge.

'My Lord, we are receiving the latest meteorological reports.' Marcos looked over to the officer who had spoken.

'Excellent. What do they tell us, Ensign?' he asked.

'Prevailing winds are expected to continue blowing to the north for the next thirty six hours, My Lord,' the Ensign replied, reading from the screen as the data scrolled up. 'Light rain is expected over Baltimare beginning in approximately four hours, with the rain spreading north later tonight, beginning at approximately twenty two hundred hours local.'

That was not good. It meant the fallout would continue to be carried towards Canterlot, and the rain would result in a much greater deposition of radioactive material, carried down by the precipitation more readily than if it was just left to fall of its own accord, which had been the case since the explosion occurred. It also meant that the ponies would have to remain below ground for the foreseeable future, at least for the next few days.

'My Lord, new Auspex contact!'

The shout from another console surprised and startled Marcos. 'What? Where? Identify!'

'Bearing zero-five-three,' came the reply. 'Range four million...standby...'

Marcos clenched his fists into balls of iron. What was this? From nowhere, suddenly, a new threat? Or an old one?

'Contact is a Desolator-Class battleship, My Lord!' came the cry.

'Battle stations!' Marcos roared. 'Alert the fleet! Prepare all weapons and all decks for combat!'

The crew jumped into action, as startled as their commander by the sudden reappearance of the single surviving Chaos battleship. It had fled the fighting as its fellow and the warfleet's flagship, the Soul Harvest, was finally destroyed under an intense combined pounding of capital ship weaponry and torpedoes from dozens of attack craft. A search had been conducted of likely hiding places; behind the moon, in the asteroid belt. There had been no sign of it, no trace of the few remaining Chaos ships, and yet, it seemed, here was one of them.

'Helm, bring us about, bearing zero-five-three,' Marcos ordered. Raise and reinforce all void shields. Auspex, can you get a positive identification?'

'Yes, My Lord,' the Lieutenant at the console replied. 'ID is Daemonfate.' That confirmed it. It was the same battleship which had fled, now returned, but for what purpose?

'Are there any other new contacts?' Marcos asked. Surely the battleship would not come alone. It had two surviving cruiser escorts, along with a small number of frigates and destroyers, when it had left the battle, so where were they now, where had they been hiding, and how had they returned undetected?

'Why did the pickets not report this craft?' Marcos queried angrily. 'Were they asleep at their posts? Hail the Polaris Maxima. I want to know why they did not raise the alarm!'

'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is heading toward us,' the Auspex officer informed him in a curious tone.

'Did they not receive the fleet order?' Marcos growled. 'What are they playing at? Hail them again!'

'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is signalling us with infrared lights,' another officer called. So their vox was down. The infrared lights replaced the spotlights and signal lamps of ancient times, intended as an emergency backup if vox communications were disrupted or in conditions where it was advisable not to transmit over the net, such as when attempting to hide or conduct a sneak attack or ambush.

'What a fine time to suffer a vox failure!' Marcos pounded the command lectern with his fist. 'Remind me to have their maintenance team all shot after this! And what of destroyer section Tertius?'

'No contact, My Lord. They are still out of vox range due to the planet,' came the reply.

'What is the Polaris Maxima signalling?' the Lord-Admiral questioned.

'Vox failure, My Lord, as you anticipated. Contact report on the enemy battleship...destroyer section Tertius was last heard from proceeding to investigate unknown anomalous readings in the outer system.'

'No doubt they had discovered our long lost friend here,' Marcos growled. 'Signal the fleet to move into attack formation. Have the Polaris Maxima fall in alongside the Indefatigable, on her port. Standby to launch all attack craft.'

'Contact range is now three million,' the Auspex officer informed the bridge crew. 'Their shields are not yet raised.'

'No shields?' Marcos frowned. 'They may be planning to try a boarding action. Alert all ships to be wary of teleportation attempts and watch for the launch of any assault pods!'

'Yes, My Lord!' The vox officer transmitted the message as the ships continued to draw closer to the huge Chaos battleship. It was alone out there, though closing rapidly on both the fleet and the planet, coming in almost on a parabolic trajectory that brought it around the planet which had hidden it from the sensors of the Imperial ships. The Polaris Maxima should have either detected the battleship or relayed a message from the destroyer section to the same effect, but the breakdown in communications meant that no early warning had been received. That was why the cruiser had been turning and heading for the fleet; to warn them, using its infrared signals to sound the alarm.

The warning may have come late, but the fleet was springing into action now. The half dozen surviving cruisers were forming up around the two true capital ships, the mighty bulwark that was the Emperor's Judgement and the powerhouse in the form of the Indefatigable, whose Nova Cannon had been repaired and was online. The Malleo Mortis would be sorely missed, not just for the men and women that had died with it, but for its formidable combat potential as well. Its great lance batteries would not add their tremendous firepower to the coming battle.

A Desolator-Class battleship was a formidable foe, but it was alone, without escorts. That swung the odds greatly in the favour of the Imperial fleet, depleted though its ranks undoubtedly were. Marcos sent a signal to the Indefatigable, and moments later its Nova Cannon flashed, a ranging shot cutting across the blackness and impacting firmly upon the prow of the battleship which faced them. Undeterred, its continued on its path, not slowing or wavering.

Marcos sent another order that set the fleet turning and braking, forming a firing line and presenting their broadsides to the enemy, ready to engage. The battleship drew closer, steadily but surely. Still, for some unknown reason, its shields were not up. Even more puzzling, its lances were silent.

Another Nova Cannon shot struck the thick prow armour of the Daemonfate, and even the projectile, traveling at near light speed, could do little more than gouge a hole in the ceramite. Marcos waited, waited as the ship drew closer to the fleet.

'Range one million miles,' came the call from the Auspex.

'Fire!' he roared.

A thousand guns blazed. At one million miles out, the battleship was invisible to the naked eye, but it appeared bright as day on the infrared scopes and microwave sensor banks. It was far enough away that many of the shots, especially from the less accurate weaponry such as the heavy macrocannons, would miss entirely, but the prow of the Daemonfate was peppered with las-blasts, plasma bolts and missiles. Still it came on, and still its guns were silent.

'Something's wrong here...' Marcos growled. 'Why does he not fire?'

'I do not know, My Lord,' Flag Captain Bormann replied. 'Perhaps its weapons were damaged during the last engagement?'

'All of them?' Marcos turned to Bormann. 'You show me a Chaos ship that isn't firing, and I'll show you a Chaos ship that is up to something.' But what?

What could they be planning? They had no escorts, surely this was not a serious attempt at breaking through the Imperial fleet, and certainly not at destroying it. One battleship alone, no matter how skillfully commanded and crewed, could scarcely be expected to stand against two dozen escorts, six cruisers, a battlecruiser and another ship of its own class. The enemy captain must be aware of such a thing, so what was he trying to do?

'He's going to crash...' Marcos growled. 'He wants to make planetfall!' During the initial attack by the Chaos fleet, the Grand Cruiser which had entered the atmosphere due to battle damage and broken up in mid-air had made a horrific mess of the southeastern fringe of the main continent. A battleship, a considerably bulkier craft, slamming into the planet at high speed, would end all life on the surface, an extinction level event almost without question. The blast would make the atomic that had destroyed Baltimare look like a pinprick, and even the mighty force of mother nature in the form of the volcanic eruption would be humbled into silence. Tens of thousands of guardsmen would die; hundreds of thousands of ponies, the entire species wiped from existence, with the possible exception of the princess, given the power she had displayed, though even that assumed she knew what was coming.

There was no time to focus on those below, only to focus on what could be done to save them all. 'Full broadside, all ships, fire at will! Launch all attack craft!' Marcos bellowed. Hundreds of fighters and bombers flooded the launch tubes and were shot out into space, ducking below the hail of fire that was being poured at the enemy battleship to try and get close enough for a torpedo launch.

Suddenly, randomly, the battleship's void shields went up, after a good ninety seconds of taking sustained fire on the hull. Perhaps the captain had decided his ship was not going to make it through to the planet without them, but then why not have them raised to begin with? The ship continued to draw closer, its hull, and now its shields, shrugging off everything that was being thrown at it.

'Range now one hundred thousand!' the Auspex officer shouted. Still there was no return fire from the battleship. 'They are diverting all power to their forward shields, My Lord.'

'Then get somebody round behind them!' Marcos ordered. The escorts and the attack craft were moving to comply, sweeping through space, staying out of the line of fire from the capital ships as they bombarded the flickering shields of the Daemonfate.

'My Lord...the enemy ship is slowing!' the Auspex officer called again. Sure enough, braking jets were being fired, the main drives thrown into reverse. But why would it be slowing down if it wanted to his the planet? Marcos watched on in confusion as the battleship passed over the top of the Imperial firing line, steadily slowing. Its shields were weakening, but still holding, as the dorsal lances of the Indefatigable raked its underbelly. It continued on, slowing all the while, now getting hit by the other broadsides of the Imperial ships.

'My Lord!' came the startled cry from the Auspex officer. 'I am detecting an enormous buildup of energy from within the enemy ship. It appears their reactor is being overloaded!'

Overloaded? The Imperial fire was not punching through the shields. They had not inflicted anywhere near enough hull damage to cause a reactor overload, which could mean only one thing; that it was being done deliberately.

'Signal all ships! Get clear of the enemy!' Marcos ordered. The ships of the fleet obeyed, powering up their drives and moving away. In the few seconds they had, the extra miles could make all the difference. The Daemonfate was moving too, though slowly, still towards the planet, but not for long.

As the Imperial ships moved to a safe distance, the Daemonfate's main reactors were overloaded. Unable to contain the raw energies being produced, their casings ruptured, and with a great, incandescent flash, the huge battleship vanished completely, consumed by the tremendous blast and the rapidly fading fireball, snuffed out by the vacuum as soon as it had appeared. Thousands of tons of fragmented debris, hurled free by the force of the explosion, were tossed out into the void. Some of it bounced harmlessly off of the shields of the Imperial fleet, and some fell into the gravity well of the planet to burn up in the atmosphere. Some simply drifted away into space, to sail for eternity through the cosmos.

The Emperor's Judgement was rocked by the blast, but unharmed. The rest of the fleet reported in; no damage reported. All ships were intact. There was only one question on the minds of every crewmember; what the hell had just happened?

The Polaris Maxima had fallen into the combat line with the rest of the fleet, with no indications of anything untoward having occurred on board other than the apparent failure of their vox system. That was a ruse, of course; the system was functioning just fine, but vox contact would have exposed Lieutenant Callantine's coup and the fact that Captain Danrich would not have been on the other end of the line. It kept the truth hidden from the Lord-Admiral and the rest of the fleet, while the Lieutenant furthered her plans, whatever they might prove to be.

The Polaris Maxima had fought and had fired at the oncoming Chaos craft, but that didn't mean much. Given that Danrich had been able to watch from his position on the bridge as the battle, such as it was, had unfolded before him on the viewscreens, he had seen that the Chaos ship had apparently blown itself up. He had no idea why, or what the Chaos forces hoped to gain by such a bizarre course of action, but he now knew that this was not just some run of the mill uprising perpetuated by a few disgruntled crewmembers. This was the act of the enemy, and their supporters on board his ship. Not just mutiny, but treason, heresy, the ultimate betrayal.

'You knew that ship was coming, I take it?' Danrich asked Lieutenant Callantine, who now occupied his captain's chair, while he sat, wrists manacled and under armed guard, over in the corner. The rest of the surviving bridge crew were still huddled together in the middle of the deck, with a ring of steel keeping them there.

'You believe I had something to do with that, hm?' Callantine turned to face the captain, swivelling her chair- his chair- around. 'Whatever makes you say that, captain?'

'It's no coincidence,' Danrich growled. 'First, the destroyers report anomalous readings. Next, you and your gang of pirates arrive here on my bridge. Almost immediately, the destroyers come under attack, and then minutes later that battleship appears. You're not mutineers, Lieutenant. You're traitors,' he spat.

'Oh, nonsense,' Callantine scoffed. 'To be a traitor, one must have once believed in that which they are betraying. I don't know about the rest of these fine people, but I for one have never believed in your Imperium, or your Emperor.'

'Then you are a heretic as well. The penalty for both things is death,' Danrich reminded her, drawing a laugh from the Lieutenant, who seemed to be enjoying her time in the captain's chair

'So come, captain. Carry out the sentence!' she taunted, producing her Hellpistol from her belt and flipping it, offering the butt of the weapon to him. 'Oh yes, I forgot. You can't. Do not worry, though. As soon as we get back to Hydraphur, I am sure the authorities there will administer the correct punishments for all of us. We have been so very, very naughty, haven't we?' She laughed and spun the weapon around her finger before slipping it back into its holster. 'Remind me Captain, what is the punishment for losing control of one's ship?'

Danrich remained silent. She would not goad him into a response on that point. Yes, death was the likely punishment, because a mutiny on board usually indicated poor morale, something which came down from the captain and his actions towards the crew. Treat them too well, and they became decadent, lazy, inefficient. Treat them too harshly, and they became morose, sullen, angry. A middle ground had to be sought, and Danrich, as far as he was concerned, had been treading that middle ground during the entire Crusade.

But perhaps that was the problem. This entire Crusade. There was plenty of time for mutinous ideas to fester below decks during the years away from home port and the pleasures of secure Imperial space. This wild frontier was a great place to send Explorator fleets or Rogue Traders, but less so for an Imperial battlefleet. There had been action, yes, perhaps too much. But with so long away from home, those elements within the crew- radicalists, Xenos lovers, witches, criminal gangs, all the denizens of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that was the lower deck bunkroom- who had treasonous or other seditious ideas to spread found they had plenty of time to do so during the long weeks of warp travel and day after day of perimeter patrol.

'So which is it? You want to return to Hydraphur, or you want to stay here and help your masters with whatever their plan is?' Danrich asked Callantine after a few moments.

'My masters?' The Lieutenant chuckled lightly. 'My only master is myself, Captain. Do you believe that I summoned that battleship somehow? No, no. That was the same ship that was in battle before, was it not? You saw it for yourself. The Auspex readouts confirmed it, didn't they? Most likely it has been here the entire time, under your very noses, watching, waiting for this opportunity.'

'Opportunity to do what? To blow itself up?' Danrich questioned. 'It could have done that weeks ago and saved us all the trouble.'

'It could have, but it didn't,' Callantine replied. 'I do not know why. I am not privy to the inner workings of the mind of the ship's captain, or of those to whom he owes his loyalty. All I know is that this was the best time for us to strike.'

'That's what they told you, is it? And what have you achieved? That ship was still destroyed. It didn't even try to fight. Why not?' Danrich asked, narrowing his eyes, seeking the ploy, the trick that the fleet must have missed. What possible purpose could it serve to simply have the ship explode? It had not seriously threatened the fleet, and had not damaged them. It had not even fired upon them. It had not been attempting to crash onto the planet's surface; it had braked beforehand. So what was it trying to do?

'As I told you, Captain,' Callantine replied, 'I am not privy to the thoughts of the ship's crew, but I am sure they know exactly what they are doing. As you say, they would not simply self-destruct their vessel for no reason, would they?'

Beyond the planet, there lay the moon, the single natural satellite of Kuda Prime. A barren wasteland of rock, devoid of atmosphere and pockmarked with craters from meteorite and asteroid impacts accrued over millennia, churning up the fine regolith and disturbing the silence for a brief moment before calm returned. There had never been any life on the moon, other than Princess Luna when she had been enduring her banishment from home.

With a sudden, dazzling flash of light, that began to change. There was a gash, a tear in space and time, a roiling rift of deep purples and reds, just above the surface of the moon. Something was happening. Something was coming.

Fillydelphia Freedom

The tanks were being slowed. Not just slowed, but held, by the Chaos defences. In spite of the heavy air attacks being unleashed upon them, the defenders of Fillydelphia were resisting with a peculiar vigor. They had given up Baltimare almost without a fight, in order to lure the Imperial forces into a trap. Here, however, there would be no such capitulation. Here, they were fighting to the death for the first line of trenches. How much more vehemently would they try and assert themselves deeper into the city itself?

Captain Mayner ordered Dinnis to move cautiously. Big Beautiful Doll was a cumbersome beast, but a talented driver, treating her like a gallant gentleman should treat a beautiful woman, could persuade her to move with ease and relative grace across the battlefield. It was hard, but it was necessary when faced with the potential of finding land mines every few feet. There was no way of telling how many were out there, so all the crew could do was to move slowly and hope.

If a tank ran over a mine, the crew would most certainly know about it. A single mine could destroy a tank, so each movement had to be done with care. One mis-step, so to speak, could be fatal to the entire crew, and no driver wanted to be responsible for that. Neither did any commander. Mayner kept a close watch through his thermoscope, looking for any tiny indication he might see which might indicate a mine lying in their path. The likelihood of him spotting one was remote, but he would certainly not see them if he did not look.

Mayner instructed Dinnis to position the tank in the wake of one of the other vehicles ahead of them. In a minefield, the only safe place was somewhere you knew for sure that there were no mines. The only place you knew there were no mines was somewhere that another vehicle had already driven over. Following in the tracks made by another tank was the safest course of action, especially when, as in this case, that other tank was fitted with a heavy dozer blade, mounted to the front of the hull, which could be lowered to clear obstacles. It could also be used to either detonate mines, or force them out of the tanks' path, depending on how deeply the mine was buried and how much pressure the blade applied to the ground.

Dinnis carefully brought the tank around. Once they were in behind the dozer tank they could be fairly assured of not running over any mines, but they still had to cross open, flat ground to get there. Mines could be all over the place. Missiles were streaking in from the enemy defences, too, just to add to their worries. The tanks of the rest of 1st Battalion were advancing slowly to their left and right, moving, as they were, with caution, watching for hidden dangers.

With skill, and more than a little luck, Big Beautiful Doll reached the tracks left by the dozer tank. Dinnis swung the vehicle around to line up with them, and followed the other vehicle toward the enemy. They were closing in on the first of the trench lines, which had taken a heavy pounding from friendly air attacks, as well as the initial artillery bombardment. There were still pockets of resistance there, men fighting to the death rather than fall back or surrender. Most of the heavy weapons in the first line had been knocked out, however, and there was little the Chaos infantry there could do to stem the flow of advancing tanks that were starting to reach their positions.

Tanks crushed the razor wire barricades and swept on, crossing the trenches with ease, sponson-mounted heavy bolters chattering as they swept adjacent sections with fire, blowing men to pieces. A few with greater presence of mind tried to hurl satchel charges or melta-bombs at the tanks, with little success, although one tank did get caught, the melta charge burning straight through its hull armour and knocking out its engine, rendering the vehicle immobile, straddling the trench it had been trying to cross.

One minor local success did not change the outcome, however, and the Imperial tanks roared across the first trench line in increasing numbers. The infantry, following behind, were able to quickly disembark from their carriers and move out, sweeping the trench and clearing it of any surviving enemies. As the infantry got to work, the tanks moved on, pushing toward the second defence line some few hundred yards to the rear.

Here, there were more heavy guns, including lascannon and missile launchers which had escaped the bombardment and air strikes. They began to take a toll on the Imperial armour as it pressed forward, striking a few lucky blows and knocking out several tanks. More air strikes were being conducted on the second line, but there were bunkers there which were proving to be a tough nut to crack from above.

'Load high explosive!' Mayner ordered. 'Gunner, target, two o'clock, bunker position, range twelve hundred.'

'Up!' Janssen called. 'Identified!' Cheyne added.

'Fire!' Mayner replied. The tank bucked as a round raced away, striking the face of the distant ferrocrete structure. The bunker was engulfed in a cloud of dust and smoke as a result, making it hard to determine if their round had been effective. Mayner looked through his thermoscope, where the thermal image allowed him to see through the smoke, giving him a clearer picture of the situation. The bunker appeared mostly intact, the barrel of a lascannon still protruding from it. Mayner could not tell if it was still operational, or at least, he couldn't until it fired. Evidently their shell had only briefly stunned the weapon team inside.

'Load high explosive! Same target, fire!' Mayner ordered. Another shell left the barrel and cut across the distance, slamming into the pillbox again, kicking up another plume of dust. The thermoscope revealed the same thing as last time; the lascannon barrel was still intact, and a moment later, it fired once more.

'Gunner! Can you put a round through that slit?' he questioned. The firing slit of the bunker was narrow, designed for maximum protection against incoming fire, just big enough for the weapons' barrel and to give the gunners good visibility of the approaches they were meant to be protecting. Nevertheless, there was an opening, and a precise enough shot could most certainly pass through it.

'If we stop, skipper,' Cheyne answered him. The Leman Russ had a gyroscopic stabilising system for the main gun which allowed it to be fired with reasonable accuracy while on the move, but to hit such a small target, the tank would have to come to a halt to stop the vibrations and bouncing induced by movement from interfering with the targeting.

'Driver, stop, stop, stop!' Mayner ordered. 'Gunner, make the shot a good one!'

'Yes sir,' Cheyne replied, and proceeded to do just that. A couple of moments was all she needed to sight in on the bunker, and she depressed the firing stud, making the tank rock as another round left the barrel. The narrow firing slit was wide enough for a shell to pass through, and pass through it did, smashing into the back interior wall and exploding. Flame, dirt and the red flash of discharging power cells erupted through the slit and through the rear door of the bunker as the shell set off the ammunition supply for the lascannon. A second later the roof almost lifted clean off of the rest of the bunker as an explosion ripped through it, incinerating anything that was left inside and scattering debris all around.

'There we go,' Mayner grunted and nodded in approval. 'That's more like it. Driver, full speed!'

The tank set off once again, following the dozer-equipped vehicle leading them. The second line of trenches was proving a tougher nut to crack, putting up considerably more resistance than the first. Big Beautiful Doll rolled across the first trench, wallowing as it scrambled up the slight slope behind the parados. Mayner checked the scope again, looking ahead. At least they would most likely be out of the minefield now, although it was always possible that the enemy could have mined the spaces between the trench lines too.

Even beyond the second line was a third set of trenches and bunkers to deal with. Only once they broke through this final line could they begin to approach the city itself. The river which flowed through the middle of Fillydelphia glittered and glistened in the early morning sunlight, a ribbon of blue cutting through the dull grey and brown of the factories and warehouses of the industrial city. That was where they were heading. Once the northern half of the city was taken, enemy positions in the southern districts could be pounded by artillery in the hopes of driving them out or making them surrender. If that failed, then a river crossing would be forced in conjunction with airlanding operations behind enemy lines. It was a simple plan, because, ultimately, most military plans were. They also relied on everything going right.

All of a sudden, everything was not going right. As the tanks approached the second trench line, heavy fire from both the second and third trenches lashed out at them. Half a dozen tanks were knocked out in the space of a few seconds. A surprising number of enemy heavy weapons had survived both the artillery, the air strikes, and the tanks, and were now reaping their rewards for such resilience. Valkyries swarming above poured down fire onto the defences in an attempt to swing the results in the favour of the Imperials, but the Chaos forces were not keen to give up their positions without a fierce fight.

For every cultist who was killed, three more seemed to take his place, springing up above the parapet to fire a missile or throw a grenade. Evidently the first trench line, though still well equipped and defended, had just been a ploy, to let the Imperial forces pass through relatively easily and straight into the teeth of the stronger rear defence lines, where the real resistance could be enacted. There was also support from the city itself, seemingly, as enemy artillery fire began to fall around the dismounted infantry who were pushing forward in support of the tanks. Some of the supporting Valkyries were quickly dispatched to locate and deal with this unexpected threat. The enemy had been able to conceal their artillery pieces from aerial and orbital observation, and were only now unleashing them upon the attacking force.

Under orders coming down from General Jahn, monitoring the battle from high above, the Imperial artillery was directed to fire upon the third line of trenches, focusing their efforts on disrupting the enemy there. The tanks were engaging the second line, but they could only shoot at so many things at once. There were plenty of targets in the second line for them to deal with. Aircraft flying in support were also directed to target the third line, and ordered to remain at a minimum altitude of several thousand feet when making their attack runs in order to stay above the level of incoming artillery shells, which would be just as effective at destroying a flyer as any specialised anti-aircraft weaponry if they were unlucky enough to collide with one in mid-air.

Captain Mayner could sense the attack bogging down. The tanks all around him were at best being slowed, and at worst destroyed, by the heavy enemy fire, and if they took too many losses, they would have to retreat. That would not necessarily end the assault, but it would mean that this sector of the line would remain unsullied and unbroken. The 2nd Stourmont Armoured was not a regiment known for retreating, and Mayner had no doubt that that would not change today, despite the obstacles placed before them. Certainly he had no intention of falling back, not unless the situation became truly dire, and he knew that none of the other crews would be entertaining such thoughts either.

'Load armour piercing!' he ordered through the intercom. Up ahead, as part of the second line, a Chaos tank was sited behind a thick protective wall of sandbags. Somehow untouched by all of the violence unleashed upon its position from both land and air, it was busy hurling shells toward the incoming Imperial forces. It was not a Leman Russ, but rather some sleek design from a distant part of the galaxy unknown to him, though he knew the type. It was a fairly common vehicle in the service of the enemy, no doubt stolen from some PDF force somewhere, and retro-engineered to suit the needs of the Dark Powers. It had a much lower profile than the Leman Russ, with a squat turret and low-slung body, no sponsons, and just a single main cannon, plus a couple of stubbers for close defence. It was also surprisingly well armoured, which perhaps accounted for its continued survival among such firepower as had been unleashed upon the area.

'Gunner, target, hull-down enemy armour, one o'clock, range eight hundred!' Mayner ordered. Cheyne looked through her targeting system.

'Identified!' she called, tracking the vehicle as Big Beautiful Doll bounced along over the uneven terrain.

'Fire!'

The armour-piercing shell struck the sandbagged embankment in front of the enemy tank, punching straight through but losing sufficient momentum and kinetic energy in the process that, when it struck the tank's glacis plate, it simply flopped almost pathetically down onto the dirt in front of the vehicle. The enemy tank fired in return, though not at Big Beautiful Doll. Another Leman Russ was struck by its shell, which tore through its right sponson, sending a spray of shrapnel bursting from the rear. The Leman Russ tried to retaliate, its turret swinging round to target the enemy vehicle. But the Chaos gunner was quicker on the draw, and another shell whistled out and struck the Imperial tank before either it or Big Beautiful Doll could get another round on target. The shell went straight through the hull armour and started a raging fire inside as the Leman Russ slewed to a halt.

Another rapid order from Mayner hurled a second shell straight at the enemy tank, striking it on the turret's glacis plate and bouncing off. The tank's turret began to rotate again, this time toward Big Beautiful Doll.

'Load armour piercing!' Mayner shouted again, keeping a close eye on the enemy tank. It was a race to get another shell into the breech and press the firing stud. There was every chance that whoever was slower wouldn't get the chance to try again. 'Fire when ready!'

Janssen slammed the shell into the breech and worked it shut. 'Up!' he shouted, and Cheyne pressed the firing stud immediately. The shell raced away, striking the enemy tank's turret again, but this time at a better angle, hitting it square on. It penetrated, slicing straight through the thick metal and spraying hot shards and debris into the interior of the turret. A small explosion blasted open the turret hatch as thick black smoke began to pour out from it.

'Good kill, good kill!' Mayner enthused. The enemy tank was ablaze internally, and no longer a threat to them. The well-oiled turret crew of Janssen and Cheyne had worked their magic once more, wasting no time in loading and firing, proving faster than their opponent, and speed in combat was about as vital a characteristic as one could possess. Only the best and most experienced crews could work so efficiently, those who know not just their vehicle, not just their fellow crewmen, but also themselves, most thoroughly. There was no doubt that the crew of Big Beautiful Doll was one of the most experienced in the entire regiment, which was why they had been assigned to Captain Mayner's command as the lead tank of the lead company of the lead battalion. Only the best of the best for such a prominent position, and they were proving it yet again on the field of battle.

The rest of the regiment continued the inexorable advance. The second line of defence was wavering under such heavy pressure, dozens of battle cannons and heavy bolters wreaking havoc among the trenches and exposed firing positions. Enemy gunners were struggling to reload their heavy weapons while under constant attack, seeing more of their number falling around them, explosions rippling along the line, hurling sandbags and bodies alike into the air. A wall of iron was closing rapidly on their position and there was not much they could do to stop it. A few desperation attacks brought down several tanks with satchel charges as men leaped up from the trenches and hurled themselves suicidally at them, immolating themselves but destroying the tanks in the process. As several key bunkers were knocked out, the whole section of the second line began to crumble and fold like a house of cards. Some enemies tried to fleet, streaming back toward the final trench line, only to find themselves running straight into the continued air attacks being unleashed by Imperial flyers. Others stayed to fight, trying to form small strongpoints of resistance even as the rest of the line crumbled all around them.

The infantry following on behind the Imperial armour reached the line and began to mop up the remaining resistance, leaving the tanks to move on, sweeping toward the final impediment before they could assault the city itself. There would still be enemies in Fillydelphia proper, no doubt, and a fierce street fight was the likely outcome, as had been the case in Manehattan. The Chaos forces would fight for each street and building, and the good progress the Imperials had been making through the outer defences could well grind to a halt as a result. Before they could get there, however, there was still one more line of defence to get rhrough.

Captain Muran watched the flicker of plasma outside his canopy as the Lightning dropped back into the atmosphere. AS part of the revolving stack of air cover for the assault, he had expended all of his Hellfury missiles and most of his autocannon ammunition, necessitating a resupply, and that meant returning to orbit and to the Emperor's Judgement from which he had launched. Landing in the docking bay, the Lightning was rapidly restocked by logistics servitors,who loaded fresh incendiary missiles onto the underwing rails, while men and women of the squadron's technical services section checked over the exterior of his craft for any combat damage and refilled its fuel tanks with a fresh batch of Promethium. Air combat was a heavy drain on fuel, especially dogfighting manoeuvres or ground attack operations at low level, where the air was denser. The Lightning was thirsty beast at the best of times, not having the lengthy endurance that the larger Marauder bomber possessed.

The climb to orbit, resupply, and re-entry had not taken more than a few minutes, thanks to the speed the Lightning's engines could accelerate it to. The orbital injection engine had lifted him up to the flagship's launch and landing bay, and now he was switching back to regular jets and powering back toward the city of Fillydelphia, which glittered in the sunlight ahead of him. The assault had apparently made progress during his orbital absence, breaking through the second enemy trench line and advancing upon the third, the final obstacle between the tanks and the waiting city beyond. Enemy artillery had been finding the range of the advancing infantry, but friendly Valkyries detailed to search and destroy missions had apparently dealt with most of them.

The third line was still offering stiff resistance, however, and it wasn't long before Muran and Rall were called into action once again. They had been orbiting high above as part of the stack of waiting aircraft, and now it was their turn to make a run on the enemy line. Smoke rose into the air from several dozen spots, the funeral pyres of tank crews and enemy heavy weapons teams inside bunkers and pillboxes. Muran hoped to be adding to that very shortly.

'Hammer Flight, cleared in hot. Targets of opportunity, engage at will, over,' came the call.

'Hammer Flight cleared in hot, engage at will, out,' Muran replied. 'In we go,' he muttered to Rall over the vox. He pushed the nose down. The trenches stretched out before him, almost following the bends and curves of the river as it passed through the city, though they were a good mile or two away from the water. Enemies were scurrying like ants, fleeing from the broken second line and back to the third, trying to find cover among the trenches but finding that, once they reached the third line, they were running straight into their own razor wire defences.

Muran decided to help put them out of their misery. He lined up on a section of wire where some dozen or so men were trying to weave their way through the protective cordon that was supposed to keep the enemy out, but was now keeping their own soldiers at bay. A pair of Hellfury missiles laid at their feet but paid to any attempts they were making to reach safety, sending blazing human torches running and screaming in every direction. Several of the Chaos infantry became entangled in the very wire they had been trying to get through, to add to their agonies.

Rall followed his leader in and unleashed a long droning blast of autocannon fire which cut men to ribbons, those few who had escaped the flames. Las-fire flashed up at him from below, but it was a waste of effort by the men in the trenches. He climbed away to rejoin Muran as they rose back up into the sky to come around for another pass before rejoining the stack. There were other Lightnings awaiting their turn, as well as Marauders with heavier payloads who could flatten a section of trench if called upon to do so.

Muran cast his eye down over the enemy line, seeking a suitable target for his next run. He had four missiles left, plus his autocannon and wingtip lascannon, if he could spot a target worth using them on. A bunker would be good, a tank even better. He brought the jet around in a sweeping turn, then back the other way to line up along the trenches. There; a small pillbox which appeared to contain some kind of heavy weapon, a stubber or perhaps a heavy bolter, which had somehow escaped the attentions of all the other pilots and tank crews. That would do nicely. He flicked over to lascannon targeting, bringing the crosshairs over the pillbox and firing.

Bright red flashes of las-fire stabbed out and struck the pillbox, blasting through the wood and earth with ease, incinerating those within. A string of small, rapid explosions, like firecrackers, began inside as the belts of ammunition cooked off, ignited by the heat. Muran pulled up into a climb, heading back to the stack of other aircraft as Rall began his run behind him.

They were the last flight to be called to strike the third trench line. Friendly forces were getting into the killzone, and any air attacks were suspended until specifically called for. The Lightnings and Marauders continued to circle off to the east of the city, waiting for orders and watching from on high as the tanks rolled over the final line, breaking through. The infantry moved on behind, and there was nothing but clear ground now between them and Fillydelphia.

A sudden, brilliant flash off to his left made Muran look round. He winced and shielded his eyes against the glare, which was coming from above the city. Not again, surely? Not another atomic attack?

No, it wasn't. There had been no double flash, the characteristic of an atomic explosion, and the light was fading rapidly. The polarisation filters of the Lightning's canopy were working hard to reduce the glare, and Muran peered toward the city as the vox net came alive with alarm calls and shouts of distress. But why? There had been no atomic attack; there was no mushroom cloud towering above Fillydelphia. As the light faded, however, Muran could see that there was something there, in the sky above the city. Not an atomic cloud, but something far, far worse.

The Best Laid Plans

The deck armoury had been rapidly turned into the temporary fortress it was meant to be. That was its secondary purpose, behind being a storage site for ammunition and weapons; to hold up an enemy attack and act as a strongpoint for the defenders to rally to. That was exactly what had happened on Deck 28. Armsmen had come from several directions as they were pressured by enemies who had breached the deck at several points, though all on the port side, which was some consolation. The armoury had numerous approaches, from different sections of the deck, but all had long, open lines of sight, allowing for the defenders to get clear shots at any enemies that might be coming their way. Men and women lined the railings and barricades, crouching low in anticipation of an assault, perhaps from several directions at once. The likelihood of reinforcement was low, as the enemy had made landings on other decks as well, forcing breaches in multiple places across the ship and tying up the mobile forces of armsmen who were on standby during combat in case of just such an incident.

Nevertheless, the armoury was well prepared and well defended. The two combat servitors stood silently, waiting to unleash hell on the enemy when they came. The automatic stubber turrets swung slowly through their firing arcs, tracking and scanning for targets. They could be left on automatic operation using their slaved machine spirits, or switched over to manual remote operation from a station inside the armoury. Marcallas and his squad waited, and soon the enemy came at them again.

There were only a few men at first, coming through the hatchways from the section Marcallas had retreated from. Autoguns opened up on them, and the servitor with the assault cannon blazed away, throwing hundreds of rounds downrange and slicing into the unfortunate scouts. More men followed, now coming from two directions, evidently coordinating their attacks at least somewhat. A large number of infantry were pouring out onto the open deck space around the armoury; the enemy had seemingly landed on Deck 28 with numerous craft to have delivered so many men, either that or they were coming up or down from other decks, which would be a worrying development as it would mean the internal security between decks aboard ship had been breached and the enemy were roaming free.

Shouted warnings came from other sides of the hexagonal armoury structure as more enemies appeared, and soon they were charging in from four sides at the same time, dividing the attentions of the defenders. The automatic turrets tracked and fired in short bursts, while the armsmen took careful aim with their autoguns. Most of those who had been armed with shotguns had been able to swap them out in the armoury for autoguns, far more suitable for engagement at range, and the open spaces around the armoury provided it.

Gunfire rippled across the chamber from multiple sources. The enemy flooded into the area, ducking behind what little cover they could find. The approaches to the armoury had been designed deliberately to be spartan and offer no cover to attacking forces, but there were some small sections of catwalk behind which a few enemies could hide, crouching low out of the streams of bullets that were coming their way. It did not help several of them, who were struck fatally anyway, and crumpled up in small, pathetic heaps on the deck. A missile streaked out from near one of the doorways and burst against the structure of the armoury, ripping one of the turrets away and sending it clanging onto the catwalk, ammunition spilling out of the busted belt-feeding mechanism. Another rocket from the other side of the chamber tried to target one of the servitors, but missed wide, smashing into one of the barricades and cutting down three unlucky armsmen with shrapnel and blast.

The enemy closed in, getting picked off by long-range fire from the defenders. The assault cannon of the servitor rained down shells on the charging masses, ammunition fed constantly to the rapidly spinning barrels from the hopper mounted on its back. More targets presented themselves, and it continued to blaze away, the six barrels glowing red hot from the constant fire. Several dozen enemies fell before the mighty firepower of the assault cannon, combined with the remaining stubber turrets and massed autogun fire from the crouching armsmen.

More missiles streaked in from several angles and tore another turret away, shattering it and killing several men with the shrapnel, sharp metal shredding their flesh and cutting through their vulnerable bodies. When the shrapnel came into contact with the servitors, it mostly bounced off, as they were more metal than man thanks to their extensive surgeries and replacement of body parts with machinery. When a rocket struck, however, the results were different.

A missile spiraled in and this time it struck its target. The servitor with the assault cannon was hit bodily in the chest, and the warhead detonated, knocking it down, torn to pieces by the blast, most of its metallic chest cavity ripped away and its few surviving internal organs pulped, turned into a chunky soup on the deck by the explosion and shrapnel. The assault cannon blew itself apart as at least one of the barrels was deformed by the explosion and shells detonated inside it, ruining the firing mechanism. No man could lift it, but if it had been intact, the armsmen might have been able to fire it from the ground or set it up against a barricade. As it was, the precious firepower of such a potent weapon was now denied to them at a crucial time.

The enemy assault continued unabated, seemingly undeterred by their heavy losses. Chaos troops had never been renowned for having regard for their own safety, and they charged forward across the open space. It seemed suicidal but it was the only way they were likely to take such a fortified position. The armoury provided an essentially limitless supply of small arms ammunition for the guns of the defenders, they were in cover, had turrets for backup and armoured positions to hide behind. Sitting back and trying to pick them off from the vulnerable open areas was not a good plan, and so the Chaos forces continued their traditional method of engagement; a blind charge, running into the teeth of the enemy's guns, because it was the only way they might succeed. Getting closer to the armoury got them out of the line of fire of many of the armsmen's guns as the angles were no longer right. However, it also took them within range of another weapon.

The second servitor lumbered into action. Its flamer arm swung up and ignited with a hiss, a powerful jet of Promethium fuel gushing out like a fountain, engulfing a squad of Chaos infantry in a heartbeat. Their wicked screams filled the ears of defender and attacker alike as they flailed about helplessly, their skin blackening like meat on a grill. Another gout of fire incinerated more men as they tried to turn and flee, but running back just put them into the sights of the armsmen gunners up on the armoury's superstructure. More of them went down to that source, while some tried to charge the servitor, get into close combat range with it. But close combat against a flamer-wielding seven foot tall metal monster was not a good place to be, and those that attempted it burned alive, rolling around on the floor in a futile effort to put out the flames.

Another missile tried to strike the servitor, but it missed, only killing more Chaos infantry. On the other side of the armoury, the turret guns chattered, mowing down the onrushing targets who offered little in return, scattered small arms fire killing a couple of armsmen here and there, but having little overall effect on the course of the battle. Only the missile teams had any hope of altering the outcome for the boarding parties, but they were steadily picked off by good, distant shots from the autoguns of the defenders. Still they came, but Marcallas, his squad, and his fellow armsmen resisted with everything they had, throwing back each wave as it came at them with ever increasing losses for the boarding party. Eventually, something snapped, or some order was issued, or some key leader was killed, and the survivors on the sternward flank began to turn, to break and run.

A minute later, the forces on the other side, towards the bow of the ship, also broke. As the tide had come in, so it now receded, and in a few moments, the enemy fled, running from the chamber, carried by the heels of their comrades. As soon as one company ran, others followed suit, either out of loyalty, or because they thought some order had been given that they had missed, or simply because they did not want to be the only ones still there facing the Imperial guns.

Marcallas watched as they ran. he kept his autogun raised, just in case any of the boarders had the guts to turn back, but none did. They were in the clear. The enemy had retreated. Marcallas slumped down against the barricade, resting. His hands were numb from holding his weapon for so long. There were still Chaos soldiers out there, but they had pulled back, to regroup or lick their wounds. They would be dealt with in due course, but the result of the enemy attack on the armsmen was clear. They had held Deck 28.

The fleet was slowly breaking up. Formations were being stretched as the Imperial ships tried to drive for a higher orbit. Faster ships pulled ahead of slower ones, or those damaged by enemy fire. Several more escorts had been destroyed outright, and another half dozen rendered combat ineffective, sitting ducks for Chaos bombers or the secondary batteries of enemy capital ships. Even the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable were taking heavy fire, suffering punishment at the hands of the Chaos forces who were sweeping in to try and deny them of their prize, to take this planet from under there noses for a second time.

Lord-Admiral Marcos was determined not to let that happen. His fleet and its men were suffering, suffering greatly, but they were still in the fight. Two Chaos cruisers had gone up in blinding detonations, and one of the battleships had been struck a series of heavy blows by lance fire and Imperial bomber wings, tearing open much of its underside. They were still heavily outnumbered in terms of both capital ships and firepower, however. Imperial escorts continued to launch torpedoes, but they were running low. Resupply had been cut off by the battle and the flight of the support ships into deep system for their own protection, and even if they had been present, stocks were running low after several years of the Crusade, as was, truth be told, the morale of the fleet.

Even discounting the strange nature of this planet and its inhabitants, and disregarding the fact that this was the edge of the galaxy, where the light of the Astronomican was dim, the Crusade had been marching across the stars for so long that men who would normally be mildly homesick were longing, desperate, to see their families and their homes, or even just their starbase or garrison planet, again. It had been so long since they had left Hydraphur, to track through uncharted territory, places barely featuring in Imperial histories, perhaps taken once long ago by an Explorator fleet or some enterprising Rogue Trader, but forgotten for millennia. That was the kind of space they had been travelling through for month after month, to end up here at the end of the galaxy, in such a confusing place, only to find that, yes, the Archenemy were here also, and they were not going to simply leave this place for the Imperium to take.

The situation was perilous, and Marcos knew it. The fleet at full strength as it had been when it arrived in the Kuda system would have found itself on an even keel with this Chaos force, and they were very much not at full fighting strength now after two battles. This third fight could well see the end of the fleet as any kind of fighting force, the end of his command, and perhaps, the end of his life.

The enemy force which had boarded his vessel did not overly concern him. They were few in number, a small party compared to the crew he had on board, even on those lower decks which had been made bridgeheads for the Chaos troops and where relatively few men were stationed at any given time, even during combat. It was the tactical situation at large which worried him. Each glance at the tactical displays showed exactly why. There were fewer blue sigils each time he looked; escorts being snuffed out by the immense firepower hurled their way, even as they tried to protect their capital charges, in some cases. A red wave spread out across the map displays as the Chaos fleet maneuvered to get better firing positions. Their full broadside armaments were in play now, and inflicting heavy damage to the Imperial ships. The Emperor's Judgement shuddered as more shots struck it, the enemy clearly unconcerned about their own boarding party, perhaps keen enough to see the flagship's demise that they were willing to utilise both attempted methods at once to bring about its destruction or capture, whichever came first.

A message came in from the Indefatigable that their starboard void shield emitters were failing. Another vox call from the Brigand's Folly told him that they had lost their last lance turret. Destroyer section Quintus had been all but obliterated, those brave men and true that had raised the initial alarm about the arrival of the Chaos fleet. Despite their successful flight from the deadly danger, they had succumbed to it anyway, only buying themselves another half hour or so of life. The Crusade fleet was steadily falling apart against the overwhelming odds stacked against them. Two dozen capital ships against eight, with only one battleship among them? Those were long odds at the best of times. Clearly, the Imperial ships had been dealt a bad hand, and despite Marcos's clever initial maneuvers, there seemed little prospect of anything other than total destruction if they stayed where they were.

Reluctantly, with a heavy heart, Marcos made his decision. Perhaps it would be final, or perhaps fate and the Emperor would conspire to allow them to return again at some point, to recover those left behind, if any had survived. Marcos could only guess at what might happen in the coming hours, days and weeks, but almost every day since they had arrived in the system had thrown up new twists and turns for them to overcome and deal with. The arrival of the Chaos fleet was only the latest in a succession of problems, but it might prove to be one problem too many. They had to retreat, or they would burn. That was the simple calculus of war, the arithmetic that the Lord-Admiral performed all the time during battles.

Perhaps they could return to Hydraphur and obtain reinforcements, or at least wait in another nearby system for them to arrive. But that seemed highly unlikely to ever happen. This was one single planet, and so far as Segmentum Command knew, there was nothing here worth the expenditure of any more lives. Marcos had yet to make his report on the planet and the nature of its inhabitants. It was a report that might never be sent at all, depending on how well their disengagement went.

'All vessels, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos,' he began, speaking into the vox mounted at his command lectern. 'Break contact. I say again, break contact. Fall back to line Alpha at the edge of the system. Regroup with the transports. Maintain formation, escorts to cover. All attack craft to be recovered on board.' He repeated his orders again, broadcasting them loud and clear to every ship in the fleet. They were pulling out.

Twilight had returned to the top of the Lunar Tower, voluntarily, and accompanied by all three Princesses. The human spotter team had accompanied them; perhaps they could give some insight, however minor, or at least they would be able to relay any messages coming in from their fleet above.

Twilight trained the telescope on the sight of the battle in the heavens, which had moved somewhat from where the telescope had been pointing when she had left it before. The planet continued to rotate even while momentous events were going on, and the ships up there were clearly moving about as they fought. The glow of their engine exhausts could be seen, as well as flashes of weapons fire, indicating the battle will not yet over.

Apart from the initial call through the vox, Atter and Mons had not received anything else from Fleet Command since the start of the battle. The net had been silent, with the efforts of all aboard the ships directed towards the defense of the fleet and the repelling of the Chaos attack. How the battle was going could only be guessed at, especially by the ponies who knew nothing of space combat. The liaison team were not much wiser than them, as they were from the Imperial Guard and not representatives of the Navy. The intricacies of the fine ballet performed by two fleets, moving and positioning around each other, could only properly explained by someone well versed in choreographing such a performance, especially to creatures who had no space travel of their own and thus could hardly be expected to understand everything they were looking at or being told.

Twilight looked through the telescope, and each Princess took their turn in peering skyward at the massed ships above. The two fleets were in amongst each other now, all mixed up, and without an expert eye to distinguish them from one another it was very difficult for the ponies to make out exactly what was going on or who was who. Twilight thought she could tell a few of the ships apart; some had the more curved look she had seen from the new arrivals, while the huge bulk of the Imperial flagship, or at least what she assumed to be the flagship, could still be distinguished from its smaller escorts. She could not be one hundred percent sure, however, as there were now several more ships of equal or greater bulk that could be picked out against the backdrop. The sun was not helping in their efforts to observe, but the ships were large enough and close enough, in cosmic terms, to the planet for the telescope to still prove an effective tool for watching the battle.

With little concrete idea of what exactly was going on and whose side each vessel belonged to, it was hard to guess who had the upper hand. Celestia's astral calculation spell had reported one hundred and eighteen Imperial vessels at last count. She tried the same trick again, and now there were a total of one hundred and thirty five. That did not add up with the numbers Twilight had seen arriving around the planet, but Celestia had no doubt that her spell had been accurate. There were one hundred and thirty five ships now in orbital positions above Equestria.

There had most definitely been more than seventeen new arrivals, however, so what accounted for the discrepancy? Even if some of the ships had been destroyed already during the fighting, surely there should be a higher total? Perhaps some of the Imperial ships were defenceless transports and had been ordered away from the fighting, or perhaps some portion of their force was waiting as a reserve elsewhere and would strike at the enemy at any moment from an ambush position, near the moon possibly.

The spotter team could offer no likely insights into the mind of the Imperial fleet commander. Though they spoke to Lord-Admiral Marcos through their vox, they exchanged neither pleasantries nor information on tactics for fleet engagements. In fact, both Atter and Mons agreed, Princess Celestia likely knew the man better than they did, for she spent more time talking to the Admiral and learning about his personality. What was he likely to do in a situation such as this, confronted, perhaps, by a superior force?

Nobody could say for sure. Celestia did not think the Lord-Admiral would abandon them unless it proved absolutely necessary to save his ships, but even then he would be leaving behind thousands of his own men, stranded on the planet with no transport off-world and at the mercy of the Chaos fleet which would no doubt remain in orbit in order to carry out whatever nefarious plans they were here to attempt. That perhaps meant pounding the surface with deadly fire from orbit, or landing more troops to recapture the cities and towns of Equestria. Unless that eventuality played out, there was no way of knowing for certain as to what they wanted this time.

From what the Princesses had learned about the Chaos enemy, it was clear that there were many factions within their ranks, those who followed different gods or simply had different approaches to how to worship them properly and carry out their schemes. It was always possible that this new fleet was actually a rival of the previous invasion force, come to steal it out from under their noses and finding Imperial interference in their way. Or they may have been rivals to the Daemon which had appeared, come to drive it away in the name of their own particular god. Tzeentch had been the name of the deity the Daemon purported to follow; perhaps this god had a particular rival that this fleet represented?

More likely, however, was the simple and most obvious answer. They were not rivals, but reinforcements for the original fleet, both Daemon and ships alike come to assist those few scattered remnants that still clung to small areas of the planet. The Daemon had appeared in Fillydelphia, after all, the site of the largest such holdout group. Though Twilight knew that radio waves, if that was indeed what the vox system used, could only travel at the speed of light, and thus communication with it would be very slow over the extreme distances between star systems, she also knew that magic could break those laws of physics that seemed so fundamental to non-magical races. There was no reason to believe that human or Daemon psychic abilities, as they referred to them, could not accomplish some similar feats and perhaps enable interstellar communication with ease, and thus allow the original fleet to have called for aid when they came under attack after the warp storm had been breached.

It was all speculation, but speculating was all they could do at this stage. They most certainly did not have a clear picture of the situation, or of the battle as it unfolded far above their heads. Reality was hazy and their knowledge limited. The liaison team had been in contact, via skywave bouncing of the vox signal off of the planet's ionosphere, with several of the units stationed far to the south at Fillydelphia for the attack. They all reported to be in retreat, as ordered by Fleet Command as the battle in space began.

All those men could do, all the Princesses could do, and all Twilight could do, was to sit and wait and wonder, looking to the skies with a mixture of nerves and anticipation. Would the Imperial fleet prevail, or would it be destroyed? Would it flee, or would it stay? Would those watching on survive whatever was to come, and live?

Or would they die?

Truth Or Lies

Canterlot was almost silent once more. The Chaos forces had been held back, thanks to the efforts of the royal sisters and hundreds of loyal guardsponies and soldiers. Their infantry had been halted outside of the palace, with the exception of the single small incursion into the service entrance which had been thrown out in short order. The ranks of their aircraft had been heavily thinned by Princess Luna, while Princess Celestia had focused on bringing down as many of the landing barges as she could, in an effort to kill the Chaos soldiers before they could even land at all. It had worked.

Princess Cadence's shield had been withdrawn, leaving the city exposed once more, but the enemy had fallen back, their attack thwarted. The shield could be raised at a moment's notice by any of the Princesses if the enemy threatened once again, but it was a waste of energy and strength to keep it constantly running. It was also a diversion of effort- there was much to do, including the issuing of further orders to the defending forces. The Royal Guard and the Army had taken more casualties, a fair number of dead and wounded ponies lying outside the palace walls and scattered across the city. The command centre in the library had been destroyed, and many senior officers were dead as a result. While Celestia was still firmly in charge overall, the military command of the city would need to be rapidly reorganised, with new appointments made from within the ranks of survivors to cover the most vital command functions. The airships, at least, had gotten away without damage or significant casualties, protected by their shields from everything except the red beam weapons of the Chaos enemy. The sorcerer had not bothered with their defences in the same way he had apparently interfered in the city shield.

Such magic was previously not known to be in the employ of the forces of Chaos. Nothing they had demonstrated could break through Alicorn magic at all. Even the Daemon, Malaranth, had failed to penetrate Celestia or Luna's shields, though by her own admission, Princess Cadence was not as strong as the two royal sisters. Then again, defence was her specialty, and somehow this human with his crooked staff had managed to find a way to break through the dome that surrounded the city, and gain access for his fellows. Everypony had seen it, the two holes in the shield, in the sky overhead. There was some disquiet among the survivors; if the enemy could do that once, then they could do it again. Those of a more optimistic outlook countered that train of thought; that was Cadence's shield. Celestia is stronger, much stronger, stronger even than her sister, to say nothing of Cadence. If protection had to be afforded to the city again, then it could be done, it might just have to come from a different source.

The palace grounds were littered with the bodies of the fallen human soldiers. Guardsponies had combed the area, putting a bullet into the head of any man who showed signs of life. This activity was carried out well before the civilians would be allowed back to the surface from down in the catacombs; seeing such things might confuse or anger them. Mercy killings, or executions without trial? Mere pragmatism, the guards might argue- a dead enemy is an enemy that cannot fight back, and the Chaos enemy had shown a sickening propensity to never give up the fight so long as breath remained in their body; hidden grenades could be produced and detonated, a knife pulled from a sheath and plunged into flesh, or a pistol grabbed from a holster in a last ditch effort to take somepony with them. It had most certainly happened before, and it was wise to make sure it didn't happen again.

A field hospital had been set up in the palace mews, where the wagons and carriages of the royal family were normally housed. Many of the wounded had been taken there, and pony medics and unicorns worked feverishly to try and save those who now teetered on the brink of death. They had severe burns caused by the Chaos beam weapons, hair burned away and skin charred. Others had bullet wounds, while some had suffered crush injuries from falling debris. There were only so many medics and doctors available, and as always after a major engagement, they were hard pressed to deal with all of the casualties that were being brought in.

At least there had been no civilian injuries or deaths. They had been kept below ground, safe in the catacombs. Though the enemy had breached the palace walls and indeed the main palace building itself, they had not reached the catacomb entrance, either unaware of its existence or simply having other priorities in mind. It was yet another attack on Canterlot, and yet another attack on the already fragile psyches of the ponies who lived there. Twilight was no exception, as she had spent the duration of the attack cowering helplessly below ground, told by the Princess to remain there and protect the foals and the other non-combatants who were hiding there. She had been angry, she had to admit to herself. Angry that she couldn't be up there helping out and protecting the city, and even, a tiny part of her deep within her mind, even angry with Celestia for not letting her do so. She knew there was logic to her orders, and Twilight had carried them out as she always had in the past, but she could not help but feel somewhat slighted. Did Celestia no longer trust her because she had been in Changeling custody? Did she think she might have been corrupted somehow, or perhaps could even be a Changeling in disguise?

She doubted the Princess would think the latter to be true. No doubt she had performed some subtle spell when first meeting Twilight after her rescue, to make sure that she was who she said she was, not some doppelganger. Twilight knew she was herself, of course; but the danger with Changelings was that nobody else did, at least not for absolute certain. There was always some considerable doubt spread whenever Changelings were known or suspected to be in the vicinity, and that was how it had always been, and likely would always be until they could be sure that every last Changeling had been hunted down and eradicated- if it was ever possible to be completely sure of that.

Whatever the true reason behind Celestia's decision, Twilight had abided by it, because she respected the Princess and her commands almost more than any other pony did. She had seen first hoof how hard it was for Celestia to run the country at the best of times, both with and without her sister, who could at least share some part of the burden. But this was wartime, and it was a war for survival, a war unlike any which Equestria had ever faced before. For centuries, Equestria had been the dominant power, the strongest force on the planet, thanks in no small part to Celestia and the Elements of Harmony. Celestia was still fighting, but the Elements themselves were in jeopardy thanks to Twilight's carelessness in getting herself captured. One good thing which had come from all of the death and destruction wrought to free her was that they did, at least, know of Chrysalis's grand plan, or at least what she had tried to persuade Twilight her plan was. It could have been a trick, of course, a ruse or the deliberate spreading of misinformation, something that the Changelings were rather good at historically. In the past it had been a simple task sometimes for a drone to impersonate an officer or a politician for a brief time, just long enough to give a false order or upset some important project that ponies had been working on. As potent a force as they could be on open battle, as a species they relied just as much upon misinformation, misdirection, and the sowing of fear and distrust through the ranks of their enemies.

Where Chrysalis was now, Twilight didn't know. The Changeling Hive had been located over on the eastern continent, in the Zebra lands, but she did not know if Chrysalis was to be found there or not. It might have been an empty Hive; the report from Grand Admiral Bluewater had been inconclusive, which was why he and his small fleet had been sent back across the sea to find out. Regardless of what the Changelings were doing, Chaos was the major threat at the moment. Their ships were in orbit, their troops had been inside the city again, and their aircraft had been soaring overhead and raining death down upon the inhabitants and defenders of Canterlot. The civilians had been herded below and kept safe in the confines of the catacombs for the second time in the past few weeks. They were being kept there for now, but Twilight at least was allowed up to the surface. Celestia had sent a message down for her.

She emerged into the daylight, blinking from the transition from dark to bright. It was almost becoming familiar for her, and that was not something she enjoyed very much. It reminded her too much of her rescue from the Hive, and the first thing she had seen then was a full scale battle unfolding before her, all to rescue her. Or, perhaps, to rescue her Element. This time, the battle was already over, but there was evidence of the fighting all around. Bodies were being piled up against the wall of the palace building, fallen humans who had paid the price for the ambitions of their dark gods and their power-hungry leaders. Once Twilight would have been appalled at seeing such death, especially in such a sacred place as the palace itself, but now she merely felt anger at their presence here, and some mild revulsion from the fact that they were indeed corpses. She didn't know what had changed to make her feel the difference today compared to her previous self, but she could certainly hazard some guesses. She had seen much since the start of the war, which she had never seen before. Wanton death and destruction for its own sake, all carried out by these humans. To see them lying dead no longer inspired the same gasps of shock as it once would have, for in truth, if she were to be honest with herself, she was glad to see them suffer and die. It was what they deserved, for that was what they had brought to Equestria.

Celestia was to be found inside the palace, in the throne room where she rightfully belonged. She was directing operations as guardsponies and soldiers bustled too and fro, trying to get their house back in order after it had been turned upside down yet again. Something of a routine had been reestablished after the fallout had been cleared away, and with the Imperial fleet in orbit it had seemed plausible that a real city might return to life. That dream had quickly died, however, when their ships had been forced away by the Chaos fleet, and now there was nothing but fear and danger once more.

Twilight approached Celestia as she stood near her throne. She noticed the approach of her student, and moved to greet her. 'Twilight, I am most glad to see you unharmed. There was a fear that the enemy might have been able to reach the catacombs, but we were able to stop them before that could happen.'

Not much before, Twilight mused. Some of the dead bodies that were out in the yard must have made it fairly close to the catacomb entrance before being killed, judging by the position of some of their uncollected weaponry that was still lying on the grass awaiting disposal. 'And I'm so glad you're alright, Princess,' Twilight replied. 'How is Princess Luna?'

'She is unhurt also,' Celestia assured her. 'My sister is keeping watch over the city while I reorganise its defences. I fear that this will not be the last we see of the enemy, or of their leader.'

'The Daemon was here?' Twilight asked nervously.

'No, not the Daemon. Their human leader. Their sorcerer.'

'They have another sorcerer?' Twilight cocked her head. She remembered the apparent leader of the first enemy fleet to have struck at Equestria.

'Not another one,' Celestia replied. 'The same man. Parthax the Infidel.'

'What?' Twilight gasped. 'But...but the Imperials said his ship was destroyed! He was killed, wasn't he? He was the one powering the warp storm, that was what they said!'

'Yes, but it appears they were mistaken,' Celestia replied. 'Either that, or someone is impersonating him, and doing an excellent job of it.'

'Is it possible that he's a Changeling?' Twilight suggested. The masters of mimicry would no doubt do a fine job of disguising one of their number as the sorcerer-lord, but Celestia shook her head.

'No. The same thought occurred to me, and I made sure to check with a detection spell. He is most decidedly human.' Such spells were only usable by Alicorns and a few very potent unicorns, for they were not simply a case of illuminating a Changeling or seeing through a mask. To detect a disguised Changeling required penetrating their own magic, for that was the source of their altered appearance, and it took powerful spells to be able to achieve that aim. That was the reason why the Royal Guard could not simply scan every pony who entered a security checkpoint to detect hidden drones, and that was how Changelings had been able to infiltrate pony society so easily on so many occasions.

'But...how could he have survived if his spaceship was destroyed?' Twilight asked. 'We saw what that looks like when that ship went down over the eastern plains at the start of the invasion...no human could live through that, could they?' From everything Twilight had seen, humans were just as vulnerable to any number of hazards as an unprotected pony would have been.

'I would imagine not,' Celestia replied. 'But that is assuming that he was actually on board the vessel he was believed to be in command of. It is entirely possible the Imperials were mistaken in their assertions. He could have been elsewhere.'

'But if he was not powering the warp storm...what was?' Twilight questioned.

'I do not know, but I shall ask the Lord-Admiral as soon as I am able,' Celestia assured her. 'No doubt he will be most interested to hear of the re-emergence of his old foe. We are reinforcing the city defences. I want you to continue to assist the civilians and ensure their safety. Prevent panic, reassure them.'

'But Princess, I can be more useful up here!' Twilight argued. 'Now that the danger has passed...'

'The danger has not passed, Twilight,' Celestia replied pointedly. 'The danger will not pass until these humans leave our planet for good, both Chaos and Imperial, and until we have defeated Queen Chrysalis once and for all. Until that time there will always be danger. Everypony has to understand that, and that is why I need you to stay with the civilians for the moment. My sister and I are far too busy to be able to attend to the needs of every citizen at the moment, and some of them perhaps do not trust the Guard as much as they should. But they know you and your friends. Familiar faces will help to calm them and reassure them that all is well.'

'But if the danger hasn't passed...then all is not well, Princess!' Twilight pointed out.

'That is correct, Twilight,' Celestia replied. 'But sometimes you have to lie to them for the greater good.'

The shuttle made its stately progress across the void. At Captain Marsten's command, docking bay 6 aboard the Indefatigable had been prepared to receive it. Magnetic docking clamps were activated, and the bay doors slid open, an energy screen protecting the crew inside the hangar from the perils of the void. The shuttle slipped in through the screen easily, and settled upon the deck, the clamps grasping onto it firmly in addition to its own landing legs. The engines throttled down and then were switched off, the whine and hum slowly fading away to silence.

The ramp was lowered, and General Jahn descended, and came face to face with two squads of armsmen, their autoguns and shotguns aimed from behind cover, a fine welcoming party for an unknown potential threat.

'Raise your hands above your head!' the Lieutenant commanding the armsmen shouted, and General Jahn complied. 'How many others are on board the shuttle?'

'There are three,' Jahn replied. 'My aide, the pilot, and the enginseer.'

'Come to us, General! Slowly, no sudden movements,' the Lieutenant ordered. His armsmen kept their fingers on their triggers, ready to engage in a heartbeat if they were given a reason. Jahn slowly advanced, keeping his hands above his head as ordered. 'Turn around!' the Lieutenant called. 'Drop to your knees, keep your hands raised.'

Jahn did as instructed, and one of the armsmen advanced with a pair of cuffs, pulling Jahn's arms behind his back and fastening them to his wrists. Given how the Changeling who had infiltrated the ship before had managed to escape from custody by reverting to its true form, the cuffs were of questionable value, but they were part of the standard procedure for apprehending criminals and other dangerous elements aboard ship. Jahn was dragged away, with some care afforded to him since he was, ostensibly at least, a General. The Lieutenant called out again for the pilot to descend the ramp, which he did, finding himself cuffed. The procedure was repeated twice more for the other two men aboard, first the enginseer and finally the General's aide, all of whom were cuffed according to protocol, regardless of rank and regardless of whether their true allegiance was ultimately to Queen Chrysalis, to the Emperor, or to the Omnissiah, the Machine-God of the Adeptus Mechanicus. All would be revealed in time, it was hoped.

General Jahn and his aide were led through the corridors, their hands bound, drawing confused looks and gasps from crewmembers as they passed. What was going on? A mutiny? Why was the General in custody? Those that recognised him, or at least his badges of rank and insignia, were left bemused and puzzled, with no answers to their questions. Lowly deck hands and section foremen were hardly privy to the grand workings of the fleet; a mild sense of bemusement and apathy was their usual lot in life, and this was no different. To many, it didn't even matter at all.

A turbolift took the two prisoners up, while the shuttle's crew were kept under guard in the hangar bay's adjoining ready room, sealed behind the locked door with armsmen posted outside in case they should try to escape, or if they should turn to their true Changeling form- if indeed they were Changelings. General Jahn and his aide were delivered to the ship's bridge, where Captain Marsten was waiting for them. Under normal circumstances, Marsten would have been obliged to salute the General, since his rank was the Guard equivalent of a Navy Admiral, Marsten's superior. He dispensed with the formalities given the present circumstances, however, and merely offered his words as greeting and acknowledgement.

'General Jahn. Tell me why I can trust you.'

'Captain, simply because you must,' Jahn replied. 'The fleet is in danger. That man you spoke to is not the Lord-Admiral. Indeed, not truly a man at all. The bridge has fallen, and the Lord-Admiral with it. He is either dead, or in the custody of the Changelings, I know not which. Nor do I know how you can determine for certain which of the possibilities is true.'

'There is, at least, a simple way of determining if you are truly who you say you are,' a new voice spoke up, adding to the conversation. It was that of Terkov, the ship's Senior Commissar. She had remained silent until now, but her hand rested pointedly upon the butt of her bolt pistol from the moment the General had been led onto the bridge. Now she pulled it from its holster, meaning she did not need to verbally complete the rest of her explanation. General Jahn turned to her.

'Commissar, please. Your threats are entirely unnecessary. We must not waste time fighting among ourselves when the real threats are out there. On board our flagship.'

'Who is to say they are no on board this ship, as well?' Terkov asked. 'We may have invited the threat onto our bridge.'

'Commissar, I know you are just being practical. That is your duty, after all, to always see the worst in people,' Jahn replied, drawing a scowl from beneath Terkov's peaked cap. 'I also know that I have no way that I can think of to prove to you beyond any doubt that I am not a Changeling, save for you to kill me. But if you kill me and it is red blood that leaks onto this deck plating, Commissar, then it is you who will have to pay the ultimate price for your error.'

'You say the bridge of the flagship has fallen, General,' Marsten cut in, bringing the conversation back on track. 'How did you learn of this?'

'An emergency transmission from the bridge, Captain,' Jahn replied. 'Only a brief snippet before it was cut off. But it was a cry for help, and there was gunfire in the background. I was not on the bridge at the time, but rather in a liaison meeting with members of the ship's security detail. I was overseeing the deployment of Imperial Guard forces to assist in the containment of the Changeling threat. When we received the message in the security centre, we immediately attempted to contact the bridge, which failed. We next tried to contact the lower security centre down on deck 20. That also failed. It was only when we tried to make external communications and contact your vessel that we realised our communications were being jammed or disrupted somehow.'

'And you were in the main security centre?' Marsten questioned. He had served aboard several Emperor-Class battleships during his long career, and was familiar with their layout and operational functions.

'That is correct, Captain. Deck 5,' Jahn nodded.

'Then the only other place that such a comms override could come from would be the bridge,' Marsten mused. 'There would, of course, be no obvious reason why the Lord-Admiral would attempt to cut comms out of the main security centre, given that deck 5 was several decks above the Changelings' last recorded position. He informed me they had been contained on decks 10 and 11.'

'The Changelings were attacking deck 9, and I believe deck 12 also. That was shortly before we lost contact with the bridge,' Jahn replied. 'It was after that point that we realised the communications had been cut. That was when we knew for certain that the bridge had not only been attacked, but had been captured, and the Lord-Admiral along with it...or else, he now lies dead. Either way, Captain, from what I believe, that makes you the fleet's senior naval officer. You are in command of this Crusade now.'

'And if the Lord-Admiral is indeed still alive and in command?' Marsten asked. 'If you are lying to me, and that truly was Lord-Admiral Marcos that I spoke to on the vox?'

'If that had truly been the Lord-Admiral, then he would not have told you all was well. Captain, I came from deck 5. It was agreed by the crew in the security station that I should attempt to reach a friendly vessel and inform them of the situation, by virtue of the fact that I was the highest ranking officer present. I was able to obtain a shuttle from one of the docking bays on that deck, and now I stand before you. But consider, Captain. You said that the Lord-Admiral, when you spoke to him just now, told you the Changelings had been contained to decks 10 and 11. If he was the real Arlen Marcos, speaking the Emperor's truth, and if I were a Changeling, how would I have been able to launch a shuttle from deck 5?'

It was a perfectly reasonable point, and one which Marsten had been considering since the General had contacted his ship. He did not know the answer, but before he could reply, he found himself interrupted by a shout.

'Captain, we are being hailed!' the vox officer called. 'It is the Lord-Admiral!'

Death Comes To Canterlot

The sounds of battle hung over Canterlot, a cacophony of noise and violence unleashed, as jets swooped in, tanks rolled through the streets, and a thousand life or death struggles played out below. Above, however, an even greater struggle was underway. No battle for individual survival, this was a fight for the entire city, perhaps the entire planet.

Princess Celestia and her sister continued to batter the Daemon-Lord, Malaranth, with their magic, but the creature proved to be more than equal to the task of defending itself. The royal sisters had constraints that the Daemon did not; a stray shot could strike Canterlot below and cause great casualties among their own forces or their human allies. Malaranth, on the other hand, showed no particular regard for its own troops down below, and was happy to unleash its full power in an attempt to defeat the Princesses.

'Come, ladies!' Malaranth hissed, its voice clearly audible even over the rolling thunder of the battle below. 'You do not wish to see your entire city destroyed, surely. Why not surrender and spare your citizens the pain and anguish they are surely feeling?'

'We do not surrender, Daemon, to you or to anybody else,' Celestia replied in her booming Royal Canterlot Voice, amplified by magic, letting her words be heard not just by her foe but potentially by many of the ponies fighting below. Morale was an important consideration at times like this, with the great centre of pony culture and society under siege and under threat, just when the situation had seemed to be stable. 'This city is ours, and it will remain ours long after you have been banished back whence you came.'

'Such confidence!' Malaranth chuckled. 'Almost arrogance, some might say. 'Are you sure you will not join me? Just think what power you could obtain if you were to travel the stars. Entire systems would bow before you!'

'Power is not to be obtained at the expense of those who serve under you,' Celestia replied. 'Power is only to be granted by them, in those whom they wish to be their leaders.' She fired off a strong blast of magic, dodged by Malaranth.

'Noble, but foolish, Princess!' the Daemon responded. 'Power is to be grasped wherever possible, seized no matter how much it hurts you or others. Why? It is simple. Someone must be in control, no? Ultimately, decisions have to be made, and it might as well be you that makes them, to shape reality to your will. You have a strong will, Princess. Strong, but misguided. You rule to help your citizens, but you should be ruling to help yourself! A creature of such power should not be beholden to the whims and needs of such...lesser beings!'

'I may be the head of state, but in truth, I am the least of my citizens,' Celestia replied angrily. 'Everything I do is to protect them all. I act to their benefit because I care about them and they depend upon me. Responsibility, Daemon, something you and your kind clearly fail to understand. Perhaps if you had seen your species subjugated by a creature not unlike yourself for many years, then you would understand why I feel such a desire to be their protector.'

'Ah, yes, Discord, hm?' Malaranth spun its staff and a huge column of crackling warp energy blasted out from its tip. Celestia teleported away, as did Luna, and the blast raced away into the distance, slamming into a rocky outcrop far from the city and exploding, sending stone and earth tumbling down into the valley. 'Yet despite his actions, you were willing to forgive him, at least to an extent. You were even willing to forgive your sister. Despite your power, Princess, perhaps you are too weak to join us. Such a trait as mercy is not unknown to us, but it is most certainly not to be applied universally, to every foe you face.'

'Fear not, Daemon,' Celestia spat. 'I shall not apply it to you.'

She teleported behind Malaranth, and instead of attacking the creature directly, she used her magic to try and wrench its staff away from it. A telekinetic tug caught Malaranth somewhat off balance, and it found the staff flying from its grasp. Luna appeared in front of the creature and her horn glowed, unleashing a spiral of energy that engulfed the Daemon. A flash of light came from the middle of the magic blast, and Malaranth reappeared some distance away, still alive but looking somewhat more concerned that it had before. Its staff continued to tumble away, falling to the city below, and the Daemon was quick to go after it. Celestia tried to recover it herself, diving down, both creatures using their mighty wings to power themselves forward after the falling artefact. Luna watched on as her sister raced with the Daemon, trying to get control of the thing which could potentially tip the balance of power in their favour. There were many magical artefacts in Equestria; perhaps only the now-useless Elements of Harmony were as powerful as this staff seemed to be.

It was a close thing, but Malaranth was just about able to reach the staff before Celestia could grasp it with her magic. The Daemon rolled in mid-air, raised the staff, and fired. Celestia disappeared behind a solid wall of roiling energy. Not for long, however, as a great ball of magic erupted from inside the warp wall, casting off the dark force like the heat from the sun melting the clouds away. Luna dove down toward the city to help her sibling; their little bit of trickery had almost worked; but almost was the key word, and even without the staff, Malaranth was clearly still able to enact many of its abilities. The staff was important, but it was not the only thing that mattered. Luna took careful aim with her horn. Behind the Daemon was a large building and a crossroads. With Malaranth occupied by Celestia and the staff, Luna hoped she could strike with surprise. She fired.

The Daemon, despite being focused on Celestia, was still aware of Luna's incoming attack, and it was able to teleport out of the line of fire. Luna's magic blast raced through the spot where the Daemon had been floating, and bodily struck the building below in a shuddering explosion. The Daemon turned and raised its staff once more. It had but a fraction of a second to achieve its goal, but it did just that. A flashing cone of light leaped from the staff, this time toward Luna. There was no time to react, no time for Celestia to shout a warning, no time for Luna to scream. The cone of light engulfed her, and the Moon Princess was gone.

Corporal Breeze fired his rifle, but the shot went astray. The man coming at him was a brute, a hulking figure with broad shoulders and a face contorted in anger and rage. Perhaps that was his natural state; perhaps he was always angry, or perhaps he had worked himself into some kind of frenzy before the battle. Perhaps he just truly, deeply hated ponies. Breeze didn't really care what the reason was. All he cared about was his own survival. The man was not alone, either. There were more coming up behind, perhaps a whole platoon's worth. Breeze glanced over his shoulder for a fraction of a second. The rest of his own platoon were there, the covering squads now coming up in support, including the humans attached to their unit. There were more friendly forces farther down the corridor, covering the other direction and firing at more enemies.

Breeze switched his attention back to the immediate problem. The man had a rifle with a serrated bayonet, and seemed determined to gut Breeze with it. Breeze's own rifle had a bayonet, too, but the human was considerably taller than he was, and had much greater reach with his weapon than the pony did. Breeze backed up again as the man continued to advance. He had support alongside him, too; three more men advanced in line abreast, all but filling the corridor. One man was even struck by a bullet, but continued to advance, either unaware of his wound or simply not caring about it, driven on by steroids or combat drugs, or perhaps merely by adrenaline and anger.

The man lunged again, but Breeze was backing up to the corner in the corridor behind him. Ponies were firing their rifles, but the enemy kept advancing on them, and now more soldiers were coming from side room to the left, joining the attack. The pony platoon were pressed back, forced to turn the corner or to fight in close combat. They had no choice, as the enemy were advancing faster than they could retreat, unless they wanted to completely break ranks and turn to run, which would both leave the other friendly forces exposed and would allow the enemy to gun them down as they tried to escape. Breeze raised his rifle to put a round through the man's stomach, but the brute was already on him again, snarling and lunging with his bayonet. All around him, a coordinated defence began to break down into a melee, just as had occurred on the other, lower floors. Ponies stood their ground, the alternative being to run away like cowards, and though the enemy were bigger and more physically imposing than all but the largest and most muscular pony, not one stallion or mare along them considered themselves to be a coward.

'For the grace and the might of the Sun!' the platoon leader shouted, an added encouragement. 'In the name of Her glory!' The patriotic rallying cry was sure to instill courage and faith in the hearts of any guardspony.

'Her will be done!' another pony shouted in answer, and with a roar, the platoon leaped into the fight. Blades clashed and magic flashed as the ponies faced their enemy, this invader, this despoiler and ravisher who had sacked their holy capital once again. They would not leave Canterlot alive; every pony was determined in that fact.

'In Celestia's name!' Breeze cried, parrying the man's bayonet. He felt a jarring shock run through his forelegs, as the man was bigger, stronger, and imparted more force into his thrust than Breeze could. In contrast, Breeze could recover more quickly from any failed or diverted thrust than his larger foe, and he was able to quickly slash across to the side with his bayonet, cutting the man's leg and eliciting nary a grunt in response. Perhaps he too was pumped full of combat drugs that numbed the pain of any injury. Breeze returned to the guard position, anticipating another thrust by his foe. But the man did not try to stab with his bayonet, instead attempting a kick with one big, booted foot to try and catch Breeze by surprise. It did surprise him, but it did not unbalance him as the man had hoped. Breeze was able to retain his position, at least until a second kick with his other foot caught Breeze's other hind leg, and sent him tumbling to the floor with a grunt.

The man came in for an attack, to finish off the stubborn pony who refused to simply surrender like he was convinced that any sensible enemy would when faced with the might of Chaos. Breeze retained hold and control of his rifle, and in desperation, he rolled quickly onto his back, gripping the gun tightly, and thrust upward. The man bent forward as he brought his lasgun down to skewer Breeze, but instead found himself impaled on the end of the pony's rifle. Now, regardless of whatever drugs he might have taken before the battle, the Chaos trooper felt the pain. He dropped his weapon, which clattered down, still catching Breeze with the tip of the bayonet but only nicking the top of his left hind leg as it fell. To make sure, Breeze pulled the trigger, and a bullet ripped through the man's abdomen, popping out of the other side and spraying blood onto the ceiling. His expression of pure hatred turned to one of confusion, perhaps tinged with a touch of regret and acceptance. Breeze gave a tug to free his weapon, and was disgusted when a torrent of intestines poured from the ragged wound he had created, unraveling onto his face. He rolled away to get out of the filth as the man collapsed to his knees and then to the floor like a house of cards falling in on itself.

Breeze tried to wipe the blood and offal from his face, but felt somebody tripping over him in the confusion of the corridor. At least one pony lay dead next to him, and he could hear screams and cries of agony and rage from all around. Every gunshot that rang out was almost deafening, fired inside a building in a hallway with no windows or other exterior openings. The human las-weapons were quieter as the mechanism for firing them was different and did not rely on the detonation of a percussion cap, but even the crack and hiss of their shots was loud enough. Another pony slammed into the floor just beside Breeze, a bloody wound in his neck from which his vital fluid was pumping at a prodigious rate.

There was no time to help him, no chance to stem the bleeding and keep him alive. If he could use his own first aid kid to pack the wound and use his trembling hoof, getting weaker with each beat of his heart, to apply pressure, then there was a tiny chance that the pony could survive. But any major wound in the heat of battle was essentially untreatable, unless the pony could get themselves to a position that was safe enough for a medic to treat them or a stretcher party to carry them away to a casualty clearing station. The only other option was to use magic, but that, for the most part, was a temporary fix. Field medics were trained to a certain degree, but any other unicorns in service only learned the rudimentary basics of first aid magic. There were few healers in Equestria who could truly fix a major, life-threatening wound using magic alone.

Breeze got back to his feet, tasting the metallic tang of the human's blood in his mouth. He had at least, mercifully, been able to close his eyes before getting blood in them, so he could still see the crazed melee that was well and truly underway. To make matters worse, enemies were now coming out of the rooms to the right, threatening to cut the platoon off from the rest of the survivors on the fourth floor, who were farther down the corridor. The situation was dire, and even with three or four ponies using magic to hurl back advancing enemies with a concussive wave, the Chaos troopers were still gaining ground, still pressing them hard. The platoon was being backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively. Breeze was amazed by the speed with which they had raced through the building. The hospital was no small structure, and it was essentially a maze of rooms and corridors to anyone not aware of its layout, and yet the enemy had made their way to the first four floors- probably all the floors by now, and the roof, and the basement, if there was one.

Back in the fight, Breeze tried to take aim at an enemy, but there were so many bodies flailing about that he could not get a good target without risking friendly fire. Ponies were grappling and wrestling with their larger foes, while others were trying to dart around between them to attack from the rear. Breeze saw several very effective kicks with hind legs at the enemy's knees, which at the minimum send the humans sprawling, and in most cases broke the leg and the kneecap from the front, and severed tendons from the rear. Horseshoes were not sharpened like bayonets, though certain factions had been known to do that in Equestria's distant past. They were still heavy chunks of metal, though, and combined with the force a pony could impart through its strong hind legs, meant that a kick which connected to a vital part of the human anatomy could easily be fatal.

Another man, squeezed out of the carnage by happenstance or design, found himself approaching Breeze. This soldier held two knives, one in each hand, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He had obviously come prepared for close combat. He sneered at Breeze; clearly he considered the pony corporal to be no threat worth considering, merely another obstacle to dispose of. Breeze was determined to prove him wrong. He sidestepped, trying to slash with his bayonet, but missed. The man swung around, trying to grab Breeze and stick his knives into his flesh. He failed, as Breeze ducked and weaved. Being shorter than the man let him get in low, and he stabbed his bayonet into the meat of his thigh, drawing a grunt of pain from his lips. Breeze turned, got down on all fours, and kicked out with both hooves. The man doubled over, caught in the midriff by the heavy blows. His knives went tumbling away. Breeze regained his position, gave a grunt, and kicked out again. This time the man was laid out on the floor, slumping against the wall. Breeze went in with his hoof once more, this time aiming for the man's head, and again, and again, and again.

He turned to look, no longer feeling fear, or even determination, but just the same, burning anger that seemed to run through the veins of every one of these Chaos troops. Something inside him had snapped, from all the violence, from all the fear and the suffering and the sacrilege. The man's head had been reduced to little more than a leaky sack of gore, brains and blood smeared on the wall where Breeze's horseshoe had pounded it. His head had cracked like an eggshell. One eyeball lay, rather incongruously, a few inches from his body.

Breeze felt no revulsion like he normally would at such a sight. It was all the creature deserved. That was all it was, just a creature, like a timberwolf or a manticore. All it knew was a base desire for blood. The Chaos forces had shown no reason or capacity for higher learning, except perhaps for their leaders. Breeze continued to feel his own bloodlust rising as he looked around. Ponies and men were dying left and right, as if the hospital were overrun with an especially virulent and fast-acting plague. The sky bridge was ahead, just a hundred feet or so from their position. That was where they were heading. The rest of the units in the building were meant to be heading there, too, but there was no sign of any friendlies in that direction. Perhaps they had all been cut off; perhaps they were all dead. Maybe Breeze's platoon was all that was left of the entire force assigned to defend the hospital- no, the airship was still there, wasn't it? Perhaps that too had gone down in flames.

Breeze charged into the fray again. Two men came at him, but one of them went down with a las-round through the head before he could get near. The other man went in with the bayonet, and Breeze countered with his own blade, the clink of clashing steel filling his ears. He snarled. The man snarled back, face contorted in a sadistic smile. He lunged again, catching Breeze's rifle and twisting his own weapon, flicking his wrist and yanking Breeze's gun away from his grasp. The corporal was unarmed, but he was not defenceless, not yet. Breeze leaped at the man while his lasgun was pointed off to the side as a result of snagging his rifle away. He caught him in the midriff and carried enough momentum to knock the man down to the ground. He pinned the man's arm down with a forehoof so he couldn't raise his gun. The soldier reached for a pistol at his waist, but Breeze gave in to his most bestial instincts; instincts that ponies, being natural herbivores, shouldn't even have. He jerked his head forward and tore at the man's neck. His teeth were not designed to tear at flesh, but the majority of stallions did have some canine teeth, and Breeze was no exception. He ripped the skin and muscle away with an almost feral howl, severing the carotid artery and once again finding himself sprayed with blood. The man gurgled and squirmed, looking as much surprised as anything else. Breeze stood up, breathing heavily, his coat heavily matted with other people's viscera, a mad glint in his eye, making him look more like a four-legged soldier of Chaos than a loyal servant of Celestia.

The members of his platoon were falling, both pony and human alike. Yet salvation, an exit from the madness, was just yards away at the end of the hallway. 'With me, first squad!' he called out, picking up his rifle, and setting course for the sky bridge. A few ponies were able to follow, shoving and stabbing their way through the enemy, but there were still more men coming from side halls and rooms, blocking their path. Breeze was determined to reach it. Nothing was going to stop him leading his squad to safety. Except that something did.

He charged on, ducking a bayonet, stabbing a man in the leg with his own, kicking him in the crotch and then putting a bullet through his head. Another man lunged out at him. He parried with his bayonet, going in with his rifle butt to the stomach. That was when a bright blueish-purple light began to fill the hallway, shining in from outside through the windows of the sky bridge. There was a deep roar like the Canterlot Express hurtling toward him, before the building shook violently, rocking like an earthquake. It felt like the entire city was coming away from the mountain. Breeze stumbled and fell, as did his opponent, and his squad, and everybody else. Walls cracked and windows shattered. The floor turned to jelly and began to crumble away beneath him. Breeze scrambled desperately for solid ground, but the entire corridor was coming apart, as if reality itself was disintegrating around him. There was nothing solid under him any longer. The ceiling collapsed, the walls collapsed, the whole fourth floor collapsed, and Corporal Breeze went down with it.

Princess Celestia had watched her sister come diving in on the attack. She had watched her unleash her magic upon the Daemon. She had watched her attack miss the Daemon and strike the hospital building, practically leveling it, bringing down the connecting sky bridge too. She had watched, helplessly distant, as Luna had been engulfed by the magic, or whatever it was, from the Daemon's staff. She had watched as her sister, her beloved sister, had disappeared entirely. Gone. Vanished. She had not teleported; she did not reappear.

A deep, all-consuming rage rapidly overcame Celestia. This was an anger she had not felt in a long, long time. Chrysalis had not provoked this, nor had Sombra. Not since she had been forced to banish Luna had she felt such strength of emotion, and then it had been sadness, grief, loss; not anger. She had felt like this only once before, when Discord had first taken control of Equestria all those years ago and started to oppress every single pony in the land. Even that paled in comparison, for this, this was personal. This was something that would break a lesser mind, but Celestia was strong enough to endure, though it still drove her to a dark, dark place.

She retaliated immediately, engaging the Daemon with her magic, a replay of their initial encounter in Fillydelphia. Celestia swirled and flew with the Daemon, a tireless, seemingly endless battle that raged for at least ten minutes, a thunder over the city as magic clashed with the warp. It was a stalemate once again, a fight that seemingly refused to tip one way or another.

All of this was watched intently by observers in the palace. Details of the ongoing battle were shared with the command centre down in the lower levels, where Major Barritt and Commander Shining Armour were directing the defence of the city. The news sent shockwaves through the pony members of the joint defence staff. They were shortly to receive another shock.

'Canterlot Command, this is Fleet Command.' The vox crackled with an urgent message. 'Canterlot Command, this is Fleet Command!'

'Fleet Command, Canterlot Command, go ahead.' A Guardsman replied.

'Canterlot Command, be advised, you have an unknown contact inbound on a terminal trajectory!' the vox crackled. 'I say again, you have an unknown contact inbound on a terminal trajectory! Canterlot Command, get that shield up!'

The city shield was powered by Cadence; or rather, it would be, once she switched from defending the palace to defending Canterlot. But the message would take time to reach her. Anypony looking up to the skies would have seen a sudden, fiery trail, starting slightly to the south and racing through the sky, glowing and blazing like a furnace. Something was coming, and it was coming fast.

'Canterlot Command, this is Fleet Command. Get that shield up, now!'

The object continued on, flashing across the sky. Just in time, the city shield went up, a pink dome above Canterlot, protecting the city and its inhabitants from whatever was coming their way. There was dismay, alarm, concern, among the headquarters staff. Something was coming; nobody knew what. An asteroid or some similar piece of space debris seemed the obvious conclusion, and that was a terrifying prospect. The city shield could theoretically protect Canterlot, but an asteroid strike would destroy more than just one settlement. It could destroy all life on the planet, but there was no way of stopping its rapid descent.

Cadence's shield covered the whole city, enemy as well as friend. The ponies and the humans in the command centre braced themselves for a violent end if the object was not stopped. But nothing could stop it now, for it was moving too fast. It did not matter.

The flaming comet, falling through the sky, stopped itself.

Showdown

The battle continued to rage on outside of the palace. The defensive line was holding, even as the enemy started to throw their tanks into the fray. Their heavy shells tore holes in the buildings occupied by the ponies and Imperials, but lascannon and missiles were able to counter them, as well as air support from friendly strike aircraft. Pinpoint attacks knocked out individual tanks or personnel carriers, while the pony airships hurled heavy shells down onto Chaos infantry concentrations and clusters of Changeling drones.

Into this maelstrom came Twilight and her friends. The guards at the exterior palace wall were as reluctant as those at the catacomb entrance had been to let them pass, but they were accompanied by two guard officers from the command centre who instructed the guards to allow them outside. Cadence raised the bottom of her shield for a moment, and out they went, half a dozen ponies slipping out beyond the protective barrier. Spike remained in the catacombs; it was too dangerous for him. He had, however, repeated the trick used previously when Celestia was in Fillydelphia. He sent a magic scroll to the Princess; hopefully she had been able to catch it as it materialised above her, and read it. If she had, she would know that Twilight and the others were leaving the palace, and that, if she could get the Element of Magic away from Chrysalis somehow, then they just might have a plan.

It was a tentative plan, and moreover it relied entirely on something they had been unable to achieve before. Chrysalis had worn the Element ever since she had captured it, and there was no way she would part with it voluntarily. Whatever prestige and attachment she had to her actual crown, her true symbol of office, she had clearly felt that keeping personal possession of the captured Element was more important than to continue wearing her Changeling regalia. Given the nature of the Elements and how they were rendered useless by even a single absentee item, she was very wise to do so. Celestia had always desired the recovery of the lost Element as an overriding priority, all the way from the volcano Hive assault to the present day. Unfortunately, it didn't seem possible.

The street outside the palace was lined with defensive positions on both sides. Sandbagged firing points and bunkers had been set up, with ponies and humans interspersed along the line, crouching down behind the defences, manning machine-cannons, field guns, missile launchers and stubbers. The ring of steel formed a semicircle around the palace, protecting all of the city-side approaches to it. This was not the only line of defence; the new frontline lay some half a mile out, and Twilight set a course for it, much to the bemusement of many of the onlookers. Six pastel, colourful mares, unarmoured and unarmed, making their way out into a warzone. The humans were confused, but the ponies, some at least, recognised the Element Bearers and knew of their abilities and their past successes. That didn't make them any more confident that the mares could survive in this warzone; many of them imagined they were heading off on a suicide mission, knowingly or otherwise. Maybe they wouldn't be coming back, maybe that was the point. Nopony knew for certain what they were trying to do.

Twilight led the way as they trotted down the street. Several times ponies shouted at them from the windows. 'Hey, get back inside the palace! What are you doing out here?' 'Civilians shouldn't be out here!' Twilight ignored their shouts. They were not civilians; they were Elements, and they had a job to do, or at least try to do. Everything depended on others, however. There was surely no way they could get the Element of Magic back themselves without some kind of help, but they could at least try to get in a position to recover it and be ready to use it if Celestia, or the Daemon, were able to part Chrysalis from her ill-gotten gains.

'Oh, a-are you sure about this, Twilight?' Fluttershy asked timidly, as a particularly loud explosion rattled the windows of the building around them and sent dust cascading down from rooftops. 'It seems a little, um...dangerous out here...'

'Don't worry Fluttershy. It's like I promised my brother,' Twilight replied. 'If we encounter real danger and we can't deal with it, or if everypony else starts falling back, I'll teleport us all back inside the shield quicker than you can say hey presto.'

'Yeah, don't worry too much, Flutters!' Rainbow asked, flapping along slightly above the ground instead of trotting. 'We can handle a few drones. We've shown that before! And these humans? Well, don't you remember how Twi kicked their asses back when they first tried to attack Canterlot?'

'Um, I-i guess...' Fluttershy muttered, though seemingly less than entirely convinced about the merits of Rainbow's argument. Twilight led them on through the back alleys. Occasionally they were passed in one direction or another by messenger ponies or squads moving to redeploy or to reinforce the frontline, but for the most part they were alone. Gunfire and explosions were distorted by the buildings all around them, making it sound as though there was shooting behind them, above them, or immediately next to them, which did nothing to calm Fluttershy's shaking nerves, as she jumped at every blast or roar of aircraft.

As they reached another road, the gunfire ahead became much louder, and it was clear that they were getting close to the frontline, where pony and Imperial defenders were making their determined stand against the enemy. Getting too much farther forward could be dangerous, and so Twilight pointed upward.

'Let's get to a rooftop!' she suggested. 'We can see what's going on with the battle, and see the Princess and Chrysalis. That way we can be ready to act if we see anything happening.' Applejack and Rainbow nodded in agreement at her plan, and Rainbow flapped up to rooftop height to select a suitable building that wasn't already being used as a defensive position. She found one on the near side of the street, just a little detour from the alleyway they were emerging from.

'Over here!' she waved with a hoof. 'Can you get into the building?'

'Don't worry. Gather round, girls,' Twilight ordered, and together she teleported them up, while Fluttershy took the scenic route and flapped up to join Rainbow. The roof was flat and offered decent sightlines across toward the frontline, as well as a clear overhead view of the sky where Celestia was still fighting.

'Yeah, this is the spot,' Twilight nodded her confirmation and approval. 'We'll set up right here. We can see everything we need to see, and we can move easily enough if we have to. I just hope we get a chance to do something.'

The others all nodded their agreement. To have exposed themselves to the dangers of the warzone only to come up empty-hoofed would be demoralising at the least, and potentially fatal at worst, not just for them, but for the whole city, all the civilians and ponies and humans alike. If the Daemon and Chrysalis could not be stopped, then everything was at stake.

Captain Muran pushed his jet into a steady dive. He, like many of the other Imperial pilots, had expended his ammunition fighting the enemy aircraft, and had returned up to orbit using the injection engine to re-arm aboard the Indefatigable, the squadron's new home thanks to the destruction of the Emperor's Judgement. With a fresh weapons load, he and his wingman Rall had returned to the fray, just in time to witness the bizarre comet descending from the heavens. It had flashed past him at high altitude as they had still been descending back into the lower atmosphere, startling him despite the warning broadcast on the emergency channels. The turbulence of its passage had rocked his wings.

Now that they had reached the city again, he could see exactly what it was that had been responsible; a Changeling, wreathed in green energy and surrounded by a shield much like the pony princess. It must have been the same creature who had survived the destruction of the flagship; the Queen. He noted that the Changeling was attacking not just the princess, as one might expect given their apparent history, but also the Daemon. A curiosity, but at least it seemed to prove that the Changelings were not working with the forces of Chaos- at least, not intentionally.

The great beasts were not Muran's targets, however. He had to continue to hit the enemy aircraft to protect the ground forces. Friendly units were on the way, being rushed up from the former defensive line down to the south, but for now, the defenders of the city were on their own, apart from the air support being provided by Muran and the rest of his fellow pilots. Air power could turn the tide on the ground, at least, even if it might not be able to do anything about the two big threats that loomed above it.

A few enemy dropships were still trying to make landing runs, and they were priority targets. Taking them out before landing would likely kill the passengers, saving the ground troops a lot of trouble. Muran sighted in on one of the lumbering craft, keeping an eye out for fighters trying to get in behind him while he was occupied. Rall stayed to the rear performing overwatch for him.

Muran decided to keep his missiles in case he had to dogfight, and locked on with his lascannons instead. He squeezed the trigger and pumped half a dozen shots into the dropship, which seemed to stagger in mid-air, fire belching from one of its engines. It tilted over and plunged into the side of a building, bringing the whole structure down on top of it. An explosion then ripped through the debris, signalling the demise of more Chaos forces. Another small step closer to the successful defence of the city.

The pony airships were still blazing away, all three of them still intact despite the earlier trouble they had been experiencing. The ranks of the enemy air forces had been thinned by a combination of air defences and Imperial fighters. There were only a few more remaining, as well as some bombers and ground attack aircraft which were trying to sew confusion among the defenders. Once they were dealt with, the skies would be clear, apart from the Changeling drones which were too small to target with the Lightning's weaponry and would have to be dealt with by the ground forces.

Another target appeared in his vision, this time a strike aircraft. Its missiles and autocannons would prove a severe danger to friendly forces down below if it was allowed to continue to roam free through the skies. Muran throttled back to settle in on its tail. It had no point defences, and while it was a lot more maneuverable than the dropship, the strike aircraft was not designed to dogfight with an interceptor. In fact the pilot seemed to be mostly unaware that anyone was behind him at all. Muran found it an easy kill, a burst of autocannon fire shattering its port wing and sending the strike jet down in flames, bouncing along a wide boulevard as it disintegrated.

'Got one on my six!' Rall called over the vox. 'Trying to shake him...standby...break, break, break!'

Muran did just that, swinging to the right and pulling into a tight turn. 'I'll get behind him,' he informed his wingman. 'Keep him busy.'

'Copy that,' Rall replied. Muran brought his jet around and spotted the foe. It was a sleek aircraft, with swept back wings, and it was in pursuit of Rall, who was climbing and twisting. Muran tucked in behind the enemy fighter, trying to get a missile lock on it, but Rall's maneuvering to escape was causing the fighter to bounce around the sky as it tried to match him.

'Hold him steady for a second,' Muran requested. 'I can take him.'

'Copy...' Rall stopped his rapid maneuvering, and so did the enemy fighter. Muran had to act fast before the pilot could get a lock on Rall. He dispensed with the missile and brought the crosshairs over the enemy, firing the lascannons again. The enemy jet exploded in mid-air, and Muran's jet raced through the could of debris, fragments of metal pattering off of his cockpit canopy. 'Got him.'

'Nice shooting,' Rall replied, leveling off. Muran pulled alongside his wingman again. They were high above the city after their rapid climb. There were no enemy fighters up here; they were all involved in the swirling melee a few thousand feet or less above the city rooftops. Muran dipped one wing and looked down at the city. He could still see the battle between the powerful creatures, even from this altitude. The flashes of their magic and warp energy marked them out clearly from on high. He had seen the Daemon take all kinds of firepower down at Fillydelphia, and by all accounts the Changeling Queen had shrugged off the heaviest guns of the fleet.

He himself had tried attacking the Daemon, and seen how ineffective his jet's weaponry had been. No doubt the result would be similar if he tried to attack the Queen. Best to leave that task to the pony princess, although, he noted, she now seemed to be alone. Weren't there two ponies earlier? What had happened to the other one?

Suddenly, and quite to Muran's surprise, they were no longer alone at their high altitude. The swirling combat between the powerful creatures had risen above the city, climbing higher into the sky within moments, until they were level with the two jets. Blasts of magic cut through the sky ahead of Muran, and the Changeling Queen whizzed across his vision. Crackling green energy encased her crooked horn, and Muran pushed the stick down to avoid her. His aircraft dipped beneath her as he tried to stay clear of the fighting. Taking a hit from her magic, or from that of the princess, would likely destroy his Lightning, and a hit from the warp energy of the Daemon could cause any number of untold and bizarre things either to his jet, his body, or his mind.

Rall followed him down. 'Shit, that was close...' he muttered over the vox. 'What should we do, Captain?'

'Best get ourselves out of here,' Muran replied. 'We can't fight these things.'

'Shouldn't we at least try?' Rall questioned. 'Aren't we supposed to be allies with these ponies?'

That was certainly true, but surely attempting such a thing was tantamount to suicide. Two Lightnings would have no effect against creatures of such power. That had already been ably demonstrated by the inability of an entire fleet of aircraft to inflict any damage on the Daemon in Fillydelphia. There was no reason to believe that they would be effective against the Queen, either.

'We're allies, but we can't do anything against these things,' Muran pointed out in reply. 'Our weapons just aren't powerfu enough.'

'Well...couldn't we at least distract them?' Rall suggested. 'The princess is fighting by herself. If she's the only thing that can stop these enemies, then we have to do anything we can to help her. Otherwise if they kill her, then...'

'Then they will turn against each other,' Muran replied. 'You saw them fighting each other down there. There's clearly no love lost between them. They're not allies.'

'And whoever wins that fight will have free reign to do whatever they want,' Rall answered. 'If there's nothing else that can stop them, then everything we've been fighting for here will be for nothing. The city will fall, the planet will fall. All of those deaths will be in vain. Every lost member of this squadron will have died for nothing.'

That was certainly true. So far as they knew, the princess was the only creature who could stop the Daemon or Chrysalis. She was fighting hard, but it was possible that she was only still alive because the two enemies were spending as much time attacking each other as they were attacking her. Even the smallest distraction might help her achieve victory, and now that they were at such an altitude, the only distraction that could come would be from aircraft. Ground fire could not reach them, other than the Manticore anti-air missiles, which had already tried to bring down both creatures, to no effect.

'Alright. Alright, we'll try and distract them,' Muran agreed. 'Just use extreme caution, Rall. We don't really know what we're dealing with. Just make close passes, shoot at them if you get an angle. Don't take any risks.'

'Got, it Captain,' Rall answered. Muran turned his jet around. Maybe, despite what he had just cautioned his wingman, they were taking a huge risk. But maybe, they could just make the tiny difference that was needed- or maybe they were simply wasting their time. They were not alone in their efforts, anyway. Dozens of other Imperial aircraft were swirling around the battlespace now. Their combined firepower could destroy an entire regiment of enemy troops or bring down a towering Titan, the walking gods of the battlefield. And, so far as Muran knew, none of it would be enough.

Malaranth had started to rise higher above the city, and both Chrysalis and Celestia followed its lead, gaining altitude, higher and higher into the sky. They were leaving Canterlot behind beneath them. Celestia didn't know why the Daemon wanted to change the location of their battle, but she was happy enough to move away from the city. Fighting so close above the city meant that stray shots could cause more damage to the buildings and potentially injuries and deaths among the defenders. Undermining the efforts to hold the city was not something that she wanted.

What she wanted was to get control of the Element of Magic. She had received the unexpected scroll from Spike, which had appeared in front of her out of the blue. She had managed to catch and rapidly read it, as she had when Spike had done the same thing when she was down in Fillydelphia. While she did not approve of Twilight's rashness at insisting she had to leave the safety of the catacombs, there was no denying that her assistance would be of vital importance, provided the Element could be recovered. She had been looking for opportunities to take it ever since Chrysalis had reappeared. She had imagined it lost, destroyed by the human space weaponry. To discover that it was intact, and that the Elements could, potentially, be used after all, was a great relief to her. She had been fighting the Daemon and Chrysalis, and doubted her ability to beat them in straight combat. Certainly, she could not take out both, even if they were busy, at times, with fighting each other as well as her. Even with Luna present, the balance was not in their favour, and now she was gone...

Celestia knew she would need help. The Imperials seemed powerless to help against these particular foes. While they were more than capable of defending the city, they had shown no evidence of being able to defeat such powerful creatures. Only magic could defeat Chrysalis, and perhaps only magic could defeat this Daemon.

'Having trouble keeping up, Celestia?' Chrysalis mocked, leading the way to the higher altitude with Malaranth. 'Just give up! Can you not see the futility of your struggle?'

'Perhaps I should leave you two to kill each other,' Celestia answered. 'No doubt you would revel in the chance to defeat the creature that claims to be pulling your strings from behind the scenes.'

'This creature lies!' Chrysalis shouted. 'You can see that as well as I. It probably made you a similar offer.'

'Why, I did indeed,' Malaranth answered. 'As I said, you should both join with me. Imagine the potential you could have together!'

'We had a chance to work together a long time ago,' Chrysalis replied. 'Celestia squandered it. There is no second chance, not so far as I an concerned! I am not weak, like she is. She spares all of her enemies, like a child who keeps putting her hoof back onto the hot stove. She cannot understand that mercy is for the weak! If you defeat me, do not spare me, Celestia, for you will bitterly regret it if you do.'

'I am sure the Princess is not so blind as to not be able to see that making sure an enemy is defeated is sometimes the best solution,' Malaranth spoke. 'Perhaps she believes in redemption?'

'And that is what makes her weak,' Chrysalis spat. 'To imagine that an enemy will come to love her like her sycophantic followers is laughable. They will continue to hate so long as they live. That will not change. No amount of false friendship can ever alter their true perception of you and your kind. The real world is not like your cosseted little student Sparkle would like to believe. Maybe it's time she realised that, Celestia! You are the one feeding her those lies, training her to think that everything will be alright. That there is a quick fix to every issue. Not any longer! Not without this.' She pointed a hoof to the diadem on her head, the missing Element. 'Sparkle may be besotted with obeying your every command, but do you know why that is? It is because she fears you, Celestia! She fears your reaction if she fails, if she makes a misstep.'

Celestia shook her head. 'You speak of sycophancy. Just look at your own drones. They do not follow you through choice, they follow you because you force it upon them. You do not give them the option of free will.'

'Nor do you extend that courtesy to Twilight Sparkle and her friends!' Chrysalis retorted. 'imagine what carefree lives they may have led, if you had not engineered events right from the start. You manipulated them to reach the positions they did, where they could carry the Elements of Harmony. And why did you do that? Because you are selfish! You did it so that you could get your sister back, nothing more, nothing less. Nightmare Moon was a deadly threat to the whole planet and she should have been dealt with accordingly. You could have done that yourself. You could have killed her easily. But instead you stage-managed your own disappearance so you could side-step the matter. and manipulated a vulnerable young mare into doing your bidding and putting herself and her only friends in mortal danger so that you could undo the mistakes you made a thousand years earlier! You're a charlatan, Celestia, and I have long seen through you, even if nobody else can!' Chrysalis laughed, a derisive and maniacal giggle characteristic of her.

Celestia paused for a moment. Though Chrysalis was clearly unhinged and full of anger, the Princess had to reflect upon herself. Some of the Queen's words, as much as it pained her to admit it to herself, rang true, clear and loud like a bell. She had manipulated Twilight, and ultimately, she had done it to get Luna back, not necessarily for her own benefit, but for that of her sister. Remorse and regret had been her constant companions for a millennia, and every time she looked up at the moon she knew she had made a mistake. Not in banishing Luna; that had been a necessity, but it had been a necessity because she had messed up her relationship with her sister before that. Things would not have reached that point if she had been more receptive, more open and honest; if she had just listened to Luna a little better. Whatever negative forces had played on the Night Princesses' mind could have been kept at bay with a little more communication and honesty. That was down to Celestia, and she still blamed herself for it.

'I did what I had to do,' she replied simply, a half-truth at best, she conceded, but good enough for the situation. 'The Elements were necessary. How do you imagine you would fare, Chrysalis, under another Discordian rule?'

'Discord does not scare me any more than this Daemon,' Chrysalis answered. 'No matter what uncanny similarities they may share. In fact, I imagine I may have gotten along well with him if he were in charge. You can believe what you want, Princess. It does not change the facts. You led Twilight Sparkle through her foalhood just so you could use her to your own ends when she was fully grown. That is not the act of a beloved ruler and mentor. That is the act of a dictator, a despot! Was that not part of King Sombra's plan, to raise newborn Crystal Pony foals with indoctrination and propaganda to believe his every word? To consider him a god among ponies? To carry out his commands, no matter how brutal and savage they may be? You are no different to him.'

Malaranth kept its distance, content to listen to the two old foes exchange bitter barbs and hurtful truths with each other. All of this, after all, must be part of Lord Tzeentch's plan, as inscrutable as facets of it remained even to his trusted servant. All would be revealed in due time; what will be, will be. What will not, will not. Such was the way of the universe. Such was the way of Change.

'Perhaps if you want to use such an analogy, you should have compared me to yourself!' Celestia snapped. 'Your children, as you call them. Do they have any say in their purpose in life? No! They are soldiers for their Queen. Nothing more and nothing less.'

'They are willing soldiers for their Queen!' Chrysalis laughed. 'They were bred for the purpose, bred to do as I commanded. I am their Queen. That is how Changeling biology works! I do not manipulate them. I do not plant thoughts in their head. I do not force them to do anything. They are not guided by fear of failure, by fear of letting their Queen down. They are not tortured by constant self doubt or driven to the edge of mental breakdown over trying to live up to what they believe their leader wants them to be. They are my children, and they will happily die for me, not because I tell them to, but because they want to. That is the difference between my drones and your student. Your precious Twilight Sparkle, so important to you. That is unfortunate, Celestia. Most unfortunate. For I know exactly where she is.'

Chrysalis rolled over onto her back, and began to plunge toward Canterlot far down below them.

Whiskey For My Men, And Beer For My Ponies

Repairing an Imperial capital ship was a long and complex process. Making a vessel which had been battered and beaten ready for warp travel could take weeks, or even months, depending on the extent of the damage. The Indefatigable had taken a pummeling during the fighting with the Chaos fleet, and Lord-Admiral Marcos had ordered a thorough schedule of overhaul to make sure that the ship could make the jump to warp safely without imploding or losing its Gellar fields. The other ships of the fleet were in similar conditions, and they were ordered to perform the same repairs and checks. Only then could the fleet depart from orbit.

That left plenty of time for thinking, and for celebrating, and while the first week since the end of the battle for Canterlot up until Princess Luna's funeral had passed still on a war footing, now things could finally calm down. In direct contravention of the Imperial Creed, standing orders and innumerable diktats from the Ecclesiarchy, large numbers of Imperial Guard units had been granted permission by their commanders to join in the celebrations with their alien allies. Others took it upon themselves to lead their squads or companies to the parties directly, and some officers simply turned a blind eye when their men disappeared from their barracks. The local pony brews were mixed with ale and Amasec from Imperial stockpiles, far more plentifully available than the home grown alcohol thanks to the war which had destroyed so much of Equestria's infrastructure. There was music and laughter and dancing, and, naturally, considerable unease from the Commissariat. A victory was a victory, and a victory over Chaos was all the sweeter, but to most of the Commissars there was something unnatural and unnerving about celebrating it in such a way with Xenos. No matter that they had stood alongside the Crusade and fought shoulder to shoulder against the Archenemy, they were still aliens.

Lord-Admiral Marcos's decree that the ponies and other planetary species, with the exception of the Changelings, were to be considered allies and not to be harmed, still rankled with some of the Commissars and other senior officers. Allies of convenience, they reasoned, should be cast aside as soon as it was practicable, and destroyed just as if they were mindless Tyranids or bestial Orks. Just because the ponies had helped and Princess Celestia had saved the fleet did not make them any different.

Others, however, were of a different mindset, and with good reason. Princess Celestia had already shown the ability to destroy the remains of the Crusade fleet if she desired it, and any threat against her citizens would bring her wrath very swiftly down upon the Imperials. Furthermore, she had shown herself to be essentially invulnerable against conventional weaponry, and given that her magic was of a similar kind to Queen Chrysalis, there wasn't even a guarantee that space-based weaponry could kill her, seeing as how the Queen had survived a Nova Cannon blast and a full barrage from an Imperial battlecruiser. Only that same magic had been enough to harm the Princess, and kill her sister. The officers on that side of the argument said that any attempt to wipe out the natives would result in the destruction of the remainder of the fleet. The more dogmatic of their opponents argued that it would be a price worth paying, pointing out that the Inquisition would most certainly take that course of action if they deemed it necessary. Sacrificing thousands of human lives to destroy aliens was considered worthwhile- sacrificing an entire Imperial planet to deny it to Chaos was considered a must.

To the men and women on the ground, none of those higher concerns had taken much root. They were the ones who had been knee deep in bodies alongside their equine comrades, in close combat against Daemons and Changelings and howling fanatics. They were the ones who had sacrificed so much to defend this strange foreign land, and they were the ones who were now seeing the gratitude of the ponies they had helped to save. Many civilians had fallen, but others had lived through the madness and were looking to release some of the incredible amounts of stress that had built up in them over the weeks and months of the war. The same went for the Royal Guard and the Air Corps and the Army, all of whom had seen more death compressed into those few months than they had seen in their entire lives. Even the grizzled veterans of the Changeling attacks and Griffonian border conflicts had found themselves overwhelmed by what had unfolded around them, for it was not just the military coming under attack. It was the civilians too, the foals and the eldery who had formerly been spared the horrors of war by the nature of conflict within Equestrian history. It was the very fabric of society, the culture and daily life which had been torn apart by the invaders. That was something previously unknown to Equestria, but a common daily occurrence for the Imperials.

The parties occurred first around the palace in Canterlot, for that had been the symbol of Equestrian resistance throughout the entire war. Princess Celestia had organised an official function to be attended by some of the more liberally minded human officers, as well as pony dignitaries and representatives of other species. It was a more restrained affair, with cocktails and dress uniforms, not so much a party as a reception and social event. Outside the palace walls, however, it was a different story. Guardsponies mingled freely with civilians, who offered drinks to human and pony alike. Musicians played and community members gave speeches in front of burned-out buildings. The evidence of the war and the struggle had not gone away, despite the efforts to clean up. It would be a long time before Canterlot returned to anything resembling the former normality that the survivors remembered before their lives were turned upside down.

The austere and grim surroundings did not dampen the festivities. Fireworks were set off as the darkness descended, bringing light and joy to the city which had only known the violence of artillery fire and anti-aircraft guns for so long. Many ponies appreciated the spectacle, enjoying the old familiar sight of fireworks detonating in celebration overhead, reminding them of better, happier times when ponies would gather to mark events such as the Summer Sun Celebration, Nightmare Night and Celestia's Jubilee years. For others, however, the noise and the thunder and the lightning of the displays could only bring back memories of the war, so fresh and raw in their minds. The celebrations only added further trauma to some unfortunate victims. A few even ran for the palace gates and returned to cower in the catacombs, where the vast majority of civilians were still being housed due to the damage to the city. Many buildings were completely destroyed, smashed by bombs or razed by fire and completely uninhabitable, which meant that there was very little intact housing stock in Canterlot.

That sad fact and the visual evidence of it all around did nothing to deter the celebrations, however. Most ponies and guardsmen needed to unwind. They needed some way to de-stress and relax after being constantly wound up and ready, either for a call to action or a call to dive for shelter. That endless state of enforced readiness for so long was deeply draining, physically and mentally, especially on those who were not used to being on alert like the city's fireponies and Royal Guard. During the war there had been a steady string of suicides among the city's population; after the guns fell silent, there was a sudden flurry of cases, as ponies took stock, looked around, and realised there was simply nothing left for them. Those whose families had been wiped out, whose homes were gone, whose towns and villages had been annihilated, could see no future, and many of them took the option of dictating their own way out of the hopeless hole they had found themselves in.

The dichotomy between the experiences of those partying and those too afraid or traumatised to do so was very marked, even if it wasn't visible. Those ponies who were affected retreated into their own cocoons, either by returning below ground to the catacombs or simply withdrawing into themselves, shunning friends and even family who tried to help. It was a common effect of any major trauma, and this war had been the biggest collective trauma in Equestrian history, and for many citizens, the biggest individual trauma they had ever experienced. No amount of counseling could ever erase the national grief, nor should it. That raw emotion was what had carried them through to the finish, that strength of character, that faith in their Princess, and in each other, and, rather perversely at first, faith in their new human allies. That trust had been very shaky at first, for it was based on need and nothing more. But the longer the ponies fought alongside the Imperials, the more sure they became that the humans were helping not from necessity, but from a genuine desire to free the planet of the taint of Chaos in order to restore it to its former purity.

That was true in many cases, but not all.

While the rank and file partied in Canterlot, and the senior staff attended Celestia's official engagement, others held furtive meetings in empty briefing rooms and temporary building already stripped of their contents, where the only sound was the gentle hum of a generator or the drip of water from a badly-maintained pipe. Not all of the Crusade's officers and officials felt that it was proper for the senior staff to attend a banquet held by a Xenos princess, not did they believe that the right decisions had necessarily been taken throughout the fighting for Kuda Prime. There were dissenting voices- not everyone was behind Lord-Admiral Marcos. Some never had been, while others had other vested interests or had seen things change and develop during the campaign. Two schools of thought had prevailed in the Crusade's forces, and they were diametrically opposed to each other. There had been rumblings and rumours among the men, whispers of a kind of rebellion that the Commissariat especially would take great exemption to, but that news had indeed reached the ears of the sons and daughters of the Schola Progenium, and it had caused disquiet.

The schism was not yet at a crisis point, but there was a danger that it could spread, and that, some alleged, must be prevented at any cost. Fleet Commissar Aldoric, the most senior member of the Commissariat who had embarked on the Crusade, was dead, lost with the Emperor's judgement when he had taken personal command of one of the efforts to relieve the besieged decks that were overrun with Changelings. That was just as well, for he probably would not have agreed with the actions that were to be taken, despite his usual dogmatic approach. He had never agreed with radical action and believed that certain powers possessed by Commissars should be used incredibly sparely and only in extreme circumstances. All of those present in the clandestine meetings, however, were in agreement. Something had to be done before it was too late, and that meant action. Hard, fast, decisive action.

The grand hall of Canterlot Palace had been returned to some semblance of its peacetime glory. What little had survived in the way of decoration after the complex had been sacked by Chaos had been moved and assembled, along with items brought up from the stores in the catacombs below, to attempt to recreate the splendour that was due such a magnificent and storied building. Princess Celestia had overseen the efforts personally, including the erection of a huge banner, in mourning black and bearing no embellishment other than a recreation of Princess Luna's cutie mark.

Tables had been set up, though lacking the usual fine lace cloths that would normally cover them. The drinks were being served from ceramic mugs instead of fine champagne flutes, for that was all that could be found, the crystal glassware having been smashed by the occupying forces, or else taken as war booty along with so much of the fine treasures that had accumulated over the years, from centuries of conquests, expansionism and trade. An illuminated history of the Equestrian nation, Celestia had once called the palace during a speech. Now, while it was bruised, battered and scarred, much like the Princess herself, the palace represented hope, stability, tradition, a return to the calmer, simpler times that every survivor longed to recapture.

While the ordinary citizenry mingled with the military and the Imperial Guard outside the walls, inside the palace, the great and the good of Equestria, those that had survived the Chaos purge of the capital, at least, had gathered. Ambassadors from every nation mingled with Princess Celestia, Princess Cadence, Shining Armour, Grand-Admiral Bluewater, and the human high command. Lord-Admiral Marcos and General Jahn were the guests of honour, joined by others including several ship captains and regimental commanders who had assisted with the recapture of the capital city. It was a more subdued atmosphere compared to the fireworks and laughter in the streets, something akin to the dignified high-society events which would often fill the grand hall with distinguished guests for events such as the Grand Galloping Gala.

Celestia was the hostess of the event, and formed a natural focus for the guests, as she always did, being so visually striking and awe-inspiring for everypony, and even seemingly having a similar effect on many of the human guests. Lord-Admiral Marcos, while certainly not intimidated by her, had learned to move beyond feeling a grudging form of respect to a genuine understanding of exactly what she was capable of and the lengths she would go to to protect her people. He imagined that the Emperor himself would nod his mighty head if he were able, as a mark of understanding. A leader must always lead, and that was exactly what Celestia had been doing throughout the entire crisis. She had not cowered like the Griffon King, who was now here as a guest. She had been out on the frontline, defending her cities, aiding her allies, saving the lives of her troops and citizens, and those of the Imperial Guard, too. She had saved the entire Crusade fleet from utter ruin, and in so doing had saved the planet from being overrun by Chaos. Together with her sister and the sextet of strange young ponies that Marcos still knew precious little about, she had saved the planet from Chrysalis and from the Daemon, and ultimately brought peace to the land once again.

A little relaxation was overdue, for all of them. A few glasses of Amasec was not an unknown for the Lord-Admiral, though usually in the solitude of his private quarters or in the quiet company of Lord-General Galen, before his untimely death. Now his quarters were gone, too, the old familiar metal walls replaced by those of a similar cabin aboard the Indefatigable. Similar, but different. Not quite the same in just enough ways to remind him every time he awoke that he was no longer aboard his old faithful, the Emperor's Judgement. That fine vessel, that grandest of ladies, the keystone of the Crusade fleet, now sadly lost, along with so, so many of its crew. The cost of any major fleet action could be measured in the tens of thousands of casualties at a minimum, but were far more likely to run into five or six figures if a capital ship was destroyed. The Crusade had lost many such ships and many good men and women along the way, especially here, in orbit around Kuda Prime. This had been their final stand, and this, it seemed, had been their destiny. The fates, manipulated in untold ways by Tzeentch, the Emperor, the Eldar, who could say with absolute certainty? They had arrived at Kuda Prime for a reason, and that reason, it seemed, had been to defend the planet against the foul insurgency of Chaos and prevent the Ruinous Powers obtaining the secrets of Equestria.

The faint strains of an orchestra playing at the other end of the hall without any functioning speakers or other audio equipment, and the gentle clink of glasses and murmurs of conversation, were suddenly drowned out by a growing roar. Ponies looked around in worry and several guards suddenly burst in, clad in their golden armour, hurrying to Princess Celestia. They spoke animatedly with her, but there seemed to be some confusion. Marcos strode over to them. His dress uniform replete with several dozen well-earned but heavy medals would have weighed a lesser man of his age down, but not the Lord-Admiral.

'What's going on?' he demanded, half-empty glass of Amasec clutched in his powerful hand. Celestia turned to him.

'It appears we have an unexpected arrival, Admiral.'

Marcos hurried to the large windows that looked out over the palace gardens. As he peered out, the windows rattled as something roared overhead. He looked up. It was an Imperial dropship, thrusters glowing against the darkness above as it swooped in low. Moments later, another appeared, then a third, all settling down unbidden onto the palace lawn.

'Friends of yours, Admiral?' Celestia asked, appearing at his side.

'The fleet had instructions to call me via the vox if required,' Marcos replied. 'I do not know why they would send somebody in person.'

'Perhaps they are here for someone else?' Celestia suggested. 'General Jahn, for example?'

'The same applies, Princess,' Marcos answered as he watched the dropships touch down. 'They would contact us by vox. Any of us. That is standard procedure, unless vox communications are down, but so far as I know, there is no interference beyond background levels at the moment.'

The ramps of the dropships lowered, and squads of Guardsmen descended, in full combat armour, lasguns in hand. 'This does not look much like a social call, Admiral,' Celestia stated the obvious. 'We should find out what is going on.'

There were guards outside the palace doors, and confronted with this strange turn of events, they did not know how to react. Certainly the new arrivals did not possess invitations to the party, but they were humans, Imperials, allies. 'Halt! Who goes there?' they called out, holding their rifles at the ready as they were trained to do. The Guardsmen formed a line, lasguns at the ready position also, neither side aiming at each other but showing that they were willing to do so if needed.

The large doors to the main hall opened and Celestia strode out, with Lord-Admiral Marcos beside her. 'What is the meaning of this intrusion?' she demanded, eyeing the serried ranks of human infantry. There was a company's worth of men now assembled in her garden. An officer stepped forward, parting the line.

'Princess. We have no quarrel with you at this time,' Senior Commissar Birbeck replied, wearing a brow creased as sharply as the brim of his peaked cap. 'Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, by the authority vested in me by the Imperial Commissariat and in the name of the Emperor, I am here to relieve you of command.'

Celestia and Marcos shared a look of surprise. They were not alone- there was a clear ripple of confusion among some sections of the infantry accompanying the Commissar at his announcement. Evidently some of them had not been made entirely aware of the actual purpose of their mission to the capital city.

'You would dare...?' Marcos suddenly roared. 'Birbeck, you pathetic piece of garbage! Human garbage! Fleet Commissar Aldoric was a man worthy of my utmost respect, and he had it. But you? You're not even worthy to lick his boots!'

'Nevertheless, My Lord, I have the authority,' Birbeck replied, his frown turning into a sneer in response. 'I am a member of the Commissariat.'

'Not for much longer!' Marcos snarled. 'This is nothing but bare-faced mutiny. I will not stand for it!'

'Then stand down, Admiral,' Birbeck retorted. 'You have been relieved of your command for failure to ensure adherence to Imperial discipline, for failure to follow standing orders, for consorting with Xenos...' Birbeck spared a moment of his disdain for Celestia before returning to his diatribe against the Lord-Admiral. 'For failure to act to correct improper thoughts among the troops, and for failure to act to prevent the formation of an insurrection.'

'An insurrection?' Marcos laughed. 'The only insurrectionist here is you, Commissar, coming to me with your false outrage. This is a power grab. With Fleet Commissar Aldoric, your direct superior, dead and gone, you can see an opportunity. Take command of the Crusade! Return to Hydraphur to take all of the glory! See the conquering hero comes!'

'This is no power grab, Admiral, it is a necessity,' Birbeck answered. 'Aldoric was a good man and a good Commissar, but he respected you too much to take the action, even if he knew it was necessary. Just look at this. The scene is writ large before my very eyes. Here you are, a Lord-Admiral of the fleet, cavorting with aliens at a...a...dance party!' Birbeck shook his head. 'You have not even seen the problem unfolding in your own ranks. There is serious disquiet, and myself and numerous other Commissars, both from the fleet and the Guard, have decided that we will take it seriously even if you will not. There are reports of large numbers of men, entire units in some cases, who have expressed desires to remain here on this planet! Not to return home to Hydraphur, to their loved ones, to the glory that they deserve. Not to return to the embrace of the Emperor's light! You have not even noticed. because your head has been filled with improper thoughts thanks to this Xenos princess!'

'I am well aware of that issue, Commissar. Unlike you, I am not so blinded by dogma as to leap upon someone's thoughts rather than their actions,' Marcos answered sharply. 'Even if they did wish to remain, that would hardly be unique. Men disappear from recon parties and landing forces all the time, into the wilderness of a jungle planet, or the villages of a feudal world. These men are tired, Birbeck. Damn tired, and so am I. They have fought their way to the end of the galaxy, killing and dying in the Emperor's name, yet so far from his light that the reason, the only reason, the sole reason we actually made it to this fucking planet was because of her!' He pointed to Celestia. 'The last planet they saw with nothing trying to kill them was a barren wasteland with no oxygen and no life whatsoever, and that was six months ago. This place, this planet, gives them a sense of peace. I can understand that. I can see that. Can you?'

'I can see that our decision was the correct one, Admiral,' Birbeck replied. 'I fear that you are too far gone already. You are willing to abandon your men? To leave them on an alien world, with a Xenos as their master? That is heresy, Admiral. Heresy, nothing more and nothing less. Abhor the alien, Admiral! Abhor the alien. Did you forget the Imperial Creed?'

'If I had taken that blunt of an approach, Commissar, we wouldn't be having this delightful conversation, because we would already be dead, killed either by the Princess or by Chaos. Use your head, man! You have fought alongside the Eldar before, when it was necessary. This is no different.'

'Perhaps not initially, but how many of our men have expressed willingness to go and live on an Eldar Craftworld?' Birbeck pointed out. 'More importantly, how many would you have allowed to do so? Have you not seen the way these ponies treat their leader? She has them under her sway, and now she has you as well. Do you not remember your oaths? Do you not care? Have you forgotten that it is the Emperor who protects, not this alien!'

'I have a name, Commissar,' Celestia pointed out coolly. 'Does your Emperor have a name, or is he merely a faceless entity? From what I understand, he spends his time sitting in silence, day after day, year after year, taking no kind of active role in the lives of his subjects. What kind of a leader does that make him?'

'You see? Now she profanes the Emperor himself!' Birbeck growled. 'And you stand there and not only allow it, but practically subjugate yourself to her by attending this event at her invitation. Several months ago you summoned her to your flagship like a leader, and now you fawn at her feet.'

'Not only do I have a name, but I have hooves, not feet,' Celestia retorted. 'I will be sure to give you an invitation next time, Commissar, so that you do not...rudely interrupt proceedings again.'

'Enough!' BIrbeck shouted. 'Be quiet, witch! Sergeant, arrest the Admiral!'

A Sergeant stepped forward. Sergeant Barnard Argan, Gamma Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 40th Parvian Lancers. The Regiment had not been committed to the fight for Canterlot, for it had been well out of position to the south when the attack was launched. That was why Birbeck had selected it to provide the troops who would accompany him to the capital to arrest the Lord-Admiral; they had not had direct exposure to the Princess recently, nor had they been taking part in the celebrations with any natives, thus reducing the chance of their minds being corrupted, as the Commissar saw it, in the same way that he believed Marcos's to have been.

Argan had fought across the planet, from Manehattan to Ponyville and beyond. He had seen the usual array of horrors and more besides. He had also seen the Princess fighting, putting herself at risk not to protect ponies, but to protect humans. To protect Imperial Guardsmen. To protect him. As much as it confused and unnerved him at the time, he had made up his mind when he was recuperating in the field hospital after the flood in Ponyville had injured him. His decision was based on the simple fact that he had little else to return to. His wife, Marla, was long gone. Why should he want to return home when there was nothing there for him? This place, this planet, had revitalised him, given him back feelings he had thought long dead within him.

'I'm sorry, sir...I cannot carry out that order,' Argan spoke in a steady voice.

'What? Why not?' Birbeck turned his iron gaze upon Argan.

'Because...because I do not believe it is justified, sir,' Argan added his reasoning. 'I do not believe the Lord-Admiral has committed any crime worthy of being relieved of his command as a punishment.'

'You do not think that the swelling mutiny in our ranks needs to be stopped?' Birbeck raged. 'That our men need to be checked and brought to heel before they are truly lost to us! Before they fall under the sway of this Xenos?'

'With all due respect, Commissar...' Argan paused, glancing to Marcos and Celestia, then at his men. 'I am with those men. I wish to remain here. On this planet.'

Birbeck's expression turned from one of anger to one of apoplexy. 'You...you actually...want to be here? On this heretical world? Very well, Sergeant. You shall remain here permanently.' Birbeck pulled his bolt pistol from its holster, and before anyone could react, he fired.

Argan went down, a steaming hole in his torso. There was a flurry of activity, flashing lights around him, a sudden glow of gold. Muted sounds, filling his ears like treacle, his brain unable to fully process any of them. He could vaguely see the Lord-Admiral being dragged back inside by his own security detail, while Princess Celestia stood with her horn aglow, erecting a protective shield, though no gunfire appeared to be going her way. He could see his squad, among others, firing their weapons, but not at the Princess. They were firing at Commissar Birbeck, who staggered backward and fell, cut through by a dozen or more las-blasts, his leather overcoat smoking, part of his face replaced with a blackened mess of scar tissue. Merkev the vox-man stepped forward and made sure of the job, putting a final round through Birbeck's head as others rushed to attend to their Sergeant. Argan managed a small smile. He remembered when Merkev had been cowering in the corner of the room at Griffonstone when the Traitor Marines attacked. He had taught the young man well. Birbeck had picked the wrong company for his escort. Argan knew there were many across the 40th Parvians who shared his sentiments and wanted to stay, and not just his unit, either. Men and women from other Regiments, from the armour and the artillery and the air support and logistics. Men from the fleet, even, who had seen even one glimpse of the surface during a supply run or transport mission, and had been captivated by its beauty, the pristine nature of those areas unaffected by the war. It was something many would never find elsewhere during their long careers, for there were not many worlds of such perfection to be found across the Imperium.

All he could see was the dark sky above, speckled with pinpricks of light. Stars. Any one of them might be the one circling his home planet, or perhaps none were. It was so far away, maybe in another sector, another Segmentum even. He couldn't remember, nor did it seem to particularly matter now. The sky was no longer a web of stars, but a picture. A picture of Marla. A picture of his wife. This was perfect. He had dreamed for so long of reuniting with her. Now he was coming to join her. He would stay on this planet, as he had decided. He would live, and die, on Kuda Prime, and he would soon be with his wife again.

Planetfall

Captain Eliss Muran watched the flames of atmospheric entry play over the armoured windshield of his Lightning fighter. Equipped to operate in space, but only to fight in atmosphere, the Lightning was one of two that were dropping as escort to each first contact party. Muran’s wingman, Rall, flew the other. The target of this party was a small town near a forest, the second largest settlement that could be observed from orbit. The largest was a city far to the north, and was the destination of the other landing party. Meanwhile the scout units were tasked with exploring the land in between these two towns.
Dropping with the two Lightnings were two Navy shuttles. Each could hold around 50 men, and each were filled with Guardsmen, Techpriests and Ecclesiarchy preachers who would be all too happy to force the word of the Emperor on whatever inhabitants dwelled below.
Passing through the worst of it, Muran’s Lightning regained communications capability as it escaped from the envelope of ionised air that had surrounded it during the entry. After re-establishing contact with the fleet in orbit, Muran switched to local vox.

‘Hammer 1 to Hammer 2, comm check.’

‘Hammer 2, Hammer 1, five-by five,’ Rall replied, his voice crackling over the vox. Muran repeated the process with the two shuttles. Satisfied that all was well, he tested his control surfaces. The Lightning responded beautifully, banking crisply and pulling into formation behind the shuttles. Muran could see Rall’s craft in front of them. At their current altitude they were well above the cloud base, which covered most of the land below like a blanket. The shuttles were descending swiftly, however, thanks to their anti-grav systems, and within a matter of minutes they would be in the weather. The only way to navigate until they were below the clouds would be via the topographical data that had been uploaded into their flight cogitators before the mission began.

‘Switching to instruments,’ Muran voxed. ‘Let’s take them down.’

The cloud base was low and a light drizzle had just begun. Not ideal flying conditions, but, Captain Starburst thought, not so bad as all that. There was little wind, and that meant a stable flight for them.

‘They’ were the crew of one of the Royal Equestrian Air Corps’ newest weapons of war, the City-Class military airship EAS Manehattan. With a gasbag length of nearly four hundred feet, and a deck length of just over half that, the Manehattan was outfitted as a floating artillery platform. It carried cannon for both air and ground attack, had powerful combustion engines, and a top speed of nearly 100mph. The crew of one hundred and fifty-six ponies included unicorns who could both defend the vessel and attack their enemies with their magic. The gasbag from which the fighting compartment was suspended was protected by external armour and an experimental new self-sealing technology. There was room in the hold, as in all other City-Class airships, for two companies of infantry, allowing the craft to be used as a rapid troop transport. State of the art, Starburst thought to himself, just like Princess Celestia said at the launching ceremony.
The Captain himself was the epitome of the professional Air Corps officer. Resplendent in his field uniform of gold armour, trimmed with sky blue, the colour of the Air Corps, with a red, twelve-pointed star cutie mark, his white coat and black mane stood out like a dichotomic beacon as he stood on the command deck of the Manehattan, his wings flat at his sides.

The public of Equestria had only limited exposure to its military forces. Equestria had not gone to war in Starburst’s lifetime, the operations against the Changelings and Discord having been dubbed ‘internal security actions.’ The service with which the average pony was likely to be most familiar was the Royal Guard, who acted both as royal bodyguards and as the police force across Equestria. The Army was very small, with a core of professional members who, in times of crisis, would be supplemented by thousands of draftees. The Navy was even smaller, possessing just a few coastal patrol craft, transports and their pride and joy, the frigate ENS Celestia and its recently commissioned sister ship, the ENS Luna. The Air Corps, by comparison, was lavishly equipped and funded. There were whole squadrons of combat airships, of which the City-Class was the newest but not the largest. There were two divisions of Pegasi assault troops, who would strike swiftly from the air to capture key objectives. There were transport airships, observation balloons, and, of course, there were the Wonderbolts, the Air Corps’ flight demonstration squadron.
Starburst himself had never been a fan of the Wonderbolts. He firmly believed that the strength of the Air Corps rested not with fancy Pegasi hoofwork, but with the might of the airship squadrons. This might also have had something to do with the fact that he had never been particularly good at aerobatics, but at least he knew that Princess Celestia must feel the same way. The airship command was the only section of the armed forces to escape budget cuts in the last year. Even his good friend Shining Armour had told him that he had been forced to put an entire company of his Royal Guard out to stud to save money.

The Manehattan was currently cruising on its regular patrol route, and was now thirty miles southeast of Ponyville, near the southern end of the Foal Mountains range. Their patrols were usually routine, keeping an eye open for changelings, griffons or dragons, and they never bore much fruit. Starburst had no reason to suspect today would be any different. He cast his watchful eye over his crew.
Earth ponies were maintaining the guns, performing basic maintenance, even scrubbing the main deck. Unicorns were monitoring the gasbag and the ships’ systems- their magic would allow them to operate several systems at once. Pegasi were flitting about, tightening ropes and acting as lookouts. The helmspony, Arrow Straight, was a dark blue Pegasus stallion. He stood nearby with his hooves firmly on the wheel, looking straight ahead and keeping the airship well clear of the rocky outcrops that marked the edge of the mountain range. At cruising speed a moderate breeze blew across the deck of the airship, and light rain spattered the crew as they worked.

‘I hear something!’ somepony cried. Starburst looked around for the source of the sudden outburst. He recognised the voice as that of Sharpeye, a Pegasus employed as part of the observation detail. To hear something over the sounds of the engines and the wind was quite an achievement, but Sharpeye had not been picked just for his excellent vision, the Captain recalled.

‘What is it?’ he shouted up to Sharpeye, who he had located hovering just above the airship’s gasbag.

‘I don’t know, sir! It sounds like a whining noise. I’ve never heard anything like it before.’ Starburst trusted his crew, and Sharpeye had never let him down before.

‘Kill the engines!’ he ordered. Everypony back aboard!’ The crew scrambled to carry out his orders, but before they could the distant sound Sharpeye had heard became audible to everypony.
Without any more warning than that, Starburst saw three…things round the mountain ahead of them and come tearing towards them. The thing in the lead was smaller than the two that followed it. Starburst saw another smaller thing bringing up the rear. As they closed rapidly on the airship, Starburst got a better look at them. He knew every class and type of aircraft operated by Equestria, her allies, and her enemies, and he had never seen anything like them before. They had wings, and that was about the only thing he recognised. The thing in front, and the thing at the back, were sleek, had forward-swept wings, and were making one hay of a screeching noise. The two things in the middle were larger, squat, bulky and apparently silent. They did not look like the constructs of ponies, or of griffons, nor of any other race he had ever encountered. They also moved faster than anything he had ever seen save a pony performing a sonic rainboom.

‘They’re coming straight for us!’ somepony screeched in terror.

‘Battle stations! All hooves to your your battle stations! Evasive maneuvers!’ Starburst yelled over the din. Once more ponies scrambled to obey. Within seconds the things were on them. The lead craft screeched past, followed by the more-or-less silent larger things.

‘Run out the guns!’ Starburst called, as the fourth aircraft closed rapidly on the Manehattan.

‘Run out the guns!’ Razor Blade, the airship’s Gunnery Officer and second-in-command, echoed. The earth pony gun crews obliged, hauling on the ropes and chains that moved the guns on their runners. They clanked and send shudders through the deck as they rolled into position. Around him his crew were in a state of orderly chaos. None of them had ever been in real combat with the Manehattan before, since it was a relatively new craft. Very few of them had ever been in combat of any kind. Starburst had been transferred from the Hero-Class airship EAS Hurricane, where he had seen combat during the changeling emergency, to command the Manehattan. Most of his crew were novices when it came to actually fighting the ship, and yet they reacted with practised hooves, efficiently readying the airship for battle- sealing hatches, donning their armour and, of course, running out the guns.
The Manehattan had eight heavy bombardment cannons on each side of its main gun deck, and five lighter guns per side on the top deck that were for anti-air operations, as well as a half dozen one-pony repeating swivel guns that could engage and fire much more rapidly. All these guns had been prepared for combat, as per standard procedure, but only the anti-air weapons would be of any use.
‘Track that target!’ Starburst screamed, pointing his hoof at the incoming aircraft. The gunners took careful aim, though it was difficult to lead a target moving at such speed.
‘Fire!’ The Captain roared out the order as loud as his lungs would allow. As one, the guns on the starboard side of the Manehattan’s top deck thundered into life to answer his shout.

Captain Muran kept a steady and safe distance behind the shuttles as they dropped through the cloud layer. As they emerged through the overcast he could see a line of high, foreboding mountains to his right, and another range some miles distant and dead ahead. From their briefing he knew the target settlement was somewhere in this valley to the north. Sure enough the shuttles were banking to the right, sweeping round the mountains. Suddenly the vox crackled into life.

‘Airborne contact!’ Rall’s voice cut through the static loud and clear. ‘Off my starboard wing, it’s a big one!’ Instinctively Muran flicked his master arm switch, bringing his weapons systems online. His Lightning was outfitted with a ventral autocannon, a lascannon in each wingtip and four Skystrike missiles slung under the wings. It was well suited to taking down whatever it was that lay in wait.
Within seconds he had rounded the mountainous cliffs and could see the target. It was a large dirigible, reminding him of the similar craft that were in use on many Imperial Hive worlds to transport goods and passengers between Hives. At first it appeared to be posing no threat, but as he flew closer he saw fire erupt from its flank.

‘We’re being engaged!’ he called into the vox. ‘Stay with the shuttles, I’ll deal with this one.’

Starburst was momentarily deafened by the firing of the Manehattan’s guns. He saw dark puffs of smoke erupt where the flyer had been several seconds earlier. But now it was past them, its speed throwing off the gunners’ aim, and it was pulling into a hard left turn.

‘It’s coming around, sir!’ Arrow Straight said from beside him.

‘Shields!’ the Captain called. Several unicorns leapt up to the side rails and began projecting a magical shield of corsuscating blue energy around the airship.
‘Steady, boys!’ Starburst said. ‘Reload!’ The gunners rammed fresh shells into the breeches. ‘Unicorns, prepare to fire!’
The unicorns on deck who were not powering the shield moved swiftly to the rails alongside their compatriots, lowering their heads and preparing to unleash their magical fury on this invader. The ship’s guns had been constructed to allow them to fire through their own magical defences. The aircraft swung round in a tight turn and lined up on its target, heading straight for the centre of the airship.

‘Fire!’

Muran brought the Lightning round, glancing down at his Auspex screen to see the blips representing the shuttles and his wingman moving steadily away. Locking his eyes back on his target, he saw that it had been suddenly covered in a blue ball of energy.

‘Void shields!’ he snarled, keying his vox.

‘Orbital 1, Hammer 1. We have engaged a hostile aircraft of unknown origin.’ Switching back to the flight channel he said, ‘Hammer 1 to Hammer 2, get back here. I may need some help with this one after all.’ He heard Rall’s curt acknowledgement, and then he saw the airship fire again. Gouts of flame leaped from its side, accompanied this time by slower moving purple and white balls of crackling energy.

‘Hammer 1 to Hammer 2, looks like they have plasma weaponry. Maybe they’re not as backward as we thought,’ he said, jinking the fighter to avoid the flak. With his sights back on target, his targeting computer began to give off a loud drone. Instinctively he flipped up a small plastic lid on his control column and pressed the button beneath twice.
Two Skystrike missiles leapt from their rails, one from each wing, and flung themselves at the airship.

‘Incoming!’ The cry resonated across the deck of the Manehattan as the craft opened fire on them.

‘Brace yourselves boys!’ Starburst shouted, grabbing onto the railing nearby. The two projectiles, looking for all the world like oversized fireworks to him, screamed towards them. They struck the shield with a pair of resounding cracks. The blasts shook the airship and sent shockwaves into Starburst’s hoof. The shields flickered, but did not die. Its first pass ineffective, the enemy aircraft roared overhead and into a steep climbing turn. It dove at them from above this time, leaving them helpless to fire back. Red beams flickered from its wingtips and a steady stream of shells pattered off the shield like rain. They seemed to have little effect, but the beams cut straight through the shield like it was paper. They struck the gasbag and Starburst cringed in fearful anticipation of the fireball that must surely come.
But the armour held, and the craft roared off again, passing beneath them this time.

‘Full speed!’ Starburst turned to his helmspony. ‘Get us out of here! Back to Ponyville!’ Arrow Straight nodded in tense acknowledgement of his Captain’s orders, and spun the wheel to the right as far as it would go. The Manehattan responded, ponderously turning to starboard as it answered the helm. Faster than Starburst thought possible, the aircraft was back on them, spitting death as it charged in from the bow. This time it was aiming at the gondola, not the gasbag, and this time its shots rang true.

The red beams punctured the shield with ease once again and struck home. The wooden railing around the bow was blown to fragments, as was the swivel-gun mounted there. Its Pegasus gunner was scythed down, his stomach a sizzling, bloody mess. More shots struck the deck and winged one of the shield unicorns, who tumbled to the deck, her magic sputtering out. Without her the shield began to collapse completely. The explosive shots from the flyer’s ventral cannon began to tear up the deck, sending deadly shrapnel and wooden splinters whickering through the air. Starburst ducked reflexively. He saw several of his crew go down, torn to ribbons by the lethal debris. He had seen death before, but seldom had it been so violent.
Now they were losing crewponies, their shield was down and, to make matters worse, the beam weapons had started small fires in the deck planking.

‘Damage control!’ he shouted, rising to his full height again. Ponies, momentarily stunned to inaction by the deaths of their comrades, galloped to man the hoses that were fed from a water tank below deck.

‘Gunners, fire at will!’ he ordered as the craft came round for another run. They complied, leading their target as they had been taught to try and account for its speed. Several shots came close, and the magical fireballs from the unicorns forced the thing to dodge again, but they scored no hits.
It opened up on them again, this time tearing into the lower gun deck with its shells and beams. Starburst heard an explosion from below deck and the whole airship shuddered. He was thrown bodily against the railing as the Manehattan lurched. Several ponies rolled across the deck and one unfortunate unicorn, who was at the railing firing back at the enemy, was tossed overboard. Over the noise Starburst could clearly hear his screams as he fell.

‘Pony overboard!’ he roared. Two Pegasi took to the skies immediately, leaping over the side of the ship and plunging down after their helplessly falling comrade. Black smoke was starting to pour up through several of the hatches and over the starboard quarter from the blast that had shook the craft and, presumably, started a fire on the gun deck. Three ponies were being helped up from the rear hatch, coughing and spluttering. Starburst could see the firefighting teams gearing up to make entry to the chaos below. Up front the two Pegasi with fast reflexes were returning their shaken unicorn comrade to the deck, having managed to safely arrest his fall.

‘Get that shield back up!’ he ordered. Several of the offensive unicorns switched to assisting their defensive comrades, and the shield rose again, though Starburst knew the red beams could cut through it anyway.
The airship was damaged, but not out of the fight yet. The guns tracked their target as it roared round in a tight circle. Starburst could see that it seemed to be on fire, with two orange trails glowing from its rear. Looking closer he could see that they came from what for all the world seemed to be two fireboxes, like those on Equestrian steam locomotives. Its engines, he wondered? It came in on their port bow this time, giving the portside gunners their first taste of action. Staring intensely at the incoming enemy, the muzzle flashes of his own guns nearly blinded Starburst. Shells detonated around it but it burst through the smoke, apparently unharmed, its guns chattering.

The red beams sliced through the shield and blew chunks from the deck and railings. One of the port guns took a direct hit from the red beams. It bucked up like a terrified pony and ripped itself from its runners, toppling over and crushing two of its crew under its considerable bulk. Several of the shield unicorns were struck down, and the shield fizzled out and collapsed with a pop.
The deck of the Manehattan once again became a blizzard of splinters as the shells chewed their way across it. Starburst heard a deafening, shattering crash behind him, and found himself sailing through the air. Too stunned to take to his wings, he landed with a thump on the main deck. Pain shot through his flank and he knew he was wounded. Seeing their Captain fall, several crewponies rushed to his aid. Getting back on his hooves, Starburst found that the pain was not as bad as he had thought, and he brushed them aside and trotted up the stairs to the command deck.
The cause of his injuries became clear to him. There was a twisted section of deck planking where a shell had struck. The blast had thrown him into the air and the splinters had pierced his body, but his wounds were superficial. Those of Arrow Straight, however, were not.
Standing between Starburst and the blast, the helmspony had born the brunt of it. Most of the lethal splinters had struck him, and his coat was now stained as much red as its natural midnight blue.

‘Medics! Medics!’ Starburst called, though he knew instinctively that Arrow Straight was beyond any help that could be given. In any case, without a steady hand on the wheel the whole airship would be lost. It had turned almost a full circle and was now driving hard for the icy walls of the Foal Mountains. Starburst grabbed the wheel and spun it hard, as hard as he could, to the left. At first nothing happened.

‘Answer the helm, you bitch!’ he cursed under his breath. Slowly, it did, coming about and steering away from the mountains, until it was pointing back north towards Ponyville.

‘Here it comes again!’ Starburst heard the shout just in time. Coming at them from astern now that they had turned, the enemy flyer pounced on them once more. Starburst flung himself to the deck as it opened fire.
He could see nothing, but he could hear. He could hear the terrifying bangs of the explosive shells, the hissing of the red beams, the roar of the thing’s infernal engines, the screams of the frightened, the screams of the dying. It blazed overhead and raced away. Starburst jumped to his hooves and took the wheel again.

‘Oh Celestia, there’s another one!’ The cry went up from one of the few surviving unicorns manning the port railing. Sure enough, Starburst could see a second flyer, dead ahead, closing fast. it must be the other one that was with those larger things, he thought. Come back to help finish us off.
The fight had been going on for less than five minutes, but Starburst felt as though he had lived his entire life over again in that time. An unknown number of his crew were dead or wounded, there was a fire below deck, several guns were out of action and their shield was down for the count, and now there were two enemies instead of one.
He could see his crew starting to panic, and he could feel the same emotion rising deep within him. The Manehattan was one of the newest, most sophisticated and well protected airships in the fleet, and it was being completely and utterly outclassed by this…thing that was less than a tenth of its size.
And now there were two of them.

Peace Through Superior Firepower

‘How goes it, Lord-General?’ Admiral Marcos asked, handing his Guard compatriot a cup of pungent Amasec. The bridge of the Emperor’s Judgement was, as ever, awash with activity. The Admiral’s pulpit, with its holo-display and his command chair, offered a semblance of respite from the bustle.

‘One of our escort forces has been fired upon by some kind of native aircraft,’ Galen replied. ‘They are engaging it now. They report it appears to possess void shields and plasma-based weaponry, so perhaps the inhabitants are human after all.’ The Admiral downed his own cup of alcohol in one slug.

‘Ah, well, the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium,’ he said. ‘If some sacrifices must be made, then it shall be done. But please inform your troops, I do not want any more bloodshed than is absolutely necessary to secure this world, especially if we are facing humans. Every human life is precious!’ he continued, pouring and downing another shot of Amasec while the Lord-General continued to nurse his first.

‘If we can take this place without force, or establish an alliance with the natives, then that would be my preferred course of action. Don’t let us jeopardise it through overzealousness. I have told my pilots, only fire if fired upon! If an attack upon this native craft is necessary to protect the first-contact team, then so be it, but I do not want us to go in guns blazing unless it becomes necessary.’

‘Very wise, Admiral,’ Galen said, finally taking a sip of the Amasec. ‘Our supply lines this far from the Segmentum core are limited, and it is proving very difficult to get reinforcements out to us. It would be unwise to squander troops where no sacrifice is truly necessary.’ The Admiral put the Amasec bottle down on the holo-display table.

‘We have more than enough troops to pacify this world, Admiral, but if this Crusade is to proceed much further I would rather not throw them away here.’ Marcos nodded. The Lord-General’s words were sound, and as usual he agreed with them. The Crusade had already fought its way through Eldar raiding fleets, Chaos cultists and even a system held entirely by some wayward band of Orks, and had taken plentiful losses in the process. It had taken them nearly eighteen standard months to get this far, and the Lord-General was unsure how much farther they could go.

He was also unsure how much farther he wanted to go. The edge of the galaxy was not a nice place to be. The light of the Astronomican was, according to his Navigators, dim and faded this far out, which is why the smoothness of the jump to this system had surprised him. The Crusade was facing the same problem that had confronted the Lord Solar at the end of his great Crusade hundreds of years earlier- they were at the edge of the galaxy, and at the edge of human endurance. The same strange tales that had plagued the Macharian Crusade had surfaced again in the troop decks and bunkrooms of the fleet- beyond the galactic fringe there was only death, the void outside of the guiding light of the Astronomican was haunted. There were tales of ghosts, demons, foul xenos abominations, things that drove men mad just from seeing them.
Not that the rest of the galaxy is much better, he thought ruefully. He doubted the veracity of such rumours, but he knew full well that Imperial Guardsmen are a superstitious lot, and that they would believe anything if they heard it often enough. Thoughts of the Ecclesiarchy crossed his mind as he thought that, but he dismissed them before he found himself blaspheming against the Emperor.
Beyond the galactic edge there were but a few scattered rogue stars, and it was several million light years to the nearest neighbouring galaxy, assuming that warp travel even worked so far from Terra. Galen knew he didn’t want to be the one to find out. They were already at the edge, and there was nothing beyond. This system seemed as good a place as any to end the Crusade- it was, after all, a garden planet that would be an ideal candidate for becoming an Imperial possession.
But first, they had to take it.

‘Here they come again!’ Starburst could hear the rising panic in the voice of whichever pony had shouted that. Things were not looking good. The two enemy fliers were all over the Manehattan- she couldn’t outmanoeuvre them, she couldn’t outrun them and she couldn’t outfight them. Now they were sweeping in again, preparing to deal the killing blow.
The main deck was already like a charnel house- broken, twisted bodies lay scattered amongst the splintered, charred remains of the guns and deck fittings. The flyers were coming in from dead ahead, out of the firing arcs of the Manehattan’s guns. The swivel guns on the bow railings had long since been knocked out, leaving the airship essentially defenceless. There were still a few unicorns who fruitlessly flung their magic at the flyers, but their fireballs were moving far too slowly and they dodged them with contemptuous ease. Starburst heard their guns begin to chatter and he could see that the end of the Manehattan was fast approaching. He ducked behind the wheel as the deck was sprayed with shrapnel once more.

‘Sky Shimmer!’ he called out to a silver Pegasus who was desperately trying to load one of the anti-air cannons himself after its entire crew had been killed.

‘Sir?’ he replied, looking up from his task.

‘To me!’ Sky Shimmer flew up to the command deck and gave a rather sloppy salute.

‘You’re our fastest flyer. Get out of here, get back to Canterlot. Tell them what happened. Give them our location, 30 miles southeast of Ponyville. Tell them we were attacked by unknown enemy flyers and that we fought as well as we could.’ Sky Shimmer hesitated, understanding the hidden implications of his Captain’s orders. Then he saluted again.

‘Yes sir. I won’t let you down.’ Starburst nodded, and returned his salute. Then he took to the air, his powerful wings propelling him clear of the airship. He dove for the relative safety of the ground, heading north towards Canterlot, and disappeared from Starburst’s sight.
The Captain turned back to survey his vessel. The enemy were coming back again. This was it. Two more of the oversized fireworks shot out from the wings of the newly arrived flyer and raced towards the airship.

‘Brace for impact!’ Starburst yelled, though he knew it was a futile gesture. He clutched the railing with one hoof and the wheel with the other. He thought about closing his eyes, but then he felt a sudden rush of bravado from somewhere deep down. No, he thought. I will die like a pony should.
The rockets roared in. The first one struck the prow of the airship and blew it to pieces. The second streaked into the front of the gasbag.
The blinding flash forced Starburst to close his eyes after all. He could feel the heat, and it was like standing in front of a furnace. The gasbag erupted into a seething mass of flames, its armour blasted clean through and its self-sealing skin defeated by the size of the explosive charge in the warhead. Gas hissed out and was instantly ignited, wreathing the whole thing in flame. Burning, bubbling canvas dripped down onto the deck. Everywhere he looked was fire. The deck was burning, the ropes were burning. Ponies were burning. He briefly considered taking to his wings and escaping, but looking around he could see no way out. There was fire on all sides. He would be going down with his ship, as a Captain should.

Burning and rudderless, and without the lift from its precious gasbag, the EAS Manehattan plunged downwards like a comet, leaving a tail of fire in the sky behind. Before it hit the icy foothills of the Foal Mountains, the flames found their way to the main magazine. With a thunderous detonation the whole gondola disintegrated and the falling star burst into a dozen fragments, scattering funeral pyres over the snowfield below.

‘Twilight! Twilight!’ The purple pony looked up from the book she was reading as Spike rushed in to the library. In his hand he clutched a scroll.

‘It’s the Princess’s reply!’ he gasped, having obviously run a fair distance. Catching his breath, he handed the scroll to Twilight. She quickly read through the message.

My Dearest Student,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I can assure you that it is most definitely not a waste of my time, so you need not have worried about that. Such a development requires further study. Therefore I ask you and the other Elements to visit Canterlot and seek the counsel of my sister and I in examining this phenomenon. Gather any notes you may have made on the subject and bring them with you. A coach will be arriving at the library to pick you up at noon.

Your Teacher and Friend,
Princess Celestia.

‘Spike! Go upstairs and get all those papers and books that are on the balcony!’ Twilight said, relieved that the Princess seemed to be taking things seriously. Spike sighed, obviously hoping for a rest before he had to do anything else.

‘Come on Spike! There’s no time to waste, the carriage will be here in an hour!’ The purple ponies’ purple companion sighed again.

‘Ok, ok, I’m going,’ he said, heading for the stairs. As he did so there came a knock at the front door. Twilight trotted over and opened it.
Applejack had returned, and as promised she had rounded up the rest of the Elements of Harmony. Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash stood, or in Rainbow’s case hovered, outside the door.

‘Hi Twilight!’ they all chorused as one.

‘Hi girls!’ she replied, a broad grin spreading across her face. ‘I’m glad you could all come.’

‘Oh my dear, we wouldn’t miss it for the world! Any invitation for old friends to get together is fine by me!’ Rarity said.

‘Well you’re in double-luck today Rarity,’ Twilight replied. ‘The Princess wants us to go to Canterlot.’ Immediately the fashion-conscious mare’s eyes lit up.

‘Canterlot? Ohh darling!’ she squealed, giggling with glee. Rainbow Dash took on the opposite appearance.

‘Ah geez, Canterlot again? Everypony is so stuffy there,’ she moaned, touching down outside the door as the Elements of Harmony made their way inside the library.

‘Don’t worry Rainbow,’ Twilight said. ‘We’ll only be going there to see the Princesses.’ Hearing this latest development, Rarity gasped.

‘Oh, you never mentioned seeing the Princesses in person! Oh my heavens, what do I wear? What do I not wear? I can’t wear the same dress I wore last time I met them, can I? Would that be considered uncouth?’ Rainbow Dash sighed again and dispensed her pithy wisdom.

‘Rarity, the Princesses always look the same whenever we see them, so why does it matter what dress you’re wearing when you meet them?’ Rarity blinked, surprised at how much sense her Pegasus friend was making. Then she blinked again, and decided she was talking nonsense.

‘Oh come now Rainbow darling, you can’t seriously expect me to not put in at least a little effort now, can you?’
Twilight used her magic to shut the door behind them as they gathered round her.

‘So why are we going to Canterlot? Is there going to be a party? Is it going to be like the Grand Galloping Gala? Because that was so much fun I just loved that it was the best party everrr!’ Pinkie gasped for breath.

‘No Pinkie, it’s not a party,’ Twilight said, as Spike returned from upstairs bearing a stack of books and papers.
Twilight pointed a hoof in his direction as her friends greeted Spike.

‘That’s why we’re going to Canterlot.’

‘Because of Spike?’ Rainbow asked. Twilight shook her head.

‘No, silly! What he’s carrying.’ Dashie dropped her head in disappointment.

‘Oh geez, you’re telling me we’re going all the way to Canterlot for some…book reading competition or something?’ Twilight chuckled.

‘No, no. here, let me explain.’ She levitated the same sheets of paper she had shown to Applejack earlier and spread them on the table. Her friends gathered round. Briefly she explained to them what she had seen.

‘So you don’t know what it is?’ Fluttershy asked. Twilight shook her head.

‘Not yet. That’s why the Princess wants me to go to Canterlot. Princess Luna does a lot of astronomy too, so maybe together we’ll be able to figure out what this thing might be.’

Lieutenant Muzzle Flash, unicorn Royal Guardspony officer and amateur photographer, was bored. All the past week his company had been assigned to Ponyville, and nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened there. There were small Royal Guard contingents stationed in each city and town across Equestria, where they acted as the local police force. In addition, many of the Guard units usually based in Canterlot would rotate to posts in various towns on a weekly basis. This was to ensure there were enough police in each town to keep order without having to pay for the construction and upkeep of additional barracks in every town, and, according to the senior Guard officers, to allow the newer members of the force to get experience of policing in all parts of the country. Theoretically a sound idea, Muzzle Flash thought, but I’m bored out of my mind.
He had joined the Guard eight months ago after completing Officer Training School, and had immediately been posted to Canterlot, which he had been enjoying. Then his Company began to be rotated around Equestria. Some places he found stimulating. Patrolling the streets of Fillydelphia had been an exhilarating experience, full of petty thugs and criminals to deal with. Appleoosa was another good one, a tough frontier town with no permanent Guard presence, just a local Sheriff and his deputies.
Then there was Ponyville. Bright, happy, safe, usually sunny…and deathly dull. His company had made two arrests, though. The first was a desperately minor crime but, by Ponyville standards, may as well have been mass murder- somepony had been putting up posters protesting the nearby hydroelectric dam.
You missed the boat on that one, Muzzle Flash had thought. It’s been up for years. Bill posting was outlawed by local ordnance unless specifically authorised by the mayor’s office, and so somepony called the guards and the dark grey stallion responsible had spent a remarkably comfortable and well-fed night in the cells.
The second crime was even less major- somepony had been…caught short, was the politest way to describe it, he thought, near the town square and had ended up making sure a nearby flowerbed was well fertilised. The owner of said flowerbed had not been too impressed, and so a rainbow-maned Pegasus mare had been taken back to the police station and released with a caution for public indecency.

Apart from that, and breaking up a few minor evening scuffles outside Ponyville’s drinking establishments, Muzzle Flash had been having a quiet week. His repeating rifle remained unused in its harness hanging from his flank, as did his electric stun magic and his sword which, although mostly ceremonial, he knew how to handle.
Like many Royal Guardsponies, his coat was a brilliant shade of white. His burnished golden armour shone like the sun on the cutie mark of the Princess that he served, because his company commander, Captain Steel Rain, liked to make sure his officers and men polished them during every downtime period. And, thought Muzzle Flash, there was precious little else to do for the rest of the day, either.
His cutie mark was, unsurprisingly, a cannon firing, although it was not often visible because his armour protected his flanks. His horn allowed him to perform all of the usual military magic; stun spells, shield spells, offensive spells of various types. All in all, not a pony that anything less than a fully-grown dragon would want to mess around with.

Currently his platoon was on patrol duty. One of the other platoons in the company was located at the Guard barracks that doubled as a police station, and the third was on guard duty at key points around the town, including the town hall, the now protest-free dam, and the hospital.
As platoon leader, Muzzle Flash was in charge of twenty-five other ponies- eight per squad, plus the platoon Sergeant, a large, equally white earth pony named Thunderchief. Along with Muzzle Flash, Thunderchief had attached himself to one of the squads and were patrolling the southern edge of the town with them.
It was pretty enough, but there was little of interest. The road south to Detrot snaked away through the trees, and the towering bulk of the Foal Mountains stretched away to the horizon, their peaks obscured by the low cloud. The ten Guardsponies made their way across a meadow near the road. A couple of carts and carriages rolled by, clattering over the cobbles. Birds chirped gaily in the trees. They were the only sounds. At least, they were at first.

‘Does anypony else hear that?’ Private Sharpshooter asked. The squad stopped to listen.

‘Yes…’ said Muzzle Flash. He paused for a second, not sure he wanted to acknowledge what his ears were telling him. A distant, rumbling roar was gaining intensity by the second.

‘Dragons!’ he shouted. ‘Dragons! Back to the town! Move, move!’ The squad of highly trained ponies reacted to his cry immediately.

‘Let’s move, everypony! We have to alert the town,’ said the dark grey earth pony squad leader, Boot Camp. ‘Tornado, fly to the barracks and alert the Captain.’ Tornado, a white Pegasus, took to his wings and headed for the town. They galloped up the road, shouting the word to every cart they passed.

Ponyville town square was a bustle of activity, as usual for this time of day. Ponies perused the market stalls, chatted to friends, and enjoyed snacks and drinks in the restaurants and bars around the periphery of the square. Many of them looked up in confusion and surprise when a squad of Royal Guard came galloping in.
‘Dragons!’ they shouted. ‘Dragon raid! Everyone please proceed calmly to the shelters. There is no need to panic.’ Naturally, almost every pony present immediately panicked.

First Contact

‘It’s nearly noon! It’s nearly noon! Spike!’ Twilight was, as usual, getting unnecessarily flustered by an upcoming deadline and a visit to the Princess. She was rushing across the library at a speed that Rainbow Dash would be proud of, and in an apparently random fashion that would have Pinkie Pie nodding in approval. The other five elements, even Rarity, were waiting calmly downstairs for her to finish her panicked packing of completely unneeded books. Spike trailed after Twilight.

‘Come on, Twilight! You don’t need any of this stuff! The Princesses’ letter just said bring any notes you made last night! Don’t you already have all that stuff in your bag?’ The unicorn huffed in frustration.

‘Yes, but I think I should bring Notes On Celestial Phenomena with me too! Where is it?’

‘Oh Twilight,’ Pinkie Pie’s voice could be heard from downstairs. ‘I don’t think Princess Celestia wants you to bring a book about her!’ Twilight’s exasperated gasp was her reply.

‘No, Pinkie, I said Celestial Pheno..’

‘Hey, what’s that noise?’ Rainbow Dash said, her ears twitching.
‘What noise? I don’t hear anything darli…oh.’ Rarity cut herself short as she heard the distinctive ululating wail of the town’s emergency sirens.

‘Uh oh,’ Spike said, descending the stairs with Twilight close behind. ‘That can’t be good.’

‘Y’all don’t suppose it’s a test?’ Applejack said questioningly.

‘No, they only test them once a month, and they already did it this month,’ Rainbow Dash explained.

‘Then..’ Fluttershy began. ‘That means….something is really wrong!’ Everypony shot nervous glances at one another.

‘Twilight, you don’t suppose…’ said Rarity. ‘You don’t suppose this has something to do with what you saw?’ The librarian looked uncomfortable.

‘These things have a habit of being linked,’ she said, thinking back to the prophecies she had unearthed regarding Nightmare Moon. ‘We should investigate.’ Fluttershy squeaked.
‘But Twilight, the sirens are sounding. Doesn’t that mean we should go to the shelters?’ her purple friend shook her head.
‘No, that means everypony else should go to the shelters. It means the Elements of Harmony have a duty to investigate and, if necessary, help protect the town!’

The streets of Ponyville rapidly cleared of ponies once the sirens began sounding, and they were eerily empty as the Elements galloped through town towards the town square. The fluctuating wail of the sirens sounded over it all, a sound that was almost as dreadful as anything that might be heading for the town. Spike, riding on Twilight’s back, expressed his fears.

‘Is it…zombies?’ he asked nervously.

‘I seriously doubt it,’ Twilight replied as they entered the town square. Spike did not look reassured.
The square, like the rest of Ponyville, was almost entirely empty of ponies. The exceptions were a squad of Royal Guard, who were clustered at the other end of the square. Over the sounds of the sirens, Twilight could hear a new noise. The guards waved at them, telling them to get to the shelters. Fluttershy and Rarity hesitated, but the others continued on, following Twilight, who was heading straight for the guards.

‘You ladies should be in the shelters!’ Muzzle Flash said as the six mares approached his squad. ‘We heard dragons out there.’ Fluttershy let out another squeak at hearing the word dragon. Rarity’s expression changed to one of shock.

‘I think these fine gentlecolts are right, darling,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should go to the shelters.’ The roar of the dragons was audible to them all now. The sirens had finally died away.

‘Wait a second…sir, that doesn’t sound like a dragon anymore!’ Private Sharpshooter said in surprise. Sure enough, what had been a distant roar was now a whine, much higher in pitch than anything a dragon could produce.

‘Sir!’ Muzzle Flash heard the voice of Tornado, the Pegasus he had sent to warn the rest of the company. He was flying over the square to rejoin the squad, having accomplished his mission. ‘I see something to the south!’ he called.

‘Dragons?’ the Lieutenant questioned.

‘No sir. I…I don’t know what they are.’

Sweeping in low under the cloudbase, the Lightnings passed over Ponyville, their afterburners roaring in a display designed to frighten the native population below, whoever they may be. Following behind, the shuttles flared their braking jets, descending into a field to the south of the town.

‘No signs of life down there,’ Muran voxed. ‘The place looks occupied, though. They must be hiding.’

‘Who can blame them?’ Rall voxed back. ‘I don’t see any signs of military presence in the town. That airship is the only sign of life we’ve seen so far, but it put up a fight. Stay on your toes.’ Having dealt with the airship, the two fighters had proceeded north at full speed to catch up to the shuttles, and had then circled south of the town while they decided on a plan. The shuttles would touch down in a field on the edge of the settlement, and the first-contact party would proceed on foot. This decision was partly to avoid frightening the natives too much, but it also had a more pragmatic element; there didn’t seem to be a space anywhere in town big enough for the shuttles to land.

‘Lander 1 to Hammer 1, we’re setting down now,’ the voice of the lead shuttle pilot sounded distorted by the static.

‘Affirmative. We will continue to fly top cover,’ he responded, bringing his Lightning round and making another pass over the town as the shuttles settled into the meadow, flattening the grass under their considerable bulk.

‘What the hay are those things?’ Applejack asked, the fear in her voice clearly evident, unnerving her friends even further, as it was not often the tough farmpony was frightened by anything.

‘I have no idea,’ Muzzle Flash replied, unconsciously touching the butt of his gun with a hoof.

‘It looks like those fast ones are on fire,’ Rainbow Dash said, her emotions divided between anxiety and appreciation of just how fast the things moved and turned.

‘They look mechanical,’ Twilight said. ‘They must be airships of some sort. Lieutenant, does Equestria have anything like that in her arsenal?’

‘Call me Muzzle Flash,’ the Lieutenant replied, shaking his head. ‘And no, we certainly don’t. neither does any other nation as far as I know. I’ve never seen anything move like that. ‘

‘They’re coming in again!’ Thunderchief shouted. The two flyers whizzed by overhead, in line abreast with wingtips just feet apart in a display of precision flying that would leave the Wonderbolts spinning in envy.

‘Those big things are landing!’ Tornado called out, now perched on a nearby rooftop.

‘Where?’ Muzzle Flash asked. The Pegasus guard pointed a hoof.

‘South of town, in that meadow we were patrolling in.’

‘Let’s go, guardponies! Protect the town!’

The boarding ramp of the shuttle clanked open. Nearby that of its sister ship did the same. Two dozen hellguns in each shuttle nervously scanned the field beyond.

‘Clear!’ ‘Clear!’ the call echoed around the passenger bay. No sign of trouble.
Not yet, thought Captain Soren. As senior Imperial Guard officer in the landing party, the defence of the shuttles and their passengers were his responsibility as long as they were on the ground. He had fifty Stormtroopers with which to accomplish this task. He, and they, were from the Hydraxian 4th Regiment, and they were a long way from home.
But, curiously, what Soren could see through the open ramp reminded him very much of that home. Green fields, trees, distant mountains. So far away, he mused, and yet so similar. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

‘Fan out! Secure the perimeter!’ he said, and his Stormtroopers began to descend the ramp. With a swift vox message the men in the other shuttle did the same. He could hear the screaming turbofans of their Lightning escort racing by overhead. He had heard their vox transmissions as they engaged some kind of local aircraft. They had knocked it down in short order, but had reported that it possessed void shields and plasma weaponry. Soren had told his troopers to be on their guard and light on the trigger finger, as they might be facing fellow humans.
The Stormtroopers fanned out, taking up positions in the meadow. There was no cover out here, so many troopers lay flat on the ground. There was no sign of native life, although a line of trees obscured the edge of the town from their vision. Soren was fully aware that the last time the Crusade had made a first-contact drop on a seemingly primitive planet, their shuttles and escort had been shot down by hidden las-turrets before they made planetfall. They had already had one surprise with the airship; he didn’t want another.

The landing zone secure, the shuttles’ other passengers could disembark. This was the first contact team- linguists, data-analysts, diplomatic specialists. They were there to facilitate dialogue with the natives and ensure that there was no unnecessary bloodshed upon first contact. Soren couldn’t help but marvel at the pointlessness of such a gesture- if the natives of a planet were human there was no need for half of the staff to come along, and if they were xenos, then there was no need for any of them- Soren could count off the number of xenos species that shared an uneasy truce with the Imperium on one hand, with several digits to spare.

‘Sir! Contact!’ the voice of one of his Stormtroopers hissed over his microbead. Soren turned, drawing his hellpistol from its holster and his chainsword from its sheath. He saw nothing.

‘Where?’ he questioned, descending the boarding ramp.

‘In the treeline, at our 12 o’clock,’ came the reply. At first he still saw nothing, but then movement caught his eye.
Something was definitely lurking in the bushes. Holstering his pistol, Soren took out his magnoculars and scanned the trees. Above the bushes he could see the top halves of what seemed to be several horses, looking nervously towards the shuttles. They must have been frightened off by the landing.

‘Stand down men, it’s just some horses,’ he shouted. His Stormtroopers lowered their weapons. As they did so, as if it had been a signal, two of the horses emerged from the trees.

‘Sir!’ Soren could see that, contrary to his first thoughts, they were not horses. Or, if they were, they were considerably smaller than those he had seen on Imperial worlds. They were about equal in height to some of his shorter troopers, but they appeared to be wearing armour and were slung with equipment- swords, guns and pouches. One of them seemed to have a horn.

‘Looks like a cavalry unit,’ Soren said. ‘But where are the riders?’ More movement caught his eye. A half-dozen more horses were emerging from the trees. Some were white and some were a dark grey, and they were attired much like the others, but they seemed to be…

‘They’re armed!’ one of his troopers shouted. ‘What the hell is this?’ Sure enough, the horses emerging from the trees were holding guns and swords in their forehooves.
Soren was speechless.

‘By the Emperor…’ He could see some of his troopers making the sign of the Aquila.

‘What sorcery is this?’ he asked nobody in particular. They must be the native inhabitants.

‘Should we fire, sir?’ several troopers called, their hellguns raised once again.

‘No! no,’ he shouted. ‘Hold your fire.’ He could see the mechandrites of the landing parties’ Techpriests twitching in anticipation. He decided to try something that, even as he opened his mouth, seemed absurd to him, even heretical.

‘Stop there! Come no further,’ he shouted, in his best parade ground voice. The horses stopped, their weapons pointing nervously at the Imperials. Soren presumed they had not understood his words, merely his intent.

‘Lay down your weapons!’ he continued. He could see his troopers shooting unbelieving glances at each other. The horses made no attempt to comply.
This is insane, he thought to himself. They can’t understand me, even if they are sapient creatures. besides which, if they are sapient, they are xenos.

‘Steady, boys,’ Muzzle Flash said under his breath. The two large...things, had landed in the meadow and disgorged streams of strange creatures. They stood on their hind legs, like the Diamond Dogs, although they were taller than any such creature he had seen before. They appeared to clutch weapons not dissimilar from those his guardsponies carried in their forelimbs. Like them, these new arrivals also wore what appeared to be armour, though unlike the Royal Guard, theirs was coloured various shades of green and brown. Camouflage, he reasoned. Like the Equestrian Army uniforms. Most of them had spread out and taken up positions with their guns pointed at the trees in which the squad was waiting. Muzzle Flash was utterly bewildered. He had never seen such creatures, nor had he ever seen such airships, either these large ones or the ones that still roared overhead periodically.
The rest of his squad advanced slowly around him, with the six young Elements of Harmony and their dragon peering nervously through the trees behind them. After they had introduced themselves they had insisted on accompanying his squad to investigate the landing site. The rest of his platoon had arrived from their patrols, and the other platoons had arrived from the barracks and spread themselves out along the treeline, and Captain Steel Rain had sent their fastest messenger Pegasus directly to Canterlot to fetch reinforcements.
Now they were walking across the meadow towards these strangers. Muzzle Flash had heard one of them, presumably the leader, shout to them to stand down because ‘it’s just some horses.’ Surprised that they could understand these strange creatures, Muzzle Flash had seen the opportunity of taking them by surprise if necessary, or of opening a friendly dialogue, and had begun advancing with his squad.
He heard the…creature in charge speak again.

‘Stop there! Come no further.’ His squad complied. ‘Lay down your weapons!’ This time they hesitated. That was not something they would do without orders from their own superiors. Muzzle Flash hesitated, too. Having his squad disarmed was not something he took lightly. But on the other hoof, if he did not comply, they were likely to be massacred right there and then. He knew there were nearly seventy other ponies in the trees behind him with their weapons ready, and he also knew that, if there were to be any kind of diplomatic solution to this standoff, that the first step in that direction was to comply.

‘Lay down your weapons, now!’ the voice repeated.

‘Do as he says,’ the Lieutenant spoke softly. Again his squad hesitated, but he showed them the way by unhooking his own rifle and sword and letting them drop to the ground beside him. If the worst came to the worst, he still had his magic.
Seeing their leader’s example, the rest of the squad put their guns down on the ground and unclipped their sword belts. Muzzle Flash heard the voice again. This time it seemed to be talking to one of his own kind.
‘Incredible! See that, Magos? They do understand Low Gothic!’ Muzzle Flash decided it was time to see if ‘they’ understood Equestrian.

‘I am Lieutenant Muzzle Flash, of the Equestrian Royal Guard!’ he said, trying his best to keep a wavering tone out of his voice. ‘Identify yourselves and your purpose here!’

‘By the Emperor! They speak it, too!’ The voice came again. Muzzle Flash thought he had identified the speaker, a tall, slender creature wearing a peaked cap and camouflaged clothing, standing on the ramp of one of the flyers with a sword in one forelimb and a small gun in the other. His reply followed shortly after.

‘I am Captain Soren, Hydraxian 4th Regiment, Imperial Guard. We come in the name of the Emperor of Mankind, and, if you so will it, we come in peace.’

Negotiations

The Hydraxian Stormtroopers lowered their weapons cautiously. Strange things unnerved them as much as any regular Guardsman, despite their more rigorous training, and as strange things went, this was right up there. A bunch of talking horses with armour, guns and swords had met them at their landing zone, and now their Captain was parlaying with them. The Ministorum Preachers that accompanied the landing party were deep in conversation with each other. Surely there was some heresy to be found here somewhere?

Captain Soren was no less bemused. Had they looked like anything else, he would have had few qualms about having them declared Xenos Horrificus and wiped from the face of the planet. But…they were horses. Horses, and similar ungulates, were not alien- they were native to thousand of Imperial worlds, including Holy Terra. The fact that these horses could talk…well, that was a quirk of nature that it would take sharper minds than his to puzzle out, and the fact that they could speak Gothic just confused him further. And some of them had wings, for the Emperor’s sake!
Standing in front of him now was one of those horses. It referred to itself as ‘Lieutenant Muzzle Flash,’ an odd name if ever he heard one. A strange coincidence, too, that the horses shared at least one rank with the structure of both the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy. He had absurd visions of humans leaving this world in millennia long since passed, but leaving their pack animals behind.

This horse came up to his chest, although the horn jutting out from its forehead reached his neck. It wore burnished golden armour that would not have looked entirely out of place on some distinguished hero of the Imperium, were it not shaped to fit a horse rather than a human. The top of its helmet was decorated with a feathery blue quiff.

‘Are you the leader of this place?’ Soren asked the horse.

‘No,’ came the reply. ‘I am a platoon leader in the Equestrian Royal Guard. We protect this land from all threats, foreign and domestic,’ it said, emphasising the word ‘foreign.’ More coincidences, Soren thought. It seemed that the military structure of these horses shared more than just a passing similarity with that of humans- Lieutenants commanded platoons in the Imperial Guard, too.

‘So you are the military?’ he asked.

‘We are one branch of the military, yes, and we also act in a policing role,’ the horse spoke Low Gothic comfortably, as if it had been speaking it from childhood.

‘May we meet with and speak to your leaders? Diplomatic discussions are best conducted with the politicians,’ Soren said. The horse looked concerned for a moment.

‘I…that kind of decision is not up to me. Why do you wish to meet with the Princess?’

‘We wish to extend the possibility of diplomatic relations between the Imperium of Man and the…what is the name of your nation?’

Equestria,’ the horse said, an unmistakable note of pride in its voice.

‘Between the Imperium and Equestria,’ Soren said. ‘Is yours the only nation on this planet?’
The horse shook its head.

‘No, but we are the most powerful.’

Power is relative, Soren thought to himself, picturing the warfleet in orbit that these creatures obviously knew nothing of.

‘Then we made planetfall fortuitously,’ he said. The horse’s expression looked blank.

‘Planetfall?’ Soren nodded.

‘Where did you come from, and what are you? We know nothing of your kind,’ it asked.

‘We are humans, and we came from beyond the stars,’ Soren explained with an unnecessary gesture toward the heavens. The horse looked suitably shocked, he thought.

‘But…how is that possible?’ it asked.

‘To explain it all would take far too long,’ Soren said. ‘Suffice it to say that we have the technology. There are untold billions of us across the galaxy, including above your planet.’ The horse looked hardly convinced, but it changed the subject anyway.

‘I will speak to my superior officer and see what we can do about arranging an audience with the Princess,’ it said.

‘This Princess of yours,’ Soren asked. ‘Is she also a horse?’

‘Oh, we’re not horses,’ it replied. ‘We’re ponies.’ Soren knew little about animals, but he did know that a pony was just a small horse. He wanted to correct the creature, but something told him that arguing linguistic and biological semantics with a talking pony on an alien world thousands of lightyears from home might have just been the final tipping point towards insanity.

‘I can’t see! Get your head out of the way, Pinkie!’ Spike sighed in exasperation. The view from the bushes was limited, but the six Elements and Spike were able to see the strange scene unfolding before them. The Royal Guard squad had lain down their weapons but, instead of being taken prisoner as Twilight had expected, their leader was in conversation with, she assumed, the leader of these creatures.

‘What are those guys?’ Rainbow Dash asked from her perch on a branch above them. ‘They stand like Diamond Dogs, but they don’t have any fur or anything!’

‘They look like those things that Lyra is always talking about! You know, uhh…hoo-mens!’ Pinkie said excitedly. Rainbow scoffed.

‘Pinkie, you know she’s just making all that stuff up, right? There’s no such thing as humans.’ Normally Twilight would have agreed with her polychromatic friend, but Pinkie had a point…they did look remarkably like ‘humans.’ Her mind had been working furiously ever since she first saw the flyers overhead. Surely it could not be a coincidence that she had seen something in the sky the night before, and now these things had appeared, things that nopony had ever seen before? Muzzle Flash had seemed adamant that the aircraft had not belonged to any faction known to ponykind, and now, seeing these unusual creatures, Twilight was more than happy to agree with him. They were not of this world. Which meant they were aliens, which meant they had come from another planet, which meant they had come here for some specific purpose…
Twilight couldn’t help her tail twitching nervously.

‘So…they are…aliens?’ Captain Steel Rain asked incredulously. Muzzle Flash nodded. He had retreated to the edge of the meadow to confer with his company commander. The humans remained clustered around their flyers.

‘That’s what they said, sir. That they are from beyond the stars.’ The senior of the two officers looked lost for words.
‘But…how did they get here?’ he asked finally. ‘More importantly, why did they come?’ Muzzle Flash remembered Soren’s words clearly.

‘He said, if we so will it, they come in peace.’ Steel Rain’s gun-metal grey coat seemed to bristle at the subtly implied threat.

‘They want to extend diplomatic relations between us and something called the Imperium,’ Muzzle Flash continued, ‘which I assume is the name of their nation. They want to speak to the Princess.’

‘If they come in peace, why do they all have guns?’ the Captain questioned. ‘I don’t like this. If they came from space who says there aren’t more of them up there right now? What if they decide to invade?’

‘From what he said it sounded like he was leaving that decision up to us, sir,’ Muzzle Flash spoke again.

‘So if we refuse to open diplomatic relations, or whatever other demands these creatures might have, they’re going to invade us?’ Steel Rain said, unconsciously touching the pommel of his sword with a hoof.

‘I don’t know, sir, but that’s what he seemed to be implying, deliberately or not,’ Muzzle Flash said. ‘If they are willing to invade us anyway then I can’t see the harm in letting the Princess open diplomatic relations with them.’ Steel Rain was about to speak again, but he was interrupted by a shout from the humans.

‘Pony! We have a problem here.’

Muzzle Flash and Steel Rain trotted out into the meadow, where the human soldiers were still forming a perimeter around their flyers. Captain Soren was standing at the base of one of their ramps. Next to him was another human with a bulky backpack. A wire ran from it with something bulky at the end that Soren held in his hoof…hand, Muzzle Flash corrected himself. He seemed to be speaking into it.

‘Repeat your last transmission,’ he said. There was a crackle from the thing in his hand, and then a voice.

‘Captain, we have three unidentified aircraft on Auspex,’ it said, ‘coming in from the north. We are still experiencing heavy interference and we didn’t pick them up until they were only five miles out. Requesting intercept orders.’ Soren looked at the two ponies.

‘Our pilots are tracking three aircraft that are heading straight for us,’ he said. ‘Would this be your doing?’ The two ponies exchanged glances.

‘When you landed here we sent for reinforcements,’ Steel Rain spoke. ‘That will be them, and they will consider you hostile.’ The human grunted.

‘If you wish to pursue the diplomatic option, I would advise you to call them off now,’ he said. ‘We will not fire unprovoked, but our aircraft will defend themselves if attacked.’

‘We have no way of contacting them directly,’ Muzzle Flash said, casting a glance at the thing in Soren’s hand. ‘We would have to send a messenger.’ The human stared directly at him.

‘So do it,’ he said. ‘Or we will send them an entirely different kind of message.’

Shining Armour peered over the railing, his cerulean mane blowing in the stiff breeze that washed over the deck. Below them, Equestria sped by.
He was aboard the EAS Celestia, the lead airship of the Royalty-Class. It was flanked on either side by two of the newer City-Class craft, the EAS Stalliongrad and the EAS Baltimare. As Commander of the Royal Guard, Shining remembered all too well sitting in on the military budget meetings a few years back when the General of the Air Corps, Super Cruise, had ranted on and on about the Navy building their own ships named Celestia and Luna.
The Airship Command was first with those names, he had said, and should be the first and only!
Shining would have preferred to be on the EAS Cadence, named for his wife. But that was not really important, and thinking about being on Cadence was making him think about something entirely unrelated, though not exactly unpleasant.

The Celestia was the flagship of the Airship Command, and its home port was Canterlot itself. As befitted such a name, the Celestia was the largest, most heavily armed and well defended airship in the fleet. All Royalty-Class airships had armoured gasbags not far shy of a thousand feet long, a gondola length of around half that, a crew of six hundred, three gun decks with twenty-four guns apiece, twenty anti-air guns and space in the hold for a battalion of infantry. The EAS Celestia differed from the others of its class by being equipped with a huge bombardment cannon that ran the full length of its lower gun deck and sprouted from the armoured prow like the horn of its namesake. It had only flown into battle once, against the Griffon Kingdom, but, as the hapless Griffons discovered, once was enough to prove its combat potential.

Shining was still nervous, however.
When a Pegasus had arrived from Ponyville, warning of strange, unidentified flyers circling over and landing near the town, Shining had immediately decided he would lead the reinforcing Guard battalion himself, out of concern for his troops, but also out of concern for his sister. The Celestia and its escorts, preparing for a training sortie, had been loaded up with the Royal Guard’s quick reaction force and scrambled to meet the threat.
Now they were but a mere ten miles from the town. He could see it appearing ahead, but from this distance Ponyville looked as peaceful as ever. The Celestia’s Captain, Aces High, stood next to him on the command deck of his airship. Crewponies scanned the skies for the strange flyers, but the low cloud interfered with their observations.

‘Everything looks just dandy down there, Commander,’ Aces High said, following Shining’s gaze. ‘Whatever this is, I know we can handle it.’ Shining appreciated the concern. He knew Aces High was aware that his sister lived in Ponyville.

‘Will your stallions be dropping in, or should I set her down?’ the Pegasus was referring to the insertion methods for troops being carried by airship- it could land, or it could hover at low altitude and they could rappel down over the sides.

‘I think you’d better keep her in the air, Captain,’ Shining responded, mindful of the supposed aerial threat and knowing that an airship on the ground was an easy target.

‘I was hoping you’d say that,’ Aces High said. ‘I don’t think there’s anywhere clear enough around Ponyville for me to land this beast anyway.’ He chuckled. Shining was about to join in when there was a shout.

‘Incoming, off the port bow!’ He snapped round to look. He could see nothing, but the lookouts at the bow obviously could.

‘It’s a Pegasus, sir!’ came the call.

The lookout was right. A Pegasus in the uniform of the Air Corps who had obviously flown some distance landed on the deck, puffing and panting with exhaustion. Shining and Aces High listened to his wild-eyed story. He spoke of strange, mechanical flyers, firing magical beams that punched right through the shields of the EAS Manehattan, which, besides himself, he assumed to be lost with all hooves.
Shining felt a great pain stab through his chest when he heard those words. The Manehattan’s Captain, Starburst, was one of his closest friends.

‘Are…are you sure?’ he asked. The Pegasus was obviously distraught by what had happened to him.

‘Captain Starburst gave me the orders himself. He said I was to fly to Canterlot and tell them what happened. I made it out ok, but when I looked back…’ he could hardly finish his sentence.
‘When I looked back, it…it was burning.’ Beside him, Aces High turned away in disgust. A fire on board was the greatest fear of all airship crew, and he had already seen too many of his friends die in that most terrible of ways, in accidents as well as in combat.
Putting a friendly hoof on the shoulder of the sole survivor, Shining ran through his mind the possibility of someone having survived such a disaster. He could see little hope.

‘Incoming!’ the cry went up again from the bow lookouts. ‘Off the starboard bow!’ Shining turned to look.

Two distant dots were dropping rapidly out of the cloud layer and streaking towards them.

‘Battle stations!’ cried Aces High. ‘Raise our shields!’ Ponies scrambled to their stations.

‘That must be them,’ Shining muttered, still picturing in his mind’s eye the final demise of the Manehattan and his friend.

‘By Celestia, look how fast they move!’ Aces High exclaimed. He was not exaggerating. Shining could see that they had already closed much of the gap between them and the airship flotilla.

‘Take aim!’ Aces High ordered. Though Shining did not know much about aerial combat, it seemed to him that the targets would already have reached them before the guns could track them.
Sure enough, the gunners were still traversing their weapons when the flyers were suddenly on them, rocking from side to side, shooting past the starboard side of the Baltimare, which was flying right wing to the Celestia. Their passage was completely silent. Shining was momentarily puzzled by this, until a sudden almighty roar filled the air as the flyers leapt away astern. They must be outrunning their own sound, he thought, like a sonic rainboom.
Taking the small telescope that his sister had given him for his birthday from his belt, Shining Armour took a closer look at the flyers that were now a considerable distance away. They were turning sharply, and he knew instinctively they were not from any nation he knew about. They flew a full, rapid circle around the airships before turning towards them again from the starboard bow once more. Now that he was looking at it head-on, he could clearly see the lead flyer was waggling its wings and flashing various lights that were just about visible in the dull sky.

‘Take aim!’ Aces High ordered again. Although he knew nothing of air combat, Shining did know about air-ground cooperation and search and rescue, and he recognised a signal when he saw one.

‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘They’re trying to communicate with us!’

‘Are you sure?’ Aces High asked, his hoof raised ready to be swept down as the signal to open fire.

‘Yes! it’s trying to signal to us. It’s using a similar technique to the one we use to communicate with Pegasi search and rescue teams.’

‘Hold your fire!’ the Captain roared. Signal flags quickly flashed his orders to the other airships, and the two flyers swept past unmolested.

‘Sir!’ the lookout called again. ‘Another Pegasus!’ Coming towards them from Ponyville as fast as his wings could flap was another Pegasus, this one in the uniform of the Royal Guard.
He touched down on the deck and, seeing Shining Armour, saluted.

‘Commander!’ he began. ‘Whatever you do, don’t shoot at those things!’ He gestured towards the flyers. ‘If you do then the whole town is at risk.’ He explained to the two senior officers what had happened in Ponyville.

‘Aliens?’ Shining asked again, still disbelieving what he had just been told.

‘That’s what they said, sir. From beyond the stars.’ He shook his head.

‘That’s crazy. How could they have come from space?’ Shining said, though deep down he already knew that it must be true. No such species had ever been encountered on the planet before, and it had been explored well enough by now to all but ensure there could be no as-yet undiscovered species lurking somewhere.

‘You say they want to speak to the Princess?’ Aces high asked. The guardspony replied swiftly.

‘That’s what they said, sir. They want to start diplomatic negotiations with us.’ The two officers exchanged a glance.

‘Alright. If they want us to stay clear of the town, then Captain, I ask that you drop me off here. You,’ Shining said, indicating the guardspony, ‘will lead me to them. I will offer them passage to Canterlot, but on our terms, not theirs.’ Aces High pondered for a moment.

‘Very well, Commander. We will hold position here until you return. Good luck down there.’ They shook hooves, and Shining descended the stairs to the main deck.

‘Lower the rope!’ he said to a crewpony. The Celestia descended gently to a safe height above the rolling fields north of Ponyville, one of the rappelling ropes dangling from its side. With a signal from the crewpony, and a salute to the Captain, Shining Armour hauled himself over the side, and began his descent to the ground below.

‘Well,’ Captain Soren said, ‘it seems your message has got through. My pilots tell me your aircraft are holding station north of the town.’
Muzzle Flash found himself breathing a deep sigh of relief at the news. The last thing he wanted was to give these aliens an excuse to start attacking Ponyville.

‘Alright then. Now that things are settled down, perhaps you can answer a few more questions,’ Captain Steel Rain said.

‘In a moment, perhaps,’ the human said, ‘but first I must speak to my superiors. If you will excuse me.’ He strode away and up the ramp into one of the flyers, leaving the two pony officers staring after him, and surrounded by fifty hellguns. Steel Rain turned to his Lieutenant.

‘This is madness! What are we supposed to do? We can’t just let them trot straight into the palace. What if they try to kill the Princess? Or take her hostage?’

‘If they wanted to kill the Princess, sir, I don’t think they would have bothered with all this introduction,’ Muzzle Flash responded.

‘I still don’t trust them, damn it!’ the Captain swore.

‘Neither do I, sir, but what choice do we have?’ Muzzle Flash said. ‘If they speak the truth, then they will invade if we refuse them.’

‘And if they are lying,’ his Captain growled, ‘then we might just be inviting them to murder the Princess.’

‘My Lord,’ Captain Soren spoke into the long-range vox set in the cockpit of the shuttle. The static was intense, but he could hear the reply.

‘Captain! How goes your landing?’ The voice of Lord-Admiral Marcos was unmistakable.

‘My Lord, we have made a successful landing. We have encountered the…native life-forms,’ he said, unsure as to how to explain them to the Admiral.

‘Ah! Not humans, I take it?’ the Admiral asked.

‘No sir, not humans,’ Soren said. ‘They are…they are horses, My Lord.’ There was silence for a few seconds, save for the crackle of static.

‘Did I hear you right, Captain? Did you say horses?’

‘Yes, My Lord. They appear to be functionally identical to the ponies found on many Imperial worlds, with…several important exceptions.’

‘Oh? What exceptions? Don’t tell me they can talk!’ the Admiral chuckled to himself, obviously not expecting the response that followed.

‘Actually, My Lord, yes. They can speak, and what is more, sir, they speak Gothic.’ More silence followed.

‘If you are lying I will have your blood for this!’ the Admiral warned, disbelief in his tone.

‘You have my solemn word, My Lord. I am speaking nothing but the truth.’

‘What’s happenin’ now?’ Applejack asked.

‘The…human has gone back inside his airship,’ Twilight replied. ‘I don’t know what he’s doing. The guardsponies are still standing there.’ Rainbow Dash moaned in annoyance.

‘Why is nothing happening? They’re just talking! It’s like being in a town meeting.’ The rainbow Pegasus spread her wings in frustration. ‘Everypony’s talking, but nothing is getting done!’

‘Just wait, Rainbow,’ Twilight said. ‘If they really are aliens, then this is the first contact our two species have ever had. We can’t just rush into things. It takes time, otherwise…who knows what might happen?’

‘Aliens! I still can’t believe it! Who knew they really existed, huh? I wonder where they’re from? I wonder what their names are? Ooh! I wonder if they like parties!’ The pastel pink party pony bounced on the spot, as full of excited energy as ever.

‘I wonder if they will appreciate good fashion sense?’ Rarity joined in. ‘Perhaps I can make some wonderful dresses for them!’

‘And I wonder what the hay you girls are doing out here!’ A familiar voice distracted them from the scene in the meadow.

‘Big brother!’ Twilight gasped. Shining Armour approached them from behind, his purple and gold armour catching the dappled rays of sunlight that were piercing through a gap in the clouds. A Pegasus guardspony hovered behind. Twilight trotted over to embrace her brother.

‘Twiley, what are you doing out here?’ he asked, his voice thick with concern. ‘You should be somewhere safe! Didn’t the sirens sound?’

‘They did, but we saw those flying things. It’s not a coincidence that I saw something last night, and…’

‘Whoa, whoa. What did you see last night?’ Shining Armour asked. She explained.

‘Then…what the Pegasus said was true,’ he said. ‘These creatures….they really are aliens?’ His sister nodded.

‘That’s what it looks like.’ He whistled in amazement. ‘Well, I’d better get moving. I want you girls to stay here, and don’t move until I come back. That means you too, Spike.’ Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but her big brother cut her off.

‘Promise me, Twiley. We don’t know anything about these aliens. I don’t want my sister and her friends getting hurt just because they were curious.’ She could tell that her brother was deadly serious.

‘Alright…I promise. We’ll stay right here,’ she said. He smiled down at her.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Wish me luck,’ and with that, he was gone.

‘Sir!’ The shout alerted Captain Soren to yet another development outside.

‘If you will forgive me, My Lord, something is happening here. I should attend to my men.’ The vox-link to the fleet continued to crackle, static from some unknown source invading the transmissions like a virus.

‘Of course, Captain. Let me know the moment there are any further developments. I should tell you that the other first-contact team has made contact with a different species...they report that they look similar to the Griffons of ancient Terran mythology. It would seem this world is full of surprises. I will be holding discussions with my advisors on the best course of action here. In the meantime, Captain, proceed with your diplomatic mission to this Princess of theirs.’

‘Yes, My Lord. Landing party out.’ Soren left the shuttle, emerging to see that bright sunlight was now bathing the meadow. The golden armour of the ponies glinted, but Soren could see another of the strange creatures was trotting purposefully across the field toward him. This one had armour that was mostly purple, trimmed with gold and with a much more elaborate quiff on its helmet that matched the colours of its tail. It had a sword hanging at its side, but, unlike the others, no gun.
A high-ranking officer, Soren surmised; another similarity with the Imperium, where purple often denoted high military or administrative rank. The Lord-Admiral himself possessed purple highlights on his uniform.

The new arrival approached Soren as he descended from the shuttle.

‘You are the senior officer here?’ It asked him.

‘I am indeed. Captain Soren, 4th Hydraxian Regiment, Imperial Guard. And you are?’

‘Commander Shining Armour, Chief of the Equestrian Royal Guard.’ Now we’re getting somewhere, Soren thought. Finally someone with authority.

‘What is your purpose here?’ the pony asked. Soren was getting tired of repeating himself.
‘We come in peace in the name of the Emperor,’ he said.

‘What Emperor might that be?’ it asked him.

‘The God-Emperor of Mankind,’ he replied, finding himself slightly insulted by the ponies’ lack of awareness, before realising there was no way they could know of the divine light of the Emperor.

No Imperial vessel had visited this planet, so far as the Crusade’s records knew, and these ponies clearly had no spacefaring capability of their own. This planet had been isolated for far too long, and now they were finally bringing the Emperor’s Truth to the inhabitants. Whether they would accept it, however, remained to be seen. Soren knew of a vanishingly small number of cases where Xenos species that posed no threat to the Imperium were left alone and lived in a state of uneasy truce with humanity, but such an event was vanishingly rare. But there was still that word nagging at him- Xenos. Were these aliens, or were they horses? An entirely different species, or a genetic aberration? The Ordo Xenos would need to investigate that further. Soren was convinced that, if he played his cards right when meeting this Princess, this world could be spared the bloodshed that had consumed so much of the galaxy. Something inside him recoiled at the thought of the kind of destruction the Imperium could bring being unleashed on this place. Must be because it reminds me of home, he thought to himself.

The pony interrupted his reverie by speaking again.

‘You wish to speak to the Princess?’ it asked him.

‘That is correct. We want to start diplomatic relations with your nation.’ The pony looked away briefly, then returned its gaze to Soren.

‘You may do so, but you must do so on our terms. You may bring two others of your kind with you. You will come unarmed. You will permit one of our military airships to land here,’ it gestured to the wide open meadow behind the shuttles, ‘and you will travel to the palace on board it. Do you accept these terms?’ Soren could sense the pony would not budge on the issue.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I agree to your terms. Take me to your Princess.’

A Royal Visit

Muzzle Flash watched the EAS Baltimare lift off slowly from the meadow, its propellers whirring as it spun ponderously towards Canterlot. On board were the human Captain, Soren, the human that carried the large communications device on its back, and a very peculiar specimen dressed in flowing red robes who appeared to have extra limbs growing from his back. Also on board were Shining Armour and the six young mares he had met in the town square, along with their dragon. The rest of the humans remained in the meadow, gathered around their flyers in a defensive formation and forming a makeshift camp. The Royal Guard company still lined the trees, forming a defensive screen between the aliens and the town. They would remain there until they received word that the diplomatic negotiations had been concluded.
The Baltimare had been chosen instead of the Celestia because the latter was simply too big to land safely, even in the fairly large meadow. Muzzle Flash watched as it powered into the sky, heading for the Equestrian capital to the north. He noticed that the humans were following it intensely, as if probing its capabilities and weaknesses. It drifted away behind the rooftops of Ponyville, and Muzzle Flash was left alone with his thoughts.

‘Fascinating, Captain. My spectroscopic analysis indicates that this dirigible appears to be using a buoyant gas hitherto unknown to Imperial science. This gas appears to be vastly superior in its lift efficiency to the gas mixtures used in Imperial aerostats. Based on precise length, width and density calculations, I would estimate that this gondola masses approximately…’ Magos Kallistos rattled off a string of facts and statistics that Captain Soren could have cared less for.

‘By Imperial standards these weapons appear primitive,’ he continued, indicating the anti-air guns on the top deck of the airship, ‘but my calculations indicate a 87.45% probability that they are capable of penetrating the armour on a Marauder bomber, a 96% probability that they are capable of penetrating the armour of a Lightning or Thunderbolt fighter, a 32% probability….’

‘Yes, thank you Magos,’ Soren said. If his face were not mostly metallic, Soren thought, he would have an expression of glee on it. Like a drunk in a brewery. Amongst strange Xenos schizo-tech, the Magos was in his element. The airship’s pony crew were regarding the three humans with a mixture of wonderment and suspicion. Casting his eye over them he noticed that some had wings, some had a horn, and some had neither. He wondered what the purpose of the horn was, and if the wings were functional. At the other end of the deck were a cluster of brightly-coloured ponies, and what appeared to be some kind of large lizard. They were significantly smaller than the airship crew and the Royal Guard he had seen, and their features looked somewhat softer, with more rounded muzzles. Females, perhaps? Or children?

The airship drifted past the two other similar craft that were holding station north of the town. Soren noticed that one of them was considerably bigger than the other. While its size and power was miniscule compared to the capital ships of the Imperial Navy, Soren could sense that it exuded power and purpose nonetheless. Beside him, however, the Magos was more interested in its precise technical specifications.

‘Most interesting. That larger vessel. My scans indicate it to possess a gas envelope length of nine-hundred sixty two feet, a gondola length of four hundred fifty feet, a…’

‘Magos, with all due respect,’ Soren interrupted. ‘We do not need to know the technical data of every one of these airships we see. By all means collect this data, but you do not need to share it with us at the present moment.’ Soren could almost here the cogs working in the Magos’ brain, or what was left of it.

‘Very well, Captain,’ he said. Soren turned his gaze from the airship to the town that was slowly receding behind them. The buildings looked fairly primitive; small, wooden structures for the most part. By contrast, not far north of the town and nestled neatly in the hills there, was an enormous dam, holding back a vast reservoir of water. Soren could see a small cluster of buildings at its base. The Magos soon switched his attention to this new structure.

‘This dam appears to be constructed of a material very similar to our own ferrocrete,’ he began. ‘I am detecting electromagnetic emissions that suggest it is being used to supply power to the surrounding settlements.’ Perhaps these ponies are skilled at something other than airship building, Soren thought.

‘Sir, the Lightnings are at bingo fuel and are returning to orbit,’ his vox-trooper, Hanlon, said. Soren took the proffered handset and spoke briefly to the lead pilot. The two jets roared past the airship, rocking their wings in salute. Soren noticed the entire pony crew watching them in awe as they pulled into a vertical climb and ascended into the deep blue sky, disappearing from sight until they ignited their orbital injection engines, blasting two fiery trails across the heavens.

The airship rumbled on and soon the town was gone from his sight. The officer-pony, Shining Armour, approached him.

‘Captain. We will be arriving soon. Might I suggest that you address the Princess as Your Highness, and speak only when spoken to,’ it said. Soren nodded.

‘As you wish,’ he said. Ahead he could see a remarkable sight- a city that seemed to be built perched on the edge of a mountain. Its towering spires and buttressed walls reminded him of one of the grand palace-fortresses of Holy Terra that he had seen depicted in works of art countless times. As the airship drew closer to it, he could make out more and more detail. Gold-capped domes atop purple spires put him in mind of the armour of the pony commander standing in front of him. The architecture was beautiful; simply stunning. Delicately latticed bridges connected wide boulevards of polished stone, lined with white marble buildings. A grand, ornate arched gateway stood at the head of the main road to the city that wound its way up through the foothills like a snake. The gate itself looked for all the world like it had been cut straight from the outer walls of the Imperial Palace of Terra itself, and transported to this place. The golden spires of the city, towering above the rest, glowed like burnished beacons in the sunlight.

The military man in him could see, however, that this city was not all style over substance. It was easily defendible- it could only be approached from one side by ground troops, situated as it was on a plateau with sheer drops or sheer walls on every other side. The crenellated outer curtain wall looked sturdy and was studded with artistic facades that he instinctively knew concealed gun ports and firing slits. The streets were wide enough to allow large units of troops to march in formation. The tall towers offered excellent visibility, and the approach road was flanked on both sides by small structures that were probably well-camouflaged bunkers. Whoever built this place knew what they were doing, he mused. On the plateau outside the city walls was a landing field, where airships similar to the one he was travelling on were moored. This was where they seemed to be heading.

Soren could hear the airship’s Captain shouting orders, and he watched the pony crew spring into action, carrying out the tasks necessary to prepare the craft for landing. While he watched, he gave himself another mental slap.

This is absurd. They’re horses. And yet here they are, on a planet at the edge of the galaxy, about to land an airship they apparently built themselves, outside the gates of a city they built themselves, and talking to each other in Gothic while they do it. The regimental psychologist will have a field day with this.
He pinched himself to make sure he was not imagining the whole thing as the airship began to descend. Ponies tossed mooring ropes over the sides.. His mouth fell open in slack astonishment as several of the winged ponies took to the air and dropped away to take charge of securing them. They do actually work, then!

‘Most peculiar,’ Magos Kallistos said. ‘By my calculations, their wings should not be capable of supporting their body mass unaided.’

‘Then your calculations must be wrong, Magos,’ Soren replied. The Tech-priest turned away muttering to himself.

‘Perhaps they possess a certain degree of gravity-nullifying technology, like that of our shuttles…’
On the landing field ahead, Soren could see a flying pony waving fluorescent bats to guide the airship to its berth. He heard the note of the airship’s engines change as they slowed, then thrown into reverse before finally cutting off as the airship’s nose made contact with the mooring mast. Within moments it was tied fast and the ropes dangling from the side had been secured to weights on the field below. With a gentle shudder the gondola came to rest on the ground. The purple-armoured pony approached them again.

‘Welcome to Canterlot,’ it said simply.

Up close, the city was even more magnificent than it had seemed from the air. Soren was led through the city by Shining Armour, with the Magos and Hanlon in tow, escorted by a squad of Royal Guard with steely expressions on their faces. Ponies in the streets gawped at the unusual sight that passed them by.
Ahead of them Soren could see a towering complex of high towers and battlements that he assumed must be the palace that Shining Armour had referred to. Another set of ornate, golden gates barred their path. Guards with spears flanked it. They saluted as their commander approached, and the gates began to grind slowly open. Winged ponies fluttered between the spires of the city like birds in a forest.

This is a most peculiar place, Soren thought to himself as the gate swung open. Shining Armour led the escort party inside. Crossing an ornately manicured lawn, the group of ponies and humans approached the palace doors. Soren could feel a strange sensation, almost like he had downed a couple of drinks. He felt a strange mellowness enveloping his brain. Something about this place…what Xenos sorcery is this?
The Magos had no natural brain to speak of anymore, but Soren could tell that Hanlon was experiencing the same sensation. He was looking all around him in wide-eyed wonder.

Shining Armour led them through the door. The interior of the palace was just as ornate and magnificent as the outside. Tall, high-vaulted ceilings but him immediately in mind of an Imperial cathedral, and the effect was enhanced by the winged ponies that flitted about above his head, like the cherubim that floated around in Ecclesiarchy buildings dispensing incense. Soren noticed pairs of Royal Guard stationed every few hundred feet down the corridor.
The military pony led them through another set of doors. They emerged into a wide corridor, richly carpeted and lined with equestrian statues carved from fine marble. Another set of doors, even more ornately carved that the others, stood at the far end. Soren noticed the Guard squad that had been accompanying them stopped here, leaving Shining Armour to lead the humans further by himself. At the doors he stopped, and spoke in hushed tones to the two ponies that guarded the portal, their spears crossed in front of the doors. After a moment, he turned to Soren.

‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I will speak to the Princess first.’ The guards opened the door and he slipped through, before it closed sharply with a loud bang.

Soren took the time to admire the palace’s architecture. The walls were polished marble, as was the floor and the statues, which were exquisitely carved. The guards regarded them with suspicion, especially the Magos, whose face was hidden under his hooded robes. These guards did not carry the rifles that he had seen those in the field with; their spears were their only weapons. Ceremonial, he thought. Obviously no intruder is expected to make it this far.
Several minutes later, Shining Armour emerged from the ornate doors.

‘You may enter now,’ he said to Soren. ‘Princess Celestia will see you.’

The room beyond was even more spectacular than the rest of the building. Huge stained-glass windows with intricate designs and patterns let brilliant shafts of multicoloured light play across the room. Velvet banners hung from the walls. A thick red carpet ran the length of the hall, from the door at one end where he was standing to the ornate throne at the other.

The throne itself was a masterpiece of design. It was shaped roughly like a circle at the base, with a second, smaller circle stacked on top, and then a final one atop that. The red carpet ran up the front of the throne to the pinnacle. It was constructed of metal and finished in gold. Soren was immediately put in mind of the Golden Throne of Terra, before wondering if that was blasphemous. Each circle was ringed with fine golden filigree. It took Soren a moment to see that the lowest level of the throne was also a water feature. The clear liquid flowed over the side and collected in pools either side of the throne’s base. Soren had never seen such a remarkable construct. Nor had he ever seen such a remarkable creature as that which sat atop it.

It was, as he had expected, a pony like the others. But it appeared to be considerably larger, even though it was sat on its haunches. Like most of the military ponies he had seen, its coat was a glossy white. But its mane and tail were unlike anything he had ever seen. They seemed to be floating as if possessing a mind of their own, and they glowed and sparkled with an ethereal, phantasmal radiance. They did not seem to be composed of hair so much as starlight. It seemed like something the Eldar would conjure up. Its face reminded him of Eldar, too. It was to the other ponies what Eldar were to humans- more graceful, more…beautiful, if that was the right word. It had both a horn and a pair of wings, both of which were larger than those on any of the other ponies he had seen. It wore a collar of gold with a large purple gem in the centre, and on its head it wore a golden crown encrusted with jewels that reflected the same green, blue and purple hues as its tail.

‘The humans, your Highness,’ Shining Armour said, standing to one side and gesturing with a hoof. Soren stepped forward, noticing with not insignificant trepidation the ponies that lined the walls. Unlike the ones at the door, these ponies were fully armed, their guns in their hooves and held at the present.
Stopping at a respectable distance from the throne, he saw the Princess stand. She was at least as tall as him, and her horn added another foot or so onto that. Unsure of how to proceed, and mindful of Shining Armour’s advice, he reacted as if he were meeting the Lord-General, snapping to attention and saluting sharply. The pony Princess stared down at him.

‘Welcome to our planet, human,’ it said, its voice soft and feminine yet forceful. ‘Who are you?’
Soren let his hand drop to his side, holding the position of attention as he spoke.

‘Your Highness, my name is Captain Soren, 4th Hydraxian Regiment, Imperial Guard. I come before you on behalf of the Imperium of Man to offer you tidings of peace.’ The Princess bowed her head slightly.

‘If you come in peace,’ she said, ‘why did you kill my subjects?’

Soren answered her question as best he could, explaining what he had heard over the vox from the Lightning pilots.

‘Your Highness, our aircraft merely acted in self-defence. They were fired upon, so they returned that fire. Would you not have wished your own forces to act in the same way?’

‘Indeed I would,’ she replied, meeting his gaze. ‘Which is why I am puzzled as to why they fired first.’

‘I cannot speak for your men,’ he said, before realising his mistake as the Princess raised an eyebrow. ‘For your…ponies,’ he corrected himself. ‘I can merely surmise that they thought they were under attack by our…unfamiliar aircraft.’ She did not look convinced.

‘For what it is worth,’ he continued, ‘you have my deepest regrets over the loss of your airship and crew. It was a tragic accident, Your Highness, and my purpose in seeking an audience with you is to prevent any more such incidents. The Imperium of Man wishes to begin diplomatic negotiations with your species.’ She looked somewhat taken aback.

‘And what, pray, is the Imperium of Man?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow again. Soren explained as succinctly as he could.

When he had finished, she looked positively shocked.

‘This Imperium sounds like a truly vast place,’ she said. ‘What does it want with us?’ Most of it would want you dead, he thought but did not say.

‘The Imperium wishes merely to expand its western border into uncolonised space,’ he said, trying to make it sound like anything other than the direct truth. ‘As your planet lies along this border, we wish to investigate the possibility of diplomatic negotiations with you in order to accommodate the needs of your people with the needs of ours.’ She pondered for a moment, looking for the hidden meaning in his words and finding it immediately.

‘You mean, you wish to discover whether we would stand in the way of this expansion?’ she said, though her gentle voice contained no trace of anger.

‘That is part of it, of course,’ he said, knowing there was no use in disguising the naked truth any longer. ‘Most of the Imperium would consider alien life to be…expendable,’ he said. Before he could continue, she interrupted him.

‘Would you agree with them?’ He hesitated. Before making planetfall here, he would have said yes without question. But something about this place intrigued him, and what was more, something about it confused him in equal measure. The strange feeling of inner calm he had experienced most acutely since entering the palace did not help his judgement, either.

‘No, Your Highness,’ he said, feeling the eyes of his vox-trooper and the Magos boring into his back, though he knew they were both as intrigued by this place as he was.

‘At least, not all alien life.’ Even as he spoke, a distant voice somewhere inside him told him that he had just committed heresy against the Emperor and should be shot. But another, louder voice was telling him that it was the right thing to say.

‘The vast majority of alien species humanity has encountered among the stars are unceasingly hostile toward us,’ he continued. ‘They must be hunted down and exterminated without remorse and without hesitation. But there are some races that are peaceful, that are of no threat to mankind. It is these species that we have made diplomatic entreaties to in the past. I sense that, despite our welcome this morning, your species is one of the latter.’ The Princess stared straight at him.

‘And do you have the authority to make such decisions?’ she asked.

‘Truthfully, your Highness, no. I am merely an envoy, not an ambassador. The man who would have to make such a decision on behalf of humanity is my Lord-Admiral. He is in command of this…expedition.’ He made sure not to use the word Crusade. The Princess nodded slowly.

‘You may tell your Lord-Admiral,’ she said, ‘that your suspicions are correct. We have no wish to bring hate or mistrust between our two races, and we have no desire to go to war with you. We have no space-faring capability, therefore we are of no threat to your Imperium even if it were in our nature to be so.’ Soren breathed a mental sigh of relief. The eager triggers of both human and pony alike had not destroyed the possibility of peace here.

‘Yes, Your Highness. It pleases me to hear this,’ he said, ‘for I have no desire to see such a beautiful place come to harm.’ Soren thought he may have seen the faintest flicker of a smile begin to form at the corners of her mouth.

‘I trust you are aware that we are not the only species to be found on this planet.’ The Princess spoke again.

‘Yes, Your Highness. I am aware of this, though I do not know the precise details,’ he replied.

‘Although ponies are the dominant species here there are numerous others to be found. Some of them are our friends, and some…’ she hesitated. ‘Some are not. There are dragons, Diamond Dogs, Griffons, zebras…’ Soren was more confused by each name she spoke. Dragons? Why, they were a myth, as were Griffons, although he had heard the Lord-Admiral’s report on the other contact team. Zebras were also an ungulate relic from ancient Terra, and Diamond Dogs, well, he had no clue on that one.

‘I take it you do not speak for them all, Your Highness?’ he asked.

‘Indeed I do not. Some of them have nation-states of their own, and some do not. I may well be able to convince our allies to agree to an arrangement with your Imperium, but the same cannot be said for our enemies.’

‘Then perhaps we could come to an agreement over that, as well,’ Soren said.

‘I was not asking for military assistance,’ the Princess countered. ‘I was merely informing you that not all of this world will be necessarily as receptive to your ideas as we are.’

‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I must ask, Your Highness. Something has been puzzling me.’

‘Yes?’ she said questioningly.

‘You refer to yourselves as ponies. Ponies very similar to you are a species that were native to mankind’s homeworld, Terra. Now they are raised on many worlds across the Imperium, but nowhere do they display the kind of intelligence that your kind possesses. They do not speak and they certainly do not form societies and nations. Forgive my impropriety, Your Highness…but, where did you come from?’ She looked taken aback at his revelation.

‘We…originated here,’ she said. ‘We have always lived on this planet. Pony history stretches back several millennia.’

Only several? Soren thought. Then it is always possible…perhaps a Rogue Trader, or an Explorator Fleet, could have reached out this far and seeded this world, perhaps even terraformed it themselves. Maybe they are not Xenos after all.
The Princess was about to continue when she was interrupted by a burst of static and then a voice.

‘Captain, this is Lieutenant Jonas. Do you read, over?’ The guardsponies lining the walls stepped forward menacingly, their weapons swinging up to cover the three humans as the voice blared seemingly from nowhere.

‘Your Highness! This is merely a communications device,’ Soren said. ‘It is my subordinate. I left him in charge of our landing site.’ The Princess nodded, and the guards lowered their guns.
Soren took the handset and spoke.

‘Lieutenant, what’s the situation back there?’

‘Our landing site is still secure, sir,’ came the reply. ‘We received a message from the fleet. They received a signal from the other first contact team that they were being attacked and overrun. The Lord-Admiral has authorised combat operations in the continental north immediately.’

‘What?!’ The Princesses’ distressed cry made Soren look up.

‘Wait one, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘Your Highness, we deployed two first-contact teams. We are the first- the second landed in the north of this continent. They reported meeting creatures that I assume are the Griffons you referred to. Apparently they have now been overrun by these creatures, and so our leader has authorised the use of force against them.’ The Princess’ expression softened slightly as she learned that her own subjects were not the target.

‘Please ensure your leaders know that we are of no threat to them,’ she said. ‘We seek only a peaceful existence.’

‘Of course, Your Highness,’ Soren said. He spoke to his Lieutenant again.

‘Lieutenant, inform the fleet immediately that the ponies are not a threat to us and are not to be engaged. Tell the Lord-Admiral that they wish to continue diplomatic negotiations through him at his earliest convenience.’

‘Yes sir,’ came the curt reply.

‘Keep me informed of any further developments. Soren out.’ The Captain replaced the handset and turned back to the Princess.

‘Forgive me, Your Highness,’ he said. ‘Our leaders will be informed of your decision immediately. If you would permit me to remain in this city, I can act as a liaison between them and yourself.’ She nodded.

‘Very well, Captain. I am most thankful that you were not so quick to act against us as against the Griffons.’

‘There is much conflict in this galaxy already,’ Soren replied. ‘I have no wish to add to it through a misunderstanding.’

‘Most admirable, Captain,’ the Princess said. ‘Let us hope your leaders are similarly wise.’

A Battle In The Heavens

The bridge of the Emperor’s Judgement was, as ever, bustling with activity. Staff officers gathered in small clusters, discussing operations and procedures. Servitors trundled to and fro, delivering data-slates and messages.
Watching over it all, the Lord-Admiral sat in his command chair, observing. Landing operations had begun in the northern sector of the main continent, and the fleet had moved swiftly into action to execute his orders. Troop transports hung in low orbit above the planet, disgorging swarms of dropships and a steady stream of bulk landers and vehicle transports. Forming an outer ring around them were the warships of the fleet. Shoals of frigates and destroyers prowled around the larger cruisers and battlecruisers. The largest ships in the fleet were the three battleships; the Emperor’s Judgement, the Retribution-Class ship Galatea and the smaller Apocalypse-Class ship Malleo Mortis. Each many miles in length, the trio of battleships were among the largest weapons in the Imperium’s arsenal. Nothing could stand against them save another battleship.

‘My Lord, the first units have made planetfall.’ Captain Bormann relayed the news to his Admiral.

‘Excellent!’ The Admiral loved smooth operations, and so far this one was going as smoothly as could be expected.

‘I understand from the other landing party that these horse creatures are not hostile to us after all,’ he said, turning to the Captain who stood beside his chair.

‘Apparently not, sir,’ Bormann replied. ‘I see the first engagement was all a misunderstanding.’ The Admiral smiled grimly.

‘It is fortuitous for these ponies that the first-contact party survived to find that out,’ he said. ‘Otherwise this might be a continent-wide invasion. As it is, I shall see for myself exactly what is going on down there in due course. I would not wish to be known as the Admiral who made peace with Xenos without at least investigating to see if they really are of no threat to us.’

Bormann was not sure he liked the idea of making peace with any Xenos, no matter how little threat they may seem to pose. The litany of races hostile to the Imperium was a long and dangerous one- the Orks, the Eldar and their dark cousins, Tyranids, Necrons, Hrud; the list went on and on. Even the Tau, who were not exactly hostile in the strictest sense, were a very potent threat out on the eastern fringes. Bormann was not sure these creatures would be any different. To him, all Xenos were abominations to be purged from the galaxy, though he knew that those much wiser than he occasionally declared that a particularly unthreatening species should be left alone.

‘Our troops on the ground report negligible resistance from the…Griffons, sir,’ Bormann said.

‘As expected,’ the Admiral replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Their technology is primitive. This campaign will be over in a matter of hours.’ Bormann suspected he was correct. Troops were pouring down onto the continent below in their thousands. Their vehicles were dropping with them; hundreds of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, mobile artillery pieces, scout vehicles and a dozen other assorted types. Everything the Imperial Guard needed to wage war was being landed. Some might call it overkill, but the Guard just call it being thorough.

‘Captain!’ one of the bridge officers called. Bormann turned to him.

‘Strange readings on the Auspex, sir,’ he continued. ‘Approximately five hundred thousand miles out.’

‘What sort of readings, Ensign?’ he called from the Admiral’s podium.

‘Unknown, sir. Very faint and fluctuating…wait, we have something.’ From the tactical Auspex station, a different cry went up.

‘Unidentified contacts, Captain! Three of them…wait, now five…seven…ten!’
From the warp they came, tearing gashes in reality as they emerged. First one, then another, then a stream, until there were nearly a hundred vessels. A warfleet of Chaos, on the hunt and with its target dead ahead.

‘Red alert! Battle stations! Alert the fleet,’ Lord-Admiral Marcos issued a stream of commands as the Auspex contacts multiplied.

‘Now reading one-hundred six contacts, My Lord!’ the tactical Auspex officer shouted.

‘Auspex readings indicate target signatures match that of Chaos vessels, My Lord.’ Marcos thumped the arm of his chair in frustration.

‘Curse those foul heretics! They can’t leave well alone, even this far out. Destroyers move to engage. Capital ships, form a firing line! Protect the transports. They are the reason we are out here. Have the Malleo Mortis move astern of us. I want their lances glowing red!’ he ordered.

‘Aye, sir!’ came the chorus of replies from the command crew. The strident wail of the alert klaxons filled the bridge.

‘They are closing fast, sir!’ the Auspex officer reported. ‘They are not slowing.’

‘Looks like they want to punch right through us,’ Marcos growled. ‘Are there any transports amongst them?’

‘Aye sir, at least thirty bulk transporters in the centre of the fleet,’ the officer sung out. Marcos pounded his chair again.

‘Damn them back to hell! This was no chance encounter. They have come for the planet. Do not let them break through! Launch all fighters!’

The Emperor’s Judgement slipped into position in the firing line, with the Galatea ahead and the Malleo Mortis astern, presenting their flanks to the enemy to allow the maximum possible firepower to be brought to bear. With the Chaos fleet already in range, the first las-blasts and torpedoes were flying. The few Imperial picket destroyers were simply swatted out of the way by the combined firepower of nearly seventy five Chaos warships. Within moments the long-range lance batteries of the Malleo Mortis blazed into action. The Imperial escort ships rode out to meet the oncoming tide as their cruisers swung toward the enemy.
At the heart of the Chaos fleet were a trio of ancient Desolator-Class battleships, three more Repulsive-Class Grand Cruisers, and a full dozen other cruisers of various classes. As they raced towards the Imperial battle line, their smaller escorts forged ahead to soak up incoming fire and launch their own torpedoes. Several were destroyed in moments by lucky strikes, but their early losses did now slow the forces of the Ruinous Powers.

‘My Lord, Auspex scans show an exact match. One of those Desolators is the Soul Harvest, the personal flagship of Sorcerer Lord Parthax the Infidel.’ Admiral Marcos growled.

‘If he bleeds, we can kill him. He will die like all the rest!’ Grim-faced, the Admiral observed the holo-display in front of him. It had changed from an image of the planet to displaying a three-dimensional representation of the space occupied by the two fleets. Blue and red icons represented the ships of the Imperium and Chaos respectively.
A solid spear of red sigils were moving steadily towards two thin lines of blue. Clusters of red and blue in between represented the escort squadrons.

‘They will not stop until their transports are in orbit,’ he said to Captain Bormann. ‘This is an invasion fleet disguised as a warfleet. We have only just arrived here ourselves and I’ll be damned if I am going to see this place fall to Chaos! Alert all ships. Tell them to focus their fire on those transports. We have a planet to protect.’

‘How much longer do we have to wait here?’ Rainbow Dash flapped her wings in frustration. The Elements and Spike had been led into the palace by members of the Royal Guard and left to wait in an antechamber for an audience with the Princess. Twilight tried to mollify her friend.

‘She’s busy! Meeting with these humans takes precedence over meeting with us,’ she began. ‘Especially since the only reason she wanted to see us was to talk about the things I saw in the sky, and I think her questions have already been answered.’ Rainbow Dash sighed.

‘I guess you’re right,’ she said, though she did not have much longer to wait.

The doors to the throne room swung open seconds later. The guards stepped aside, and Shining Armour emerged. Behind him came the three humans. Twilight had seen them on the airship, standing on the command deck and muttering to each other, drawing fearful glances from the crew.
The Princess must trust them to some extent, she thought, or they would be in chains by now. They walked past, the taller of the three eyeing the colourful mares with some confusion. Apart from the Princess, we are the first ponies he has seen who aren’t in uniform, she realised. He saw us on the airship; now he must be wondering why we are going to see the Princess too.

Shining Armour stopped beside Twilight. Another guardspony emerged from the throne room, and with a gesture from his commander he began to lead the humans through a door at the other end of the antechamber and out of sight. Twilight embraced her big brother.

‘You can go in now, Twiley,’ he said, though his words were addressed as much to her friends as to her. ‘The Princess wishes to see you.’

‘What did the humans have to say?’ she asked, looking up at him with wide, inquisitive eyes.

‘They want peace. That’s all I can say for now,’ Shining Armour replied.

‘Do they like parties?’
Everypony smiled at Pinkie’s random outburst.

‘I don’t know, Pinkie, they didn’t say!’ Shining Armour replied. ‘Alright, you’d better go. Don’t want to keep the Princess waiting.’ Twilight nodded.

‘Right. Let’s go girls. I’ll see you later, BBBFF!’ Shining smiled and watched them trot into the throne room, before turning away and returning to his duties.

‘My faithful student!’ Princess Celestia smiled warmly as the young ponies entered the room. ‘And all your friends, too.’

‘Good afternoon, Princess!’ Twlight returned the greeting. The door clanged shut behind them as they six mares and one dragon formed a line in front of the throne.

‘I must admit, I was looking forward to this meeting, but it has been rather overshadowed by recent events,’ Celestia said. ‘It has been too long since we last spoke face to face, Twilight. How are you all?’
‘We’re all fine, Princess. Thank you for your concern!’ Twilight replied eagerly. Celestia chuckled.

‘Well, that is good news. Now, you were coming here to tell me about some strange phenomena, but I think I have just heard all about it from a different source.’ Twilight gasped.

‘Oh, no! I left all my notes behind! I’m so sorry, Princess! The sirens went off, and we went to the town square, and then my brother came, and…’ Celestia cut her off abruptly.

‘Twilight! Do not fret. I am not angry. On the contrary, I am happy that you still came to see me with all this excitement going on in Ponyville.’ Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as the Princess continued.

‘The humans said they have a fleet of ships in orbit. What you mentioned seeing last night must have been one of them. I will have my sister carry out more observations tonight. I would like you to stay at the palace and aid her in this task.’

‘Oh, of…of course, Princess. I’d be happy to help Princess Luna,’ Twilight said. Celestia nodded.

‘The rest of you are more than welcome to stay here also. I have had rooms prepared for you all.’ There was a chorus of thanks from Twilght’s friends.

‘Wow, thanks Your Highness! This is gonna be so awesome!’

‘Ooh, thank you! We can have a party!’

‘Well that’s mighty kind of y’all, Princess!’

‘Um..thank…thank you…’

‘I think that, although these humans claim peace as their aim, it would be wise to have the Elements of Harmony close at hand and well protected,’ Celestia said. ‘Therefore I must ask all of you not to leave the palace grounds until I say otherwise.’ Twilight nodded. Fluttershy gulped.

‘Hopefully this precaution will be unnecessary, but I do not know enough about these humans to trust them just yet. One can never be too well prepared,’ Celestia continued. ‘We must be ready for any surprises.’

‘Ohh!’ Pinkie Pie exclaimed. ‘I like surprises!’

The range between the two fleets was closing rapidly. The Chaos ships had their engines running on flank speed, powering towards the planet as fast as they could go. Long-range lance fire from the Imperial battle lines flickered out at them, their void shields glowing as they absorbed the blows. Nova cannon blasts from the fleet's two Mars-Class battlecruisers detonated in their midst, shredding several escort frigates. But nothing was slowing them down.

‘They will reach our lines in four minutes, Admiral.’ The grim news from the tactical Auspex station caused Lord-Admiral Marcos to thump his chair yet again.

‘I want every gun in the fleet firing. Drive them back into the warp!’ he shouted. As the range closed, the fleet obeyed his command, pouring laser, plasma and missile fire across the gulf of space to strike against the shields of the enemy. The Admiral knew that, in a close-range firefight, the Grand Cruisers in the tip of the spear of the Chaos fleet would rip his ships apart with their fearsome macrocannon broadsides, slicing a way through the warships and exposing the all-but defenceless transports beyond.
Lord-General Galen, who until minutes ago had been directing the landing operations, watched the drama unfold from the rear of the bridge. Space battles were an Imperial Guardsman’s worst nightmare; they could do nothing but stand and watch, hoping that the vessel they were riding in would not be hit. The Lord-General, at least, could take some solace in knowing that he was aboard a ship with excellent armour, an excellent Captain and an excellent Admiral. His guardsmen on their transport ships, however, were not so lucky. Galen found himself drinking straight from the Amasec bottle as he watched the fight commence.

The Emperor’s Judgement lacked a powerful, long-range armament, but it made up for it by carrying a large number of fighters and heavy bombers. These small, nimble vessels roamed through space, shooting down enemy attack craft and making bombing runs on their warships. They poured forth from the hangar bays of the battleship, joining those few that the other Imperial capital ships carried. They added their firepower to the strobing mass of gunfire that was now filling the void between the fleets.

‘One cruiser has been knocked out, My Lord, and we have dropped the shields on a second.’

‘Destroyer Squadron Omega has been destroyed completely, sir.’
Tactical reports flew back and forth across the bridge like the volleys of gunfire that they were describing. Admiral Marcos stood above it all, his hands clasped now behind his back.

‘Captain Bormann, manoeuvre the Emperor’s Judgement to bring our prow weapons to bear.’

‘Yes, my Lord,’ Bormann replied, passing the order on swiftly to the helmsman. The Emperor’s Judgement was more heavily-armoured fighter carrier and command craft than true battleship, but its prow was studded with numerous heavy weapon turrets as well as sensor probes. The ponderous craft swung slowly in space, its manoeuvring jets flaring silently in the void. Astern, the Malleo Mortis blazed away with its broadside lances, bringing death and destruction to the Chaos fleet with every shot. They were taking losses, but they were not taking losses fast enough.

‘Range is now less than fifty thousand miles, Captain,’ called the Auspex officer. The Chaos ships had warped in almost on top of the planet, leaving the Immaterium at high speed and not braking. Now, within mere minutes they were entering knife-fight range with the Crusade fleet. At such a range every weapon on board every ship was usable, from the largest lance to the smallest close-in missile defence gun. Each fleet possessed thousands of muzzles; Nova cannon, lance batteries, las-cannon, plasma guns, macrocannon, torpedo tubes, missile packs, gauss railguns and coildrivers. A hailstorm of projectiles was pattering off the shields of the approaching warfleet. One of the Chaos cruisers erupted with a blinding, actinic flash that left after-images in the eyes of the Imperial attack craft pilots. The heretic fleet was running through a hurricane of fire from the broadsides of the Imperials, and they were being punished for it, but they were still not being slowed. Here, a destroyer lost its engine array and began to spiral away into deep space.
There, an escort frigate took a hit to the bridge and, rudderless, swung into the side of one of the Desolator-Class battleships, blossoming into a vast fireball and bringing the capital ship’s shields down. The lances of the Malleo Mortis took full advantage, striking home with pinpoint precision at such a relatively short range. The spear-shaped prow of the Desolator-Class began to come apart from the inside, riven by internal explosions. Its engines failed and it began to slow, the rest of the Chaos fleet tearing past it as it died.

But, at such a range, the Imperial guns were not the only ones that were effective. Although the Chaos vessels could not fire their broadsides, they still mounted enough prow and dorsal guns to inflict heavy damage. The lances of the Desolator-Class ships proved fearsomely effective, punching through void shields and armour alike. One of the Mars-Class battlecruisers reeled away, its Nova cannon destroyed and its hull riddled with internal fires. A smaller Dauntless-Class light cruiser was blown apart by the same weapons.
Trapped in no-mans land between the two fleets, attack craft on both sides took catastrophic losses, caught in the crossfire of the larger anti-ship weapons as well as the blizzard of close defence guns. They died in their dozens. The same fate befell many escorts. The Chaos fleet arrived in-system with forty-nine escort destroyers and frigates- by the time they reached the Imperial battle line, there were just twenty six remaining.

But reach it they did, and not just the escorts but the capital ships too. They ploughed through the outer ring of escorts and bore down on the Emperor’s Judgement and her fellow battleships with terrifying speed. Even then, they did not stop to fight. The Grand Cruisers in the van unleashed their ferocious broadsides, dozens of heavy cannon and las-batteries on each ship shredding the shields and armour of whatever they came into contact with.
The Galatea took the worst of the pounding. The huge battleship was stripped of its shields in moments under the sheer weight of firepower being hurled at it. Steel and ceramite were rent asunder, entire strings of compartments being opened up to the vacuum. Its engines were blasted to pieces by one of the Grand Cruisers passing astern. This ship also struck the Emperor’s Judgement with its portside gun batteries as it passed.

The bridge shook as the Chaos cruiser bombarded the battleship. Admiral Marcos rocked from side to side with the motion of his flagship, but years of experience in such matters had given him a firm footing. The bridge was bathed in the sickly red glow of the battle lighting, but an unusual calm had descended over its crew as the ship was struck again and again by enormous shells and pulsing las-blasts.

‘Shields are holding, My Lord, barely,’ reported the tactical officer.

‘Return fire, all portside guns,’ Marcos said steadily. The gunnery officer had no need to input firing solutions. He simply gave the order to fire. The Emperor’s Judgement had but a few broadside batteries, but they were effective nonetheless. The railguns and plasma cannon blew several holes in the shields and armour of the Grand Cruiser, which brought its dorsal lances to bear in retaliation.

At such short range, the fire of the lances was devastating. The shields of the Emperor’s Judgement collapsed, and the beams of pure energy melted their way through the outer armour.
Even Admiral Marcos’ steady footing was not enough, as the battleship bucked and shuddered under the onslaught. He was thrown to his right and stumbled heavily against the railing that encircled his command podium. Members of the bridge crew were flung from their seats and several smashed their heads on consoles and chart tables. Warning klaxons began blaring.

‘Shields are down, sir!’ the tactical officer shouted.

‘Damage report!’ Marcos spat, standing back up.

‘Heavy damage to our port side, My Lord,’ the officer reported. ‘All portside batteries are offline. Hull breaches reported on all decks.’

‘Damn them! Bring us about,’ the Lord-Admiral ordered. ‘Starboard broadside on that cruiser.’

‘Sir!’ the vox-officer called. ‘Word from the Galatea. They are dead in space, My Lord.’

The Chaos spearhead had smashed through the Imperial fleet, crippling one battleship and damaging the others. Their battle line was in disarray. With heretic warships pouring through their defensive shield, the transport ships began desperately to scatter. They mounted only very limited defensive armament and nothing that could even scratch the shields of a capital ship.
Its main drives throbbing with barely restrained yet silent fury, the Grand Cruiser that had led the charge opened fire on the fleeing transports. Not designed to come under fire, the transport ships had only minimal shielding and armour. It proved woefully inadequate at repelling lance blasts. One transport blew itself apart completely as its reactors overloaded. Another had its flank ripped open, exposing the troop compartments to space and condemning nearly ten thousand Imperial Guardsmen to an agonising death. Blasts of venting atmosphere erupted from the side of the ruined transport. Now getting dangerously close to the planet’s atmosphere, the Grand Cruiser cut its drives and engaged its braking jets.
As it did so, it was struck from behind by the combined firepower of the Emperor’s Judgement’s starboard broadside and the dorsal lances of the Malleo Mortis. Its shields, damaged by the firefight with the Imperial flagship, shut down completely. The second wave of lance shots smashed the ship’s bridge and tore flaming gashes in its flank. With nobody at the helm, the crippled cruiser dived towards the planet, unable to slow its descent.

With the cruiser out of the fight, the two surviving Imperial battleships turned their attentions to the rest of the Chaos fleet. The other two Grand Cruisers were about to force their way through the battle line, and were being followed by the Desolator-Class battleships and a half dozen cruisers. Behind them came the transports.
‘Close that gap! Do not let them through!’ cried the Lord-Admiral, seeing the cluster of red icons on the holo-map about to breach the line. But it was too late.
The Chaos capital ships saw the gap in the line where the Galatea lay crippled and pounced on it. As they passed it by they blasted it with their broadsides. Overcome and burning, the Galatea died fighting, its lances roaring till the last.

Fire from the Imperial battleships and cruisers caught them as they broke through. Swarms of missiles smashed into their shields, and las-blasts blazed brightly against the darkness of space. Two cruisers were knocked out in moments, their shields overwhelmed and their hulls punctured in a dozen places. The battleships and Grand Cruisers proved hardier opponents, shrugging off the blizzard of ordnance and returning fire with their lance batteries and rail drivers. The escorts following close behind fired off shoals of torpedoes, their heavy nuclear and plasma warheads more than capable of ripping through the hull of any Imperial vessel. Launched at close range as the escorts approached the gap in the line, the torpedoes were difficult to avoid. The torpedoes struck two Imperial cruisers dead-on, and several burst with bright flares on the already ravaged port side of the fleet’s flagship.

‘Your Highness!’ A guardspony knocked heavily on the door to Celestia’s private chambers. ‘Your Highness!’ Celestia opened the door with her magic.

‘What is it?’ she inquired. The guardspony saluted and bowed before his Princess.

‘Your Highness, there is something you need to see. Something in the sky.’

‘Show me,’ she said, following the guard into the corridor. He led her to the palace gardens.

The gardens were not empty. A group of ponies stood on the path. The six Elements of Harmony and Spike were there; Shining Armour and a handful of guardsponies, and her sister, Princess Luna. They were all staring skyward. Following their gaze, Celestia could see why.
The heavens were falling.

The Waiting

Muzzle Flash stared in disbelief as the humans began to arrive. He had been informed of the developing situation, that there were strange forces on the march to the planet, and that the humans would be the ponies’ best chance of survival. He was not entirely convinced that the humans were not using that as an excuse to essentially occupy Equestria, but they had seemed deadly serious, their faces showing no hint of deceit. There were hundreds, no, thousands of them, pouring in from south of the town. They marched in a tight formation that would have made the Royal Guard proud. They entered the town from the south. Ponies emerged from the shelters and houses to be greeted by the sight of hundreds of strange, bipedal creatures marching through their town, the Royal Guard present in some considerable number, their reinforcing battalion having been permitted to disembark from the Celestia, but doing nothing to stop these aliens.

Several ponies fainted in shock. Muzzle Flash could hardly blame them. The humans were dressed in strange clothes similar to those worn by the first arrivals; camouflaged various shades of brown and green, with dark grey armour covering their chests and helmets of a similar shade. Most of them carried the same type of gun- polished grey metal, with a short barrel and stumpy magazine. Like the ones carried by the ‘diplomatic team,’ but smaller, Muzzle Flash thought. A number of the humans carried different weapons, however- there were heavy-looking things with big barrels, things with what looked like cylinders instead of magazines, strange tubes slung over shoulders, long guns with big telescopic sights. Many of what he assumed were the officers carried swords that appeared to have nasty, serrated teeth on them.
As well as the guns, there were all kinds of other equipment. Flashlights, packs, canteens, rope, entrenching tools, and all manner of things Muzzle Flash could not identify. As the humans streamed through the town, the mayor and her entourage watching from the town hall balcony, the vehicles started to arrive.

Again, Muzzle Flash was astounded. He had seen nothing like them. It was as if a steam locomotive had detached itself from the rails, grown armour, tracks and guns, and started to roll around the town. Great hulking things with stubby, wide-barreled cannons in their turrets and another smaller gun jutting out of the front, and two belt-fed weapons of some kind in sponsons on the side of the hull, as well as a smaller gun on top of the turret that he assumed must be for one of the crew to use. Alongside them were vehicles with much smaller turrets, low-slung and with doors on the back. Troop transports, he realised.

Behind these vehicles came metal giants. Huge, rumbling behemoths laden down with guns like they were going out of fashion. There were only two of them, but they made an impression entirely greater than even the long column of smaller vehicles. The barrels of their main guns, Muzzle Flash noted, were longer than the vehicles that had preceded them. They sprouted smaller weapons like mushrooms growing in a field after a spring rain. He counted eleven barrels on each vehicle. Their bulk crushed the cobblestones beneath them as they rolled into the town. Ponies trembled in fear and stared in open mouthed astonishment as the armoured leviathans tore up their street and lumbered slowly through the town.
Staring after them, Muzzle Flash found himself being approached by the human Lieutenant who had been left in charge of the first landing party.

‘Baneblades,’ he said, drawing a blank expression from Muzzle Flash. The human nodded after the huge vehicles.

‘We call them Baneblades. Super-heavy tanks. Not much can stand up against one of those,’ he chuckled, ‘let alone two.’

‘And…all this stuff is to defend this town?’ Muzzle Flash questioned. The human shook his head.

‘Some of it is. We talked to your Captain and he advised us on where we should move our troops. Some are staying here, some are moving to defend the dam north of town, some are going to…what was it called…Cameltrot?’

‘Canterlot,’ Muzzle Flash corrected him.

‘Yeah, some of them are going there. There are others across the continent,’ he said. ‘We are not going anywhere, not with those storms in orbit, so you need have no fear that we will not fight. After all, we will be fighting for our own lives as much as yours.’ These words did not fill Muzzle Flash with as much confidence as had been intended. Still, it was better than nothing, and whatever this enemy was, the more hoov…hands they could muster in the defence of Equestria, the better.

‘What exactly are we going to be facing?’ Muzzle Flash asked. The human grimaced.

‘Well, I don’t know exactly what they have up there, or how many there are,’ he began, ‘but whatever it is, it won’t be pretty. They are our arch-enemy. Traitors who turned against the Imperium thousands of years ago, backed by the forces of Chaos itself.’ Muzzle Flash had a mental image of Discord flash into his brain.

‘Chaos? We’ve fought chaos before,’ he said. The human looked surprised.

‘Really? I thought we were the first humans…well, I suppose there would be no records within the Imperium of such an encounter…’

‘No, there were no humans,’ Muzzle Flash said, as a stream of covered, powered wagons began to roll past, belching smoke from tall exhaust stacks behind their cabs and laden down with troops and equipment.

‘So…demons, then?’ Jonas asked.

‘I suppose you could call him that, yes,’ Muzzle Flash replied. ‘We know him as Discord. He used to rule this place, but he was imprisoned by the Princess and her sister a thousand years ago. He escaped last year but he was defeated again.’

‘What did he look like? What did he do?’ Jonas asked, intrigued.

‘He is a chimera of sorts. He appears to be made up of parts taken from various creatures, including dragons and ponies,’ he explained. ‘He can…change things, with a snap of his fingers. Our guns are of little use when they have been turned into bananas,’ the pony explained. Jonas raised an eyebrow.

‘Sounds like a Lord of Change, a Greater Demon of Tzeentch,’ he said. Muzzle Flash looked confused.

‘A what?’

‘One of the most powerful agents of the Chaos gods,’ Jonas said. ‘They use deceit, trickery and foul magic to further the ends of their master.’ Muzzle Flash had to agree. That did sound an awful lot like Discord.

Their conversation was interrupted by a shout. Nearby, some of the Imperial troops had been digging a trench and were in the process of stacking sandbags along its parapet. Now half a dozen of them were pointing their guns at a unicorn guardspony. The two Lieutenants hurried over.

‘What’s going on here?’ Jonas demanded. A corporal threw him a sloppy salute.

‘Sir, this alien is a psyker!’ The Guardsmen did not budge, their guns aimed straight at the unicorn, who had his head lowered menacingly.

‘A what?’ Muzzle Flash asked. The corporal growled.

‘A psyker! A witch.’

‘Stand down, corporal! All of you, get back to work!’ Jonas demanded. ‘You know our orders and you heard the Commissar. You could all be shot for this!’ At the mention of the more conventional methods of Imperial justice, the corporal balked and backed down.

‘Do as he says,’ he said reluctantly. The nervous troopers lowered their weapons.

‘What exactly are you accusing him of?’ Muzzle Flash asked, concerned. Jonas cast a glance at the guardspony.

‘They say he is a psyker, someone who uses psychic powers…a lot of the more superstitious troopers are scared of them, even those that are on our own side. Uncontrolled psykers are a threat to the Imperium,’ he explained. ‘They can act as conduits for the forces of Chaos. Usually psykers are…hunted down.’ Muzzle Flash looked at the guardspony.

‘You,’ he said.

‘Ice Wind, sir!’ the unicorn replied.

‘Ice Wind, did you use your magic?’ he asked.

‘Yes sir. I asked if they needed help filling the sandbags. They said yes, so I started using my magic to lift up the bags, and they pulled guns on me, sir!’ Muzzle Flash turned to Jonas, aware that the corporal and his work detail were listening in.

‘Lieutenant, unicorn ponies possess magical abilities,’ he began to explain. ‘We have had such abilities for many thousands of years and have not acted as ‘conduits’ for anything. Our abilities vary from pony to pony, but military unicorns generally have the ability to cast offensive magic. Perhaps your troops should refrain from comment until they have seen us in action.’ The corporal grunted again.

‘Still sound like psykers to me!’ he spat. Jonas silenced him with a glance.

‘I hope you are right, Lieutenant,’ Jonas said, ‘for all our sakes.’

Captain Soren had finally received word from the landing party of what had happened to the fleet. He spoke frantically into the vox, the ponies in the palace garden watching intently and nervously as he did so. Jonas told him of the space battle, the Chaos transports entering orbit, of the friendly reinforcements.

‘Your Highness,’ Soren said, looking at Princess Celestia. ‘A great struggle is about to engulf your people. I would suggest, if I may, that you prepare your armies to go to war, for war is coming, whether you are ready or not.’
Celestia knew he was not lying- she could sense it in him. She could also sense the coming storm; a sense of dread In the corners of her psyche, deeply foreboding. Judging by her sister’s expression, she knew Luna felt it too.

‘It will be done, Captain,’ she said, nodding. ‘Shining Armour, assemble the chiefs of staff. We are going to war.’

Twilight watched her brother depart with Celestia and the humans. While she knew he had important work to do, she wished he could have stayed with her, especially after hearing what the human had just said. He had always been there when she was a filly to calm her down, and now she needed someone to do just that again. From what the human said, a war was coming the likes of which Equestria had not seen for generations. Her friends clustered around her, silent, worried. Princess Luna approached her.

‘Greetings, Twilight Sparkle,’ she said softly.

‘Hello, Princess,’ Twilight responded.

‘Thou all seem nervous,’ Luna observed, gesturing to the group of young mares. ‘Do not fear. My sister is taking matters in hand. We shall not be unprepared for this attack.’ Twilight looked up at her.

‘I know, Princess, but…’ she trailed off.

‘There is nothing to be gained by worrying,’ Luna said. ‘Far better for us all if you take action to ease your fears. Simply taking your mind off something for a while can often make it easier to deal with.’ Twilight nodded, seeing her friends smiling nervously around her.

‘You’re right, Princess,’ she said. ‘What would you have us do?’ Luna gestured to the palace with a hoof.

‘The Royal Guard will be preparing the city for attack. You,’ she gestured to Twilight’s friends, ‘should all endeavour to provide them with whatever assistance you can. Twilight Sparkle,’ she continued, ‘I wish you to speak to me further about what you saw last night. Perhaps we can learn something from it that may help us in the coming battle.’ With a job given to them, Twilight’s friends eagerly set off to assist the Royal Guard in whatever small ways they could. Luna led Twilight into her personal chambers, then up a flight of spiralling stairs to a balcony that overlooked the gardens. On the balcony was a large, ornately decorated telescope, similar in size to the one Twilight possessed in the library.

‘This is where I observe the sky,’ Luna said as Twilight stepped onto the balcony. ‘I must confess I was rather busy last night and so did not see this object of which you spoke.’ Twilight admired the telescope. Whereas her own was a work of function, this was as much a work of form, its aesthetic value equal to that of its scientific worth. Wonderfully intricate brass mechanisms were used to traverse the telescope, and the device itself was immaculately painted a deep, royal purple. Luna caught Twilight’s admiring gaze.

‘This telescope has been in use for more than a thousand years,’ she explained. ‘I used it long ago, and my sister did also when I was…elsewhere.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ Twilight said simply.

‘Then it is a pity that so few ponies will ever get to see it,’ Luna said ruefully. ‘Now, on to more pressing matters.’ Her face hardened as she turned to the task ahead.

‘Do you believe the thing you saw in the sky was the same thing that fell to earth just now?’ she asked Twilight. She thought back for a moment, picturing the calculations she had made but left behind in Ponyville.

‘It’s possible,’ she said. ‘But…I think what I saw was a little smaller. By my calculations the thing I saw was around three miles in length, but that…ship that crashed, that looked longer than three miles.’

‘Then the humans are telling the truth,’ the Princess of the night said. ‘There are multiple vessels in orbit around our planet.’

‘I suppose so, Princess, yes,’ Twilight replied. It was late afternoon but the sun would not be setting over Equestria for several hours yet. Twilight wondered why Luna had brought her up to the balcony to have this talk. The telescope would likely not be able to pick anything out until the sun had gone down, after all.

‘They seem to have spoken only the truth thus far,’ Luna said after a moment. ‘We have no reason to doubt them when they speak of this enemy of theirs.’ The Princess looked out over Canterlot as she spoke. ‘I can feel it, Twilight Sparkle,’ she continued. ‘I know my sister does too. A feeling of darkness, at the edge of my mind. Something evil comes for us.’

At the Princess’ behest, the military chiefs of staff had assembled in the palace’s war room. Shining Armour of the Royal Guard, Super Cruise of the Air Corps, General Charger of the Army, and the audaciously titled Grand Admiral Prince Bluewater, of the Navy.

Like his younger brother, Prince Blueblood, Bluewater loved nothing more than self-aggrandisement, hence the unwarranted and, given the size of the Equestrian Navy, rather unnecessary appellation of ‘Grand’ affixed to his rank. He immediately launched into a bombastic tirade about wasting military resources on vague and unspecific threats before the Princess hushed him into silence with a steely gaze.

‘Gentlecolts, please,’ she said. ‘There is no debate to be found here. We are preparing for war, and that is a direct order,’ she said, looking at each officer in turn. ‘Admiral, you will prepare your ships to depart at once from Manehattan and put out to sea. You will remain there on full alert until instructed otherwise.’ Bluewater looked as if he was about to protest again, but he kept his objections to himself.

‘As you wish, Your Highness,’ he said. Celestia turned next to General Charger.

‘General, all army units are to come to full readiness at once and proceed to their assigned civil defence locations. Your primary mission will be to protect the civilian population.’ Charger saluted smartly.

‘Yes, Your Highness!’

‘General Super Cruise,’ Celestia turned to the Air Corps commander. ‘I want all airships fully fuelled and ready to depart within an hour. Alert the Pegasus assault units and have them stand by.’

‘Yes, Your Highness!’ Finally, she turned to Shining Armour.

‘Commander, I want all your Guard units on full alert. Take whatever steps you deem necessary to protect the civilians, and secure the city. Nopony in or out without your direct authorisation.’ Shining Armour saluted.

‘Yes, Your Highness. Right away.’

‘Thank you all,’ Celestia said. ‘See to your duties. As of now, Equestria is under martial law.’

Throughout the evening and overnight, ponies and humans were on the move. Civilians from outlying settlements were evacuated to the more secure, larger towns. Barricades were built, sentries posted, perimeters secured. Airships from Canterlot, Cloudsdale and Baltimare patrolled tirelessly, their eyes firmly on the clear skies. Columns of Royal Guard and Army units marched out, watched by nervous but proud faces. The Guardsmen of the 4th Hydraxian Regiment joined their strange new comrades on the barricades. They dug in their artillery, set up fighting positions for their armour, trenches for their men.

Around Ponyville, trenches and revetments were set up facing south, east, and west across the plains. To the north of the town was a river, deep enough to be unfordable, that cut clean across the wide valley. With the mayor’s reluctant permission, the Guardsmen had rigged the bridges that spanned it with demolition charges, ready to blow them should the need arise. Barbed wire was strung, heavy weapons set up in hastily constructed bunkers. There were no minefields- defensive equipment had not been the first priority for the troops, who had, after all, been on a strike mission when they departed their mothership.
Northwest of the town, the Hoofer Dam was also being fortified. A contingent of Royal Guard and a company of Imperial Guard had moved in and secured the approach road and dug in around the site to protect the dam.

In Canterlot, the Royal Guard were everywhere. The city gates had been shut tight and barred once the human reinforcements had arrived in record time in their vehicles. Their heavy weapons lined the walls alongside the rifles of the guardsponies, and their vehicles roamed the streets. A curfew had been imposed, but few ponies would have dared wander the streets even if it had not been. In the palace, Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna observed the heavens, searching for any sign of the invaders. Three City-Class airships, the Baltimare, Cloudsdale and the Trottingham hovered above Canterlot, their searchlights playing along the streets and the approaches to the city gates. With them were a handful of Vulture gunships that had been landed in one of the Imperial bulk transports. The night was quiet, however, and it passed uneventfully.

They came at dawn, plunging down into the atmosphere. The Auspex arrays on the Imperial craft picked them up early, while they were still at high altitude. In the absence of any anti-spacecraft weaponry, however, the troops on the ground could only sit and watch as fire streaked from the skies to the east. Landers and dropships of all sizes, hundreds of them. They landed east of the mountains, and they landed in the valley south of Ponyville. The invasion had begun.

The Storm Breaks

The first chance the uneasy allies had to strike back at the invaders came just minutes after the first landings. A pair of Chaos fighters blazed over the mountain peaks to the east of Ponyville, fast, nimble craft with swept-back wings. The tracking radars on the Imperial anti-air vehicles picked them up straight away. Ponies stared from their windows, awoken by the sounds of running feet and galloping hooves as the town’s defenders scrambled to their positions.

With a deafening roar, a pillar of fire launched itself into the air from a field just west of the town. Guardsponies turned their heads and stared in shock as the surface-to-air missile streaked over the town and threw itself towards the incoming jets. Some of the humans cheered. One of the fighters began to weave from side to side, flares spitting out from its rear fuselage like a string of lanterns, glowing brightly against the dawn sky. The missile’s fiery trail speared towards it, oblivious to the decoys, guided by the radar array on its launch vehicle.

The jet dove for the ground, trying to shake the missile in the ground clutter, but it was too late. The missile, nearly as long as the jet, struck it almost dead centre, and it disintegrated in a fiery blossom, its wreckage ploughing up a field a mile east of town. Another cheer went up from the human defenders. The second jet returned fire, a missile of its own shooting out from under its fuselage and heading toward the EAS Celestia, which, along with the Stalliongrad, was hovering above the town. At the first sign of trouble, however, the airship’s magical shield had gone up, and the missile burst harmlessly against it.

The surviving jet ducked low, trying to avoid a lock-on from the missile battery, and ran straight into a curtain of steel. The platoon of Hydra anti-aircraft tanks stationed around the town opened up with their quad-barrelled flak cannons, hurling hundreds of high-explosive shells into the air and putting up a fearsome barrage through which nothing could hope to pass unscathed.

The jet punched through the wall of flak, rolling almost lazily into a bank to port as its left wing was shredded. It spiralled over the town, losing height rapidly, bounced once and exploded, demolishing a few trees in the corner of the Sweet Apple Acres orchard. A third cheer went up. Ponies stared in astonishment at the display of firepower that had just unfolded in the skies above their hitherto peaceful town. Dirty black smoke bracketed the town, rising from the crash sites of the two jets.

Commissar Van Meegen had assumed command of the town’s defence, the Colonel having led the detachment that had departed for the ponies’ capital city. In his command post in the town hall’s basement, he picked up the handset of the long-range vox.

‘This is Warhammer, go ahead.’ Static still crackled, despite the clear skies and the absence of any potential atmospherics.

‘Warhammer, this is Raven 1-1,’ came the reply from one of the Imperial reconnaissance units. ‘Enemy moving in force south of your position. Estimate several battalion-sized elements moving north along main road, current location eight miles south of town perimeter. Heavy armour present. Please advise, over.’ Van Meegen knew the lightly armed Salamander scout cars were of no use in a fight against an enemy column.

‘Raven 1-1, pull back to the town. We will stop them cold here.’

‘Affirmative, Warhammer. Pulling back now.’ Van Meegen turned to his assembled command staff, which now included Captain Steel Rain of the Equestrian Royal Guard.

‘Alert the troops. Expect contact within thirty minutes. The storm is about to break, gentlemen.’

The city was burning. The sky was burning. She was burning.

Twilight awoke with a start. The nightmares had begun not long after she had managed to finally drop off, in the guest room attached to Princess Luna’s quarters. After staying up half the night observing the skies and seeing at least a half-dozen ships of a similar size to the one that she had seen the night before, Twilight and the Princess knew for certain that the human Captain had spoke the truth.

Either that, or everything had been one vast deception, Luna had said, though even as she said it she doubted if it could be the case. She had instructed Twilight to get some sleep while she maintained her customary watch over the Equestrian night. Sleep had come slowly and fitfully to Twilight, and when it had it was full of death and destruction. Jerking back into consciousness, she could feel what Princess Luna had described to her the evening before; a sense of unease, a malicious presence almost, lurking in the corners of her mind. Something was definitely coming.

She could hear the wailing of Canterlot’s emergency sirens filtering through from the open window. Rubbing her bleary eyes with a hoof, Twilight trotted to the balcony. Princess Luna was already there. At the sounding of the sirens, the city shield had sprung up like a mushroom, colouring the sky above them a deep purple. Unlike its earlier iteration, this shield was not powered by her brother- after the Changeling attack, Princess Celestia had demanded multiple redundancy in the city defences, including its shield. As a result, there were now six powerful Royal Guard unicorns keeping the shield up at any given time. The three City-Class airships still hung in the sky above, now protected by the shield.

Despite the change in the colour of the sky, Twilight could see streaks of distant fire beyond the shield, filling the sky to the south. The streets of the city below echoed with the wail of the sirens and the pounding of hoofbeats.

‘They are coming,’ said the Princess of the night. ‘Whoever they are, they are coming.’

‘Contact!’ Muzzle Flash looked up abruptly at the shout. One of the humans had some kind of binoculars and had seem something through them.

‘Contact south, range one mile. Coming over the ridge,’ he said, pointing across the meadows. The bulk landers and shuttles had been moved overnight to the airfield near Canterlot, and the meadow had been ranged by the Imperial mortar crews. A mile south of town was a small rise in the meadow, and just cresting it now were a number of silhouettes.

‘Stand to, men!’ Lieutenant Jonas shouted. The Guardsmen grabbed their rifles and ducked into their trenches. Behind them, along the makeshift barricades and sandbagged emplacements that had been set up around the town, were more humans, standing shoulder to shoulder with his Royal Guardsponies. Tanks dotted the frontline, including one of the massive Baneblades, dug in behind thickly piled sandbags.

‘Enemy vehicles moving south of us, sir,’ Jonas was now saying into the human’s strange communication device. ‘Looks like a reconnaissance in force. Are we cleared to engage?’

‘Affirmative, Lieutenant,’ came the reply. ‘Engage and destroy all hostile targets. You may fire when ready.’ Jonas spoke a swift string of orders into the handset.

Muzzle Flash could see the enemy moving closer, down the front slope of the mound. He counted six vehicles, similar in size but differing in shape from those of the defenders. Three of them had large, sleek turrets with long-barrelled cannons. They formed an inverse V-formation, and behind them were three smaller, turretless vehicles.

‘Thermals confirm more of them moving along the road,’ someone called over the communications device. Muzzle Flash could see nothing, the road being lined with thickets of trees for most of its visible length. Around him, manning one of the sandbagged positions, his squad gripped their rifles nervously. For a few moments more, as the enemy vehicles crawled closer, nothing happened. Then, abruptly, all hell broke loose.

A deafening bang filled his ears as the nearest tank opened up, its cannon blazing. Muzzle Flash saw a small puff of smoke and flame appear on one of the enemy vehicles. It kept moving for a few seconds, and it seemed to him that the shot had done nothing, but the vehicle slewed to a stop nonetheless.

Another Imperial tank fired, producing a similar effect on one of the smaller vehicles. Then the Baneblade roared into life, belching fire from its main gun. This time the effect was more visual. An orange flash lit the ground around the lead enemy tank as its turret sailed upward like the lid from a pressure cooker. It tumbled to earth, cutting a jagged brown scar in the pristine meadow, as the hull began to burn furiously.

The last enemy tank swung to the right, its gun returning fire. A second later Muzzle Flash heard a buzzing sound, and then saw a puff of dust boil up around the front of the nearest tank. Muzzle Flash understood little of these strange machines, but he knew enough about ballistics and explosives to realise two things. Firstly, the earthen berm piled in front of the Imperial tank had done its job. Secondly, the shells the enemy were firing had not exploded on impact, and therefore must contain no explosive- kinetic energy rounds, he reasoned. Armour piercing.

From somewhere to his right, a blinding red bolt of light flashed across the meadow, and another of the smaller vehicles rolled to a stop, its frontal armour smouldering.

‘New contacts!’ someone shouted. Muzzle Flash saw them straight away- they were suddenly springing up everywhere. Some were coming over the mound, some were appearing in a dip to the right of it, some were nosing their way through the trees along the roadside. The Imperial tanks roared in defiance, hurling their shells toward the enemy. Several of the emplaced weapons he had seen the humans carrying began to join in now, some firing brilliant bolts of light and some firing rockets.

Muzzle Flash heard several more whizzing sounds as the enemy began to fire back, armour-piercing rounds kicking up small puffs of dirt from the berms and sandbags piled in front of the Imperial vehicles. One struck the turret of the nearest vehicle with a resounding clang, like a huge bell being rung. Sparks flew and for a moment he was sure the tank must have been knocked out, but then its cannon flashed with fury and a distant fireball marked its target’s demise.

High explosive rounds were also being fired now. Several fountains of dirt were thrown up just in front of the Imperial trenches, and a direct hit on one of the buildings along the southern edge of town caved in an entire wall and brought the façade crumbling down. By now the civilians were back in the shelters, save for a few stubborn or especially inquisitive ponies. The men in the trenches ducked reflexively as the shells whizzed overhead.

One of the Imperial tanks away to the left took a direct hit. The armour piercing shell smashed through the turret ring and detonated the ammunition. The turret blew itself apart in a spectacular fireball, burning fragments raining down over the rooftops and starting several spot fires.

An explosive round hit the sandbag barricade to the left of Muzzle Flash’s squad. A cloud of sand sprung up, obscuring the view but not the sound of screams. Several members of his squad stared in horror as the sand cleared and the remains of four Imperial troopers became visible. Three were clearly dead, but one was still alive, dragging himself slowly along the ground to the rear, leaving a bloody trail on the ground from his ruined legs. Private Sharpshooter vomited convulsively. Most of his squad had never seen combat before.

‘Medic!’ someone shouted. Muzzle Flash saw two men running to help their wounded comrade. Another man appeared, carrying a large bag. He crouched down beside the wounded man and began to treat him.
Muzzle Flash’s attention was drawn back to the battlefield by a shout from in front of him. The enemy vehicles had already taken heavy losses, but a whole second wave had begun pouring over the hill. Some of the turretless vehicles slewed to a halt and began disgorging infantry from their rear doors. Someone shouted that more of the enemy were moving to the east, bypassing the town entirely.

‘Standby, men!’ Jonas shouted. ‘Prepare to engage enemy dismounts.’ The Guardsmen lined the parapets, their trenches bristling with rifles. Their heavier, longer-range automatic weapons had already begun firing. Muzzle Flash saw several of the enemy fall. The mortars sited in the town opened up, and explosions began to tear through the enemy infantry as they scrambled to find non-existent cover. Their tanks were still coming, driving hard for the town, their cannons blazing and machine guns chattering. Muzzle Flash watched in horror as a line of large-calibre bullets stitched their way across a patch of open ground towards him. He ducked down behind the sandbag barricade. He heard the thwack of bullets striking the sandbags, then something wet splashed across the side of his face. For a moment he was puzzled; the sky was clear, surely it couldn’t be raining? Then he saw Private Tornado.

The Pegasus guardspony was still standing, which surprised Muzzle Flash almost as much as the fact that he was actually still alive at all. The large bullets had carved straight through his chest armour and into his body, cutting paths clean through him and spraying Muzzle Flash with his blood from the exit wounds. Tornado was struggling for breath, his squadmates looking on with horrified expressions. With each tortured gasp, flecks of blood appeared around his mouth. He reached out one hoof, holding onto the sandbags for support, before his legs gave way under him and he collapsed in a heap.

‘Medic!’ Muzzle Flash screamed. ‘Medic!’

Twilight listened as Canterlot’s sirens finally died away with a final drawn-out, descending warble. She could hear nothing unusual, though the city shield deadened any sounds from outside. She had not seen her brother or her friends since the afternoon before in the palace gardens. She knew Shining Armour would be busy, and she was sure her friends had been found something for them to occupy themselves with. After a shower and some breakfast that had been bought to her quarters by a palace servant, Twilight felt much better than she had when she had awoken. Her nightmares were almost forgotten, though she could still feel the darkness at the back of her mind. With the sun now blazing in the sky, Princess Luna had departed to rest, and Twilight found herself alone with her thoughts.

What they had seen in the sky during the night would have been more than enough to worry them even if they had not known what the strange objects hanging in the heavens had been. Knowing what they did, however, made it infinitely worse.

The city was as prepared as it could be for any attack, especially with the human forces also present in considerable number and manning the walls. The shield could repel any attack that any of their enemies had ever been able to throw at Canterlot, but who knew what kinds of weapons these invaders possessed? The very fact that they had spacefaring capability meant that their weaponry was certain to be infinitely more powerful than anything ponykind had managed to develop.

Twilight made her way downstairs, hoping to find somepony she knew. A friendly face would help me calm down, she thought to herself.
The corridor below was busy with servants, messengers and guardsponies, but none of them were known to Twilight. She weaved through the other ponies, heading for a different part of the palace, where she thought she might run into her brother.

She noticed more Royal Guard than usual, flanking most doorways and moving through the corridors. They recognised Twilight and allowed her through, but the extra security unnerved her still further.

All these precautions inside the palace means they’re not confident that they can stop whatever it is that is coming before it gets here…

The young unicorn made her way through the corridors, sensing anxiety in everypony she passed. Even the usually stoic Royal Guard seemed extra alert. Wandering along, ahead of her she spotted a familiar pink pony.

‘Cadence!’ she called. Her sister-in-law turned around in surprise.

‘Twilight! Shining Armour told me you were here! How are you?’ She trotted over to Cadence and they embraced each other.

‘I...well, I would be better, but…’ Twilight said, glancing out of a nearby window. Cadence grimaced.

‘Of course. I feel like I’m dead weight here. There’s nothing I can do except wait!’ she sighed in frustration. ‘At least Luna has been keeping you busy.’ Twilight nodded.

‘Yeah…we were up half the night,’ she explained. ‘We thought maybe we could figure something out by looking at the…ships, or whatever you call them, in orbit. Something that might help us.’

‘And…did you?’ Cadence asked. Twilight shook her head.

‘No…all it did was make us tired and worried. If they are coming to attack us, and they possess such vessels, then…what kind of weapons are they going to have?’ Twilight looked up at Cadence. Her former foalsitter looked nervous too.

‘I don’t know,’ she began, ‘but worrying about it won’t help us. We need to have faith in our military, and…in these humans, even though we know so little about them. After all, everything they have said so far has proven to be true. It would be a grave mistake to stop trusting them at this point. Maybe after this invasion has been dealt with, but not before.’ Twilight heard the sense in her sister-in-law’s words.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We should be careful, but our priority right now is dealing with this invasion. Whatever these humans want, we can sort it out later. Well,’ Twilight said, ‘I’d love to stay and chat some more, but I’m looking for my friends. Do you know where they are?’

‘Shining Armour said they were going to be helping out in the kitchens, making emergency rations,’ Cadence replied.

‘I’d better go see how they’re doing. Stay safe,’ Twilight said, crossing horns with Cadence as a gesture of farewell. ‘I’ll come find you when I can!’ Cadence waved with a hoof as Twilight trotted off toward the palace kitchens.

Like the rest of the palace, the kitchens were a hive of anxious energy. Ponies moved to and fro, cooking, cleaning, carrying stacks of food. The kitchen staff, used to providing for sumptuous royal banquets and state occasions, had been pressed into service making the simplest possible fare for emergency rations; slices of plain white bread, soup, biscuits, slabs of plain chocolate.

On the far side of the chaotic kitchen, Twilight could see a cluster of familiar colours.

‘Girls!’ she called. Her friends all looked up in unison. She trotted over to them.

‘Twilight!’ Rainbow Dash said. ‘Where have you been? We thought you’d only be gone for a couple of hours!’

‘So did I, but Princess Luna wanted me to help her with her astronomical observations,’ she explained. ‘Then it was the middle of the night, so she told me I should get some sleep, so…’

‘We understand, darling,’ Rarity said, placing a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, we have been kept plenty busy! Why, I have had a marvellous time in the palace. First they had me making up bandages in the…what did they call it?’

‘Casualty Clearing Station,’ Rainbow, obsessed with the Wonderbolts and all things military, answered. ‘It’s where they take the wounded after they leave the frontline aid posts, before they get evacuated to one of the hospitals.’ Rarity blinked.

‘Yes, that. They had me rolling bandages there. The nurses have the most wonderful uniforms there! I would look just darling in one, don’t you think?’ Spike began to blush.

‘Yeah, that was last night! Then this morning they had us come to the kitchens, and that’s where we’ve been ever since, and I was like, ‘oh hey we can make candy!’ But they said no, we had to make emergency rations, but they’re making chocolate over there, so it’s not all bad!’ Pinkie Pie spouted, grinning.

‘Well, that’s all really useful work. You girls should feel proud!’ Twilight said.

‘Oh, we do,’ Fluttershy said. ‘I wanted to help the poor animals in the gardens. They must be terrified by all the noise and activity, but they said that wasn’t really important right now, and they made us do this instead. But I suppose they’re right…’

‘That’s probably for the best,’ Rainbow said, putting a hoof round Fluttershy. ‘After all, we know what happened last time you tried to talk to the animals in Canterlot…’ The yellow Pegasus blushed a deep red.

‘So, did y’all learn anythin’ with the Princess?’ Applejack asked, wiping sweat from her brow. ‘Boy, it sure is warm in here…’ Twilight shook her head.

‘No. At least, nothing useful. All it did was worry us more.’

‘Aw shucks, Twi,’ Applejack said. ‘There’s no sense in fussin’ over it all. There’s nothin’ we can do about it, at least not yet, so y’all might as well just try ta relax and do somethin’ constructive. Like us!’ she smiled at her friends.

‘I know! Cadence just told me the same thing, but...I can’t stop worrying! What about Ponyville? What if it gets attacked?’ Rarity put her hoof back on Twilight’s shoulder.

‘Try not to worry, darling. I know it’s difficult, but all it does is make you stressed. Perhaps we could go to the spa? That would surely calm you down.’ Twilight stared at her.

‘The spa? At a time like this? Are you nuts?’

‘She’s right, Twilight,’ Rainbow Dash said. ‘Not about the spa, but about calming down. No use getting stressed over something that’s out of your control. After all, you heard what the humans said. They have a bunch of troops in Ponyville now, plus our own Royal Guard are there, and, hey, maybe even the Wonderbolts!’ She smiled proudly at the thought.

‘You’re right, girls,’ Twilight said. ‘Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe Ponyville won’t be attacked at all…’

Keep The Home Fires Burning

Shells were bursting left and right along the south side of town, and men and ponies were dying. Another Imperial tank had erupted in flame after taking several hits and, although the enemy attack had been blunted with heavy losses, they were still pressing, moving on both flanks, trying to envelop the town in a pincer movement. The deafening racket made Muzzle Flash’s head pound. He was at a loss for words to describe what was happening.

Private Tornado was dead, had been dead long before the Royal Guard medic had arrived. The battle had been raging for less than thirty minutes, and already he was caked in dust and somepony else’s blood, half-deaf from the thunder of guns, and about to be encircled by an enemy possessed of technology vastly superior to his own. The only consolation was that his new allies possessed similar levels of technology.

This was warfare unlike anything he had ever known, and it frightened him. The speed, the noise, the ferocity. He had fought before, against gangs, outlaws and robbers, but never had he been in open warfare. Even if he had, against the Griffons or Dragons, he doubted it would have been anything quite like this.

His squad were still crouched behind the sandbag barricade. All except for Tornado, who had been taken away by the medics. Ahead of them, the humans in their trenches and tanks blazed away, explosions rippling across the meadow. Two dozen smoking wrecks marked the destruction of enemy vehicles. More were still sweeping across the field, heading for the town. Several more were firing from the cover of the trees lining the road. Still others were zooming across the plains to the east and west of the town to encircle it. Things did not seem to be going particularly well.

‘Fire!’ Lieutenant Marcell roared. The tank’s cannon clattered as it sent another round toward the enemy.

‘On the way!’ shouted the gunner, Andrix. Their Leman Russ tank lay just right of centre in the town’s southern defensive line. On either side of them, the two other tanks in their platoon fired back at the enemy. Their tanks and personnel carriers were still coming, pounding across the open meadow and snapping off the occasional shot. Young for a tank commander, at just twenty-two standard years, Marcell nevertheless commanded the respect of his older crew for his stoic professionalism.

‘Load armour piercing!’ Marcell ordered. The loader, Coltyn, slammed a shell into the breech and worked the action shut.

‘Up!’ he shouted. Marcell glanced through his viewing periscope.

‘Target one o’clock, enemy tank, traverse right,’ the Lieutenant called.

‘Tracking!’ Andrix replied, the turret rotating with a mechanical whirr. ‘On target!’

‘Fire!’

The cannon roared again. Through his spotting scope, Marcell saw the round impact against the frontal glacis plate of the enemy tank with a bright flash. As if on cue smoke immediately started to pour from the turret ring and the roof hatch, and the tank ground to a half.

‘Load armour piercing!’ he shouted again. ‘Target two o’clock, enemy personnel carrier, traverse right!’ Coltyn reloaded the cannon, Andrix swung the turret round, and Marcell gave the command.

The gun belched smoke again, and the enemy APC erupted in a glaring fireball.

Inside the tank the noise was deafening. Although they were not moving, the tank’s turbine engine had to be kept running to provide power to the onboard systems. The sound of the cannon firing was barely muffled by the protective headsets the crew wore to allow them to communicate. The heat was oppressive, too. Lieutenant Marcell wiped sweat from his brow as he peered through the viewing periscope, his only lifeline to the outside world. Though the battlefield was now wreathed in smoke and dust, with the press of a button he could switch his scope to thermal mode, allowing him to see warm objects, such as troops and vehicles, glowing white against the now-red backdrop.

‘Load armour piercing. Target ten o’clock, enemy tank in treeline, traverse left!’ he ordered, spotting a white blob trying to force its way through the trees at the side of the road. The turret swung round.

‘On target!’

‘Fire!’ The view through his periscope was momentarily blotted out by the muzzle flash from the tank’s battle cannon, turning the world white as if he were looking through a snowstorm as the superheated gases expanded and filled the periscope’s viewfinder. As it cleared, he could see the white blob in the trees now had a column of white pouring from the top, and he knew another enemy tank was burning.

‘Direct hit, target destroyed,’ he called. Abruptly another bright white flash filled the viewfinder, and Marcell heard a powerful detonation, audible even over the noise of the tank’s interior. Something started pattering off the turret roof.

‘Tiger three is down!’ someone called over the vox. Tiger three, the tank to their immediate right, had been knocked out. Through the viewfinder, Marcell could see waves of enemy infantry, now on foot, moving in bounds across the open field. some of the surviving tanks in the vanguard of the attack were deploying smoke to cover their advance, but it was of no obstacle to his thermal sight. It obviously lacked the anti infra-red particulates that the smoke launchers of the Imperial vehicles produced.

‘Load HE!’ he commanded. Coltyn swung round, pulling a round from the ammunition locker and ramming it home.

‘Up!’

‘Target two o’clock, enemy dismounts in the open, traverse right,’ he ordered, seeing a squad of soldiers moving at a sprint through the enveloping smoke. The turret motors whined as the gun adjusted onto the target.

‘On target!’

‘Fire!’ Again his vision was obscured. As it cleared, he saw that most of the man-sized white blobs that had been charging forward were now lying still on the ground. Another tank was moving up just to their right.

‘Direct hit!’ He called. ‘Load armo…’ his order was interrupted by a sudden, almighty clang. Stars danced across his eyes and he stumbled, falling against the side of the turret. Struggling back to his feet, he knew they had been hit.

‘Damage report!’ he called. The crew sounded off, unhurt- driver, gunner, loader and the two sponson gunners.

‘Doesn’t look like it penetrated,’ Andrix shouted. ‘Wait…ah, damn it! Turret traverse is jammed.’

‘Get it fixed!’ Marcell ordered, peering back through the viewfinder. The picture was blurry; something must have been damaged or knocked loose by the impact. It was still displaying its thermal picture, however, and he could still see blobs moving about. Some were getting worryingly close now, despite the weight of firepower the Imperial line had been throwing out.

The turret juddered and then began to rotate slowly.

‘We’re good to go, sir!’ Andrix called. Just in time, too, thought Marcell. An enemy tank was heading straight for them, its barrel rotating slowly. Marcell rattled off his orders with terse precision.

‘Load armour piercing! Gunner! Target enemy tank, twelve o’clock.’ He heard the shell being loaded.

‘Up!’

‘Fire!’ he shouted instantly. The tank bucked, rocking back on its bogies as the shell left the barrel.

‘On the way!’

The shell hit the enemy tank just before its own gun traversed far enough to fire. It kept rolling forward, but the turret continued to rotate, the mechanism damaged or the gunner killed. The driver must have been hit, too, because the tank continued on until it nosed down into a ditch and did not come up the other side.

Marcell noticed, with a pang of fright, that while most of the Imperial tanks had been focusing on their Chaos counterparts, the enemy infantry had been able to close the distance rapidly under cover of the smoke which had screened them from observation by the Guardsmen in the trenches, who lacked thermal scopes.

As if from nowhere, he counted twenty white blobs suddenly spring up from concealment behind the earthen mound at the edge of the meadow, less than a hundred yards from the Imperial lines, and start charging madly towards them. They were directly in front of his tank, heading straight for it. Most of them carried rifles. Others had satchel charges held aloft, ready to destroy his tank, and probably take themselves with it. He had to act fast.

‘Load canister!’ he called into the intercom. ‘Target twelve o’clock, enemy infantry.’ Coltyn rammed the shell into the breech.

‘Up!’

‘On target!’

‘Fire!’

Muzzle Flash felt useless. So far the enemy had not come close enough for his squad to engage, with either magic or their rifles. Or, perhaps they have and I just can’t see them. There was so much smoke drifting across the battlefield now that he could see very little of anything beyond the edge of the meadow. The humans in the trenches were still blazing away, but perhaps they could see more than he could. The tanks certainly seemed to be having no problems finding things to shoot at.

Without any warning a group of humans appeared through the smoke just to their right, charging, yelling and firing. They were running straight at one of the tanks, and, finally, they were within effective range.

‘There! Open fire!’ Muzzle Flash shouted to his ponies, gripping his rifle firmly and taking aim. Around him his squad did the same, resting their guns on the sandbags to steady them. Muzzle Flash lined up on one of the screaming maniacs. He was waving some kind of bag over his head.

His vision focused down until all he could see was the man, his dark-red clothing not dissimilar to that of their new allies, except for the colour. His face was contorted in a snarl of rage. Muzzle Flash took a deep breath, tensed his hoof over the trigger, lined up the sights with the man’s chest…which abruptly vanished, along with the rest of him, as the tank fired.

The canister round, a steel casing containing thousands of tungsten balls, erupted from the cannon like an enormous shotgun shell. With a sound like tearing canvas, the bursting charge fired and the balls dispersed just feet from the barrel, turning the open ground in front of the tank into a hailstorm of death. Muzzle Flash watched in equal parts fascination and revulsion as most of the charging humans simply ceased to exist as anything recognisable, ripped to bloody shreds by the anti-personnel round. A fine cloud of blood filled the air.

Some of the humans were merely wounded by the onslaught. A few tried to crawl away, others lay writhing in agony, clutching aimlessly for missing limbs and gasping for breath. The Imperial troops in the nearby trenches put them out of their misery.

‘Oh, sweet Celestia…’ Private Sharpshooter breathed. He dry heaved twice before explosively vomiting all over the sandbags again.

‘Rather them than us,’ the veteran platoon sergeant, Thunderchief, growled, though even he looked a little unsettled by the sheer violence of their deaths.

A shell distracted the squad from their reverie, bursting in the roof beams of a nearby house and showering their position with broken fragments of tile and plaster.

‘Keep down! Stay low,’ Muzzle Flash urged. After the death of Private Tornado, they did not need telling twice. Bursts of automatic fire, both bullets and what seemed to be red magical blasts, were now playing up and down the street, shattering cobbles and raising tiny puffs of dust. Above and behind them, the EAS Celestia poured its own fire down into the melee, shells from its bombardment cannon whistling overhead and plunging into the smoke. The Stalliongrad was performing the same task on the west side of the town.

Another thunderous clang filled Muzzle Flash’s ears. He whipped his head round in time to see a large puff of dirt rising from the berm in front of the nearest tank, the one that had massacred the charging enemy. Whatever had hit it must have punched its way clean through, because the machine was jolted backwards a foot or two by the impact. He noticed dust rising from the roof, and from the side. No, not dust…smoke.

Marcell’s eyes flickered open. It took him a couple of seconds to remember where he was, and when he did he started violently. He could hear a dry crackling that could only be a fire somewhere in the fighting compartment. His eyes were blurry; well, his left eye was. He couldn’t see anything out of his right. Smoke filled the compartment and he coughed. His throat felt dry and raw. The acrid fumes from burning propellant and metal filled his nostrils. He had to get out, and he had to get out fast.

He was lying on his back in the corner of the compartment. The shell must have come right through the compartment and into the engine block, he reasoned. He forced himself to sit up. He ached all over; he felt like he was drunk, a situation he had only experienced a few times since he became old enough to buy booze himself. He had no idea how long he had been out, but he reasoned it must only have been a few seconds or he would have been burned alive already.

To underline his thinking, flames licked around the front of the compartment. The driver’s corpse, or at least its lower half, was being slowly consumed by the flames that engulfed the front of the compartment. The round from the tank must have passed right through him. Marcell looked around and couldn’t see anything of his other crewmen, except a few bloody smears and a dark shape to the right of the gun mount that could have been a corpse or a stack of shells; his mind was too confused and he couldn’t remember if any rounds had been there. Then again he couldn’t remember much at all. Deep down he knew he was being slowly poisoned by the fumes and lack of oxygen as the fires burned furiously all around him.

He thought of his mother. Part of him wanted to just lie down and let everything fade away, but with a supreme effort he hauled himself up, grabbing on to the shattered remains of the gun breach as a support. He became slowly aware of a throbbing pain in his left thigh. He felt unsteady on his feet. I really must be drunk, he thought. He couldn’t feel his left leg at all, in fact, at least not below where the pain was. He looked down.

No wonder I can’t feel anything. There was nothing left of his leg below the knee anyway. A part of him was surprised at how detached from everything he felt. He didn’t care that he was missing a limb. He didn’t care he was stuck in a burning tank. He couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything, and yet his body was carrying out automatically the emergency bailout drill. Fire lapped at the edge of his vision. The smoke was thick, cloying. He could have cut it with his combat knife but his body was wracked with coughs and he couldn’t find it…ah, he’d had it strapped to his left calf. Which he was leaving behind. His mind whirled. How much did I drink? He slapped the hatch release and it dropped free onto the ground outside. The smoke billowed out, obscuring his vision even more. Where am I?

He pulled himself up to the edge of the turret escape hatch. Fire and smoke reached out for him as he crawled out and dropped to the earth six feet below. It jarred his shoulder and hurt his back, but he didn’t care. His brain seemed to have no control over his actions. He automatically began to drag himself away from the burning wreck. He had no idea where he was going. Marcell pulled himself round a low brick wall as the flames reached the ammunition. In a series of deafening blasts his tank ripped itself apart from the inside, hurling flaming shrapnel and bits of armour across the Imperial line. Marcell felt the heat wave wash over him, felt his skin blistering, but he was protected from the blast by the wall. When the explosions had died down he just lay there, head down and resting on his arm.

That was how Muzzle Flash found him. Seeing the man crawling away from the ruined tank, into the house that lay behind it, his body had acted before his mind had even had time to process it.

Shouting to Thunderchief to keep the squad where they were, he dropped his rifle, leapt over the sandbags and galloping for the rear door of the building. The tank exploded, filling his eyes with a searing orange light and bathing him with heat, but he kept going. His mind screamed at him to turn around, but his heart knew he was doing the right thing. Leave no pony- or man- behind. He had already lost a pony under his command, and he didn’t want to add any other friendly casualties to the list, pony or otherwise.

He dipped his head, using his magic to open the door as he galloped inside. The house was a mess, having been hit by several high-explosive rounds. The entire front wall had fallen away, which was how the human had managed to crawl inside. Smoke from the burning tank drifted in through the gaping hole.

The human lay face down. Muzzle Flash felt sure it was a wasted trip and he was already dead, but as he approached the man groaned and stirred. Muzzle Flash could see that he was grievously wounded. His left leg was missing below the knee. His face and arms, all his exposed flesh, had been deeply burnt, a horrifying sight that made the pony’s bile rise. One of his eyes was missing and the other was a mass of singed tissue. Muzzle Flash rolled him, as gently as he could, onto his back, put his hooves under the man’s forelimbs, and tugged.

Almost immediately he felt his hooves slipping as something simply fell apart under his touch- he couldn’t tell if it was the man’s uniform or his flesh. He let go, instead using his magic to levitate the man and carry him, like a sack of potatoes, in the air in front of him.

He made his way back outside. His squad were still crouched behind the sandbags. Several of them stared open-mouthed at him.

‘Don’t just stand there!’ he roared. ‘Get a medic!’ One of his ponies, Firestorm, began to dash for the rear.

‘No! A human medic!’ he shouted, gesturing with a hoof towards a nearby shop where he knew the humans had set up an aid post. The guardspony turned mid-step and headed for the building. He moved as quickly as he dared, the human’s head lolling about like a ragdoll. He crossed the street during a lull in the incoming fire, and met Firestorm coming out of the alley from the rear of the shop, a human in tow.

The medic raised an eyebrow at seeing the magical field enveloping the tanker, took one look at him, and said;

‘Forget it, he’s gone.’ Muzzle Flash shook his head.

‘No, he’s still alive! He was moving.’ The medic raised his eyebrow again.

‘Well even if he is, there’s nothing I can do for him here. I just don’t have the tools. He’d need a burn ward, and we don’t have one. This is just a triage post.’ Muzzle Flash hesitated.

‘I don’t have the time or the manpower to treat every casualty!’ the man said. ‘We have to focus on the ones who have a chance. Put him down here, we’ll move him inside and give him a shot of morphine, but that’s all we can do.’ Muzzle Flash wanted to argue, but he knew that the medic was right. Despite his reckless charge to save the wounded man, there was nothing that could be done for him on the battlefield.

‘Maybe if we got him to our hospital…’ he said, plaintively. The medic shook his head.

‘Wouldn’t do any good. You don’t know the first thing about our physiology. You’d probably kill him faster than his wounds will.’ He knew he was right. He gently put the man on the ground in the alleyway. The medic turned to run back inside to fetch a stretcher party, but stopped and looked back at Muzzle Flash.

‘Thank you, pony. For trying to save one of our own.’ Muzzle Flash nodded at him.

‘I hope your people will do the same for us.’

Under Siege

Muzzle Flash returned somewhat dejectedly to his squad, still crouched behind the sandbags. Firestorm followed him back. As he approached, Thunderchief turned to him.

‘With all due respect, sir, what the buck was that?’ he asked. Muzzle Flash shrugged.

‘I…don’t really know…’

‘Well, did he make it at least?’ the platoon sergeant asked. Muzzle Flash hesitated.

‘Guess not,’ Thunderchief grunted, turning back to survey the battlefield that was still wreathed in smoke. In the few minutes Muzzle Flash had been away, very little seemed to have changed. The surviving tanks were still cracking off rounds into the smoke, and there was still a great deal of noise, but the return fire seemed to have slackened somewhat.

‘Do...do you think we’re winning, sir?’ Sharpshooter asked.

‘I have no idea,’ the Lieutenant replied. He really had no idea what was going on at all, other than in the tiny sector of ground in front of him. His view to the west and to the east were obscured by buildings, and to the south by the invasive smoke.

His questions were answered, however, when Lieutenant Jonas popped up from his trench and made his way over to him, crossing the street almost nonchalantly.

‘Lieutenant,’ he began. ‘They’re falling back. Our aerial observers say they are moving back south to regroup, so that should give us a little breathing space.’

‘Aerial observers?’ Muzzle Flash asked questioningly. Jonas glanced upwards and nodded.

‘Yeah, we put a spotter team on each of your airships,’ he explained. ‘Gave them a vox-set and some magnoculars and they’re keeping tabs on things down below. By the way, that big airship- that’s one hell of a main gun it’s got on it!’

Muzzle Flash smiled proudly, happy to know there was at least one thing in the Equestrian military that drew some respect and admiration from the humans, with their vastly superior technology. Jonas continued talking.

‘We should reorganise our lines and reinforce while we have some downtime. Gonna need to put more heavy weapons inside these buildings, and an observation team on top of the town hall.’ Muzzle Flash nodded.

‘I’ll see what we can do to assist you,’ he said.

‘They will be coming back,’ Jonas said. ‘You can rely on that. We…’

‘Incoming!’ the shout from the trenches cut him short. Muzzle Flash could hear a distant whine, growing steadily louder.

‘Get down!’ Jonas shouted, pushing Muzzle Flash behind the sandbag wall. The whine became a roar and there was a shattering explosion nearby. It was followed by half a dozen more.

‘Artillery!’ Jonas growled. ‘Now they’ve had time to move it into position, they’ll be trying to soften us up for the next attack.’ Shells were now bursting all along the southern edge of the town, blowing craters in the ground and smouldering holes in buildings.

‘Stay down!’ Jonas hissed, as a pair of shells bracketed their barricade, showering them with dirt and fragments of cobblestone. Muzzle Flash could hear somepony screaming, though whether in pain or terror, he could not tell. His ears were slowly going numb, buffeted by the cacophony of the artillery barrage. He lay as low to the ground as he could, covering his head with his hooves, praying it would end soon.

The enemy reached Canterlot just after ten in the morning. The city sirens wailed again, sending ponies scurrying to the shelters. The men and ponies on the battlements stood ready as the enemy column ground its way up the approach road, raising a cloud of dust like a tail. Aircraft buzzed above them, roaring over the mountain peaks, some dipping down and disgorging infantry onto the plateau in front of the city. As they moved into range, the guns of the city’s outlying bunkers and outposts opened up, supplemented by heavy weapons of the human contingent, knocking out the first few dozen vehicles in the column before they were destroyed in turn.

The city’s magical shield prevented any passage through it, but allowed weapons from inside to be fired out. The troops on the battlements opened fire, thousands of guns hurling fire down onto the advancing enemy. One enemy aircraft tried to force its way through the shield, but upon making contact it simply exploded, fire running down the outer face of the shield like a waterfall.

Twilight and her friends watched in shock from Princess Luna’s balcony. Hearing the sirens, they had galloped through the palace back to her quarters. The Princess was nowhere to be seen, presumably attending to far more important matters.

Though she knew she probably shouldn’t touch it without Luna’s permission, Twilight made a few adjustments to the telescope that allowed them to take it in turns observing the battle unfolding outside the shield. Rainbow Dash yelled in exultation as the friendly guns smashed the enemy spearhead. Fluttershy whimpered in fear. Applejack and Rarity could say nothing. Pinkie Pie was her usual self, seeming to not quite grasp the enormity of what was happening.

‘What’s happening now?’ Twilight asked Rainbow Dash, who was currently looking through the telescope.

‘Well, it’s kinda hard to tell…’ she said. ‘There’s so much smoke and stuff, but…I think…we’re winning!’

‘Well that’s a relief,’ Applejack said. ‘Ah guess there’s not much they can do to us if they can’t get through the shield.’

‘Yeah…’ Twilight said. ‘Let’s hope the shield stays up. We don’t want a repeat of the Changeling invasion. Especially not if what the humans say is true…’ She replaced Rainbow at the telescope.

As the Pegasus had explained, visibility was limited by the smoke, and the shield itself, which shimmered in a disorienting fashion every time it was struck by a projectile. From their vantage point, however, Twilight could see the trail of broken, burning vehicles that littered the plateau outside the city. She could also see that, every time one of the enemy fired what seemed to be a magical red beam, it punctured the shield without slowing. She saw several large beams destroy two crenellated guard towers on the city wall.

‘They may not be able to get through the shield,’ she said, ‘but…it looks like they can shoot through it, with some of their weapons at least.’ Fluttershy gulped, and Rainbow Dash put a hoof on her shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, Fluttershy. We’re safe as long as the shield stays up. They can’t get in. you saw what happened to that weird airship of theirs that tried to fly through it, right?’ The timid Pegasus nodded.

‘Well that’s what’ll happen to them all if they try to get through. We’re safe in here.’ Twilight looked again.

The enemy were retreating. They were leaving behind dozens of wrecked vehicles and hundreds of their dead. Unable to get through the shield, they were pulling back, putting distance between themselves and the city. Twilight watched them grind back down the mountain road to the south.

‘They’re leaving,’ she told her friends.

‘They’re giving up? Then we’ve won!’ Rainbow Dash said, pumping the air with a hoof. ‘Aww, yeah!’

That was when something struck the top of the shield.

The orbital strike was but a fraction of the full power of the Chaos fleet, but it was adequate for its intended purposes. The shield had readily absorbed all the firepower that their ground forces could throw at it, but the firepower of the warships in orbit was vastly superior. Lance beams fell from the sky like lightning from the gods, smashing into the top of the shield and setting the whole thing waving and flickering from the energies unleashed upon it.

Twilight and her friends clustered together in fear, the thunderous blows of the strange new weapons echoing across the city. Twilight, Applejack and Rainbow Dash stared upwards in dismay. The others covered their heads with their hooves.
Spike crouched under Twilight’s body, peeking out fearfully every few seconds.

‘W…what the buck is that?’ Applejack asked, her voice shaking.

‘I don’t know, but…it must be some kind of weapon, from the ships in orbit,’ Twilight reasoned.

‘What if it gets through the shield?’ Rainbow Dash shouted, flapping her wings in fear. She shared a glance with Twilight. They both knew what that would mean.

The strange beams continued to streak down from the heavens, evaporating the few scattered clouds that floated in the sky with the heat of their passing. The shield wavered and sputtered like a dying candle, but it held.
For a while.

After twenty seconds of the furious bombardment, the shield began to collapse. It had simply taken too much punishment- the magical feedback into the horns and the minds of the unicorns that were holding it up was simply too great. With each strike, the tremendous energies being transferred to the shield sent lances of intense pain into their skulls. One by one, their nervous systems began to short circuit, the agonising pain proving too much. They fell, one by one, until there was but a single unicorn holding up the shield. Two of the beams struck it in unison. With a final, gurgled scream, she collapsed, and the shield collapsed with her.

Twilight could only stare as the shield quivered like a jelly and then failed completely with a sharp crack. The city was defenceless. The sirens were wailing, their plaintive moan surely the last thing she would ever hear. She held her friends tightly, whimpering, waiting for the end.

At first, Muzzle Flash did not even notice the end of the artillery bombardment. His body had become used to the shaking, and he had forced his mind to focus on something else to stop him going mad under the strain. Half deaf and covered with dirt, he felt something nudging him. Through the ringing in his ears, he heard a distant voice. It sounded like he was underwater.

‘Get up, it’s over!’ He shook his head, wincing.

‘Come on, get up!’ The voice again. He looked around.

The human, Lieutenant Jonas, was shaking him. He rubbed his ears.

‘Get up!’

This time he complied, getting unsteadily to his feet and brushing the dirt from his coat.

‘That’s it, it’s over,’ Jonas was saying. ‘But they made sure not to flatten the town. They only targeted our defensive lines. That means they must want it intact.’ Shaking his head again to try and clear it, Muzzle Flash replied,

‘Why? There’s nothing here of any military value.’ Jonas looked around.

‘Not military value, no. but…there are…other assets.’ The ponies.

‘You mean…they want…the civilians?’ The human nodded in reply.

‘That’s what it seems like. Why else would they leave the town standing?’ Muzzle Flash could think of no other explanation.

‘Why? Why do they want us alive?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, but whatever their reason, it can’t be good,’ Jonas replied ominously. ‘They don’t usually spare their enemies, unless…they want to enslave them.’ A lump formed in Muzzle Flash’s throat.

He thought back. Ponies had been enslaved before; by Sombra, by Discord a millennia ago. They could not let that happen again.

‘Then we should get to work,’ he said to Jonas. ‘Strengthen our defences. Don’t let them in.’ Jonas nodded.

‘Let us hope we have enough to stop them.’

The humans and ponies toiled side by side to do what they could. They redeployed heavy weapons into the buildings along the southern edge of town, rebuild the sandbag walls that had been damaged, reinforced their trenches. Armoured recovery vehicles towed away the wrecked vehicles, and tanks from the mobile reserve replaced them in the prepared firing positions. Ammunition was restocked and the town’s defenders settled in to await the next attack.

It came after another brief artillery barrage. When they popped their heads up, the defenders saw that the enemy tanks and APCs had already closed much of the distance and were charging fast. The Imperial tanks were already picking them off, and the infantry opened up with their heavy weapons. There were more of the enemy this time, and they had air support.

A half-dozen ground-attack aircraft came roaring in from the southeast, their underwing pylons thick with bombs and rockets like a lethal, blooming fruit tree. The Imperial surface-to-air missile battery knocked one of them down at a considerable range, but the rest kept coming.

The flak tanks began to put up a curtain of fire, but it did not deter the flyers. One broke to engage the EAS Celestia, which swatted it down with an almost contemptuous ease that surprised the humans on board, its anti-air armament proving just as lethal to the slow-moving and heavily laden aircraft as it would have to a flock of seagulls.

Another one of the strike fighters were knocked down by ground fire, leaving the remaining three on an attack run towards the Imperial defensive line. Muzzle Flash saw them coming and shouted a warning to his squad, just as one of the jets ripple-fired a barrage of rockets. He flung himself into cover as the heavy warheads churned up the ground along the line. As it swept by overhead its compatriot released a stick of bombs that added to the carnage below, bringing down several of the smaller houses along the edge of town completely.

One of the bombs detonated worryingly close to Muzzle Flash, but the sandbags protected him, though his eardrums felt like they were going to burst. The jets streaked away at rooftop height as the third began its attack run.

It never got the change to release its ordnance. Shells from the Celestia’s anti-air guns ripped through it and it disintegrated in mid-air, turning into a rapidly expanding fireball that crashed to earth beside the south road.
Muzzle Flash rubbed his ears again. I’ll surely be deaf before this war is over, he thought. Surprised I’m not already.

His squad was unscathed, but the humans in the frontline trenches had taken numerous casualties. Shells from the enemy tanks were finding their range now, and already one of the Imperial vehicles was burning. The hulking Baneblade, away to his left, filled the air in front of it with an impressive variety of projectiles, doing the work of half a dozen of its smaller bretheren.

This time the enemy tanks, obviously aware of its strength, seemed to be focusing on it. Missiles and what looked like various red and whitish-purple magical blasts were being hurled at it, along with shells that simply bounced off its armoured skin. Muzzle Flash wondered what it could be made from to absorb such punishment.

The strike fighters were coming around for another pass. Two hefty missiles sprung from their rails under the wings of the lead aircraft, streaking across the sky and smashing into the side of the Baneblade. Muzzle Flash ducked instinctively as he heard the sound of shrapnel whickering through the air. The massive tank was wreathed in smoke for a moment, but as it cleared he could see that it was still operational, although it was clearly damaged. Several of the guns on its right side were no longer firing, their barrels warped and smashed by the explosions. Its main cannon was still roaring, though, and he watched it pulverise a turretless enemy vehicle.

Again, he felt helpless. The enemy were still not within range of his rifle or his magic, and he could do nothing but crouch behind the sandbags and watch. The Baneblade was being outflanked, a group of four low-slung enemy vehicles bursting from the trees lining the road to its left. They were different from the others; they had no turrets but large cannons lined with what looked like vents protruded from their fronts. They fired in unison.

Four brilliant red streaks crossed the distance in milliseconds and slammed into the left side of the Baneblade, concentrated in almost the same spot. Superheated molten metal hissed as it poured from the side of the tank like water. The four tank destroyers needed a few seconds to charge their capacitors before their heavy lascannon could fire again, and the Baneblade’s main turret rotated ponderously towards them. A similar las-bolt from one of its secondary turrets smashed one of the tank destroyers, and a second later its main gun dispensed with another, but the two surviving vehicles fired again.

This time, it was enough. The shots struck home on the same spot as before and burned right through the thick armour plating. The air inside the tank, superheated by the las-bolts, cooked the lungs of the crewmen from the inside and set everything flammable on fire. The tank burned from the inside for a few minutes before the flames licked their way to the main magazine.

Muzzle Flash found himself ducking yet again as the Baneblade ripped itself apart, shattered by internal explosions that sent lethal fragments flying through the air. Almost immediately, Private Sharpshooter began to panic.

‘If they can take out that monster, what are they going to do to us?’ he whimpered. Muzzle Flash told him to pull himself together, but, inside, he was wondering the same thing.

They waited for the end, but it never came. After holding each other for a minute, Twilight broke away from her friends and looked skyward again. She was expecting another one of the titanic blasts to come stabbing down at them, but the skies were clear. There was nothing happening.

‘Why don’t they finish the job?’ she asked nopony in particular. Rarity shuddered at the thought.

‘Well, Twilight, I for one am glad they are not,’ she said.

‘But…why? Why have they stopped firing?’ Twilight asked again. Rainbow Dash flapped up beside her.

‘Well…’ she said, looking out across the city. ‘I’m guessing those things would take out the whole city if they wanted to. So that means there must be something here they want intact.’

Twilight felt fear shoot through her.

‘What? Do you think they want the Princess? Or…us?’ Rainbow shrugged.

‘I don’t know, but whatever it is, we won’t let ‘em take it! Right, girls?’ The cyan Pegasus received nothing but a few grunts and mutters in reply.

‘Rainbow Dash is right,’ Twilight said. ‘Whatever it is they want, we’re not going to let them have it, especially if they want us!’ Her friends looked at her.

‘But how are we going to stop them?’ Pinkie asked. ‘If they can get rid of our shield just like that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Twilight replied, ‘but we’ll find a way. We always have before, right? If we can defeat Discord, Sombra and Nightmare Moon, we can defeat this enemy too! Right?’ This time the replies were a bit more positive.

‘Hey!’ Rainbow Dash called, floating a few feet above them. ‘They’re coming back!’ She pointed with a hoof out towards the city gate. Beyond it, they could see a cloud of dust rising. The enemy column had retreated to a safe distance and waited out the bombardment, and now they were moving in again. Already gunfire was flickering from the city walls.

‘Look!’ Rarity cried, pointing to the skies again. Above the city, to the west, were a string of black dots. The enemy aircraft had also returned. The cannons of the Equestrian airships began to blaze, knocking down some of their foes. But a wave of them swept in low, over the rooftops, slowing as they approached the city.

‘They’re gonna land!’ Applejack said in dismay. She was not quite right. The enemy dropships hovered a few feet above the rooftops while their human cargo jumped or fast-roped out. The Imperial gunships were on them almost immediately, shooting down several in a blaze of flame, but most of them managed to disgorge their passengers without incident. Now the city’s defenders were fighting a war on three fronts- they had enemies outside the walls, enemies inside the walls, and enemies above the walls.

‘Where’s that one going?’ Rainbow Dash asked, pointing out one aircraft, larger than most of the others, that seemed to be approaching the city on a different vector. Its braking jets flared as it slowed.

‘Oh no…’ Twilight breathed as the aircraft swung round. ‘It’s coming right for us.’

The dropship landed heavily in the palace gardens, its rear ramp already open. Traitor guardsmen began to pour from it, dozens of them, a whole company contained within the craft. Twilight and her friends watched in fear as the few guardsponies posted in the gardens were cut down almost without a fight. The human infantry made their way to the doors of the palace.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Rarity said. ‘Maybe they are coming for us…’

Intruders

Shining Armour galloped through the corridors of the palace, a squad of guardsponies at his heels. His sword and rifle clanked against his armour as he moved. He could hear the sounds of battle echoing throughout the building.
Got to get to the throne room. They were moving as fast as they could.
Got to get the Princess out of there.

He rounded a corner, his squad behind him, and ran straight into a firefight.

Ahead of them, half a dozen guardsponies were defending the corridor against some of the invaders, nearly four times their number. There were several dead on both sides, sprawled across the floor like ragdolls. The ponies worked their repeating rifles as rapidly as they could, putting out an impressive volume of fire. There was little cover in the corridor- it was lined with pillars, which most of the combatants were hiding behind. Shining Armour recognised Sergeant Quickdraw, directing the defence.

‘Sir!’ he called, seeing Shining Armour arriving. He slipped behind the same pillar as the Sergeant, his squad dispersing into cover along the corridor as gunfire whipped back and forth.

‘Sergeant, we need to push through to the throne room!’ Shining Armour shouted over the din.

‘There’s too many of them,’ Quickdraw said. ‘We were barely holding out. Maybe with your squad we can force our way through.’ Shining Armour risked a peek around the pillar.

He could see that most of the enemy soldiers seemed to be firing magical blasts from their guns, which confused and unsettled him in equal measure.

How can they weaponise magic like that? It only comes from unicorn horns- doesn’t it? The thought gave him an idea. The unicorns in Quickdraw’s squad were dead, among the unlucky few to have been cut down as the combat began. But there were three unicorns in Shining Armour’s squad, and he was one of them.

‘Covering fire!’ he shouted. His squad and the remaining members of Quickdraw’s opened fire, pulling the triggers as fast as they could. Shining Armour waited a few seconds, then popped his head around the pillar, lowered his horn, and fired.

The powerful magical bolt tore towards the humans. Those caught in the middle of the corridor tried to scatter, but it was to no avail. It struck the floor of the corridor and detonated like a bomb. The humans caught in the open in the middle of the corridor went tumbling, their bodies shredded by the magical explosion. Others, hiding behind pillars, screamed as they were consumed by the rapidly expanding fireball. The blast scorched the stone floor and rattled the walls, blowing out one of the stained glass windows nearby.

With almost half their number dead or wounded, the humans hesitated for a moment. Seeing his example, the other unicorns in Shining Armour’s squad repeated his action, firing two more bolts of magic at the enemy which detonated with slightly smaller explosions. More humans fell. Their resistance crumbling, the remaining humans began to retreat down the corridor.

‘Push forward!’ Shining Armour shouted. He threw up a magical shield as his squad advanced, a barrier between them and their opponent. They charged forward, firing through the shield. Shining Armour thought the enemy would not be able to do the same.

But he was wrong. Their strange, red bolts punctured the shield as effectively as the ponies’ own magically-attuned weapons. Two of his squad went down, the smell of burnt hair and flesh filling his nostrils. He snapped off a few shots with his own rifle before ducking into cover behind a pillar. There were but a handful of the enemy left now, but they were returning fire a ferociously as they could, their shots blasting through the shield. Shining Armour charged another magical attack and let loose.

This time, his attack struck one of the pillars, vaporising a large chunk of it and the two humans crouching behind it. Stone chips whistled across the hallway, scything down two other. The few disorganised stragglers were picked off easily by the volleys of rifle fire from his squad, and Quickdraw’s, which was moving up behind. Shining deactivated the shield. Gunsmoke filled the hallway, the acrid tang of cordite catching at the back of his throat. Half a dozen ponies lay dead, but they had accounted for twenty humans, and they now had a clear path to the throne room.

Shining Armour led the way through the winding corridors, their guns at the ready, but they encountered no more humans. At least, no live ones. Outside the throne room, they ran into what had been the scene of another firefight. A squad or more of guardsponies were dead, and a similar number of humans, and the great gilded doors had been thrown half open.

‘Damn it! We’re too late!’ he hissed, gesturing to his squad to move in. They advanced slowly, cautiously, their rifles raised. No sounds came from within the room.
His squad burst into the room, scanning from side to side, searching for targets. He followed them in. the room was empty.

Several more guardsponies lay dead around the throne, and the rest of the room was littered with the corpses of the attackers. Of the Princess, there was no sign. The doors to the throne room’s antechamber were also open. Shining waved his ponies forward. Quickdraw appeared at his side.

‘Where’s the Princess?’ he asked, the worry evident in his voice.

‘I don’t know,’ Shining replied. ‘Maybe she got out by herself. Not that the rest of the city is much safer…’

His squad returned, having swept the antechamber and the Princess’ quarters. There was no trace of her, or her sister.
Shining Armour tried to think of where Princess Celestia might be. He doubted the humans could have defeated her in combat, not with her magical abilities. That meant she had probably escaped- but what if she was still in the palace?

Twilight led her friends from the balcony and back into Princess Luna’s quarters. Fluttershy was panicking, and most of the others were not in much better shape. Only Rainbow Dash seemed relatively calm.

‘Come on, we have to get out of here!’ she urged them, flapping her wings agitatedly. ‘Those guys could be here any minute!’ Twilight’s mind was racing.

What to do, what to do? The enemy were swarming all over the palace. They could be coming for us, or for the Princess, or who knows what?

‘Alright, girls,’ she said firmly. Her friends looked at her. ‘This is what we’re going to do…’ Before she could elaborate, a loud banging at the door interrupted her. Fluttershy whimpered and ducked behind a table.

‘Ah, nuts!’ Rainbow Dash exclaimed. ‘They’re already here!’Twilight looked around in desperation. The banging continued, accompanied by a harried voice this time.

‘Twilight Sparkle?’ The voice sounded familiar. ‘Twilight? Please, open the door, we have to get you all out of here!’ She recognised it as the voice of one of the guardsponies, Stonewall, who often stood guard at the throne room.

‘It’s ok, girls!’ she said. ‘It’s not the enemy.’ She crossed the room and, double-checking by looking through the peephole, opened the door to the grey guardspony. Stonewall entered the room while two other guardsponies stood outside, their rifles at the ready.

‘We have to get you all out of here,’ he said. ‘The palace is not safe. The Princess ordered me to see you all to safety.’

‘But where can we go?’ Twilight asked. ‘The whole city is under attack.’

‘There are secret evacuation tunnels under the palace kitchens,’ the guardspony said. ‘If we can get you there, you can leave the city and meet with the Princess and her sister.’

‘They already escaped?’ Twilight asked, feeling a surge of relief when Stonewall nodded in reply.

‘Yes. They are waiting outside the city. Now come, all of you. We have to leave now.’ Twilight followed him from the room, her friends in tow and Spike riding on her back. The three guardsponies led them down the stairs and along the corridor below.

They had not gone far when the double doors at the end of the corridor burst open. The guards swung their rifles up as a group of humans appeared in the doorway, already firing. One of the guardsponies went down, a steaming hole in his face.

‘Take cover!’ Stonewall shouted as he sidestepped into an alcove to the right of the corridor, dragging Twilight with him. Fluttershy and Rarity were screaming. The loud crack of the guardspony’s rifle contrasted with the soft whine of the human weaponry. The red beams flashed down the corridor, blowing small chunks out of the walls and floor where they hit. The rest of the Elements ducked into cover, a couple of the beams coming uncomfortably close to Pinkie as she bounced across the corridor.

There were five humans now advancing steadily towards them. One of them carried a pistol and a sword, the others the same rifles that most of their kin seemed to use. Stonewall and the other guard fired back. Peeking out from behind him, Twilight saw one of the humans fall. The others stormed forward, their guns firing far more rapidly than the guards’ rifles. Stonewall ducked back behind the pillar as a line of the red bolts stitched its way across its surface, blowing small chunks out of it and leaving patches of burnt stone.

‘What do we do, what do we do?’ Twilight asked, panic in her voice.

‘Just stay down,’ Stonewall replied, reloading his rifle.

A gurgling scream reached her ears as the other guard went down, enemy fire having fused his throat into a smouldering mess. Before Stonewall could react, one of the red bolts struck his chest armour. He staggered backward, unbalanced but unhurt, the heat of the bolt melting the gold-painted steel around where it had struck. Raising his rifle he fired, and one of the humans collapsed in a crumpled heap as the bullet found his heart.

That was his final shot. Another bolt flashed brightly and struck his left hind leg. He fell, trying to roll back into cover, but more bolts found him and he lay still. Twilight gasped in horror, her body refusing to move.

We’re all alone! What do we do?

The three remaining human soldiers advanced recklessly. They knew the surviving ponies appeared to have no weapons, and were significantly smaller than the ones they had just killed. Children, perhaps?

None of them noticed Rainbow Dash hovering up in the darkened recesses of the ceiling until she was almost on them, streaking down as if from nowhere. Her intended target saw the movement and glanced up just in time for her hind legs to connect with his face and send him sprawling, his weapon bouncing away, his skull cracked from the force of the impact.

‘Twilight!’ she shouted, breaking the purple unicorn from her frozen state. Her friend’s sudden action had triggered something in her brain. She knew what she had to do.

As the humans turned to engage the rainbow Pegasus that had suddenly appeared beside them, Twilight stepped out from the alcove, her horn glowing with barely restrained power. Rainbow Dash took to the air again, clearing the corridor for Twilight to act.

She lowered her horn and fired.

A beam of purple energy shot out and engulfed the two hapless humans. They screamed as they burned, the potent magic as effective as any flamethrower. They fell to the floor, thrashing and yelling as they died.

Twilight swallowed hard, realising what she had just done. This was not like defeating Discord or Nightmare Moon. They had not been killed by her magic. These humans had. She looked around at her friends, who were staring in wordless shock.
Rainbow Dash landed next to her.

‘That…was…awesome!’ she shouted, punching the air with a hoof. ‘You nailed those guys! They never stood a chance!’ Rarity spoke up.

‘Rainbow Dash, how can you be so callous? They were living beings, and…and…you two…’ she couldn’t finish her sentence.

‘Yeah, and what do you think they were gonna do to us?’ Rainbow Dash replied, defending herself and Twilight. ‘It was them or us, you know that as well as I do. Look what they did to the guards!’ Rarity knew she was right, but still found herself struggling to deal with seeing two of her friends murdering three humans in front of her. She turned away to comfort Fluttershy, who was shivering and whimpering in fear.

‘Come on,’ Twilight said. ‘We have to leave. There could be more of them coming.’

‘Can you teleport us to the palace kitchens?’ Rainbow Dash asked, eyeing the doorway at the end of the corridor cautiously. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep wandering around the palace.’

‘I can try,’ Twilight replied, ‘but I’ve never teleported six ponies and one dragon before…’

‘Well how is it different from teleporting one or two ponies?’ Pinkie asked, springing up beside her as if she had just teleported herself. ‘I mean, sure, you’d need a bigger teleporting…field, or whatever, but the idea is the same, right?’ she smiled cheerfully, though whether she was unaffected by the carnage that had just unfolded or simply trying to cheer up her friends, Twilight was, as ever, unsure.

‘Y..yeah…I guess it shouldn’t be too hard…’ she said, running through the teleportation spell in her mind. ‘As long as we all stand as close together as we can without touching.’

‘Why without touching?’ Rainbow asked. Twilight grimaced.

‘Well…I’m not entirely sure, but…if you’re touching at the start of the teleport, then you might still be touching at the other end…permanently.’

‘Oh,’ Rainbow said, wincing. ‘Yeah, probably best we don’t touch then.’

‘Everypony gather round me in a circle!’ Twilight ordered. Her friends moved slowly, Fluttershy still shaking with fear. Once they formed a circle, Twilight made sure nopony was touching any other.

‘Ok, everypony ready?’ she asked.

Before any of them could reply, she heard a shout from an entirely different location- the door at the end of the corridor. Looking round, she saw three more humans, their weapons raised.

‘Do it!’ Rainbow Dash shouted. Twilight closed her eyes, concentrating hard, and with a blinding white flash, the circle of friends vanished from the corridor.

Evacuation

Ponyville was being outflanked. The Chaos tanks and personnel carriers were pushing hard to the east and west of the town, trying to reach the river crossings while their infantry and more of their tanks tried to force through the defensive line to the south, the side that had already taken the heaviest pounding. Gunfire chattered incessantly, small arms as well as the larger vehicle-mounted weaponry.

The townsponies had begun to evacuate after the first attack, streaming in their panicked masses across the river over the bridges where Imperial engineers stood guard over the demolition charges. There were but a few civilians still in the town- the mayor and her staff, and a few diehards who refused to leave, as there always were when evacuations were ordered. Most of them stayed clustered in the shelters, but some peered anxiously or inquisitively from behind their windows.

In the southern line, Muzzle Flash and his squad found themselves finally able to engage the enemy. Their infantry had forced their way across the meadow behind their tanks, most of which had been knocked out, and now lined the southern edge of the field, firing over the lip of the raised roadbed at the defenders. This put them in range of the ponies’ rifles, and their magic.

Muzzle Flash slammed another magazine into his rifle, cocked it, and fired two quick shots. A group of the enemy were moving directly in front of him, crouched, trying to keep below the lip of the road. He could see their helmeted heads bobbing as they moved. He snapped off a couple of magical bolts from his horn which burst on the edge of the road, showering the humans with dirt. A fierce firefight was raging on the left, where a platoon of the enemy had taken advantage of the destruction of the Baneblade to force their way into the Imperial lines, taking out a pair of trenches with a rain of grenades. A similar situation was unfolding to their right, where the Imperials had taken heavy losses in the artillery bombardment.

In front of Muzzle Flash, the trenches were holding. The Guardsmen were pouring fire onto the enemy troops, hurling grenades over the lip of the road. Tanks were still advancing across the meadow, their cannons thundering, trying to take out their remaining Imperial counterparts. The building he had entered on his fruitless rescue mission had taken another direct hit and all but collapsed in on itself like a pack of cards. The occasional burst of enemy fire was aimed in their direction, but most of the enemy’s efforts were directed at the frontline trenches.

Taking careful aim, Muzzle Flash squeezed the trigger of his rifle. It bucked in his hooves and he saw his target, one of the helmets moving below the road edge, drop out of sight. A grim smile crossed his face. Thunderchief, Sharpshooter and the rest of his squad were aiming and firing with methodical precision, like a clockwork machine. The enemy infantry were bogged down at the edge of the road, unable to advance any further and coming under heavy fire. He could feel the adrenaline rushing through him, now that he was finally able to get to grips with the enemy and actually do something to help defend the town. The anxiety that had gripped him earlier had vanished; he had no time to worry about what might happen, he had a job to do.

He squeezed the trigger again, this time missing his target, a puff of dirt showing him where his bullet had impacted the roadbed. He cursed under his breath, worked the action, and took aim again. His target had dropped out of sight below the road, ducking down. He could see more infantry running across the meadow, and several tanks rolling in behind them. He considered switching targets, but as he was about to do so he saw a cluster of grenades fly up from the edge of the road.

The frontline Imperial trenches were in easy throwing range of the enemy infantry hiding beside the roadbed, an oversight that had been forced upon the defenders because of the unsuitability of the ground in the meadow for digging and the close proximity of the town to the edge of the road. The grenades tumbled through the air and deposited themselves at the bottom of the nearest trench.

Muzzle Flash watched, distracted, as the Guardsmen in the trench reacted. He heard shouts, saw several of the humans scramble to climb out of the trench. Several others ducked down and began to throw the grenades back out of the trench. He winced in anticipation of the detonations. The fuses had been set short, and the Guardsmen had time only to remove one grenade from their trench before they went off. Dirt spewed up from the trench as if someone had struck oil in it. The humans disappeared from sight, save for two who had managed to scramble clear in time.

Their relief at escaping was short-lived, however, as a sudden burst of gunfire from the edge of the road cut them down where they stood. The now-empty trench left a clear gap in the frontline, and several more ambitious or foolhardy Chaos infantrymen immediately sprung into action, clambering over the edge of the road and dashing forward. They, too, were met by a hail of gunfire and fell before they had made it ten yards.

Muzzle Flash saw a pair of helmeted heads appear at the edge of the road again, where he had lost his target moments before. He swung his rifle back up to fire. As he did so, he saw one of the tanks that were pushing hard across the field entering his field of vision. He saw its cannon flash, and then he saw nothing.

With a crack of displacing air and a flash of light, Twilight and her friends reappeared in the palace kitchens, their circular formation unbroken. The two guards present in the room jumped and snapped their weapons round, only lowering them when it became apparent who had materialised.

‘Miss Sparkle!’ one of them called. ‘Quickly, you all have to leave.’ He gestured towards a door that, as far as Twilight knew, led only to one of the pantries. She led her friends, several of whom were still dizzy from the sudden teleportation, into the room.

A couple of the shelving units had been moved aside and some form of magic had revealed a wooden hatch in the floor at the rear where there had been nothing before. The hatch was open, revealing a narrow stone staircase leading down into the semi-darkness below.

‘Quickly, please,’ the guard said. ‘Follow the tunnel to its exit. The Princesses are already there, and,’ he said with a glance at Twilight, ‘I believe your brother is also.’ Twilight’s eyes lit up.

They are all safe! Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Shining!

Hurriedly they filed down the steps, the guards leaving with them having seen the last of their charges from the besieged palace. The corridor below was narrow, its walls rough-hewn from the rock and lined at regular intervals with what seemed to be magical light sources. As the corridor descended its floor began to get gradually damper, causing Rarity to protest.

‘My hooves are getting simply filthy!’ she whined. ‘Is this really the only way out? You think they could have put a carpet down or something.’ Twilight rolled her eyes.

‘Really, Rarity? We just escaped with our lives, just barely, and you’re worried about getting a little mud on your hooves?’ she questioned. Cowed by her sharp tone, Rarity said nothing more.

The tunnel sloped down for some distance before levelling off. After walking for several minutes, Twilight could see a different light ahead, brighter and more natural. They were coming to the end of the tunnel.

They emerged onto a rocky outcrop several hundred feet below the plateau upon which Canterlot sat. Anyone viewing from the outside would have seen no sign of the tunnel exit, or indeed the outcropping itself- it was disguised by magic to appear as nothing more than a smooth cliff face. As her eyes adjusted to the sunlight’s glare, Twilight could see a group of ponies gathered near some sizeable boulders not far from the tunnel mouth. She recognised most of them at once.

‘Shining Armour!’ she shouted in relief. Her brother, rifle in hoof, clambered over some of the smaller rocks and ran to meet her. The three Princesses, Celestia, Luna and Cadence, looked on, surrounded by a squad of guardsponies. Another half dozen guarded the tunnel entrance, and further along the small plateau Twilight could see another squad fanned out and crouching behind the boulders.

‘Twiley!’ Shining Armour said as they embraced. ‘Thank heavens, you’re all ok!’

‘We barely made it out,’ she said breathlessly. ‘They killed our escort…I had to teleport us away.’ Shining smiled grimly.

‘That’s my little sis. I always said you were one of the best magicians out there!’ She smiled up at him before he continued.

‘We have to get moving now that you’re all here. The city isn’t safe anymore.’ The sounds of gunfire were still clearly audible even from their present location. ‘We have to get you all to somewhere safer.’

‘Where?’ she asked.

‘The safest place right now is probably Cloudsdale,’ he replied. ‘Most of the enemy are on the ground and they won’t be able to enter the city except with those strange airships. It’s as safe as we can make you all.’

‘Cloudsdale! Alright!’ Rainbow Dash said loudly. ‘You know how good the Cloudsdale guards are, Twilight. We’ll be safe there.’ Shining Armour nodded.

‘The Cloudsdale militia is at full alert, and we have sent one of the Pegasi assault divisions to reinforce them. It’s as safe as we can make it, and we need to get you all there now.’

‘Your brother is right, Twilight Sparkle,’ Princess Luna said, trotting over with her sister and Cadence.
‘Indeed he is,’ Celestia agreed. ‘Now, if you will all please form a circle around me, without touching each other.’

Twilight and her friends formed part of the circle and the guardsponies completed it. She noticed many of them were unicorns and earth ponies and a thought struck her.

‘Princess…won’t we just fall through the clouds?’ she asked. Celestia chuckled quietly.

‘You didn’t think I would really forget that, did you?’ she smiled. As she spoke, the air around them seemed to distort, shimmering like a heat haze.

‘Et voila,’ Celestia said. Twilight knew she had just cast some kind of spell that would allow them to walk on the clouds that formed the ‘ground’ of the Pegasi city.

‘Is everypony ready?’ She received a chorus of assent. ‘Then let us go.’ With a sudden crackle of energy and a blinding flash, the group of ponies disappeared from the plateau.

It hurts.

His flank hurt. He opened his eyes, slowly. They were covered in dirt, red and watering. He moved his hoof to brush the dirt away. It was covered in blood. He could hear shouts.

‘Medic!’ somepony was screaming.
For me? I don’t need a medic, I can get up…

He fumbled around to find something to help pull himself up with. The face of Private Sharpshooter appeared in his watery vision.

‘Sir! Don’t...d-don’t try to move…’ he said, his voice wavering, though whether through concern or fear, Muzzle Flash could not tell.

‘I’m ok…’ he said weakly. ‘I’m alright, I can get up…’ He grabbed onto something and used it to hoist himself upright. Sharpshooter assisted him.

‘Sir, you’re hit…’ he said.

‘I know, but I’m alright, damn it!’ Muzzle Flash snapped. Though his flank throbbed and his head was pounding from the blast and the relentless noise, his hooves were steady and he stood unaided. He took stock of his surroundings.

Somepony had dragged him to the side of the cobbled street out of the line of fire. He was behind the corner of a two-storey brick building. The sandbag wall the squad had been crouching behind had a hole blasted in it, and he could see the bodies of two of his ponies lying motionless in the street. The tank’s shell had ripped right through the barricade. He checked his left flank- a deep cut, at least a foot in length, like a trench dug in a pristine white snowscape, oozing dark red blood. A piece of flying shrapnel must have winged him as the blast knocked him down.

‘Sir, we should get you to the hospital,’ Sharpshooter was saying.

‘No, no! I’m fine,’ he replied, though the ache in his side said otherwise.

‘He’s right, Lieutenant.’ Thunderchief appeared at his side. ‘You should go get that fixed up.’ Muzzle Flash was about to argue, but he knew they were right. His wound needed to be seen to.

‘I can take over the platoon, sir,’ Thunderchief said. ‘You need to get that treated.’

‘Alright, alright,’ he conceded. ‘But I can make it there myself. The rest of you get back to defending this town.’ Thunderchief nodded.

‘You can rely on us, sir.’

Muzzle Flash followed the buildings, sticking close to their frontages and out of the line of fire. The pain in his flank intensified with each step. He made his way back to the town square, where additional guardsponies and Imperial troops manned strongpoints around the town hall. Apart from the sandbags, soldiers and several Imperial vehicles parked up, there was no sign of the raging battle in the square. The buildings were untouched by the earlier artillery strikes and the enemy had not yet made it into the town.

Ponyville Hospital was situated on the northwest edge of town, not far from the river. It was a squat, two-storey stone building at the head of a winding, recently-paved road. While the building itself was old, the equipment inside was first-class, machines and medicines delivered straight from the finest production lines in Equestria. It had a world-class emergency department, and it was completely overwhelmed.

Muzzle Flash walked straight in through the front doors into what would normally be the reception and waiting area. Now, however, it was lined with bodies. The staff were using it as an overflow for the emergency room; there were simply too many casualties flowing in from the trenches for them to deal with, even with help from the human and Royal Guard medics. Most of the casualties were ponies; the humans had their own aid stations elsewhere in town.

Most of the ponies he passed in the waiting area were those with less serious injuries; broken bones, fractures, lacerations. Most of them were sitting in the chairs that lined the walls, but several were lying on gurneys, groaning. A Royal Guard medic approached him, looking him up and down for wounds.

‘Lieutenant. Let me take a look at that…’ Muzzle Flash brushed him off.

‘Just patch me up so I can get back out there,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste time on anything fancy.’

‘A-alright, sir,’ the medic said. ‘Just head down that corridor to the first door on the left and they’ll do what they can.’ Muzzle Flash walked stiffly down the corridor, which was also lined with gurneys and stretchers. These ponies were in far worse shape than those in the waiting room. They writhed and moaned in agony. Many of the gurneys were stained with blood. The trauma room was at the end of the corridor, through double swing-doors. As he approached a nurse emerged pushing a gurney. The pony that lay on it was covered by a sheet.

Muzzle Flash entered the room the medic had pointed out to him. Normally it would have served as the treatment area for less serious injuries. Now, however, it was inundated with ponies, the room echoing to the screams of the dying. With the trauma centre already stretched beyond its capacity ponies who would, under normal circumstances, have been in the operating room or receiving the attentions of the full trauma team, had been moved to the treatment room and were lying unattended on beds or stretchers, the staff simply overwhelmed by the number of casualties. The walls were lined with the less seriously wounded, wrapped in bandages and clutching broken limbs.

The more serious cases were occupying the beds and were being tended to by the hospital staff with assistance from a handful of Royal Guard medics. Muzzle Flash could see two doctors in green scrubs and a Guard medic giving what appeared to be direct cardiac massage to a guardspony who was missing most of his chest. On the next bed along, an earth pony with no hind legs groaned in agony as a nurse hooked up an IV tube. On the bed beyond him, a deathly pale unicorn, still in his armour, stared vacantly at the ceiling, his mouth moving weakly in wordless prayer.

Muzzle Flash stood for a moment, taking in the scene before him. The hospital staff were unable to deal with the influx of wounded, and none of them spared him a glance at first. His flank throbbed, but he knew it could wait. There were far more serious casualties to be tended to, even though he wanted to get patched up as quickly as possible so he could get back to the fight. A nurse hurried past him, noticing his undressed wound.

‘Somepony will be with you in a minute,’ she said. He moved to the side of the room to wait.

Cloudsdale was a city in panic. Though they had not yet been attacked, its citizens had heard the rumours and could see the smoke rising from Ponyville to the south, and they were scared. They knew something was coming.

The city militia lined the walls of the city, their rifles clutched in nervous hooves. Two City-Class airships, the EAS Canterlot and the EAS Vanhoover, and one of the specialised ground-attack Hero-Class ships, the EAS Starswirl, floated nearby. The Air Corps’ 1st Pegasi Assault Division had arrived several hours earlier, and were busying themselves fortifying the city. When Princess Celestia and her retinue materialised in the town square, they were rapidly approached by a squad of Pegasi with their weapons raised, until they realised exactly who had appeared in their midst. They saluted and bowed before her.

‘Your Highness!’ the squad leader said I surprise. ‘We were not expecting you…’

‘Circumstances have made our arrival here necessary,’ said Princess Luna, before her sister could speak. ‘Canterlot is being overrun.’

The Pegasi shared nervous glances.

‘Cloudsdale is probably the safest place in the country right now,’ Celestia said. ‘We will be remaining here for the foreseeable future.’

‘Yes, o-of course, your Highness,’ the squad leader said. ‘I will speak to the mayor and find you somewhere to stay. If you would all follow me.’ With a quick salute he turned and trotted away, leaving the rest of his overawed squad staring in disbelief.

Cloudsdale’s architecture was unlike that of any other city in Equestria. The ‘ground’ and the rooves of many of the city’s buildings were made entirely of clouds, imbued with special magics that made them solid, at least to Pegasi. The buildings were constructed in a style derived from that of the ancient Pegasi cities, from before Equestria was unified. Smooth, flowing lines, elegant columns and sweeping staircases made Cloudsdale one of the most beautiful cities in the nation.

Twilight didn’t entirely trust the cloud ‘ground,’ even though Princess Celestia had obviously cast a very effective spell on them all. She could see that Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie were trying to step lightly too. They trailed behind Celestia as she followed the Pegasus. He led them to the town hall lobby and disappeared into a side room.

‘Are you ok, Rarity?’ Fluttershy was asking. The unicorn looked a little queasy.

‘Y-yes, I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Just…a little unsettling, teleporting twice within fifteen minutes…’ Twilight, more accustomed to teleporting, felt no ill effects. Neither it seemed did Princess Celestia.

‘Do not worry, Rarity,’ she said with a smile. ‘That will wear off soon enough. In the meantime why don’t you sit down?’ She gestured to an ornate sofa against one wall of the lobby.

‘Oh, y-yes…thank you, I will,’ Rarity replied. Fluttershy and Applejack sat next to her as they waited for the Pegasus to return. Celestia retrieved a box and passed out the Elements of Harmony to their respective owners.

‘We should be prepared,’ she said. ‘It would be wise for you to keep the Elements on you at all times.’ Shining Armour and his guards blocked the front doorway, their weapons drawn but not raised, keeping a keen watch on the street outside.

After a few minutes the Pegasi squad leader returned with the Mayor of Cloudsdale in tow, bowing obsequiously at the concentration of royalty that had suddenly appeared in his lobby.

‘Your Highnesses!’ he beamed. ‘What a great pleasure this is to see you all in our humble city! Were that it under better circumstances. I understand that you require somewhere to stay. May I suggest the state rooms here in the town hall?’ Princess Celestia nodded in approval.

‘That will be most acceptable, Mr Mayor. Thank you for your hospitality.’ He beamed again.

‘Wonderful! Please, allow me to show you to your suites.’ He led the party upstairs, leaving behind Shining and his troops guarding the entrance.

The state rooms were suitably grandiose, with high cloud ceilings and polished marble walls. There were only five, which meant the Elements of Harmony would be sleeping three to a room, leaving one room for each Princess. The Mayor ordered his staff to bring up camp beds from the emergency store in the basement, though no one knew if they would even be staying long enough to need them. Lookouts were reporting enemy ground movement along the eastern edge of the valley, though most of them seemed to be bypassing Cloudsdale altogether. It was unlikely that any of the enemy troops would be able to land in the city without falling through it, but the same also applied to their new allies. While the Imperials had a small garrison and some anti-aircraft batteries stationed directly below the city, none of their troops could actually land in Cloudsdale, essentially leaving its defence entirely in the hooves of the ponies.

In the town hall, Celestia, Luna and Shining Armour were in deep conversation with the commanders of the Pegasi Division and the Cloudsdale militia, drawing up what plans they could for the defence of the city. Twilight and her friends gathered in one of the staterooms that had been appointed for them. Fluttershy and Rarity sat nervously while Applejack paced up and down. Rainbow Dash hovered above them, unable to keep still.

‘I’m hungry,’ Pinkie Pie complained. ‘Do you think they have cupcakes here?’

‘I doubt it, Pinkie,’ Twilight replied. ‘I don’t think it’s really that kind of place.’ The pink frowned.

‘But everypony loves cupcakes…’

Applejack stopped pacing and stared out of the window. The room looked south, and they could see the distant smoke rising from their home town, where battle still raged.

‘I’m sure they’re fine, Applejack,’ Twilight said, seeing the concerned look on her face. Her family, Big Mac, Applebloom and Granny Smith, were, she assumed, evacuating along with the rest of the town. Sweet Apple Acres was on the southern edge of town, and had probably already been occupied by the invading enemy.

‘It’s the not knowin’ that’s the worst part…’ Applejack said, sighing. ‘Ah don’t even know if they’re still in the town, or if they got out, or…’

‘I know,’ Twilight said. ‘But Big Mac is just about the toughest and most responsible pony either of us know. He’ll have got them out of there at the first sign of trouble. They’ll be fine.’ Applejack sighed again, and Twilight could see her eyes watering up.

‘Ah…ah’m sure yer right, Twi….b-but…’ Twilight put a hoof on the orange mare’s shoulder.

‘They’ll be fine,’ she repeated. Applejack looked at her and forced a smile.

‘Yeah….th-they’ll be fine…I’m sure the town will be alright…’

The Fall

The floor of the barracks building was awash with blood. Captain Soren sat slumped against an overturned bunk, his left arm reduced to a blackened stump where a blast from a melta had caught him as it burned through the wall. When the attack on Canterlot came in, the three humans who made up the liason party were being housed in the guard barracks attached to the palace. Several squads of guardsponies had fallen back to defend the building. Now their corpses littered the rooms and the courtyard outside. Trooper Hanlon's remains lay gently steaming on the floor nearby. He had caught the same melta blast, but it had struck him full force and vaporised most of his body. Magos Kallistos was also dead, but despite his age and apparent infirmity, his lightning-fast neural-interfaced manipulator arms that sprouted from his back had managed to scythe down three of the attacking traitor guardsmen before the rest had shot him down, proving that he really did have a quick mind.

A squad of ponies had hunkered down in the bunk room with orders to defend both the building and the humans. Traitor guard had swarmed around the barrack block where disciplined fire from the ponies stationed outside had thinned their ranks. But they swept in with overwhelming numbers and heavy weaponry. A melta had been brought up and had cut a hole in the side of the building, surprising and outflanking the defenders. Half a dozen grenades had followed through the opening, the storm of shrapnel ripping into the ponies, their screams drowned out by the hail of las-fire that flickered across the room as the attackers stormed in through the breach. His arm burned away by the melta, Soren stumbled backwards, tripping over a footlocker and falling behind it, which had protected him from the grenades. He crawled back and managed to sit up, his back to the overturned bunk, as the Chaos guardsmen executed the last of the defenders.

They saw they had a prisoner, and an interesting one at that; a human in a city of ponies. They had held him at gunpoint for half an hour, refusing to answer any of his questions, standing grim-faced, leering at him, the barrels of their lasguns aimed at his chest. They refused his demands for medical attention; he had no doubt that they would. He also had no doubt he would not live to see the sun set. He would be tortured for information and then shot. His arm throbbed, though the stump itself was painless- the catastrophic burns had ruined the nerve endings and deadened the pain that he should be feeling. Then a dark shadow appeared in the barracks doorway, and he knew he was about to feel a lot more pain than a mere severed limb could ever cause.

Parthax The Infidel, Sorcerer Lord, Chosen of Tzeentch and Torturer of Worlds, strode purposefully through the doorway. The vast bulk of his power armour barely fitted, the doorway having been only designed for ponies. His face may have once been considered handsome, in a chiseled, workmanlike way. But that was many millennia ago. Over the years his countenance had been twisted and distorted by the foul powers of Chaos, and now he was terrible to behold. His eyes glowed, almost pulsing, with an unholy inner fire. It has been said that the eyes are gateways to the soul, and the malignant hatred in Parthax's soul was clear to see. Something inside his eyes, something in his very essence, seemed to stir, darting from side to side without his eyes actually moving. His pupils were slitted, like those of a lizard. His head was shaven, not just his hair but his eyebrows and even his eyelashes. The foul symbol of Tzeentch was imprinted on his pate, daubed in blue and tattooed across his armour as well. His power armour was inscribed with all manner of foul symbols and litanies of unnatural, unknowable words. Gazing upon them caused a primeval disgust to well up inside Soren, their freakish geometries seeming to break the laws of physics even as he watched. Merely looking at such symbols had driven many men mad, and Soren could feel something in his head, as though hundreds of hands were scratching at the back of his eyes, clawing to escape. He shuddered with revulsion as Parthax stepped into the room, the soldiers taking a respectful step back. Here was a man, a Traitor Marine, who had fallen further from the Emperor's light than he had thought was possible. In his right gauntlet he clutched a long staff topped with the eight-pointed star of Chaos. His left gauntlet had been modified into a storm bolter, a double-barreled, wrist mounted variant of the standard-issue Astartes weapon. An incongruous cloak of white fur was slung around his broad shoulders, clasped at the throat by a buckle in the shape of Tzeentch's foul symbol. He approached Soren, and when he spoke, his voice was silky smooth, a gift from his demonic patrons, no doubt.

'Humans. Dogs of the false Emperor.' He smirked down at Soren, who stared back with undisguised abhorrence. 'Why are you in this place?' Parthax asked.

'To protect it against scum like you!' Soren replied, clutching his ruined arm with his remaining hand. Parthax laughed, a mellifluent chuckle.

'And you did a magnificent job of it, did you not?' His lipless mouth contorted in a foul parody of a smile. 'Your men are dead, these aliens are dead, and this city is mine.'

Soren looked around the bloodstained room at the corpses of the Magos, trooper Hanlon, and the dozen or so ponies who had died defending it. From what Parthax was saying, the rest of the city had fallen too.

'Now tell me. Where are their psykers?' Parthax continued.

'What psykers?' he spat. 'We had no psykers here.'

'No no, you misunderstand me, dear Captain,' Parthax chuckled again. 'Not Imperial psykers. These aliens, Xenos as you no doubt call them. Where are their psykers?'

'I don't know what you're talking about...' Soren mumbled. Suddenly, with nary a whisper from Parthax, a bolt of pain shot through his body. His remaining limbs spasmed and he cried out in pain.

'Think, Captain, think. I felt them, I felt their presence. Why do you think we followed you to this backwater planet?' Soren gritted his teeth.

'I don't know...the schemes of Chaos are meaningless to me!'

'We followed you here,' Parthax continued undeterred, 'because I felt their presence. Three psykers, three very powerful psykers, but unlike any other psykers I have ever encountered. I did not detect them in the warp...in fact, I believe they have no presence in the warp whatsoever, and neither do any of the other aliens on this planet. Their souls are...pure. Pure! An affront to the gods of Chaos that will not stand. One in particular stood out to me. It possessed the strongest will I have ever felt, the purest soul, the strongest powers. We followed you here so that I may investigate further. Now tell me. They were here, and now they are not. Where are they?'

Soren didn't know for sure, but he had a terrible feeling that Parthax was searching for the Princesses, Celestia in particular. Even he, who had never shown the slightest psychic aptitude whatsoever, had felt there was something remarkable about her. He could tell that all she wanted was peace for her subjects, and was that not, after all, what the Emperor wanted for Mankind? A sudden peace came over him. He knew that, although they may be Xenos, he could not let Parthax end all that. He did not know where the Princesses were, so he told the truth.

'I don't know where they are,' he replied, closing his eyes in preparation for the inevitable. Parthax asked again, and received the same reply.

'Very well...then I have no further use for you,' the Sorcerer Lord said. 'No matter, I will track them down soon enough. They cannot hide from my sight.' Soren began a silent prayer, entrusting his soul to the Emperor. 'As for you...your Imperium makes consorting with Xenos a capital crime, does it not?' Parthax's mouth contorted in a smile again. 'Since there are no Commissars here to carry out the sentence, I am sure your corpse god will not mind if I perform the execution myself.'

Soren steeled himself, finishing his prayer. He may be executed by a Chaos Sorcerer, but he knew his judgement would be carried out by the Emperor. With the merest lifting of his staff, Parthax jerked Soren into the air in front of him. With a single spoken word, Soren's body erupted into daemonic flame, burning white hot. A silent scream came from his mouth before the flames melted his throat, his body combusting from the inside out. After a few seconds the flames went out as abruptly as they had begun. Of Soren's body, there was no sign.

It did not take long before the first attack on Cloudsdale came in. Remarkably soon after the arrival of the Princesses, Imperial air defence radar stationed below the floating city picked up incoming airborne contacts. A wave of dropships approached the city, their intent clear. They were escorted by a dozen gunships. Fire blossomed in the sky as the anti-aircraft missiles the Imperials had positioned took a heavy toll on the approaching craft. Heavy-caliber gunfire streamed up from the Hydra AA tanks and more dropships tumbled burning to the ground. The gunships returned fire, dueling with the anti-aircraft vehicles, distracting them from their primary targets as the dropships drew closer to the city. The Starswirl,Vanhoover and Canterlot opened up once they came within range, adding their own toll to the destruction. The dropships bobbed and weaved, trying to throw off the streams of explosive rounds that belched up at them from below. Some of them reached the city and swung into low hovers above the plazas and rooftops. Ineffectual gunfire spattered from their metal hides as ropes dropped from their open side hatches. Human soldiers appeared in the hatches, traitor Guardsmen, leading the assault. They flung themselves out onto the ropes, rappelling down. The Pegasi of the 1st Assault Division engaged them with disciplined fire, sending some of their number tumbling from their ropes. As the lead troopers touched the 'ground,' looks of shock appeared on their faces as they slid straight through and kept going, their screams echoing around the city as they plunged through the clouds to their deaths below. Others on the ropes managed to stop in time, only to be knocked down by the man following them. Others clung tightly to the ropes, but were swiped from them by gunfire. Shots from the Vanhoover struck one of the hovering dropships, which spiraled down through the cloud floor, trailing a black smoke cloud of its own.

The attack was doomed to failure by its very nature. None of the attacking troops could stand on the cloud that formed the ground of Cloudsdale. None of their craft could land on it. Even gunfire and rockets that struck the 'ground' simply passed straight through, with only the buildings and other structures in the city offering any resistance. The few surviving dropships pulled away, chased and harried by streams of gunfire from the airships and from the Imperials on the ground below, until they were out of range, leaving most of their number, and most of their soldiers, behind. Cloudsdale gained a brief respite, but none of the ponies occupying the city had any doubt that their attackers would return, probably in greater numbers and maybe with some trickery that would allow them to press home their attack. The Pegasi troopers hurried to prepare, finishing work on the barricades they had begun, occupying defensive positions and setting up their limited quantity of field artillery. When they came, they would not find it easy.

In the town hall, Twilight sat on one of the beds that occupied her room. Something was bothering her, gnawing at her like a hunger in her brain. She could not place it, nor could she eliminate it. It was subtle and it was strange, but it was there, almost like the tingling before a lightning strike, or the preternatural feeling that somebody is behind you without even looking round. It lingered at the corners of her psyche, the same feeling she had felt in Canterlot; the same feeling Princess Luna had told her she had been experiencing. What was worrying her now was that it seemed to be getting closer.
In part it was the same kind of instinct she had felt when Nightmare Moon was about to return, and when Discord began to mess with the fabric of reality. But this time there was more to it. If she had to explain it she would feel stupid saying it, but it felt intrinsically evil. Something was lurking, lurking at the back of her mind, trying to force its way through, to what purpose she knew not.

She left the others and trotted through the town hall looking for Celestia or Luna. Staffponies bustled through the halls, carrying bundles of paper. Where they were going she had no idea, but they seemed to be in a hurry. Members of Shining's honour guard were dotted through the building; two of them had been on guard outside of her room. She made her way down to where she had last seen the Princesses; sure enough, they were still there. Celestia looked up as she approached.

'Twilight. How are you faring?' She trotted over to the table the Princesses were sitting around.

'I'm not sure...may I speak with you and your sister in private?' she replied. Celestia nodded, with a brief glance at Luna.

'Of course. Please excuse us Mr Mayor, Commander.' She nodded at the mayor and at Shining, before leading Twilight over to the corner of the room. Luna followed.

'What is it, Twilight?' Celestia asked in a low voice.

'Well...I...Princess Luna, do you remember what you said to me in Canterlot? About...feeling something? Something...coming for us?' Luna nodded.

'I do indeed, Twilight Sparkle. I still feel it, as does my sister.' Celestia nodded in agreement. 'You feel it as well, yes?'

'Yes...I do, and it worries me. I don't know what it is, but I can feel it in my head. It's like something is trying to take over my mind. I can feel something...probing, almost.'

'We both feel it too, Twilight,' Celestia said. 'We do not know exactly what it is. It may be a collective psychic or magical...outpouring from the invaders. Or it may be a single mind. A single, powerful mind, more powerful than any I have ever encountered.' Though the faces of the Princesses were stony, Twilight wore a nervous expression.

'More powerful than Discord?' she asked.

'Well, perhaps not as powerful...but certainly more evil,' Celestia replied. 'Whatever it is, it is radiating malice. It is like standing in front of a furnace. We must be careful. I fear we may be attacked from within, as well as without.' She glanced out of the window at the city. 'We must be vigilant, Twilight. It is coming for us.'

Ponyville was surrounded. Artillery shells thudded into the buildings. Smoke rose from a dozen different fires. The few surviving civilians huddled together in basements, whimpering with fear. Above ground, the ragged defenders crouched behind their makeshift barricades, waiting for the final attack that would wipe them out. There was no retreat. The bridges over the river had been blown by Imperial engineers, but that had not slowed the enemy advance. Their fast-moving armoured columns had lanced upstream and crossed the river miles to the east of town, then raced back down the far bank to encircle Ponyville. The defenders had repelled assault after assault, and now there were but a few handfuls of them left alive. Not long after Muzzle Flash had returned to the line, his wound bandaged, he hospital, packed full of wounded, had been destroyed by the artillery fire, collapsing in on itself in an act that shocked the ponies but barely moved the hardened Guardsmen, who had seen far worse war crimes committed by the forces of Chaos.

Explosions rippled along the line. There were not many of them left now, pony or human. The tanks that had anchored the southern line were gone, blasted by anti-armour shells and suicidal demolition-charge wielding cultists. Artillery had cut down many of the defenders, and they had pulled back, forming a last bastion around the town hall. The building itself, damaged by shells, bristled with rifles and lasguns. Hastily erected barricades made up of furniture and rubble surrounded it, supplementing the sandbags that had been installed earlier. The squat bulk of the last surviving Imperial vehicle, a Hellhound armoured flamer unit, sat idling near the front entrance. A berm of sandbags had been thrown up in front of it. There were more ponies left than Imperials; holding the front trenches, the humans had taken the bulk of the casualties in the bitter close-range combat that had ensued with the Chaos infantry. As the disheveled defenders had filed into their new positions, Muzzle Flash had counted thirty eight ponies, but only twenty humans, including Lieutenant Jonas. The observation post in the town hall tower, manned by two ponies and one Guardsman with a pair of magnoculars, sent down a warning cry.

'They're coming! South side, infantry advance.'

The weary defenders sprang into action again. Even the ponies, who had been overwhelmed by this new form of warfare, were used to it by now, and they manned the barricades, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Hydraxians. Smoke drifted lazily across the town square, reducing the visibility. Burning paper rained from the sky; the library had taken a direct hit from a large-caliber artillery shell. Muzzle Flash stood behind his ponies, his rifle clutched in sweaty hooves, scanning the town square for targets. Thunderchief stood beside him, his usual grim expression still plastered on his face. Private Sharpshooter crouched behind the sandbags, his rifle loaded and ready. A little further down the line, a cluster of Guardsmen manned a tripod-mounted heavy bolter. Inside the town hall were two lascannons, ready to engage any vehicles that might be able to negotiate the rubble-choked streets. Muzzle Flash swallowed nervously, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him. He could see his platoon were afraid; so were the remains of one of the reinforcing platoons that had arrived by airship along with Shining Armour- all that seemed a lifetime ago, back when things were peaceful, albeit still confused, with the only humans they had encountered at that time being, if not exactly friendly, then at least restrained.

'Contact!' One of the humans called it out, gesturing with a hand to the southeast corner of the square, almost directly opposite the town hall's main entrance. Dark silhouettes could be seen in the smoke, advancing in a skirmish line.

'Stand fast, men!' Jonas shouted. 'Hold your fire. Wait for my signal.'

'You heard him,' Muzzle Flash said to his ponies. 'Wait for the signal, then give them everything.'

The dark shapes continued to close, marching through the curling smoke, revealing themselves to be Chaos infantry, their dark red uniforms the shade of drying blood. They kept coming, though they could surely see the guns arrayed against them. Muzzle Flash idly wondered why they hadn't simply shelled the town hall to oblivion, and a moment later he thought he had the answer, a sickening realisation. They were not content with merely winning the day, capturing the town. They could have stood off and shelled it for days if they wanted to, judging by what Jonas had told him. They did not merely want to conquer, they wanted to fight. Evidently casualties meant nothing to them; why else would these men be advancing straight into the teeth of the defenders' guns? They wanted to see war, see the suffering they were causing. They wanted to get up close, hand-to-hand. They wanted blood.

'Fire!' Jonas roared.

Muzzle Flash repeated his order for the benefit of his ponies, but his shout was drowned out by the din of battle as the Imperials immediately opened up with everything they had. Las-fire whipped across the square. The heavy bolter began chattering, flinging high-explosive shells at the enemy. Muzzle Flash still expected them to take cover as soon as the gunfire started. Instead, they began to charge. They roared out their defiance, even as they began to die. He could hear their shouts even over the gunfire. As he watched, the thin line of soldiers was joined by more, flitting through the smoke, already at a run. Some of them began to return fire, but, firing on the move, their aim was poor, and their shots went well wide. The heavy bolter wreaked a terrible toll on them. Muzzle Flash watched in awe as the shells ripped apart the cobbles, smashing limbs and blowing great chunks of gore out of the screaming maniacs. His ponies fired too, precision rifle shots sending men tumbling. It was less dramatic than the rattling firework show the heavy bolter was providing, but just as effective. Having nothing larger to target, the lascannons began to flash, white-hot beams of light simply melting men where they struck. He was sickened by the carnage, but he knew one important truth. It is either them or us.

More and more charging humans emerged from the smoke, and more and more of them slumped to the ground, their bloodlust cut short in welters of their own viscera. Muzzle Flash rested his rifle on a sandbag and took aim. One of the men seemed to be running directly for him; he took aim, but the man stumbled and went down, a steaming burn mark where his face used to be. He switched targets to another, a brute of a man wielding a bulky pistol and a disturbingly oversized axe. Again, before he could fire, the man died, his intestines spilling out onto the road as a bolter round ripped his torso apart. He found a third target, another large man with his face covered by what appeared to be a metallic, gurning death mask. He put a bullet through where Jonas had told him the heart was in a human, and he collapsed in a ragged heap on the cobbles.

Return fire was coming in, heavier now, bullets and lasers. Puffs of dirt sprang up from the sandbags. Shots spanged and thunked into the heavy bolter's gunshield. One of the Guardsmen died wordlessly, draped over the sandbags, his lasgun falling to the ground with a clatter. Private Sharpshooter was working his rifle's action like a hardened veteran, and he had not earned his name and his bullseye cutie mark by chance; every time he pulled the trigger, a screaming enemy died.

As the line of attackers got closer, the Hellhound sprang into action. With a throaty roar, the Inferno Cannon in the turret burst into life, a thick gout of jellied Promethium squirting from the nozzle to be ignited by the pilot light, spraying fire out across the square. The gunner worked the turret left and right, and for a moment even the die-hard fanatics of Chaos faltered. A dozen or more died in the first blast, roasted by the flames. They thrashed and staggered like drunks, their skin sloughing off, their uniforms melting into their bodies. In the past day Muzzle Flash had seen many deaths; he had seen man and pony alike die from bullet and laser. He had seen men ripped apart by canister, blown open by bolter fire, shredded by shrapnel. But none of those deaths seemed as terrible to him as the way these men died, writhing and squirming even as the life left their bodies, burned to a crisp, no longer recognisable as humans. As the Hellhound fired again and again, the stench of cooking flesh became almost unbearable. Muzzle Flash had no doubt that, just like Private Sharpshooter, the Hellhound had earned its name.

He sighted in on one of the burning men, aiming to put him out of his misery. But then he decided against it; these Chaos troops wanted nothing more than to see Equestria fall, kill its citizens, enslave and murder them. They deserved to burn. He switched his target, taking down another charging lunatic. They were still coming, across the plaza and out of the smoke, hundreds of them. The Hellhound and the heavy bolter were scything through the ranks with deadly efficiency, but they were still coming, more and more and more. From the rear yard of the town hall, Imperial mortars began to open up, their bombs set to burst over the heads of the attackers, cutting them down with flashes of shrapnel, adding to the carnage. One of the runners hurled a stick grenade which bounced inside the right flank of the defence line, detonating with a dull thud and killing two ponies.

Muzzle Flash fired again, and again, and again until his magazine ran dry and he ducked down to change it. With a strangled cry another Guardsman went down, a hole in his chest. As he reloaded, a missile streaked across the square and into the spire of the town hall. The walls blew out with a rending thump, spraying wooden shrapnel across the square, the bodies of the observation team spiraling from their perch to the ground below. He slammed the magazine home, worked the action, and popped his head back up.

The enemy were still coming; no tanks, no artillery cover, no heavy weapons except that solitary missile launcher. Just men, men with only thin flak vests and their screaming hatred to protect them, charging uncaring into the unyielding guns of the defenders. They wanted blood, and nothing more. They wanted to get in close, where the Imperial guns would be of little use, and turn the fight into a brutal melee. There were enough of them that it seemed like a distinct possibility.

The Hellhound barked again, and more men died flailing helplessly. Las-blasts pattered off the sandbags and he ducked reflexively. One of his ponies was not so fast, and he slumped to the ground, clutching his ruined throat. There was no time to help him.

'Celestia watch over him, and grant unto him eternal rest...' Muzzle Flash muttered a quick prayer as the pony stopped twitching. The heavy bolter crew had stopped firing; their barrel was glowing red hot, and it had to be changed. The assistant gunner, wearing a heat-resistant glove, almost like an oven mitt, over one hand, unscrewed the barrel, scrambling for another and slotting it back into place. The gun was back in action within moments, but the slackening of fire from the defenders was enough to allow some of the enemy to get closer. The Hellhound sprayed death across them in a wide arc, but it could not traverse its turret too far, or globs of burning Promethium would fall upon its own troops. One particularly fanatical trooper made it to the defence line, a stick grenade clutched in each hand. He took the sandbag barricade at a run, like a professional hurdler, flicking the pins from his grenades. Several ponies fired at him, and one or two hit, but in his blood rage he took no notice of the wounds that would have felled any normal man. He landed on his feet on the other side, holding the grenades aloft.

'Blood for the blood God!' He barely had time to complete his shout before the grenades turned him into a cloud of bloody rags, pulverising his body and cutting down three ponies and a Guardsman. Muzzle Flash just had time to duck as the grenades went off to his right, shrapnel pinging off his armour like hail. He felt a few fragments penetrate his hide, and he grimaced, but the wounds were not serious. He stood back up, ears ringing a little, just in time to see the missile coming.

The smoke in the square had cleared somewhat, giving the Chaos missile team at the south corner some visibility. Their prime target was the Hellhound, and, with a few seconds to draw a bead, they fired, the missile spiraling towards the vehicle. Muzzle Flash saw it coming, saw its trajectory, and flung himself to the ground again, shouting.

'Get down!'

The aim of the missile gunner was true, and the projectile struck the front glacis plate of the converted Chimera APC. The Hellhound was not a tank; its armour, though it had been reinforced compared to the base vehicle, was not thick. The two-stage, shaped charge warhead punched through, the sandbagged berm, only half completed, did not protect the whole vehicle. The Hellhound was not a battle tank; it was, however, essentially a large fuel tank. The high explosive warhead detonated, ripping through the crew compartment and puncturing the Promethium tank that occupied the former troop compartment. The fuel ignited, and the Hellhound ripped itself apart in a cataclysmic explosion. Burning Promethium rained from the sky. The concussive shockwave from the blast shattered the few remaining windows in the town hall. A dozen defenders, man and pony alike, were consumed in the fireball. Others were badly wounded, thrown into their own barricades, broken and burned. Lying face down on the ground, Muzzle Flash felt the heat wash over him. He was some distance from the blast, but he felt his skin reddening nonetheless. He heard screams. The firing from the defence line died away to almost nothing. He rolled onto his back, his ears ringing.

There was fire everywhere. The wooden town hall had caught light in several places. Blobs of burning fuel were all over the barricades. Several bodies lay motionless, save for the flickering of the flames that ate away at them. He staggered to his hooves, still clutching his rifle. Thunderchief was still beside him. Sharpshooter was already up and firing, as was Lieutenant Jonas, the right side of his face blackened. He seemed not to have noticed his burns, his lasgun spitting death at the enemy. The enemy.

They were still coming, and they were almost on them. Smoke from the burning Hellhound washed across the square now, stinging his eyes and obscuring his vision, but he could still see a dozen or more of the red-clad fanatics charging. With the middle of the defence line split by the inferno, Muzzle Flash and his ponies were cut off from the right side and the rest of the defenders. He looked around, taking a quick headcount- there were six humans and fourteen ponies. Twenty bodies to throw into the line, twenty bodies to fight a hundred or more. They kept firing, but he knew they would die here. As the enemy drew closer, he bellowed his orders.

'Fix bayonets!' he roared. 'No retreat! No surrender!' As his magazine ran dry, he dropped his rifle and drew his sword from its scabbard at his hip. 'Have no fear, ponies. Celestia is with us today.' His voice made him sound far more confident than he was. Jonas nodded approvingly.

'You'd make a fine Commissar, if you were human,' he said with a wry smile. 'Never thought I'd say this to a Xenos, but it's been an honour to fight alongside you. I hope you die as well as you fight, Lieutenant.' Muzzle Flash nodded back. That's about all we can do now. Die.

'Likewise, Lieutenant. Thank you for trying to save this town.' They said nothing more to each other. Nothing more needed to be said. They were comrades now; unlikely comrades, no doubt heretically so as far as most of the Imperium was concerned, but comrades nonetheless. They had fought and bled together, and now they would die together.

Jonas gave the same order Muzzle Flash had given moments earlier, and his few surviving troopers fixed their bayonets to the notches on the end of their lasguns. The mortars in the rear yard continued to pump out rounds, killing more of the enemy as they advanced at a run. One of the lascannons in the town hall kept firing defiantly, the other weapon having been knocked out by the destruction of the Hellhound. Muzzle Flash watched as the enemy drew closer and closer, losing more of their number, but not slowing, not even for a second. Soon, all too soon, they were upon them, leaping the barricade with frenzied snarls of rage and heretical chants. Muzzle Flash killed the first man over with a blast of magic straight into his chest. More followed him immediately.

'Attack, ponies!' he shouted. 'Celestia, guide my blade!'

A snarling, hook-nosed trooper in a visored helmet came for him, the viciously serrated bayonet on the end of his rifle gleaming in the reflected firelight. Muzzle Flash had never used his sword in anger, but he had kept well-practiced in the training yards, more for fun than any expectation of having to use it. He parried the bayonet away to the left with a quick swipe, letting the surprised man take another step before reversing the swing and slicing through his chest. He went down, and Muzzle Flash stepped over him, his sword raised, giving the side of his head a quick but powerful buck with his rear hooves to make sure. Another man leaped over the sandbags, screaming curses, and as he jumped a blast of magic from Muzzle Flash's horn sent him back the way he had come, minus most of his face.

He glanced around. Sharpshooter was engaged in a bayonet duel with a squat, broad-shouldered trooper. Even as he watched, the pony overcame his opponent, surprising the man with his strength and agility. He danced away from the man's clumsy stroke, brought the butt of his rifle around, cracked him across the chin, and then, with a roar, smashed the butt into his face, sending him stumbling backwards. With a cry of, 'For Celestia!' Sharpshooter brought his rifle back down and speared the man in the gut. A look of shock crossed his face as Sharpshooter withdrew the blade and plunged it into his chest, the blade sliding between two of his ribs. He slumped wordlessly to the ground as Sharpshooter pulled the bayonet out, the blade now red with blood.

Another man in a peaked cap leaped the barricade and turned to face Muzzle Flash, grinning evilly. He too was armed with a sword, but whereas the pony's was a work of art, his was a work of horror. The weapon appeared to combine aspects of both a sword and a chainsaw- serrated teeth ran around the blade, and with a press of a stud the man made the sword whirr into life. Muzzle Flash took a step back. The man held a pistol in his other hand, but clearly he wanted to see blood flying. He could have simply shot Muzzle Flash down where he stood, but, seeing a fellow swordsman, or rather swordspony, he clearly saw a challenge, a foe to be bested.

Muzzle Flash had no such intention. He lowered his horn and fired. The man's expression of glee turned to one of surprise as the magical energy burned through his body, and he toppled backwards to the ground, the sword tumbling free of his grip and lying dormant. Another man came flying at him, this one without any apparent weapons whatsoever. With a swift flick of his hoof he cut the man's throat open, dark red blood squirting out as he gurgled and fell to his knees. Muzzle Flash brought the sword down on the back of his neck and he collapsed, his head hanging off.

More of the enemy were making it over the barricades now, and the survivors were being pushed back, separated from each other, each of them caught up in their own fights. He saw Jonas gutting a man. Behind him, Thunderchief had knocked one of the enemy to the ground and was systematically trampling all over him while parrying another man's bayonet. He saw a man with a sword fighting one of his ponies. Unlike the man he had just killed, this man's sword had no motor or serrated teeth. It appeared to be glowing a dull blue. The man dodged a lunge by the pony and swiped at him, the sword connecting with his flank armour. Muzzle Flash knew their armour was proof against any sword forged by ponykind, but this blade cut right through, all but slicing the pony in half. With a tortured scream he went down, and the man finished the job with a pistol shot to the head.

With a cry, Sharpshooter jumped into the attack, slashing at the man. Caught off guard, he had no time to react, and Sharpshooter's bayonet cut a deep gash in his thigh. The pony quickly recovered to the guard position, ready to parry the sword. Sure enough, the man swung it in an arc, connecting with the bayonet, and slicing it clean in half. Sharpshooter took a step back, staring at his now-useless bayonet. His gun was empty, and he dropped it. Without hesitating, he turned himself around and kicked out with his hind legs, connecting with the man's sword arm and sending him reeling. His blade clattered to the cobbles, his arm broken by the kick. The man scrabbled backwards, bringing up his pistol.

With no time to think, Muzzle Flash lowered his horn and fired. It was only a stun spell, the quickest spell to cast that came to mind, but it was enough. The man stumbled, falling to his knees. Sharpshooter picked up his fallen blade. Unable to move, the man could only watch in horror and disbelief as the pony brought it down, his own power sword carving the man in half from top to bottom.

Muzzle Flash trotted forward, almost stumbling over the bodies that now littered the defensive line. There were but a few defenders left alive, less than a dozen all told. They could not hold, nor could they retreat. They had no recourse but to fight to the death or surrender. The Royal Guard never surrendered.

Muzzle Flash found himself next to Jonas as a trio of yelling fanatics jumped the barricade ahead of them. He brought his sword up once more.

'For the Emperor!' Jonas shouted, charging in.

'For Celestia!' Muzzle Flash roared. His sword flashed as he swung it, severing the hand of the first man. Jonas parried the blade of the second and pumped him full of las-rounds. Muzzle Flash swung again and the first man went down. He stepped forward to help Jonas with the last man. As he did so, something clanged off his armour, sending shockwaves through his body. He turned swiftly. Another man had swung a long-bladed combat knife at him. His sword was out of position. Acting instinctively, he lunged forward, his horn stabbing deeply into the man's throat. He gasped, the knife falling from his suddenly weak hand. Muzzle Flash drove it in deeper, tearing cartilage and flesh. Blood poured down his horn.

'We are Celestia's fury!' he shouted, ripping his horn out of the man's throat and letting him slump to the ground. 'To me, ponies! Rally to me!' There were not many ponies left to answer his call. Sharpshooter, Thunderchief, and, further down the line, two others, fighting a desperate but futile battle against half a dozen bayonet-wielding traitor guardsmen.

'Too many of them, sir,' Thunderchief said matter-of-factly as he trotted over, his bayonet slick with blood.

'There's nowhere to go, Sergeant,' he replied. 'We stand here until they're all dead, or until we are.' Thunderchief nodded.

'Yes sir,' he said simply.

A knot of enemy soldiers charged over the barricades near them. At their head was a man with a flamethrower strapped to his back. He had no time to shout a warning. Again, acting on instinct, Muzzle Flash lowered his horn and fired. This time the man disappeared in a blossoming cloud of fire, along with his compatriots. Their screams cut through the din of battle like knives, but there were still more of them pouring over the sandbags. He saw Jonas and his last surviving trooper go down under a hail of blows, the frenzied enemy hacking and tearing at their bodies with bayonets, knives, their bare hands. This was their final stand.

They came at the ponies, screaming hate, spewing litanies of curses, swinging their blades. The Royal Guard fought back, prayers to Celestia on their lips. They hacked and cut and stabbed. Muzzle Flash incinerated them with his magic, and still they came. One charge managed to split the trio, and the attackers swiftly surrounded Thunderchief, losing two of their number in the process. They hacked him down, bayoneting him repeatedly, like a pincushion.

Muzzle Flash stood back to back with Sharpshooter. They fought, and they fought well, slicing off limbs and gutting a dozen more of the baying mob. They could have gunned the two ponies down at any time, but their blood lust forced them on, forced them to get closer. Muzzle Flash's magic forced them back time and again, concussive blasts from his horn flinging the attackers away. But still they came, again and again, never ceasing, never tiring. By the end there were nearly fifty soldiers surrounding them, watching and chanting, fury in their eyes. The two ponies began to tire. Muzzle Flash's magic hurled the enemy shorter distances each time. His sword hoof ached. The mob closed in again, and this time he could not find the strength to throw them back. He felt Sharpshooter go down behind him, felt the spray of warm blood as he died. He kept swinging his sword, cutting the head off of one man, the arm from another. He felt bayonets sink deep into his leg. He stumbled, and that was the end. The howling soldiers were on him in a flash, stabbing and slashing. He sank to the ground, pain lancing through him. As they killed him, he uttered his last words.

'Celestia watch over me, and grant unto me eternal rest...'

City In The Sky

Word reached the Imperial garrison beneath Cloudsdale of the fall of Ponyville late that afternoon, a few last, desperate vox-messages having been sent out by the defenders inside the town hall as the Chaos troops closed in for the kill. They relayed the messages to Cloudsdale itself using Pegasi messengers. The knowledge that Canterlot had also fallen sent a wave of panic through the garrison- with Canterlot to the northeast, and Ponyville to the south, in Chaos hands, Cloudsdale itself was surrounded, caught in a huge pincer movement. There was now nothing to stop the waves of Chaos troops moving up from the south from advancing all the way to the floating city. So far as its defenders knew, however, there was still no way any of the invaders could actually land in Cloudsdale, so the panic among the pony inhabitants was not as frantic. Plus, Celestia and Luna were in the city, and were they not the most powerful creatures in Equestria?

The Pegasi assault troops and the Cloudsdale militia manned the city walls unceasingly, staring out across the plains with binoculars and telescopes, watching the dust being churned up by hundreds of tracks and wheels and thousands of marching feet. There were nearly five thousand Equestrian troops in the city, and very little they could do about the situation. The Air Assault Division possessed several pack howitzers, lightweight, field-assembled artillery pieces that could be carried aboard their airship transports along with the rest of their equipment, but ammunition was limited- the division had been moved to Cloudsdale with little warning, and had no time to stockpile their supplies. The Vanhoover and Canterlot hovered nearby, but their ammunition was also limited. The Starswirl, being a specialised ground attack airship, had a rather more ample supply of ammunition for its bombardment cannons, but that too was being saved until the enemy closed in.

Below the city, the Imperials had set up a defensive position on top of a hill that lay in the shadow of Cloudsdale. Four hundred men sat in their trenches, waiting, row upon row of lasguns jutting out, interspersed with the occasional heavy bolter or lascannon barrel. But their position was weak- they had no minefields, no wire. Their trenches were shallow, just a few feet deep, whatever they could accomplish with their entrenching tools- there was no heavy earthmoving equipment. The Hydra flak tanks and Manticore SAM launchers were hastily dug in behind thin earthen berms thrown up from the earth removed from the trenches. They could expect no reinforcements- the other troops on the ground were heavily engaged with Chaos forces, protecting other towns and cities. It seemed unlikely that they would last very long, but they were prepared to sell their lives dearly, in the vain hope that the fleet could break through the warp storms before Chaos could consume the entire planet.

The Chaos troops attacked at dusk, deploying straight from the march, from the east, knowing the setting sun would blind the defenders. Expecting an attack from the south, the Imperials were caught off step. They hastily redeployed most of their heavy weapons to the eastern flank, along with some of their limited supply of tanks. It was not long after this that their spotters aboard the EAS Starswirl reported a large armoured column advancing from the southwest. Now the Hydraxians were in trouble- they were quickly being outflanked. Shells and las-fire smashed into their lines. Low-level strike jets raced in to drop their loads of incendiary bombs, spreading flame and death across the trenches. The flak tanks and fire from the Vanhoover and Canterlot brought down several, but still they came. They were atmospheric-only aircraft; evidently the Chaos forces had already had time to clear and grade a forward airstrip somewhere to the south.

A sudden thrust from the east poked through the outer defence line. Armoured carriers poured through the gap, disgorging squads of bloodthirsty infantry. The Imperials fought back, hand-to-hand, and threw them out once, then again half an hour later. The heavy cannon of the Starswirl lobbed screaming shells down onto the heads of the attackers, annihilating whole platoons with each blast. Lascannons and meltas burned through tank armour and cooked off titanic explosions. Las-fire flickered in the dying light, tracers whickering across the battlefield. Another breach was forced on the western flank, and again the Hydraxians threw the enemy back with heavy losses. But their own casualties were mounting, and when the final attack came from both sides at once, it was too much for them.

Dozens of tanks and carriers rolled over the outer trenches. The Imperials fell back, tightening their lines, their hilltop position like a hedgehog rolled up in a spiny ball. The Manticore crews, out of missiles, jumped into the trenches to fight as infantry. The Hydras were repurposed, their quad autocannons scything down waves of Chaos troops as they ran screaming at the defences. Briefly they hurled them back once more, before a new wave swept in, their fury greater than before. A rain of grenades killed dozens of defenders. They voxed their last messages up to the spotters on the Starswirl, screaming for support, calling in danger-close artillery fire on their own positions. The pony gunners responded, loading and firing, loading and firing, as fast as their practised hooves allowed. Heavy shells plunged almost straight down on the enemy, killing hundreds, destroying even their heavily armoured tanks. But it was too late to save the position. The gunners kept firing long after the last vox had gone dead. Streams of gunfire from captured Hydras flashed skyward, but the airship's magical shields kept it safe. Under the rain of shells, the Chaos troops hastily pulled back from their newly captured position, leaving not a single Imperial soldier alive. Cloudsdale was alone.

The Elements watched the Starswirl's bombardment with mixed emotions. Rainbow Dash, despite the situation, was enthused with the firepower it was displaying, even more so when she heard from the guards that the enemy was retreating from its barrage. Rarity and Fluttershy sat in their room trying to comfort each other, and failing miserably. With the fires of Ponyville visible to the south, Pinkie was attempting to cheer Applejack up, but was having similarly little success. Twilight, along with the Princesses, were still in the ad hoc war room that had been set up on the ground floor of the city hall. The night outside suddenly went silent as the Starswirl ceased firing, all its targets out of range. Twilight sat in a sumptuously upholstered chair, watching Celestia, Luna and her brother direct what plans they could for the defence of the city. With the Imperial garrison destroyed beneath them, the ponies were on their own. The situation was grim; there was nowhere else to run to. The Cloudsdale militia had rounded up every able-bodied mare and stallion in the city and shoved rifles into their hooves, trying desperately to bolster the numbers of defenders lining the walls. Most of them had never fired a gun before, and would probably be useless in a fight, but at least it gave them hope, however forlorn it may have been.

'When will they come again?' Celestia asked Shining, who merely shrugged in response.

'I have no idea, Your Highness. I do not know what kind of tactics these humans will employ. I suspect we will see more of those aircraft since it seems that they cannot land troops on Cloudsdale itself. I have ordered the airships to maintain a full all-round watch at all times. If they do somehow manage to land infantry on the city, then we should be able to throw them back. We have five thousand troops and another ten thousand civilian conscripts. They would need to attack us in overwhelming numbers to take the city.'

'And what happens when we run out of ammunition?' Celestia asked. 'There are few unicorns among your soldiers, and they cannot be everywhere at once.' He nodded grimly.

'I have considered the possibility of erecting a magical shield over the city. There are very few unicorns in the city, mostly the members of your own honour guard, but it should be possible, and it will protect us from any more attempts to land troops in Cloudsdale.'

'But those beams...las-weapons, the humans call them...they punch right through our shields as if they were made of paper!' Luna announced. 'They seem to be the primary weapon of the humans; how do we defend against them, Commander?' Shining shook his head.

'We cannot, Your Highness. All we can do is try to target those weapons as a priority, and hope they do not inflict too much damage.'

'And what if they attack us from orbit again?' Celestia interrupted. 'Our shields cannot withstand such a powerful bombardment for more than a few minutes.'

'It is clear that the enemy do not wish to simply destroy our cities, Your Highness,' Shining replied. 'If they did, then they would have simply struck from orbit as soon as they arrived. They want something. They want to capture something. Resources, prisoners, I do not know, but whatever it is they want, it at least negates their greatest advantage over us. We have no counter to their space weaponry and no protection against it.' Celestia nodded grimly.

'Indeed. I wonder if it was mere coincidence that the first attack on Cloudsdale came so soon after the arrival here of our party? Perhaps the enemy is searching for us. Perhaps they wish to take our leaders alive so as to have a bargaining chip, to force our troops to stop fighting?'

''Perhaps it's the Elements...' Twilight said quietly, drawing the attentions of the three other ponies in the room. She had not spoken for quite some time. 'Perhaps they want the Elements. Perhaps the Elements can hurt them more than any of our conventional weaponry ever could?'

'That is also a possibility,' Celestia said. 'In which case, we must continue to keep the Elements, and their bearers, as safe as possible. Twilight, I suggest you stay with your friends from now on, at all times. If an attack comes, you will be as safe as we can make you here. But if they break through, if they reach you, then do not hesitate to use the Elements to their full potential. It may be our only way of stopping them.' Twilight nodded, a wash of thoughts running through her brain. She hoped Celestia was right, but also that she was wrong- could the enemy, whoever they truly were, be after her and her friends? Had they really traveled billions of miles through the void, a species that they had never had any contact with before, just to capture her? Or to kill her?

The powers of Chaos are nothing if not fickle and perfidious, and their ways and methods not confined merely to the physical world. It was a few hours before dawn, the moonless horizon a faint, shimmering band of phosphorescence, when the dark mind of Parthax the Infidel and his yet darker patrons began to hatch their plans. Most of the citizens of Cloudsdale were trying to snatch a few fitful, terrified hours sleep. The watchers on the walls kept a constant vigil, scanning the skies for the glowing embers that would indicate the powerful engines of another wave of attack craft and dropships. On the ground below, hundreds of small fires burned, the campsites and laagers of the ground forces that had wiped out the Imperial position. More were arriving with every passing hour, long strings of dipped headlights running along the road from the south. Trucks and tanks in their hordes, rolling into position, impotent and toothless with no ground targets left to attack. Nonetheless it was still an intimidating sight. With it came intimidating sounds; cries of raucous, bestial laughter, rhythmic chants, the beating of a thousand tuneless drums. None of it meant anything to the ponies, but it sent chills down their spines anyway.

On the eastern city edge, looking out towards the valley edge, a cluster of troopers from the Pegasi Assault Division occupied one of the dozen buttress towers that were evenly spaced along the eastwall. Built, like most of the rest of the city, from the sturdy, Pegasi-magic cloud, the tower was a miniature fortress, designed as such when the city was originally built a thousand or more years earlier. Linked to the battlements at its middle level, the tower protruded above the wall another two stories. The top floor was open, lined on all sides with crenelated cloud, with firing embrasures spaced every two metres. When the defenders arrived, each tower had been outfitted with a trio of heavy gatling cannons, quad-barreled rotating guns that could put out a storm of bullets. Two were mounted on the top floor, facing outwards, with another at the battlement level. A platoon of ponies from the Assault Division manned each tower, the walls between them lined with soldiers, militia and now, in places where the line was thinnest, the civilian conscripts.

On the top floor of the tower, Southern Cross, a squat, powerful white Pegasus with a brilliant red mane, peered through the viewing periscope fitted into the battlement, searching the eastern sky. The craggy peaks of the Foal Mountains could just be seen, faint, ghostly silhouettes in the darkness. The skies were clear, and yet there was no moon, and no stars were out- when he glanced up, Southern Cross could see nothing in the veil of darkness, save for a cluster of slowly blinking lights that seemed to be moving across the heavens. He had no idea what they were, but some of the others had been talking about that...thing that had crashed from the sky the day before. They said there were more of them up there, that they were how the humans had come to this world; giant airships that hung in space, using magic or technology far beyond his comprehension. Perhaps that was what he was looking at- another one of these starships, orbiting their planet, like a predator stalking its prey. From what some of the other troopers had been saying, that was all these tainted humans saw ponies as- prey.

He shook the disquieting thoughts from his mind and returned his gaze to the horizon, straining in the gloom to spot the flickering trails of an incoming attack. They had seen nothing all night, neither he nor his two companions manning the tower roof, Nimbus and Sea Breeze. The platoon commander, Lieutenant Oak, had just descended back into the bowels of the tower after one of his routine checks. Most of the rest of the platoon were down there, in the barracks level, waiting, sleeping. If the alarm were to be sounded, they would rush to their positions on the wall and at the firing ports carved into the outer face of the tower.

Part of him wished he was down there with them. Another part of him was glad he was on watch, away from the rumours and the stories that seemed to be endlessly spawned whenever two or more soldiers were in close proximity to each other. Another part of him just felt sick, for some reason he could not discern. He adjusted his armour a little, his rifle clutched in his hooves, having moved away from the viewing periscope. His hooves were sweaty. In fact, he felt clammy all over. He was starting to get a headache, too- too long straining his eyes through the viewfinder? If he were still a foal, his overprotective mother would have confined him to bed if he felt like this, he reasoned. The air suddenly felt unseasonably cold for midsummer. Something was nagging at him; it felt like somepony was watching them. Watching him. He quickly glanced around the towertop, seeing nothing but his two squadmates, who were still scanning the darkness beyond the city.

At least, that was what he should have seen. What he actually saw was two hulking monstrosities, great sacks of bulging flesh, staring at him with evil, red-lit eyes, their slavering jaws lined with vicious, serrated teeth. He screamed, fumbling with his rifle. He completely forgot proper procedure, forgot to shout the alarm. He kept screaming as he raised his rifle at the nearest monster and fired.

At the sound of the first scream, Nimbus swung round, tearing his eyes away from the dark skies. Private Southern Cross was screaming for no apparent reason, a look of pure terror in his blue eyes.

'Cross? What...what's wrong, buddy?' he asked, taking a concerned step forward. Southern Cross continued to babble as he raised his rifle, and he was still panicking when he put a bullet through Sea Breeze's head. The blue Pegasus collapsed to the floor as Nimbus's mouth gaped open in surprise.

'Cross! Wh...what...cease fire!' he screamed, swinging his own rifle up. He just had time to shout the alarm before Southern Cross worked the action on his rifle and fired again.

Searing pain flared through his neck and he slumped hard against the parapet, sliding slowly to the ground. He clutched at his throat as hot blood squirted from the wound, soaking his hooves. He let out a strangled gurgle, writhing in agony as his heart pumped his life out through the ragged hole in his neck, his jugular severed by the bullet. Alarmed by the shots, Lieutenant Oak appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by a cluster of troopers all wearing the dark-grey body armour of the Assault Division. They stared in confusion for a few moments.

Southern Cross was about to step forward and finish the second monster, which was squirming and bellowing up against the battlements, when another of the foul creatures strode into view at the top of the staircase, followed by another, and another. He swung his gun round, bellowing wordless gibberish at the top of his lungs, firing again until he had emptied his magazine. By the time he had done so, Lieutenant Oak and another trooper lay dead, crumpled up on the stairs. Other troopers charged up, seeing the carnage, and gunned the delirious private down where he stood trying to reload. They called the platoon medic up, but it was too late. The Lieutenant and Sea Breeze had died instantly, and by the time the medic arrived Nimbus and the other trooper had bled out. As the wary, stunned troopers fanned out to secure the rooftop again, one of their number began to scream. Clawing at his eyes, assailed by terrors only he could see, the soldier flung himself from the tower, forgetting about his wings entirely, plummeting thousands of feet to the solid earth below. Another began to convulse violently, spasming like an epileptic. Two more wheeled away, blood pouring unbidden from their noses. A strange taste hung in the air and caught in their throats, heavy, metallic.

Alerted by the gunfire, the garrisons of the other towers nearby had rushed to their positions, searchlights probing the darkness. Here, too, madness gripped some of the defenders. Without provocation, two of the ponies on the adjacent tower placed their rifle barrels under their chins and committed suicide. Others turned their guns on comrades, while some merely collapsed in gibbering heaps, chattering and moaning. Officers looked on in confusion, unable to regain control of their ponies. Whole platoons devolved into mass brawls, stabbing, kicking and biting in frenzied attacks. One tower erupted in a shattering blast of orange flame as a crazed trooper ignited the stack of shells for one of the heavy defence cannons.

Panic spread across the city as the alarm went up. The chaos was not confined to the eastern wall- all around the city, ponies turned their guns on each other, and on themselves. Not everypony succumbed- the majority of defenders were unaffected, but the confusion and disruption sown by the madness tore apart any notion of a coherent plan for the defence of the city. Gibbering maniacs, their minds undone by the foul treacheries of Chaos, ran through the streets, setting fire to whatever they came across. Patrols of militia had to be diverted from the walls to put a stop to the insanity, with orders to shoot to kill. Inside the city hall, surrounded by a ring of steel, Twilight stared out of the window of the room she was sharing with Applejack and Rarity. The crackle of rifle fire could be heard above the mournful moaning of the emergency sirens. In the square outside the building, a platoon or more of militia sat behind their cloud barricades, and behind them stood most of the Princesses' Honour Guard, their rifles held at the ready in wary hooves. For whatever reason, the area around the city hall seemed to be a bastion of relative calm, and the guards kept a steady watch for any signs of trouble. Twilight watched a squad of assault troopers rushing through the square at a gallop, heading off to one of the many trouble spots that had flared up. At the first gunshots she had hurried downstairs to the war room. Messengers had been scurrying to and fro, reporting outbreaks of 'fratricide' and 'blue-on-blue incidents,' in the euphemistic parlance of the military. They had reported madness, suicides, the collapse of sanity among some units, and among the civilians, too. Celestia and Luna had shared worried, troubled glances with each other at the news. They clearly knew something. Twilight thought she did, too- there was a strange taste in the air that stuck in her throat, and a strange feeling in her head, like something was clawing at her brain, trying to get inside. She feared what it might be, but she was sure that, whatever it was, it was causing the chaos in the city.
From somewhere a thick pall of smoke was rising. Even as Twilight watched, two militia ponies burst from the shadows at the edge of the square, galloping towards the city hall. The guards shouted a challenge, which was answered with nothing more than insane gibbering from the two ponies. Twilight stared in horror as the guards cut them down as they charged.

'It's bad enough we have to fight these humans...but now pony is fighting pony?' she sighed exasperatedly. 'What is going on? How do we stop this...this madness?'

Applejack and Rarity looked over at her from where they sat on one of the beds. Their expressions showed they had no more insight on the problem than she did. Twilight sighed and looked back outside. Three of the militia were checking the bodies of their two dead former comrades. Twilight shook her head sadly. How could they defend the city if they were fighting among themselves? Clearly, this was all part of some enemy plan. The worrying thing was that it seemed to be working.

Another hour passed before they returned. The southern horizon began to glow with pinpricks of light, first dozens, then hundreds, engines and thrusters flaring as the enemy dropships closed in again. The alarm went up from the scattered defenders on the wall, who were hastily reinforced by those units unaffected by the madness gripping so many of their comrades. Anti-aircraft fire began to fill the sky as the airships opened fire. Without the missiles and heavy concentrations of flak from the Imperial positions below, the defenders were only able to down a few of the approaching tide of dropships. A few, larger craft kept a safe distance, circling to the south of the city with their white anti-collision lights blinking. Grim-faced, the ponies manned the cloud walls of the city as the drophips swung into position overhead. A few shots pinged off their underside armour, met by a hail of las-fire in return that scythed down a dozen or more militia ponies. Ropes dropped from their open hatches and once more the soldiers of Chaos descended. This time, however, they did not fall. They landed soundly on the cloud, as if they were Pegasi, much to the surprise of the ponies. After a few moments disbelief, they opened fire. Hundreds of rifles, supported by the few gatling machine guns the assault division had brought with them, cut down the first wave in moments. But more men came down the ropes, and still more followed them.

A platoon of men landed in the square outside the city hall. The guards crouched behind their cloud barricades and opened fire. Half a dozen men died in the first salvo, puffs of blood squirting from their bodies where the bullets found their marks. One of the few unicorns in the city, a member of the royal guard protection detail, fired off a blast of magic that immolated another four men as they tried to find their feet. his second shot caught one of the dropships square in the cockpit, and it spiraled away, burning, dropping away from sight over the edge of the city. Those soldiers who had made it down the ropes began to return fire. The two unicorns in the city hall's defence line threw up magical shields, but the las-fire punched straight through, and straight through the cloud barricades. Two of the militia ponies went down screaming. Twilight peered out of the window, now joined by Applejack and Rarity, who was clinging to the farmpony. More rifle shots rang out and the Chaos troopers, caught in the open of the square, began to fall. Shouted orders could be heard from the ponies below as they protected their royalty, but more Chaos troops were coming in. Searchlights from the airships focused on the square, providing illumination for the Guard and militia forces. More humans were appearing, coming out of the darkness, pouring from every side street, all with one target. Anti-air fire from the Vanhoover and Canterlot struck down a number of the lumbering dropships as their fighter escort blazed away with ineffectual cannon fire at the airships in reply. With the defenders occupied, the larger bulk landers hovering around the perimeter risked making their runs.

Each of the larger craft held several hundred guardsmen, and they came in low over the city's airship mooring station, which offered a large and fairly open expanse of cloud. With their rear ramps open, they hovered down as low as they could, and the slavering hordes within began jumping and dropping the few feet to the surface below. Rifle and machine-cannon fire from the defenders pinged off of the craft and picked off a few soldiers as they disembarked. As each lander emptied itself, its jets throbbed and it climbed away, being replaced by the next in line, more eager troops leaping into the fray. All of them raced through the city, linking up with others from the dropship forces, all heading for the same location.

Twilight turned away from the windows, unable to watch the slaughter any longer. Dozens of enemies were cut down by accurate rifle fire, but in return, ponies were dying. Machine-cannon fire from the gondola of the Starswirl pummeled the square, ripping men apart as they charged, but for each one who fell, two more loomed from the shadows, baying and chanting rhythmically, brandishing an astonishing array of weaponry, from rifles and lasers to axes, knives, clubs and even, in one or two cases, ceremonial spears carried by the Canterlot Royal Guard. A bright flash lit the sky as one of the dropships exploded, struck by a shell from one of the airships. Celestia and Luna entered the room, along with Cadence and the other Elements.

'It seems we are their target once again,' Celestia commented. 'They know we are here. Somehow, they sense us...the Elements, our magic, I do not know.' An explosion rang out along with a few screams.

'What do we do, Princess?' Twilight asked, casting a nervous glance at her fellow elements. They were once again being dragged into harm's way and it hurt Twilight to see them so afraid- though she knew her own face betrayed similar emotions. The princess, however, bore a hardened grimace.

'We fight,' she replied simply. Rarity and Fluttershy looked at her quizzically. Though they had seen Celestia duel with Queen Chrysalis and knew the stories of her struggles with Nightmare Moon, 'fighting' was simply something the princess did not do. It was not in her nature, so far as any of them knew. She was benevolent, not violent, peaceful, not bellicose. But sometimes, circumstances dictated that those qualities be discarded.

'Keep your friends here,' she cautioned Twilight. 'If the Elements are what they seek, then they will not fire upon you.'

'Wait, where are you going, Princess?' Twilight gasped. 'You can't go out there!' She risked another glance at the carnage outside.

'What I cannot do is stand idle any longer while my subjects die to protect me,' Celestia replied. 'It should be the other way around, no?' She nodded grimly to her sister, who returned the gesture, before the elder sibling simply disappeared in a flash of white light, eliciting gasps from the six young mares. Twilight looked around frantically for her mentor.
'Outside!' Applejack gasped suddenly. 'She's outside!' Despite her earlier reluctance, Twilight bounded over to the window, quickly joined by her friends.

On the steps of the town hall below, among the guards, among the common militia of the city, stood their princess. Her ethereal mane and tail flashed and fluttered in the breeze, dancing under the glare of the searchlights. The red beams of death flickered across the square, a new target presenting itself, but even as Twilight gasped, she saw that they had no effect. Fire able to slice through the barriers of any other unicorn, of any airship crew, even of the Canterlot shield, simply flashed brightly and harmlessly, seemingly against nothing, a few inches from the princess. A ragged but hearty cheer went up from the surviving defenders at the sight of their leader. An equal roar of bloodlust and hatred arose from the traitor guardsmen in the square, the last sound they would ever make.

Celestia's horn glowed, first white, then gold. The Chaos troops charged in, weapons raised.

Lieutenant Atter, of the the 4th Hydraxian Regiment, peered through his magnoculars at the battle raging for the floating cloud city, a concept he had never encountered before. Though across the Imperium there were countless worlds with aerostats, high-buoyancy airborne hab-balloons and low-orbit helium extraction platforms floating within the atmospheres of gas giants, they were all constructed with metal, plastic, composites- yet somehow these ponies had managed to make water vapour solid enough to build structures upon. The city stretched out below him, lit by fires and flashes of gunfire. The spotlights along the rails of the upper deck of the ENS Starswirl were blazing beside him, mostly focused on the city's central square. As the human spotting team assigned to the airship, he and his deputy, Sergeant Mons, had a bird's-eye view of the battle raging. Or should that be Pegasus-eye view, he mused. Equipped with magnoculars, viewing scopes, range tables and a vox set, the two-man team had been directing fire onto the enemy positions below the floating city, but now sat helplessly, as there were no friendlies still alive at ground level, and the airship's bombardment cannons couldn't be used against air targets. The pony anti-air gunners, however, were proving surprisingly effective, and the Lieutenant heard Mons give a small grunt of approval as another Chaos dropship blew itself apart.

'Looks like they got another,' he commented. Atter nodded. 'Uhuh, uhuh...' He hadn't noticed, as his attention had been drawn back to the town square. 'Hey, look at this. In the square, steps of the city hall.' He gestured for his deputy to take a look with his own scope, as a large, white pony had appeared, standing almost twice the height of those around it. 'What's that? Where did he come from?'

Mons checked out the situation through his magnoculars. 'I dunno...huh, you sure it's a he? Looks more like a she to me...either way, what the hell's she doing? Just standing there like that?'

Atter had a funny feeling. 'I think...I think that must be their princess. The airship crew said she came here when the capital fell, right?'

'Yes sir...is she trying to get herself killed?' Mons questioned. 'Don't tell me she's trying to negotiate with these scum?' He snorted derisively. 'What kind of leader won't fight for their...'

His thought was cut short as both men observed a sudden glow from the large pony's horn. Before either of them could question it, a sudden burst of golden lightning erupted from it, leaping instantly across the square. it struck the nearest Chaos trooper and he immediately turned to fire. The crackling energy didn't stop there, instead jumping violently from man to man, spreading like a spider's web across the square, entire platoons of charging fiends being struck and immolated in a heartbeat.

'By the Emperor...!' Mons gasped. 'What sorcery is this?'

She's a psyker, Atter thought. And a powerful one, it would seem. While a few Imperial sanctioned psykers, after years of training, could achieve somewhat similar effects, most of them were driven to gibbering lunacy in the process, and certainly none but the hardiest Space Marine Librarian or Grey Knight could focus their attack in such a way, to skip from enemy to enemy while entirely avoiding those around them whom they did not wish to harm.

Nor would many be able to immediately follow it up the way the pony princess did. A strong beam of golden light poured forth from her horn and smashed straight into the side of a bulk transport that was climbing out from the mooring field. It smashed straight through the plasteel and ceremite plating and burst forth from the other side, all but bisecting the lumbering craft. Flames blossomed from within as fuel lines and plasma conduits were severed, and the vessel simply dropped from the sky, leaving a trail of smoke behind. Another blast from the princess struck a dropship and melted its tail, and was immediately followed by another, and another, and another. Each potent psychic shot brought down another Chaos craft, sending dozens of men spiralling away to their deaths.

'Emperor preserve us...!' Mons muttered, watching the sudden slaughter. 'Be glad she's on our side...at least for now.'

Atter could only nod, both surprised and concerned by the apparent psychic outburst. He peered through his magnoculars back in the direction of the white pony. There she still stood, as seemingly unmoved by her actions as a statue of her might appear to be. Chaos troops were in sudden retreat, not something often conducted by the forces of the Dark Gods, yet both around the square and in the skies above, they were running away. He was snapped back to reality by a shout from Mons.

'Sir! Sir!' he called urgently. Atter looked round. Mons was holding up the vox handset.

'I'm getting something on the vox, sir, it's faint but it's there! A message!'

Look North

Twilight Sparkle came to the conclusion that she didn't really, truly know her friend, mentor and princess after all. She had stared in fear as Celestia stood unflinching before the enemy, in shock as she retaliated, and in horror as she had massacred dozens, perhaps hundreds, of humans in mere seconds. Though her common sense and historical knowledge told her that the princess must have fought, must have killed, in the past to keep Equestria together, to see such violence unleashed by one which she thought- no, she knew- to be a kind, gentle and pure soul, had shaken her. The purple mare sat on one of the camp beds in the guest room, trying to process what she had just witnessed, while her equally stunned friends and a stern-faced Princess Luna stood nearby. Even Rainbow Dash, always enthusiastically bombastic about such displays of firepower from the Equestrian airships and Imperial gunships alike, looked shaken.

'That should hold them at bay for now.' Luna spoke up, breaking the stunned silence in the room. 'But my sister and I both fear they will come again. We do not know exactly what they seek, or how they knew where to look...but it does not bode well.'

Twilight gave her a startled look, amazed at the calmness of the moon princess, but quickly reasoning that she of all ponies would have cause to have seen her sister produce such violence before. She swallowed a few times to compose herself before speaking.

'What...what if they're coming for her?'

'Then my sister will continue to fight,' Luna replied. 'She has never submitted to any creature, and she will not start today. She will resist, and so shall I, as long as we draw breath. We do not subjugate ourselves, whatever the odds may seem to be. Spirit, Centaur, Changeling, Draconequus, Human...we have fought the good fight many times, and whatever may come to test us, ponies live free, and if necessary, they die free.'

Twilight nodded slowly. Her words had merit, and once more, she knew that Luna of all ponies must understand the value of that freedom, and of fighting to retain it. 'Yes...yes, o-of course. You're right, princess...we're all with you...both of you.'

Luna nodded, and was about to speak again when an urgent knock came at the door, followed by a Pegasus Guardspony bursting in. 'Your Highness! Urgent message from the Starswirl!'

'...I say again, this is Major Harding, 2nd Brigade of the 40th Parvian Lancers, to any friendlies on this net. Please respond if you are able.' The crackling message repeated once more as Lieutenant Atter, together with his deputy, presented the vox-set to the pony princesses, sharing a concerned glance with each other as they knew that the white pony at least was capable of snuffing them out of existence in a heartbeat should she so desire. Celestia listened to the short broadcast before addressing Atter.

'The Parvian Lancers, they are one of your units?' she asked, her sister by her side.

'Yes...uh, Your...Holiness?' Atter proffered, having never dealt socially with a princess before and unsure how to address her correctly.

'Your Highness will suffice,' Celestia corrected him. 'Where is this unit stationed?'

'In the north of this continent, Your Highness,' Atter replied, offering a small bow by way of apology and hoping that bowing to a Xenos was not sufficient evidence to be considered heresy against the Emperor. 'They were to conduct...ah, combat operations against a group identified as the 'Griffons...' Do you know of them?'

Celestia nodded sagely. 'Indeed. The Griffons are erstwhile enemies of Equestria, but we have been at peace for a considerable time and, while not exactly allies, we consider them to be a neutral nation toward us. From the report given to me by your Captain Soren, I understand that the Griffons allegedly attacked and overran your first contact party, hence your aggression towards them?'

'That is my understanding as well, Your Highness,' Atter replied. 'Due to the...uh, conditions, we have had no contact with the northern forces until now. In...in the absence of orders I considered it prudent to not respond directly to the communication without higher approval...' He paused, unsure if continuing was the correct course. 'In the absence of any Imperial command authority, I...felt it appropriate to inform you and to...to act under your orders until such time as I can reestablish contact with my own superiors,' he concluded, feeling sure suborning his allegiance to a strange pony on a strange planet would be considered grounds for his execution, but having no proof the signal wasn't merely an attempt to deceive, easily arranged by Chaos forces.

Celestia nodded again. 'I see...do you know of this Major Harding?' she asked the young Lieutenant.

'Not personally, Your Highness, no, but I do know he does command the Parvians' second brigade. If we reply, we can challenge him with the daily sign and countersign, as well as his personal codes...we will be able to discern if we are truly speaking to the Major or if it is a deception. But it we ignore the message, we may be passing up our only chance for reinforcements or even just information about the course of the fight,' he explained. Celestia pondered a moment before replying.

'Very well. If you subject yourself to my command for the time being, then I order you to make contact with the Major. Establish his identity and, if he is trustworthy, obtain what details you can from him as to the situation.'

Atter found himself saluting reflexively at the pony princesses' authoritative tone. 'Yes, Your Maj...Your Highness!' he corrected himself. He picked up the vox handset and keyed the mic.

'Attention unit transmitting on this net, this is Lieutenant Atter, 1st Brigade, 4th Hydraxians. We receive your transmission. Swordsman, repeat, swordsman.' He released the mic and waited. After a moment, the reply came.

'PIledriver, Piledriver.'

Atter gave a nod towards his deputy before keying the mic again. 'Understood. Authentication One-Zero-Gamma-Psi-Niner.' He let go again and waited.

'Authentication Two-Six-One-Epsilon-Delta.'

He gave another nod, this time to the pony princesses. 'It checks out, Your Highness. The codes are correct.'

'Very well, contact your Major. Obtain what information you can,' Celestia ordered.

Atter keyed the mic again. 'Sir, it's good to hear your voice. I am speaking to you from the city known as Cloudsdale...I have with me the leader of the Equestrian nation, Princess Celestia. We have come under sustained and heavy assault by traitor forces. The Equestrian capital has fallen, I have no contact with other Imperial ground forces, and I have no contact with the fleet. What is your situation, over?' After a few moments of crackling static, a reply came.

'Lieutenant, you're damn welcome up here. Thought we were alone. We are located in the city these locals call Griffonstone, northwest quadrant 45. We engaged in minor skirmishes with the local inhabitants before we got word of the traitor forces' arrival. Things are...let's just say, 'unstable' here, but we're holding fire at the moment, pending further orders...I was gonna say you won't believe that these things speak Gothic, but you say you're in contact with the pony leader?'

'That's affirmative, sir,' Atter replied. 'You can, uh...speak with her if you desire.'

'I think I'll stick with you for now, Lieutenant,' the Major replied. 'I have no contact with the fleet. One of these creatures just showed me a map. Looks to me that this Cloudsdale you speak of is about 600 klicks south of my location. Do you have any transport?'

'Yes sir...well...that is to say, I'm aboard a transport, but it's...not Imperial,' Atter replied. 'It's an Equestrian airship, a dirigible.'

'Huh, a local craft? Well, can you use it to get up here? Linkup will be possible and we need all the help we can get, it seems,' Harding suggested.

Atter glanced at Celestia. 'Not without permission from the Princess, sir...but if you're looking for Imperial reinforcements, it's just me and my spotter, I'm afraid.'

'Ah. That's too bad, son. Any local forces?' Harding asked. 'We have a sizeable Griffon contingent up here...can't believe I'm saying that, but there it is. We're relying on Xenos for support, Emperor forgive us.'

'So are we, sir,' Atter responded. 'There are a significant number of, uh...Pegasus? Pegasees? Pegapodes? Uh...a significant number of pony forces here, sir. They're defending the city against the traitor forces...you oughta see this place, sir, it floats, but it's made of cloud...but it has buildings on it...'

'Pull yourself together, man! You're talking out of your arse,' Harding admonished the young officer. 'Look, we're up here in the north, there's a few thousand of us, plus a few thousand of the locals, I'd guess. What might be important is that they have an observatory.'

Atter blinked. 'An observatory, sir?'

'Yes, as in, it observes the stars,' the Major answered. 'It might be of some help in determining if our fleet is still up there or not. We've garrisoned the surrounding area under a temporary truce with the King of the Griffons, but he seems skeptical. After all, we did try to invade his kingdom, albeit after they fired first. I think it would go a long way to calming things if you could get some other local leader involved. Namely, your horse princess.'

Atter looked at Celestia again, as she raised an eyebrow. 'Ah...yes, sir. If you'll give me a moment, I'll talk it over with her...' He put down the vox handset. 'Your Highness...'

'I heard,' Celestia nodded. 'At this stage, we need all the assistance we can get, and linking up with a significant number of your soldiers would be a good first step. I am reluctant to leave this place, there are many innocents here...however, its inhabitants can all fly, and those that are young or infirm could be carried aboard out airships if needed. Now that it seems the enemy are capable of landing on the city itself, it will be considerably harder to defend than we imagined, especially since we are running low on supplies. Lieutenant, please inform your Major that we shall be proceeding to his location with the utmost haste and that we will be carrying civilians.'

Atter found himself saluting again. 'Yes, Your Highness...' He picked up the vox. 'This is Atter. I have spoken to the Equestrian Princess. She has agreed to move north to support you with all her forces. We shall be accompanied by a large number of non-combatants. If you detect any airships on your auspex, I would advise you not engage, over.'

The departure was slower than Celestia would have liked. Despite the chaos and violence that had engulfed the city, there were many thousands of citizens to be evacuated from Cloudsdale. The Assault Division and militia had swept the remaining buildings, suffering numerous casualties in the process but clearing the city of Chaos presence. The three airships hung in close proximity, blaring out evacuation messages from their loudspeakers, warning the populace to prepare to leave at once. There was little time to waste, as nopony knew when the enemy might return. the young and old alike left their shelters and cellars, urged by the warnings issued with Celestia's own voice. The airships were available, the message said, to transport the infirm, the young and the elderly, while the able bodied Pegasi were instructed to flee, to fly north to the Griffon Kingdom, where possible protection awaited under Imperial guns. A steady stream of ponies flapped into the skies, with most preferring to leave at once under cover of darkness, and not wait for the convoy. Others gathered on the mooring field and the town square, among the charred human corpses, waiting to be loaded aboard.

Aboard the three airships, crewponies were bustling to prepare, to clear space below decks for the wounded and old. Though there were still some civilians, the population of Cloudsdale had been significantly diminished by the friendly fire incidents and the mass enemy landing, as those Chaos units not killed at the square had been able to roam free despoiling and pillaging until they were purged by the Pegasi Assault troops. Those unable to make the flight to safety by themselves were being carried aboard by the strong hooves of the Pegasi crew, as the airship captains all agreed they dare not risk mooring up in case of another sudden attack. The Chaos troops on the ground, out of range of the airship's cannons, would not be expecting an evacuation, and nor could they interfer with it as their anti-air weaponry could not penetrate the shields of each craft.

Aboard the Starswirl, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, the Elements and the human liason team stood on the top deck, observing the situation under the glare of the searchlights. The gun decks were being kept clear for action, with refugees and wounded being ushered to the main troop carrying hold and any available store room or other nook where they might be unobtrusive. The flight to Griffonstone would take, at top speed, around eight hours, and everyone wanted to be away before dawn.

'Captain Lance?' Celestia called, addressing the Starswirl's commander, a white Pegasus with a yellow mane and tail.

'Your Highness?' he replied, trotting over.

'Are we ready to depart?' she questioned, having seen the first glimmers of light tracing the outlines of the distant eastern mountains.

'Almost, Your Highness,' he replied. 'Another ten minutes and everypony should be aboard.'

Celestia nodded. 'Very good, continue the boarding procedures. I want us underway as soon as the last pony is on the deck.' Lance saluted.

'Yes Your Highness!' He turned to urge his crew to speed things up. As well as ponies, a few stores were being loaded, spare ammo for the anti-air cannons being a priority as all three airships had diminished their stocks significantly engaging the Chaos dropship flotilla. The machine-cannons and deck guns and, on the two other specialised craft, the two-pounder rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns were reloaded; stores and passengers sequestered below; hatches battened. At four-fifteen in the morning, Captain Lance gave the orders to his crew.

'Engine room! All ahead one half. Helm, set course 320, destination is Griffonstone. Signals, message the convoy to get underway, V-formation. Shields up, searchlights off, damage control teams to standby, all gunners and lookouts to your stations.'

A quickly ringing bell alerted the crew, and the airship responded to his orders. The propellers began to spin, the prow came around, signal lamps flashed orders to the other craft. Slowly, ponderously, the Starswirl came about, turning away from the floating city it was leaving behind. Sniffles and sobs echoed through the windowless holds as the civilians left behind a city they could no longer see, and possibly never would again.

'All ahead full!' Lance ordered. 'All ahead full, aye!' came the response, and the drone of the engines became a throaty roar as the taps were opened, pushing the dirigible to its top sustainable cruising speed of 76mph. A few twinkling strings of ineffectual tracer fire arose from the enemy positions below, but since they had retreated from beneath Cloudsdale the airships were already at the limit of their effective range, and getting farther away. Having expended all their missiles, the captured Manticore batteries remained silent and impotent as the trio of large craft receded into the darkness, leaving Cloudsdale empty and abandoned save for the bodies of the dead.

After three hours of charging north through the lightening sky, the airships were passing over Lake Greatmane, a large body of water separating the edge of northern Equestria from the southern border of the Griffon Kingdom. A cloudless sky overhead let light dance and sparkle across its surface, like a glass of champagne eight thousand feet below them. While the airships could climb to nearly twice that height, the operational ceiling was applicable to carrying a healthy, fit and trained crew, and not elderly or newborn passengers. Lookouts kept a constant watch, both from the deck and from stations manned by Pegasi aloft on the gasbags. Below decks the galley staff handed out water and basic ration packs to the refugees crowded into the holds. The buzz of the engines had just about been tuned out by most of the passengers, including Twilight Sparkle, who weaved her way through crewponies towards the quarterdeck where Princess Celestia stood. The mentor noticed her student coming, and moved to greet her.

'Twilight. How are things below decks?' she asked, the concern for her citizens evident in her tone and expression.

'Cramped, but...ponies are managing,' Twilight replied. 'They're getting some food now...just think, having breakfast on board an airship. Some ponies would have paid a hundred bits for the privilege before all this.'

'Indeed.' Celestia nodded. 'Conditions are rather more spartan on board than they are on those cruise airships,' she noted. 'We shall be in Griffonstone in a few hours. We must just hope that the Griffons have somewhere for these refugees to go. They have lost their homes.'

'And they might have lost their lives too, if..if you hadn't...done what you did,' Twilight added, with a glance up at her mentor. 'I saw you...I saw you do things I've never seen you do before, Princess. You...you killed those humans, and...'

'And?' Celestia's gaze was stern. 'When ponies who depend on you are in danger, would you not have done the same?' Twilight had a sudden flashback of a memory she had seemingly repressed over the last day, of her horn glowing, of a streak of light filling a corridor, of two of the human soldiers crying out in anguish as they were caught by her fury, by her desire to protect her friends.

'I...yes, but...' Twilight stammered. 'It's just that...I saw you fight Chrysalis, and I know you fought with...with your sister...but this just...it was different. To me, at least. I've never seen you kill...' She trailed off.

'And you should be thankful of that,' Celestia replied, the stiff breeze whipping across the deck causing her mane and tail to flow elegantly out like a pair of signal flags. 'It shows that, despite how things may seem, you live in a peaceful time when ponies coexist peacefully with almost every other creature on the planet,albeit reluctantly sometimes. You know that I would do whatever is necessary to protect my subjects, Twilight. They rely on me, they want me to guide them, to protect them, and in the past, I have. But then these aliens came, and we spent the first days of their invasion running, while others did the fighting for us. I know you are not a soldier, Twilight, you are not trained to kill. But I know you can, and you do, fight. You fought against Discord, against Sombra, Chrysalis...I could continue. But as powerful as they all were, this is a different set of circumstances. They were individuals. Chrysalis had an army of tens of thousands, but Captain Soren told me these humans have entire armies of tens of millions. Planets with populations in the tens of billions. He said their own census bureau has no idea of the true population of their Imperium because they are simply too numerous to count. No doubt some of his words were mere propaganda, but he made similar claims about the enemy we face. These humans possess technology beyond our comprehension, and it seems to be more than a match for most pony magic. They have airships that travel faster than a sonic rainboom, vessels that travel between the stars...you have seen for yourself what they can do against our soldiers, and I sat by and let my subjects die because your brother and the other chiefs of staff insisted that the safety of my sister and myself were paramount. So we did not fight, we did not lead the charge. We hid, and then we ran. That ended last night.'

Twilight slowly nodded. 'I...I understand, princess. It's just that I'd never seen you do something like that before. It was...scary. The power...and, their red beams. They punched right through the city shield at Canterlot. How did they not hit you?' she questioned.

'Alicorn magic is not the same as normal pony magic,' Celestia replied. 'It is both different in nature and greater in strength. Even yours, as powerful as you are, pales in comparison. I...'

She was interrupted as a shout cut across the deck, being relayed from crewpony to crewpony. 'Contact! Contact!' Suddenly a bell began to ring and the crew burst into action, as if a great spring that had been winding had suddenly been released. Captain Lance, beside the helm, roared out. 'Battle Stations!' Ponies galloped to run out the guns, manning the machine-cannon. Hatches to the lower decks were slammed and secured, while signal flags flashed the message to the escorts. A more detailed report came as a pegasus flapped down from one of the topside lookout posts.

'Captain, airborne contact astern! Half a dozen unknowns, closing fast!' Lance brought his binoculars up to peer through while issuing a string of orders. 'Raise shields! All ships are to prepare for anti-air operations. Keep the civilians in the holds but be prepared to evac them if necessary. Firefighting teams are to standby bow and stern. Recall the lookouts.' Ponies rushed to obey. A small cluster of unicorns gathered on the deck, but Celestia trotted towards them, leaving Twilight alone. 'Go to your combat posts. I shall handle the shield.' She turned back to Lance. 'Signal the other airships. Tell them to deploy their unicorns for attack. I will protect the flotilla.'

Lance nodded. 'Yes, Your Highness.' A quick gesture set a pony signalling to the other ships. Celestia stood in the middle of the deck and her horn glowed. A large ball of golden magic sprung up, encompassing all three of the airships in their entirety. Within a few seconds, a string of six black dots were visible astern, high above the flotilla but descending rapidly. In moments they were set upon, a flurry of red beams slicing across the sky. Twilight cringed, but the beams smashed into the shield and simply dissipated. The attacking craft raced overhead, followed a second later by the massed howl of their engines, numbering a dozen between them and all but merging into one in their intensity. The pony gunners, caught out by their speed, had no time to fire on their first pass, but as they split off into pairs and looped around again, the machine cannon opened up, chattering away and spraying shells skyward. Lance ordered the formation to break into line astern with their broadsides facing the incoming enemy, and the ponderous ships hove to. The rapid fire guns of the two escorts began spitting explosive rounds towards the hostile flyers, black puffs dotting the cloudless sky. Fire leapt from the wings of several of the aircraft as missiles streaked in, detonating harmlessly against the shield. The fighters again raced away overhead.

Twilight managed to contain her growing panic. She reminded herself that the pony weaponry was attuned to fire through the shield, and Celestia's magic appeared to be withstanding not only the rockets, but the red beams as well. The Starswirl turned, and she was suddenly momentarily deafened as the starboard broadside of the heavy anti-air cannon roared, slinging shells towards the enemy as they came again. This time something, a shell from the Starswirl or a round from the rapid-fire guns of the Canterlot, found its mark, and one of the enemy craft disappeared in a boiling orange cloud. Cheers went up from the gun crews even as more missiles and heavy kinetic cannon fire pattered off of the shield like a summer rain. Again they came, and again, but none of their weapons could penetrate the defensive shield, even the red beams finding no success.

Their ammunition replenished before leaving Cloudsdale, the pony gunners blazed away at their targets, bringing down another, then another, as the increasingly frustrated human pilots threw themselves at their targets with increasing abandon, determined, by hook or by crook, to bring them down, but frustrated at every turn by Celestia's shield. Another fighter detonated in mid-air, leaving a large black cloud that gradually tore itself apart as the winds tugged at it. The two survivors pulled away, seemingly in retreat, which drew another cheer from the deck crews. However, they soon wheeled around, and began to fire from range, pumping red beams out continuously, fruitlessly singing the magic shield. Missiles and cannon shells joined in, causing a cacophonous effect inside the shield, as if it was a giant bell being rung. But nothing got through, and the impotent jets roared by, pursued by black puffs of smoke from the anti-air guns. As they came in yet again, another broadside from the Starswirl deafened Twilight once more, and this time it found its mark. One of the remaining aircraft was struck bodily by a heavy shell, and found itself one wing lighter than it should have been. It spiralled away, trailing smoke, dropping out of sight, though those intrepid enough to peer over the guardrails would have seen it end its plunge in the waters of Lake Greatmane.

The final craft roared by and raced away, again seemingly fleeing. But its pilot, half-crazed both by the resistance of these pathetic creatures and by the cocktail of combat drugs pumped into his system as part of the pre-flight rituals to the Dark Gods, came around again. He was out of missiles, he was out of cannon shells. His lascannon powerpack was drained. But he still had one weapon left. Fire erupted from his engines as he opened the throttles to maximum, afterburners kicking in and pushing his jet past the sound barrier. A few subtle adjustments to the stick lined him up, the largest airship in the middle of his crosshairs. Spittle flew from the corners of his mouth as he let out a manic laugh.

The jet streaked towards them, but didn't fire. Nor did it pull up, or dive beneath.

'He's gonna ram us!' somepony shouted.

'All hooves, brace for impact!' Captain Lance roared, grabbing onto the railing nearby. Twilight gasped and flung herself to the deck, covering her head with her hooves and waiting for the worst.

There was a cataclysmic crash, followed two seconds later by a sudden roar as the sound of the jet's engines reached her after it had already died. She blinked, and looked up. The shield was intact, and hadn't even flickered under the huge kinetic impact of the ten-tonne fighter travelling at more than twice the speed of sound. Another, resounding cheer rose from the crew at the death of the last of their enemies. Celestia dropped the shield as, at least for now, they were safe.

Griffonstone

The Griffon lands were notably cooler than the more temperate climes of Cloudsdale and Ponyville. The deck crews of the airships were rotated hourly, as the bitter 75 mile-per-hour wind whipping in from prow to stern quickly chilled ponies working in exposed positions. The civilians were kept below decks, in the darkened, creaking confines of the main holds. Lookouts clad in cold-weather gear maintained a constant watch as the trio closed in on the Hyperborean Mountains. On the Starswirl, the human's vox-set crackled into life.

'Lieutenant Atter, this is Major Harding, how copy?' The Lieutenant sent Mons to alert the princess and picked up the handset.

'This is Lieutenant Atter, go ahead sir.'

'We're picking up three large Auspex contacts approaching the mountains approximately thirty miles south of us, slow moving, in formation, altitude eight thousand. I'm assuming that's you?'

'Affirmative, sir,' Atter replied. 'We're approaching the mountains now.' He peered ahead through the biting wind, glad of his protective goggles. The mountains looked forbidding- though not as tall as some of the peaks of the Foal Mountains to the south, they were far more rugged in appearance, a foreboding lack of vegetation on their slopes, the treeline seemingly stopping dead just a few thousand feet up and being replaced by patchy snow. Where the snow had not accumulated, dull brown rock showed through, littered with scree and heavy boulders carried down by glacial melt, avalanches and rockfalls. Here and there, notably atop some of the peaks, ragged flags fluttered, torn and ravaged by the weather, bearing what may have been signals, warnings, or merely denoting the border between Equestria and the Griffon Kingdom, Atter could not tell.

'Copy that. Some kind of interference is limiting the range of our scanners. Possibly metal deposits in the mountains or some such, should have picked you up much farther out. We'll standby for your approach. Our liaison advises you to take the main route through the Pass of Glentora and to keep above ten thousand feet. He says the pony navigators will know it. He says they'll have a pilot standing by to bring you in. Our triple-a batteries are standing by to cover your approach. Fine work with those traitor jets, by the way.' Harding had been informed by vox about the air battle and its outcome. 'You say this princess of theirs put up some kind of...personal void shield?' he questioned.

'Yes sir, that's right,' Atter replied. 'She's a psyker, of that there's no doubt. Back at Cloudsdale, we saw her wipe out an entire...I don't know how many, at least a company's worth of traitor infantry in a heartbeat, then she took down one of their bulk landers with some kind of psychic beam...'

'And they made a psyker their leader? I tell you what, son, everywhere I've ever been in this galaxy, one thing remains the same. Xenos are damn crazy.' He allowed himself a small chuckle. 'Keep tabs on her, Lieutenant. I don't have to remind you how dangerous psykers can be.'

'Yes sir.' The Lieutenant paused a moment. 'Sir, if I may...every time I've been close to one of our sanctioned psykers in the past, I've always gotten the same...symptoms, I guess you'd say. My hair stood on end, I felt like someone was watching me, i felt nauseous...but their princess has been aboard this airship with us for eight hours, and I've not felt any of those symptoms, sir. I don't know what that means, I just...thought I ought to say it.'

Harding grunted before replying. 'It might not mean a damn thing, Lieutenant. Just be careful. You know that even if a psyker is supposed to be on our side, that doesn't mean he'll end the day without killing some of our own. Too unpredictable, too uncontrollable. No reason to think this Xenos is gonna be any different. I'll expect you in Griffonstone within the hour. Harding out.'

'Yes, sir. We'll be there,' Atter assured him as Mons and Celestia approached. He turned to the white mare. 'Your Highness. I have just been in contact with the Major. He says the Griffons instruct us to take the Pass of Glentora and to stay above ten thousand feet. Pilots will be waiting to meet us and guide us in.'

Celestia nodded and gave her order to Captain Lance. The message was quickly relayed to the other ships, along with instructions to move to line astern formation for the tight mountain pass ahead. The airships cut their speed and climbed to eleven thousand feet to remain above any potential obstacles as they navigated towards the Pass of Glentora, a narrow cut between two crooked peaks. Large banners fluttered from both mountaintops, though they had been almost shredded by the wind.

'Griffon territorial boundaries,' Celestia explained, seeking Atter's gaze drawn to the flags. 'We will be leaving Equestria momentarily.'

'Will the Griffons be pleased to see pony aircraft within their borders, Your Highness?' Atter asked.

'Under normal circumstances it would be considered an act of war to penetrate their territory with military airships,' Celestia replied. 'But of course, these are not normal circumstances. Given the nature of events over the last few days I would imagine they will be far more glad to see us than they ever imagined they could be.'

Atter nodded. He knew that the Imperium itself was no stranger to internecine conflict- there were instances of Guard fighting PDF, Astartes fighting Guard, divisions between the High Lords, the constant standoff between the Ecclesiarchy and the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as countless thousands of civil wars and disputes between houses, tribes or even entire star systems. But, as humanity learned time and again, nothing unified squabbling groups like an existential threat, and he felt it likely that these Ponies and Griffons would feel the same.

'When we arrive I shall meet with this Major of yours, and the Griffon King. We shall discuss our next steps,' Celestia continued in a commanding tone, as if she were used to issuing orders to humans as well as ponies. 'I am sure the Major will be able to find a role for you.'

'Yes, Your Highness...' Atter nodded. As far as he knew his Regiment had been wiped out, but the Parvians could surely use all the help they could get.

In line astern, the ponderous airships slipped into the pass, greeted by a trio of flying Griffons, pilots to guide their passage, one for each craft. Rock walls loomed on both sides, but the pass had been selected deliberately for them to make their approach. The Griffons used it for their own, considerably smaller, military airships to approach the capital, but it was sufficient even for the vast, bloated cargo airships that plied the trade routes between the two nations. The Starswirl's gasbag was slightly longer than even those behemoths, but it was enough for them to snake through. In places where the pass narrowed, it had been widened with explosives over the years for extra clearance. At several points along the high cliffs, lookout towers and observation posts had been erected, and beady eyes could be seen peering down, watching the stately progress of the huge craft, the Starswirl in the lead with the Canterlot behind, and the Vanhoover bringing up the rear. After minutes in the Stygian twilight of the pass, the canyon widened and light blazed forth, the sun's rays rounding the prominence above and shining down upon them. Ahead of them lay a plateau, and atop it lay a city.

Griffonstone was the capital of the Griffon Kingdom, and while it lacked the splendor of Canterlot, what it offered instead was a reflection of the nature of its inhabitants. Perched atop a mountain plateau, sitting in a mountainous bowl in the shadow of any number of forbidding high peaks, surrounded by barren slopes and often whipped by vicious winds, the city nevertheless endured. It was simple, it was squat, it was hardy. It had no time for ornamental architecture, for needless complication, for style over substance. It was there, it had always been there, it would always be there, and like its namesake resident species, it would take no shit from anyone.

The city was constructed simplistically, with mostly stone structures of one or two stories, as wood was scarce in the mountains. More banners and flags fluttered from almost every building. A short distance from the city on the plateau, three Imperial bulk landers and a number of smaller dropships and shuttles were parked up, along with a stubby Griffon airship. The practiced eye would have detected the string of Manticore SAM systems and Hydra AAA vehicles dotted around the plateau and surrounding hillsides mixed with the Griffons' own ground-to-air cannon, the trenches and firepits dug into the snow and rock outside the city, and even a few tanks augmenting the defence. Atop the second-tallest of the nearby peaks stood a domed structure, fast-moving wispy clouds scudding around it, swirls of crystalline snow being picked up and carried like confetti.

The civilian population of Griffonstone, those not enrolled in the militia, were bewildered by the turn of events. First they were attacked by an unknown enemy, then that enemy stopped fighting and joined forces with them, and now ponies were in town. While the arrival of Equestrian military forces within the borders of the Kingdom would normally be a cause for concern, given the circumstances many Griffons found themselves reassured by the sight of the familiar Equestrian standards fluttering in the breeze. At least ponies were a known quantity- not always friendly, but at the very least, they were of this planet.

The Griffon pilots guided their charges out of the canyon and towards the plateau beside the city, used as a mooring field. Griffons, grey and brown winged creatures with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion, were a hardy race, and their ground crews strutted through the snow with no protective gear, fluorescent guide batons directing the descent. Each airship was assigned a parking spot, and the ropes and ground anchors went over the side, grabbed and secured by the Griffons below. Engines buzzed as they fluctuated between forward and reverse pitch as each airship steadied itself. Once mooring was completed, their engines were cut entirely, and peace returned to the plateau.

The royal party was met by both human and Griffon personnel. Major Harding, a gruff, grizzled 20-year veteran of the Guard and its frontier battles, was clad in his combat gear, the usual Parvian grey matching most of his short hair, and augmented by a white snow jacket and coverings for his boots and helmet given the mountainous nature of their theatre of operations. Even without the winter gear, his uniform would have contained no badges of rank like many regiments wore; as a veteran he was well aware that even something as simple as a small Aquila, stripe or diamond on the collar or lapel could draw a sniper's attention like a red rag to a bull. A lasgun was slung over his shoulder and a plasma pistol and combat knife adorned his belt; no armchair officer was he.

Accompanying him, alongside his vox-officer and escort, were several Griffons, an Honour Guard both for Celestia and their own King, Garston, who trotted out resplendent in his unnecessary finery, a gold crown atop his head similar to Celestia's but far less understated. A purple cloak fastened with a golden clasp in the shape of the Idol of Boreas, the sacred Griffon relic said to unify their nation. A jewel-encrusted scabbard with Griffon-forged sword within hung from his right flank and completed his ensemble. He pointedly spoke first, before the human had a chance.

'Greetings, Your Highness!' He extended one claw for her to shake. 'Many moons have passed since you and your sister came beyond our borders. Let us hope your next visit will be under less trying circumstances.' His voice was suitably deep for a half-eagle, half-lion hybrid.

'Good day to you, Your Majesty,' Celestia replied, accustomed to dealing with such formalities but hoping to brush over most political niceties today. 'It is always a pleasure to speak with you and to visit your lands,' she replied, with a considerable veneer of practised diplomatic lies. 'As you say, circumstances are not ideal...I suggest we skip the formalities and proceed straight to a military briefing.'

'Now here's someone who talks sense,' Major Harding interrupted. 'You must be Princess Celestia?'

She nodded. 'Major Harding, I presume?'

'Correct,' the human replied. 'Now, let's get down to brass tacks here. It looks like we're in the shit.'

The military briefing, held in the King's palace within Griffonstone, showed the gravity of the situation. Most of Equestria, so far as could be determined, was in Chaos hands, including Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, Baltimare and Fillydelphia. Griffonstone was secure for now, as were the two other major Griffon settlements of Griffongrad and Griffonia, their mountainous location providing added natural security. Harding explained how the Imperial fleet was in orbit around the planet but were cut off by a warp storm- a concept that the ponies had never encountered but quickly understood, at least at a fundamental level.

'We can't land reinforcements until we can break through that warp storm,' Harding explained, driving home the point as the royals stood around a large map of the Griffon lands, deep within the palace, the walls lined with decorative rugs and furs. 'We're on our own down here until it dissipates, assuming it ever does.'

'How long do these storms typically last?' Celestia asked.

'Years, decades, centuries.' He shrugged. 'Who can say? The whims of the warp. That is, unless they're being specifically maintained by someone or something.'

'How do you end such a storm?' Luna questioned. 'Is there some scientific way to cause it to break up or move away?'

'If there is, Imperial science has yet to discover it,' Harding responded. 'We've tried expanding Gellar fields, we've tried concentrated engine exhaust to burn through it, we've tried cyclonic torpedoes. Nothing's ever worked.'

'You say these storms, they block communications from both directions, yes?' Celestia pondered.

'That's right.' Harding nodded. 'No signals, in or out. Might as well be a black hole. Matter of fact, I thought they weren't supposed to even let sunlight through...'

'Perhaps our sun is different. Do you think, Major,' Celestia posited, 'that if your fleet were to somehow get a message of any description, however...vague it may seem, that they would react to it? That is to say...if something were to suggest that leaving orbit might be the best course of action?'

The Major raised an eyebrow. 'What? Why would they leave orbit? They came here to take this planet...' he stopped himself. 'That is, until we established that there was, ah...a greater threat. Now that threat is trapped here below their own storm, and I'm sure the Lord-Admiral will want to be waiting for it when it re-emerges.'

'I am sure he would,' Celestia nodded. 'And does he not also care for his trapped soldiers?'

Harding snorted. 'Not only is he a Lord, he's also an Admiral, what do you think? Although I will say this for him. For a Navy man, he seems a lot more genuine that most I've met. Most spacers just look at us infantry as cargo, as if they were lugging iron ore around...or fresh meat is more like it. I never quite got that impression from him.'

'I see.' WIth Harding's negative comments, Celestia was reminded of Grand Admiral Bluewater and his pet vanity project, of whom no word had been received since the Equestrian navy sortied several days earlier. 'He would abandon you to die here?'

'Maybe. But Lord-General Galen, that's a different story. I tell you what, princess, I'm proud to serve under a man like that. A father to his men. Unfortunately, the Admiral is in command of this crusade.'

'Crusade?' It was Celestia's turn to raise an eyebrow. 'I thought this was an exploratory mission, Major.'

'You can call it what you like,' Harding replied with a shrug. 'Doesn't change the facts now. We're stuck down here together unless those storms lift. Call me a pragmatist, but I don't much care who I fight with as long as it it fraks over those traitor scum. Guess it's not so different from fighting with the Eldar.'

'Indeed...' Celestia didn't sound particularly enthused and had no idea what an Eldar was, but continued on. 'You mentioned an observatory before, correct? Please take us there as soon as possible. My sister and I wish to observe this storm and the enemy for ourselves.'

The Griffon National Observatory, or GNO, was located atop the windswept peak of Mount Glory. It had been recently completed, as the Griffon interest in astronomy was a recent discovery, coinciding rather coincidentally with the completion a few years ago of the Equestrian National Observatory in the Foal Mountains to the south. The large concrete structure was topped with a metal retractable dome from whence the large telescope could emerge to observe the skies. The few Griffon scientists, trained, ironically, by their pony counterparts, took their recordings and made their reports on the space phenomena they observed, often distant galaxies. Today, however, the telescope was looking closer to home.

Celestia, Luna and Twilight gathered around, while Harding and his escort of stormtroopers kept a short distance back. The huge telescope loomed above the ponies as one of the Griffon scientists manipulated it. 'And a little...more...there we are, Your Highness!' The Griffon stepped back, and Celestia took his place to peer through the eyepiece.

Much of the warp storm and its effects were not visible to the naked eye, but nevertheless a coruscating, pulsating band of dark purple and black energy rippled in the viewfinder, hanging many miles above the planet. In appearance it was not entirely dissimilar to a magical storm back at ground level, but from the magnification marked on the side of the viewfinder it was clear it was vastly greater in scale. Luna and Twilight took their turns observing the unusual phenomenon.

'I must say, Your Highness,' the scientist observed, 'I have been studying astrophysics for...oh, a whole year, and I've never seen anything like this before. I'm at a loss to explain it! It's not a nebula, it's certainly not dark matter or else we couldn't see it. The humans say it is a 'warp storm,' but I've attended numerous classes at the Manehattan Institute of Technology and they certainly never mentioned anything about that!'

'There have been a lot of new discoveries recently,' Luna commented dryly. 'Aliens, for one.'

'Can you show us the enemy ships?' Twilight requested. The scientist nodded eagerly and bustled to obey, recalibrating the telescope and moving it around. 'There. There's one.' The ponies again took turns observing. This time the viewfinder was focused on a large, dark grey object, several miles in apparent length. The telescope offered good magnification and clarity, and countless protuberances could be observed jutting from the main body- sensor vanes, gun turrets, torpedo tubes, life pods, thruster nozzles and any number of entirely ornamental and architectural beams, angles and even sculptures and gargoyle-esque designs.

'It looks like a castle,' Twilight muttered. 'And it's in space? That's...that's crazy! It's enormous!'

'I've counted at least two dozen of those things up there,' the Griffon scientist replied. 'Differing sizes and mass, but all of a broadly similar shape. If they're real, the science behind them must be...incredible!' Twilight could only nod in agreement.

'Do you have any weapons that can harm them?' Luna turned to Harding as he stood nearby. He shook his head.

'Not from the surface. Such weapons exist but we have none planetside. Even if we did the rest of the fleet would finish us off in a heartbeat.'

'But if your fleet could get through the storm, they could defeat the enemy ships?' Celestia questioned.

'Depends what kind of state our fleet is in. We've had no contact with them. They might be completely frakked.' Harding shrugged, evidently a habit of his. 'But if they're in half decent fighting shape, then yes, they certainly can. If there's one thing those spacers can do, it's fight. They've been doing it for millennia.'

'Millennia? Your space crews live that long?' Luna questioned.

'What? Oh, no.' Harding chuckled. 'Thank the Emperor, insufferable bunch of bastards they are, wouldn't want anyone to have to put up with them all that time. Besides, can you imagine living for that long?'

'But of course,' Celestia replied. 'I myself am two thousand, six hundred and fourteen years old.'

Harding blinked a few times. 'Uh...I guess your years have fewer days than ours, in that case.'

'Perhaps. Come, we should return to the palace. I have seen what I wished to see,' Celestia added. 'The King no doubt grows restless.' Luna nodded.

'No doubt. He seems confident in the abilities of his militia. It is a confidence I do not share.' Harding and his escort led the way out of the observatory, starting down the narrow path towards the plateau and the town below.

That was when the heavens fell.

With a flash out of nowhere that lit the sky, something blazed down and an immense fireball erupted across the plateau. Several seconds later, the loud crack of the strike followed immediately by the roar of the explosion reached them. One of the Imperial bulk landers had disappeared, wreathed in flame. All eyes turned skyward as another flash brought another crashing detonation.

'Son of a bitch...!' Harding cursed through gritted teeth. 'Orbital bombardment! Get down!' he urged, diving to the ground along with his escorts, a token gesture against the power being unleashed. The ponies remained standing.

'We must protect the town!' Celestia shouted. Hurry, gather around me!' Another lance strike ripped through the sky and vaporised a small cluster of dropships. Snows on the plateau melted several hundred feet from the impacts, while clouds overhead evaporated as the immense heat passed by them. Another blast came in as the ponies gathered round. Celestia's horn immediately glowed and a protective shield sprung up around Griffonstone. Luna joined in, her magic reinforcing the barrier. Twilight, taken aback by the sudden violence, took a few moments before adding her own strength to the attempt.

Another lance blast smashed into the plateau, destroying the remaining bulk lander and tossing smaller dropships about like toys. Another struck, and then another, and then there was silence.

Several minutes passed while they held the shield up, but no more strikes came. The Imperial craft lay shattered and broken, burning wreckage strewn across the landscape, but the town remained intact.

'Why aren't they attacking the town...?' Twilight breathed. 'They had time, they caught us by surprise...why didn't they hit it before we raised the shield?'

'I fear what I said before is true,' Celestia said, lowering the shield. 'I fear they come for us.'

Major Harding and the other soldiers slowly regained their feet as the vox crackled. 'Major!' the vox-officer shouted. 'We have incoming!'

'

Buying Time

Major Harding burst into the Imperial command centre, set up in the basement of the palace at the behest of King Garston. Auspex screens and chart tables were dotted around and a mass of cables wound their way across the floor. Captain Halix, the second in command of the Parvian detachment that had actually made it to the planet before the battle in space had begun, saluted.

'Sir, we have incoming from orbit. Auspex shows drop pods on a course for the town, we're reading six tracks. A further fifty tracks indicate dropships or shuttles. ETA for first impact is two minutes.'

'Son of a bitch...' Harding grunted. 'All defences on full alert. Launch the Valkyries if there are any left. All air defence units are clear to engage as soon as contacts are in range.' Halix hurriedly relayed the orders, which went out to the frontlines. Men scrambled into their trenches. Safeties were flicked off. Gun barrels and missile tubes were traversed skyward. The two surviving Valkyrie gunships roared into life, standing by at quick reaction stations, and clawed skywards, swinging away into side valleys to hide from enemy sensors.

Above ground, Celestia and Garston were issuing orders to their own forces before hurrying down to the Imperial command below. The Griffon soldiers were all issued with similar repeating rifles to the pony troops, but a large amount of their civilian militia had nothing more dangerous than a spear or sword, with a smattering of crossbows. Their forces were deployed within the city, behind the frontlines in anticipation of a potential ground attack. The royal guard contingent joined them, guarding the palace where their princesses were located. The Pegasi Assault troops were assigned to high spots, rooftops and ridges. The three airships, having escaped being targeted and protected from shrapnel and blast by their hurriedly erected magic shields, were rapidly cast off from their moorings, their engines whirring as they climbed free from the plateau. The smaller Griffon ship joined them in taking to the skies as the first drop pods arrived.

The small metal cylinders scythed down through the sky, their undersides glowing orange from the fires of atmospheric entry. A few Manticore launchers blasted missiles skyward to intercept. smashing one of the pods to pieces. But the others came on, and the first three pods smashed into the plateau, sending up fountains of snow. Their side panels blasted off, courtesy of explosive bolts, and death stormed out.

Celestia and the Griffon King arrived in the palace bunker, a hive of conflicting reports, shouted orders and semi-organised chaos. The pony princess sought out the Major, who was directing efforts over the vox.

'Major!' she called sharply.

Harding glanced round. 'What is it?' he growled, having no time to respect her status even if he had the desire to do so.

'I have a plan. A plan to get your fleet back into this fight. But you must buy me time. Keep the enemy away from the palace. I would ask you assign a soldier with one of those communication devices to me, that I may keep in touch with you and with the King.'

Harding shook his head in disbelief. This horse princess, who seemingly had no knowledge of the nature of spaceflight or modern communications technology a mere hour ago, now had devised a plan to contact the fleet and end the warp storm? The Major had little time for such games, but felt obliged to humour her in order to keep her out of his hair and keep her forces fighting the archenemy. 'Fine, fine. Whatever you say. Take...you there!' He pointed to a junior Lieutenant comms officer. 'Grab a vox set and go with the Xen...with the princess. Let me know if she actually does anything worth reporting.' The Lieutenant saluted.

'Yes sir...' She went off to grab a portable vox as a sudden flurry of reports came in of the first drop pods landing. Celestia trotted away, following the wary human officer. Luna was waiting at the top of the stairs, and the elder sibling stopped to address her.

'You know what needs to be done, sister. Take command of our forces. Keep the enemy away from the palace while I enact the plan. It may have been concocted in haste, but I am sure it will work. However I am unsure how long it will take...it will require a high level of precision.'

'Of course, sister.' Luna nodded. 'We will buy you the time you need.' Celestia lowered her horn to cross it with Luna's, a sign of love and respect among unicorns and Alicorns alike. Then she was gone, trotting rapidly away. Luna climbed the stairs to the main entrance and emerged into the light of her sister's sun.

On the snowfield, not far from the burning remains of the Imperial landers, the drop pods disgorged their passengers. In a broad sense they were human, but to be more accurate, they were Astartes. Traitor Astartes to be exact, fallen superhuman warriors lost to the dark powers, who betrayed their people and their Emperor to serve Chaos. Towering over regular humans even stark naked, their suits of Power Armour lent an extra foot or two to their impressive height, and the ceramite and adamantium plating provided protection against all but the strongest blows. Weaponry that could shatter a main battle tank would often struggle to penetrate such armour, and even if it did, the superhuman within could take punishment that would reduce a normal man to a bloody paste. On top of that, the Thousand Sons storming onto the battlefield could count the blessings of their daemonic patron, Tzeentch, the Chaos God of Change. His foul sigils, along with the eight-pointed star of the archenemy, adorned their blue-and-gold armour, bolters clutched in their armoured gauntlets, thirty Chaos Space Marines stepped onto the pristine snows with murder on their minds.

'Command, command! OP 4! Marines! It's the marines!' someone screamed. 'Traitor Marines! Do you copy?!' The vox was alive with reports, and there could be no doubt. The fallen Astartes were upon them. Major Harding closed his eyes for a moment. 'We have contact, drop pods! Marines!' 'Enemy contact, Chaos forces...Astartes!' Units on the west flank were panicking at the mere sight of the enemy. A hail of las-fire and bullets met the marines, and didn't even faze them. Their bolters flashed brightly, flinging high-explosive rounds at the defenders. Missiles roared from the trenches, bringing down several of the advancing figures even as the remaining pair of drop pods slammed down within the Imperial lines, one of them shattering the cobblestones of a wide street and the other caving in the roof of a building.

More traitor marines burst forth, guns blazing. A dozen Guardsmen went down immediately, caught from behind by the sudden arrival of enemy forces inside their defensive perimeter. Las-fire pattered harmlessly against their armour as they began their advance, intent on rolling up the western defensive line from behind and linking up with their brethren outside the town. A few of the Griffon militia charged fearlessly, flapping towards the strange creatures in their midst. It was the last movement they would ever make, as they were left shredded on the ground, ripped apart by the mass-reactive bolts. A missile screamed from a house nearby, blowing the legs from one marine. In return a hail of bolts smashed the wooden structure, followed up by a gout of roiling fire as one marine opened up with a flamer. Several Imperial troopers ran screaming from the inferno, cut down as they fled.

'They're inside the lines!' 'Enemy forces in the town!' 'Emperor preserve us, they're everywhere!' Panicked voices crowded the airwaves as the command centre's vox sets relayed the news. The battle plan was quickly unravelling as the sock attack from the heavens had its desired effect- it was sowing panic and confusion among the defenders.

'Son of a bitch...' Harding muttered. 'Pull troops from the eastern flank and get them over there! Pull back Gamma platoon and deploy them around the palace, reinforce the cordon. And keep those triple-a skyward. We still have incoming,' he reminded his subordinates. The marines may have arrived first, but they were not the main force being deployed against them. They were, however, proving just how effective the Chaos elite could be. What I wouldn't give for a squad of loyal Astartes right now, Harding mused.

On the snowfield, the Marines advanced steadily, firing from the hip, targeting computers within their suits guiding their aim. Imperial defenders went down, pinpoint shots blasting holes in them. Tanks in the line roared their defiance, smashing several marines to pulp with heavy battlecannon shells and bursts of heavy bolter rounds. A missile spiralled in as a response, and one of the tanks went silent, smoke pouring from its turret ring.

A sudden pillar of dirt and snow erupted from the ground, sending one marine tumbling. As it backed away from the plateau and maneouvered, the Starswirl's main bombardment cannon began to reload, even as its smaller deck guns, those that could be traversed far enough, fired, smaller explosions hammered the advancing enemy. Bolt rounds and a missile rose to engage the airship, but detonated harmlessly against the magic shield. From the other flank came a hail of rocket fire as one of the Valkyrie gunships swooped down, pounding the marines and peppering them with multilaser and heavy bolter fire, killing one. But they were closing in on the Imperial line, and worse, they were closing on it from behind as well.

Corporal Claas, an experienced guardsman of the Parvian 2nd Brigade, was afraid. He had fought tyranids, he had fought orks, and he had even fought Chaos before. But he had never fought the Traitor Marines, and now he could only imagine that was the sole reason he had lived as long as he had. The devils were marching, marching through a hailstorm of defensive fire. He peered over the lip of his trench again. Sure enough, they were still coming; not sprinting, not running, just calmly advancing as if they were out for a stroll in the park. Nothing seemed to faze them. He watched as a lascannon punched a hole in the torso of one marine, expecting him to fall. But he just carried on, bolter blazing. A string of explosions erupted along the line of advancing death as one of the pony airships unleashed a broadside. And still they came. The Valkyrie flying close air support swung in again, ripple-firing its remaining rockets and pummelling the snowfield. And still they came. Claas fired his own lasgun in a futile effort. And still they came.

And then the cry went up.

'Contact rear! Contact rear!' someone screamed. 'They're behind us!'

Claas turned and peeked over the parados of the trench. The town was meant to be secure, but he could see at least three of the blue-and-gold devils moving, advancing, cutting down some of the hapless Griffon militia who were trying to charge them with spears.

'Oh, Emperor no...' he breathed. Surrounded by traitor marines was not a good position to be in. One of the tanks nearby swung its turret around to engage the new targets, but with a sudden hiss and a whooshing roar, the vehicle simply exploded as one of the marines unleashed a burst of melta-fire on it, the superheated fusion blast simply melting straight through its armour and detonating its ammunition. Claas flung himself to the bottom of the trench as shrapnel filled the air. When he dragged himself to his feet again, he saw one of his squad still standing in his firing position, leaning against the trench wall. It took a moment before he noticed the man no longer had a head, it having been removed in its entirety by a bolt round.

Claas stumbled back and fumbled for his lasgun, picking it up. Smoke flowed into the trench from the burning tank and he could see little. He could still hear gunfire, though its intensity had slackened. He moved down the line to try and locate the platoon Sergeant or an officer, looking for orders. Instead, he found his death.

Through the smoke above the trench, a hulking figure loomed. Claas looked up and raised his rifle instinctively. His blood quickly froze in his veins and his finger refused to pull the trigger, overcome by a fear that surprised him. He had fought the ravenous hordes of Tyranids and the slavering Ork brutes with courage and conviction. He had been afraid, of course, but he had never known true fear, never the certainty that he was going to die, until this moment, and of that there could be no doubt, for he knew it as an absolute fact.

The Traitor Marine pulled his trigger, and proved Claas right.

Lieutenant Albaran was confused. She didn't know what she was meant to be doing here. Chaos was attacking, the archenemy was at the gates, and she was...standing around aimlessly while some Xenos horse princess put on a pretty light show? The situation had been bizarre enough beforehand; fighting alongside alien forces on a strange planet. Albaran had been uneasy to say the least about the unholy alliance, but she had to admit that for some reason, being in the presence of this princess had eased her fears somewhat, though she couldn't place exactly why. But she seemed to be wasting time- did the Major not need her in the command centre? Why had he given her this assignment when it seemed to have no obvious purpose?

The pony was a psyker, that much was clear. Before the arrival of their airships, the Major had given a briefing to his officers informing them of that fact and urging them to be cautious around her. 'Psykers are dangerous,' he had reminded them. 'Xenos are dangerous. Nobles are dangerous. Put them all together and Emperor knows what might happen.'

But now Albaran was just waiting. Waiting for what, she didn't really know. The Major didn't have time to explain, and the princess seemingly didn't have the desire. She stood in the centre of the main banqueting hall of the Griffon palace, eyes closed, her horn giving off a rich, golden glow. But that was it. Nothing was happening, so far as Albaran knew. So she stood waiting, the vox set beside her, ready to report to the Major as soon as something, anything, actually occurred.

'Sir! Report from observer team 1. The western line is breaking!' a comms officer shouted. Harding swore. Observation Team 1 were Atter and Mons, aboard the pony airship Starswirl. If the western line broke, the Chaos marines would be free to link up and storm through the western districts of the city, which was still full of civilians. Their lives meant nothing to him, but they might distract the marines long enough for the Imperials to redeploy troops from the other flanks to reinforce the inner defence line, a second ring of steel within the town that held the palace at its centre.

'Order all troops from the eastern line to pull back to the inner cordon,' he commanded. 'Status on those airborne contacts?'

'We have them on Auspex, sir. Altitude now 300,000 feet. They'll be in missile range in three minutes,' came the reply from the anti-air officer.

'Very good. Clear to engage as soon as they enter range. Bring as many of them down as you can,' Harding ordered. 'Captain Halix?'

'Sir?' The Captain looked over from the chart table where he was mapping the enemy positions.

'I want you to head topside. Take command of the inner defences. If we can bring down enough of their dropships we might just have a chance.' Halix saluted.

'Yes sir. We'll hold the line, you can count on it.' He handed over the marker device to a subordinate and headed for the stairs.

Harding observed the map for himself. It didn't look good, and it was only going to get worse. Doubt we'll survive the day, he thought. Only a miracle can save us now.

On the eastern snowfield, the high tracks and the ridgelines around Griffonstone, Imperial air defences waited. The Manticores at least had had their first taste of action engaging the drop pods, but the Hydra gun crew with their much shorter range were still tense, eager to get into the fight.

As the Chaos Marines raged through the western perimeter of the city, their reinforcements were descending from orbit. Dropships and shuttles, considerably slower than the drop pods, brought down nearly two thousand men, traitor infantry made up of rebels, hardened criminals, cultists and defecting PDF or Guard soldiers. Though their numbers were lower than that of the forces defending Griffonstone, they expected the marines to have ripped a large hole in the defences, through which they could strike. The marines had been able to open up the ground defences, but the anti-air batteries were too widely spaced around the 'cauldron' formed by the peaks and ridges for them to attack. This ring of steel was still standing ready to engage, and the Imperial targeting officers rubbed their hands in glee as the main landing force came into range, a cluster of red blips on their targeting Auspexes.

One after another, the heavy interceptor missiles heaved themselves free of their launch rails and blasted skyward, pillars of smoke and flame marking their passage as they rose to greet the uninvited guests. Each of the half-dozen launchers fired off two of its missiles. The ponderous shuttles overhead had no chance of evasion, but the somewhat more sprightly dropships that were the unlucky recipient of an illuminated missile warning light began to try and jink as best they could at high altitude with sluggish control surfaces due to the thinner air. Dispensers released clouds of chaff to try and throw off the radar locks, with limited effect. The missiles struck home and half a dozen dropships vanished, bursting into fiery trails streaking across the sky as a hundred men were extinguished in a moment. Two of the larger shuttles were also struck hard, the proximity fuses of the missiles warheads blasting out a cone of shrapnel that shredded their ailerons and smashed thrusters and anti-grav units. One shuttle spiralled away out of control, while the other rolled almost lazily over as it began its earthward plunge. Two missiles were diverted by the chaff and exploded harmlessly in mid-air, but the two final warheads found their marks and two more dropships were knocked out.

Some of the launchers had fired at the earlier wave of drop pods, but those that had remaining missiles fired again, another round of high-altitude attacks for the landing forces to deal with. Another three dropships were destroyed as they descended rapidly, braking thrusters flaring as they reached the troposphere. Their missiles spent, the Manticore launchers were rendered impotent, as reloading them would take too long to be performed during combat. The enemy aircraft dropped lower, swooping down over the high peaks and using them for cover to approach the town. As they crested the final ridgeline, however, they came within range of the Hydras.

The heavy rapid-fire quad autocannons on the eight Hydras protecting the town opened up with a sound like tearing canvas. Hundreds of shells were hurled into the sky like steel rain. As the dropships appeared, they were met by the onslaught. Several went down almost immediately, smashing into the snow-strewn mountainsides in flames, pummeled by the high-explosive rounds. The enemy pilots dropped to the deck as fast as possible to escape the fire. A few ducked below the rooftops and were able to land their troops near the eastern edge of the town, where the defence lines had been heavily thinned due to the redeployment to protect against the marines' incursion. A trio of gunships escorting the dropships opened up as they climbed over the ridge, missiles racing from their rails and knocking out two of the Hydras in retaliation.

Small arms fire from a few scattered positions, including Pegasi snipers on nearby high points, met the invaders as they disembarked. A couple went down, while the others quickly spread out to find cover as their dropships opened the throttles and roared away overhead, one taking a hit from a burst of flak and staggering before falling, demolishing a two-storey house as it bounced and rolled before bursting into flame. More dropships snuck in under the barrage and landed their cargo before pulling away. The slower shuttles began to crest the ridge, presenting themselves as easy targets. Several of the Hydras took advantage and peppered one of them with heavy shells. It bucked and tried to weave and evade, but was far too cumbersome to do so successfully. The combined fire of twelve rapid-fire autocannon shredded the shuttle and it slammed into the snowbank with a thud, breaking in two and exploding. But as the first was being targeted, the second was able to slip through and land. An entire company of infantry rushed down its boarding ramp to join the fight.

There were only so many Hydras, and with at least two of them trying to track and destroy the enemy gunships before they came round for another pass, several shuttles and more dropships got through. More soldiers made planetfall, eager to fight and kill. The Imperial position had shifted, from holding the whole city to focusing their efforts on defending an inner ring around the palace. Despite Major Harding issuing a general fallback order, several groups of Griffon militia and infantry, either accidentally or deliberately, were never informed, and found themselves cut off and massacred. With the Chaos Marines now inside the city, the pony airships, joined by their Griffon counterpart, turned their attentions to the aerial threat. The deck guns and machine-cannon of the Vanhoover and Canterlot engaged the nearest dropships, while the Starswirl swung about to bring its bombardment cannon to bear on the new enemy landing zone. Once it was lined up, a huge gout of flame roared from the barrel as the cannon lobbed a heavy shell, sailing across the city with a sound like a passing locomotive. It slammed into the snowfield to the east of the city and annihilated one of the infantry squads heading for the buildings. As another shell was being loaded, one of the Chaos gunships raced around a rock pillar and opened fire, a dozen rockets being unleashed at the large airship. They burst harmlessly against the shield and the gunship roared by, pursued by puffs of smoke from the rapid-fire guns of the Canterlot. The aircraft swung around and came in again. This time, however, its target had switched to the Griffon craft. As Griffons had no magic, and the ponies had no unicorns to spare, their craft was unshielded. Though it mounted half a dozen cannon on anti-air mounts, they were not rapid-fire like those aboard the two pony City-Class ships, and when the first broadside volley missed, the gunship struck. Rockets streaked from the pods beneath its stubby wings, smashing into the gondola. Unlike the pony airships, the entire gondola was wooden and had no metal armour, and the rockets punched straight through, a string of explosions running their way along the port side. Fires caught hold rapidly, beginning to burn freely on the side of the gondola. Griffon firefighting teams took to the wing and went over the side in a vain attempt to combat the spreading blaze. As the gunship pulled away, a hail of fire from the Canterlot greeted it, punching holes in its starboard wing. It limped away trailing smoke, but it had done its work.

With a sudden blazing flash, the magazines of the Griffon airship detonated, ripping the gondola to pieces. Shrapnel punched through its unarmoured gasbag, which immediately ignited. The inferno rapidly spread along the entire length, the contents blazing like the sun as the remains of the airship began to slip back and down, losing altitude rapidly. It struck the edge of the plateau and tipped over the edge, dropping out of sight and landing with a cacophany of crunching girders as the metal skeleton of the gasbag smashed into the gorge below.

Twilight and her friends could hear the battle rage, hear the gunfire and the explosions and the scream of jet engines. But they were powerless to help, both because of a lack of combat experience and because Princess Celestia had ordered them to stay in the palace, with a squad of Royal Guard outside their door, inside the ring of steel the humans had thrown up. Both she and Luna feared that the Elements were the target of the enemy- they were not attacking merely because the humans were present, or because it was a population centre. The pattern of attacks had followed them across the land, and rapidly, too. Furthermore, while at both Canterlot and Griffonstone the enemy had made use of orbital strikes, they had been targeted, specific, not designed for total destruction- just enough to bring down the city shield, specifically aimed to destroy the Imperial craft and not the town- too much of a coincidence. It was clear they wanted something or someone specific, and given that the Elements had been crucial in defeating Discord, Chrysalis and Sombra, Chaos, Deceit and Tyranny personified, it seemed that the enemy wanted to either possess them and use their powers for evil, or do destroy them to forestall a threat against themselves. Either way, Twilight was sure none of the Elements would allow that to happen, whatever the cost may have to be. She looked around at her friends, her best friends.

Steadfast Applejack, the hard-working rock around which the group gathered, the one who would never give up, never complain and never lie.

Gentle Fluttershy, by far the least warlike of the six but the one with the kindest heart, the biggest heart, and the warmest soul.

Elegant Rarity, her level of generosity belying her name, the one who would do anything for a friend in need no matter how grand or how trivial.

Zany Pinkie Pie, the one who anypony could turn to when they needed a smile, the one who would always be able to brighten the darkest day.

Bellicose Rainbow Dash, the first to leap to the defence of her friends, the last to back down from a fight, the one who could be relied upon to always be there.

And finally Twilight Sparkle- leader, genius, star pupil of the sun princess- and completely helpless.

She sighed nervously. Their room didn't even have a window, so she couldn't even gaze out at the fighting for some distraction from her own helplessness. The battle raging was, yet again, of a scale far beyond anything she had experienced before these humans came, beyond anything most ponies could ever remember. And maybe- just maybe- it was all happening because of them.

Hold The Line

Sergeant Argan eyed the street outside warily. Strings of the strange Griffon creatures were making their way from the burning western district of the city, some with panic in their eyes, some with fear. The Sergant's eyes, meanwhile, held little but contempt for the Xenos he could see out of the window. They were small, disorganised, dirty, technologically primitive, and more to the point, they were simply not human.

Though as a good NCO, Argan always obeyed orders given by his superiors, he still had to wonder exactly why the situation had developed the way it had. Yes, they were cut off from the fleet, and from other Imperial forces on the ground, but was that really grounds for consorting with Xenos? More immediately, would their odds of survival actually increase by fighting alongside these things, rather than simply massacring them and occupying the town fully by themselves? The Sergeant knew that the operational considerations were the purview of those with stars on their shoulders rather than stripes, but couldn't help feel angry at the fact that, as always, it was the poor bloody infantry that would suffer regardless. He took another look outside.

His squad held a two-storey stone structure at the head of T-Junction. It seemed to be some kind of dwelling, judging by the squalor of dirty rags and palliasse-type bedding, with straw piled in one corner of the room Argan was currently in, on the second floor overlooking the junction. The civilian Xenos were coming from the west, along the stem of the T, towards the junction, thence turning left to head north to the fortified district around the palace. His squad of ten were holed up in the house- they had a vox-set, a heavy bolter on a pintle mount set up in one of the upstairs windows, and a missile launcher on the floor below. Enemy contact, company HQ had informed them, was to be expected at any time from the west. Indeed, gunfire could be heard from that direction, with an occasional puff of smoke coiling up over the rooftops from some grenade or missile detonation. Argan watched the Griffons stumbling and flapping towards the illusory safety of the palace and the protection of their king. Who is just another filthy bird-alien like the rest, only this one wears a crown, Argan thought. He had met the king as his squad had formed part of the honour guard for Major Harding when they agreed their temporary ceasefire upon the arrival of the Chaos forces planetside, and he had not thought highly of him. Just like most human nobles, I'll give him that. So stuck up his own arse he really thinks he can make a difference here. And now there's some horse princess, came in on her fancy airship? I bet she thinks the same. Two for the price of one. Nobles are always the same, even alien ones. Argan spat on the floor, keeping an eye on the street outside. I knew a princess once. Well, I saw a voxcast about her. She made the mistake of trying to negotiate with Ork invaders. Her head ended up on a spike outside their camp. Don't think anybody knows where the rest of her went.

The ranks of terror-stricken Griffons on the street were thinning, a few stragglers here and there, some wounded, some wandering shellshocked, aimless. The sounds of battle to the west had ceased, only silence from that direction now, though crackling small arms fire could still be heard away to the east and north. Argan brought his magnoculars up and scanned the street. One or two of the bird aliens scurried or flapped along, casting panicked glances behind them. He noticed they were wearing the armour of the Griffon military. Deserters. I should probably shoot them myself, he mused. Then again it would be a waste of ammunition. A final Griffon scampered around the corner and fled, leaving the street deserted.

'Alright, easy boys,' Argan muttered. 'We could be in contact any second now. Keep your eyes peeled and sing out the second you see anything. If it moves, blow its head off.' A chorus of approval answered him from his squadmembers. Each man manned a window or doorway, covering the street, keeping a close watch for any sign of the enemy.

They didn't have to watch for long.

'Contact front!' someone shouted. Sure enough, two hulking figures had appeared at the end of the street.

'Open fire!' Argan shouted, and his squad complied. Las-fire lanced out down the street and the heavy bolter chattered, kicking up cobblestones and spurts of dirt around the hostiles. Both of them began to advance, and within moments they were joined by three more, and together they returned fire.

Bolter rounds slammed into the stone house, blowing chunks from its facade. The missile launcher roared, its projectile slicing down the road and narrowly missing one of the targets who neatly sidestepped. Argan summoned the vox-trooper and grabbed the handset.

'Forest Gamma 1 actual, this is Forest Gamma 1-1 actual,' he called, attempting to alert his platoon commander. 'Enemy contact, I say again, enemy contact, west of our position. Enemy is advancing, we are engaging, over.' After a few moments, a crackling reply came.

'Forest Gamma 1-1 actual, this is Forest Gamma 1 actual. Copy that. Engage and destroy enemy forces. Do you require reinforcements, over?'

Argan looked out of the window again. Despite filling the street with fire, the enemy was still advancing.

'Yes sir,' Argan replied. 'Contacts are traitor Astartes, over.'

'Understood. The rest of the platoon are on their way to you,' came the reply. 'Hold the line, Sergeant. Forest Gamma 1 actual out.'

Argan wondered if the platoon would arrive before the enemy. Another glance out of the window told him it would be close. The five marines were pushing forward, unheeding of the fire being thrown their way. The las-rounds pattered off their armour fruitlessly, and only the heavy bolter and missile launcher had a chance of bringing one down. A return volley of bolter rounds blew holes in the building wall, showering the men inside with chunks of stone, plaster and a fine coating of brick dust. A strangled yelp came from downstairs as someone was hit. The missile launcher fired again, a streak of fire crossing the street in a moment.This time one of the marines wasn't quick enough, and was struck bodily on the chest, knocking him back. But he did not fall, instead he soldiered on with his brethren, smoke curling from the edges of a ragged hole in his armour.

'We can't stop them!' one of his squad shouted.

'Calm down, man!' Argan roared. 'Remember your training. Aim and fire, aim and fire. That's all that matters. Keep shooting and we'll bring them down.' He brought his own gun up to his shoulder and squeezed off a few rounds, aiming at the wound inflicted on the marine struck by the missile. His aim was true and the las-fire singed and cauterised the exposed flesh beneath, but it was not enough to stop the wounded marine. His bolter blazed and more holes were smashed in the wall next to Argan, who flung himself to the floor. A trooper at the next window was not so lucky,and a bolt removed most of his head and sent him tumbling.

Argan picked himself up and peeked up over the windowsill, just enough to get a look at the road ahead. The marines were still coming, showing no regard for taking cover behind doorways, in alleys or behind carts. They were content to simply walk at a steady pace, each stride carrying them nearly twice as far as a normal man would cover. The heavy bolter in the next room drew a bead on the injured marine and pumped a dozen explosive rounds into his torso. He staggered and fell, crawling forward before another burst blew the back of his helmet, and his head, away. But his fellows avenged him immediately, a withering hail of bolt rounds smashing the walls around the heavy bolter, killing its loader and wounding the gunner, a bloody stump replacing his left arm. The gun itself was knocked from its mounting. He grabbed his covering vox-trooper by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over, taking the handset.

'Forest Gamma 1, this is Forest Gamma 1-1 actual,' he called into the vox. 'We need those reinforcements ASAP. What's your ETA, over?'

'Forest Gamma 1-1 actual, this is Forest Gamma 1,' came the reply from the platoon HQ's vox-trooper. 'We are en-route to your location, ETA is five minutes, over.'

'Better make it three, 1-1 actual out.' Argan tossed the receiver back to his vox-man and risked a glance outside again. They were still coming. A missile struck the leading Astartes in the weaker knee joint and blew off most of his right leg, but he simply began firing his bolter from a prone position while crawling forward steadily.

Better make that two...

The last of the Chaos dropships were making their landing runs, disgorging troops on the snowfields north and east of the city in an attempt to outflank the defenders completely. Several more were brought down by the Hydras, who in turn suffered the loss of another of their number as one of the Chaos gunships sprung up from seemingly out of nowhere behind an outcrop and let loose with a missile that detonated the ammunition, and the mobile AAA went off like a fireworks display, shells popping off in all directions and sparks flying.

With approximately two thousand infantry on the ground as well as the Marines, the Chaos forces advanced, tightening the noose around Griffonstone and its defenders. Men, Pony and Griffon alike occupied their defensive positions, whether well-prepared trench, hasty street barricade or commandeered house, crouching, watching, waiting. Troops were pulled back from the eastern flank, including tanks, to meet the onrushing Traitor Marines coming from the west, leaving the eastern district bare of defences. The enemy forces were able to sweep into the city unopposed, but not entirely unmolested. Several small bridges that crossed glacial streams and small gorges within the city were detonated by explosive charges, sending them tumbling and limiting enemy mobility. The humans had had time to plant several small minefields, all their resources would allow, on the snowfield, which claimed several more enemies before they reached the city limits. The Chaos infantry crossed the abandoned trenches and were inside the city, advancing from both east and west towards the palace and the inner defensive ring. The enemies isolated on the northern snowfield, however, were denied support and faced the fully manned Imperial defences. Pinned down and taking heavy losses, a red flare went up from the beleaguered assault troops.

The two surviving Chaos gunships responded. Staying low and using the rock formations for cover from the remaining Hydra guns, they swooped in, finding an angle. Rocket and cannon fire strafed the Imperial trenches, smashing earthworks and killing several unfortunate troopers. Las-fire stabbed skyward after them. They wheeled round for another pass, unleashing death on the defenders, but this time they were heading straight for the airships.

A rippled broadside from the Vanhoover met them, along with their rapid-fire top deck guns. Flak erupted around them, the two VTOL aircraft jinking as they ran the gauntlet. One of them let loose with a volley of rockets against the Vanhoover, stopped cold by its shield. They stayed low and sprinted for the cover of the surrounding mountain peaks, below the angle of the airships' guns. They were not, however, out of reach of the Imperial Valkyries.

One popped up from where it had been lurking in a dark gorge, its sights set on the trailing Chaos gunship. Its heads-up display tracked the enemy, displaying a firing solution for the pilot. A quick burst of careful maneuvering set them up behind, and the Valkyrie's multilaser flashed. The first few shots missed and the Chaos pilot jinked about to try and shake his pursuer, ducking behind protruding cliffs and diving towards the gorge below. But the machine spirit of the Valkyrie was in a hunting mood, and soon the multilaser began finding its target, peppering the gunship's port wing and engine. Smoke billowed from it, washing over the cockpit glass of the pursuing Valkyrie. The pilot went in for the kill, multilaser spitting fire as the damaged enemy tried to nose down too close to a ridge to escape. The belly of his craft bounced off of the sharp rocks, ripping it open, pieces of the stricken gunship pattering from the nose of its pursuer. Another burst of multilaser fire smashed into the tail, and the pilot lost control, the Chaos craft dropping, dropping, dropping...and exploding, bursting into a dazzling fireball on the pristine snows of the lower slopes.

'Break left, break left!' the port door gunner shouted into his intercom. 'Enemy gunship on our tail!' The Imperial pilot obeyed, standard procedure as the door gunners had a much better view of goings-on abaft the wings than the pilot did. He pulled his joystick hard over to the left, banking the craft and ducking behind an outcrop. Puffs of shattered rock burst forth from the cliff face as the pursuing gunship opened fire, its autocannon tracking but missing. The port gunner of the Valkyrie opened fire, his heavy bolter swung around to the rear as far as it would go, endeavoring to at least distract their pursuer in the hopes of making him make a mistake in the tight terrain, as his fellow had done.

But the Chaos pilot wouldn't be deterred that easily. He stuck with them, a few stray bolt rounds causing minor damage to the leading edge of his port wing. But his autocannon now had a target, and opened up. The Imperial pilot threw his craft around but it wasn't enough to escape all harm, as shells chewed through the rear fuselage. The door gunners blazed away where they could get an angle, but it wasn't going to be enough. A turn was coming up, a mountain pass opening up on the port side.

'Everyone hold tight!' the pilot called. 'It might get bumpy for a second.' For the second time in a minute he jammed the control stick over as hard left as he could, while simultaneously slamming his foot down on the left rudder pedal. Being a VTOL aircraft, the Valkyrie was considerably more maneuverable at low speed and low altitude than most others, and could be rotated about its axis while still traveling forward, like a spacecraft, thanks to its thrust vectoring. By the time it had entered the canyon, the Valkyrie was now traveling backwards, having rotated through 180 degrees but still traveling on the same heading, albeit more slowly, having bled off plenty of its speed in the turn. The Chaos gunship swung round the corner into the canyon, but instead of seeing a fleeing Imperial craft, it was faced with its firepower.

The pilot squeezed the trigger and mashed the firing stud atop his joystick. The multilaser blazed into life as a volley of rockets raced from Valkyrie's the underwing pods. The Chaos pilot had no time to react, and both the rockets and laser struck home.

The Valkyrie's door gunners were thrown about as the craft was buffeted by a sudden shockwave, their harnesses keeping them safe as the gunship slowed to a hover, rocking gently. Their pursuer had exploded into a thousand pieces, fragments rattling against the Valkyrie as the burning remains scattered themselves across the snowy gorge. The pilot gunned his engines again, swinging the gunship back around and setting course for Griffonstone.

'Command, Locksmith 1. Splash two bandits. We are available for close air support, over.'

Plaster dust rained down on Sergeant Argan. He looked around. At least three of his men were dead, and that was just in this room. There was still gunfire from downstairs so at least someone else was alive and fighting. His vox-trooper crouched nearby, whimpering. Death stalked them in the street outside and it was only a matter of moments before they were finished, he was sure. The veteran sergeant had long ago resigned himself to death in the service of the Emperor, and that was fine by him, for what prouder, nobler death could a man have? He gripped his lasgun tightly and risked another peek out of the window, its frame shattered and splintered by enemy fire and a large hole in the wall beside it.

The marines were at the junction, right outside. Even as he watched, several grenades went into the downstairs windows. Explosions rippled through the building, making the floor shake beneath him. But something else was happening. Suddenly las-fire was striking the enemies, but from the side, and he knew the rest of the platoon had arrived. The marines turned to meet the new threat, the three still standing at least. The wounded marine who was crawling relentlessly was still focused on the building, still focused on Argan. He knew this was the chance, the moment they needed to strike. Ignoring his panicking comms trooper, Argan headed for the stairs. The smooth stone slabs were peppered with shrapnel damage and a few smears of blood. Downstairs, the main room was a charnel house. There had been resistance mere moments ago, until the grenades ended that. Now, the floor and walls were spattered with crimson. One man at least was still mostly intact, propped up in the corner with a hole in stomach and ropes of gently steaming intestines spilled out around him. But several of his squad had been reduced to little more than slabs of meat. Long since inured to such sights, Argan hurried to the doorway to the next room, focused only on one thing.

The next room was where the missile launcher had been set up, away from the rest of the squad and with the back door of the house open behind it, to minimise overpressure and give the backblast an exit from the room. Here, too, there was death, with the gunner and loaded both prone on the floor. Argan only had one question- was the launcher intact?

It was, mostly, though the sights appeared bent. But that didn't matter. He leaped across the room, almost sliding across thanks to the gore. Was it loaded? Yes. Was the safety off? Yes. He peered through the battered sights.

The enemy were right there in front of him. Three marines, not focused on him, engaging the rest of his platoon. He sighted in on the closest one, his bolter flashing, blue-and-gold armour stained with the blood of others. He pulled the trigger and the launcher bucked against his shoulder. The missile roared free of the tube, and Argan ducked.

There was no explosion.

He immediately knew and cursed himself for such an elementary mistake. The missile had a minimum range needed for the projectile to arm itself so as to prevent it detonating prematurely, either over friendly lines or within range of the firer themselves. He looked around for the ammo crate, pouncing upon it. Several missiles remained, and he grabbed one, sliding it home into the tube. But the enemy now knew that there was still resistance inside the house. Looking through the sights, Argan quickly switched targets from the marine who now had an unexploded warhead stuck in his side to the one farthest from him who was still engaging the platoon. Bolt rounds smashed into the wall beside him and he quickly pulled the trigger before diving to the floor.

This time the missile armed itself, having reached the minimum distance. The two-stage shaped-charge Krak warhead was able to punch through the armour of its target, sending a cone of molten-hot copper through the breach, vaporising skin, bone and muscle alike. The marine crumpled to the ground, and Argan sprung up, scrambling for another missile even as more shells blew small holes in the wall, damaging one of the tripod legs supporting the launcher. Then, most of the wall ceased to exist entirely.

Argan's head snapped round. The marine he had shot, missile still lodged in his side, had simply burst into the room, shattering the wall as if it were made of paper. He raised his bolter to fire.

'Shit...!' Argan dove for the open rear door of the house, just about making it outside as high-explosive rounds demolished the frame, sending a cloud of dust and smoke after him. He scrambled through the bare earth of the house's yard, but it was a dead end. There were no other exits, unless one happened to be a Griffon and could simply fly up over the ten-foot high smooth wall. Any moment, the marine would step through the door- or rather, through the wall again, as he was far too tall to fit through the intended opening- and finish Argan off. The Sergeant took a quick mental sitrep. He was trapped in the courtyard, he had his lasgun, all but useless against such armour, and two grenades, one smoke, one frag, both likewise useless. Or so he thought, until an idea popped into his head, an idea so monumentally dumb it might just work. He pulled the smoke grenade from his webbing and pulled the pin, tossing it and letting the handle fly off just as the marine burst through the wall, debris tumbling as he forced his way through, bolter already up and about to fire. The cloud of grey obscurant smoke quickly began filling the courtyard, and Argan ducked and ran, trusting in the Emperor. The marine fired, tracking him, stitching a string of shell holes on the wall behind him as he fled towards his sure death. But his ploy worked, and he somehow snuck through the gap the marine had made for him, back into the house.

He was pursued immediately, a foul incantation coming from the voice-speaker of the marine's armour, the very sound and syntax sending a wave of revulsion through Argan as he arrived back inside. He again had moments to act. This time it was his frag grenade that came off of his webbing. He pulled the pin and chucked it underhand into the open missile crate. Then he ran for his life. The marine stepped inside, firing again, but Argan was already gone, through the doorway into the main room and as far up the stairs as he could go in the time he had.

The grenade detonated after the five-second fuse ran out. By itself the explosive charge it carried was negligible compared to the strength of a suit of power armour. But in exploding, it set off a chain reaction. The remaining half-dozen rockets, their warheads and propellant, ignited instantaneously, a huge blast wave and fireball filling the room. In turn, milliseconds later, the missile still buried in the marine's side went off as well.

Argan was tossed bodily up the stairs, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing at the top as dust cascaded down around him like an avalanche. He went momentarily deaf, and when his hearing had recovered enough to distinguish anything from the ringing in his ears, he heard a strange sound. It took a moment for him to realise it was sobbing, and he picked himself up and staggered into the second-floor room. His vox man, Merkev, was crying in the corner, shaken by the sudden, huge explosion so closeby.

'Get up, private!' Argan shouted, grabbing him and dragging him to his feet. 'The rest of the platoon is here, and I need my vox working! So grab your set, grab your rifle, and frakking move!' The sudden tirade shocked the young private from his terror-stricken stupor, and after a moment's hesitation, he nodded.

'Y-yes, Sergeant...!' He fumbled with the heavy backpack vox, putting it on and grabbing his gun. Argan peered out of the window.

The other marines lay dead. One had a large steaming hole in his helmet where a plasma gun had found its mark, and the already-wounded marine had been finished off by melta grenades thrown from cover by members of Gamma Platoon, who now crowded the street outside, crouching in cover and approaching his building.

'Shadow!' Argan shouted.

'Vixen!' came the reply, the Brigade's daily challenge code used to identify friendlies in the combat zone. Argan made his way downstairs with Merkev and out into the street. Lieutenant Albrecht, the platoon commander, was there, along with the remains of the unit. Bodies littered the street as the marines had taken their death toll before succumbing. Including Argan and Merkev, of the 50-man platoon, only eighteen remained alive.

'Where's the rest of your squad?' the Lieutenant asked.

'Dead, sir,' Argan replied matter-of-factly. 'What's the situation?'

'We shouldn't be here to relieve you. All units were told to pull back,' Albrecht replied. 'We're tightening the cordon. We're being outflanked, it sounds like. There are more of those marines out there to the west, plus enemies to the east. They're inside the city so it's gonna be almost impossible for our Valkyries or those Xenos airships to engage effectively. This place is like a labyrinth.'

'Any idea on their numbers, sir?' Argan asked.

'Well, apparently our spotters counted five drop pods made it down, so that's at least fifty Astartes. I don't know how many of their landers got through, but well over fifteen hundred infantry I'd wager. Anyway, we're overdue. If we're out here any longer they'll probably shoot us for desertion when we get back to the line.' Albrecht turned to the platoon. 'FIrst platoon! Form up. Fourth squad to take point. Retrace our steps. We're pulling back, first to our original staging area and then to the inner cordon. Move out!' The survivors jumped into action, turning and leaving the scene of the deaths of so many of their brothers. Argan glanced back at the shattered hovel he had left behind, but there was no time to be sentimental about his lost squadmates. The battle was not over.

The Imperial lines tightened, the defenders waited. Griffon soldiers and pony assault troops joined them manning the inner cordon, nervous hands and hooves poised for action. But for an hour, nothing happened. Observer teams on the peaks and the pony airships gave reports of enemy movements; they were massing, preparing for the final push on the beleaguered defenders. Outside the city, the few remaining Hydras had to lay low, isolated by the investiture of the city by the besieging forces. Inside the city, an uneasy calm descended, a veneer of inaction as they waited for the storm.

It came at sundown. A sudden guttural roar filled the air from a thousand mouths. Out of the dim twilight came missiles, blazing lascannon beams, and a hail of bolt rounds. The enemy attacked at half a dozen different spots along the line, each location spearheaded by a fireteam of Thousand Sons. The defenders unleashed a blizzard of defensive fire, but very little of it was of sufficient caliber to seriously harm the marines leading each charge. Here and there, one or two went down to well-placed missiles or lascannon, but for every one who fell, two more forced their way through unscathed. Massed lasgun and rifle fire brought down dozens of Chaos infantry, but there were many more where they came from. The attackers punched through the line in three different spots, traitor Astartes forcing the breach and the infantry exploiting it, charging through to push on while the marines attempted to roll up the line, as they had done on the western flank earlier in the day. When it became clear the main line was becoming untenable, Major Harding ordered another retreat, this time to the final line, surrounding the palace, the last bastion of Imperial, Griffon and Pony alike.

The Imperial foothold on the city was faltering, being reduced to a small portion of its area. Those Griffon civilians who had not been able to evacuate inside the final line were butchered gleefully by the Chaos forces as they broke through. Retreating guardsmen were cut down as they ran. A few shells from captured tanks struck the palace, sending torrents of masonry falling from shattered towers onto the thick stone roof. The pony airships lit up the enemy positions with their searchlights to aid the troops on the ground, but thanks to the proximity of the attackers to the defensive line they could only engage outlying or separated units with their cannons.

The Chaos forces hurled themselves at the final line of resistance, again and again, but were repelled each time. A squad of Pegasi marksponies were able to take up rooftop positions and pick off several platoons' worth of Chaos infantry before being spotted. Las-fire knocked several down to the streets below, and the rest flapped away to safety. Mortar fire began to rain down, targeting the plaza outside the palace. Captain Halix directed the defence from his above-ground command post, while Major Harding attempted to deal with the strategic picture, at least until it became clear there was no strategy anymore.

This was a fight to the death, a simple battle for survival, or rather, to prolong survival as long as possible. There was certainly no way out. No reinforcements were coming. They had lost the outer line, then the inner line, and now they were struggling to stay in possession of the final line of defences, the last thing between the terrors outside the wall and the leaders of the resistance within. Harding, Garston, Celestia...

Damn that Xenos witch! Where is she? What did I do when I agreed to send her off on whatever fool's errand she claimed to be on? Harding castigated himself. She had a plan, she said? To save herself. No doubt she has found some way to ditch her escort and flee, leaving us all to die here like rats. He keyed his vox.

'Lieutenant Albaran, report! What is your status?' he demanded.

'Sir, this is Albaran. Uh...situation remains...unchanged,' Albaran replied, with a glance at the still-silent pony princess.

'Well what the hell is going on up there? Does she have a plan or not?' Harding questioned angrily.

'I...I'm not sure, sir. She wouldn't tell me, and she hasn't said anything since she started...whatever it is she's doing. She's just, uh...standing. And glowing, sir. Her, um, horn? It's glowing. But that's all. I don't know what she's trying to do, sir.'

'Damn it!' Harding growled as an explosion shook the command centre. He hadn't expected anything to come of her supposed plan, but some tiny shred of hope at least had remained that, potentially, she might have something useful up her sleeve that could at least assist in some way. But it seemed his initial suspicions had been proven, that she was merely blustering and posturing, like the Griffon King, but in a more manipulative way.

Albaran glanced over again at Celestia, and noticed a change. This time, her eyes were open. The alicorn looked at the Lieutenant.

'It is done,' she said simply.

'Uh, sir?' Albaran spoke. 'She, uh...she says it's done.'

'Well what's done, damn her?!' Harding shouted. 'Put her on the vox, now!'

'Yes sir!' Albaran scurried to comply, holding out the handset to Celestia, who cocked her head.

'Listen, pony! What have you done?' Harding spouted angrily. 'Have you done something that might actually help us? Or have you just been wasting my time? What have you done?'

Celestia spoke into the handset in reply. 'You will see, Major. You will see.'

A New Dawn

Lord-Admiral Marcos paced up and down the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement, as he had done almost constantly since the battle, only taking brief respite to sleep and eat. It could be argued that, from a purely hardware standpoint, the Imperials had won the fight in the heavens, but Chaos now controlled the planet, and the fate of those trapped there. Lord-General Galen had urged him to remain in high orbit in case the warp storm should dissipate, and he had agreed to remain for a minimum of a week while repairs were conducted on his ships. It seemed highly likely that, if the Crusade fleet continued on its journey, the Chaos warfleet would continue its pursuit, since so far as Marcos knew that was the reason behind its arrival in the first place. His ships had taken heavy losses and the Lord-Admiral burned to avenge his men, just as Galen desired to avenge his who were no doubt fighting and dying below.

And so Marcos was back on the bridge, pacing, overseeing repairs and pickets, scans and logistics transfers, all the minutiae of fleet management. It is as if we are parked at Segmentum Headquarters for routine maintenance, he mused. And yet we are almost at the edge of the galaxy.

'My Lord!' A shout went up. 'Unusual readings on Auspex.'

'Where? What kind of readings?' Marcos jumped on the new information eagerly.

'Coming from the system's star, My Lord,' the junior Auspex officer replied. 'Fluctuations, My Lord. I'm reading increases in x-ray emissions, gamma ray emissions, ultraviolet...'

'Just another solar flare?' Marcos questioned.

'I-i'm not sure, My Lord...the readings are...different than we were taught,' the ensign replied. A more senior Auspex Lieutenant moved over to take control of the console himself. He scanned over the readings displayed on screen.

'My Lord...! It is a flare, but...if these readings are correct, it is...enormous! Far greater than the daily natural occurrences we have been observing...' The Lieutenant peered at the data scrolling before his eyes. 'My Lord, this flare poses an imminent danger to the fleet! It is targeted directly at the planet, and we are in its path!'

Marcos frowned. A solar flare, out of seemingly nowhere, of such magnitude as to threaten the fleet with its hard radiation and disruption? While such a flare posed no direct physical risk to the ships, the radiation it gave off could easily fry sensors and external weapons systems, poison any man caught performing an EVA or in unshielded sections, and irradiate the hulls of his craft. To add to his consternation, the Lieutenant spoke again.

'My Lord, the flare is growing in magnitude...our sensors register it as an X-class event...magnitude is...10...correction, 15...25...My Lord, it...the scale only goes up to 50...' the Lieutenant trailed off, but quickly spoke again. 'Detecting a major coronal mass ejection! My Lord, all of this solar activity is directed straight at us.'

It could only be a Chaos trick, surely. Marcos was convinced. No star would conveniently suffer from the largest solar flare potentially ever recorded aimed directly at a nearby planet while an Imperial fleet was in orbit around it and a Chaos fleet was protected by a warp storm.

'Comms! Signal the fleet. Alert them to the danger. They are to move three-hundred million miles away from the galactic plane. Captain Bormann, the same if you please.'

'Yes, My Lord.' Flag-Captain Bormann turned to issue a string of orders to his bridge officers, and the vast bulk of the Emperor's Judgement swung steadily in space, its main drives flaring and pushing it out of harm's way. The radiation from the flare, traveling at the speed of light, would be upon them in a matter of minutes.

'My Lord, the coronal mass ejection event is maxing out the sensor equipment. We cannot measure its true scale,' the Auspex officer informed him. 'There are...unexplained readings with the ejecta, my lord. I cannot identify them, but...they are not normal.'

Nothing about this seems normal, Marcos thought. 'What kind of readings, Lieutenant?'

'I do not know, sir. Spikes in various parameters, I have never seen this before...and My Lord, there is something else. Its velocity...the velocity is tremendous. I did not think such speed was possible for a coronal mass ejection.'

Marcos narrowed his eyes. 'Are we out of the danger zone, Lieutenant?'

'Yes, My Lord. The fleet has cleared the corridor,' the Auspex officer replied. Marcos took a look at the viewscreen which was now displaying the system's star.

A vast phosphorescent bloom had erupted from the surface, the corona of the star having bulged outward like a bubble before releasing the towering blast of plasma a million miles long out into the void. A beautiful yet dangerous sight at the best of times, and this event, if the Auspex officer's words were correct, was larger, significantly larger, than any previously known to the Imperium.

'Comms. Open a channel with the Ferrus Terra,' Marcos ordered.

'Aye sir!' The Ferrus Terra was the Fleet's Adeptus Mechanicus science vessel, which had been monitoring the warp storm and now had its attentions focused entirely on the star.

'Arch-Magos Darius,' came the reply over the vox from the Ferrus Terra's commander and the leader of the Mechanicus contribution to the Crusade fleet.

'Arch-Magos, I trust you are observing the solar flare,' Marcos spoke. 'My sensor officer reports discrepancies in his readings. Can you confirm and account for them?'

'Confirm them, yes. Account for them? Not at this stage, Lord-Admiral,' Darius replied, the artificial nature of his voice evident even over the crackling vox, as like many high-ranking Mechanicus adepts, his voice box had long since gone to be replaced by a digital one in the never-ending pursuit for mechanical perfection. 'We are reading ejecta speeds in excess of one-hundred-four-point-six-six-five million miles per hour. At that velocity the first of the ejecta will reach the planet in precisely thirty-eight minutes, nineteen seconds. Such a calculation has been quadruple-checked and backed up by data logs from a dozen ships of the fleet. Such a velocity for coronal mass ejecta is almost ten times higher than any previously recorded by Imperial science. Indeed, it is well above the theoretical limits for the speed of such an event.'

'Then there must be some mistake in the science,' Marcos pointed out.

'The Mechanicus does not make mistakes, Lord-Admiral,' came the reply, the annoyance audible even in Darius' mechanical voice.

'In that case, do you have an explanation for the speeds we are seeing?' Marcos questioned. 'Something must be causing it. The warp storm?'

'Not the warp storm, Lord-Admiral. We are detecting unknown readings within the ejecta, the flare preceding it, and within the star itself. We have noticed high concentrations of these readings within the star twice daily, at the times corresponding roughly to sunrise and sunset on the main continent of Kuda Primus. In addition there are similar, though distinct and weaker readings from the planet's moon. Before the warp storm formed we also detected these readings on the planet's surface, in low concentrations across the northern and southern regions of the primary continent, and in somewhat higher concentrations in the central areas.'

Marcos scowled. 'And you did not think to share these readings with the rest of the fleet? With me?'

'They appeared of minor importance. We speculate the unknown particles or interactions, as the case may be, were the cause of the minor sensor and communications interference reported by landing ground forces, but there appeared no cause for concern.'

'Well is this concerning enough for you, Magos?' Marcos grunted. 'So you think these readings, whatever they are, could be the cause of the increased speeds of the ejecta?'

'That would be our conclusion, Lord-Admiral, though obviously we cannot confirm our speculations at this time,' Darius responded. 'Since these particles were detected before the arrival of the Archenemy and the formation of the warp storm, that cannot be their source. The ground forces made no report of the Xenos inhabitants having any advanced technology that could create esoteric particles, and their technology base appears vastly short of the sophistication required for even such primitive activities as simply splitting the atom.'

'So you are saying there is no scientific explanation for this, Magos?' the Admiral questioned. There was a notable pause before Darius replied.

'Not at this stage. Our investigation is ongoing.'

'Well keep looking. Something must have caused this. It's too big of a coincidence,' Marcos ordered. 'Will this have any effect on the planet?'

'Our calculations have refined the trajectory of the ejecta,' Darius replied. 'It appears that the magnetic storm will merely graze the planet's exosphere where the warp storm is located, and not hit the planet itself. The particles will then dissipate harmlessly in space.'

'Will it have any effect on the warp storm, Magos?'

'I do not believe so, Lord-Admiral. 'Mere magnetic fluctuations and radiation have been proven to have no effect on such storms or localised warp disruptions before.'

'Very well,' Marcos replied. 'Continue to monitor and continue your investigations. Oh, and keep me informed this time, Magos.'

'As you wish, Lord Admiral. Darius out.' The vox went dead and Marcos turned to Bormann.

'Captain, once the sensors determine the storm has passed us by, I want the fleet to return to its previous position in space. In case this is a Chaos trick, I want to be ready.' Bormann saluted.

'Aye, sir. The fleet will be repositioned once it is safe. Admiral...do you think the Arch-Magos knows something we don't?' the flag-captain asked. Marcos shook his head.

'No, captain. I think he's as clueless as we are, and when the Adeptus Mechanicus has no ideas, that starts to worry me.'

As mortar shells began to slam into the palace, Princess Luna had erected a magic shield, and the incoming fire bounced harmlessly off of it, the structure and its occupants within protected from the half-hearted bombardment. Cadence and Shining Armour helped direct the royal guard deployments around the palace, liaising with the Griffon Guard, the equivalent organisation within Griffonstone. Celestia, her task completed, returned to the underground command centre.

Major Harding was growling orders into the vox, checking the maps and getting reports from his subordinates. The line was stable around the palace, with the enemy probing but finding it harder to break through against the final, tightened and concentrated defences. Auspex had picked up another wave of dropships entering the atmosphere with a fifteen-minute ETA. Harding had relayed orders through his spotter teams for the pony airships to open fire on any enemy concentrations spotted in the city- most likely the whole population outside of the defensive line were dead anyway, as the forces of Chaos were not known for being merciful and no friendly military assets were contactable beyond the cordon, other than the few surviving Hydras and the Valkyries who joined in the strafing runs. Darkness had long since fallen totally in the mountains, and the night was clear of cloud. No stars could be seen, as the warp storm blocked much of the light coming through from them, though for whatever reason the sun's rays could still reach them during the day, and the moon's light at night. The airship searchlights played over the streets and courtyards, the craft letting off an occasional volley as a target presented itself, the heavy shells smashing rooftops and cobbled streets and scything down enemy infantry.

'How goes the fight, Major?' Celestia asked, trotting in along with Lieutenant Albaran, much to Harding's surprise.

'We're holding, just about, but they have reinforcements incoming. Now how about you tell me exactly what you were doing while the rest of us were fighting?' he demanded, not bothering to look round at her as he was focused on the battle.

'You shall see soon enough,' she replied. 'But if you wish me to fight directly, then I will be happy to oblige if if would help.'

'We need all the help we can get. If you think you can fight, then go ahead, princess,' Harding grunted. It was clear he wasn't going to get a straight answer out of her, but he was sure he knew the truth already. She hadn't done a damn thing, just some grand fakery to appease her citizens and blind her allies, probably how she ran her demesne all the time. By the time they knew different they would probably all be dead except her. Harding was surprised she hadn't fled already. The Griffon King seemed to have made himself scarce, probably through some tunnel or bolt-hole only his closest cronies knew about. Who knew if this pony had similar plans?

'Very well.' Celestia nodded. 'Where do you need me most?' she asked. Harding glanced around finally to look at her. She seemed determined to fight, no doubt to sacrifice herself in vain- or, more probably, to sneak away while nobody was watching.

'The southeastern sector is where the enemy is closest to breaking through,' he replied. 'They're making a heavy push and the infantry there are mostly safe from your airships' guns. We also expect the enemy reinforcements to land on the eastern snowfield.' Celestia nodded again, firmly.

'Then that is where I shall go.' With a tiny glow of her horn and a sudden pop of displaced air, she was gone. Harding blinked. Perhaps that tiara of hers was actually a teleport homer?

Celestia reappeared in the courtyard outside, towards the southeast flank, outside of her sister's shield that protected the palace. Gunfire rattled and crackled nearby. Smoke wafted through the streets and mortar bombs whistled in overhead. She set off towards the frontline, passing a few wounded humans dragging themselves to the aid stations located in the same building as the above-ground command post. Up ahead she saw some of her own troops, mares and stallions of the Pegasi Assault Division, holding a makeshift barricade of carts and furniture that blocked the street. Human troops could be seen watching from the windows of the neighbouring buildings. She approached the line.

One of the Pegasi turned and saw her, acting reflexively. 'Platoon, attention!' he shouted, saluting. 'Your Highness!'

'As you were, everypony,' she urged them. 'How do you fare this night?'

'The enemy has just fallen back again, Your Highness,' the same pony, a black stallion Pegasus, replied. 'We are holding the line,' he stated proudly. His rifle showed clear signs of use, with powder marks around the barrel and spent brass around his hooves. The Assault Division was not used to holding fixed positions, as the name implied, but they had been thrown into the line as a necessity. Operating in their usual role would have seen them massacred against the overwhelming firepower advantage possessed by the enemy, with their rapid-fire red beam weapons, rockets that could apparently be guided, flamethrowers, and half a dozen other types of weapon that even Celestia could only guess at.

'Very good. You have all done your duty well,' Celestia assured them, her phantasmal mane and tail sparkling, glowing, gently oscillating in the light breeze, like an aurora those at high latitudes would sometimes see in the sky. 'You have done your duty and I know you shall continue to do so. This night shall not be your last. You have fought bravely. At Cloudsdale, and now here. I know you are afraid. But fear not. The night is not yet over, but the dawn is close at hand.' The ponies exchanged welcome glances. None of them knew the exact nature of her words, but merely hearing such things from their princess was more than enough. Every stallion and every mare had absolute faith in Celestia, and they knew for certain that whatever she said, whatever she meant, it would come to pass.

Sergeant Argan knew for certain that the Emperor had forsaken him. He knew because he was on a backwater planet, cut off from the fleet, surrounded by the Archenemy, his weakened platoon assigned as part of the defence line in the southeastern sector, enemy reinforcements making planetfall, and now, to top it all off, a horse-alien was making a rousing speech to its fellows even as men, good men, pious men, were dying to protect its homeworld. Out of the window he could see it- the other horses referred to her as Princess, and he assumed that made her their leader, though he knew the local bird-aliens had a King and he had no idea of the relationship between the two royals or their races. All he knew was that her platitudes made him feel nauseous. It was the exact same tripe the Commissariat would feed into raw Guardsmen in the hours before they died hideous deaths, the exact thing he had heard a dozen, no, perhaps a hundred times before. Somehow he was still here, but his thoughts turned to those who were not- Elias, ripped apart by a pack of Tyranids. Kellie, simply vaporised by a blast from a Tau fusion blaster. Derven, cleft in twain by a hideously oversized Ork blade. Marla, going...just going away, before his very eyes.

Sergeant Marla Argan, wife of Barnard Argan, Sergeant, Gamma Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 40th Parvian Lancers. Most Imperial Guard regiments discouraged or outright prohibited fraternisation between soldiers, but the Parvians had always played fast and loose with such moral codes and every regiment raised on the planet permitted relationships, provided they were between those 'of similar rank,' defined as either the same rank or one rank above or below. A natural relationship had developed out of basic training, and Barnard, now on an Emperor-forsaken planet, had married Marla. Their union endured for six years, nothing short of a miracle given the nature of their trade. But one operation proved to be one too many. A supportive attack on a planet where a recently-activated Necron Tomb was causing trouble, led to disaster. A company of Astartes were to make the strike, while the Imperial Guard forces provided support, distraction and diversion. Marla was caught, caught in the fire from a Necron Gauss Blaster. Barnard could only watch in abject horror as his wife simply came apart at a molecular level, layer after layer of skin, muscle, tissue, viscera and bone being stripped before his eyes. Within moments, he could no longer see his wife, but merely a mass of flesh, and soon enough not even that. Within seconds she was gone. Completely gone, with nothing remaining except her lasgun which she had dropped. No trace of his love, his wife, his everything. Killed by Xenos, just like all of his good friends. Not accident, not the Warp, not the Archenemy- it was aliens that had stripped his life away. Ever since Marla died, he had held scant regard for his own life, simply trusting in the Emperor. If He willed it, then Barnard would survive. The Argan name would survive. If He did not, well, his wife was waiting up there for him.

Sergeant Argan glanced down at the pony princess. His disgust was tempered by something, somewhere, deep within his mind, that said it was just possible that this species, these Xenos, this princess...might just be different. The thought both revolted and intrigued him in equal measure. Surely such an idea was blasphemous, and yet it felt correct. The horse-princess held a strange unnatural beauty, which he knew meant nothing, the Eldar being a prime example of Xenos beauty that hid their true duplicitous and deceitful nature. But beyond that, he found himself feeling...calmed. His anger lessened, his fear lessened. Some Chaos trick, he wondered? Or was something else at work here? He had felt something at the back of his mind since planetfall, but now, in the vicinity of this Xenos princess, he suspected he might have found the cause. Certainly the horses she was addressing seemed to be enraptured by her words, as a squad of guardmen might be by the apparition of a holy Living Saint of the Adepta Sororitas, seen by many as a physical manifestation of the Emperor's will itself. There had been, of course, thousands, perhaps millions, of sham-cult leaders and self-promoting demagogues throughout human history that had inspired similar devotion in their followers, and there was of course the possibility that this Xenos was cast from a similar mould, simply spouting whatever would keep her in power a little longer.

Having only been planetside for a few days, Argan had no idea of the true geopolitical situation. Perhaps there was a revolving door of princesses, coming and going, being overthrown by their successor who took charge until they in turn were poisoned, shot or imprisoned. Emperor knows that's how most nobility seems to work in the Imperium, he mused. Or perhaps her rule was more stable, and she had been in power for years, decades maybe. In truth the Sergeant didn't really care, and it didn't matter to their ultimate goal. Once the Chaos forces had been defeated, the planet would be theirs, and the inhabitants, most likely, exterminated. There remained a sliver of a possibility that they might sign some kind of treaty with the Xenos, as had been done once or twice here and there across the Imperium with other species. But, Argan reasoned, he was imagining a future that would probably not come to pass- certainly one he would not be part of. The fleet was still cut off, and it was highly likely that they were going to be wiped out in the next few hours.

He turned his attentions away from the Xenos below. His squad, that is to say, himself and Merkev, had been folded into third squad, who had taken casualties including their Sergeant, whom Argan replaced. Given the situation and the requirement for every able-bodied man, Argan had decided to overlook Merkev's earlier cowardice and not report him to the Lieutenant. Merkev had seemingly composed himself in the hours since, and Argan knew that the presence of the traitor marines, to say nothing of the insidious forces of Chaos itself, could elicit such reactions easily enough in mere mortals. The platoon's positions in the buildings either side of the street provided overlapping fields of fire, covering the approaches to the palace. Almost fifty dead traitor infantry already littered the street, felled by las-fire or bullets from the ponies. Two heavy bolters and a rooftop lascannon completed the defences in this sector. Neighbouring streets were covered by other platoons and more pony and Griffon infantry, together with several tanks located on the wider thoroughfares. The enemy had not yet landed any heavy equipment, as tanks were generally unsuited for urban combat, though they were slightly more useful for defence in such situations as they could be dug in and used in a similar fashion to a bunker, as a strongpoint in the defence line.

'Contact front!' someone shouted. Argan looked out of the window. Another howl went up from the enemy as they charged. This time they were led by Astartes, five in total, followed by a hundred screaming soldiers. Fire lashed out at them from the defenders, felling several cultists, but the marines shrugged off the small-arms fire, opening up. Three of them had boltguns, but the other two were more heavily armed. One carried a missile launcher, and the other wielded a plasma gun. Even as Argan watched, both of the heavy weapons fired.

'Incoming!' he shouted as he saw the missile leave its launcher and spiral towards him. Flinging himself to the floor, Argan was immediately covered with smoke and dust, getting heartily sick of such occurrences. He scrambled to his feet. There was a hole in the wall, fragments of stone still breaking free and dropping down as he watched. The guardsmen in the room had heeded his shout and were alive and already reacting. Argan joined them. Another missile raced by and smashed into the next building along, where one of the heavy bolters was blazing away. There were screams and the crash of falling masonry. Argan brought his lasgun up and fired, adding his shots to those of the rest of his platoon. The marines were forming the spearhead, and while the men charging behind them were running, they were still, like those he had faced earlier, merely walking, though their huge stride length meant they were still keeping pace with the rest of the infantry. They were getting closer to the barricade manned by the ponies, who crouched low, popping up to return fire. At first Argan thought the princess had gone, but then he realised she was merely now standing behind a shimmering golden wall that covered the barricade. That's right, she's a psyker, he reminded himself, the word having been circulated among most of the Imperial units after the officers' briefing. From his quick glance he could see enemy fire, las-bolts and bullets alike, peppering the shield, making it glow an intense white at each point of impact. But nothing broke through.

Argan fired several short bursts, bringing down two of the enemy infantry. The marines, he knew, couldn't be touched by his weapon, and he would have to leave them to others. Even as he watched, a blast from the defenders lascannon smashed into the shoulder of one of the marines, burning and twisting his pauldron armour. Seemingly unfazed, he unleashed a string of well-aimed bolt fire in return. The lascannon fired again, striking him bodily in the chest and making his stagger. His fellow armed with the plasma gun took up the challenge, and fired in retaliation. Argan followed the shot and winced as he saw it strike the rooftop. The shot was on target, and it struck just shy of the lascannon itself, hitting its power pack instead. A large explosion shattered the top two stories of the building, the roof collapsing with a shriek of cracking timbers and tumbling stone, the lascannon crew vanishing in the fireball.

The enemy leaped on the opportunity, surging forward. Heavy bolter rounds from the surviving gun blew chunks of ceramite from the armour of the Astartes, and las-fire lashed the street, felling a number of infantry. But they were upon the defences now. Argan glanced at the barricade, and he was surprised by what he saw.

The pony princess was still there, but she was no longer standing. Instead, she was airborne, her broad, feathered wings beating, evidently not just for show. Her horn, already glowing gently, now shone with an incandescent light as she rose above the street. Though Argan had seen some of the smaller ponies and Griffons taking to the air, the princess was considerably larger than any of them, and her wingspan was correspondingly greater as a result. As she climbed above the shield wall, she began to attract fire, both from the marines and traitor guardsmen. But bolt and laser alike flashed to nothingness, a glowing orb surrounding her, protecting her. The marines stood their ground, blasting away at the princess and the members of Argan's platoon as they appeared briefly in the windows to shoot. The traitor infantry continued their headlong charge towards the barricade. They were charging to their deaths.

The light building up in Celestia's horn suddenly discharged with a noise like the cracking of a whip, a blinding flash lighting the street, glowing like the beam of a searchlight as it swept over the cobbled stones. Whatever it touched turned instantly to fire. Men screamed, dropping to the ground like flies, writhing and squirming as the burned. The marines' armour protected them from the flames, and they continued on. Bolt-rounds smashed into her shield and a ball of plasma burst harmlessly against it. The marines were concentrating their fire on the potent psychic threat, allowing the Imperials to engage them. The surviving heavy bolter emptied an entire belt of ammunition into the plasma gun-wielding traitor, sending him stumbling and reeling, innumerable chunks blown out of his armour, but still unharmed. That is, until the princesses' horn glowed again, and unleashed a lance of golden fire, cutting straight through him like a plasma cutter slicing through a thin sheet of metal. The two halves of the armoured whole fell in different directions onto the smouldering cobbles.

Behind him, almost the entire force of massed attacking infantry lay burning. A few still twitched, their skin smouldering, enough to incapacitate but not to kill immediately, perhaps merely winged by the cone of death. A small cadre remained, having evaded incineration byhiding in cover, and now taking potshots at the princess. The surviving marines saw the perils of the situation, and began a fighting withdrawal, covering each other in turn as each warrior pulled back down the street, pursued by ineffectual rifle fire. But the princess was not in a merciful mood. Her horn flashed again, and a second marine was felled by her strike, dropping with a steaming hole through his midriff. The surviving infantry began to flee, running in panic for their lives. She struck again, and the marine wounded by lascannon fire lost his head. The two survivors ducked into cover, but it did not save them. With a nod of her head the princess sent a concussive blast into the side of the building they sheltered behind, smashing the wall and stripping the tiles from the roof. The side of the structure collapsed inwards, showering the two survivors with debris that chipped the paint on their armour but did little else. It meant, however, that they were visible again, and a great cheer went up from the ponies manning the barricades as their princess cut them down, bolters firing to the last as they were struck and run through by her golden fire. Argan watched from the window, as the white pony, wreathed in golden fire, floating above the carnage, finished off the last of the enemy attackers. He regarded her with a wary eye, but gave a small approving nod. She may look like an angel, but she fights like a daemon.

The platoon vox net crackled, and the Lieutenant's voice could be heard. 'All callsigns, be advised. Battalion net reports enemy reinforcements inbound, eta for landing is two minutes, I say again, two minutes.' Argan glanced up at the heavens. High above he could see the glowing thrusters of the descending enemy aircraft. They were coming in again, and more bad news came over the vox.

'All callsigns, be advised. Battalion net reports enemy breakthrough in the western sector. Be alert to possible envelopment and flanking maneuvers.' The fight was not yet over, and as impressive as the pony princess had been, she couldn't be everywhere at once. Argan reloaded his lasgun with a fresh power pack. No doubt he would need to use it again before the end of the night- or his life, whichever ended first.

He looked back down at the street. The enemy was not here yet, and they had some time to prepare. But then he noticed something. The pony princess, still flapping above the rooftops, was gazing skyward as if she was anticipating something. There was no way she knew about the enemy reinforcements- she had no vox-link. So what was she looking at? Argan turned his gaze upwards again. At first he saw nothing else, but...something beyond the enemy reinforcements, higher in the sky. A flickering, up among the dimly swirling warp clouds. Suddenly, there was colour. Colour everywhere, skittering across his vision as he gazed at the sky. Flashes of vivid colour in sharp distinction to the blackness. Greens, blues, violets, pinkish red, flashing and dancing far overhead. Auroral displays, common to most planets with an atmosphere when solar particles interacted with the magnetic field. But these were beyond anything he had seen before, both in brilliance and scale. The entire eastern sky was alive with light, a chromatic blaze of glory in the heavens.

Argan had no idea what was happening, but he looked again at the princess. She had known. Somehow, she had known before it happened. Coincidence? Instinct? More developed senses? Or something else? Something more than mere knowledge, however unlikely it seemed given the scale of the Aurora. Maybe, just maybe, somehow, he pondered. Maybe it is her doing.

'My Lord, the coronal mass ejecta is beginning to strike the planet now.' The Auspex Lieutenant remained glued to his console screens, reporting on the progress of the vast plume of charged particles thrown off by the system's star. The band of hard radiation, x-rays and gamma rays, released by the initial solar flare had passed through the upper atmosphere with no discernible effect, either on the planet or the warp storm. But now it was the turn of the main mass of magnetised plasma. Forces of incalculable ferocity within the star had cast it off, and something had caused it to attain a velocity many times higher than that previously recorded for such an event, meaning it reached the planet very rapidly. The sensors of both the Emperor's Judgement and the Ferrus Terra were trained firmly upon the orb that hung in space, bathed in the warp storm, bathed in radiation from the solar flare, and now being bathed in the magnetic chaos unleashed by the coronal mass ejection. The particles mingled with those of the planet's upper atmosphere and the esoteric particles from beyond the physical plane that formed part of the warm storm. A normal mass ejection, a normal magnetic flux, would have little to no effect on the storm. And yet, as those sensors watched, observing closely, they would pick up changes.

'My Lord, the Ferrus Terra is hailing us,' the comms officer informed Marcos.

'Put them through,' the Lord-Admiral replied, hands clasped behind his back as the viewscreen displayed the image of the planet surrounded by the roiling storm. The fleet had closed back in after the danger had passed, and were pursuing the solar storm towards the planet at a safe distance.

'Lord-Admiral, this is Arch-Magos Darius. We are seeing...deviations in the output of the warp storm.'

'Deviations?' Marcos questioned. 'What do you mean by that?'

'Its strength is fluctuating. It appears to be...weakening,' Darius informed him. 'The indications are...'

'You said it would have no effect, Magos,' the Admiral growled. 'If that storm is weakening, might it dissipate entirely?'

'Unlikely, My Lord, at least for some time. The fluctuations are localised, in the area where the ejecta is interacting with it, specifically in Orbital Quadrant Two, Orbital Sector One-Two-Six, Orbital Sub-Sectors Two-Two-Seven through Two...'

'Enough!' Marcos spat. 'In those affected areas, is there any chance of the storm thinning enough for us to break through?'

'Standby,' Darius replied. After a few moments of calculations in whatever computer passed for his brain, the Magos replied. 'Affirmative, Admiral. If the localised weakening continues, I predict a potentially navigable route will open up in approximately five minutes eighteen seconds. A wider channel with no navigation hazards would open in nine minutes four seconds.' Marcos pounded the edge of a nearby console.

'Then we have them! Comms, alert the fleet. All ships are to prepare for combat immediately. The fleet is to close to one million miles outside the storm's perimeter, concentrating on the sectors that are in collision with the ejecta. If it provides us with a way through, then we will have the drop on the enemy.' He turned to his flag officer.

'Captain Bormann? Battle Stations.'

Air And Space

All across Griffonstone, men, pony and Griffon alike had gazed skyward, being startled and dazzled by the sudden and vast display of auroral activity overhead, and though it continued to rage on, so did the battle for the city. A strong push of traitor marines and infantry had managed to force a hole in the western perimeter and push in, only being halted by the fire of the half-dozen tanks dug in around the palace itself. Behind them lay the glowing blue shield being held up by Luna that covered the building and sheltered it. The massed cannon and las-fire pushed the enemy back and the line stablised again, but only temporarily. The enemy reinforcements were making planetfall, several dozen dropships supported by a few gunship escorts, along with four more of the larger shuttles accompanied by a trio of jet fighters. Imperial air defences were thin on the ground after the first wave of attacks, but one of the surviving Hydras bravely opened up, blazing away and bringing down one of the dropships in a fireball before being knocked out of action by missiles from one of the gunship escorts. The pony airships fared better, catching several dropships on final approach and causing enough damage to make them smash into the snowfield in crumpled heaps. One of them, engines still flaring, bounced and went spinning off uncontrolled in a wild flat spin before colliding with a rocky spur and exploding, roasting its passengers. The airships in turn drew the attention of the fighter escort.

The Starswirl and Canterlot hovered to the southwest of the city, from where they could engage enemy positions as they swept through the southern districts. The Vanhoover held station to the north, having moved to support the action against the enemy's attempted landing there earlier in the day. As the nearest target, the Vanhoover became the focus of the fighter escort, which ran in guns blazing. Their bullets bounced harmlessly from the airship's shield, but each craft was outfitted with a lascannon in the nose as well as the assault cannons and rockets slung from their wings. A second pass brought them into action, and their beams punched through the defensive shield. Ponies went down, chunks of deck planking being thrown up as the shots struck home. One of the anti-air cannons was shattered and partially melted by a lucky strike, but the others opened up in reply, accompanied by the quick-fire repeating guns and the machine-cannon, putting up a wall of fire. The fighters jinked and banked to throw off the gunners, bursting through the flak, their wingtips creating swirling vortices in the smoke as they passed. Bursts of magic were flung from the Vanhoover's deck, but missed astern of the fast jets.

Aboard the Starswirl, Captain Lance watched through his binoculars, observing the flickering exchange of fire several miles to their north. His eyes narrowed as he saw his fellow airship struck by the red beams, having drawn the ire of the enemy fighter craft. Even as he watched they ran in again, opening fire at close range and causing more damage to the gondola. He also saw a steady flash of white light from the quarterdeck, directed towards him. One long flash, two short flashes, one long flash. It was the standardised signal for 'Need Assistance,' used both by the military and civilian ships and dirigibles alike, either as a mayday call or, in this case, a request for immediate reinforcement.

'We have to support the Vanhoover!' Lance shouted. 'Signal the Canterlot to follow our lead. Helm, set course to rendezvous with the Vanhoover. All ahead flank. All gun crews are to ignore the landing barges and target those enemy aircraft!'

The practised hooves of his crew moved swiftly, as did the airship herself, driving hard to support her comrades, propellers whirring. The Canterlot fell into line astern and followed. The broadside gunners of the Starswirl prepared their weapons to fire if the possibility presented itself of engaging the aircraft at their guns' maximum elevation. The anti-air cannon on deck were loaded and swung round as the airship approached, passing over the north of the city where strobing gunfire and explosions could be seen below. A blue dome marked the location of the Griffon palace, a shield evidently protecting it from harm.

Up ahead the Vanhoover's shield protected it from most things, but not from the enemy beams. The fighters came in again, several shots striking the armoured gasbag and melting the protective covering into slag. Any more direct hits on the same location could prove fatal to the airship and its crew. But even as they were hit again, they retaliated, accurate fire from the 40mm rapid-fire guns puncturing the thin armour of one of the fighter's wings. A trail of vapour began to pour from it as one of its fuel tanks began to leak, the craft wobbling unsteadily as it climbed away. Its two fellows swung round once more, but this time they ran into trouble. The guns of the Canterlot were in range, and added their significant weight to the battle. A cloud of black smokey puffs appeared in the sky, like raindrops falling on a window, as the combined barrage riddled the air with deadly shrapnel. One particularly lucky shot detonated mere inches in front of the jet's air intake. A spray of metal was sucked straight in, dealing fatal damage to the jet's turbine. Smashed and bent fan blades burst free from the engine cowling as a plume of fire erupted from the exhaust. The aircraft raced through the gap between the Starswirl and the Vanhoover like a comet, losing height rapidly. A futile attempt was made to pull up, but with the engine no longer providing thrust it merely altered the angle of attack and could not save the stricken craft. It bounced on the pristine snows, then bounced again, before on the third contact the nose dug into the powder, flipping the aircraft end-over-end before it ripped itself apart in a blossoming fireball.

The undamaged jet continued its run and loosed off a few shots at the Vanhoover's gondola, striking home and killing two of the shield unicorns. The protective dome flickered, but held firm against the cannon fire also unleashed by the attacker, the two rotary six-barreled guns letting loose with a noise like a buzzsaw as hundreds of rounds were unleashed in a matter of a few seconds, letting the anti-air gunners know the true meaning of 'rapid fire.'

The other damaged fighter swooped back in from on high, blasting shots into the top of the Vanhoover's gasbag. Her own gunners unable to fire at such an angle, the Vanhoover relied on the other airships to counter, which they tried their best to do, barrels raised high and glowing red as they fired again and again, running low on ammunition. But their efforts were not in vain, as the diving aircraft ran into an iron curtain being thrown up. An undetonated shell smashed into the cockpit glass, shattering it as the round exploded, shredding the pilot within. With no one at the controls, the jet continued its dive, engine shrieking as its speed built up. Everypony on the other airships held their breath- it was plummeting straight towards the Vanhoover. Even the human spotters, Atter and Mons, on the Starswirl willed it to miss, but it didn't. The pilotless jet crashed onto the top of the shield with a tremendous explosion. The shield held, but only for a moment. Weakened by the loss of two of the unicorns, it flickered and died, but it had held long enough to protect the airship's gasbag from the impact of the Chaos jet. It did not, however, protect it from the wrath of the final enemy fighter.

'Target, two o'clock!' one of the Starswirl's Pegasus spotters cried out. Every available gun on all three airships swung about as the jet streaked in, but it was too late. A burst of rockets leaped from their pods, cannons pumped out masses of rounds, the lascannon flashed.

And the Vanhoover turned to flame.

The contents of the forward cells of the gasbag ignited all at once, the armour burned through by the lascannon and the self-sealing skin defeated by the array of firepower. A horizontal pillar of fire began to form in the skies over Griffonstone as the Vanhoover began to burn rapidly, like a candle, the flames advancing steadily down the gasbag. Pegasi grabbed crewmates and flung themselves over the rails to escape as the inferno rained down on the deck, setting it ablaze.

'All back full, all back full!' Captain Lance roared, as the Starswirl was still advancing toward the hellscape unfolding before them. The giant airship's motors were flung into full reverse, slowing her. 'Switch to directional shields! Away the rescue party!' Lance ordered. The unicorns responded, changing from a spherical shield around the airship to a semi-circular one aimed in the direction the surviving jet had been heading. This configuration allowed ponies to board or leave the craft, for firefighting, message carrying or rescue purposes. The rescue team, half a dozen Pegasi, jumped over the side and swooped towards the Vanhoover in an effort to save those trapped aboard. But those below decks would have had little knowledge of the calamity unfolding above them until it was too late, and the ponies on deck had fled, at least the Pegasi and all those who could be carried by them. A few wounded ponies lay on the burning deck, fire dripping down on them from above, unable to move, unable to flee. The rescuers strained their wings to reach them, but the fire was gripping the gondola, long strings of flaming canvas falling from the melting gasbag, the deck planking igniting everywhere, small explosions from detonating ammunition sending sprays of burning material flying. The heat was too intense, and the would-be rescuers had to turn back, their wing feathers already starting to smoulder. A few Pegasi managed to crawl out of the below-deck gunports, hastily grabbing at their fellow unicorns and earth ponies who clawed desperately at the openings as choking smoke filled the gun decks. Here and there, some crewponies crawled out onto the lip of the gunport and flung themselves into the void, preferring death by falling to choking or burning. The rescue team swooped into action, saving the first half-dozen to try it. But with every available pair of hooves full, there was nopony to save those that came next, and they could only watch as several ponies leaped, tumbling as they fell, the last agonising seconds of their lives filled with nothing but the sight of the looming snowfield below, consuming their vision until they lay broken and twisted upon it.

The Vanhoover was dead, and with all lift lost it began to settle, the skeleton of the gasbag slumping at both ends, as if accepting its fate reluctantly. The Vanhoover went down just north of the city with a loud groan, as if the ship itself were crying out in distress. The survivors were rapidly ferried to the Starswirl, even as the enemy jet came in again.

The Canterlot was ready for it, and a full barrage greeted the attacker. It was enough to throw off its aim, and its lascannon shots went wide of the mark, missing the Starswirl. Captain Lance kept a close eye on his rescue team and the other survivors, and as soon as they were aboard he shouted out his orders.

'Raise full shields! Helm, hard to starboard, all ahead one third, get us out of the Canterlot's line of fire.' He made sure to keep barking orders, however inconsequential, as a method of distracting himself from the blazing end of one of his fellow airship crews. Seeing the Griffon craft going down had been bad enough, but this was one of their own. He dared not spare a glance at the survivors for fear he would see good friends disfigured- or worse, not see them at all. Several of the rescued crewponies were badly burned, their fur and skin roasted away. The lucky one had their nerve endings destroyed and thus felt little pain from their hideous injuries, but others screamed and moaned in agony. The Starswirl's medics rushed to the deck to aid as best they could, but severe burns needed specialist treatment that they were simply not equipped or trained to provide.

The enemy jet came around again as the Starswirl rotated ponderously about its axis in an effort to clear a corridor of fire for the Canterlot. They succeeded. The anti-air airship opened up with everything it had, loading the last of its ammunition in an effort to bring down the enemy fighter. It came in again, engine roaring, guns blazing. The lascannon fire burst through the Starswirl'sforward shields, tearing several gashes in the thickly armoured prow, though missing the bombardment cannon. The Canterlot's aim was true, and the 20mm machine-cannon, 40mm rapid-fire guns, and the 75mm main guns combined to produce a blizzard. The jet flew straight into it, and though no particular gun crew could claim it, the Canterlot chalked up another kill, as the enemy aircraft exploded in midair, a fireball hurtling forward for several hundred feet before starting its long drop to the earth below. A cheer went up from the Canterlot's crew, echoed by those aboard the Starswirl who had not been shocked into silence by the sight of their grievously wounded comrades being helped aboard.

With the enemy fighters gone, the attention of the pony airships could turn back to the troop transports, although the Canterlot was almost out of ammunition. The Starswirl, however, was still in possession of a considerable number of shells for her bombardment cannon and main guns. While they couldn't engage airborne enemies, they could certainly target the passengers of the dropships once they had landed. Lance issued the orders, and the prow of the Starswirl erupted with flame as the bombardment cannon lobbed a hefty shell earthward. A fountain of dirt killed a dozen Chaos infantry as they streamed toward the city, reinforcements for their comrades besieging the palace. The airships could fight, but they could only do so much. Their crews were tired, and so were the defenders on the ground, and fresh enemies hungry for battle were landing in their hundreds. It looked like a last stand, and that was precisely what it was. Surrounded, with no prospect of relief, the fragile alliance between three races could only hope to acquit themselves well in their final battle.

Science told them one thing, but reality told them another. Despite thousands of previously recorded incidents of solar flares and coronal mass ejections having zero impact on warp phenomena, somehow this one solar storm was breaking through, seemingly countermanding physics and reality itself. As Arch-Magos Darius had suggested, it appeared that the unknown readings, the unknown particles contained within the ejecta, were having the effects that Lord-Admiral Marcos had desired them to have, but scarcely considered as a serious possibility. A ragged, roughly oval-shaped hole tens of thousands of miles long was being torn in the warp cover around the planet, a gash of reality cutting through the mists of the Immaterium.

As soon as the stability of the opening could be confirmed, the Crusade Fleet drove hard toward it, their engines throbbing as the Lord-Admiral ordered flank speed and standard attack formation, the bulk transports and fleet fuelling tankers hanging well back as the battleships and cruisers pushed on, the Emperor's Judgement in the lead. The hole in the warp storm was big enough to get a moon through, meaning there was plenty of room for the fleet to spread out into formation, though they could not put too much distance between vessels as they would be fighting in the very upper reaches of the atmosphere, sandwiched between the planet and the still-swirling mass of the rest of the warp storm.

In the days since the last battle, the Crusade fleet had been patching itself up. While destroyer pickets patrolled the edges of the storm and the outer system, the bulk of the fleet's ships were sealing bulkheads, welding breaches, repairing wiring and piping, replacing damaged gun barrels, burying the dead.

Space burial was very common among the Imperial Navy, both for sentimental reasons and because it was hard to find the space on board an interstellar craft that might be undertaking a six-month tour to spare on cryogenic body storage. As a result, thousands of bodies had been jettisoned from airlocks or fired from torpedo tubes, either towards the system's star or aimed into deep space according to each man's wishes expressed in his Commissariat-approved will and testament, signed when joining up. Normal conditions for space burial would have seen each body sealed in a specially-designed casket, but there were too many dead and not enough caskets, and so most of those killed in the fighting floated on, unprotected from the uncaring void, direct exposure to which had been the end of so many of them, towards their final resting place. Turned to ash by the heat of the star, or to burn up in the atmosphere of some other distant world, or, perhaps, to sail unhindered through the vacuum for all eternity. Lord-Admiral Marcos did not want to condemn any more of his sailors to such a fate, but he knew many would have to die to ensure the success of the Crusade. The fleet of the Archenemy must be finished off for good, lest it inflict further suffering on civilians, for it would undoubtedly be human civilians next time, either colonists on one of the new worlds conquered by the Crusade or on some other poorly-defended system on the fringe of mankind. But they could, no, they would, be stopped here.

'My Lord, one hundred thousand miles to the breach,' the helmsman reported.

'Very good. Steady as she goes,' Marcos replied. 'Take us in, all ahead two thirds.'

'All ahead two thirds, aye.'

'My Lord, vox signal from the Ferrus Terra.'

'Put them through.' The vox-link crackled into life.

'Lord-Admiral, this is Grand Magos Darius,' came the digital voice from the other ship. 'You should be advised that there is a possibility that the warp storm will regrow, so to speak, and seal the breach after the fleet has entered. Our calculations cannot be specific as we do not know the nature of the forces that have caused the rift to occur, but we continue to study the particles. As the ejecta leaves the area and is no longer in contact with the warp energy, the storm could return to its full potency.'

'Thank you, Magos. I'll take that into consideration,' Marcos replied. 'But that warp storm originated around the enemy flagship Soul Harvest, correct? Therefore it seems most likely that something, or more probably someone, aboard that vessel is responsible for its creation. Would your determination support mine in that destroying that ship, and whatever is causing the storm, would cause it to cease?' he asked.

'That would seem logical, Lord-Admiral, yes,' Darius replied. 'Though we have no proof of this, of course. However, records of other localised warp events created by individuals or groups of individuals affiliated with the Dark Powers, as opposed to those that formed naturally, suggests that the death or incapacitation of those responsible will lead to a shutting down of the entire storm system.'

'Thank you, Magos. That's what I wanted to hear.' Marcos clasped his hands firmly in the small of his back. 'We have a target. Signal the fleet. Priority target one is the Soul Harvest. Priority target two is enemy landing ships and transports. All ships are to hold fire until I give the order.'

The message went out among the escorts and ships of the line. The Imperial fleet had taken heavy losses in the battle, but unless the Sorcerer Lord had somehow been able to conjour up more vessels out of nowhere under cover of the storm, the Crusade had the advantage in numbers, as well as the advantage of surprise. The Emperor's Judgement led the line, accompanied by the Malleo Mortis, its lance batteries fully repaired and ready to kill. Each battleship had one of the surviving frigate squadrons accompanying it, while out on the flanks came the destroyers, their torpedo tubes standing by. The Mars-Class Battlecruiser Indefatigable followed on, its Nova Cannon ready to unleash hell, while a total of nine cruisers and the remnants of several more escort squadrons brought up the rear. The transports and landers remained in high orbit some distance from the planet. The vox-crews aboard each ship were instructed to monitor for any signals from the planet and attempt to raise friendly forces if possible.

None of the ships were at one hundred percent capacity, as although the repair teams had been working day and night there had simply been too much damage for them to fix within the last two and a half days. But this might be their only chance to push through the storm, to eliminate the traitors, to rescue their men trapped on the planet below, if any were still alive. Their fellow Guardsmen waited eagerly in high orbit for a chance to relieve or avenge them. But before any second invasion attempt could be made, they would have to break through the enemy fleet.

Any man in a compartment with a porthole could see the storm, mere hundreds of miles off of the port bow of the advancing fleet. Getting much closer to the roiling maleficent clouds would risk damage, destruction, or worse. The storm sat at around ten thousand miles from the planet, meaning they would be fighting very close to the outer reaches of the planet's atmosphere and at absolute minimum ranges, a confusing melee that was rare in space combat due, usually, to the incredible distances between planets or other points of interest. Fleet combat usually occurred considerably farther from such obstacles, and the Lord-Admiral had issued orders for all gunners to be especially mindful of their targeting. Stray shots that missed their targets would continue on towards the planet, and any projectiles that were not burned up or dissipated by the atmosphere would have the potential to cause massive damage below, perhaps killing friendly ground forces or disrupting the ecosystem that made the planet such a valuable garden world. Though the storm itself continued to frustrate their instruments, as the Crusade fleet crested the 'horizon' of the stormfront and were able to observe down through it, they came face to face with their enemy.

'My Lord, we have a contact on the Auspex!' came the cry. 'Below the storm wall, just came into view. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, range twenty thousand.'

'No doubt he will already be raising the alarm,' Marcos grunted. 'Signal the fleet. All ships, attack speed.'

Across the array of Imperial warships, engines surged, main drives pulsing as they accelerated towards the planet. The Chaos escort, perhaps sent to investigate the hole in the storm cover, turned toward the unexpected intruders trying to slip into their domain.

'New contact, bearing three-three-zero relative. Cruiser, Hecate-Class,' the Auspex officer sang out. 'Range nine thousand...new contact, bearing three-zero-two relative. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, mark as Beta, range twenty two thousand. New contact, bearing three-zero-one relative. Destroyer, Iconoclast-Class, mark as Gamma...' As the fleet powered forwards, the officer rattled off a string of new contacts as the bulk of the Chaos ships hove into view, already turning towards the threat.

'Signal all ships, mark and lock targets, standby to fire on my command,' Marcos ordered. Across the fleet, gun barrels swiveled, tiny movements of mere inches resulting in a shift in the point being targeted of hundreds of miles due to the distances involved. Torpedo tube doors slid open, bomber crews suited up and prepared for launch. The fleet was ready for the word. And the word came.

'Fire.'

Knife Fight

At the Lord-Admiral's command, a single word unleashed an apocalyptic amount of firepower. Lances, a Nova Cannon, plasma and laser, shot and shell, missiles, torpedoes, macrocannon, railguns, coilguns, mass drivers, every type of weapon at the fleet's disposal opened up. Fire flashed across the void in a heartbeat, and an enemy Iconoclast-Class destroyer simply vanished, annihilated by a combination of firepower sufficient to sterilise an entire continent. The barrage struck a dozen Chaos craft, destroying some and merely grazing others. The Crusade fleet poured through the breach in the storm, guns blazing and drives throbbing, pushing them onward. Auspex scans went out, seeking the Soul Harvest and the other enemy capital ships. They found their targets, several hundred thousand miles away but closing rapidly, alerted by the disruption to the storm. A pleasing fantasy struck the Lord-Admiral as he imagined the despicable traitor Parthax panicking in confusion over what had caused the fluctuation in his shield from the outside world. He didn't know the precise answer himself, but a rough approximation was sufficient for him, and the Arch-Magos seemed convinced enough.

Another Chaos escort blossomed into fire, disappearing from the Auspex. But the rest of the Archenemy fleet was closing in, alerted and responding. A large cluster of a dozen or more of their bulk landers hung in space, barely visible at the planet's horizon, a mass of smaller Auspex contacts indicating that they were starting to hastily land their passengers and cargo, perhaps in panic at the sudden arrival of the Imperials. Of the Soul Harvest, there was still no sign.

'All ships, fire at will,' Marcos ordered. 'Priority targets remain the Soul Harvest and landing ships.' The fleet complied, throwing everything they had at their enemies. More Chaos ships were joining the fight, including the last surviving Grand Cruiser and the other Desolator-Class battleship. The Imperials had the advantage, but not overwhelmingly so. Return fire from the Chaos cruisers saw several Imperial frigates destroyed in moments. Lord-Admiral Marcos surveyed the scene on the holographic projection table on the bridge.

'Signal the Indefatigable,' he ordered. 'Tell them we shall provide protection for them. I want them to target their Nova Cannon on those transports. If we are to take and hold this planet, we need to knock out as many of their troops as we can before they land.' The order went out, and the Mars-Class Battlecruiser swung about to take distant aim. The escorts swarmed towards the enemy fleet, taking losses but inflicting them on their Chaos counterparts also. The Imperial capital ships swung about to present their broadside batteries. A swarm of torpedoes from the enemy escort squadrons lit up a Dauntless-Class light cruiser, smashing through its hefty prow armour and causing severe internal damage as battle was joined in earnest.

The Emperor's Judgement and Malleo Mortis formed a line, enabling the Indefatigable to take up an advantageous firing position. With the Nova Cannon loaded and ready, the Battlecruiser waited for the perfect moment, and then unleashed hell. Accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, the projectile detonated in the midst of the enemy transports clustered in low orbit. A huge fireball engulfed several of them, the flames instantly snuffed out by the vacuum. Half a dozen bulk transports simply exploded, bright starbursts of light in the skies above the main continent. Many infantry were killed, but some had already evacuated, heading planetside. The other surviving transports all began to disgorge their cargo as the Imperials closed in.

The dorsal lances of the Malleo Mortis began a dance of death with those of the Grand Cruiser, fire hurled thousands of miles through the vacuum to expend their titanic energies against the void shields of their opponents. Fighters and bombers poured from the launch bays of the Imperial flagship, a swarm of flies for the enemy capital ships to swat, but packing the potential for a very nasty sting.

'New Auspex contact, bearing zero-zero-zero, range sixty one thousand. Battleship, Desolator-Class. My Lord, it is the Soul Harvest!' the sensor officer called. 'Dead ahead. Just cresting the planet's horizon now.' From behind the ring of surviving transports, the enemy flagship was climbing into view from its position beyond the curve of the planet, over the north of the main continent.

'Now we have him,' Marcos growled. 'Let him come to us. He won't dare stay out of this fight. Maintain formation,' he ordered. 'Inform the Indefatigable to load and target their Nova cannon on that flagship, and fire once it is within ten thousand miles.' The vox-crews quickly passed the word.

Ducking in below the storm now, the Imperial fleet was immediately within knife-fight range with their opponents. Every weapon could be brought into play. Ships had to be careful with their maneuvering, as the planet's gravity well would be a harsh mistress and a damaged thruster or an overlong burn could see a ship trapped. Often after a battle close to a planet, the low orbits had to be cleared of debris, with drifting hulks being towed clear to remove the risk to the planet below of an uncontrolled apocalyptic re-entry.

As the Chaos fleet organised, it began to respond with increasing ferocity. Torpedo barrages were unleashed by their escorts, their slower speed meaning the void shields could not protect against them, and they put the maneuverability and prow armour of the Imperials to the test. They held, but damage was being done, especially among the weaker frigates. Several detonated with powerful explosions, their drives overloading, peppering the shields of their capital ship charges with debris.

Powering free of the transports, the guns of the Soul Harvest joined in the fray, its massed lascannon, plasma and railgun turrets hurling death across the void as it closed the gap. Its broadside lance batteries awaited a target, a full volley enough to annihilate anything less than a heavy cruiser. Once the flagship was within ten thousand miles, the Indefatigable's Nova cannon roared, sending a high-velocity round on its way. It detonated with a pulsating bloom of light against the battleship's forward shields. They wavered, but they held, and in response the Soul Harvest began to turn, bringing its starboard lances into the equation. They played over the Indefatigable's shields, shorting out several emitters, but they survived.

More Chaos escorts were rounding the planet to commit themselves to the battle. The entire enemy fleet was closing in, and the Imperials were in the thick of it. Las-fire and missiles flew like hail, while heavy macrocannon barrages smashed and pulverised exposed hulls. The Imperial cruiser squadron turned broadside on to meet the enemy, forming line astern and spitting out masses of firepower. Their Chaos counterparts, fewer in number but fuelled by bloodlust as well as training, fought like savages. Under the intense barrage, shields on both sides began to fail.

Heavy multi-tonne turrets were ripped from their sturdy moorings by accurate and sustained fire. Compartments burst open like ripe fruit. Sensor probes and ornamental gargoyles were melted or flashed to vapour. Flames raced along entire decks where the bulkheads and hermetically sealed doors failed. Lights flickered and failed. Men died.

'Signal to the fleet. Concentrate all fire on the Soul Harvest!' Lord-Admiral Marcos' stentorian voice radiated across the command bridge. The Imperial fleet had slowed, angling their ships such that a loss of maneuvering capability would not see them continue on a fatal plunge into the atmosphere. In an ironic reversal of the first battle around Kuda Prime, it was now the Chaos fleet standing between them and the planet, trying to protect their vulnerable transports. This time, however, the fighting was at even closer ranges. Torpedoes scarcely had time to arm themselves as they leaped from their tubes and within seconds were smashing into their targets. Hundreds of projectiles were being thrown at the Soul Harvest, and its shields were suffering. But the Chaos flagship was striking back, its lance batteries combining to annihilate a Dauntless-Class cruiser in a cataclysmic explosion. The Malleo Mortis had been the target of a considerable amount of the Chaos fleet's ire, and its shields were stripped, its armour pockmarked with craters. But it had taken a fearsome toll on the last surviving Grand Cruiser in their lance duel, and the Chaos capital ship wallowed dead in space, burning in a dozen different places, a stream of plasma venting heavily from its engine room. A few of its guns continued to flash their defiance, but even as Marcos watched on the viewscreen, the Malleo Mortis dealt the death blow it had been seeking. A volley from its half-dozen remaining lance turrets blasted holes in the cruiser's backbone. White light began to shine through every hole, every crack in its frame, and a moment later the Repulsive-Class Grand Cruiser erupted with a blinding, searing triple-flash as its reactors exploded, creating a vast expanding fireball tens of miles in diameter, thousands of tonnes of debris being flung from the explosion, smashing into the ships around her and actually destroying one of her own escorts. A great cheer went up from the bridge crew of the Emperor's Judgement. But the day was not yet won.

Seemingly from nowhere the Imperial flagship was struck bodily by the lances of both Desolator-Class battleships. Its port void shields failed, and the last few lance blasts struck the hull, punching through like paper and killing hundreds instantly. The bridge was bathed in blood-red emergency lighting and Admiral Marcos swayed with the blows, riding out the shaking like the hardened veteran he was.

'Damage report!' he commanded.

'My Lord, port void shield is down. Hull breaches on decks twelve through fifteen and deck 30,' came the reply. 'Portside macrocannon battery three has been knocked out.'

'Return fire, all weapons!' Marcos ordered. His gunners complied, a great blast of fire returned toward the Soul Harvest, laser, plasma and shell alike smashing into its forward shields. It was enough, the full broadside bringing down its starboard defences. Marcos clenched his fists.

'Signal the fleet again! Fire everything they have against the Soul Harvest. Its shield is down, now is our chance.' He watched the viewscreen intently as the enemy flagship continued its advance towards the fleet.

A hurricane of fire struck the Soul Harvest, a mass of missiles, torpedoes, lasers and macrocannon shells blowing holes in its hull. Its lances thundered in reply, striking at both the Emperor's Judgement and the unprotected Malleo Mortis. Flames ripped through both of the Imperial ships, precious oxygen venting in great plumes into the void. An internal explosion sent one of the Malleo Mortis' lance turrets spiraling away into space, its crew spilling out after it, those that were not dead from the concussion flailing helplessly for the few seconds of consciousness they had in the vacuum.

Plasma fires raged from the hulls of all three capital ships, undimmed by the exposure to space. Broadsides from several Imperial cruisers pounded the Soul Harvest, but in return it struck hard against the already-reeling Malleo Mortis. More of its lances were knocked out and men died in their thousands as great gashes were opened in the portside hull. The Chaos escorts pounced, seeing their chance and unleashing a torrent of short-range torpedoes. Fired at almost minimal distance, the torpedoes barely armed before they smashed into the battleship, and ripped its belly apart. Great heaving explosions shook the giant craft as it began to rip itself apart from the inside.

'Reinforce forward shields!' Marcos shouted. The Malleo Mortis was exploding and they were too close. 'All back full! Maximum braking!' he commanded. Jets and thrusters dotted all over the flagship's prow responded, slowing their forward progress even as the main drives were thrown into reverse. The Malleo Mortis became a blazing phantasmal light show as plasma cores and torpedo banks detonated. It took a few moments for the destruction to reach the main reactors, but when it did an artificial sun blazed brightly above the planet. The shockwave propagated by the wave of superheated gases released by the explosion quickly tapered off in the vacuum, leaving the Emperor's Judgement just outside of the danger zone.

It immediately retaliated for its fallen brother, letting loose a full broadside against the Soul Harvest. But the enemy flagship had rotated again, now bringing its undamaged port side into play, its lances roaring. They found their target, ripping open the port side of the Emperor's judgement. Spasms ran through the decking and the bridge seemed to vibrate. Marcos swayed with the punches but several crewmen went sprawling. Klaxons blared anew, warning of the fresh damage suffered by the already lacerated flank of the vessel.

'Helm! Hard a port, bring us about,' Marcos ordered, needing to get the port side out of the line of fire as any more lance hits to the same locations could prove fatal. The frontal void shields and prow armour would help protect the ship. In defence of their Admiral, the Indefatigable launched a Nova cannon round at the Soul Harvest, striking it firm on the port shields. At least four cruisers leaped into the fray, interposing themselves between the two battleships and unleashing volleys against the Desolator. Finding itself pounded anew and outnumbered, the Soul Harvest's engines glowed as it tried to punch clear, its lances deprived of their primary target. They turned their attentions on the cruisers, causing catastrophic damage to one of them with a full broadside. Chaos escorts rushed to protect their leader as it retreated, forming a line in the same way the Imperial cruisers were doing. But the frigates and destroyers were a lot less hardy than the cruisers, and several were wiped out in a moment, though they managed to get an impressive volley of torpedoes away that challenged the Indefatigable's prow armour. Several struck home, punching deep into the thick ceramite before detonating, their heavy plasma warheads vapourising huge chunks out of the supportive structure. Internal damage knocked the Nova cannon out of action.

The fight was still chaotic, and, as Marcos had privately feared, it was not going all their own way. A quick glance at the holographic map showed the reality of it. The Malleo Mortis was gone, the Emperor's Judgement heavily damaged once again, the previous scars from the first battle having been opened anew by additional damage to its port side. A report had just come in from the Indefatigable that the Nova cannon was down until it could be repaired. They still possessed half a dozen cruisers and several dozen escorts, but the two enemy battleships were still fighting, several of their cruisers were coming in to join the fray from positions on the other side of the planet, and a considerable number of frigates and destroyers were still pecking away at the Imperials. With most craft having lost their shields, any standoff tactics would result in them being picked off by the lances of the two Desolators.

'Signal the fleet,' Marcos commanded. 'All ships are to advance and press home the attack. Concentrate all fire on the Soul Harvest. She must not get away!' He clenched his fists and turned to his flag captain.

'The success of this Crusade depends on the destruction of that ship,' he growled. 'If we take it out, this storm ends and we can make our landing. If not...'

'My Lord, is this planet worth the loss of the fleet?' Bormann questioned, not for the first time. 'I know it is a garden world, but...'

'But nothing, Captain!' Marcos snapped. 'This Chaos fleet is here for a reason. They want something, something on the planet. Why else would they have driven straight into orbit and put up that storm? If they wanted to merely destroy us, they took us by surprise. They could have stood and fought, but they didn't. They cut right through us and blocked us off from this place. There is something, something down there. Some resource that Parthax,' he spat the name, 'that scum wants. Whatever it is, I'm not going to let him take it. If it's useful to him, then it's either useful to the Imperium as well, or it's dangerous to us, and either way, the archenemy cannot possess it.'

'I understand, sir...' Bormann nodded. 'But we nearly lost the fleet to the storm. If we lose it to the enemy, then the traitor lord still wins.'

'Then we shall not lose. We shall not die, no, it is the enemy who will taste death and defeat!' Marcos proclaimed sagely. 'We know our duty and we will do it. The Emperor is watching over us, have you doubt of this? Why else would the storm have faded enough for us to pass through?'

Bormann didn't know the answer, but it seemed that the Emperor was not involved, given the ferocity of the Chaos resistance they had found on the other side of the otherwise-impermeable barrier. An enemy trick, perhaps, or some bizarre natural phenomenon in this part of space, or something to do with the strange readings from the planet, but not the Emperor's doing.

'Continue the pursuit, Captain,' Marcos continued. 'We have little choice in the matter. To flee would cast shame upon every man aboard. This Crusade has not shirked from its task. We have traveled far and suffered much, and here at the edge of the galaxy, we shall stand and we shall fight. Bring down that ship, and we bring down the storm. Bring down the storm, and we can bring down hell to the enemy.'

If the defenders of Griffonstone happened to glance skyward once more, a second fireworks show would have greeted their gaze, alongside the slowly fading auroras. Flashes of fire and explosions of cataclysmic magnitude could be glimpsed with the naked eye as the space battle raged above, but more pressing matters held their attention. The enemy, reinforced, was making a strong push from the east flank, coinciding with a thrust from the west. A pincer movement was squeezing the defenders, but the lines were holding, as was the shield over the palace. In the command centre, Major Harding struggled to coordinate the defences. Interoperability between the Imperials, Griffons and ponies was all but non-existent. They used different weapons and different tactics. The Xenos had no vox-equipment, no comm-beads, and no Auspex equipment. All they had in common was, bizarrely, their language and broad rank structure. That, and the will and instinct to do whatever was necessary to survive.

Both the Griffons, fighting in their capital, and the ponies, having borne witness to their homeland being overrun by invaders from space, were scared and angry. Forces they barely understood had been unleashed upon them. A species they had met for the first time scant days before had brought their foreign war to their relatively peaceful lands, and almost in the blink of an eye their lives, their world, had been shattered and irrevocably changed forever. Some had broken down completely, but for many, it hardened their resolve. They would fight, fight even harder than they had against each other, against the Changelings, against Discord, against whoever and whatever had threatened them in the past, because if they did not, there would be no future.

The enemy escort gunships had ranged over the city, probing the strength of the defensive shield with their rockets before being driven off by fire from the surviving airships. The Imperial Valkyries were out of ammo and fuel and were grounded, leaving air defence in the hooves of the crewponies, braving the skies over Griffonstone. A few times, enterprising enemies on the ground had opened up with their small arms, but everything except las-fire pattered against the shield harmlessly, and the lasgun fire that got through simply did no discernible damage against the ventral armour of the gondolas. Their anti-air ammunition nearly expended, the Canterlot and Starswirl continued to patrol, unable to engage the descending enemy dropships as the remaining rounds needed to be saved for self-defence. Their main guns and the Starswirl's bombardment cannon, however, continued to fire at targets of opportunity below, killing a good number of Chaos infantry who had spent barely seconds on the ground as they headed for the relative safety of the city. But the enemy numbers were too great, augmented by several thousand reinforcements, for the airships to make a big difference.

The attack came in from both flanks at once, a determined thrust toward the palace. Guns blazed in answer, but the enemy seemed to be everywhere- in every window, every doorway, behind every abandoned cart, coming up from the sewers, on the rooftops. Again the Chaos Marines formed the tip of the spear, advancing steadfastly through the hail of fire. When they fired, something died. Missiles raced out from the barricaded houses and tank cannons roared, knocking down several of the heavily-armoured infantry, but the rest kept coming, implacable. The baying hordes followed, their massed gunfire keeping defenders' heads down. The enemy gunships raced in again, their rocket volleys bringing down the side wall of one of the fortified houses occupied by the Imperials, sending several men tumbling to their deaths. A lucky shot from a ground-based lascannon caught one of the craft as they pulled away, bringing it down in flames.

There was too much to do. Princess Celestia could hear gunfire from all quarters, see the flashes, smell the cordite, ozone and blood. She had remained at the same location for a while until it became clear the defenders there had things in hoof. The human leader in that sector, a Lieutenant Albrecht, had told her with a rather wary tone that the enemy were making a strong push from both flanks, and she could only be at one of them. She had chosen the east, as it was closest, and it was the direction from which the enemy reinforcements would come. She had seen their craft descending, making their drops before climbing away into the sky. Even as gunfire flickered around her, she risked a glance to the firmament. She had done, and was still doing, her part- were the humans above doing theirs?

The fleet moved to obey their Admiral's orders. The lances aboard the Indefatigable took over from the Nova cannon, firing ranging shots after the fleeing Soul Harvest. Heavy fire from the six surviving cruisers peppered its aft shields and knocked them out of action. The other fleeing Desolator pulled ahead of its sister, but escaped the Imperial fleet's ire. The Chaos cruisers tried to interpose themselves between the battleships and the attackers, and they managed to knock one of their Imperial equivalents out of action. But the lances of the Indefatigable reached out again and struck the stern of the Soul Harvest. Its engine array flickered and died, leaving the hulking craft dead in space, coasting along on momentum alone, unable to maneuver.

The Lord-Admiral sensed the weakness and pounded his lectern. 'Alert all attack craft! Close in and engage the Soul Harvest!' he roared. I've got you this time, Parthax.

Starhawk Squadron Sigma-Three raced through the emptiness, at least if the lumbering void-bombers could be considered to 'race' anywhere. The box-like craft with stubby wings were the mainstay of the Imperial attack craft fleets, and along with their Fury interceptor escorts, roamed the vacuum between their fleet and that of the enemy, in search of prey. The Starhawks were capital-ship killers, at least in theory. Armed with heavy missiles and a main payload bay full of rotary plasma-bomb racks, they could, if they were able to get into range, inflict heavy damage on any enemy ship of the line.

If being the key word, Pilot-Captain Starros thought. He had been serving as a bomber pilot for years, first with the Marauder squadrons that operated in atmosphere, and then, after a transfer request was granted, aboard the Emperor's judgement during the entirety of the Western Fringe Crusade. He knew full well that every time the fighters and bombers left their launch cradles and popped out into the vastness of space to engage an enemy fleet, there was a high chance they would never come back. Space was not a kind place, especially to lowly attack craft. Point defences aboard most vessels were numerous and highly effective, to say nothing of the crossfire from the big guns, guns that could punch holes in the hulls of the mightiest battleships, guns that could destroy a town with a single shot, guns that could shatter mountains.

So imagine what they'd do to us.

The Starhawk was a well-designed machine, with a crew of fifteen and several point-defence guns of its own, with a forward twin lascannon, two multilaser turrets and two heavy bolter turrets. There were gunners, the pilot, copilot, engineseer Priest, bombardier, navigator...a motley collection of humanity, mingled with the not-quite-so-human servitors, lobotomised and thoughtless drones who handled minor and monotonous tasks like monitoring systems and processing reports. All were needed, however, to ensure the success and survival of the Starhawk. Ten craft formed each squadron.

Pilot-Captain Starros looked through his cockpit glass. Their target was some four thousand miles ahead, the traitor flagship Soul Harvest. Even from this distance it was a behemoth, a vast tainted cathedral in service to the dark powers, similar in size to their own carrier and flagship but eminently more sinister in appearance. It still shocked Starros that such a malign-looking craft ever served under the Imperial banner before the Heresy. Tapering to a spear-point at the prow, with ugly protuberances jutting from the 'wings' and a cluster of what almost looked like organ-pipes sprouting from the spine of the rear section, the Desolator-Class simply looked 'evil.'

Though the Soul Harvest showed signs of heavy damage, it was still in the fight, albeit bereft of motive power. Without any additional acceleration, the battleship was being slowed by the atmospheric drag as it had ducked lower into the planet's gaseous shield in an attempt to escape its pursuers. As a result the shoals of Imperial attack craft were closing rapidly on it, accompanied by some of the hardier frigates and destroyers. The directive had come from the Lord-Admiral himself- destroy the Soul Harvest. Starhawk Squadron Sigma-Three was happy to try and oblige.

Squadron Leader Derrick was on the vox. 'All craft, stay in attack formation. Close range to two thousand miles. Prepare to fire missiles,' came the command.

Starros acknowledged with a curt, 'Sigma-Three Eta, affirmative.' He prepped his craft to fire, should they get into range without erupting into a fireball. The checklist was long and tedious to those not well-versed in its procedures, which included such arcane and untechnical advice as, 'Intone prayer for missile warhead Machine Spirit and the Litany of Accuracy BEFORE depressing firing stud.' He rattled through them with his co-pilot Detmer, arming the missiles, activating the targeting computer, saying the appropriate prayers no matter how ludicrous they may seem to a man about to enter mortal combat, perhaps mere seconds from a sudden and violent death. The Starhawk was ready to kill.

And just like that, it nearly died, with a sudden brilliant burst of light erupting mere miles from its port side as a plasma cannon or perhaps a stray lance shot detonated. The old, venerable bomber rattled and shook like a dilapidated house, but it ploughed onward. 'Range twenty-five-hundred,' the navigator informed him, the crew confirming their status in turn. 'Bombardier is ready in position.' 'Gunners standing by.' 'Engine room, temperature and pressure nominal.'

'Standby all positions. Beginning attack run,' Starros called. His head was already sweating under his helmet, the heads-up Auspex display showing strings of coordinates and information. It showed his weapons loudout- missiles armed, bombs primed, all ready. Ahead lay the Soul Harvest, its fleeing fellow, its escorts, and its protective wall. Enemy cruisers lay between them and the battleship, and if the attack craft expended their payload on them, they would have to return to the Emperor's Judgement and Indefatigable to rearm, and that would not do. Their directive was to take out the flagship, and so the small craft, almost a thousand in number, would have to rely on their capital ships to clear a path for them, or at the very least, keep their losses to a minimum.

As if to prove the point, a sudden spray of point defence fire erupted from the cruisers as they drew within a thousand miles of them. Shells, rockets, las-blasts, plasma, railgun slugs and massed bolter fire met them in mid-space, and points of fire blossomed in the blackness as several dozen attack craft were caught by the hailstorm and shredded. The diminutive size of the attack craft made it hard for capital ships to target them with main batteries, but proximity fuses could certainly have a devastating impact, and lucky or stray shots could strike from nowhere. But it was the close-in point defences that the attack craft feared the most, rapid-fire cannon, flechette launchers, multilasers and heavy bolters that studded the exteriors of all major warships, designed to shoot down nearby threats including attack craft, torpedoes and missiles, as well as being used, in times of calm, to destroy small asteroids and micrometeorites in the ship's path. The bane of any starfighter's life, and their most likely cause of death.

Sigma-Three Eta drove onward, avoiding the incoming fire. Starros watched as craft around them died. Return fire flashed silently across the void from their own side, the Imperial cruisers engaging their counterparts directly. Explosions raged along the flanks of the Chaos ships, knocking out dozens of their point-defence weapons. The barrage coming at the attack craft thinned, though here and there a Starhawk or Fury continued to die. The massed squadrons swept beneath the Chaos ships, which were deployed as a barrier more against the Imperial warships than against their bombers. Several Imperial escort frigates, however, were not so lucky as to escape unscathed, and were caught by heavy broadsides from the Chaos capital ships, destroying two and crippling another.

Starros keyed his internal vox to address his crew. 'Standby, all stations. Range to target?'

'One thousand seven hundred,' came the reply. Starros brought the nose of the Starhawk up, the Soul Harvest in his sights. As they emerged from the shadow of the cruisers, however, their portside point defences were able to pick up the slack. A severe barrage was unleashed from behind on the attack craft. Several squadrons ceased to exist as operational entities, while other disappeared from existence entirely. Sigma-Three Eta was struck a glancing blow by a lascannon, punching a hole in its port wing, unimportant since they were operating in space and not in atmosphere.

'Steady, boys,' Starros muttered, as much for himself as for his crew. Though he was a veteran of countless bombing runs, each time was a new terror, a new chance of death. But the Emperor had protected him thus far, and he had lived through everything the universe could throw at him.

But the Emperor's grace was not unlimited.

Starros found himself thrust forward against his control console as a loud roar filled his ears. Decompression... The stick felt loose in his hand. His void-suit protected him, and he looked around the cockpit. Beside him, Detmer gave a quick 'Ok' sign to indicate he was alright, but a dozen blood-red warning lights were flashing on the console. Besides his own laboured breathing and the occasional crackle of the helmet vox, Starros' world had become silent. The air had vented from the craft, or at least the cockpit, meaning sound had no medium in which to travel.

'Damage report!' he called through the vox, hoping for a reply, as silence meant death for his crew.

'Engine room...we have damage,' came the mechanised voice of the Techpriest. 'Port motor offline. Starboard motor overheating, unknown cause. Hull breach recorded, main section, possible damage to oxygen generators. Will investigate.'

'Bombardier...station ok. Am able to continue the bombing run.'

'Port gunner...wounded...' A hacking cough filled the vox for a moment. 'Help...'

Starros looked over at Detmer, who was already unbuckling his harness. Starros gave him a nod to signal that he could handle the craft himself, and the copilot was gone, floating back to help the wounded man. Starros turned his attention back to the Soul Harvest, looming ever larger in the cockpit glass. Fire was coming from in front as well as the rear now, as the Desolator engaged them with whatever rear point defences it possessed. Coming in from astern, the Imperial attack craft were clear of the majority of the battleship's guns, but several more died all the same. Coming within a thousand miles, a loud buzz filled Starros' helmet. The firing tone- they were in optimal range. He squeezed the firing stud, and the missiles flew, heaving themselves free of their launch rack and flinging themselves across space. hundreds of others launched almost simultaneously from other craft, those that had run the gauntlet and survived.

Point defences switched targets, focusing on the missiles. A single shot from almost any of the weapons systems was enough to destroy a warhead, but there were so many. Dozens smashed into the stern of the Soul Harvest, their armour-piercing warheads punching through the hull before detonating internally. The already damaged ship was stricken, fires raging, bulkheads breached. But still it resisted, portside lances flashing and catching an Imperial destroyer foolish enough to try and flank it, the ship mercifully exploding into a million fragments as it had the potential to drop into the gravity well and strike the planet.

The next phase for the Starhawks would be to close to point-blank range and deliver their cargo of plasma bombs. Starros accelerated, but he could feel the damage to his craft. Port motor out, as the Techpriest has said. There was no drag in space, nor lift, so speeding up merely moved the Starhawk into a higher orbit, which was important given that their role was now to drop bombs upon the enemy. Starros applied just enough power to lift Sigma-Three Eta above the Soul Harvest. He momentarily couldn't remember why, then he couldn't remember what his target was, but everything came back to him, at least for a while.

'Flight deck, engine room.' The voice of the Techpriest echoed in his ears. 'Have confirmed damage to oxygen generator. Feed system is operating at 25% capacity. Cannot supply enough oxygen for extended operation. Suggest we return to the carrier immediately, or all organic crew will be deceased within, I estimate, seven minutes.'

Starros blinked. That would explain his sudden light-headedness. He hadn't really been listening to the Techpriest before, focused on the target instead, but a damaged oxygen generation system spelled danger to the crew. Their masks, fed from the central system, would run dry in seven minutes, or at least the concentration of oxygen would drop to fatal levels- he wasn't sure what the Techpriest had said. Another symptom? Absolutely. Confusion, delirium, inability to follow commands, all symptoms of oxygen deprivation. But they were so close, so close to their target, and maybe most of the crew were already dead anyway.

'Crew...all crew, sound off! Report, please,' Starros ordered, the Soul Harvest filling his view.

'Bombardier, ok...standing by...'

'Engine room, conditions unfavourable. Suggest we return to the carrier immediately.'

'Gunners...gunner? Gunner here. I'm great...!'

'Detmer? Detmer, report, please?' Starros urged. He got no response from his co-pilot. Explosions rippled all around him as other Starhawks died, and he realised he had been ignoring, or completely missing, orders from Derrick, the squadron leader.

No matter. We'll go in alone.

'Captain, I strongly advise you to turn back immediately. You will not survive continued operations without oxygen,' the Techpriest urged.

'All hands! Prepare for bombing...mission,' Starros called. 'Bombardier! Are you there?'

'Affirmative...bomber ready! I mean, bombar...bom...ready!' came the reply.

'You have control.' Starros let go of his stick and slumped back in his seat. The bombardier took control of the bomber for the final phase of the attack run, until the moment the bombs were released, when he would regain command. He felt the Starhawk sway gently, move up and down. The Soul Harvest almost completely obscured his vision now. They were so close, but things were coming at them- red things, blue things, black things.

Something's shooting at us, he reasoned.

'Captain, engine room. Oxygen generation is now at 10% of normal. Crew blood oxygen levels are likely to be below 75% within thirty seconds. Such levels are irreversibly damaging to organs such as the heart, the brain, the...'

Techpriest...saying something? Starros ignored him, instead focusing on the vast lump of metal and ceramite visible out of the cockpit.

'Bombardier...bombs gone!' came the triumphant voice over his vox. 'You...have, uh...bombardier, you have...you have control...'

The heavy plasma bombs dropped by their dozen from the belly of the Starhawk, impacting on the hull of the Soul Harvest. They punched through, exploding inside, causing severe damage. Hundreds of other bombs were released by fellow Starhawks, and the Soul Harvest was done for.

Starros watched the battle-ravaged hull of the enemy flagship draw nearer and nearer. A strangely beautiful sight, all of the fire, the plasma, consuming his gaze. They were getting closer. With a sudden, primordial stab of realisation, Starros remembered why. He was supposed to be taking them away, taking them clear, back to the carrier. But instead he was merely dreaming, his mind addled by a fug of his own making. He hadn't listened to the Techpriest, hadn't turned back when there was a chance of survival. Now it was too late, but strangely it didn't seem to matter. The Starhawk was going in, and all he could see was a ceramite wall ahead. He smiled to himself.

Sigma-Three Eta slammed into the skin of the Soul Harvest, an inconsequential flash of light against the backdrop of destruction. The battleship was exploding, vast plumes of fire and venting gas erupting from its dorsal sections, ravaged by the Imperial attack craft, its hull shredded in a hundred places. A cheer, an outpouring of joy and relief, rose from the throats of the Imperial crews as they watched on. The Soul Harvest died in a huge and sudden fireball as its reactors exploded, catching dozens of attack craft in its furious blast but signalling the death of the flagship.

And of more than that. Whatever or whoever had been aboard and controlling the warp died with the vessel, and within moments, sensors aboard the fleet, aboard the transports, and aboard the Ferrus Terra all recorded the same thing. The warp storm was fluctuating, fading, easing. The warp storm was ending.

A Bolt From The Black

The command centre shook once more, dust raining down from another artillery strike on the palace. Major Harding grimaced, the situation on the map showing exactly why. The enemy was coming ever closer, squeezing their surviving defences, their reinforcements hammering at the eastern flank and threatening to break through in several places. He was receiving reports that the pony princess was fighting at the frontline, news that surprised him. He had been sure she would have turned tail and fled as soon as he acquiesced to her suggestion that she should go and help.

It seems I was wrong, he pondered, though he doubted that she could make an appreciable difference, even if she was a psyker. The Auspex showed that the last of the enemy landers had made their runs and deposited their cargo on the snowfield and were climbing back into orbit. With several thousand extra enemy infantry besieging the palace, it seemed that their time was limited indeed.

'Sir! Vox contact!' a Sergeant called out.

'Which company?' Harding questioned without sparing a glance, having received a steady string of reports, calls for help and enemy observations over the last few hours. The Sergeant spoke again breathlessly.

'No sir, new contact It's the fleet!'

Harding whirled around. 'The fleet? How? Are you certain?' he snapped. 'Authenticate with the weekly codes and...'

'I already have, sir!' the Sergeant replied. 'I have positive vox contact with the Emperor's Judgement!'

'But how?' Harding questioned. 'How did they get a message through the storm?'

'They didn't, sir. They got themselves through,' came the reply. Harding pounded on the table in front of him with a fist.

'Then we have a chance! Not much of one, but a chance all the same. Give me that vox.' He held out a hand and received the handset, speaking into it immediately. 'This is Major Harding, 2nd Brigade, 40th Parvian Lancers, in command of all, uh...allied ground forces in Griffonstone. We have received your transmission. We are under heavy fire and surrounded. Enemy infantry and Traitor Astartes attacking in number. Casualties heavy, ammunition low. We need immediate assistance, over.'

'Then you shall have it, Major,' came the stentorian voice of Lord-Admiral Marcos, faintly distorted by static, having demanded to speak to whoever the vox-operators managed to get into contact with on the ground. 'We have broken through the warp storm and routed the Chaos fleet. The storm is now dissipating. We will begin our landing operations shortly. Please relay exact coordinates of your location and the positions of the enemy.'

'Yes, My Lord!' Harding replied, immediately recognising the voice of the Crusade's leader. 'Relaying coordinates now.' He reeled off the string of digits showing the locations of friendly and enemy. 'My Lord, are you in contact with any other Imperial forces on the planet?'

'Not at this time, Major. You are the only ones,' Marcos replied. 'We are attempting to establish communications with any other surviving units. Fear not, Major, you are alone no longer.'

The two officers quickly exchanged the minutiae of their defensive situation, keeping things as brief as possible. The Lord-Admiral once again promised relief for the beleaguered defenders before cutting the link and allowing Harding to focus on holding the line until the promised reinforcements arrived.

We might just live to see the sun again, Harding thought.

The eastern flank was in chaos. Princess Celestia found herself trotting through a crazed muddle of smoke, flame, flashing las-fire and explosions. Men and Griffon alike huddled behind their barricades and threw themselves to the ground as mortar fire came in, but the princess strode unharmed through it all. She patrolled the line, through streets and alleys, through broken houses, positions held by her ponies, by the Griffons, by the Imperials, teleporting close to wherever it sounded like the fiercest fighting was occring. Those humans who had not been informed of her identity could quite easily infer given her regalia, her size, her ethereal unearthly mane and tale, and the fact that, wherever she appeared, enemies died. Her horn would blaze brightly at any targets of opportunity, sometimes lancing through Chaos troopers like a knife through butter, sometimes setting them aflame. Her presence raised the morale of the pony defenders- whether it did the same for the Griffons and humans was questionable, but it certainly pleased them to see their enemies burn.

Since she had no communication with the human headquarters, Celestia had no idea where the strongest push was being made, where the enemy were the closest to breaking through, where she was needed most. All she could do was rely on her senses. Wherever the gunfire rang the loudest, that was where she went. Wherever the fires burned strongest, that was where she went. Wherever the smell of blood and death was strongest, that was where she went. She knew her dawn was coming, and spared another glance skyward. The faintest flickers of the warp storm could be glimpsed, but it was fading fast, and she could see that her plan had worked, as she knew it would, at least the first part. Now it relied on the human fleet to break through the enemy ships. Harding had seemed confident they could do so, but Celestia had no idea of how accurate his belief was- based on fact, or on faith?

All she could do was continue her duty, continue to protect her ponies and their allies, potentially the last of their race left alive on the planet, and in the case of the ponies and Griffons, perhaps the last in all of creation. She was determined, determined beyond all else, not to let her subjects be wiped out, for after all, was that not her purpose? To protect her loyal citizens, to shield them from harm, to guide them, to help and nurture them and ensure their continued development? None of that could be done with these invaders from space running rampant across the planet. Their safety could not be guaranteed, none of them- not even herself. The presence still niggling at the back of her mind told her that.

With the Chaos fleet in disarray at the loss of their flagship, the Imperials had pressed home their advantage, knocking out several cruisers and a dozen escorts in the momentary confusion. The other Desolator-Class had fled, its drives pushing it hard into high orbit, but the Imperial fleet had taken too much damage to pursue, their escort squadrons ravaged especially hard. most likely it would slink away with its surviving escort frigates behind the moon or some asteroid somewhere to repair itself enough to jump to warp and flee like the cowards its crew no doubt were. Two enemy cruisers fled the scene with heavy damage, while the other who stood to fight were crippled and then destroyed with a final volley of broadside fire from their Imperial counterparts.

Low orbit, to the east of the main continent, was littered with debris; twisted metal, shattered chunks of ceramite, bodies, gutted attack craft, burned out hulks of ships-of-the-line. Both fleets had suffered grievous losses in the close-range fight, precisely why such battles were urged against whenever possible by all tactical manuals. Hundreds of thousands of fine young men and women had been killed or wounded, and even as Lord-Admiral Marcos viewed over the mopping-up of a final pair of evidently blood-crazed Chaos corvettes duelling with two Dauntless-Class cruisers in a futile mission, he knew that the Crusade would go no further. They had reached the edge of the galaxy, and as many had feared, it had brought them only death. All but two of their capital ships were gone, dozens of escorts destroyed, half a dozen cruisers all that remained, heavy losses to the bulk transports...

This was the extent of their reach out into the Western Fringe. The fleet was spent, and even though sufficient transports remained to conquer new worlds, their escort was so severely depleted as to render any further forward progress tantamount to suicide, as nobody knew what else lurked beyond this world, this strange place, this land of talking equines. It felt fundamentally wrong to have forged an alliance, albeit a temporary one, with such Xenos, and yet somehow, it did not feel...as wrong as it should.

Ever since they arrived in system, many men had reported such strange feelings. Nothing malignant, nothing from the Empyrean or the forces of the Dark Gods, but something nevertheless tugging at their minds. Unlike any warp-terror or Chaos sorcery, it was a gentle tug, gentler even than the pleasing lies of Slaanesh or the whispered secrets of Tzeentch that sought to unlock men's minds from within. This feeling held no fear, no evil intent. In fact, in private conversations with the Navigator of the Emperor's Judgement, Pericles, Marcos had learned the reason for the smoothness of their initial entry into the system.

The Astronomican, the single point of guiding light, the lighthouse that guided all interstellar travel outside of the Sol System, was a psychic signal given off by the Emperor himself with the purpose of guiding His fleets, His traders and His people. The mutant Navigators of the Navis Nobilite could use the signal as a reference point, the single fixed location from which all others could be calculated. It was this beacon alone, powered by the life-energy of thousands of expendable human psykers, that made Warp travel possible. But out on the fringes of the galaxy, even the western edge which, cosmically speaking, was closer to Holy Terra than the eastern fringe was, tens of thousand of light years from the home of humanity, the light of the Astronomican was dim. Dulled by distance, even the Emperor could only project the signal so far. In distant systems, the dulling of the Light meant that Warp travel was more difficult, and passages between systems often became bumpy, slow, off-target and dangerous.

But Pericles had reported something else. Another signal, not as strong as the Astronomican, but there nonetheless. But it was different. It was not a beacon as such; indeed it did not appear, Pericles reported, to be a psychic presence imprinted on the warp. Rather it seemed to be something outside of the fabric of the Immaterium, pressing in on it, not so much a shining psychic light as an appearance that something, something very powerful, should have been present in the warp, but was not, instead existing outside of it. Nevertheless whatever it was had enough of an effect to be able to act as a guide, ensuring the fleet's safe passage. Pericles reported that his conversations with other Navigators across the fleet had confirmed that they, too, had detected the anomaly, but unlike any other unknown signals, none of them had the slightest doubt that the beacon might have been a trick, a trap, or an ambush. It may have been a psychic signal, but it had no psychic presence within the warp, but neither did it have the symptoms of a Pariah, a psychic blank, a human who lacked any imprint or presence in the warp and led to feelings of revulsion and abhorrence in psykers. None of the Navigators had been driven mad by exposure to it, none had tried to claw their third eye out as a result, and every one of them was in agreement. Whatever the anomaly was, it radiated power, but it also radiated goodness, and it was located on this planet.

This revelation was part of the reason why Marcos had been so keen to break through the storm and to stop the Chaos fleet. Something was down there, and while he had not felt it prudent to inform the fleet, or even his command staff, of its apparent nature, he knew instinctively that it was precisely what the Archenemy and Parthax The Infidel in particular were after. Something with the power the Navigators had reported could not be allowed to fall into the hands of Chaos, and whether this was some ancient artifact, a particular Xenos, or some powerful new substance unknown to science, Marcos knew that the Crusade needed to get back down to the planet below. While it seemed unlikely, the most plausible explanation for the inherent goodness and lack of malign intent the Navigators had detected in the signal was that it was some kind of life form. But there is no goodness beyond mankind, Marcos knew, and precious little within it, either. The Emperor was the only true Good in the galaxy, and while this unknown presence lacked the intensity of even His present, weakened and enfeebled state of mind, it possessed a great strength, enough to reach across the stars and help, deliberately or unknowingly, their jump through the warp to reach its home system.

Marcos watched on as the final fragments of swirling warp energy dissolved, leaving the planet clear and free, the full expanse of its beauty laid out below them and the blackness of space above. The fleet transports were moving in. The Lord-Admiral knew that the Chaos transports had landed a large proportion of their passengers and cargo before the fleet had been able to intercept them and destroy the remnants, those that had not fled helplessly for the outer system and thus taking themselves beyond the present range of the crippled Crusade fleet. Marcos dared not split his forces, even to pursue the Archenemy, as after so many losses the chances of protecting the transports and the planet from anything of any significance was negligible, and it was always possible that the Chaos ships had been able to summon reinforcements, either from realspace or from the depths of the Empyrean itself before they were scattered to the solar winds.

With large numbers of Chaos forces planetside, the Imperials would have to commit the bulk of their own infantry, tanks, artillery, atmospheric aircraft and other forces to take it back, as excessive orbital bombardment would ruin the garden-world nature of the planet and its main attractiveness to the Imperium, and also had the potential to destroy whatever it was that was creating the psychic signal and, Marcos suspected, the feelings of relative calm induced in not just him, but reported from across the fleet since their arrival. First priority, however, was to relieve the surviving Imperial forces bottled up in the city of Griffonstone.

A barrage of rockets fell from the skies, smashing into the cobbled stones of the palace square and showering the Imperial tanks with fragments. One of the Chaos gunships raced overhead, impudent in the face of the pony airships that sat silently floating above, unable to engage as they were down to their last rounds which had to be saved for self-defence. Captain Halix, commanding the defence above ground, peered out from the windows of his makeshift headquarters. The building had already been struck by mortar fire and the roof mostly removed, though there was no indication the enemy knew their precise location. The square outside was strewn with debris from rockets, mortars and artillery fire, but still, somehow, the lines held. The vox crackled once more.

'CP, CP, this is Sapphire Sigma Two-Two! The enemy is all over us!' Rapid gunfire could be heard over the vox-call from the northeastern line. 'Requesting immediate support, over!' Halix glanced over at his expectant deputy, Lieutenant Marne, and shook his head. They had nobody to send.

'CP, CP, Sapphire Sigma Two-Two, urgent! Enemy breakthrough expected! We are being overrun! Request fire mission, danger close! I say again, we are being overrun, request fire mission, danger close, over!' the shouted message became louder and more ragged. Explosions crackled over the net, but Halix could do nothing. He had lost contact with his artillery positions some time ago and couldn't order a fire mission even if his own command post were being overrun.

'CP, CP, come in, please! For the Emperor's sake, is anybody listening?' the man screamed through the vox. 'They're breaking through! They're bre...' he suddenly fell silent as a strange sound filled the channel. Halix dropped his head as he was sure the man, if not his entire company, was dead. But after a few moments, his voice came through once more with static crackling heavily, but he was audible.

'CP, CP...Sapphire Tw...uh, correction, Sapphire Sigma Two-Two...sitrep...the, uh...the horse-alien is here...the princess,' he reported, as a string of explosions echoed across the commlink. 'The enemy, uh...the enemy are retreating. I say again, the enemy are retreating.. over.'

Halix cocked his head. The traitors were about to overrun that position, and then this Xenos princess arrived and suddenly they were fleeing. This would have puzzled and unnerved him if it weren't the tenth time he had heard such a similar report over the past hour. A position would come under heavy, sustained attack, be in danger of being overrun, and then the princess would appear and moments later, all would be well. He knew the princess was a psyker but she seemed to be popping up all over the place. Perhaps the reports were incorrect or incomplete, made by men under stress and under fire, and not all instances of her appearance were actually of the princess herself- one Xenos looked much like another to most guardsmen. But somehow Halix doubted it. Having seen her for himself he found it unlikely she could be easily mistaken for any other of her species, assuming she was indeed the same species as the rest of the, considerably smaller, horse-aliens. Whatever the truth of it, somehow she was springing up time and again at the points of greatest need and rescuing those in trouble, including, he reasoned, his fellow guardsmen and not just her ponies.

Though she alone had not kept the enemy at bay, without her the eastern flank, the most hard-pressed section of the line, would have crumbled long ago, opening a path for the enemy to charge onward to the palace and attack the rest of the defences from behind, as had happened earlier with the outer ring of positions when the Traitor Marines had arrived. Having brought themselves the extra time, the defenders' miracle was almost here.

'CP, this is headquarters,' Major Harding's voice came over the link. 'I have contact with fleet command, I say again, I have contact with fleet command. Relay to all units, friendly reinforcements are incoming from orbit. All units are to exercise appropriate fire discipline, do not engage any aircraft until positive ID is obtained.'

Halix wasn't sure he had heard correctly, but the Major repeated his whole message again just to make sure. Halix had no time to think about the how, only the when and where. After acknowledging the message he swiftly began relaying signals to units across the city, alerting them to the imminent arrival of friendly aid at a timely point in the battle when tiredness was starting to set in, ammunition running low and casualties mounting. Company commanders acknowledged his signal, and gleefully relayed it to their platoon leaders, who spread the word amongst the frontline troops. Soon enough it spread even to the pony and Griffon contingents also, and while nobody dared cheer openly, more than a few eyes were cast skyward when they had a spare moment. Even a redoubled enemy effort at both flanks, possibly in response to the same news, couldn't dismay them now. Help was finally coming.

As the Imperial dropships massed in low orbit and the bulk landers loaded up their precious cargo, atmospheric fighters swung down into the atmosphere. Captain Eliss Muran rode out his second re-entry to Kuda Prime. This time it was in darkness, although the sky was still lit by the afterglow of auroral spectacle and there was a growing patch of blue at eastern edge of the inky bowl of black. Emerging from the sheath of ionised plasma thrown up around his fighter by the speed of his re-entry compressing the air beneath it, Muran regained contact over the vox.

His first message was to his wingman, Rall. 'Hammer Two, this is Hammer One. Comm check, over.'

'Hammer One, Hammer Two. Five-by-five, over,' came the same crisp reply as last time. Rall's jet was in position a short distance behind and to the port of the flight leader. Another four Lightning strike fighters accompanied them. More were dropping in across the planet, he knew, along with Marauder bombers, scout craft, dropships, shuttles, landers, tank transports and medical barges, all the necessary airborne paraphernalia for an Imperial invasion.

After a comm check with the rest of Hammer Flight, Muran turned his attention to the skies above. 'Fleet Command, this is Hammer flight. Re-entry completed, altitude two-hundred-fifty thousand. Range to target is four hundred miles, over.'

'Fleet Command copies all. Hammer Flight, cleared to descend to angels thirty. Contact Griffonstone ground command on frequency band 121.75 for CAS instructions, over.'

'Hammer Flight, copies all, out.' Their objective was the beseiged city of Griffonstone, where Imperial forces were holed up, having apparently established an alliance with the locals. Hammer Flight were to conduct CAS, close air support, operations around the city to assist the defenders and to clear a path for the incoming Imperial reinforcements. Muran switched frequencies and tried to contact the ground forces they would be assisting.

'Griffonstone command, this is Hammer Flight, with you at angels two-five-zero, inbound for CAS, standing by for tasking, over.' He waited for a reply, which came a few seconds later over a crackly link.

'Hammer Flight, Griffonstone. Good to hear your voice, over. This is Major Harding, 2nd Brigade, 40th Parvian Lancers. Standby, I'll transfer you to my spotters.' After a few moments of static, another voice came on the line.

'Hammer Flight, this is Lieutenant Atter, Air Liason Officer. Glad to have you with us. Cleared to expedite your descent to angels thirty. Be advised, local mountain range has maximum height of 14,510ft MSL. Griffonstone is at 11,150ft MSL, surrounded by higher peaks. Do not, I say again, DO NOT engage airships located over the city, they are friendly, say again, friendly. How copy, over?'

Muran read back all the pertinent details and checked with the rest of his flight that they had received them. How odd, he pondered, that the first thing we did on our first sortie here was to shoot down one of those airships, and now they're on our side. 'Hammer Flight copies all, ALO. Descending angels thirty.' The flight of Lightnings dipped down, dropping through the thickening atmosphere, lower and lower, through thin, wispy high-altitude cloud and down into masses of cumulonimbus far to the south of the Hyperborean Mountains. Within minutes they were closing rapidly on the imposing peaks.

Still aboard the EAS Starswirl, Atter was in prime position hovering above the battlefield to observe enemy movements and direct the newly arriving friendly craft for close air support. 'Hammer Flight, ALO. Ground command reports they have you on Auspex, range 100 miles. Be advised, friendly positions are within the city itself. Enemy forces are located east, say again, easy of city perimeter, and within city perimeter outside of the northern quarter. Friendly perimeter will be marked by infrared strobes. Be advised, some enemy VTOL craft were operating in the vicinity, current locations unknown, over.'

'Hammer Flight, copy that. We are standing by for tasking. Six Lightnings, loadout four Hellfury AP, over,' Muran replied. The Hellfury missiles carried an anti-personnel warhead loaded with incendiary submunitions that would spread fire like rain, while the autocannon's high explosive rounds could pepper a target area with shrapnel and blast. While the Lightning was originally designed primarily as an air superiority aircraft, it could certainly turn its hand to close air support operations when outfitted with the right weapons, and the Hellfury was definitely the right weapon for engaging defenceless infantry. Lieutenant Atter immediately recognised the fact, and responded.

'Hammer Flight, ALO. Be advised, your target is one quarter mile east, say again, east of the city. Track north. Open snowfield, enemy LZ. Target is infantry in the open. Abort is in the clear, egress north to regroup. How copy?'

'Target one quarter mile east of city, track north, infantry in the open. Abort in the clear, egress north. Hammer Flight copies all,' Muran replied. He flicked his master-arm switch to on. 'Hammer Flight is descending angels one seven.' The six jets went lower, the outline of the mountains dim in the darkness, keeping above the report highest peak until they began their attack run. The infared targeting system built into his helmet for night operations enhanced what little light was available to show the foothills below that remained shrouded in darkness, the sun having not yet risen. The aircraft swept in, snowfields, glaciers and rugged peaks passing beneath them. On their infrared sights, the flashing and blinking of a fierce gun battle was visible ahead as the city hove into view. There were also a ring of flashing green-white strobes, the beacons indicating the location of the friendly forces.

'ALO, Hammer 1. I have visual on the city. I read your strobes, over,' Muran announced. Atter responded.

'Hammer 1, ALO, copy. Hammer Flight, cleared to orbit one-zero miles south of target. Hammer 1, standby...' A few moments passed. 'Hammer 1, you are cleared in hot from the south. Egress north, target is enemy infantry in the open. Mark with flare, over.'

'Cleared in hot, egress north, will engage, over,' Muran replied. He gripped the control column tightly and pushed the nose down. He could see the fairly open snowy area east of the city clearly. He flipped the infared system off, as he knew if he continued to look through it he would soon be functionally blinded.

Aboard the Starswirl, one of the starboard deck guns roared into life. Instead of a high-explosive round, however, it fired an illumination round, and suddenly a miniature sun blazed into life, a magnesium flare burning an intense white, lighting up the snowfield like it was noon. Enemy infantry still organising and marching from their landing zone looked up with shaded eyes.

'Hammer 1, copy your mark. Running in hot, 30 seconds.' Muran armed his missiles and pushed his nose down further. The flare was clear and bright ahead of him, and would have blinded him if he had been using the infrared system. He could clearly see small black dots, like ants, moving across the snow, and he had his target. He squeezed the firing stud multiple times.

Two of his Hellfury missiles left their underwing rails within a second of each other, screaming across the sky. Travelling at near the speed of sound, the Lightning's approach had been unnoticed by the enemy infantry below, and by the time one of them saw the flashes from the Hellfury's exhausts and shouted an alarm, it was too late. The missiles streaked in and their warheads detonated in mid-air. Submunitions contained within each weapon were thrown clear by the initial detonation, before their own explosive charges went off.

A vast swathe of sky above the snowfield suddenly turned to fire. The incendiary submunitions spread a burning gel-like mixture across the snow, and across the men marching across it. A large patch of snow melted almost instantly as the fire simply fell from the sky, creating a long flaming trail along the snowfield. Dozens of men flailed in agony, their skin blistering and blackening, their clothes igniting and melting into their flesh. Suddenly a roar filled the air as the Lightning passed overhead, almost breaking the sound barrier, racing away to the north. A cheer went up from the airship crews and from those defenders in upper floors of buildings able to observe the sudden incendiary attack.

'Hammer 1, ALO. Good effect on target. Egress north, orbit west to regroup. Hammer 2, cleared in hot, tally same target. Egress north, over.' Muran climbed away, banking to port as ordered, heading west to loop round and rejoin the 'taxi rank' of Lightnings waiting for their turn to run in. From the cockpit he could look and observe as Rall, Hammer 2, swooped in on the already panicked enemy infantry. Fire blossomed once more on the snowfield, revealing more of the bare rock beneath as the intense heat melted away both ice and man. Hammer 3 followed, then 4, 5, and 6, and before Muran was even ready to run in again, hundreds of enemy infantry, unsuspecting until moments before, lay dead or dying, hideous burns turning many of them into human mummies, their charred flesh bearing a closer resemblance to charcoal than to skin and muscle.

'Hammer 1, Hammer 1, Auspex contact!' Atter's voice came through clear as a bell. 'HQ reports Auspex contact, six miles west of your location, possible enemy VTOL craft, do you copy, over?'

Muran had been all but daydreaming, focused on watching the rest of his flight running in and dealing death to those below. But now death might be stalking him. He scanned his Auspex screen.

'Hammer 1, I copy, but I have no contact, over,' he replied, his screen being blank save for his own wingmates. But...wait, something...there! 'Hammer 1, scratch that, I have the contact. Confirm not friendly?' he queried, already bringing his jet around into a tight starboard bank.

'Hammer 1, ALO. Confirmed, contact is not friendly,' Atter replied quickly. 'You are cleared to engage the bandit, over.'

'Hammer 1, clear to engage, copy.' Muran flicked a switch, changing to his guns, one autocannon, two lascannons. His Lightning swung around, the onboard Auspex tracking the target, several thousand feet below him. A VTOL craft was of little threat to an interceptor like his, and he pushed the nose down again, determined to protect not just his squadronmates, but also the friendlies in the city below.

There he is.

'Hammer 1, I have the bandit in sight,' he called, diving in. 'Hammer 1, engaging!'

His wingtip lascannons flashed, the ventral autocannon chattering. The enemy craft, though more maneouverable than the Lightning, was considerably slower, and had almost no time to react. Las-bolts burned brightly as they cut through the thin armour of the gunship, and the autocannon added its weight to the contest, which was notably one-sided. The Chaos gunship simply exploded into a thousand pieces and spread itself across the rocks and snow beneath. Muran pulled up and swooped back into the sky, turning to rejoin the rest of his flight who had been pounding the enemy infantry below.

'Hammer Flight, ALO. Good effect on target, I say again, good effect on target. Looks like some of them are retreating, but they don't have anywhere to go,' Atter alerted the fighters. 'Hammer 1, in position?' he asked.

'Hammer 1, ready to go,' Muran replied.

'Hammer 1, you are cleared in hot, Target is enemy infantry in the open. Give 'em hell.'

Taking Stock

The Imperial dropships rained down, pumping fresh lifeblood into the veins of the defenders of Griffonstone. Dozens of craft landed virtually unopposed in the surrounding snowfields, some coming to rest on the charred corpses of their enemies to disgorge their passengers. Hundreds of fresh, battle-ready guardsmen deployed to meet the threat now bottled up inside the city and caught between a rock and a hard place. With Lightnings on combat air patrol overhead and boots on the ground below, the Imperials tightened the noose, a reverse of the earlier situation, just as the second fleet engagement in orbit had been a reverse of the first. The Chaos troopers and surviving Marines fought, and fought hard.

But yet more Imperial craft were coming down, dropping off more platoons ready to avenge their brothers and sisters who had already fought and died in this strange, windswept place. The survivors of the Archenemy were wiped out to a man, a small cluster of Astartes holed up in a shattered store proving the toughest nut to crack, bringing down nearly two entire Guard companies with bolter and plasma before the area was evacuated and the entire city block was leveled by a volley of precisely-delivered Hellstrike missiles from a newly arrived ground-attack Lightning in a near-vertical dive. Heavy weapons teams were able to go in and finish the job, and a few hours after sunrise, the city was declared clear of enemy forces.

Griffonstone was not the only location where troops were landing. A quick orbital and aerial survey had shown zero Chaos presence on a large sweeping plain located between the fringes of the western desert area and the more populated central belt, and a large force comprising the bulk of the Imperial effort was descending there, landers and dropships swarming across the area. While the beseigers of Griffonstone may have been defeated, the Chaos forces had been able to land an untold number of their troops and equipment elsewhere, presumably intending to wipe out any remaining resistance. Contact had not been established with any other surviving scattered Imperial forces from the first landing, suggesting the few units that had made it planetside before the storm had been annihilated. Now, however, the full-scale landing that had initially been intended could finally take place, though not with the original intention of 'pacifying' the natives, but now to work with them against a greater threat, much to the confusion and disquiet of many of the guardsmen and, no doubt, many of the natives too. But the world had been stained with the taint of Chaos, and that could not be allowed to stand. As a result, many thousands of men were touching down, along with tanks, mobile artillery, scout cars, trucks, ambulances, anti-air vehicles, tank destroyers, mobile Auspex vehicles, and a myriad other pieces of Guard equipment, all the individual pieces in the mighty struggle for the control of this world.

In Griffonstone, the cost was being counted. Hundreds of defenders were dead, their bodies littering the barricades, though they had taken a fearsome toll on the attacking infantry. In the outer districts, search teams found the Griffon civilians who had not made it inside. Some merely lay crumpled in the street, but in several places large piles of bodies had been made by the Chaos troops, possibly with the intention of burning them, possibly for some heretical ritual, or possibly merely as a kind of twisted trophy. The majority of the city's population were dead, and the humans now outnumbered the Griffons. Of the wider Griffon population, or their pony neighbours, there was no word. Pegasi or Griffon messengers could relay information, but none had arrived at the town since the invasion. Any surviving pony military forces would have no means of knowing that their leaders were located at Griffonstone, as to the wider world their whereabouts had been unknown since the fall of Canterlot.

With low orbit clear of any Chaos ships, the landings were all but unopposed, though the remnants of the enemy fleet lurked somewhere out in deep system, there having been no time yet to affect repairs to the Imperial escorts to go and search for them. Such a process would take some time, by when the Chaos craft may have already warped out of the system. One squadron of escorts, all the undamaged craft that could be scraped together, were kept on constant alert, ringing the planet as a picket should the survivors return, though with their warp storm gone and the Imperials in orbit, they must know there was little hope for their ground forces in the long term.

Lord-Admiral Marcos maintained his vigilant watch over his bridge crew as the Emperor's Judgement hung in geosynchronous orbit above the main landing site on the western plains. There would be no repeat of the previous interruption that had condemned so many men to an early death, underequipped and stranded below the roiling warp storm with no hope of support. Marcos was surprised, though pleased, when they had made contact with survivors, but not half as pleased as Lord-General Galen had been to learn at least some of his men had lived through their ordeal, though only, it seemed, with the support of the local creatures. Though command of the Crusade remained with Marcos, Galen could come into his own once more as it was time for his guardsmen to take the helm. The planet needed sweeping clean, and that could only be done from the ground given the garden-world status and their fragile alliances with the natives.

Major Harding had informed them of the presence of the princess and leader of the horse-aliens, and, eventually, the bird-alien's king, once he had finally been located cowering in a particularly dank and dim sub-basement of the palace. Marcos suggested that a meeting should take place between himself, Lord-General Galen, and the Xenos leaders- Harding recommended excluding the King as the Griffons were not the dominant species on the planet, and he. 'seems to possess no redeeming qualities whatsoever.' He spoke remarkably highly of the princess, albeit in an uncertain tone, as if questioning whether even speaking such things might qualify as blasphemy if an Ecclesiarchy Confessor or particularly zealous Commissar happened to be listening in. He explained that she had been crucial in defending the city, that she had been on the frontline all night, unlike the King, and that, according to reports from his men, she had made a point to defend not just her own ponies, not just the native forces, but positions held exclusively by guardsmen, also. While he urged considerable caution in dealing with her due to her abilities, Harding admitted that he felt-almost knew, somehow- that she held no ill will towards them, no desire to harm them. He advised working with her, at least for now, because she seemed to command the respect of other native species, namely the Griffons, and would undoubtedly possess knowledge of the planet that would prove useful in the continuing fight to root out the Archenemy.

As a result, Harding had approached Celestia when she returned from the frontline, her pristine white coat and ethereal mane and tail still immaculate despite the smoke and blood of battle. The grim determination he had seen on her face before still remained, but was tempered now by relief at the end of the direct danger to the city.

'Princess.' Harding greeted her with a nod, giving her a bit more respect than he had done previously, as he now knew at least that she was willing to fight, and that was something he understood better than anything else.'The city is safe. I must thank you for your assistance. I received many reports from my men of your actions. They say you were invaluablein holding the eastern flank.'

'I did what I could, Major. As I said, that is the least I could do,' Celestia replied. 'This may not be my city, but it is my planet. I intend to protect it from any threats to the best of my ability,' she added, her tone friendly enough towards him but leaving the unspoken inference hanging in the air. Harding nodded slowly.

'My commanders wish to meet with you, if you would be willing to do so,' he informed her. 'They desire your input on the continued operations to clear the enemy from this world. I am sure they will be able to tell you more than I can, but I understand that our forces are making a large-scale landing in the west of this continent.'

'Very well.' Celestia gave a small nod. 'I shall meet with them. Are they coming down to Griffonstone?' Harding shook his head.

'No, Your Highness. You'll be going up to them.'

The shuttle's servitor co-pilot rattled off a string of data as the craft used its anti-grav engines to climb into the heavens. Pilot-Lieutenant Barra was at the controls, giving another glance back at the cockpit door that separated him from the main compartment. They had a passenger, but not a human one. Instead, a large white horse-creature occupied much of the space instead. Barra had been confused at the order to transport the Xenos back to the Emperor's Judgement, but the command had been delivered directly from the Lord-Admiral himself. Apparently he wanted to hold a meeting with her, which had surprised the Lieutenant- surely they did not consort with filthy Xenos? But when he had encountered her in person, he saw only beauty, and felt only goodness. Something about her mere presence was enough to mollify his earlier thoughts- though he quickly reminded himself that she was, apparently, a powerful psyker. Unlike other psykers he had encountered, he found that he felt no unease while in her vicinity, much to his surprise. He felt himself almost at ease, which was odd considering he was many thousands of light years from his home.

The climb through the atmosphere took a scant few minutes, and Barra guided the small shuttle towards the hulking mass of the Emperor's Judgement that hung in the void above. In the rear compartment, Princess Celestia peered out from one of the viewports. The ride to orbit had been smooth, and she reminded herself that she had just become only the second pony in history to go into space- the first, of course, being her sister, banished to the moon for a millennium. She had left Luna in charge of the remaining pony forces on the ground as she sojourned high above, entering the Celestial sphere that she controlled, the blazing orb of her Sun shining bright white far across the blackness, unobscured by the planet's atmosphere. Though she had no need to leave the planet in order to control it, it brought a smile to her lips to see such a new perspective on something that she knew intimately- every swirling, boiling inch of that star, every brilliant prominence, every layer, from the farthest wispy reaches of the corona to the fantastic pressure and incandescent heat of the core. It was hers to control, the barely-restrained power hers to direct at will. If she willed it, she could focus a single sunbeam with the precision to ignite a match head and nothing more, or scour the face of the planet clean with a bath of radiation. With the warp storm gone, if she willed it, the human fleet, some of which she could now see coming into view, could be swept aside on a vast solar wind-wave of charged particles, or struck directly by a concentrated blast of superheated plasma flung across the void and held in shape by her magic.

If she willed it.

Lord-Admiral Marcos watched the shuttle's approach on the holotable as it was tracked by Auspex on its docking run. The Emperor's Judgement must have appeared marvelous and terrifying to a creature from such a backwater planet, he reasoned, as indeed it probably would to most humans. He waited for the Princess to be led through the cavernous bowels of the giant battleship to the bridge, and after a few minutes, she arrived.

Every head on the bridge turned to look as the elevator doors opened and a guard of shotgun-wielding armsmen stepped onto the deck, followed by Flag-Captain Bormann and then a most strange creature indeed. None of the deck crew had actually seen one of the Xenos from the planet below. Even Marcos had only viewed the odd scratchy, grainy vid-feed from the initial arrival teams before the storm, but he could immediately tell she was not like the others. She cast a commanding gaze across the bridge, seemingly unfazed by the nature of her surroundings, and her eyes met his.

Marcos returned her look with his steely eyes, though he already felt different. He felt little, if any, of the usual disquiet that one would feel around Xenos, or indeed psykers. He recalled the similar words of Major Harding, and of Captain Soren from the original landing party, of whom there had been no news since the Chaos attack. Since he had not been reported as being with the princess when she arrived at Griffonstone, Marcos could only assume he and the rest of the first-contact party were dead.

Captain Bormann guided the pony princess across the bridge while the command crew gawped openly at her, an alien presence in their inner sanctum. Unheard of! Yet they all knew of the strange circumstances that had led to this alliance, and most, begrudgingly, accepted it, as few would dare to challenge the Lord-Admiral. Even the Fleet Commissar, Aldoric, and the Ecclesiarchy had agreed, though only after a considerable amount of consecration and prayer was performed on the bridge, with various censures being swung, oils being daubed on the bulkheads and purity seals affixed to the threshold. After all, not only was she a Xenos, but she had been exposed to the powers of Chaos, and who could say how such exposure may have corrupted her?

Yet Marcos knew immediately when she entered the bridge, that was not the case. She was not corrupted, her mind not poisoned. Somehow he simply knew it, as surely as he knew his own name. The pony approached him, and bowed her head, her long horn lowered presumably as a sign of respect.

Marcos responded with a crisp salute out of courtesy as Bormann made the introductions. 'Your Highness, Lord-Admiral Marcos, fleet commander. My Lord, Princess Celestia, Sovereign of Equestria.' Marcos held out a hand in greeting, which the princess regarded curiously. It was only then that Marcos reasoned that she had no hands, only hooves, and withdrew his.

'Good morning to you, Your Highness,' Marcos began. 'The circumstances of this meeting are rather unusual, I know.' he glanced at the bridge crew, who were all busy staring. 'Excuse me a moment...' He turned from her to shout. 'What are you all standing there gawping at? Get back to work, all of you! This ship doesn't fly itself.' They bustled to obey, stung back into action by the sharp rebuke from their Lord. He turned back to Celestia. 'My apologies, Princess. We do not often have...other species aboard, you see. Please, come through into my ready room.' He headed through with Bormann and the princess. Lord-General Galen awaited inside, and he contained himself to a salute, not making the same mistake with his hand that Marcos had.

'This is Lord-General Galen,' Marcos introduced him. 'Commander of our ground forces. Lord-General, this is Princess Celestia.' Galen gave a nod and spoke, seemingly unconcerned with her alien nature or the strangeness of their meeting.

'Your Highness. I have been in contact with my men who were at Griffonstone. They speak highly of your actions there along the eastern perimeter. From what they say, it sounds like you saved many of their lives. For that, I thank you.'

'Then I must thank you also, Lord-General, for your soldiers fought and died to protect the cities of my subjects,' Celestia replied. 'They doubtless saved many lives as well.' She did not add that all of those cities had fallen to the enemy with the loss of countless ponies despite their best efforts.

'Firstly, I believe it would be all of our interests to declare this alliance officially,' Marcos spoke. 'Our forces have worked well together thus far, despite our...obvious differences. As you have no doubt been told, the foe we face is the Archenemy, traitors to mankind and to the Emperor and servants of the Dark Powers. They must be hunted down and eradicated at all costs. The Imperium of Man does not often consort or ally with...aliens, but in rare documented cases, it has been known in the past when confronted with a greater threat. I mean no disrespect in saying this, Your Highness, but I do not feel that your people...your species, that is...poses much threat to the Imperium. Your technology is comparatively primitive and you have no spacefaring capability. Therefore I, as fleet commander, am empowered to officially declare an alliance with you, if you wish it, in order to rid this world of the Archenemy and continue the work we have been doing these past few days.'

Celestia nodded slowly. 'And once the enemy is defeated, Lord-Admiral? What then? Will you turn your guns on us?'

The pointed question made even Marcos pause for a moment. He had not expected the Princess to be quite so quick to jump to such difficult topics. 'As I said, Your Highness, your species poses no serious risk to the Imperium. There would be nothing to gain by eliminating your race, or any of the others on the planet we have encountered so far. It would not make the Imperium a safer place. I cannot lie to you on this matter; there will be many, including those aboard this ship, who disagree. The Imperium is not known for its leniency with other species, but with good reason. Almost every alien species we have encountered in our long history has proven to be hostile to us. You are not.'

'We are not, that is correct,' Celestia nodded. 'And we will not be unless you threaten our existence the way this Archenemy has done. I fully accept that the first incident where your craft destroyed one of my airships was a mutual misunderstanding, and I am willing to work with you and to pledge my aid and the aid of my military forces to eradicate this enemy from this place. But your technology is superior to ours, you come from beyond the stars and we know little of your kind except what has been presented to us here. Namely, that your species knows how to fight. An admirable quality, to be sure, but a dangerous one to a peace-loving people such as mine. So a solemn understanding is necessary, that once we have defeated this enemy, you will leave this planet, leave this system, and leave our races alone. We have no quarrel with you, as you know, but nor do we wish to be embroiled in your interstellar war. Despite our wish for peace we have caused enough death and destruction in our own past. We do not need to import yours as well.'

Marcos looked at Galen, and both men nodded. The Admiral spoke up once more in response to Celestia's impassioned plea.

'As fleet commander, you have my solemn oath that this fleet will leave this system once the Archenemy is defeated. We shall never return, I can promise you that, but I cannot speak for others. There are many fleets, many factions within the Imperium. Mankind itself is so vast that it is entirely possible that others may never hear our report on this place and arrive of their own volition. It is equally possible that our superiors or one of these other factions may send ships here for a variety of reasons beyond our control.'

Celestia nodded. A vast and internecine web of conspiracies had once been a common feature of pony society before the unification of the three tribes, and even afterwards to some degree, though all had long since fallen in line beneath her banner. These humans, it seemed, suffered a similar internal struggle, despite this supposed Emperor being their leading light.

'Very well. I accept your word, Lord-Admiral. Equestria shall assist you however we can until the enemy is cleared from the planet. Understand, though, that you will have to do the vast bulk of the fighting yourselves. Our forces cannot stand against theirs in open battle, and we have taken severe casualties.'

'I understand, Your Highness,' Galen replied. 'My men stand ever ready to combat the Dark Powers, and today is no exception. Those that have the strongest compunctions at fighting alongside aliens will be persuaded, disciplined or transferred. In addition I stand with the Lord-Admiral in saying that my forces will leave your planet once the Archenemy is defeated here. We are a long way from home, far enough that we could plausibly deny that this system was inhabited, or declare it too dangerous to enter because of some natural phenomenon, that nobody would bother to come and double-check.'

'The General is correct,' Marcos added. 'As I said, the Imperium is incalculably vast, stretching across the entire galaxy, millions of worlds. One planet tucked away almost at the unknown fringe would not be missed on official records. However, things may not be quite so simple. You see, the enemy followed us here. They followed us here and caught the fleet by surprise, but they did not stop to fight us. Instead they drove straight through us, for the planet below, and threw up a warp storm to keep us at bay. That means that, even if they had been tracking us across space, they did not come here for us. They came here for something on the planet itself, and they must have been aware of it from outside of this system.'

'I fear I know what that may be,' Celestia replied, drawing glances from all three men present.

'What do you think it is, Your Highness?' Galen asked.

'I conceive it could be one of two things,' Celestia explained. The first is a potent weapon possessed by my species, capable of unleashing great power. The second is me.'

The Lords exchanged glances again before Marcos spoke. 'You, Your Highness?' He had an immediate suspicion, if not the outright knowledge, that he had found the 'beacon' that Navigator Pericles had spoken of.

'Yes. Myself and my sister are the two most powerful magical beings on this planet,' she replied. 'It is possible, if their equipment is as advanced as yours, that they somehow were able to detect us from across the stars.'

'Magical?' Marcos cocked his head. What nonsense is this? he thought, before mentally correcting himself that these ponies must refer to psykers as magicians or magical beings or similar, through a lack of scientific understanding. Major Harding and others had reported the princess to be a psyker of some considerable power and it was certainly possible that the forces of Chaos had detected her in the warp- except that Pericles had said the beacon effect was not present in the warp, but rather outside of it. Conceivably Parthax the Infidel may have detected the same kind of shadow imprint that Pericles had seen and the other Navigators had reported, and followed it. The alternative was this weapon of which the princess spoke.

'Our sensor equipment detected unknown particles emanating from the planet,' Marcos continued. 'Their nature is unknown to us, but it could be that the enemy detected these readings as well, although we only picked them up once we were in the system...perhaps this weapon you speak of gives them off?'

'To the best of my knowledge, the weapon does not give off any particles when not in use,' Celestia replied. 'Though admittedly our scientific instruments are likely to be inferior to yours. I am afraid I do not know what you are referring to.'

'No matter. As I said we did not detect these particles until we were in-system, even our specialist scientific survey ship. It is unlikely anyone else could do so either,' Marcos reassured her. 'Now, we should spread the word of our agreement to the other ships and ground forces. We are already landing substantial forces that can begin the clearance operations.'

'Indeed you are, and remember that if this meeting were not taking place, that landing would be considered an invasion,' Celestia reminded them. 'I wonder, Lord-Admiral, if you know exactly what allowed you to break through the storm?' she asked.

'Yes, Your Highness. There was a solar flare and corresponding coronal mass ejection that interacted with the storm,' Marcos explained. Celestia nodded.

'Indeed there was. And it was ejected in just such a way as to graze the storm and carve a hole big enough for your fleet, was it not?' Marcos shared an uneasy glance with Galen.

'Yes, Your Highness, that is so...' It was, somehow, only now that Marcos noticed exactly what the strange marks on the flanks of the princess were supposed to represent. The sun.

'As a friendly reminder, I would say that if there were any lingering doubts in the back of your mind about actually leaving once your task here is completed, My Lords,' she glanced between the two commanders, 'that you consider the nature of that flare very carefully.'

Everything seemed linked, so logically, and yet impossibly, to the Lord-Admiral. The Navigator's beacon, the unknown particles, the convenient solar flare. Surely not a coincidence, and yet...

There is no possible way any psyker could control a star.

'I...am not sure what you mean, Your Highness,' Marcos replied cautiously. 'The flare was a natural occurance, no? No technology or power known to mankind could cause one of that coincidental accuracy and scale.'

'Nothing known to mankind? And yet you have arrived here, to a world hitherto unknown to you,' Celestia replied. 'Do you not find it conceivable that there may be things out here...how did you put it? At the 'unknown fringe?' Things you do not understand?'

There was a lot Marcos didn't understand, but he was beginning to become cognizant of this particular fact, and yet there was no way it could be true. 'Forgive me, Your Highness, but...if I understand your insinuation correctly...' Galen interrupted him.

'Such a claim is preposterous, Arlen! It's impossible.'
'Would you care for another demonstration?' Celestia asked. 'I must stress again, this is merely a cautionary reminder between...allies. But perhaps I should make things explicit.' Her horn began to glow gold, and Captain Bormann instinctively reached for the laspistol at his hip, but Marcos held out a hand.

'Easy, Captain, easy...' If she's bluffing, no harm in playing along. And if she's telling the truth, she could probably cut us all down in an instant if we resist.

Bormann's hand retreated from his holster, but his uneasy gaze remained locked on the princess. After a few moments, the intercomm-vox in the ready room buzzed.

'My Lord! We are picking up strange readings from the system's star! Please come to the bridge at once!' The three officers immediately hurried for the door.

No coincidence. She's telling the truth, somehow...

'Report!' Marcos bellowed, striding onto the bridge. The viewscreen displayed a large vid-feed of the sun, the incandescent orb scarcely dimmed by the camera's photofilters.

'Unknown energy readings within the star, My Lord,' the Auspex officer reported. 'Some kind of surge. Not a coronal mass ejection, this is emanating from the photosphere or below.' Junior officers were scrambling to record data and train extra sensors on the phenomenon.

Even as Marcos and the others watched, a brilliant beam of light erupted from the sun's surface. Not an arcing prominence like the coronal mass ejection, this was directed, a beam as bright as the interior of the fusion reactors of the Emperor's Judgement, but as focused as a Lascannon shot. There were gasps from some of the bridge crew.

'Battle stations! Raise shields!' Marcos barked, shooting an icy glare at Celestia, who responded simply.

'There is no need, Lord-Admiral.' Marcos looked at the viewscreen again.

'What is the target of that...thing?' he asked, getting an immediate reply.

'Outer system, My Lord,' the Auspex officer called out. 'Standby...there is no risk to the fleet, My Lord. It appears to be on a collision course with an asteroid. Our preliminary scans in-system showed it to be a metallic-type asteroid, placeholder designation K-15, diameter fifty one miles, length twelve miles, orbital eccentricity...'

'Stand down from battle stations,' Marcos called, interrupting the string of data. 'Time to impact?'

'Forty seconds, My Lord.'

The bridge crew waited silently as the vid-screen changed to a zoomed-in view of the asteroid in question. Forty seconds later, it ceased to exist as a whole, the beam of concentrated plasma cutting right through it as cleanly as any lance battery would, the forces unleashed shattering it into a hundred pieces of tumbling matter. Marcos turned to Celestia.

'You've made your point, Princess. That could be one of our ships next time. I don't profess to understand the how, but the why is clear to me. Whatever it means to you, you again have my word we will leave your system when the enemy is defeated.'

'Thank you, Lord-Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'That is all I desire. I neither have nor wish any quarrel with you, or indeed with your enemy, and neither does any creature on our planet. I have no desire nor intention to attack you, and I swear I will not unless you give me cause to do so. You have attacked us, and you have aided us. I hope you sense the truth in my words, even as I sense the truth in yours; that you desire only the destruction of your enemies, and that you do not consider us as a foe. I hope you never shall.'

'

The Plan

The landing operations took several days to fully complete, as there was a lot of materiel to be landed. With no enemy ships in orbit there was no danger of the landing being disrupted except perhaps by enemy atmospheric fighters. As a result, Navy Lightnings constantly flew combat air patrols over the landing fields, though nothing interfered with the operations. Hundreds of thousands of Guardsmen were ferried planetside, along with the equipment they would need to prosecute a major campaign, as the whole continent needed to be swept.

There were tanks in their thousands, personnel carriers and artillery. Construction equipment came down, graders and dozers to clear forward airfields, heavy cranes, armoured recovery vehicles. Prefabricated buildings were delivered by large dropship to house headquarters, medical quarters, stores and garages. A vast field of tents appeared overnight on the plains as men bivouacked under the stars, surrounded by a ring of air and ground defences that quickly grew to being several miles thick, multiple lines of protection, with trenches being dug, bunkers of thick ferrocrete poured, razor wire and minefields laid. Vox antennae sprung up like trees. Within days a city existed where none had before, protected by an air umbrella and the remains of the fleet hanging in orbit above.

No Chaos forces threatened them during their buildup. Some troops were moved by dropship to reinforce Griffonstone, where the cost was still being counted. The dead had been burned, on advice given to the Griffons and ponies by the Imperials as a way of helping to prevent the spread of whatever foul energies and diseases may have lurked within the Chaos-infested enemy, or those who had come into close contact with them, most likely in a hand-to-claw struggle or a particularly sadistic execution. The city outside of the final defensive ring lay in ruins, with shattered buildings, roofless houses open to the sky, blood in the streets. There was little joy to be found, but the discovery of a trio of Griffon hatchlings hiding secreted in a basement by one or both of their parents raised a few happier expressions, at least until it was realised they were almost certainly now orphans.

Squads of humans patrolled the streets of the Griffon capital, their own forces depleted. The survivors of the Pegasi Assault Division had been withdrawn to the airships that hung motionless outside of the city limits, where both Celestia and Luna had taken their turn at giving suitably uplifting speeches. But there was still no news from the outside world. Canterlot had fallen, everypony knew that, and Ponyville, and, of course, Cloudsdale, but with regard to the rest of Equestria, to say nothing of more distant lands like Zebrica, the silence was deafening.

In orbit, however, Lord-Admiral Marcos awaited reconnaissance reports from his ships. He had tasked, upon consultation with the princess, three destroyers to make observations, cloud cover permitting, of cities she named Canterlot, Manehattan, and Las Pegasus. She did not say what, if anything, in particular she expected them to see, but Marcos had decreed an orbital survey a wise idea as it would allow them to gain a broad understanding of enemy locations if their forces could be spotted from on high. He was surprised the princess had made the suggestion, but then everything he had learned about her suggested that she was highly intelligent if nothing else, even, it seemed, with regard to technology that should be beyond her comprehension. Then again, the ponies did possess dirigibles, and what was a space vessel if not merely a vacuum-capable aircraft? A logical extension of aerial surveillance. Marcos mused. Something which I'm sure these ponies are well aware, given that many of them apparently have wings.

The meeting with the princess had at first made him happy enough, but it ended with the Lord-Admiral possessed of a distinct sense of unease. Somehow, through these unknown particles or some other means beyond his control, the princess had gained control over the system's star. It was she, somehow, from within the otherwise-impenetrable warp storm, who had managed to cut an opening for them to gain access to strike at the enemy fleet and destroy whatever was powering the storm from aboard the Soul Harvest. It was she who had destroyed an asteroid seemingly on a whim to press home her unspoken point.

I can destroy your fleet, if you make it necessary.

In his discussions with Grand Magos Darius, the Mechanicus representative had admitted to Marcos that he could find no scientific explanation for either phenomena. Such precision as had been exhibited in both cases, to focus and direct the energy of something as wild and untamed as a star to achieve such specific goals was unheard of, especially without any evidence of tampering, save the fact that her horn glowed. Some kind of fusion booster or plasma weapon affixed to her head, perhaps? But no, there was no chance, the Magos had confirmed, that anything like that could affect a star in such a fashion. She had been millions of miles from the sun, and yet it seemed she had been able to directly create a deadly beam, to release a solar flare, to cause a gigantic coronal mass ejection, and control it precisely enough to graze the edge of the warp storm and cut a hole in it without damaging the planet beneath. All the Magos could do was repeat his previous theory about the unknown particles being responsible in some fashion, his idea being all but confirmed given that the internal sensors of the Emperor's Judgement had recorded an intense source of the particles corresponding with Celestia's position within the ship. Evidently she gave off a tremendous amount, whatever they were and whatever the source was. The Magos theorised that whatever made her horn glow was most likely the source of the particles, and Marcos could only nod and agree. It made sense- although it made no sense. Despite its similarities to many feudal and garden worlds in the Imperium, it seemed that this planet held many idiosyncrasies, some of which, it seemed, had the legitimate potential to destroy the remains of the Crusade fleet.

But even as he worried about the power exhibited by this Xenos princess, Marcos still couldn't shake the feeling he had felt during the meeting. He still felt that the princess had no intention, zero, none at all, of exercising it against them. Her words had rang true when she had spoken of her desire for a peaceful existence, and yet such words puzzled Marcos. This world had many cultures, many species, many nations. Celestia held great power, both politically, militarily, and physically, with reports of her psychic prowess on the battlefield being backed up by her ability to apparently control an entire star and bend it to her whim. So why, Marcos pondered, Is she not Empress of this planet?

From everything Marcos had been told from speaking to Celestia, messages from the first contact team, and after-action reports from the various units in Griffonstone, the ponies possessed the greatest military might of any species on the planet. They had a ruler who could take on an entire squad of Traitor Astartes without even flinching or suffering a scratch, facing down technology and indoctrination far, far beyond anything they were capable of themselves and defeating it in moments. Nothing, as far as he knew, that these other creatures possessed could stand in her way, and any man in a similar position would have quickly risen and unified the planet under one banner, by fear or by force.

So why, he thought again, Is she not Empress of this planet?

The orbital survey reports came in. Scans of Canterlot from orbit revealed evidence of a moderate enemy presence, with vehicles visible as well as the telltale infrared signatures of hundreds of small fires from enemy encampments outside of the walls. Manehattan, Equestria's largest city, was awash with Chaos forces, according to scans. Las Pegasus, however, located out in the western deserts beyond the plains where the Imperial landing was taking place, revealed no signs of the enemy. What did appear on the survey was at least three pony airships around the city, evidence that it remained under local control. A message had been passed to the princess in Griffonstone, and she had made two requests. First, that the humans provide her with transport to the desert city, and second, that they focus their military efforts on retaking Canterlot.

The symbolic nature of retaking the pony capital was clear to Lord-General Galen, and he agreed to do so, though for more practical reasons. It would provide a much-needed morale boost to their allies, as the capitals of both species would be free of the enemy, but more importantly Canterlot occupied a crucial strategic position in the centre of the continent, its mountainside location providing oversight of the valley below. From there, spotters could track enemy movements. Artillery could rain down hell on them. The central location of the city could be used as a springboard for launching further operations across the continent.

As a result, Lord-General Galen had issued his orders, putting the whole heaving apparatus of a human army going to war into motion. Plans were laid, additional surveys conducted, signals intelligence gathered by specially converted Vigilant-pattern Marauder bombers. Inexorably, things began to come together. Men began to march, trucks began to roll. It would take several days at a minimum for the troops to be in position, but such an operation could not be rushed or it might result in disaster. Retaking a planet took weeks or months at a minimum, and depended heavily on the concentration of forces applied, the number and nature of the defenders, the terrain, the condition of existing infrastructure such as roads, the extent of air and space superiority, and a hundred other factors. It could not be rushed, but it was going to happen, sooner or later.

The Valkyrie gunship touched down with a swirl of dust and sand, resting on its landing gear which settled an inch or two into the surface. A pony trotted down the rear ramp of the human craft. Princess Celestia cast her gaze around the dusty wilderness. At her suggestion, the Valkyrie had landed some distance from the city of Las Pegasus. The pony forces there, it seemed, were still operational, and might not react calmly to an unknown aircraft approaching. They would, however, respond to their princess. After thanking the gunship's crew, Celestia took to her wings, heading west towards the city, seemingly untouched by the enemy.

Though the majority of the continent was temperate and fertile, there were also extremes, and Celestia had travelled between two of them, from the iron-hard permafrost of the north to the sun-drenched badlands of the west. Generations ago, hardy (some would say foolish) frontier ponies had pushed westward, into the burning desert, in search of gold and riches unknown. While many had died on the trail from the heat and thirst, the hardy band of survivors had eventually run across a natural spring flowing from the dusty rocks. Further investigation had revealed not just a huge underground aquifer, but a large array of gemstones, precious luxuries in Equestria. Thus, the mining city of Las Pegasus had been founded. Over time as the gem caves ran dry, the purpose of the city changed, and it had become Equestria's premiere tourist haven, rivalled only by the lights and sight of Manehattan. Casinos and amusements lined the main street, while a small sprawl of housing surrounded the city centre and its hotels. By itself it held no military value, which was precisely why Equestrian plans called for any forces in the western region unable to establish contact with regional or central high command in case of sudden attack should retreat to and protect the city. That was exactly what they had done.

Even from a distance, Celestia could see the city was ringed with sandbagged trenches. A trio of airships, two of the City-Classand one of the Royalty-Class held station above the perimeter. Small swarms of Pegasi could be seen flapping to and fro in the skies. Even as she began to approach, one of the City-Class airships, optimised for air defence, swung its nose toward her and began to move steadily, the drone of its motors reaching her ears a few seconds later. She came to a halt, her wings spread wide, beating steadily as she hovered in place while the airship drew closer.

The drone of the engines cut off as the airship had achieved sufficient forward motion to carry itself to its target. After a few moments of silence, a great cheer suddenly carried across the wind. Ponies could be seen on deck in jubilation, hugging each other. Pegasi flitted about the gasbag eagerly. Then, there was a shout through a megaphone.

'Come aboard, Your Highness! Praise The Sun!' Another cheer followed, then a third. Celestia smiled and flapped to the airship's gondola, landing elegantly on the quarterdeck beside the captain, who threw a fine, crisp salute.

'Your Highness! Welcome aboard the EAS Las Pegasus. I am Captain Fair Weather,' the dark blue pegasus stallion announced. 'It is an honour to have you aboard...and a great relief to us all to know you are unharmed.'

'Thank you, Captain,' Celestia replied. 'The royal family is unharmed, but there is grave news from much of Equestria. Tell me, have you seen any sign of the enemy here at Las Pegasus?' she questioned. He shook his head.

'No, Your Highness. Nothing since we received our orders to sortie. We received no contact from Western Region Command in Vanhoover, or from Canterlot, and so our forces assembled here as per standing orders.'

'Canterlot has fallen,' Celestia explained simply, drawing gasps from the deck crew, though they must have at least suspected such a catastrophe due to the lack of communications from the capital. 'Of Vanhoover, I have no word. Tell me, Captain, what forces do you have here?' she questioned.

'Your Highness, we have two City-Class airships, the Las Pegasus and the Fillydelphia, and one Royalty-Class, The Luna. We have approximately one division of infantry dug in around the city along with two independent companies of the 2nd Pegasi Assault Division. We have four heavy batteries of artillery, two light batteries of artillery, and five batteries of field guns.' Celestia nodded.

'Very good, Captain. I feel certain that Las Pegasus will not be attacked. Our human allies have inspected the planet from orbit and they report no signs of enemy activity in the western area of the continent. I want to speak to the garrison commander. You'll all be on the move shortly.'

It took a week for everything to be planned and prepared to the satisfaction of all involved, and another three days to complete the movement of personnel and equipment. Many elements had to come together for a successful operation, especially when it was a joint mission between two radically different armies. But both sides did the best they could, and the plan was put into motion early, before the birds were even awake.

Canterlot sat silently, unmoving, watching over the valley from its position on the plateau, tucked away into the side of the mountain peaks that towered above it. Many of the occupying Chaos forces had, for the umpteenth night in a row, fought and drank themselves into a stupor. With the inhabitants dead or routed, there was little for them to do but scrap among themselves and roam ever farther and wider in search of alcohol or drugs. Despite the threat of attack, discipline was lax among the motley collection of brigands, pirates, deserters, mutants and assorted criminals that made up much of the Chaos troops planetside, and sentries were scarce, gun positions half-manned. Canterlot had taken moderate damage in the invasion, but given the sudden and overwhelming nature of the attack, the majority of the city was actually in fairly good shape, the damage inflicted by the occupiers ripping out expensive furniture and defiling artwork notwithstanding. With the city's curtain walls among those parts that had survived mostly unscathed, infantry manned firing ports and heavy weapons along its length, covering three sides of the city. But with Canterlot backed up against a near-vertical rock wall that climbed high above, nobody was watching the fourth side.

One man, a deserter many years ago from the constant steely discipline of the regiments of the Mordian Iron Guard, stumbled along the eastern end of the southern curtain wall. His autogun was slung haphazardly over one shoulder, his tunic unbuttoned, his breath reeking of wine and whatever these horse-aliens used as hard liquor. Whatever it was, it certainly proved effective. Why, even as he leaned against the parapet wall to regain his balance, he saw something ahead. One of the horse-aliens! But that couldn't be, they had driven them off, killed those that remained. What slaughter there had been! He chuckled at the memory, steadied himself and made to continue his progress, but paused. That was definitely one of them, up ahead! He squinted, eyesight dimmed and blurry from so much drink. The horse was bending over something. Why, it was Horan, one of the tough corsair-types from the second company! What was he doing lying down? Ah, too much to drink! He blinked a few times to clear his eyes, but the horse was still there. He heard something behind him, and turned, swaying. Another horse was behind him, and another beyond that, and another still farther down, and each one seemed to be either standing over one of his squad, or pulling them down.

Suddenly, a dull pain pulsed through his back. He frowned, puzzled, even as his body gave way. He felt himself sinking to the floor, confusion wavering in his addled mind. Why couldn't he stand up? Surely this alien alcohol wasn't all that strong, was it? In his last few moments of conscious thought, he pondered exactly what was in his drink to make him have such vivid hallucinations.

With the walltop taken, a green flare went up, soaring into the sky, a signal to an unseen party. Chaos infantry in the city, those who were awake and sober, pointed up, grabbing their weapons, confused. The daily signal flare was red, not green, and why had nothing come over the vox? Some men went up, climbing the stairs to the wall, and gunshots rang out.

A coordinated plan swung into action. The bivouacked infantry outside of the town, their campfires dying and sputtering in the early morning hours, lay mostly oblivious as the first shells streaked in. Some were awoken by the roar, only to die instantly as a heavy barrage began to erupt, smashing men and their tents into fragments. Some shells released incendiary gel that ignited and spread across a wide area. Some shells detonated in airburst to spread fragments, while others slammed into the ground before detonating. The whole combination resulted in a deadly mess of explosions, shrapnel and fire that decimated the unprepared infantry, scrambling to escape their tents even as death fell around their ears.

In conjunction with the artillery bombardment, Chaos Auspex operators picked up a sudden surge of activity, a large cluster of contacts appearing as if from nowhere, from the west, rising up over the hills on the other side of the valley. Signals were sent out to the few air-defence batteries that had been installed around the city perimeter.

But one had been destroyed by the artillery fire, and three others remained silent, neither firing nor responding. Urgent messages were repeated, but received no response. The one remaining missile battery located within the city itself opened fire, two missiles hurling themselves free of their launch rails and streaking across the dark sky towards their targets. One dropship was struck bodily and burst into flame, dropping out of formation. But the others continued on, a hundred or more in total, with Valkyrie gunship escorts. Waiting, hovering, behind the hills, undetectable by Auspex until the spotter teams reported the flare from the pony infiltrators, the massed air fleet drove hard for the capital. Following them at a far more leisurely pace came the airships, five in total. the Starswirl, the Luna, the Fillydelphia, the Las Pegasus, and the Canterlot, leading the charge back to her namesake city, the capital, the figurehead, the seat of power, Celestia's city, carved from marble and perched atop the mountains. Aboard the airships were several thousand pony infantry, Pegasi assault troops and earth pony gunners, unicorn support troops and squad leaders, all waiting, eager, willing, to retake their capital, for Equestria, and for Celestia.

Small-arms fire rose from the city to meet the threat, but the response was scattered, ineffective, shortn of their air defence batteries and many of their emplaced weapons by the sudden infiltration. Ponies of the Pegasi Assault Division and the Royal Guard's Special Operations Unit, who now held the battlements, fired down at their enemies as they skittered through the streets and plazas below in a desperate attempt to organise themselves. Dropships heaved themselves over the ramparts, engines screaming, ropes dropping from their troop compartments. Across the city, men descended, ready to fight their Archenemy, to drive them back into the warp, for the Crusade, and for the Emperor.

The counterattack had begun.

The Rising

The vast majority of Chaos forces in the city did not react to Celestia's booming broadcast. A few raving maniacs charged to try and get a clear shot at her, but were gunned down as they left cover. She did not expect any serious response; her message was more for her ponies than the enemy, and it had the desired effect on them.

They were fighting for their homes, especially the Royal Guard, most of whom were barracked in Canterlot. They redoubled their efforts, inspired by her words and by watching her hover above the battlefield like a guiding star, her white coat and multicoloured mane catching the moonglow and shining like a beacon. Her mere presence created courage where there had been none before. Faith, for humans and ponies alike, could do amazing things.

The Pegasi infantry stormed the palace, flapping down and lanidng upon its rooftops and balconies to join the humans already inside. With other troops forming a barrier, the palace would be cleared, floor by floor, room by room, until it was cleared of the taint. Similar actions were taking place across the city, as the smaller City-Class airships delivered their passengers, two companies of infantry apiece. More Imperial dropships brought a second wave of guardsmen into the fray as the fighting spread to consume the whole of the city within the walls. A confusing street fight developed in a hundred places, as the defenders fought street by street to defend what they had taken. Sporadic mortar fire from one of the city plazas was silenced by a rocket barrage from a Valkyrie. A sniper in a belltower found himself on the receiving end of a taste of his own medicine as a long-las flashed and cut him down. A squad of traitors were ambushed and massacred to a man by a rooftop Pegasus ambush.

The occupying force had not been expecting a full-scale assault, and had not been properly reinforced due to the sudden and unexpected arrival of the Imperial fleet in low orbit and the consequent scattering of their own ships, with the resultant loss of overall command and control functions. With no ships and no satellites for relay, Chaos forces separated by considerable distances found communications patchy at best. No relay meant the only way to communicate with those beyond the horizon, and thus out of vox contact, was to bounce the signal off of the planet's ionosphere, which would redirect it back down toward the planet. Such a freely broadcast message, however, left itself completely vulnerable to both interception and jamming by the Imperials. Messenger aircraft were another option, but with both orbital and ever-increasing airspace superiority, the Imperials could limit such activities also. As a result, Canterlot had sent out numerous messages asking for support and orders, but received only garbled replies from the Chaos forces concentrated out to the east thanks to jamming distorting the signals. No reinforcements had been sent- the enemy in the east were focused on their own defences and declined to spare any forces to secure the pony capital any further.

Not that the city was poorly defended. There were still several thousand enemy infantry of the occupying force fighting fiercely, now that they had had a little time to organise. Some buildings had become fortresses, and despite Celestia's urging about keeping collateral damage to a minimum, at least two large mansions and a public library had been leveled by well-trained guns aboard the Starswirl and the Luna. A necessary evil that cleared the way for further advances deeper into the city, and the humans obliged, pushing in and routing the enemy from the entirety of the Old Quarter. Having delivered their troops, the City-Class airships flew high cover patterns in case of enemy air attack, though nothing was forthcoming.

Chaos troops across the city were succumbing to the surprise and numbers of their enemy. The suddenness of the strike, the early capture of the curtain wall, the loss of most of their air defence batteries and the artillery barrage all combined to render coordinated defence of the city all but impossible, even if their commanders were still alive. But some had been killed by the bombardment, and others by the landing Imperial and pony forces, compounding their problems. Lacking air support, artillery, armour, and effective command and control, the Chaos occupying forces were slowly but steadily being overrun, but that did not mean they were incapable of putting up a fierce resistance.

Sergeant Argan ducked into cover behind a statue of a horned Xenos as bullets chipped holes in the ornate marble figure. The large chamber was, according to the briefing they had received before the operation, the throne room of the princess. The high golden structure at the far end must be the throne, and perhaps the statue was of the princess herself. Argan couldn't spare a moment to check even if he wanted to, and in any case the enemy fire had rendered it all but unidentifiable as any particular creature.

Forest Gamma 1-1, along with the rest of the platoon and elements of the 2nd platoon, had swept the floors above, and were now engaged in a firefight for the throne room itself, the heart of pony government. Though the room lacked much in the way of normal cover, the occupying forces had seemingly gathered large quantities of furniture and other detritus, either for storage, for later burning, or to sort through to identify and steal anything of value. Most of the furniture offered little resistance to either bullets or las-fire, which was why Argan had chosen a far more substantial pillar to hide behind.

Gunfire whizzed across the high-ceilinged chamber. At least a platoon of enemy infantry held the far end of the chamber, rising from cover to blaze away with strobing las-fire and hails of bullets. Several members of Gamma Company already lay dead. Argan risked a peek around the pillar.

A few shouts went up as another enemy squad poured through the heavy wooden doors at the far end of the room, adding their firepower to the chaos unfolding. Argan squeezed off a few shots before ducking back into cover as las-rounds struck the pillar and the floor, leaving burning holes in the marble. He glanced around. His squad were in cover behind several pillars and stacks of furniture, but even as he watched a las-round blew straight through an ornately decorated cherry-wood wardrobe and sent a man sprawling.

The palace had proved to be a maze, with twisting corridors, staircases connecting to intermediate floors that did not stretch the whole length of the wing, let alone the entire building, and a mass of rooms, some interconnected, some not. The fight in reaching the throne room had been as much against the building as against the enemy. Though there was no truly alien architecture in play, as there might have been inside an Eldar Craftworld or Necron tomb, the palace proved to be an enigma to those not used to its layout. Even having been given a broad overview by the pony Royal Guard commander Shining Armour prior to departure, the platoons assigned to its capture had not found it easy to navigate.

They had, however, finally reached the throne room, and were struggling against the defenders, dug in as best they could among the pillars and the throne itself, which seemed strangely resistant to gunfire. Shots rippled back and forth, each side almost taking it in turns to pop up and unload before ducking back down, not willing to risk prolonged exposure. Argan fired a few rounds again and ducked back down to reload. He had just slammed the fresh powerpack home when a shout went up.

'Contact rear! Contact rear!'

He turned and brought his lasgun up. Sure enough, half a dozen enemy soldiers had suddenly appeared at the doorway behind them, opening fire and scything down two unsuspecting guardsmen. Now they were caught. Several men turned and tried to maneuver to engage the new threat, only to be gunned down by the entrenched enemies around the throne, who seemed uncaring of the potential for any crossfire and continued to shoot. Argan fired a short burst, felling one man, but even as he died another squad of traitors burst through the doorway. Las-rounds flashed his way, and the sergeant ducked down, rolling toward a small nook in the wall that might shield him.

We're frakked.

The Imperials suddenly found themselves both outgunned and outmaneuvered. The enemy had somehow found a way through the maze to attack them from behind as well as from the front, and the platoon-and-a-half of guardsmen were trapped, fire coming from both sides. They started falling, dying. Argan could only watch in anger and, as the enemy pressed on, the certainty that he would be dead soon. He took aim and blew a traitor's head apart. The rest of the man's fireteam turned to engage him.

That was when she appeared.

A brilliant, blinding flash of light erupted from nowhere in the middle of the room. Even facing away from it, Argan was half-dazed. The Chaos troops he was facing to the rear stumbled, covering their eyes or firing blindly. Argan took aim again, but before he could squeeze the trigger, golden lightning flashed, sending colours dancing and blazing across his vision. The lightning leaped from man to man, striking the heretics, singeing, burning, killing, even as the voice of the princess roared, filling the room.

'Leave this place! Leave this place and never return. You were given one chance, and you ignored it. Now you will suffer!'

Men screamed and thrashed, agony consuming them, their cries drawing flame into their throats, cooking their lungs. Men died in their dozens. But only the enemy. Only the heretics. Argan ducked down in a surely futile attempt to avoid the lightning, but somehow remained untouched. He looked around. His men were unhurt; the platoon, those that had survived the enemy's attack from the rear, were still alive.

Argan turned and looked up, equal parts astonished and, in a surprise to himself, afraid. It was the pony princess riding to their rescue once more, floating above them, mane and tail ablaze with colour, horn shining with an auriferous glow. Argan spared a moment to glance around the chamber. There was no more gunfire from the other end, only a number of small smoke plumes rising almost lazily from behind the cover of the furniture and the throne.

Argan felt fear, something he had long since been conditioned by his combat experiences to not feel at all. The power she had unleashed had been enough to kill them all, of that there was no doubt, the evidence all around. Yet the precision she possessed meant that not a single Imperial had been harmed, even as their enemies lay dead and burning around them. Given the exposure Argan had to Imperial psykers during his service, such a combination was nothing short of incredible. Add to that the possibility that the rumours were true, that she had been responsible for the fleet's triumphant return...

Even as Argan felt fear directed toward Celestia, however, he knew somehow instinctively that he did not need to. He had heard her earlier exhortations, both to her own ponies and to the Imperials, somehow echoing through the building despite her not being present inside until moments ago. Words could, and usually were, hollow, but Argan somehow felt his fears were unjustified, though he didn't know why and couldn't explain it if asked. If she had wanted to, she could have killed every man in the throne room, and the loss of a few dozen guardsmen would have made little difference to the capture of the city. There were none of her ponies present in the chamber that she would wish to protect, and therefore no reason for her precision other than that she genuinely did not desire to harm her allies. And precision it was- an uncontrolled psychic attack would have killed indiscriminately, friend and foe alike, but she had the ability to pick her targets, to hit what she wanted to hit and nothing else.

That did not mean, of course, that she harboured no ill intent toward the Imperials. It may have simply been a show of her pragmatism; after all, every living human who could fight would be one less pony who needed to fill a gap in the line. But there was that instinctiveness again- Argan somehow knew, deep in himself, in his mind, in his soul, that the princess meant them no harm, so long as they meant no harm to her kind.

'Forest Gamma Actual to any Gamma unit, sitrep, over!'

The crackling vox brought him back to reality. The company commander was calling. Argan strode over to Merkev, who was staring open-mouthed at the princess, and grabbed the handset.

'Forest Gamma Actual, Forest Gamma 1-1 actual. The...the throne room is, uh, is secure, sir. I say again, throne room is secure.'

'Copy that, 1-1 actual. Did Gamma 3 link up with you?' the Captain questioned, referring to the third platoon of Gamma company, who were detailed to push through the west wing to the throne room at the centre. Argan glanced up toward the rafters again before replying.

'Negative, sir. It was the princess.'

It was shortly before dawn, with Celestia's sun threatening to rise in the east, the peaks of the Foal Mountains glowing purple and red, that the palace was declared secure. The rest of the city was still a warzone, but the major prize, at least as far as the ponies were concerned, had been taken. Much remained to be done, but the Old Quarter and now much of the Royal Quarter had been cleared. There were still large numbers of enemies within the New Quarter and Unicorn Quarter, but there was no chance of their surrender. However, cut off from any reinforcements or from their fellow defenders in other areas, it was only a matter of time before they succumbed to the pressure being exerted by the Imperials and ponies.

The third wave arrived, reinforcements for the assault forces, dropships landing uncontested in the now-cleared palace grounds. Hundreds more fresh men were thrown into the fray, directed through the streets by pony guides to the correct locations. With a large amount of the city secured, the plan was to launch a large-scale assault on the New Quarter, home of Canterlot's financial district, upmarket hotels, and high-class stores. Forces were quickly marshaled and built up at the jump-off points in preparation. The EAS Luna moved into position to provide spotting and fire support, while Imperial Valkyries circled around waiting for targets. As the sun crowned the mountaintops, bathing the city in a golden haze, the assault began.

Men weaved through the alleys and streets, a shock attack with little time for precise planning in the confused confines of the city. The New Quarter was laid out rather more sensibly than the warren-like Old and Royal Quarters, with wider streets and more modern buildings, as the name suggested. The roads would allow for the deployment of armour, if the Imperial attack had included any, but even the most heavily-armoured tanks in urban settings were extremely vulnerable to mines, booby traps, missile launchers, emplaced lascannons, melta-teams appearing out of nowhere and disappearing as swiftly as they came.

Not that urban combat was any safer for the infantry. Anti-personnel mines, snipers, flamers, collapsing buildings, gas gathering in shell craters and basements. A single stubber or heavy bolter could hold up an entire battalion for days, if it was dug in at the right position. An apartment building, hab-block or manufactorum, properly fortified, could hold out for weeks, provided it could not be leveled by artillery or orbital fire for whatever reason. Such a reason existed here- Celestia had decreed collateral damage be kept to a minimum, and Lord-General Galen had agreed, within reasonable parameters. Buildings, especially major ones, were not to be destroyed unless absolutely necessary, a constrain not normally imposed on Imperial Guard operations, even on Imperial worlds. Only Ecclesiarchy structures were usually given such disposition, and even that was quite rare, relying on the possession of some relic, the continued occupancy by Ecclesiarchy staff, or being the site of some miracle or other, to qualify. The application of such restrictions to Xenos structures for reasons other than preservation for Mechanicus study after the inevitable victory had been won was all but unheard of. Yet for the most part, the guardsmen were abiding by the imposition, either due to the blind obeyance of orders or some unknown compulsion to do so, and calls for artillery fire or airstrike within the city had to be relayed to the princess or her military commander, Shining Armour.

An exception, however, was likely to be the main rail station. Constructed nearly a hundred years ago and located, despite its age, in the New Quarter, Canterlot Central was a vast work of steel and stone, wrought iron fences surrounding the stylised portico. The sides were brick, the front was metal, the roof, mostly, was glass. Or rather, the surviving roof was mostly the metal spine of the building, as precision gunfire from Valkyrie door gunners had shattered almost all of the glass. It held just six platforms but carried a remarkable number of trains per day, as the capital city was located almost in the centre of Equestria and served many local destinations. The rack-and-pinion final section of line that led to the city was unlike any other mountain railway on the planet, as it could carry not just short tourist trains but full twelve-car mainline express services complete with double-header locomotives and their associated tenders, with the addition of a bank engine at the rear if required on the steep gradient due to a particularly heavy load. Services connected Canterlot with every major Equestrian city, either directly or indirectly, and a good half-dozen foreign stations also. The station had restaurants, bars, lounges, a spa, shops, a movie theatre and even a bowling alley. It also had at least two reinforced companies of Chaos infantry holding the perimeter, with another company on the upper floors.

As the Imperial attack swept in, they encountered heavy fire from the station. Las-fire and plasma greeted the soldiers attempting to advance, all but wiping out two squads, forcing the survivors to retreat to cover. The loyalists fired back, engaging the traitors, but the station was large and the enemy were dug in. Calls went out for fire support but were refused due to the historic nature of the building. Other companies moved around it, outflanking the defenders, cutting them off from support in a textbook example of envelopment, but the occupants cared not for their perilous situation, pouring fire on the guardsmen attempting to storm the building. The first attempt was tried immediately upon arrival to catch the enemy unawares, but was repulsed with heavy casualties. They tried again, with the same result. The defenders were stubborn and the building provided them good protection from small-arms fire. A third attempt under cover of smoke was attempted, but thwarted after hand-to-hand fighting in the station concourse.

A stalemate had been reached. The building likely couldn't be taken without heavy casualties, but with the station having good sightlines across much of the New Quarter, the only realistic alternative was to pound it into rubble. Another call went out over the vox. Celestia, now back aboard the Starswirl, received the message through the human spotter team, Atter and Mons.

'Spotter Team One, Command, message relay, Sigma One Rho. Assault force requests artillery strike, coordinates 652, 005. Target is main rail transit station. Large structure, metal and brick construction. Enemy infantry in cover. Request clearance for battery release, over.'

Atter looked at Celestia, offering the vox handset in her direction. 'Your Highness, the assault force is again requesting...' Celestia interrupted him.

'I know. The answer is still no.' Atter frowned.

'But Your Highness, the whole assault is being held up in that sector. They have a vantage point that will prevent our forces from making significant progress in that quarter of the city.'

'I am well aware of that,' Celestia responded. 'But the building should be preserved unless there is absolutely no other option.'

The call was repeated over the vox and Atter eyed the princess expectantly. 'Your Highness, there appears to be no other option available to us.' Celestia glanced out through the flickering shield bubble and spoke simply.

'Tell them I will deal with the problem.'

And with that, she was gone.

The squad of Chaos infantry had found themselves busy since the attack hit. The station had been used as a storage depot by the occupation force, with large quantities of small-arms ammunition, rations, and other supplies stored in crates throughout. The group of eight men had been ferrying ammo boxes to the defenders at the perimeter for the last hour as they successfully repulsed three attempts by the servants of the Corpse-Emperor to storm the building. Despite the lack of contact with any other friendly forces, the confidence of the men in the station was growing. They had thrown back the enemy with fire, they had thrown him back with the bayonet. The bodies of the Imperials lay scattered across the plaza outside and the edge of the concourse within. Whatever the enemy might throw at them, they knew they were ready for any Imperial force.

Imperial, but not pony. The men carrying heavy crates of ammunition found themselves blinded as they crossed the rail tracks. Those that recovered quickest from the searing white light found themselves looking up at a most striking creature, a large horse-alien with both a horn and wings, floating effortlessly above them below the metal roof beams of the station. Where had it come from? How had it got inside? None of them knew. They shouted the alarm, rallying their fellows. Some raised their weapons, a couple of others sprinted for the doors to the concourse to fetch backup, but none managed to complete their actions.

Golden lightning flashed, cutting them down, burning them. Alerted by the shouts, more defenders entered from the concourse and from maintenance areas. They opened fire, hundreds of las-rounds and bullets, a hailstorm that no mere mortal could survive with no protection.

But the horse-alien did have protection, and their shots had no effect, absorbed or disappearing by some unknown force before even striking it. The horse-alien swooped down, its horn glowed, and men died screaming. Troopers ducked for cover behind the crates and train cars. More support was arriving now, alerted by the gunfire from within their own perimeter. Several missiles were hastily fired, but, unguided, they sailed well clear of the target, who was making a broad, almost lazy circuit around the station. Every few moments its horn glowed or flashed, and lightning or a beam like a plasma cannon would reach out and kill.

Another missile, well aimed this time, struck the target and exploded, but the horse-alien burst through the smoke unharmed, and turned its ire on the man who had fired it. A flash of the horn, and the man all but vaporised, the half-melted hunk of his missile launcher clattering to the ground.

Men were pulled from the perimeter defences, having little choice given what was unfolding inside the station. A dozen men crouched in cover behind one of the brand-new heavy diesel shunting locomotives. Normally used for pushing and pulling freight cars weighing many tons, the engine found itself on the receiving end as with a simple horn glow it found itself practically punted across the twin track and into the concrete of the other platform, crushing the squad hiding behind it and leaving a large bloody stain on the tracks. More las-fire and bullets found their mark, but did nothing to stop the assault from within. The horse alien swooped down again, horn glowing with a precision beam like a laser cutter, and sliced a man clean in half.

The survivors began to pull back, fleeing the trackside area and retreating into the concourse and back rooms, where the horse-alien couldn't use its mobility to full effect. Hasty barricades were set up, furniture being shoved against the doors of the restaurant while men kept a close watch on the plaza outside. A squad waited, crouching, hearing gunfire elsewhere within the building. Repeatedly there was gunfire in a different area for a few seconds, then silence. Nerves began to play on the supports of the Dark Powers, but still nothing came, just more gunfire, then more silence. Five minutes passed, then ten. Still nothing.

And finally, from nowhere once more, it appeared, the foe within the walls. An incandescent flash and there it was, standing in the midst of the room. The squad turned to confront the sudden threat, some kind of teleportation device evidently in use despite the relative primitiveness of the native's technology. Only a few men managed to fire any shots before golden lightning filled the room. A few seconds of gunfire, then silence.

A short while later, the assault force moved in, facing no resistance. They swept the building room by room, and declared it secure, for they had found only death.

Capital Punishment

With the station clear, the rest of the New Quarter fell in short order. The enemy fought well, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Most died fighting, a suitable death in the eyes of their dark patrons. The Unicorn Quarter was cleared by the late afternoon, and by dawn the next day, Canterlot was officially secure once more, back in pony hooves, albeit with some Imperial hands holding onto it as well. The pony reinforcements from Las Pegasus were able to move in to reoccupy the city, thousands of ponies marching smartly through the gates, keen to show their discipline and professionalism to the humans. Most of the Imperials departed, picked up by their dropships and replaced by the arriving ponies and their artillery. They were moving on, but the pony army was settling in to stay, protecting their capital.

The pony airships remained above the city, with the exception of the fast City-Class ship Fillydelphia, which was dispatched back to Griffonstone, returning on the evening of the completion of the clearance of Canterlot and delivering the Elements of Harmony along with Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, and another company of Pegasi, plus supplies offered by the Griffon King in response for their efforts in defending his city.

Twilight Sparkle trotted down the gangway from the Fillydelphia's main deck. The craft was tied up at the mooring fields outside of the city, which had been the site of the enemy encampment, to unload her supplies. While some of the detritus had been removed, Twilight was nonetheless shocked at the devastation that was visible. Tents torn to shreds, men lying twisted and broken in stacks where the bodies had been piled up by the Imperials, ready for burning. Other funeral pyres had already been ignited. Though the wind was blowing away from her it could not disguise the rancid, sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh, making the young mare nauseous.

But the city was theirs, and the stylised sun-moon motif of the Equestrian flag flapped proudly in the breeze from the spires of the palace, the Towers Of The Princesses standing unbent and unsullied, glittering in the light of Celestia's sun. Seeing the numbers of enemy dead outside the walls, Twilight could only imagine what slaughter had unfolded within. Guided by guardsmen, the Elements, accompanied by Luna and Cadence, made their way past the human debris and into the city.

The cobbled streets were familiar, though some were stained with blood. Most buildings were intact, but several had suffered damage, with shattered rooves or facades blown clean off. Here, to, there were bodies piled on street corners, awaiting Imperial disposal teams or, in the case of their own fallen, a graves registration detail who would bag them, tag them, and bury them on this foreign world, their service to their Emperor completed.

Squads of pony infantry and Imperial Guardsmen roamed the streets, walking the perimeter and keeping the main thoroughfares clear. There were no civilians to worry about, the population having fled or been killed, but patrols of Pegasi scouts had been sent out into the surrounding villages and countryside to search for locals and inform them that the city was secure and back in friendly possession.

The group trotted through the streets toward the palace, their destination. They received respectful salutes from the ponies they encountered, and glances of confusion and some mirth from the guardsmen seeing the strangely technicolour parade passing them by, putting some long-serving men in mind of some of the regiments they had fought alongside whose uniforms were rather unnecessarily flamboyant.

After an uneventful journey across the city, they reached the Palace yard. A ring of Royal Guard surrounded it, parting to let the princesses and their charges pass through the tall gilded palace gates. The courtyard within backed up against the palace's main building, while pathways, normally neatly kept but now somewhat bedraggled after several weeks' neglect, led to the outbuildings and the gardens. Twilight looked around and noticed a row of seven humans, bound and kneeling, in front of the palace's protective curtain wall. She frowned and split from the group, trotting towards the curiosity.

In front of the humans stood a squad of Royal Guard, rifles slung at their flanks. Her brother stood beside them, his gold-and-purple armour resplendent in the sun. He spotted Twilight, and hesitated for a moment before trotting to her.

'Twilight! You're here...but you shouldn't be. You should be with the others,' he chided her, giving her a firm and warm embrace. 'You're here to see the princess.'

'Big brother!' Twilight returned the hug tightly. 'I know, but I couldn't go in without talking to you! I can't believe Canterlot is ours again.' She glanced at the humans. 'What are you doing out here? Who are they?'

'Prisoners,' Shining replied. 'Enemies who surrendered. The Imperials tell me it's a rare thing, for one of the enemy to surrender. They say that ordinarily the fate of their traitors should be left down to them, but because these humans surrendered within our palace, they have left them in our hooves.'

'So...what are you doing out here with them...?' Twilight asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach as she looked up at her big brother.

'We're...uh, going to deal with them appropriately,' Shining replied, trying to sugarcoat the reality for his little sister.

'So you're going to kill them?' she asked bluntly. 'You're going to...execute them? While they're tied up?' Twilight couldn't believe her brother would be party to such brutality. 'They surrendered!' she pointed out. 'You can't just...just...'

'Twily...we have to,' Shining sighed. 'They committed war crimes. We know because they freely admitted to it. In fact they seemed to be proud of it...they killed civilians. mares, foals...newborns, Twily. They massacred innocent ponies.'

'But...but you can't just execute them!' Twilight cried. 'We don't...we just don't do that! I'm going to tell the princess! You can't do this...'

'Twily...the orders came from the princess,' Shining replied. 'She commanded it herself. That's why we have to do this. But these men don't deserve to be spared, and even if they did, we don't have the ponies to spare to keep them prisoner at the moment. We've only just taken back the city and we've taken heavy, heavy losses...'

Twilight was aghast. Everything she thought she knew had been slowly crumbling ever since these humans appeared in space, and now she knew that she didn't know either her brother, or Celestia, at all. At least Shining had the excuse that he was following orders, but Celestia had deliberately ordered the execution of these men, a fate she would not even enact on Discord after his reign of terror. To make matters worse, unlike Discord, these men had surrendered, not been overpowered. They had thrown down their arms and thrown up their hands, which under normal circumstances would mean their rights were guaranteed.

'But what about the Vanhoover Convention?' Twilight raged. 'Executions of prisoners are strictly forbidden by it! Did you forget that? Did the princess forget that?'

'Twily, these humans didn't sign the convention. They aren't from this planet,' Shining tried to reason with her. 'They committed any number of atrocities that are outlawed by the convention, they show no remorse for their actions...'

'So if we kill them now, we'll be no better than them!' Twilight shouted, drawing the attention of the squad of Guardsponies as well as their captors. Shining tried to hush her.

'Twily, listen. Of course we'll be better than them. We didn't cross the stars to invade an innocent nation, slaughter innocents, take their land and their capital...Twilight, they tried to kill me, they tried to kill you, they tried to kill your friends. As...as far as we know, they...probably killed our parents,' he reminded her soberly, no news having been received of Night Light and Twilight Velvet since the invasion. 'They tried to kill the princess, and we cannot allow any of that to stand uncorrected. I understand how you feel, but you have to know. I'm not going to do this just because I was ordered to. I'm going to do it because I think it's the right thing to do.'

Twilight's anger was tempered somewhat by the heartfelt sincerity of her brother's words, and the sombre reminder that, to her sudden disgust, she hadn't even thought about her parents for days. But she was still outraged, and let her feelings be known again. 'Don't...please, don't, big brother...get someone else to do it. You don't have to be the one who...' Shining interrupted her.

'Yes, Twily. I do. I'm in command, remember? There's a law. It's an old one, an archaic one. But it's there, from the days before the princesses, even. The commander of the palace guard must preside over any...executions to take place within the city walls.'

'But...but you're not the palace guard, you're the Royal Guard! Can't they do it outside the walls?' Twilight protested, but Shining shook his head.

'The Royal Guard evolved directly from the palace guard, Twily, you know that. Remember your history...I know there's not much precedent for this, but it's an order, and it's an order that I agree with, and at a time like this, I would not want to be the one to anger the princess by disobeying.' He put a brotherly hoof on her shoulder. 'Twily...you know I'll always be here for you. But I think you should head inside. The others will be waiting. The princess will be waiting. And Twily...I don't think you should mention this to her. She's had a lot on her plate and I don't think it would help if you were to try and argue with her about something like this. Ok, Twily?'

'Yeah...y-yeah, ok...' Twilight sighed. Clearly her brother wouldn't be swayed, but she didn't have to like his decision. 'I'll see you...after I meet the princess...' she muttered, turning and trotting away. Shining watched her go before turning to address his ponies. Near the palace doors, Twilight looked back for a moment, then away, then back again, torn. Finally she stopped and turned to face her brother, who began to speak, addressing the prisoners using the suitably archaic prose of the law he was following.

'For war crimes most foul, for murder, for torture, for the slaughter of innocents, Princess Celestia, Sovereign and Co-Regent of Equestria, Bringer of Dawn and Mistress of the Day, decrees that you shall, in this place and on this day, suffer death by firing squad. There shall be no clemency, no appeal, and no escape. You must die for your abominable crimes, for so sayeth the princess. Praise the Sun.'

Several of the bound men spat in his direction, but, unfazed, Shining turned to his ponies.

'Firing party! Order arms!' he bellowed. The ponies complied, drawing their rifles and holding them in their right forelegs, butt on the ground and barrel in the air. Shining moved to stand to the right and in front of the squad.

'Firing party! Ready!'

The ponies prepared their rifles, cocking them. Twilight looked away, but found herself looking back again.

'Take aim!'

The squad brought their guns up, braced against their shoulders. An eternity passed.

'Fire!'

A roar, deafening to Twilight's ears, ripped across the courtyard as a dozen rifles flashed in unison. She closed her eyes. When she reopened them a few moments later, the seven men lay slumped on the ground. Shining Armour shouted again.

'Firing party! Order arms!'

The squad returned to their former position, rifle butts resting on the ground. One man still twitched, only wounded by the volley. Twilight could only watch in horror as her brother trotted over to him and drew his own sidearm, a revolver, from a holster on his flank. He took aim at the base of the man's skull, and Twilight could not close her eyes as her brother pulled the trigger.

A single gunshot echoed across the yard, signalling the death of all that Twilight thought she knew.

By the time Twilight found her way inside, the other Elements were wondering where she had been. She simply explained that she had been talking to her brother, though her ashen appearance made the others suspicious. Nopony questioned her, however, and soon they were in the Throne Room.

Unlike the streets outside, the Throne Room had been mostly cleared after the battle that had occured there, at least beyond the scars to the pillars, floor and walls that would take more than mere elbow grease to fix. Blackened bodies and smashed furniture had been removed, the evidence of the fury unleashed by the room's current occupant cleared away. Princess Celestia sat perched upon her throne, finally returned to her rightful place after her temporary exile. Pleasantries were exchanged with the Elements, and Princess Luna gave an update on the situation in Griffonstone. Princess Cadence requested that forces be sent to the Crystal Empire, either human or Imperial, and Celestia approved an expeditionary force as soon as one could be assembled, using ponies as scouts and infiltrators and the humans as the muscle, as had been done to retake the capital.

Twilight listened through it all, but eventually her patience ran out, her anger and confusion overtaking her sense of decorum and desire not to be insolent. 'Princess Celestia!' she called. 'What about those prisoners? The ones in the yard?' The other Elements gave Twilight puzzled looks, as they had not seen the men in question. Celestia narrowed her eyes.

'What of them, Twilight?' she asked. 'Do you have something you wish to discuss with me?'

'Yes! Uh...yes, I would like to...'

'Then let us speak in private,' Celestia interrupted her. 'Please leave us. Sister, I believe the human liason officers are awaiting an update. My dear niece, I will arrange for the expeditionary force as soon as possible. Guards? Please escort the Elements to the rooms that have been prepared for them.' Everypony did as ordered, and after a minute or so Twilight was alone with the princess.

'Well?' Celestia asked.

'Your Highness...those prisoners...my brother says you ordered them to be...' Twilight stuttered. She had never attempted to openly defy her princess before, and she was immediately regretting speaking up. 'You ordered him to kill them...'

'Yes. And?' Celestia raised an eyebrow.

'How can you just...t-they had surrendered!' Twilight shouted. She knew that defying the princess was not a wise move, but she had just witnessed seven humans gunned down with their hands and feet bound at the direction of Celestia, forcing her brother to be responsible for it, and even seeing him finish one of them off with a shot to the head, and she couldn't reconcile what she had seen with her own convictions. 'They surrendered to us and you had them killed anyway!'

'Twilight, do you not understand?' Celestia replied. 'This is a war. Not a war like any we have fought before, but a war for survival; not only ours, but for the survival of every living being here. Whether they recognise it or not, every creature on this planet owes its survival to me. Not just ponies, but Griffons, Zebras, Yaks...even the Changelings. You understand that, do you not?'

Twilight had to confess that she did not, not to the full extent that Celestia referred to. 'I...I don't know, princess...how?' she asked.

'I control the sun, and the sun is responsible for all life on this planet,' Celestia explained simply. 'I believe the Imperials have begun to understand this...I did demonstrate it to them. If I desired it, I could destroy their fleet of ships in space. If it becomes necessary, then I will do so without hesitation, to protect ourselves, not just ponykind, but every creature on this planet. But you must understand this as well. This planet...every creature here, almost without exception, has one true, ultimate desire. To live in harmony, in peace, in friendship. The current fragile balance is as close as I...as we...have come to achieving this goal. We have had conflicts, of course, but over land, over resources, over borders. Never over an existential desire to eradicate one another. That is what this enemy has brought upon us. That is what my sister and I sensed from them. I suspect you felt it also. They desire nothing more than the destruction of this planet, or at least its inhabitants.'

'Yes, I...felt something...' Twilight had to nod in agreement. 'But I do not know what it was. Although it can't be a coincidence that these humans appeared at the same time.'

'That is why we fight,' Celestia explained. 'Even the Changelings, even the Yaks, Diamond Dogs...every creature ultimately wishes peace. They just differ in the means they wish to use to achieve it. The Diamond Dogs hide away from enemies, the Changelings feed on their love, the Yaks and Griffons go to war to achieve peace. And we ponies use the power of friendship. We offer help, we offer aid, we offer assistance to these other races. Trade, diplomacy...and if needs be, we fight to maintain our chance of ultimate peace on this world. Only when it is truly necessary. Twilight, you know the nature of magic, at least of pony magic. You know how powerful it can be. Now consider Alicorn magic, another class entirely. We know of nothing in magic or in science that can stand against it. If I wanted to, long ago I could have conquered this world whole, either with or without my sister's aid. Do you know why I have not? Because the creatures on this planet have free will, and however powerful someone or something is, that does not give them any right whatsoever to strip a creature of that free will. But that is precisely what these invaders have done. They traveled across the stars, from whence we could have no realistic expectation of their arrival. They did not seek to parlay or to enact diplomacy, as the Imperials did. They simply began to fight us. Thousands of civilians and soldiers dead by their hands with no chance for negotiation, as if they care not for our free will or our right to exist. They represent everything that we have fought against these past millennia, everything my sister and I have tried so hard to eradicate from our culture. It may seem cruel, and it may seem like taking a page from their book, and perhaps it is. But sometimes, if the circumstances warrant, you have to ignore your principles temporarily, for the greater good. An enemy like that would not spare you or I. An enemy like that would treat a flag of surrender as an invitation for unrestrained violence. An enemy like that would violate every moral tenet that a civilised society would deem to be inviolable, purely out of sport or naked bloodlust. An enemy like that does not deserve quarter, and it shall receive none from me.'

Twilight listened to her leader's impassioned speech, and found herself nodding slowly. What Celestia said made sense, and Twilight knew that peace was the ultimate goal of Equestrian society. Everything in their history had been leading to it- the unification of the pony tribes, the subjugation of the Windigos, the overthrow of Discord and the defeat of Sombra, all aimed not at domination, but at preventing the domination of others over the ponies. That was why Celestia was so worshipped and revered among her citizens- she did not rule through fear and hate, but through loyalty and love. She did not go to war for sport or for conquest, only to protect her ponies, and she was right- this enemy was the exact opposite of that. The tolerance of the princess could only extend so far, and evidently she had just revealed the exact extent of it. Twilight could see, as ever, the wisdom in Celestia's words. Her confidence in her leader was starting to recrystallize after being heavily tested.

'I...I understand, Your Highness. It was just a shock to me, to see my brother...in charge of such things. I didn't know capital punishment was still legal...'

'It isn't,' Celestia replied bluntly. 'Not among those races that have signed the Vanhoover Convention. But these humans have not signed it, and even if they knew of it, I am sure they would proceed to thoroughly ignore its statutes and clauses. If anything these enemies seem to revel in performing tasks that we would consider crimes against ponykind. They have no compunctions about disemboweling newborn foals, forcing mothers to watch their children die, burning down hospitals...whatever they can do that would make others sick to their stomach, makes them euphoric with glee. Such evil is beyond anything we have encountered before. Sombra and Tirek pale in comparison against such misdeeds.'

Again, Twilight knew her words contained more than just a grain of truth. The despoilers had run rampant and caused much destruction- she had seen it for herself. Perhaps she had just been overreacting to what she had seen outside? Perhaps it was merely shock from seeing her brother involved in it. Perhaps deep down she had always known that such things might be necessary in extreme situations, which this definitely qualified as. It was a potentially slippery slope, but Celestia had a firm grip and strong hooves.

'Yes, princess...'

Celestia nodded before continuing. 'I will say right now, that I am perfectly willing to issue the same order again should we come into possession of any more enemy prisoners. But thank you, Twilight. Thank you for raising your concerns. I know you have had a lot to think about of late, but it takes courage to stand up and do what you did, to stand for what you believed to be right. I hope I have explained to your satisfaction why this is a special case.'

Twilight gave a small sigh. She remembered that Shining Armour had told her not to mention the issue to the princess at all, but she was glad she had done, because it felt like a weight off her mind. She knew that Celestia had never issued such orders before in battles against the Changelings, Griffons, Yaks, or Sombra's army of shadows, but Twilight realised now that this was, indeed, a special case. Things were different, different on a scale so vast she still hadn't quite comprehended it. Everything since she had seen that ship in the heavens had been something of a blur to her. She had needed to speak, but more than that, she needed to cry.

A few tears filled the corners of her eyes as she replied. 'Y-yes, princess. I understand. I just...it's all so...so strange to me...' Twilight found herself shaking, and soon she was sobbing. Everything was changing so fast. Her parents might be dead. Canterlot had been lost and retaken. Cloudsdale and Manehattan were still in enemy hands...and Ponyville, her home. Her friends, other than the Elements, were mostly there, or had been. Who knew where they were now? She suddenly felt a wave of confusion, grief, and fear wash over her so completely she almost collapsed onto the floor. But soft wings caught her, and the princess laid her down gently, bringing her close, wings enveloping her like a cloud.

'Hush, my faithful Twilight. Do not fear,' Celestia's voice had changed from that of a stern and determined ruler to that of a soothing matriarch, comforting her crying student, holding her close. In the absence of her parents, Celestia was the next best thing, perhaps better in some ways. The princess knew the weight of responsibility better than any creature- her speech had just reinforced that. The weight that Twilight bore, representing magic to the Elements and being their de facto leader, was a large cause of her current state of mind. The possibility that the Elements, or their wielders, were what had attracted the enemy to them in the first place, had been a constant companion of the young mare throughout the events that had unfolded. Twilight knew that all of those responsibilities, all of those fears, were multiplied a thousandfold for the princess. It could be her magic that had attracted them, she led the entire nation, not just five other mares, and, as she had just explained, she was responsible for the lives of every creature on the planet, whether they realised it or not.

Celestia held Twilight as she sobbed, comforting her even as she let her pour out her grief and confusion. Celestia had seen much over the years, life and death, good and evil, victory and defeat, but even she had to admit there was something strange about this situation. More than just the fact that the enemy, and the Imperials, had come across the void to reach them, more than just the knowledge of an entire galactic civilization of these humans and a dozen other extremely hostile alien races besides. The Imperials had told her that the enemy flagship had been destroyed, the source of the warp storm and the heart of the taint that the enemy brought to their world. But the unease, the clawing feeling at the back of her mind, the whispered voices, were still there.

If anything, they were getting louder.

The Land Of The Rising Sun

With Canterlot secure, the pony search teams had been able to explore the surrounding area, and had located quite significant numbers of civilians who had fled into the mountains, foothills and woods after the invasion. They were finally able to return to their homes, just as their princess had. Most of the nobility and high society had been among the first to leave, and thus were nowhere to be found, many having fled to Las Pegasus or Manehattan, the other noted hangouts of the rich and famous. Las Pegasus remained a safe haven, but the metropolis of Manehattan had fallen under the sway of the enemy. Celestia had decided, and Lord-General Galen had agreed, that its recapture should be the focus of the next main thrust of the 'allied' forces.

Manehattan sat on the northeastern coast of the main continent, well to the north of the plains where the falling cruiser had wreaked still-unknown devastation on the scattered fishing villages during the initial space battle. An important deep-water port, Manehattan saw plentiful trade with the Zebras across the water, bringing the large steamships and older three-masted clippers to dock along its waterfront warehouse district, where crates and barrels were stacked twenty-high and sailors cavorted freely with 'mares of the night' in the back alley brothels. The harbour was also home to a small naval detachment of coastal gunboats of the Royal Equestrian Navy, which were mostly used for smuggling interdiction, and for dockside firefighting in conjunction with the fireboats and pony-drawn engines of the city's fire department.

Further inland lay the financial heart of Equestria, home of the stock exchanges, banks, and the headquarters of many large companies. As the myth went, the streets there were paved with bits- not true, but certainly the area was awash with money. Many executives and celebrities who did not live in the city outright had second homes there, either large apartments or substantial townhouses out in the suburbs, which sprawled lazily around the bustling central business district and harbour. Much of the outer reaches were dominated by factories, warehouses and foundries that manufactured much of the infrastructure used by not just the city, but Equestria as a whole- engines, locomotives, rail track, horseshoes, wagons, guns, chemicals, rope, barrels, and a thousand other things that were vital for the modern Equestrian society to function.

The city was by far the largest in the country, more than double the size and population of Fillydelphia and Baltimare combined. Its size would make its capture against a dug-in enemy force a potential meat grinder, but it could, potentially, be surrounded and besieged. A naval blockade of the harbour would not need to be imposed, Galen had stated, both because there was no indication of the enemy having made landings on any of the smaller continents or islands, and also because Imperial aircraft could perform the same task, along with long-range artillery positioned around the bay. Some of the suburban areas of the city would need to be captured and occupied to complete the siege, he had warned, which both Celestia and Shining Armour had agreed with. Further orbital and aerial reconnaissance would be conducted, along with bombing raids on confirmed enemy artillery and HQ positions.

Preparations were already underway, Galen stated, to move large numbers of forces, from the west and to the east, using the northern end of the central valley as a shortcut. A large mechanised force of regimental strength would be pushed through, followed by motorised infantry and towed artillery. As the force approached the western edge of Manehattan, a diversionary airborne raid would be carried out by dropship on the town of Mareston, some twenty miles north and also occupied by the enemy, in the hopes of drawing away some of the defenders from the outskirts. No significant enemy contact was expected between the valley and the city. The plan was set in motion.

Like most plans, however, it soon went awry.

Twilight went to see Celestia again the day after her breakdown. She had had the chance to spend most of the night pondering over what she had seen and what she had said, and felt somewhat better about herself than she had before she finally found sleep. She wanted to apologise to the princess for speaking out of turn, and to let her know that the support of the Elements could be relied upon without any question. She had spoken to her friends, though not said anything of what she had witnessed in the courtyard. The voices of the enemy, whispering in her mind, convinced her more and more that Celestia's choice had been the correct one.

In the throne room, Celestia had been deep in conversation with a Captain of the 2nd Pegasi Assault Division. Seeing Twilight's arrival, Celestia dismissed the officer, who turned on her hooves after a crisp salute and departed.

'Twilight, come,' Celestia spoke. 'Did you sleep?' she asked.

'A little...' Twilight replied with a small nod, trotting over to the throne. 'It was hard, but...a little.'

'Well, I have just this moment received news that will cheer you,' Celestia gave a warm smile. 'As you know, I had Pegasi patrols dispatched to scout the surrounding area for survivors. Several groups have been located, including a large number of civilians hiding in the Caves of Clover. Your parents were among them.' Celestia paused for a moment to let the news sink in, and Twilight's face quickly broke into a broad grin, accompanied by more tears, though of joy this time.

'O-oh...! They're alright? Oh, thank goodness...thank Celest...uh...thank goodness!' Celestia chuckled a little.

'They are unhurt. The survivors are being brought here now via airship. You will be reunited with them soon,' she informed her. Twilight was overwhelmed with the news, the first positive thing she had heard since the invasion. But she still remembered why she had come to see Celestia.

'Thank you, princess...I wanted to apologise to you, for yesterday. I...' Celestia cut her off.

'Twilight, please, there is no need. I already told you yesterday that I admire your courage in standing up for what you thought was right. It is exactly the kind of thing I have been trying to instill in you all this time, and I was proud to see that my trust was not misplaced.'

'Sorry...' Twilight sighed. 'I just thought I should let you know that the Elements are all behind you one hundred percent. We're glad to be back in Canterlot, but...'

'But there is something on your mind?' Celestia asked. Twilight nodded.

'Yes, princess. We...want to go back to Ponyville,' Twilight explained. 'It's our home, our friends are there. Applejack's family is there. Are there any plans to retake the town?'

'At this precise time, our focus is on other tasks,' Celestia responded. 'We do not have the forces to spare retaking small towns. But I have already spoken to the Imperials about such matters. They say that their guns can reach Ponyville from here...an impressive range to be sure. Their spotters have confirmed enemy presence in the town, and they say they can start firing soon. The Imperial forces in the valley at present are just to hold the line and contain any enemies within, but their Lord-General tells me that as soon as they can assemble another force of sufficient size, they will begin retaking the valley. It may be a matter of days, perhaps a week. You must understand that this war is being fought on Imperial terms. Though I can...influence them, there is certainly no guarantee they will always listen. But I understand your concern for your friends. You have my word that Ponyville will be liberated as soon as possible.'

'Thank you, princess...' Twilight nodded and bowed her head. 'That's all we ask for. We know there's still a war going on. It's just hard for everypony. There's so much uncertainty about...well, about everything.'

'I know, Twilight,' Celestia replied. 'I am doing what I can, but there is still a great deal of confusion. We are not used to conducting a war at this speed, or on this scale. We still have received no word, no messengers from any number of cities, or from Zebrica, or Yakyakistan, or even from our own navy. I must admit that even though my own gaze turns outward every day, even I had never seriously considered the possibility of an attack from beyond the stars.'

'Nopony could have, your highness,' Twilight replied. 'Until these humans came, we had no possible way of knowing there was life out there. It was just restricted to comic books and stuff like that. I used to be fascinated by those stories...I guess that's part of what got me interested in astronomy. I hoped to be the one to see the aliens coming. And...I guess I did.'

'Indeed you did, my faithful student. It was most perceptive of you,' Celestia offered her a smile. 'But again the point is made. Although you sent me a message about your sighting, before we could even meet in person, the humans had landed. They move faster than us. Their vehicles move at a gallop, their aircraft outpace even the fastest airship by leaps and bounds, and their starships...they must move at astronomically fast speeds to cross a galaxy, if what they say is true. It seems that we have little reason to doubt their veracity on that point. Their technology is impossibly superior to ours, but we still have our magic, and it seems to me that magic is something they fear.'

'These humans fear something?' Twilight asked, cocking her head.

'I believe so. At the very least they are distrustful of magic,' Celestia replied. 'Whether that is because they do not understand it or because they know it and fear its potential, I am unsure. I felt it especially aboard their starship. The Lord-General and Lord-Admiral were rather disbelieving of my control over the sun until I demonstrated it to them. Then they seemed uneasy, for the obvious reason of the potential threat to their fleet, but I felt something more from them. I think they have an almost fundamental aversion to magic. I have not probed too deeply as to their exposure to it, but we have not seen any evidence of the Imperials making use of magic of their own. It may be that they possess none, which would explain their fear. It is also possible that whatever the enemy used that caused that storm in space, could be magic-related. If their enemy uses magic, that would also explain their fear of it.'

Twilight nodded as she listened to the princess. 'It would, yes...but perhaps that is why they came here.'

'I do not think it is why the Imperials arrived,' Celestia replied. 'But I fear it may be why the enemy came here. I just hope that whatever they want is now beyond their reach.'

The mechanised might of the Stourmont 2nd Armoured Regiment swept across the grasslands. Stormclouds gathered overhead, with a fair drizzle falling and a few distant flashes of lightning visible. East of the Foal Mountains, Equestria opened out much as it did to the west, with fertile plains heading toward the coast. It was perfect tank country.

Perfect for Captain Mayner and his crew. The gently sweeping plains were little obstacle to their Leman Russ Vanquisher. Outfitted with a specialised anti-armour, long-barreled Vanquisher cannon, a hull-mounted lascannon, and two sponsons fitted with plasma cannons, Mayner's charge, 'Big Beautiful Doll,' was a dedicated tank killer. Mayner was commander of the 1st Tank Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Brigade, 2nd Stourmont Armoured; the tip of the spear, the pride of the Regiment. All of his crew were dedicated veterans of many years service. The driver, Barnes, the gunner, Cheyne, the loader, Janssen, and the sponson gunners, Welks and Farber, all had survived countless battles, all had numerous medals, and numerous scars to match. The most experienced crew in the most experienced company in the most experienced battalion, Mayner and his team were, as was expected, at the very front of the advance.

The Regiment was moving across the plains that opened out toward the Xenos city of Manehattan, five hundred tanks able to race at high speed over the smooth ground. Behind them came the Stourmont's 9th Mechanised Infantry Regiment, a similar number of Chimera fighting vehicles carrying thousands of men, mixed with Hydra flak guns, a few Hellhound flamethrower vehicles, and some other specialised vehicles. Salamander scout cars ranged ahead of the main force, looking for contacts, while Vulture gunships kept station overhead. The armoured fist of the Imperium was going to war.

Mayner slipped back down into the turret from the hatch where he had been looking out across the plains. The interior of the tank was cramped, more so than a normal Leman Russ thanks to the larger breech mechanism of the Vanquisher cannon. His gunner, Cheyne, perched expectantly, ready for action anytime, her muscular arms and torso glistening with sweat. Tank combat was hot work at the best of times. Heat from the engine, the turret mechanism, exhaust from the weaponry, body heat from the crew, all contained within a metal chamber a few feet in diameter. Whenever possible, the hatches were left open to try and get some circulation going through the vehicle, but in combat, the tank had to be buttoned up, with all but the most foolhardy or prideful tank commanders closing even their precious turret hatch. It gave them vision, but it made them a target, and worse, especially in urban combat, it gave the enemy an opening through which they could shoot or throw grenades.

But there was no threat from enemy infantry, and they were not in the city yet, and so Big Beautiful Doll drove hard to the east with its turret, sponson and drivers' hatches open. Barnes drove the tank while peeking out, hardy goggles and a hardy, weatherbeaten face helping to keep the tank on track. When Mayner had last glanced back, he had seen a vast dust cloud hanging in their air behind their formation, a sure sign of their passage to anyone who happened to be looking.

Janssen, the loader, offered his commander a cigarette. Mayner accepted with a simple nod, and Cheyne reached over with her lighter. No words needed to be exchanged between a crew of such experience and shared peril. Mayner took a drag, the smoke adding to the fug and heat within the tank. He had no doubts that his crew were ready for combat should it become necessary. After a few moments he lifted himself back up through the hatch, shielding his cigarette from the wind as he looked around.

Everywhere, a mass of metal pressed on towards the target. Manehattan, this Xenos city, a manufactory hub, a port, the financial capital, the largest city on the planet.

It has it all, apparently, Mayner mused to himself. The briefing had made the city sound as if an Imperial hive city had been flattened and spread out across a few hundred square miles of land instead of climbing tens of thousands of feet into the sky. Mayner and his crew had had a minimum of interaction with the local inhabitants since landing, but what he had seen had left him feeling that assisting such creatures was rather beneath his crew. Defeating the Archenemy, however, was not.

'Cobalt One to all units, Cobalt One to all units. Be advised, air cover advises large dust cloud to the east, approximately thirty miles, leaving the city. Possible enemy contacts. All units are to adopt combat posture.' Mayner's headset vox suddenly came to life with a message from the Regimental command company. Enemy contacts? No matter. They would surely be swept aside. Mayner ducked back down into the tank, slamming the turret hatch closed and securing it.

'Combat posture, boys and girls!' he ordered. The crew leapt into action, closing and locking all hatches, sealing the vehicle and pressuring the chemical protection system, arming and loading all weapons. Mayner brought up his thermoscope viewer and peered through. The land ahead appeared all green through it, no sign of anything yet. Another vox message reiterated the potential threat, confirmed a few moments later by an urgent report from one of the Salamander scouts.

'Cobalt One, Cobalt One, this is Scout Platoon Six. We have visual on large enemy armoured force, I say again, large enemy armoured force. Count minimum of regimental strength. Scanners indicate minimum of eight hundred, I say again, eight zero zero, armoured vehicles, type unknown. Scout Platoon Six is withdrawing, out.'

Mayner exchanged a brief glance with Janssen and Cheyne. It seemed like they might be entering combat sooner than they had expected. More vox messages quickly confirmed that battle was about to be joined. The enemy were sallying out to meet them head-on.

'Cobalt One to all units. Air cover reports enemy air contacts. Diverting to engage.'

'Cobalt One to all units, air cover reports large enemy armoured formation is confirmed.'

'Cobalt One to all units, orbital command reports they are unable to engage enemy targets due to the storm front.'

The best laid plans...

'Whatever happens, you can always rely on the weather to ruin everything,' Cheyne commented with a grunt of irritation. 'Who planned this op? Didn't they account for weather delays?'

'Easy, tiger,' Mayner responded. 'I guess they figured the Stourmont enjoy a little rain. Might just give us an advantage, huh?' He chuckled, getting a similar response from the crew. Their home planet was renowned for its almost interminable rainfall, and their troops received better practice than most at fighting in wet or stormy conditions. Though conditions were bad enough to prevent the ships in orbit from achieving firing solutions on the enemy, there were still sufficient minimums for the Vulture escorts, also drawn from Stourmont troops, to fight, and they swooped into the attack. Their Hellstrike missiles blazed trails across the overcast, knocking out a number of enemy tanks. But they were met suddenly by a torrent of anti-aircraft fire from Hydra and other similar vehicles, filling the sky with shrapnel, bringing down half a dozen of the gunships. To make matters worse, the enemy aircraft were upon them, the shoal of interceptors bringing down several more of the escorts. The urgent call went out for air support.

It was with them almost immediately, three squadrons of Lightning fighters, swooping down from the overwatch pattern they had been flying, high above the storm system. They destroyed three of the enemy interceptors in a heartbeat, but then a confusing, swirling melee began in the skies above, as both sides came into contact, gun, laser and missile all playing their part in the aerial ballet. On the ground, a similar battle was about to be joined between the two armoured forces, set to collide on the rain-sodden plains of eastern Equestria.

Mayner peered through his thermoscope. The precipitation was getting heavier as the Imperial force moved under the stormclouds. His vision was limited, but he could see the ridgeline ahead formed by the low hillocks of the grasslands. Their air support was in contact, something he could do nothing about. What he could do something about, given half a chance, was the enemy armour reported to be ahead of them.

'Load armour piercing,' he ordered, and Janssen opened the breach, picked up a blue-capped shell, and rammed it home, closing the breach again.

'Up!' he confirmed. Cheyne scanned the ground ahead through her targeting scopes, as Mayner did the same. The headset vox came on again.

'Cobalt One to Cobalt Alpha One.' Command calling Mayner. 'Be advised, enemy armour reported to be approximately six miles to your front. You are cleared to engage, over.' Mayner keyed his throat mike to reply.

'Cobalt Alpha One actual, Cobalt One, copy. The Emperor Protects.'

Mayner issued more orders, both to his crew and to the rest of his company. The fifteen tanks of the 1st Company were spread out in an echelon formation, with other companies closeby alongside and to the rear. At least fifty Imperial tanks were heading for the ridge and would reach it at roughly the same time.

'Cobalt Alpha One actual to all Alpha One vehicles. Standby to halt and engage enemy armour on my signal,' Mayner ordered. The tanks continued to drive for the low ridgeline, tracks churning up the increasingly wet ground as they began to climb the slight incline, rain pattering off of the metal skin. Mayner keyed his mike again.

'Cobalt Alpha One actual. Halt, halt, halt,' he ordered. 'Stay hull down and engage at will.' He looked through his thermoscope again as Big Beautiful Doll slowed to a jerky halt, remaining just behind the crest of the ridge in a hull down position, with only the turret exposed over the top of the hillock. The rain made it hard to see in normal vision, but the thermoscope displayed a clear enough image that sent a quick thrill down his spine.

White blobs indicated enemy vehicles, tanks charging across the plains. Dozens...no, hundreds of them, though the ones to the rear merged into an amorphous mass as the thermoscope didn't have a particularly long range and its definition worsened the farther away targets were.

'Son of a bitch...' Cheyne grunted beside him, peering through her own scopes.

No time to waste...

'Target, enemy tank, twelve o'clock! Fire!' Mayner ordered. The long-barreled Vanquisher cannon didn't need to traverse to engage, and Cheyne pressed the firing stud. The cannon bucked and sent a heavy round screaming across the plains. It smashed straight through the frontal armour of the target vehicle, the shaped-charge warhead filling the interior with a spray of molten copper and a cloud of metal shards, spalling from the vehicle's interior. The tank slowed and came to a halt, the crew shredded inside. The rest of the 1st Company were firing as well, and several plumes of hot smoke became visible on Mayner's thermoscope.

'Load armour piercing!' he ordered again, unnecessarily as Janssen had already grabbed another shell and slammed it home. 'Target enemy tank, eleven o'clock. Fire!'

The enemy tanks were everywhere in his scope. The cannon roared again and one of them exploded violently. The crew compartment of Big Beautiful Doll was already filling with cordite fumes from the cannon, as Janssen opened the breach again and loaded another shell. With the company lining up along with tanks from other units along the ridge, the enemy were taking losses, but they were returning fire.

Mayner, as lead company commander, was waiting for the second wave of Imperial tanks to reach themand push beyond the ridgeline in a pincer move. Standard tactics for the Regiment when operating in similar terrain was for the lead units to halt whenever possible at a topographical feature, the ridge in this case, and form a firing line. The second wave of tanks would then split left and right and flow around the first wave, enveloping the enemy who would be either charging toward, or halting to engage, the 'anvil' formed by the first line. Outflanked, the enemy would turn to face the new threat, allowing the first wave of Imperial tanks to push up through the now-distracted middle and complete the destruction of the enemy force. At least, that was the theory, carried out thousands of times by hundreds of armoured units across countless worlds. But very few plans ever survived contact with the enemy.

The force of Leman Russ tanks pushing up on the left flank found themselves entering unexpectedly boggy terrain. The idea had not been to have to engage an enemy armoured force on the plains. It was expected that the Chaos forces would most likely remain in place and continue to occupy the city, rather than riding out to meet their would-be besiegers. The left flank found that the ground in many places would not support their tanks, whose tracks sank into the mud under the hefty bulk they were carrying. While in most cases the wide track and relatively low ground pressure of the Leman Russ was enough to carry the tank through, their progress was heavily slowed, with a few tanks becoming completely immobilised by the sticky terrain. The unencumbered right flank raced out ahead onto the flat ground, turrets traversing and gyrostablised cannons firing. The enemy had to fight on two fronts, but it was supposed to be fighting on three.

'Fire!' Mayner shouted again. Another shell left the barrel and struck the glacis plate of one of the enemy tanks that was still engaging the Imperial's first wave. Several friendly tanks were knocked out, plumes of smoke rising into the wet sky. Being in a hull down position meant that most of the Imperial tanks were protected from enemy fire with only the turret exposed, but it also meant their own sponson and hull-mounted weaponry could not be brought into play, limiting their firepower somewhat. Other companies were already taking the initiative and moving forward over the ridge, hoping the enemy was distracted enough by the flanking manoeuvre. But only one prong of the pincer was in play, reports from the left flank indicating the tanks there were struggling to get through, and Mayner was reluctant to expose his company fully before the extent of the problems that delay might cause had become fully known. As a result they held position, picking off targets as they exposed themselves from behind the folds and draws in the terrain. The Vanquisher cannon held less than two dozen rounds in storage, however, and sooner or later they would need to emerge from behind cover to continue the fight lest they expend all of their ammunition for the main gun.

'When are we getting into the fight, Captain?' Farber asked from the right sponson over the intercom, speaking for himself and for his symmetrical fellow in the port sponson, Welks. Their plasma cannons had sat idle since the start of the engagement.

'Soon, boys, soon,' Mayner replied. 'Those slackers over on the left flank are running behind schedule.' What worried him was that the majority of the enemy tanks were continuing on a direct course for them, having been able to divert sufficient forces to meet the one-sided flanking move. The left flank needed to get back on track or things could get messy.

A loud bang reverberated around the tank, followed by the pattering of something on the hull. Mayner checked out the external viewer, panning it around and finding that the tank to their right was a mass of flame and smoke. The positive pressure ventilators of Big Beautiful Doll were preventing the smoke from being sucked into their fighting compartment, while at the same time helping to extract the fumes from the main gun. It did little to help with the heat, however, and that would only get worse once the lascannon and plasma cannons were brought into action.

Mayner returned his attention to his thermoscope. Enemy tanks were still closing, some getting inside one mile out, pushing hard for the ridgeline. There was still no sign of the left flank, and urgent vox messages suggested that the right flank units were struggling to cope with the increased attentions of the enemy. Another shout went up warning of incoming enemy aircraft, just to add to the confusion.

What happened to our fighters? Mayner wondered. He switched vox channels.

'Cobalt Alpha One actual to all Alpha One vehicles. Advance, advance, advance. Engage at will,' Mayner ordered. His other thirteen surviving tanks responded in a rapid sequence of callsigns, engines whining and tracks clanking as they climbed over the ridge towards the enemy, following in the footsteps of several other companies that had already begun to move. If they did not act swiftly, the enemy would be upon them anyway, and they would lack flanking support if they did not assist their tanks out on the right.

Clearing the ridge, all the guns of Big Beautiful Doll came into play. Mayner issued rapid commands.

'Gunner! Tank, twelve o'clock, range fifteen hundred.'

'Identified!' Cheyne shouted.

'Fire!' Mayner ordered. The tank bucked.

'Driver, tank, twelve o'clock, range eighteen hundred.'

'Identified!' Barnes called.

'Fire!'

The lascannon flashed and an enemy tank erupted in flame.

'Sponsons, targets of opportunity, fire at will.'

'Port sponson, targets of opportunity, firing at will!' Welks reported.

'Starboard sponson, targets of opportunity, firing at will,' Farber added.

Mayner repeated half a dozen similar commands over the next ninety seconds as the Vanquisher roared into the fray alongside a hundred other tanks, guns flashing. The enemy thrust was blunted by the counter-push from the Imperial 'anvil,' but they were still advancing.

Finally some support was arriving on the Imperial's left flank. Half a dozen tanks had made it through the mud and emerged onto the plains, cutting through a small wooded area, felling trees like matchsticks and opening fire. The enemy were now caught on three fronts, but there was another front that most tankers found it instinctively hard to think about.

The air.

With the Imperial air cover distracted by enemy interceptors, a wave of heavy ground attack aircraft were able to sweep in from the direction of Manehattan. Vulture gunships that had been pummeling Chaos tanks moved to try and counter them, but they were not air superiority craft. Bombs, missiles and lascannon began to engage the Imperial tanks from above. At the best of times tanks were vulnerable to air attack. At worst, in the middle of a confusing and vast armoured engagement, they were sitting ducks.

Firepower rained down from the grey skies, knocking out a dozen Leman Russ tanks in a few moments. Shouted calls for air support went unheeded over the vox, as the Imperial fighters were dogfighting with their opponents, swirling through the clouds. More interceptors were on the way, but they were from the reserve and were still ten or fifteen minutes out. The enemy craft looped around for another run, knocking out more tanks almost unanswered, save for two that were brought down by Hydra fire from the following 9th Mechanised Infantry Regiment, who remained well clear of the titanic armoured clash unfolding ahead of them.

Confusion meant that many Imperial tanks didn't even know they were under air attack. Tankers had a nasty habit of tunnel vision, understandable given that visibility from a tank was all but nil wen buttoned up. Only the external scopes and sensors gave any indication of the state of the world beyond the hull, making tank combat in many ways more akin to space combat than to infantry action. Tank action took place almost in a vacuum; the crew could not see the tanks beside them in the line, not unless they turned their attention, and their turret, away from the enemy. The chances of seeing an incoming aircraft were negligible when buttoned up.

Big Beautiful Doll found herself rattled by explosions as a string of bombs went off closeby, throwing clods of sodden dirt onto the turret and rear deck but doing no damage. The sponson plasma cannons blazed brightly in the overcast, flashing across the plains even as lightning flashed down from the stormclouds above, the thunder all but silenced by the roar of battle.

Mayner looked again through the thermoscope. A scattering of targets still filled his vision, but then he saw something larger, a target that glowed a little hotter. He frowned and zoomed in, switching to the regular viewing mode.

That was when he saw the Baneblade.

Walls Of Iron

Captain Eliss Muran whipped his head around from left to right as it was on a swivel, constantly keeping check on his surroundings. His squadron was part of the air cover for the armoured assault on Manehattan, and like the other interceptors that had been on station was engaged in an almost incomprehensible melee in the sky.

The old adage for fighter pilots was never fly straight and level for more than 30 seconds in the combat area. It originated, as best Muran could tell, from some of the ancient Terran flying machines of antiquity, somewhere in the murky and mostly forgotten past of humanity's insatiable desire to go to war with itself before the Emperor unified the species under one flag. Such machines were a lot slower, their weapons less deadly, than what was available to the Imperium and her enemies, and now the adage was more accurately reflected as Never fly straight and level for more than 5 seconds. Thirty seconds in a high-speed dogfight was an eternity, long enough for an entire life to be lived, or more accurately, to be snuffed out.

Muran jinked his craft from side to side as he pulled up into a steep climb, throttling back to tighten his loop, rolling out at the top, wings level. There was an enemy jet in his sights, but he continued to scan over both shoulders for any sign of a pursuer getting on his tail. Inattention could be just as deadly as inexperience, but Muran had not survived this long through luck.

Not entirely, at least.

Skill, determination and bravery had something to do with it, as well. Muran swung his jet starboard a few degrees, lining up with the twisting enemy fighter, trying desperately to throw the experienced ace off his tail. His efforts were in vain as Muran depressed the firing stud and trigger, and his ventral autocannon and wingtip lascannons began blazing, ripping holes in the fuselage of the craft which burst into flame and spiralled away. Muran didn't waste time trying to confirm the kill, his third of the day, by watching it go down. His attention was instantly switched to checking his six and finding a new target.

The Imperial pilots not only had to contend with the enemy, but also the storm. Whoever planned the assault must have either been unwilling to postpone the operation due to bad weather, been unaware of the storm's impending arrival, or simply decided that the benefits to the mission outweighed the risks. Stormy weather could provide excellent cover for an assault force as visibility plummeted in the sheeting rain, but it could turn dry earth to mud and parched creek beds to raging torrents within minutes. Such mobility issues would affect both sides, but the briefing for the operation had suggested that no serious enemy counterattack was expected during the approach and encirclement phase, as a large-scale push out of the city would invite an orbital strike. Rather, localised thrusts were expected after the city had been invested, to try and force a breakthrough, either to escape or to raid Imperial artillery and command positions. But the enemy, evidently capitalising on the storm under the assumption that it would eliminate, or at least severely reduce, the chance of an accurate orbital strike being brought to bear on them, had decided to take the risk.

If a thunderstorm could be disruptive to ground operations, it could be downright destructive to aircraft. Heavy rain and thick cloud cut vision to nil, hail could cause physical damage, lightning could short out vital systems. Cloudsbursts, downdraughts and tornadoes could knock an aircraft from the sky or push it into a dive towards some unforgiving, and often invisible, terrain. Any self-respecting pilot with even a single week at basic flight training camp knew the rule. You did not go into a thunderstorm.

Many of the Imperial pilots, however, would soon have little choice. The storm was continuing to advance from offshore, being blown along at a fair pace by strong high-level winds. Locked in a dogfight, to break away to escape the storm and ignore your enemy in the process would invite an easy shootdown from behind. Squadron or even flight-level communication and cooperation became all but impossible when every man and woman involved was fighting for their life and each pilot could only see the small patch of sky that happened to visible out of their canopy at any given time. Diving into such a fight in orderly formation as a squadron could soon see an individual pilot lose track of every friendly aircraft, and sometimes every enemy aircraft, too. Many was the time a pilot would swing up from some maneuver, perform a full visual sky sweep, and find him or herself seemingly alone in the sky. Even the Auspex was of little help, as most dogfights took place at a significantly short range that there was barely space on the readout to separate from one another the accumulation of red and blue sigils that signified each aircraft.

A brief glance showed Muran that his Auspex showed just such a blob of indeterminate number, some sixty or so aircraft swirling like leaves. His weather surveyor showed a similar mass of green, yellow and red, indications of the strength of precipitation within the storm front. A look out of the canopy painted an even grimmer picture. A towering thunderhead, reaching a good thirty-thousand feet or so into the sky, formed a wall of iron off to his port side. Lightning flashed ominously around it, almost like ornamental decorative lights twinkling against the darkened background of the slate-grey clouds. It represented an obstacle no pilot wanted to face directly, but it was being forced upon them as the fight drew dangerously close to it, rain from outlying bands pattering against the armoured cockpit glass of Muran's aptly-named Lightning.

A blood-red light illuminated on his instrument panel, along with an intermittent buzzing alarm. The Auspex warning receiver was alerting him that an enemy, either an aircraft or anti-air missile battery, was painting his aircraft with Auspex and attempting to achieve a target lock. He pulled into a tight bank to port, towards the storm. As well as his evasive maneuvers, he hoped that interference from the storm might throw off the targeting system. He checked over both shoulders, and spotted the bandit.

An enemy fighter, a good distance back but turning sharply to stay with him, clearly in pursuit. A sleek craft optimised for air defence, with a single tail fin and swept-back wings. Half a dozen missiles hung beneath its wings, while a trio of stubby autocannon barrels protruded from its nose. The warning received continued to stutter as the enemy fighter tried to obtain a lock.

Muran pushed his nose down, bringing the Lightning into a spiraling dive away from the stormclouds. His altimeter ticked away as he pushed for the deck before pulling out and immediately into a tight starboard turn. After a few moments of silence, the warning receiver began to blare again. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that the bandit was still on him, though Muran's continuous maneuvers were keeping him from achieving a lock. Another Lightning flashed across his vision, part of the continuing melee going on around them, but Muran could only be focused on his pursuer.

'Hammer 1, Hammer 2, you have a bandit on your tail!' Muran's wingman, Rall, informed him over the vox.

No kidding.

'Hammer 1 copies, trying to shake him,' Muran replied. 'Can you pick him off for me?'

'Negative. I've lost you...ah, standby, attempting to reacquire,' Rall called. Muran tried a quick roll and pulled the stick hard into his stomach, throwing the Lightning into another tight turn.

'Hammer 2, Hammer 2, bandit on your six!' one of the other pilots shouted over the vox.

'Hammer 2, Hammer 1. Watch yourself. I'll shake this guy,' Muran announced, allowing his wingman to focus on his own problems. The Chaos fighter was still behind him, another visual check confirmed.

Persistent bastard.

Muran tried another quick climb and a spiral, but it stuck with him, nearly obtaining a missile lock, the intermittent tone of the alarm almost becoming a solid tone. Rain lashed Muran's cockpit, but the enemy fighter just would not break off, and could not be shook. Muran spared a glance at the weather scanner. A large patch of red was showing, indicating the heaviest rainfall, closeby. The storm front loomed above him, scattered, scudding clouds whipping around his craft. It was stupid, but it might just work, and besides which he was running out of ideas and space. The vertical bulk of cloud was getting closer and closer as he twisted and turned, the enemy fighter stubbornly on his tail the whole way, not deviating, not scared off by the weather or distracted by another, easier target.

Muran spun his jet around with a quick series of tight turns, a final attempt to dislodge his pursuer. It stuck to him like glue. Muran rolled the Lightning inverted and pulled back hard on the stick, performing a quick Split-S maneuver, a half loop downward that brought him out the correct way up and facing the opposite direction, charging headlong into the oncoming storm. The enemy fighter was still with him. and the warning receiver gave a solid tone. missile lock.

Muran flicked the countermeasure switch, and a dozen blazing magnesium flares erupted from the flanks of the Lightning, clouds of chaff puffing from the ventral section and immediately scattering into insignificance, carried on the strong winds. A missile streaked in towards him, but it lost him as he burst through the cloudwall and entered a world of grey.

Confusion immediately began to reign in his suddenly small world. Rain all but obliterated his view, pounding on the canopy in great bursts as if someone were spraying it with a fire hose. Cloud-to-cloud lightning flashed all around its namesake aircraft, crackling sheets of electricity flashing brightly, illuminating the thousands of raindrops on the windshield in prismatic glory. Muran found his jet buffeted by heavy turbulence, shaking him up like a can of rotgut ale. The Auspex warning receiver light remained dark, but shortly after that, all the lights went out.

A blinding flash of lightning accompanied by an instantaneous whip-crack roar rattled Muran. The jet had been struck, a direct hit of electricity coursing over its metal skin. While the fuselage acted as a cage that redirected the current around the pilot and cockpit, keeping Muran safe from electrocution, the bolt was powerful enough to fry several electrical circuits. Like most Imperial hardware, the Lightning was built as cheaply as possible, which meant that surge protectors and circuit shielding were not installed, as the Lightning was not designed to, or expected to, fly through thunderstorms. His Auspex screen blanked out, along with the weather scanner. Rows of lights on the instrument panel went dark as the aircraft's primary electrical system took a hit.

Muran knew entering the storm was a gamble, but it had, at least, seemingly shaken off the pursuing fighter. He reached down and quickly cycled the circuit breakers, trying to reset the system, to no avail. One concession to necessity that was fitted to the Lightning, however, was a backup electrical system, and Muran was able to switch over and reboot. The lights flickered and came back on, his Auspex reinitialising. The engines had remained unaffected and continued to thrust the Lightning forward through the eye of the storm. As the electrical system came back online, a sudden downdraft shoved it down like a giant invisible hand, the altimeter ticking off the thousands of feet of lost height. Muran quickly throttled back, stabilising his descent, and pulled the nose up steadily but firmly. The Lightning steadied and began to climb, but the result was that a torrent of rain poured into the engine intakes. While all jet engines could handle some amount of precipitation, otherwise most flights would be prematurely terminated by flying through light cloud or a feeble shower, the effect of the storm was beyond its rated design limits. So much water being ingested overwhelmed the engines, stifling their air supply and cooling the combustion chambers. The port engine flickered, strained, and died, flaming out. With a grim inevitability, the starboard engine followed suit a few moments later.

Now Muran was in trouble. He was trapped inside the storm system with no engines, relying on his backup electronic system, which was at least working, providing power to illuminate a blood-red master caution light and two equally crimson engine failure lights on the instrument panel. To make things worse, hail began to pound on the wings and fuselage, cracking the canopy in several places. He had no idea how deep the storm system was, and his best bet was to turn and make for the leading edge. He eased the stricken Lightning around, wings flexing as the winds buffeted him. His compass at least showed him which way he should be heading; west, back toward the mountains, the direction the storm was heading and thus the direction of its front.

The Lightning was gliding, something which it was perfectly able to do, but it would lose height constantly until the engines could be restarted, only possible outside of the storm and its heavy precipitation. Muran could only wait. Even his vox had gone silent, the static and interference from the storm keeping him isolated from the dogfight that was, presumably, still raging beyond the cloudwall.

Lightning raged around him, several strikes contacting with his jet, but not of sufficient power to cause any further electrical disruption. After several minutes' of gliding and monitoring his altitude, Muran emerged into the light. The plains stretched away below him to the mountain range some hundred miles west. He immediately began working on the engine restart procedures. Las-fire flickered not too far ahead, as some combat was still ongoing. To his relief, the machine spirit of the Lightning was kind to him, as both engines restarted on the first attempt, evidently mollified by the Litany of Repair he had uttered during the procedure. With both engines roaring once again, Muran was back in the fight.

His Auspex showed there were still a large number of both friendly and enemy contacts. He activated targeting, and within moments had achieved a missile lock. One of the Skystrike air-to-air missiles under his port wing leaped from its rail. Several seconds later, an explosion blossomed in the sky ahead, and one enemy aircraft went down.

But his Auspex warning receiver buzzed again. A quick look around showed nothing, and Muran pulled a tight tank, but the warning buzzer continued. Something was tracking him.

'Hammer 2, this is Hammer 1, do you copy, over?' Muran called. Rall responded a moment later.

'Hammer 1, Hammer 2 copies. What's your location, over?'

'Still in the fight...approximately...' he glanced down. 'Fifteen miles west of Manehattan. Got something on my tail.'

'Hammer 1, standby...trying to locate you,' Rall replied. But it was too late to move and engage. The warning receiver gave a loud, constant drone. Muran pulled another high-G turn, pumping out flares and chaff, but although the first incoming missile was distracted and destroyed, the second found its target and detonated just behind his starboard wing. The Captain was thrown forward against the instrument panel. Warning lights illuminated all across it. Muran recovered and tried to pull up from the dive his Lightning was now in, but the controls did not respond. He tried again, and again. The ground was getting closer. The starboard engine failed out once again, adding another shrill warning tone to the blare of alarms in the cockpit.

'Hammer 1, Hammer 2, eject, eject, eject!' Rall's voice cut clear through the static. 'Do you copy? Eject! You're on fire!'

A quick glance back confirmed his wingman's words. The starboard wing was ablaze, its fuel tank ruptured. The Lightning was leaving a trail of fire across the sky, and Muran knew it was time to leave. He reached down between his legs and his hands grasped a black-and-yellow checked handle. He gave it a firm upward tug, and the ejection sequence was initiated. Rocket motors beneath the pilot's seat fired, propelling it upward. At the exact same moment, an electrical impulse was sent through the canopy, the glass- actually acrylic plastic- of which was laced with detonator cord. The small explosions shattered the canopy milliseconds before the seat was propelled from its mountings by the rockets, hurling Muran free of his crippled jet.

The g-forces were intense, but certainly preferable to a fiery death if he had ridden the stricken Lightning for much longer. He found himself splashed by rain and buffeted by wind. His parachute opened, leaving him suspended and slowly floating down to earth, giving him a perfect view of his fighter as it went down, down, down, getting close to the ground before the fire reached either the unspent missiles or the main fuel tank, and the Lightning disappeared in a flaming cloud, ripped apart and scattering fragments across the terrain.

Muran's seat released, dropping away, leaving him hanging from the parachute, falling to the ground. He had been saved from certain death, but a quick glance downward told him that he was soon to be in trouble again.

Below, hundreds of armoured vehicles could be seen, scattered across the plains, engaged in a titanic duel of steel and flesh, and Muran was falling right into the middle of it.

Captain Mayner, despite his many years of service, had never encountered a hostile Baneblade. They were rare enough in Imperial service, and having fought alongside one or two, he knew the power they exerted. He also knew it needed to die immediately.

'Load armour piercing! Gunner! Super heavy, twelve o'clock!' he shouted.

'Up!' replied Janssen.

'Identified!' called Cheyne.

'FIre!' Mayner roared.

The armour-piercing, high-powered Vanquisher shell left the barrel and flung itself across the plains. It smashed into the frontal armour of the Baneblade, enough to destroy any other enemy tank, enough to penetrate any defence.

And it did absolutely nothing.

The shell bounced off of the immensely thick frontal armour of the Banelade, barely even chipping the paint, which was the dark-red shade of drying blood. Other tanks had spotted the behemoth too, and over the next few seconds another dozen shells clanged into it from various angles, none of them penetrating. Its objective was clear; to push through the Imperial 'anvil' and force a break in the line through which the Chaos armour could pour and conduct a reverse envelopment of the 2nd Armoured, or worse, press on toward the 9th Mechanised. While the Chimeras and their bipedal Sentinel escorts were not defenceless, they could not hope to stand against enemy tanks in any significant number on such open terrain, even if their infantry charges dismounted and added the firepower of their missiles launchers and lascannons to the fight. The Baneblade was ideal for such tasks, either functioning as a bastion around which a position could be formed in the defence, or as a battering ram in the offence, a sluggish but formidably armed and almost invincible wall of iron.

Its numerous guns were blazing, main battle cannon roaring with a tremendous thunder and ripping the turret from an Imperial tank. Two lascannons cut searing tracks through the falling rain, flashing water to steam as they passed. The heavy Demolisher siege cannon in the hull lobbed a massive shell that practically annihilated a Leman Russ, leaving what remained of its twisted hull slowly trundling down the gentle slope of the ridgeline. Numerous heavy bolters rattled away, incapable of doing major damage to a Leman Russ but able to damage or destroy external sensors, knock out unprotected secondary weapons and even, with a lucky shot or an excellent gunner, striking a vision slit dead-on and causing injury or death to the crewman peering out of it. The Baneblade was also heavily supported by enemy tanks, some Leman Russ but mostly low-slung, sleek types, some regional design or perhaps something cooked up by the forces of Chaos themselves.

The danger was clear, and it had to be snuffed out. Mayner spoke into the vox.

'Cobalt Alpha One-One actual to all Alpha vehicles. Target is super-heavy tank, twelve o'clock. Focus all fire, no need to acknowledge. Engage at will.'

His company responded immediately, with a torrent of fire, shells slamming into the heavy armour of the Baneblade, laser and plasma leaving steaming holes in its surface but doing only superficial damage. A platoon of Imperial tanks from another company had raced ahead and were now deep among the enemy, causing havoc. The Baneblade turned its turrets upon them, and within a few moments had rendered them all into nothing more than scrap metal. A few survivors climbed free of the burning wrecks and were mercilessly gunned down by the mass of heavy bolters carried by the super-heavy.

'Driver, sponsons! Super-heavy, twelve o'clock, fire as she bears!' Mayner ordered. The plasma cannons and the lascannon had limited traverse and could only fire when the target came into their sights. As the tank rolled and pitched over the small hillocks and draws in the ground, they each fired in turn. Farber's plasma cannon in the starboard sponson found its target, and one of the Baneblade's heavy bolter turrets took a hit, knocking out one of the two guns mounted upon it, the barrel partially melted. All that seemed to do was to piss the Baneblade off.

The Demolisher cannon belched out another blast of smoke as a hefty shell roared through the air, detonating in a huge fountain of earth beside a Leman Russ. The tank was not hit, but instead it rode the rising column of dirt, tipping it over with a thump, its port sponson digging into the ground. A pair of lascannon shots to the exposed belly quickly set the tank ablaze. Nobody crawled free. The Baneblade's main cannon, meanwhile, began to rotate towards Big Beautiful Doll.

'He's tracking us!' Cheyne warned, eyes glued to her rangefinder. Mayner rapidly concurred. A direct hit from the main gun would likely be the end of them- it was all but certain that it would penetrate their armour.

'Driver!' Mayner called. 'Full speed!'

'Full speed!' Barnes replied, kicking up the gears as the tank's turbine engine whined. Mayner took a quick look through his thermoscope to confirm the Baneblade was still tracking them. It was.

Mayner reached up to a switch on the side of the turret, flicking it. Outside, two triple-tube smoke launchers fired off a quick salvo of canisters, bursting a short distance from the tank and shrouding it in thick white clouds. Not only did the smoke obscure visual targeting, it was laced with particulates that blocked infra-red, meaning thermal targeting systems would be of no use. The same was true in reverse, as Mayner's thermoscope would be rendered ineffective while they were inside the cloud.

'Driver, hard turn left...halt halt halt!' Mayner ordered swiftly. The tank swung around and then slowed sharply, stopping inside the cloud but not where it would have been if it had continued forwards.

A heavy shell whistled past them, cutting a swirling trail in the smoke, the Baneblade having missed its target. Mayner congratulated himself momentarily on the successful ruse, but no time could be wasted.

'Driver, reverse, reverse, reverse,' he ordered. 'Full speed. Gunner, driver, sponsons, standby to fire as you see the target.' A quick string of affirmative responses came from his crew as the tank's treads began to spin in reverse, moving them back out of the cloud and now perpendicular to the, hopefully, still advancing Baneblade. Moving forward would invite a second shot from its main cannon, assuming its gunner was paying attention, but by backing up Mayner hoped he could get an angle on the target from behind the smoke cloud as it continued its progress.

The tank rumbled back, chewing up the ground under its tracks, opening up a wider space between it and the smoke cloud. Sure enough, the Baneblade was continuing on, forward, not deviating. Welks in the port sponson got a glimpse first, and quickly locked on.

'Target sighted, firing!' he reported. Big Beautiful Doll was now abeam the heavier tank and able to fire right into its less well-protected side armour. The plasma bolt blazed through the rain and struck its target. A second later, both Cheyne and Barnes got a sighting and were able to add their firepower, followed by Farber in the starboard sponson. Laser, plasma and ballistic weaponry alike raked the flank of the Baneblade, but if anything penetrated, there was no evidence of it. The main gun, which had been pointing at their previous location, now swung to meet them at their new position.

'Driver, forward, forward, forward, full speed!' Mayner shouted. The tank juddered to a halt and resumed forward motion as fast as Barnes could make her, pushing hard for the cover of the thinning smoke cloud once more. They just about reached it, and the Baneblade's gunner did not fire, not wanting to waste a second round on an unsure target. Trying to go toe-to-toe in a dance of death with a super-heavy tank was all well and good, but it meant that the crew's attention was turned away from the rest of the battlefield.

The turret rang like a bell as something struck it hard from the right. Mayner grimaced, ducking down a bit as fragments of spalling internal armour whipped around the crew compartment, enough to cause some minor cuts but no serious wounds. Someone else had a bead on them. The Baneblade would have to wait.

'Driver, right turn. Gunner, traverse right!' Mayner ordered. The tank slewed round, as did the turret. Until it swung round far enough, Mayner could not see what was firing at them. He peered through his scope in anticipation. A silhouette, glowing white in the thermal vision, but it was one of half a dozen atop a low ridge. Which one was firing at them?

Three muzzle flashes, from three different tanks, and another clang, this time on the frontal armour. There was no time to work out which tank was after them. Another shot could be fatal. The only option was to deal with all of them at once.

'Targets on ridge ahead, from the left,' Mayner shouted. 'Gunner, third tank, driver, fourth tank, sponsons, sixth tank. Fire at will!' His rapid commands laid out the parameters- their targets were on the ridge, and each crew member was to target the tank assigned, in order of their positioning from left to right. The main gun roared, the lascannon flashed, and the plasma cannons cracked, and within seconds, three enemy tanks were burning wrecks. Mayner issued further commands, and the crew engaged the other three tanks and destroyed them as well.

During their diversion, the rest of the company had been focusing on the Baneblade, and reports were flying over the vox. The company had taken losses- heavy losses, in fact, being down to less than half strength- but they had managed to knock out one of the lascannon turrets and another heavy bolter on the behemoth, which was still reported to be advancing steadily, a phalanx of armour supporting its push and attempting to drive a wedge through the Imperial force. Mayner ordered the tank swung back around. Now they would be behind the Baneblade, and the rear of any tank was where it had its weakest armour.

Shots continued to criss-cross the battlefield, which was now littered with burning wrecks from both sides. The Chaos ground-attack aircraft had their pick of targets, swooping in low to drop bombs and strafe with lascannon, all but unmolested due to the dogfight still raging above drawing off the Imperial fighters. But, finally, support was arriving, the reserve Lightnings reaching the battlefield. Under orders from command, they ignored their fellows engaged in combat and fell upon the enemy attack jets unmercifully. The slower, less maneuverable craft were as east a target to the interceptors as the unaware tanks below had been to them. It took less than two minutes for every one of the ground-attack craft to be shot down, clearing the skies over the assault force. The Lightning powered into the sky to help the others still fighting above.

Back on the ground, the Baneblade, as powerful as it was, was still just one vehicle. It found itself under fire from at least fifty Imperial tanks, and while very few of their shots did any major damage, its combat efficiency was being gradually degraded as secondary weapons were knocked out, sensors and scopes ripped away, and track links bent and damaged. It took a fearsome toll in return, a dozen Leman Russ tanks falling before its guns. Big Beautiful Doll pulled round behind the enemy echelon, trusting in the Imperial flanking forces to keep her six clear.

'All positions! Target super-heavy, twelve o'clock, range nine hundred,' Mayner called out. The rear engine deck of the Baneblade glowed like the sun in his scope. That would be the target. Another tank of his company was alongside them, the rest scattered by the enemy push or dead by their hand. The main guns of both tanks came about, along with two lascannons, two plasma cannons, and two heavy bolters.

'Fire!' Mayner roared.

Eight barrels of hell were unleashed, pounding the thinner rear armour of the Baneblade. The heavy Vanquisher round was able to punch through. A second shell in the same spot was quickly laid on by Cheyne, shattering pistons, cracking casings, severing oil lines and igniting their contents. A flash-fire erupted inside, quickly snuffed out by compartmental sprinklers, but the cannon had done its work, and the Baneblade's engine plant shut down, immobilising the beast.

Wounded, but far from dead, the Baneblade cracked the turret of another Leman Russ open with a lascannon shot, while the main turret began to rotate to engage those that had dared attack it from behind. The Demolisher cannon in the hull fired, ripping the front end of another tank away. It would not die easily.

Shells smashed into it from a dozen directions. Precise lascannon shots took out the final heavy bolter turret. Several of its supporting tanks were destroyed, though three continued to fight alongside it, killing two Imperial tanks before succumbing to what little fire was not aimed at the Baneblade itself. Outnumbered, surrounded, and finally overpowered, the Baneblade would not give up, loudspeakers broadcasting foul Chaos propaganda as its remaining guns blazed. Big Beautiful Doll closed right in and pumped three more shells into the rear armour, all but expending their ammunition supply, but at point blank range they smashed right into the interior of the tank. The lascannon and plasma cannons poured fire into the opening created by the main gun, burning through bulkheads and shattering interior frames. One shot, from whatever source, from the rear, the sides, or the front, managed to punch through and detonate in the Bandeblade's main magazine.

Mayner grunted in pain and snatched himself away from the thermoscope as the whole screen flashed impossibly bright. Immediately the tank shook, and debris began to slam into the hull, shrapnel raining down on the turret. Blinking repeatedly to recover from the crazed patterns and colours affecting his vision, Mayner risked a peek through the scope again.

A cataclysmic explosion had torn the Baneblade apart from within, shattering its hardy structure and leaving little more than a flaming patch of metal. A crater a good twenty feet deep had been gouged in the earth beneath. Hundreds of tons of metal and ceramite had rained down across the battlefield, the detruction wrought on such a mighty machine a clear indication of the power it could unleash if its unspent ammunition had been fired at the Imperial force.

But it was dead. The Baneblade was gone, the most immediate threat to the Imperial line. The crew of Big Beautiful Doll could breathe a sigh of relief.

Except they couldn't, because the enemy was not defeated merely because of the loss of its key asset, and before the tank could turn to continue the fight, something struck it a hammer-blow from behind.

Storm Of Steel

Parachute landings were never the most pleasant thing to experience, especially after the explosive violence of ejecting from a stricken aircraft. Captain Muran had ridden out plenty of practice landings during his training, and one or two during his career, but never directly into a pitched armoured battle. He scanned the ground below for somewhere to land as wind buffeted his canvas. There was open ground everywhere, but with a battle raging, anywhere that was safe for a landing was likely to be riddled with crossfire from both sides. Nevertheless, the fundamentals of physics meant that a landing was inevitable sooner rather than later.

Muran picked a likely spot, a stretch of churned-up grassland with a few wrecked tanks he could, hopefully, use for cover. Cannon shells and las-fire could be heard and seen below, and it seemed there could be no safe passage for a lone, unprotected pilot, falling from the sky into the middle of complete madness. But at least he could try. He used the steering lines to direct his descent. A burst of automatic fire whipped past him perilously close. He pulled back on the lines, slowing his approach, flaring as close to the ground as he dared. Tanks were still moving ahead of him; at a glance he could not tell if they were friendly or not, but it wouldn't matter. If they saw him, they would probably cut him down without bothering to establish which side he was on. Better safe than sorry.

The ground rose to meet him, riddled with craters, grass torn up from hundreds of tracks, a quagmire of mud and death. He knew trying to land on his feet and stay on them would likely see him catch in the mud and end up breaking an ankle at the minimum, so at the last moment he brought his legs up, slowing still further, until all lift was gone and he dropped the last foot or two into the dirt.

The wind tried to drag his chute, and he had to get out of it quickly. He felt himself sliding across the slick mud, and hastily unbuckled his harness. Gunfire raged all around, the whine of tank engines and clank of treads clearly audible over the din. Thunder crackled overhead to add to the cacophony. The chute kept pulling him steadily until he was able to slip out of it. His flight suit was already soaked through from the rain, and now it was covered in mud, but he was down, and he was alive, for the moment at least. He looked around quickly and scrambled through the muck to the lee of a Leman Russ tank, a broken hulk with one sponson missing and a large, ragged hole in the turret. It at least hid him from view in the direction that, nominally at least, the enemy was supposed to be coming from.

But a quick glance around told him that things were clearly not that simple. Wrecked tanks, both Leman Russ and a design unknown to him, were sitting at any number of different angles, indicating the confused nature of the fight, especially in the limited visibility. The storm was almost directly overhead now, and rain sheeted down, obscuring vision. Death could come from anywhere. Muran stayed crouched low, huddled beneath the overhang of the tank's surviving sponson. All he could do was hope nobody spotted him, or if they did, that they were friendly or didn't care to waste time on a single dismounted target. Among the field of metal giants, he felt very, very small indeed.

'How goes the battle, Lord-General?' Lord-Admiral Marcos inquired, striding across the bridge to the main holo-display, where Galen and his senior staff were gathered. The table displayed a holomap of the landscape below, with unit markings being shown in blue for friendly forces, and red for the suspected or confirmed locations of enemies.

'The situation is...confused, Arlen,' the Lord-General replied, his eyes not wavering from the battlespace projection. 'We were not expecting the enemy to ride out in such numbers to meet our advance. Such a move would seem foolhardy under normal circumstances, but this confounded storm sprung up seemingly out of nowhere and it's causing havoc.'

The storm had not been predicted by the fleet's climate augurs, and it was having a large effect on the battle. Communications between ground units and fleet command were disrupted, enemy locations were obscured, orbital strikes could not be carried out safely. As the storm had moved closer to the battlefield, Imperial aircraft had been forced to pull back farther and farther so as not to get caught in its grip.

'Yes, the storm...' Marcos nodded slowly. 'You do not think the Xenos Princess is behind it, do you?'

'I do not see why she would be,' Galen replied. 'We are fighting to retake her city, are we not? Why would she wish to cast obstacles in our way?'

'I do not know,' Marcos replied. 'But this storm sprung up quickly. Rather too quickly to be natural, if you ask me, and she knew of our plans, knew the date and time and location of our attack...'

'Perhaps you should question our Mechanicus colleague?' Galen suggested. 'He may have some insight we do not. In the meantime, if you will excuse me.' He gestured to the holo-table, and Marcos nodded again.

'Of course, Hektor. The battle must be won. I shall see if I can find out anything that might help you.' He headed over to his command lectern and addressed the vox officer to open a channel to the Mechanicus science vessel, the Ferrus Terra. His will was done, and Arch-Magos Darius responded in his metallic monotone.

'Greetings, Lord-Admiral. How may I be of assistance?'

'Arch-Magos,' Marcos responded. 'This storm occurring over the battlefield. It is causing great disruption to our operations. Given what you know if it, and of her, could the Xenos princess be responsible for it?' he asked clearly. The full details of Celestia's involvement in both the warp storm's end and the display of power from the sun had been relayed to the Mechanicus ship, whose autoscribe servitors and Techpriests had redoubled their efforts to analyse the masses of data the fleet's sensors had recorded to search for any explanation of her power.

'It is theoretically possible, Lord-Admiral,' Darius suggested, 'that if the princess does indeed have total control over the system's star, that she could affect the circulation of the climate cells through differential heating of localised areas of the atmosphere which may increase the likelihood of storm formation. Such a function would be similar to certain sub-classes of Imperial weather-control devices, albeit the effects would be caused by forces arriving from outside of the atmosphere in the form of solar radiation. However, I do not have any confirmatory evidence that such a thing has taken place. Our sensors detected no spikes in the unknown particles as we did during her demonstration and during the solar flare.'

'Then this storm is natural?' Marcos questioned. 'It is all just a grand coincidence that it happened to form in the direct path of our assault forces?'

'I have no indication that there was any outside influence on the storm's formation,' Darius replied, 'but that does not rule such things out, either from the princess, the Archenemy, or some other source. The climatic conditions of the planet suggest that such storms are a regular occurance. Indeed since our arrival in orbit there have already been three similar storms in the coastal region, of varying intensity.'

'Alright, thank you Magos. That will be all for now.' Marcos signed off, not very much reassured by Darius' lack of certainty. As he had said, no evidence did not necessarily mean no link. He returned to the holo-table.

'Our metal friends aboard the Ferrus Terra seem none the wiser, Hektor,' he informed the Lord-General. 'It may be natural, it may not. In other words, the same judgement we already made for ourselves.'

'Whatever the source, Arlen, I dearly wish it would go away,' Galen replied. 'This is a critical phase of the engagement, but we're barely getting any signals through the interference. It may be time to deploy the operational reserves. I have every confidence in my troops, but...if the confusion down there is anything like it is up here, they might be in trouble.'

Big Beautiful Doll was in trouble. Smoke filled the crew compartment. Something had struck them a hefty blow from behind, and Captain Mayner was bleeding, a large cut on his forehead, a ringing in his ears. But he was alive, and he needed to find out who else was.

'Crew, comm check, sound off!' he coughed into his throat mic, pulling himself to his feet and glancing around the smoky turret. Cheyne and Janssen were both present, and gave him gestures of acknowledgement. A few moments later, both sponson gunners called in.

'Driver, report in!' Mayner urged. Janssen started forward to assist Barnes, but quickly returned with a shake of his head. With their driver dead, they weren't going anywhere.

'Janssen, take over,' Mayner ordered. 'Find out if we're mobile.' The loader ducked back down, calmly extricating Barnes from the driver's seat, laying him out on the turret floor with the help of Cheyne. The round that had struck them had hit the rear of the turret and punched through, being deflected downward, narrowly missing the turret crew and hitting Barnes with its kinetic penetrator. A large exit wound had replaces his chest with a bloody mess, internal organs ruined and exposed to the air. His face still held a determined expression, as his death had evidently been instantaneous. Another life lost in the service of the Emperor, one of millions to fall that day, scattered across the stars. A tragedy, but a statistic. Some months from now, if they were lucky, his family back on Stourmont would get a death notification. If they were unlucky and the wheels of bureaucracy turned slower than usual, it might take years. In the worst case, the remains of the Crusade fleet would be wiped out entirely by the enemy or lost in the warp, and there would be no closure at all.

'Drive and tracks seem functional, sir!' Janssen called up from the drivers' position, drawing Mayner's attention away from his fallen comrade.

'Very good. Cheyne, ammo count?' Mayner requested.

'Three armour piercing, four HE, two smoke,' she replied, no need to check. Mayner trusted her mental calculations absolutely. The smoke rounds might prove useful for concealment, but the high-explosive rounds were of no use against enemy tanks, leaving them just three rounds capable of actually doing anything to the enemy.

'Alright...load armour piercing and standby.' Cheyne moved to the ready ammunition locker, retrieving an armour-piercing shell. She handled the hefty weight as well as Janssen, and shoved it home into the breech. Mayner tried the vox channels, but the storm overhead was producing masses of static. He could not contact the rest of the company, or regimental command. They were on their own.

'Driver, about turn,' he ordered. Janssen complied, gunning the engine and swinging the tank around. While he was no expert at the controls, every member of the crew received rudimentary training in operating each position, so that the driver could become the gunner, the sponson gunner could become the loader, or, as in this case, the loader could become the driver. The tank swiveled around to face the enemy. Mayner looked through his thermoscope.

The rain-lashed mud was all he could see. The torrential downpour was limiting vision to a few hundred feet at most, and he could see no moving tanks, only wrecks. That did not mean, of course, that there were none out there. Caution was the word of the day, and Mayner scanned intently, with both visual and thermal settings. He could see nothing...but there, there was something. Something small. A thermal reading. A man?

He switched to visual, but could see nothing except a wrecked tank and what appeared to be a dark grey Imperial parachute, billowing in the breeze, caught on its rear deck. He switched back to thermals. There was definitely a signature in the lee of the tank; cool, but clearly alive. He switched back to visuals and magnified as much as he could. It was certainly a human, just one man, and he was wearing an Imperial Navy flight suit. A friendly pilot, somehow in the midst of the maelstrom?

As much as there was rivalry between the Guard and the Navy, they couldn't just leave a man out there to die. Mayner had been saved too many times by long-range missiles or daring low-level strafing runs by Navy pilots to abandon him to his fate. He pondered their options. There were no sign of enemies on his scope.

'Farber! There's a friendly pilot out there, range approximately three hundred, up against a knocked out Leman Russ. I want you to dismount and go fetch him,' Mayner ordered. 'There's no sign of the enemy on scope. If you hurry you should be able to get him.'

With no hesitation, Farber replied. 'Yes, sir!' The crew's bond meant that he knew his commander would not send him out alone into the field unless he was confident he would make the trip unmolested. Farber unlocked and opened the starboard sponson's escape hatch, crawling out into the mud and rain. He stood and took a quick check around before sprinting across the open field, waving and calling to the pilot. Mayner observed through his scope, keeping an eye on them but also watching for contacts.

Captain Muran, from the shelter of his improvised cover, had watched with some discomfort as a tank not too far away had suddenly sprung into life and swung around a full 180 degrees. He had no idea if it was friendly or enemy, as both sides operated the Leman Russ. He stayed low and was relieved when none of its guns swung toward him, but now, to his surprise, a man had jumped out and was running towards him, arms flailing. His hand went for his sidearm, a laspistol, utterly useless against the tank but fatal to a human if necessary. But over the rolling thunder and lashing rain, he could hear a faint cry.

'Friendly! Imperial!' The uniform looked to be Imperial in design, and there was surely no chance that a Chaos tanker jumping out of his vehicle to approach Muran would not be brandishing some kind of weapon.

'Friendly! Stourmont 2nd Armoured!' the man called. That was the unit engaged in the assault, for sure. Muran relaxed a little. He pulled his pistol but kept it raised in his right hand, aiming skyward as he lifted both hands.

'Imperial Navy!' he shouted. 'Hammer Squadron! Grox!'

'Bell!' the tanker replied, answering the daily challenge correctly. 'Come on, buddy! There's room for you on board. Follow me!' He beckoned. Muran was satisfied enough. He stood and lowered his gun, taking a cautious look around before running through the thick mud, following the tanker back to his ride. He climbed through the hatch and offered a hand to Muran, who accepted, being hauled inside, into the dry and into the heat. He looked around. There was a dead man on the floor.

'Captain Mayner, Stourmont Second Armoured.' A man standing in the turret spoke, thrusting his hand out. Muran shook it.

'Captain Muran, Imperial Navy...'

'I don't know how you ended up out there, Captain,' Mayner replied, 'but I bet you're damn glad to see us.'

After an eternity, the storm finally moved through, passing the battlefield, and starting to dissipate. Behind the grey came the sun, shining brightly on the green fields and plains where thousands had died. With better visibility came renewed enemy contacts, but the Imperial tanks were being reinforced by the operational reserves, fresh companies of tanks being thrown into the fight, Lord-General Galen having decided to commit them even as the storm raged, giving them time to make the advance. While the Chaos armour had not been shattered by the loss of the Baneblade and so many of its comrades, they had been shaken, disoriented and opened up by the Imperial flanking manoeuvre. With reinforcements arriving, the surviving tanks of the Stourmont 2nd were able to push forward, forcing the enemy back.

With the ground reserves now fully committed, the frontline units, survivors of the clash on the plains, were able to fall back to resupply and refuel. Big Beautiful Doll arrived at the Regiment's supply station with just a single round of armour-piercing ammunition remaining, having fought through the storm and shell, taking the worst the enemy could give and surviving. The loss of Barnes had shaken the crew, but they had lost members before, and they would pull through this time as well. After a timely rescue, Captain Muran was able to hitch a ride back to his squadron, the survivors of the dogfight now being relocated to a forward airbase being set up east of the mountains by engineering teams.

A large number of Chaos vehicles began to withdraw, fleeing for the city, but they never made it. With the storm passed, Fleet Command was able to reestablish contact with their forces on the ground, and direct accurate orbital fire. Lance beams smashed into the wet ground, raising huge plumes of sodden dirt and shattering enemy tanks caught in their blast, a string of strikes cutting off the retreat of the enemy. Caught between a wall of death and a storm of steel, the Chaos survivors died in their dozens, shattered by shells from behind, or vaporised under the intense heat of the lances.

But they had taken a heavy toll. The Stourmont 2nd Armoured had lost almost three hundred tanks, over half their strength, though they had accounted for more than six hundred enemy vehicles in response. Nevertheless, the enemy force was spent. With the reserve units committed, and the 9th Mechanised pushing up behind, the way was clear for the advance on Manehattan, the pony city on the coast, the target of the assault, and a stronghold of the Archenemy.

The Imperial armour moved out to surround the city, in conjunction with the diversionary attack to the north, which captured the town of Mareston but failed to draw off any of the defenders of Manehattan. Even with the loss of so many tanks, it was estimated that the defenders still had around a hundred armoured vehicles inside the city limits, along with at least fifty thousand men. Reinforcements were landed on the plains, close to where the battle had been fought and won by the Imperium. More tanks and infantry were deployed to keep the enemy bottled up, along with specialised siege regiments- long-range artillery, super-heavy mortars, entrenching and bridging equipment, and engineer units to operate them. It did not take long for Manehattan, the largest city on the planet, to be invested completely.

Surrounded on three sides by a ring of steel, and on the fourth by the sea and constant air patrols, the defenders of the city could only sit and wait, sharpening their knives and stoking their hunger for the inevitable battle to come. Imperial artillery wasted no time, targeting known enemy strongpoints, hurling heavy shells throughout the remains of the day and throughout the night. The siege mortars belched out smoke and flame, and every time they fired, a building crumbled into rubble and ruin. The siege landings took twenty four hours to complete, and as night fell again across the city rooftops, dozens of muzzle flashes could be seen on the plains as the Imperial batteries continued to fire late into the evening. There would be no sleep for the wicked.

It was long after midnight, and the darkness of the plains was tinged with a phosphorescent light coming from the ocean. Just several miles away, the sea lapped gently at the shore, a far cry from its state a day earlier when it was whipped into maddening troughs and peaks by the storm. It would have been a peaceful scene, with stars twinkling overhead, if not for the intermittent roar of the guns. The siege cannons had barely relented during daylight hours, only stopping to clean out the barrels or to cool them down. The rate of fire dwindled significantly at night, as a constant barrage would have rendered the besieging troops unable to sleep and thus unfit for action the next day, and the muzzle flashes of the guns could easily be pinpointed in the dark, making for accurate return fire even for those enemy forces that lacked counterbattery Auspexes and gunfire echolocators. The logistics train for such weapons was long and constant, with a steady string of ammunition lighters and shuttles bringing down fresh shells during the day to be expended during the night, in an effort to keep the enemy alert and awake all night. Single guns from different sectors of the siege lines would fire a round every couple of minutes, permitting sleep for the Imperials but giving a constant threat of death to the Chaos infantry.

Trenches had been dug and breastworks thrown up over the last twenty four hours. Firing positions had been build up for the heavy artillery, with thousands of sandbags to dampen the recoil and protect the guns from return fire. Each super-heavy siege mortar required a crew of almost fifty to actually operate, which included Sentinel powerlifters, rangefinders and spotters, a guard detail, and ammunition trucks or trailers. The Medusa heavy guns, Basilisk self-propelled cannons and their stationary Earthshaker equivalents were much less resource-intensive, needing a crew of just a few men.

A mile or two ahead of them lay the shallow trenches and foxholes that marked the Imperial frontline. Beyond that was no man's land, empty grassland reaching out ten or fifteen miles to the outskirts of the city, its towering buildings visible even in the dark, silhouetted against the eastern sky. Thousands of men waited, some watching, some eating, most sleeping, or trying to. The guns did not make it easy, but there was something soothing about this place regardless. For many men it was the similarity to their home worlds, but some felt more than just that.

To the rear of the guns and supply parks, soldiers guarded the perimeter, some individually, some in pairs, some in squads ready to react to trouble as a unit. Guardsman Mattias, 15th Hordonite Infantry Regiment, was on patrol, lasgun in his hands in case of any incident. It was, apart from the guns, a quiet night, and he had spent much of his time admiring the stars overhead, blazing clearly in the firmament. Somewhere up there was the transport ship that had carried his regiment through those same stars, countless trillions of miles from Hordon, a distant world of lush foliage and towering trees that rose hundreds of feet toward the heavens. The plain grasslands were dull in comparison, but at least Mattias could get a clear view of the stars.

Footsteps made him look around. A shadowy figure was coming closer, through the darkness from behind a parked truck. He made to raise his weapon and issue a challenge, but it was just another trooper, Rennick.

'How goes it?' Mattias asked. 'Seen anything tonight?' Rennick shook his head.

'Me neither,' Mattias replied. 'Nice night, though.' A cannon roared nearby, drowning out any reply Rennick might have made. Mattias continued on, treading on the still-damp grass. The storm had dumped a lot of water and it had not yet had time to fully drain away, which must, he thought, be making conditions for the frontline troops in their trenches rather unpleasant. He was glad just to be patrolling the rear and sleeping in a tent. Something made him look back. He glanced over his shoulder, but he did not see Rennick. Instead, he saw a monster.

A dark creature, quadrupedal, crouching low, ready to pounce. It leaped on him before he could shout a warning or raise his gun. Fangs glistened in the starlight and sunk deep into his neck as the chitinous fiend pinned him down, eyes glowing with an otherworldly fire. A sickening gurgle was the only sound Guardsman Mattias could make as his throat was ripped out by the slavering beast, dying alone in the darkness.

Siege Mentality

The siege continued for the next three days, guns hammering away at key targets, but mindful of Celestia's request to avoid too much collateral damage, Lord-General Galen had found himself instructing his gunners to only target definitively known enemy positions, against his better judgement. Much of the city was spared the bombardment, as the buildings were too densely packed together to positively identify specific targets.

As the guns continued to roar, the assault force was drawn up and prepared, both from those units already in place and from others being moved in from the main landing ground to the west of the continent. Entire regiments were drawn in and encamped on the plains, preparing for the upcoming battle when they would have to storm Manehattan. Even with the artillery preparation, such an attack would doubtless inflict heavy casualties on the attacking force. Urban warfare always did. Once they entered the city, every advantage was with the defenders. They knew the layout, knew the streets and buildings they had been assigned to protect. Rubbled blocked roads. Narrow streets and tall buildings made for a valley of death for armour. Air support had limited effect in such confused and tight combat, likewise artillery, as the chance of hitting friendlies was high. Urban battles became less about regiments and companies than about squads and fireteams. Each unit, sometimes each man, could find themselves isolated as combat went floor by floor, room by room.

The Lord-General wanted to surprise the enemy, who would, given the Imperial preparations and guns, likely be expecting a considerably longer siege before any assault. With just the four days' preparatory bombardment, followed by a lightning attack, Galen hoped to catch them off guard and get his troops deep into the city before any significant resistance could be organised. From orbit, he watched as the symbols representing his units moved into position on the holotable. Navy fighters and bombers stood by to launch both from the ground and from orbit, for a quick strike just as the attack went in but after the bobmardment ceased, hopefully to catch in the open enemies rushing from their shelters to their positions.

New arrivals also watched the preparations from above. The pony airships Starswirl, and Las Pegasus hung above the rear of the Imperial positions, with Princess Celestia and her sister aboard. While they had witnessed the humans fight, they had yet to see the full might of the Imperium unleashed upon the battlefield all at once.

As if an invisible clock had run out, all the heavy guns ceased fire at the same moment. Silence reigned across the plains, across the city, but only for a few moments. Then the roar of a thousand engines filled the air, rows of tanks and Chimera personnel carriers revving up.The attack was to come from the north, west, and south at the same time, and at the signal, the armies marched.

A hundred thousand men went to war, a combined, three-pronged effort, closing in on the city. Dust clouds rose behind the advancing vehicles, the armoured spearhead followed by trucks and finally those infantry not lucky enough to be part of a mechanised or motorised regiment.

As the first Imperial forces closed to within a couple of miles of the city outskirts, every cannon, every gun and every mortar in the siege lines fired in unison, hurling hundreds of tons of metal in one final swansong before the infantry and tanks got to work, smashing enemy defences and killing men in their dozens. Marauder bombers swooped from the sky, carpet-bombing the outermost known enemy defence line.

The tanks halted just outside the city, here and there individual vehicles exchanging fire with surviving enemy bunkers and trenches as the infantry advanced behind. Chimeras came to a stop to disgorge their passengers, who moved swiftly into contact with the defenders, eager to get to grips with the Archenemy at last. Many of them were fresh from the transports in orbit, having avoided the fighting thus far. Others were veterans of the Kuda Prime campaign, having fought at Canterlot or Griffonstone.

Sergeant Argan gripped the metal handrail above his seat aboard the Chimera's passenger compartment. 'Thirty seconds!' the driver shouted, and Argan turned to address his men.

'Alright, listen up, squad! Once that ramp goes down, you get the hell off this thing ASAP and find some cover. It could be a madhouse out there, so keep your eyes on a swivel and your heads low. Clear?'

A chorus of affirmative responses greeted him, and he nodded. He triple-checked his lasgun. Another combat situation on this strange planet, but this time they were fighting for a city that would look at home, at least from some miles out, on any Imperial 'civilised' world. It looked like a real city, not like a fairytale castle in the mountains like Canterlot, not like some frontier village like Griffonstone. Buildings of metal, of glass, of ferrocrete. Elevated mass transit lines, manufactories. Compared to an equivalent Imperial city it was small, but it was similar. From a distance, the only visible indication of its alien nature was that the large statue in the harbour depicted a horse-alien and not a human.

'Go, go, go!' the driver urged, the ramp clanging down, slamming into the damp earth. Argan took the lead, charging down it, lasgun at the ready. He looked left, and right. Other Chimeras were unloading their cargo all around, hundreds of infantrymen ducking behind fences, lying prone in ditches, huddling behind outbuildings. The western flank of the city was facing them as they arrived at the urban-rural fringe, where the city ended rather abruptly. Behind him was all fields and rolling grasslands, while ahead was construction, modernity, technology.

But, it seemed, no enemy.

Argan crouched low behind a brick wall, joined by his squad. Their Chimera backed away, multilaser turret scanning for targets but finding none. Argan performed the same function, with the same result. Peering round the corner of the wall, he could see the road ahead, straight as an arrow, leading from the fields into the city. The small buildings, houses that lined both sides of the street, were just ruins, shattered by the bombardment, smoke still curling and rising gently from several spots. A large crater from an inconveniently precise Imperial shell blocked the road to vehicles. There was an overturned wooden cart, a large amount of wooden debris and shattered planks, a fallen tree, and that was all.

A signal from Lieutenant Albrecht, the platoon leader, ordered the squads to advance along both sides of the street. Argan pushed his men forward, climbing over the wall, staying clear of the road itself as it could be booby trapped, mined or covered in crossfire from ambush positions. He followed along, stepping over splintered wood as he crossed the remains of a house, knocked flat by a shell. There was nothing around, no bodies, no blood. The squad spread out, moving through the garden and the rear yard. Other squads were advancing around them, both from their platoon and others. Valkyrie gunships hovered overhead. Still nothing.

Argan felt a sense of unease. Something wasn't right, couldn't be right. The briefing estimated fifty thousand enemy troops, and in a city the size of Manehattan, surely some of them had to be guarding the outskirts? If not, then there must be some reason for that.

The squad moved up through the garden of another house, its interior laid bare by a shell that had stripped the roof and rear wall away. Photographs of the inhabitants, or rather former inhabitants, lay scattered about, three of the horse-aliens, a green one with wings, a blue one with a horn, and a smaller yellow one, also with a horn. Argan ordered one fireteam to sweep the building, which turned up nothing. Where were the enemy?

A trio of Lightning fighters roared by overhead, momentarily startling him. But they were friendly, and so far, so was the city. Where were the enemy?

'Forest Gamma 1-2, Forest Gamma 1. Crossroads ahead, Take your squad across and secure that corner building.' The Sergeant of Second Squad acknowledged. The vox crackled again.

'Forest Gamma 1-1, base of fire on the crossroads.' Argan took the handset proferred by Merkev.

'Forest Gamma 1-1, copy that.' A few swift hand gestures directed his men to take positions in the windows and behind the fence of the building that overlooked the junction. Argan took a look out of one of the windows himself. The crossroads of a dirt track crossing the concrete strip they had been following, the junction held a large three-storey building diagonally opposite from him, perhaps a store or some kind of administrative facility. The lot directly across was just empty land. Argan could still see no signs of the enemy. His squad scanned for targets as second squad began their advance, one fireteam finding covering positions as the other advanced to the next position, then swapping roles, keeping up a bounding overwatch as they crossed the street. They reached the other side without incident, stacking up on the building's main entrance. One man kicked it in, and one by one the squad disappeared inside. There was silence for a minute or so.

'Forest Gamma 1-2, building is clear, I say again, building clear.'

They were having an easy run, too easy. There must be mines somewhere, perhaps an entire section of the street rigged to blow. Things were never this simple, not in war, not against the Archenemy.

Albrecht ordered the platoon to cross the street. Argan headed outside with his squad. Farther down the dirt track they were crossing, he could see other units moving forward, some supported by tanks. Argan had no idea how the other flanks were faring, if perhaps the north and south forces were running into an absolute meat grinder and being churned up and spat out. Or perhaps they were merely strolling through the leafy suburbs, just as the 40th Parvian Lancers were?

Another city block was cleared. No contact.

Another street was crossed. No contact.

'Contact! Contact!' someone screamed. A hundred guns swung round, looking, searching for a target. A very sheepish response came over the vox.

'Negative contact. Just, uh...just some washing, flapping in the wind...'

Argan mentally cursed the raw recruit who had made the mistake, though it was understandable. Senses were heightened and nerves were fraught, more and more so the longer they went with no sign of the enemy. He moved on, up the stree, to the next junction.

'CONTACT!'

The fevered shout went up again, this time echoed by a dozen other voices, as every man could see it, and this time there was no doubt.

Up ahead, emerging seemingly from every possible doorway, cellar and drainage ditch, came the denizens of hell. Lurching, sprinting, pouring across the ground, quadruped creatures, baying and howling with bloodlust, eyes aglow from the warp. Lesser Daemons, the foul and blasphemous conjurations of Chaos, charging at their foe.

Lasfire met them head-on, punching holes in their bony plates and bare flesh. Several fell, dissolving in pools of warp matter, but there were hundreds, thousands, not slowing. The Imperial infantry backed up, some lesser men simply turning and fleeing, braving the guns of their Commissars rather than face the spawn of the devil. A sudden, acrid tang filled Argan's nostrils. The smell of the warp, the smell of fear.

'Squad! Fall back!' he ordered, not waiting for commands from Albrecht, though they soon followed. They had no choice- they had to run, or they would be overrun by a tide of Daemons in moments. Back, back through the streets. A few squads of infantry could never stand against such an enemy. They had to flee, back to the outskirts, back to the edge of the city, back to where their tanks and carriers waited.

Argan sprinted, jumping over fences and ducking under broken door frames. His squad were with him, and behind him came death. Panicked vox messages could be heard, broadcast over Merkev's backpack set. Men called for aid, screamed for artillery, not to kill the enemy, but to kill them before the Daemons could claim their souls.

The gunners were reluctant to fire on their own men, but orders rapidly came down from both the newly promoted Colonel Harding, regimental commander of the 40th Lancers, and Lord-General Galen himself, and the cannons sprung into action, hurtling shells at the target area. A general retreat was called for the western sector, as any unit remaining inside the city risked being cut off, surrounded and slaughtered. Falling back to the tanks and their heavy guns was deemed to be the only prudent course of action. There were simply too many of the foul creature to engage in an urban setting. Only Astartes had any chance of prevailing against such numbers in such a fight, where Daemons could leap from every window, every doorway, every possible angle, their sharp teeth capable of ripping a man's flesh from his bones, their strength unmatched except perhaps by a few of the mutated Ogryn, the subhuman superhumans who possessed superior physique, but inferior intellect.

Sergeant Argan risked a glance over his shoulder. Some more foolish guardsmen were disobeying the retreat order, or were perhaps unaware of it, and were making a stand, forming a firing line behind a wooden fence. Argan watched for longer than he should have, and saw them cut down, one by one, as the Daemons leaped over the fence, only losing one of their number in the process. The forces of the warp were not to be trifled with, certainly not by a man in possession of nothing more than faith and a flak vest.

Ahead, he could see the tanks, a blessed sight indeed. He counted a dozen in his vision, along with a similar number of Chimeras. They were keeping a short distance away from the edge of the city, so as to give them a field of fire when the enemy arrived. Argan pushed hard, his lungs burning, legs cramping as he worked them hard, hurdling the brick wall he had climbed over at the start of the abortive assault. Another glance showed that his squad were all with him. Drawing level with the tanks, he ordered a half, and defensive positions to be taken. There was no cover, but the Daemons had no ranged weapons, preferring only the animalistic physicality of close combat, of blood and sinew.

Argan crouched behind a slight hillock in the grass, his lasgun aimed. His squad did the same beside him. He could hear some of the tanks beginning to open fire, their heavy bolters chattering, ideal weapons for combating a massed assault. Multilasers hissed and cracked as the Chimeras joined in. The Leman Russ next to him fired its main cannon with a deafening roar, a canister round, spraying thousands of ball bearings across the street ahead, shredding several dozen of the enemy creatures. One of the Daemons appeared in his eyeline, jumping over the brick wall he had cleared moments earlier. He took aim and fired, striking it in what passed for a face. It barely flinched, but another dozen rifles opened up and cut it down.

A screaming overhead made him glance up. He saw nothing, but an explosion and a rising cloud of smoke ahead showed the impact point of the shell that had raced in. There was another, and another, and another. A bombardment began, fire coming in from all angles, pounding the Daemonic horde. The tanks blazed away, their multitude of weaponry effective against the enemy. Valkyries hovered above, adding pinpoint bursts of autocannon fire and the occasional rocket where targets presented themselves.

The Imperium may have lacked in finesse or in the dark arts of warpcraft, but they more than made up for it in sheer firepower. Shells, rockets, las-rounds, bullets, missiles, bombs, plasma bolts and flame met the advancing horde as they tried to move beyond the realms of the city and into the grasslands, fixated on their targets, trying only to reach the infantry that had retreated from their grasp. On the plains, in the open, they were cut down in their thousands by the massed fire of the human guns. A simplistic and brutal enemy, the lesser Daemons were butchered with an equal lack of remorse by the Imperial troops, having lost some of their number to the sudden attack, and many billions to similar foes in the past.

Sergeant Argan lost count of how many of the enemy he had seen destroyed. He had lost count of how many he had shot. All he could do was aim and fire, aim and fire, again and again, as the seemingly endless tide of Daemons continued to pour mindlessly out of the city.

Even the Tyranids would cut their losses at this point, he mused. Torrents of firepower lashed the ground ahead, demolishing what little remained in the way of buildings and infrastructure in the outer city district. Every weapon in the Imperial arsenal, from the smallest sidearm to the largest cannon, was in play, the only exception being orbital weaponry, as the risk of friendly fire was too high, and the level of Daemonic incursion not sufficient to warrant more severe responses. Eventually, overwhelming firepower won the day, and the tide of Daemons began to slacken, weaken, slow and finally stop altogether. The Imperial troops took stock. They had taken losses, of course, with a thousand men dead, perhaps more. But they had halted the flow. The question was, if they pushed back into the city, would the Daemons come again?

Lord-General Galen held discussions with his advisors and with the Lord-Admiral. Troops in the north and south had been making good progress, against actual human opposition, but had been ordered to halt once the presence of the Daemonic became apparent. The nature of the warp was fickle and inherently dangerous, even when not being directed intentionally by maleficent actors. The representatives of the Ecclesiarchy urged caution, and the sanctifying of the tainted ground as soon as practically possible. Galen agreed, but such concerns were for later. Right now, the battle still had to be fought, and won. The dangers of further Daemon incursions gave more impetus to the need to take the city and kill or destroy who or whatever was responsible for the opening of the warp rift through which the Daemons had, presumably, been able to pour. Marcos agreed, and informed Galen that the fleet stood ready to assist, and that he personally would order an orbital strike if conditions on the ground warranted it.

Only if the situation became extreme, however, as the Lord-Admiral, through no intention or desire of his own, had developed a strange respect for the Xenos Princess and her wishes. She did not wish the city damaged more than necessary- he did not want to damage it more than necessary. She had asked the same of Canterlot- he had agreed, as had the Lord-General. It still perturbed him that he could not determine if he was being directly manipulated by Celestia or not. Was she somehow psychically persuading him? Or was it perhaps an effect unleashed by the Archenemy? Or was he just paranoid after decades of loyal service behind perilously thin Gellar fields, and several years out here on the fringes of the galaxy?

He did not know, but he had urged Galen to show restraint if at all possible. To his surprise, his good friend had agreed without any qualms or apparent reservations. It had been known in the past for a Daemonic incursion of any size, no matter how small, to be grounds for Exterminatus, the deliberate destruction of a planet's biosphere through a bombardment of virus bombs or cyclonic torpedoes. Most would decree such measures to be extreme, as the appearance had been very localised and seemingly dealt with, though the possibility remained of further encounters. Evidently the Chaos forces defending Manehattan included at least one psyker with the capability of opening a warp rift.

An hour's halt was ordered, in case any more Daemons should emerge and attack. Nothing happened, however, and a second advance was considered. Galen ordered the north and south forces to resume their pushes toward the city centre, while the western flank held position. Tens of thousands of men were on the move, advancing into the urban jungle, meeting resistance, but only from men.

Everything seemed stable. The western flank was ordered to make exploratory pushes into the outskirts, moving by companies to see if anything would come at them. They made inroads, and encountered nothing. Not human, not Daemon, nothing.

A full-scale advance was ordered once more, and the whole western force began to move, back into the city, passing the bodies of their dead. They reached the same point where the Daemons had been sighted. Nothing.

The advance was ordered to continue, and the men complied, moving deeper and deeper into the city. The other two flanks were pushing in also, heading towards the centre, with the hopes and intentions of linking up and unifying all three fronts.

But nothing was ever that simple.

Sergeant Argan, moving forward again as part of the renewed thrust, was impressed by some of the buildings he was seeing around him. No longer in the land of the simple one or two-storey family dwelling, his squad was surrounded by towering structures, great edifices of steel and glass. They were as nothing compared to an Imperial Hive city, but Argan had to admit he was impressed by the horse-aliens' abilities in construction. It was as if he were at the base of a canyon, gazing up at the rock walls and, at the very top, daylight.

This was the business district, perhaps, the financial centre of the city, where the rich and the nobility congregated and, if it was anything like an equivalent Imperial city, where they conspired to defraud and rob and steal from the hard-working common man. The streets were deserted, though littered with a few scattered wagons and carts, some gaily painted. Argan moved cautiously, fully aware that a las-bolt or a bullet could come from nowhere and claim his life at any time. The enemy could be anywhere, behind any window, in any doorway, at any corner. All he could do was be careful.

Princess Celestia peered through the monoculars provided to her by the spotter team aboard the Starswirl. She had witnessed the initial advance, the confused retreat, the determined stand and finally the renewed thrust into the city, and she had seen enough. If she had suffered from any doubts before, she was under no illusions anymore- the humans were brave, sometimes foolishly so. The same, she had to admit, could be said of her own ponies, especially the devout and infinitely loyal Royal Guard. If there was any glory in war, it rested on ponies like they, and on men like the ones she had seen charging into the unknown. The scale of warfare unleashed before her eyes was unknown to ponykind, but Celestia was not afraid, not fearful. She knew that such violence was the logical consequence of technology. The more advanced it became, the more fatal it would be. Even the most oblivious pony would have witnessed evidence of it among Equestrian society. Repeating rifles, heavy field artillery, combat airships, armoured trains- all of the advances of pony society had resulted in death. But it was a necessary evil, and, as shown by the firepower of these humans, it was an evil that had come too late and too slowly to Equestria.

'Your Highness?' Lieutenant Atter spoke up, still serving as the spotter aboard the Starswirl with Mons. 'I have a message from Lord-General Galen. He suggests you might wish to tour one of our artillery positions, as a demonstration of good faith and to observe the capabilities of our siege weaponry.'

Celestia cocked her head and pondered for a moment. 'Very well. Such a tour would be of interest to me. Your artillery is clearly powerful. Arrange for it, would you?'

'Yes, Your Highness, at once!' Atter replied, addressing her as if she were a high-ranking Ecclesiarch or a member of the Inquisition, someone to be feared and respected in equal measure. He spoke into his vox-set, and the Starswirl was cleared for an approach. Celestia, it was hoped, would soon see the true might of Imperial firepower up close.

Inside And Out

Sergeant Argan hated urban combat. The towering cityscape around him made him nervous. It was like fighting inside a maze, but a maze where the enemy knew every route, every shortcut, and he didn't even know where the entrance he had just come through was. An urban environment with any kind of verticality to it, such as an Imperial Hive, was the worst of all, because attacks could come from above and below as well. This city was starting to prove itself to be a prime example of exactly why he disliked such environments.

The enemy were firing from high above. At a rough estimate, crouched behind a pillar protruding from the front of one of the buildings, they were under attack from approximately the thirtieth floor of the building across the street, all glass and steel. Return fire from the Imperial infantry had already shattered a good number of windows, adding additional peril as the broken glass in most cases showered down onto the street below.

Gamma Company were pushing toward the city centre, with the aim of linking up with troops from the north and south fronts. They had faced no resistance in the outer suburbs, but the more dense business and financial districts were being heavily defended, on all flanks, according to reports. There was gunfire from above and there were enemy soldiers on the street, pinning the guardsmen down with fire from behind an improvised barricade. It was hard to get an angle on either position to return fire. A heavy stubber rattled away from the barricade, keeping their heads down. Air support would have a hard time getting a clear run, while artillery fire would just smash into the tall buildings surrounding them. It was at times like these that Argan thanked the Emperor for his armoured fist.

A single Leman Russ tank rolled up the street behind them, having negotiated its way through the rubble-choked roads. While tanks were vulnerable in urban settings, much of that vulnerability could be offset by being properly escorted by infantry, and this one had a company of guardsmen in close proximity. The enemy fire from the barricade rapidly turned its focus to the tank, bullets pinging off of its hull. Its heavy bolters answered the challenge, raking the top of the barricade with fire and killing several of the defenders. The tank's cannon roared and great chunks of the barricade itself went flying, tumbling figures visible through the smoke, the stubber gone. The tank held position while the infantry cautiously advanced, still under threat from above but with two platoons engaging the lofty positions with suppressive fire. Two squads were dispatched to enter the building and clear the upper floors.

Without warning, a missile streaked down from on high, almost directly above Argan, and slammed into the thinner roof armour of the tank's turret. A great shower of smoke and sparks were thrown up, and Argan pressed himself flush against the pillar in case the tank's magazines cooked off. They did not, and the tank, its driver at least still alive, rapidly backed up, tracks churning up the tarmac surface of the road. More enemy fire was now coming from his side of the street, up above. Merkev handed him the vox handset.

'Forest Gamma 1-1, proceed into building with pillars, left side of street! Enemy is on approximately twentieth floor. Sweep and clear, over!' Lieutenant Albrecht ordered.

'Forest Gamma 1-1, copy.' Argan tossed the handset back and signalled his squad to gather up and enter the building. They slipped inside with precise movements.

The building's lobby was fairly ornate, marble and gold filigree not matching the businesslike exterior. Several large portraits of horse-aliens adorned the walls, no doubt nobles, patrons or perhaps the founders of whatever business this building used to house. An elevator was up ahead, but it lacked power and would alert the enemy to their arrival anyway. A nearby staircase would provide their means of access. The point man moved through the door and began to ascend. The stairwell was dark, but flashlights might tip off the enemy, assuming they weren't already waiting in ambush somewhere above.

Floor by floor they climbed, hard work, heavy breathing. No enemies burst from the shadows; perhaps their deployment to this particular building had been hasty, no time for perimeter defences or booby traps. Finally they reached the twentieth floor and halted. There was definite gunfire, either from this floor or the one above. Argan ordered one fireteam to proceed up to the next floor while he led the other to clear the twentieth. On his signal five men burst through the door and out of the stairwell.

Offices were ahead, administrator's cubicles, glass partitions. Their guns swept the corners as they moved swiftly. More doors were up ahead. Suddenly two men emerged from one of them, wearing the blood-red uniforms of the enemy. Argan and the others opened fire and gunned them down. Cries of alarm could be heard up ahead. Argan swiftly pulled a grenade from his webbing, removed the pin and tossed it through the open doorway while the squad took up firing positions.The explosion sent shrapnel through the thin partition walls as papers fluttered up, disturbed by the blast. A signal sent his men forward, swinging into the room, lasguns flashing. Argan joined them. One hapless enemy, the loader of the missile launcher team, it seemed, was caught by a broken window and struck several times by las-fire. He stumbled back and fell through the opening, disappearing from sight. Three other men went down as they scrambled for cover.

'Clear!'

'Clear,' Argan echoed. The missile crew were dead, and a sweep of the rest of the floor yielded negative results. The other fireteam reported that the floor above was also void of enemies. Argan didn't bother with a peek over the edge to the street below. If there was one thing he disliked as much as urban combat, it was heights. Having been a miner back on Parvia, the ground was his natural home, either on it or beneath it. Space travel was not too bad, though it brought its own perils with it, but it was atmospheric flight that unnerved him the most. The planetfall several weeks ago had been smooth enough, albeit rushed due to the perils of the incoming Chaos fleet, but nevertheless it was not an experience he was keen to repeat any time soon.

Argan reported their success over the vox to Lieutenant Albrecht,who ordered them to proceed to higher floors and try to engage the enemy across the street in the other building, where squads from Third Platoon were reportedly struggling to make any headway. Argan and his men climbed another ten floors, finding a room looking out across the street. Argan peered out from behind a pillar with his magnoculars.

On the thirtieth and thirty-first floors opposite, at least twenty Chaos infantry were firing down at the street below where the rest of Gamma Company were still located. They needed taking care of swiftly. Argan ordered his men into positions, holding fire. The enemy had not seen them, not noticed the brief flickering of las-fire on the lower floor as they took out the missile crew, or if they had, they were not expecting them to have repositioned.

'Fire on my shot,' Argan ordered. 'Mark your targets, upper floor first.' He sighted in on one man, firing a lasgun down at his comrades on the street. He squeezed the trigger and the man died. The rest of the squad engaged, cutting down half a dozen more. The rest ducked behind desks and chairs as las-rounds blew burning holes into the furniture. Some of the men on the lower floor noticed the las-beams and quickly switched targets.

Plaster rained down as las-fire found the ceiling above Argan's head. His squad crouched low, though there was relatively little cover in the room, and almost nothing substantial enough to stop las-fire or a bolt round. Argan tracked another target, a man scurrying between desks, trying to keep out of sight and out of the line of fire. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to steady his aim, even as debris trickled down around him. He fired, and the man went down, missing most of the back of his head.

Las-fire whickered across the open air between the two high-rises, while the battle continued to rage below as well. More enemies appeared on the lower floor, supporting their comrades with more fire. The distraction allowed the squads from Third Company to press home their attack. A call went out over the vox.

'First platoon, be advised, check your fire, check your fire, friendlies moving in on the thirtieth floor!'

Argan put two rounds through a wooden desk and then relented, observing from behind a pillar. 'Squad, switch targets, engage upper floor only!' he ordered. Even as he watched, several of the enemy turned away from the window. He could see explosions ripping through the thirtieth floor, and las-fire flashing within. The two squads from Third Platoon pushed through, clearing the room, gunning down the survivors. Several of them gave brief waves or salutes of thanks across the divide before proceeding back to the stairwell to climb up and repeat the process.

Argan laid down some suppressing fire with the rest of his squad, as they felled several of the enemy. A similar vox message was sent, and they ceased fire, watching on as Third Platoon stormed in. This time a hand-to-hand melee developed, with several guardsmen being bayoneted by the eager thugs of Chaos. They retaliated, going in with the cold steel themselves, finishing off the last of the enemy.

'Building clear!' came the report over the vox. Lieutenant Albrecht ordered all squads to return to ground level, and Argan led his men down. It was easier than climbing up, but by the time they reached the street they were tired out. Albrecht commended his men, and ordered a rest, a brief respite while they waited for another tank to move up from the rear to support them, replacing the one that had been heavily damaged by the missile. Several other companies of infantry moved past them, taking the lead, pushing deeper into the city. Argan found a spot to slump down, resting his back against the wall of the building he had helped clear. Even just a few minutes of rest could do wonders for a man's spirit, as well as his body.

Lord-General Galen paid continuous close attention to the progress of his troops. The western push was, in contrast to the initial assault, making good progress, while the northern flank was encountering heavy resistance, including from a significant quantity of enemy armour, able to operate in the warehouse yards and storage bays of the northern districts. To the south, the situation was somewhere in between- a lot of resistance, but it was being overcome. The progress pleased and unnerved him. The enemy had deployed Daemonic troops, but only in one place, and nothing since. Surely they would do so again- but where, and when?

'Arlen?' the Lord-General addressed his Navy counterpart. 'Did the Arch-Magos report any unusual readings either prior to or during the Daemonic incursion?' he asked. Marcos made his way over to the holotable.

'I spoke to the Magos,' Marcos replied. 'Their sensors showed nothing untoward. No indication of the impending incursion other than the usual spike in warp energy readings when the Daemons arrived.'

'No readings, just like the storm...' Galen pondered. 'Do you think the two are linked? I know the Magos said there was no indication of the storm being unnatural, but for that to be followed several days later by the presence of Daemons smacks of deliberate warpcraft. Perhaps there are other sorcerers among the defenders?'

'It is possible,' Marcos answered. 'For certain, it is always possible with such treacherous scum. But there is always the possibility that the incursion was natural, however unlikely that may seem. This planet is strange enough. Maybe the barriers between realspace and the warp are notably thin here.'

'The coincidence is too great, Arlen,' Galen replied. 'There is no chance those Daemons arrived here through some natural phenomenon. They were summoned, and if they were summoned, who did the summoning?'

'I do not know.' Marcos offered his flask of Amasec to the Lord-General. 'But if they are out there, I have no doubt we shall find out sooner or later.'

'You are correct, of course,' Galen replied. 'But that is precisely what worries me.'

The EAS Starswirl came in low and slow over the Imperial lines, drawing some admiring glances from the guardsmen below thanks to its elegant design and sheer size for something made by such a relatively technologically primitive species. The vast bulk of the bombardment airship loomed overhead, blocking out Celestia's sun. Pegasi dove over the side with the mooring lines at the ready while spotters called out the height and any steering corrections. With the lines secured, the engines were cut, and the Starswirl rested at anchor, the gondola settling gently onto the flat grassy plain. The boarding ramps slipped down, and Princess Celestia disembarked, mane whipped by a strong breeze off of the ocean.

She was met by a row of smart soldiers in various shades of camouflaged combat uniforms, and the rather incongruously bemedaled commander of the siege lines, Major-General Marwan, who, like others before him, struggled with the traditional handshake for a visiting dignitary, having to instead withdraw his hand and offer an awkward half-salute instead.

'Greetings, Your Highness,' Marwan offered warmly. 'My name is Major-General Marwan. It is always a pleasure to show off the hard work of my men. Welcome to the battlefield.' He made an expansive gesture, indicating the siege lines around him, not strictly the battlefield but rather a mile or two behind the former frontline, and now some distance from where the fighting raged inside the city.

'Thank you, General,' Celestia greeted him with a nod in response. 'Your siege works appear most impressive from the air.'

Marwan smiled, an indication perhaps that he considered the compliment directed more to himself than to the hard work of thousands whom he merely oversaw and commanded.

'Indeed, I am sure they do. The Imperium has mastered the art of the siege, both imposing them and defending them, ever since the great Primarch Rogal Dorn held the walls of the sacred Imperial Palace on Holy Terra herself against the dark tide of the traitor legions...' Marwan began, a brief comment becoming a good five-minute compressed history of Imperial siegecraft. He then turned with another gesture to a group of soldiers standing to attention behind him, each wearing a different uniform.

'These men and women are your Honour Guard,' he announced. 'I decreed that one from each siege and infantry regiment that garrison these great works should be chosen, to represent the efforts of their fellows and reward such labours. Major?' He turned again to his adjutant, who stepped forward to read out their names.

'Sir! Your Highness.' The Major made a curt gesture in the direction of each soldier in turn. 'Corporal Hennex, 1st Platonian Siege Regiment. Sapper Arbo, 55th Merdas Siege Regiment. Private Mattias, 15th Hordonite Infantry Regiment. Private Langstrom, 8th Bennetine Rifles.'

The Major stepped back again, and Marwan gave an approving nod. 'All fine regiments, with long and noble histories, Your Highness. They have fought across many worlds and defeated the enemy at every turn. Today shall be no different! Now that you have met the men and women, would you care to see their equipment?' he suggested.

'That would be most enlightening, yes,' Celestia replied. 'Please, show me.' Marwan appeared only too happy to oblige, as he bustled off ahead.

'Come, come, Your Highness!' he urged, striding out eagerly like a child wanting to show his newest friend his biggest and best toys. Celestia followed along, somewhat bemused, and also somewhat reminded of her own Grand-Admiral Bluewater, still missing at sea, so far as anyone knew.

Marwan proceeded through the curls of razor wire and rear-facing protective trenchline, into the siege works. There was no grass here- everything was bare earth, having been dug up to create sandbagged revetments, communications trenches, earthen berms and firing pits. Men and women bustled everywhere, giving the princess some rather peculiar looks as she wandered through their lines, accompanied by the Major-General and an honour guard with their rifles at the slope. Though the batteries were not firing, there was still much work to be done in strengthening the line in case it was needed. Several artillery units remained on standby, ready to fire immediately if a request was received from a sufficiently high authority. Marwan halted near one such firing piece.

'This is the Earthshaker cannon,' he explained proudly. 'The mainstay of the Imperial artillery forces, it can be mounted on a mobile chassis or employed, as seen here, as a towed system. It is a 132mm gun and can be employed in both direct and indirect-fire modes.'

'Hm, yes, I see.' Celestia nodded. 'Is this your largest weapon? We employ cannons with larger calibres in our artillery units,' she added nonchalantly. Marwan seemed flustered.

'Largest? Oh, no! Not at all. Come, I will show your our Colossus!' He led the way through a connecting trench a considerable distance along the line to another firing pit, this one containing a heavy armoured vehicle, mounting a monstrous cannon and with a rear firing spade dug in to counteract recoil. A stack of sandbags had also been piled behind the vehicle for extra protection.

'This is the Colossus Bombard,' Marwan smiled, seemingly in his element. 'It is the largest siege weapon commonly utilised by most line siege regiments. It is short-ranged, but whenever it fires, something is going to die.'

'And this is what you have been destroying my city with?' Celestia questioned, which made Marwan quickly stammer.

'Destroy? Oh no, no. I received orders that collateral damage was to be kept to a minimum if possible. You see? The towers of your city are intact.' He pointed to the skyline some fifteen miles away. 'Our artillery has been targeting confirmed enemy positions to create corridors for our assault forces. I must say it seems that we have done a fine job of it, too.'

'I am sure it seems that way from behind the lines,' Celestia replied, casually insulting the rather pompous Major-General in such a way that he couldn't be sure he had actually been insulted. 'I wonder, however, what it seems like at the front?'

Sergeant Argan was on the move again. His squad, and the rest of the company, were pushing up, getting close to the fighting again. Alpha and Beta companies had taken over the lead to give Gamma a chance to rest, and they were now engaged in heavy fighting up ahead. Several theatre buildings had been occupied by the enemy, and controlled the large city square that they fronted onto. A pair of Leman Russ tanks provided support as one of their specialised Demolisher-pattern siblings assaulted the structures directly with its heavy, short-range cannon. The roar of each shot echoed around the city canyons as the shell smashed into the target building, causing great avalanches of brick and concrete to cascade down onto the street, floor joists sagging and interior walls bowing under the pressure. Men inside, those that had not been killed by the blast or overpressure, scrambled to counter the potent weapon. Melta-bombs hurled from within fell considerably short of the tank, which riddled the defenders with heavy bolter fire, blowing several of them apart.

The Demolisher cannon raged again, and the target building, a considerable structure, a six-storey theatre, began to collapse, floors giving way, the roof caving in, burying a hundred Chaos infantry under tons of rubble. A huge cloud of dust rose, obscuring all vision, filling the streets, choking the few survivors. A cheer went up from the Imperials, but the two neighbouring theatre buildings were still occupied by the enemy. A pair of daring or insane men leaped from a ragged shell hole in the frontage of one of the theatres under cover of the thick, rolling dust, and sprinted out toward the last known location of the Demolisher. They found it through the smoke, but one of them found a guardsman, who, in between hacking coughs, managed to raise his lasgun and shoot the man dead. His companion, however, reached the tank, which was backing up cautiously. In each hand he held a powerful melta-charge, and he hurled them bodily onto the tank, one landing on the engine deck and one nestling into the turret ring. He tried to run back to cover, but one of the Demolisher's heavy bolters found him and turned him into a red mist.

Moments later, his melta-bombs turned the Demolisher into a fountain of flame. The extreme heat from the fusion charges melted straight through the thick armour, turning metal into liquid as it burned white-hot. The engine gave out with a great spray of sparks, and the turret hatch was flung open, at least one crew member trying desperately to get out, but it was far too late, and the heat found the main ammunition magazine.

Argan, standing a good two hundred yards away, was nearly knocked from his feet by the sudden blast. A mushroom of orange flame rose into the sky, visible even through the dust cloud as it marked the end of the siege tank. Suddenly, where all had been well, confusion reigned. The dust was severely limiting visiblity, filling the square and hanging in the air, cloying, thick.

Shouted orders were muffled by the dust cloud. What had been a momentary triumph for the guardsmen soon became a potential disaster. What was not muffled was the sudden warcry, a loud, bestial howl, from a hundred, two hundred, three hundred throats. Nobody knew, nobody could see, what was going on, but they could guess.

Argan rallied his squad. Just ahead of them was one of the two standard-pattern Leman Russ tanks, and he headed for it, taking up positions behind a string of concrete planters that held bright, colourful flowers, now covered in dull grey dust. The rest of first platoon joined them, guns aimed.

The cry sounded again, echoing around the square. And then, from the dust, they came.

Taking advantage of the confusion, the Chaos infantry were charging out from the remaining buildings, a headlong rush towards the Parvian Lancers. Some were ready for them, and some were not. Several guardsmen were killed immediately, dazed by the detonation of the Demolisher. Others had organised into squads or platoons, and offered resistance, lasguns flashing and slicing down the onrushing attackers.

Argan aimed and fired, bringing down one man armed with some kind of meat cleaver. But there were others, dozens of them, coming at him out of the smoke. The rest of the platoon engaged with heavy fire, but some return fire struck several guardsmen. Not all the enemy were outfitted with melee weapons, far from it. Most carried their lasguns with bayonet equipped, not the straight silver of the guardsmen, but nasty, twisted, barbed protuberances, serrated and hooked edges ready to not only stab, but to rip, to tear, to inflict grievous wounds, not because it was necessary, but simply because they wanted to.

Their only intention was to kill, and Argan's only intention was to live. He switched targets rapidly, bringing down two men, as his platoon accounted for plenty more. But they were not just coming from the front. A cry went up of enemies to the left, enemies behind. The Leman Russ began to reverse as it poured fire into the smoke, but a similar fate befell it to its more specialised counterpart. Melta-bombs were affixed to its flank, and they burned through, disabling it. Another one was lofted onto the turret, and it achieved the desired effect. Argan ordered his squad back, just in time to avoid certain death, but not enough to spare them from the effects. The tank erupted in flame as the magazine went up. Argan was lifted bodily from his feet, slammed into something, and saw only blackness.

Close Encounters

Princess Celestia had been suitably impressed by the size and evident power of the Imperial guns, but Major-General Marwan's boundless enthusiasm for espousing the excellence of his siege works and his men in such a way as to make sure most of the glory reflected upon himself, became rather grating rather quickly. The preparations the humans had been able to make in just a few days showed the strength of their logistics arm, especially since their supplies had to all come from orbit. Logistics was always a field of significant struggle for pony military operations, relying on good rail connections to move large quantities of supplies at once. Priority items such as ammunition could be shuttled by airship, but anything particularly bulky, such as engineering supplies or the heaviest artillery pieces, simply couldn't fit through the hold hatches of even the largest cargo dirigible. Such materiel had to travel by land, either rail or, depending on the location of the campaign, by sheer ponypower, several soldiers being lashed together to provide the motive power for a field gun, a cart of rations, or an ambulance for the wounded. That meant that, in general, for every fighting pony in the frontline companies of a division, there were another six behind them as part of the divisional logistics chain, and countless dozens more from specialised transport and supply regiments. The Imperial advantage was mechanisation- they had trucks instead of carts, dropships instead of wingpower, and much of their artillery was self-propelled. Their aircraft reached speeds unheard of by ponies, other than a few specialised combat and stunt flyers like the Wonderbolts and Rainbow Dash. All this meant that one man could do the work of a dozen, a hundred, or even, in the case of the huge bulk landers and shuttles, a thousand or more ponies. That, as much as anything else, was, she suspected, the reason why these humans had apparently been able to colonise the galaxy in the face of so much hostility, not only from alien species, but also from within their own.

Celestia had also been impressed by their relative organisation. Given that there were numerous different regiments present which, she had been informed, all came from different worlds, they generally seemed to mesh together into one well-oiled unit. The preparation of such intricate siege workings in such a short space of time was testament to that, and could not have been achieved solely by the technologies they possessed. Many of the engineering vehicles present, such as powered cranes, were just more powerful versions of technologies already possessed by ponykind. Evidently technological development in certain fields could only progress so far. But in other aspects, the Imperium was infinitely ahead of Equestrian society. Lasers, space travel, jet and rocket engines, tanks, nuclear reactors, and countless other items that Celestia could only guess at. It was a great contrast, however, to witness a great mass of metal descending from the skies seemingly unaided, almost silently, to deliver supplies, only to turn and see a man digging a field latrine with a simple shovel.

Marwan had managed to wax lyrical about the art of siegecraft for a considerable length of time about a subject he clearly felt some passion for. The battle was still underway in Manehattan, but none of the guns, in this sector at least, had been called into action. As the sun continued its stately progress across the western sky, it was time for the inspection to end. Celestia had been pleased by the reports of good progress in several sectors in Manehattan, and the hope was that much of the business and theatre districts would be cleared by the end of the next day. There had been no further Daemonic activity reported, and the enemy had been falling back in several locations, though Lord-General Galen had cautioned against reckless pursuit, as the enemy could easily be dropping back to draw the attackers into an ambush. Booby traps were also considered, as the enemy could easily have rigged an elevated roadway with explosives to collapse as Imperial tanks passed over them, or even an entire building to come down on top of their infantry.

The Starswirl remained at anchor just behind the siege lines, and Celestia made her way back towards it, with Marwan still espousing the virtues of various aspects of Imperial firepower and culture. It seemed that he did not often get the chance to do so, at least not to someone not already familiar with such things, and was very happy to do so with Celestia.

'Thank you again for the tour, General. It was most illuminating,' Celestia assured her guide, who had been happy to answer most questions that she had posed, even a few he probably shouldn't have. 'While I am sure you would find our own artillery primitive in comparison to yours, perhaps you would care to visit one of our batteries some time soon. If so I am sure a tour can be arranged.' Marwan gave a bombastic nod.

'But of course, Your Highness! That would be most fine indeed. It may be primitive, but artillery is artillery the galaxy over. When you have a passion for something, it is well to indulge in it from time to time, don't you think?' He smiled. 'And now it is time to say goodbye.' He gestured broadly toward the airship, its gasbag looming like a skyscraper laid on its side, or a cloud hanging a few dozen feet off the ground. The honour guard of guardsmen lined up with their weapons at the present. Marwan escorted her along the line, greeting each man and woman in turn. 'Corporal. Very smart indeed, thank you for your participation. Private...Mattias, is it? Jolly good show. Ah, and Sapper...'

As Celestia drew level with Private Mattias, the young trooper raised his lasgun, leveled it at her, and before anyone could react, he fired.

His ears were still ringing, his throat choked with brick dust. Slowly, he opened his eyes, quickly remembering where he was and what was happening.

The enemy were coming.

Sergeant Argan scrambled to his feet, mostly unhurt by the blast, concussed, but still able to fight. The dust was all around him, like a thick fog. He lasgun was mercifully still in his grasp, and he brought it up to his shoulder, which ached from where he had landed on it. He scanned around for targets or for friendlies, needing to regroup and reorganise, link up with the other platoons and the other companies. He could see a few fellow guardsmen here and there, and, coming through the smoke, the howling fiends of the Archenemy.

There were three men, their blood-red uniforms coated with brown dust, daubed across their faces like warpaint. The pale dust highlighted their crazed, bloodshot eyes, eyes that knew anger, hate and madness. One man clutched a lasgun with a barbed bayonet, another held an axe already slick with fresh blood, and the third held a laspistol in one hand and a rusted dagger in the other. The collapse of the theatre building had been an advantage for the Chaos defenders, disrupting the unity of the Imperial attack and separating units from each other in the twilight of the dust cloud.

Argan could rely only on himself. Even as he raised his weapon, the enemy soldier with the lasgun fired and killed one of the dazed guardsmen in his path, dropping him with a well-placed shot to the chest. Argan responded in kind, returning fire and blowing a hole through the man's ribcage, sending him sprawling. The other two enemies were charging at him. The axeman was in the lead, and the other man seemed to have forgotten he was holding a pistol, seemingly preferring instead to get into close quarters with his knife. They were already danger-close, and Argan began to back up, letting off a burst of fire. The axeman went down screaming, but before he could fire again, Argan heard rapid footsteps to his side. He turned, but too late to react in time.

A large brute of a man slammed into him bodily, manic laughter on his frothing lips. The club he held cracked into Argan's skull, catching him a glancing blow, but enough to make him see stars. His lasgun bounced on the cobbles, skittering out of reach as he hit the ground. The big man raised his club again to smash Argan's head like an eggshell, but he managed to roll to the side, the blow striking the cobblestones instead. Argan looked for his gun, but it was out of reach, and now the other man with the dagger and pistol was arriving. He pulled his combat knife from its sheath and tried to stand, but found the club had struck him harder than he thought, and his legs swayed weakly, barely supporting him. He took a step back and stumbled, falling back onto the ground. The clubman stepped forward to finish him off.

That was when his face disappeared, a steaming hole already cauterising around what was left of his head as he crumpled to the ground. The other man turned in alarm, and he went down too, his chest shot away.

'Sergeant!' Merkev, the vox-man, arrived at his side, a curl of smoke rising from the barrel of his lasgun. 'Are you hurt?' He knelt beside Argan, but kept his head on a swivel. Since his near-breakdown when confronted by the traitor Astartes in Griffonstone, the young guardsman had undergone almost a transformation. Whether it was his acceptance of the inevitability of death, a realisation of the shame his fear would bring, or just the loss of what sanity remained, he had become a totally dependable soldier, not shirking his duty, and certainly not cowering in the corner.

'I'm alright,' Argan grunted. 'Thanks for the assist. We need to regroup.' He sat up, holding his head for a few moments, but there was no time to rest and recover. The battle was still raging all around, las-fire whizzing through the choking smoke, the muffled sounds of screams and shouts audible, but who was where and who was firing at who remained a mystery in the darkness of the dust cloud. Merkev offered his hand, and Argan took it, hauling himself to his feet. He located his lasgun and picked it up, giving it a quick once-over, but the tough, rugged weapon would take more than a little knock to damage. Everything seemed to be in working order, both on the gun and on himself.

'Give me the vox,' Argan ordered. Merkev offered him the handset. Argan took it while Merkev kept a wary eye open, scanning for any more targets that might emerge through the dust. Caught in the middle of the dust cloud was not the best place to be, but they needed to establish if anyone else was still alive, and still present in the square.

'Forest Gamma 1, Forest Gamma 1-1 actual, what's your location, over?' Argan asked, hoping for a reply from Albrecht as to where his platoon command squad was. There was no reply, even when he repeated the question. He tried again, calling for second or third platoon's commanders to respond, but there was just dead air. He shook his head and replaced the handset. 'Come on. We can't stay here, let's fall back to the edge of the square.' Merkev followed his sergeant as they made their way back to what they thought was the street they had come up, passing bodies, both friendly and enemy, mingled together in the confusion of close combat.

Another man appeared from nowhere, and both Argan and Merkev shot him down. Heavy gunfire erupted from off to their right, and Argan signalled Merkev to stop. They ducked into cover behind a concrete barrier. A string of explosions rang out, but the dust kept them from seeing any indication of what was happening. It might be the surviving Leman Russ cutting a path through the charging enemies, or it might be its death knell, melta-bombs ripping through its armour. A guardsman ran across their eyeline, but a shot to the back brought him down. Argan swung his weapon around, but whoever had killed the guardsman decided not to follow him through the dust cloud.

After waiting for a minute, Argan moved on, Merkev covering him and then following along across the street. Plants were covered in dust as they passed by them, and so were the bodies of the dead. They pressed on, seeking clear air and seeking their comrades. The attack had stalled, which was not good, but they had made excellent progress before the tide had temporarily turned. Argan had no doubt that they would bounce back after regrouping, but it was critical that they did not panic and remembered their training.

Towards the edge of the square, the dust cloud thinned out, shafts of sunlight breaking through the gloom. Here, there were some guardsmen, having the same idea and regrouping in the clearer air, caked in dust, some looking shellshocked by the sudden melee that had broken out. Two more tanks idled on the street, waiting for the dust to clear so they could aid in the advance. Several members of Argan's squad were present, as well as men from both second and third platoons. There was no sign of the company command squad, and they could not be reached over the vox. Fighting was still going on behind them, but until the smoke cleared, a full picture of the situation could not be gathered. Everything was supposed to be going well, the enemy was crumbling under the firepower of the Demolisher tank. But the nature of combat, especially urban combat, was such that great changes could happen at any time. The value of visibility, of being able to clearly see what was happening and where the enemy were, was being made abundantly clear before their very eyes.

Panicked shouts broke out immediately. Major-General Marwan stumbled, taken off guard by the sudden shot behind him. The other members of the honour guard reacted, grappling Mattias, wrenching his lasgun off of him and pulling him to the ground. Someone shouted for a medic, and a squad of infantry came running, summoned by the noise.

The only one seemingly not perturbed by the commotion was the princess herself.

Even the mere moment it had taken for Mattias to raise his rifle and fire had been more than enough, given her preternatural reflexes, and a magical shield of amber had surrounded her instantaneously, taking the high-powered las-bolt with nary but a tiny shimmer of light, like a single raindrop on the surface of a lake,

Recovering from the shock, Marwan turned unsteadily. 'Your Highness, are you injured?' he asked, seeming gobsmacked that she was not.

'I am unhurt, General,' Celestia replied calmly. 'But please, explain to me why this happened.'

'Yes...yes, I would like to know that myself.' He rounded on Mattias with a sudden fury on his face.The other three members of the honour guard had dragged the shooter to his feet, restraining his arms.

'Fetch Commissar Birbeck!' the Sergeant of the newly arrived squad shouted, but Marwan stopped him.

'There's no need for that. Guardsman! You have five seconds to explain your actions before I have you shot.' Mattias retained a calm air to him, in stark contrast to his commander, who was venting anger from every pore, steadily getting redder and redder the longer his silence continued.

'Very well. Major!' Marwan addressed his adjutant. 'Execute this man!' The honour guard parted, leaving Mattias standing to face his fate.

'Yes, sir!' The adjutant stepped forward, withdrew his bolt-pistol from his holster, raised it, and fired once.

It found its target, and chaos erupted once again as Major-General Marwan collapsed to the ground, his head now just a bloody stump. The adjutant turned his weapon on Celestia, but again the bolt-rounds found themselves detonating harmlessly against a protective sphere. Celestia took not a step backward, but merely lowered her horn. A torrent of golden magic atomised her assailant.

But Mattias, the original gunman, was now free, as confusion set in. His lasgun was held by one of the honour guard, but the Major-General's las-pistol with its ornately carved grip was within a short distance. He lunged for it, pulling the gun from the headless corpse. Private Langstrom, another of the honour guard, tried to stop him, but was suddenly struck from behind by las-fire. One of the squad of infantry that had arrived at the sound of the first gunshot began spraying shots everywhere, felling two of his fellows. Madness was unfolding where there had been a calm and peaceful meeting.

Mattias charged the pistol and took aim once again at the princess. This time she was distracted, but it made no difference as her shield was still as unyielding as ever. The erstwhile assassin emptied the entire power pack of the las-pistol at her, thirty rounds pinging off the golden orb. He tossed the weapon aside as she turned to face him, and drew his combat knife from his belt, before starting a headlong charge. He raised the knife high to sink it into her neck.

Instead she lowered her horn and he ran straight into it at full tilt, the sharp tip stabbing through him like a power sword, Celestia's precise control of magic allowing her to remove a tiny portion of the shield around her horn while leaving the rest intact. Mattias slumped lifelessly, and Celestia used a mild concussive blast of magic to push him off of her horn.

Pony sharpshooters on the deck of the Starswirl were eager to protect their princess, but they did not know who to shoot. Many of the humans firing at each other wore the same uniforms, and theoretically they were all meant to be on the same side. Airship Captain Lance took to the railing, trying to get Celestia's attention, urging her to retreat to the deck until whatever was happening had been dealt with.

Apart from the men directly attacking her, Celestia had the same problem. She did not know which humans were trying to kill her and which were not. She took a glance at the Starswirl. It seemed like a sensible place to be, and with a flicker of her horn she teleported onto the main deck, arriving with a flash among her ponies.

'Your Highness!' Captain Lance approached her. 'What the hell is going on down there? Should we cast off?'

'No, Captain,' Celestia replied, expanding her shield to protect the airship and her crew in case of stray fire. 'This...disturbance appears localised. We shall wait it out here, and then, hopefully, we can establish the full facts as to exactly what just happened.'

Darkness had fallen across the rooftops of Canterlot, her dreaming spires of marble and gold glittering gently in the moonlight. It was a city of intellect, a city of hope, a city of promise. It was where Twilight Sparkle had been born and raised, and now she could feel she was home.

But she didn't, not really, not entirely. The years she had spent in Ponyville with her first real, true friends had left her heart there, and now that town lay just a few miles away, but still in the hands of the enemy. The enemy that had come, struck from across the stars, killed so many, and were still stubbornly crawling across the face of the planet in so many locations.

The battle for Canterlot was over, the battle for Manehattan was ongoing, but the battle for Ponyville was in limbo. The town had fallen at the start of the invasion, and since then nopony knew what ravages the enemy had subjected it to. Many of her friends had been in town and, with the exception of the other Elements, she had no knowledge of what had happened to any of them. From the balcony of the room she had been given in the palace, she could see out along the valley to Ponyville. She could see the familiar bend of the river, and the nearby Hoofer hydroelectric dam, long since gone dark and not supplying any power, meaning Canterlot was still without electricity, save for a little provided by wind turbines. The palace was one of the few buildings to have any lights on.

Twilight's reunion with her parents had been tearful, and had been exactly what she needed to help ground her and remind her of what was real. For a while she had been able to banish memories of the past few weeks, and go back to her foalhood, when she would sit in her father's office watching him work, take regular trips to the candy store with her mother, and play ball in the garden with her big brother. Things had changed greatly, even before the invasion, and she hadn't been able to spend as much time with her family as she had wished, what wish Celestia sending her to Ponyville, Shining's role as guard commander, and the various crises that had befallen Equestria.

This invasion was the latest in a long line, but by far the most dangerous. From what the Imperials had relayed to their new allies, both they and the enemy had the ability to destroy all life on the planet if they so desired. Twilight certainly believed that the enemy would do so if they wanted to, but there were still doubts in her mind about the Imperium. If they wanted to destroy them, why would they be aiding the ponies? They had saved them from the enemy, of that there was little doubt. But why? From what Twilight had learned about them, they were not exactly reknowned for their love for other species. It seemed that they were merely allies of convenience, but when the battle was won, would they turn on the ponies?

Twilight somehow doubted they, or the enemy, could be swayed by the power of friendship. It sounded like one side was possessed by evil, and the other had been on a relentless war of conquest and expansion for millenia. Neither sounded like they would be likely to see reason. Celestia had not been confident of such things when Twilight had spoken to her, though she did seem adamant that the planet would stay safe from such a catastrophe. Twilight was not so convinced.

She looked out across the rooftops towards Ponyville again. Hopefully one day soon she, and the rest of the Elements, would be able to return to the town they called home. For now, she was confined to the plushly uphoulstered room provided at Celestia's behest. A large four-poster bed, a chaise longue, a bathroom of tile and marble. Everything somepony would think of when Canterlot came to mind. Twilight trotted back inside from the balcony, where a cool breeze had begun to ruffle her mane. She sat on the bed and continued to look outside. Luna's moon provided enough illumination that the street lighting wasn't necessary, which was useful for the pony guards patrolling the city.

A knock at the door distracted her from her thoughts. She wondered who it could be at such a late hour, and got up, trotting over and using her magic to unlock and open the door a little.

Outside was a human female, wearing the dark green combat uniform of the small remaining Imperial force in Canterlot. Twilight cocked her head. She hadn't thought any of the humans were stationed in the palace, raher being on the perimeter walls of the city.

'Yes?' Twilight asked, cocking her head. She didn't get a reply.

Something moved behind her, and Twilight started to turn, but something flashed, and she felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. She slumped down and tried to crawl, but another pain shot through her skull, and she faded into blackness.

Old & New

The gunmen, the would-be assassins, had been cut down, killed by the Imperial troops who had swarmed the area of the incident, only to find their commander dead. Senior Commissar Birbeck had taken over as commanding officer of the siege forces until instructed otherwise by Lord-General Galen, and had thrown up a ring of steel around the site of the attack. Guardsmen with fixed bayonets guarded both the outer and inner perimeter, while medical and examination teams did their work.

Darkness had fallen, and spotlights aboard the EAS Starswirl helped illuminate the site, where the bodies of Major-General Marwan, Guardsman Mattias, and half a dozen other troopers lay. It surprised many, including the Commissar, that the Xenos airship and the princess had chosen to stick around, rather than fleeing the site of her attempted assassination. To add to their shock, Celestia insisted on returning to the site, unaccompanied by any of the Royal Guard contingent aboard the Starswirl.

Commissar Birbeck eyed the Xenos princess with great suspicion. From all the reports he had received, she seemed to be the primary target, and yet it was his own superior who lay dead. The idea of consorting with aliens was an anathema to him, and yet he had orders from both fleet command and the Lord-General, that he was to give every assistance to the princess. For what it was worth, technicians were recording picts of the dead bodies, in case some evidence should present itself in the images. The body of Guardsman Mattias was the focus of attention. Birbeck, his peaked cap pulled down low over his prominent brow, stood over the body, eyeing it curiously. The Xenos princess approached, and he hoped she could provide some insight.

'Princess,' he greeted her with a grunt, preferring not to use the correct official form of greeting. 'Do you know what happened here?'

Celestia replied to him equally tersely. 'No...Commissar, is it? I was hoping you could provide some insight as to why several of your men attacked me.'

Birbeck remained wary, both of her true intentions as well as her power. Reports had been relayed to him of her seemingly blocking the assassins' attacks from nowhere, and also of her simply disappearing from the area, some kind of teleportation evidently in use.

'I cannot speak for Major Pettimore,' the Commissar replied, 'but this is the body of Private Mattias. From what I understand, you killed him yourself. Now I may be a simple man and I may come from a backwater planet, but that...' he gestured at the corpse. 'is not a human. Do you recognise it?'

Celestia nodded. 'Indeed I do. As you say, that is not a human corpse, nor is it a pony. I know exactly who is responsible for this atrocity.'

Twilight blinked, blinked, blinked again. She was waking up, but her surroundings were unfamiliar, unknown to her. Everything was dark, black walls around her, together with a subtle green glow. Where was she...?

There was a subtle glow, just enough for her to see once her eyes became accustomed to it. The room she was in was small. She tried to move, but couldn't- she was chained to something. Her head still hurt from where it had been struck, though by what she didn't know. The last thing she remembered she was in her room in Canterlot, and now she was...where?

The floor upon which she lay was damp, trickling water audible somewhere. The walls appeared to be carved rock- a cave, somewhere underground perhaps? She tried to sit up, and found she could do so awkwardly. She tried to cast an illumination spell, but her horn merely sputtered. Something was stopping her magic- a counterspell, perhaps? But these humans did not use magic, either the Imperium or the enemy. Some kind of technology, then, a dampening field?

Whatever it was, she was trapped, her hooves shackled and her magic suppressed. But she was a prisoner, not dead, and that meant whoever had ambushed her wanted something.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Twilight could heard someone approaching the metal door that formed the far wall of the cell. It grated on the floor, screeching as it opened, light flooding in and revealingthe face of her captor. Twilight gasped in shock.

Not a human, far from it. Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings and sworn enemy of the princess, tall, dark and imposing, stepped into the cell, eyeing over her prisoner with a pleased expression, Her insectoid wings chittered a little, instinctively, as she chuckled, her long forked tongue flicking.

'Greetings, Twilight Sparkle,' the queen spoke. 'What a pleasure it is to meet you again, and this time, on my terms.'

Twilight glared up at her, her fear turning to anger. 'Chrysalis! What do you want with me? Let me go!' She made her futile demand as forcefully as she could, but Chrysalis only laughed.

'Of course, I shall let you go at once. Please forgive my...impropriety.' Her tongue flicked again. 'I have your Element. That's all I really needed from you. It would have been nice to get all of them, but no matter. The others are useless without the Element of Magic. So I suppose I could release you and keep your shiny trinket. But where would the fun be in that? It would be most foolish, don't you think? No, you'll be my guest of honour for the time being, and you'll be able to watch as my plan comes to fruition, as I replace your precious mentor to become the true power to follow!' She chuckled darkly, her tongue lashing once more, wings fluttering.

'What plan? You're still obsessed with your petty revenge?' Twilight spat. 'Haven't you seen what's been happening? Have you had your head buried in the ground for the last month?'

'On the contrary, my dear,' Chrysalis replied. 'I know exactly what has been going on, and it is the most glorious opportunity! Something has fallen straight into my hooves, something to exceed even my wildest dreams! And have no fear, I intend to take full advantage of it.' She licked her lips.

'Opportunity?' Twilight blinked. 'What are you talking about? This invasion threatens all of Equestria, the whole planet, including you!'

'And what, you would have us work together to overcome the invaders? Please,' Chrysalis scoffed dismissively. 'Your pathetic overtures of friendship may have worked on others, those of...lesser will, perhaps...but do not waste your breath trying it on me.'

'I'm just trying to warn you,' Twilight said. 'These humans do not like aliens. They have technology...'

'And they have love!' Chrysalis declared with a gesture. 'Such love...for their Emperor. Oh, do not worry, Twilight Sparkle, I am well aware of their nature. It is amazing what someone will be willing to tell you after a little...persuasion.' She licked her lips again. 'Their devotion to their leader is almost as absolute as that of my drones...consider the strength a Changeling can draw from a pony with their love for Celestia. Now consider that there are a few million ponies on this planet.' Her wings buzzed with excitement. 'Then consider that these humans have spread across the galaxy.'

Twilight swallowed nervously, her throat dry. 'And if they know of your existence, they will hunt you down and destroy you just the same. And what about the other faction? The one they are fighting?'

'Even better,' Chrysalis replied. 'They have a similar love for their so-called Dark Gods, and there are many billions of them also. Consider, my dear, consider this if you will. The number of Changelings we can spawn here, and the extent of my strength, is directly proportional to the amount of love we can feed upon. There are only so many creatures on this planet capable of love, a few million, which means a limit to how many Changelings there can be and how much love they provide for me. A natural limit,I suppose you could say, a check on my power imposed by a cruel universe. But there are trillions, countless trillions of these humans! Did you know even their own central bureaucracy doesn't know how many humans there really are? But they all, every one of them, have an absolute love for their Emperor...' She inhaled slowly and licked her lips once more. 'Can you imagine? This opportunity is almost beyond comprehension. To think that there is life beyond this planet, and that it should come here and alert us to that fact! Can you imagine, Twilight Sparkle, what will be mine? Unlimited power! A chance for my children to spread not just across the planet, but across the stars!'

'You're crazy!' Twilight shook her lead slowly in disbelief. 'You think the humans will just let you leave the planet? They'll wipe you out!'

'Oh no, my dear. They won't let me leave the planet. They won't have a choice in the matter,' Chrysalis replied. 'For who would ever suspect that their friend, their brother, their Captain, is not who they appear to be?'

'But...but you can't get away with that!' Twilight protested. 'There's no way. Someone will see through your disguise.'

'Yes, yes, just as you saw through it at your brother's wedding, hm? You knew something was amiss because you thought Cadence was acting differently,' Chrysalis reminded her. 'But that is something interesting about these humans. They have something unique about their psyche that ponies and Zebras and Griffons do not. One human I interrogated tried to explain. He said something about humans having a psychic presence in something called 'the warp,' whatever that may be. Either way, the result is clear. A simple touch before transforming is enough for any one of my drones to adopt not just the form of a particular human, but their memories as well, provided that even a shred of life remains in their body. That is the difference. It means that there will be no stumbling over names or faces, no confusion when given an order to carry out, no unfamiliarity with their technology. It means the perfect disguise.'

Twilight still could not believe what Chrysalis was telling her. Her plan was madness, and yet if it came to fruition, it could render the Queen unstoppable. The more Changelings there were, the more self-sustaining they became, as each drone and each worker generated a certain amount of love for their leader, and the more of them there were, the more love would be generated, added to the love of the humans for their Emperor. The more love the Queen received, the more Changelings she could spawn. The more Changelings there were, the more humans they could impersonate. The more humans they could impersonate, the more they could spread.

'Imagine!' Chrysalis continued. 'Even if these humans discover our existence, even if today's other plan failed, they do not know our location, or our true nature, and if they do, that just serves to further my ends. You know what it's like to live with the fear that at any time, somepony you love, somepony you care for, might not actually be themselves. These humans will soon know that same fear, and it will spread distrust among them. It will spread division. A few key...'replacements' here and there, and their whole battle plan here might just start to fall apart.'

Twilight was becoming increasingly concerned. It sounded as though Chrysalis had her whole plan laid out, carefully mapped, and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. All she could do was try to learn more, in case she was somehow able to escape. 'What other plan?' Twilight asked.

'Oh, just a little sideshow. More in hope than expectation,' the Queen replied. 'Celestia was to tour one of the human positions today. Unfortunately for her, she would have found that several of the escort party were not who they seemed to be. She may well have survived, but even if she did, it is of no concern. She will be swept aside in due course, just like all the rest. Since you are here, I am sure you will be able to provide me with plenty of information about her, about Canterlot...yes, most useful.' Another laugh, wings chittering, tongue flashing. 'It will not take very long for me to become as powerful as Celestia, and soon, she will languish in my shadow! Soon, the whole world will be mine!' Chrysalis backed out of the cell. 'And after the world...the stars.'

The door slammed shut, plunging Twilight into darkness once again.

Canterlot had been thrown in panic. The message had gone round of Twilight's abduction. Humans in Imperial uniform had been seen outside the rooms of the other Element bearers, but had been scared away by a Royal Guard patrol who happened to be passing. Now at Princess Luna's behest a search was underway, scouring the city for the missing mare, but with no luck. The commander of the small human garrison in the city had been summoned to the throne room to address the younger royal sister, but had adamantly maintained that he and his men had nothing whatsoever to do with the disappearance. He had conducted a roll call and every member of the garrison was accounted for, none were missing. Most likely, he suggested, the Archenemy had taken uniforms from captured or killed guardsmen and infiltrated the city to conduct their nefarious mission. While that remained the most plausible theory, the garrison commander could offer no explanation as to why the enemy would want to ponynap Twilight in particular, and Luna did not wish to reveal to him anything of the nature of the Elements, something that he and his leaders surely knew nothing about.

But what other possibilities were there? An actor already familiar with the Elements and their effects? A member of the enemy who sought answers to questions about magic? But the Imperials reported that the enemy sorcerer had been killed in space. So who?

Their answer came shortly after the search began. A messenger Pegasus arrived from the east, with a message for Luna's ears only. He explained that Princess Celestia had been attacked, and was unharmed. He said that she had not relayed a message through the human's communications system as she wanted her sister alone to hear the news first of all. The attackers had been killed, and had been revealed. Changelings.

While there were always a steady string of Changeling raids and abductions across Equestria, there had not been such a brazen act since Chrysalis had infiltrated the royal wedding. Now, it seemed, not only had she attacked the princess, but she had, quite possibly, abducted Twilight Sparkle as well. The coincidence was too great to ignore. The humans and the enemy both were probably not responsible for the disappearance after all.

Twilight had to be found, and rescued. Without her and her Element, the weapon was useless. It seemed that Chrysalis had wanted to capture all six, but had at least failed in that attempt, but the loss of one was as bad as the loss of all of them, as it rendered the system impotent.

Luna quickly summoned the garrison commander again, and his vox-man. She had a message to send to her sister, and it needed to be sent immediately.

'Changelings? And what, pray, are they, exactly?' Senior Commissar Birbeck gave Celestia a long hard look.

'They are an old and very dangerous enemy of Equestria,' Celestia replied. 'An insidious foe...they can strike from the shadows without warning, they can hide, as you have seen today, in plain sight, masquerading as one of your own. They have the ability to shapeshift. We believe they also share a kind of hive mind, with all of the drones linked in some way. Their queen led an invasion of our capital city several years ago by infiltrating a wedding in disguise as the bride, and her ruse was only barely discovered in time.'

'I see...' Birbeck spared a glance at the body lying before them. Guardsman Mattias, or at least, what had seemed to be Guardsman Mattias, lay in the dirt where Celestia had skewered him with her horn. Yet it was not a human body that lay in the mud. Rather, it was a black, chitinous form, similar to the princess in that it was a quadruped, with both wings and a horn, though significantly smaller than her and with a bloody hole in its thorax. Its eyes had faded to a stony paleness after death. The bodies of the two other gunmen from the protection squad who had opened fire had also become similar corpses after death, not human either. They resembled a Tyranid in form, yet they were not any particular example of that ravenous alien species he had ever encountered in his five decades of service. But the explanation the princess gave seemed to fit, that much was certain- a hive mind, a queen controlling them, a chitinous carapace, shapeshifting like certain strains of the dreaded Genestealer. If such a connection was the correct one, then it was a deeply disturbing development. The Tyranids were known to come from both outside the eastern fringe of the galaxy and from beneath the galactic plane, but none of their kind had been encountered so far west before. They were generally held to probably be, aside from the forces of Chaos, the greatest existential threat to the Imperium. The likely true reason for their arrival in the galaxy was known to only a few within the Inquisition and the High Lord of Terra- they seemed to be attracted by the Astronomican, the Emperor's psychic guiding beacon, the vital conduit that could never be turned off if the Imperium were to stand against the myriad other threats arrayed against them.

'Are these creatures native to this planet?' Birbeck asked. 'Or did they come here from some other system?'

'They have always existed here,' Celestia replied, an answer that did a little, if not a lot, to ease Birbeck's worries. Though there were stories of Tyranids lying dormant in ice for centuries, it seemed unlikely, given what he had been told about the ages of both the princess and of Equestrian society in general, that Tyranids had been living on this planet for millenia. Unlikely, but not entirely impossible.

'Are all these Changelings similar in appearance and size to this one?' the Commissar asked, gesturing again to the corpse. Celestia nodded.

'All except the queen, yes. She is the largest of her kind, being more similar in size to myself.' That set Birbeck's mind at ease a lot more thoroughly. If they were Tyranids, then there were at least none of the huge Carnifexes, capable of ripping a tank in half, Zoanthropes, eerily floating psychic artillery pieces, or the monstrous and truly terrifying bio-titans, gigantic natural war engines that towered above the battlefield.

'That is, normally at least,' Celestia continued, throwing disquiet back into the Commissar's mind once again. 'They can of course shapeshift into a variety of considerably larger forms.' He frowned at the princesses' casual mention of this, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Though he was no Magos Biologis, Birbeck was fairly sure that Tyranids couldn't directly morph into their various different sub-species, but if anything, that made him more concerned. Could these things be worse than the Tyranids?

'How many of them are there?' he asked in response. 'Hundreds, thousands?'

'Their precise numbers are unknown to us,' Celestia replied. 'But we do believe there is an upper limit of sorts on their numbers, perhaps currently around one hundred thousand. You see, they feed on love.'

Birbeck blinked. Feed on love? What nonsense was she spouting? 'You speak metaphorically, I assume?' he questioned, but the princess shook her head.

'No, they feed on the love given off by sapient creatures. They are what you might call succubi of sorts, although they do not need to attack their victims directly to feed off of them. When they do, however, they will be able to get a much larger quantity of it at once.'

Birbeck couldn't help but laugh a little at the absurdity. 'What do you mean? You cannot feed on an abstract emotion. What do they eat? Grass? Fruit? You?'

'They are capable of eating and drinking, yes, but the love energy is all they need to survive,' Celestia explained, to an incredulous look from the Commissar. He shook his head.

'Then I would imagine they will be starving themselves into extinction soon. There is precious litte love and goodness in this galaxy. I should know, I've been all over it,' he commented deriseively. 'I'm sure there is some other scientific explanation for it. No doubt our Magi will enjoy their dissection of this specimen. Any potential new threat to the Imperium must be carefully examined, inside and out.' He left unspoken the likelihood that the same treatment had probably been applied to the ponies, from bodies recovered either from the airship shootdown during first contact, or recovered from one of the battlefields where they had fought side by side with the humans.

A graves registration detail were starting to put the human bodies into body bags. A man with a flamer stood by to one side, in case some foul Xenos trick or Chaos sorcery should require the immediate burning of any of the corpses. The Changelings would be taken away, into orbit aboard a shuttle for the crew of the Ferrus Terra to study in depth, leaving Birbeck with the more practical considerations to discuss.

'Do you know where these Changelings are?' he asked Celestia. 'We can bombard them from orbit if they are likely to prove a problem.'

'Unfortunately not, Commissar,' Celestia replied. 'The Changelings dig underground hives and inhabit them until they deem it prudent to move on for whatever reason- compromised security, lack of resources and so on. When they move, they move in secret, find a new location for a new hive, and repeat the process. We do not know where they move to unless somepony happens to stumble upon it. We normally send out patrols constantly looking for the hive, but obviously with the current...situation...that has proved to be a secondary concern.'

'No matter. I am sure our thermal scans will be able to locate such a concentration of lifeforms,' Birbeck assured her, but Celestia shook her head.

'I doubt it. Changelings are cold-blooded, and their hives are constructed a good distance underground, primarily in rocky areas, which at least means that the desert and swamplands can be ruled out when conducting searches for them.'

'Are they likely to be a significant threat, or merely a nuisance?' Birbeck asked. 'What is their technology level? Are they armed?'

'They do not use guns,' Celestia replied. 'They do, however, use magic, both offensive, defensive, and deceptive.'

'Magic?' Birbeck's incredulous tone returned, before he remembered that magic was evidently the pony term for psyker powers. 'Ah, yes...magic...is that how you protected yourself from their attacks? My men reported some kind of shield...'

'Indeed.' Celestia nodded. 'Only the queen has similarly strong magic. The rest of the Changelings use a much weaker form, but it is still potent. Do not underestimate them just because they do not carry weapons.'

Birbeck had no intention of underestimating anything that resembled a Tyranid. 'They fired at you first. Do you believe you were their primary target? Or were they after the General?' he questioned.

'Most likely I was their target. It would not be the first time the Changelings have attempted to assassinate me,' Celetsia responded. 'It will probably not be the last. The death of the General may have just been an unfortunate coincidence, or perhaps a distraction.' Birbeck nodded slowly.

'And lastly, what exactly happened to the bodies of the guardsmen that these things replaced?' he asked. 'We have scoured the perimeter and found nothing.'

'I am afraid your men were most likely erased by magic,' Celestia explained. 'When the Changelings wish to impersonate a specific individual and the survival of that individual is not important, they will kill them and use a spell to dissolve the body.'

The Commissar frowned. A grizzly end, to be sure, but there were worse fates. 'I see. Well, I shall relay the information to my superiors. They will consider the next steps to be taken.'

'And consult with me regarding them, I trust,' Celestia added. She didn't get a reply, however, as a Pegasus flapped down from the Starswirl.

'Your Highness! The human spotters have a message. From Canterlot, Your Highness. It's urgent.'

'If you'll excuse me, Commissar.' Celestia bowed out of the conversation, flapping into the air and following the Pegasus back to the airship. Birbeck watched her go with a mixture of worry and confusion. She seemed implacable through it all, even an assassination attempt, but this newly discovered race of Changelings could offer problems if they were to prove be hostile to the Imperium. He headed for the HQ bunker, formerly Marwan's domain but now, temporarily at least, his, as acting commander of the siege lines. There was still a battle inside the city to be fought and won, regardless of any new threats. He would get back to it, but first he needed to send a message of his own.

A quick order to one of the vox-officers put him through.

'Fleet Command. Lord-General Galen here. You have further news regarding the assassination, Commissar?'

'Yes, My Lord,' Birbeck replied. 'The Xenos princess was able to identify those responsible. It seems we have a new enemy.'

A New Threat

Princess Luna's message send a thrill of shock through her sister. Twilight, taken? There was no proof, but Luna believed, based on the events outside Manehattan, that the Changelings were most likely responsible. Celestia agreed, though she could not rule out that the human enemy had taken her. After all, one of her initial fears had been that the enemy had come for the Elements. Could it not be possible that they had finally been able to obtain one?

But with the sudden attack by the Changelings, the coincidence was too great. Both incidents occurred within a short space of time, and it seemed exactly the kind of plan Chrysalis might enact- kill the princess, capture the elements, capitalise on the fact that the human invasion had totally distracted everypony's attention from their existing problems, and their existing enemies. The Changelings were opportunists, and what better opportunity had they ever been presented with than the decimation of the Equestrian military and the focus of its survivors being on an entirely different threat?

With operations still ongoing in Manehattan, Celestia decided to remain with the airships and leave her sister in command of Canterlot. The humans were requested to provide additional troops to bolster the garrison, while pony guards were doubled. The remaining Elements were moved, and sequestered deep within the palace- not quite as plush as their state rooms, but safer, with a round-the-clock guard kept on their quarters. Even though the Elements themselves were useless without their sixth component, it would be far easier to recover one than to have to recover them all should any further raids take place.They did not know the location of the current Changeling Hive, but they knew the location of the previous one, and she ordered a unit of the elite Special Tasks Group of the Pegasi assault forces to proceed immediately and investigate the old site, in case any clue could be found as to where the Changelings had relocated to. It was a slim chance, but one that had to be grasped at. Twilight, and more importantly her Element, had to be found and recovered.

Celestia was reluctant to discuss too much about the Elements over the human communication system, and so at the conclusion of her conversation she dispatched another messenger Pegasus to Canterlot with further instructions. She had played her trump card already by demonstrating her control of the sun to the human commanders, but the Elements could be the ace in the hole. The humans knew nothing about them. If she were somehow incapacitated, the six young mares charged with Equestria's defence might just be able to use the Elements in a similar fashion.

Might.

The hours of darkness in Manehattan were passed mostly in a state of fraught tension. Every small creak of damaged steelwork, every rodent skittering across broken glass, could be an enemy, and it kept the guardsmen on alert. An attack could come from anywhere at any time. Gunfire crackled in the distance, proving the point.

But the Parvian Lancers had a quiet night. Before the sun set, their armoured reinforcements had pushed back into the city square and pummeled the two surviving theatre buildings, destroying the enemy resistance within. A few scattered survivors had tried to flee, but the tank gunners were unmerciful.

The survivors of Gamma Company had helped to occupy the square as night fell, securing it and setting up defences. The command squad and Lieutenant Albrecht had rejoined them, having sought shelter in a nearby building during the enemy bayonet charge. The expected night attack never materialised, and in the early hours, just before dawn, they received orders to move, back onto the offensive. The noose was tightening around the Archenemy forces, pushing them deeper into the city with their backs to the sea. They had no way out, no recourse but to continue the battle, and if anything was to redouble a man's will to fight, it was the knowledge that the alternative was certain death. The next day and night had been spent pushing on, street by street, yard by yard. It was tough, gruelling work, but it was necessary. The following dawn saw the fighting shift yet again.

Sergeant Argan and his squad were no longer at the tip of the spear. There were several platoons ahead of them, along with Leman Russ tanks and the replacement Demolisher. The fighting was moving into the warehouse and manufactory district surrounding the dockyards- no more high-rise buildings, but sprawls of two or three-storey brick industrial structures and vast storage sheds. In peacetime, the alleys and concrete aprons would echo with the click-clack of hooves and wagon wheels, the continuous hammering of the blacksmiths, the grinding and whirring of the factory floor. Now it was silent, save for the rumble of the tanks rolling ahead of them. It reminded Argan of the similar industrial districts of home, except that they were clustered not around the quayside, but around the spaceport, both for suborbital trips between major cities on bulk haulers and aerostats, and into orbit aboard the lighters and shuttles that fed the gargantuan interstellar transports that would cluster in low orbit waiting for their holds to be filled.

They were still a mile or more from the edge of the city, where it met the water, but the enemy must be closeby. There was not a huge area of city left that they could hide in- the Imperials controlled all of the outer districts. The great curve of the natural harbour stretched out to the north and south, still in enemy hands, but beyond isolated pockets of resistance here and there, the rest of Manehattan had been taken. There could be no celebration, however, until every last one of the enemy had been hunted down and slaughtered like the dogs they were, trapped inside their cage of their own making.

The tanks leading the way, escorted by most of Alpha Company, moved cautiously, barrels scanning from side to side. There were innumerable doorways, loading hatches, alleyways and cellars from which a missile or melta-bomb could spring without warning. Even more than the rest of the city, the industrial quarter was an absolute warren of confusing twists and turns, seemingly built without any clear street plan in mind. Here, a storehouse giving off a distinct aroma of fish rose three storeys almost directly from the kerb. There, a small wagon repair firm operated out of a squat building set a considerable distance back from the road, with a front yard considerably larger than the business itself, with half a dozen wagons of varying size parked up in it.

Squads of men moved carefully through the warehouses and store rooms, making sure the enemy were not lying in wait until the column had passed, sweeping each sector as thoroughly as they could. Reports over the vox indicated heavy fighting in the northern sectors and ordered all units to remain on high alert.

It was sound advice. The lead tank was just approaching a small bridge that crossed another street passing below. An infantry squad ranged ahead, checking the bridge for demolition charges. The tank halted momentarily to await the all-clear, and it was long enough.

Missiles flew from several side alleys, deliberately chosen in the hope that the unmined bridge would nevertheless provoke just such caution in just such a spot. The lead tank was struck on both sponsons almost simultaneously. A dozen wooden hatchways on several warehouses were flung open, and amid the panicked shouts of contact, las-fire began to rain down upon the column.

Men ducked into cover, behind the tanks, behind the wagons, the coal bunkers and stacks of lumber. The tanks bringing up the rear began to engage the enemy, heavy bolters ripping open the wooden sides of the two buildings. Lasguns flashed from below, and within moments the two buildings were starting to burn, dozens of spot fires being started by laser and shell alike. The lead tank added to the cacophony by exploding with an ear-splitting crack, its turret spinning off and landing on the cobbles with a mighty clang, spraying burning debris across the street.

Farther back down the line, Argan and first squad were not the direct subject of the enemy's fury. The Sergeant, Merkev, and two other men dropped into cover behind a pile of metal rails, ready for shipment to some railroad project somewhere. Argan was mindful of the rear, glancing back to make sure the enemy were not trying to move around behind them, though other platoons and indeed the entirety of Epsilon Company were performing rearguard duties. A few stray shots struck the metal rails, the heat quickly disfiguring the pristine finish, rivulets of molten iron dripping down. The two other tanks at the front of the column, including the Demolisher, were quickly reversing, while more missiles streaked in, missing their target and exploding in a shower of shrapnel against the concrete surface of the road.

What didn't miss were the melta-bombs tossed from the upper floors. Even as the outer walls were being shredded around them, alert Chaos infantry were able to fling their devices onto the turret roof or rear engine deck of the tanks. Penned in by the heavy gunfire, their escorting infantry could only bring down a few of the would-be bombers, leaving the others with a free hand. Both tanks erupted into flame, the fusion charges melting through their armour. They both exploded, killing most of what remained of Alpha Company in a lethal hail of shrapnel.

But the Chaos ambush, either through negligence or design, had a side effect. Debris from the burning tanks, heavy las-fire and high-explosive rounds had ignited both buildings, and the wooden frames, coated in many places with grease, animal fat or tar, began to burn fiercely. Choking smoke filled the street, wafting down and flowing over the guardsmen like a fog, a gentle onshore breeze fanning the flames. The wind fanned the flames still further, and some of the Chaos survivors, having escaped the onslaught of shells from the rear escort tanks, found themselves in the midst of an inferno. Brands and embers from the two buildings carried on the wind, landing and settling in a hundred other spots, and the harbour district was awash with things that would burn easily. It was the reason for the city's possession of so many powerful fireboats and high-pressure hose companies, Manehattan having a long history of stubborn pier fires, tricky blazes in the holds of the steamships that serviced them, and major conflagrations that burned up a city block or so before being contained.

Rope, stacks of wood, crates of cloth and hemp and dyes, dried and cured meats, barrels of strong alcohol and beer, paint, creosote and bleach, oil, coal. All the components an industrial society needed to function, and almost of of them highly flammable. Spot fires popped up all across the surrounding streets. Even as the ambushers tried to flee from the flames, the combined effects of the fire and the barrage of tank shells and bolt-rounds proved too much for the warehouses. Within a few seconds of each other, both structures collapsed with loud groans, falling in on themselves and crushing the few enemy infantry still alive. Timbers cracked and snapped as the rooftops caved in. sending great plumes of sparks into the sky and drifting across the street. Where each one landed, a tiny fire started. Most fire-prevention methods had been ruined by the occupying forces, with doors being left open, drawing in fuel for the fire, junk scattered over floors as the men had searched eagerly for alcohol or valuable trinkets, and sprinkler systems damaged by vandalism or drunken target practice with autoguns.

Argan and the rest of his platoon moved back, as the flames were starting to lick at the building next to them. They could make no further progress. A general order went up from company command to pull back out of the danger zone. The fires were clearly spreading rapidly, hungry to burn anything it could touch and fuelled by such a heavy fire load in the industrial district. Visibility was down to a few dozen feet with sparks showering down across them, and even if they could see, it would be suicide to advance headlong into a fire front, and so they retreated back into the business and theatre districts, which were built with non-flammable metal, glass and concrete rather than wood and brick. As the men watched the fire continued to grow, spreading to half a dozen nearby buildings, all of wood or partial wood construction, all extra fuel for the flames that threatened to grow into a conflagration. Smoke was already towering like a thunderhead above the city. There were several miles of similar conditions all along the dockyard district. If the fire was not stopped, then it could spread into a firestorm, and turn the eastern end of the city into a hellscape.

A warning was sent to all friendly units pushing in from all three flanks. The fire was jumping from building to building, street to street, with an alarming rapidity, moving north and threatening the Imperial forces attacking from that direction also. If the city were at peace, the entire fire brigade would be hard-pressed to contain the spread, using every engine, every pump and every fireboat available to them. As it was, there was nothing and no one left now to fight it. The dockyard belonged to the flames.

'My Lord, the Ferrus Terra is hailing us.' The call from the vox-officer made Lord-Admiral Marcos look up from his daily reports.

'Put them through to my ready room, and summon the Lord-General to join me,' he ordered, leaving the bridge and entering the chamber off to the side. He paced up and down a little before Galen arrived, pulled away from the holotable as the battle below had stalled. He opened the vox-channel.

'Lord-Admiral, Arch-Magos Darius here,' came the familiar metallic voice. 'We have completed our autopsy and analysis of the corpses recovered from the assassination site.'

'And your conclusions, Magos?' Marcos asked. 'Please speak freely, only myself and the Lord-General are present.'

'Our conclusions are detailed. A full report will be transmitted to you via secure encrypted frequency shortly. In summary, the basic biology of the Changeling species appears to be broadly similar to that of the Pony species. They are both quadrupedal ungulates, with similarly sized brains and almost identical internal organs. All three specimens possess both cranial horns and dorsal wings, though unlike the Pony specimens, their wings appear insectoid in nature, being composed of integument and internal veins rather than the birdlike feathers and hollow bones the Ponies possess. Despite some insectoid qualities, the Changelings appear to be a variant of the genus Equus, just as the Ponies are.'

'So they're related species?' Galen asked.

'They are from the same genus, but the two species are not necessarily directly related. One did not necessarily evolve from the other,' Darius explained. 'Consider humanity versus the Eldar, for example. Both have very similar external appearances, and many internal similarities, but are unrelated. A crude analogy, to be sure, but apt for this discussion.'

Galen and Marcos shared a frown, as both were sure they had just been on the receiving end of a cheap Mechanicus insult. The Lord-Admiral posited the next question.

'Did you find any evidence of psychic activity? They were reported to be shapeshifters.'

'We found no markers or trace elements that would indicate that they possess psyker capabilities as we understand the term,' the Magos replied, 'but their horns give off high readings of the unknown particles we detected from orbit. Their brains also contain large quantities, both in a similar fashion to the horned Ponies we dissected previously.'

'So...their horns act as a conduit for this energy?' Marcos asked. 'Like how a Librarian of the holy Astartes might use a Force Staff?'

'Similar, Lord-Admiral, yes,' Darius answered. 'Though again, not quite accurate, as force weapons merely enhance physical blows with psychic energy. These horns appear to act as the physical producer of the energy itself, or at least the transfer of it from the neurons of the brain into the outside world. The study to determine exactly which is ongoing. Now that we have another species with which to make a direct comparison, we have created a broad algorithm that can convert the amount of this unknown particle present into a representation of equivalent psychic power. We have determined that these Changelings broadly align with the horned soldiers of the Pony army that we examined. Their average power, based on our preliminary calculations, is roughly similar to that of the average sanctioned psyker used by the Imperial Guard.'

'You have a reading of their princess when she came on board this ship,' Marcos pointed out. 'Can you extrapolate her power in a similar way?'

'Yes, Lord-Admiral. We have done so, though the precise nature of the particles she gave off were subtly different to those produced by these Changelings, or the horned Ponies. As you are no doubt aware, the power needed to control a star in such a way is astronomical. If our calculations are correct, then her psychic power is beyond anything known to any but the few most potent psykers in the Imperium's history.' That was a report that disturbed, but hardly surprised, Marcos.

'All psykers have a presence in the warp, and have to be on constant guard against the threats therein,' Marcos pointed out. 'But...something was reported to me, by Chief Navigator Pericles. Our arrival into this system was eased because of the presence of a...an anomaly.'

'Anomaly?' Darius queried. 'Our sensors detected no such anomaly, beyond the unknown particles.'

'I imagine the two are linked, Magos,' the Lord-Admiral replied. 'Pericles and the other Navigators all reported some kind of beacon, so to speak, something helping to guide us to this place. But what was intriguing was that they all reported it as being not a signal within the warp, like the Astronomican, but rather a signal outside of the warp, pushing in, leaving an imprint without actually being present in the Immaterium at all.'

There were several notable seconds of silence from the Arch-Magos before his reply. 'You believe the Xenos Princess to be responsible for this anomaly?'

'Not necessarily, but given the power we have seen her display, is it beyond reason to suggest that it may be the case?' Marcos argued. 'I see no reason to doubt the word of Navigator Pericles, especially now that we have evidence of this unknown particle, and evidence of at least one extremely powerful psyker being present on this planet.'

'But why would she guide us safely here?' Galen pondered. 'She told us she desires peace, so if she has that power, why not throw us off course harmlessly to keep her world a secret?'

'It is conceivable,' Darius responded, 'that she is not aware of her impact upon the warp. Given that, if the Navigator is correct, she apparently has no presence within it, but rather exerts a pressure from the outside, it may well be possible that she is inadvertently causing this phenomenon, merely from her presence here.'

'But how can she have no presence in the warp if she is in possession of such psychic power?' the Lord-General asked the pointed question.

'That is unknown at the present time,' Darius answered it. 'However, based on the detection of the unknown particle and its association with her presence and the presence of these horned Ponies and Changelings, it would be logical to conclude that this particle is somehow responsible for the powers they display. Thus, I posit that their powers are not truly psychic, but are of some related but distinct form.'

'Like what? Magic?' Galen scoffed.

'In a crude manner of speaking, Lord-General, yes,' Darius replied. 'Like magic.'

Hours, days, weeks. Twilight Sparkle did not know how long she had been imprisoned. The cell was dark, the hive below ground, making it impossible to tell if it was day or night. For a while she had tried counting the minutes by the regular drip drip drip of water nearby, but the slightest loss of concentration or misjudgement meant starting again, and she soon gave up. The monotony was only interrupted every so often, twice or three times a day perhaps, she guessed, when a hatch in the lower part of the door would open and two small, battered metal bowls would be slid through, one with bread and some kind of gruel or oat stew, and one with water. All the loneliness gave her plenty of time to think about her family and friends, but it also allowed her to ruminate on the plan laid out by Chrysalis.

It was an absurd plan, full of the usual grandiose bombast she would expect from one of Equestria's old foes. But this time was somehow different. If the Queen was correct in her assessment, and in the facts she had spouted about the humans and the ability of the Changelings to impersonate them so successfully, then it was possible that her plan, however unlikely it may have sounded, could come to fruition.

If it did, if it all came together, if things worked in her favour, then the outcome would be terrifying, impossible to conceive. Not just a nation, not just a planet, but an entire galaxy lay before the Changelings, previously completely unreachable but now, with Imperial ships in orbit, a pathway had been opened. If what Chrysalis claimed about absorbing the memories of these humans was actually true, then, if the Changelings could infiltrate even one Imperial starship, there was a very real possibility that they could take control of it, either through impersonating key members of the crew, or by killing the entire crew and replacing them, confident in the knowledge that they would be able to fly and fight the ship, technology otherwise completely alien to them.

Most pony biologists agreed with Chrysalis' claims in that there was a direct correlation between the amount of love available to the Changelings and their numbers. The army that attacked Canterlot was in the tens of thousands, fuelled by the love and goodwill of a nation towards its newest royal couple, a well-loved and generous princess and a brave and dutiful hero of the Royal Guard. Compared to a skeleton force that had struck at Vanhoover several years earlier, when the Equestrian harvest was weak, the threat of Nightmare Moon was being made real, and Twilight had not yet begun her directed campaign to spread the power of friendship across the land, the difference was clear to see. That was with a few million happy ponies. Assuming human emotion worked in the same way, which Chrysalis evidently believed to be the case, untold trillions of this new species would provide unimaginable power for the Queen to absorb. If she could temporarily incapacitate, if not outright defeat, Celestia with just the love of a husband for his bride-to-be and the goodwill of a city, what could stand in her way with the love energy of an entire galaxy on her side?

There was a disquieting taste in Twilight's mouth, and not just from the gruel. She had no idea how true the Queen's claims were, but so far as she knew, nobody else, pony or human, knew of her plans, even if they knew of Changeling involvement in the battle for the planet, and if nobody knew, then how would they stop her?

The door clanked and clanged, opening, flooding light into her sensitive eyes and half-blinding her, shaking her from her reverie. Two Changeling guards, brutish in both appearance and manner, stepped forcefully into the cell. One of them unshackled her manacles from the wall, while the other pulled her roughly to her feet.

'Come,' he grunted, tongue flicking and hissing sinisterly. 'The interrogation chamber is waiting for you...'

Hellstorm

The fire consumed the dockyards and warehouses of Manehattan's eastern district, raging through the day, blocking out the setting sun. A vast conflagration, incinerating hundreds of buildings, miles of rope and millions of barrels and crates. It burned wood and man alike, sparing nothing and no-one caught in its grip. Imperial observation aircraft circled around, sending a constant string of reports to Fleet Command and Commissar Birbeck at siege HQ. The fire spread was monitored, vid-picts were taken for propaganda purposes of enemy soldiers, human torches ablaze from head to toe, flinging themselves helplessly into the dull grey waters of the harbour.

Imperial combat operations were suspended entirely as their target districts were burning, impenetrable masses of flame. Frequent explosions ripped through the smoke layer as oil drums, fireworks, gas cylinders and even industrial explosives were cooked off by the heat. Buildings collapsed by the dozen, rumbling booms audible across much of the city. There was nothing for the Imperials to do save sit and wait, guns at the ready in case the enemy should spring from cellars or sewers.

The smoke plume from the firestorm was easily visible from space. A large image of the city from above was displayed on the main viewscreen of the Emperor's Judgement, as well as the Admiral's ready room. The two Lords in command watched with some pleasure, as it was certain that many thousands of the enemy were burning before their eyes, saving their men the job of going in and fighting them in close quarters. It would not, however, please the pony princess very much to see a quarter of the city razed to the ground.

'I suppose you'll have companies move in tomorrow, Hektor? Sweep the ruins, just to be sure,' Marcos commented. 'There is a good chance the enemy has taken shelter in underground tunnels or sewers, I imagine.'

'That is certainly a distinct possibility, Arlen,' the Lord-General nodded in agreement. 'We shall of course be cautious. But yes, once the fire is out, we shall clear the district just the same as we planned. This fire was rather advantageous for us. It seems the enemy commander perhaps did not plan his defence quite as well as he imagined.'

Marcos chuckled. 'Indeed not, and praise the Emperor for it. Their overconfidence is often their weakness. If there are any survivors, make sure your boys teach them a harsh lesson, won't you?' Marcos offered his Amasec flask to his companion, who accepted with a swig.

'With pleasure,' Galen nodded. 'Some roaches always survive. We will be sure to crush them. Once it is clear, we will turn the city back over to the ponies, I assume?'

'We certainly have no use for it,' Marcos agreed. 'The princess can have her city back once we have cleansed it of filth. She will appreciate it, I'm sure. She is certainly quite the enigma, isn't she?'

'I don't know what to make of her,' Galen replied. 'My dealings with Xenos have been mostly limited to finding the best way to kill them, but she is certainly...unique, and there is no denying her evident power. She may claim to wish us no harm, but she's dangerous, Arlen. Very dangerous. Your fleet is heavily weakened. It may be heretical to suggest, but I would say it was wise not to anger her. That little stunt of hers proved that much, at least.'

Marcos nodded. Celestia's display of raw power, her inexplicable yet clearly evident ability to control the output of the system's star, was deeply unnerving, despite her repeated claims of neutrality and peacefulness. Then again, perhaps it was evidence of her truth- such power could not be denied by anything on the planet save, from what she said, potentially by her sister, the Queen of the Changelings, or perhaps this secret weapon she mentioned in the most vague terms. She could long ago have taken the world by force, and yet she was still ruler only of one faction. Perhaps not deliberately imposing her will on those who did not wish to follow her revealed that she was, indeed, peaceful and pure by nature.

Not that that meant much. Corruption was rife among the stars, and many times in human history, men and women once deemed pure at heart and pious in nature had fallen to the Ruinous Powers, ending with the completion of their descent into madness either through suicide or being gunned down by those still loyal to the Emperor, the one true purity known in the galaxy. Such descents could be rapid, and even the most zealous Astartes Librarian or holy Inquisitor had to guard against such taint at all hours, with nary a moment's respite from the great mental struggle.Even if this princess had no presence in the warp like every other psyker, that did not necessarily make her immune to the forces of Chaos.

'My Lord! Urgent message from Navigator Pericles!' one of the bridge officers called.

'Put him through,' Marcos replied, and the vox transmitted a sudden screeching, howling cry into the ready room.

'They come! They come!' Pericles groaned.

'Calm yourself, man! Who are coming?' Marcos queried. 'What have you seen?'

'Not seen, felt! I can feel them!' the Navigator replied in anguish. 'Touching my mind! And behind them...He waits! Drive them back! You must! You must!'

Through the smoke, they came, out of hell and into the land of the living. The Imperials were ready for the enemy, but not for what was revealed before them.

Slavering hordes of horror charged down the streets and alleyways. Myriad individual forms merged into one writhing mass of pink, bright, vivid colour giving an otherworldly appearance to the scene.The streets were filled with a seething tumult of tentacles and teeth, gaping maws giving ragged, uneven grins of savage intent. The misshapen creatures moved almost in unison, a multicoloured tide of chaos.

Frantic reports went out over the vox of another Daemonic incursion, but unlike the last one, this time the hellbeasts had been unleashed across the city. Contact was made in the south, west and north. Fire lashed out and the lines held this time, backed up by tanks and heavy weaponry, not mere lasguns meeting the fell creatures. Dozens were blown apart, limbs removed, holes sliced through their otherworldly flesh. But they kept coming, and as they fell, they changed, splitting asunder, their very fabric and nature changing. Where once stood one pink entity, there were now two smaller blue creatures, and the most disturbing aspect of this transformation was that as they died, they laughed.

Not a simple chuckle, or a laugh of incredulity, but a playful, happy laugh, like children frolicking in the fields. It was not the only sound. As they charged, the Daemons gave off cries of joy, hummed unknown and maleficent tunes. It was as much a marching band as an army, yet they were brutally effective.

Flashes of warp lightning spawned from their fingertips and tendrils, balls of energy being flung at their human targets. Those unlucky enough to be struck found flesh burning away, but also strange new growths sprouting from their bodies- tendrils, extra limbs, even another mouth, in a similar unpredictable fashion to their enemy. The energy of the Empyrean was ever-changing and most fickle, and some of the projectiles instead made men flash out of existence entirely.

Heavy fire blazed back at the Daemons, cutting down hundreds, but as each pink one fell it became two of its blue brethren, and as each of the blue ones was struck, it turned into two still smaller yellow creatures, like a series of grotesque nesting dolls. The yellow creatures sprayed fire, flames straight from the warp burning through to the bone, a fire no water could extinguish. Men screamed and thrashed in a futile effort to put themselves out.

Tank shells blew great holes in the advancing line. Each shot killed ten, but created twenty. Only the yellow Daemons had the actual courtesy to finally die. The great multicoloured tide washed toward the Imperials in a dozen places around the city. Their sheer numbers overcame the firepower of the guardsmen, and they were upon them, hacking, slashing, burning.

Men stumbled and died, blood pouring in great fountains from slashed necks and severed limbs. Bayonets sank into the poisoned, monstrous flesh, to little effect. Any man foolish enough to accept mortal combat with the works of evil soon regretted it. Gunfire was the answer, las-bolts driving the enemy back, but only briefly, and where the tide receded in one spot, it rushed forward in another, sweeping over rooftops or through alleys.

Horrified observers in orbiting Valkyries passed along reports to Fleet Command. They could see the rush, the press of bodies in the streets, the lines being overrun. Reinforcements were ordered in to back up the men and women on the frontline. If the ring of steel were broken, then control of the whole city might be lost to these beasts. Where the surrounding buildings permitted, the Valkyries swooped down, unleashing swarms of rockets and pummeling the enemy with gunfire. A few blasts of warp energy drifted up lazily after them, to no avail. Man and machine fought like devils to stop the Daemons.

Sergeant Argan crouched low beside the rest of his squad, in cover behind a row of ornamental planters. The Daemons were everywhere, climbing and crawling and gyrating in their bizarre and sickening ecstasies, happy to just be cavorting in realspace and killing in the name of Tzeentch. Weapons alone were not enough to combat such fiends- the armour of faith was needed also. The Sergeant knew that, though it had seemed at Griffonstone that the Emperor had forsaken him, it was His decision as to when Barnard Argan would die. That simple faith alone was enough, as crude as he was, to bolster his resolve enough to stand his ground, whether confronted by abhorrent Daemon, cunning Eldar, implacable Necron, ravenous Tyranid or battle-hungry Ork. There were certainly plenty of targets. Every shot he fired struck something obscene. Their laughter, playful laughter, was the most unnerving thing.

One power pack emptied, Argan slammed home a fresh one and continued firing. Tanks blazed away around him, while a tripod-mounted heavy bolter hosed down the approaching stormfront of hideous flesh. Screams from the left flank contrasted with the childlike giggles of the Daemons. A quick glance showed Argan that the enemy had reached the line over there, and men were being gutted and beheaded. If the left flank fell, the centre would have to retreat. If the centre retreated, the right flank would have to run also, and then there would be no line anymore.

Circumstances were beyond his control, however. Even as the men on the left were being overrun, a Hellhound flame tank nosed forward from the reserve position. With some men still alive and fighting, but the flank in danger of collapse, the Hellhound's crew received its orders.

A loud hiss was followed by a thundering roar as man and Daemon alike were bathed in flame. Screams were drowned out, air sucked from desperate lungs and replaced instead by superheated gas. The survivors fell, but they fell in the name of the Emperor, and they fell so that the reserve company could rush into position and hold the line. Flame, especially that sanctioned and blessed by the Ecclesiarchy, as had been done with the Hellhound's promethium tanks, was an effective tool against Daemonry, and for once their sickening laughter turned to screeches of pain.

A necessary sacrifice.

Argan hoped the same extreme action would not be needed in the centre of the line. His platoon and the rest of Gamma Company held the middle of the large plaza, similar to the one where they had fought hand-to-hand after the theatre collapse. This one had a large statue in the centre, which appear to represent the pony princess, though one of her wings and most of her head were missing, either shot off during the seizure of the square the previous day or perhaps removed in an act of vandalism by the Chaos occupying forces. Office buildings, some nearly a hundred stories high, surrounded them. Snipers and heavy weapons teams positioned on upper floors were busy firing down at the oncoming hordes, though the tight confines prevented air support from reaching them easily.

Massed las-fire was surprisingly effective against the writhing mass, but they were self-replicating, splitting off into multiple smaller creatures when cut down, and redoubling the threat. Enough firepower and enough time would wipe out the Daemonic host, but the range was too close, the streets too narrow. They rushed across the plaza, left flank, right flank, centre. Tanks loaded canister and decimated entire ranks of Daemonry, heavy bolters ripping many more apart, but they were getting closer, closer, closer still.

'Fix bayonets!' Argan shouted a quick order. His men obliged, slipping their sharp blades into the lugs beneath the barrels of their lasguns. If it came to close combat, they were at a distinct disadvantage, but there was no alternative, as the devils continued to advance unhindered by heavy gunfire. Argan stood, ready to engage. If it be his last fight, so be it. The Emperor wills, so shall it be done.

Better to die on your feet than lie on your knees.

Princess Celestia watched the carnage unfolding in the city through a telescope provided to her by one of the Starswirl's deck crew. This sudden tide of creatures, similar but notably different from the ones that had attacked during the initial assault on Manehattan, had come from nowhere and were threatening to push the Imperials back in several spots. Most certainly not part of the plan.

The human spotter team nearby had their communications device, and she could hear the panicked messages being transmitted over it. There was fear in those voices, fear of whatever it was that threatened them down below. Though the Starswirl hovered several miles from the city, the crackle of gunfire was still definitely audible. A heavy engagement was taking place, and it was one that terrified some of the Imperial troops who had fought with consummate bravery against their similarly human opposition over the past few days. All she could see through the telescope was a pink mass charging through the streets.

The Starswirl and the other two pony airships had remained at their stations above the Imperial siege lines through the previous day as the fire had spread and grown, ravaging the dockyard districts. Celestia had expressed her displeasure through the human communication device, to both Senior Commissar Birbeck and Lord-General Galen in orbit. Birbeck had remained non-committal, but Galen had offered an apology, though he had explained that the fire appeared to have been caused by an accidental ignition as a result of combat action. It was impossible to determine which side had been responsible for the blaze, he contended.

Celestia knew that materiel losses were a guarantee in warfare, but she was committed to minimising the impact of the millennia-old feud between these two human factions on her world and her ponies. The loss of the dockyards may have been an accident, may even have been necessary, but such thoughts did not mollify her too much. These unknown creatures, at least, seemed to not be inflicting too much materiel damage on the city, rather just swarming through the streets and attacking the humans directly.

'Lieutenant Atter!' Celestia called out. The human officer walked over obligingly.

'Yes, Your Highness?'

'Your men appear to be under heavy attack,' she advised him. 'I stand ready to offer assistance, if your commanders deem it necessary. Perhaps you may wish to convey my message to them?'

'Oh, uh, yes, Your Highness.' Atter turned to Mons and had a brief conversation over the vox before returning to Celestia.

'Your Highness, Commissar Birbeck advises me that he has no need for your assistance at this time,' he informed her.

'Is he certain?' Celestia raised an eyebrow, taking another brief look through the telescope. 'It appears as though these enemies are overrunning your lines in several places.'

'The Commissar was...unequivocal, Your HIghness,' Atter replied, with a sideways glance at his deputy. 'He says our forces are more than capable of dealing with the present threat.'

'You seem unsure of your Commissar's words,' Celestia suggested. 'What does Lord-General Galen have to say about things? Have you spoken to him?' Atter shook his head.

'No, Your Highness, only to the Commissar. He is relaying messages to Fleet Command himself.'

'Then put a message directly through to the Lord-General,' she ordered. 'Inform him of my offer of assistance, if you please. I would hate for the mission to fail because of some...crossed signals.'

Or more likely deliberate stubbornness, she thought to herself. Birbeck clearly did not have the same respect for her that the Lord-General appeared to, either because he had some personal dislike for her or, more likely, given what she knew about the humans, because he either feared or loathed other species as a general rule. If such distrust extended far enough that he would willingly refuse assistance while his men were being slaughtered, then she felt sorry for those under his command. Men were dying in the streets of her city, and she could render aid to them, but she felt no desire to put herself into harm's way of these unknown creatures unless it would be appreciated in return by the human commanders. Her previous actions had mostly been in the defence of ponies- this would be entirely in the defence of humans, a gesture which, she hoped, would act as a show of unity between the two sides, at least against the current enemy, though she had no expectations of continuing friendship once they were defeated. The very nature of the human society seemed to knock that idea on its head right from the start, as evidenced by the attitude of Commissar Birbeck, no doubt also shared by many of the men fighting and dying in Manehattan. While she had no doubt many of them would never be persuaded, she hoped to change some minds and reinforce some views, particularly among those whose opinions actually mattered among the humans.

Atter and Mons fiddled with their vox-set for a few moments before the Lieutenant held out the handset for Celestia, who took it with her magic. 'Lord-General Galen for you, Your Highness,' Atter informed her.

'Lord-General,' she spoke into the set. 'Your forces in Manehattan are coming under heavy attack from some creatures unknown to me. Commissar Birbeck has refused my offer of assistance, but it still stands. If you believe I can be of help, I am ready to fight.'

'Our men are indeed hard pressed. Any assistance would be welcome, Your Highness,' Galen replied over the crackly link. 'But be advised. Those creatures are Daemons, similar to the ones that attacked before, but potentially more dangerous. They are creatures of pure Chaos...'

'Fear not, General,' Celestia replied. 'I have fought Chaos before.'

The Daemonic charge did not halt, or even slow, despite the heavy firepower pouring from the Imperial lines. The hordes of hell were upon them, cutting and slashing and stabbing. Argan and his squad backed up, managing to regroup with the platoon command squad. A nearby Demolisher tank hurled a heavy shell that shattered several dozen of the little cackling Daemons, destroying some and splitting others, multiplying. Their bayonets were ready, but each Daemon was larger, strong and faster than a man. Close combat was all but certain death.

'Focus your fire on those yellow ones!' Argan shouted, having noticed that only the creatures of that colour actually went down for good once killed, rather than bouncing back up into several lesser creatures. He snapped off a few shots, cutting down one of the disgusting creatures which quickly shriveled up and dissolved in a flash of warp fire. A larger pink creature hurled a spluttering ball of energy toward his squad. He shouted a warning and ducked down, enough to save himself, but too late for one man.

Corporal Garras, second in command of the squad, was struck in the chest by the mystical energy, and immediately screamed, catching fire. But it was not a fire such as that which had destroyed the dockyards, nor of a kind produced by the smaller yellow Daemons. It was a bizzarre fire that, as only something straight from the utter madness of the Empyrean could, raged with cold. The breath of the rest of the squad condensed as the air chilled around them, Garras quickly turning brittle. Within a second he was a block of ice and then, as surely as spring follows winter, he began to melt, rapidly, rivulets of water rushing down as he disappeared before their eyes, pooling around their feet. A happy giggle could be heard from the creature that had killed Garras as it pranced toward them, its tentacle-tendrils raised to fire again.

Argan raised his rifle and pulled the trigger, again and again, until the thing had burst asunder and metamorphosed itself into two of its smaller blue bretheren. He took aim quickly and fired at one of them, while Merkev and other members of the squad, aghast at the death of their Corporal, snapped out of their horror long enough to engage the other. Both Daemons fell, and became four, scant feet from their position. Accurate las-fire killed all of the things before they could get any closer.

But one became two, two became four, and only then would four become none. An overwhelming mass of evil was still pressing on the Imperial positions. One tank erupted in flame as a large number of the creatures swarmed all over it, levering its hatches open and pouring unholy energies inside. The explosion pulverised the aggresors atop and around the tank, as shrapnel rained down across the square.

Argan looked around. The line was folding, bending, about to snap entirely. Men were dying, and even the reinforcements arriving from the rear would not be enough. There were simply too many of the foul creatures for them to fight before they were overwhelmed. It was like fighting Tyranid, if the Tyranids were not soulless harvesters but rather disgustingly childlike abominations from another reality, imbued with the evils and sickening magics of the warp.

'We have to fall back!' Argan shouted to Lieutenant Albrecht, the platoon commander. 'There's too many of them!'

The Lieutenant was about to agree, but another explosion marked the death knell of a second tank on the right, and that was the effective end of resistance there. The Daemons swarmed through, rushing around to the rear of the square to cut off the advance of further Imperial reinforcements. The surviving companies around the square were being cut off and isolated, with their path of retreat cut off and thousands of Daemons gleefully skipping, gamboling and lumbering toward them. They had nowhere to run to, no way out of the trap, with the forces of evil on every side, massing in their thousands, not baying for blood but rather laughing, as if they were enjoying a picnic with friends, rather than engaged in a deadly struggle.

A desperate cry for reinforcements was sent over every available channel, platoon and company commanders alike screaming for aid. Air support could not reach them among the tall buildings, too tight for Valkyries to operate. Ground reinforcements were cut off by the tide of Daemons. Orbital bombardment would do nothing but grant them a relatively painless, swift death. They were on their own.

Argan knew that this was the day the Emperor had chosen for his death. So be it. His will be done. He turned with his bayonet raised to meet the cackling hordes, his last battle. He would be with Marla again soon. The Daemons pushed in, multiplying before his eyes as they were cut down.

With a bright, blazing flash, something appeared in the sky above them.

'

Beneath The Surface

'Contact!' Spitfire roared, bringing up her gun. She couldn't give a direction of contact as everypony was facing a different direction, searching the vast chamber, nor could she use a compass point as they were deep underground with no frame of reference, and her compass would have been thrown off by the metallic deposits in the deep rocks around her. The best way of alerting them to the location of the target was to open fire, and that was what she did, joined a moment later by Arcwing. The eyes flashed and disappeared, before suddenly bursting from another hole on one of the upper floors. Not a Changeling, but something even more dangerous.

'Dragon!' Arcwing shouted. A dark red presence swept across the chamber, in the air above them. Bullets pattered off of its rock-hard scales, yellow eyes glowing, its expression changing from wariness to outright aggression. Dragons often made their home inside caves and natural caverns, but it was unusual for them to secrete themselves inside abandoned Hives, or to go so deep into an underground complex- it was possible the confusing layout of the Hive had seen it get lost, unable to find the exit.

The squad scattered, some taking to the wing and some staying on the ground as the dragon swept overhead, not happy about the intrusion into its home. With a roar, a blaze of fire erupted from its mouth, scouring the rock floor of the chamber and narrowly missing several ponies. More Machine-Rifles opened up, doing little but annoy the great beast. While it was not among the largest of its kind, having to be small enough to gain entry to the relatively narrow Changeling entrance tunnels, it was still not to be trifled with. All but the smallest dragons were a mortal threat to anything less than an infantry company or an escort airship. Some of the largest could tangle on an even keel with an entire brigade, or even a Royalty-Class. There was a reason every town in Equestria had warning sirens, and it was not because of the threat of a Griffon airship bombardment.

The confined space at least somewhat hindered the dragon's flight and negated some of its usual advantage of being able to gain altitude before swooping down, but the chamber was still large enough for it to swoop around for another pass. Spitfire emptied her magazine at the target, hard to miss something so big, but her twenty-five bullets had no effect.

'Sunflower!' she called out, looking around for the point-mare. She spotted her, wings flapping, diving off to the side to get out of the way of the creature. 'Sunflower! Can you draw its attention?' Spitfire shouted. 'We need to get up close to it!'

'Yes ma'am!' Sunflower waited for the dragon to turn. She fired at its head, hoping to strike its eyes and either wound it or, at the very least, distract its attentions from the rest of the squad. Spitfire took to the air, shouldering her weapon, leaving it dangling against her flank while she reached into her saddlebag. If the dragon could not be outfought by a mere eight ponies, then it had to be outthought, either through the use of magic or technology. Since as Pegasi the former was not available to them, they would have to rely on the latter.

Spitfire grasped the sticky bomb in her right forehoof. Consisting of a simple shaped-charge explosive encased in a frangible rectangular casing, coated in an adhesive and surrounded by an outer metal shell, all attached to a stick-handle, the sticky bomb had been developed by Equestria's military scientists for applications such as breaching a building wall to commence an assault, blowing a hole in the hull of an enemy airship to start a boarding operation, as an effective way to spike an enemy artillery piece and put it out of action. or for battling monstrous creatures such as Manticores or, more relevantly, dragons, which possessed thick skins or armoured scales.

Spitfire moved to the side of the chamber. 'White Storm!' she called, alerting the squad's demolitions expert. 'With me!' The stallion in question flapped over to her as the dragon approached.

'What's the plan, ma'am?' he questioned, sparing a brief glance as the dragon passed overhead, fire belching out, acrid, toxic smoke starting to fill the chamber.

'Sticky bombs!' she ordered. 'We'll get up close to this thing, give him a real bad hangover. Go for the eyes if you can, if not, the ears or the back of the skull.'

'With pleasure!' White Storm grinned, drawing a similar device from his saddlebag. 'Won't know what hit him!' He fell into line beside Spitfire as the dragon made another pass. Sunflower and the others peppered it with rapid-fire rounds, enraging it further, but distracting it from the threat. Spitfire's powerful wings brought her rapidly alongside the big creature, with White Storm in place on the other side of the dragon. Spitfire used her teeth to pull the pin from the bomb, which released the outer cover, exposing the adhesive layer. With the pin removed, any firm strike of the bomb's head against a surface would arm the ten-second fuse. The dragon began to turn, almost invisible in the darkness to those below, but Spitfire had a good visual on it. She closed in, right behind its head. Her hoof went out, and she smacked the bomb firmly against the back of the dragon's skull.

To the great creature, the contact was merely a tiny tap, unworthy of attention. To Spitfire's dismay, her bomb simply slid off, the smooth scales of the dragon not providing enough grip. 'Fire in the hole!' she shouted, warning those below of the danger. White Storm swung in to try his luck as her bomb exploded below, sending a jet of flame and blast shooting off at an unexpected angle, illuminating the chamber. A second bomb was stuck to the dragon, this time finding enough of a purchase between the scales of the creature's great bony crest that ran along the top of its head. White Storm pulled away out of danger, and a few seconds later the bomb detonated.

The dragon gave a mighty roar, as much of annoyance as of pain. It turned, not its body but merely its head, and let loose with a great stream of flame. White Storm's dive became almost vertical as he strove to escape not only the blast of his bomb, but now the response to his insolent activities. He escaped being grilled alive, but the chamber was not as tall as it needed to be, and despite pulling out sharply, the stallion slammed into the floor with a grunt, rolling several times and laying still.

Each squadmember had taken along two sticky bombs, though mostly in case of running into the metal armoured vehicles of the human enemy. Spitfire produced her second bomb while climbing toward the ceiling of the chamber, and gave a shout to those below. 'Keep him busy! Cover me!'

A hail of accurate bullets was her response, drawing the ire of the dragon. He turned again, bathing the ground in fire, dangerously close to White Storm's inert form. Spitfire leaped into action, wings beating a furious litany as she dove down upon the dragon. Her dive gave her enough speed to slightly overtake it, bringing her target into view. She pulled the pin with her teeth, discarding the outer cover of the bomb behind her. Her hoof reached out again. The dragon noticed her, looked at her, turned to breathe fire at her, just as the bomb connected with its left eye.

Spitfire rolled and dove hard for the floor as a column of flame nearly singed her tail. Just hold...for ten seconds, just hold...

The dragon roared, blinking vigorously. Something seemed to be stuck to its eyeball. It kept its head up, thrashing it from side to side in an attempt to dislodge the offending article, but inadvertently helping to keep it in place. It remained there for ten seconds, before a brilliant flash filled the dragon's vision, and it became instantly blind in its left eye.

Spitfire pulled out of her dive and looked up just as the boom of the exploding bomb echoed around the chamber. Dirt rained down from the roof, and the dragon swayed, just at the top of a turn. The agile beast suddenly became a lumbering mass, strong wings feebly twitching. It laboured in the air for a few moments before dropping, unable to check its descent. It smashed into the floor, raising a cloud of dust. Its left eye was now a bloody orifice, the directed explosion having cut straight through into its brain, not killing it, but rendering it utterly defenceless, barely able to breathe and keep its heart beating. Spitfire shouted an order, and Arcwing jumped over, pulled the pin from another bomb, slapped it over the new hole, and flapped away. The explosion drove shrapnel, fragments of bone, and a fast-moving shockwave directly into the dragon's brain, pulverizing it and extinguishing the final shreds of life it had been clinging to.

Spitfire hurried to White Storm's side, and was relieved to see him moving. The rest of the squad gathered round as he sat up, gingerly rubbing his head.

'Did I get him?' he asked plaintively, drawing a few chuckles from his squadmates.

'We got him,' Spitfire assured him. 'We got him.'

White Storm was monitored for concussion by the squad's medic, Patience Heart, while the rest of the ponies scoured the chamber for anything of use. It did not seem promising, until a shout went up from Arcwing.

'Ma'am! Something over here...might be important.' Spitfire trotted over to investigate. Arcwing was standing beside a lump of rock. Nothing unusual...except that this rock did not match. It was not the same granite or gneiss that made up the structure of the Hive around them, though its exact nature could not be determined from mere visual observation.

'This is it,' Spitfire nodded. 'Grab it, bag it, and let's get the buck out of here.'

The rock sample was flown back to Canterlot as fast as their wings could carry them. Analysis of the precise structure was necessary, but, it was hoped, could help determine the rough geographical area where it came from. The theory was that the Changelings had procured a sample of rock for testing, to determine if the selected location could support the construction of another Hive. Why it had been left behind at the old location was unknown- a mistake? A rushed evacuation? A deliberate trick to mislead those that might follow and seek them?

The few military scientists were able to examine the rock sample, using magic and simple tools as the microscopes of the capital's laboratories had been destroyed, smashed along with most of the other scientific equipment by the loutish Chaos occupiers. The composition suggested it came from the southern regions, most likely on the wide coastal plains that lay southeast of the Foal Mountains, though the lack of sedimentation present suggested it was not from near the ocean itself. Given that the southeast coast had been struck heavily by debris from the falling human spaceship during the opening day of the invasion, however, it might be uninhabitable- or it might provide the perfect cover for a Hive relocation. The area was sparsely inhabited at the best of times, with just some coastal fishing villages and the odd larger town further inland. But there were thousands of square miles of grass and scrubland, stony outcrops and some marshland interspersed and all but the few dozen miles atop a thick layer of bedrock perfect for Hive construction. Assuming the ground itself had not been ravaged too harshly by the meteoric explosions and chemical fires of the ship crash, it could be a reasonable guess as to the location of Chrysalis and her sadistic band. The trouble was that the vast area had been totally unsurveyed since the disaster unfolded.

Nopony knew what kind of damage may have been wrought to the plains. No reports had emerged from any of the scattered communities there.The Imperials had doubtless taken readings of the area from orbit with their equipment, but, as Celestia had pointed out, the Changelings were cold-blooded creatures and built underground, limiting the chance of any detection even with such advanced technologies. There was also the matter of the potential presence of the human enemy; nopony had any concrete reports on whether they may have troops in the region. Imperial aircraft had not been sent to investigate due to the lack of any military significance in the coastal plains themselves; there were no strategically defensible positions, no major fortresses, no industrial cities or ports or centres of government.

Princess Luna transmitted the news of the discovery and the results of the investigation to her sister via fast messenger Pegasus, not wanting the humans to get a clue to the possible location of the Hive, as its successful discovery might prompt them to simply destroy it and eliminate the threat from orbit. The destruction of the Element of Magic would cripple the whole system forever, as no new artefacts could be created. Such a loss would be huge blow to the potential future security of Equestria, and the planet as a whole. While Celestia or, potentially, Luna could wield them alone if their bearers were to die, they could do nothing with an incomplete set.

Celestia's reply ordered the immediate dispatch of the EAS Canterlot from the capital on a reconnaissance mission to the plains. It was a large area to cover and Hives were hard to find at the best of times, but, it was hoped, with the potential devastation in the area, an aerial search held a much greater chance of locating any sign of the enemy. With such a small population, and with those few residents probably ravaged by the fire that had fallen from the sky, there was a good chance that any movement the Canterlot spotted could be the Changelings.

The next morning, at the paling of the sky and the winds at a dead calm, the mighty craft slipped her moorings, the drone of her engines audible across much of the silent city. Loaded with extra fuel and ammunition, as well as a detachment of assault infantry, the Canterlot was heavy-laden, but her swiftly turning props lifted her with little trouble as she climbed rapidly, keeping the nose up and the altimeter rising. The ponderous craft needed to gain enough height to go over the mountains, as the human enemy still held the Foal Valley to the south, and so it began a lazy circuit, out across the city, looping around several times until it had attained sufficient altitude. With a blast of its air horn, it departed, passing over the wispy peaks in the soft pre-dawn light, heading for the coast, seeking an enemy who did not want to be found.

Aboard the Emperor's Judgement, Lord-Admiral Marcos gazed out of his ready room window, hands clasped behind his back in his usual fashion. The planet lay below, a jewel in space, seas glittering in the light from the system's star. The star controlled by the princess, he had to remind himself every time. As absurd as it sounded, he had seen the evidence for himself. Apparently she had been vital in repelling the latest Daemonic incursion as well. It seemed she was determined to display her power at any possible opportunity, not entirely surprising as she obviously wanted to preserve the integrity and independence of her planet. What better way to do that than to convince the Imperial forces that she could destroy them if they threatened her people?

Marcos was convinced that she could, but not that she would. She had not exterminated these Changelings they were hunting, nor had she finished off the Griffons. It seemed she had shown mercy even to her greatest foes which, he had learned from field intel reports, included her own sister, who had apparently risen up in rebellion against her some one thousand years ago. The parallels with his own Emperor were clear, though doubtless blasphemous- both psykers of immense power, both betrayed by their kin. both uniting their race under one banner against outside threats. That was where the similarities stopped, because the Emperor was not as forgiving as she was. Horus had to die for the safety of humanity, and the alien, at least in most cases, must be exterminated prudently. The princess, however, subscribed to a different philosophy. Somehow, it seemed to be working for her.

'My Lord, Navigator Pericles is calling,' a message came over the speakers for him.

'Put him through,' Marcos replied, being connected a moment later.

'Lord-Admiral,' the slightly tremulous voice of the Chief Navigator came through the system. 'I hope you can forgive me my earlier...outburst. Such a maleficent presence, I have not felt for quite some time.' The Navigator sounded like he had mostly, though not entirely, recovered from the psychic shock.

'Of course,' Marcos replied. 'Your cry was heard. The Daemons were repelled once again.'

'They were, yes, but...' Pericles hesitated. 'They have not been defeated. I still feel power in the warp, coming closer.'

'What presence, Navigator?' Marcos questioned, furrowing his brow.

'I do not know,' Pericles replied. 'I only know that it is a source of great power. I do not know when or where it will arrive, but I feel it.'

'Your warning is received,' Marcos assured him. 'We will use caution. Perhaps this thing is merely another Daemon attack in the offing?'

'I do not doubt it is, Admiral, but there is more than that. There is a single presence, one mind, greater than the rest. I feel him coming closer,' Pericles added. 'There is no doubt that he seeks our destruction.' Marcos knew that the Navigator was not given to fits of terror or to hyperbole. Something must have definitely spooked him for him to be urging such caution.

'A man? A Daemon?' Marcos questioned. 'Can you tell me anything more?'

'I am afraid not...all I can discern, I have told you. But I feel his presence, not just in the warp, but in my mind,' Pericles replied ominously. 'Soon, you will feel him in your mind, too.'

The lower decks of the Emperor's Judgement were still a hive of activity. Though it had been several weeks since the battle with the Chaos fleet in low orbit, repair work was still ongoing. Lacking the facilities of the vast shipyards at Hydraphur, some damage took much longer to fix, and some could not be repaired at all.

Shattered gun turrets could not be replaced or manufactured on board. Sensor vanes and augurs could only be recreated by the Techpriests of a major forge world. Twisted bulkheads could not be straightened. Some compartments remained open to the vacuum, despite the unceasing efforts of thousands of men. But other repairs had been completed. Power was restored to the entire ship. Plasma conduits had been rerouted around damaged sections. Wreckage had been cleared, lighting rigged, deck plates and bulkhead doors replaced. Damaged weapons were returned to service. The men did what they could, aided when possible by the Mechanists and Techpriests from the Ferrus Terra. There were other ships to fix as well, of course, but as the flagship, the [iEmperor's Judgement received priority treatment and priority supplies. There were plenty of spare parts and raw materials aboard the bulk freighters and tankers of the fleet's logistics arm; as well as carrying ammunition and fuel, they supplied sheet metal, adamantium and ceramite from the stores, which could be welded or set in place where armour had been damaged and hull plates ripped asunder.

Life aboard ship was long, hot, tiring work. Hundreds of thousands of men and women toiled laboriously to keep the fusion drives running, to man the weapons batteries, to load huge shells the size of a main battle tank into the heavy macrocannon, to perform routine maintenance, to monitor internal and external systems, to provide shipboard security, to feed and nurse their fellow crewmembers. Discipline could often be brutal, because it had to be- if one ship's department failed in its task, then the safety of the entire ship and its vast crew could be at risk. Even on board the flagship of a relatively benevolent Lord-Admiral, the man in charge of the fleet was not in charge of lower-deck discipline. Such tasks fell to the Bosuns attached to each work party, to the junior officers assigned to each compartment, and, ultimately, to the Deck Commissars, who patrolled with withering glances and a hand on either the pommel of their chainsword or the grip of their bolt pistol. As with the Imperial Guard, summary execution was a regular occurrence on less loyal ships. The flogging posts were in near constant use as punishment for even the most minor infractions. Many days there were fights, sometimes just a drunken fracas involving an accusation of cheating at a game of regicide, and sometimes a full-on mass brawl requiring the armsmen and disciplining parties to storm in with shields and batons, even guns sometimes should an armoury have been raided. The armsmen were often regarded with constant suspicion and disdain by the ratings, as much a tool of oppression as one of security against external threats. Life was hard, but so were the men, out of necessity if nothing else. They worked hard, they drank hard when off duty. All but the most hardline Commissars would turn a blind eye to coming across an illicit still or brewing operation tucked away in some utility corridor or empty storage compartment- though if a man were to be drunk on duty, that was an entirely different affair, with only one sentence permissible. Gambling, likewise, was usually overlooked, while punishing small-scale crime among the men was usually left up to mob justice. There were simple too many men and not enough officers or armsmen to deal with every trifling incident. The ship was much like a city in that respect; men formed close-knit communities, each deck and department had a friendly, or sometimes not so friendly, competitive spirit with its neighbours. Just like a city, however, the bowels of the vast craft held many dangers. Plasma leaks, high-pressure steam ruptures, damaged anti-grav plating, magazine explosions, toxic chemical spills, leaky seals, faulty machinery, crime, disease, lust and depravity. Especially on older ships, even the safety equipment could prove fatal. Smoke hoods that leaked, rebreathers that did not rebreathe, fire extinguishers that had rusted themselves closed, bulkhead doors that had the exact opposite problem. It was far from uncommon for a man to simply disappear, either through accident, suicide, foul play or desertion, not reporting for duty at the beginning of his shift and for no trace of him to ever be found aboard the gargantuan labyrinth that was an Imperial battleship, duly being recorded as 'Missing In Action.'

Senior Armsman Stennis, a veteran of service though still only twenty-one standard years of age, made his third round of the morning, or at least, what passed for morning aboard ship. The lights were dimmed slightly during the alleged night cycle, which could correspond either with Terran standard time, the time at Segmentum Command at Hydraphur, the standard time of whatever world they were orbiting, or any other seemingly random cycle depending on the whims of ship's captains. In this case, the ship's address system had informed them weeks ago upon their arrival in system that, on the orders of Lord-Admiral Marcos, all ships' chromometers would be synchronised across the fleet to correspond with the day-night cycle of the main continent of the planet they now orbited.

Which meant it was morning, which meant Stennis was on duty, which meant he had to log his uncomfortable leather combat suit and cumbersome shotgun around after a scant few hours rest atop a threadbare cot in a sweatbox of a compartment just two decks above the generators of one of the mighty starboard plasma batteries, which, though not firing, had been carrying out some kind of noisy maintenance throughout the night.

His patrol route was on deck 76-S, not of particular note other than for containing a dozen of the heavy macrocannon and one of the landing bays for supply barges. As an armsman, Stennis only left the ship for boarding duties, meaning he would never set foot on the planet they were orbiting. He had seen it from the gunports of the macrocannon galleries, and it looked remarkably like any other. But the returning supply parties had reported strange things.Talking birds almost the size of a man, horses that flew in giant airships, a psyker princess with a golden crown and a glow like an angel. Stennis wasn't sure whether to feel intrigued or worried by such reports. Of course, there was no more fertile ground in the universe for rumours and bullshit to spread than aboard the lower decks of an Imperial starship, and much of it was undoubtedly pure nonsense. Nevertheless, Stennis couldn't help but wish he could take a trip down to the surface, just once, and see for himself.

Instead, he gazed upon the unremitting grey of compartment after compartment of unburnished metal and bare wiring. No duller sight could be imagined by even the most ascetic Ecclesiarch. If a man wished to forsake all wordly pleasures and hedonistic comforts to pursue spiritual uplift, he should certainly visit deck 76-S. Emperor knows there's nothing else to do here.

One of the lighters had just returned from the surface, delivering some supplies and personnel, and returning some men of the excursion forces to the ship. Logistics men, liason officers and men enlisted for manual labour were regularly transferred between the ship and the surface. Stennis knew he would likely never be picked, as ground security was provided by the Imperial Guard, not by armsmen, whose authority only extended as far as the outer pressure bulkheads of their vessel.

Up ahead in the dimly-lit corridor he spotted Midshipman Vinson, one of the away team, leading a party of men. Evidently they had just returned from the surface. Stennis threw a salute as he approached the junior officer who, in fact, was even younger than him.

'Welcome back, sir!' the armsman greeted his superior. Vinson nodded.

'Thank you. It's good to be back on board. Such a strange place, that planet...'

'Are the rumours all true, sir?' Stennis asked.

'Oh yes. Everything you've heard about that place is real,' Vinson confirmed. 'The strange Xenos, the Archenemy...all of it. I don't suppose you'll ever get to see it, though.'

'I suppose not.' Stennis nodded as the men made their way past him. 'Still, it looks beautiful from up here...' The armsman trailed off as he noticed something unusual. He didn't recognise any of the men, except for the Midshipman and one or two ratings. Who were the rest? From other decks, perhaps? Other departments? But then why would they be aboard the lighter bringing them to this particular deck?

He glanced back at Vinson. The Midshipman had noticed his curious gaze, the eye of a trained armsman, noticing something amiss. Vinson looked straight at him.

Something grabbed Stennis from behind, around the head, and he felt a quick flash of pain across his throat, followed by something warm cascading down onto his hands, soaking his smart uniformed jacket. His shotgun clattered to the deck. As he stumbled around, Stennis saw a few of the men from the landing party being grappled, stabbed, pulled down and finished off by others among them. He had no idea what was going on, and it wouldn't matter if he did. He could do nothing about it. He fell to his knees, blood pumping from his slit throat and severed carotid artery. He managed to raise his eyes long enough to look at Midshipman Vinson. He received only a cold, steely glare in response, the last thing he saw as his vision failed him and he slumped to the deck.

The Searchers

The EAS Canterlot droned steadily southeast. It had already covered a good hundred miles from the city for which it was named, pressing on staunchly into the land of the rising sun which bathed the craft in golden light. Celestia's light.

Cruising at an altitude of eight thousand feet, the Canterlot would have presented an imposing, dangerous presence to any creature of Equestria, Changelings included. A symbol of Equestrian might, the airship squadrons were the Hammer of the Sun, bringing death and destruction to those who would dare to challenge Celestia's right to rule. Zebrican foals were taught to fear them, for the sighting of a pony airship had only ever brought them pain. Yet while the other cultures of the planet may not have accepted Celestia's dominion over them, the princess herself understood and respected their denial. She had the power to crush them all beneath her hoof, and yet she had never done so, would never do so. If they fell into line through desire and willingness, she would welcome them with open wings. But if they stood against her, it was their choice, and while she would fight them if she had to, she would never destroy them merely for clinging to their own leaders and beliefs.

That was what inspired such loyalty, such faith and utter, undying devotion in her followers. Her ponies knew she had both strength and reason, both power and poise, both ruthlessness and reason. That was why they followed her, why they worshiped her. Justice, reason and the rule of law were powerful incentives to unite under her banner, as opposed to the almost anarchic leadership and infighting of the inept Griffon King and his barons, or the secretive tribal rituals of the Zebra ruling councils. Stability was very attractive, and that was what Celestia offered, and had been offering for centuries. With a new threat from beyond the stars, such stable leadership was surely more sought-after than ever before.

With the banner of the Sun fluttering from its rear railing, the Canterlot sailed on, her mission secretive, her orders clear. It was a different world up here, in this empire of the clouds. A steady breeze, a firm hoof on the wheel, the sun and the sky above.

The crew were wary, alert. The coastal plain had not been explored since the invasion. This mission was being conducted without the benefit of the humans and their spacecraft, which might be able to give readings or photographs of what exactly they were flying into. They were in the dark, but moving in the shadows was how the Special Tasks Group operated. Major Spitfire and her squad were aboard, accompanied by a company of Assault Infantry. Not wanting to unduly strip Canterlot of protection given Celestia's orders to reinforce the protection around the remaining Elements, Princess Luna had chosen to dispatch just the one company, though the holds of the airship could carry two. This was, in theory at least, just a reconnaissance mission, though both Spitfire and the airship's captain, Ironside, had been given their orders directly from Luna; if an opportunity presented itself somehow to rescue Twilight, they were to take it.

The chance seemed remote. They didn't even know, other than in the very broadest sense, where the Hive might be. Nor did they know necessarily that, even if they located it, that it would be the site of Twilight's detention. Perhaps there was more than one Hive; perhaps she was being held in some other secure location. Perhaps she was already dead, her Element shattered. But the chance, should it come, would be taken. The Special Tasks Group and the Assault Infantry stood ready, as they had for decades, to protect Equestria, to protect her citizens, and to carry out the will of Celestia.

The plains stretched out before them, unending miles of grassland and the occasional river. The coast was distant, not yet visible on the horizon. Lookouts kept a close watch, both for any signs of Changeling activity and for any other potential threats. One airship could not effectively cover such a large area except through a methodical grid pattern search that could last for days, but they knew that, if that was what it took, that was what they would do.

Aboard the Canterlot, Spitfire rested her forehooves on the railing, gazing out across the land as it swept by below. While her squad had handily defeated the unexpected dragon attack and recovered the rock sample, she couldn't help shake the feeling that it was all too convenient. Would the Changelings leave such evidence behind? Would they have left it behind deliberately to distract and mislead? Or was it perhaps bait, to lure the ponies into an ambush?

If that was to be the case, she had no doubt they would be ready to fight. While Spitfire had never belonged to the Airship Command, she was well aware of their combat prowess and, unlike many of her fellow officers in the Assault Infantry and STG, she had always been more than willing to accept help from the other branch of the Air Corps. Only by working together could the two arms of the Corps achieve their goals. They were the quick reaction force, the ones who could mobilise rapidly and get to a trouble spot, wherever it may erupt across the nation. Any bandit raid or border skirmish would know they only had a certain clear window in which to operate before the drone of powerful engines and a looming cigar-shaped silhouette told them they were in trouble. Often, the mere sighting of an airship accompanied by a small cloud of dismounting Pegasi infantry was enough to prompt a retreat, if not outright panic. The Changelings, however, did not panic. Their Hive mind connection saw to that. They would only flee when commanded, only give up the fight if the Queen or one of her chosen direct subordinates were to so decree it. They did not know fear- hesitation, perhaps, when confronted by some new or unknown threat, but after a mere moment they would be attacking regardless. It was a quality that made them a species worthy of both fear, and respect.

Looking down at the grassland below, Spitfire could clearly see the problems they would face. Spotting a Hive from the air was difficult at the best of times, and the Changelings would be especially alert to the potential dangers, given their actions thus far. They would be expecting company. Grass and branches could be used quite easily to cover up the entrance tunnels to the Hive. Changelings leaving the Hive for reconnaissance or supply runs would presumably be disguised as other native animals for safety- deer, perhaps, or cows, or even rabbits. Telling them apart from the real thing would be impossible from altitude, and the airship could certainly not pause to investigate every lone animal it came across. The task of locating the Hive seemed an almost insurmountable challenge in the face of such vast wilderness. A futile effort, but one that had to be attempted.

The airship's captain, Ironside, stood on the quarterdeck behind her. A veteran of every major and minor engagement of the last three decades, the dark-grey Pegasus had been reward for his stalwart and loyal service by being given command of the Canterlot, the namesake of the capital and the headquarters of both Airship Command and the Air Corps as a whole. It was an honour considered second only to being named to command one of the ships named for the princesses themselves- and Ironside had only been picked for the lesser reward because it was what he had requested. He had spent his entire career on the smaller craft, the fast attack airships and patrol vessels that formed the mainstay of the Air Corps fleet, and abandoning them in favour of one of the ponderous Royalty-Class bombardment airships would have seemed an affront to all those he had served on, and the crews he had fought beside. His choice was to transfer from the captaincy of the old Valiant, one of the numerous V-Class fast attack craft, to take command of the lead vessel of the new City-Class, and Celestia herself had pinned his Exemplary Service Medal to his tunic and presented him with his new captain's insignia. If there was anything he didn't know about airships, it wasn't worth knowing.

Spitfire had as much reason as any airship crewpony to admire the captain, even though she had not served in the illustrious command herself. As a young, inexperienced junior Lieutenant newly appointed to the Assault Infantry, some twelve years ago, Spitfire had seen a report in the newspaper about the exploits of 'Old Ironside.' A heroic ram and boarding action by the Vindictive had saved the crew of a fellow airship from a Griffon massacre, the day only being carried by the 'Bravery of the Vindictive's captain, who led the charge from the front, sword in hoof,' so the report had said. Seeing the example set by a fellow officer, not shying away from danger but charging into it, not asking his crew to do anything he wouldn't do himself, set in stone in Spitfire's mind that she must do the same. She had followed that tenet ever since, and upon meeting the 'Hero of the High Peaks' in person at an Air Corps' ball, the captain had taken a shine to the disciplined and tough lieutenant, despite them being in separate branches of service, more usually portrayed as rivals for funding in the media. Ironside had acted as a mentor to many ponies over his years of service, and Spitfire was among them. He had been able to watch her rapid rise from junior platoon commander, through company and eventually battalion command, and her acceptance into the Wonderbolts was her undoubted proudest moment. At the induction ceremony, the first pony she had thanked after her parents had been Ironside.

Spitfire wandered across the deck toward him. Ponies came and went, moving ropes, carrying supplies and cleaning the cannons. Though extra lookouts had been posted, the majority of the crew were on regular duties, keeping the airship running. Ironside turned to her as she approached.

'Major.' He gave her a nod, being rather more formal than he would have been were they not on such an important mission. Despite the apparent difference in rank, the complex structure of the Air Corps meant that both officers were actually equal. Exclusive to the Airship Command and the Navy, the rank of captain was actually one step higher.The captaincy of a vessel was the equivalent of a Major in the Assault Infantry, the Army, or the Guard, while a captain on one of those forces would actually rank as a Commander. In seniority, however, Ironside was many years ahead, added to which, as captain of the airship, the ultimate responsibility for its crew, its passengers and its mission came down to him.

'Captain,' Spitfire replied, removing her sunglasses, something of an affectation she had picked up after finding some inspiration somewhere, though whether as a result of joining the 'Bolts or the Special Tasks Group, she couldn't quite remember. 'Good weather for it, at least.'

'Good? This is perfect airship weather,' Ironside replied with a pleased grunt. 'Those bastards will see us coming from miles away. With most enemies that can be an advantage, but unfortunately against an enemy who wants to hide...well, they'll have plenty of chance to duck and cover.'

'Do you really think we'll find anything out here?' Spitfire asked. 'Hundreds of square miles...that's assuming it's even habitable up ahead.' She turned to glance over her shoulder at the horizon. The impact of millions of tons of debris from the human starship had caused unknown damage to the coastal areas, and they were the first official expeditionary force to attempt a return since the disaster. While the devastation had been infinitely lessened by the detonation of most of the ship while still at altitude, saving the planet from an ecological catastrophe, the facts remained that fast-moving wreckage and unknown energies had been scattered like buckshot across the landscape. Though contact with the humans and their machines had not thus far caused any kind of outbreak of disease the way first contacts sometimes had in Equestria's past, who was to say that whatever, or whoever, was aboard the ship in question might not create problems of its own?

'Who knows,' Ironside replied, with a practised, non-committal shrug. 'There's a lot of ground to cover and we can't stay out here forever, even with our extra supplies. No offence to you infantry boys and girls, but you're a lot of extra mouths to feed.' Ever the professional airship officer, Ironside couldn't resist a bit of gentle ribbing of his fellow service branch. 'We'll run surveys of the area, send out scouts once we reach the edge of the impact zone. Maybe everything will have recovered by now?'

'The Changelings only moved their Hive after the impact,' Spitfire pointed out. 'What if they relocated it inside the damaged area? If there are craters or trenches or...I don't know, toxic lakes...if they moved the Hive into somewhere like that, could we ever find them? Our maps would be useless.'

'We could find them, eventually,' Ironside replied. 'Given enough time and ponypower. We could redraw our maps, fill in the blanks. But we don't have that kind of leeway. I know the princess didn't want to draw too much attention to this mission, but we could certainly have done with at least one more airship being sent out with us.' Spitfire couldn't help but agree. One airship was a mere dot against the landscape, but a complete and thorough search of the area would have required entire regiments of soldiers.

'We'll do all we can, of course. But if necessary, I'll send a messenger back to Canterlot to request reinforcements,' Ironside continued. 'Either to continue the search or to assault the Hive if we find it.'

'There's no way a direct assault is going to work,' Spitfire commented, twirling her sunglasses in her hoof. 'Not without most of the army here as backup. Unless the Changelings aren't home, we'd be outnumbered...what, thousands to one at best?' She shook her head. 'The only way we'll get in there if we find it is to infiltrate it. We have procedures for such operations of course, but...infiltrating a Hive? That's never been done. At least, not by anypony who got out alive.'

'That's why my messengers will be standing by,' Ironside responded. 'If we find it, and it's still a big if, but if we do then I'll ask for reinforcements to attack the Hive. If you think you can get a squad or two inside, you're welcome to try, but...' He put a hoof on Spitfire's shoulder. 'Don't go throwing your life away. If you really think you can get in, then do it. But if you have doubt, any doubt, then don't commit. We can get more airships, more ponies.'

'If only this was just a reconnaissance, or a search and destroy operation...' Spitfire sighed. 'Not a hostage rescue. That complicates things. To get inside a Hive unnoticed, you have to be a Changeling. No ifs, no buts. If even one drone spots you, every drone spots you. You won't get ten yards. Honestly?' She looked at Ironside. 'I don't think we can rescue the prisoner. I just don't think it's possible.'

The senior of the two officers nodded slowly. 'In that case...we'll have to resort to the alternative.'

The Imperial Guard were on the march again, pushing through the streets of Manehattan. Familiar ground for many, disturbingly so. Though the Daemons had retreated, their taint was still evident. Playful laughter, many men swore, could still be heard echoing ethereally through the streets. Their corporeal forms had disappeared, whisked away in plumes of warpfire upon their eventual deaths, but the bodies of the fallen guardsmen lay scattered all around, like leaves after an autumn gale. The advance was fraught with imagined perils; every creaking door was a Daemon, every tinkle of broken glass jarred loose by the vibrations of nearby tanks was a shot. Valkyrie overflights reported nothing ahead, no sign of the enemy, and yet to the men on the streets, they were everywhere.

Their advance took them back through the financial and theatre districts where so many of their comrades had died, overrun by the Daemons or pinned down by enemy infantry during the initial assault. It took them through the streets where smoke still curled, drifting gently, disturbed by the passage of armoured vehicles, swirling in eddies behind them. It took them into the dockside districts.

Several days after the blaze, ignited, smoke hung heavily in the air, the acrid tang of myriad noxious gases. The whole district looked as though some great hand had simply poured a gigantic vat of molten metal across the cityscape. Everything was burned to a cinder, blackened and carbonised beyond recognition. Nothing had survived the holocaust that had raged through the alleys and yards. Metal water pipes and, ironically, fire escapes were the only thing that remained of most buildings, melted and twisted into crazed shapes like some kind of sculpture garden. There were bodies; hundreds, thousands, like lumps of coal, claw-like hands outstretched in silent, fatal agonies. They were the bodies of the enemy, but they still provoked some sympathy at the sight of the pathetic remains. Burning alive in the midst of an inescapable inferno was not a pleasant end, even though the traitors certainly deserved it.

Tanks rolled over the corpses, crushing them into ash which drifted away with the sea breeze. Once the armour halted, the most notable feature of the dockyards was the silence. There were no seabirds, no life. The embers gently crackled in places, and the cooling timbers, charred to blackness, creaked softly, but that was all. A bustling city of several million, according to the briefing, reduced to almost utter, abject silence. Had all the enemy perished, every last one, in the firestorm of their own making?

Auspex scans showed nothing. Valkyries circled overhead like carrion birds, but saw nothing. The men on the ground saw nothing. But they felt something.

Every man could feel it, in his mind, on his skin. Hairs stood on end; some men shivered uncontrollably, though the weather was fair. There were voices, though there were no mouths to speak the words,whispers carried on the wind. Here, the stain of Chaos permeated the land itself, the very fabric of reality. So much death and fire, so many bodies, had twisted nature to suit the whims of the Ruinous Powers. It was enough to drive some men to immediate suicide, out of their minds purely from the presence of the taint of Chaos, blowing their heads off with their lasguns.

Once again, the Guard retreated, seeming to be infinitely thwarted in their attempts to secure the city once and for all. But a tainted place was too dangerous to remain in. It could, and did, shatter men's minds to be exposed to such filth. To reclaim the city, the ground would have to be sanctified, inch by inch, street by street. Such an effort would take years, hardly practical at the best of times. Hive cities on Imperial worlds that befell the same fate would be glassed from orbit by a heavy bombardment of holy flame. Lord-Admiral Marcos would ordinarily not hesitate, but in this case he could not carry out such an action without consulting the princess first.

It seemed an anathema to a career officer of the Imperial Navy to have to ask permission from a Xenos for anything, but Marcos knew that levelling the city from orbit without her permission would, at best, anger her, and at worst, invite her wrath. While he had no idea if the destruction of an already-derelict and poisoned city would be enough to provoke her into retaliation against the fleet, but he did not wish to tempt fate. After all, just because he felt, when in her presence, that she held no malice toward them, did not necessarily make it so.

All Imperial forces were ordered out of the city, to hold position around the perimeter until a determination could be made as to exactly what to do with it. The Ecclesiarchy's Fleet Confessor was consulted as to the best methods of cleansing an urban area, while the princess was summoned to speak with Marcos over the vox. He would impress upon her the importance of properly sanctifying an area after it was touched by Chaos, of course, but something told him he should leave the ultimate decision up to her, as confused as that made him feel.

'My Lord, I have the Xenos princess for you,' the vox-officer informed him. Marcos nodded.

'Put her through to my ready room.' He strode from the bustling bridge to receive the call. 'This is Marcos, go ahead.'

'Good morning, Admiral.' Celestia's voice, as unflustered and silky-smooth as ever, came over the link. 'How may I assist you?'

'I have some news about Manehattan,' Marcos replied. 'It is...not good news, I fear. Our push to capture the dockyards was...thwarted once more.'

'Thwarted?' Celestia's raised eyebrow was almost audible over the vox. 'I was under the impression your surveys showed no enemy presence in the path of the advance this time.'

'That is so, your highness,' Marcos replied. 'But our scanners cannot detect the tainting influence of Chaos itself. It has seeped into the very ground upon which the city stands. I am afraid it is now poisoned by the warp.'

'Poisoned, Admiral? The entire city?' Celestia questioned in a skeptical tone.

'Not the entire city, no...at this stage, merely the dockyard district. The men have been reporting abberations, voices, sightings...'

'Your men have been seeing ghosts?' Celestia asked. 'And you abandoned the operation because of it?'

'No, your highness, not ghosts,' Marcos replied, a trifle irritated at her lack of understanding about the nature of the warp, though tinged also with a considerable amount of envy that her planet and species should have, seemingly, gone unmolested by the Dark Gods for so long. 'The men suffered from physical manifestations of the presence of warp taint. Rashes with seemingly no cause, bleeding from the nose and eyes, mental episodes, even suicides. It would appear that the deaths of so many of the enemy in the fires may have been used as part of the rituals required to summon any but the weakest Daemons. It is unsafe to operate in such a tainted environment. It drives men to madness, drives them to the darkness from which there is no return. Neither I nor the Lord-General will condone the loss of our guardsmen to reclaim a city that is tainted in such a way.'

'So what would you suggest, Admiral?' the princess probed. 'That my ponies take over so that you may spare your men? May I remind you again that our armies are far outclassed by both yours and that of your Archenemy, to say nothing of our depleted numbers.'

'No, your highness, I would advise against anyone entering that section of the city,' Marcos responded. 'In fact I would recommend that the site be struck from orbit.'

There was a moment of silence before Celestia replied. 'And undo all the good work you have done here? You will not sacrifice your men any further, but you will see to it that those that have already perished have done so in vain?'

'Not in vain, your highness, for no man who dies in the Emperor's service dies in vain,' Marcos pointed out. 'They fought to destroy the troops of the Archenemy, and in that, they have succeeded.'

'Then why is there any need for such drastic action?' Celestia questioned. 'Why not simply withdraw?'

'Because the taint of Chaos does not go away,' Marcos explained. 'It will not decay over time like radiation. It will not be washed away by the rains like a nerve gas. It will linger, for all eternity, or for as long as the forces of the warp exist, at least, perhaps beyond that. And whether you wait a year, a hundred years or ten thousand, the contagion will still be there, unless it is removed.'

'And it can be removed by heat?' Celestia questioned. 'By using those weapons of yours, you can eliminate it?'

'Yes, your highness. Somewhat ironic given that flame was the catalyst for it in the first place. But yes, the taint of Chaos can be burned away with holy fire,' Marcos answered. Celestia paused for a moment before replying.

'Then perhaps I can be of assistance.'

A Simple Game Of Genius

Afternoon brought with it a heavy overcast, leaden clouds scudding in off the bay. Manehattan sat below like an unpolished jewel, lacking all of its former shine and lustre. There was little to attract tourism now, should Equestria ever be in a position to offer their citizens leisure time again. The museums and theatres were trashed, their treasures looted and their celebrated architecture broken, beat and scarred. The Statue of Friendship in the harbour had been detonated by explosives by the occupiers, for no reason other than entertainment or spite. Its broken chunks of metal and its spiked crown lay at the bottom of the murky waters. Many of the pleasure boats and paddle steamers had been at their moorings and had gone up like a forest fire when the conflagration reached the waterfront.

The Imperial forces had withdrawn from the city at the orders of Lord-General Galen, in anticipation of a cleansing of the dockside areas, leaving their dead behind. They could be buried later. Removing the stain of Chaos was the most important thing, the men had been told. The city was theirs, but nevertheless they had to retreat again. Morale among the ground forces was fluctuating- some were pleased with the progress, some were broken from the Daemonic encounters. Some were grumbling openly about their leaders, about retreat after retreat. While there was no talk of mutiny among the guardsmen, there were rumours spread around that their counterparts aboard the lower decks of the fleet were becoming similarly dissatisfied and were considering some kind of action. At least, that was the talk the last time a supply shipment came down, under a Midshipman Vinson, from the flagship. While none of the guardsmen had been persuaded to abandon their posts of their duties, the seed of doubt had been planted in the minds of some of the more susceptible men and women. After all, what were they doing on this alien planet, capturing an alien city, so that said city could be returned to its alien owners, and not claimed by the Imperium? Had some sickness affected their leadership, had the taint of Chaos infected their minds? Or was it this alien, this princess, and her psychic powers? Had she somehow coerced their leaders into doing what she wanted, rather than what they believed to be right and just?

The idea that the Lords and Generals in charge had been taken by madness was nothing new among the men of the line. For centuries, soldiers had been grumbling about such things, seeking excuses for being thrown into the meat grinder. There must be some problem, someone must be to blame. It can't just be because this is what the Imperium demands, what human survival demands, can it? The rumours always found willing ears. They were the source of many of the enemies the Guard now faced- disillusioned fellow guardsmen, fallen either deliberately or through trickery into supporting a Chaos-fuelled mutiny, uprising or mass desertion. Yet despite this fact, despite the relentless Imperial propaganda drummed into every recruit, despite the Ecclesiarchical brainwashing and the threat of the Commissar's bolt pistol, the rumours continued to spring up in almost every unit, on almost every ship. In the minds of many, there was but one simple mantra.

There's no smoke without fire.

Sergeant Argan and his squad had fallen back as ordered, to a small grassy ridge a couple of miles outside of the city's western fringe. There they had breakfasted on cold rations; a far cry from gourmet cuisine, but certainly better than nothing. Rehydrated oats, bread, electrolyte drink and soylens viridians- enough to sustain a man, but not to pique his culinary interests. The men ate quietly, sullenly- they were both relieved and irritated to be out of the city. On the one hand, they were away from the cloying interests of Chaos, meddling with their brains. On the other, they had once again failed in their mission to capture the metropolis, seemingly a regular occurrence. Though the Parvian Lancers and, Argan knew, most of the other Regiments involved had captured cities of a similar or greater size several times throughout the Crusade, this one was proving a stubborn nut to crack. The machinations of Chaos had seen to it that they should be repelled time and again.

While the rumours about the leadership had not found any willing ears among the men of Gamma Company, they had nonetheless made the rounds, and each man had his own thoughts about such things. Argan thought it unlikely, from what he knew of the Lord-General, that he would be swayed so easily. He did not know about the Lord-Admiral, but considering his successful leadership of the Crusade across the vast gulf of stars, it also seemed a small possibility. Men of lower rank, possibly. What Argan had seen of the princess made him acutely aware of why some men might believe the rumours; having seen her psychic powers in battle, it was easy to understand how she might also possess the powers of persuasion. Failing that, she would clearly pose a powerful threat to the guardsmen she had previously fought to defend, should she be turned against them. Perhaps their leaders were just looking out for the welfare of their men?

That thought brought a derisive smirk to Argan's face. While it was true that Lord-General Galen treated his men better than most, the idea that he held any specific attachment or desire to protect them was still laughable. After all, he was chosen to command the Imperial Guard contingent of the Crusade in part precisely because he was not from any of the planets represented in regimental form, to avoid just such nostalgic or patriotic distractions that might arise. The welfare of the men at the front had never ranked highly amongst the wheels of Imperial bureaucracy. Even the vehicles and their Machine Spirits received greater care. Such was the guardsman's lot in life, but the sad truth of the Imperium was that service was often still a considerable step up from whatever slum or ghetto-like conditions they had been living in before, among the sprawling chaos of a Hive or in the barren wastes of some desert planet. No doubt they would never learn the real truth, if the rumours were real or just the figments of an active imagination. The men at the front never really learned anything of the true strategic purpose or intent of their movements, merely living from one battlefield to the next, waiting to die.

Such was the lot of an Imperial Guardsman. Argan took a sip from his water flask as he gazed out towards the city. Perhaps they'd get it next time, or perhaps it would be abandoned entirely. He looked away, only for a moment, when a cry drew his attention back to the city, or, more specifically, to the skies above it.

Clouds hung like a grey curtain across the landscape, but even from this distance, Argan could see a spot of light. Quite far off, above the city and below the clouds. It must have appeared from nowhere, because there had been nothing a moment ago. Argan grabbed his monocular and peered through. The image resolved itself. It was the princess.

'What the hell's she doing?' Argan muttered. 'Out there by herself?'

She answered his query a moment later as her horn began to glow, an expected effect of her psychic powers. What was no expected, however, was the sudden brilliant beam of light that came not from her horn, but from the heavens. Startled cries went up from the guardsmen, especially those who had not noticed the presence of the princess. A ray of incandescent gold shot down from the sky, burning through the overcast. The clouds evaporated around it as if clearing the way for its passage. It cut through the air like a lance beam, and struck the princess.

Instead of vaporising her, it seemed to be channelled through her horn, the immense unknown energies travelling along its length before bursting forth once more, a blinding fan of golden illumination, like a rainbow of singular colour. It swept across the dockyard district gradually, working its way from one side to the other, then back again, though these specifics were unknown to the men on the ground. Imperial Valkyries, hovering at a safe distance, took vid-pict recordings, transmitting them up to Fleet Command. The intense sunlight, focused into a beam and amplified by Celestia's magic, scoured the smouldering remains clean, combining heat with a variation of, and rather a substantial increase in power over, the simple spells used to clean areas around the Everfree Forest when the magics within threatened to spill out and contaminate the surrounding terrain.

Though the men on the ground could not see what the princess's target was, they could certainly see her performance, a deliberate display of power. As well as hoping to perform a useful service, Celestia had intended exactly that; to show her power, a not so subtle reminder to the human leaders, and for many of the rank and file, a first demonstration. While her summoning of the sunbeam and its careful direction impressed those aboard the imperial fleet who witnessed it, the men below the clouds were clueless as to its original source. All they knew was that the princess had seemingly summoned something out of nothing, and then cast it across the landscape, and it had the desired effect on many of them, a curious mix of fear, respect and intrigue. Powers far beyond their understanding were being displayed to them, not to tempt them with the promise of obtaining such power themselves, as the Dark Gods might attempt, but simply to help, to aid the humans in their mission to take the city. Even, as the higher ranking officers aware of the purpose of Celestia's task knew, to spare the men's lives, to spare their souls.

The Canterlot had been in the air all morning, and now, in the early afternoon, it was approaching the edge of the potential 'dead zone' left behind after the ship impact. Nopony had any real information on what might lay beyond. Even though Equestrian astronomers and scientists had long predicted the potential effects of an asteroid impact, no naturally occurring asteroid would be laden with unknown chemicals, weapons and energy sources the way the human starships were. The precise composition of the starship was unknown; Celestia had not made enquiries, knowing that the humans, who had steadfastly refused to offer an explanation as to the function of even their basic small arms, would certainly not reveal the secrets of interstellar travel to her.

While the mysteries of space travel were unknown to the crew of the Canterlot, they certainly knew about atmospheric flight, and the airship manoeuvred with precision and grace belying its size as it turned, coming up short of the danger zone and hanging in the sky. Observers scanned for any movement or any unusual hazards. Both Ironside and Spitfire looked through telescopes, eager to see what they were flying into.

The answer was a moonscape, an absolute wasteland. Scarred and pitted, the coastal plain had been spared the complete cataclysm of an entire ship coming down upon it, and instead had suffered an enormous sandblasting of millions of pieces of flaming debris, some large, some small. Huge wildfires had erupted, burning away all the grass cover. Craters of all shapes and sizes, some smooth and circular, some jagged and random, dotted the landscape. Here and there, small clusters of blackened lumps showed where there had once been a village or small town. Now there was nothing.

The magnificent desolation of the plains rendered the searchers' maps far less effective than they would otherwise have been. Roads were gone, canals and rivers suddenly had new lakes along their length where debris had smashed a crater, quickly filled by the flow. While some towns were discernable from their burned remains, others had vanished entirely, obliterated by some huge slab of high-speed metal pounding into the dirt. Natural prominences still showed through; several ridges of thick rock that might form the perfect construction site for a Hive. There were coastal caves, too, along the beaches, where some secluded cove might hide the enemy.

Ironside ordered the airship to proceed. They commenced a grid search, moving steadily south. The largest of the rocky plateaus, marked on their maps in terms of its gradient, were there. It was a long process. A cry went up; movement! A herd of gazelle that fled in a convincingly natural manner as they approached. Nothing doing. The search continued. When darkness fell they had to stop, cutting the engines except for station keeping in the onshore breeze, and floating as the day watch rested. Lookouts scanned the inky blackness, unlit by any sodium glow from the towns that should be dotting the plains. They saw nothing.

At dawn, the search restarted, scouring the wastes for any sign of the Changelings. The airship roamed near and far, performing grid square searches, eliminating possible hiding places. Twice scouts were sent down to investigate suspicious-looking rock formations, reporting back both times that they were merely natural shallow caves with no evidence of further tunnelling. The airship carried on, checking the coast, the caves. One in particular drew attention. Closer investigation revealed it had been used by smugglers to transport illegal shipments of Zebrican spices and alcohol, bypassing Equestrian import duties, but no evidence of Changelings.

Another night was passed in the desolate wastes, then a third. Dawn's light on the fourth day brought them to the largest and most prominent of the rocky plateaux they had searched so far, the most likely to hold a Hive. Jagged escarpments of rock jutted incongruously from the grassy plains, results of some unseen geological upthrust or seismic upheaval in the distant past. They searched and scanned from on high.

And this time, they found something.

Though there was no movement, there was a partially concealed entrance, either to a cave or a tunnel. Very cautiously, scouts were sent in closer, then closer. Still no contact, but they reported the tunnel construction matched that of a Hive entrance. They pulled back for a discussion with Spitfire and Ironside. It was definitely a Changeling construct, they reported. They had seen nothing, not even wildlife that might have been Changelings in disguise. Ironside advocated caution, while Spitfire preferred a lightning raid. Catch them napping, she said. They had no guards posted. Perhaps they were busy with some arcane ritual, perhaps it was breeding season?

Together, they agreed on a plan. The Canterlot would remain orbiting the entrance at several thousand feet, while Spitfire led a team herself. Her Special Tasks Group squad would lead the way, accompanied by three platoons of Assault Infantry. The rest would remain in reserve aboard the airship unless needed. Spitfire and her squad geared up, and they went over the side, the tip of the spear, plunging deep into the Changeling's home.

The tunnels were bare, drab, lined with the same rock type they had recovered the sample of from the previous Hive. There were no enemy contacts. They pushed in farther, deeper underground. There were no contacts. Their helmet torches illuminated only the empty tunnels. An ambush? Was the tunnel booby trapped? No. Just deathly silence. They pressed on. Total darkness engulfed them, their lifeline to the surface getting longer and longer. The Canterlot and her crew waited feverishly for news. Eventually, the scouts returned. In their possession they had nothing save for humiliation; a chunk of incongruous rock, a lump of rock that would be at home only in the abandoned Hive in the northeast that they had already cleared. There was a Hive, but it was empty, a decoy, with a mocking hint in the shape of the rock sample just leading them back to where they came from. Chrysalis, showing her sassy side. You thought you could outsmart me that easily? Think again.

Princess Celestia performed her highly visible ritual of cleansing for more than an hour. Men stood, mouths agape, watching the spectacle- all part of the plan. Once it was done, she disappeared as soon as she had come. Lord-General Galen ordered a cautious advance of scout units, into the contaminated area, to determine if she had done the job of an orbital bombardment successfully. They reported that she, seemingly, had- there were no malignant voices, no disquieting skin lesions, no mysterious apparitions. As far as they could determine, the princess had succeeded. She had cleansed the city of the abhorrent filth of Chaos.

The Guard moved back in, sweeping, clearing. This time, they finally succeeded. The city was theirs, thanks to their relentless bravery, but thanks also, in no small part, to the Xenos princess. Though she was, of course, fighting to retake her own city, such a contribution had not gone unnoticed, either by the rank and file or by the commanders on the ground and in orbit. It was clear that without her the dockyards would have had to be razed from orbit anyway, so what harm did it do to have her try out her own method of sanctification? After all, it was her ponies who would have to live with the blight of Chaos if she had failed.

It seemed, however, that she had succeeded, somehow. There had been nothing sanctified by the Ecclesiarchy used in her strange and captivating display. Heat, yes, somehow drawn from above, from the sun itself, as the officers knew. But what was pure? What had made the difference between mere high temperatures and actually purging the filth away? It could only be something from within the princess herself, perhaps some aspect of her psychic powers or something inherent in her very nature. Either way, it was something else to disconcert the top brass. If she proved this effective at fighting these forces she had never been exposed to before, then how successful would she be if she turned her attentions upon them?

Colonel Harding, as commander of the 40th Parvian Lancers who had entered the dockyards initially, come under the subsequent Daemonic attack, and been rescued by Celestia, was summoned to the Emperor's Judgement to brief the Lord-General and Lord-Admiral on what he and his men had observed, both about the city, the princess and the enemy. Leaving the newly promoted Major Halix in command of the remnants of the Regiment, Harding travelled to the shuttle pad in his shiny new Salamander command vehicle, assigned to him as regimental commander. The trappings of power. As commander, Harding had been informed of the broad strokes of the nature of Celestia's mission and the origins of the beam from the heavens. Intriguing, to be sure, but probably not of great concern in the grand scheme of things. He had memories of what he had seen of her before, at Griffonstone and Manehattan. She was impressive in combat, yes, but surely nothing compared to the one to whom he owed his loyalty. In the fighting in Manehattan, Harding had been saved by the princess, it could certainly be argued, like most of the regiment. A blast of warpfire had struck down many of his command squad, finding themselves outflanked by the sudden Daemonic uprising. Harding had stumbled through the back alleys of the city for a while before finding and rejoining other members of the Lancers, coordinating and driving the enemy back into the Empyrean.

The shuttle pad had been set up just inside the outer ring of Imperial siege lines, which were now being steadily dismantled, their work accomplished. The city was in human hands. Sandbags were being removed from around the firing pieces. Artillery was being packed up, ready to move on to the next battlefield. Some of the men were already being lifted back into orbit via the great, bloated bulk landers, to await redeployment. The city was theirs, but the planet was not. There were Auspex reports of large enemy concentrations in at least one other major city, as well as raiding parties spotted in the mountains and hills of the north, to say nothing of the valley to the south of Canterlot. All these areas would have to be swept and taken, cleansed of any remnant of their former inhabitants, before the planet could be considered conquered. It was a tough job, but Harding knew that the more they fought, the easier it became. As each position was taken and the enemy numbers eroded, their strength would rise, while that of the enemy could only fall.

The journey to the pad was long, but the journey to orbit would take mere minutes. The shuttle awaited, a sleek craft capable of exo-atmospheric flight and also a graceful, if noisy, vertical landing planetside. Harding boarded, and the ramp closed behind him. The jets kicked in and the shuttle lifted cleanly away, turning and beginning its ascent. The sky changed rapidly from the grey overcast into a brilliant blaze of blue as they climbed above the clouds. The hue deepened, darkened, turning from blue to navy to purple, and finally to black as they rose free of the atmosphere, the acceleration pressing Harding back into his seat. The stars became visible, pinpoints of light on a blank canvas. The ships of the Crusade, too; the vast transports and tankers, the stubby escorts, the Emperor's Judgement, the jewel of the fleet. It was the first time Harding had seen it; most troop transports, he recalled, had no viewports in their holds. There was certainly something awe-inspiring about it. Such a grand design, venerable, given a new lease of life by the opportunities of the Crusade. Harding had no idea how old the ship was, but it probably pre-dated all civilised life on the planet below. It had led an expedition of conquest across the galaxy, and he had no doubt it would continue to do so.

The docking bay was cramped, stuffed with similar small shuttles as well as fighter craft. In full dress uniform, Harding was whisked away to the command deck to meet with the Lords, men of high stature indeed, deemed worthy of leading this great venture across space and commanding many millions of men. The upper decks of the Emperor's Judgement, which would never be visited by the overwhelming majority of her crew, were lavishly decorated, with soaring architecture, more akin to a cathedral or a palace than a starship. There were many similarities with the palace of the pony princess.

The bridge deck itself was bustling, with staffers coming and going, armsmen on guard and junior officers operating consoles and display screens. The Lord-General was busy perusing a data-slate, while the Admiral was issuing replenishment orders with his usual bluster. Upon Harding's arrival, however, both men left their duties to go and speak with him. Marcos extended a powerful hand.

'Colonel Harding. Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. Welcome aboard.' Harding shook his hand.

'Thank you, My Lord. A promotion due to the circumstances, but a promotion nonetheless. It is an honour to be considered for the position, and to be welcomed aboard your vessel.'

'Come, my man, come.' Marcos ushered him into the ready room, along with Galen and Flag Captain Bormann. 'Now then, I want your truthful and instinctive impressions, understand? Whatever you feel is relevant, state it here, however...unprofessional it may seem,' Marcos ordered, hoping to gauge the reaction of the men on the ground to the revelation of the true power of the princess. Had the men been in awe? Had they been afraid? Had they been asking questions about their leadership and about their purpose here?

Harding had heard all of those things since he had returned from Manehattan, and he spoke candidly. 'My Lord, the men have been affected in a number of ways by what they have seen. I have heard reports of men being afraid of her power, of course. That is understandable. But I have also received reports of men feeling calm and a sense of peace when in the presence of this princess. That I cannot grasp.'

'And you do not share these feelings?' Marcos asked. 'You feel no calm? You have been in her presence several times.'

'I do not, My Lord. I feel only the revulsion of speaking with such an...inferior species,' Harding replied disdainfully.

'A necessary evil,' Marcos replied. 'Due to the exigent circumstances. I understand the disquiet among the men about such things, but the situation we were in must be weighed up carefully. In the absence of further orders, units on the ground, including yourself and your men, did what they had to do to survive the onslaught of the Archenemy. There is no blame to be appointed for such actions.'

'That is gratifying to hear, My Lord,' Harding nodded. 'I am sure you understand the reluctance with which we made such decisions.'

'Indeed we do,' Lord-General Galen chimed in. 'It was no easy to make a choice like that. We had similar dilemmas when we chose to continue honouring the alliance with the princess and her kind, at least until this world is cleansed.'

'What will become of the alliance after that, My Lord?' Harding questioned. 'Will you destroy these creatures from orbit?'

'The outcome of this alliance has not yet been determined,' Marcos replied. 'If we can successfully defeat the Archenemy, then we can turn our attention to what comes next. The princess had repeatedly stressed to us that she has no ill will toward us. So far we have no reason to doubt her word. Now, to the Daemons...your regiment was attacked twice, correct? First in the outskirts and then again after retreating from the dockyard fires. Did you have any indication of where exactly they came from? Any evidence of a portal or a ritual for summoning?'

'No, My Lord. In neither case did I receive any reports of such activity being located,' Harding answered. 'We were attacked as if from nowhere.'

A knock came at the ready room's door. 'Enter!' Marcos bellowed. The door opened and a smartly-dressed Midshipman entered, coming to attention with a snappy salute.

'My Lord Admiral! I have a data-slate for you from the Chief Engineer,' he announced, the tablet device held in his outstretched hand. Marcos took it, sparing but a brief glance at the man- barely more than a boy, really. Vinson, his name tag read. Funny, not the usual messenger from the Chief. Marcos examined the data-slate, while the Midshipman took a step back and clicked his heels smartly once more. The data-slate contained reams of charts and statistics regarding the ship's weaponry- a duplicate of an earlier report already delibevered to Marcos, and nothing at all to do with the Chief Engineer's responsibilities. He looked up with a confused frown, ready to rebuke the Midshipman for bringing him the wrong slate, but before he could speak, his expression changed to one of horror.

There was a shouted warning, and a single gunshot.

Unknowns

Lord-General Galen stumbled back against the bulkhead, a steaming hole in his chest. Flag-Captain Bormann's shouted warning had come a moment too late, as he had observed Colonel Harding drawing his laspistol from his right hip. The Colonel swung his gun around to fire again, this time at the Lord-Admiral, but Bormann lunged at him, knocking him off balance. The shot went wild overhead, blowing a chunk out of the ceiling. Marcos ducked down and shouted frantically for assistance.

Midshipman Vinson ran towards the Admiral, as if to protect him, shield him from gunfire. But a glint of steel in his hand showed he had a knife, and his intentions were not noble. Marcos took a step back, grabbing one of the chairs and picking it up, ripping it from its mount with his formidable strength and using it to fend off his attacker.

'This is mutiny!' he roared. 'Come to your senses, boy!' But Vinson kept coming, desperately trying to reach the Admiral, woh had backed up into a corner, against the viewport, with the chair keeping him at bay. Bormann struggled with Colonel Harding, who still grasped the laspistol firmly. He managed to push away, shoving Bormann to the ground and trying to take aim at the Admiral, but the Midshipman was in the firing line. He turned to finish off the Flag-Captain, who was scrambling to draw his own weapon.

The door burst open, several armsmen striding in, shotguns raised. Quick as a flash, Harding turned and fired, dropping one of them to his knees, his jaw missing. The others took aim, but in the small room they could hardly fire with such weapons lest they strike the Admiral or the General, who lay slumped against the wall. One man let off a round high, spraying shrapnel over the heads of the officers, but missing the target as well. Harding ducked behind the large display table, but as he popped up again to return fire, he was struck in the back and grimaced. The Colonel fell forward, face down on the deck plating, a sizzling wound in his back. Bormann lowered his laspistol and turned, heaving himself to his feet to help the Admiral, but the armsmen were there already, grabbing the Midshipman, heaving him bodily to the deck and restraining him. One man kicked the knife away, while another put a swift kick in to the assailant's temple.

Bormann hurried to his Admiral's side. 'My Lord! Are you hurt?' he asked, breathing heavily.

'Mutiny...!' Marcos spat again, brushing past Bormann to attend to the Lord-General. 'Medicae!' He bellowed. 'Get a medicae in here, now!' He knelt down beside his old friend, checking for a pulse and breathing. More armsmen were coming in, flooding the room. The ship's Chief Medical Officer rushed in, holding a case of equipment, urging the Admiral to step back so he could work. A quick once over and a check for vital signs, and the medicae shook his head, turning to the Admiral.

'He is deceased, My Lord...' the doctor informed them. 'His heart was struck...there would be nothing I can do even if he were already on the operating table.' Marcos stood with a furious expression. He took a step back and turned to the mutinous Midshipman. 'Take him to the brig! And this one, doctor, if you can, keep him alive long enough to be interrogated,' he added, giving the slumped form of Harding a nudge with his boot. 'I want to know what happened here!'

The medicae nodded and turned to attend to the downed Colonel, checking on his wounds. The Fleet Confessor was summoned to give the Final Blessing to Lord-General Galen. The armsmen dragged Midshipman Vinson away, handcuffed. The shocked bridge crew looked on as he was led from the ready room, a scene of utter confusion having erupted before their very eyes. Nobody knew the details, but they had heard the shots. It seemed broadly clear what had transpired; an attempted mutiny, on their own flagship, no less. Who else was involved? What else was going to happen? Even as they watched, were parties of mutineers below decks seizing the engine room, the landing bays, the reactor cores? Might they threaten to detonate them if their demands were not followed?

Marcos acted swiftly to quell the potential panic among the bridge crew. He strode out, seemingly unflustered, smoothing down his tunic after a steadying shot of amasec from the flask he would no longer be able to share with his friend. He addressed the men.

'Do not fear, the situation is well in hand,' he assured them, though he was far from sure that it was himself. 'A minor...aberration has occurred. It seems some of your fellow personnel were less than happy with the direction this Crusade has been taking of late. But no matter, they have been dealt with. There is no need for panic, or for spreading rumours. Master-at-Arms!' he called. The Master, a woman despite the title, stepped over with a smart salute. 'Double the guard on all key points,' Marcos ordered immediately and loudly, for the whole bridge crew to hear the confidence in his voice, as they always had throughout the years-long campaign. Today could be no different if he wanted morale to remain steady.

'At once, My Lord!' Master Kaestron, a woman of some twenty years' service as an armswoman, a Sergeant-At-Arms, and finally the Master-At-Arms of the flagship itself, replied. 'Should I restrict travel to and from the ship also?' she suggested, to which Marcos gave an immediate answering nod.

'Yes, secure the ship. Nobody leaves or boards her until we have some answers,' he commanded. Kaestron saluted again and bustled away to carry out his commands. As chief of security, the Master-at-Arms was responsible for all internal operations of the ship's armsmen, who acted as a combined police force, security detachment and raiding party. They broke up fights, solved murders and crimes of sabotage, patrolled vital areas and performed boarding actions aboard enemy ships when required, where they would be supported by waves of lightly armed ratings who, for security reasons, could not be trusted to be armed with more than a cudgel or sword and perhaps a laspistol. But, as events had just starkly shown, it was not only from the men of the lower decks that potential treachery could come. While the armsmen could perform each role competently, they were rather a jack of all trades, master of none. In a boarding action, they lacked the heavy weaponry of the Guard or the armour and sheer power of the Astartes. When performing detective work, dealing with minor crime and riot control, they lacked the training, skill and brutishness, respectively, of the Adeptus Arbites. When patrolling the ship, they lacked the manpower to protect everywhere at once, which was why they concentrated on trouble spots and on guarding key areas.

Master-At-Arms Kaestron dispatched men immediately to all those areas. The bridge was reinforced by another detachment, as were the approach corridors to the elevator and emergency staircase. The engine rooms were put under double guard along with the reactor cores, vital areas that could cripple or destroy the ship if allowed to fall into the hands of mutineers. Armouries were protected heavily, with extra men on guard outside in full armour, shotguns levelled at any passers-by as they guarded their precious cargo of weaponry. The torpedo bays were placed under guard, and the landing bays sealed off entirely, both inside and out. Nobody was to leave or board the ship until things could be straightened out. Colonel Harding had come from the planet, after all, not from the ship's crew- what role did he have in all this?

While Harding was being transported to the medical bay, Vinson to the brig and Lord-General Galen to the morgue, the armsmen scurried to obey their orders. Marcos ordered vox-messages sent to every other ship of the fleet, warning them to be on the lookout for any potential mutinous activities. A wise precaution; men of the fleet often found ways to communicate with each other between ships even outside of official channels, whether by jury-rigging crystal vox-sets, smuggling secret messages within cargo or merely bribing shuttle and lighter pilots. The stain of mutiny may have spread farther than just the Emperor's Judgement, as indeed the involvement of Colonel Harding suggested.

A forensics team of armsmen arrived in the ready room, keen to investigate the assassination of the Lord-General and the attempted slaying of their Admiral. Evidence was scant- there were no vid-recorders in the ready room for reasons of operational security and privacy. They were able to recover some minor blood samples from the Midshipman, who had suffered minor abrasions when being forced to the deck and restrained. The Lord-General's wound and that of Colonel Harding had cauterised on impact from the intense heat of the las-bolts, leaving little trace, not that any was necessary. They had the body, they had the perpetrator, and they had the murder weapon. All they lacked was proof of motive.

Fleet Commissar Aldoric, a hard-nosed and ancient man kept youthful with repeated Rejuvenat treatments, was called to the bridge to hear the story. Aldoric had long since dismissed any foolish notions of fair treatment within the Imperial system as the follies of youth; if it looked like you might be guilty, you were guilty. If something came along later, some new evidence or a confession, that exonerated you, well, that's your hard luck for being near a crime scene. While solving crimes was not exactly the remit of a Commissar, dispensing justice most certainly was. Not just a job requirement, more a vital necessity, the whole purpose for the existence of the role. The threat of execution had pushed many a man onward where he may have faltered, forward when he may have retreated. Better to face the possibility of death from the Ork hordes, the talons of Tyranids or the massed pulse fire of the Tau Empire, than to turn and be met with the certainty of it from a Commissar's bolt pistol. It would not be an exaggeration, Aldoric mused, to say that the Imperium would not exist today if it had not been for its Commissars.

Upon reaching the bridge, he was filled in on the events that had transpired, and he did not like what he had heard. While Harding lay unconscious, being worked on by the medics, and Vinson sat tight-lipped in a cell, they had no proof of what exactly was behind the assassination. A mutiny against the Guard commander would not have necessitated the attempt on Marcos' life, and vice versa. The fact that a Navy man tried to kill the Admiral, and a Guardsman killed the General, was probably more than a coincidence. Aldoric could sense the fury in his Admiral's expression and voice; while he would not necessarily consider the two to be friends, certainly not in the way the Admiral and the Lord-General had been, Aldoric had an immense amount of respect for Marcos, having served as his Fleet Commissar through the entire campaign and, before that, as ship's Chief Commissar for many years when the Emperor's Judgement was serving in one of the many battlefleets of the Segmentum Pacificus. He considered the Admiral to be level headed, of sound judgement, and most importantly of all, of good character. Such men, he pondered sadly, were hard to find in the Imperium these days, and he had been happy to sign on to the Crusade expedition knowing it was in such capable hands. Under the Lord-Admiral's capable leadership, the Crusade had ranged out farther than Aldoric had ever expected it to, into these uncharted fringe worlds, where all kinds of wonders and horrors awaited.

Aldoric reasoned, pondered, ruminated. He gave his opinion to the Lord-Admiral. 'My Lord, given that we have, as of yet, received no word of any other treasonous activities being carried out aboard this ship or the rest of the fleet, it seems most possible that these two individuals were seized by the taint of Chaos,' the Commissar elucidated. 'If that is the case, then needless to say, regardless of their crimes, their executions would be warranted anyway.' Marcos nodded slowly.

'The Colonel, perhaps. He has been operating planetside since the invasion, has encountered the Archenemy several times, has faced down Daemons...but the Midshipman?'

'Ship's records show that Midshipman Vinson has led several resupply parties down to the planet, My Lord,' Aldoric explained. 'It is entirely possible that he was exposed to similar contamination.'

'Master-at-Arms!' Marcos called, summoning Master Kaestron, who saluted.

'My Lord?'

'Have your men inspected the shuttle aboard which the Colonel was brought aboard?' Marcos asked.

'Yes, My Lord. A thorough examination is being conducted. We have found nothing so far,' Kaestron explained, her artificial left eye whirring a little as it tracked between the Lord-Admiral and the Commissar.

'And what of the pilot, Master?' Aldoric asked. 'Has he been interviewed?'

'Yes, Commissar,' Kaestron replied. 'He appears to have no knowledge of the incident, or any involvement in it.'

'I trust the Commissariat are preparing an investigation of Colonel Harding's regiment and the circumstances surrounding his actions?' Marcos asked Aldoric, who nodded.

'Yes, My Lord. I have spoken to Senior Commissar Birbeck. He is in temporary command of the former siege garrison, to which the 40th Parvian Lancers were attached. A thorough investigation is being planned.'

'Good...' Marcos grunted. 'There must be more to this. A Midshipman I can accept. But a regimental commander? Newly promoted, at that, by his very victim?' He shook his head. 'Something just doesn't add up. Master-at-Arms, did the search of my ready room yield anything?'

'No, My Lord, I am afraid not,' Kaestron replied. 'We have recovered no evidence other than forensic material, which is of little use since we have the perpetrators in custody anyway.'

'And is there any sign of dissent or disquiet below decks?' Marcos asked. 'Anything that might precipitate a mutiny?'

Kaestron's eye whirred and buzzed. 'Unfortunately, yes, My Lord. There is some...unsettled talk on the lower decks. Many of the men are unhappy with the alliances we have made with these horse and bird aliens,' she explained. 'They feel such things are...' She paused to search for the tactful choice of words. 'Are...contrary to the ideals of the Imperium. Furthermore, there are rumours and suggestions that we have travelled too far. I'm sure you're aware of them...tales of dread and darkness, this far from the Emperor's Light.'

Marcos nodded, being well aware of the rumours about the edge of the galaxy and beyond. 'I have heard the rumours, yes. But are you telling me that men who have bravely faced down Orks, Eldar, and the Archenemy, should shirk not because of what they know, but because of what they don't?'

'Yes, My Lord,' Kaestron replied. 'In many cases...what is not there is often more terrifying than what is. The possibility of the unknown is what scares men the most. With all due respect...we do not know what lies beyond this galaxy. We did not know what lay here on this planet until we arrived. I believe this Xenos princess, or at least the rumours about her, have unnerved many of the men on board. You both saw what she did with the star, her little trick. I saw it too. I do not profess to understand how she could achieve such a thing, even as a psyker. But that is exactly why it is unnerving the men. They have heard rumours of what she did, both in space and on the planet, and they fear her for it. And then to hear that we have allied ourselves with them...'

'I understand their disquiet, Master, but this alliance was made out of necessity, nothing more,' Marcos replied. 'Consider that without the princess, we would not have even been able to break through the warp storm at all, let alone make landings and rescue our trapped forces. As of now we have no reason to consider her to be a hostile entity.'

'I must caution you, My Lord,' Aldoric interrupted, 'that lack of hostility is not necessarily grounds for alliance, nor for sympathy or clemency. She may be a useful Xenos, but she is still a Xenos, and after all; burn the heretic, beware the psyker and heretic, and abhor the alien.'

'I am well aware of the creed, Aldoric,' the Admiral snapped. 'But you can abhor something and still find it useful, can you not? You need look no further than sanctioned psykers or subhumans for that.'

Aldoric nodded. 'That is true, My Lord, but I would still urge caution. She has made several deliberate demonstrations of her power. She is a force to be reckoned with, that much is clear, but I suspect her danger comes as much from her mental strength as her physical prowess. Observe, if you will, how she has managed to get us to provide the manpower to retake not just her capital city, but her industrial base as well, in which we have happily obliged her. In one fell swoop and with barely any loss to her own forces, she has regained her seat of power and her ability to produce weapons and equipment. Ever since we made planetfall it seems that she has been using us to further her own ends at our expense. I understand the reasons behind our truce, but My Lord, there will come a time when a reckoning is due one way or another.'

'I know, I know...' Marcos sighed. 'But for now, let us focus. The Lord-General is dead, and we have the perpetrator. We just need to figure out the cause.'

The brig of the Emperor's Judgement was meant to hold the hardiest criminal elements that might find themselves aboard the ship, which was far more common than it might be imagined. Imperial press gangs roamed through the areas of ill repute in many cities, gathering up those who looked and sounded like they might suit a life aboard a starship, whether or not they knew it themselves. Many of these men were involved in various nefarious elements; narcotics dealers, organised crime, street thugs, all found themselves swept up in the net of Imperial power. To refuse the press gang was to find yourself in front of a firing squad; refusing to stand for the Emperor was worth nothing less. As a result, many cells were equipped with full-body restraints, intended to keep a violent prisoner fully restrained.

In one of the cells, Midshipman Vinson was chained up. Handcuffed, feet in manacles, a collar around his throat, keeping him still. Staying silent, however, was his own choice. Armsmen interrogators had questioned him, slapped him around a little, roughed him up, with no response. He said nothing. They tried truth serum, with a similarly lacking effect. The master interrogator was summoned, a man with immense and disquieting experience of inflicting pain upon his fellow man. He prepared his tools, but the Lord-Admiral arrived first of all.

'Let me speak to him,' he demanded. Nobody could deny him, and he swept into the interrogation chamber. A thick transparent plasteel window separated the chamber from the observation room. Inside was a simple chair fitted to the wall, in which Vinson was detained. His face appeared emotionless, just staring blankly forward.

Marcos drew his attention with a sound slap across the face. 'I want an explanation,' he demanded, 'and I want it now.'

Vinson looked up at his Lord and master. He said nothing, stubbornly silent even when confronted by his superior, by his target, by the object of his apparent wrath. His blank gaze said as much as his words ever could.

Marcos slapped him again. 'Tell me!' he roared. 'You attempted to mutiny. You tried to kill me, and your compatriot killed my friend. Why? Hm? Were your minds turned by Chaos? Or were you simply disillusioned with how this campaign was going?'

The Midshipman remained quiet, just gazing into infinity, caught up in thoughts only he could know, and would not share with the Admiral. Marcos fumed quietly. His friend was dead, and he wanted to know why, what had driven men to rebel against their leadership. Was it their deal with the princess? Was it the taint of Chaos? Was it the perils of being on the fringe of the galaxy? He tried again, raging at the Midshipman, but still getting no response.

Relenting, he left the room, and engaged the master interrogator. He entered the chamber, preparing his instruments- needles, drugs, blades, a variety of devices not of interrogation, but of torture. He applied them all, one by one, with no result, no effect. Vinson screamed, he roared in pain, bellowed with anguish, but he said nothing. Stubbornly silent still, regardless of pain.

Marcos was fuming with anger. Vinson would seemingly say nothing in the teeth of the worst agonies Imperial torture technicians could impose on him. He had to know what secrets the Midshipman held, but his attentions turned to the sick bay. Returning to the observation room, Marcos put in a call.

'This is Lord-Admiral Marcos calling the medical bay. Come in, Chirurgeon-Major Samitts.' The chief doctor replied over the internal vox.

'This is Samitts. Go ahead, My Lord.'

'How is your patient, doctor? Is he alive?' Marcos asked, referring to Colonel Harding. Samitts responded quickly.

'Yes, My Lord. We are keeping him alive, barely.'

'What injuries did he sustain?' Marcos asked.

'A severed spinal cord,' Samitts began. 'Severe trauma to the left kidney and the small intestine. Major lacerations and burns to the left lung. Several fractured and broken ribs. Third degree burns to 10% of his body. Major...'

'Enough!' Marcos urged. 'Will he live, or will he die?' he questioned.

'It is touch and go, My Lord,' Samitts answered simply. 'We are doing what we can, but I can make no guarantees regarding his survival.'

'Understood, doctor. Just...do your best to keep him alive until we can interrogate him,' Marcos retorted. 'We must know his motivations. We must know what drove to act in such a way. If you can prolong his life enough that we can end it through righteous judicial means, that would be a great bonus.'

'As said, My Lord,' Samitts replied, 'I will do what I can. But his injuries are severe. You should anticipate his death sooner rather than later.' Marcos could only nod, and reply with a similarly fatalistic tone.

'Well, if that is the case, then we may never know what happened up here. What lead to the death of the Lord-General....my friend. Do what you can, doctor. Marcos out.'

Ending the call, Marcos turned his attention back to the subject in custody, rather than in the medical bay. Perhaps Vinson would tell him something. Perhaps he could persuade, perhaps he could be effective where torture and interrogation had failed. Once more he told the armsman guarding the cell to allow him access. Once more, the armsmen complied.

Vinson still sat silent, having resisted all the multifaceted approaches Imperial science could offer towards making him talk. He had ignored pain, refused persuasion, denied torture. What had to be done to make him talk? Were the forces of Chaos empowering his mind to resist?

Marcos strode into the cell, 'Tell me,' he commanded, 'who sent you. Who committed you to such a fool's errand, hm? Was it of your own volition? Was it the princess? Was it the Dark Powers of the Archenemy? Who convinced you to perform such a foul deed? Why did you go along with it? It seems clear to me, you might as well admit your guilt before you die, for there is no clemency for you here.'

Vinson said nothing, still silent in the face of his potential death. Marcos stepped closer, spitting anger into his face.

'Tell me what you know!' he demanded. The Lord-Admiral received no reply, not in verbal form at least. He gasped in shock, scrambling for the door, pounding upon it. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
'

'

Discovery

Lord-Admiral Marcos pounded on the door, and his desperate cry was answered just in time. The door opened and he was able to scramble through, but the creature forced its way through behind him. A shout went out for armsmen, anyone with a weapon. It pushed through the door, bending it asunder, presenting its true form to the men in the observation room. One man went for his sidearm, but found himself stabbed through the chest and slumping to his death.

Marcos fled in panic, most unbecoming of an officer and most unknown to him, but entirely justified. A creature of unknown origin had suddenly appeared, manifesting itself in place of Midshipman Vinson, morphing free of its restraints, scrabbling to escape its prison. Dark and sleek, with glowing eyes and a hissing tongue, it leaped for the armsman who answered the call as he stepped through the door, blocking the creature's access to the Lord-Admiral. Before he could raise his shotgun it was on him, shoving him down bodily and biting, tearing with its fangs. Another man appeared in the doorway, taking aim, but was met by a sudden psychic blast from the creature's curved horn, cutting a channel straight through his body and shocking the men behind him.

Hissing and spitting, the creature charged through the doorway from the observation room into the corridor of the brig. Warders equipped with nothing more than batons for controlling unruly prisoners backed away in terror. The two men armed with shotguns had already been cut down by the thing in their midst, and they had seen their Admiral run. So they did the same.

It pursued them, green blasts from its horn slicing through several of the hapless warders as the creature took to the air, insectlike wings buzzing as it gained some height in the tall, multi-level brig complex. It had a target, and it was searching for it; there, up ahead, near the end of the hallway. It swooped down, horn lowered, toward the Lord-Admiral, who made it through the bulkhead door just in time. A bolt of energy cut a sizzling hole into the metal beside him. The creature dropped back to the deck and skittered through the door after him.

On the other side it was met by a party of armsmen, the brig's response team, called in in case of trouble to combat riots or mass escapes. They were wearing armour, helmets, visors, and carried plasteel shields to go along with their electro-stun batons. Taken by surprise, the lead man flailed wildly with his baton, striking the creature. It hissed in pain and annoyance, and a concussive blast from its horn tossed him back along with several of his compatriots. The men hesitated; they were used to dealing with prisoners, burly men perhaps armed with a length of chain or pipe, but not this monstrous thing, springing forth from an interrogation room that contained only a human prisoner and was suddenly in their midst.

Two of the squad were armed with shotguns, and they tried to recover and take aim, but the creature was fast and relentless. It leaped on one man, sprawled defencelessly on the floor, tearing at his throat, the only unprotected part of his body. As it did so, its horn let loose a spray of green sparks, blinding those looking at it. It was followed immediately by a rapid burst of shimmering beams that cut down two men. The others huddled behind their shields, which proved to be just about able to resist, their plasteel surfaces melting and warping but protecting the men behind. One man raised his shotgun and fired, winging the creature but just angering it, as its chitinous outer plating proved quite resistant, buckshot pattering ineffectively off of its carapace.

Sensing the potential threat, the creature lunged forward, another concussive blast sending men scattering. It was upon the gunman in a moment, its horn sinking deep into his side. His riot armour cushioned the blow, but the creature then released another psychic burst inside him that cut straight through his body and out the other side, striking the next man in the leg and knocking him down.

A flurry of blows from electro-stun batons struck it, and it kicked out its hind legs like a mule, knocking one man back, his baton spinning away. The other shotgun-wielding armsman took aim at point blank range and fired. The creature reared back screeching. Green ichor was oozing from the ruins of its left eye, caught by the spray of buckshot. Its horn flashed and the armsman barely dove to the side in time. He brought his gun up again and fired, catching the creature on its carapace and causing no further injury. Stun-batons struck it but were ignored. It used its wings for a surprising burst of speed, coming down on top of the gunman, fangs bared, knocking his gun away. He screamed for his life, and the Emperor answered his prayer.

A las-round punched a hole in the creature's chest, sending it writhing away, hissing. Its horn flashed again, but so did the las-pistol of the brig's commanding Lieutenant, leading another squad of armsmen, all equipped with shotguns instead of riot gear. The creature tried to take off, but it was wounded. It felled one of the advancing shotgunners, but the laspistol struck it again in the leg. Distracted by the new threat, the creature was unable to finish off the man who lay beneath it. He reached out desperately and managed to grasp his shotgun. He pulled it and aimed it upwards, firing once, directly into the creature's soft underbelly.

It slumped down on top of him, hissing weakly, its guts and green blood spilling out of its abdomen as it finally died. The Lieutenant put a las-round through the back of its head to make absolutely sure. It was finished, but it had taken a heavy toll on its way through the brig, leaving bodies littered in its wake. There was a single question going around the survivors and the prisoners who had seen the rampage through the bars of their cells- what the hell was it?

None of them knew, none of them had ever seen a creature quite like it before. A Tyranid, the prevailing suggestion- it had to be. It certainly looked like one. Lord-Admiral Marcos knew differently. Recovering from the ordeal, he quickly regained his senses and grabbed for the nearest vox-intercom. If Midshipman Vinson was one of those Changeling creatures, then Colonel Harding, down in the medical bay, might be too.

'This is Lord-Admiral Marcos calling primary medical bay, respond at once!' he ordered. 'Urgent security alert!' There was no reply over the circuit. He tried calling Master-At-Arms Kaestron on the bridge, and got through.

'My Lord! Are you hurt?' she asked immediately. 'We're receiving reports of some kind of violence in the brig! Is there a prison break?'

'Not exactly,' Marcos replied. 'Midshipman Vinson was one of those creatures...Changelings, from the planet. It escaped its confinement. We need medical teams here. Alert the primary medical bay that Colonel Harding may also be one of these creatures.'

'I have no contact with the medical bay, My Lord,' Kaestron replied. 'The link went quiet, there was a report of violence there also. I have several teams en route as we speak.'

Get them there as fast as possible,' Marcos urged. 'I am on my way to the bridge now. Marcos out.' He replaced the vox handset. Things had taken a sudden and most unwelcome turn.

Lord-Admiral Marcos arrived at the bridge, where numerous armsmen were guarding the entrances, as well as doubling the number posted around the main chamber. Kaestron reported that security teams had arrived at the medical bay. They found that 'Colonel Harding' had indeed escaped its restraints in its true form. It had been wounded, however, by the last-blast during the fight in the ready room, and it only managed to kill a few orderlies and medical cadets before the security detail outside the door was able to kill it.

Both assassins were dead, and had shown their real nature; not mutineers, but Changelings. Far from a minor nuisance, this new species was proving themselves to be extremely dangerous; somehow they had managed to get aboard the flagship, undetected, in disguise. Nobody had suspected a thing. Both men had seemed to be acting exactly as they would were they their real selves, rather than alien doppelgängers.

Marcos re-read the report transmitted by the Magi aboard the Ferrus Terra about the Changeling corpses recovered from the siege works on the planet below. They would have two more now to compare with. Marcos had to admit he had underestimated the new threat, being far more focused on the eradication of the Archenemy and the potential danger of the pony princess and her powers. Even with the assassination of Marwan down on the planet, it had seemed inconceivable that the Changelings would even know about the human fleet, given that the princess had reported that they used almost no technology, which most likely meant no telescopes. For them to board with the apparent intent of assassinating the commanders of the Imperial Crusade meant that they obviously knew more than Marcos thought. The princess had been on board the ship; had she told them, perhaps? Unlikely; the two species were apparently old foes. Could they learn of such things from the minds of those they killed? A fanciful notion, but stranger things had been found out on the fringes of the galaxy before. Had they tortured guardsmen for information? Quite possibly, assuming the creatures were even capable of speech and learning. Or was the whole thing just a huge coincidence? After all, the primary target of the assassination on the ground seemed to have been the princess, rather than Major-General Marwan, suggesting the Changelings had been after their old enemy again.

That was clearly not the case this time. The princess was not aboard, nor any other pony. There was only one explanation for the targets they had chosen, and that was to decapitate the human leadership from the very top. More worryingly, their very nature and the fact they were aboard ship meant that it was almost impossible to know exactly who could be trusted. When the enemy looked like a friend, how could you tell the two apart?

More worryingly still, it seemed the ship's own security systems had failed it. Sensors placed at every landing bay recorded conditions in varying spectra, searching for unknown contaminants being unwittingly brought aboard by landing parties or attack craft. The sensors could, and did, record the presence of the unknown particle they had been detecting since arriving in orbit; Marcos knew they did, because they had given a reading when the princess came aboard, a massive spike in the particle count that almost overwhelmed the recorders. No alarms had been sounded at any of the docking ports when Colonel Harding came aboard, or, after inspection of the records, when Midshipman Vinson's last supply party returned. The sensors had not given the warning they were supposed to give- were the readings given off by the Changelings too low to be measured? Was the sensitivity of the detectors not high enough? Either way, it had allowed them to slip aboard undetected, and where there were two, there could be thousands. Potentially, every man who had been to the surface could be a Changeling, and so, theoretically, could any crewmember who had come into contact with them while onboard. There would be no way to tell; the Chief Medical Officer who had treated the impostor Colonel Harding reported that in every way it seemed like he was treating the man himself; the skin, the tissue, the muscle, the blood, the organs, the bones- everything resembled a human perfectly, until the creature had decided it was time to reveal itself and slip free of its restraints. This meant, the medicae had warned, that even a blood test could not determine a man from a Changeling.

He did not know what the intentions of these Changelings were; from what the princess had relayed through Commissar Birbeck, it seemed that they were normally content to just attack their old enemies, the ponies, periodically. What they wanted with the Imperial forces was anyone's guess. With both prisoners now deceased, there was certainly no chance of figuring it out any time soon, but they had deprived him of a friend, and the Imperial Guard of a competent and intelligent leader. While the ship remained on lockdown, Marcos ordered an intensive search to commence for the location of the Changeling's base of operations- their Hive, the princess had called it. Once they located it, it would be pulverised from orbit- no survivors.

The EAS Canterlot sailed wearily back to the capital. Their mission had been an abject failure. They had not found the Hive, not the active one anyway, but just a decoy, a mocking taunt from Chrysalis and her minions. The blasted, scarred wasteland, it seemed, did not hold the answers they were looking for. But if not there, then where? Where could the Hive be? They had no other clues, no indications of a possible location for Twilight and the all-important Element. Their report would have to be made to Princess Luna, who would send a messenger to her sister. No luck, no joy, no hope of finding the Element.

They had searched high and low across the wasteland, even after finding the decoy Hive, in the hope that it might be a distraction from a nearby location, but it was not to be. There was nothing to be found in the barren coastal plains, no sign of the Changeling menace. But it had been worth a try; the trick may have been an obvious one, but it could have been a genuine oversight, or a double bluff of the part of the Queen. All the crew knew was that they had failed, and the fate of the Elements remained hanging in the balance.

It was a long journey back over the mountains, and bad weather was building up. A storm was forming, lightning flashing between the peaks, crackling through the leaden skies. Too dangerous to go over, Ironside decreed. One strike too many to the gasbag could ignite it, despite the self-sealing skin and armour plating. The winds could force them down into a rock face or blow them off course, lost in the cloud until they collided with sickening inevitability into a mountain. Climbing over the mountains tended to also put an undue strain on the airship's engines, and with the disruption caused by the invasion, spares and trained maintenance personnel were difficult to obtain. Nevertheless the message had to be delivered to Luna as quickly as possible. That meant they could either bypass the mountains to the south, or to the north. The south meant the valley, still held by the human enemy. To go north would take longer, but it might allow them to send a messenger Pegasus to Celestia, assuming she were still in Manehattan, to alert her directly to the disappointing results of the expedition.

North it would be, Ironside decided, and the mighty airship swung its bow around. The storm rippled and rumbled alongside them as they struck a course parallel with the mountain range. Canterlot was just beyond, now a mere few miles away, but it would still be quicker to go north and swing around into the upper valley than to wait for the storm to dissipate. They droned on, engines humming, sailors of the skies riding north for home port.

'Aerial contact!' came the sudden cry. 'Due north' Observers rushed to vantage points to confirm the sighting. Ironside reached for his telescope. Another cry joined the first.

'New contact! Nor-nor-west!' came another shout, a different voice, then the initial voice once more.

'Now two contacts at due north!' A moment's pause before a fearful cry. 'Dragons, skipper! Big ones!'

'Battle stations!' Ironside ordered promptly and calmly. 'All hooves to your battle stations! Raise the shield, run out the guns!'

The crew hurried to obey, preparing the airship for combat. Gunports were lowered, hatches sealed, fire hoses primed and charged, ready ammunition lockers opened and guns loaded. The deck crews donned their armour and helmets, while in the hold below the Assault Infantry did the same, arming themselves with their rifles.

Dragon attacks, at least before the arrival of the humans, had been the bane of airship crews across Equestria, generally bringing down one or two craft per year, usually isolated patrol or transport vessels- which was exactly what the Canterlot was, carrying its cargo of ponies. Unlike most cargoes, however, this one could at least fight back.

'Are they coming our way?' Ironside hailed the lookouts.

'Yes, skipper! All three of them,' came the affirmative reply. Three dragons against one airship- those were not good odds, even against the new City-Class and their dedicated anti-air armament. And these dragons were big. Hulking great monstrosities, the kind not usually seen in Equestrian skies. Evidently something, most likely related to the invasion, had disturbed them from their hibernation somewhere in the deep dark mountain caves. They were out, they were looking angry, and they were coming straight for the Canterlot.

'Looks like we're fighting, then,' Ironside muttered. 'Helm, hard to port! All starboard guns, standby to fire on my mark! Maybe we can scare them off.'

The gun crews complied, the machine-cannon, anti-air guns and the main deck bombardment cannons were prepared, the latter at maximum elevation. Gun captains hunched over the sights, tracking the targets, waiting for command. The dragons drew closer, and closer, and then it came.

'Fire!' Ironside roared, and the guns roared with him. Shells burst around the dragons, but did not deter them. They swept onward, mighty wings beating like drums. 'Main guns reload!' Ironside ordered, and the gunners slammed fresh shells home. 'Anti air guns, fire at will!'

The steady rattle of the machine-cannon was joined by the regular thump of the anti-air guns, hurling lead and shrapnel into the air. But the dragons continued on, unfazed. The main guns belched smoke and set off a string of explosions in their path. They pushed through effortlessly. The closest dragon roared in irritation and projected a great plume of fire toward the airship. It burst mercifully against the shield like a flood of water striking a dam wall. While the flames could not get through, the dragons could still hurl themselves against the shield itself, and that was what the leading dragon, the largest of the three, some hundred feet of dark-red scale and muscle, did. The gondola shuddered a little as she shield feedback made it move. The guns continued to fire as the dragons poured more hellfire at the airship, burning harmlessly against the shield but causing more feedback. Every impact added to the pressure, and the other two dragons joined in their leader, slamming bodily against the protective bubble. Unlike projectiles or the human aircraft, the dragons were not moving at a sufficient speed for the impact to do them physical harm, but they had enough bulk behind them to shake the shield and the ponies powering it.

The guns spat defiance at the huge creatures which, though relatively small in comparison to the full length of the Canterlot, were still monstrous beasts in their own right, particularly large examples of their species, and seemingly filled with a ferocious anger. The starboard machine-cannons stitched a trail of impacts across the body of one of the dragons, merely irritating it. The heavier anti-air guns had more of an effect, blowing chunks out of their scaly plating. Roasting columns of flame washed against the shield in reply. The dragons swung around to get out of the line of fire, but found themselves beset by the portside gunners with their accurate shooting. More defiant roars bellowed from giant throats as the dragons swooped, attacking from both sides and the rear.

The head of the Shield Section shouted that his unicorns were tiring from the assault and the battering the shield was taking. Ironside called across to Spitfire, who was holding onto the deck railing, not as used to the movements of an airship deck during combat as he was.

'Major! If you'd be so kind as to get your companies on deck. It's time for some sharpshooting.' Spitfire nodded and relayed the orders below. The Pegasi infantry and the Special Tasks Group squad came rapidly up the hatchways from the hold. She ordered them to line the railings in between the cannons, and two hundred rifles sprouted from the sides of the craft. At her command, the crackle of musketry added its weight to the din of battle. The bullets were pinpricks against the dragons' hide, but they could be targeted with great accuracy by the trained marksponies of the Assault Infantry. Eyes, open mouths and the softer underbellies and wings could be struck. Surrounded on three sides by dragons and on the other by the mountains, the Canterlot needed all the firepower it could get.

The dragons continued to swoop in, breathe fire at the shield, slam into it a couple of times, and circle away, almost forming a steady pattern of violence. The guns volleyed fire back at them, with patters of rifle rounds and machine-cannon shells mingling with the heavy roar of the bombardment cannons. But ammunition was finite, and a dragon was a hardy beast. Three were extremely dangerous. Spitfire pondered using the same tactic as she had in the abandoned Hive, with sticky bombs and careful movement, but that was against one dragon. With three in the air, any attempt to approach and isolate one would be met with flame from another, and being roasted alive was not the way she wanted to go. A massed approach by the Assault companies might achieve victory, but a single blast of flame could massacre an entire platoon in an airborne holocaust and swarm tactics were not so effective against such large beasts as they would be against the smaller, more common dragons that plied the area.

One of the bombardment cannons struck a heavy blow, getting a lucky shot in and ripping through the side plating of one of the two smaller dragons, a grey creature that was suddenly pumping red blood from its flank. It roared in pain, and Spitfire shouted for the rifleponies to focus their fire on the wound. Ironside gave the same command to the machine-cannon operators, and a hailstorm of bullets and small-calibre shells struck home. The dragon screeched and spat flame against the shield, but it was hurt, and it was struggling to stay airborne. The starboard anti-air cannons blazed and struck it, slowed by its wound. With a final death-roar, it plunged from the sky, trailing blood behind it.

Its fellows charged, smashing against the shield and rocking it violently. The unicorns providing the magic for the defences were stumbling, straining to maintain the bubble around the airship. The flames, being spread across such a large area of the shield at once, provided a greater burden for them than a concentrated attack would have, as providing magical support for a larger area required more mental output. The shield was wavering, and the dragons were relentless, belching out flame and smoke from above, from below, from the sides, wherever they would appear. Sometimes guns could not engage them; sometimes they would dance between the shell bursts, or sometimes just shrug them off. They kept coming, kept striking, the shield quaking and shivering, the unicorns shaking on unsteady hooves, their horns sputtering. With two final massive blasts of heat from two sides at once, the shield collapsed with a pop of displaced air. The Canterlot was vulnerable.

Ironside immediately ordered full speed ahead, driving toward the mountains. The unicorns tried to raise the shield again, but the feedback from collapse had stunned them, rendered them temporarily incapable of erecting it. The dragons came in again, and this time their flames found a target. Fire leaped across the flank of the gondola and scarred the top deck, the dragons mercifully not posessing the awareness of the nature of airship construction to know that the gasbag was the jucier target. Nontheless, fire gripped the wood-and-metal structure. Hoses were immediately put into operation. Half a dozen ponies screamed in utter agony as they were burned alive, several leaping over the side, blazing torches in the fading light.

Damage control parties threw buckets of sand onto the burning wood and played hose lines over the flames as the gun crew continued to fight the ship. The dragons, sensing their prey trying to flee, pounced again, coming in from astern where there were only a couple of machine-cannons mounted. But the rails were lined with rifles still, and several shots to the eyes saw one dragon wheeling away in pain. The other, the dark-red monster, pressed on, and let loose a huge belch of flame that swathed the quarterdeck in smoke and fire. A quick-thinking unicorn threw up a much smaller shield bubble around the command crew, protecting Ironside, Spitfire, the chief gunnery officer and the helmspony from the heat. Hoses hurriedly quelled the blaze as best they could, but the water tanks on board only held so much. Many more fires would result in the situation getting out of hoof. 'All ahead, flank speed!' Ironside ordered. 'Take us up! Cut loose ballast fore and aft! Into the storm!'

A few of the crewponies glanced at him, but he knew it was the only decision to take. If either of the two dragons got in a good shot at the gasbag, if they came in at the right angle and engulfed most or all of the top deck in an inferno, or if a significant quantity of fire got going on the main gun deck, the airship was doomed. The fire hoses and extinguishing magic of the unicorns could not cope with a full-scale blaze. If fire caught hold of the gasbag or the main magazines then the whole ship would go up.

Streams of water ballast vented from the nose and tail of the airship's gasbag. Pegasi flapped over the sides of the gondola to cut away the sandbags used as emergency ballast to gain a further advantage; not ideal, but a necessity. They were already getting close to the rising rock wall that formed the edge of the Foal Mountains, and to get over it in time they would need all the help they could get.

'Sir, she's heavy1' cried the helmspony. 'She'll never make this climb.'

'Major!' Ironside shouted across the din to Spitfire. 'Can your boys fly alongside? We need a lot of altitude very quickly and I'm afraid they're weighing us down.' Spitfire gave a nod in return and passed the command to the Assault Infantry. They would need to get out and stay in close formation as the airship climbed, otherwise they would be easy pickings for the dragons. The word went around, and squad by squad the Pegasi leaped over the side, taking to the wing and remaining close to the airship as it began to rise rapidly, elevators and engines tilting to add extra lift and thrust respectively. Rain pattered against the wooden deck and the armour of the crew as they reached the storm's edge, still climbing, the rock face looming ahead of them vertiginously.

The dragons came in again, the guns thundering in response. A blast of flame caught the port side of the gondola, charring timbers and igniting spot fires on the main gun deck, swiftly extinguished by practised hooves. Several of the Assault Infantry were caught in the curving arc of flame and spiralled away, their wing feathers burning, unable to keep themselves airborne.

The other dragon, the dark-red leader, flapped above the airship and dove down upon it. Lightning crackled near it but it sped on, mouth open wide, a torrent of heat and flame erupting. Some of it caught the front of the gasbag, while the rest descended upon the main deck. Some ponies were caught in the blast and fried alive in their armour, the metal melting into their skin, fusing it to their bodies as their agonised screams were silenced by the air being sucked from their lungs. As the dragon dropped lower, it flew into almost a full broadside from the starboard bombardment cannons, which knocked it about heavily, blood pouring from several wounds as it let out a mighty roar. It backed off to regroup, but that allowed the crew time to react.

Hoses plied their trade, using up the last of the emergency water extinguishing the blazing forward deck. Ammunition was hastily rolled or shoved away from the burning areas, while the wounded were pulled to the rear hatch where the medics awaited. The rain was aiding them now, a heavy squall pelting them with cold, sharp drops, cooling the deck planks and helping the firefighting efforts. But there was still fire clinging to the gasbag's surface, threatening to burn through the outer cover and defeat the self-sealing skin of the internal cells that contained the precious, and highly flammable, lifting gas.

A damage control team flapped up to check out the conditions. They called for water, but none was available. Buckets were hastily laid out and passed up. Gutters running along the top and sides of the gasbag collected rainwater or condensation and funneled it into the water ballast tanks inside the envelope. Now they were pressed into service as sources for firefighting, with the ponies scooping up what they could and tossing it onto the lingering flames. The canvas outer skin, reinforced with armour in key places, had burned through, but fire had not reached the internal cells. The flames were checked just in time.

The dragons continued to pursue at a greater distance, wary as the leader had been wounded and their compatriot killed by the airship. The clouds swirled around them, thunder roaring above them as lightning flashed, illuminating the deck of the Canterlot. Rain pounded as the visibility dropped. The dragons astern of them came and went through the clouds and fog. The lookouts were ordered to keep an especially close watch, as the deck crew could see nothing more than a few hundred yards ahead at best. Flying an airship through a thunderstorm over mountain peaks wasn't quite suicide, but it wasn't exactly a surefire way to a pension and a cosy retirement.

Rain lashed the deck and the gasbag, putting out the last of the stubborn fires. Intense winds buffeted the sturdy craft, setting the gondola swaying. They were really inside the clouds now, and Spitfire ordered the Assault Infantry back aboard lest any get lost in the storm. The altimeter was constantly checked and rechecked, needing to be wiped clear of rain and condensation repeatedly. The highest peak of the mountain range was at twelve thousand feet, but the area they were climbing over had a maximum height of just over nine thousand. Canterlot lay beyond, just a few miles away, but visibility continued to shrink to almost nil. The water ballast tanks refilled within minutes as rain poured into the collector tracks. But that was not the only place it was getting into.

The fire on the gasbag had burned a ragged gash in the outer skin, and rain was flooding into the hole. The torn fabric flapped in the strong wind, and the front-most interior fuel cell found itself being ripped by a sudden, strong gust. The precious lifting gas, lifeblood of the airship, began to vent away into the atmosphere. It was not enough to bring the ship down, but the more gas drained, the more nose-heavy the Canterlot would become.

The dragons had disappeared astern, lost in the clouds behind, perhaps scared away by the lightning that played all around, or perhaps just bored of the pursuit, retreating to lick their wounds. The Canterlot was all alone, tossed on the endless stormy grey sea that surrounded it. Somewhere in the mists, perhaps perilously close beneath them, lay the jagged peaks of the Foal Mountains. Ahead lay Canterlot. They pressed on, as much out of necessity as anything else. The dragons may still be behind them, and they were no longer in any fit state to fight. Several of the anti-air guns had been taken out by the flames, there were numerous casualties who needed more medical attention than could be given in the overwhelmed sickbay, and the gasbag was torn. If they could make it over the peaks, they could drop down below the storm and into relatively clear air, and make their approach to Canterlot. An inspection of the gasbag by the damage control party, however, revealed the extent of their problems.

'Skipper!' one pony called, flapping down from the gasbag above, buffeted by the wind, her mane and tail blown into straggly tatters. 'The forward cell is ruptured! We're bleeding lifting gas!'

'Are the other cells intact?' Ironside asked immediately. The mare nodded. 'It looks like it. It's just where the fire hit the cover, burned through...I guess the rain and the wind got inside. There's a tear a good four feet long in the cell.'

'Damn, no wonder she feels nose-heavy!' the helmspony muttered. 'Skipper, if we're venting gas at the bow then we're going to start losing altitude, no matter how much ballast we release.'

Ironside nodded gravely. Under normal circumstances, such a problem would be serious, but not calamitous. Ballast could be released forward and not aft, to stabilise the ship's centre of gravity somewhat while a controlled descent was made onto level terrain. But the circumstances were not normal- they were in the midst of a storm, an unknown height above the mountain peaks. The altimeter read ten thousand, but with no visibility they didn't know their precise location, or where they might encounter a taller cliff or mountainside that would spell disaster.

Ironside ordered their speed cut to one half ahead and all remaining forward ballast to be dumped. Extra lookouts strained their eyes for any sign of something looming out of the murk. The clouds were lit by lightning, which played on the metal armour of the gasbag, mercifully diverted around the potentially flammable gas by the structure of lightning rods built into the outer skin and gondola. The winds howled around them, shaking the gondola from side to side as the rain lashed down, soaking every surface, but at least cooling and easing the agonies of those burn victims still on deck, there being no room in the sick bay for them all.

The lifting gas continued to bleed away from the forward cell, steadily bringing the nose lower and lower despite the best efforts of the helmspony. A few hundred feet could be all that spared them from a collision. But if the nose kept dropping, they would soon be plunging into trouble anyway if they didn't know what was below them. Ironside ordered the helm to limit the rate of descent as much as possible, slow, creeping, double lookouts on both sides, with Pegasi flapping below the gondola itself for a better view, though they were wracked and buffeted by the gales blowing around them. One hundred feet, nothing below. Two hundred. Three hundred, five hundred, one thousand.

'Hold her there!' came the cry from below, faint, carried barely on the wind. 'Ground sighted! Hold her!'

The helmspony raised the elevators and applied more power, engines swiveling downward to stop their descent. The airship as a whole stabilised, but the nose continued to drop lower and lower as more gas drained away. The damage control party worked feverishly to plug the leak, but it was too big. It was not a simple patch job with a few squares of canvas. It was a long gash in the self-sealing cell, requiring the application of fresh untrated rubber in between the canvas layers, a time consuming process, and time was something that had run out.

The rocks below came closer and closer, the bow plunging from the sky despite every effort to correct it. The emergency ballast had already been cut away to expedite their climb away from the dragon threat, the bow ballast had been drained already. Another purge of the small amount of rainwater that had accumulated since the last ballast blow was tried, to no avail. The engines throbbed as they tried in vain to compensate with thrust for what the airship now lacked in sufficient lift. With no way to pump gas from the other cells to the ruptured one, no more forward ballast to compensate, and no other way of raising the nose, the Canterlot was doomed to drop until it struck the mountain below.

Ironside sent out a simple order; abandon ship.

Crewponies prepared the emergency evacuation, opening all hatches and gunports. Pegasi rapidly formed up to receive the unicorn and earth pony members who they would airlift to safety. Each casualty, unable to support their own weight or hold onto their rescuer, required several Pegasi for evacuation, but luckily the two companies of Assault Infantry on board provided more than enough willing hooves. The wounded from sickbay were brought onto the main deck as quickly as they could be packaged for transport. With the engines screaming in full reverse to try and slow the descent, the crew and passengers began to flee the dying ship. The wounded and the non-Pegasi first, followed by the rest of the passengers, then the gun crews below deck, then the top deck crews, the command staff, and finally, last pony off, her captain. Ironside flapped into the air mere moments before the bow of the Canterlot made contact with the mountain.

The nose of the gasbag slammed into the sharp outcrop, crumpling up, the canvas ripping and tearing, the already deflated gas cell collapsing entirely. All forward progress was halted by the collision, and the airship dropped, the gondola slamming bodily into the rocks beneath. The gasbag's interior metal supporting framework concertinaed up on itself as something, somewhere, ignited the lifting gas that was now leaking from multiple cells. A tiny spark and a tiny flame became, within seconds, a raging inferno, as the huge craft settled into its grave, high atop the mountains. If the weather had been clear, the death of the Canterlot would have been visible from the walls of the city whose name she bore.

Next Steps

The crew and passengers of the Canterlot watched the wreck burning brightly in the dullness of the clouds. Lightning flashed and flickered above them as their ship died, burning to ashes before their eyes. Everypony was safe, the airship evacuated in time. But the wounded needed treatment, and so the sullen, mournful trek began, over the rain-sodden peaks, down into the valley, looking for the capital city. They had a report to deliver to Princess Luna, another task to fulfill, even without their ship.

The storm continued unabated, adding a cacophonous background to their sad journey. They had failed in their mission, and now their vessel was gone, burning unseen in the clouds high above the capital. The wounded were carried gently by teams of Pegasi from the Assault Infantry, with the airship's navigator leading the way as best he could with his compass. Their precise location was unknown to them as the peaks were still shrouded in cloud, but they knew broadly that Canterlot was to the northwest. Wherever uneven or unstable ground was encountered, Pegasi helped lift the unicorns, earth ponies, and those of their own breed who had suffered wing injuries over the obstacle until they could walk safely again. Slowly, with the rage of the heavens still ringing in their ears, they made their descent, down the cliffs and escarpments. Rainwater turned gullies into torrents, washing out the land in some spots, necessitating yet more heavy lifting work. It was a torturous and tedious descent, but eventually, as the rain lessened and the winds slackened, they reached the lower ground and the smoother, softer slopes of the foothills. Visibility improved; they could see some of the terrain ahead. A landmark was recognised, a large outcropping of rock that resembled almost a half moon; Luna's Stack, it was called. It signalled that they were mercifully close to the city itself.

Within the hour they were inside the walls, the gates having been opened warily after the proper identification codes had been exchanged. The threat of Changeling infiltration was high and the guards were in no mood to take chances after the abduction of Twilight and her Element. Seeing Air Corps ponies on hoof and wing instead of aboard their airship was odd enough, but the situation was explained easily enough. Princess Luna was summoned, and Ironside and Spitfire made their reports.

They had found a Hive, but it was a decoy, empty. Either that or it had already been abandoned, but the presence of the rock sample of the type found lining the wall of the previous Hive made it more likely they were being deliberately taunted. The coastal plains held no other signs of Changeling activity, or activity of any kind save some natural wildlife. The caves along the sea shore had been scanned and investigated with negative results. Likely rock formations had been scoured and turned up nothing. In short, they were no closer to locating the new Hive than they had been before, and now they were down one airship.

The princess of the night sent a messenger to the princess of the day, still located in Manehattan. The humans there had been performing a final sweep of the city prior to handing back control, to ensure that every last trace of the Archenemy had been eradicated from each room, each street, each sewer and tunnel and alleyway. A long and complex job, but one that, Senior Commissar Birbeck informed Celestia, had to be carried out with the utmost precision and thoroughness. He also informed her that, for reasons he declined to elaborate on, he was now in permanent command of the siege forces. With no other leads to go on as to the Hive's location, Celestia sent the messenger back with instructions to send scout airships to the other areas of the country where it was known that several Hives had been constructed previously due to the ground and rock conditions being ideal. Hopefully Chrysalis had fallen back on areas she knew well to construct her latest home, and something would turn up, though in her letter to Luna, Celestia admitted to having doubts about the likelihood of such an operation being successful. As evidenced by the decoy, Chrysalis knew they were looking for her. She would surely not return to a location she had previously used. But that didn't leave many likely areas with good ground conditions that she could expand into. Celestia also ordered scouts to check those few other sites just in case. But Changelings were masters of disguise, not just of themselves but of their Hives also. They had only found the decoy so simply because Chrysalis wanted it to be found. An occupied Hive would be concealed by leaves, rocks, trees, branches, water. In a move of genius, Changeling sentries would disguise themselves as bushes or small trees- living organisms, and thus just as able to be replicated by a Changeling as a pony or a human. These bushes would both disguise the guards and conceal the Hive entrances from both the ground and air. Tracks would be avoided where possible by having departing and returning Changelings fly. If wounded or if dragging or carrying something, such as a cart of a body, a Changeling could use its magic to cover its tracks behind it- moving mud or snow to fill in hoofprints, shifting leaves to hide cart tracks, and the like. If Changelings did not want to be found, it was very hard to deprive them of their secrecy.

Luna organised the missions, sending messengers to surviving Air Corps bases in the desert and in the wilderness regions of the north to deploy their scout airships on search missions. There chance of success was remote, relying mainly on the foolishness of Queen Chrysalis, which was a quality she distinctly lacked. Nevertheless, it was a mission that had to be attempted, just as the Canterlot's dutiful but fruitless search had been. The Hive, the Element, and Twilight Sparkle must be found.

Aboard the Emperor's Judgement, Lord-Admiral Marcos, despite the turmoil around him from the assassination and the successful infiltration of the Changelings, still had work to be completed. He had appointed Senior Commissar Birbeck, already acting commandant, as permanent commander of the forces in and around Manehattan, and ordered him to sweep the city one final time before gathering his strength on the plains to the west in preparation for another more. New targets lay ahead, and had to be taken. Having a Commissar acting as commanding officer of such a large unit was an unusual, though not unheard of, step, but through attrition on a dozen worlds and a dozen space battles, the Crusade was running low on experienced staff officers. Galen was dead, and so war Marwan who, although pompous, had been a master at siegecraft. But the forces around Manehattan would soon be on the move, and a siege would likely not be their next mission.

The Auspex grids had been running day and night, searching for the Changeling Hive. Despite Celestia's affirmation, and the Magi's confirmation, that the creatures were cold blooded, Marcos had ordered the scans to continue in the hopes of discovering something from orbit- evidence of digging, heat signatures from fires or temperature control devices, anything that might represent the location of the new enemy. Marcos felt obliged to get permission from the Princess before engaging the target, should they find it, but he was sure she would be glad of a chance to be rid of her old foe in one fell swoop, an undefendable strike from the heavens.

On board all ships of the fleet, the internal sensors had been operating at full capacity, in an attempt to detect any traces of the unknown particle on board. While the appearance of the Princess on board had been met by a huge spike in the particle count in various chambers and corridors as she had made her way to the bridge, that just served to showcase her power. When she was present in the docking bay, the readings were off the scale. When Midshipman Vinson had been present in a different docking bay returning from a supply trip, and when Colonel Harding had come aboard, there was barely any indication above background levels. There had been, however, a notable rise in the count within the brig during the attack of the creature that had killed and replaced the Midshipman, and likewise in the medical bay, when the creatures were in their natural form and using their psychic attacks. Arch-Magos Darius had theorised that, when a Changeling was in disguise as some other life-form, the outer layer of whatever psychic effect projected their altered appearance also shielded the output of the particles. This could have either been a deliberate act by the Changelings or, more likely, as a side effect, given that the Princess had seemed baffled at the suggestion of being able to detect said particles and had explained that local technology could not do so.

This news was even more worrying than the initial infiltration. Their sensors had not failed to detect the Changelings because they were insufficiently powerful, or because they were calibrated wrong; they simply could not detect the particles that they knew were present inside its brain, so long as the creature was in disguise as something else. Further evidence, if any were needed, of the potentially grave threat these creatures could pose to the Imperials. Their motives and intentions remained shrouded in mystery. Marcos was reluctant to admit to the Princess that an infiltration of his flagship had occurred, but there was always the possibility that she might know something about what the Changelings were after. On the other hand, admitting to a potential weakness might give her cause to exploit it in the future; perhaps, despite what she said, she was actually working with these Changelings?

Marcos dismissed such thoughts. The Princess had displayed sufficient power that if she wanted the fleet gone, she could have snuffed it out weeks ago. It seemed unlikely that she would go to such lengths as arranging an intricate ploy involving assassinations, infiltrations and an entirely new species to achieve such a goal when she could just shoot their ships out of the sky. This Changeling Queen must have desires of her own, but what were they? The species had remained entirely unknown to the Crusade until they had assassinated Lieutenant-General Marwan, though that appeared to have been an attempt mainly on the life of the Princess. Why these creatures had now turned their attention most definitely to the Imperium remained to be seen.

Even amidst such confusion and potential danger, the minutiae, relatively speaking, of planetary conquest was still underway. With Manehattan finally theirs, and in the process of being turned over to the ponies, the thoughts of the Crusade's leaders turned to the next objective. The main valley, to the south of the pony capital, Canterlot, was still in enemy hands and had been since the start of the invasion. They had no doubt had time to fortify it, to move in reinforcements, and, most likely, to massacre the local populations and perform their sickening rituals and disgusting crimes. It was time for the area to be purged.

The troops from Manehattan would be moved once the final sweep of the city had been concluded, returning to staging areas at the northern end of the main valley. The pony capital would be used as a jumping-off point for the push into the valley, which would be supported by additional forces from the main landing grounds to the west of the continent. The Princess would not need one of her airships this time to witness the military might of the Imperium; she would be able to view it all comfortably from her palace windows. No doubt she would have her own demands to make, protections of certain structures or holy relics and the like. But Marcos was willing to make such small sacrifices if it meant keeping her on side, at least for now. While Celestia perhaps represented a more blatant and overt threat through her power, the Changelings were the more immediate danger. They had infiltrated the flagship already, the Arch-Magos had all but confirmed that they could not be detected by the sensors on board, and there was no way of telling how many more of them might already be infesting the decks of the Emperor's Judgement. The priority was to find the Hive. If the Changelings were anything like the Tyranids that they greatly resembled, then if you wanted to truly disrupt their plans, there was one surefire way to do so- kill the Queen.

Time? Time meant nothing any more. When it was dark, and she was alone, she cried. It was dark a lot. In fact it was dark almost all the time, except when they came for her, came to drag her away to the torture chamber again.

Twilight had slowly dissolved from the strong-willed and forceful mare she had been, into a mess, a wreck of a pony with gaunt, sallow eyes, tattered fur and straggly mane. Days, perhaps weeks, of deprivation and pain had all but broken her spirit, but not her loyalty. She had so far refused every demand made by the Changeling torturers to reveal the secrets of the palace. The trust the princess had placed in her was all that Twilight had left to cling to. She could not believe the Queen's words about sparing her friends; no doubt she would have them killed whatever outcome resulted from Twilight's torture. In her darkest moments, Twilight was ashamed to admit to herself that sometimes she couldn't even recall her friend's faces.

The mental deprivation of her lonely cell was, if anything, an even greater challenge to overcome than the pain of the torture. She knew that Chrysalis didn't want her dead, not yet, and so the torturers could only inflict so much pain and injury on her before she went into shock or suffered a cardiac arrest. It didn't matter, however, if she went mad first. So long as she could recall the method of access to the secret passage, that was all the Queen required. The state of her sanity was completely irrelevant to the Changeling plans.

The cell was dark and cold. Water continued to drip infuriatingly in a never-ending pattern. The more she listened, the louder it became, a cacophony, a torrent of noise in her ears. There was nothing else to hear except her own intermittent sobbing. There had been no food for- a day? Two? Three? She had no means of knowing the true duration of her incarceration. The meals had been the only thing that could mark the passage of time, but even they had stopped, with just a bowl of water shoved through the door every so often at seemingly random intervals. Just enough to keep her alive but starving. It was not something that had ever crossed her mind before, but the Changelings seemed to be masters at psychological torture. She had to admit it was working on her.

A hundred plans of escape had flashed through her mind at times. She would tear the shackles from the wall. She would impale the guards with her horn and steal the keys. She would somehow summon enough willpower to overcome the magical dampening spells and show her true strength. She would use cunning, guile, deception, turn the Changelings' own weapons of war against them. The reality her mind created for her, however, was just intended to shield her from the pain and fear she felt every waking moment. The truth was different. She was trapped, with no possibility of rescue. Nopony knew where she was. She didn't know where she was, and she didn't know where her mind was going.

In the past when she found herself in times of trouble, she could turn to her friends, who would always be waiting eagerly to hear her problems and help out however they could. But this time, this time she was completely alone. She didn't even know if her friends were alive; despite the Queen's promises to spare them, there was no guarantee they weren't already dead. Who knew what calamities might have been unleashed upon the surface during her imprisonment? As far as she knew there were still huge numbers of the human Archenemy to deal with, as well as the Changelings. It was even possible that Chrysalis had already conquered the planet and was just keeping Twilight in the dark about it for her own sick amusement. Twilight had no means of knowing.

The constant dripping of water made it hard, almost impossible, for her to sleep, but utter weariness took its toll eventually. She did not know how long it had been since she had slept last, nor how long it had been since anything else had happened. Her body ached all over, from the torture, from the cramped cell, from longing for home, from crying. She just wanted to escape, to get away, to be somewhere else, even if only for a few minutes. She closed her heavy eyes. Somehow, the pattering of the water became an aid instead of a distraction, like counting sheep. One drop, two drops, three, four...

Before she reached ten, she was asleep, finally, and enveloped by a blackness of an entirely different kind. Suddenly, there she was; home. She was in Ponyville. There was Pinkie, waving gaily to her pals as she helped the Cakes display their wares. There was Applejack, tugging a cart of fresh fruit along behind her, working hard as always. There was Rainbow, and Fluttershy, one flying, one walking, both chatting together. There was Rarity, sampling the finest fabrics at the market. There was Spike, hungrily chowing down on a clawful of gemstones. They weren't alone.

There was Cheerilee, there was Roseluck, Derpy Hooves, Big Mac, Lyra and BonBon, everyone. Her family, too; mother, father, brother. The princesses were present as well. Everypony was happy, everypony was smiling. Except for Princess Luna.

The night princess was the only pony who seemed to notice Twilight. She flapped toward her on her mighty wings, settling down on the ground in front of the young mare. Then she spoke, not in her normal tone, but in the great, stentorian crash of commanding sound that was the Royal Canterlot Voice.

'Twilight Sparkle!' she boomed. 'We have not forsaken you. We have not abandoned you. Hear my words and heed them, heed them well. We are looking for you, we will find you, and we will free you. This is my promise, and my sister's promise.'

Even in her dream, Twilight was bleary and unsure of what was happening around her. 'P-princess Luna...?' she muttered. 'Where...but, I'm in Ponyville. I'm right here...'

'No, Twilight,' Luna replied. 'You have been taken from us. We suspect the Changelings are responsible. can you confirm this?' she questioned.

'Changelings? I...yes...y-yes, princess...' Twilight nodded as her memories of her condition, suppressed momentarily by her dream state, were awoken once more by Luna's intrusion into it. 'Yes. Queen Chrysalis...I am her prisoner...'

'Then it is as we feared.' Luna nodded gravely. 'You must be in their Hive. Do you know where you are? Do you have any indication at all as to where exactly they took you?'

'No, princess...none...' Twilight replied. 'I was unconscious the whole time until I woke up in this cell.'

'Is there anything you have seen in the Hive that might give a clue as to its location?' Luna questioned. 'Anything that might help us narrow down your location?'

'No...I-i don't know. There's just...rock...some water dripping...it's hot...I'm sorry, princess...' Twilight sighed. She couldn't be of any help in their search as she was as clueless as they were as to her location.

'Do not apologise, Twilight Sparkle,' Luna replied. 'Conserve your strength. Do you know why the Changelings have taken you?'

'I...yes,' Twilight nodded. 'Chrysalis wanted my Element. She wants to render them useless so they can't be used to stop her. She...she has a crazy plan. Surely it won't work. But she wants to take the palace, through the secret passageways!'

Luna asked her something else, but everything around her had started fading, crumbling away, the very fabric of this reality beginning to tear itself apart. She could still see Luna, standing before her, still speaking. Her voice broke through the swirling mist that suddenly enveloped Twilight.

'We will come for you!' she shouted. 'Remember this, Twilight Sparkle. We will come for you.'

With a snap, Twilight was back in the Hive, being roughly shaken awake by the two Changeling guards, familiar faces to her now, even if they did both look all but identical not just to each other but also to any of the countless other Changelings in the Hive. Her dream was over; it was back to face reality. She wasn't even sure what had happened. Was Luna just a figment of her imagination?

What was certainly real was the pain, and now the guards had come to afflict more. They dragged her to the torture chamber and restrained her, but this time they left her alone. Instead, Queen Chrysalis returned, no doubt to gloat some more.

'Hello, my dear,' she greeted Twilight playfully. 'How are you enjoying our hospitality, hm? Your quarters here are much more...au naturel than that overstuffed room you were staying in at the palace, no?' She chuckled. 'Ah, the palace, yes, the palace. Have you come around to our way of thinking yet, Twilight?' Chrysalis asked directly. 'Will you tell me what I need to know?'

Twilight remained silent, not even looking at Chrysalis. She had said nothing to her minions; she would say nothing to her either. The Queen moved around into her view. 'Still playing the silent hero, are we? Tell me, are you hungry?' Her horn glowed and a plate of food appeared, hovering tantalisingly. There were hay patties, flowers, hay fries, even a cake of some kind. While Changelings could and sometimes did consume the same food as ponies, they usually only really did so when the supply of love was particularly low; to them, regular food was like emergency rations. It would keep them alive for a while, but it was hardly nourishing, tasty, or interesting. This plate, however, had obviously been made up specially to tempt Twilight. 'Well?' Chrysalis prompted. 'Are you hungry?' she repeated.

'Yes...' Twilight muttered in reply.

The Queen's genial tone suddenly turned harsh. 'Then now you know how my children felt for years, all because of your precious princess,' she spat. 'Long ago, when we first met, when relations between our two species were cordial, I asked her if we could take a supply of love from her ponies, to sustain ourselves as our supply was running low. Quite painless, you understand; to do so inflicts no physical harm, so long as the subject is willing, and there were plenty of ponies willing to donate. But Celestia refused, and do you know why? Do you know why, Twilight Sparkle?' Chrysalis hissed. 'No, of course you don't, because even if you had thought to ask, she would never have admitted the truth. She refused because she was afraid of me.'

Chrysalis circled around Twilight, her tail twitching and her tongue flicking out. 'She was afraid of my potential. She told me that if she granted my children enough love for them all to be well-fed, that she was afraid that we might become too powerful for her to control. She believed she had the right to control us, to control me. Such conceit! Such arrogance. But you are not like her, are you? You are her student, yes, but you have seen her do things that you did not believe she was capable of. You were upset. That is understandable. But you only knew half of the story. I have filled in another blank for you, but no doubt you will not believe me, since you hold the princess on such a high pedestal. I am sure nothing will change your mind on that point. But no matter. I don't need your loyalty, I don't need your understanding or your belief in what I say. All I need is for you to tell me how to access that passage into the palace.'

Twilight followed the Queen now with her eyes, narrowing them. 'Go to Tartarus!' she spat angrily.

Chrysalis chuckled. 'Still so petulant. I told you how Celestia refused me because she feared me. At that time, I desired nothing more than a peaceful life for my children. I had no designs on usurping her power. But her arrogant dismissal of my request changed my outlook, you see. She had the power. She had the power to refuse me because she was the ruler of the most powerful nation, and because she had the strongest magic at her disposal, and that made her believe herself greater than I. So I changed. I changed because I knew at that moment, I had to become more powerful than her. I had to make Celestia cower before me. Why? Because that was what she feared, and because her refusal to help threatened the very future of our species! A creature that could refuse a simple request for compassion on the grounds that it might one day serve to somehow undermine their own authority does not deserve that authority to begin with. To accomplish such a goal, there was only one possible approach to take. Only through fear can one achieve true power, and only through true power can one evoke fear.'

Chrysalis moved to lean over Twilight with a menacing grin on her face, her sharp fangs exposed. 'Celestia refused me because she feared me. She was right to fear me.'

A simple glow of her crooked horn, and Twilight shrieked in agony once again.

Moving Day

Princess Luna dispatched a messenger Pegasus with an urgent signal for her sister in Manehattan. The stallion arrived with tired wings, and was directed aboard the EAS Starswirl, passing the message directly to the princess herself.

She had made contact this evening with Twilight- proof that she was alive. Luna's ability to infiltrate the dreams of ponies had shown its usefulness. Twilight had not been able to inform her of the Hive's location, but the undeniable evidence that she was still among the living gave added impetus to the search. More Pegasi messengers were dispatched to the scouting airships to inform them of the fact. The contact between Luna and Twilight had been lost before she could establish anything related to where the Hive may be located, but Twilight had imparted some useful facts regarding the plans of Queen Chrysalis. No specifics, to be sure, of time or precise numbers involved, but a broad indication of how she supposedly planned to attack Canterlot. If what Twilight had said turned out to be true, however, there was no need to fear- the secret passageways could not be accessed merely by locating where they came out. The Changelings would find an impenetrable wall of stone if they tried to sneak inside the palace.

Guards were nevertheless doubled on all key points around the city. Infiltration could come at any time, from any direction, in any guise. The most terrifying thing was that, as far as any one Guardspony knew at any given moment, every other pony he could see from his post could potentially be a Changeling, and he or she might be the last one left inside the walls. The Changeling menace was insidious, and while there were usually only a few reported and confirmed cases of Changeling replacement each year, the mere possibility that it could occur to a friend or loved one, or worse, to you, was a constant companion at the back of the mind of each inhabitant of Equestria, as well as lands beyond their borders, for the menace was not confined to ponies. There had been rare but prominent raids on both the Griffons and, worryingly for international trade, the Zebras across the sea. How many Changelings had stowed away in cargo holds disguised as rats or as crewmembers, nopony could say.

At dawn the next day, the silence was disturbed by a deep drone. The guards were placed on high alert until the welcome silhouettes of the Starswirl and the Las Pegasus hove into view around the mountains to the north, turning into the valley to a great cheer from the ponies in the capital. The princess had returned, visible at the railing, mane and tail blowing stiffly in the breeze, crown perched regally upon her head, her appearance bringing another cheer from the soldiers and guardsponies below. She had taken Canterlot, and she had taken Manehattan. Wherever she went, victory was sure to follow, and now she had returned.

The two mighty airships swung around the spires and approached the landing fields that lay just outside the city. First the smaller Las Pegasus made the descent while the Starswirl kept station. Then the huge bombardment airship took its turn. At a stately pace, the giant came lower and lower, until mooring lines could be cast and held from below. The ship settled onto the flat ground under the watchful gaze of Luna, both the princess and the airship that bore her name. Lines were secured and the ramps lowered. Princess Celestia returned to her capital city.

Her first stop was to meet with her sister in the palace throne room. The meeting was private; even the most loyal guards were banished to the outside.

'Sister,' Celestia began. 'I received your message. It is indeed joyous news to learn that Twilight is alive, but it grieves me to know that she is alone and suffering at the hooves of the Changelings.'

'Indeed so, sister,' Luna replied. 'I am pleased to see you return. Things are changing, and yet things are staying the same. We know Twilight is alive, but we still do not know where she is. She was not able to impart anything to me that would aid in locating her.'

'We do not, but perhaps you can contact her again,' Celestia suggested. 'She may know something. Some fact, however small, that she does not realise could be important. In the meantime, our search teams will continue to scour the countryside for any signs of the Hive. It has to be out there somewhere.'

'It does.' Luna nodded. 'I shall attempt to contact her again tonight, but given that she is being held prisoner there is no guarantee she will be sleeping then. If I can get through, however, I will endeavour to learn all I can about her location.'

'There are other things to attend to as well,' Celestia added. 'The humans say they are redeploying their forces from Manehattan. They want to clear the valley next of all.'

'Finally,' Luna sighed. 'We have been keeping constant watch in case the enemy try to push from the valley and retake Canterlot. The humans say their lines on the valley floor are designed only for containment, not to hold against a full assault. It will be a great relief to not have to worry about that threat anymore. When are they scheduled to arrive?'

'It should take a day or two for them to arrive, and then another few days to prepare the attack,' Celestia replied. 'They wish to proceed cautiously. They suffered heavy casualties in Manehattan, and now they have a new threat from the Changelings to consider also. Their commander on the ground is a man named Senior Commissar Birbeck.'

'Is he a good man?' Luna asked.

'He is...shall we say, somewhat...askance at the idea of working with aliens, it seems,' Celestia replied. 'He seems competent enough, but he will not be friendly toward you. I believe he sees us more as a necessity than a true ally. I fear that the same can be said for much of the Imperial presence here, from the lowest soldier to their senior commanders.'

'Do you think the Lord-General and Lord-Admiral have that view?' Luna asked.

'I do not,' Celestia replied. 'They both seem willing to work alongside us through more than sheer necessity. They may be concealing their true feelings, of course, but I do not think that is the case. While I have no doubts that they do not exactly like us, they are at least tolerant enough of us to work well together. Commissar Birbeck? Perhaps not so much.'

'I understand, sister. It would be wise to be wary of him, in that case,' Luna nodded. 'It is wise, indeed, to be wary of all of these humans.'

'You are correct,' Celestia responded. 'But in the meantime, we must work with them until they have defeated this enemy of theirs. They are moving here with more work to do, and we must prepare. If all goes well, their next target will be Ponyville.'

The men of the Guard were on the move, great columns of trucks and tanks rumbling across the plains towards the mountains and the valley that was to be their objective. The mighty city of Manehattan was theirs, taken after days of bloody struggle. The casualties were many, the glories few and fleeting. But like all good Guardsmen, they were ready to fight again, wherever the Emperor and their leaders may decree. In this case, it was to be the central valley of this strange alien nation.

Some of the men had fought to take the pony capital from the Archenemy, and knew the area in a broad sense, but none had been south of Canterlot, south of the Imperial line, where men and armour held a defensive cordon across the neck of the valley to prevent an enemy breakout. It had been reported to the men, however, that friendly units had landed in the valley before. Indeed, it was the site of the initial landing shortly after their arrival in system, some weeks earlier. Those men had defended the imaginatively-named town of Ponyville- the equivalent of calling a Hive city on some Imperial world Humantown- from the forces of the Archenemy. The town had fallen, as had the rest of the valley. Soon they would have a chance to avenge the deaths of their fellows.

The plan drawn up was simple enough; a blocking force would move in at the south end of the valley, coming across from the main Imperial landing grounds to the west. A massive artillery bombardment would pound enemy positions, guided by spotters who would be posted in the city of Canterlot, up on the mountainside. Air strikes would be carried out as required on strongpoints or heavy armour. Then, the Guard would sweep into action, driving through the valley, clearing everything in their path, pushing hard to Ponyville. The city of Baltimare, some fifty miles further south, would be the ultimate goal of the push, linking up with forces from the south to complete the encirclement. A force would split off from the main thrust to capture and clear the Hoofer Dam, a towering slab of concrete with an attached hydroelectric power facility. They would be supported by an airlanding unit with dropships and Valkyrie support. Heavy artillery and siege guns would be moved into standby positions in case they were needed to crack a particularly tough enemy position.

The town of Ponyville, being the primary target of the offensive, had been studied in detail by the ground commanders. Orbital surveys had been taken, and the planning department in Canterlot had furnished, with Celestia's approval, detailed street and substreet maps of the town. Enemy defences were scanned from orbit, and strongpoints marked; they were to receive the heaviest artillery saturation before the attack was launched. It was clear that not all enemy targets would be visible from the surveys. Camo netting, cooling sinks and earth coverings could easily hide bunkers, pillboxes and firing positions from above. Nasty surprises could be lurking within the town itself, or in the field surrounding it. Celestia had once again requested that unnecessary damage to the town's buildings and infrastructure be avoided. Commissar Birbeck, after consultations with his leaders, had reluctantly agreed, though for unknown reasons he would not permit Celestia to communicate directly with Lord-General Galen or Lord-Admiral Marcos. The spotter team who had accompanied her to Griffonstone and Manehattan were also mysteriously not permitted to put her through to the commanders above. 'Operational security,' they all cited, though that had not prevented them permitting her to communicate whilst in Manehattan.

As the preparations continued, preliminary airstrikes rattled the defenders, while single guns from each artillery battery prepared firing solutions, using ranging shots to calibrate their weapons for the big bombardment that would follow. More reconnaissance was conducted. The enemy would have no doubt that an attack was coming, but such a large-scale operation would have been impossible to conduct in secret anyway. Logistics was key, as always. Vast trains of trucks and cargo haulers snaked across the plains both from east and west, heading for the staging areas to the north of the valley. After dark, the glow of a thousand fires, row upon row, marked the location of the Imperial encampment, tens of thousands of men huddled round them for warmth. By day, the bustle of tank tracks and heavy tires mingled with the whirr of whetstones sharpening bayonets, the curt, shouted orders of NCOs, and the clank of mess kits and stewpots serving food for hungry bellies. More supplies came down, fresh ammunition, power packs, grenades. Every man and woman was kitted out, preparing to fight once again.

Aboard the Emperor's Judgement, the hunt for the Changeling Hive continued unabated. Scans were continuous, seeing no indication of subterranean heat sources or likely cave entrances. Lord-Admiral Marcos was reluctant to ask the princess for assistance, but she had not seemed confident about locating the Hive either. The ship was still on lockdown by his order, and searches were being conducted, compartment by compartment, in case any of the creatures were tucked away below decks, hiding in their true forms. They would not be the first alien life forms to take up residence in the bilges and maintenance tunnels of an Imperial warship. Ork spores were sometimes brought aboard ships by landing parties, requiring only a warm spot and some organic material to grow- bilges and septic tank runoff were ideal locations for them to grow and develop. Tyranids had also been known to make it aboard, in a worrying parallel of this Changeling infestation. At least Tyranids, however, would be visible as such, and not disguised as fellow crewmen.

From a position of confidence with victory in Manehattan, the crew had been thrown into a haze of paranoia. Everyone they met on board could be an enemy in disguise; every time their back was turned, a knife could be plunged into it. Marcos had seen no choice but to admit the truth to the crew. The ship was far too vast to be fully patrolled by the armsmen alone, and any suspicious activity would have to be reported. The Changelings could be attempting to disable the ship, to destroy it, to steal some key technology, or to conduct further assassinations. Nobody knew and the princess had been unable to shed further light on their intentions.

In a vox-call with Senior Commissar Birbeck, Marcos had informed the ground commander of the nature of the threat. While it was still unknown if the Changelings were aboard any other ship in the fleet, the Emperor's judgement would have to remain quarantined until the Hive was found and destroyed. If there were no other Changelings aboard, then that would be the end of it. If there were, then there could be no risk of spreading them through the fleet or of bringing more aboard. All return leave from the surface was cancelled, and all supply parties that had been planetside at the time of the incident remained down there. Troop landers bringing fresh men to the surface were instructed not to bring anybody bcak with them who had not been on board the outward leg. The wounded would have to remain in field hospitals, rather than convalescing aboard their transport ships.

The concern was not limited to onboard ship, however. Given that the Changelings had been able to somehow kill and replace Colonel Harding on the ground, there was always the possibility that they had taken over other officers; there was not even a cast-iron guarantee that Commissar Birbeck, who the Lord-Admiral had just been talking to, was truly himself. He had given his personal codes as well as the daily code, to be sure, but something niggling at Marcos said that things might not be that simple. After all, the Midshipman and the Colonel had made it aboard the flagship using the correct codes, and there had not been the slightest indication that anything was amiss.

Master-At-Arms Kaestron had been tirelessly supervising the checking of every deck of the ship, using her overstretched armsmen to sweep the compartments from prow to stern, but finding nothing, no indication of an infestation, no Changelings, at least not in their natural form. The creatures were cunning in design, and vicious in combat. Any attack in significant numbers could overwhelm the security presence even at the most heavily guarded points of the vessel, and if the Changelings knew enough to know where, when and how to get at the Lord-General and Marcos himself, then there was every reason to believe that they knew how to cripple the ship if they wanted. The creatures were still mysterious, still mostly unknown, but what little Marcos did know about them meant that they were dangerous. Not just dangerous, but potentially worthy of the title of Xenos Horrificus, the designation given to certain alien species that posed an intolerable threat to humanity. The Tyranids were among those so listed, with their endless, ravenous hunger and vast, incalculable numbers. The potential of these Changelings to cause harm to the Imperium hardly bore thinking about.

Marcos thought he had read once or twice about some species encountered in humanity's past that exhibited somewhat similar traits, though from what he recalled they had been exterminated long ago. They were few in number, and had been hunted down ruthlessly. The princess had suggested, however, that there might be a hundred thousand or more of these Changelings; merely a tiny drop in the vast bucket of the Imperium with its trillions of humans, the numberless Orks that infested almost every planet, or the never-ending masses of Tyranids that descended upon worlds and stripped them clean of all life. But a hundred thousand invisible aliens, with potent psychic abilities, undetectable by sensors or visual inspection, indistinguishable from a real human, spreading through the invasion force and the fleet? That was an incredibly disturbing thought. Even worse, what if some of them remained aboard as the fleet departed for home port at Hydraphur, and managed to spread? If their actions were being guided by the Dark Powers, by the perfidious Eldar, by the Hive Mind of the Tyranids or by some other great intelligence, they could inflict untold damage on the Imperium.

The ship's Astropathic Choir, the group of psykers responsible for sending messages through the warp, allowing for interstellar communication, had sent a message to Segmentum Command at Hydraphur upon the fleet's arrival in the system. They had sent another after the Chaos fleet's attack, another after the warp storm's dissolution, and another once landing operations were underway. Due to the distances involved, each message would take weeks to reach Hydraphur, the replies likewise as long. Marcos had ordered the Astropaths to mention the native species, but to classify them as 'non-hostile' and 'primitive,' both technically true, whilst also glossing over the princess and the powers she had exhibited. It was likely the last message was still winging its way through the warp. Marcos pondered whether to send another, this one a warning, informing Hydraphur of the Changelings. They were a potentially potent threat, but their numbers, according to the princess, were fairly limited, and they were confined to the planet below. If they had infiltrated the ship, well, as long as they didn't leave orbit before destroying the Hive, it wouldn't matter. The death of the Queen and any other Changelings who filled the roles similar to Tyranid synapse-creatures should see the collapse of the Hive Mind, and the resultant slumping of otherwise-intelligent Changelings into mindless savage beasts who would expose themselves immediately, revealing their true nature and inviting a swift bullet or las-bolt. That was the theory, at least.

There was no guarantee the Changelings would react in a similar way to the Tyranids at the loss of their leaders. It might, in fact, be better than that- the Queen's death could result in the deaths or total incapacitation of the entire species. Or, at the other end of the spectrum, each Changeling might be capable of operating entirely independently, or the Hive Mind might still continue to function. It was possible that another Queen could be born. The Imperium knew nothing of Changeling culture and development except the brief summary given by the princess, who seemed either unwilling to say more or, perhaps, knew little of it herself.

A message send to Segmentum Command might summon a fleet of Inquisitorial ships to investigate, which would, in one fashion or another, almost certainly lead to the destruction of the planet through the dreaded last resort of Exterminatus, reserved for cleansing a world entirely of the foul taint of Chaos, an unmanageable Xenos infestation, or simply as a warning to others. The Inquisition was not known for their subtlety when it came to defending the Imperium. Many times in history, the slightest possibility of such contamination had been enough to signal the death of billions. Not billions of aliens, but billions of humans, sometimes as an unhappy but necessary side effect, sometimes to spare them the worse horrors that might lay in store for them if they were to be allowed to live.

Marcos had made a promise to the Princess that the fleet would leave once the Archenemy was defeated. A promise to a Xenos was not worth the data-slate it might be written on, he knew, but for some reason, he felt that reneging on his word was not the right thing to do. Sending an alert might summon the Inquisition or the Astartes, both of whom, if they deemed the Changelings to be a sufficient threat, would not hesitate to glass the entire planet, ponies and all. Depending on Celestia's awareness and true abilities, that course of action could lead to the deaths of her entire species, or to the destruction of a whole Imperial fleet, neither of which Marcos wanted to be responsible for. He had already led enough men and women to their deaths across this far-flung reach of the galaxy, and at the end of their journey they had encountered a peaceful race with an enigmatic leader who just wanted to be left alone. That was what he had promised, and he knew deep down that was what he had to do.

There would be no Astropathic message to Hydraphur, not unless the situation got out of hand. The Changelings were a manageable threat, he was certain. They had to be. They had not yet managed to defeat or overthrow the ponies, though how much of that was down to the Princess, he did not know. As long as they could find the Hive and kill the Queen, everything would be alright. There would be no need for panic, no need for overreaction. The ponies, no threat to the Imperium, could be spared, could live out their lives unmolested, just as he had promised. Whenever he thought of the Princess, he felt the same calmness, the same peacefulness as he did when in her presence on the bridge. He did not know why, and naturally at first he feared some Daemonic incursion into his mind, or perhaps a deliberate attempt at bafflement and persuasion by the Princess. But the longer he had spoken with her, the more he had seen of her goodness, her character, and the subtle calming effect she had on others, knowingly or not. Perhaps, like her intrusion upon the warp from the outside, it was merely a passive effect of which she was not truly cognizant. Or perhaps it was a resource she deliberately cultivated and carefully hoarded, to manipulate those around her, to bend them to her will. There was still so much that remained unknown about this world.

'My Lord!' The vox-link in the Admiral's quarters buzzed. 'Captain Bormann requests your presence on the bridge.'

Marcos had been sat at his desk, lost in his own thoughts when he had been planning to write his daily report. He pressed the vox button to reply. 'On my way.' A swig from his Amasec flask, a quick smoothing down of his uniform, and he set off for the bridge. Armsmen saluted punctiliously as he passed by. He returned their gestures and stepped onto the bridge elevator, taking the short ride up a few decks to the nerve centre of the ship.

As ever, the bridge was bustling, a gentle hum of conversation and whirring cogitators forming a background. Everything was the same as always, save for the absence of Lord-General Galen. His deputy, General Jahn, an old and wizened campaigner with a pugilist's nose and an unnecessary and incongruous monocle, had replaced him at the holo-table, overseeing preparations for the assault on the valley.

Flag-Captain Bormann stood nearby, turning to greet his Admiral. 'My Lord, I have news from the Auspex crews,' he spoke. 'They believe they might have located something.'

Rolling Thunder

It was a mountain, but not like any of the others of the northern extremities in which it lay, nor of those in the central Foal Mountain chain. This one was a volcano, a towering cone of pumice and ash, surrounded by lesser peaks, snow crowning its summit despite the heat that bubbled within. It was located in the northwest of the continent, in a sub-chain of the Hyperborean Mountains where the Griffon Kingdom lay, a long way from the major cities of Equestria.

A spectroscopic analysis of the stratovolcano revealed that the volcano appeared to be active, releasing notable quantities of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide, into the atmosphere. A fire burned within, magma bubbling away deep below the surface. Vid-picts from orbit showed the bubbling lava filling the crater, a vision of the gates of hell. Steep rocky slopes lead up to the crater, littered with boulders and steaming fumaroles.

The Auspex scans had revealed openings, partially hidden tunnels in the volcano's lower flanks. The Lord-Admiral's attention had been called to them, as there was a possibility they might represent entrances to the Changeling Hive. But the location seemed highly unlikely- inside a volcano? It was more likely the tunnels were natural lava ducts or merely small caverns. There was no way to tell from orbit, but there were similar tunnels just about visible in the neighbouring lower peak, separated by a curving saddle from the volcano itself. Could it be evidence of the Changeling presence?

It would be a smart location for a Hive if it was. The ponies would surely dare not to investigate inside a volcano; far too dangerous. Though the Changelings were cold-blooded creatures, the heat from the volcano would hide any possible trace of their activities from thermal scans, as well as the emissions of various gases and extreme thermal radiation interfering with sensors- something the Changelings might know if they had been able to extract information from those they had captured or replaced.

'Can we initiate a scan with ground-penetrating Auspex?' Marcos questioned the junior officer manning the console, who shook his head.

'No, My Lord. The concentration of magma and various trace elements is interfering with the system. We cannot scan beneath the volcano. From orbit there is no way of telling if those tunnels are natural or artificially constructed.'

'Can you scan for the unknown particle?' the Admiral suggested. 'If their Queen is there and there is a large concentration of the lesser creatures, there should be high readings of the particle being emitted.'

'I'm afraid not, My Lord. The same problems are masking any evidence of the unknown particle. If there was a concentration above the surface, we could detect it, but if they are underground...'

'Very clever...' Marcos muttered. 'The perfect place to hide, not just from the ponies, but from us as well. But we need confirmation. Perhaps the Princess can identify the tunnels if they match the characteristics of a Hive. Put a call in to her, have her visit Commissar Birbeck's headquarters. Send the vid-scans to his console, and she can examine them for herself.' The vox-officer nodded and made the call.

'Would an orbital strike be effective?' Marcos questioned his science officer.

'Yes, My Lord, it would, but it would be too effective,' the Lieutenant replied. 'The crust here is thick due to the mountainous upthrust, but there is a direct opening to the mantle below. If we carry out a strike at this precise location, it could have the same effect as a much larger-scale bombardment. Hitting the volcano hard enough to destroy a subterranean Hive would begin to disrupt the mantle beneath. It might lead to the destabilisation of the entire tectonic plate. Most, if not all, of the main continent lies upon that plate, My Lord.'

Marcos frowned. Destabilising the continental shelf would render Equestria uninhabitable, both breaking his promise to the Princess and ruining its status as a garden world should he change his mind or should the Imperium claim the planet in the future. Fighting to purge the planet of the taint of Chaos only to turn it into a scarred wasteland of magma and newly-formed canyons was not a good solution to the Changeling problem.

'My Lord, I have contacted the Princess,' the vox-officer spoke. 'She will head to Commissar Birbeck's headquarters. She should be...' he paused. 'Uh...My Lord, she is...already there,' he added, with a bemused look.

Marcos was not surprised, as he knew from the field reports that she could teleport seemingly as she pleased. 'My Lord, this is Commissar Birbeck,' came the new voice over the vox. 'I have the Xenos Princess with me. Give us a moment to look through the vid-scans you sent.'

'Understood, Commissar,' Marcos replied. 'Your Highness, we wish to know if, in your opinion, these tunnels that will be highlighted on the images you are seeing could be evidence of a Changeling Hive, or if they appear to be natural. Your expertise on the geometry and geology of Changeling Hives is far superior to ours.'

A few moments passed before Celestia replied. 'It would appear that these may be entrances to a Hive, Admiral. But I cannot be sure from these images.' She paused for a moment. 'I would suggest that you allow me to send a scouting party to the location. They can make the determination far more easily from the ground, as well as search for evidence of Changeling activity. They are more familiar with such matters than you or your men.'

'Very well,' Marcos agreed, seeing no harm in having confirmation from the relative experts. 'If it is confirmed to be the Changeling Hive, then it seems we will be unable to strike it from orbit due to potential...complications regarding the seismic stability of the tectonic plate upon which your nation sits. My science and weapons officers will conduct further study as to whether a lower yield could achieve the desired results without causing lasting harm.'

'There is no need for undue haste, Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'If it is the Hive we seek, it will not be going anywhere in the interim. Allow my scouts to establish beyond doubt its true nature. Do not attack the target without my permission, Admiral.'

Marcos frowned, flustered. He was not used to being ordered about, certainly not by a Xenos. Yet there was something commanding in her voice, even as she maintained her usual calm demeanour over the vox. Far from an arrogant tone, it was one of effortless power, as if she knew she would be obeyed and thus had no need to raise her voice or stiffen her words like a Commissar or Imperial officer might. Marcos couldn't help but feel that waiting for her permission was somehow the right thing to do, even though it was just a volcano, and even though it was the Changeling enemy that they were both now fighting.

'Very well, Your Highness. We will wait for your scouts to confirm the presence of a Hive before we engage,' Marcos replied.

'It is possible also that these tunnels could be part of a dragon lair,' Celestia added. 'One of my scout airships reported coming under attack by three dragons of unusual size, not normally seen in these more southerly areas.'

'Dragons?' Marcos blinked, though nothing about this planet really surprised him anymore. No doubt just some local name for a large flying reptilian species of some kind rather than the creatures of ancient Terran myth. Another strange coincidence, similarities between these two disparate cultures, originating across the galaxy from each other; language, military rank structure, and now this.

'Dragons, yes,' Celestia continued. 'Large and ferocious creatures capable of breathing fire and possessing immense physical strength. It is possible they could have been driven from their lair by the Changelings and forced to flee south in search of a new home. If that is the case then this volcano could potentially be the location of the Hive.'

'No doubt your scouts will be able to determine the truth of the matter,' Marcos replied. 'Let me know as soon as you have evidence one way or another. Marcos out.' With the vox-call ended, the Lord-Admiral could return to his musings and deliberations. Regardless of what may or may not be under the volcano, they had a battle to win and a town to take.

The tanks of the 2nd Stourmont Armoured Regiment sat idling in great columns, engines ticking over as they waited for orders. Captain Mayner and Big Beautiful Doll formed the point of a V-formation, consisting of the surviving tanks of the 1st Company, with several replacements from the reserves. The Vanquisher tank herself had been repaired after taking damage outside Manehattan, getting priority service for repairs because of its rare nature compared to the tanks of the line that vastly outnumbered its kind in Imperial service.

The driver, Barnes, had been buried with great reverence by the crew of Big Beautiful Doll, laid to rest in a simple ceremony out on the plains near where he had died. War held little time for sentimentality, but the dead had to be disposed of, and Stourmont practice was, whenever possible, tank crew or infantry squad members were buried by their fellows, rather than an impersonal graves registration detail. The ancient funeral rights of their home planet were carried out, a simple anointing of the body with sacred oils passed around by the Regiment's priests and confessors who wandered the field after a battle on errands of spiritual mercy. Prayers to the Emperor, a simple covering for his face so that he may see no more suffering, a six-foot hole, and that was the end of another of Stourmont's faithful sons.

A replacement had been sent from the Regimental reserve; Dinnis, a young man, eager, fresh-faced, a typical recruit it seemed at first glance. But Dinnis was a veteran of some five years, and was a driver without a crew, being the sole able-bodied survivor of a 'brew up' that had turned his tank into an inferno and killed the gunner, commander and loader while badly burning the two sponson gunners. Big Beautiful Doll had a full crew again, and was ready for battle.

Mayner stood in his turret hatch, eyeing over the lines of tanks around him. Behind them were the Mechanised, Chimeras loaded with infantry and ready to press on to their new objective. They were to drive for Ponyville, and then Mayner and the rest of the 1st Battalion would break off, accompanied by a battalion of the Mechanised, to drive for the Hoofer Dam to the west of the town. The remainder of the Regiments would strike swiftly at the town to capture it.

The 2nd Armoured had taken heavy losses during the charge for Manehattan, but this time the planners were confident there was no huge enemy armoured force tucked away in Ponyville, as there had been there. No room to hide so many vehicles, was the assured comment. Ponyville was a much smaller town, and a lot of it appeared burned out from the previous fighting. No doubt there would be surprises within, but nothing on the scale of the thousand-strong armoured counterattack that had so caught them off guard on the plains.

Mayner checked his wrist chronometer. A quick comm check revealed the crew was ready; Cheyne, Janssen, Welks, Farber, Dinnis. Not long now.

As if on cue, a thunderous roar erupted to the rear. Mayner glanced back as a loud swoosh passed overhead, like the passage of a great cargo maglev, drowning out the whine from a hundred idling turbine engines. Mayner strained his eyes ahead to see the impacts of the shells in the distance, a string of puffs like mushrooms sprouting after a spring rain rising on the horizon. The artillery fired again, and another great crescendo of noise hurled itself overhead, through the sky, descending upon the town like rolling thunder. Again and again the mighty cannons roared, and the order came through the vox to advance.

'Driver, forward, half speed!' Mayner commanded. Dinnis obeyed, revving the engine and shifting the hefty bulk of the Vanquisher forward with spurts of dark exhaust fumes from its twin smoke stacks. The rest of the company did the same at Mayner's order, and the battle line of the Stourmont 2nd Armoured began to roll.

Marauder bombers swooped overhead, above the din of battle and above the trajectories of the shells that were raining down on Ponyville. Canopies glinting in the sunlight, they disgorged cargoes of high-explosive bombs upon their targets, known enemy strongpoints in the defences. Spotters and observers on the walltops of Canterlot had a grandstand view; Celestia and her sister were among them, watching fountains of dust and dirt by the dozen spring up throughout Ponyville. The tanks began to roll as the aerial assault was scheduled to hit the dam, before the main thrust reached the town.

Right on time, the dropships appeared, a small swarm of them out of the west, leapfrogging over the peaks that towered above the dam and descending rapidly, braking jets flaring at the last possible moment. There was no warning of their approach, no time for enemy Auspex to detect them or for anti-air to engage them. Down they came, men dropping from ropes as door gunners engaged targets below. The enemy scrambled for cover, scattering under this new threat from an unexpected direction, turning their attentions away from the approach road up which the tank column would advance.

The tanks rolled, the Chimeras behind them. They were not the only units assigned to the assault; both had taken losses in Manehattan, and so the 20th Kharians had been shuttled to the surface, a Mechanised Regiment from a planet with a supergiant sun, where dark-skinned men and women toiled day and night to make vital ammunition for the Imperium. The 6th Manrovian Armoured were in support, holding down the eastern side of the push, while the remainder of the 40th Parvian Lancers took their place in the centre. Valkyries and Lightnings circled overhead for air cover as the artillery continued to strike hard at the town.

The bombardment abruptly stopped, and after a few moments, it restarted, but this time targeted just ahead of the advancing tanks. The creeping barrage steadily swept the plains clean ahead of the attacking forces, pounding the dirt in the hopes of pulverising any hidden spider holes or bunkers, and of setting off potential minefields. The tanks kept on under the umbrella of protection. The land was mostly flat, with some rises and small hillocks here and there, nothing to impede the progress of the armoured thrust.

A couple of outlying posts put up minor resistance, but were quickly swept aside by the lead units. Ponyville was still several miles ahead, with the river curving around it that would prevent the tanks driving straight into the town square. Once they reached Ponyville, the infantry would have to carry the day themselves, supported by the tanks from outside. Not an ideal situation, but the bridges across the river had already been destroyed by the Imperial forces who had tried to defend the city during the initial invasion, and had not been rebuilt by the occupiers.

Mayner had the tank buttoned up, all hatches closed and the chemical protection system pressurised. The guns were ready, Cheyne, Welks and Farber scanning for targets. Mayner peered through his thermoscope. Nothing ahead except the erupting bursts of the friendly covering artillery. They raced on across the flat ground, toward the target.

A missile lanced out from some hidden foxhole, striking a nearby Leman Russ. The tank shrugged it off and continued on, cannon blazing in reply. No more missiles flew from that location. The town itself would obviously be the focus of resistance, however, and as the Stourmont and the Manrovians drew closer, lascannons flashed from hidden positions, destroying several tanks. Shells whistled in as return fire, while the artillery, having finally reached the town and pounded across its width, ceased fire as the tanks and carriers swept on, to avoid friendly fire.

Shots rang out from pillboxes that had escaped the air raids and artillery. Several tanks fell foul of mines that had avoided destruction, prompting warnings to the rest of the attacking force. Pinpoint battle cannon shells smashed the flimsy timber framed pillboxes that offered resistance, and the tanks continued on, the carrier following behind at a safe distance.

1st Company were approaching their jump-off point for the push on the dam. Up ahead lay a road, perpendicular to their current direction, that led up to the huge structure in the foothills of the western side of the valley. Mayner spotted it drawing closer and got on the vox.

'Cobalt Alpha One to all Alpha One vehicles, approaching turnoff. Standby...break!'

The tanks pivoted as one, turning from Ponyville and setting their sights on the dam, nestled in the hills. That was their target. The vehicles moved to maintain a V formation, with the Vanquisher in the lead. The rest of the 1st Battalion followed suit, along with the Chimeras and support vehicles of the 3rd Battalion, 9th Mechanised. The remaining forces continued to push for the town, taking increasing return fire as they drew closer to the river.

Mayner left them to it and focused on the road ahead. The paved track climbed away, starting shallow and increasing its gradient until it became a fairly steep climb. Nothing that Big Beautiful Doll would struggle with, however, the Leman Russ being adapted originally from an agricultural tractor, and designed with good ground clearance to help clear enemy trenches and be able to climb back up the far side. A short way up the track became narrow enough for only two tanks to travel abreast of each other, while farther along it narrowed still more. A column of tanks travelling slowly uphill would be a sitting duck for an enemy ambush, which was why they were relying on two elements; their close air cover from Valkyrie and Vulture gunships, and the lightning raid by air that was underway above them.

Sergeant Argan's booted feet pounded down the rear ramp of the Chimera. Scattered gunfire could be heard from up ahead; Ponyville. The Lancers were disembarking on the fields to the north of the town. In front of them, a metal wall formed of a dozen Leman Russ tanks held position at the edge of the river, cannons booming whenever the enemy showed their heads. One tank nearby was blazing merrily, having either struck a mine or been hit by enemy fire.

The rest of his squad followed him out of the Chimera, and he led them into a small defile nearby, shielded from the town. Argan peeked over the lip of the small rise. The town was on the other side of the river, low buildings, some already missing their upper stories or rooftops. He could see the shattered remnants of a stone bridge that crossed the river, the middle section completely missing, destroyed by Imperial explosives to try and limit the movements of the Archenemy during their invasion. Now it proved a hindrance to the Parvians and their armoured support.

The Chimeras backed away, having deployed their passengers. An occasional burst of multilaser fire whickered overhead from one of the fighting vehicles as it spotted some target of opportunity. Argan could see no enemy, but plenty of fellow Guardsmen finding what little cover was available, or merely lying on their bellies in the long grass.

To the east, the 6th Manrovians were flanking around the town, following the curve of the river. There, too, the bridges were blown. There was no easy way across, and certainly no way to get vehicles into the town. Men could wade the river at its shallowest points, but would likely come under heavy fire to do so. Some, however, had to make the push.

'Covering fire!' Argan shouted, seeing the unlucky platoons moving forward, those selected to try the river crossing. The river was not particularly wide, but the far bank was an open, gently rising slope that could be swept by fire from both flanks as well as straight ahead. The tanks lined up in front put a couple of cannon rounds into the river's edge in an attempt to set off any anti-personnel mines that may have been laid. Others fired smoke rounds onto the far bank, clouds of the stuff billowing up and obscuring vision.

Argan and his squad joined in with the others in spraying las-rounds through the smoke in an effort to make the enemy keep their heads down. The platoons chosen to make the crossing and establish a bridgehead pushed forward, wading out into the stream. At the shallowest point, the water came up to their waists, and the men waded through, their lasguns raised above their heads to keep them dry. A mortar round landed in the water near them, and two men dropped face first into the river, their bodies floating away downstream. Covering fire whizzed above their heads as they made the crossing. A few men reached the far bank and threw themselves down into cover behind the small boulders and shrubs that were scattered across it. Several were able to lie flat in the small shell holes created by the tank shots that had probed for mines.

The rest of the men made it ashore, uniforms sodden, but guns dry. Only desultory return fire flashed through the smoke as the enemy gunners shot blind, just hoping to hit something on the other side. More mortar fire bracketed the crossing site, making Argan keep his head down. The men on the far bank started to move as the smoke was clearing, ducking into cover around the end of the bridge and the broken ruins of a building. They had attained a bridgehead, and that was what the armour had been waiting for.

From the rear, a Trojan support vehicle roared up, tracks clanking. This particular vehicle had been outfitted as a bridgelayer, with a large concertinaed metal construction upon its roof. It drove quickly to the approach to the destroyed bridge, as the tanks popped more smoke across the bank to mask its operation. The Trojan halted at the bridge, and the contraption on its roof began to unfold, extending out and forming a simple but strong span across the gap, twin metal tracks that could carry the weight of a Leman Russ with ease. A few stray shots pinged off of its frontal armour and the unfolding bridge, but it was able to carry out its mission essentially unopposed.

While the bridgelayer was in operation, more men were wading across the river to support the first wave. Soon, it would be Gamma Company's turn to get wet. With the bridge reserved for vehicles, the men of the Guard would have to wade their way into the town. Argan had his men check their equipment, make sure any vulnerable gear was in their webbing or upper pockets and not in their lower halves. As the first tank rolled over the bridge, it was their turn to cross.

Argan led the men down to the river, the other squads and platoons of Gamma Company around them. Over they went, with sporadic mortar fire falling around them, but every man made the crossing without injury. They fell into cover behind the nearest building. Lieutenant Albrecht ordered 1st Platoon to set off to the east to join up with Delta Company who had made the crossing in the second wave. They moved through the narrow alleys of the old town, seeing Delta Company across the way.

Before they could cross the street and link up, hasty gestures from the men of Delta Company told them to halt; just in time, as heavy fire suddenly pattered on the cobbles, kicking up dust and blowing small chunks from the street. Argan brought his men up short, staying in cover in the alleyway. He risked a brief peek around the corner. A building at the end of the street seemed to be well occupied by the enemy, with gunfire flashing from several windows and the main entrance.

'We've got air support on the way!' the Lieutenant of Delta Company's 2nd Platoon called across the street to Argan. 'Just stay down!'

Argan nodded, keeping his men in cover as the whine of turbine engines drew nearer and got louder. A thunderous crash resounded from around the corner, followed by a dark silhouette passing overhead above the alleyway, either a Valkyrie or a Vulture. Argan took another peek at the street. The building that had been an enemy strongpoint was shouded in a heavy cloud of dust and smoke. A pinpoint strike seemed to have done the trick, and the order came to push forward in conjunction with Delta Company. Argan led the way out into the street, accompanied by several squads from Delta, guns sweeping the road ahead as they approached the thick cloud of dust. It blocked all vision of the destroyed building. They had no idea what might lie beyond, but they pushed on anyway, into the smoke.

Big Beautiful Doll led the way up the increasingly steep slope. The rest of 1st Company fell into line behind them, churning up the paved road with their treads; the access path to the dam was not meant to support the bulk of a Leman Russ, let alone a dozen of them. Chimeras from the 9th Mechanised followed on, then the rest of the 1st Battalion's tanks bringing up the rear. The dam itself loomed ahead, off to their left. The track wound its way up the hillside just to the north of the huge structure, leading to the plateau beside it where the main utility buildings and transmission towers were located. Their mission was not so much to capture the dam- that was the job of the airborne assault forces- but rather to link up the main thrust with the dam and make sure there was a solid line of defence connecting it to the town.

The aerial attack and landing had taken the enemy by surprise, and fierce fighting was raging at close quarters. Men were engaging in hand-to-hand combat, bayonets and knives atop the dam. Others were fighting through the transformer yards and maintenance buildings, trying to drive the enemy out into the open so the Valkyries or the arriving tanks could deal with them. The whole vast complexity of the dam's internal structure would have to be searched and cleared before it could be deemed secure; potentially miles of passageways, tunnels, maintenance ducts, huge turbine halls, spillways and vents. It would be like searching the Underhive on some vast and bloated Imperial hab-world; dark, tedious and dangerous. Mayner did not envy the men and women who would be chosen for such a detail. Who knew what surprises the Archenemy would have lying in wait for them inside?

The tanks pressed on, but not everything would be quite as simple as it had been hoped. From among the boulders and crags of the hills above them, a rocket lanced down, riding a fiery trail. Mayner shouted a warning as it struck the turret glacis plate, either a bad miscalculation or simply being fired by a user who did not know the specifics of tank armour and was unaware that he should be targeting the roof of the turret or the engine deck when firing from on high. The Vanquisher's main gun could not traverse high enough to engage the target, but luckily tanks farther back in the line had seen the trajectory and traced it back to its origin. Several high-explosive rounds brought down a considerable torrent of earth and rock upon the firing position, crushing both the weapon and its operator. More men could be seen running and dodging between the boulders; evidently not all of the enemy had been distracted by the dropships.

Heavy bolters from the column and multilaser fire from the Chimeras peppered the hillside, cutting down several of the scurrying figures. Valkyries on overwatch above added their firepower to the mix when able, though focused mainly on supporting the air landing operation. More dropships were sweeping in, a second wave coming over the mountaintops and dropping down low, looking for clear ground to disgorge their cargo. The Chimeras had no such dilemma, able to open their ramps at any time. They did so, allowing their on board infantry to move ahead of the tanks for protection. Several squads were sent to clear the hillside where the missile launcher had been located.

Big Beautiful Doll was drawing level with the top of the dam now. A security gate barred their progress up ahead, but the tank just rammed straight through it. A couple of enemy soldiers sprinted across an open area ahead of the tank.

'Sponsons, infantry, 12 o'clock, fire!' Mayner ordered. Both plasma cannons flashed and blew chunks out of the concrete apron, but they were not meant for killing infantry and the men escaped their shots. They did not, however, escape the heavy bolters of the following tank, Armageddon Time, which was able to pull abreast of Big Beautiful Doll as the track widened. They were at the edge of the dam complex now, a chain-link fence and another barrier ahead of them. The two tanks took the fence together, smashing the barrier and pushing into the chain link. The fence bent like paper, tearing from its moorings and being flattened beneath the tracks of the two Leman Russes.

Mayner looked through his thermoscope. A battle was raging ahead. He could see Guardsmen in cover and returning fire. Some lay dead. The Archenemy was everywhere, men running to and fro, trying to form new defensive positions against the unexpected attack from the air, and now, to add to their confusion, Imperial tanks were at the gates, the threat they had initially planned against, arriving too late to be effectively countered when they had moved to defend against the airborne raid.

A string of explosions rattled Big Beautiful Doll. Mayner scanned around with his thermoscope but could see nothing. There were more explosions, a ripple of detonations. Still he could see nothing that could be the cause.

'Sir!' came the urgent shout from Welks, the port sponson gunner. 'The dam!'

Mayner ordered the turret rotated to the left so he could get a better look. What he saw was the last thing he wanted to see.

The front of the dam, smooth ferrocrete, it looked like, was cracking. Great webs of cuts and cracks were forming, even as he watched. More explosions echoed from the hills and peaks above them, vibrating the tank, and more cracks appeared. Trickles of water were flowing through several of them. Mayner grabbed the vox handset to shout a warning.

The cracks grew and grew, with more water seeping through, first a trickle, then a gush, then a torrent. In several places the lake being held back by the dam broke through. Another string of explosions, now sickeningly evident to be coming from demolition charges, rang out, and the dam could take no more. With a mighty groan, the huge structure gave out, slabs of concrete cracking and breaking loose as a flood of water burst through the dam face. Men atop the dam ran for their lives, friend and foe alike, fleeing for the safety of the earth rather than the danger of the artificial structure. The sound of the water became a roar, audible even inside the tank with its engine running. The more of the dam face that was damaged, the more the remainder became undermined and weakened, and within moments the entire dam had collapsed, the debris carried away in a deluge as the lake, held back for so long by the ingenuity of the local pony engineers, was finally released in all its sound and fury, billions of gallons of water flowing straight down the river valley beneath the remains of the giant structure. It raced over rocks, carrying boulders and trees effortlessly with it. Farther down the gulley the approach road for the dam was undermined, and two of the rearguard tanks found themselves tipping inexorably as the track washed away beneath them. Over they went, cast away in the flow. The torrent of water, now mixed with tons of debris and detritus, roared down the gulley, following the course of the river, with only one possible destination.

Apres Moi, Le Deluge

The smoke was thick and cloying, irritating to the lungs and the eyes. Sergeant Argan pushed on anyway, his squad behind him. The enemy could be anywhere in the dim light that filtered through the smoke, or they could be nowhere, laid low by the rocket or missile that had struck the building they had occupied. The street was littered with debris, shattered brick and bent metal.

Farther down the street, the smoke finally thinned, carried by the breeze and disbursed somewhat. Several corpses lay in the road, tossed from the ruins by the explosion that had brought down the building. There was no sign of any living enemy. Delta Company moved up in support, clearing the building and finding nobody alive.

All across town, the Guard was advancing, sweeping and clearing the ruins and those few buildings that were intact. They came across the locations of the deaths of their fellows in the 4th Hydraxians, who had made the first landing and had defended the town against the predations of the Archenemy, the first incidence of Guardsmen protecting the horse-aliens, though mostly out of a survival instinct. But among many of the landing forces since then, things had developed into, at the very least, a grudging respect for the bravery and tenacity of these Xenos against the marauders who had come to despoil their world. To Argan's surprise, he found himself in just such a situation, but especially towards the Xenos princess, who had fought to protect him and his squad twice before. Though she was not present here, Argan felt that it was somehow right for him to be trying to retake a town that her fellows called home. The Imperium had come to conquer, but a far greater and more noble goal was to prevent others falling to the darkness and predations of Chaos.

Liberating a Xenos town from the forces of the Ruinous Powers, however, was exactly like clearing a human town. There was death and decay in the streets, evidence of rape and ruin and destruction, of foul rituals and disturbing practices. Obscene graffiti was daubed on walls, sigils of Chaos and symbols that would make a man's stomach turn. The town had clearly been defaced by its occupiers, and in a more insidious way than in Manehattan, where most evidence of Chaos occupation could be found in the form of broken windows and shattered monuments. Here, for some reason, the enemy had gone particularly mad with their horrific graffiti and the detritus of their particular brand of Daemon-worship, perhaps because it was the first town they had encountered after invading. Here and there, horrendous shrines and idols had been erected, daubed in blood; perhaps from the pony inhabitants, perhaps from the bodies of their own dead, or perhaps from willing volunteers cut open to serve as a sickening tribute to a particular Dark God or Daemon.

Other than that, and other than the peculiar architecture of some of the Xenos buildings, the scene in the town resembled any battlefield; it could have been any one of a thousand worlds across the Imperium where Guard was fighting the traitors. Argan and his squad pushed on. Now that the linkup was complete, they were called back to rejoin the rest of Gamma Company. Their next objective that had been assigned in the briefing, together with Delta Company, was to capture a building designated as the town's rail transit station, according to the street maps and plans they had been shown.

Smoke wafted across the streets in several places, but overall there was relatively little enemy resistance. The armour had completed its flanking move around to the east of the town with ease, encountering only a few scattered minefields and emplaced weapons. It seemed likely that the enemy had pulled back the bulk of their forces to defend the much larger city of Baltimare to the south, where a similar meatgrinder slog might be expected to that which had worn down the Imperials in Manehattan.

Two Leman Russ tanks had been assigned to support the push on the station, a low building of mostly wood and brick. Two tracks headed away both north and south, most likely servingCanterlot and Baltimare respectively. There was a lot of open ground to cover in front of the station building, which was why Delta Company had been assigned to flank through buildings just to the east of it and provide a heavy barrage of covering fire while Gamma Company moved up, supported by the tanks. To the west of the station lay more open ground, where Eta Company was pushing toward the other side of town.

Argan's squad reached the jump-off point and had to wait for Delta to get into position. The pair of tanks idled just behind them, out of sight around the corner. Argan took a look up ahead at the station building through his binoculars, peering through the wheel slats of a market cart. There were gun barrels protruding from each window, with sandbags piled high at the doorway. A train was in the station and more men could be seen peeking from the carriages with rifles ready.

At the signal, the tanks rolled out into the open as Delta Company let loose with a hail of fire upon the station building, the train, and the platforms. Lieutenant Albrecht ordered Gamma Company to move, and Argan led his men into the street. The main guns of the two tanks blew holes in the outer wall of the station, disregarding Celestia's desire to limit collateral damage as there was relatively little of the town remaining intact anyway. The men moved up, using market barrows, crates and statues for cover. The Equestrians seemed to share a fondness for statuary and monuments with the Imperium, as every town and city Argan had fought through contained a good number of them. No statue would commemorate their efforts to defend this world, however; not unless the Xenos decided to erect one, at least.

A piercing beep sounded over the vox, an alert tone audible even over the din of battle and with Merkev some few feet away with the set. It repeated twice more; the emergency retreat! Argan ducked down beside Merkev to listen in.

'All units, all units, flash override. This is ops command to all units on this net; retreat, retreat, retreat. I say again, retreat, retreat, retreat.'

What the hell was going on? Perhaps a mass enemy airstrike was inbound. Perhaps some evidence of impending Daemonic activity; perhaps an enemy fleet had returned to orbit and threatened annihilation from above. Argan ordered his squad back as scattered enemy fire whizzed around them. The two tanks threw themselves into reverse gear and began backing out of the square. Above the noise of their engines, Argan could hear something else.

A low, distant roar, building steadily, like an aircraft spooling up to takeoff thrust. He had no idea what it was; could it be related to the evacuation call? The alert tones and the emergency retreat was sounded once more over the vox. The call meant any forces receiving it were to cease combat activities at once and perform break-contact maneuvers, and fall back as soon as possible to the initial jump-off point for the operation, in this case several miles north towards Canterlot. It was only to be used in the case of an imminent danger to the operation as a whole.

Argan rounded the corner with his squad, heading back down the street towards the bridge and the ford where they had waded across the river. Men from across the town were pulling back, vehicles too, though the bridge could only take one at a time. All the while the rumbling that had started to form a background noise to proceedings was getting louder and louder.

Argan and his squad made their way down the street at a jog. Up ahead, men crossing the bridge behind a tank began to run, to sprint. They abandoned their weapons. The tank gunned its engine and raced ahead, crushing several of the unfortunate men who, in their haste, had strayed into its path on the narrow bridge. Argan did not know what they were running from, but the rumble was now a vast, echoing roar, all but filling his ears. Other men near the river turned in terror to run for their lives, and the reason why became clear a moment later.

A huge wall of water, some twenty or thirty feet high, was surging down the river, reaching almost to the tops of the few buildings near the banks that remained intact. It was moving at a terrifying speed, following the course of the river but spilling out over the banks, flooding everything alongside, burying the land under millions of tons of liquid. Men farther upstream were swept away like twigs carried on a hurricane wind.

'Son of a bitch...!' Argan exclaimed. 'Back! Back into the town, go, go!' he screamed to his men, and where they had stood transfixed by the spectacle, they turned almost as one, running as fast as their legs could pump and their lungs could suck in oxygen. The water swept down past them, carrying away the temporary bridge and the tank still trying to cross it. It filtered through the streets and alleys of Ponyville, not content to follow the river's course as the flow of water from upstream should. Argan and the squad made it to the next street, and an alarmed cry came from the point man as he looked to his right and saw the deluge closing in. They carried on running straight, following the same principle as to escape an avalanche; trying to outrun it is an exercise in how to leave a tired corpse, but running perpendicular to the direction of its flow might just get you to the side of the torrent in time to escape its deadly clutches.

They ran into men coming the other way, retreating as per orders, unaware of the danger they were heading into. Shouts for them to turn back were sometimes heeded, sometimes ignored; some men pressed on to their certain deaths, preferring to listen to the retreat commands, as they were both entitled and trained to do, despite the cries, warning of the waters coming to claim them.

Argan saw water bursting through the windows and doorways of a building to his right. An alleyway was ahead, and there was the water again, flowing out, crossing his path like a waterfall. He pounded on through it, risking a glance back. Some of his squad were still with him, while others had pulled up short at the sudden appearance of the water before them. A road was ahead, and he reached it at a tired sprint, but it was too late anyway.

The water flowing down the wide thoroughfare was towering a good ten feet over the heads of the men, and there was no escape from it now. Argan just had time to take a deep breath before it was upon him, submerging him in a different world, a world of darkness, confusion, pressure. He felt himself tumbling aimlessly, end over end, unable to do anything to correct his trajectory or fight against the astonishing power of such a mass of flowing water. Debris battered him, striking him roughly; branches, rocks, parts of buildings, other unfortunate souls caught up in the flow, who could say? He knew nothing but water, everywhere, all around him.

His lungs were burning, empty. His vision was fading out. Surely this was the end for him. He had thought many times of the ways in which he might envisage dying in the Emperor's service; shot down by las-fire, run through by an Eldar blade, crushed beneath debris, left tumbling adrift in the void of space; drowning had never really crossed his mind as a likely option. His earlier thoughts in Griffonstone about the Emperor abandoning him seemed to finally be playing out. There had been deliverance before; the arrival of the fleet through the storm, the Princess protecting them in Manehattan. But nothing could help him now except blind fate and luck.

Which was exactly what he got. Something bumped into him, then something else, then a quick surge in pressure, and he slammed into something, but fresh air assaulted him. He opened his mouth and gasped, breathing deeply, sucking in air, coughing. He opened his eyes, as well, finding himself slumped, almost comically, on a wooden stairwell, head barely above water, inside some unknown building. Providence had seen fit to grand him deliverance, or at least a temporary reprieve. HIs lasgun was gone, washed away somewhere, as was his helmet and much of his gear. Of his squad, there was no sign. He was alone in the stairwell. Argan hauled himself fully onto the landing. Everything below him was filled with water; swirling, turbulent, still flowing and full of debris. The building creaked and groaned as it was buffeted from without and within by the torrent.

Argan had no idea of how far he had been carried, or of how sturdy the building might be. All he knew was that disaster had struck the attacking force. A huge gush of water like that could only have come from a dam breach or a tsunami, and they were a long way from the sea. He headed up the stairs in the hopes of reaching a roof or balcony from which he could survey the town. He did not know his position, the position of friendlies, or the position of safe ground. The staircase ended at a metal door which he was able to force open. It led onto a flat rooftop, and revealed the unfolding devastation.

The building was only three stories high, but the few streets Argan could see had become rivers. They were choked with detritus, carried away by the mad torrent. Uprooted trees, furniture, doors, fences, carts, barrels, bodies. Everything loose or weakly fastened had been collected by the uncontrollable power of millions of tons of water cascading down the hillside and into the unprotected town below. Here and there, entire buildings had been torn from their flimsy foundations and floated along with the current, bobbing almost comically and bumping into other, more sturdy structures as they passed. There were dead men, here and there, clad in both the dark red of the enemy and the more sombre colours of the Parvians, or the multi-toned camouflage of the Kharians. Argan had no desire to count how many, but he could see at least a dozen at a glance. There must be hundreds, perhaps thousands, who had not been able to flee in time and had been swept away by the waters.

Valkyries circled overhead, passing damage reports and looking for survivors, either friendly or enemy. Argan removed his sodden tunic and waved it high above his head in a circular motion, to attract the attention of one of the craft. One Valkyrie was performing a rescue of two men from the rooftop of a nondescript building that didn't help Argan find his bearings. He tried looking for the transit station, but either it wasn't visible from his position or it had been submerged beneath the waters. The course of the river itself was no longer discernible either. It had gone from a gently flowing stream to a distressingly wide lake of water that seemed to blanket the whole town. He couldn't see the dam from his position, but he knew it was tucked away in the hills to the east. Something must have happened to it; an accident, sabotage, an enemy airstrike, the cause didn't matter much to him at the moment.

Another Valkyrie waggled its wings in his direction, signalling that it had seen him. Argan looked around to see if the roof was big enough for a landing; it wasn't. The Valkyrie would have to hover, either just to the side so he could step into the passenger bay, or just above so the door gunners could haul him aboard. He waved his tunic at them again, and the aircraft turned, steadying itself above, its jets turned vertical and kicking up spray from the water below, making crazed patterns on its surface as the VTOL maneuvered towards Argan.

The downdraft blew him back and he steadied himself. But it also pushed down on the rooftop, on the building whose structure was compromised; below the waterline, the sudden impact of such a heavy force had weakened the walls, tearing the doors and windows away, seeping in through the wooden fabric of the building. Debris had been pummeling it as it flowed past, and the building was at the breaking point. The sudden surge of air being forced down upon it from above by the Valkyrie's jets was the last straw, and the building gave a groan.

Argan felt the roof sagging. The Valkyrie came in lower, and he tried to wave them off as he felt the building shift. But the downdraft had already had its effect. The Valkyrie dipped down lower, the port door gunner reaching out a hand to grab the Sergeant and haul him to safety. The roof sagged and shook as walls down below gave way, water leaping on the weakness and tearing the wooden planks and panels away from their moorings. Losing their support, the roof beams bent and groaned. As he stepped towards the Valkyrie, Argan felt himself dropping away. The gunner leaned out, straining his harness to try and reach Argan, but the roof was going, collapsing under him. Argan stumbled, recovered, and with his next step, felt his boot go straight through the roof. He gave a cry of anguish as the entire building fell away with a crash of splintering wood, the debris being immediately carried into the stream of water and rushing away. Argan fell with it, splashing into the torrent once more.

Immediately his world returned to the underwater tunnel he had been in only minutes earlier. Water swirled around him, bubbles and debris and darkness. He felt himself being carried along, and after a few moments he burst through the water to the surface, taking a deep drag of oxygen as he bobbed along like a cork. Buildings passed him by; another was up ahead. He tried vainly to swim to the side, but slammed into the corner of the structure and bounced off, robbing him of most of his breath, winding him and setting him spinning. The waters were deep and he was almost at the roof level of most of the buildings that sailed by. There was something floating next to him- a log or a tree branch of some kind. He scrabbled desperately for it and grasped it like a life preserver, keeping himself stable, letting himself rest. The water was carrying him through the town where he had expected to be fighting street by street. If the dam had failed before the attack was launched, it would have done the Guardsmen's job for them, flushing the enemy from the town. But it had not failed, it had, surely, been destroyed, though whether by accidental tank or artillery fire from misdirected Imperial gunners, or through deliberate detonation by the enemy, he did not know.

He passed another building where several guardsmen stood on the roof, watching him sail by, unable to help. The disaster had unfolded within ninety seconds of the retreat signal being sounded, nowhere near enough time for the Guard to evacuate the town. Those that had tried had mostly run straight into the water roaring toward them down the formerly placid river. Whether the enemy had planned to drown their own men or not would probably never be known, but the town's defences, while breached, were not destroyed, and the bodies of the enemy dead floated along with Argan, popping up here and there among the foam and the churning surge of water.

He could not escape it as it continued to take him through the town. Something banged into his legs below the water, and he found himself suddenly dragged down once again, beneath the surface, without warning. He held his breath and looked down. Through the murk and silt churned up, he could just about see that his foot was trapped, caught in something long and thin that he could not quite identify- vines, rope, power lines. Something was hooked around his boot. He tried to pull away but could not. Nor could he remove his boot. He reached down and began the desperate struggle, to get the thing off of his foot before he ran out of air. The loop of whatever it was tied around his foot prevented him from unlacing his boot. He tried to unhook it, pulling at it, but it was resistant, tightly pulled around him. He tried to tear it, but it was far too strong. He tugged at it, straining to slip it over the toe of his boot, but his air was dying away. He tried again, and again, and again, his eyesight fading, his strength waning with every pull. Thoughts of the past weeks ran through his mind. Thoughts of his squad, thoughts of the princess, thoughts of Marla coming through from the past, reminding him of what he had lost. What was there in his future? Nothing. There was no future. He was going to drown.

He was floating up, towards the light. The Emperor, waiting to welcome him into His holy throng, those who had given their lives in His service. He opened his eyes to see the angels and cherubs, to see the Imperial Saints, to see the God-Emperor himself.

Instead he saw clouds, scattered and ragged, strewn across the blue sky. He found himself reflexively breathing and coughing, gasping for air, swallowing it in great gulps. He was floating once more atop the water. Whatever had been ensnaring his boot had come adrift, either through his actions or through the stirring and churning of the water and the debris as it struck whatever obstacles lay in its path. He felt something grasp him, and he started to move, nor forward, but laterally this time, to his left. He could hear something, something other than the ominous rushing of the water around his ears. He could hear voices.

'Lieutenant! I've got one, he's alive!'

'Medic! Medic! We have a survivor here!'

Strong hands pulled him ashore. He felt solid ground beneath him once again, at last. Panting and shaking, Argan looked around. Men with weary faces, men who had seen combat many times and knew of only death, looked down at him, having a chance, finally, to know the saving of life as well as the taking of it.

'Easy, son...sorry, Sergeant,' one man addressed him, seeing his stripes. 'We got you. Just relax, you'll be fine.' Argan nodded, half dazed by his near drowning. A medicae hurried over, checking him. These were not Parvians. These were not even infantrymen. These were men of the Manrovians, the armoured regiment assigned to the eastern flank of the push, who had been swinging round to encircle the town. Had he been carried that far by the floodwaters?

Argan let the tankers take care of him, his unexpected saviours fussing as though he were a small child rescued from a shallow pond after pressing his luck a little too far towards the deep end. He may have survived, but many had not, claimed either by the enemy before the disaster, or the raging waters after it. The offensive was disrupted, halted. The enemy may have lost the town, but they had won a victory of sorts nonetheless.

At the same time, many miles to the north, a scout airship of the Royal Equestrian Air Corps hung motionless in the cool air. Floating with the top deck of its gondola just peeking over a rocky ridge, the airship held a silent position in the sky. From a distance its silvery gasbag could be mistaken for a cloud. There was no wind to make it drift, a relatively rare condition in the mountains. All eyes, telescopes and spotting glasses were trained on a peak some twelve miles north. A search revealed all they needed to know. A single pony took to the wing, flying south, through the remainder of the day, through the night, arriving at the capital completely spent, her wings barely carrying her, for she had a message to deliver.

While the Imperial forces in the valley below licked their wounds and recovered from the surprise and the shock of the dam failure, while the soldiers slept or sat around campfires in the small hours just before dawn, few of the Guardsmen noticed the drone of engines. Most of those who did dismissed it as a supply flight or medevac heading out to the main landing zone to the west. Not many watched the pre-dawn departure of the Las Pegasus, the Fillydelphia, the bombardment airship Starswirl and the Royalty-Class monster, the EAS Luna. The Air Corps were heading north. The Air Corps were heading to war.

By Dawn's Early Light

Out of the fading darkness they came, nearly thirty in number. They spread out, looming over the mountain peaks, driving hard for the volcano, engines throbbing, props whirring. Their gun ports were open, their cannons loaded, their shields raised. Thousands of ponies with dry throats and shaking hooves prepared for battle. Many knew they would not return. Each ship's captain led their crews in a short prayer to Celestia, that they should fight well, that they should not falter from their duty, and that she watch over those who fell.

For many of the ponies stationed in the Western Command area, this would be their first taste of battle. Not just since the invasion, but since they signed up as raw recruits. There was fear, but there was also resolve. There was nervousness, but there was also courage. Every pony who was scared half to death had only to look to their front, peer through the shimmering shields, to banish their terrors.

Leading the fleet were the royal sisters, beacons in the pre-dawn, seeming to catch every tiny shred of light and magnify them a thousandfold, glowing with untold power and grace. Their mighty wings beat a steady rhythm as the airships followed on behind, spearheaded by Celestia's new flagship, the Starswirl. The City-Class ships were next, escorting the Luna and the Cadence. The fast-attack craft were out on the flanks, providing perimeter security, while the transports brought up the rear.

The volcano lay ahead, smoking eerily in the crepuscular glow, containing unknown dangers. Only a very rough estimate of the Changeling numbers could be reasonably made, and even that was using outdated information. But the fleet of airships was the largest ever assembled in one place since the war with the Griffon Kingdom, and joining them in the assault were thousands of infantry below, marching in loose skirmish formation over the boulders and mountain streams. The terrain was unforgiving, but they were fit and well trained. They held their rifles at the ready as they moved in, eyes peeled, straining in the half darkness for any sign of glowing eyes or glinting fangs.

If the Changelings had not been alerted by the appearance of the airships over the mountaintops, shrouded as they were in the drifting clouds and fading darkness of the dawn, they could hardly fail to be aroused by the sound of their engines, the drone of a hundred turbines echoing across the landscape, reverberating from the peaks. A cluster of them rose up from the mountain, no need for disguise. The ponies knew where they were.

Anti-air guns were swung round to meet the threat. Observers took a rough count- a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand. Soon, the sky ahead was filled with Changeling drones, a great swarm, seeming to multiply with every passing second. They were ready to defend their home, and the ponies were ready to take it from them.

The huge bombardment cannon of the Starswirl, one of the few guns of the fleet that could engage the enemy without turning the airship, roared in fearsome anger, sending a huge shell hurtling toward the Hive. Though it was a rarely-used function, the shells could be set to detonate in airburst, rather than on impact, using either a time or proximity fuse. The cannon was too slow to fire and too inaccurate to be fired against single airborne targets such as airships or dragons. It was only used in this function to strike large groups of aerial targets. The Changeling swarm fitted the description perfectly.

The huge high-explosive round, normally used to penetrate bunkers, tunnels or other large reinforced structures, detonated in the midst of one large group of Changelings. At least a hundred ceased to exist within milliseconds, blown apart by the overpressure or shredded into pieces by the mass of shrapnel. The other Changelings showed no distress, dismay or fear at their comrades' demise. Instead, they charged.

Captain Lance of the Starswirl ordered signals to be flashed by lamp and flag to the fleet. The warships behind him obeyed with practised swiftness, swinging their bows either to port or starboard to form a firing line. The mighty Starswirl's ornately decorated prow, replete with carving of the famed wizard himself, came about to starboard. With the ships in position, their broadsides could be brought into play, and a hundred guns spoke in unison.

Changelings died by the dozen, but they returned fire. Green flashes of magic cut across the dim skies, a thousand flickers in the gloom, peppering the shields of the ships in the battle line. They shimmered and glowed under the barrage. Suddenly the skies were lit by crackling golden lightning, leaping between drones and frying them where they flew. Celestia and her sister joined the battle, showing no fear or hesitation, flying straight into the swarm, horns flashing and flaring. Luna launched coruscating balls of energy into the cloud of Changelings, which detonated in a similar fashion to the heavy shell of the bombardment cannon. The sisters fought side by side, back to back, swooping and swirling in the confused mass of Changelings. Green bolts of offensive magic bounced harmlessly off of their glowing gold and royal-blue shields.

The anti-air guns and the machine cannon on the decks of each warship rattled and spat fire, while the main guns began to bombard the area around the Hive. Though the Changelings could fly, they would also have set up ground defences around the entrance. The bombardment cannons of the Starswirl and the two Royalty-Class craft were not put into action, partly because of the orientation of the ships in the firing line, and partly due to fears of a collapse caused by their heavy piercing shells that could kill Twilight or destroy the Element. A fearsome amount of firepower was put into action against the Changelings that swarmed in their thousands, but for each one that died, it seemed that ten more replaced it.

They were coming out not just of the main tunnels at the base of the volcano that had been spotted by the scouts, but also from any number of vents and passages that were secreted in the rocks of the peak and those that surrounded it. It was like flying into a cloud of dust or sand that had been whipped up by a strong wind. The royal sisters continued their deadly dance among the enemy, not straying too far from the airships in case their assistance was needed. The Changelings were all over them, and all over each ship of the line. the sickening buzz of their massed wings audible even over the gunfire. They pounded on the shields, hurling magic at them probing for any weakness, any gap or opening they could find or force. Sometimes gunfire drove them back, sometimes they pressed on, a huddled surge of bodies at a particular spot where they smelled blood. Pegasi lined the rails with their rifles, blazing away, picking off targets as they presented themselves. Their objective was to enter the Hive itself, but to go over the side in this blizzard of horns and fangs would be to invite almost instant death. Instead the assault infantry stayed within the protective cocoon of the airship's shields, waiting for the swarm to thin. But far from thinning, it seemed to be getting thicker.

Private Phantom, a soldier of the Royal Equestrian Army of some six months' standing, crouched nervously behind a rock. Her hooves felt sweaty as they gripped her repeating rifle tightly, her helmet jammed uncomfortably on her head. This was her first battle, her first taste of combat, and she was terrified. It looked like hell was unfolding before her very eyes. She dared not risk another peek over the rocks behind which her squad sheltered in a long trenchlike dry riverbed with several hundred other ponies. The dark-purple earth pony had seen enough, but she knew they would have to advance into it very soon.

As part of the push from Vanhoover, her unit had linked up with others at the rendezvous point to the south and marched north to the cover of a valley just behind the row of hills that separated them from the rocky expanse that led to the volcano. They had waited out the night, getting only a pitiful attempt at any kind of sleep; it was cold, they lacked proper blankets or sleeping bags, and, for the middle of nowhere, there had been a surprising amount of noise- wild animals howling, coughs and sneezes from fellow soldiers, the occasional creaking of the airships that hung silently above the masses of infantry.

Though she had only lain in the chill for a few scant hours, it had seemed like an eternity, with all the multitudinous thoughts and fears that clouded one's mind before any momentous occasion, magnified tenfold by the nature of their task on the morrow. They would advance, not into the flashing guns and explosives of these human invaders, whom she had not seen in person. Rather, they would be charging into the teeth of a much older foe, one that had once been thought reduced to a minor menace. But now seemingly the entire military strength of Western Command was being directed against them in a full-on battle. It would be something to tell her grandfoals about, if by some miracle she survived. The greatest battle since the ones from ancient times, when sister fought sister and siblings stood together to defeat tyranny.

All she could see of it at the moment was a single airship hovering above, and that was enough for her. It was only a cargo craft, hanging well back from the fighting, lurking to the southwest. She knew there were many more, but rocks blocked her vision. On board were many more soldiers, shipped over from Canterlot and from Vanhoover itself, waiting to descend back to solid ground once a landing area had been cleared around the Hive. That, in part, was the job of Phantom and her unit. Under cover of darkness they had crossed the hills and advanced as close to the Hive as they dared without risking detection, before finding cover until the assault began. The infantry on the ground would push up while the airships occupied the attention of the swarm and thinned their ranks. Once they had cleared a suitable spot, in conjunction with the Assault Infantry from above, the troop transports could make a landing and deliver additional forces who would take the lead and sweep and clear the Hive itself.

That was assuming, of course, that they could get anywhere near it. The more Phantom thought about it, the less likely that seemed, so she decided to stop thinking altogether. That helped somewhat, until the Sergeant called, 'Make ready!'

Phantom rose on shaky legs, rifle gripped close. She still couldn't see over the rocks, but she waited for the command. All around her, soldiers were waiting to go over the top, bayonets fixed, rifles loaded. There was a tension in the air, almost unbearable, like the moments before a lightning strike. Gunfire crackled in the skies ahead.

Phantom thought of her family, back home in Vanhoover. She'd be the hero of the neighbourhood if she returned; her father would see to that. An ex-servicepony himself, he had seen action against dragons and Zebras before, though not like this. Nopony alive had seen anything like this, except the princesses. Hopefully, nopony ever would again.

Once more, the seconds seemed to stretch to infinity. Ponies waited, trembling, praying. 'Give the order...' somepony muttered. 'Why don't they give the order, for Celestia's sake?' Another pony coughed. Another vomited. Phantom spared a glance up and down the line. Ponies in full combat gear, as far as the eye could see, waiting in torturous silence, officers with peaked caps crouching on the edge of the slope, checking their stopwatches, peeking over the rocks.

Phantom's mouth was as dry as the riverbed. She began to recite a silent prayer to Celestia, but before she could complete it the tension was shattered by a shrill, piercing whistle that cut to the very bone. The signal was repeated all along the line, officers signalling the advance. The Sergeant called, 'Stand up and fight! For the grace and the might of the Sun! In the name of Her glory!' Advance!'

A mighty roar rose from the throats of a thousand ponies as they crested the rise, scrambling up the river bank, stepping between the boulders, and charging. Phantom found herself moving reflexively, though everything screamed at her to stay where she was. The river bed was safe. What lay beyond was not.

The rock field ahead was uneven and difficult terrain, but at least it might offer some cover. The skies above were filled with buzzing Changelings and giant airships, a surreal sight. Gunfire echoed around the canyons and hillsides. Magic and counter-magic flashed in the sky. Explosions rippled across the mountainside ahead, the base of the volcano around the Hive entrances being pummeled by artillery, not just from the airships, but now also from the Army's big guns, audible as a deep rumble from behind them, on the other side of the hills, howitzers lobbing shells in indirect fire. Dead Changelings were falling like rain, slamming into the ground all around them; an added hazard, but at least it seemed like the enemy had not noticed them

Phantom trotted quickly, keeping up with her squad. The great roar of determination from their collective throats had died away, and ponies were focused on survival once more, dodging falling bodies, keeping their eyes peeled for threats. Phantom stumbled more than once on the rock-strewn terrain. The volcano loomed in her vision up ahead, their target, smoking like a portent of doom. Normally, dragons would be quite likely to inhabit a volcano like this; an explanation, perhaps of where the ones that had limited Vanhoover's communications had come from, turfed out by the Changelings. Now it was time for another change of ownership.

Phantom kept on glancing up at the airships overhead, fearful that one might come crashing down, wreathed in flame, at any moment if she didn't watch out for them. There was a hell of a fight going on above, but the ground was still deserted. All the Changelings, it seemed, had been sucked up by the threat posed by the fleet. She could see more of the drones and workers flying up out of tunnels ahead, and off to the left, as well. She could see ponies, several battalions of the 5th Division, advancing steadily, closing in on the Hive under the air cover and the artillery barrage. She began to feel a little more confident.

Her confidence was fleeting. From seemingly nowhere, Changelings were upon them. They burst from some hidden entrance among the rocks off to the right flank, swooping down. Green blasts flashed, cutting down several ponies, unaware of their foe's arrival and dying silently. Shouts went up and rifles turned to meet the threat. Unicorns threw up shield walls or returned fire with bolts of magic.

Phantom felt her heart start to pound again as she heard the cries. She raised her rifle, seeing the visage of death flying at her. She ducked down as one Changeling passed just feet above her head. Her training managed to overcome her fear, and she leveled her rifle at the next one, squeezing the trigger. Her bullet struck it just behind the left wing, making it rear up in pain and drop, landing close to her. It hissed and charged, seeing its foe. Phantom froze, the sight of her certain doom charging at her driving all logic and reason from her mind. Her hooves still reflexively worked the lever of her rifle to load the next round, but she could not bring herself to fire it, transfixed by the creature. It was wounded, green blood leaking from its flank where she had struck it, but it showed no regard for its injury. Fangs bared, it was intent only on killing her, and it was sure to succeed. She had hesitated for too long.

A spray of gore erupted from the side of its head, and down it went, slamming into the dirt, dead, its brains leaking from its skull. The Sergeant moved up past Phantom. 'Get moving, private!' he ordered. 'Stand still like that and you're dead!'

'Y-yes, Sarge...' Phantom muttered. She shook herself from her daze and followed the Sergeant, with a long glance at the Changeling that had nearly killed her. There were plenty more where that one came from. A quick glance showed that there were drones all along the line, where other companies and other battalions were engaging. The Changelings were evidently fully aware of the ground threat, as well as the airborne one. The battle was now joined, in the air and on land.

The infantry still had at least two miles of ground to cross. It was a long way when under fire, and the Changelings were starting to react in force to their assault. They did not want to give up their home easily. More drones were pouring from unseen tunnels, both to engage the airships and to engage the infantry. Phantom gripped her rifle tightly. She would need it again, of that there was no doubt. She followed the rest of the squad. Green magic smashed into the boulders around them, blowing huge chunks out of them and sending clouds of dust into the air. Other squads were forming firing lines, holding position and engaging the enemy with rapid fire. Some were charging headlong into the fray, bayonets glinting as the first rays of Celestia's sun began to appear over the mountains.

Phantom struggled across the harsh ground. She was trying to stay focused on the task in hoof, but that was difficult when magic was flashing past your ears, shots were ringing out, and artillery fire was screaming overhead. Changelings were everywhere, seeming to spawn out of nothing. They swirled above, they scampered around on the ground, outnumbering the ponies by dozens to one. But the ponies had firepower, and they had magic too.

Phantom glanced up, and felt some of her fear dissipating. Floating above, as well as the airships, she could see the unmistakable golden glow of Princess Celestia, leading the charge, an inspiring sun shining in the pre-dawn sky. There, too, was her sister, Luna, battling bravely in the heavens, both sisters fighting together at this time, the transition between night and day. It was symbolic, no doubt; the sun and the moon fighting at dawn to rescue Twilight. Poets could write reams of verse about the battle. No doubt one day they would, assuming anypony survived to recount the tale. Phantom felt her spirit renewed by the sight of her leaders. With the princesses with them, they could not fail.

Yet the Changelings were trying their level best to dispel that notion. A hail of magic struck around the advancing platoon, killing several ponies. Phantom ducked behind a boulder once again. She rested her rifle on the top of it and looked down the sights. There were enemies everywhere. She took aim and fired, again and again and again. Her magazine was empty. She dropped back down to reload. Another five rounds were slammed home. She popped back up.

The attack was surging forward now, gaining momentum. Accurate rifle fire was cutting holes in the Changeling line, into which brave or foolish ponies could charge. But the Changelings did not need to form a solid line. They could fly, and they were in the air all around, swooping down from the battle above to reinforce their fellow drones on the ground. Some of them were not in their true form, but had adopted the shapes of some other creature to sow confusion and fear. There were dragons flying around, there were huge Yaks and Ursa Minors, there were humans. Most insidiously of all, there were also ponies, appearing as friendlies retreating from the frontline, only to reveal their real nature and cut down an unsuspecting soldier.

What had seemed a clear cut fight was rapidly descending into chaos. Changelings were all over the advancing infantry, in disguise, in their true form, on the ground, in the air. They found their attack steadily grinding to a halt in the face of overwhelming numbers. Their officers ordered them to form a strong firing line, and units coalesced around each other, forming ranks of rifles and bayonets, as if they were fighting an orderly battle against the Zebras with their spears and shields, rather than against an enemy who could attack from above, from behind, or from within. It was all they could do. Continuing the assault blindly into the swarm would invite the Changelings to pick them off piecemeal. All around protection was a lot easier to provide when not on the move.

The boulder behind which Phantom crouched became the lynchpin in her squad's defence. They formed a line beside her, rifles pointed outward, with other units covering their rear and flanks. The infantry consolidated into a strong line, several ranks deep. They would hold that position until the Assault Infantry could join the fight from above.

A volley of bullets cut down a dozen Changelings as they charged. Others bounded between the rocks and folds in the terrain to get closer to their foes, avoiding the gunfire. Their horns flashed, throwing magic at the ponies as they tried to organise and form a strong line. Several of the boldest creatures were impaled on sharpened bayonets after straying too close. All the while the artillery thudded away, heavy shells kicking up plumes of dirt and fragments of rock about a mile ahead. They were a lot closer to the Hive than they had been ten minutes ago, but there was still a lot of open ground to cover. Air cover would be critical if they were to make the charge.

As the battle raged below, so it raged in the skies above as well. The spotters had given up trying to estimate numbers; there were simply too many Changelings to count. It was like flying into a cloud. Despite the airships forming a battle line, each craft was like an island, surrounded by chittering wings and hissing tongues, riddled with magical fire and under constant pounding by bodies probing for an entrance. The Changelings concentrated their attacks on the underside of the gondolas; they were not stupid creatures. Anything learned by one drone or brood was quickly transmitted to the others through the Hive Mind, and they had long ago learned how to keep out of the firing arcs of an airship's guns. Crew or on-board Assault Infantry would normally be used for close defence to prevent just such action, by flying alongside the airship with their rifles, but with the shields being held so tight to the craft due to their proximity to others of the fleet, and with such a mass of drones beyond, they could operate neither inside nor outside the shield safely. As a result, the airships were limited to using their bow and stern-mounted machine-cannons to sweep the exterior of one another's shields clear of enemies wherever they could get aim on the lower gondola of the next ship along the line.

On board the Fillydelphia, Captain Ironside stood on the quarterdeck, directing operations aboard his new vessel. With the loss of the Canterlot, its crew had been disbanded and shuffled between other craft that were below complement. Ironside had been offered command of the Cadence, having more seniority than its current commander, but he once again stuck to his guns and wished to remain aboard one of the smaller craft that he knew so well. The Fillydelphia was the perfect choice, and he was moved along with his command crew to the other City-Class vessel, to lead it into battle against the Changelings. Two companies of Assault Infantry were on board, waiting for a clear run at the Hive entrance, where they would in theory be among the first units to enter in search of the Element of Magic.

The rapid-fire anti-air batteries of the City-Class airships were wreaking havoc on the drone swarms, their constant pom-pom-pom soundtrack contrasting with the heavier thump of the main guns and the rattle of the machine-cannon swivel mounts. It was hard, from inside the swirling shield wall, to get a clear picture of the entire battle, but from what Ironside could see, the Changeling numbers were barely thinning, if at all. He had lost sight of the princess and her sister, though he had no doubt they were still fighting. A quick glance showed Ironside the two ships next in line, the Starswirl ahead, and the Indefatigable astern, all guns blazing. The anti-air weaponry on both port and starboard sides were able to engage at the same time due to the overwhelming numbers of Changelings swirling around like snowflakes. The ships were buffeted as though they were in the middle of a blizzard. The shield was flickering, but it was holding against the onslaught, for now. While magic attacks couldn't penetrate the shields the way the human beam weapons could, they did cause significant distortion at the point of impact, and feedback into the minds of the unicorns powering the barrier.

More Changelings were charging in, holding the airships at bay from the Hive itself. The warships were holding their own, despite the heavy pounding of magic, but a large contingent of the Changelings had their sights on another prize. They flapped over the battle line and flew southeast, away from the fighting, towards the transports. Ironside spotted the danger through the shield, and ordered rapid signals flashed, alerting both the transports and the Starswirl, the flagship. A return signal flashed from the Starswirl's aft signal lamp.

'Helm!' Ironside called. 'Hard to starboard and all ahead full. Take us out of the line,' he ordered. 'We're going hunting.'

Strike Force

Private Phantom looked up from behind the boulder as she heard the drone of airship engines kick in. The mighty craft had been hanging stationary overhead, engaging in battle with the Changeling swarm. But now one of them was pulling away from the line, its bow swinging to starboard. She wondered where it was going; were they retreating? Was this the start of the rout that would see them all overrun without air support?

She followed its course and realised it was heading for the transports, pursuing a large group of Changelings who had clearly spotted the opportunity to attack the unescorted craft. They were some distance away, and Phantom could not waste her time following the outcome of the chase. There were more important things to deal with down on the ground. The Changelings were still pushing, popping up all over the place, seemingly from nowhere, coming out from behind rocks and boulders that seemed too small to hide them. Some were disguised as tiny creatures; rats, spiders, even worms. Their sneaky, unobserved approach would then manifest in a sudden lunge by a newly revealed drone and end with a pony's throat being ripped out.

Rifle fire rippled along the line. The officers had managed to organise a stable position, with the front rank crouching behind cover and the rear rank standing to fire over their heads. Other squads were assigned to protect the rear, as the Changelings were apt to spring up from any direction. A fresh wave was charging for them, some on the ground, some flying low, weaving from side to side while hurling green magic that blew chunks out of boulders and blew holes in flesh. Phantom took aim again and fired, missing wide of the mark. She checked her angle and squeezed the trigger again, this time hitting home, blowing a drone's sinister eye out of its socket, driving the bullet into its brain. It dropped from the sky and rolled as it hit the ground. She spared time for a brief grin at her success, but more Changelings were still charging.

She found that, the more she concentrated on killing, the more her fear of dying faded away. No doubt there was something deeply meaningful in that, and the divisional psychologist would have a field day psychoanalysing her thought processes, but none of that mattered. All that mattered was staying alive, and that required a steady hoof and a good eye, both of which she now found that she possessed- no, she rediscovered the fact. She already knew from training, where she had scored among the top ten percent on the rifle range. There was a world of difference, however, between the training grounds of Vanhoover's Fort Unity and the field of battle on the approach to a Changeling Hive, with the air full of hissing fangs and magic.

She banished all other thoughts from her mind and focused once more. A Changeling was leaping with effortless precision between rocks and boulders, evading all attempts at bringing it down. She sighted in, took a deep breath, exhaled steadily, hoof tightening on the trigger. One shot, one kill.

Except this time the bullet didn't kill the target. It passed seemingly harmlessly through the creature's flapping, lace-like wing. The Changeling continued its advance until other bullets cut it down. But there were more following behind, and they were closing in rapidly. The saving grace was that there was little time to stop and think. Aim and fire, aim and fire. Repeat the process and forget your fears. Phantom found herself following the pattern almost rhythmically, ignoring all else, just as the training had intended. New targets were plentiful, and she carried a good amount of ammunition. The weight of her bayonet threw off the aim of the rifle slightly, but she knew to correct for it. Hopefully she would not need to put it to use.

The Fillydelphia pulled out of the line and drove hard for the transports and the swarm that lay between them. While the cargo airships were not defenceless, they mounted only a pun armament of two machine-cannons for anti-air work. While a dozen such ships could put up a considerable amount of flak with their combined firepower, it would be insufficient against the masses of drones. In addition, cargo crews did not warrant the inclusion of a unicorn shield section, and while unicorn soldiers or Guardsponies being transported could throw up a basic defence, it would not be enough to protect the airships for very long.

The engines of the Fillydelphia droned and whined as they were pushed to the maximum. The airship needed to catch up to the swarm in order to be able to swing around and engage with all of their anti-air guns. Their bow chaser machine-cannon would add almost nothing to the fight by itself. The full barrage would be needed if they were to fight off the enemy and protect the transports.

Ironside stood firm on the quarterdeck, eye glued to his telescope, peering through. He could see the swirling storm of drones ahead, hundreds, most likely thousands, having split from the main group that were besieging the battle line. Below were thousands more, a mighty struggle ensuing with the attacking infantry on the ground as well. It seemed likely that the assault would take a heavy toll, but they had been assured that it was a vital mission.

The transports might hold the key. Their lower decks rammed with infantry ready to deploy, they would need to be carefully shepherded into position. It had been hoped that the Changelings would ignore or simply not notice them loitering in the distance, but some eagle-eyed creature had evidently sighted them, and the Hive Mind had dispatched a large contingent to intercept.

They could fly fast, but the City-Class craft could fly faster. The Fillydelphia was overhauling the swarm, but they were getting into range of the transports now. Flashes of magic could be seen ahead as they began to engage. Thin shields of varying colours had been hastily flung up around the transports as the enemy approached. Urgent signals were being flashed from them to the Fillydelphia, appealing for aid. Ironside ordered a quick response signal; Hold Firm.

They were closing in rapidly now, as the Changelings had stopped advancing, starting to swirl around the transports. Rifleponies lined the rails and their machine-cannon flickered, but there were so many drones it was hard to make an impact. Ironside bellowed orders, and the crew obeyed. The bow hove to starboard, bringing the port side gunners round on target. They were ready and willing, and a barrage of shells leaped out, striking the Changelings from behind. Many dropped from the sky, wings torn to tatters. Others were spread across the sky like a fountain of spray from a can of soda being opened as they were hit by the blast wave from the airship's main guns. Many of the creatures turned to engage the new threat.

Ironside scanned the row of transports quickly with a practised eye. He could see at least one whose shield was faltering, and shouted orders for the anti-air gunners to concentrate fire upon it, clearing its exterior as much as possible. They could not direct fire onto its far side, however, and there were still Changelings there, stubbornly clinging to their assault despite the petulant fire of the single gun on the transport that could be brought to bear on them. The flickering shield was in danger of collapse.

'Bring us alongside that craft, port side to port side!' Ironside ordered. The helmspony swung the wheel, easing the warship alongside the transport. There were many Changelings bashing into and firing magic at the shield, like ants swarming over a picnic site. Care had to be used; though the shells of their guns could not penetrate through a magic shield from the outside the way they could from within, too much firepower smashing into the shield would cause it to collapse just as efficiently as the Changeling attacks would. The use of the main guns in defending the blind spots of a fellow airship, therefore, was strictly prohibited except in extreme circumstances.

With the Fillydelphia coming alongside, the machine-cannon and rapid fire guns were able to sweep the transport's port side clean, but the Changelings were wise to it. They had spotted the real danger and turned away from their prizes to confront it. The vast majority of the swarm was now closing in on the warship, with only one intention in mind.

Unlike the transports, however, the Fillydelphia was more than capable of holding her own. Backing out from the previously threatened cargo airship, her guns flashed and roared, main batteries joining in the fray now that they were able to target clear air. Guns on both sides of the airship were able to engage as the Changelings swirled around them. Dozens of magic bolts slammed into the shield from all sides, sending crazed ripples across its surface. Once again the Changelings dove below the airship's keel to attack from underneath, and with no other warships in the line to protect them, the Fillydelphia's gunners could do little about it. Pathetic gunfire from the few nearest transports trying their best could only fell a small number of the drones lurking beneath.

It was time for the onboard infantry to earn their keep. With a few signals and a blast on a whistle, the rifleponies lining the railings leaped over the side. With the Fillydelphia's shield able to be pushed farther from its structure as there were no other airships in line with them, there was space for the Assault Infantry to fly alongside. They dropped down and took aim at the Changelings massing where the deck guns could not engage. Rifle fire was as effective as cannon fire at killing drones, and rapid, accurate shots brought down plenty. There were still masses of them, however, with almost all of the separated swarm now attacking the Fillydelphia. as if they had disturbed a nest of angry wasps and were now paying the price for their carelessness.

Magic bolts continued to pound into the shield. Under such a heavy onslaught, the barrier wavered and shimmered, threatening collapse. Drones went down by the dozen, falling to their deaths below, but there were enough of them to do damage. With shocks to the barrier coming in from all angles and feedback coursing through the minds of the unicorns powering it, the Fillydelphia's shield collapsed with a loud pop of displaced air. Ironside drew his sword from its sheath as the Assault Infantry hurried back aboard.

'Prepare to repel borders!' he roared.

The steep side of the volcano was littered with ejecta, pock-marked with craters and scarred with fumaroles. It would have been an arduous and dangerous trek by hoof, and so it was a good thing that every one of them had wings.

The group of Pegasi had approached the volcano from the northwest, having skirted the valley where battle now raged. Waiting until they heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire, they had flapped their way up the side of the cone, almost to the crater at the top, before finding landing spots and waiting. Observations were made; of the downward slope, of the fighting raging below, of what could be seen of the tunnel entrances.

Spitfire lowered her binoculars, tucking them away in her belt. Her Special Tasks Group stood ready behind her, along with three companies of Assault Infantry. While the combined-arms assault distracted and occupied the attention of the vast majority of Changeling defenders, the small but elite pony force had outflanked them around to the north, coming up from behind the volcano with the intention of trying to slip into the Hive.

The mares and stallions of the infiltration team had no idea what would be waiting in store for them. The extent of the Changeling's engagement with the main force was unknown; were the bulk of their number still below ground, waiting, or had they thrown everything they had at the airships and infantry? Were the tunnels empty, or were they clogged with reinforcements heading for the surface? What were they likely to run into? They could only wait to uncover the reality that lay before them.

Spitfire surveyed the area below. The airship fleet could be seen hanging in mid-air, cannons blazing continuously as they held a battle line around three quarters of a mile from the Hive tunnels. Huge numbers of drones were besieging the attacking force in an odd example of role reversal. The artillery and some of the main guns of the fleet were striking targets and tunnels lower down the mountainside, but staying clear of targeting the possible entrances that lay farther up the smoking slope.

Going inside a volcano was a terribly dumb idea. Going inside a Hive was a death sentence. Going inside a Hive that was inside a volcano was just about the height of lunacy, and yet that was exactly what they were about to do. If all went well, either they would be in and out before the Changelings could react, or if not, then they would be joined by the main assault force, deploying from the transports and warships once they had broken through the defences. That was a nice theory, but the reality, as every mare and stallion knew, was always likely to be entirely different. Nevertheless, each one of them was ready and willing to lay down their life in the service of the Sun if necessary.

For Spitfire and the Special Tasks Group, it would be the third Hive they had raided in the last fortnight. They might be termed experts, except that both other Hives had been devoid of all life, save for one dragon. This time would be different. It might only take a solitary drone on guard duty to spot them, and for all they knew the whole of the force currently attacking the airships would sweep back to defend their home, and rip the invaders apart. All they could do was try not to be spotted, and if they were, try to fight their way in and out.

Spitfire took one hoof off of her machine-rifle to quickly signal to the troops behind her. They began their slow, cautious advance, not flying now, but walking, one step at a time, trying their best to avoid attention, to blend in to the rocks and scree on the side of the volcano. Their faces were painted, wings, manes and tails covered with camouflage polymers. Even the Assault Infantry who, by their very nature, did not normally excel at covert operations and infiltration, were bedecked in the black and grey scheme to limit their visibility. They did not want to attract any undue attention whilst on the side of the volcano, and though the Changelings were heavily engaged in battle, it would only take one eagle-eyed drone to see them for their whole raid to unravel before it even started.

Farther down the slope in front of them, a particularly large and sulfurous fumarole was belching out acrid steam and smoke. The ponies used the vapours to further disguise their approach as they trod carefully, watching not to dislodge any rocks that might alert guards below; though none were visible at the entrance they intended to use, it was always possible that the Changelings had disguised a few drones as tiny creatures such as beetles or ants. The two squads of the Special Tasks Group led the way, edging their way lower, past small vents and craters, past streaks of dried lava. The Changeling cover story had been a good one. This was not some imitation volcano, with magic smoke and artificial lava. This was very much the real thing.

An entrance came into view through the sulfur clouds below them. It was a tunnel, with a significant carapace of rock overhanging it. No smoke poured from within, no lava flowed through it. It was a way inside the Hive. Cautiously they moved down to surround it, guns aimed. There was no movement from within, and no evidence of guards anywhere nearby. Spitfire and her squad led the way, slowly and deliberately moving in, covered by three dozen guns behind. Once they had made entry, the rest of the infiltration team began to follow them inside, into the darkness. Into the Hive.

Though Captain Ironside was old, he had not forgotten how to fight. With his sword gripped in one hoof and a pistol in the other, he prepared for battle once more. His ship and his crew were under threat, and this time the action would be a lot more personal than the relatively indiscriminate act of hurling anti-air fire at an enemy. The Changelings were coming, and they were coming for his gunners, for his observers, for his medics. They were coming for him.

The onslaught arrived from both flanks simultaneously, Changeling drones landing on the top deck. They were immediately forced back by the Assault Infantry passengers who lined the rails, beating the attackers off with rifle fire. They came again straight away, from the bow and stern now as well as the sides. Three drones landed on the rear rail and pounced towards the command crew. Ironside cut one down with his pistol and countered the lunge of another with his sword. The third was set upon by the helmspony and gunnery officer who hacked it to death. Ironside turned to finish the second drone, but it took to its wings, fluttering up into the rigging cables that connected the gondola to the gasbag above. It began firing green bolts of magic down towards him, blowing splinters of wood from the deck planking. Ironside dodged the fire as best he could until a rifle found its mark and the creature tumbled to the main deck below. Ironside could see the gun crews struggling in hoof-to-hoof combat as dozens of Changelings came aboard.

This time they could not be held back from getting onto the deck, through the weight of sheer numbers. They were able to force themselves aboard in significant numbers. Additional ponies were coming up on deck from below to fight them, although their attentions were also needed on the gun decks, as some drones were able to force their way through open gun ports. The main focus of combat, however, was on the top deck. The Changelings were trying to swarm it, hurling more and more drones into the action.

Airship crews were not used to repelling boarders. Close combat was most certainly part of their training, as were intruder drills and how to conduct and fight off boarding actions, but never with a serious expectation of having to use the techniques they learned. An Equestrian airship had not been boarded since the Griffon Wars; and even that incident had ended in a massacre of the Griffon platoons that attempted it. The Changelings, however, were a different proposition entirely. They were not using the subtlety or subterfuge that was their typical remit, but rather they were throwing sheer numbers at the problem. The Fillydelphia's normal crew of one hundred and fifty six ponies was augmented by some additional personnel from the Canterlot that Ironside had brought over with him, plus the two companies of Assault Infantry she carried, bringing the total number of ponies on board to just over three hundred. Though nobody could count them all, there were far, far more drones surrounding them.

Magic flashed across the deck, both green from the Changelings and an array of other colours from the crew unicorns. While the magic shields of airships or indeed cities were uniformly a deep pinkish red in colour, due to the combination of many different magic sources needed to erect them, the individual magic of a particular unicorn could manifest itself as any shade or hue of the rainbow. A blue blast here struck a Changeling bodily in the chest and sent it sprawling, while there at the fo'c'sle a thin beam of dark yellow cut a drone in half. Magic could be unwieldy at close range, but all military unicorns were trained in its use for self defence.

A more common choice of weapons among the crew and passengers was rather more direct and physical; a rifle butt smashed across the temple, a length of chain, crowbar or spanner used to slug an opponent, or even a swift kick with powerful hind legs. Those crewponies who had had time were able to procure a rifle, shotgun or hoofgun from the weapons racks, adding their firepower to that of the Assault Infantry who found themselves frustratingly confined to the deck, as to fly would invite friendly fire from those ponies trying to engage drones that swarmed over the gasbag and the ropes. There was a danger, all too clear and present now, that the Changelings might try to cut the strong steel and rope cables that held the gondola to the gasbag above, which would see anypony unable to fly or unable to reach clear air above deck smashed to death as the contraption fell to be dashed on the rocks below. Carefully aimed gunfire picked off those drones who seemed to be attempting to gnaw through the cables or burn them with the magical heat from a glowing horn used like a blowtorch.

Captain Ironside swung his sword against the throat of another drone that landed a scant few feet from him. A bolt of magic from the side whizzed past him, and he turned. There was another of the foul creatures, horn lowered and ready to fire again. Despite his age, he was too quick for it, bringing up his pistol and snapping off a shot that struck home square in the middle of the forehead. The drone crumpled to the deck. Something bumped into him from behind, and a quick glance revealed it was one of the Assault Infantry, her face contorted in a grimace of pain, blood speckling her white coat. And no wonder; most of her right foreleg was missing. Ironside whirled around as she collapsed, and her assailant closed in on him. It was a Changeling, to be sure, but not an ordinary drone, not in appearance at least. Rather, a hulking brown bear had apparently appeared on the deck of the Fillydelphia, its strong jaws and vicious teeth having ripped through the mare's leg. It now threatened the ship's captain in much the same way, but he was able to dance back with surprising agility thanks to his wings, getting clear of its reach. Two pistol shots from his service weapon struck it, but either the Changeling had extra resilience when in another form or his bullets were passing through space that was not truly occupied by the drone's actual mass. Either way, it seemed to have no effect. Instead, the bear trampled deliberately on the squirming mare who it had already mauled, crushing her skull effortlessly and ending her suffering.

Ironside gave a shout for aid, and half a dozen ponies leaped to assist him. More bullets peppered the creature and a shotgun blast took away half of its face, but still it came on, roaring like a real bear might, cracking the deck plating under its bulk as it charged towards the captain. Ironside flapped his way into the air and out of harm's way, but quick as a flash and with a shimmer of bright light, the bear was suddenly not a bear anymore. Instead it was a Changeling again, albeit with one eye blown out and part of its brain exposed. It still retained more than enough functionality to kill. Its horn flashed, but sputtered out; at least some neural damage must have been done. The drone fell back on its more primal functions, and took to the air after Ironside, wings fluttering. The captain had a single pistol shot left, and scant seconds to aim. He raised his hoof and fired.

The Changeling bucked, struck in the thorax. The shot didn't kill it, but it was enough to send the drone spiraling to the deck below. Ironside rapidly landed once more, beside the bested foe. His sword slid easily through the thinner carapace of the back of the drone's neck as he made sure of his kill. There was still much work to be done. He turned to quickly surveil the deck.

Changeling bodies littered the planking, some draped over the guns or curled up among the crates and ropes. There were dead ponies, too, but certainly nowhere near as many, though each one lost was a tragedy. The sad truth was that, at least to Ironside, in the thick of the fighting for so long in his career, including since the human invasion unfolded, the deaths of ponies under his command had long since lost meaning. What mattered was the mission. What mattered was fulfilling the trust and responsibility placed upon him and his crew by the princess herself. Every airship and every pony assigned to this fight had been repeatedly told of its importance, though not necessarily the specific purpose. Ironside knew, however. He knew, as did each airship's captain, each officer above the rank of Lieutenant, that they were attacking the Hive not to destroy it, though that would be a nice bonus. They were attacking the Hive to recover the Element of Magic, and if ponies had to die to restore Equestria's most potent magical defence beside Celestia herself to full capacity, then so be it. Those that served did so knowing that each fight could be their last. For Ironside, he had been aware of that for over thirty years. For whatever reason, on countless previous occasions, Celestia had decided that he would not die. He hoped that she would continue that streak today. A brief glance to the north showed that the princess was still there, still fighting, her golden magic clearly visible even from a mile away. It gave him confidence, renewed his vigor.

Though I may walk through the land of death, I know no fear, for Celestia is with me.

The ancient prayer had never been more relevant, for there she was, fighting alongside her ponies. Even as the Fillydelphia's crew and passengers struggled for their individual survival, the princess was struggling for the survival of the entire species. She had never failed them before, and she would not fail them now. Ironside made a determination of his own, one which he had made many times before. It was the work of but a moment in his mind. He would not fail her. He would do his duty, as he had for three decades. He would fight until he could fight no more, and he would ensure his crew did the same. He would fight for the Princess, and if necessary, he would die for her.

Raiders

The long tunnel was dark, hot and surprisingly moist. Condensation dripped from the smooth rock walls. Nothing could be seen up ahead beyond the glow of their helmet mounted flashlights. Spitfire and her squad had the point, moving ahead of the rest. Three companies of Assault Infantry followed, more than three hundred ponies in close formation, covering the front and the rear, and, despite the solid walls of stone, covering the flanks as well. The Changeling menace was nothing if not insidious and adaptable, and they could spring from anywhere at any time. Nopony was taking any chances.

They knew what, and who, they were looking for, but they had no idea where to find their targets. The Hive would be deep, confusing. It would be like searching a maze. Added to the dangers would be the fact that this Hive was located inside a volcano; if they went too far in, they might encounter magma chambers, poisonous gases, Celestia knows what else. The dangers were significant, even without the presence of the enemy. The possibility of hostile contact merely magnified them. But each stallion and each mare knew what they had to do.

Spitfire scanned the gloom ahead. There were no Changelings in the tunnel, and in a way that was more unnerving than if they had come under immediate attack. Were they truly leaving the entrances unguarded, with every drone being called out to fight the fleet, or were there enemies lurking in the shadows? Their flashlights gave their positions away, but the farther they went in the tunnels, the more necessary they became, because without them it would have been complete darkness. The Changelings had far better eyesight, especially in low light conditions and at night, than ponies did, added to which they could use the Hive Mind and their knowledge of the Hive layout in order to navigate their way around. The infiltration team had no such advantage.

They also didn't know where they were going. Their knowledge of the interior of the Hive was zero. Hive layouts differed; both of the previous two Hives the STG had infiltrated were completely different, their forms varying depending on a hundred factors. Soil composition, rock thickness and density, temperature, depth of bedrock, possibility of seismic activity, purpose of the Hive and of each chamber and tunnel within it, and perhaps even the vagaries of the Queen's whims and moods. Nopony knew for sure what exactly prompted a particular pattern or design, and as such nopony could predict what the assault force might encounter.

Nor could they predict where exactly their target was. They had to recover both the Element and, ideally, Twilight Sparkle as well. But Celestia's orders had been clear; the Element was more important than the bearer. Despite the affection the princess felt for her student, she knew that it was the tiara she carried that was the real strength. New bearers could be found; Celestia or her sister could wear them if needed. But without the artefact itself, none of that would matter. The princess had made sure Spitfire and the other officers understood. If things should come to a head and a choice had to be made to save Twilight or to save the Element, then the Element had absolute priority.

Unfortunately, they had no idea where within the Hive either target might be located. No doubt they would be kept separate, but with no blueprints or photographs of the layout, the likely locations of any prison cells or high-security storage chambers was unknown. They would have to search for themselves.

The tunnel, like all the other entrance tunnels they had been in, sloped downward. Unlike the others, it was hot. Though no lava flowed through it, it could not be far removed from the bubbling magma chamber beneath the mountain, with perhaps nothing but a few feet of rock between the two as they went lower. A fork offered two choices, left or right, a simple decision, yet one that could not be made with any semblance of reason or logic. Spitfire played out a quick foal's rhyme in her head to help decide between two alternatives, and she signaled the ponies behind her to head left. Splitting up was an option, but could invite disaster in the dark if they were to get lost. There was no way of communicating between the two groups if they split off, and dividing their small force when there may be thousands of Changelings still within the Hive would be more foolish than pragmatic.

They went left. Still there was no contact. Water dripped around them. The Assault Infantry followed on behind the STG as they probed deeper into the Hive. The tunnel leveled out before suddenly diving away again, more steeply this time. The temperature continued to rise until every pony was sweating. Finally there was noise up ahead. Spitfire gave a quick signal for every flashlight to be switched off. She crept ahead with her squad, slowly, keeping crouched low, staying in the shadows.

The tunnel opened out, connecting to a large chamber. Changelings could be seen, flitting around. Spitfire counted about fifty of the creatures. Pillars of rock held up the ceiling of the otherwise hollow space, while magma could be seen bubbling below through cracks in the stone floor. There was a surprising amount of light, especially in contrast to the tunnel they had been navigating through. The purpose of the chamber was unknown, but the tunnel opened directly into it. There were no galleries behind rock walls or side passages that they could take. If they entered the chamber, they would be spotted, and every Changeling would know where they were. Their options were limited; press on, or turn back, try the other tunnel, and perhaps run into the same problem having wasted another ten minutes. Time was of the essence, as there was no guarantee how long the battle outside would last. The fleet may be forced to retreat, or be destroyed entirely, in which case the mass of drones would return to the Hive and catch them from behind.

Spitfire made a decision. They would have to press on. They had as good a chance of locating Twilight or the Element by continuing down this path as by retreating, and they would be wasting time to do so. Quick signals moved ponies into position at the edge of the tunnel, while the rest of the Assault Infantry waited behind. Spitfire raised her hoof, held it, and lowered it. A ripple of gunfire echoed around the cavern.

The Fillydelphia was besieged on all sides. The crew were hard-pressed to keep the Changelings from completely overrunning the top deck. Ironside found himself fighting back to back with the helmspony as they were forced to abandon the quarterdeck and the ship's wheel.

The crew were taking losses, but they were giving back more than their fair share. Changelings went down under gunfire and melee attacks, some dropping on the deck and others tumbling away to the ground below. The fighting was close, confusing and extremely dangerous. Not only were the crew fighting the enemy, they were fighting the confines of the deck. For the non-Pegasi members of the crew, one false step while backing up from a Changeling lunge could see them tripping over the rails and falling to their deaths. There were hatches down which one could take a tumble. There were coils of rope and loose shells and tools, not to mention the bodies. It was getting hard to walk without stumbling over a body or slipping on blood, the green fluid of the Changelings mingling with the crimson of fallen ponies.

Below, where the Changelings had slipped in through the gunports and were ravaging the gun decks, the fighting was even more vicious. The gun crews were not known for their soft nature, and frequently the more bellicose trainees were assigned to the gun crews upon their enlistment in the Airship Command. Fights on some of the less well-disciplined ships were fairly common, and many was the back alley brawl between two ponies who had their eyes on the same whore. The Fillydelphia's crew were evidently no strangers to such activities, and they took to their duties with a will, making the Changelings regret ever daring to set foot on their gun decks. Every available weapon was used, from rifles and hoofguns to knives, clubs, fire axes, and even other implements such as scalpels from the infirmary and pans from the galley, surprisingly effective at bludgeoning a Changeling's skull into broken fragments. Luckily, the drones had at least enough instinct of self-preservation not to use their magic below decks where the ammunition was piled high and one stray bolt could cause a disaster. Instead they used their physical strength, leaping and biting and trampling.

The ponies responded in kind, strong muscles meeting the foe with powerful swings of whatever weapon they had to hoof, cracking skulls and ribs. But the Changelings were tenacious, hardy beasts, and despite their sometimes frail-looking appearance, with holes in their limbs and thin insectlike wings, they could take quite the punishment in close combat, with their chitinous outer plating providing solid protection against glancing bullets or stabbing blows. Their soulless eyes glowed greenish-blue, their lack of pupils or irises giving an otherworldly appearance as they stomped and hissed, going in for the killing bite whenever they could, bowling ponies down with a sudden burst of speed, driven by their wings.

Most of the crew had never fought Changelings before, while those that had were only able to boast of engaging them from on high when dispersing a raid on some outlying village. None of them had found recourse to fight drones up close before. It was not usually the Changeling modus operandi, except, as the fleet was now discovering, in defence of something. Their Hive was the ultimate prize, the only thing that the Changelings really cared about; protecting their home, and their Queen.

On the top deck, Captain Ironside could see control of his airship slipping away from him. Ponies were being crowded, almost herded, into groups by the relentless assault of the Changelings. The infantry were fighting tirelessly alongside his crew, but they were cut off from the lower decks where they could find resupply for their rifle ammunition. As their magazines and bandoliers ran dry they were forced to resort to using their bayonets, which they found had trouble penetrating the carapace of the drones, just as the ponies below deck were discovering the same problem with their knives and axes.

Ironside watched as two of the Pegasi infantry, surrounded by half a dozen drones and out of ammunition, took to the wing to escape, flapping up and away from their assailants, only to be cut from the sky by a rapid hail of magic bolts. Closer to home, another drone landed in front of him, snarling. He had no time to reload his pistol, and instead he tried an immediate thrust with his sword, which struck home, but not in a weak spot the way it had when the Changelings first boarded, a lifetime ago, it seemed, though only minutes had passed. The drone leaped at him, forcing his sword hoof out to the side and bundling him over. He managed to retain his grip on the sabre, but his pistol clattered away. The drone wasted no time, going straight for the jugular with its sharp fangs. Ironside was just able to turn his sword hoof and thrust upward, stabbing the creature in its soft underbelly. It hissed in pain and recoiled, and Ironside gave a sharp tug on the sword, bringing it towards him and slitting the drone right open, its warm intestines spilling out onto the deck. Ironside rolled to the left and stood, his hind legs covered in gore from his bested foe.

There were more still coming, more in the air, more surrounding the airship, more on the deck, and some coming up from below. The situation seemed dire, but Ironside could not accept that he would be the first captain to lose his airship to an enemy boarding action. He swung his sword again and again as more of the drones crowded the deck, which was awash with blood. It was hopeless. But when all hope is lost, sometimes prayers can be answered.

As the crew and passengers fought bitterly with everything they had, Changelings hovering near the ship began dropping from the sky. Nopony noticed at first, the cause unknown, until a shout went up from somewhere, a cry of joy, not of fear.

Beyond the Changelings, there were ponies. Stallions and mares of the Royal Equestrian Army, passengers aboard the transport airships, were sweeping in with blazing rifles. The fighting aboard the Fillydelphia had been taking place for only a few minutes, during which time officers aboard the transports had been able to organise. Despite having orders to remain with the ships until they were able to land at the Hive, the initiative was taken by those aboard the nearest transports, and those Pegasi among the soldiers were hastily briefed and thrown into the fight. They caught the Changelings by surprise, and despite their swift attempts to rally, found themselves under heavy and accurate rifle fire from several hundred ponies. The pressure on the Fillydelphia was relieved somewhat as a large number of the drones turned to face the new threat. The numerous survivors of the crew and passengers were able to counter, charging forward with renewed vigor and driving back the Changelings whom they now outnumbered. The few remaining drones took to the skies to join their fellows in trying to fight off the Army, but more Pegasi were now coming in from the more distant of the transports, and their numbers and accuracy told. The surviving drones fled, flying back toward the main swarm that still threatened the fleet. Rifle fire chased them off, bringing down several of their number. The Fillydelphia's crew mopped up the final few drones tucked away below decks. The airship was safe, for now, but the battle was still raging on, and they had to get back into it.

Ironside ordered the wounded taken below, the bodies of the dead left where they fell. There was no time to do anything with them other than offer a silent prayer for the fallen and ignore the corpses of the drones they had killed. The decks could be cleared once the battle was won. The bow of the Fillydelphia turned once more, back towards the Hive, and back towards the fight.

A dozen Changelings went down in the first volley, caught completely by surprise. But while the entrance tunnel itself may have been unguarded, the Hive was not. Drones rapidly began to appear from side tunnels down below as Spitfire's team engaged them. Another volley killed more, but every drone now knew where their target was, and a menacing buzz filled the air as they charged towards the ponies. Spitfire led the counter-charge, rapid bursts of fire from her machine-rifle felling several drones. The Assault Infantry flooded into the chamber behind her. Now that they had been discovered, they had to act and move quickly. The firepower of the ponies told, rapidly cutting down the majority of the drones who buzzed around the chamber. Some magic flashed and struck down two Pegasi in retaliation, but they were able to sweep through the chamber, clearing it. No more drones emerged from the side passages.

There were several potential routes to take out of the cavern, and no particular reason to take any of them. Spitfire picked one that looked like it continued on downward, reasoning that, if the Hive was constructed anything like a pony castle would be, then the prisoners would most likely be kept at the lowest point, farthest from the main entrances. Of course, there was no guarantee that the Changeling mindset was similar to that of the ponies, but it was all they could cling to in such circumstances. The alternative was to wander blindly through the darkness.

Now that they had been discovered, Spitfire ordered glow-sticks to be left marking their path, since a drone coming across one would no longer matter. Every drone in the Hive would know their location within the chamber, which meant they had to move quickly to try and frustrate any attempt at pursuit or interception. They set off down the sloping tunnel. An occasional drone loomed out of the dark, and they were ruthlessly cut down. Each drone that sighted them would update the Changelings to their location, allowing for relatively easy tracking of the raiding party through the Hive, especially as they themselves did not know the intricacies of the back passages and side tunnels the way the natives did.

The tunnel continued its descent before coming to another chamber. This one was vast, their flashlight beams only penetrating part of the way into the room. Sheer rock walls on all sides greeted them, and as they moved in, they were met by a sudden hail of magic. Glowing eyes in the darkness marked the sinister intent of at least a hundred drones, whose movements could not be discerned in the shadows. Rifle fire met them in response, flashlight beams swinging wildly as ponies turned to try ndn strike back at the unseen adversaries. Some of the Pegasi took to the air to meet those drones who were flying above, while others remained on the ground, taking cover behind lumps of rock and columns of stone where they were available. A chaotic firefight rapidly erupted, spreading across the huge chamber as drones and ponies alike swirled in a dogfight in the darkness.

The Changelings had the advantage in eyesight, but the pony flashlights were helping. Every time a drone was caught in the beam, bullets found it, and down it went. Changelings struck as if from nowhere, killing several unfortunate ponies. Others were dragged from the air by drones that surged out of the dark. That which could not be seen could not be anticipated or countered easily, and the ponies began to pay the price.

Spitfire sighted in on another drone. A quick five-round burst from her machine-rifle did away with it, and she switched targets in a flash, a half glimpsed shape momentarily suspended in her flashlight beam. Another burst, and another drone hit the floor. Her machine-rifle swung to the next target, a drone atop one of the Assault Infantry, about to tear his throat out. Spitfire blew the back of its head off instead.

Her machine-rifle was proving to be an excellent weapon, far superior to the standard repeating rifle in firepower, rate of fire and damage output. Its accuracy suffered if fired on fully automatic, which was why the guidance was to fire in shot bursts. Each burst was more than capable of felling most foes, and the weapon, in the hooves of the STG, was performing admirably against the Changelings. It even featured bayonet lugs for mounting a blade, improving its already formidable close-quarters ability. Only a lucky drone would catch all five bullets fired in a burst on its thick carapace and not be struck in any vital areas.

The drones still had the numbers advantage, however, despite the more than three hundred ponies now storming the chamber. The strobing lighting of muzzle flashes, glowing horns and sweeping flashlight beams was dazzling and disorienting, both to the ponies and to the Changelings, who were not used to such light shows within their normally gloomy Hive. These drones had not been above ground in some time, unlike those fighting the fleet. Their eyes were adapted for darkness, and they found the lights to be blinding.

A small force of drones, flapping high above at the top of the tall chamber, managed to swoop down to the rear, cutting off retreat to the tunnel. Some of the Assault Infantry turned to engage them, striking hard and fast blows with their rifles even as magic cut several of them down. They were able to push back and clear a path, bayoneting any drones that got in their way. Other ponies pushed to the flanks, while the STG with their heavy firepower, and the main bulk of the Assault Infantry drove straight up the middle, both on the ground and above. Magic proved to be the real killer, accounting for almost two dozen ponies, but guns were just as potent as the drone's green bolts of death, and soon the chamber was being thoroughly swept, the surviving drones pushed back toward the far end, corralled by gunfire and pinned in the flashlight beams for rifles to finish off. Spitfire pressed home the advantage, and the raiding force ruthlessly finished off the remaining drones.

The chamber was cleared, but there was no time to stop, no time to rest or to mourn for their dead. Even now, thousands of drones could be racing down the tunnels from above, or surging up from deeper in the Hive. They had to press on, and on, and on until they reached their goal, however futile it might seem. There was a good chance they would all die here and nopony would ever learn of their fate. But without the Element of Magic, the whole of Equestria might someday die in darkness and agony, and so on they went.

The tunnel took them lower. Once more there was exposed magma, its eerie glow adding some light to the passageway ahead. They were deep in the Hive now, probably deeper than any live pony had ever been. Except, perhaps, for the target they were seeking. Another cavern was reached, this time empty, seeming to serve as some kind of sleeping area, but no Changelings were present, having been summoned to defend their home.

There were more tunnels branching off, with no way of knowing which one might lead them to their targets. It seemed to be a fool's errand. Spitfire ordered the raiding force to split up, against her better judgement, but there was too much ground to cover. She ordered each unit to explore their assigned tunnel for ten minutes before returning to the chamber to regroup. If any of them spotted anything unusual, the entire force would make tracks down that tunnel to investigate.

They set off, with the STG holding down the chamber in case of attack from behind. Five minutes passed, then ten. Gunfire could be heard down at least one of the tunnels, but with the echoing caused by the underground structure, its exact location was hard to determine. Ponies began to return, from one tunnel at first, then two, then all of them. One Lieutenant reported they had encountered drones guarding another small chamber. With nothing else to go on, Spitfire ordered the entire force along that tunnel to the chamber in question. From this smaller room, a single corridor branched off, dark and slick with condensation. At the end was another cavern, with two corridors. There were also more Changelings; alerted by the approaching flashlight beams, they snapped into action, hurling magic at the intruders. As the ponies entered the chamber, the drones focused their efforts on blocking them from one of the two corridors in particular. They were cut down without mercy by massed rifle fire.

The Changelings had appeared to try to keep them away from one tunnel. Spitfire and the STG led the way. The corridor was short and contained but a single metal door, rather incongruous with the surroundings of rock. Spitfire and Arcwing took point at the door. Not knowing what was on the other side, they dare not utilise one of the sticky bombs as a breaching tool. Rather, Sunflower took position, and with a hefty kick of her hind legs, smashed the door open. Spitfire and Arcwing stormed inside, machine-rifles raised and ready to confront whatever lay beyond.

Private Phantom found that her fear was starting to rapidly return. The Changelings seemed innumerable. Every time one fell, a dozen more would spring from behind the rocks and out of the gulleys. She was down to her last two clips of ammunition; every soldier had received a double issue of rifle rounds for this operation, but with so many targets it was easy to rattle through them at a rapid pace.

Field guns had been brought up from the rear and were firing over open sights into the drones attacking on the ground. Canister shells, normally outlawed for use against most 'civilised' targets such as Griffons and Zebras, had been supplied to the artillery crews, and they were making good use of them, ripping drones to shreds with each shot as thousands of pieces of grapeshot tore through their bodies.

Phantom found herself sickened by the death and devastation all around her. She had seen drones explode into a fine mist; no great loss, but still disturbing to witness. She had seen friends die, tried in vain to help them as they breathed their last. She had felt the heat of a near-miss blast of magic that singed her mane, and once again, she was terrified. They were holding the line, to be sure, but the Changelings just kept on coming. more and more of them.

Still, all she had to do was turn her eyes skyward for solace. The princess and her sister were still up there, still unharmed, still fighting. She could see them, along with the fleet, all battling bravely, determined to break through. Several of the smaller airships had lost their shields, but their guns were still blazing.

Phantom turned her attention back to the ground. More Changelings were charging in. She took aim, but there was a sudden brilliant green flash that lit up the terrain. She winced, blinking a few times. None of the drones had fired magic at her. She looked around and saw nothing, just the drones, the rocks and the rest of her squad. She looked up again, and gasped.

Duel

No longer were the two sisters the only royalty in the sky. The effulgent flash had heralded the appearance of Queen Chrysalis herself, her large, insectlike wings flapping firmly and her crooked horn glowing. A malefecent laugh came from her throat, rivaling any Royal Canterlot Voice, echoing around the valley.

Both Celestia and Luna immediately ceased their attacks on the legion of drones, both of their attentions being grasped by the materialisation of their old foe. Ponies below looked up in fear. Drones were one thing, but here was a Changeling that could rival the princesses in power and ability. This was proof that they had found the right place and the right Hive. Most gunfire and drone magic that had been aimed at the three royals seemed to die away, as if in anticipation of something far greater in power, like an audience, boisterous during the interval, now falling silent in anticipation of the climax of the play.

Chrysalis was not wearing her normal, understated crown. Instead, perched upon her head, was the Element of Magic, its lustrous surface glinting in the sunlight that now streamed over the mountain peaks. The gesture could be interpreted either as mocking, or as pragmatic; what better way to protect the prize she coveted than to keep it upon her person?

Celestia and Luna halted in the sky close to the Queen, who was rapidly surrounded by a ring of drones, eager to protect their monarch. A few puffs of smoke marked scattered shots from at least one airship that had attempted to bring her down, with no success. Like the princesses, Chrysalis had shielded herself with a strong magical barrier, dark green in hue, that resisted such efforts to strike her down. She would brook no such impertinence when defending her home and her children. The guns and blows of mere ponies meant little to her magic, not exactly Alicorn in nature, but rather a very similar type and strength.

'So, the white knight and her subordinate sibling ride to the rescue of the stricken damsel,' Chrysalis mocked in a teasing voice. 'I wondered how long it would take for you to find us here. Or perhaps you didn't. Perhaps your new human friends did, hm? But then why are they not here with you? Have you abandoned them so readily, just as you abandoned my children in their hour of need?' Chrysalis hissed, her ire directed squarely at Celestia, all but ignoring Luna's presence.

'Your children are no concern of mine,' Celestia replied darkly. 'You have my student. Where is she?'

'Oh, please. Your student doesn't matter to you. This! This is what matters to you.' Chrysalis tapped the Elemental crown she wore with a hoof. 'You want this back. No, you need it back. And I'm afraid you're not going to get it.' She laughed, an arrogance borne of confidence. 'You won't get your student, either. Oh, I know all about your little plan. Your team, already inside the Hive. They may have noticed how surprisingly easy it was to gain access. But I'm afraid that leaving will not be quite so easy for them.'

'Enough!' Celestia barked. 'You have made a grave mistake trifling with us, Chrysalis. We shall not be as forgiving this time.' This drew another scornful laugh from the Queen.

'Forgiving? You consider leaving my children to starve to be forgiving? Deliberately refusing our plea for sustenance because you were afraid of me? Things could have been so different between us, Celestia. But the choices you made left me with no other option. That was a long time ago, but I have not fogotten. We have not fogotten. But there was one thing you were right about. You were right to fear me!'

Chrysalis repeated the mantra she had spoken to Twilight, and her horn flashed, a bright green scythe of energy cutting across the sky. Celestia and Luna both disappeared in rapid succession, reappearing behind Chrysalis, but the Queen was ready for their movements. Drones swarmed towards the two sisters, but were swatted aside. Celestia's horn unleashed a powerful bolt of magic, but Chrysalis was too quick, her wings buzzing as she flashed around the sky. Luna teleported to try and cut her off, but had to dodge a huge blast from the Queen's horn which tore past her and smashed into the rocky side of the valley, setting off a great cascade of rocks and soil. Infantry on the extreme right flank of the advance had to run for cover from the debris and bouncing boulders.

The two sisters tried to catch the Queen in a pincer move, attacking from two sides at once. While she dodged Luna's shot, Celestia's blast of magic struck her firmly on the shield that surrounded her. It shimmered a little, but it resisted the attack beautifully, like a twig being thrown at the sturdy shell of a tortoise. The Queen turned and directed her fury at her foe, a concussive wave of magic washing over Celestia and her shield, with similarly little effect, like the sea beating fruitlessly against a mighty headland. The princess was unmoved, instead returning fire, but Chrysalis was gone, teleporting away in a flash and reappearing with another, firing upon Celestia from behind, striking her again. Her shield flickered, and Luna intercepted the Queen, a flurry of rapid bolts of magic coming up at her from below as the younger sister dove down and then pulled up into a steep climb.

Ponies below and on board the airships watched on with awe. They had seen their princesses carving through the drone swarms, but none of them, save a few of the Royal Guard aboard the transports who had been present in Canterlot during the last Changeling invasion, had ever seen either princess engaged in a duel with a creature of equal or greater power. Chrysalis certainly seemed to match that criteria. Whenever her magic struck, shields flickered. Whenever it missed, it caused a landslide. The valley vibrated to the titanic energies being unleashed by all three mares. What was even more unnerving was that Chrysalis was not only standing firm against one princess, but that she was more than holding her own against both of them at once. Nopony could stop for too long to stare, however, as the battle was still raging even as the mighty duel unfolded.

'Come now, you must be slipping!' Chrysalis chided, outmaneuvering another of Celestia's attacks. 'Getting soft in your old age?' The Queen retaliated by using her magic to grapple a large boulder from the valley floor below and hurl it toward Celestia. A shout from Luna alerted her, and the older sister was able to turn and neatly slice the rock in half with a precision beam of golden magic. Chrysalis did not relent, swiveling in mid-air to fire a powerful bolt of energy in Luna's direction. She teleported out of harm's way, appearing just above the Queen, and letting loose with a strong beam of dark blue flame. Chrysalis countered with her own cone of energy and the two beams met in the middle. When two sources of magic of equal power met, the result was usually a stalemate, or else a concussive blast that would shatter windows and send those nearby sprawling. But this was not a battle of equals. Luna's magic rapidly found itself being forced back, the length of her beam shrinking. She pushed renewed strength into it, trying to overcome, but to no avail.

Only her sister's intervention was enough to stop Chrysalis from overpowering Luna completely. A golden blast struck her emerald shield, and Chrysalis cut off her magic and teleported away, but she was immediately on the return, horn flashing rapidly as it pumped out a string of green bolts that rained against the shields of the two sisters. Chrysalis then focused her attention on Luna, sensing the younger sibling to be weaker and more vulnerable. A hellstorm of magic smashed into Luna's shield as Chrysalis unleashed her fury. The shield wavered; even though their capacity and strength was almost unimaginably higher, Alicorns still suffered somewhat from the mental feedback of the shield coming under constant pressure, as was common to the unicorns of the airship crews or the city barrier guard. The power being exuded by the Changeling Queen was far greater than anything pony science could create, greater than anything human ingenuity could unleash. It was greater still than it should have been; even with Shining Armour and Cadence's love energy, Chrysalis had been considerably weaker than she currently appeared to be. Something was giving her more strength and energy. The Element of Magic?

Safe inside her shield bubble, there was no way to remove the Element from Chrysalis. The shield would have to come down. Celestia dove toward her, firing as she went. It did not deter the Queen, who simply shrugged it off. She was focused, intent on dealing a blow to Luna and eliminating one threat. Luna's shield wavered, fluctuated under the heavy bombardment of magic. Only Discord and her own sister had ever given her such a beating before. She teleported away, but the assault was resumed a moment later. There seemed to be no escape. Chrysalis had her sights set on the younger sibling. Finally, her barrage of bolts and beams told true, and Luna's shield flickered one last time before vanishing, her mind shaken by the pounding of magic on magic that had weakened and disoriented her. Chrysalis giggled manically, and her horn glowed brightly, magic building up at the tip.

Out of nowhere, Celestia was there, imposing herself between the Queen and her sister. 'Enough!' she roared, her horn glowing in response and anticipation. Chrysalis just laughed once again.

'Why not move aside, Celestia? Let me finish the job you could not bring yourself to carry out so long ago. I am not as sentimental as you are.'

An angry princess was a sight to behold, and Celestia's fury was vented in a vast beam of golden light, a good twenty feet in diameter. It engulfed the Queen and she disappeared inside the blinding, white-hot furnace of magic. The beam struck out across the battlefield and slammed into the rock walls of the valley, exploding in a great fireball that mushroomed up into the sky, all but collapsing an entire hill in a torrent of falling dirt and stone. A great cheer went up from the airship crews and the infantry on the ground, but as the beam died away, so did the jubilation.

Still floating, almost nonchalantly, in the exact same spot, was the Changeling Queen. Magic that shattered the landscape and would have massacred an entire army in one fell swoop had done little more than set her shield shimmering, like some giant mirror. Another laugh came from her throat, along with the hissing of her forked tongue. Even Celestia looked shocked by the result of her attack, or rather the lack thereof.

Chrysalis vanished with a flicker of green light, only to reappear in a brilliant display above the volcano. Her booming voice echoed across the valley.

'Enough of this foolishness. You came here to retrieve your precious Element, and the student you claim to care so much about. Unfortunately for you, Celestia, you will come away with neither. Oh, you can try to recover one. You can come after me, or you can try to save your student, but you will fail either way. You are no longer the real power on this planet. Soon, Equestria will crumble and bow before its Queen!'

Her laughter reached new heights as her horn glowed, and an emerald beam of magic shot down into the caldera below her. She teleported away once more, reappearing close to Luna and Celestia as an ominous rumbling began, coming from the volcano, which had been gently steaming. It was clear that the Queen's magic had done something terrible. Luna and Celestia shared an uneasy glance before turning their attentions back to Chrysalis, but the ponies of the assault force could hear and see for themselves what she had done. Something was very, very wrong.

Twilight's eyes had been closed, getting what vaguely passed for a little rest. She had been abandoned by the guards and the Queen, left alone in the torture chamber. Though a light in the ceiling blazed down upon her, at least closing her eyes helped block some of it out. She had no idea where the Queen had gone, or why. Normally she delighted in lording it over her captive and inflicting pain. Twilight lay there for a length of time that was totally meaningless to her, with no way of measuring the passage of seconds or minutes as she sweated in the muggy heat.

Some crackling sounds could be heard after a while. She dismissed them as part of her imagination, which had been very active when she was alone in her cell. But there they were again. Fire? She opened her eyes and looked around. The room showed no signs of fire and there was no smoke. But there was the sound again, closer this time. No, not fire...gunfire.

As abruptly as the sounds had begun, they ceased, plunging Twilight into silence again. She closed her eyes. She must have been mistaken.

A loud bang startled her and made her eyes shoot open once more. The door had burst open, and two dark figures were charging into the room with guns raised. Twilight felt her heart beating faster out of reflex, before the realisation set in. These were not Changelings.

'Clear!' a mare called. A stallion's voice echoed the call a moment later. One of the shadowy figures approached Twilight, its face covered with dark paint.

'Easy, Twilight,' the figure spoke, the mare's voice. 'We've got you now.' Several more of the figures entered the torture chamber. They were all dressed in camouflage gear, and they all had wings, she noted. Two of them began to work at removing Twilight's shackles to free her from the table upon which she lay.

'We're getting you out of here,' the mare assured her. 'Remember me?' She peeled off her helmet, revealing a familiar mane of vibrant yellow and dark orange. Her face was still obscured behind camouflage paint, but Twilight recognised her right away.

'Spitfire?' she blinked. 'What...what are the Wonderbolts doing here?' she questioned incredulously. Spitfire shook her head.

'Not the Wonderbolts, kid. I have another job too, you know.' She grinned. 'Special Tasks Group. Air Corps special forces, and we're getting you out of here.'

'How did you get in here?' Twilight asked, as the other ponies worked to free her. 'There must be thousands of Changelings in the Hive!'

'There were. But guess what? We didn't come her alone,' Spitfire replied. 'There's a whole fleet up there. The princess is leading the way.'

'Princess Celestia is here?' Twilight managed to crack a small smile. 'i guess she'll fix all this...she'll know what to do. Where's the Queen?' she questioned.

'No idea,' Spitfire replied. 'No sign of her in here. But it's a big Hive. We were lucky to find you so quickly. To be honest we had no idea where you were going to be down here...do you know where the Element of Magic is?' Spitfire asked, as Twilight's shackles were removed. She helped the young mare to sit up slowly, as Twilight shook her head.

'No...when I woke up here, it was gone. I haven't seen it since. I guess Chrysalis has it locked away somewhere. You have to find it, if you can...'

'I know. We're here for the Element as well as you,' Spitfire assured her. 'Can you walk?'

'I-i think so...' Twilight nodded. The other Pegasi helped her to her hooves. She was unsteady, wobbly, but she managed to stay standing, trying to stay proud despite her incarceration. The Pegasi worked to remove the metal lock from her horn, managing to crack it open and toss it aside.

'Arcwing, support her,' Spitfire ordered, and the stallion did as ordered. 'Alright, let's move. Once we get her back to the surface we can come back to look for the Element.' Spitfire left the room, and Arcwing led Twilight out. The corridor outside was crowded with Pegasi, in the dark uniforms of the Assault Infantry, faces masked with paint, all colours dulled and obscured, lending a sinister air to their appearance, not entirely dissimilar to the Changelings they were fighting, with just their eyes shining in the dim light provided by the flashlight beams. Some of them nodded at Twilight as she passed by. All of them wore grim, determined expressions. They were obviously good at their job; to get this deep into a Hive, even with the majority of Changelings outside apparently fighting an airship fleet, required more than just luck. Only skill and bravery could have got the force inside to rescue her.

Arcwing supported Twilight as Spitfire issued orders to the ponies. There were more, far more, in the chamber adjoining the corridor. Several hundred, Twilight guessed, all clutching rifles and adorned with equipment; grenades, flares, ammunition pouches, bandoliers. Some carried sticks of explosives, while other had entrenching tools and other portable engineering equipment in case they needed to blast through a cave-in or a deliberately blocked tunnel, or in case they had to free Twilight or the Element from some kind of entrapment, as indeed they had, a crowbar and spreading tool having been used to extricate her from the shackles that bound her to the torture rack.

There were bodies, too. Dead Changelings, which explained the gunfire she thought she had heard. There were ponies, as well. Only two, but that was two too many. They had died to rescue her, Twilight realised. The thought made her feel slightly nauseous, though her dehydration and the lack of food did not help. As if reading her mind, Arcwing proffered a canteen of water to her. Twilight nodded, and he brought it up to her lips and tipped it back gently, allowing the life-giving fluid to run down her throat. It was warm, but it was blissful.

The assault troops began heading back up the tunnel, rising slowly toward the surface. Spitfire and Arcwing stuck with Twilight, escorting their prize away from her prison. Everything had happened so quickly that Twilight still wasn't sure it had really happened at all. Many times in her fevered half-dreams and long periods of loneliness, she had imagined rescue coming in all forms, ranging from her solo escape, through a daring commando raid such as reality seemed to suggest, all the way to the princess herself simply bursting through the earth with a great rumble and roar and striking down all who lay before her.

Rumble...there was a rumble. Yes, there was a rumbling in the distance, something rattling and shaking the ground. Some of the Pegasi were looking around sharply, looking for contacts or danger. But it was just a rumble, some minor earth tremor perhaps. They continued their climb up the tunnel, to another chamber where flashlight beams played over dozens of corpses. There had evidently been a big firefight here. Ponies and Changelings lay dead, but there was no possibility of taking the bodies of their fallen home with them. They would be commemorated only with a headstone and an empty grave, maybe a name engraved in gilded letters on a wall of memorial at Cloudsdale or Canterlot. Like those outside the torture room, they had all died to save her.

Twilight tried to banish such thoughts from her mind, lest she go mad after so long resisting the mental deprivation. Her attempts were aided by another rumbling, louder this time. The ground shook more violently, causing some Pegasi to take to the air to avoid losing their footing on the slick rocks. Twilight swayed but was supported by Arcwing.

'What's that...?' she asked tremulously. She had felt no such shaking during her time trapped in the Hive.

'Just seismic activity,' Spitfire replied. 'This Hive is inside a volcano.' That news came as a shock to Twilight, but it did explain the heat she had felt. It also showed the intelligence of the Queen- hiding the Hive inside a volcano would surely dissuade any investigations that might locate it. Yet somehow, the fleet had managed to find it, and find her.

The floor was shaking again, more violently still. Surely it was not normal? Indeed, the Pegasi began to speed up, subtly but noticeably. Something was clearly wrong. She felt Arcwing pull her along rather more firmly. More shaking, more rumbling. Dust began to drizzle down from the ceiling of the chamber as they headed for another tunnel, dimly visible in the torch beams. There was a bang somewhere distant, followed by a crash and another loud rumble. The Pegasi began to run, some flying instead. Twilight found herself being hauled along as Spitfire took to the wing just ahead of her.

Small rocks were falling from the tunnel roof as they entered it at pace. Evidently building the Hive under a volcano, while good for secrecy, came with its own attendant risks of volcanic and seismic activity. Such activity suddenly breaking out during the raid, however, was rather a big coincidence, given that Twilight had felt nothing similar during her days or weeks below ground. That suggested a rather more sinister cause might underlie the earthquakes that were now shaking and rattling them.

There was a glow up ahead, and a deep rumble from behind. Part of the chamber they had just vacated came crashing down, tons of rock dropping down, kicking up a huge cloud dust that washed up the tunnel behind them. The last of the rearguard had cleared the chamber just in time, but if the quakes continued, there was no guarantee of a safe passage to the surface.

Soon they came to another chamber, larger still than the previous one. Cracks in the floor and walls were oozing magma through from some unseen source beyond. The heat, even from a distance, was terrific. The Pegasi led the way, having marked the route to the surface with fluorescent marker sticks. All they, and Twilight, could do was hope that they were still there, and had not been tampered with or destroyed, and hope that the route itself was still clear of debris.

As earth continued to tremble, however, that seemed less and less likely. There were loud and disturbing sounds from all around; bangs, groans, the creaks of shifting rock under stress. The commandos navigated their way through the uneven surface of the cavern, avoiding the magma that was leaking through. Another tunnel led up, toward comparative safety.

Twilight found that, though they had not walked far, she was already becoming tired. Her legs were weak through lack of use, and her body was not well-suited for exercise after so long merely sitting or lying in one place. She hoped it would not be much farther to the surface.

The lead Pegasi at the head of the column of ponies suddenly stopped, flashing their torches vigorously, some kind of warning signal, it seemed to Twilight. Several of them began shouting. 'Back! Go back!' The column turned, filing back down into the main chamber. Twilight didn't know what was going on as Arcwing bustled her back along the tunnel, but the reason for their reverse soon became apparent.

Down the tunnel they had been climbing came not Changelings, as she had feared, but rather a steady flow of magma, bubbling, oozing along, flowing at a worryingly fast rate, propelled by the unseen forces of volcanism deep within the earth. A wall of heat was barring their exit from the Hive, and the shaking and tremors were only intensifying. There could be no way through; even if they had unicorns who could cool the magma with magic, the tunnel would still be packed solid with a mass of rock that it would take weeks, perhaps longer, to drill through. If the tunnels all the way to the surface were similarly filled with magma it could take years, like drilling a rail tunnel with a spoon. As it happened, Twilight was the only unicorn among them, and she was in no fit state to perform feats of magic after her ordeal. If they were to leave the Hive with their lives, another way out had to be found, and fast.

Fire Hive

Chrysalis was not through with the royal sisters, and with another flash she returned to battle, appearing behind them and striking again immediately. They turned to meet her, while in the background, disaster threatened to unfold.

'What have you done?' Luna shouted, dodging a magic blast and retaliating with one of her own. Her question drew a derisive chuckle from the Queen.

'Please. Even a simpleton like you should be able to work that out soon enough,' she replied, showing no signs of relenting in her attack while making conversation with her foes. The two sisters whirled around her, trying to distract or disorient her, to no avail. Chrysalis was not to be confused so easily, nor was she keen to ease up. Instead, she fired a rapid burst of magic, directing alternating blasts at each sister.

Behind them, the volcano, formerly relatively benign, just gentle smoke wafting from its peak, was now belching out thick clouds of smoke, with steam venting from the flanks of the cone. Earthquakes were shaking the valley below where battle was still raging. The airships, unaffected by the tremors, tried their best to keep a close eye on the volcano while still fighting off the swarms of drones. Ash clouds could seize up their engines and cut visibility to almost nil, and if the volcano was starting to erupt, then being close to it was not advisable.

Princess Celestia had a dilemma to face up to. Chrysalis was in possession of the Element, the true prize, but it was unobtainable without first defeating her in battle, something that was proving very difficult indeed. But if the volcano was undergoing upheaval, then Twilight was in danger. The raiding party may have recovered her, or they may have been slaughtered before they even entered the Hive. She had no means of knowing, but the Element was right in front of her, in addition to which abandoning the fleet would leave them open to Chrysalis and her magic. Despite their shields, the airships would stand little chance against such power.

As if to prove her point, a stray shot from Chrysalis missed her sister, slashing wide of the mark and cutting clean through the shield of the Indomitable. It struck only a glancing blow to the bow of the gondola, but it was enough to smash it to smithereens. The bowsprit fell away, figurehead of Celestia dropping to the ground below. Unlucky crewponies tumbled out into the void, those that lacked wings flailing helplessly. The airship was still operational, but it was a visceral reminded of how strong Chrysalis was, and the danger she posed not just to the fleet, but potentially, to the royal sisters as well.

Celestia knew there was only one course of action she could take, and that was to continue pursuing the same one. Chrysalis was the threat, and she needed to be dealt with. She did not want to abandon Twilight, to leave her fate in the hooves of others, but that was the decision that her position required. As princess, she had to make the decisions that others could not. Weighed down with emotions, Twilight's friends, for example, would almost certainly have charged into the Hive in search of her, regardless of the danger and regardless of other threats, greater threats, that needed to be mitigated. Celestia knew she could not be so rash. She had to trust the commando unit. They were the best of the best; the Special Tasks Group, the premiere infiltration unit of the Equestrian forces, led by Major Spitfire, a mare of great experience, level-headed and smart, and backed up by the best companies of Assault Infantry, those with the greatest close-quarters combat experience. If they could reach Twilight, if they could find her, then they could get her out. Celestia knew she had to cast her doubts and fears aside, for if she did not, then it might cost her dearly.

Chrysalis continued to fight eagerly, more than happy to engage both sisters in battle at once. For any other foe, the combination would prove impossible to stand against, but Chrysalis seemed to have gained an untold energy from somewhere, proving herself to be far stronger than the last time Celestia had tangled with her- an encounter that had seen her defeated, at least temporarily, by the Changeling. She was determined that this time she would not be overcome. With her sister's aid, together they would defeat their enemy, recover the Element, rescue Twilight...

That was the theory, at least. That was her fervent hope. But reality had a way of interfering with dreams and desires.

The Fillydelphia nosed carefully back into line, a gap being made by the Starswirl and the Indefatigable, allowing the airship to move back into its old position. In their absence, the intensity of the fighting had hardly lessened. There were still countless Changelings whirling around, throwing magic and striking where they could. Captain Ironside knew that his ship's presence could be invaluable. Many times in the past, a single airship had changed the course of a battle. Equally as many times, it had made no difference at all, but if there was anywhere Ironside loved to be, it was in a fight. His past crews had been right there with him, standing firm, eager to do their duty, and he had no doubt that the crew of the Fillydelphia was the same. After their encounters with boarders, an unusual occurance in the life of most crewponies, they were relishing the chance to rejoin the battle the way they had been taught. The gun crews were itching to re-engage targets, to strike back against the enemy that had dared to try and seize their craft from under their noses.

There were plenty of them, to be sure. Despite the heavy toll taken on them by the guns of the fleet, Changelings were still everywhere, no doubt taking inspiration from their Queen and her stand against the princesses. Ironside ordered the port gun crews to fire at will, and they readily obliged, opening up on the swarm. There were more of them now, perhaps driven out of the Hive by the sudden activity of the volcano they nestled beneath. Ironside had observed through his telescope as the Changeling Queen had seemingly set in motion the destruction of her own home. If the volcano was to erupt, the Hive beneath would be annihilated, either destroyed by earthquake, filled with magma or crushed under collapsing rock. Of that, there could be little doubt.

Ironside knew it was too late for his own passengers, and the rest of the infantry units, to make their way into the Hive. The Queen had made sure of that. After all, a Hive with compromised security was no place for the Changelings to live, when they could be attacked at any time by the ponies or, potentially, the humans with whom they were allied. They might as well fight, either to flee to another location, or to defeat the attacking force entirely. Ironside was determined that it would not be the latter.

A quick look along the line showed him that the battle was no longer going quite as well as it had been. With the Queen distracting the princesses, the drones they had been carving through effortlessly were now able to join the fight against the airships and the infantry down below. The growth in their numbers meant that every airship in the line could now be mercilessly attacked. Drones crawled all over the shields like flies on a carcass. Despite heavy mutual supporting fire from each craft, as well as their own guns, there was only so much that could be done. Several airships' shields were threatening to fail, while the Indomitable, struck a body blow by the magic of Chrysalis, was defenceless, its shield gone entirely. Drones were on the deck, where the crew were fighting a similarly deadly battle to that which had unfolded aboard the Fillydelphia earlier. There was nothing Ironside or his crew could do, but some of the Pegasi infantry who had aided them after taking off from the transports were now heading for the stricken patrol craft to help her.

The Fillydelphia had to turn its attention back to the threat that now faced them directly. The shield was back up, the unicorns having recovered from the initial collapse, but a good number of drones were coming at them once more, and their ammunition was running low. With so many targets to engage, that condition had to be widespread throughout the fleet. Though no guns were yet silent, there was the threat of magazines running dry at a crucial moment. Each airship was loaded with extra rounds for all of their weapons in anticipation of a major and prolonged engagement, but the sheer number of drones was proving to be greater than even the most overzealous projections had estimated. Ironside was glad that he was not an infantry pony, with just a rifle and a helmet for protection, in the midst of the swarm. Being on board an airship invited the enemy to target you, but there was a lot more protection, and a lot more firepower at your disposal.

The Fillydelphia was making full use of hers, engaging drone clusters with rapid fire, pummeling the flocks of Changelings that tried to close in on her. The magazines were not empty just yet. Ironside took another look and could see that the battle line was holding. He kept a close eye on the flagship, watching for and signals. The volcano was pumping out a vast plume of ash and smoke, and while the prevailing winds were carrying it to the east of them, there was no telling how it might shift, or what else might result from Chrysalis's actions. The interaction of magic with a natural volcanic event had never been studied before, and Changeling magic added another layer of danger and potential to the mix. Through his telescope, Ironside could see sulphurous clouds rising from vents in the flanks of the volcano, boulders rolling down the slopes, spurts of lava leaking out here and there. Even at a mile away, he did not feel remotely safe from the mighty mountain. He had no idea what it must be like to be inside of it.

The tremors were becoming almost constant as Spitfire and Arcwing dragged Twilight back through the chamber. The magma blocking their path was traveling at a surprising rate, and would be entering the cavern soon. There were several other rocky tunnels branching off from it, but which one might lead them to safety and which might lead them deeper, they could only guess at. Spitfire signalled for the squad on point to enter one of the tunnels which, they knew from their previous investigations, sloped upward, at least to begin with. How far it would continued to rise would have to be discovered through hoofwork. If they were walking themselves into a dead end, there was nothing they could do about it, except pray to Celestia that there was some other way out.

To Twilight, every tunnel looked the same, uniformly grey and hot, glimpsed only in the half-light from the torches the ponies wore. She knew what was happening, but she was still in a half dazed state. So much movement after so long being stationary was throwing her equilibrium off, and her legs were weak. Arcwing was supporting her, but she still felt frail. The darkness was not helping either, as she couldn't see the floor and kept stumbling over small protuberances in the uneven surface. The Changelings, evidently, felt little discomfort from not having a smooth floor to walk on. No doubt their wings helped them navigate the Hive painlessly, but that was of no comfort to the exhausted mare.

To add to her unease, it was getting hot in the Hive; not just warm, as it had been, but hot, like being on a subway platform in Manehattan on a summer day. She was too dehydrated to sweat efficiently, and despite Arcwing offering her more water, her throat remained parched. Her mind was reeling, still thinking about Chrysalis and her threats, the brutality of her guards, the darkness and solitude of her cell, and the pain of torture. She could not quite believe it was over, but the irony was that her freedom had seen her thrown into a maze of tunnels from which there seemed to be no escape, inside a volcano which appeared to be about to come down around her ears. She could have almost laughed, if her throat was not so dry.

She looked around at the ponies who had come to rescue her. Strong ponies, brave ponies, who had come surely to their deaths. Spitfire, Rainbow Dash's idol as the leader of the Wonderbolts flight demonstration squadron. Rainbow will absolutely die when I tell her that Spitfire is the leader of a badass commando unit as well, Twilight thought, before correcting herself. Rainbow would have died, had they not all been trapped inside their tomb. The secret would likely die with them, if the covert unit was as secretive as it seemed. Perhaps the true identities of its members would never be revealed to the public, especially if their mission was to fail.

Twilight, even in her dazed state, fervently hoped they would find a way out of the labyrinth. She had seen the bodies of the dead ponies who had fallen during their rescue attempt. She did not want to be responsible for the deaths of the several hundred ponies who were now all around her.

Spitfire, sticking close to Twilight, knew their mission hung in the balance. They had found the prisoner, to be sure, but there was no sign of the Element. Nor was there any chance of them finding it. The earth was moving under their hooves; the volcano was surely taking its last deep, deep breaths before erupting, and there was no time to search for the prize. They would have to be content with their rescue mission, assuming they could pull it off and actually find an exit. The path they had used to enter was closed to them, the rest of the Hive was a confusing maze. The one upside, Spitfire reasoned, was that since the tremors began they had not seen a single Changeling. No doubt they have already abandoned the sinking ship.

The tunnel rose and began to turn, first left, then right, then left again, seemingly arbitrarily, though in reality probably navigating its way around deposits of metal ore, pockets of magma, or some other impassable obstacle. It led to a chamber, this one fairly small, but free of obstruction. Another tunnel led upward, and they took it, climbing still further as everything shook around them. Dust and rock tumbled from the ceiling, cascading down upon the string of ponies making their way through the tunnel, in search of that most futile and fleeting of things, safety.

Spitfire knew the lives of all of the ponies under her command hung in the balance. Yet, there was nothing she could do, nothing any of them could do, except to simply soldier on. If the mountain collapsed around them, if magma flooded every orifice and every passageway of the Hive, then they would die, no questions asked. But if, somehow, they could beat the clock, race against time and come in first place, they might just find a way out, a way to live. She offered a quick prayer to Celestia, who she knew was still out there. She would watch over them. She had to.

They came to another chamber, and despite shouts to go back, Spitfire ordered the column to press on. Magma was breaking through the right side wall, a great orange mass, radiating heat like an oven. It was oozing into the chamber, but they had to pass it. To go back was to invite certain entrapment, wasting time and energy. At least this route was heading upward, towards the surface. That was where they needed to go.

There was no way of telling how much time they might have. The volcano could erupt at any moment, or it might merely be undergoing a brief spell of activity before calming down once again. But the worst case scenario had to be assumed. Spitfire needed to get Twilight and her ponies out into the open air as soon as possible, before disaster overtook them. Pegasi were not meant to be underground; this was the domain of the Diamond Dogs, or at best, earth pony and unicorn mining crews, who toiled in the heat and the dark and the danger in search of wealth untold, deep within the earth. Pgeasi were meant to be free, soaring high in the sky, always on the move, not trapped down in the depths, afraid of the unknown. It would not be a fitting place for them all to die.

And so they continued on, climbing the path to freedom, or perhaps to false hope. It was all they could do. The tremors did not stop as they came to another branch in the tunnel. This time, their choice was already made for them. One of the tunnels was blocked with a mass of debris, the ceiling having collapsed under the constant shaking. The other tunnel was clear, at least up as far as their torch beams would reach. They pushed on, but soon they did not only have the tremors to contend with.

The tunnel ahead levelled off and entered a flat, low chamber. It seemed at first to be full of smoke, but as the first ponies in the column began to hack and cough, it became clear that the chamber was actually flooded with toxic fumes. Sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, carbon monoxide, and who knew what else. The atmosphere was choking, barely breathable. But they had to push on. To turn back was to consign themselves to death down below. The only way was up, and as far as they knew, this might be the only surviving tunnel that actually led to the surface, the only salvation from the depths of hell.

Spitfire ordered a halt and for the leading squads to back out of the chamber, into the tunnel. Some of the gases that were heavier than air were filtering down the slope towards them, and despite their short retreat, the ponies at the front were soon coughing again. Spitfire ordered them back to the rear of the column to recover, swapping the rearguard and bringing them to the front to lead the way. They would have to push through the chamber. She instructed everypony to don their gas masks, part of the standard issue equipment for every military pony. The offensive use of gas was well-known and had been carried out in the past. The Zebras in particular had access to a wide array of substances which they could use to manufacture a poisonous or debilitating gs, which they would aerosolise and then disperse through artillery shells. As a result of heavy casualties in the past, the development of a mask for troops had been expedited by the top brass, resulting in the present respirator issued to each pony.

Once their masks were on, the ponies no longer resembled their own species, but instead looked like some kind of sea monster from the briny deep. Their expressive eyes were covered, all now displaying two black orbs of dull, filmed acrylic, each alike, identical to their squadmates. Instead of a mouth, they each appeared to have a shower head, dozens of small holes drawing air into the mask and through the filters, which sat like a short elephant trunk jutting out from where the snout of the ponies lay. Spitfire had one of the spare masks brought up for Twilight, and Arcwing busied himself in explaining its functions to her and fitting it over her head and horn. The masks were not breathing apparatus, and supplied no air of their own, meaning they were of limited use in environments where there was a lack of air to begin with. While it was clear that the noxious fumes in the tunnel and the chamber must have displaced a lot of the atmosphere within, if it was necessary to pass through to reach safety, then it was far better to not inhale the gases while doing so.

Twilight found that seeing the ponies don their protective masks, eerily lit in the torch beams, just added to her sense of unease. Being rapidly talked through how to wear and use one herself made her scared; not quite terrified, but full of worry, and breathing shallowly but quickly, not exactly conducive to remaining calm, or to properly using a gas mask. Spitfire made her way over to reassure her.

'Don't worry,' she said, her voice muffled and somewhat indistinct as she was speaking through the filters of her mask. 'You just need to wear this for a little bit, ok Twilight? Just until we're through the chamber. Once we're safe from the gas, we'll help you take it off. Can you do that for me? Arcwing will be right with you the whole time, but we need to get moving.' She patted Twilight's shoulder comfortingly. 'Don't worry. You'll be fine. We're not gonna let anything happen to you.'

Twilight nodded, though the calming intention of Spitfire's words was somewhat undermined by the fact that, hidden behind her mask, helmet and camouflage polymers, there was no indication other than her voice that it was actually Spitfire. She looked all but identical to the others of her Special Tasks Group. At least they, in turn, differed from the Assault Infantry by the shade of their unforms, although in the darkness they all blended into one anyway.

'I-i think I'll be ok,' Twilight assured Spitfire, though she spoke as much to steady herself. She wasn't sure how she would cope, but it had to be done. Arcwing slipped the mask into place and raised his hoof. Spitfire did the same, gesturing to the new lead squad, who set off into the chamber. The rest of them moved too, swiftly, flying or cantering through. Arcwing kept hold of Twilight and pulled her along firmly, supporting most of her weight on his burly frame, trying to get her through the gas as quickly as possible.

Twilight kept her eyes open, as it was the only little thing that could help stave off feelings of claustrophobia. At least Arcwing's flashlight provided some illumination just ahead of her. She sucked in air through the mask, as much as she could, while letting him do most of the work, her hooves moving but only weakly. The apparent confidence of the ponies around her helped keep her on task, and before she knew it, they were through, into a tunnel on the other side. Arcwing waited for a signal before removing Twilight's mask. It was safe to breathe the air, but they needed to keep moving. The earth tremors continued to build in intensity, and a deep rumbling could be heard, seeming to come from all around them. A tremendous upheaval was underway, and they were caught right in the middle of it.

Spitfire headed up to the front of the column, taking the lead as they continued upwards. Rocks fell from the ceiling as the ground shook violently, throwing a few ponies into the walls as they lost their balance. The tunnel began to corkscrew, spiraling around itself as it climbed, getting ever steeper.

A particularly loud creak and crash came from below. The earth bucked, like sitting atop a cannon as it fired. Twilight stumbled, but Arcwing held her up. A shout came from below, urgent.

'There's magma coming up!'

The shout was echoed from a dozen other voices. Twilight dared to glance back, but could see nothing except a worrying orange glow from around the bend in the passage. The cries were repeated, and Spitfire, from the front, cried,

'Then get your flanks moving! Go, go, go!'

They responded, climbing up through the curving tunnel as fast as they could. Arcwing called for somepony to help him with Twilight, and another Pegasi came to their aid, a dark blue mare, visible now as they had all removed their gas masks. Together, they steadied her, and kept her moving at a fast pace. The rearguard flapped up, using their wings to stay ahead of what was following on behind; a thick mass of molten rock, glowing from the fiery heat it possessed, surging up the tunnel in pursuit.

After seemingly endless twisting, the tunnel straightened, and leveled off at another chamber. It seemed they had found the holy grail. Up ahead, across the dark expanse, Twilight could see a dull glow. Not orange or red or yellow, like that which shadowed them behind. This glow was a pale but familiar white. Daylight.

The head of the column headed straight across the chamber toward the tunnel as the ground continued to shake beneath their hooves. Their salvation was near, but fate, as ever, was both fickle and cruel.

A sharp crack could be heard from up ahead. Debris was falling; great chunks of rock, crumbling away from the ceiling that was shrouded in darkness above. Spitfire, at the head of the column, shouted a warning, gesturing for the rest to go back, to get clear. With a great groan, the roof of the cavern gave way, spilling rock and dirt straight down upon the vanguard, debris smashing into the entrance to the tunnel that had promised salvation. When the dust settled, there was only silence and darkness.

With A Mighty Roar

The air was thick with dust, cloying, choking. Twilight could see nothing, wracked with coughs and shaking from the sudden catastrophe. The ceiling had come down, at least part of it. They had been close- so close- to safety. They could see the light from Celestia's sun, shining through, into the tunnel. The tunnel that had been denied to them at the last moment, the tumbling rocks surely blocking their passage. Twilight coughed, tried to get to her hooves, failed. She couldn't see anything. It was almost completely black, everywhere around her.

Then suddenly, lancing out of the darkness, a light, stabbing through the Stygian surroundings. Then another, and another. Flashlights, like lighthouses in the torturous maelstrom of thought and doubt that engulfed her. She felt hooves upon her, and saw the concerned face of Arcwing, her escort.

'Are you hurt?' he asked, repeating his entreaty a moment later when she did not reply. Twilight shook her head.

'I'm ok...' she replied plaintively. 'I'm ok...'

Arcwing nodded and helped her to stand. There were more lights now, dozens of them, criss-crossing the blackness. The collapse had not wiped out the assault force, as Twilight had feared, but it had blocked them off from the surest exit from the Hive. To add to their problems, the sinister glow of rising magma came from behind, at the head of the tunnel they had just left. They were trapped between a literal rock and a hard place, with seemingly no way out of their predicament.

Ponies were scrambling through the rubble, looking for fallen comrades. Surely those at the head of the column had been crushed to death by the masses of tumbling debris that had rained down from the ceiling. The rest of the raiding party crowded into the chamber as the tunnel behind flooded with magma. More tremors continued to shake them as the search proceeded at a frantic pace. If any rescues were to be made, they would have to be made quickly. Time was very short; further collapses could happen at any time, and the magma rising to their rear would imperil them soon enough. The volcano itself could erupt at any time, and that could well be the end of them.

Several ponies were pulled from the rubble, coughing and wincing. They were banged up but had suffered only minor injuries. Torch beams flashed across the chamber. Right at the front of the chamber, they were searching for their leader. It did not take long for them to find her. Mercifully, Spitfire was mostly unhurt, apart from a few scratches and bruises, injuries she shared with many of her unit. The rocks had fallen around her, but nothing had landed on top of her except for dust and earth. She stood and brushed herself down, her uniform stained with dirt. It was clear, however, that not all of the ponies had been so lucky.

Several lay beneath heavy boulders, quite obviously dead, their bodies crushed and broken, limbs twisted and snapped in twain, skulls smashed open despite the helmets they all wore. Blood stained the ground. Elsewhere, ponies were trapped, but alive. Several were freed by other uninjured ponies lifting the rocks that pinned them down, none the worse for wear for their experience. One particularly unlucky pony, however, became the focus of attention.

The young stallion, a member of the Assault Infantry, was stuck. A huge lump of rock, more a mountain in itself than a mere boulder, had fallen intact from the cavern roof, crushing an entire squad beneath its bulk. All were dead, save for the ashen-faced stallion. His black coat and his uniform were flecked with blood, while his hind legs were both trapped beneath the debris, badly mangled. To free somepony from such entrapment would take time, patience, and equipment. A fire department rescue company could do it, specialist mine rescue teams could do it. Soldiers, ill-equipped for the task, could not. The rock was simply too large. Only magic had any hope of lifting it free, and the effort required would be huge. For Twilight, in her current state, it would probably kill her.

Spitfire hurried over to the entrapment. The stallion was coughing weakly, and another was giving him water. If they could free him quickly, he would probably live; he had only been trapped for moments, not long enough for crush syndrome to set in, and his vital organs were not in danger. But they had no lifting gear, no cranes, no straps and bracing, no hydraulic jacks or lifting airbags. All they had was wingpower, and it would not be enough.

'What's your name, son?' Spitfire asked, kneeling down beside the victim.

'Skybolt, ma'am...' he replied. 'Private, first class, 2nd Battalion, 4th Aerial Regiment, 2nd Assault Infantry Division.'

Spitfire nodded. 'We're going to get you out. Don't worry,' she assured him, drawing a few glances from the others who gathered round. She had no idea how they were going to do it, but she told him anyway. 'We'll get you out. Do you want morphine?' she asked. There were several medics hovering, waiting to treat him. He nodded slowly.

'Y-yes, ma'am...my legs...' Spitfire gestured to the nearest medic, who withdrew a small syrette from his pouch, flipping off the plastic cover and exposing the sharp needle. Ordinarily, the injection would be made into the flank or the top of the hind leg, but with that option off the table, the medic stuck the needle into Skybolt's upper foreleg instead. While the medic tended to him, Spitfire turned away to speak with the officers around her, including the other medic.

'Options?' she questioned.

'There's no way we can lift it, ma'am,' one of them, a Captain, replied. 'Nothing to grip onto. Maybe if we could get everypony lifting at once, but this thing must weigh a good fifty tons.'

'Can we shatter part of it?' somepony else suggested. 'Chipping away at it...crowbars, maybe...'

Spitfire shook her head. 'No time for that. We have to act fast.' She glanced back the way they had come, spotting the disquieting sight of fresh magma now oozing from the tunnel entrance and working its way across the chamber floor, slowly, like treacle. The floor had a natural depression in its centre, like a shallow ditch, which was helping to funnel the magma along. Unfortunately, it was funnelling it straight towards Skybolt.

'Doc?' Spitfire turned to the medic, while her fellow continued to treat the trapped pony. 'Any ideas?'

'If we need to get him out in a hurry, then there's only one way,' she replied softly. 'We'll have to amputate. Both legs.'

'How long will it take?' Spitfire questioned, through necessity dispatching with any emotion in her voice.

'We don't have the proper tools...I guess it'd take ten minutes...maybe more...' the medic replied. 'We'll just have to give him more morphine, have ponies hold him down...it's the only way we're getting him out of there at all.'

'Do you have anything you can use?' Spitfire asked. 'Nopony has a sword...can you do the job with a combat knife?'

'Just about...' the medic answered. 'But it'll take time.'

'I don't know how long you've got,' Spitfire replied. 'Get a move on.' She stepped back over to Skybolt, who was lying on his side, his hind legs squashed beneath the rock. 'Hang in there, son. They're gonna get you out. The medics are...working on something...uh...' Confronted with the plaintive expression of the young stallion, Spitfire found her customary composure and calm fluctuating somewhat. Death and injury was a part of the life of any military pony, but there was something pathetic about Skybolt's plight, something that touched a nerve in her. If he had been trapped as the result of a mining accident or a building collapse, he could be rescued, if not at leisure, then at least at a steady pace that would ensure his safety and the safety of the rescuers. Floodlights and cranes could be set up, proper medical care administered, and the debris would be lifted carefully off of him. Practised hooves would slide him onto a stretcher, load him into an ambulance wagon, and he would be trotted straight to hospital. With surgery, perhaps his legs could be saved. But there could be none of that here. Instead, his legs would be cut off, or else he would suffer a horrific end. It was not a choice that anypony would want to have to make on behalf of another, or for themselves, but Spitfire had ordered the medics to prepare for it. There was no other way.

'I want you to listen to me carefully,' Spitfire spoke directly to Skybolt. 'Now, you know as well as I do that we're on the clock here. This volcano might go off at any minute, and we need to find a way out of here. We can't...we can't lift this rock, even if we had time. It's just too big.' Skybolt nodded slowly, realisation perhaps beginning to dawn on him with a horrifying swiftness. Spitfire continued. 'We need to get you out from under there, and the only...the only way we can do it...I've talked to the medics. They're going to have to...amputate.'

Skybolt's already ashen features were drained of all colour in the harsh brightness of the torch beams. He swallowed deeply. 'N-no...no, they can't...you can't...'

'I'm sorry, son. It's the only way we can get you out,' Spitfire spoke softly. 'If we had a crane we could lift this thing, but it's just too heavy. We can't do anything else. It's the only way.'

'W-what about her?' Skybolt jabbed a hoof in the general direction of Twilight. 'She's a unicorn! She can use her magic!'

'She's too weak,' Spitfire replied. 'We only just rescued her from a torture chamber. I can't ask her to risk herself. This rock would tax anypony, and the mental shock of such effort would...' She was cut off by a voice from the darkness.

'Let me try.'

Spitfire looked around. Twilight, having been made aware of the situation and the plight of the trapped pony, had overheard Spitfire's conversation with Skybolt, and now she stepped forward. 'Let me try...you all came down here just to rescue me, so the least I can do is try to rescue one of you.'

'Twilight...' Spitfire stood back up. 'This rock must weigh fifty tons or more. You're not in any fit state to...'

The unicorn interrupted her again. 'Let me try!' she repeated, more forcefully. 'I can't just stand here and watch. We're running out of time.'

Spitfire hardly needed to be reminded of that fact. The sinister presence of the rising magma, and the heat that could be felt from it even at a distance, was proof enough that the clock was running down rapidly. Twilight might be able to lift the rock, free Skybolt, and save his legs. On the other hoof, if she failed, then precious time would have been wasted and the medics would have to work doubly fast to perform their grizzly task instead. She took Twilight aside to speak to her quietly.

'Twilight...you're weak,' she informed her bluntly. 'You're tired, dehydrated, malnourished...this is a big bucking rock. Now if you honestly think you can do it, then I'll let you try. But if you have any doubts then we can't waste time.'

Twilight nodded, and pondered for a moment. 'I...I think I can. My magic has been suppressed while I've been down here...that limiter you removed...I guess there were counterspells too. But they haven't been renewed. They've probably worn off by now, and I haven't used any magic for days. I think I can get enough strength to lift it.'

'Alright...' Spitfire returned to Skybolt. 'We're gonna try something else, son. Twilight is going to try and lift the rock. You just keep still.' She turned to the other ponies, getting them to step back, clear of the rock. Twilight moved into position. Every eye was on her. Torch beams illuminated her, Skybolt, and the full size of the huge boulder she had to lift.

Though she had been imprisoned, tortured and deprived, Twilight still remembered her magic, her abilities, and her compassion. Here was a pony who needed her help. He could not simply be left down here in the Hive. She had seen the dead, those who had lost their lives to save hers, and it had driven her sense of inadequacy. She did not deserve such suffering to see her safe. Ponies had died to free her; her, nopony else. She had to act, she simply had to, or else she would not be worthy of such salvation.

Twilight looked at the boulder. She looked at Skybolt. It was big, and he was in pain. She knew what she had to do. Her horn began to flicker, to spark, and finally to glow. It was a faint glow, but her aura enveloped the huge chunk of stone. Twilight's eyes narrowed. She had a task, she had a target, and she was determined. The boulder began to twitch, to shake slightly, to lift up. It rose, slowly, steadily, a few inches, not quite enough to pull Skybolt to safety. She pushed harder, straining. A little more would see him free. She was sure she could do it. It was tough, but she had to keep trying. She had to succeed, to repay the sacrifices these ponies had made in freeing her from her prison.

But the rock refused to budge any further. Her strength was all but spent. She just could not do any more. It was too heavy, and she was too weak. The rock began to sag, to drop back down, despite giving her all. She could hold it up no longer, and it fell to the ground, inflicting further pain upon Skybolt, who howled in agony as his legs were crushed again. Twilight sank to the floor, caught by Arcwing, almost unconscious. Her efforts had drained her completely of what little vigour she had left after her confinement. All she knew was that she had failed.

Spitfire ordered the medics to get to work on Skybolt immediately. The delay, as she had feared, had resulted in the magma flow edging ever closer to the obstruction in its path. More morphine was administered in an attempt to numb the pain that would follow. The medics tried to explain as calmly as possible to the poor stallion what was going to happen, but it just made his terror more evident to those around him. They were going to cut, or at least try to cut, his legs right off, with no proper surgical equipment, lit only by the beams from helmet-mounted torches, with only a modicum of pain relief. Giving him too much morphine would kill him as surely as leaving him there would.

One of the medics used scissors to cut away the material of Skybolt's uniform to expose his hind legs.There was no way that a combat knife could cut through the femur, but luckily the edge of the rock pinning him curved up just enough for them to reach a point just below the stifle joint of each limb, where the bones of the lower leg were much thinner. His legs were a mangled mess, and only complex and intensive surgery had any hope of saving either of them. With no other options, they would have to act.

Two other ponies were summoned to hold Skybolt down in case he thrashed out. Twilight, slowly recovering from pushing her body to its limits, was able to sit up, with Arcwing supporting her. She could hear the groans and protestations of Skybolt as the medics worked on him, and she knew she had failed. She had tried, and been found wanting. He was still trapped, and she had wasted time in her futile efforts. She found that she could not even look at Skybolt.

'You gave it a damn good try,' Spitfire spoke to her, having appeared suddenly beside her. 'Don't beat yourself up about it. I've seen that look before and it doesn't end well.'

'But it's my fault...' Twilight muttered, bringing a stern rebuke from the experienced officer.

'It's not your fault. Believe me, when it's your fault, you'll know that it was your fault. But something like this, you can never predict. You didn't bring that rock down, and you did all you could to try and help, even though you can barely stand. In my book, I'd say that makes you pretty brave, don't you think?'

Twilight didn't reply. Spitfire's words still rang hollow to her. She may not have caused the earthquake that weakened the ceiling and brought down the rock, but if they had no been here to rescue her, then they would not be trapped, Skybolt would not be about to have his legs cut off, and the ponies they had left behind in the lower chambers would still be alive.

One of the braver or more foolhardy ponies was handed the knife that would do the deed, and he approached the steadily flowing magma, with his gas mask protecting his face. The heat began to singe his uniform but he was able to hold the blade out as far as he could until it made contact with the bubbling mass. He held it there for as long as he dared before backing away rapidly, batting out the few smouldering patches of clothing where the heat had taken effect. Quickly returning the knife to the medics, he passed it over. The heated blade would ensure a cleaner cut and help to both sterilise and cauterise the wounds, saving precious time.

Skybolt continued his protestations, but the medics did their best to reassure him, reminding him that it was the only way. He started to sob, the plaintive sounds carrying across the chamber. Some ponies were searching for another way out, but for many, with no task at hoof, all they could do was stand and listen to his cries. One of the medics cleaned the areas around where they would cut with water. The male medic held the knife against Skybolt's left leg, and made the incision.

A sharp scream rang out around the cavern. The hot knife sank into Skybolt's flesh, cutting through his skin and singing his fur. The whole assault force was able to share in his agonies as the medic did his best to sever the limb. The combat knife was not designed for such a task; it cut through flesh easily enough, but when it reached bone it began to struggle, and the intense pain, overcoming the morphine, made Skybolt cry out almost continuously. Twilight tried to cover her ears, but it was not enough to block out the sound of her failure.

Spitfire approached the grizzly scene. 'How's it coming, doc?' she queried, with a worried eye on the magma flow.

'Slow...' the medic grunted in reply, as he worked with the blade. 'This thing isn't meant for a job like this.'

'Better step it up,' Spitfire urged him. 'You don't have long.' She moved back to let the medics work, but even as they continued to cut they could feel the heat rising from the long tongue of magma that was working its way across the chamber toward them, getting closer and closer with each passing moment.

Using the knife like a saw, the medic gnawed his way through the bone, but it was a laborious process. The serrated teeth of the knife continually caught on the surface of the bone, and, while sharp, they were not designed for cutting through something so hard. Even once he cut through the fibula, he would still have to cut through the thicker tibia before the leg would be completely amputated, and then repeat the process with the right leg.

'This is taking too long...' Spitfire muttered. She was keeping track of the magma, and it was getting worryingly close to the scene of the operation. If it got too close, the medics would have to be withdrawn for their own safety. Even as they worked feverishly to try and free the moaning Skybolt, more tremors were still bringing down torrents of dirty from above. The volcano was still enraptured in its violent throes, threatening everypony's death at any time. There still seemed to be no way out of the chamber they were all entombed within.

Finally, the medic cut through the first bone, and began working on the second. But the magma was getting ever closer, like a malevolent snake stalking its prey from behind. An enterprising effort to divert its flow, carried out by some of the Assault Infantry, involved depositing smaller rocks in its path. But the magma just carried them along instead of changing course, its inexorable advance making a mockery of the pitiful attempts to stop it.

Spitfire shook her head. 'There's no time...there's not enough time...'

Twilight still refused to look. She could not bring herself to watch somepony who had come to help her be mutilated by his own fellows because of her failure. Seeing the death and destruction in Canterlot and Cloudsdale had been different. That was more general, more impersonal. But the dead ponies here in the Hive were dead because they had come for her. If she hadn't been captured in the first place...

'That's it! Doc, get out of there,' Spitfire ordered. The magma was getting too close for comfort.

'Not yet...' the medic muttered, working hard, sweating from the heat but determined to free Skybolt. Spitfire sighed.

'Two minutes, tops!' she replied. 'Then I want you out!'

'No!' Skybolt screamed. 'Don't leave me here! Please!' he begged, in between groans from the pain of the half-completed amputation. 'You can't...'

The last thing Spitfire wanted to do was to leave him there, but if the medics couldn't free him very soon, they would have to move, or they would burn. Normally, a double amputation would be carried out one limb at a time to minimise the shock the victim would suffer. But with the threat of the magma closing in all the time, normal had to become extraordinary. The female medic, aware of the situation, grabbed her own knife. There was no time to heat it up as they had done with the other blade. It had to be applied directly and immediately. She wetted the area and the knife with some water from her canteen, and, after a few encouraging words to the victim, began to cut.

Skybolt's screams grew louder as the pain flooded through him, from both hind limbs now. They had to speed up; cutting roughly, the two medics tried valiantly to saw through the bones of his legs. But the knives were struggling, not sharp enough. It was taking too long, even at double pace. The magma flow was not slowing, not changing direction. The heat was starting to play over the medics, not quite igniting their uniforms, but close to doing so. Smoke was starting to rise from the fabric, with the magma mere feet away.

'That's enough!' Spitfire shouted. 'Get out of there!' Her shouted entreaties were ignored; both medics were intent on nothing more than freeing their patient, getting him to safety. But their own safety was in just as much jeopardy. The orange mass continued its relentless advance, like a glacier. It was moving slowly, but it was fast enough to have crossed most of the large chamber in the mere few minutes it had taken to set up and attempt to carry out the operation. There was no time left. Both of them knew it, but still they were reluctant to leave. They tried furiously to cut through the bones and free Skybolt, but they could not. They had taken too long, the magma had moved too fast, too much time had been wasted.

'Get out of there, for Celestia's sake!' Spitfire called again, and this time, the medics listened. They could feel the furnace-like heat upon their backs. A quick glance behind was enough to alert them to the futility of their continued efforts. There was no time left. Despite Skybolt's pathetic entreaties, both medics left his side, their job half done, their patient still trapped in a desperate situation.

Ponies looked on in horror as the magma flow drew closer and closer to him, close enough to singe his exposed fur. Within a minute, he would be burning alive, and shortly after that, he would be completely engulfed by the flow of molten rock.

'Help me!' he screamed desperately. 'Please! Somepony! Please...' He whimpered, a look of abject terror on his face as his death drew closer. 'Do something!'

Spitfire stepped forward. Skybolt's eyes latched onto her, seeking any tiny shred of aid or comfort as he lay at the gates of eternity. 'Help me...' he whispered.

Spitfire unslung her machine-rifle, cocking it. Skybolt's eyes widened, but then, after swallowing hard several times, and glancing at the magma flow, he nodded slowly.

'D-do it...' he begged. 'Please...!'

Spitfire raised her weapon, taking aim. Skybolt repeated his demand.

'Do it! Shoot me! Please!' The heat from the magma was blistering his exposed skin, and his uniform was starting to smoke, threatening to burst into flame at any moment. He looked Spitfire straight in the eyes. 'Please...'

Spitfire pulled the trigger, and ended his suffering.

Twilight's eyes remained firmly closed. She could not quite believe what she had just witnessed. An execution, just like those she had seen in Canterlot's palace courtyard, but this time, it had to be carried out because of her. Spitfire, and no doubt others, would try to convince her differently. But she knew deep inside. There was no denying it. She hadn't asked for help, other than in her own mind. Even when Princess Luna had contacted her through her dreams, she had not asked for help, she had not begged for rescue and salvation. But they had come for her anyway, as she knew they would, as soon as they had any indication of where she was. She knew that Celestia would not leave her, would never abandon her, and that she needed to recover the Element, too. She knew they would come for her, but that did not make the facts any easier to bear.

If only she could have done something differently. What, she didn't know, but...something. Anything. Maybe if she'd been more alert, on the ball instead of relaxed because Canterlot was theirs again. Maybe she wouldn't have been captured. She could have fought back, called for an alarm, for the guards. They could have seen off the Changelings and saved this whole mess from happening. Saved Skybolt's life, the lives of the ponies in the caverns, and of who knew how many more who might be dead or dying up on the surface. But she hadn't. She hadn't been alert, and she had let the princess down. Now, if they were trapped in the Hive, inside the volcano, then it would all be for nothing. She didn't have her Element, and she didn't know where it was. She knew that it was worth recovering, though. And she knew that, without it, she was not.

The magma cared not for her grief and trembling hooves. As Skybolt lay dead with a single bullet hole in his forehead, it crept around him like a blanket, igniting his uniform like a funeral pyre. It started to cover him, beginning with his head and moving down across his body, burning him, cooking his remains. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. Soon, his bones would be nothing more than ash, and his family would likely never learn the full truth about how or why their son died.

Twilight may have been concerned only with her own confusion and horror, but Spitfire had more to think about. They were still all trapped below ground, and they had to find a way out. If they did not, they would all likely share Skybolt's fate, buried for all eternity beneath the mountainside or washed away in a sea of molten magma. The tunnel ahead was blocked by debris that was far too heavy to shift in the time they had. The tunnel behind was clogged with magma, which continued to flow into the chamber, slowly but steadily covering the available ground they had to stand on. There was no way of measuring how long it would take for all the floor to be covered, or how long it would be until the entire chamber was filled to the ceiling with molten rock, but it was clear that time was running critically short.

Spitfire called Sunflower over, who she had set in charge of finding a way out while Spitfire was busy with the rescue efforts. 'Any luck so far?' she asked. The other mare shook her head.

'No ma'am. The tunnel is sealed up good and tight. There's rocks that must weigh a hundred tons. No way we can lift them clear. We haven't found any other tunnels or passageways out of the chamber.'

'Well, keep looking,' Spitfire ordered. 'There must be some way out of here. I don't want our mission to fail this close to the surface. We made it this far, and we're going to make it the rest of the way.'

'Yes, ma'am,' Sunflower replied, though with less confidence in her expression than Spitfire managed to display, despite the dismal situation they found themselves in. They had taken casualties, but they were relatively small so far. They had only achieved half of their objective; they had Twilight, but not the Element. While Celestia would no doubt be pleased if they brought her student to safety, she had emphasised the point that the Element was worth more than Twilight, and they had been unsuccessful in their attempts to locate it. On the other hoof, the main purpose of the infiltration mission had been to rescue Twilight. It was considered likely that she would probably be executed if the main force tried to storm the Hive, and so her rescue and extraction was the main focus of the efforts of the STG. Even though the Element had priority, they were not expected to be able to locate it so easily and swiftly, as it could be stored anywhere within the Hive. If they came across it, they were to retrieve it even at the expense of Twilight's life, or if they located it but were unable to reach it they were to note its precise position within the Hive. But they had seen neither hide nor hair of it since entering the Hive. Twilight had no idea where it might be either.

As soon as they had encountered Twilight, Spitfire had ruled out any further searches for the Element. The Hive was a maze and they had no idea where they would be going in any case. She had decided they would get Twilight to the surface as soon as possible, and that was what they were trying to achieve. But it was not proving easy. They had been close, so close. They could see the light of the sun ahead, before the promise was snatched away from them. Spitfire was as much angry as anything. To get so close and be denied was frustrating in the extreme. She had been entrusted with a task by Celestia herself, and she simply refused to think about letting the princess down. She would make sure Twilight reached safety. They would find a way out. They had to.

High above the mountains, hanging in the void of space, the Emperor's judgement was watching. Commissar Birbeck's apparent snub when he arrived at Canterlot to find the princess absent had raised the curiosity of Lord-Admiral Marcos. Airship movement from the city had been reported the previous night, but that was hardly a surprise or a novelty. Pony airships came and went of their own volition all the time, at the behest of the princess or their military commanders. The Imperial observers had reported the departures but paid little attention to them. The princess had said, after all, that her scouts would be heading off to check out the potential Hive the Imperial scans had detected. No doubt that was where the airships were going. However, when the spotter team, Atter and Mons, assigned to the pony flagship, had reported in for their routine check and announced that they had been disembarked and left in Canterlot as the Starswirl proceeded north, Marcos felt sure that something was afoot, though he did not know what. The Starswirl was not a scout ship. It was a battleship; not exactly suited to a reconnaissance mission. So where was it going, and why had the spotters been left out of the loop?

The Imperial forces were licking their wounds after the catastrophe at Ponyville. The wounded had been tended to, the dead, those that could be found, had been buried, and the battle plans had been withdrawn. The wait for the waters to recede was underway, but the town was still flooded to a depth of a few feet, minimum. The Imperial line had been advanced beyond Ponyville, with the new axis aimed at Baltimare, which would be the subject of their next attack once sufficient forces had been assembled. Ponyville had been surrounded and would be fully cleared once it was dry enough to enter safely. In the meantime, all they could do was wait.

The fleet in orbit lacked the capacity to properly observe the entire continent; there were too few surviving warships, and the transports lacked suitable Auspex equipment for ground surveillance. As a result they had not been able to track the airships once they had departed Canterlot. Nor had they been able to observe every pony city from orbit. Only those in the possession of the enemy were deemed worthy of coverage, and Vanhoover was not one of them. Nor was Las Pegasus. One spot that had been kept under observation, however, was the volcano.

The thermal scans of the surrounding area had detected the appearance of numerous large, relatively warm objects, standing out against the coolness of the background. The northern climes must experience relatively low temperatures, judging by the snow that capped the surrounding peaks. It had rapidly been determined that the objects in question were pony airships, coming not just from the southeast, from Canterlot, but from other points of the compass as well. The sensors also picked up several thousand smaller heat sources; ponies, marching in formation. Something was clearly going down in that area. It appeared that the Equestrian military intended to attack the Hive, not merely observe it, as Celestia had suggested.

Marcos had the feeling he had been hoodwinked, but he could not quite fathom how or why. If the ponies had indeed discovered the Changeling Hive, why would they not simply be content to let the Imperium take the strain, the way they had against the Chaos troops? Why would they be moving a large part of their surviving forces to seemingly engage the Changelings in open battle? For there could be no other reason for the sudden arrival of so many airships and several columns of infantry. They intended to either besiege the Hive, or to invade it.

Marcos did not know what Celestia's intentions were. She had said a scouting force would be sent; instead, she had sent an army. But why? As Marcos had made clear, an orbital strike was ruled out due to the tectonic instability, but why would she not let Marauders pound the area with ground-penetrating bombs and incendiary rockets? What did she hope to gain by assaulting the Hive, if indeed it was a Hive, with her own forces? Was it just some kind of statement of intent, a display of force, either for the Imperials or for the other races on the planet? Or was there something else?

Marcos could only see one reason for conducting a direct assault. There was something in the Hive that she wanted, or needed. What that might be, he could only guess. The Changelings, according to the princess, used almost no technology. They had what they called magic, but so did the ponies. What else was there? All he could think of was that she wanted to capture the Changeling Queen, for propaganda purposes. Not content to have her burn in an Imperial air raid, that would not be enough. But to capture her, hold a show trial, parade her before the citizenry, and execute her? Display her head on a pike as a warning to all the other races as to what happens if you mess with Equestria?

But that hardly seemed to fit with the princess he had come to know over the past few weeks. If she were that vindictive, she would have carried out that possibility before now, either with the Queen or with someone else, perhaps the Griffon King; apparently they had been at war not all that long ago. Celestia seemed to hold no true malice, no real hatred, even for her sworn enemy, a remarkable condition and, Marcos reasoned, given all that he had seen across the galaxy in his career, quite likely to be unique. Many was the time in the past when some planetary governor or colonial director with ideas above his or her station had ordered the show trial and execution of an enemy, whether a true threat or just some political opponent. Again, the Lord-Admiral could not help but ask himself the same question he had asked several times before. Why was Celestia not Empress of the entire planet?

The Auspex crews had kept track of the buildup of pony forces through the night. With no way to contact them directly, and no sign of the princess in Canterlot, Marcos had decided against sending a shuttle or dropship down to land an envoy. He chose to wait and observe, the way that Celestia had said her scouts would act towards the Hive. He wanted to see what would happen next. At dawn, he received his answer.

The Auspex had recorded numerous weapons flashes. Furthermore, they had picked up a huge spike in the count of the unknown particle. There had been a significant rise before, but that was put down to the concentration of so many ponies in one place. This new and massive increase suggested that some extremely powerful psychic energy was being unleashed, and there were only three beings that Marcos knew of who apparently wielded such power; the princess, her sister, and the Changeling Queen.

Clearly, some kind of battle was underway around the volcano. Every available sensor was trained upon the valley, in the hopes of learning something that might prove to be of some value in the future. The particle count continued to climb as the Auspex recorded great flashes of light, of unknown origin. Marcos watched on monitor screens as the pony airships advanced, formed a line similar to that which his own fleet might adopt. Individual figures could be seen on the thermal scans. There was no doubt that the princess was among them. The enormous rise in the particle count and the great flashes seemingly from nowhere suggested that 'magic,' as the ponies termed it, was being flung about in great quantities, but some of it was notably stronger than the rest. It seemed certain that the volcano was indeed the site of the Changeling Hive, and that Celestia herself was leading her ponies into battle against it.

Marcos ordered continuous observations of the battlefield. He did not know why the princess was so intent on fighting this battle directly, but he wanted to find out. It seemed unlikely she merely wished to settle an old grudge with the Queen. There had to be more to it, but what resource did the Hive possess that she so coveted?

While Marcos had other matters to attend to with preparations for securing Ponyville and moving on to Baltimare, he kept a close eye on the battle being waged around the volcano as it developed during the morning. The fighting seemed to be finely balanced; there were large numbers of Changelings who did not show up on the thermal scans due to their cold-blooded nature, but were visible almost as a single mass around the pony airships. The Auspex officers could not make an accurate head count of the creatures, but it was clear that there were plenty of them, enough to hold the powerful airships at bay. The readings of the unknown particle continued to spike as a titanic battle of wills was apparently underway between the princess and the Queen. Commissar Birbeck had also reported that Princess Luna was 'unavailable' as well, meaning there was a good chance she was also present on the battlefield below. The Auspex picked up several landslides seemingly caused by stray shots, but with an apparent stalemate developing, Marcos had turned his attentions elsewhere, until a shout drew him back.

'My Lord! Sensors are picking up a significant increase in seismic activity,' one of the Auspex officers called out. 'Beneath the volcano...standby...' He tweaked a few settings to give a clearer picture of what he was recording on his sensors. 'Several earth tremors...magnitude 5.5 on the standard scale...magnitude 6.1...6.4...' He reeled off a string of intensity measurements as tremor after tremor began to shake the ground. A different officer monitoring the volcano's emissions spoke up.

'My Lord, I'm recording an increase in the emission of sulphur dioxide from the volcano, as well as carbon monoxide...the particulate ash concentration is also rising.'

'Is there a threat of eruption?' Marcos questioned, striding over to the Auspex stations.

'Yes, My Lord...a significant threat,' the junior officer replied. 'The evidence suggests the preliminary stages of an eruption are already underway.'

A coincidence? Marcos mused. Surely not. The volcano had sat relatively silent for the weeks that they had been in orbit, and now, at the very hour of the massed attack by the Equestrian military, it was starting to grumble and groan. Was this more evidence of the psychic power of the princess? Doubtful. If she wanted to destroy the Hive she would have let the humans do so, or simply shown up alone to use her magic, rather than bringing an army with her and risking the lives of her subjects. So was the Queen responsible? Why she would want to destroy her own Hive was a mystery, but from what Marcos understood about the species, the Changelings were no stranger to moving house, and frequently shifted location to a new Hive. With their security compromised it seemed a sensible act, and if Chrysalis had caused the volcano to erupt, then she would achieve the bonus of potentially taking a large number of ponies out with it. If it was her doing, then it also represented a worrying hint as to the power that she wielded.

'Can you give a timescale as to when the eruption might occur?' Marcos asked his officers.

'Based on the current progression of tremors and emissions, My Lord, I would estimate no more than forty five minutes until the first major eruption,' the science officer replied.

'Well, I hope the princess is aware of the developments,' Marcos replied, hands clasped behind his back. 'Otherwise her forces will be running straight into more trouble than they bargained for.'

The desperate search for an exit from the cavern had continued for the last ten minutes, with no success. All around them were sheer walls of rock. There were no branching passageways, no side chambers, no other tunnels save those which were blocked. A plan to use their explosives to blast through the rocks blocking the exit had been vetoed by those with engineering experience, as it was all but guaranteed to bring down the actual tunnel roof itself, given the close proximity within which the detonations would have to occur to be effective. Their limited engineering tools had no chance of breaking through the rock in the time they had. The tremors were continuing to get worse, more frequent and more violent, and the magma was still flowing in from behind. Almost all of the floor was now covered, and in a ridiculous reality reminiscent of the foal's playground game, everypony was either hovering in the air or standing atop rocks, boulders and other protuberances to stay safe. Twilight had been hoisted up atop one of the large lumps of stone that was blocking the exit, keeping her as far from the magma threat as possible.

Where there had been optimism and hope, a pall of doubt and resignation had fallen over the assault force. Ponies were still looking for a solution, but with no expectation of success any more. Spitfire knew they were out of options. Using the explosives on the tunnel entrance seemed to be the only possibility, but it was highly risky. Her engineers had advised her that it would probably collapse the tunnel entirely, even if it managed to breach the thick barricade that prevented their passage, thus defeating the purpose. But there seemed to be no other way, and Spitfire feared it would have to be done.

'Sunflower!' she called out. The mare in question flapped over to her. 'Anything?'

'No, ma'am, still nothing,' Sunflower replied. 'We've searched every inch of this place. There are no other exits. I can't see any other option but to try and blast through the debris.' Spitfire nodded.

'That's what I'm afraid of. But if that fails then we're in an even worse position...still no way out, and no explosives, either. Is there any indication of a weakness in the rock anywhere?'

'Not that I've seen, ma'am,' Sunflower replied. 'We don't know what's on the other side of the walls, anyway. If we blow the wrong section then we might get flooded out with magma before we know what's hit us.'

'Yeah...' Spitfire frowned. 'But we might not have a choice. We can't just give up. I'm not going too just sit here and wait to die. Get the explosives ready. We're going to break through that barricade.'

Sunflower nodded and flew away to gather up the engineers who carried the demolition charges. They were meant for just such a purpose, but with the potential instability of the Hive thanks to the impending eruption and the constant quakes, there was no guarantee whatsoever that using them wouldn't simply bring down the entire chamber upon them. The area around the exit tunnel would have to be cleared, including Twilight, who would have to be moved. Spitfire saw to it.

The explosives came over, the engineers carrying satchel charges laden with TNT and other compounds. Their sticky bombs could be added to the mix as well for a little added bite. The engineers set about identifying the best locations for the explosives to be planted; where they would be the most effective, but also where they would be least likely to cause any further cave-ins or collapses.

They were just about to start placing the charges when a large tremor began to shake them, rocking the chamber. Dust poured from the ceiling as those ponies who were standing took to the air to avoid being bowled over by the force. Arcwing grabbed Twilight firmly and lifted her up. This tremor lasted a lot longer than the short sharp shocks that ha preceded it. The ground bucked violently. There were creaks and moans from the structure of the Hive, from the very mountain itself. One of the walls to the right side of the chamber began to break, rapidly, like a vase, a great web of cracks spreading across its surface. Part of it gave way, and magma began to flow afresh into the chamber, adding to that coming up from below. This time it was not oozing, it was pouring, a great torrent of the stuff washing in through the damaged wall. The heat, immediately, was intense, driving everypony away from that side of the chamber. It looked like the end was nigh. The shaking continued, and part of the opposite wall gave way, sending ponies below diving for safety as a plume of dust and shattered rock tumbled, leaving another crack high up on the wall, a glow seeping through from the other side. But this was not the foul, burning glow of hell. This was the glinting, almost dreamlike glow of heaven. Celestia's sun was shining through the opening.

'Up there!' Spitfire shouted. 'Up there1 Get the explosives!' she called to the engineers, who gathered their charges and rapidly took off for the top of the cavern. 'Make a hole!' she ordered. The crack was small, not big enough for a pony to fit through, but it offered hope. There was light on the other side, and that meant the surface. If they could widen the gap with explosives, it might just take them to safety.

'I can see the sky!' one of the engineers shouted in confirmation as they began to hastily plant their charges. The magma pouring in from the other side of the cavern was forcing everypony toward the light, but too close and they would risk harm from the explosions or from tumbling rock. If something went wrong, of course, it could just as easily bring down the entire mountainside down on top of them.

'Everypony back up over there!' Spitfire pointed to the back corner of the Hive, on the same side as the explosives were being laid, but farther back, out of harm's way of both the blast and the magma. The chamber was starting to fill up with terrifying speed as molten rock poured in from the bowels of the earth. If the explosives failed, they would all be dead within minutes, roasted alive from the terrific radiant heat before the magma itself even reached them.

The seconds passed with an impossible slowness as the engineers worked rapidly, having little room for error but even less time to get the job done. Finally, one of them shouted down.

'Charges planted!'

'Then set the fuses and get the hell over here!' Spitfire ordered. 'Everypony, cover your ears, and open your mouths. On my signal, make for the exit up there!'

If there is one.

The engineers flapped down to join the rest of the commandos as the thirty-second fuses counted down. Again, time almost stood still, the unbearable heat and the painful glow from the magma a reminder of the price of failure.

With an ear-splitting bang, the charges detonated within a fraction of a second of each other. The cavern shook once again, and a huge cascade of shattered rock and earth fell from the chamber wall, slamming into the ground and splashing onto the magma below. A dust cloud obscured vision almost completely. Spitfire waited another thirty seconds for the collapse to finish and the rocks to settle before she gave her hopeful order.

'Everypony, go, go, go!'

She led the way, flapping up high toward the opening, through the choking dust and the heat. Where there had been a small crack, there was now a great orifice, some twenty feet wide. Sunlight, precious sunlight, streamed through. Spitfire held position at the opening as the rest of the assault force followed, first the STG, then Arcwing carrying Twilight, and then the rest. The rocks above groaned worryingly as they flew out of the depths and into the light and the fresh air. One by one, pony after pony, fleeing certain death and into Celestia's embrace.

Another tremor shook the ground, even more severe than before. The rest of the chamber's far wall gave way with a loud crack, and magma burst free, huge gushing torrents of molten rock. Spitfire counted each pony as they passed her. She would not leave anypony behind. A crunch and a sudden roar from above made her look up. Part of the hillside above the opening was giving way, a landslide beginning to form, rapidly gaining pace. She could wait around no longer. The last few stragglers fled past her, and it was time to go. She turned and flew as fast as she could out into the valley, as behind her, with a mighty roar, the volcano erupted in a cataclysmic blast.

Eruption

Private Phantom was down to her last two magazines of ammunition. The Changelings were still coming, though many of their number had been drawn away by the lure of attacking the airship fleet above, either in search of greater prey or through direction from the Queen. That had eased the pressure somewhat on the beleaguered ground forces, but nevertheless being relentlessly attacked in the shadow of the smoking volcano was not where Phantom wanted to be any longer.

Somehow, she had survived the countless drones that had hurled themselves at her squad's position. Ponies had fallen all around her, and the number of Changeling bodies in front of them numbered in the hundreds, but she had come through it all with nary a scratch. It was her first engagement, and, despite her fear, she was handling herself well. She was almost proud of her performance, and pleasantly surprised by her accuracy. However, she was running low on ammo, as were the whole company and, presumably, every unit in the line. Her body ached from the constant exertion and adrenaline, as there was no downtime. The Changeling assault was unrelenting, and despite the cool climate she was soaked with sweat.

Another drone leaped forward, horn lowered, firing off a blast of magic. She sighted in and fired, knocking it to the ground. It scrabbled among the stones for a few moments before lying still. Several more loomed in the sky above, and Phantom fired again, narrowly missing one. She dropped back behind the boulder she was using as cover to slam home her final magazine. As she did so, an almighty roar reached her ears. They twitched, and she turned to peer around the rock with a horror-stricken expression.

The volcano had exploded. Not just erupted, but exploded. The top half of the mountain was hidden behind a huge pall of smoke and dust, while a great roiling cloud of ash rose high into the sky above. She had never seen anything like it before. There were not too many volcanoes in Equestria, and many of them were known as dragon haunts; ponies tended to stay away from those, for good reason. As a young foal, Phantom had hiked in these mountains with her parents, and seen the volcano in the distance. It had just been gently smoking, like an elderly grandfather puffing on his pipe. Now, it was belching and roaring like a cannon. The monstrous cloud of ash it had ejected was what drew the immediate attention, but that was not what Phantom was worried about.

Rushing down the lower slopes of the mountain came a wave of death. A pyroclastic flow, a torrent of superheated gas, ash, and rock, raced down the volcano, sweeping all before it. It raced along at an incredible speed, faster than an airship could move and faster than most ponies could hope to fly. It was coming down the mountainside, and it was coming straight for them.

'Run!' somepony shouted plaintively. 'For Celestia's sake, run!'

The Changeling drones, like a well-oiled machine, simply took to the skies, joining their fellows above, who all climbed high before flying to the east. It was a disturbing sight; every one of them evidently knew the danger that was heading their way if they remained. All around, the drones were climbing, above the battle line of the airships. Their captains had seen the peril, and the whine of engines almost drowned out the roar of the onrushing cloud as they did their best to get clear.

The pyroclastic flow itself hugged the ground, carrying boulders and trees with it, but above it extended a plume of superheated ash which would threaten anything flying, as well as those on the ground. The airships could trust in their shields, but the drones and Pegasi had no such recourse. Those Pegasi who were aware of the problem, who had heard the shouts, took to the skies, climbing away to the relative safety of a few thousand feet above the battlefield. Those who were particularly brave or quick thinking managed to urge earth ponies or unicorns to climb aboard their backs, taking them out of the line of fire. But the vast majority of the infantry were left stranded, facing the gargantuan ash cloud as it rushed toward them at a speed of several hundred miles per hour.

Phantom saw the flow as it picked up the pace, sliding down the lower slopes of the volcano and starting to speed across the valley floor. Her heart skipped several beats. She no longer had any drones to fight, but instead, a new enemy that had appeared; nature itself. Her brain could not quite compute what was coming at her, but she knew she had to flee. She had to be anywhere other than here, and be there right away.

She turned and ran, abandoning her post and, a few steps later, her rifle. Her hooves pounded on the ground as she sprinted, as fast as she could. Living in the north, she knew from ski trips that you should never try to outrun an avalanche, but rather ski perpendicular to it until you were out of the firing line. She applied the same principal to fleeing the pyroclastic flow that was chasing her down. She dared risk a glance over her shoulder. A great storm front of dust and ash towered over her. Even as she watched, it engulfed the line of airships, and they disappeared into the cloud. The mass of debris was closing in on her rapidly, traveling much, much faster than she could hope to run. The edge of the valley, the slopes of the hills that might save her, were a long, long way away. As she looked back ahead, they seemed to get farther still. She knew she was going to die. She was too far from safety. All around her, ponies were fleeing for their lives in a futile effort to save themselves, some running away, some running to the sides of the valley, as she was. All of them were fleeing in vain. The pyroclastic flow was simply moving too fast. Phantom glanced back again. The cloud was almost upon them, almost upon her. There was a rock ahead. She dove behind it in a hopeless attempt to safe herself, to be protected against the surge of superheated gas and ash that was about to cook her alive. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.

And waited. And waited.

Trembling, she dared to open one eye first, and then the other. She was unharmed. The land around her was unscathed. Impossible...she raised her head above the boulder, and looked back.

A glittering golden shield formed a barrier between her and the ash cloud, which was beating itself furiously against it, the pyroclastic flow and all of its heat and smoke and death contained on the other side. Phantom looked up and down the line. There were hundred of ponies, infantry who had fled at the cries and shouts of alarm, at the orders to fall back. Some were still running, but many were looking back in awe, as she was. They had been saved from certain death. How? Phantom looked up.

There was the Princess, wings flapping gently, almost peacefully, mane flowing in the breeze, hovering high above, her horn glowing as she maintained the shield barrier that was holding back nature's fury. All along the line, the shield held, crossing the whole valley like a dam, protecting those who had made it sufficiently far down the valley, away from the frontline. There were still, no doubt, ponies on the wrong side of the barrier, but anyone caught in the maelstrom would be dead, burned alive by the hot ash or crushed beneath rocks, their lungs cooking from the inside as they breathed in the superheated gas. There was no hope for saving those unfortunate souls. But Phantom knew the princess had saved her, and saved every other pony she could see, from an agonising death.

She could see the remnants of her squad, most of them at least. Some, she knew, were already dead, cut down by the drones during the fierce fighting. The infantry had formed into strongpoints of defence, guns turned outward against the Changelings while waiting, in theory, for the airships to break through their line up above. That had never quite come to pass. There were too many Changelings, and never quite enough ammunition to bring them all down. Even now, after taking so many casualties, a great cloud of drones could be seen flying away to the east, presumably under orders from the Queen, all acting with a unity of purpose. The Hive Mind was both a wonderfully useful and terrifying thing to imagine. The ponies had no such mental link, but instead relied in discipline, training, and faith. Sometimes, even they were not enough.

Phantom felt herself shaking. She had somehow survived, against the odds, when so many of her fellow infantry lay dead on the other side of the barrier. She looked up again at the princess. Above her, swirling through the ash and smoke, she could see flashes of magic, green and dark blue. While Celestia protected her subjects, Princess Luna was still fighting to keep the Queen at bay. Her drones may have left the battlefield, but she had not.

In her desperate flight, Phantom had lost her rifle somewhere along the way. She was weaponless, and defenceless should a stray drone happen upon her. But it seemed that all of the Changelings were gone, with the exception of the Queen. The only danger now was mother nature, and it was being kept in check by the will of the princess. Phantom slumped to the floor, panting, shaking. Somehow, for some reason, she was alive. She knew exactly who to thank for that. A quick prayer of thanks to Celestia in a wavering voice was her petty offering, but it was all she could give. She looked to the heavens again, her saviour still hovering in the skies above, keeping up the barrier as the pyroclastic flow spent its fury.

The volcano itself had not just erupted, but collapsed partly in on itself, driving the pyroclastic flow down the mountanside at a high rate of speed. A gargantuan pall of ash hung over the valley, with a giant eruption column climbing tens of thousands of feet into the sky. The Hive underground had surely been crushed beneath thousands of tons of rock and filled with magma, which was now oozing and seeping out as lava, running in slow-moving rivers down the lower slopes from the ruins of the top half of the peak. The high-altitude winds were carrying the ash cloud steadily out to the west, towards the coast with the Great Western Ocean some hundred miles away. No towns or cities would be threatened by ashfall in the coming hours, which was a small mercy at least. Ash would coat an entire town with ease in a blanket reminiscent of a pleasant winter snow, but it would pollute water supplies, cause breathing problems, impede transport and if enough of it got into a Pegasi's wing feathers, impede the generation of lift and cause them to fall from the sky. The same danger could befall an airship; its engine air intakes would be completely clogged if exposed to ash, causing them to stall and cut out, not enough to make the airship crash but denying it control over its movements.

The strength of the flow began to wane, beating itself fruitlessly against the shield as the force of the eruption that had thrown out so much debris finally fizzled out. Instead of an onrushing torrent, there now lay an inert layer of settled rock and ash and a gently swirling cloud of dust on the other side of the barrier. Celestia was able to drop the shield, her job done. Phantom watched in awe as the princess climbed back up into the sky, through the smoke, to rejoin her sister in battle. She offered another quiet prayer to the princess; not of thanks this time, but one offering good fortune.

With the great volcano ripping itself apart behind them, the commando force flew for their lives, wings flapping and straining to the utmost. The valley had opened out before them, a route to safety from the maelstrom behind them, but to fly down it would lead them straight into the battle. Instead, the plan called for the units to exfiltrate the Hive the same way they had come in, heading west and over the subordinate peaks that formed that edge of the valley, where, if all had gone according to plan, they would wait until the battle was over before firing two red flares as a signal requesting pickup.

Everything was not going to plan, however. The main force would not get a chance to enter and clear the Hive thoroughly, as it was even at this moment crumbling and collapsing. If the Element was in there, it was buried at best, and melted away, lost for all eternity at worst. But they had rescued Twilight, and sped her away. The ash cloud towered above them as the group of ponies, minuscule specks against the backdrop of the chaotic eruption, flew west to the relative safety of the hills. A great billowing mushroom of dirt and magma belched forth from the mountain as part of the cone collapsed, vomiting dust and ash outward in a great arc that formed the beginnings of the pyroclastic flow, the fringes of which would chase them as they fled west.

Spitfire brought up the rear, glancing back over her shoulder at the eternal resting place of those ponies they had left behind. She had made sure everypony left the cavern before fleeing herself, but there were fewer of them coming out than had gone in. Spitfire had lost ponies under her command before, but not in such circumstances as these. Barring the most catastrophic airship fire or explosion, or a direct hit from an artillery shell, there was almost always something left to bury. Not in this case. Assuming proper funerals were ever held for those lost in the Hive, the families of the dead would get the folded flag, the salutes, the plaintive rifle volleys of the honour guard...and an empty casket. There would be no body, not even mere body parts, as was sometimes the case when high explosives or powerful magic had been involved in the death. If anything was left intact of their bodies, which seemed unlikely, given the great flows of magma and superheated gas swirling inside the volcano, there was most decidedly no prospect of recovery.

The western edge of the valley was rocky and steep, with a few scattered and hardy bushes and small trees dotting the hillsides. The string of ponies climbed, making their way up and over the peaks, out of sight of the volcano, but not of the ash cloud that hung above it. In the shadow of the hills, they rested. Arcwing landed Twilight gently on a flat piece of ground, like a mother bird gently laying down its baby. Spitfire, having seen her charges safely to cover and out of the danger zone from the pyroclastic flow, hovered at the peak with her binoculars.

To her surprise, the Changelings were leaving the area, fleeing to the east. She could just about see them above the ash cloud that had raced down the valley. Of the airships, there was no sign, but still fighting above she could see Princess Luna, and what could only be the Changeling Queen, dueling, their magic flashing brightly. Celestia could not be seen. Surely she had not been defeated...?

Spitfire looked around for her. She was sure the princess was still alive; she had felt no sense of dread or loss that must surely overcome her subjects were she to fall. Assuming she could fall. She had faced down every threat Equestria had come up against for the last millennium, including Discord, her own sister, and indeed Chrysalis, to say nothing of the horrors from another world that these humans had lured to this planet, suffering nary a scratch apart from when Chrysalis gained her extra strength from Shining Armour and Princess Cadence. She must be alright...she had to be alright...yes, there she was, rising above the smoke and ash which seemed to have mysteriously stopped in its tracks halfway down the valley. Despite her confidence in the princesses' survival, Spitfire felt relief at seeing her with her own eyes.

But what of the airships? Had they retreated, had they fled while Spitfire and her unit were underground? Had they been destroyed by the eruption? During her flight from the Hive, Spitfire had not had time to spare any glances to find out, and now she could see nothing of them. The smoke obscured her vision, but it was slowly clearing. There was a faint glow through the dust cloud, a deep pinkish-purple. A shield! There was an airship, one of the escorts, intact and still flying. There was another, and another, one of the City-Class anti-air craft too. As the dust cleared, the entire battle line was revealed before her, a most gratifying sight and a great relief to her anxious eyes. It seemed that almost all of the craft had survived the eruption mostly intact, their shield proving sturdy enough to withstand the shockwave and the pounding of the ash cloud.

Spitfire lowered her binoculars and made her way down the hillside to where the infiltration force was resting. It had been an exhausting effort, and she had lost track of time, though it could not have taken more than a couple of hours since they began the operation. They had been to the depths, back to the surface, and finally to the relative safety of the hills. All they could do now was wait for the battle to be over, and signal for pickup. Spitfire ordered a picket to be posted at the peaks above, keeping a watchful eye on the valley beyond where fighting was still ongoing, at least between the royals. The vast majority of Changeling forces seemed to have abandoned the field entirely, presumably under direction from their Queen, who, for whatever reason, remained to duke it out with the princesses.

Spitfire reached for her canteen and took a long swig of welcome water. Her uniform, especially with the wing and tail covers fitted, did a fantastic job of retaining heat, and she was practically drowning in sweat. The magma-filled chamber had been like a sauna, or rather an oven. It was only now that she could relax somewhat that she noticed the beautiful coolness of the northern air after so long underground in the stuffy caverns of the Hive. It was refreshing, revitalising. Spitfire removed her helmet, letting her fiery mane show, briefly catching the light as Celestia's sun, rising higher in the sky, shone over the peaks. She trotted down to Twilight, who was sitting on her haunches on the stony ground, and sat beside her.

'You're safe now,' Spitfire assured her. 'The Changelings are leaving. I guess our main force got them on the run.'

Twilight didn't respond, too taken up with her own thoughts. Spitfire carried on talking. 'You know the princesses are still out there, still fighting.' She offered Twilight her canteen, which was accepted. Twilight took a sip with slightly shaky hooves. 'I reckon they'll be pretty damn proud of you. The way you kept going while you were down there in the Hive. Anypony else in those conditions...well, I hate to think what kind of state they'd be in now.'

Twilight passed the canteen back to Spitfire, who took another sip of water. 'I didn't tell them anything...' Twilight muttered.

'Of course you didn't. You're strong,' Spitfire replied. 'You're a tough cookie, that's pretty clear. Princess Celestia must have seen that in you right from the start. You and all your friends. Otherwise she would never have dared to entrust you with the Elements.'

'But I let her down...my Element is gone!' Twilight pointed out, with a dismayed tone. 'I should have...I don't know, been more alert...paid more attention...maybe I could have stopped it!'

'What's done is done,' Spitfire reminded her. 'You can't change what happened before, but from what I was told about it, you had no reason to suspect anything. No reason to think you were in any danger. The city had been cleared, the palace was secure, there were guards all around. What happened to you is not your fault, Twilight. That's the most important thing you can know right now. It wasn't your fault. But regardless of any of that, you're a civilian. Even though you hold one of the Elements, you're not trained in the same way we are. You're not trained in close quarters combat, or in spotting infiltrators, or anything like that. And what's more, you're not trained to resist torture, either. But you did.' The veteran mare put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. 'You did, because you knew it was something you had to do, because the princess was relying on you. You may not think it, you may not believe it, but you're damn brave, kiddo, and don't forget it.'

Twilight frowned, looking down at the ground for a few moments. 'How long was I down there...?' she asked.

'Twelve days,' Spitfire replied,' trying to keep her response both matter-of-fact and serious, to emphasise both the relative swiftness of Twilight's rescue, and her bravery in resisting torture for so long. 'I bet it felt like a whole lot longer.' Twilight nodded.

'I didn't know...I mean, I'd lost all track of time.' She sighed. 'Everything was the same down there, every day, every night. There was no way to tell them apart.'

'Well, you kept it together, and that's all anypony could ask of you. Princess Celestia will tell you the same thing when you speak with her, I know she will.' She offered her canteen to Twilight again, who shook her head this time.

'I'm sure she will...but what if I could have done more? Maybe I could have broken out...maybe I could have taken out the Queen, or...'

'Don't talk yourself into that spiral, Twilight,' Spitfire cautioned. 'Even if you had broken out, you wouldn't have made it out of the Hive. The Queen is taking on both princesses even as we speak, and it looked like a pretty even fight from what I could see of it.'

'They're fighting the Queen?' Twilight blinked. 'Show me!'

'I think you should rest a while,' Spitfire replied. 'You've...'

'Show me!' Twilight repeated, more urgently. 'Please. I just want to see, I'm not going to do anything crazy.'

'Well, alright.' Spitfire nodded, gesturing for Arcwing to approach and help Twilight up. The slope was steep, and so he carried her up to the top of the hill, perching her in a saddle between two rocky outcrops, from whence she could observe the valley that lay beyond, and the battle still raging above it.

Luna and Celestia were engaged in swirling combat with the Queen, flashes of magic cutting across the skies. A long line of airships hung in space about halfway down the valley, like a dividing line between the land of the ponies and that, formerly at least, of the Changelings. Of the drones, there was no sign. Spitfire had said they had fled, but the Queen remained.

'Can't we help them?' Twilight muttered. The trio of dancing figures were distant, but the colours of their magic marked out their identities, if there were any doubt. Twilight certainly had none. She would recognise Princess Celestia anywhere, and she watched as the princess gracefully swooped and swirled through the air. But the Queen was agile, and smart, and she could be seen teleporting around, flying short distances, teleporting away, appearing behind or below one of the pony sisters, keeping them off guard, negating the advantage they held over her in terms of numbers.

Seeing the princesses gave Twilight some renewed spirit. She had been languishing in her own pity and fear in the Hive before Luna made contact with her, giving her hope in her darkest hour. She had made a promise to Twilight, that they would come for her, and come they had. But would it prove to be worth the cost of those who had died to save her? The Changelings had escaped, thousands of them fleeing the wrath of the airship's guns and the collapse of their former home. The Element had not been recovered. The Queen was still alive and fighting. So far, the mission had not been a great success, with only Twilight's rescue to show for it.

Twilight longed to join the fight, to help her mentor and her sister fight the evil of the Changeling Queen. But she knew she was too weak, too feeble in her current state to offer any aid. All she could do was sit, and watch, and wait.

And hope.

Pulling Out

The EAS FIllydelphia turned south and departed the valley at full speed, engines purring. The entire assault force had been loaded aboard, rather a cramped setup given that she already carried her own complement of Assault Infantry, two companies' worth. At a pinch, her holds could carry three companies in less than ideal conditions, but now the ship had to carry almost five full companies, as well as its regular crew. Ponies were tripping over each other in the narrow passageways, and a simple trip to the galley or a toilet could take three times as long as it should and see the unfortunate soul falling down or bumping into half a dozen different ponies. The holds where the regular complement of Assault Infantry were housed were full, and some of those rescued had to find a spot on the top deck to bed down and rest.

There were many grumbling criticisms of why the Air Corps hadn't sent a second airship to pick up the rest of the commandos instead of cramming them all into a single one. The answer, as only Spitfire and Ironside knew for fact, was simply that they had not expected the assault force to return with so many survivors. A mortality rate of well over 50% had been anticipated as the best case scenario; the more pragmatic planners figured that none would return at all. Raiding a Hive in such a fashion for an infiltration and rescue mission had never been tried before and would probably never be attempted again. It had only worked as well as it had because of the massive distraction provided by the fleet and the ground assault that drew off the majority of Changeling drones. Some would say, of course, that it was too simple, and that Chrysalis had let them in, for whatever twisted reasons she may have had. But others, especially those who had not been in the Hive, figured it was more to do with the dash, daring and skill of Spitfire's raiders, the pluck which had carried the day and resulted in at least a partial success.

The object of that success was below decks. Spitfire, former resident of the single spare cabin aboard the Fillydelphia which was reserved for visiting officers or dignitaries, and had been assigned to her as the ranking infantry officer aboard, had surrendered her cabin and moved into the hold with the rest of her Special Tasks Group so that Twilight could have the cabin to rest and recover. That was where she lay, nestled in the bed provided, covered with soft, clean blankets. A large jug of water and a plate of food sat on the dresser; cheese, fruit, bread, choice morsels chosen from the airship's extremely limited fresh food supply. They remained uneaten. Twilight was asleep, lost in dreamless darkness. She had been checked over by the airship's medics and pronounced mostly healthy, apart from being malnourished, dehydrated, and very, very tired. Spitfire had immediately given up her cabin and the medics had taken Twilight straight to it, getting her settled, and within moments of her head hitting the pillow, she was asleep.

It was clear that her ordeal had taken a lot out of her. Anypony who had come into contact with Twilight since she came aboard had no doubt that it was truly her and not some Changeling infiltrator, but just in case, her room was guarded at all times by a unicorn member of the crew. Finally free, she rested as the airship headed south, out of the valley, over the peaks, sights set on the capital city. The journey would take most of the day, and it was already noon. The battle had raged for some hours, and the volcanic activity had delayed the pickup of the infiltration force somewhat, as had the continued presence of the Changeling Queen. The Fillydelphia would not arrive in the capital until after dark, even at full speed, which they could not sustain for the entire journey. They were overloaded thanks to the extra ponies they were carrying.

The mood on board was mixed. Those who had been in the Hive were convinced of its destruction; they had seen the collapsing walls and the spilling magma, heard the crack and crash of falling rock. It seemed a certainty that it had been wiped out in the eruption and explosion that had followed, but that mattered little. The Changelings could simply move somewhere else and establish a brand new Hive in secrecy, which was exactly what they were most likely doing. The drones had fled, the Queen had vanished, and they could not be tracked if they didn't want to be. They could be pursued, but they had moved fast and the airships, which could overhaul them at top speed, had been rather too busy to abandon their post in a potentially fruitless chase. No doubt they would surface again at some point in the future to cause more trouble.

Many of those aboard the Fillydelphia were dissuaded by the only partial success of the mission. They had recovered Twilight, yes, but not the Element. That had escaped with the Queen, though the rank and file did not know that unless they had seen her close up. Besides that failure, the airship crew had seen two of their fellow craft go down in flames. The casualty figures were unknown to them, but it seemed clear that many ponies had suffered and died during the assault, and for it to not achieve its full objectives was a kick in the teeth. As far as many of them were concerned, Twilight Sparkle was just another pony, nothing special, and certainly not worth throwing away so many lives to save, especially if the Element that she was meant to wield was not in their possession.

On the main deck, Spitfire leaned on the railing, forehooves crossed, gazing out across the land, across Equestria. The foothills of the Hyperborean Mountains provided the backdrop to her thoughts. They were leaving the volcano behind, but the results of the eruption were still very clear to see, a vast anvil of ash and dust hanging in the air to the north, fully visible over the peaks. It would be visible from Vanhoover, for certain, and possibly even as far south as Las Pegasus. There would be debate, there would be nervous talk in the streets. What had gone on in the frozen north? Was that where the army had been marching, where the airships had been heading? What had happened to them?

Spitfire knew she should try to rest, but she had given up her cabin for Twilight to try and recover from her ordeal, and the passenger decks were crowded and hot. Far better to feel the breeze wash over her, cool her. She had had enough of heat to last her a lifetime. The Hive had been a sauna at best, and a furnace at worst, and she had led her ponies straight into it. Some of them never came back out. Her thoughts again turned to those that had been lost forever inside the mountain. She knew that one of her first tasks, after being debriefed, would be to write the letters of condolence to the families of the dead. She would have to sanitise them, of course. No specifics; no need to alarm the citizens of Equestria farther by alerting them that one of the Elements was missing. The assault force had been told, of course, because they had to look for it inside the Hive, but the wider public was kept in blissful ignorance of the theft, and of the potential danger it could pose to Equestria in the future. They had enough to worry about with the human invasion and the complete upheaval of their way of life, which had been turned on its head by the invaders from beyond the stars.

Normal life? Normal life no longer existed in Equestria. Ponies in the street could not discuss the weather, the local hoofball team, their lives and loves and friends and families. They could only speak of the war, the terrible war that raged, hopefully far away from them, but potentially in their back yards. Information was limited; communications between cities and towns was already slow at the best of times; Equestria had no equivalent of the Imperial vox system that permitted instantaneous connection between any two points. Messages had to be sent either by post, carried in the mail wagons of the express trains or the cargo holds of the freight airships, or delivered by fast messenger Pegasus. There were only a couple of methods for faster communication, and they were reserved almost exclusively for military or royal use, such as Celestia's scrolls to and from Twilight and Luna's dream speak. News of major events in another city would usually be published in the following day's newspapers, but not anymore. Most of the presses were not running in those cities that were unaffected directly by the war. There had been a total clampdown, almost an imposition of censorship by the government. Most cities were under martial law, the only exceptions being those tiny villages out on the fringes of Equestria, some of which may even be completely unaware of anything untoward.

Most ponies, for the past few weeks, had been living in darkness, living in fear. There were curfews imposed, with soldiers and Royal Guard patrolling the streets after dark. In some towns, civilian militia had been formed, local defence forces made up of retired military ponies, hunters, farmers, anypony who might possess a gun and knew how to use it. The military could spare no equipment to arm these militia; some ponies found that they were only able to arm themselves with a pitchfork or spear, or some similarly antiquated weapon, but every set of hooves was welcomed. The citizenry was afraid, and they looked for any kind of order as an assurance that everything would be alright. The Royal Guard could only be in so many places at once. The garrisons of most towns had been stripped to the bare minimum to provide replacements and reinforcements for military units serving elsewhere, those that had taken losses in battle. The nature of the invaders meant that, despite the fighting being mostly in the east of the continent, they could potentially strike without warning and appear in any town at any moment. This was total war of the kind that Equestria had never known before. Even in the war against the Griffons, the brunt of the fighting had been shouldered by northern towns and northern units that bordered the Griffon Kingdom. This was different.

As a high-ranking officer and a member of the Special Tasks Group, Spitfire knew most of the details, both of the human invasion, their alliance with the Imperium and, obviously, the Changeling threat. She could not help think of her family and those other ponies across the land who were labouring in the unknown, with little information coming. They would not know that Manehattan had fallen, that Ponyville had been washed away, that Canterlot was back in the right hooves. She was not sure what would be worse; the knowledge that she possessed of the true, terrifying scale of the war that had unfolded, or the ignorance of what exactly had caused the silence from the east.

Even where the news got through, however, it was not widely reported. Equestria had never really operated under censorship before. Provided they obeyed the editorial guidelines, newspapers were normally free to publish what they liked. Celestia even tolerated criticism of her government and their policies, provided it didn't go too far, something which could most decidedly not be said of any other national leader on the planet. Equestria was renowned for its relatively free and liberal press, available to any citizen in the street who wanted to pay a bit or two for a copy. Now, however, the few papers that were still running only out gave local information; which trains were running, what shows were cancelled, obituaries for the dead of the town, though only rarely of their fallen sons or daughters in military service.

Such news was hard to come by anyway, and the military now placed heavy restrictions on the reporting of any details related to combat operations, which included the names of those killed during them. Revealing which units were at which battlefield could give information to the enemy during wartime, and as a result, only after official review by Celestia could details of any particular engagement actually be published, including the death notifications. Only then could the families be notified, and depending on conditions, that could be weeks after the actual death of their loved one. Though Spitfire planned to write the messages of condolence to the families of those lost in the Hive, those families might not receive them for a month or more. Even when they did, they would be met with the same dry officialese language that the official notice would have said.

The Royal Equestrian Air Corps regrets to inform you that your husband/wife/son/daughter was killed in the performance of his/her duties. The General of The Air Corps, Secretary of Defence and Princess Celestia wish to convey their deepest sympathies at your loss, and to express their gratitude for his/her service.

Spitfire's notes would add a little more, fleshing out a picture of the deceased while on active duty, but it too would be limited in what would actually pass the censors. Each letter would follow a similar pattern; He/she was much loved by his/her unit; Respected by all; Most conscientious in his/her duties; Brave, loyal and true to the last.

Such was the nature of life, and death, under this new state of existence. The scale of the conflict had overwhelmed everypony, including the military and government. Any war planning that had been done previously could only have dreamed at the level of destruction and confusion that this invasion had caused. Combined with the sudden Changeling uprising as well, there was simply no way for the institutions of power to cope. Chaos had been the inevitable result. There were great logistical problems, not just for the military, but for civilians too. Some train lines had been cut, and the cargo airships dared not venture forth without escort in case of attack. All supplies coming from east of the Foal Mountain range, including Canterlot and Baltimare, had been cut off completely with the capture of those cities, especially Manehattan, which was not only a great manufacturing city but also the hub for overseas trade, having the largest port in the eastern half of Equestria.

As a result, there were shortages. Ponies found there was little coal to heat their homes. All exotic food and drink from the Zebra lands had vanished from the shelves and market stalls, with even the staple crops of hay and various flowers being limited. Rationing had been hastily instituted, following one aspect of government planning that had actually proven useful in the scenario that had unfolded. Even in the areas that seemed fairly 'safe,' trade between towns had been curtailed out of an abundance of caution, as well as the fact that, under the emergency regulations enacted by the regional governments, much of the trade capacity had been requisitioned for military use; carts, trains and airships had all been taken over, and large quantities of food, coal, fuel oil and other supplies had been diverted to the military garrisons at Las Pegasus and Vanhoover and stockpiled for future use.

Spitfire turned from the railing. The deck was busy with crewponies, as well as members of her raiding force who had found somewhere to sit or lie during the journey back to Canterlot. Food had been served from the galley below decks, simple fare, just bread and potatoes. But it was fresh, unlike most military rations, and gratefully accepted after a hard morning's work in the heat of the Hive. Spitfire had eaten, just enough to satiate her hunger. She climbed over the slumbering forms of the Pegasi scattered about the deck, before heading down the companionway to the level below. Here, the situation was the same. She made her way astern to the cabin that had been hers. The unicorn mare guarding the door saluted.

'Ma'am!' She clicked her hooves together smartly. Spitfire returned the salute.

'How is she? Still asleep?' she questioned the guard, who nodded.

'Last time I checked, ma'am, yes.'

'I'll sit with her a while,' Spitfire replied. 'If she wakes up before we reach Canterlot then she should see a familiar face.' The guard nodded again and turned on her heel to unlock and open the door, stepping aside to allow Spitfire to enter. The Major passed through the door, and the guard closed the door again behind her.

The cabin was as quiet as it could be, given the nature of life aboard an airship. The drone of the engines could still clearly be heard, but that was inescapable in such a relatively confined space as the airship's gondola. The noise, however, evidently did not disturb Twilight. She was sound asleep, curled up beneath the blankets. A well deserved rest after her ordeal, and Spitfire made sure to sit quietly on the chair located at the small desk within the cabin. She kept an eye on Twilight, alternating between looking at her and gazing out of the small porthole-like window at the hills and field passing below. They were heading for Canterlot, but they were still a good distance away. Spitfire wondered whether that was where Celestia and Luna had gone; if so, they would have no word on the fate of the younger princess until they arrived there later in the day. In the meantime, Spitfire stayed at Twilight's bedside, keeping her company even as she slept, sitting with her as the miles rolled by outside.

The infantry trudged wearily through the thin layer of ash, like dirty snow underfoot. Despite the vast majority of the mass of the substance having been carried northwest by the winds, some had managed to settle all around the volcano in a thin layer, not enough to impede mobility, but enough to be a constant reminder of how close every one of the ponies marching through it had come to certain death.

Private Phantom was among those who marched. She was caked in sweat and dirt, missing her rifle, a picture of disheveled fatigue. Upon receipt of the recall signal, her squad leader, one of the survivors of the fighting, had rounded up his ponies and led the way to the rear. They were to head back to the rendezvous point, as per the battle plan, he reminded them all. What he didn't mention, but which they all knew, was that in order to reach the rendezvous point they would have to climb over the same hill they had already scaled in the small hours of the morning. It was no easier going the other way; in fact it was considerably worse. Legs which had been fresh before were tired now, and minds were clouded by thoughts of life and death. Many ponies stumbled time and again on the steep slopes and loose scree. The hillside did not aid them in their ascent, nor in their descent on the other side. The valley beyond where they had spent the previous night was where they were to regroup, and the assault force was to lick its wounds.

Phantom's mind was still awhirl with the knowledge that she had been mere seconds from death; most probably that had been the case a dozen times during the battle, with some drone lining up a magic blast or about to leap on her from behind, only to be cut down by some other alert soldier. But the only incident she could picture, the only one that mattered, was the pyroclastic flow being halted in its tracks by Princess Celestia, saving not just her, but the rest of her squad, the rest of her company, and the rest of the entire infantry force from complete annihilation. She had done it without breaking a sweat and in the middle of a fierce battle with the Changeling Queen, only to go and immediately rejoin the fight without missing a beat. Phantom was in newfound awe of her princess, she had to admit to herself, and who wouldn't be?

Her shock was as great as any when she had seen Princess Luna fall, but again she had witnessed Celestia's compassion as she was immediately at her sister's side. Weaponless, Phantom could only watch on as it seemed that Chrysalis would finish the job before moving on to mopping up the rest of the assault force, but instead she had vanished, much to Phantom's relief. From a distance, it seemed like Luna was still moving, but she could not be sure, and before any confirmation could be obtained, she had disappeared along with Celestia in a flash of light. Phantom had offered prayers for the safety of both princesses, and for the airship crews that she had seen go down in flames. With so many airships assembled in one place, she had to wonder if there were any left to patrol the rest of Equestria.

Formerly gathered in the line of battle close to the volcano, the airship fleet now hung above the valley to the south, beyond the hills, where the rendezvous was to take place. Both the warships and the troop transports were gathered there, and the survivors of the fighting on the ground were arriving, long strings of ponies coming over the hills, stragglers bringing up the rear. They had lived through the greatest battle of their lives so far. Phantom, for one, hoped never to see its like again. The fact that they had taken losses could be seen just by looking around. Here and there, ponies were being organised by squad or by company, and there were clearly empty spots where ponies should have been standing. One company in particular seemed to be down to a mere dozen, instead of the usual hundred.

In the valley, a makeshift field hospital was being set up. There were no tents or proper equipment, save for what had been carried in reserve aboard one or two of the transport airships. Everything available had been brought down to help treat the wounded, and there were plenty to treat. Shrapnel wounds from splintered rock, burns from magic, stab wounds from horns or fangs, crush wounds from trampling. Fighting the Changelings did not come without a price. The wounded would be treated, and the dead, those that could be recovered from the battlefield, would be buried later. No doubt some bodies had been lost beneath the pyroclastic flow that coated half of the valley in ash and rock. They, and the bodies of those who had died inside the Hive, would remain, perhaps for eternity.

Phantom's squad marched down from the hillside, and the Sergeant called a halt. Phantom gratefully collapsed into a heap against a large rock, resting her weary hooves, though the hard ground did little to help her aching body. All around her were tired ponies, many with minor wounds not deemed worthy of treatment just yet, as the field hospital was being reserved for major injuries. Some ponies were sipping from their canteens or eating bland but nutritious energy bars or granola snacks. She felt little hunger, however, despite having not eaten since the very early hours. She was happy just to sit and rest and look up at the sky. For whatever reason, fate and the princess had decreed that she would survive, that she would live to see another day, to see Celestia's sun rise once more. For the first time since the sudden orders had come in the day before, Phantom felt safe. the fear and dread that had permeated her for the past twenty four hours finally fading. More orders may come, and there may be more battles to fight, but for now, for a while, at least, she could just be thankful to be alive.

Back Home

It was early evening when the Fillydelpia entered the Foal Valley. Canterlot lay ahead, finally returned to some semblance of its former glory, at least. Lights twinkled and glistened in a number of buildings, marking the city out as a beacon, guiding the airship and its passengers home. Though the Hoofer Dam had not supplied power since the invasion, and was now a broken ruin, several wind turbines provided the city with enough power to light key structures. The residents, almost entirely military with the exception of the royals and some citizens discovered hiding in the surrounding mountains, had been trying their best to get life back to something approximating normal, even with the knowledge that many other parts of Equestria could not hope to do the same. The human enemy, and now the Changelings, were a potent menace, and the life that ponies knew before the invasion would not return for a long time yet; months at the minimum, probably years, perhaps decades would pass before towns and cities were rebuild, populations boosted back to pre-war levels, food and fuel supplies stabilised, and manufacturing and transport capacity rebuilt.

Such grandiose plans were far off. Everypony had to focus on the here and now, and the crew of the Fillydelphia did just that. They had a passenger to deliver. Marshals on the ground with illuminated batons guided them, in the gathering gloom, to the landing fields outside of the city walls. Slowly and carefully, the airship came down. The docking ropes were secured and the engines cut. In the state room cabin, Spitfire gently shook Twilight awake. Her eyes fluttered open, bleary, having slept for the entire journey from the northern wastes down to the capital. A look of fear immediately entered them; mentally, she was still in the Hive, still under the thrall of Chrysalis. She looked around, eyeing Spitfire with clear confusion and suspicion.

'Easy, easy...' Spitfire cooed, trying her best to adopt a motherly tone, not something she had ever been required to do before in her professional, or personal, life. 'You're alright, Twilight. We're in Canterlot...'

'Spitfire...' Twilight's evident panic quickly calmed at the sight of a known face, as the Major had hoped it would. 'Wh...what...Canterlot...?'

'That's right,' Spitfire nodded, giving her a smile. 'We're bringing you home, remember? You're safe.'

Twilight blinked a few times before a very faint smile creased her lips. 'Safe...I-i guess that still means something...'

'It does as far as I'm concerned,' Spitfire replied. 'We just landed. They've got a wheelchair ready on the top deck. Gonna transfer you to the palace. Apparently they have a room ready for you...lucky, huh? imagine how much some ponies would pay to stay in a room like the one you're going to.' Spitfire chuckled. 'There's food, water...if you want any.' She gestured to the table beside the bed. Twilight slowly sat up, and drank her fill from the jug, eating a couple of slices of bread and some grapes, though still not feeling very hungry. Spitfire helped her up and helped her prepare for the transfer.

Once she was ready and refreshed, Spitfire and Arcwing, summoned by the guard outside the door, helped Twilight up to the main deck, where she was seated in the waiting wheelchair. Wheeled down the ramp to the ground below, a doctor and two nurses from the palace infirmary met her, and she was wheeled into the city. Soldiers and Guardsponies patrolled almost every street, secured almost every corner. The palace itself was resplendent in finery, with banners, flags and glowing lanterns decorating each spire and tower. Spitfire stayed with Twilight as she was wheeled into the courtyard where she had seen her brother execute the human prisoners, and onward into the palace itself. Her room awaited, and she was taken there directly.

Inside, two of Princess Celestia's personal handmaidens had prepared the room to an exacting standard, most surprising given the state of the majority of the city. It was almost as things would have been before the war; a large four-poster bed, clean and fragrant sheets and pillows, a large and lavish bathroom through in the next chamber, plush carpets, gilded bedposts and door handles. A room fit for a visiting royal or prime minister, but there was little chance of any of those coming to stay in the near future. Outside the door stood two unicorn guards in full armour, carrying not the regulation repeaters but instead the same machine-rifles issued to the STG.

Twilight was wheeled into the bedchamber and the two handmaidens helped her out of the chair and into the bed, laying her down gently and carefully. The airship's medics had given her a checkup, but the handmaidens assured her that the palace doctors would give her a more thorough examination in the morning. How was Princess Luna, she wanted to know? She was given the answer- alive, but wounded, and recovering not too far away in another room similar to hers.

That did some small thing, at least, towards putting Twilight's mind at rest. The handmaidens departed, leaving Spitfire at her bedside.

'I know you just woke up, but you try and get some more sleep,' she pointed out. 'You were down in that Hive for a long time. Get as much rest as you can, kiddo. You want me to stay here a while? There are guards outside the door, but, you know, if you wanted a familiar face to be around,' she offered. 'I'm sure your friends will be eager to see you, but they've been told you're not to be disturbed until you get some more rest.'

Twilight nodded. 'Yes...that would be...appreciated. Thank you, Spitfire...for everything, for coming to get me...' she muttered, a twinge of sadness in her voice because she knew the losses that Spitfire's force had suffered because of her. The veteran nodded grimly.

'It was our mission, and I'm glad we could pull it off,' Spitfire replied, not mentioning the fact that their primary mission had been, in fact, to recover the Element, not the bearer.

'I'm just sorry I got all those ponies killed...' Twilight added sorrowfully.

'Now come on, Twilight,' Spitfire chided. 'We already talked about this and I told you. You didn't get anypony killed. They all knew the risks and they were happy to take them. You didn't order the mission, you didn't lead it, and you did all you could to help.' She gave what she hoped was a comforting pat on Twilight's shoulder to reinforce her point, just as a knock came at the door. 'Let me get that...' she muttered, heading to the door and opening it warily.

She had no need to be concerned. Outside was Princess Celestia herself, looking none the worse for wear after her battle with Queen Chrysalis. Spitfire snapped to attention with a smart salute.

'As you were, Major,' Celestia spoke. 'And thank you for your service today. You and your unit have performed a great service for myself and Equestria.' She stepped into the room.

'Thank you, Your Highness!' Spitfire replied. 'It is an honour as always to serve at your command.'

'I'll take over here. You go get yourself some rest,' the princess ordered, and Spitfire saluted again.

'Yes, ma'am. Get well soon, Twilight.' She exited the room, closing the door as Celestia made her way over to the bed.

'Princess Celestia...' Twilight gave her mentor a weak smile. 'It's so good to see you again...'

'My dear and faithful student...' Celestia crossed the room and pulled Twilight into a gentle but warm embrace, with both her hoof and her wings enveloping the smaller mare. 'I am so grateful to have you returned safely to Canterlot.'

Twilight hugged back as tightly as she could in her weakened state. 'Sometimes I didn't think I'd ever see you again...' she muttered.

'My sister and I never lost hope,' Celestia replied. 'Once she had made contact with you through your dreams, we knew that you would be returned to us, sooner or later. The only question was where the Hive was to be found.'

'Your sister...' Twilight gave a small sigh. 'I-is she going to be alright?'

'She will be fine, Twilight. Thank you for your concern,' Celestia replied. 'She has been wounded, but not grievously. I have informed her of your safe return. No doubt she will wish to speak with you tomorrow.' Celestia released her embrace, taking a step back and circling round to sit upon the other side of the bed beside Twilight. 'She is resting for now, and so should you. I do not plan to stay long.'

'I-i rested on the airship...' Twilight pointed out, her ineffectual protest meeting the expected lack of success. Spitfire had told her she should get more sleep, and Celestia pushed the same point.

'You should sleep, Twilight. The doctors would say the same thing. So would all your friends, and your family,' the princess replied. 'You can see them all tomorrow, once you are feeling better. I can sense you are still tired and weak, Twilight. There is no need for you to strain yourself. Just rest. I can stay until you are asleep, if you desire, or I can leave you in peace.'

Feeling a sudden desire not to be alone, Twilight nodded. She would have been happy for Spitfire to stay with her, but with her mentor offering the same thing there could be no competition between the two. 'Please stay, princess...'

Celestia nodded. 'I will. Just rest your weary head, my faithful student. You are safe. You are home.'

Twilight lay back on the pillows, and Celestia wrapped a gentle wing around her once more, soothing her. Twilight closed her eyes, calmed by the presence of her princess and teacher. All thoughts of her time imprisoned in the Hive gradually left her mind as she slipped peacefully into the blackness of sleep.

Celestia stayed with her a while longer before letting her go and standing up. She trotted to the door and spared a glance back at the slumbering form of her student before quietly exiting the room, leaving Twilight to sleep the sleep of the dead, safe at last.

While Twilight slept, others were very much on the move. Forces of the Imperium were being shifted south, in preparation for the upcoming assault on Baltimare, which was being planned high above. Lord-Admiral Marcos had ordered preparations to be made, and plans were being drawn up regarding the specifics. Scouts were being posted to the hills. Though Baltimare was located at the point where the valley had widened out to become almost part of the southern plains, the hills were still close enough to the city for powerful magnoculars to have a good view from the safety of the high peaks. Orbital imagery and sensor readings were taken, keeping tabs on things from above.

The Auspex arrays of the Emperor's judgement had tracked one particular pony airship that had departed the battlefield, while all the others had gathered just to the south of it at some kind of staging area. The solitary craft was tracked until it landed just outside of the city. The return of the princess, perhaps?

The scans of the battlefield had proven inconclusive as to what the actual outcome had been. The spectacular flashes of energy being thrown around had suddenly stopped, and the clouds of ash interfering with the sensors made it hard to figure out anything more than that. Individual ponies were too small to reliably track, but the airship was easy to follow back to its home port. With the prospect of the princess being back in town, Lord-Admiral Marcos relayed a message to Commissar Birbeck that he should try once more to get in contact with her the next morning. Bright and early, that was exactly what the Commissar did.

Met once more at the gates of the city, his Salamander scout car came to a halt, two Valkyrie escort gunships hovering at a safe distance above. The Commissar was in no mood to beat about the bush, having been turned away once already. He stood up in the open-topped turret of the vehicles to address the guards.

'I have been ordered by my Lord-General to seek an immediate audience with your princess!' he called. 'Is she here this time?'

'The princess is in residence,' came the reply. 'Please wait where you are. She will be informed of your arrival and, if she desires, she will speak with you.'

And so Birbeck waited, and waited, and waited. He drummed his fingers on the coaming of the turret impatiently. Clearly being made to wait deliberately, he was not impressed with the reception he had received so far. The princess herself, when he had spoken to her in Manehattan, had seemed perfectly reasonable in her actions and words. Her subordinates, it seemed, did not share those qualities with their leader.

Finally, after an eternity of sitting out in the light drizzle, as low clouds scudded across the mountain peaks just above the city, the gates of Canterlot were thrown open to him, and he was allowed inside. His vehicle rumbled down the cobbled street, starting to crack the stones beneath its tracks before being waved down by an officious-looking pony in shiny golden armour.

'Stop! You can't drive that thing in here!' he proclaimed with a glare. 'Look at what it's doing to the road!' His outstretched hoof quivered with an almost comedic horror at the sight of the cobbles being damaged. Birbeck looked around. There were buildings with entire walls or rooftops missing, piles of rubble in some of the side streets, bullet holes and las-burns galore, and yet this pony was concerned about some minor damage to his precious road surface?

Drive over him, he thought to himself, but did not say. 'Driver, halt,' was his call instead, and the Salamander slowed to a stop. 'I'll walk from here,' he grunted, clambering down from the vehicle and dropping to the cobbles below. The angry pony looked satisfied enough with this course of events. He gestured to a trio of others, all wearing the same uniform.

'Please follow your escort party. They will take you to the princess,' he informed Birbeck, who simply nodded. The three ponies, rifles at their sides, led him through the streets. Though the city was back under the control of the ponies, the only such creatures he noticed were in military uniform. There seemed to be no civilians anywhere to be seen, not entirely surprising given the fact that Canterlot had been under Chaos occupation for a time. Evidence of their presence had mostly been cleared away, with foul shrines dismantled, abominable graffiti washed from walls, and bodies removed to be burned, but it was clear that there had been a battle here. It was one that Birbeck had not witnessed, but he had heard from some of the other officers how the princess had apparently cleared out the main transit station all by herself. At first telling, he had scoffed at the notion that some strange horse-alien could do such a thing, but having seen her in action over Manehattan, he suspected the officers in question had been telling the whole truth and nothing but.

After passing through several similar streets, they reached another curtain wall, this time around the palace itself. Entrance was given once Birbeck had been relieved of his weaponry, which he only agreed to with the greatest reluctance on the basis that if he did not comply he would not be permitted to see the princess at all. For a Commissar to voluntarily surrender his weapons was almost an anathema to him, but he was under direct orders from Lord-Admiral Marcos to speak with the princess, and this was the only way that was likely to happen.

The trio of guards that had escorted him were replaced by two others, who led him inside the palace building, a most impressive edifice of marble, stone and gilded metal, the spires catching the light from the rising sun that peeked over the mountaintops. The interior was equally as impressive, or at least it clearly used to be, but where statues should have stood, there seemed to only be plinths with nothing atop them. What had once obviously been ornate stained-glass windows were shattered. There were none of the usual carpets, rugs or tapestries that might be expected in such a building; evidence of the Chaos occupation. Despite the work that had been done to remove similar remnants out in the city itself, nothing much could be done to replace that which had been lost.

Birbeck was taken through the palace and finally into the inner sanctum, where Princess Celestia sat resplendent upon her throne, sunlight blazing in through the windows and illuminating both the golden throne itself, and her iridescent mane which flickered and moved, most unnervingly, despite the lack of any wind.

'Commissar Birbeck,' she greeted him with a nod. 'Welcome to Canterlot. How may I assist you this morning?'

'Princess.' Birbeck returned her nod. 'I have been commanded by my Lord-Admiral to speak with you and to...apologise in person.'

'Apologise? What for, Commissar?' Celestia questioned.

'For the loss of the Hoover Dam, Your Highness,' he explained. 'During our attack on Ponyville. We dispatched an assault force to capture the dam and ensure its security. But the forces of the Archenemy managed to destroy it. We believe they used demolition charges planted within the structure of the dam to bring about its collapse. My Lord-Admiral wishes to extend his apologies and his great regret that we were unable to prevent its destruction.'

Celestia nodded once again. 'I see. Thank you, Commissar, and please thank your Lord-Admiral for me, also. The loss of the dam is indeed a sad event, but I understand that your assault force took heavy losses in the ensuing floods. Please extend my personal regrets in turn that such a fate should have befallen them.'

'Thank you, your highness, I will pass on your condolences,' Birbeck replied. 'We regret also that the town of Ponyville was unable to be captured intact. However, I would point out that it had already taken heavy damage during the initial engagements of this conflict and held little military or economic value in the state in which we found it.'

'Yes, I understand that, Commissar,' Celestia assured him. 'However, the strategic value of the town was never in question. It has never held a place of particular importance from a military perspective. The reasons for our desire to capture it in some semblance of order were rather more of a sentimental nature,' she explained. 'Your forces did all they could and they have suffered as a result. You have my thanks, and the thanks of a grateful population as well.'

Such empty platitudes meant little to Birbeck when coming from a Xenos, but he nodded, going along with the rhetoric of diplomacy, not really something he was particularly well-versed in, but he had been appointed by the Lord-Admiral to perform just such a role. Commissars were more naturally used to a less tactful form of diplomacy involving a loaded bolt pistol, but an order was an order; a Commissar above all others should know that.

'Thank you, your highness. The men and women of the Imperial Guard stand ever vigilant to root out the threat of the Archenemy wherever it may raise its ugly head,' he assured the princess. 'As you know, our next target will be the city of Baltimare. Planning is already underway for that operation. My Lord-Admiral has requested me to ask if we can count on your support.'

'Of course, Commissar. I shall place myself at your disposal during the operation.'

Birbeck nodded. 'And can we also count on the aid of your sister, your highness?'

'Unfortunately that will be unlikely,' Celestia responded. 'My sister is...indisposed at the moment.'

'Indisposed?' Birbeck questioned. 'Nothing untoward, I trust?'

'She is currently receiving medical treatment,' Celestia explained, though without being drawn on exactly why. Birbeck had been briefed, however, and suspected he knew the reason.

'Then I hope she shall recover soon. My Lord-Admiral has informed me that a battle appeared to be taking place yesterday around the location we identified as a possible Changeling Hive. Your airships were reported as being present in large numbers. Do you have some information about what exactly happened there?' he probed.

Celestia raised an eyebrow, but did not seem particularly surprised to learn that the Imperials had evidence of the battle. After all, they had been the ones who had located the Hive in the first place. It was reasonable to think that they had kept it under continuous surveillance ever since. The Changelings were a threat not just to the local inhabitants, but also to the Imperial ground forces and, potentially, to the fleet, should they somehow manage to get up there. Celestia had not heard of any indication that the latter may have taken place, however.

'There was a battle, yes,' she agreed. 'My forces took part in an assault upon the volcano. It was indeed an active Changeling Hive. The information you provided to us was correct. We carried out an assault and the Hive was destroyed as a result.' No particular detail there. Birbeck wanted more.

'That is gratifying to learn, princess. But one thing is puzzling both myself and the Lord-Admiral. We had offered you assistance in both locating and destroying the Hive. You allowed us to perform the first function. Why did you decide to attack the Hive yourself, instead of permitting us to do so? Surely such a course of action has led to the unnecessary deaths of many of your forces, princess.'

Celestia nodded sagely, considering his words and her reply to them. 'Broadly speaking, the Changelings are a matter for us to deal with,' she responded carefully. 'If your assistance had been required, then we would have requested it, but I did not feel that such a request was needed. I am sure you appreciate that I have no desire for your men to throw away their lives needlessly,' she added. Her explanation did not satisfy Birbeck, and her attempt to curry favour by suggesting that she had been taking the noble course of action by dealing with the Changelings as an internal security matter did not exactly convince him. She was most definitely hiding something, some element of truth to the whole affair that would explain things more clearly.

'I see...' Birbeck nodded. 'Your thoughts on this matter are most generous, but I assure you, neither myself nor the Lord-General would have any qualms about utilising our forces to help defeat a potential threat to the Imperium.'

'Are the Changelings proving to be a threat to you, Commissar?' Celestia questioned.

Now it was Birbeck's turn to be guarded and cautious with his words. 'There is a...potential for threat to the expeditionary force, princess, of course. We are taking all reasonable precautions against such a foe.'

'I am encouraged to hear it,' Celestia replied. 'You would be strongly advised to utilise extreme caution where the Changelings are concerned. As I explained to you before, they are an insidious foe, and they have the potential to sew the greatest possible confusion, especially if you are not prepared for them.'

'We are prepared for them, princess. We have fought their kind before,' Birbeck answered, referring to the Tyranids, though that ravenous species held its own different dangers and strengths and did not share the Changelings' ability to mimic other living beings. 'There is little new in this galaxy that the Imperium has not already fought, killed, and conquered,' he boasted.

'Be that as it may, you have not fought the Changelings before,' Celestia reminded him. 'Do not take them lightly.'

'if they pose that much of a threat, your highness, then why did your forces attack that Hive alone?' Birbeck countered, still seeking the truth of the matter. 'Why not enlist our assistance? You know as well as I do that our weaponry far outclasses yours.'

'I did not deem it necessary,' Celestia repeated. 'But rest assured, the next time we may happen to fight the Changelings, assuming you and your men are still present on this planet, we will call upon you if needed.'

It seemed clear to Birbeck that he wasn't going to get a straight answer regarding the exact reason for the battle that had raged around the volcano, but considering Celestia had informed Lord-Admiral Marcos that her forces were only going to conduct a reconnaissance mission, he could only reason that they must have seen or discovered something that would warrant a raid, rather than having the Imperials attack it from the air, as they had offered. It was the same conclusion that the Lord-Admiral had reached.

Birbeck was escorted back out of the palace, his meeting with the princess over. He climbed back into his scout car and backed out of the city. His first action was to get on the vox to the Lord-Admiral to confirm his suspicions. He did not know what, and he did not know if it was important, but the princess was definitely hiding something.

Recovery

In the late morning, a commotion outside Twilight's door made her stir. She slowly opened her eyes. Pleasant sunlight was streaming in through the windows, illuminating the room and casting shadows across the floor. She had slept for...she did not know how long, but it had been a dreamless sleep, a black sleep through countless hours of sweet oblivion. She still felt tired, that muddle-headed condition common to most after waking from a long rest, the perverse and counter-intuitive feeling of being more tired after sleeping than before. But something had woken her up, and it was in the hallway outside.

She could hear voices and hooves, clamouring outside her door. For a moment she didn't realise where she was, until she remembered the events of the previous day. The rescue, the Hive collapsing behind her, Spitfire, the airship, the princess. She was in Canterlot once more, safe and sound.

The door unlocked and one of the two guards peeked his head inside the room. Seeing that she was awake, he addressed her. 'Ma'am. You, uh, have some visitors. Do you feel well enough to receive them?' he asked.

'Visitors? Oh...um, yes...yes, I suppose so...' Twilight mumbled, bleary-eyed. Had the princess returned? No, the guard said visitors plural...

From out of nowhere, a pink puffball bounced into the room. 'Twilight!' it squealed, quickly followed by an entire spectrum of colours; orange, white, blue, yellow. Though she had been away for almost two weeks, Twilight still remembered what her friends and family looked like, and she managed her first smile in some time.

Pinkie Pie, eagerest of the bunch, jumped onto the bed and pulled Twilight into a hug. 'You're ok!' she beamed, as Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow gathered around, with happy smiles plastered across their familiar faces. Behind them came Shining Armour, and her parents, all looking impossibly relieved to have her back and relatively unharmed.

Twilight was so happy to see her friends again that she ignored the old aches and pains that the string of hugs brought back to the surface as she embraced each of the other Elements in turn. They offered their heartfelt feelings of gladness to have her back among them.

'W-we thought we might never see you again...' Fluttershy mumbled.

'But we never lost hope,' Applejack pointed out, 'Had ta make sure of that.' Twilight smiled. She had no doubt that the tough and dependable farmpony had stepped up to the plate in her absence, being the de facto second in command of the team, and done her best in keeping the group together and keeping their spirits up. It seemed to have worked.

Her family came next, with more hugs and gentle words, especially from her mother. Shining showed a look of pride that his sister had not let herself be broken by the ordeal, and had not, as she made sure to alert everypony, told the Changelings anything. They had all encountered Chrysalis and her brood before, at her brother's wedding, and knew the kind of depths to which she might be prepared to sink for information. None of them asked Twilight what had been done to her, what depravity the Changelings might have unleashed upon her, but each of them knew that she had been through something terrible.

A happy half hour was spent in light-hearted discussion with her family and friends, before the palace doctor arrived and shooed them all away. Twilight needed a complete examination, and the doctor, a frazzled mare with tired eyes, insisted that they leave, under the proviso that they could return later. Food and water was brought in by the two handmaidens, and after Twilight had freshened up, her wheelchair from the night before was prepared and she was taken to the infirmary.

The doctor, evidently being kept busy by having to treat both Luna and now Twilight, ran a full battery of tests, drawing blood, urine and saliva, checking for any chemical or metabolic imbalances that may have resulted from her two weeks of deprivation. She checked Twilight's eyes, ears, mouth, heartbeat, blood pressure, reflexes. When Twilight complained of a nagging pain in her back, the doctor ordered a complete x-ray series to be taken, and her equally harried nurse scurried to obey. Not military, the medical professionals were full-time palace staff, the lucky few who had survived the invasion by virtue of being elsewhere, either on detachment to another hospital or with the military, or as one of the civilians who had taken to hiding in the hills and were now returning in increasing numbers. The medical team in the infirmary would normally be three times the size; the others had not been so lucky.

Later that day, while she was back in her bed resting, Twilight's tests came back clear. Other than the fading symptoms of dehydration and short term malnourishment, some strained muscles, and general fatigue, the doctor could find nothing seriously wrong with her. A byproduct, perhaps, of the fact that Chrysalis had not used overtly physical torture, instead relying strongly on psychological techniques. When she did resort to pain, she induced it through the use of magic, rather than physical beatings, which stimulated the nerve endings without causing any lasting or visible damage to the body. The doctor made sure to stress to her that she should take it easy, rest up as much as possible, and get plenty to eat and drink to build her strength back up gradually.

Her friends returned to sit and talk with her again later that day, spending some time with their companion after being without her for so long. After they left, she had some more time to rest, listening to the drone of airship engines as some of the combat forces returned from the barren north. Twilight was fed once again, and as evening descended, there came another knock at the door. This time, it was another convalescent.

'Princess Luna!' Twilight smiled, relieved to see the younger royal sibling up and about. 'I'm so glad you're alright! I saw what happened...'

'I am fine, Twilight,' the princess replied, though the large swathe of bandages covering her flank suggested otherwise. 'It is most heartening to see you back safely with us.'

'I wouldn't be here if not for you,' Twilight sighed, as Luna trotted over and sat upon the bed. 'When you talked to me in my dream...it let me know that I wasn't alone, that you were still out there, you and your sister and my friends were all still hoping to find me.'

'We had no intention of ever stopping the search,' Luna assured her, wincing slightly as her sore body rested upon the soft bed. 'It is a matter of deep regret to both myself and my sister that we did not find you sooner.'

'How did you find me?' Twilight questioned her. 'I know I wasn't of any help...I just didn't know where I was.'

'In hindsight, your comment about the temperature was rather prescient,' Luna pointed out. 'But it was not us who found the Hive. It was the humans. Their spaceships apparently possess cameras of great precision and clarity that were able to detect what they suspected could be a pattern of artificial tunnels around the base of the volcano. They relayed the information to us, and so it proved to be.'

'You're still working with them?' Twilight asked, cocking her head slightly. 'They're still here?'

'Yes, Twilight. Our alliance is potentially fragile, but it still holds,' Luna replied. 'They are still on the planet, and they are helping us retake it. Manehattan is already back under our control.'

'Manehattan? Oh, that's amazing. A city of that size...' Twilight mused. Having visited Manehattan a few times, she knew very well how expansive it was, and how complex an operation must be required to capture it from an entrenched military force.

'They have also recaptured Ponyville,' Luna added. 'However...'

'However? However what?' Twilight blinked, eager to hear news of her adopted home.

'Ponyville was already heavily damaged from the initial invasion,' Luna reminded her. 'An operation was launched to capture both the town and the Hoofer Dam. However...it seems the human enemy managed to plant explosives within the dam and breach it as the Imperium forces arrived. The town was...washed away.'

Having felt only relative happiness and peace since her return to Canterlot, Twilight felt her heart drop. Ponyville was gone? Mentally, she had already braced herself for just such a possibility. After all, as Luna had pointed out, the town had come under siege during the initial attack some weeks ago. Damage was considerable, and under enemy occupation it was highly likely that there would not be much left of Ponyville anyway. But to hear that it was essentially wiped out, completely gone, all of her memories there swept away with the floodwaters, was a sharp blow for her to bear.

'I-it's gone?' she mumbled. Luna nodded sadly.

'I am afraid so. Only the strongest buildings were able to survive. I am sorry, Twilight.'

The destruction of the town but paid to the chances of survival for anypony living there, even if the Chaos occupation had not done that already. Applejack's family, Cheerilee, Derpy, Roseluck, Octavia, Vinyl, Lyra, BonBon, Mayor Mare, the Cakes...no definite proof, but probably all dead and gone, along with the rest of the town's residents. All of her old haunts; the library, Sugarcube Corner, Sweet Apple Acres, the Carousel Boutique, the town hall...all gone and lost forever.

'A-at least Canterlot is...mostly ok...' Twilight replied slowly.

'That is so, and most fortunate,' Luna agreed. 'But to lose an entire town is a grave blow to all of Equestria. No doubt dozens of similar towns have been lost, but Ponyville holds a place in my heart, even as I know it must engulf yours. I understand your pain, to lose that which you have known for so long, and which you hold so dear.'

Twilight nodded. Luna, during her exile to the moon, had suffered unimaginable hardships, being separated from all that she had ever known, from her dear sister who had been forced to banish her, from her home and family, for a thousand years. In the shadow of such monumental suffering, Twilight's paltry imprisonment of less than a fortnight made her feel ashamed to even consider wallowing in an ounce of self pity.

'It became my home,' she added plaintively. 'I know I lived here first, but...Ponyville was my real home. I found my friends there. I found my place there.'

'I know,' Luna nodded. 'I understand how difficult it is to find your place in this world, to find out what and who you really are. But what you are, Twilight, is not defined by Ponyville. You merely discovered the facts while you were there. You are a leader, the leader of the Elements. Your friends are still here, and you are still here to help lead them. The loss of Ponyville will not change that. I know you are stronger than you realise. This past two weeks has proven that beyond any question. You are here, and you are still yourself.'

There was wisdom in Luna's words, a wisdom borne of experience. Twilight could tell that she was speaking from experience, having no doubt suffered a similar crisis when she returned from her banishment on the moon. She had come back to face an uncertain future, with a distrustful populace and a sister with whom she had to make amends for her former barbaric acts. Twilight had none of those problems to deal with, merely a sense of disassociation with the loss of her adopted home town, and the lives of all those who had perished trying to rescue her. It didn't make things easier to bear, but it did at least let Twilight know that somepony else understood the kind of feelings she was having.

'I know, princess, and thank you...but...it's not just Ponyville. Ponies died trying to get to me,' Twilight explained. 'I can't just...airbrush that from my mind. I saw the bodies, I-i saw them suffer...'

'And I understand that feeling as well,' Luna reminded her. 'Ponies died because of my actions as well, but unlike in your case, my actions back then were deliberate. I knew what I was doing, and looking back I can see that I had no excuse for those actions. But you did not choose any of this, Twilight. You were not responsible for being captured, and you were not responsible for the rescue mission. That responsibility lies on my shoulders, and the shoulders of my sister. We are both here for you. If you need somepony to talk to about what you have experienced, then we will both be more than willing to lend you an ear, Twilight. Always remember you are not alone. If you feel that your friends would not understand what you have suffered or seen, then try your brother. He is a military pony and he knows what it is like to bear some of the weight that you carry.'

Twilight nodded a little. 'I don't want to bother my brother, he has other responsibilities to take care of.'

'But one of his responsibilities is to be your brother, is it not? It is a responsibility he takes very seriously, I know. Perhaps more seriously than his actual job,' Luna replied, which made Twilight smile softly.

'I guess you're right. But...' She glanced at the bandages that adorned Luna's flank. 'It wasn't just ponies I didn't know who got hurt because of me. You got hurt because of me...'

'I got hurt because of Queen Chrysalis,' Luna replied. 'Because my sister and I decided to lead the operation. Because I was weak. Not because of you. Do you understand, Twilight?'

Twilight nodded again slowly. The repetition was helping her, but she could not entirely shake her malaise, or those dark feelings at the back of her mind. No matter how much Luna or Celestia or Spitfire or anyone else told her otherwise, it was still her fault.

'I-i understand...' she muttered. 'I do understand, princess. I just...feel like it's not that simple.'

'Nothing is ever simple, Twilight,' Luna responded with a nod. 'And sometimes, the most simple explanation, the one that seems the most glaring to you, is not necessarily the right one. I am sure you will come to see what I mean with time, but consider this. We went into battle to rescue you and recover your Element, so that, if it becomes necessary, you will be able to use the Elements to defend all of Equestria. Some ponies died, yes. But ponies have always died to defend our land. That is a fundamental precept of our continued existence. If Equestria does not have ponies willing to fight and die for its ideals and for its security, then it will soon crumble to dust. I know you are one of those ponies, you and your friends have shown that willingness time and again. So had those stallions and mares who died on that battlefield.'

Once again, Luna spoke nothing but sense. Twilight knew that she was right, that she had not asked to be rescued, and that those ponies who had died had done so fighting under orders from the princesses. That was all. It was no different to those who had died during the flight from Canterlot in an attempt to protect the Elements. Yet somehow, this still felt different to her, more personal, more...visceral. It was not just the grizzly entrapment and death of Skybolt that was causing her grief, though his panic-stricken face continued to stick in her mind. She had seen a dozen bodies, perhaps, in the Hive, but she knew, though she had not seen them up close, that hundreds, perhaps thousands, must have died outside on the field of battle. Surely nopony except for the princesses themselves was worth such sacrifice?

Luna stood up from the bed, slightly unsteady on her rear right leg which was tightly bandaged up. 'I shall leave you to rest, Twilight. Please, try not to let your mind dwell too much on unhealthy thoughts,' she urged. 'And remember, I am always willing to speak with you, if you think it might help.'

'Thank you, princess...' Twilight nodded. 'I will...I will do my best. You speak from wisdom and experience, and I speak from curiosity and fear. I hope you do not think any less of me for it.'

'Less? Twilight, your courage is an example to us all,' Luna replied. 'Rest well, and ease your mind. I shall watch over you in your dreams.'

'Thank you...goodnight, Princess Luna.' Twilight watched her go as she left the room, closing the door behind her. She had some time to mull over Luna's words as she lay in her bed, the last embers of Celestia's sun fading in the western sky, Luna's moon rising clear and bright to replace it. With sound advice from both princesses swirling in her mind, she drifted away into the land of dreams and peace.

The moonlight shone down with a particular brilliance over Canterlot that night. The city on a hill slumbered, safe in the knowledge that the human enemy was far away to the south, and the news, brought back by the crews of the airships that now hung at their moorings, that the Changelings had fled their Hive. Good news had been hard to come by ever since the invasion, and it was greatly welcomed by the garrison and the citizenry alike, shouted around town by those with suitably loud voices as evening fell since there would be no morning paper to give further details.

In the time since the capital city had been recaptured, much work had been done to try and return it to a livable state. While there was still rubble in the streets and many damaged buildings, as Commissar Birbeck had noticed during his visit, many buildings had been made habitable by the continued work of military engineers and civilian volunteers. Apartments that used to house one or two ponies now housed six or more, in cramped conditions but in the dry and in the warm. Such places were spartan, with many fancy fixtures having been stripped out and destroyed by the occupying Chaos forces, but they were better than living out on the street. As more civilians returned from the hills, so more buildings were repaired and put into service as emergency housing.

Other buildings had been adapted for military needs, both as barracks in a similar fashion to the civilian housing, and for other purposes. A citywide command centre had been set up in the public library, while the overall strategic command of Equestrian operations remained centered in the palace, even more so now that Celestia was in sole command, her subordinate Chiefs of Staff being presumed lost after the invasion. Another building, a concert hall and theatre in brighter days, was now a storehouse and armoury.

It was this building that Corporal Breeze patrolled. The young stallion, a member of the Royal Guard, had signed on a year ago for adventure, but not for the madness and confusion that had resulted from the attack. With no chance of standing against the enemy that had poured into the city, his unit had retreated, escorting civilians out beyond the walls and to the relative safety of the hills. There they had lived in squalor until one morning when gunfire had echoed around the valley. Breeze had been on patrol then, too; he had awoken his squad leader and then hurried to a plateau overlooking the city to watch the most wonderful sight.

Airships and human flyers alike had been pushing their way through the enemy air defences in a brilliant firework display in the pre-dawn light. His squad and their civilian charges, some one hundred and fifty or so in total, had watched from the hills as the fight unfolded below, and soon enough, the city seemed to be back under friendly control, with the airships in position above. The next day, cautiously, a scout had been sent down towards the city walls to investigate, and she had reported back gleefully that the city was indeed liberated. A party of infantry came up to meet them later that day, and the squad and civilians returned home, never more glad to see the inside of those glorious, thick walls.

Breeze had remained part of the garrison ever since. With the human enemy cleared out of the city, hopefully for good, there tended to not be much to do other than patrol, patrol, and patrol- and occasionally stay in the same spot, when on sentry duty. Patrolling was the Guardsponies' most common task in peacetime, and, it seemed, in wartime as well. Breeze did not mind too much. Canterlot was both his home city and quite the most beautiful he had ever seen, especially, in his opinion, at night. When the stars and the moon glinted from the golden domes and spires, the cobbled stones were lit by reflections and the trees rustled gently with the cool breeze, there was nothing and nowhere else quite like it.

Breeze was happy to patrol the capital, as he had been before the war began. Then he had been on the lookout for vandals, drunkards, graffiti artists and drug dealers, not Changelings and humans from beyond the stars. Times had a habit of changing fast in Equestria, it seemed, but the constant chore of the Guardspony remained, as it always had been, patrolling.

His rounds took Breeze and his rifle to many varied locations throughout the city, depending on where his unit had been assigned on any given day or night. To his pleasure, they had been detailed for the night shift today, as it was not only a clear moon, but a full moon, and the city was aglow from above, just the way he liked it best. One of his fondest foalhood memories was on the early morning of Hearth's Warming Day, when he had woken in the darkness in his bedroom. After stumbling to the bathroom and back, resisting the urge to go downstairs and peek at his presents, he instead opted for a peek out of the window, and beheld the city in its absolute majesty as he had never seen before, nor since. Some time in the night, snow had fallen, a thick blanket covering the streets and rooftops, but the clouds had drifted on, and the skies were clear. Luna's full moon was shining down across the city, and such a glorious sight it had never been his privilege to see. What was special was that it was he, and he alone, in that moment. He had considered running to wake his parents, so that they might partake and not miss out on the beauty of the snow-covered city under a full moon, shining and glimmering and glistering, but he hadn't. He had stayed and watched for what seemed like hours. Whenever his warm breath would fog up the cold window, he would wipe it clean and peer out again, as if viewing it for the first time. The crisp snow lay undisturbed in the streets below; not a soul was stirring at such an hour, not even the mailmare or a Guardspony or the garbage collectors. It was perfection.

Canterlot was a truly beautiful city, and it saddened Breeze to have seen his home take such punishment from the invading humans. But most of its majesty remained, including the real jewel, the palace itself. The theatre around which he was patrolling was another gem. One of the older buildings in the city, located in the royal quarter not far from the palace walls, it had long been a favourite of those in the Canterlot 'scene,' those high-society types to which Breeze and his family had never belonged. Great plays had been put on there, including the traditional Hearth's Warming Eve pageant which he and his parents had attended on the evening before that wonderful snowbound night.

While tonight there was a full moon, there was no snow to be found. There was a little fog seemingly forming up ahead, but...

Breeze frowned. Fog? He looked around. Everything was clear, except for up ahead of him. Could fog be so incredibly localised? Something assailed his nostrils, and he sniffed, starting to trot. The fog was coming from around the corner, and he knew instinctively from the smell that it wasn't fog, it was smoke. Something was wrong. Something was burning. He trotted quickly to the corner of the building and turned. There was an alleyway to the rear of the theatre, used as a loading area. A bunch of garbage had built up, evidently in the days between the initial invasion alert and the actual occupation of the city. It had not been cleared up since, and now, it was ablaze. What was more concerning was that it was backed up right against the theatre wall, and flames were licking at the wooden cornice and windowsills of the floor above.

Breeze galloped back into the street and shouted as loud as he could. 'Fire!' he called. 'Fire!'

Alarm

Chief Firebrace sat cross-legged at his familiar desk. After the invasion, he had been among those to flee to the caves in the surrounding mountains for safety, and had been most glad to return to Canterlot, and to his post.

As a Battalion Chief in the Canterlot Fire Department, Firebrace had been, before the invasion, responsible for fire protection within a geographical area that encompassed half of the royal quarter of the city. A proud organisation, the CFD was established long ago by royal decree, To protecte the ponies, buildings and civic landes of Canterlot from malice of fyre and smokes, according to its own official charter. It had a nominal total of twelve hundred emplyees in peacetime, operating on a two-shift system, day and night, twelve hours apiece. Each quarter of the city was protected by two battalions, each operating several pieces of equipment. That was in peacetime.

The invasion had seen a crippling of the force and its capabilities, with many trained fireponies dead or missing, numerous firehouses destroyed and much of their equipment damaged beyond the point of usefulness. The 1st Battalion, however, in the royal district, was relatively lucky. Their main firehouse had, by some coincidence or miracle, escaped with only minor damage. The enemy had broken in, as they had with almost every building in the district, but had only damaged some of the more ornate fixtures and fittings. They had left the vehicles alone, perhaps not recognising their purpose or perhaps distracted by other things that would prove easier to mindlessly break. Nor had they damaged Firebrace's desk, where he sat smoking his usual pipe.

With much of his workforce presumed or confirmed dead, Firebrace and the units under him were operating with a mixed force, half trained fireponies and half military, soldiers detailed to their unit. A few, very few, had previous experience either in a military fire crew or from previous jobs in other cities, but mostly they were untrained except in the very basics. Restoring the fire service to some semblance of a working order had been a top priority for the princess and the military brass, as the city was vulnerable to fire. Many water mains were damaged, hydrants too. Damage to buildings meant a potential for more rapid spread of any blaze. Military forces, including the Guard, lacked either the training or equipment for firefighting or rescue duties, and it would go a long way, it was hoped, towards improving flagging civilian morale to know that they were protected.

Firebrace puffed on his pipe, as he had done each night watch for the past five years as chief. It was his vice, and despite his wife's insistence and the quiet irony of a firepony lighting a small fire several times per night to keep his own mind at ease, he had no intention of stopping smoking now. A map of the city on the wall of his office showed the scale of the fire department's problems. Red crosses had been drawn through inoperable stations, or those where no equipment remained intact. There were but a hooffful of uncrossed black dots that represented operational firehouses, with only two in his district instead of four. Not an ideal situation, but the department had managed in the past, through strikes, storms and avalanches, and they would continue to manage the best they could.

A sudden shrill bell began ringing downstairs. Firebrace leaped to his hooves, pipe quickly snuffed out and discarded. Unlike larger cities such as Manehattan, Canterlot did not have a modern telegraph-type system linked to a central dispatch office. Instead, each quarter of the city had its own alarm office that would receive alarms from street alarm boxes that could be pulled by passers by if they spotted a fire. Mechanical connections then rang the signal bells in those firehouses that were due to respond. The number of rings donated the number of the pulled box, and thus the location to which the companies were to respond.

Firebrace left his office and slid down the brass pole to the apparatus floor below. Other ponies were already there; those of his department, at least. The untrained soldiers were rather slower to arrive, some forgetting the pole was even there and taking the stairs instead. The bells rang out three times rapidly, then seven times, then a break, then four times, another break, and then once.

'Box seven four one!' the firepony on house watch duty, in charge of the recording of all incoming alarms, shouted. 'Both companies and the Chief. Everypony goes!'

The firehouse held two companies; Engine Company 1 was the oldest established firefighting unit in the city, and consisted of a four-wheeled steam pumper unit, pony-drawn, pulled by three ponies and crewed by a total of seven. One of the crew, the engineer, clambered onto the large apparatus. Using her horn, she ignited a supply of coal beneath the large wrought-iron boiler as the rest of the crew climbed aboard. The soldiers assigned to the unit slipped into the harnesses at the front. They would pull the engine; far better to have the inexperienced ponies pull and get tired out, leaving the professionals fresh to fight the fire.

The other piece of apparatus was the hook and ladder truck. A long vehicle loaded with equipment, primary among which were the selection of ladders that adorned either side. Also pony-drawn, the hook and ladder required another pony in the tiller position to the rear, to counter-steer the back wheels in order to make the tight turned required in Canterlot's old and narrow streets. It had a total crew of seven.

Firebrace, as the Chief, had a choice. He could ride with the pumper, the hook and ladder, or he could gallop ahead of both to arrive first due, getting a good view of the fire before the arriving units, enabling him to direct operations. As the only Chief assigned to the royal quarter, that was what he decided to do.

'Chief goes first!' he called, as the house watch pony opened the doors. The soldiers slipped into the harnesses, the crew were aboard, and Firebrace was gone, hooves clattering on the cobbles. He had no need, as the seconded soldiers did, to consult a map of the city to find out where the alarm box in question was located. He knew his district inside and out, and he had no problem finding his way. Neither would the two units following behind, he noted, because there was a sickly orange glow in the sky, and a notable amount of smoke in the air.

After less than a minute's gallop, and less than two minutes since the alarm was received, Firebrace arrived at the box. In his dark blue uniform and peaked leather helmet, he could not be mistaken for anything other than a fire chief, and a Guardspony rushed up to him.

'There's a fire in the alley at the back!' he informed the Chief. 'It's really going!'

Firebrace trotted around to check out the situation. Sure enough, a raging fire had engulfed a pile of debris, trash perhaps. It had spread to both the ground floor and first floor of the building, the grand old Theatre Royale. The building on the other side of the alley had so far been spared, as it was a sheer brick wall rising for three stories, and the fire had not spread its way. Firebrace galloped back to the front of the building just as Engine 1 arrived, the hooves of the soldiers pulling it clicking and clacking on the cobbled streets as they came to a halt. The crew jumped down from the engine as the ladder truck pulled in behind them, stopping in front of the fire building. Firebrace moved to address the crews.

'We have a fire in the alley to the rear,' he shouted. 'Get some lines back there! Exposure three needs protecting.' The crews rushed to obey, as a second engine company arrived from the other intact station within the 1st Battalion's area. A hose line was pulled and stretched from Engine 1, into the alley to the rear of the theatre, the location of the seat of the fire. Firebrace ordered the second engine company on scene to stretch a line into the building itself. The ladder company was to enter and search the building. A brief discussion with the Corporal who had approached him revealed to the Chief that there could be potentially three soldiers inside the building. None had been witnessed exiting the structure, and the potential existed that they could be trapped within, overcome by smoke. Potentially more worrying was the fact that the building, in use as a store and an armoury, contained both ammunition and explosives.

'Watch out in there, Chief!' the Guard corporal shouted. 'There's dynamite and a bunch of other stuff in that building.'

'Where exactly is it stored?' Firebrace asked. Normally, units would conduct building inspections of potential hazards in their area and would identify such dangers and their locations themselves, but with the Changeling alert, security had been tightened at all military installations across the city, and even the fireponies were not allowed inside.

'On the ground floor, and there's some down in the basement, too,' the Corporal replied. 'There's ammunition on the other floors, too!'

Seeing the danger of the fire extending to the other building, and the possible involvement of explosives, Firebrace hurried to the fire alarm box. The simple device would sent an alert to the alarm office if it was pulled once. A Chief or other officer on scene could use it to send more detailed signals. Firebrace did just that. He pulled the handle twice in rapid succession, followed by a short break, and then two more. He followed with his badge number to confirm that it was a legitimate call and not some vandal turning in a false report.

The 'two twos' followed by the badge number informed the dispatch office that the Chief was requesting a second alarm for the box. A regular second alarm would result in six engine companies and four hook and ladder trucks assigned, but the war meant that was an unrealistic demand. Instead, a second ladder and one more engine would be assigned, as well as the Chief of the other battalion covering the royal quarter, and the Quarter Chief, the next rank up the chain who was in charge of operations across the whole quarter, as his name suggested. Only the royal and old quarters still had their Quarter Chiefs; the others were dead. As the two engines on scene stretched their lines as ordered, Firebrace returned to check out the alleyway.

The fire was raging, and clearly spreading along the whole rear wall of the fire building. Though primarily made of brick, the exterior of the theatre building had many wooden features that were mere kindling before the flames, catching them as they rose up the ear wall and spreading the fire up to the next floor. Smoke was wafting down the alley and billowing up into the clear sky. Royal Guardsponies, who had been patrolling the building and guarding its interior, were leaving the main entrances, aided by the 'truckies,' the members of the ladder company, some with soot-streaked faces and bleary, reddened eyes. That meant that smoke was already pushing into the building.

Firebrace shouted his orders. The hook and ladder's engineer was instructed to raise the main aerial ladder to the roof, which he accomplished in a few moments, using the mechanical gears to turn and lift the ladder. Meanwhile, the first hose line had been laid into the alleyway by two of the soldiers assigned to the engine. The engineer was standing by, while another of the fireponies opened up one of the fire hydrants alongside the road and connected a supply hose to it. The steam boiler mounted on the engine was bubbling away nicely, having been heated by the fire beneath during its short journey from the firehouse. The water would flow from the hydrant, through the supply hose and the engine, where the steam from the boiler would power the pump that would provide pressure for the operation of the hose onto the fire. It was a simple system, and a lot more elegant than the proposed, though still far-off, mechanisation of the fire engines that was intended to supply Manehattan, in the not too distant future, with self-propelled vehicles that used the same kind of internal combustion engines employed aboard the airships, albeit on a much smaller scale. Then, there would be no need for the crew to pull their own apparatus, meaning they could arrive faster and fresher, ready for duty.

'Ready for water!' shouted the nozzlepony, holding the brass contraption in his hooves as he stood at the head of the length of leather and rubber hose.

'Start water!' the engine's officer ordered, and with a quick twist of the hydrant key, water began flowing from the mercifully intact street water main below the cobbles, through the engine, and down the hose line. The nozzlepony aimed the initial spray at the floor to make sure the water coming out was clear and not full of debris or dirt which might have accumulated in the pipes, before taking aim at the large body of flame that had completely engulfed the pile of rubbish. A few seconds of spray and he then turned his attention to wetting down the wall of the building opposite. Protection of the exposures had been the Chief's priority, to stop the fire from spreading. With fire protection across the city so diminished, a rapidly spreading blaze in the tightly packed buildings of the royal quarter could be disastrous and unstoppable.

A second line was quickly stretched from Engine 1, while the other pumper, under the Chief's orders, pulled a hose into the interior of the building. Firebrace followed them in. He needed to know what conditions were like inside, and he left the Captain of Engine 1 in charge of the exterior operation, with orders to pass on to the other units when they arrived.

Inside the lobby, there was but a light haze, and no real indication of the large blaze burning merrily to the rear. Here he found the Lieutenant in command of Hook & Ladder Company 1.

'Everypony out?' Firebrace asked, referring to the Guardsponies who had been protecting the building. Fire Lieutenant Coppertop nodded.

'Yes Chief, the Guard officer has accounted for everypony. The building's ours, but we've got fire coming through the rear wall, ground floor, back in the dressing rooms.'

'In you go, boys,' Firebrace addressed the crew on the hose line behind him. 'Straight ahead and to the back wall. Stop that fire cold.' They nodded and proceeded on inside, where the smoke was thicker, into the main auditorium. 'Any sign of these explosives yet?' he questioned.

'Not yet, Chief. There's a bunch of crates of all shapes and sizes back there. I don't know which ones are dangerous and which ones aren't,' came the reply.

'Then you'd best start moving everything you can away from that rear wall,' Firebrace ordered. 'We'll do our best to stop the fire from spreading to the interior, but it's already got a hold of both the ground and first floor in the rear.'

'Right.' Coppertop nodded. 'We'll get those explosives moved, Chief.' He trotted into the main auditorium, and Firebrace followed for a better look at conditions. The theatre was grandiose, the auditorium rising the full three-storey height of the structure, with gilded walls and beautiful frescoes above the proscenium depicting the royal sisters. It would be a shame for the structure, which had survived the enemy occupation mostly unscathed, to fall victim to a fire now, but of greater concern was the possibility of an explosion if the flames were allowed to progress too far.

The dressing rooms to the rear were heavily charged with smoke, which was seeping through the rear wall. Only a little fire was visible, fairly high up the wall, where a couple of the wooden beams were burning through from the outside. One of the members of the ladder company was spraying the pockets of fire down with water from a pressurised can, like an oversized fire extinguisher, while others got to work carrying the crates that were most in danger away from the rear wall, in search of the dangerous explosives.

With things well in hoof inside, Firebrace exited the building and returned to the front to check on things. The second alarm assignment had arrived, and gone straight to work. The second ladder company had climbed to the roof up the prepositioned aerial ladder of H&L 1. The third engine had pulled another line inside to protect the second floor from the fire still blazing in the alley, their leather coats and helmets hopefully providing sufficient protection from the heat, but not protecting them from the smoke. Gas masks would be of no aid, and so the entry teams were equipped with specialist self-contained breathing equipment, developed from old emergency packs provided for mine workers to provide air in the event of a cave-in or collapse. A flexible tube connected the mask to a cylinder of pressurised oxygen worn on the back. Each cylinder would provide twenty minutes' worth of air, enough time to knock down most fires.

The soldiers attached to the units were being kept busy with the less technical aspects of the job, including straightening the lines, while the fireponies operated the nozzles. The ladder company on the roof were hastily ventilating the structure by cutting into the roof itself, opening it up and creating holes through which heat and smoke could escape. By ventilating the building from the roof, it was hoped that the heat would rise and help to protect the explosives located on the lower floors of the building while they were moved to safety. If the fire spread too quickly, and the explosives were to ignite...

From his position at the head of the alley, Firebrace could see that, even if they extinguished the blaze in the pile of trash, which was proving surprisingly resilient to their water jets, the fire had spread and taken good hold on the structure itself, reaching the rafters of the mostly wooden roof and igniting them. Despite the efforts of the two hose streams set up there, it was still gaining headway up the side of the structure, proving to be stubborn. With all three floors involved in fire, more firepower would be needed to try and douse the blaze from the outside.

Firebrace returned to the front of the building, where the other Chiefs had arrived. A quick conference with them, and the handing over of command to the Quarter Chief, and Firebrace was directed to take charge of interior operations within the fire building itself. He returned to the inside, this time wearing his breathing apparatus, making his way through the auditorium. It was steadily filling with smoke now. The rear rooms were thick with the stuff, making it dark and hard to see. Helmet-mounted flashlights cut through the gloom. They were making progress with moving the crates away from the wall, but there was more fire visible coming through. The hose line splashed it with water every time it flared up, but it was burning behind the wooden interior wall partitions. The truck company would normally be opening the walls up with their hooks and axes to try and expose the hidden fire for the hoses, but the priority was protecting the explosives. With more personnel on scene, both tasks could have been accomplished, but with the heavy losses to the firefighting forces, tough decisions had to be taken with the limited resources available.

Firebrace spoke with Lieutenant Coppertop, who lifted his mask to shout out above the crackle of the flames and the roar of the water. 'They need to get the fire under control on the exterior!' the Lieutenant informed him. 'We can't open up the walls, not enough hooves to spare, Chief.' He coughed and replaced his mask, sucking in fresh air.

'Just clear those boxes away and then get that wall opened up,' Firebrace ordered, lifting his mask to speak also. 'Try and keep that fire in check if you can. I'll try and get you more ponies to help out.' Coppertop nodded and Firebrace trotted back out, climbing the stairs up to the second floor. Another line had been stretched here and was located in a doorway. The room beyond was a mass of flame, the fire from outside having evidently broken through the wall in such quantities as to have ignited most of the contents of the room.

'How's it looking?' Firebrace asked the engine's officer, in charge of the hose line. He shook his head in reply as black smoke billowed out of the room.

'Not good, Chief. We can't get in there, it's too hot, plus there's ammunition in there.'

'Any sign of explosives, or just bullets?' Firebrace asked. The Corporal outside had told him only ammo was stored on the second floor, but he could always have been mistaken.

'No Chief, just bullets. They're gonna start cooking off any minute,' the Lieutenant warned. 'Can't we get a water tower up to knock it down from the outside?'

Firebrace shook his head. There was only one operational water tower apparatus left in the department, and while he had a feeling it would be assigned to the fire at some point, there was no room for it to operate behind the fire building. 'No space for it, there's just an alleyway back there,' he pointed out. 'If that stuff starts going off, then just take cover and wait it out. Don't try and get in there and extinguish it. I'll go make sure there's proper ventilation above.'

The Chief left the building again, taking off his mask, finding himself coated with sweat and daubed with ash across his equipment and uniform. Quarter Chief Misty Morning was his target.

'Chief, we need better ventilation in the southeast corner,' Firebrace informed her. 'There's a roomful of ammo up there that's about to start cooking off, and...'

A sudden crackle of gunfire cut him off. At least it sounded like gunfire, but nopony was pulling the trigger. The flames had reached the crates of ammunition and begun a dangerous fireworks show inside the store room on the second floor. 'Too late...' he added. 'The fire is breaking through on all floors. We need more resources.'

'I've already called for a third alarm,' Misty Morning replied. 'But they'll all be coming from the other quarters. Can we hold this fire with what we have now?'

'I don't think so, Chief,' Firebrace shook his head. 'The second floor is pretty much a lost cause with all of that ammo going off, and we can't open up the first floor wall and move the explosives out at the same time. We don't have anypony in the basement at all.'

'Well, get yourself down there if you can,' she ordered. 'Get me a report on the conditions down there, if we need to stretch another line. Once we get more ponies here, I'll have them assist on the ground floor.'

Firebrace nodded and hurried back inside. He returned to the stairwell and descended into the basement level. Smoke in the staircase was minimal, but worryingly, as soon as he opened the door to the basement, choking grey smoke wafted out at him through the crack. He proceeded with caution, his helmet torch lighting the way. The basement was full of boxes and crates. Some were marked with the names of various theatrical productions or departments, but the further in he got, the more military markings he saw. There was an elevator that descended, he knew, from the stage into the basement for the easy transfer of props and equipment, and as he approached it, every crate he saw became a potential threat. They all had military markings, and had obviously been transported down the hoist. Of the greatest concern was the fact that some of them were marked as explosive, plastered with danger signs. Even more worryingly, there was fire, a sinister glow in the far corner of the room. Evidently some kind of grating, vent or duct had admitted fire, either from the alleyway outside or the pipe chase inside the walls, down into the basement.

Firebrace approached the glow. With such critically short staffing, there had been no ponies available to check things out downstairs, as they were hard pressed to fight the fire on two floors, even though, with the basement, there were four levels, as well as the alleyway. Around the corner of a large stack of crates, he found the fire, burning merrily among the boxes. His torch played over the crates.

And he turned and ran.

As fast as he could go, Firebrace climbed the stairs, rushing into the dressing room where Coppertop and his ponies were at work. 'Out, get out!' he roared. 'Everypony out, right now!' The ponies hurried to obey, dropping their tools and the hose and filing out of the room. Firebrace sprinted back to the stairs and climbed again, heart pounding. He found himself sucking on nothing, as his air tank was empty. He ripped off his mask and hurried to the ponies manning the hose, who were taking cover beside the doorway as ammunition continued to pop off inside the room. He repeated his urgent shouts, and they abandoned their posts too, following him out.

Firebrace galloped back downstairs, and out into the lobby. He left the building calling out. 'Take cover! Everypony get back!' As he shouted, he felt himself being lifted from his hooves. Something struck him, he tumbled, and slammed into the cobbles. Everything went black.

Twilight slept like a foal, soaking up as much rest as she could under the orders not just of the doctor and both princesses, but also her mother, who, before leaving with the rest of the family, had embarrassed her by fussing over her with her friends still present, much to their amusement. She had told Twilight to sleep, sleep, sleep, and worry about the rest some other time. Twilight had taken her advice to heart, and slumbered dreamlessly for hours.

Her rest was shattered by a loud crack and a deep rumble that shook her, quite literally, awake. She blinked a few times, her face half buried in the pillows. A dream? No, she had definitely heard something...and what was more, she was still shaking, or rather the bed was. An earthquake! She quickly sat up, rather groggily after so long in dreamland. Wait, an earthquake? She wasn't in the volcano Hive any longer, she was in Canterlot, not exactly renowned for seismic disturbances. But something had shaken her awake. The windows rattled, and something smashed into them with a thunk.

The room was dark, though a faint glow shone through the curtains. Luna's moon, no doubt, . Twilight climbed out of bed, feeling unsteady on her hooves. She had suffered almost two weeks of immobility, followed by a brief spurt of movement during her rescue from the Hive, and then another two days lying down, and her legs were not exactly in the best shape. She tested them out gingerly before staggering over to the windows. She leaned on the windowsill for support and took a peek through the curtains. She gasped.

A great plume of smoke and fire was rising above the palace walls, billowing skyward in the bright moonlight. It was in the royal quarter, somewhere around where the Theatre Royale was located, a place she had been many times with her family as a foal. Something terrible had happened. The window had a large crack in it, having been struck by something. There was an orange glow of fire, visible at the base of the smoke cloud. What new disaster was this that had befallen the city? She could not see exactly what had happened, as the palace walls blocked her view. She could see Guardsponies hurrying along the walltop, and hear shouts. Lights were coming on in the palace outbuildings as ponies, awoken by the explosion as Twilight had been, roused themselves from their beds.

It was clear from the rising cloud of smoke that something had exploded. Were they under attack? Had the Changelings returned, or had the human enemy struck from orbit? Surely not again, their fleet had been shattered, and the Changelings were fleeing. Twilight felt a sudden stab of fear once again, more from confusion than anything else. She didn't know what was happening, and that was never a condition that she wanted to suffer from. Knowledge was her currency, her desire. Something had happened beyond the palace wall, but what?

Chief Firebrace could see. He could see, but not hear. Not entirely accurate; he could hear, but only a ringing that filled his ears, like the shrill of the alarm bell in the firehouse, but constant, unceasing. His view consisted of the cobbled stones of a street, littered with dust and debris. Bodies were lying on the ground. He struggled to look around, but a sharp pain shot through the back of his head.

Somepony grabbed him by the forelegs and started to pull him roughly over the uneven cobbles that sank into his back. Firebrace was able to look around. He could see no injuries on himself; his uniform coat and boots were intact, but, he suddenly realised, his helmet was missing. One of the Guardsponies was pulling him; he could see by his armour. He tried to speak, but no sounds came out. Or perhaps they did. He couldn't hear either way, only the ringing in his ears. The Guardspony laid him down onto the pavement at the side of the street opposite the fire building. Firebrace tried to sit up, but the pain in his head and the top of his neck prevented it. Instead he settled for rolling slightly onto his side for a better look across the street.

The Theatre Royale was no longer recognisable as such. Most of the ornate frontage had vanished, strewn across the street along with much of the roof. An explosion, most likely emanating from the basement and the crates of explosives that Firebrace had seen with flames licking at them, had erupted out through the floors above and torn a great chasm in the structure. The remains of the auditorium were open to the sky and to the street, with the rear left corner of the building completely gone. That was where the explosive had been located. The wall of the building across from the rear alley was missing also, crumbled to dust by the force of the blast and exposing the metal skeleton of the building, and a dozen or so apartments contained within. Beds and bathtubs hung precariously from the damaged floors.

The carnage was not limited to the fire building and the structure to the rear. As he looked around, Firebrace could see ponies lying unmoving. Some were being dragged to safety as he had been. One of the engines lay on its side, overturned by the explosion. The aerial ladder of Hook & Ladder 1, which had been in place at the roof, had been ripped free and snapped off, and now lay across the road junction. The truck itself, with the remains of the ladder, had been shoved bodily back into the building across the street, causing a few large cracks to appear in the brickwork where it had been struck. Bricks and wooden beams were everywhere, all across the ground. Broken glass lay like a carpet across the street.

Firebrace managed to sit up slowly, holding the back of his head which still throbbed. There was pandemonium on the street, where moments earlier there had been a studious, calm determination and swift but practised movements. The firefighting force on scene had been shattered as surely as the structure they had been fighting to defend from the menace of the flames.

Firebrace's hearing was slowly returning, and he could hear the clatter of hooves and wheels upon the cobbles. A glance to his left showed that the third alarm companies were arriving, as another engine hove into view around the corner, a trio of fireponies from one of the fully-manned companies galloping hard at the head of their machine, sparks and steam flying from the boiler. There were others coming, too, ponies trotting rapidly down the street, Guardsponies from the palace coming to investigate the blast, rifles at the ready. Other units already on scene assured them that it was a result of fire, rather than any direct enemy action.

The engine came to a halt clear of the blast zone, and the crew set about quickly stretching a line to a clear and intact hydrant down the street. The guardsponies set about helping the wounded and reforming a cordon around the scene, the original fire lines having been undone by the devastation that had incapacitated many of the guardsponies present. One of the new arrivals approached Firebrace, seeing him sitting in an apparent daze.

'Easy, buddy. We've got the medics coming,' he assured the Chief, but Firebrace shook him off, rapidly recovering his senses and bearings.

'Forget it, I'm fine,' he assured the pony. 'Just help me up, will you? And find my helmet!' He looked around as the guardspony helped him clamber to his hooves. His helmet was lying some distance away in the gutter. He pointed it out to the helpful stallion, who trotted to fetch it, examining it in his hooves as he brought it back over.

'Sorry Chief. Looks like it got bent up.' He passed the helmet over. There was a large dent to the back of it where something had evidently struck it with some considerable force. That, at least, explained his headache. Firebrace tried it on, and found that it still fit, despite the deformity. With his identity as a Chief restored thanks to his conspicuous white helmet, he looked around for Chief Misty Morning, to obtain new orders.

She was found nearby, sitting dazed on the back step of one of the intact pumpers. He trotted up to her. 'Chief! We've lost the building...I don't know if there's still fire in there, or what. Orders?'

After a moment, she responded. 'Headcount, Chief...account for all the members of your companies, take a roll call. There might still be undetonated explosives in the rubble so for Celestia's sake, be careful. Tell everypony to be careful...careful...' she repeated. He nodded.

The companies under his direct command were those that operated as part of the 1st Battalion. Every operational company had been in attendance, and Firebrace quickly set about checking on their status. He located the officers of each company where he could, and asked them to account for all of their ponies. Each company in turn reported everypony present, except for Hook & Ladder 1. He could not find Lieutenant Coppertop to question him, but several members of his company sat on the kerbside with soot-blackened faces.

'Where's the Lieutenant?' Firebrace asked them, getting mostly blank stares in response. 'Don't know...' one firepony replied. 'He was behind us, making sure everypony got out, but...' He trailed off, the unspoken inference being obvious to all.

'Everypony else accounted for?' he asked the company engineer, who nodded. Firebrace returned to Misty Morning with the information.

'Chief, the Lieutenant of Truck 1 is unaccounted for,' he informed her. 'The crew said he was behind them checking if everypony got out. We might have an entrapment.'

'Damn it...' she muttered. 'What about injuries?'

'At least a dozen,' Firebrace replied. 'The Guard say they have medics coming in from the palace.'

'Call in a fourth alarm, if that damn box is still working,' Misty Morning ordered, picking herself up. 'Special call the rescue, the water tower, and the searchlight unit if anypony's crewing it. Looks like we might need them.'

Firebrace trotted to the alarm box, checking it over for damage. It seemed to be in working order, and he called in the alarm and the special call signals. Each signal, consisting of a certain number of pulls of the handle, alerted the dispatchers that a specific, specialised unit was being requested to the scene, in addition to the engines and ladders. A collapse was a very different proposition to a fire, and a collapse with fire still burning inside the rubble was different still. Which scenario they faced needed to be established.

Firebrace conferred with the other Chief on scene as to the course of action. There was still smoke rising from the ruin of the theatre, but that did not mean there was active fire. Chances were the blast wave from the explosion and the collapse of so much brick and wood had probably snuffed out anything that was actively burning, leaving just smouldering ruins. FIrebrace checked out the theatre. There had been significant collapse both at the front and the rear of the structure, with the only exterior wall still standing being that on the south side. Part of the top of the auditorium was intact, with, miraculously, the murals of the two royal sisters still surviving, and now visible from the street, a sign that the princesses were watching over their efforts.

The royals had always been big supporters of the fireponies, not only in Canterlot but all across Equestria. Every firehouse in the country had a portrait of Celestia above the house watch desk, and many also had one of Luna. Seeing their patrons catching the moonlight from above lent heart to the fireponies who might have been flagging or feeling fearful after the sudden explosion from within the building. A rapid search around the perimeter brought no sign of Lieutenant Coppertop. Chief Firebrace knew that, if any search of the interior was going to be needed, that the arrival of the rescue and searchlight companies that he had requested would be crucial in the success of the operation.

'Chief, it looks like the fire is out,' a firepony informed him. 'There's some residual heat still down there and it's smouldering, but we can't see any active flames.;

'We need light,' he muttered. 'Get those unicorns to give us some light!' He gestured to a group of royal guardsponies nearby who were helping with the injured. Without sufficient light it would be impossible to see into the morass of rubble to try and locate Lieutenant Coppertop, alive or dead. His body would have to be recovered either way, but if he was alive, it might well require an enormous effort to rescue him.

A few unicorns were able to light up their horns and illuminate the devastated structure. There was not a lot left standing, and most of the building had collapsed into a pile of broken timbers and crumbled brick. The thick concrete floor that topped the basement at ground level had been shattered where the explosion had occurred, but much of the rest of the floor slab was intact, which at least had the benefit of keeping the majority of the rubble at street level, rather than below it. That would, hopefully, make the Lieutenant easier to find and recover.

A team of medics from the palace arrived on the scene, laden down with first aid kits and medical cases. They set about treating the wounds of those caught in the blast, which ranged from superficial cuts and bruises to broken legs and possible internal injuries. Firebrace ordered the crew of the newly arrived engine into the smoking rubble, carefully, gently, using their flashlights and the illumination from the unicorn horns to try and search for the trapped Lieutenant. He had to be somewhere among the debris.

Care had to be taken by the searchers, as there were any number of potential dangers lurking. Parts of the surviving structure towered above them and might collapse at any time, weakened by the loss of so much structural support. Debris that had already fallen could shift and crush either them or the victim they were trying to reach. There could be hidden holes in the floor through which they could plunge into the basement. Undetonated explosives could go off without warning. There could be hidden pockets of fire that had escaped detection. But one thing was certain, and that was that there was a fellow firepony in the rubble, trapped. Perhaps he was dead, perhaps he was uninjured. Perhaps he was barely clinging to life; it did not matter. They would not leave one of their own behind, no matter how long they had to stay on the scene, no matter if a rescue turned into a recovery.

They called out to him, but received no reply. Even if he was alive, there was no guarantee he would be in any position to shout, and no guarantee he would be heard. As the fourth alarm assignment arrived, Firebrace directed them in to search. They were fresh and unspent, uninjured by the blast and not exhausted from the heat and smoke of interior operations. There was a torturous wait for the special units to arrive. Any major extrication operation could not be carried out until the rescue company with its tools and equipment was available. The water tower was the first to arrive, tugged along by four ponies. It combined the appearance of a electrical transmission pylon with the functionality of a pumper, being normally erected beside a fire building and used to direct multiple water streams into the upper floors or through the roof, with several nozzles positioned up and down its wooden structure, including a powerful one at the very tip. It was, in practice, of limited use in a rescue operation, but Chief Misty Morning had ordered it called in as a precaution in case there was any deep-seated fire still remaining within the building that could not be fought safely by teams on the ground.

The search teams conducted a preliminary investigation and found nothing. Finally the rescue truck arrived, pulled by three ponies and with a full crew of seven, all fully trained fireponies due to the specialist nature of their role. The rescue unit was a large box-like carriage that contained a huge variety of tools; axes, saws, jacks, pneumatic lifters and spreaders, airbags that could be inflated to lift heavy equipment, a winch, and most importantly, shoring and cribbing material, timbers for supporting damaged buildings during a rescue attempt.

Firebrace ordered them into position and to stand by to shore up any debris that might threaten the search team, or the victim once he was located. But time dragged on. The searchlight vehicle arrived and was set up, its lighting mast providing a blaze of illumination for the scene, aiding the rescuers in their grim task of sifting through the debris, slowly, carefully, agonisingly.

Every few minutes, Firebrace called a halt and blew a whistle, signalling for silence. Everypony listened closely, straining their ears for a faint cry, a muffled call, or even a simple tapping on some metal pipe below the debris that would signal that Coppertop was alive. They heard nothing. Half an hour passed. Still nothing.

Then, suddenly, one of the digging ponies shouted for quiet. Firebrace blew his whistle and a silence descended. The searchers listened hard, and the pony who had cried out did so again.

'I can hear something! Definitely something...tapping. It's regular...can you hear it?' He urged one of his fellows to listen, and she pressed her ear to the bricks that lay underhoof.

'I can hear it!' she exclaimed, and an excited murmur ran through the emergency crews. Something was definitely making a regular tapping sound, rhythmic and intermittent, repeating the same sequence. Water dripping out of a pipe would not sound like that, it would be continous, not have gaps in between.

The pony who had heard the noise first found a protruding piece of metalwork and called for quiet again. He gave three taps upon it; loud, clear and distinct. After a few moments he repeated his action, and then stopped, listened. He heard three answering taps, then silence.

'He's alive!' he shouted. 'The Lieutenant's alive down there! There's no doubt about it!'

Firebrace ordered the rescue company to prepare their gear and get ready to move in. With the lighting rig and unicorn horns shining, the fireponies and their soldier assistants managed to narrow down the location as to where the noise was coming from. The Lieutenant was trapped somewhere below the collapsed auditorium roof, almost directly underneath the proscenium arch where the motifs of the royal sisters still stood high above. Some frantic digging was conducted through the bricks and wood, being careful not to move anything too large in case it caused a collapse. When all the loose rubble was cleared away, a tiny portion of the Lieutenant's body could be seen beneath a tangle of metal and wooden planks. He was there, and he was within reach, but trapped a mere few feet from salvation.

The rescue company was called in. There were several thick wooden roof beams, not directly entrapping Coppertop, but in such positions as to threaten to crush him if the wrong cut or movement was made. The rescuers would have to cut through the metal, either with welding gear or with the rescue company's pneumatic cutting equipment, both of which were fetched from the wagon and brought to the scene.

They called out words of encouragement to the trapped Lieutenant below. He was in mortal danger, something that the fireponies experienced every day of their working lives, but most would never receive the recognition or the fame of the soldiers or guardsponies who fought living enemies. The fireponies fought the flames, ponykind's oldest nemesis, and her most insatiable, and many times they had paid the ultimate price. The crews were determined Lieutenant Coppertop would not join the long list of the fallen.

Into the early hours they worked, cutting and shoring and digging away. The rescue company made sure the fallen roof beams were properly shored up as the ladder companies tried their best to reach the Lieutenant. Celestia's sun was almost rising above the mountains by the time they dug a proper access route down to him. Coppertop was trapped, half crushed beneath a mass of brick. It had to be removed, carefully, very carefully, one piece at a time, like a surgeon performing a delicate surgery. Only one pony could fit into the space, and the smallest member was chosen, operating upside down, suspended from a harness attached by a rope to the tip of the aerial ladder of the truck company which had responded on the fourth alarm signal, swung out into the interior of the building to act as a belaying point. The firepony first, under direction from one of the Guard medics, administered several drugs through syringes, with the intention of keeping his heart rate from dropping too low, and to help prevent the symptoms of both shock and crush syndrome from setting in once he was freed. The firepony then had to pass one brick at a time up to the other rescuers, but finally, after infinity had passed, Coppertop was freed from the rubble which had bound him and crushed him. Now the problem turned to how to get him out of the hole.

It had to be widened, sufficiently for a stretcher to be lowered. One of the Royal Guard medics passed down more drugs, in the hope of keeping Coppertop alive. He was then withdrawn and the rescuers got to work once again, cutting and pulling and moving, widening the tunnel they had created as best they could. The huge, thick roof beams could not be cut or disturbed for fear that they would slide down and crush any life that still remained in the Lieutenant, or worse, that they undermine the structural integrity of the debris pile upon which a dozen rescuers stood by necessity, resulting in a potential catastrophe.

Now the sun was well and truly risen, not just in the sky, but on the ground as well. Princess Celestia herself, roused by the initial blast but remaining inside the palace at the behest of her security detail until the nature of the explosion could be determined, had made her way down to the scene of the incident, which was now swarming with soldiers, guardsponies and firefighters. Apparatus lined both cross streets that met at the fire building. The vast majority of the department's surviving units were at the scene, including the acting Chief Of Department, the highest ranking officer still alive, a mare by the name of Starfire Storm, keeping solemn watch over the rescue attempt. Celestia joined the Chief, being filled in on what had happened and what was going on.

As the morning wore on, starting to approach a vaguely civilised hour of day, the hole was deemed wide enough to proceed with the rescue. A stretcher was lowered down, along with the same firepony who had cleared the bricks from atop the victim. He managed to slip it beneath the form of the comatose Lieutenant. After strapping him in, he switched the connection of his harness to the stretcher, and gave a raised hoof signal. The crew above started lifting, and the stretcher rose up, free of the debris. They brought it to rest in a safe spot, and the medics immediately went to work on the unfortunate Coppertop.

To the observers outside of the building, it was not immediately apparent what was happening. However, it soon became clear that the medics were trying to perform CPR. The drugs and the speedy efficiency of the rescue had not been enough; there was no heartbeat, and the Lieutenant had slipped away before their very eyes. The medics tried their hardest, straining themselves to the utmost to revive him. They used magic, drugs, and an uncountable number of chest compressions. Almost another full hour passed before they gave up.

A blanket was drawn over the Lieutenant's ashen features. His face was not contorted in pain; if anything, he looked peaceful. The stretcher was carried out of the building, past rows of fellow fireponies, who lowered their heads and removed their helmets. One of the city's two surviving mortuary wagons had been summoned, and stood waiting. The stretcher was halted in front of Celestia, who bowed her head and intoned a short prayer of salvation for another lost soul, resting her hoof upon the chest of the departed Lieutenant for a few moments before taking a step back.

His body was taken to the mortuary wagon, and loaded aboard. The rescue had been a success, and also an abject failure. With heavy hearts and tired eyes, the fireponies left the building, returning to their apparatus, and returning to their firehouses. One of their own had been lost, a heavy blow, but they had, at least, prevented any other deaths or serious injuries to civilians. It was small consolation, but such was the life of a firepony, and such was the life of everypony after the human invasion.

Death was no longer just a possibility, but an inevitability.

Take It Easy

Twilight had watched from her bedroom as the fire's glow had faded away. She had remained, equal parts curious and fearful, at the window to see if she could determine exactly what was going on outside of the palace walls. She had seen ponies running and bells ringing in panic, and she had seen a medical team leaving the palace infirmary and galloping across the courtyard. She had watched as the fire department's water tower had gone up, rising above the palace walls, and she had watched as blinding spotlights had illuminated the scene of whatever was going on out there.

One of the guards protecting her had entered the room, reassuring her that everything was alright, there was nothing to worry about. There was a fire, he said, just a fire. And an explosion, obviously. But the fire had caused the explosion; it had not been an enemy attack, no strike from space or anything like that. She could rest, she could go back to sleep. There was nothing wrong.

But she couldn't sleep. She found herself glued to the window, watching the comings and goings of the guardsponies, watching the glow of the spotlights beyond the walls fade as the sun began to rise. Only then did she convince herself to go back to bed, still wondering what exactly had transpired. Eventually, she fell back to sleep, snoring gently, resting. She was still tired out from her ordeal, and standing at the window instead of resting had not helped matters. She was roused after only another couple of hours, with some breakfast, by one of handmaidens assigned by the princess to help her out.

She rose and fed once more, feeling better and stronger despite being woken in the middle of the night and having her sleep interrupted. The handmaiden didn't know any more than she did about what had caused the explosion, but Princess Luna visited her again later in the morning and explained. An armoury had caught fire and later exploded. There had been no civilian casualties but one firepony had died as a result of the blast. Sad news, but nothing to be concerned about, she assured Twilight. A full investigation was underway, but there was nothing yet to suggest anything untoward. Or at least, that was what Luna told her. There was always the possibility that she was withholding information, a wise precaution if indeed there were any suspicious circumstances.

Twilight accepted her words at face value, and was taken to see the doctor once again, who informed her that she was making good progress in her recovery. Her strength was returning, her minor wounds were healing nicely. She had been well fed and watered during her convalescence in the palace so far, and the doctor urged her to continue to eat and drink everything that was provided to her, as a fairly strict diet was being imposed on her to make sure she topped up on all the necessary nutrients and minerals to get her healthy once again.

Twilight was happy to oblige, as she liked following rules and sticking to a specific plan. She loved nothing more than making lists, and at least this way she could read through the list of exactly what nutrients she needed to take in, as prescribed by the doctor. She returned to her room and read through it, sparing a glance out of the window. Golden sunshine beamed in. She could see a few wisps of smoke still rising above the site of the explosion. A blast so close to the palace seemed an awful coincidence, but Twilight had no reason to think otherwise. She returned to reading through her diet plan, content to rest on her bed.

The Theatre Royale site had been cordoned off, with plenty of Royal Guard on site to control the perimeter. Only fireponies with the proper identification, and a crew from the Guard's forensics division, were being permitted entry through the tape. The fire department's arson investigators were poring over the site of the initial fire in the alley to the rear of the theatre. The pile of trash that had been stacked up there would not ignite of its own accord. None of the investigators were in any doubt. Somepony, or someone, had started that fire deliberately. It was too convenient. But who could have got into the alley without being spotted? There had been a constant guard patrol around the building, as well as more guards inside. Surveillance was good, with at least one guard passing through the alley every fifteen minutes. How could someone have gotten past them and managed to ignite the pile of rubbish?

The forensic teams and the arson investigators performed a thorough search, or at least as thorough as could be managed with depleted resources. Only two of the arson team were even still alive after the invasion, and the Royal Guard forensics team was made up, in part, of trainees who had not even finished the first six months of additional study needed to graduate from the special course. There were now no instructors left to teach it anyway, and only three ponies could be scrounged with any experience in the matter. Two were on active duty, but one had left several years ago and moved on to be part of the royal security detail. They did their best, and together with the fireponies, they found conclusive evidence of arson.

An accelerant of some kind, possibly oil or kerosene, had been spread. There were chemical remnants of the substance that could be detected, and the arson investigators could tell from the pattern of the burn marks on the building that the fire, initially, had actually been started in at least two separate spots within the trash pile, and accidental fires simply did not start at two different points within a large pile of junk with no electrical, chemical or natural gas hazards present.

With the cause proven beyond reasonable doubt, the search now turned to finding a perpetrator. There seemed to be three obvious possibilities. Firstly, and perhaps most disturbingly, it had been started deliberately by a member of the guard force, or by some other pony, intent on committing acts of treason and sabotage against the war effort for reasons unknown. It was not unknown in Equestria's past for such things to occur, but, given the scale of the threat facing them, it seemed unlikely to be the case here. It was possible that somepony had been bought out or blackmailed by some rogue faction, criminal gang or terrorist sect, or had their minds warped by the magic, seductive words of the human enemy. But the more likely possibilities were twofold.

It could have been committed by a Changeling, in disguise or otherwise, as retaliation for the assault on the Hive and its enforced destruction through volcanic eruption. Or, it could have been a human carrying out the task, either one of the small garrison which was helping to occupy Canterlot and protect the walls, or one of their Archenemy sneaking into the city, or perhaps having been secreted away in some sewer or basement until the time was right. Why the Imperials would choose such a sneaky tactic if they were planning to turn on their pony allies, rather than just demolishing the city from orbit, was unknown, other than that it would invoke the wrath of Celestia and a small case of sabotage might not; but it would also make no material difference in the fight should the Imperium attack, so why bother with it?

The most likely candidates by far were the Changelings or the human Archenemy. Both had obvious reasons for carrying out such an attack, and both could potentially have had the opportunity to do so, as well. Whoever had carried out the deed had left behind no evidence, other than the accelerant which did not offer any insight as to who might have used it.

Princess Celestia returned to the scene of the fire in the early afternoon. She was updated as to the progress of the investigation, but no real information had come to light other than the fact that it was, indeed, arson, as had been suspected. She ordered the investigators to continue their work, even if there was no real prospect of finding out exactly who was responsible. She had her own theory, no doubt shared by many of the guard and fireponies. It was the Changelings. It was Chrysalis sending a message. It had to be. It was the Queen, saying, I still have my assets inside your city. I still have my hooves in your plans, and you can't get rid of me that easily.

While the attentions of the pony leadership were turned inward by the sabotage of the armoury, that of the human leaders had turned south, to another city entirely. Baltimare was their next target, and that was where their focus lay. The pony raid on the Changeling Hive, while still a curiosity, had taken a back seat. Commissar Birbeck got no answers from the princess, and Lord-Admiral Marcos doubted he would, either, if he asked her directly. What mattered now was the capture of the next city on their list.

Baltimare lay to the south of Ponyville, down at the southern end of the valley where it spread out to join the plains. It was another manufacturing hub, albeit on a smaller scale compared to Manehattan, and had been the third largest city in Equestria before the invasion in terms of population. Evidence from orbital scans confirmed that the Archenemy had a sizeable presence there, and once again, Marcos refused to countenance a simple bombardment from the heavens due to his agreement with Princess Celestia. She may not have been fully transparent regarding their raid on the Changelings, but Marcos did not want to go against her requests, since they had been made reasonably, and she had kept up her side of the bargain so far, providing support to the Imperial operations, not least on a personal level, having rushed in to save Imperial lives on a number of occasions.

The battle lines had been drawn down at the southern end of the valley. Imperial forces had tightened the noose around the city in anticipation of the fight, but had been held back until everything was ready. There was no need to rush things; that would only result in greater casualties. Far better to take their time and do things right. That was his philosophy, whenever it was appropriate, at least. Sometimes greater speed was called for, was demanded, but there was no great pressure of time facing them here. This was merely a cleanup operation, sweeping the Archenemy from the planet, as they had swept him from the space surrounding it.

'How are we faring, General?' Marcos asked Jahn, who was now supreme commander of the ground forces with the death of Lord-General Galen.

'We fare well, My Lord,' Jahn replied. 'We are almost ready to commence operations around the city of Baltimare. Our blocking forces report that they are in position, and our armoured units are ready to the north. We shall surround the city with ease, and squeeze the life out of them.'

'As we did in Manehattan?' Marcos questioned, with just a hint of doubt. Manehattan had not been a cakewalk. Instead, they had run up against a sudden armoured thrust before even reaching the city, and then, far from simply besieging the place, they had in turn been subject to a siege from great hordes of Daemons which had rushed their lines several times, only being turned back by the intervention, ironically, of the pony princess.

'All the augurs read clear, My Lord,' Jahn replied. 'There is no indication of Daemonic activity in the city. I am sure we shall be able to strike firmly and swiftly with no complications.'

'Perhaps. But what if the complications come after?' Marcos replied grimly. 'We do not know what surprises these traitors might have in store for us. I trust you have advised all units to use extreme caution?'

'Yes, My Lord,' Jahn nodded in reply. 'After what happened in Manehattan, we have commanded all units to proceed with caution when approaching and operating in the city.'

Marcos nodded, though he feared that could potentially not be enough. The ways of Chaos were perfidious indeed, and could manifest themselves in any number of ways designed to confuse and frustrate. Enough of that fact had been displayed at Manehattan to ingrain it in the minds of every man and woman who now faced the prospect of capturing Baltimare. They had faced the forces and the machinations of Chaos before, to be certain, but there was nevertheless something different about fighting here, on this planet. Many had expressed it, many had felt it. Perhaps it was the simple fact of being so far from home, at the edge of the galaxy. Perhaps it was the alien and yet strangely human nature of the place; these Xenos spoke the same language, used similar military ranks, had cities that were reminiscent of Imperial cities, and the geography of the planet reminded many members of the Crusade of their homes.

There had still been no evidence, no proof and no explanation as to the origins of these horse aliens and their odd similarities. It could not be a coincidence, surely, their relationship to the equines of ancient earth, which had spread all over the galaxy, following in the footsteps of their human owners as they conquered world after world, faithful steed and companion to countless millions of cavalrymen throughout the Imperium's history. But nowhere else, as far as the historical records showed, had they ever learned how to speak or, perhaps even more remarkably, developed psychic powers of any description, let alone of the same power as the princess had displayed. Indeed, only a few humans had ever shown such potential and psychic aptitude.It was both a curiosity and a concern. Not only were the princesses a potential threat but there was now also the Changeling menace to consider.

It was a strange planet indeed.

Another night passed, with the fleet hanging in orbit above the lower valley. Baltimare lay silent below as the encirclement was completed, thousands of Imperial vehicles moving into their jump-off positions, ready to begin the assault at dawn. The enemy must know the attack was coming; there was no way to really disguise such a buildup of heavy equipment from view, and Baltimare was the next logical target south of Ponyville. It was always possible that the Imperials might simply bypass and surround the city, but the most likely course of action was that they would besiege it and then attempt to occupy it, as they had done at Manehattan. The enemy would be expecting just such an attack, but there was little else that could be done, given the princesses' insistence on the limiting of collateral damage wherever possible.

The city had to be taken; those were the Lord-Admiral's orders, and those of General Jahn, now in direct command of all ground forces. Commissar Birbeck, however, would retain command of the assault forces on the ground. He would direct each thrust and counter-thrust, every attack and diversion and feint. The men and women under his control had only one objective; the capture of the city of Baltimare.

Unlike the previous night, this one was overcast and gloomy. Though there was no rain forecast, there was expected to be cloud and potentially fog for the opening phases of the attack; not ideal for the use of air support, but it could potentially offer cover for advancing units, at least until the rising sun burned it off as the temperature rose. The men awaited the dawn, when many of them would die, no doubt.

Captain Mayner stood beside his tank, Big Beautiful Doll, in the dull light. It was, at least, not raining, giving his crew a chance to sleep in the dry. Cheyne, Janssen, Welks, Farber, and Dinnis, the replacement driver, had done their best to find spots in which to unfurl their bedrolls and rest. They, along with the rest of the 2nd Stourmont Armoured Regiment, were camped behind a low ridge where the infantry kept watch. The tank crews would need their rest; they would have to have their wits about them in the morning, when they would be part of the drive on Baltimare.

They had already fought at Manehattan and at Ponyville. They were tired, but they were used to it. Fighting was their duty, as well as their specialty. The Stourmont Armoured had been part of the ground force on almost every planet the Crusade had visited out in the western fringe, and had won high honours in the process. The great traditions of their ancestors and their home planet had been well and truly upheld by the Regiment; nothing less could have been expected. No doubt Stourmont, that storm-wracked planet of water and wind, would offer up countless more sons and daughters to the altar of freedom and Imperial expansion, fighting either until the Imperium collapsed, or until there were no more worlds left to conquer.

The Regiment's laager site was spread out, with several hundred vehicles parked up in defilade, out of sight and out of mind as far as the enemy's long range spotters were concerned. Though they may well have been spotted making their approach to the site, the tanks were now hidden from view behind the ridgeline, some dozen miles from the city. They were, theoretically, in range of enemy artillery, but reconnaissance hadn't seen any such weaponry among the streets and buildings of Baltimare. That was not an entirely reassuring thought, however, given their previous experiences at Manehattan. A huge enemy armoured force had come crawling out of the woodwork seemingly without warning, as indeed had several rounds of Daemonic assault upon them.

It was, at least, a pleasant night, at least for someone from Stourmont. There was a slight chill to the air, and the skies were leaden and heavy, thick clouds hanging over them. Some would complain about the temperature and about the dullness of the overcast night, but anyone from Stourmont would be most pleased by the simple fact that it was not raining. The brief spells of dryness on their home planet were celebrated and welcomed with open arms, leading to festivities in each small village and town that would last from a couple of hours to a week or more, depending on how long the weather decided to grant them clemency. Thanks would be given, at least in the ancient times, to the weather gods and spirits for their munificence in deigning to grant a period of dry conditions. There would be feasts, if there was time, and dancing, and music. With normal conditions so poor, the folk of Stourmont took every chance they could get to celebrate when the going was good.

The tank crew, and most of their fellows, lay on the ground atop their bedrolls, a simple folded tunic or perhaps a rucksack used as a pillow. Their helmets were never used for such a purpose; for the men, they were used to protect far more important body parts in case of sudden enemy artillery or air attack during the night that might kick up shrapnel. A similar purpose was practised by crew of both genders when not under fire but in areas that, potentially, could have been mined. Some would sit atop their helmets, others atop their flak jackets, in the hope that, if a mine was struck by the tank, the blast that would come up through the floor of the vehicle would be sufficiently absorbed or deflected by the extra protection to not cause significant damage to their vital parts. It was a practise borne more of hope than expectation, but hope was a precious commodity when serving the Emperor on the frontline.

Mayner looked around his crew. Cheyne was busy whittling something with her sharp combat knife; a wooden trinket, a tradition of the Stourmont people. Depending on the shape and style, they could represent anything from fertility to courage to beauty. Cheyne was a master whittler, a prized talent back home. Indeed, before she had been drafted, she had been a carpenter's apprentice in her grandfather's shop. The old man had served his time, having taken the Emperor's blessing as a member of the mechanised infantry for nearly twenty five years, and he wanted a better life for his granddaughter. Sadly, the Imperium had other ideas. The interior of the tank had been, at times, lined with completed examples of her work. By morning, there would be another to add to the collection.

Janssen, the loader, sat propped up against the tank, preferring to sleep while in contact with the vehicle, rather than on the bare ground like the others. A superstition, perhaps, but he was still alive, having survived battles that killed his friends, and his fellow crewmembers. A labourer on Stourmont, heaving the hefty shells into the breech was child's play to his strong arms. He was snoozing, content to rest. Nothing much could stir a simple sort like him once they decided it was time to close their eyes.

Welks and Farber, the two sponson gunners, were sleeping soundly. The thought of battle on the morrow hardly fazed them. They had been through countless others before, and, Emperor willing, would see countless more before their days in His service were done. Welks, the younger of the two, had been a musician before joining up, and often regaled the company, sometimes the whole battalion, with tunes on his five-stringed mandolin. Old folk tunes from home would stir the men and women of the 2nd Armoured into song, great bawdy numbers to encourage loud replies during a drunken furlough, and somber, thoughtful ballads to move the heard and soul and bring a tear to the eye of even the most battle-hardened veteran. Farber, the elder, had no previous profession. He had been a soldier since he came of age, and would be a soldier until he died, most likely. Very few pensions were drawn from the ranks of the Imperial Guard, Cheyne's grandfather being one of the rare exceptions to the rule.

Dinnis, the driver, was sitting up on the tank, legs dangling over the frontal glacis plate, staring out to the south, towards Baltimare. Though he was new to the crew, he was no greenhorn recruit, and had faced the prospect of battle and death many times before. The fact that he wasn't even trying to sleep meant something must be bothering him. Captain Mayner climbed up onto the tank beside him, taking a seat.

'Everything alright, driver?' he asked. Dinnis glanced at his commander and nodded.

'Fine, sir. Just thinking.'

'Any interesting thoughts on your mind, son?' Mayner asked, feeling a bit wrong at addressing the younger man as such, given that he was, indeed, not some raw recruit. Nevertheless, Mayner, as one of the older tankers in the Regiment, frequently took advantage of the privilege.

'Just thinking of home, sir,' Dinnis replied. 'If my calculations are correct...and they're probably wrong...my village would be celebrating its two thousandth anniversary today.'

'Well, congratulations to them,' Mayner replied, with a grunt and a nod. 'I bet you wish you were there with them?'

'Of course,' Dinnis replied. 'I can just picture them...my parents will be there, my sister, my kid brother, too. Grandpa will be playing his flute and they'll all be dancing to the music...' A nostalgic smile crossed his face.

'Well, you may not be there, but they're here with you, it seems,' Mayner pointed out. 'You know they'll be raising a glass to their absent sons and daughters. To you. And you know, and they know, that you're out here doing them proud. Doing exactly what needs to be done.'

'I guess you're right, sir,' Dinnis nodded. 'I hope I can do them proud, at least. That's what I want to do.'

'And you are,' Mayner assured him. 'Your record is spotless, you've fought long and hard and well. That's all any of us can do out here.'

'Do you think we'll survive tomorrow?' Dinnis asked bluntly.

'Of course,' Mayner replied assuredly. 'If you survived yesterday, you can survive tomorrow. That's my philosophy.'

'I like it.' Dinnis chuckled a little and nodded. 'I like it...I just wish it was always that simple, sir.'

Mayner couldn't help but think of Barnes, his former driver. 'So do I, son. So do I.'

'I can't help but have a funny feeling about this planet, sir,' Dinnis continued. 'There's just something...off about it. Maybe it's the inhabitants, I don't know. It's just a feeling. Something kind of strange.'

'I know what you mean, son. Not often you run into talking horses, I suppose,' Mayner agreed, though he knew there was more than just that. 'But it's nothing to worry about. That's all it is.' He hoped he was right, but suspected he was wrong.

'Yeah...you're probably right, sir,' Dinnis nodded. 'That's probably all it is.'

'I hope so, son,' the Captain replied. 'I hope so.'

A Bridge Too Far

As predicted, a fairly heavy fog descended across the valley as the night wore on. By morning, it was thick, limiting visibility to a few hundred feet in places. The assault was to continue nonetheless; the orders came down from Commissar Birbeck. The 2nd Stourmont Armoured mounted up, engines revving and kicking out smoke from the exhaust stacks. The crews prepared for action; helmets and headsets went on, hatches were closed and sealed, guns loaded, sights activated. The mechanised would be following on behind, as was standard practice.

Captain Mayner and his crew were ready, focused. Big Beautiful Doll was prepared for battle, all systems go. The orders came down. Advance.

Advance they did, into the fog. Out of the viewports, very little could be seen, but Mayner had a much better view thanks to his thermoscope. However, there was nothing to see. The plains ahead appeared to be empty. The city was out there somewhere, in the distance, still miles away, but getting closer. Their tracks cut up the grass as they sped onward, followed by the Chimeras of the mechanised infantry, supported on the flanks by other units. This time, the Stourmont were not in the vanguard, but were instead out on the left flank of the assault, part of the encircling movement that would secure the city and, hopefully, link up with the other Imperial forces coming up from the south. It was a relatively rare thing for the Regiment not to be somewhere in the leading line, charging straight into the midst of the fray. something that was both welcomed and frowned upon by the men and women of the 2nd Armoured in equal measure. Had their performance in previous battles not been up to scratch, or were they merely being given a rest, moved to a less demanding sector as a reward for good and loyal service?

The vagaries of those in command could only be guessed at. Perhaps the Regiment, having taken heavy losses while approaching Manehattan, was being replaced in the vanguard role by a fresher unit with more tanks and more personnel. That would be entirely reasonable. But then again, would the commanders want a vastly experienced unit with combat experience at each major battle of this counter-invasion to be sidelined and not lending their full weight to the assault? Perhaps they hoped to take the city more easily than those on the frontline imagined. Experiences in Manehattan showed that would not necessarily be the case, no matter how confident their leaders might be to the contrary.

Above the soupy fog lurked a swarm of Imperial aircraft, Lightning fighters and Marauder bombers, ready to swoop in to assist the ground forces, weather permitting. A pinpoint bomb drop was tricky when the target could not be seen, difficult when it could not be detected easily on thermal scans either, such as a gun position inside a bunker, and almost impossible when there was no other way to communicate the target's location, such as smoke or a flare, with any realistic level of accuracy. A stray bomb could easily do more harm than good and kill a platoon of friendly infantry instead of the enemy. It would certainly not be the first time, and while collateral damage and friendly fire was accepted as a part of life in the Imperium, it was still something to be avoided at all reasonable cost, especially with limited resources far from home and with no prospect of the fleet's stores being resupplied any time soon.

With dawn fast approaching, the sun would be rising soon, and the fog would start to burn off, improving visibility, but for now, the ground units were operating in the mist. Not only did it cut viewing distance, it also made things dark and gloomy for the infantry operating without thermal or night-vision equipment. The advance was slow and tedious, moving over open ground, wave after wave of fog banks preventing any kind of real situational awareness from developing. The rank and file were reliant upon their officers and their support vehicles to alert them to any threats up ahead; only they had access to any kind of scopes that could penetrate the murk.

Captain Mayner's eyes remained glued to his thermal imager. Staring at it for too long would cause eye stain and severe headaches, but most veteran tankers had adapted somewhat to that problem and were used to dealing with the side effects. If it was a choice between strained eyes and being dead, then there was only one realistic option to be taken. Big Beautiful Doll ground along, churning up dirt and grass in its wake, the other tanks of 1st Company spread out to her left and right. Most of Equestria, or at least the parts they had seen, had proven to be perfect tank country, and the area around Baltimare was no different. The gently rolling hillocks and plains gave a smooth ride, even in a tank, and, if there was no fog, would have offered excellent visibility while also providing the opportunity for cover behind defiles and small draws in the terrain.

His crew were ready for action, ready to engage the enemy once more and drive them from this place, this alien city, as strange as it sounded to say so. They were all willing participants in the struggle for this planet, both because their commanders ordered it, but also because it seemed like something that had to be done. Many guardsmen felt some strange attraction to the planet, even if not necessarily to its strange inhabitants. It reminded them of home, its capital city reminded them of images of Holy Terra. Its inhabitants...? Did not really reminded anyone of anything good, other than standard Terran horses. Yet there was something else about the place that kept the men and women of the guard muttering and talking to each other in their barracks and bunk rooms, whispers in the night about whether the planet was wondrous or deeply heretical. Opinion was divided, and the fact that their leaders had offered no official statements on such things did nothing to quell such speculation.

'Cobalt One Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual, sitrep, over.'

The vox call from the Regimental commander alerted Mayner, who picked up the handset and replied. 'Cobalt Alpha One Actual, sitrep normal. No enemy contacts. Visibility negligible. All vehicles functional, over.'

'Cobalt One Actual copies all,' came the response. 'Continue advance. Cobalt One Actual out.'

The tanks rolled on as the dawn broke, bringing them closer to the city, though there was no visual evidence to support that fact. The fog was still thick and hanging all around them, but it was not stopping them from moving. The rest of the company was with them as they pressed on into the gloom.

Contact reports started coming in from other units. Minor skirmishes were breaking out along the central sector, where the enemy resistance was expected to be strongest and where the troops were advancing straight into the teeth of the hostile guns. Out on the flanks, however, there was still a clear run. Nothing slowed them down, and they encountered to enemies out on the plains.

Mayner kept watching the scope, but it remained blank. It was unlikely they would run into any enemies outside of the city. There had been no evidence of large enemy armoured forces being present, and even if there had been, they would not risk sallying forth into the fog when they could not even know where the Imperial forces were. Far better to hold their line and try to defend the city, which was what they seemed to be doing, judging by the vox reports, although most units were reporting excellent progress through weak defences.

The objective of the 1st Battalion and the rest of the Stourmont 2nd Armoured was to link up with other Imperial forces who were expected to be advancing from the south, to complete both the encirclement of the city and the complete capture of the entire valley. The linkup was expected to be made at a bridge, a strategic river crossing some eight miles south of the city itself. The enemy was entrenched around it, and their positions had been hit from the air the previous day. Theoretically they were being pounded again right now, but the fog may have had something to say about that.

Mayner and the rest of 1st Company were making good progress over the sweeping plains. If his estimates were correct, they should be just about abeam the city itself now, where fighting was rumbling on through the outskirts. The sun was finally starting to show its worth and the fog was thinning somewhat, with shafts of golden light beaming down from above, shining through gaps in the clouds. Soon, visibility was returned to them, the landscape being visible from the viewports instead of just walls of grey.

Mayner ordered the formation tightened up as they cleared the fog. Now they were vulnerable, not just to those with thermal sensors but to any enemy soldier with a missile launcher, lascannon, or plasma weapon. There could be foxholes ahead, or trenches, or mines, that the aerial and orbital scans had somehow missed. Or, there could be nothing but several miles of deserted grassland until they reached the river, and the bridge that was their target.

Mayner hoped it was the latter. The tanks rolled on, listening to the litany of brief and terse combat reports coming over the vox. Everything was still going smoothly. As the regiment continued on over the gently undulating hillocks and ridges, the bridge came into view ahead.

Located on a straight section of the Mane river, the bridge, oriented north to south, was not like the smaller, older, stone examples of the engineering artform that had been dotted around Ponyville. This was a grand and modern structure, a sweeping steel construction that had to straddle not a narrow stream, but a broad and fast-flowing river, a good few hundred feet in width. The bridge was twice as long as that, including its approaches. It was a cantilever style structure, with two big, diamond-shaped metal latticework sections rising above the roadway, one at each end, with no girders or supports above the middle third of the bridge. As well as a wide road, it also carried two railroad lines, one on each side of the outer edges. Though there was not much directly south of Baltimare, the rail lines connected the valley heartland of Equestria with the coastal plains to the southeast, as well as, via a rather circuitous route thanks to the mountains, bringing traffic to Las Pegasus out to the west. There were no other crossings over the river for many miles in either direction, making the bridge, as far as the ponies would be concerned, a vital strategic location. To the Imperials, with their dropships, shuttles and orbital capability, it was merely an aesthetically pleasing landmark that the pony princess wanted captured, intact if at all possible.

It was possible that, upon the first approach of the Imperial tanks, the Chaos forces defending the bridge would simply blow it up, as they had done with the dam outside of Ponyville, merely to deny its usefulness to their foes. But on the other hand, they would likely realise that its strategic value to the Imperium was relatively negligible, and not bother with wasting the explosives that it would take to rig the bridge for demolition. They could be put to entirely more practical use, such as mining the roadway approaches. The bridge was, hopefully, to come under attack from both ends, as close to simultaneously as could be reasonably managed by the advancing tanks and their counterparts from the southern bank of the river.

'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to Cobalt One. Target in sight. Cleared to proceed?' Mayner asked over the vox. A crackly reply came a moment later.

'Cobalt One Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual. Affirmative. Proceed to target. Cleared to engage all targets. The Emperor protects. Cobalt One Actual out.'

'In we go, boys and girls!' Mayner announced to his crew. 'Keep your wits about you, remember your training. Remember Barnes.' There was a murmur of approval at his mention of their departed brother. 'Driver, ahead, full speed,' Mayner ordered, and Dinnis complied. Though he had not known Barnes personally, he was determined to make ther tank's former driver proud, gunning the engine and heading straight for the bridge. The tanks of the 1st Company were alongside them, ready for anything the enemy might throw at them.

'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to all Cobalt Alpha One vehicles. Full speed, combat spacing. Cleared to engage all hostile targets,' Mayner advised the tanks under his command. A rapid chorus of replies came by way of response and acknowledgement. He glued his eyes to the thermoscope once more. With the fog almost gone, he had no need for the thermal vision, and instead switched to normal viewing mode, scanning for any contacts, looking for anything unusual. A glint from a rifle scope, a burst of movement from a soldier hurrying to cover, the puff of smoke from a missile being launched.

He knew the enemy must be out there. Despite the previous air raid, which had left craters marring the landscape around the bridge approach, where the roadway rose above the surrounding terrain atop a base of concrete and clay, there was no doubt that Chaos troops were still entrenched. The raid had not been intense enough to have killed them all. If centuries of experience had taught mankind two things, they were that humans were impossibly tenacious, and that a hellish bombardment by artillery or bombs that surely must eradicate every living specimen within the target area would fail to kill at least half of any humans located therein. These conditions applied as much to the Archenemy as to the forces of the Imperium, and only a fool would approach the bridge with the assumption of the area having been cleansed.

Mayner ordered a reduction in speed for just such a reason. They had been exposed to view for long enough since the fog dissipated that the advantage speed might have brought them would be negated. There would be no shock value to the tanks simply charging in at maximum velocity if the enemy were already long aware of their presence and ready to meet them with fire and fury. Instead, they advanced at a more measured pace, rapid, but measured. Gunners and commanders scanned for targets. They found them. There were trenches and bunkers dug in along the approaches, pillboxes built upon the roadway, and even men up in the girders of the bridge structure itself.

Mayner scanned across the area. 'Looks like we've got company,' he muttered. 'Load HE!' Janssen opened the breech, slid the armour piercing round that was pre-loaded out of the weapon, and replaced it with a high-explosive shell.

'Up!' he called. Mayner picked out a target.

'Gunner, target is bunker, eleven o'lock, fifteen hundred.'

'Identified!' Cheyne confirmed.

'Fire!'

The tank bucked as the shell hurtled on its way. Along the line, the rest of the company started to engage as well, shells whistling across the terrain. The enemy lines had been pummelled by bombs, but they were still intact in a number of places, and capable of offering resistance as the Imperial tanks and carriers closed in. The 2nd Armoured formed a combat line, protecting the mechanised units following on behind. It was the men and women of the infantry that would have to actually occupy the ground. It was the job of the tanks to both keep them safe and to punch a hole in the Chaos line.

The shell from Big Beautiful Doll smashed into the heavy ferrocrete bunker, blowing a chunk from its exterior but doing no major structural damage to the well-built edifice, as indeed the bombing had not either. No fire came from the bunker in reply; were the crew dead? Had it already been abandoned? Or were they simply holding fire, waiting for a clearer shot or for the range to close?

There were other targets to be engaged either way, and Mayner ordered another high-explosive round loaded. The plasma cannons were ordered to target pillboxes out on both flanks, while the lascannon in the hull was to hold fire in case of the appearance of enemy armour which had somehow been missed. It seemed an unlikely possibility, but experience had taught the crew of the Big Beautiful Doll to be prepared for anything, especially where the forces of Chaos were concerned.

Mayner let the other tanks take the lead, as the Vanquisher was not designed to be a breakthrough tank in the same way that the basic Leman Russ patterns were. Their battle cannons and heavy bolters were far more suited to blasting their way through fortified lines and engaging enemy infantry. The vehicles of the 1st Company pressed on. An enemy trench line, almost entirely abandoned and suffering bomb damage, was crossed with ease. Las-fire flashed over on the left flank, not just small arms but something heavier, a lascannon dug into one of the pillboxes. Welks' plasma cannon in the port sponson blazed in reply, scoring a deep gash in the earth that had been piled atop the structure. The lascannon fired again, but several battle cannon shells from other tanks smashed the front of the bunker and stove it in, an explosion of pinkish-red fire bursting through the roof as the spare lascannon power cells detonated.

Now the bunker ahead of them was firing too, another lascannon that had been waiting for the right moment to strike. Its shot found another tank, one of the 2nd Company, which came to an immediate halt, the driver dead or engine disabled.

'Gunner, target, bunker, eleven o'clock!' Mayner shouted into the intercom.

'Identified!' Cheyne replied.

'Fire!' he ordered.

The shell struck the top of the bunker's ferrocrete roof overhanging the firing slit. A torrent of rock and dust cascaded down its frontage, at the very least obscuring the gunner's view of further targets. Other tanks had spotted the danger, and together, shells pounded the bunker until this time it was well and truly out of action. They moved on, bypassing the smouldering remains of the bunker line. Missile launcher perched on the bridge struts began to open up on them as they approached. Third Company drove straight up the middle, onto the bridge ramp itself, criss-crossed with barbed wire and a couple of train cars pulled across the road as a futile attempt to barricade the bridge. There were no mines; the concrete roadway meant that they could not be buried into the surface as they would be in earth or sand, and thus would be completely visible to the Imperials unless somehow disguised. But there had evidently been nothing to disguise them with.

The mechanised were now dismounting, and the advancing guardsmen began to pick off the missile crews up on the bridge superstructure, though not before two tanks had been lost to the plunging fire of missiles striking their vulnerable top armour. The lead tank of Third Company rotated its turret so the barrel was facing to the rear, and used its dozer blade to start shoving the end of one of the rail cars out of its path, pushing it to the side and exposing a way through. Ineffectual gunfire pattered off of its armour as it did so, a petulant and futile attempt to stop its passage by the few men guarding the actual bridge deck itself.

'Poison Alpha Actual to any Cobalt Alpha unit receiving on this frequency, over.' Mayner's vox crackled. Poison was the callsign of the armoured battalion pushing up from the south to cut off the other end of the bridge.

'Cobalt Alpha One Actual, go ahead Poison Alpha Actual. I read you in the clear,' Mayner replied.

'Poison Alpha is moving into position, approxmately three miles south of target. Commencing attack now,' the battalion commander informed him. 'Watch for friendly fire, over.'

'Cobalt Alpha One copies,' Mayner replied. 'Be advised, Cobalt Alpha units are moving onto the bridge from the north now, over.'

'Posion Alpha Actual copies all. The Emperor protects. Poison Alpha Actual out.' The battalion commander signed off. Mayner watched the lead tanks of 3rd Company climbing up the sloping roadway onto the bridge. More train cars had been moved from the tracks onto the roadway, and were being used as strongpoints, with infantry firing from within, including another missile launcher. The width of the roadway was designed only for pony-drawn carts and carriages, not for tanks and other human vehicles, and thus was only wide enough for a single Leman Russ to drive along.

Mayner ordered Dinnis to take up a position near to the bridge approach to cover the leading units. There were still some enemy positions on the river bank that were holding out, but the main enemy line had been easily broken by the armoured thrust. It was quickly turning into a mopping up operation, as trenches and pillboxes fell, overrun by the tanks and the infantry who were following in behind, moving in to clear the enemy positions more thoroughly on foot.

Mayner ordered the tank to halt once they had maneuvered into a position from where they could observe most of the bridge. The lead tank was waiting at the edge of the bridge for the enemy soldiers up in the girders to be cleared away, lest they drop grenades and explosives down onto it from above. The mechanised infantry were moving onto the bridge approach to do just that, though climbing the narrow and rickety metal ladders to the highest spots and clearing every inch of the structure that was not visible from the ground would take some time.

'Poison Alpha Actual to Cobalt Alpha One Actual. we have reached the bridge approaches. Enemy resistance light,' the vox message from the other end of the span informed him. 'Launching our attack now.'

'Cobalt Alpha One Actual copies,' Mayner replied. The linkup would soon be completed, and Baltimare well and truly surrounded. Mayner scanned the horizon for any sign of the tanks across the river, but his attention was drawn to something closer at hand. He reduced the zoom and saw movement.

Out of a trench which lay directly ahead of Big Beautiful Doll, there came a man, a survivor both of the bombing and of the overwhelming armoured assault. He wore the dark, blood stained uniform of a Chaos fanatic, and in his left hand he clutched a canvas bag by its handle. A satchel charge. He clambered out of the trench and began to run towards the tank ahead of them, which had crossed the trench to approach the water's edge trenchline where the final enemy resistance was dug in.

There was no time to think. The main cannon was out of position, aiming up at the bridge to support the push of 3rd Company. The infantry were still behind them, with another trench between them. The man was charging towards the rear of the tank ahead of them. If his satchel charge came into contact and detonated against the rear armour, it would likely be more than enough to rip through it and destroy the tank.

'Driver, lascannon!' Mayner ordered. 'Target enemy infantry, twelve o'clock! Make it count!'

Dinnis only had a couple of seconds in which to target the man and fire before he covered enough ground that the lascannon shot would have struck the rear of the tank they were trying to protect. He had a small window, but he took it admirably, with no hesitation. The barrel of the lascannon swung just slightly, followed the target, and flashed. A bolt of light leaped instantly across the trench, and the man no longer existed, vaporised in a heartbeat. His improvised bomb detonated with a loud crack and a ball of flame, safely clear of the tank he had been targeting.

'Good shooting...' Mayner grunted and nodded in appreciation of DInnis and his quick reactions. A tank and its crew had most likely been saved as a result, and with the bridge being taken from both sides, it was not long until the last enemy resistance died out, a few scattered fanatics in the high girders tying up the attentions of the mechanised infantry as the lead tanks of both Cobalt and Poison met halfway. The bridge was in their hands.

Baltimare

With the city of Baltimare surrounded, the push deep into its interior could take place, safe in the knowledge that the Chaos forces trapped within would not be receiving any reinforcements, at least not from the physical plane. Once more, the 40th Parvian Lancers were in the line, carried into the attack aboard Chimera fighting vehicles. Major, formerly Captain, Halix, the new commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade, led his men into the outskirts of the city. Halix had been Major Harding's deputy during the siege of Griffonstone, and the apparent death of the commander, along with his evident replacement by the vile Changelings, who had used his likeness to murder the Lord-General, came as a great shock to the unit. None of them had expected that anything had happened to the Major, but it seemed that he had been killed during the fighting for Manehattan, and replaced, almost immediately, by a Changeling- though whether by chance or convenience, or because they had a plan to kill Lord-General Galen all along, could not be known, especially since the drone in question was dead and their Queen was still at large. As Harding's deputy, Halix had been the obvious choice to replace him as commanding officer of the 2nd Brigade.

Having helped direct the defence of Griffonstone, Halix was now directing the attack on Baltimare. A pony city rather than a Griffon one, to be sure, but still alien enough, though notably more advanced than the mountainside settlement. Where Griffonstone was a city of shanty huts and simple structures, Baltimare, like Manehattan, was reminiscent of countless Imperial cities across the galaxy. It was not a towering Hive, but rather a complex industrial city, with scattered outskirts that gave way to a wide ring of large accommodation blocks and apartment buildings, designed to house the workers at the many factories that made up much of the city. At the centre was a business and recreation district, the homes of the fashionable and rich, and the civic buildings which breathed life into every pony settlement; the town hall, the rail transit station, the museums, the theatres, bars and restaurants.

There were enemies here, to be sure; so the orbital scans had indicated. The city could not be bombarded due to the agreement with the Xenos princess, which meant that, yet again, men and women of the Imperial Guard would have to put their lives on the line to try and clear and capture the place instead. Halix was growing tired of it, but then he was growing tired of serving his Emperor in general. The Crusade alone had been long enough for any man, to say nothing of his decade of service before that, year after year spent away from his family, from his wife and his two children. Each day when he awoke, he thought of them all, and each night before he slept, he feared that he would never see them again, for life in the Emperor's service was never certain.

Nevertheless, he had a job to do, and he would carry it out as he did every day. The infantry had dismounted from their carriers, but Major Halix remained in his Salamander command vehicle; a necessity, given its vox capabilities. As Brigade commander he needed to keep in touch with each unit under his remit, to hear their reports and to issue orders. The 2nd Brigade, along with the rest of the Parvian Lancers, and several other Regiments, were pushing into the northern outskirts of Baltimare, moving through the houses and streets. While the city was smaller than Manehattan, it was still a sizeable settlement, and it would be no simple matter to wrest it from enemy hands.

There had been initial resistance, an outer ring of trenches dug by the Chaos forces around the perimeter of Baltimare. The armour at the head of the assault had overcome the obstacle easily, pushing through and into the streets. The infantry following on had cleared the trenches and dugouts of the first line, suffering only minor casualties in the process as they pushed through to support the tanks. The armour would need close escort as they entered the city itself, being a prime setup for ambushes from high buildings or sewer grates.

The Brigade, and the rest of the Parvian Lancers, were somewhat understrength, as many members of the Regiment, including Sergeant Argan, were still recuperating from their injuries sustained during the flooding of Ponyville; immersion and exposure, broken bones and internal injuries from being bashed against buildings and street furniture as they were swept away. But there were more than enough to form an efficient fighting force, and with other infantry units in support and the tanks leading the way, the 2nd Brigade made their advance into the city outskirts.

Low buildings, houses, reminded many of the men of the similar landscape at the edge of Manehattan. They also keenly remembered what they had run into in just such a neighbourhood; a torrent of Daemons, charging ravenously at them through the street. Nobody was in a hurry to suffer from a repeat of that experience, and every head was on a swivel, looking for the first signs and symptoms of a possible Daemonic infestation that might rise to greet them at every turn.

There was gunfire ahead, as the lead units ran into more enemy resistance. Las-fire flashed from both sides, as the tanks engaged the Chaos positions. The Parvians' 2nd Brigade moved up. Captain Halix and his scout car command vehicle hung back, monitoring, observing, not getting too close to the frontline itself. The Salamander was not a combat vehicle, armed only with a heavy bolter on a pintle mount for self defence. It had thin armour and would not stand up to a concerted attack, nor was it designed to. The command variant especially was meant to stay clear of the heavy fighting and direct others to do its bidding instead. That was exactly what Captain Halix was making sure to do. Only a foolish Brigade commander would seek to lead from the very front. That was the job of the platoon and company officers, to stick their necks out, the lead the charge and set the example. Senior staff had the broader picture to consider and could not simply throw themselves into the fray blindly.

Contact reports came in through the vox network and data links in the Salamander. There was a lot to process, and the command staff laboured to interpret it. The upside of the Salamander was that it was fast, maneuverable, and offered protection from small arms fire that would not be the case for a command squad on foot. The downside was that it only had room for a couple of men, not the whole platoon that would normally accompany a Brigade commander. They were following on in other, similar vehicles, with the protection unit attached to them mounted in a Chimera as escort. It was inconvenient, but necessary, as it precluded Halix and his staff from having to find a protected building away from the fighting to use as a command centre, which, while good for defence, was not good during a mobile assault operation. They needed to keep up with the advance, which was where the Salamander excelled in its role.

Keep up they did, staying behind the fighting front but well within vox range, and visual range too, at least while in the outskirts. As the advance continued they would enter the terrain of five and six-storey accommodation buildings and large, cavernous factories and warehouses, and then beyond that there would be the tall buildings of the city centre. Vox communication was likely to be disrupted somewhat with his frontline units by the buildings, which would distort or block the signal. Strategic communication with other Regiments and with high command would not suffer in the same way, however, as those signals were either bounced off of relays on the fleet in orbit, or transmitted directly to the ships themselves. Halix would at least be able to receive orders, even if not necessarily transmit them to his subordinate units so easily.

Up ahead was a rail yard, as the suburbs gave way to more industrialised districts. Fighting was already breaking out there, as reports reached Halix of enemies using freight railcars as pillboxes, laden with sandbags and barbed wire. The tanks could not advance cleanly through such a location, as it was littered with train cars, buffers, switching gear and small outbuildings from which an enemy with a melta bomb or missile launcher could appear at any moment to spring an ambush on them. The tank's company commander informed Halix over the vox that he was halting his vehicles at the edge of the yard and awaiting the infantry to push up and begin the advance.

Halix ordered two companies forward to support the tanks, and to leapfrog then into the attack. The rail yard was not overly large, but it was an obstacle that had to be overcome before they could advance any further. With the tanks keeping up a pounding hail of supporting fire, the men moved into position and into the railyard. There was ample cover, with plenty of large goods wagons and coal hoppers parked about. The few fortified enemy positions closest to their advance were pummeled by heavy bolter rounds, shredding the wooden sides of the railcars and those occupying them. A large engine shed at one end of the yard was another strongpoint, with a hail of las-fire and stubber rounds coming from it. There were men up on overhead gantries, too, and service cranes were perches for snipers. The tanks could not engage every target at once, meaning the men of the 2nd Brigade would have to deal with many of the threats themselves. They proved themselves up to the challenge, with pinpoint return fire cutting down enemy soldiers both high and low.

The tanks turned their focus onto the engine shed and the enemies defending it, suppressing their fire while the Parvians moved up, getting amongst the railcars, using them for cover and pushing forward slowly, picking off enemies as they showed their heads. There was no sign of any enemy reinforcements coming in to aid their brothers in the defence of the railyard. Halix ordered a third company into the fray for support, and with the aid of concentrated tank fire that shattered most of the structure, the engine shed was cleared. The men entering had been expecting hand to hand fighting, but most of the Chaos troops inside were already dead or dying. They finished off the living and put the wounded out of their misery before continuing on across the tracks. With the fog finally clearing up, visibility improved far enough to see beyond the rail yard.

There was a small rise to climb at the other side, an earthen embankment that proved momentarily tricky to scale, but no hazard to the tanks which followed, climbing up like a mountain goat, sure footed. Beyond the railyard lay a deserted road and then an eclectic collection of industrial facilities. There was a lumber yard, some kind of dye works, a warehouse and a distillery. There was also no sign of enemy activity within any of them.

A cautious advance was initiated, with the infantry companies working in close cooperation with the tanks. Both relied on each other in urban combat, and that remained the same whether fighting on Armageddon, on Cadia, or here, on this strange Xenos planet with disturbingly familiar architecture and infrastructure. There were cities like this on Parvia; there were cities like this on a million Imperial worlds, a mixture of light and heavy industry with residential buildings and an inner core of commerce and leisure. Some guardsmen, from less or more developed worlds, would never have seen anything quite like it; a Hive city dweller or a resident of an ecumenopolis, one of those worlds where the entire surface was covered by buildings, would marvel at the open space and air, at the wide streets and big skies overhead. On the other hand, someone from a feudal or garden world would balk at being subject to the relatively strict confines of a city of such size, bigger than anything they had seen on their homeworld.

Regardless of how they may have felt about the city, however, the guardsmen continued to advance through Baltimare. The warehouse was cleared; it was full of mattresses, with a notable number missing, presumably used by the occupation forces for bedding. The lumber yard was empty, and the dye works was abandoned. The distillery, however, was not.

The first man through the door received a las-round straight through his forehead. The enemy within had not revealed their presence, either through cunning strategy designed to lure the Imperials into an ambush, or, a distinct possibility, because they had been mostly too drunk to even notice the attack unfolding. Despite the early hour, most, if not all, of the building's garrison, those lucky few chosen to guard the one building of interest to a soldier, had been partaking in whatever could be found around the place after previous occupants had had their way with it. Roused perhaps by the cajoling of their officers, the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the railyard, or the kicking in of the front door of the building, they were now ready to fight, if perhaps still a little unsteady on their feet.

The distillery was a five-storey structure, at least on the outside. Inside, much of the space was taken up by two large rooms, one for storage, and the other containing the vats and other equipment needed to produce whatever alien liquor the ponies churned out to give themselves a legal high. Evidently it was just as effective and non-lethal to humans, judging by the state of the enemy who occupied it and the number of empty bottles and containers left scattered around. The Parvians pushed in through the front entrance, the side entrance and the rear loading dock, tackling the problem from three sides. The interior was a mass of crates, barrels, walkways and great metal cylinders and vats, used for the distillation of the substance, obviously a favourite of Equestrian society given the size of the operation and the number of vats. The enemy were occuping the upper floors and the catwalks in the main rooms, giving them an advantage of height. But the Imperials had the advantage in both firepower and numbers, with more men pouring into the brewery, intent on clearing it of every last vestige of Chaos presence.

It would not be so simple, however. Grenades rained down from above, killing several men with their blasts and smashing open many bottles of the liquor. Incendiary grenades from above then ignited the alcohol, sending men running screaming from the building, their uniforms ablaze. Gunfire brought down the grenade throwers in short order, but they had already done plenty of damage. The flames blocked the advance of men coming from the side door. Those from the loading bay found themselves in the storage room, where crates were stacked high and barrels sat in racks. Many had been tapped and drained by the occupying forces for their own enjoyment. The heavy oak casks also provided good cover, with men firing from behind them, from around the stacks and over the crates. The guardsmen took cover as well, returning fire as a fierce gun battle developed inside the store room.

Meanwhile out at the front entrance, more guardsmen were forcing an entry to support their fellows, taking several casualties but making it inside. The tanks could not aid them; firing at the structure would inevitable result in friendly losses, as the gunners had no way of knowing where friendly and enemy lay within. They had to sit and wait while the battle was fought inside, at close range, hand to hand. The windows of the distillery were lit up by the flashes of lasfire from within as the guardsmen struggled with their opposite numbers, their traitors and deserters, their very antithesis writ large. No disciplined, well trained body of men were these, rather a disorganised, drunken rabble, everything that the Imperial Guard, in most cases, was not.

Their training told true. Floor by floor and room by room, the enemy were cleared from the distillery, ruthlessly cut down by the discipline and good aim of the Parvian Lancers. The last holdouts retreated to the attic of the structure, hiding up in the cockloft and in the rafters. Rather than waste lives going after them, the guard evacuated the building. Now the tank gunners got a chance to shine. Only one section of the building rose up to the sloping roof that contained the attic; the majority of the structure was the equivalent of three stories high. That marked the target clearly for the tanks and their eager gunners. Within a few moments, the entire top floor of the distillery had been erased, and with it, the last resistance therein. The drunken, half dazed mob within had stood no chance against the onslaught of the guardsmen and their fire support. What tiny pockets of resistance remained elsewhere along the line occupied by the distillery and the other buildings were soon quashed as well, and peace descended, at least temporarily, over that sector of the city.

There was still conflict elsewhere, however, with crackling gunfire and the rumble of explosions audible from both the left and right flanks of the 2nd Brigade's position. They, and the attack as a whole, were making good progress into Baltimare, perhaps suspiciously so. The men well remembered the ease of their push into Ponyville, where they had been caught cold by the destruction of the dam, and of the emptiness of the outskirts of Manehattan, where Daemons had been the source of their problems, not once, but twice.

As if to immediately disabuse them of the possibility of an easy ride this time, shouts came up from the forward positions of enemy movement ahead, not just infantry, but also armour. Very few Chaos vehicle had been identified on the orbital scans, which was hardly surprising, given the number of warehouses, storage sheds, garages and other hiding places into which they could have been secreted. There were three tanks heading their way, Leman Russes to be precise, albeit daubed with nauseating sigils and defaced with the runes and warpaint of Chaos. An empty, abandoned lot gave them an easy route through toward the Imperial lines. They pushed in towards the distillery, crushing wooden fences under their treads.

The infantry now occupying the distillery were alerted by the sound of grinding tank treads. Some rushed to the windows on the south side of the building, and were able to spot the tanks moving in. They shouted the alarm, even as the alert was transmitted over the vox net. Lacking sufficient anti-tank weaponry, the infantry would have to wait for their own armour to move up in support. The enemy tanks were evidently unaware that the distillery was now in Imperial hands. Two of them headed to the left, with the other moving right, heading around the distillery, but coming face to face with Imperial armour as a result.

Well-aimed lascannon and battle cannon rounds came from several of the Imperial tanks, waiting in ambush thanks to the alert transmitted and the precise locations of the enemy relayed by the forces in the distillery. One of the Chaos vehicles was knocked out immediately, smoke billowing from its turret as one or two of the crew tried to bail out. The other tank following along behind it drove forward, either oblivious to them or deliberately ignoring them, as it simply ran them over in the narrow street. There was little room for it to move out of the way even if the crew had the desire to do so. Its main gun roared, a shot bouncing off of the glacis plate of one of the Imperial tanks. Several rounds came right back at it, and stopped it cold, its left track clanking as it was severed by shrapnel and dropped unceremoniously off of the bearings. The tank slewed to a halt, but its gun fired again, this time driving home into the armour of one of the Imperial tanks, slicing right through its gunner and spraying his guts all over the rear turret wall.

In response, a lascannon shot punched through the turret of the Chaos tank, and smoke began to pour from every hatch and opening as it began to burn inside. The tank on the other side of the distillery building cut down a few unfortunate guardsmen with its heavy bolters, speakers mounted to its turret blaring with Chaos chants as it rolled into battle. The Imperial tanks were ready for it, and almost as soon as it appeared in the street it was destroyed by a pair of pinpoint cannon shells that smashed the turret and the driver's position. It rolled slowly to a stop, the foul chants still looping on repetition until some enterprising guardsmen destroyed the speakers with lasfire.

With the enemy tanks gone, nothing more came their way. The Imperial armour, supported by the Parvians, began to move again, deeper into the city. They moved through the streets of Baltimare. Some were cobbled, like those in Canterlot, and some were wider, like the roads in Manehattan. It was a curious and somewhat eclectic mixture of two or more cities in one, in terms of architecture too. Some of the factory buildings shared their aesthetic with the more rustic designs of Ponyville, some with the rough and ready Manehattan industrial style. All the buildings had one thing in common; they were empty.

Street after street was passed and cleared, with no sign of the enemy. Apart from the outer ring of defences around the city in the outskirts and the fringes of the industrial area, there was nothing to be seen. While this greatly pleased the men on the ground, it was concerning to their commanders. The orbital scans and aerial imagery had indicated a significant, though not vast, enemy force present in Baltimare. There were not as many as had been in Manehattan, but a goodly number nevertheless judging by the intelligence reports. So where were they?

As more and more units broke through the outer crust of defences and pushed into different sectors of the city, they all reported the same conditions. Empty streets, empty buildings. No contacts, no civilians, no enemies, nothing. No life, save a few stray dogs wandering about looking for sustenance. The absence of the enemy was perplexing. The city was surrounded, and had been since the last recon images were taken. There was no way the Chaos forces could have slipped through the net. There was no road or rail line that was unobserved, no sector of countryside unguarded by the blocking forces. The maps and plans provided by the pony government in Canterlot had not shown any underground tunnels that led outside of the city limits. So where were they?

To Commissar Birbeck, in command of the ground operation, the answer seemed clear; it did not matter where they were. Pressing on was the obvious, and only, course of action. If the enemy had gone, then the city was theirs, and if they remained, then it would be as expected. A fight would ensue, they would win the day, and take the city anyway. But to high command, something did not sit right. If the enemy were still present, as would have to be assumed, then they could well be setting up a large scale ambush, into which the men were walking, in the city centre and the inner sections of town. The nature of the urban landscape meant it was almost impossible to get a clear idea of where exactly the enemy was located. But the fear of an ambush from human forces was not what concerned the high command the most. A repetition of the Daemonic incursion that had occured in Manehattan might prove devastating, to morale if nothing else. There was debate over the correct course of action, but as the units advanced deeper in, still with no enemy contact, suspicions grew; fraught nerves toyed with the choices at hand.

Major Halix received a message over the vox, being broadcast net-wide. 'All units, all units, by orders of High Command, execute general retreat to Phase Line Alpha. I say again, execute general retreat to Phase Line Alpha, over.' Halix frowned. A retreat? Now? Why? His advance units had reported no enemy contacts, and they had pushed a good couple of miles into the city's industrial districts. Phase Line Alpha was the initial jump-off point for the attack, just outside of the city limits, and turning tail now would leave a disquieting taste in everybody's mouths. Nevertheless, an order was an order, and Halix relayed it to the men under his command.

From the back of his open-topped Salamander, he could see them trudging back toward the outskirts, confused and questioning. As far as they were concerned, the attack had been going smoothly. As far as Halix was concerned, that had been the case, too. He had no idea why High Command had ordered them to pull back, but he commanded his driver to turn and head back down the street toward the outskirts. He peered back at the skyline of the central business district, the tall towers and high-rise buildings. That was their target, and yet they were going the other way, when they had been getting so close. He busied himself with monitoring the vox and checking the map as the Salamander rumbled back through the industrial district. A repeated call for a general retreat was broadcast over the vox, and Halix took another glance back over his shoulder, observing the string of infantry leaving the city. He turned back to the map.

That was when a brilliant blaze of light illuminated everything inside the Salamander, throwing every contour and line into stark relief. He felt a great heat upon his back, but before he could turn or react, the Salamander bucked and heaved, shaking violently. A roar filled his ears as the scout car tumbled end over end, and everything went black.

Second Sun

Twilight felt a lot better. Several days of rest and good food had, as the palace doctor assured her it would, given her back her strength and vitality. Her aches and pains had eased, and she felt almost back to normal, in body if not necessarily in mind. Her friends had visited her many times, as a group and individually, and they had proven to be a great source of strength, especially Applejack, who had kept the group going in Twilight's absence. Despite her magical prowess and Celestia's patronage, Twilight had often felt that Applejack was the real lynchpin of the Elements. She didn't need fancy magic to display her simple qualities of honesty, bravery, and leadership. She did that every day, in everything she tried to do for her friends and for the group as a whole, because it was the right thing to do, and because she always wanted to do the right thing.

Her family had visited, too, especially her brother. He understood more than most the burden she carried, and Twilight greatly appreciated him spending time with her. He had found himself busy, as the commander of the Royal Guard, dealing with the attempted investigation into the arson that had led to the destruction of the armoury housed in the old Theatre Royale, but had made sure to take time out of his schedule to visit Twilight several times a day, no matter what or who else commanded his attention. Shining Armour had always been her shoulder to cry on, or the eager ear to listen to her worries and fears, and, though they were both grown and with concerns and problems of their own, that had not changed. Shining was responsible for the well being of the thousands of ponies under his command, but that did not mean he had abdicated any of his responsibility to his little sister. She appreciated his visits more than she could express; she had never been good with those kinds of words.

Despite all of that, it was the visits of Princess Celestia which Twilight was most glad of. Like her brother, the princess had other things demanding her attention, namely the fighting of a war for the very future of Equestria, but she still managed to find time to visit her dear student. She was with her again, early in the morning, with her sun continuing to rise through the sky. The humans, she had informed Twilight, had launched their attack on Baltimare, the next step on the reconquest of Equestria.

'But princess...aren't the humans going to get resentful that we are using them to take back our cities? That they are throwing their lives away for us?' Twilight asked, as the two of them stood on the palace balcony, gazing out across the valley below.

'It is certainly possible that individuals within their ranks may well feel that way,' Celestia replied, her mane flowing in the non-existent breeze as it always did. 'As for their leadership, I am not so sure. I cannot pin down exactly how they feel about using their own troops and equipment for duty which many may see as our sole responsibility. Defending our homes ultimately falls upon our shoulders. But we are defending our homes from their sworn enemy, who they may well have brought here inadvertently. Although, the Lord-Admiral feels differently about that.'

'What do you mean?' Twilight cocked her head.

'The Lord-Admiral says that it is unlikely that their Archenemy followed them here directly. Rather, he said it seemed they were attracted to the planet by something already upon it,' Celestia explained. 'I surmise that if that is indeed the case, then they either detected myself and my sister, or the Elements, which drew their attention to us. That would make the arrival of these Imperials at the same time rather a fortuitous coincidence.'

'Do you believe it is a coincidence, princess?' Twilight asked. 'That they both arrived here at the same time, but for unrelated reasons?'

'I do not,' Celestia stated simply. 'Everything happens for a reason. The possibility that two interstellar societies discovered our planet for the first time at almost exactly the same moment is almost infinitesimally small. I believe that either the Chaos forces were following the Imperial ships without their knowledge, or that they did indeed detect something here worth investigating. Other than magic, I cannot imagine what that could be.'

Twilight nodded slowly. Ever since she spotted the first human ship in orbit, not knowing what it really was, she had felt an uneasy sensation at the back of her mind that something wasn't right. Events over the past months had proven her entirely correct to have such a fear. 'And...if the Imperium defeats their enemy here, what will they do then? Will they turn their attentions to us?'

'That, I am unsure of also,' Celestia replied frankly. 'The Lord-Admiral, and the Lord-General, have both given me their personal assurances that their fleet will depart once their enemy is defeated, and never return. How convinced I am of that fact, alas, is another uncertainty. We do not know their culture beyond what we know of them militarily. Honour and truth may in reality mean nothing to them. They may freely lie in order to achieve their goals.'

'I suppose it's safest to assume that is the case?' Twilight asked, to which the princess nodded.

'Indeed. It is sad to say, but yes. Unless one knows for absolute certain to the contrary, then in diplomacy, the best practice is to assume that the other side is lying at all times. That is something I would have introduced you to gently, perhaps with a trade mission from the Griffon Kingdom...notorious hard bargainers who will do anything to shave a little off the price of whatever it is they want to buy, but mysteriously weld additional costs to whatever it is they want to sell.' Celestia chuckled softly. 'It seems that fate had other ideas, however.'

'If they turn on us...' Twilight paused. 'If they turn on us, can...can we survive, princess?' she asked.

'Yes,' Celestia replied with a single word and an assured nod. 'Yes, we can survive. I will not let any species, no matter how powerful they may be, to wipe us out. That goes not just for ponykind, but for every sapient race on this planet. You can be assured that I will do everything in my power to protect you, Twilight. You, your family, your friends, and every other pony, every Griffon, every Zebra. Our differences and squabbles are as nothing when faced with a threat such as this.'

'What about the Changelings?' Twilight asked with a frown. 'Will you protect them, too?'

'No,' Celestia replied, her answers remaining simple and direct. 'The humans are already aware of the threat they pose. They are treating the Changelings as an enemy, as are we. They have crossed too many lines to even consider any other course of action. I...'

The princess was interrupted by a sudden, incandescent double-flash from the distant horizon. It was the product of a mere moment in time, but the after-effects lingered in Twilight's eyes, stars dancing and a brief burning sensation making her gasp and turn away.

Celestia stood firm beside her, but when Twilight looked up and gazed upon her, her face was grim. 'W-what was that?' Twilight asked tremulously.

'I do not know,' Celestia replied. 'But I suspect the humans can tell us. I believe it would be best if you were to return to and remain in your room for the time being, Twilight.' With an equally sudden flash of light, the princess was gone, leaving Twilight blinking away the after effects of the flash. She gazed out to the south fearfully. Baltimare was too far away to be visible, but that must be where the flash had originated. The coincidence was surely too great for it to have come from anywhere else, but what could it have been? It was broad daylight over Canterlot, and yet the flash had been bright enough to half blind her. Twilight did not know, but she did as Celestia said, returning to her room, though still peering out of the window. She had a feeling something bad had happened. Surely the flash could not have signalled anything good.

Captain Mayner opened his turret hatch with a clang, and began to clamber out of the vehicle. The bridge was theirs, both ends of it, and the span was clear, the infantry having gone up and dealt with the last few enemy survivors who had holed up in the girders. Several had fallen into the river below when they were shot, and were swiftly lost in the current downstream. As part of a tradition common across most Imperial Guard units, Mayner, as commander of the detachment which had captured the northern end of the bridge, would meet up with the commander of Poison Alpha, the unit from the 1st Battalion, 15th Rammeshi Armoured Regiment that had captured the southern approaches.

For maximum symbolism, they would meet in the middle of the bridge, exchange salutes, pleasantries and Regimental colours, and confirm the linkup of the two forces, from the north and south. It was mostly propaganda, with vid-picts of such meetings and linkups always doing the rounds on the news feeds back home on Imperial worlds, showcasing yet another triumph of the Imperial Guard over the foul forces of Chaos and Xenos alike. This time, however, there were no vid-recorders around, and nobody from the propaganda department to take notes on the event for posterity. It was not important enough for that, merely another backwater city on this strange alien planet that, clearly, nobody in the Imperium even knew about until the Crusade's arrival some weeks ago. There was no record of this place on the official charts, though they could now be updated with the fresh information the fleet had gathered, assuming, of course, that was what the Lord-Admiral had in mind.

Such thoughts were well above Mayner's pay grade, and he was focused on the task at hand. Leaving Big Beautiful Doll in the capable hands of his crew, parked at the end of the span, he made his way on foot out over the water. The bridge was long, and already engineers from the follow-on mechanised infantry were setting about clearing it for vehicular traffic. The train cars and locomotives that had been used to block the roadway would have to be moved, and, with no heavy engineering equipment on hand, they would have to improvise, as the driver of the lead tank had done with his dozer blade. A Leman Russ had more than enough traction to either push or pull, via towing chain, the rail cars out of the way, off the side of the bridge and into the river if need be. Keeping the bridge clear was vital for the flow of reinforcements from the southern flank beyond the crossing.

As Mayner headed out along the bridge, past the bodies of the fallen Chaos infantry, he could see another figure in tankers' garb approaching from the other end. A cheerful fellow with his cap worn at a jaunty angle, a cigar poking from his mouth; not exactly regulation, but tank crews were among those branches of the Guard generally afforded a lot more leeway in how they operated and exactly how closely they stuck to the letter of the law. The figure threw a quick salute and then stuck out his hand.

After returning the salute, Mayner took it and shook it. 'Captain Mayner, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, Stourmont 2nd Armoured.'

'Major El-Granish, 1st Battalion, Rammeshi 15th Armoured,' the other tanker replied, shaking his hand strongly. 'What a fine bridge you have here, Captain.' El-Granish gave a wry chuckle. 'A little dirty, perhaps, but I'm sure we can sort that out easily enough.'

Mayner nodded and smiled. 'Indeed so, sir. Whatever else you can say about these horse aliens, they do make some fine civil engineering projects.'

'Not something I ever expected to hear someone say,' the Major replied with another chuckle. 'We'd better get to work clearing the roadway, Captain. I've got an entire Regiment back there eager to cross.' He jerked his thumb in the direction of the southern bank of the river, where tanks could indeed be seen lining up in anticipation of getting across and joining the attack on the city.

'Yes, sir. We already have engineers getting to work,' Mayner assured him. 'We're about to start using our tanks to shift the rail cars and clear the roadway.'

'Excellent.' El-Granish nodded, taking a puff of his cigar. 'I expect we'll be in the city before noon. At this rate it'll be ours before the end of the...'

He was cut short by a sudden flash. Though it came from behind Mayner, it still made him reflexively shut his eyes as a protective measure. Major El-Granish staggered back, throwing a hand up across his face as an immense heat suddenly washed over the both of them. Mayner had started to turn, but the heat made him change his mind. Instead he took a few steps forward, trying to get away from the source of sudden heat behind him. One of the tanks must have exploded. Had it been hit by enemy fire? Had they somehow missed a Chaos trooper secreted somewhere? Were there demolition charges that the initial sweeps had missed? It couldn't be, there was no sound, no explosion.

The men around them on the bridge were gasping, covering their eyes, turning away. The light from the flash had only lasted a moment, and the heat a few seconds longer, but it was enough to burn exposed skin. Several men dropped to the floor in pain. Mayner, having put on his service jacket with its high collar and hat to greet the Major, was spared injury. With the heat dissipating, he turned to find the source.

The city of Baltimare was some eight miles to the north, and where its spires had been visible in the morning light, they were now invisible. The city now lay beneath a great, rapidly rising cloud of dust and smoke, being pulled by the air currents and winds into a characteristic mushroom shape.

'What the hell was that?' El-Granish growled, wincing and rubbing his eyes, half blind.

'An explosion!' Mayner replied quickly. 'In the city. Get back to your tank, go, go!' he urged, turning and running for Big Beautiful Doll as the Major headed back across the bridge. He had farther to go than Mayner, and even that was too far. Looking up ahead, beyond the bridge approach, Mayner could see something moving across the grassland, at an incredible speed. It was the blast wave from the explosion, and it was coming right for him, right for the bridge. There was no time to get back to his tank. Mayner threw himself to the bridge deck and covered his ears with his hands, opening his mouth to help equalise the pressure.

Within a few seconds, it was upon him, a great roar like a hurricane. The bridge shook violently and Mayner could feel the wind, tearing at his clothing, howling. If he had still been on his feet, he would have been bowled over, knocked to the ground by the rapid passage of air. Around him, other guardsmen were suffering just such a thing, tumbling to the floor. Those men assigned to clear and guard the superstructure of the bridge high above the roadway were in trouble. Many were knocked from their insecure perches and sent spiraling to their deaths in the river or on the roadway below. One man slammed into the bridge deck close to Mayner, and a spray of warm blood suddenly spattered against him. The bridge swayed and heaved, groaning and creaking under the sudden assault of pressure. The ponies, however, built their bridges well, and it held.

Once the blast wave had passed, Mayner got to his feet and resumed his run back to his tank. The mushroom cloud above the city was climbing higher and higher into the sky, towering over Baltimare like a malignant version of a flower opening after a spring rain, a vast dirty grey stain against the blue sky. The clouds above the city had evaporated, like ice melting away under the action of a blowtorch.

Big Beautiful Doll's turret had been rotated to face the city, presumably in an attempt by the crew to figure out what was going on. Mayner leaped up onto the hull and then up to the turret. The hatch was still open, and he slipped down into the interior, slamming the hatch shut behind him. Janssen and Cheyne looked up at him as he dropped down.

'Seal the tank!' he ordered. 'Pressurise the chemical protection system.'

'What's going on?' Janssen asked. 'What was that blast?'

'Baltimare,' Mayner replied. 'Something's gone badly wrong with this operation.' The crew sealed all hatches, which had been open, the tank almost sitting at a casual posture before the sudden flash and explosion. The bridge was cleared, there were friendly troops all around; no danger, or so it had seemed. In a heartbeat things had changed drastically. The chemical protection system, fitted to every Leman Russ, was designed to pressurise the interior, keeping the air inside fresh. Air from the exterior was passed through filters when the system was in operation to keep it clean of contamination; dust and smoke, chemicals, war gases, biological contaminants, Xenos poisons and radioactive particles. Any damage to the tank could render the system ineffective, either by knocking it out of action or by opening up some unexpected hole in the hull which might reduce or eliminate the pressurisation effect. Fortunately, Big Beautiful Doll was in full working order.

Mayner grabbed the vox handset. Nothing was coming over the net, so he tried speaking. 'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to any unit on this net, respond, over.' A squealing and hissing greeted him. Something was interfering with the vox, causing massive static. A lot of things could cause it; the terrain, the weather, ionizing radiation, the unknown particle detected on the planet. It was entirely possible that it could be a combination of several factors, but Mayner had his suspicions. He repeated his call, but still got no reply.

His thermoscope, when he peered through it, was spotty, fluctuating, evidently affected either by the blast or by whatever was causing the interference on the vox net. With the turret aimed at the city, he got a clear view across the plains. Switching to maximum zoom didn't help much; there was too much dust, dirt and smoke in the air to be able to distinguish anything from so far away. The city was eight miles distant, far enough to make accurate observations tricky at the best of times, even through his scope, which was not designed to view things at such ranges. What little he could see did not bode well. Buildings, some of the taller ones that were not obscured by the smoke plume, were broken, shattered, missing their top floors. Mayner felt a sudden rush of anxiety. This was a new development, a large scale change to the order of things. An explosion of such a magnitude had only two likely causes; psychic, or atomic. Neither was good, and he was not quite sure which would be worse.

Lord-Admiral Marcos had been keeping a watchful eye on the progress of the assault forces. General Jahn, now supreme commander of all Guard units and operations, stood resolutely at the holo-map, sending orders and receiving signals and reports from the men and women down below. It was his first operation in sole command, but Jahn was not exactly a novice. In the Emperor's service for some sixty years, he had been the loyal and seatfast deputy to Lord-General Galen during the entirety of the Western Fringe Crusade, ably aiding in the conquest of dozens of worlds and overseeing the destruction of enemy armies most efficiently. The fact that Imperial casualties during the Crusade had been as low as they had, could be put in no small part down to Jahn's mastery of logistics, supply and support. Where Galen excelled in the operational and offensive aspects of warfare, Jahn had been the driving force behind the rest of the operations, those unseen and often unheralded accomplishments that, without which, no attack or defence could ever hope to succeed. Together, they had swept the sector clean of enemies, Chaos, Ork and Eldar alike.

Now, with Galen dead at the hands, or rather hooves, of a Changeling assassin disguised as a loyal Imperial officer, the weight he had borne now fell upon the shoulders of General Jahn, who was handling the situation and the responsibility with the dignity and skill that one would expect from a man of his calibre and experience. He was aided by the fact that the entire operation to capture Baltimare had been going smoothly, too smoothly. The city had been surrounded with ease, the bridge to the south had been captured with a minimum of fuss or resistance. Even the push into the urban area itself had been proving a simple matter. There was minor resistance, yes, but it was just that; minor. Nowhere across the perimeter were units being held up for more than a few minutes at any given obstacle. It was almost as if the enemy wanted them to break through.

With so little resistance contrasting oddly with the estimations drawn up as a result of the orbital scans regarding enemy presence, alarm bells had been ringing for both General Jahn and Lord-Admiral Marcos. Were their forces being lured into another trap, another Daemonic outbreak, as they had been in Manehattan? There was no dam or anything similar that could be used for such a ploy, to catch them unawares, but Daemons could spring from the ether seemingly at will, or at the very least as a result of some kind of sacrifice. or other foul, blasphemous ritual carried out by the supporters of Chaos. This could well be another instance of just such a trick. Or perhaps it was a simple matter of the enemy conserving their strength, preferring to fight in the urban maze of the inner city and the main business district, where the high buildings, back alleys and sewers could be used to their advantage? They had had time in occupation to learn the city far better than their Imperial adversaries, after all.

But something did not sit right, either with Jahn or with Marcos. Neither of them could put a finger on why, exactly, but nevertheless they both felt the same hesitance and doubt. This was a trap. It had to be. The enemy could not have simply melted away, leaving only a token force to hold a wafer-thin perimeter. There was no way they could have escaped the city, which meant they were still there, waiting. Though the pony princess had requested collateral damage be kept to a minimum, as she always did, Marcos was inclined to ignore her for once, at least in part, and order a limited bombardment of the city centre to dispel any ambush attempt. That would necessitate a withdrawal of Imperial forces, and that was what was ordered. Units began to retreat to the edge of the city as the Lord-Admiral mulled over his options.

But before anything more could be done, a shout came from the Auspex operators. 'My Lord! Something has happened...Baltimare!'

Marcos hurried to the officer who had called out. He continued his report. 'Something...a great flash, My Lord, a double flash, over the city...vid-scans are suffering heavy interference, My Lord.'

Another officer called across the bridge. 'My Lord, we are getting reports from units on the ground of a major explosion in Baltimare.'

'An explosion?' Marcos growled, his suspicions proving to be correct. 'What kind of explosion? What happened?'

'Unknown at this time, My Lord,' came the reply. 'But the sensors registered a double-flash.' Marcos frowned. The Auspex operator confirmed his suspicions, as if they needed confirming. 'The double flash is characteristic of the use of atomic weaponry.'

'Indeed it is,' Marcos growled. 'So it appears we have been lured in after all.'

Devastation

There was pain, and there was a terrifying silence. That was all.

Major Halix opened his eyes blindly. He did not know where he was, or what had happened. He could feel something, something cold and firm. Metal, brushing against his skin, his hands, his face. There was light, and there was dark. He could not tell which one he was in. Both, and neither. Everything, and nothing. He closed his eyes, opened them again. He was alive, at least, that much was sure.

He managed to turn his head slightly. His mouth was dry, his eyes reddened by dust or dirt. Something was digging into his left leg, but when he tried to reach down with his arm, he found it unresponsive. He could hear, now, but only a faint sound, a crackling. Fire? The vox? He didn't know, but he at least remembered where he was; he had been in his Salamander command vehicle. Baltimare, the city was called. Baltimare, the pony city on the pony planet, the strange place the Crusade had been fighting through these past weeks. They had been trying to take it, wrest control of it away from the forces of the Archenemy. But something had happened, that much was clear. He remembered a flash, and a sudden violence of motion and sound, and now he was lying here.

They must have been ambushed. They were retreating. That was right, high command had ordered it, a general fallback to somewhere on the outskirts of the city. That was where they had been heading. Not into the fray, but away from it, and yet something had caught up with them. Something had caused this. Was he still inside the Salamander? It seemed so. The cold touch of the metal, the familiar smell, a mixture of grease, oil and exhaust. While Halix had never had a command car of his own before this operation, as Major Harding's deputy he had frequently ridden in one as part of the command squad. How typical of the fates and whims of the universe that he should be provided with one here, only for it to be immediately destroyed.

Something was swinging just above him. He managed to look up enough to identify it. It was the vox handset, swaying gently from side to side like a metronome, thrown from its bracket by the force of the impact of whatever had struck the Salamander. That explained the crackling sound; the vox net was alive and hissing with static, like a swarm of angry serpents. He had to contact someone; the companies under his command, another Brigade, high command. Someone. Grabbing onto something firm, Halix pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked around the cabin.

The Salamander's crew compartment was open-topped, giving, ordinarily, a view of the sky. All Halix could see out of it now was concrete. The Salamander had evidently been overturned by whatever had struck it, and now lay upside down. Maps and papers were scattered around. There was no sign of the driver, and two of the aides who had been travelling with him were missing. The other lay dead from some trauma of the crash, a broken neck, perhaps, his helmet providing little protection if his head had been smashed at the wrong angle on the hard ground as the vehicle overturned. Nothing could be done for him, certainly not by Halix, who checked for a pulse and found none, the only form of medical aid he could attempt to provide in the circumstances.

He looked down to determine what had been digging into his leg. It was the barrel of one of the crew's lasguns, which had been stored in the rack but clearly thrown free. He tried to reach up to the vox handset with his left arm, but once more it would not respond to his commands. Broken, probably, or fractured, although there was little pain. Perhaps the adrenalin from the shock of the crash had not yet worn off, or perhaps there was nerve damage. He reached over with his right hand instead, and pressed the transmit button on the handset.

'This is Viper Beta Actual to any unit receiving. Come in please. I say again, Viper Beta Actual calling any Imperial unit on this net. Please respond, over.' He released the button, and a blast of static assailed his ears once more. There was no reply, hardly surprising given the apparent interference. He tried retuning the set and repeated his calls several more times, but the airwaves were clean of all other traffic, or at least, the Salamander's set was not receiving anything. Another vox might have more luck- the escort vehicles. They must be nearby. Perhaps even now they were fighting off whatever ambush had struck the Salamander a fatal blow. Or perhaps they had shared the same fate. Either way, there might be another working vox set.

Halix crawled over toward the back of the Salamander, where some light was shining through. At least there an exit from the upturned metal tomb. He considered picking up the lasgun, but his left arm would not permit him to use it. He checked for his sidearm and found the holster and laspistol still in place. He inched his way to the back of the Salamander and eased out, dropping down onto the ground below. The concrete was firm beneath his feet. There was a small space between the Salamander's rear and the wall of some building. There was enough room to move through, and Halix did so, drawing his laspistol in case there was any sign of the enemy. Moving around the corner, the Captain scanned quickly for any movement. He saw none, but what he did see made him take a deep breath from shock.

Towering above the rooftops, above the city, was a dirty grey mushroom cloud, already being bent out of shape by the high altitude winds far above. That explained what had overturned the Salamander, then. Only an orbital strike or an atomic weapon could have caused a cloud of such scale. He ducked back inside the command car to check the Radiac equipment mounted to the vehicle. Detectors, simple radiation meters fitted to every Imperial tank and carrier, would give an indication of any excess counts. Halix checked the detector, and didn't like what he saw. Sure enough, the reading was high. Not extreme, but well above background levels. There had obviously been a large release of radiation, which could mean only one thing. The blast must had been caused by an atomic weapon.

Atomics had a long and bloody part to play in mankind's history. A nuclear war millennia ago had nearly destroyed civilization on Holy Terra, and more recently the planet of Krieg had been bombarded incessantly with atomic warheads, turning the entire surface into a radiation-scarred intolerable wasteland where barely anything could hope to survive for more than a few hours unprotected. The inhabitants had no choice but to turn to subterranean caverns and bunkers for protection against the incessant nuclear winter above ground, a phenomenon that science said would take a truly astronomical amount of atomic blasts to actually achieve; a testament to mankind's insatiable appetite for destruction. More recently, atomic weapons had fallen completely out of favour for ground battles, for two reasons. Firstly, they had the unfortunate side effect of irradiating the target area, which, depending on the intention, could be a help or a hindrance; it was hard to occupy somewhere you had just bathed in gamma rays. The other reason atomics had been withdrawn from service was that it was simple to cause a similar level of devastation through the use of orbital weaponry. A lance blast might not cause as much damage as a nuclear weapon, but a lance could be fired again and again, or fired in entire broadsides, with enough firepower to rip through a mountain and shatter a city, performing in minutes a task that an atomic could perform in seconds, but without the associated radioactivity.

The one place the Imperium still had for such dirty weapons was in space warfare. Nuclear-tipped torpedoes were part of the arsenal of every destroyer and escort, as well as many of the Starhawk bombers carried aboard capital ships. While in the vacuum of space, a nuclear explosion would have no blast effects to speak of, since there would be no medium through which the blast could propagate, that meant almost the entirety of the weapon's energy could be converted into radiation. This radiation, depending on the type of warhead, could be focused almost like a laser by shaped-charge sequential detonations of the explosive lenses around the core in order to try and 'punch through' the target's radiation shielding and irradiate the crew inside, or it could be spread like butter across the ship's exterior by a more distant detonation, which had the potential to fry sensors and targeting equipment, disrupt point-defence batteries, and knock out fighter craft. Of course, a direct hit by a nuclear torpedo would still have the same devastating impact as a plasma warhead, since the blast, heat and radiation could then be transmitted directly into the hull of the target, and generally speaking in space combat, you only fired at something you wanted dead.

Back on the surface, Major Halix cared little for the details of the Imperial policy regarding atomics. This one had been detonated by Chaos. Evidently this was the ambush into which they had all been moving, the reason for high command's call to retreat, which had come presciently early, but nevertheless too late. Halix left the Salamander again, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side. He needed to find another vox set, and he needed to get to safety. Judging by the mushroom cloud, the weapon had been detonated as a groundburst, sucking up dust, dirt and debris from the ground, which would be made radioactive by the residue from the weapon and would begin to drop back to earth as fallout within a few minutes, thirty at the absolute most. He couldn't tell where exactly ground zero was, but he knew it could not be more than a few miles away. Most likely it had been in the centre of the city, the business and leisure district into which they had been heading, the final goal which would signal the capture of Baltimare. The enemy had evidently seen the Imperial forces begin to retreat, and detonated the weapon prematurely to try and catch as many as possible in the blast radius.

The street down which they had been driving was a mess, littered with debris. The buildings around him had collapsed, either partially or totally. Walls had tumbled into the roadway. Street lamps and signs were bent and twisted like the boughs of trees after a hurricane. There were men in the street, dead, some with injuries from being thrown by the blast, others with severe burns. Up ahead, the road was blocked. Two Chimeras and one of the escorting Salamanders of his headquarters company had been thrown together in a tangled mess of steel, mixed with bricks and twisted metal beams from the collapsed side wall of a factory. Behind, a building which had once been a proud old structure with a fine clock tower was now just a slumped pile of debris, bricks and mortar strewn across the street, the large iron hands of the clock face lying incongruously in the middle of the road, pinning one unfortunate guardsman beneath their bulk and crushing him. The more distant buildings he could see that had formed part of the business district were nothing but empty, gutted shells, those that had survived at all. Many were missing from the skyline entirely, collapsed as a result of the blast. What had been developing into a pleasant day weather-wise was now overshadowed by the great column of smoke and dust that hung high above, blocking out the sun's rays and casting the area into the gloom of the overcast state it had been in before the sun rose.

Back down the road lay the other Salamanders of the command section and their escort. Several were overturned, and one was blazing merrily, fire and smoke belching from the crew compartment. Halix headed for the nearest intact vehicle. It lay on its side, and was rather dented, having clearly been hurled a fair distance. The crew compartment was a natural shambles as a result, with two dead men inside. But someone was alive, too; Lieutenant Albaran, a trusted member of Major Harding's staff, who had stayed on in her post to serve under Halix. She was hurt, clearly, with a grimace of pain on her face and her right leg clearly broken, to say nothing of possible internal injuries. But she was alive, at least.

'Easy, Lieutenant,' Halix urged. 'Don't try to move. You're hurt.'

'No shit...' Albaran managed to utter, with a small chuckle. Such a lack of respect would have caused some stricter officers or commissars to potentially execute her on the spot, but Halix cared little for such things at a time like this. He gave her a quick check for any sign of other injuries, and found nothing obvious other than her leg, twisted out of shape. He found it hard to attend to her properly with his equally useless arm.

'I've got to get a message out. Is the vox working?' he asked her.

'I don't know, sir,' Albaran shrugged, then grimaced as a result. 'It was working before...what happened? Ambush?'

'Worse. Atomics,' he replied. 'Looks like they were trying to lure us in, but when we turned back they decided to detonate anyway...I guess high command were right to pull us out, but it was too late.'

'That's always the way...' Albaran chuckled again. 'Atomics, though...those Chaos bastards...' She coughed. The crew compartment was filled with either dust or smoke, though there was no sign of fire inside the vehicle.

'I'll get in contact with command,' Halix assured her. He moved to check the vox set. It was intact. He picked up the handset and tried to contact somebody.

'This is Viper Beta Actual to any unit on this net. Come in, over.'

Again, he got no reply from anybody else. The static crackled loudly. The interference, undoubtedly caused by the ionizing radiation released by the atomic explosion, was preventing any message he tried to send from getting through. He had tried two vox sets with the same result. It seemed fruitless to try and send the same message with another. Instead, he turned his attentions back to Lieutenant Albaran, who sat with pain etched upon her face. The Salamander held only a simple first aid kit which offered nothing for setting broken bones, and there was no medicae around to help her.

'Sit tight,' Halix ordered. 'I'll go get some help. There must be somebody.' He stood and staggered out of the Salamander. Was his own shock and pain from his injury starting to kick in? He couldn't quite tell. As far as he knew, the trouble with his arm was the only thing wrong with him, but it was always possible that he was suffering from some kind of internal injury as well. A concussion would not be a big surprise, given the violent nature of the Salamander's crash and overturn, but his head, apart from a slight throbbing, felt fine.

Halix made his way down the street. He checked out the other Salamanders for the command company's medicae. He found her tending to another crewman with a large gash on the back of his head, having evidently struck something hard during the vehicle's overturn. The medicae looked up.

'Got another one for you when you're done here,' Halix informed her. 'Next vehicle down. Broken leg.'

She nodded. 'What happened, sir? Were we attacked?'

'Looks like they were trying to lure us into an ambush with an atomic warhead,' he replied.

'I'd say they did a pretty good job of that,' the medicae commented, quickly bandaging the crewman's head wound.

'I guess someone up at high command saw through the ruse and ordered the retreat...just a little too late,' Halix replied. 'Is your vox working?'

'I think so,' she replied, packing up her kit to go and help Albaran. 'What about your arm, sir?'

'Later, later,' he urged. 'I need to make contact with Regimental command.'

'Let me at least take a look, sir,' she insisted, sidling over to him and earning a begrudging nod from the Major. She ran her practised hands over his arm and shoulder, feeling for any breaks or fractures and finding none. 'It's just dislocated, sir,' she informed him. 'Let me just pop it back into place...this'll hurt, but it'll be quick.'

'Then get on with it,' he grunted with a nod of approval. 'Time's wasting.' She took firm hold of his arm and popped the joint back into its socket, soliciting a grimace from her commander but nothing more. 'All done, sir. I'll go check on that other casualty.' She scampered out of the Salamander with her kit, leaving Halix to try the vox. He picked up the handset and tried broadcasting several times, with the same results. Nothing. Nobody was receiving him, or if they were then he wasn't receiving them.

Halix helped the wounded crewman out of the Salamander and onto the street, where he gazed around in dismay at the sudden devastation which had been unleashed in a mere few seconds upon the formerly intact city. What little of it could be seen from their vantage point told a horrifying tale, one which was certain to have been repeated all across Baltimare. Atomics were indiscriminate weapons, used in ground combat only when something big needed destroying, orbital support was not available, and collateral damage was not important.

A glance up at the mushroom cloud told Halix much. It was being distorted out of shape, the prevailing winds carrying the upper levels of the plume to the northeast, right over the top of them. Fallout would be starting to descend very soon, coating the ground in radioactive dust, along with anyone who happened to remain in the area. They had to get out of the city, as far away as they could. In the absence of any orders from, or contact with, either regimental command or high command, Halix felt that proceeding with their last order and retreating to Phase Line Alpha was the best option. Other survivors might be gathering there, and more importantly, it would starting putting some distance between themselves and ground zero, taking them away from the city.

Most likely, very few of the men attacking Baltimare had ever come under atomic attack before. Neither had Halix, though, like all officers, he had been trained in their effects, including the insidious threat of radiation. Even if one had no knowledge of the true nature of the event, common sense would tell them to run the hell away from the site of the monumentally huge explosion which had just torn through the city. The Radiac equipment readings, which he had been double-checking in each Salamander he had visited, were higher than they should be, but not at dangerous levels. This was due to the fact that the vast majority of radioactive material given off by the explosion was being carried up into the sky by the smoke plume. It would take time for the particles to fall back to earth, but fallout in the vicinity of ground zero could be expected within half an hour after detonation. The farther one went, the longer it would be before fallout occurred, leaving a great stain of radiation across the landscape wherever the prevailing winds carried it.

Halix massaged his left arm. Feeling was returning to it, and there was pain from the dislocation and the treatment, but it was nothing severe. He kept a wary eye on the street behind them. Enemies could burst from the smoke at any time, assuming some had survived the blast. Given that most of the enemy forces in the city had yet to be encountered at the time of the explosion, he could only surmise that the majority of them had been located in the central areas, right in the middle of the blast zone. Why the Archenemy would throw away so many of their number in such a fashion was a mystery to him, as indeed were most things the traitors chose to do. Clearly they had been hoping to catch the entire Imperial force in the blast, but the withdrawal order would have saved much of them from destruction, especially the second and third wave forces that had not entered the city yet.

He returned to the other Salamander with the injured crewman. The medicae was treating Lieutenant Albaran's leg, forming a makeshift splint from one of the lasguns and some adhesive tape. 'We've got to move,' Halix informed them. 'We're heading for Phase Line Alpha. Get her ready to go. I'm going to see if any of the Salamanders are operational.' The Major looked around the street. Only one of the Salamanders were the right way up, and there was no way they could right any of the others, as each vehicle weighed some thirty five tons.

He made his way quickly to the intact scout car and climbed into the crew compartment. Of the crew themselves there was no sign, or rather, there was, just not inside the vehicle. Several broken bodies littered the road behind, suggesting that, although it was right side up at the moment, the Salamander had been rolled or flipped by the blast, throwing the crew out to their deaths, one of the hazards of an open-topped vehicle, although being thrown hard against the steel roof of a tank was not much of a preferable option. This was proven by the fact that the vehicle's driver lay slumped at his controls, not breathing, his neck broken by striking some of the protruding control levers and wheels.

Halix pulled his lifeless body out of the way and replaced him in the driver's seat. While he was not a trained Salamander driver, the basics were clear to him. He knew how to get it started, which was what mattered. Would the engine fire up, or had it been damaged in the blast? If it did not work, they would be on foot all the way out of the city, and there was no way they would reach safety before the fallout began. They might have to seek shelter in some secure location if that were the case; a basement, subway tunnel, sewer, anything that would protect from the radiation, although then they would be trapped in the city with no way to leave, as going back to the surface would lead to them becoming irradiated anyway. The fallout would not lose its potency for some time, perhaps as long as several weeks after the explosion.

Halix turned the starter. The engine whined, grunted, and died. He tried again, with the same result. Once more...and this time, it fired, roaring into life, a most wonderful sound. He climbed back out of the vehicle and signaled to the other survivors. The medicae and the other crewman supported Lieutenant Albaran and brought her out of the wreck, crossing the street to the working Salamander. They got her into the crew compartment and climbed aboard themselves, ready to move off. Halix swapped placed with the crewman who had been the driver of the other vehicle, and performed one final quick search around for survivors, calling out but getting no reply. He climbed back onto the Salamander and ordered it to get moving.

The driver gunned the engine, taking the vehicle down the street. Ahead, wrecked vehicles blocked their passage, but the Salamander's powerful engine gave it good torque. The driver was able to nose up against one of the overturned wrecks and nudge it out of the way. The street headed through the industrial area of the city, but to head back the same way they had entered Baltimare was not a wise direction to take, given that it was also the broad direction that the fallout plume was heading. Halix ordered the driver to turn left, and head west instead, hoping to reach a safer area. There was no guarantee that it was safe; the enemy might have taken control, or there could be pockets of radiation there. But it was better than the certainty of getting irradiated if they were to follow the course of the smoke. Fallout would start dropping any time now, with more being carried away to the north and northeast. Halix did not want to be underneath it when it did.

Fallout

The bridge of the Emperor's Judgement was alive with movement. Messengers hurried between stations, junior officers handing in reports and monitoring systems as the senior members of the command staff gathered around the holo-map table.

'So it's atomics, then?' General Jahn asked, his arms crossed and his monocle firmly fixed in place. 'They have hit us with atomics?'

'It is confirmed, General,' Lord-Admiral Marcos nodded. 'Baltimare has been struck by an atomic explosion. The precise source is unknown, but presumably they had some concealed warhead ready to detonate, hidden somewhere in the midst of the city, just waiting for us.'

'Then it appears we ordered the withdrawal just in time,' Jahn replied.

'Just in time, but still too late!' Marcos growled. 'How many dead? How many dead because we were too slow to act? Because we were fooled and suckered in?'

'My Lord, there was no way we could have known,' Jahn pointed out. 'The city was defended, we saw their troops on the orbital scans...'

'Yes, and where did they go?' Marcos asked. 'If they found a way out of the city, then where are they now, and if they did not, then why would the Archenemy simply waste their lives like that? Surely it would be far more in keeping with their philosophy to fight for every inch of ground and then detonate the warhead once we were about to achieve victory? That way they would kill more of us over time than they could hope to kill when most of our forces were still outside of the city.'

'I do not know, My Lord,' Jahn replied. 'But we have seen no evidence that any enemy forces managed to leave the city. None of those Xenos maps showed any kind of tunnels out of the city. They could not have simply left.'

'Which just adds to the puzzle,' Marcos grunted. 'Why sacrifice their troops without anything more than a token of resistance around the perimeter?'

'My Lord,' came a call from one of the Auspex officers. 'We are picking up an increase in background warp emissions.'

'Keep an eye on it,' Marcos ordered.'How are the radiation levels?'

'Levels around the city are high, My Lord,' the officer explained. 'We are tracking the smoke plume and drawing up a plot of the predicted fallout zones. I'm transmitting it to the holo-map now.' The display on the table changed to show an overlay of a cigar-shaped area marked in red, stretching from the city of Baltimare up to the north, covering most of the eastern side of the main valley, the eastern mountain peaks, part of the western fringes of the coastal plain, and extending up into the northern wilderness. This was the track of the fallout cloud. Different shades of red denoted the different expected levels, with the highest concentrations in the centre of the plume.

'If the winds continue, My Lord, the fallout will reach the city of Canterlot in approximately one hour,' the Auspex officer informed him. Marcos looked at the map. There was Canterlot, right under the darkest red section of the track; where the heaviest fallout was expected.

'Then we had better warn the princess,' he muttered. 'Vox! Make contact with Lieutenant Atter in Canterlot. Flash traffic.'

'Yes, My Lord!' the vox officer called, putting through the signal to the human spotter team based in Canterlot, where they had been providing sterling service as interlocutors between the human and pony high commands. 'Putting you through now, My Lord.'

'Do you think these ponies even know what radiation is?' General Jahn asked wryly.

'I don't know,' Marcos replied. 'But if they don't, they are about to receive a crash course in it.' The vox-link at his command lectern crackled into life.

'This is Lieutenant Atter. Receiving you loud and clear. Go ahead, My Lord.'

Marcos strode to the lectern and spoke into the vox. 'Lieutenant, no doubt you saw that flash away to the south. The Archenemy has detonated an atomic weapon in Baltimare. You are to seek an immediate audience with the princess and inform her that fallout is heading your way and is expected in Canterlot within the hour.'

'Yes...yes, My Lord...' Atter replied, his worry audible in his voice. 'The princess is...'

'I am already here, Lord-Admiral.' Celestia's voice came through the link, smooth and calm as always. 'I saw the flash and I imagined you might have an explanation. 'Pray, tell me, what is an atomic weapon, exactly?'

'Ah, Your Highness...' Marcos was not entirely surprised to hear her voice, as she seemed to have her finger- or rather, hoof- on the pulse of most goings on, and she was not one to be fooled easily. There was no point in beating about the bush or trying to sugarcoat the issue with half-truths. 'Atomic weapons are a class of explosive device that utilise the energy released by splitting the atom...that is to say, the smallest component of matter. This release of energy can be harnessed to create a tremendous explosive force.'

'And this weapon has been used on Baltimare?' Celestia asked. Once again, there was no point in lying to her.

'Yes, Your Highness,' Marcos replied. 'The Archenemy has seemingly detonated one of these devices rather than fight for the city. We do not know why.'

'And what is this fallout you speak of?' the princess asked.

'Are you familiar with the concept of radiation, Your Highness?' Marcos questioned. 'The electromagnetic spectrum?'

'Yes,' came the simple reply, which both surprised and did not surprise Marcos. Though pony science seemed relatively primitive compared to that of the Imperium, they had demonstrated plenty of knowledge in various areas, especially, for a species that claimed to be peace-loving, in warfare. They clearly had not advanced far enough to harness the power of the atom for either peace or war, but many of the principles of the way the universe worked were obviously apparent to them- particularly odd since their reliance on 'magic' seemed to run contrary to such beliefs.

The concept of magic in human history had been used to both oppose science and promote religion by means of fear and misunderstanding; fear of technology and progress for the former cause, and fear of magic itself for the latter. Those who displayed such talents- psykers, as they later became known- had long been shunned and castigated by humanity, and yet here was a species, like the Eldar, who embraced it wholeheartedly. Magic ran through their society, their very structure and soul. Or at least, that was what they called it. The ponies had chosen to follow a leader who had united their race under her banner through the twin weapons of intellect and power, psychic power to be precise, which was exactly what the Emperor had done with humanity.

'Then you are familiar with the concept of ionizing radiation as well, Your Highness?' Marcos asked, receiving the same reply from Celestia.

'Yes...so these atomic weapons release ionizing radiation, and that is what is heading our way?' Celestia answered, once again impressing Marcos with her awareness, both of scientific matters and of warfare.

'Yes, Your Highness, I am afraid that is the case,' Marcos replied. 'You and your scientists are aware of the dangers posed by ionizing radiation, I take it, in which case you will have no doubt as to the course of action to be taken, which is the course I am going to advise you to take. Everyone in the city of Canterlot should take cover, preferably below ground, although I realise that might be difficult given the geography of the city and its location. Basements and cellars, sewer and utility tunnels, all would be ideal hiding spots. There is little time to arrange such things, but the radiation will settle all across the city. It will look like snow, perhaps, or volcanic dust, which you are no doubt familiar with.' Marcos could not resist a small dig at the pony assault on the Hive which he had not been informed about beforehand.

'And how long should we remain below ground?' Celestia asked.

'It depends how much fallout actually lands on the city,' Marcos replied. 'But I would suggest that no less than one week would be a good initial estimate. The potency of the radiation deteriorates with time, and...'

'The half-life, yes,' Celestia interrupted him, and in doing so impressed him again with her knowledge of science that, it had seemed, should be beyond Equestrian society. 'So all those who cannot protect themselves from the radiation should be moved below ground for a minimum of one week?'

'That is correct, Your Highness. That would be my minimum recommendation,' Marcos answered. 'It might perhaps last longer, but we can monitor the radiation levels from here in orbit. Be assured that we will keep you updated as best we can, although our team with you will have to go underground as well, where vox reception might be spotty at best.'

'Fear not, Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'We ponies may not have your technical expertise or scientific advancements, but we can survive even where you may not expect us to.'

'Be that as it may, princess, do not take this threat lightly. If you can take cover somewhere, do so,' Marcos cautioned. 'The fallout will remain dangerous for some time, but we will send a cleanup team to assist you.'

'Can this radiation be removed by the use of magic in the same way that the so-called Daemonic contamination could?' Celestia questioned.

'I do not know, Your Highness. Since we have only limited exposure to your...magic, it would be impossible for me to speculate,' Marcos replied. 'But it cannot be destroyed by heat in the same way that the Daemonic contamination can, so do not risk lives by attempting it.'

'We will not, Admiral,' Celestia assured him. 'I shall inform everypony to take shelter, and I shall provide space for your personnel here.'

'Thank you, Your Highness. That is appreciated,' Marcos replied. 'We will keep in touch through vox wherever we can, and keep you updated on the progress of the fallout.'

'Very good, Admiral. And Admiral, can you tell me exactly what has become of Baltimare?' the princess asked. Marcos glanced over at the holo-map and at the Auspex consoles which were receiving vid-images and still shots of the ruined city from above.

'I am afraid it has been destroyed, Your Highness,' Marcos replied. 'Nothing could have been done to prevent the detonation of the atomic weapon. We did not even know the enemy had one in their possession. I am sorry.'

'As you say, Admiral, it could not have been prevented, it seems,' Celestia responded. 'I appreciate that your men put themselves in harm's way to attempt to capture the city, and I thank you, and they, for that. I hope that your casualties were not too high.'

'As do I, princess,' Marcos replied grimly. 'As do I.'

The street ahead was coated with debris. Bricks, dust, an entire three-storey stack of scaffolding which had collapsed from the side of a factory building and been spread across the road along with the wall it had been attached to. A great, soaring chimney had tumbled down like a giant tree trunk, shattering into a thousand pieces upon striking the road and the roof of a warehouse opposite through which it had crashed. The Salamander, however, was able to force its way through, crumbling brick and flattening metal beneath its treads. Major Halix stood in the command position, one hand resting on the top of the heavy bolter that was mounted atop the vehicle, in case any enemies should spring forth from the ruins as they passed by. It was unlikely; they were traveling through areas that had already been cleared by the advancing Imperial forces before the retreat had been ordered. They should, in theory at least, get a clear run out of the city and to a safer location on the grassy plains that began at the edge of the outskirts.

There were bodies here and there, guardsmen, identifiable by their uniforms. Some were from the Parvian Lancers, but there were others from the units that had been operating on the Lancer's right flank. These unfortunate souls had been crushed under debris, or simply thrown from their feet to strike their heads or have their bodies battered against some immovable object. They had heeded the order to fall back, but had never made it to safety. There was no way of knowing how many others had suffered the same fate. All Halix knew was they he, and the few survivors in the vehicle with him, had been spared such an end, and how they had to make sure they did not suffer a more prolonged, agonising and terrible fate by succumbing to radiation poisoning.

The industrial district through which they were moving would, in safer times, have made for a fairly interesting walk from a human perspective. It displayed every facet of pony technology and society quite clearly, from the purposes of the buildings which now lay shattered on either side of the street. A brewery here, a carriage makers there. A cloth wholesaler, a bottling plant, a brickyard, and a large sign proclaiming Finest Sporting Goods which now lay propped up against the smashed remains of a chain-link fence. There was no time to investigate or to ponder. The smoke plume hung above them like death's dark grey cowl. Fallout was surely starting to fall at some points across the city. Halix had tried again and again to contact somebody over the vox, but the interference from all of the ionising radiation, along with possible damage to the antennae or the vox set itself, precluded it. He could not get through.

Neither, here, could the Salamander. Up ahead almost the entirety of a four-storey warehouse had collapsed, slumped across the road almost casually, like a stack of child's toy bricks that the petulant youngster had flailed at in their anger and sent tumbling. The remainder of the building, still standing, looked skeletal against the sky above. The driver brought the vehicle to a halt. There was just too much debris in their path, and no way through.

'We'll have to backtrack,' Halix ordered quickly. 'Go back to the last junction and turn left.'

'Yes, sir,' the driver replied. He threw the Salamander into reverse and backed up over the cracked cobbles and took the turn, heading to the left in the hopes of bypassing the downed structure. Here, there were power lines down across the road, their supporting poles snapped like twigs by the force of the blast. There was more debris strewn about, and an overturned Chimera personnel carrier, its engine still throbbing incongruously, like a tortoise on its back trying in vain to right itself. The body of the vehicle was dented and smashed. Evidently it had rolled several times after being struck by the blast. Halix ordered a halt to check for survivors, and jumped down from his perch.

The Chimera's hatches were all closed, including those to the rear troop compartment. The infantry would have most likely dismounted before the blast, and would have been accompanying the vehicle on foot as they continued to advance. Whether they had climbed back aboard for the retreat or not would soon be answered. Halix gave the handle to the rear hatches a tug, and they swung open. He peered inside, but the troop compartment was empty. The commander and the gunner lay slumped together in a pile, while the driver could only be seen after crawling inside. He was covered in blood from a severe head wound. Halix checked on each of the crew in turn, searching for a pulse. They were all dead.

Halix wanted to test out the Chimera's vox, but the handset was missing, ripped from its cradle during the violent excursion the vehicle had taken from its tracks. He climbed back out onto the street and hopped aboard the Salamander, ordering the driver to get moving once again. At the next junction, they turned right, and then the next right again, bypassing the collapsed building. They came down by the other side of the ruin, where a particularly unfortunate Leman Russ tank could be partially seen, protruding from beneath the tons of concrete and steel that had dropped upon it like the wrath of the heavens. Even a main battle tank like the Leman Russ could not stand up to such a heavy weight landing upon its roof. The barrel of the main gun jutted out, bent halfway along its length by a heavy chunk of concrete smashing into it.

There were dead men, too, scattered around the street, but more importantly there was a clear road ahead. It was wide enough for the Salamander, and mostly clear of debris thanks to running parallel with the blast wave, meaning the collapsed buildings that lined both sides had collapsed away from the road. Halix ordered the driver to press on, and they made good progress, passing fallen warehouses, collapsed factories and empty lots strewn with rubble from neighbouring structures. Halix ducked back down into the crew compartment to check the Radiac reading. It was rising steadily. Though there was no sign of visible fallout in the form of rain or ash-like particles falling, the insidious nature of radiation meant that it could be all around them, upon them, without them even knowing. It was like a scientific version of the native Changelings that inhabited this planet and had already seen to the death of Lord-General Galen, among others. Even if they had not killed Major Harding themselves, they had certainly usurped his appearance and made use of his identity to sickening effect.

The Salamander rumbled on down the street. The industrial district gradually gave way to the suburban outskirts of the city, with single and two-storey houses. As they were farther from ground zero, the damage here was lessened, but the structures were also considerably weaker than those industrial buildings they had passed. Being mostly made of wood, many houses had collapsed entirely, while others very close by had suffered little more than superficial damage, with windows broken and roof tiles stripped. There were trees and power lines down in the road, but the Salamander rolled over them with ease, taking them ever closer to safety. They had made enough lateral progress that they were no longer beneath the centre of the fallout column, but merely grazing the edge of it as it streamed away to the northeast. What was more, they were approaching Phase Line Alpha.

Halix scanned the terrain ahead as the buildings gave way to open country, and was relieved by what he saw. There were friendly forces, some in the familiar colours of the Parvians. There were Chimeras, tanks and a few Salamanders from other command or scout units. There were even a couple of Basilisk mobile artillery vehicles, which had been holding position at the Phase Line anyway to support the attack if needed. There were men. Lots of men, and women, of the various units who had been assaulting the city, and who had made the ragged retreat from the blast zone out to the safety of the meadows.

The Salamander pulled clear of the city and Halix ordered a halt as they reached their fellows. He climbed down from the vehicle and took a look around. Guardsmen were all around, a heartening number of survivors. Many of them looked dazed, in shock at what they had seen and experienced. Others were wounded, being laid out on the ground and cared to by the medicaes and first aid trained squad members. Some of the tanks and other vehicles showed clear damage; dents, dings, missing pintle mounts and smashed optics, all caused by the blast wave or its side effects as debris was hurled at them like missiles.

Major Halix looked for someone to report to, a superior officer, whether from the 40th Parvian's Regimental Command Company, or from some other unit entirely. With the vox unusable he had no idea who had survived and who had not. For all he knew, he was the 40th's ranking officer. If his command unit had been caught and nearly wiped out by the blast, who was to say that the Regimental commander and his entourage had survived? They might be lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Although, if that were the case, the commander of the 1st Brigade would take control as he had seniority, being appointed Major and Brigade commander long before Halix. But if he was dead too, then...

There had been momentary chaos, madness unfolding on the streets of Baltimare as the great shockwave had roared through, but now there was an eerie calm, a quiet. No gunfire, only the sound of the Salamander's engine until the driver shut it off. The men were regrouping, trying to catch their breath after such a shattering experience and the loss of so many of their friends and comrades. All the while, high above them, the plume of smoke and radioactive dust formed a fearful backdrop as it was carried out to the northwest, heading for Canterlot.

Princess Celestia had ordered the sirens sounded across the capital. Those that had survived the occupation and the battle for the city wailed their mournful signal out across the rooftops, another reminder that the war was not yet won. By themselves, the sirens did not signal that ponies should take cover specifically underground, nor did they alert the defenders to the exact nature of the threat they faced. There was much muttering and murmur between guardsponies and soldiers; a mistake? A test? They wouldn't test the sirens like that, not during wartime. A foul-up was always possible, of course, but they had to assume it was real. In the absence of specifics, ponies manned the walltops and the perimeter guns, scanning the approach roads for signs of enemy contacts. They had seen the flash, far away to the south, but they did not know what to make of it. It seemed highly unlikely that something so far away could affect them. although the sounding of the sirens so soon after was rather a coincidence, some noted.

Shortly thereafter, messengers were hurriedly sent out from the palace, Pegasi with strong wings, to carry the alarm to every corner of the city. They were equipped with loudhailers, and shouted the message.

'By order of the Princess, everypony is to retreat to the palace catacombs immediately! Everypony is to retreat to the palace catacombs, immediately!'

The broadcasts had the desired effect. Ponies on the walls, ponies in the streets and in buildings, all heard the alarm. A rapid exodus began from the outer districts toward the palace. The gates were flung wide open, and civilian and soldier alike funneled into the palace grounds. Guardsponies guided them into the building and down into the tunnels and dungeon corridors that lay below. The Pegasi messengers made sure that the human contingent of guardsmen assigned to the city got the word as well, and down they went, below the surface, into the rock of the mountainside. They did not know why they were going underground, and there was much speculation as to the reason.

A Changeling attack, some surmised. But then why would they not be standing and fighting to protect the walls? The threat of a human attack from orbit. But then why would the humans have been invited down to safety as well? What else could it be? Nopony knew, but down they dutifully filed. A command from the Princess was a command from the Princess, and it must be obeyed, even if one did not know the reason why. All would become clear.

And so it did, once everypony was underground, crowding the caverns underneath the palace. The Pegasi messengers, having shouted their alarm around the city, rapidly checked likely places for somepony to be who had not heard the call, and then retreated to the palace. With everypony down below, the palace gates were sealed. The sentries fell back to the palace and sealed the doors. Finally, the entrances to the catacombs were closed and barred.

Princess Celestia ordered everypony, or at least all those who could fit, to assemble in the largest of the subterranean chambers. There, she addressed them.

'Ponies, do not fear. I have been informed by the human commanders that the flash that many of you will have seen on the southern horizon was the result of an explosion in the city of Baltimare, which they are currently besieging. They inform me, and I in turn am informing you, that this explosion has released radiation. That is to say, an invisible energy, invisible particles, which have the potential to be extremely harmful to life. Enough exposure will prove fatal. The humans have stated that these particles are being carried by the winds towards Canterlot. Therefore, as a precaution, I have ordered everypony below into the catacombs, where you will all be safe until the threat has passed. This may take some time, perhaps a week or more, the humans inform me. But I say this to you all. You will be safe down here, and when the threat is gone, we shall emerge, stronger and more determined than ever. What say you?'

A great roar greeted her words in affirmation, and filled the chamber. Her ponies were not downhearted; they were defiant.

Below

Like a gentle winter snow, the fallout began to settle across the city of Canterlot. It landed silently upon the rooftops and the streets, settling in places like a blanket, in other spots just causing a light dusting of flakes. Elsewhere there was no visible evidence of any fallout landing at all, but it was still there, and still just as dangerous.

The ponies huddled in the catacombs below. There had been little time for gathering supplies, given the urgency of the Lord-Admiral's message and the brief window they had to get to safety before the threat reached them. The catacombs, however, had long been used for storage of emergency supplies, and while stocks were limited compared to peace time, more than enough food and equipment had been shuttled down below since the recapture of the city. Water would be provided by the subterranean streams that delivered fresh and clean water directly from deep within the mountains, and if it was not clean enough, then there were purification tablets and powders available, and magic could also be used to remove contaminants. Any water running in from outside, as was the case with one of the fresh streams that flowed down from the surface, was prohibited and not to be used, due to the threat of radioactive contamination. While ponykind had plenty of experience with chemicals, and knew that such methods could be used to clean away chemical contamination and purify water for drinking, Equestrian science had not yet progressed far enough to split the atom, and thus, while they understood the concepts surrounding radiation, had never had cause to or chance to discover if it could be cleansed in the same way. The humans accompanying them were equally clueless; evidently the science behind atomics were mostly unknown to the frontline soldier.

With the city's defences unmanned, there was always the possibility of a hostile takeover attempt. It was entirely possible, if not likely, that the Changelings had spies either secreted around the city or surrounding mountains, or, more disconcertingly, within the catacombs themselves, disguised as a Guardspony, a civilian, or one of the humans. If they did, then everything that drone knew would be known by the Queen, wherever she had fled to. Even now she could be planning to return and take the city. Thousands of drones could be hurrying to the unguarded walls of Canterlot to steal it out from under Celestia's snout. The possibility could not be discounted. As a result, Celestia ordered unicorn patrols, and unicorns only, to leave the caverns and keep watch on the surface, while others hurried to the military stores. Unicorn magic, it was hoped, would provide sufficient protection for surface operations, at least for a short time.

In the military stores were stocks of chemical protective clothing, both gas masks and self-contained breathing apparatus, like those supplied to the fireponies. More than that, there were suits, made from a combination of rubber and plastic, complete with fully enclosed helmets, sealed against vapours and airtight. They were designed to be worn in conjunction with the breathing apparatus, and were designed for fireponies dealing with hazardous materials incidents, workers in chemical plants, and military operations in highly contaminated areas where simple gas masks would not be sufficient. Given that the true effects of the radiation were unknown to the ponies, Celestia had decreed that maximum precautions should be taken when operating in the contaminated environment.

With the hazmat equipment recovered, patrols could be organised that did not consist solely of unicorns, a necessity because of the small number of them who were present. There were only a small numbers of the suits; none of the units which had captured the city had been particularly equipped for operating in a contaminated environment. Neither had the airships, which had been ordered to stand off well clear of the city for the next few hours away from the fallout plume and then proceed to Las Pegasus for refueling and resupply. There had just been time to load them up with some of the more vulnerable, the badly wounded and those families with young foals, before the airships had to take off in order to beat the impending fallout. The Luna, the Fillydelphia and the Las Pegasus hovered to the west, over the mountain peaks on that side of the valley, clear of the path of the fallout, waiting as per Celestia's orders in case of any further developments before turning and heading for Las Pegasus until receiving further commands.

The protective clothing could only see limited use, because there were only a limited number of oxygen cylinders for the breathing apparatus. More unicorn patrols were quickly sent out to each intact firehouse in the city to recover their supply of spare canisters, for they could not be recharged in the caverns. The equipment to do so was located at fire headquarters, at the airship landing field outside of the city, and at the former military logistics HQ building which had been mostly destroyed during the invasion. In addition, not many ponies had been trained in the proper use of the gear; a few of the fireponies were qualified, but lacked any military experience, and the majority of military personnel in the catacombs were either Pegasi from the Assault Infantry or Royal Guardsponies, and neither organisation were expected to make use of such equipment.

The suits and tanks were far too cumbersome for a fast attack unit like the Assault Infantry, besides which, as a byproduct of being sealed and airtight, they would restrict the use of wings entirely. The Royal Guard were expected to defend Canterlot and operate in a policing role in the rest of the country, with little opportunity or need to wear such suits. Gas masks and splash-proof overalls would suffice for most operations in their line of work. Only the soldiers of the army were regularly trained to use full-body suits, which were only issued in the event of an operation where the enemy was highly likely to deploy chemical or biological weapons, the Zebrican Kingdom for example, but even these military suits offered a lower level of protection. Gas masks would be used instead of the breathing apparatus, as the suits were not completely air-tight and did not cover the face, but rather were designed to protect the skin from vapours. Most chemical agents that were likely to be used could be guarded against by simply wearing the mask, but some were vesicant or irritant gases that would cause blistering or could enter the body by being absorbed through the skin, which was where the suit came in.

Given the nature of the radiation threat, however, Celestia deemed the military suits to be inadequate for extended operations, and only the full chemical suits would be good enough. Some suggested that they should simply remain below the surface, but the princess would not hear of leaving the city entirely unprotected. Even a token force could patrol and look for any signs of activity, as well as monitoring the fallout conditions. Those operating above ground would have to be decontaminated, however, once they returned beneath the palace. This was a relatively simple task, given the good supply of fresh and clean water from the natural springs, and easy access to the palace laundry above. A mixture of detergent and water warmed up by magic made a suitable solution, and large watertight plastic bags could be laid down to create a kind of pool for the water to collect in. The ponies returning from a patrol stood in the 'pool' and water from the springs was sprayed over them using a small suction pump gathered from the nearest firehouse. The contaminated water would flow into the pool and be collected to stop it spreading through the catacombs or back into the stream from whence it came, to be safely disposed of down the drain chutes that were installed every so often in the catacombs to prevent flooding if there were some kind of leak from the palace above, or if heavy rain or snowmelt caused a heavily increased flow of water from the surface stream. Only once their suits were cleaned would the ponies start to undress, with the help of a unicorn to assist with the cumbersome and bulky suit and breathing gear. The suit would then be moved carefully by magic to another such pool where it would be rinsed once more, this time with cool water, before being magically dried in a short time, making it ready for service again.

While the errands and patrols to the surface were being organised, the rest of the inhabitants of this new, dull, damp world were making the best of things and preparing the caverns to support life for some time, at least a week, according to the Lord-Admiral, perhaps longer, if necessary. The catacombs were not designed to be lived in, but they had, in the distant and murky past, before even the time of the princess, been used by unicorns during one of the great sieges of Equestrian history, when a huge force of earth ponies and Pegasi had invested the city and tried for months to gain access, being repelled each time but inflicting grievous casualties with their siege engines and starvation tactics. Eventually, a truce had been reached, with the besieging army beset by plague and the defenders by famine, and the city had been spared, including those who had been living below, the mares and the foals, out of reach of the catapults and trebuchets of the enemy. Now, those caverns were playing host to life once again, not just as a passing visitor, workpony or caretaker, as had been the case for the past thousand years.

The emergency supplies that had been stockpiled below ground included a good number of bedrolls, sleeping bags and blankets, which provided enough facilities for most of the ponies to get some rest, though some would be required to 'hot bunk' and share with another, with one pony on duty while the other slept. These were assigned only to the military ponies, who were used to such rigors. The civilians were each given somewhere to sleep in the dryer caverns, away from the flowing water where the air was damp. They were given some food from the large stockpile of emergency rations; nothing fancy and mostly bland, but inoffensive, filling and of good nutritional value.

There was little room for comfort, even with the bedding provided. The floor of each cavern was hard rock at worst, smooth stone slabs or poured concrete at best, not conducive to a restful place to lie down, and cold to boot. It was all that could be done given the circumstances, and everypony accepted the necessity of such deprivation. The military ponies were used to it from operations in the field, and the civilians had learned to rough it during their time hiding in the mountains or the surrounding areas while Canterlot was under enemy occupation. Those families with foals too old to be considered for the emergency evacuation aboard the airships organised a communal sing-along, with familiar tunes being belted out, as well as the traditional song of Canterlot, City On A Hill, and the Equestrian national anthem, Her Will be Done.

In other chambers, supplies were being doled out, and Guardsponies were keeping watch over the catacomb entrances. None of them had forgotten their briefing some days ago when it was revealed that Queen Chrysalis had been seeking access to the palace through the supposedly secret passages that led into the catacombs from unexpected directions. While Twilight had been rescued and had claimed not to have revealed anything to the Changelings, there was always the possibility that she had let something slip, and a guard was maintained at all times, just in case, as ordered by the Princess herself. Nopony dared suggest that she no longer trusted her student. It was just a precaution, a sensible decision.

Though it was only the early afternoon, some ponies tried to catch up on a little sleep, a commodity that was rather hard to come by since the invasion. Every moment of rest that could be obtained was a moment to be treasured and embraced warmly, and so it was by many, who laid their heads down. For the military ponies, there was no such chance. They were on duty until relieved, and with such a confused situation, they were all on alert.

Celestia had tried to calm everypony down, but there was still a certain degree of uncertainty and fear. This was a new phenomenon, and even the Princess could only offer a partial explanation of how exactly radiation worked. She was not an expert, and those that were, the scientists and inventors, were not there. Most were dead, while some were present in Las Pegasus and Vanhoover, especially at the Airship Command's western HQ. They knew far more than anypony now inhabiting the caverns, but even they did not know everything there was to know about radiation. Its secrets remained to be fully unlocked and explored by pony science, assuming, of course, that Equestria was able to recover to a sufficient standard to permit their limited remaining scientific talent to be used on such frivolous tasks as experimental physics, rather than on rebuilding the nation.

To help distract everypony from the problems and dangers they were facing, Celestia ordered that a list of tasks be drawn up, both essential and non-essential, and every able bodied adult pony was to be assigned one. Some were simple enough; washing out drinking vessels and plates, boiling water, unpacking food supplies and distributing them to the needy. Others were more complex or involved; decontamination support for the returning patrols, exploring the rest of the caverns in search of other useful equipment that may have been left down there over the years. Everypony was made to feel useful and needed, a diversion from the threat they had been told lay in wait for them above should they venture to the surface.

Some ponies had to do just that, however, with Celestia's patrol orders and the pressing need to fetch more specialist supplies to support such activities. They could live down underground for the week or so that it would require, but their lives would be made considerably more comfortable and safer if they were able to obtain more equipment, and if they were to be able to keep an eye on things above ground in case of any further developments. There was no gap between patrols; when one returned, another one went out, using the suits that had been cleaned and decontaminated from the previous expedition. Up they went, and down they came, keeping a watchful presence above the ground, a vigil for the silent city.

The palace halls were deserted, and far from the vibrant place they had once been, thronging with helpful servants hurrying to carry out the will of the princess, smartly dressed Guardsponies patrolling, and awed visitors from across the land admiring the architecture and finery. Chief Firebrace seldom had cause to spend any time in the palace, save for when on fire code inspection or when answering an alarm, but the noted quiet made its mark on him nonetheless. A building the size of the palace would always have its share of fires, most of them small affairs in the kitchens, guest rooms where a fireplace got a little too feisty, or somepony left a candle burning where it shouldn't have been. The 1st Battalion was the closest to the palace, and as such, when he was on duty, Firebrace was the first due chief to the scene, as had been the case at the disastrous East Wing Fire some years back, which had reduced much of that section of the building to a burned out shell and forced mutual aid to be called in from both the Ponyville fire department and also Cloudsdale, requiring an airship to be drafted into service in order to transport their pumpers from the floating city and into Canterlot. The wing had been rebuilt after the fire, only to be damaged again in the invasion and recapture.

Firebrace was used to the claustrophobic effects of wearing breathing apparatus, but it had been a while since he had worn the full chemical suit to go with it. For three years before becoming a chief, he had been captain of the department's Hazardous Materials Company, assigned to deal with any chemical spills, biological agents or magical contamination. As a result, he was one of the few fireponies still alive in the city to have experience with wearing the complete outfit. While the full suits were not needed on every emergency call the Hazardous Materials Company responded to, with most being hoaxes, mistakes or simply not a sufficient threat to require such protection, he had worn the ensemble into action on numerous occasions and was thus one of the best qualified among those now huddled in the catacombs to put the suit on again and head topside.

Accompanying him was Lieutenant Oak Crest, a member of the army's 50th Infantry Regiment, a dark red unicorn also trained in the use of the chemical suit. He carried his repeating rifle with him, just in case. While a single gun would be of no use against a horde of Changelings should they decide to descend upon the city, it might at least allow them to reach the safety of the palace, or at the very least alert the others down below with the sound of gunfire. They did not expect to run into any human enemies, given that they were the ones who had set off the atomic weapon in the first place and likely would not want to walk straight into the contaminated zone with any more of their forces- although given the alleged self-immolation practised upon their troops in Baltimare, one could never be too certain. Celestia had refrained from sharing that precise nugget of information with her ponies, and so Firebrace and Oak Crest advanced in blissful ignorance of the potential lengths to which the human Archenemy was willing to go to achieve its arcane goals.

They left the palace building, into the cool afternoon light. They had a task to complete, and not just a simple patrol around the empty streets. The firehouse of the Hazardous Materials Company contained a wealth of equipment that would assist their temporary life underground; more chemical suits and masks, breathing gear, proper decontamination pools and showers, cleaning solution and waste bags, among other things, which would help ensure that no radioactive contaminants were tracked into the caverns by returning patrols. The makeshift methods they were currently using were effective, but could not be totally relied upon to be one hundred percent safe. Far better, Firebrace and the other fireponies had told the Princess, to get access to the real thing, professionally made and well maintained. It would be safer, that was for sure.

And so here they were, crossing the deserted streets of the capital city. There was ash, or at least, that was what it looked like, all over the place. Fine, powdery stuff. Residue from Baltimare, atomised bits of brick, concrete, rocks, people, all sucked up by the heat into a great plume and then spread out across the land towards Canterlot. At least they were not breathing it in, or getting it on their skin, but it would not be wise to linger even so. The science said that radiation had penetrative capability, and could, theoretically, affect them even through their suits. That was why Oak Crest was also keeping a magic shield up around the two of them as they moved. There was no guarantee that it would help protect them. Magic had never been tested in such a way before, as ponies had no active source of radiation with which to do so. It was uncharted waters for them, but, while it may not work, having the shield was most certainly a sensible precaution. It was better than nothing, in other words.

Their passage moved the dust around in gentle swirls that played around their hooves, or rather around the bottom of the shield bubble. Since they could not walk on magic, Oak Crest kept the bubble in contact with the surface of the street, so that it acted like a snow plough and swept the fallout aside, making a clear path for them to walk. The firehouse they were seeking was not too far from the palace, in the Old Quarter of the city, and soon enough they were there, at the main doors to the three-storey structure. The firehouse housed only the Hazardous Materials Company and their single wagon, similar in design to the rescue and containing a great deal of equipment for dealing with any kind of chemical or magical incident and mitigating their effects.

Firebrace opened the door using the key and they stepped inside. There was the wagon, in the apparatus bay, ready and waiting for use. They did not have long to hang around; their oxygen cylinders had a limited duration, and they had to get back to the palace as soon as possible. Oak Crest kept watch while Firebrace searched the store rooms for extra items of use for them to take. Whatever he found, he loaded up onto the wagon. Once he had everything of use he could find, he opened the apparatus bay doors, and together with Oak Crest, hitched up to the wagon. Oak Crest expanded his shield bubble to cover the wagon as well, to try and limit the contamination of the gear they had collected in the hope that it would require less decontamination afterward.

With the doors open, they set off, trotting down the cobbled streets, the shield clearing fallout from their path as they went. Apart from the ash-like dust which had settled, there was nothing else to be seen. No ponies in the streets, no foals running and playing happily, no lovers out for a stroll, no life whatsoever. Everything living in Canterlot was below ground now, the only safe place, or so it was hoped. The humans with them, the spotter team and the small guard contingent, had seemed moderately concerned by the news of the explosion, but they were not panicking. How much they really knew about the nature of the threat of radiation, however, was unknown. Were they unafraid because there was nothing to be worried about, or because they were ignorant?

The Hazmat wagon rumbled on down the street, toward the palace walls, its wheels rattling on the cobbles. Glances up to the sky revealed little more than a not particularly dark cloud overhead, but that cloud contained an untold amount of potentially lethal radiation. Not all of it would come down on Canterlot, of course, but there was already enough on the ground to make the surface temporarily uninhabitable. To see the grand old city humbled once again by the actions of creatures who were not even from the same planet was deeply saddening to Firebrace, a lifelong resident. He could only imagine how Princess Celestia felt about it, given how long she had been living in Canterlot.

They trotted through the open palace gates and into the grounds, heading for the back courtyard where there was an entrance to the service area of the palace. Inside there was the entrance down into the catacombs that was being used as the decontamination entrance. Their oxygen supply was dwindling after their journey, and they made their way inside. It would be the job of the next team to unload the wagon and bring the supplies down. They made the descent down the stone steps. There was no airlock or proper sealed entrance, but the first chamber had been kept empty, and whenever the heavy metal door to the next room was open, a magic barrier was erected, briefly lowered to allow entry or exit. The two ponies slipped through into the next room, where they would be decontaminated, washed down, cleaned and their suits removed. For the next week, such would be their life. Such would be the lives of all those in Canterlot; the cave dwellers, reduced to an almost primitive state of living like their ancient ancestors.

Arrival

The Emperor's Judgement hung above Baltimare. The data from the atomic explosion was still being analyzed and checked, but what was clear was that the radiation cloud and the consequent fallout had reached Canterlot. Lieutenant Atter had reported that the ponies were taking shelter below ground, as the Lord-Admiral had suggested. It was all they could do against an invisible threat to which they had no apparent answer. Even Imperial science had only advanced so far in dealing with radiation, a fundamental force of nature and physics which could be mitigated, controlled, but not destroyed or cancelled out entirely.

Lord-Admiral Marcos stood at his familiar position, at the command lectern, hands clasped behind his back. He could not help but consider what a total paradigm shift these past weeks must have proven for the ponies. They, and the other denizens of this backwater, yet strangely intriguing planet, had suffered a complete upset and overturn of everything they had probably believed. They were not alone in the universe, and there were forces beyond their world that wished them harm, as if things on the surface did not offer enough peril already. There were technologies out there that were totally beyond their comprehension; many of them were beyond the comprehension of the Lord-Admiral too, and certainly beyond the rank and file of the Guard or Navy. Technology, in some of the more backward Regiments or planets, was seen as akin to the very magic which these ponies themselves made use of.

Marcos pitied the ponies as much as he envied their innocence. If only humanity had been permitted by the course of fate to have remained isolated in the universe, how different things might have been. Think how many deaths might have been avoided! What technologies might have been designed! What wonders of the arts might have been created! There might never have been an Age of Strife, no Men of Iron, perhaps not even the Horus Heresy itself. Nobody would ever know; there was no way of knowing, only guessing. On the other hand, of course, there would have been no Imperium, either. Without the external threats humanity faced, there might never have been a need for a military expansion of the Imperium's borders. The Emperor might never have led his Crusade to ensure the safety of mankind, and they would not be out here today, fighting for this strange alien planet.

Vox contact was spotty, but they had managed to reestablish comms with units on the surface. They all reported the same things; severe damage, major casualties. Many guardsmen were missing in action. Others were wounded and being treated as best as could be managed. There were calls for emergency evacuation from both within the city and on the outskirts. Fallout was descending all across Baltimare and nothing could be done to stop it. Many units, those that realised the danger or managed to get in contact with those who did, were able to move out to the flanks, out from under the smoke plume that carried the radiation. But some units were trapped beneath, either unaware of the peril they were in or simple unable to get clear due to blocked roads or lack of vehicular transport. For these units, Marcos ordered a rapid evacuation. The Valkyries that had been accompanying the assault force, those that had not been knocked from the sky by the blast, swooped in to pick up stranded infantry from rooftops or empty lots within the city, bringing several hundred to safety. But there were larger numbers of men out on the grassland at the edge of the city. Many were wounded and could not make the long trek to the safe areas on the periphery of the fallout plume.

Marcos ordered bulk landers to be deployed, great hulking craft that lumbered down from orbit. The terrain outside of the city was perfect for them to make planetfall, smooth and flat grassy areas being easy to find. Suitable areas were marked by strobes by the ground units, and the vast craft dropped from the heavens, straight through the smoke clouds, lining up on final approach and settling with surprising quiet and grace onto the plains. The wounded were hurriedly loaded aboard even as the radioactive ash was falling around them. The operation had to be swift and precise in order to prevent any guardsmen from being exposed to an unnecessarily high level of radiation, and the men were impressed with the professionalism of the lander crews, who helped carry stretchers and litter cases up the steep ramp. Once the wounded were aboard, the rest of those units caught without transport were loaded. Men came from all around to escape, drawn by the beacon-like arrival of the large Imperial craft that signaled salvation from the situation they found themselves in.

Once their holds were full, the landers took to the skies once more. They could have remained in place; as orbital craft and designed to operate in the vacuum of space, the landers were equipped with heavy radiation shielding to protect them from cosmic rays and other phenomena that might affect them, but it was deemed an unnecessary risk to keep the landers on the ground. The enemy presence in Baltimare had undoubtedly been decimated by their own actions and the detonation of the atomic weapon, but there was no guarantee that they were gone entirely, that there was no threat if the landers were ordered to remain. The craft had no protection from ground attack, save for that which would normally be provided by perimeter defences, defences that could not be set up in this instance due to the radiation danger of remaining on the surface outside of the shielding they offered. Instead, they lifted the men clear, taking them away to the main planetary landing zone far to the west, where Imperial landing operations had been concentrated and there was a great buildup of force as men and vehicles waited to be deployed to whatever hot spot it was deemed necessary. There, they would be safe from the radiation.

The units on the ground that were clear of the smoke plume were nevertheless ordered to move farther west or east, as appropriate, to put more distance between themselves and the potential danger zone. There was no sense in taking risks. Anti-radiation drugs would be issued to every man and woman once they reached friendly forces who had the proper medical facilities, but even Imperial medicine could only do so much to counteract the exposure. Too much, and the body's tissue would begin to degrade and break down on a cellular level. Once that happened, there was almost nothing that could be done. Rejuvenat treatments could halt the decay, at least temporarily, but such high-tech solutions were only available for the wealthy or important, not the rank and file on the frontline. If they received a fatal dose, then it was a fatal dose. No ifs, no buts, no hope.

With the city itself a radioactive ruin, it no longer held the value it once did, either for the Imperium or for the ponies and their princess. General Jahn ordered all forces to be pulled back to form a much wider perimeter around Baltimare while they regrouped and decided on their next moves. Large numbers of men were on the move, many of them trudging wearily on foot, as their transport Chimeras had been knocked out, overturned or trapped by the blast and the extensive damage to the city. Many roads were totally blocked, necessitating some vehicle crews abandoning their charges and walking in order to escape the city. Others had chosen to remain in their vehicles, protected by the armour and the filtration systems from the radiation danger, monitoring the situation outside on their Radiac meters. But they could not remain buttoned up forever, and while those with working vox sets were able to call for extraction by one of the roving Valkyries, those that lacked communications capability were eventually forced to either abandon their vehicles and climb out into the now ash-strewn streets, or try and barge their way through the debris or through a half-collapsed building in order to get out of their predicament.

Those in command busied themselves with trying to understand the Archenemy's motivations and actions. Why had they destroyed Baltimare wholesale instead of fighting for it, as they had done in Manehattan? There was nothing extremely valuable that it would do them good to deny to their human or equine opponents; Baltimare was an important city, but still just a city like any other. But was there a pattern to their behaviour? Firstly the fire in Manehattan, perhaps deliberate, perhaps not. It had burned a district and killed many of their own troops. Next came Ponyville, where the destruction of the Hoofer Dam had swept all before it and washed away Imperial and Chaos alike. Hundreds of Imperial troops had lost their lives. The numbers of enemy dead were not known. Now, there was Baltimare. A city gone in flames in a hearbeat, with seemingly no justification or explanation. There had to be some dark reasoning, some twisted game the enemy was playing with its own minions, but what, and why?

The Polaris Maxima, a Dauntless-Class light cruiser of the Imperial Navy, held station above the planet. One of the survivors of the battle for control of the orbital space around Kuda Prime, she had taken both damage and casualties but had never once been knocked out of the fight. In fact, the Polaris Maxima held the enviable record of never being forces to declare itself hors de combat at any point in its history, and there were not many ships in the fleets of the Segmentum Pacificus that could claim that. Her Captain, Danrich, was suitably proud of the claim, though he had only been in command of her for six years. Formerly a destroyer man, commanding a squadron of the fast torpedo-armed escorts for a decade, Danrich had taken the next logical step up the ranks and been appointed Captain of a capital ship, albeit only a light cruiser. Nevertheless, the Dauntless cruisers were a formidable force for any foe to meet in battle, capable of handling themselves against anything short of a full cruiser. The squadron of destroyers Danrich had formerly commanded would likely fall like wheat under the scythe against a skillfully-manned Dauntless.

The Polaris Maxima was positioned as one of the inner picket craft for the remainder of the severely diminished fleet, mid-way between the outer destroyer picket and the main bulk of the fleet, where the true capital ships and the heavy transports resided. Their position meant they could keep a watchful eye both on the outer system, and the ocean below that lay to the east of the main continent. Such a swathe of watery emptiness surely seemed endless and vast to the ponies who had to cross it in their antiquated steam boats, yet if they would only turn their faces skyward, they would see some tiny fragment of the true vastness of existence in the form of the darkness of night and the twinkling of impossibly distant stars. There were stars closer to home now, too; the artificial ones, the moonlight reflecting from the ships of the fleet and their flashing anti-collision beacons. How long they would remain there, Danrich did not know. Such decisions were made by those who had different insignia on their collars. They may leave in a few days, or they may be sticking around for months. It depended on what the fleet's commanders decided they were actually there for.

They had achieved their original objectives, Danrich believed. While the Chaos presence had not been totally eradicated from the planet, their fleet had been shattered and their ground forces were being systematically wiped out. Surely they could leave the mopping up to these strange aliens- or if not, then it would be a quick procedure to excise the cancer that was Chaos once and for all, and then they could be away, to some new planet, some new fight to wage. Or, more likely, back home to Hydraphur for repairs, resupply and replacement, with tall tales to tell those who would listen in the taverns and brothels of the fleet headquarters. They would not be believed, that was for sure. Talking horses? Horses that, apart from their miraculous vocal talents, organised society, and bizarre psychic abilities, appeared identical to those found grazing on countless Imperial worlds? Buy me another drink and I'll tell you all about them, friend.

Danrich could just imagine such scenes, and while they did not make him laugh, they did at least make him smile for a moment. There was much out on the fringes of the galaxy that was not well understood, and the inhabitants of this planet most certainly fell into that category. How did they come to exist? How did they learn to speak? What caused their strange powers? How did they develop into an industrial society? There were so many reasonable questions to ask, but very few answers.

The Captain knew that the pony leader, a princess, had visited the flagship and spoken with the Lord-Admiral. He knew that their planetside operations were being conducted with her input, and with the intention of seemingly doing whatever she wanted to be done. Danrich was not sure how to feel about it all. Were they being used to do the bidding of some Xenos horse-princess? Or was it a truly mutually beneficial arrangement? He had to confess to himself that he did not know enough about diplomacy to be certain either way. All he could do was to trust that the Lord-Admiral knew what he was doing. To lead the Crusade as far as he had was a good sign that Marcos knew enough about such things to give them a good chance of getting something out of the whole operation here at Kuda Prime.

What exactly that might be had not been immediately obvious when they arrived, other than garden-world status so some Imperial bureaucrats could enjoy a nice vacation or some exotic and expensive fruits could be grown and exported to nobles across the galaxy. The planet seemed to have no great deposits of any particularly important minerals or ores, no promethium though some small amounts of petroleum and similar liquids beneath the surface in places. It was not in a strategic location- far from it, being out in the distant reaches of the spiral arm of the western end of the galaxy. It did not sit on any trade routes or key fast-warp corridors. It was on a border, but not the border with enemy-controlled territory. Rather, it was on the border of an eternity of nothingness to the next galaxy over, however many light years away that might be. It was a useless, backwater planet in a dead end corner of the Milky Way, except for one commodity- its inhabitants. Their strange magic powers must be what had lured the forces of Chaos here in the first place, and if there was something that the Archenemy was interested in, then it was worth keeping that thing out of their hands, even if it held no utility for the Imperium.

This force, if it could be harnessed, most certainly did provide the potential to be very useful indeed. The Lord-Admiral had briefed the commanders of every capital ship over a secure vox-link some days earlier of the apparent nature of this force that seemed so fundamental for these ponies. A source of psychic or psychic-like powers without running the risk of warp taint and exposure or Daemonic possession was something that had the potential to change the rules of the entire game for humanity. If they could isolate and figure out the exact cause, then perhaps, through chemical alterations, DNA manipulation or gene splicing, the Mechanicus could figure out how to apply the same features to humanity. Sanctioned psykers could unleash their full potential on the battlefield without fear, and perhaps would not even need to be sanctioned any longer. Maybe any man with an ounce of psychic potential would be able to make use of it. The Astronomican might no longer demand all of the Emperor's remaining attention, allowing him to focus on restoring his physical state and perhaps return to the world of the living one day. Ships would still need Gellar fields for warp entry, of course, but perhaps their navigators would no longer suffer mentally as they currently did, and perhaps it would stop the human souls aboard from attracting unwanted attention from the denizens of the Empyrean. Perhaps, ultimately, it could mean that one day the men and women of the Imperium would no longer need to fear every waking and sleeping moment that they could suffer from the hideous death of mental agony that an unexpected Daemonic possession from out of the blue would cause. Perhaps humanity could live truly free once again.

Such speculation was purely fanciful, of course. There was absolutely no evidence that such adaptation was possible, even with the Adepts of the Ferrus Terra poring over their data from the autopsies and vivisections of Changeling and Pony alike, but hope was what sustained humanity. Hope, and faith, and the Emperor, if this was truly the way forward for mankind, would provide for his children, of that there could be no doubt.

'Captain! Vox from destroyer section Tertius,' announced the junior vox officer from his console.

'Put them through,' Danrich replied, sitting back in his chair. Tertius was the destroyer picket out on the fringe of the system, and out of communication with the main fleet due to being on the other side of the planet. Due to its position, the Polaris Maxima was acting as a relay.

'Captain Danrich, destroyer section Tertius has detected anomalous readings in the outer system,' came the voice of the section's leader, Commander Gracchus. 'We are proceeding to investigate.'

'Understood, Commander Gracchus,' Danrich responded. 'Keep me updated on your findings.'

'We shall, Captain. Destroyer section Tertius out.' Gracchus signed off. Danrich made an offhand gesture.

'Signal the Emperor's Judgement and relay the message,' he ordered, but was answered by a different voice to the one he had been expecting.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'

Danrich looked around to see who had been insubordinate, which of his bridge staff he would have to discipline. He found himself looking down the barrels of a dozen Hellguns. They were not those of the bridge guards, most of whom were being held at gunpoint. One lay on the deck with a knife in his gut, bleeding out. There had been no sound of a struggle. The new arrivals had appeared unheralded from the bridge elevator and quickly fanned out, overwhelming the four guards assigned to protect it. There were at least twenty of them; a motley collection of junior officers, armsmen and burly lower deck labourers. All were armed, not just with Hellguns but also laspistols, grenades and knives. They must have raided an armoury on their way up; Hellguns were not standard issue except for honour guards and armsmen guarding key positions.

Leading the group was the one who had spoken. A woman, a Lieutenant, to be exact, carrying a Hellpistol and a chainsword. Danrich recognised her as one of the logistics officers from the cargo section; Bessemer, was it?

'What the hell is going on, Lieutenant?' Danrich growled. The vox officer looked back at hearing the sudden exchange, and hastily reached for the transmit button as his eyes widened. The Lieutenant was keeping watch, however, and quick as a flash her Hellpistol switched targets from the Captain to the Ensign, who slumped over his console missing most of the back of his head, drawing shocked gasps from some of the bridge crew. Another officer leaped up from his sensor station and in one slick move quickly turned and drew his laspistol, raising it, but never finding a target. His defiance led to a messy end, as several Hellguns fired in unison, cutting him down with chunks of sizzling flesh missing from his body.

'Any more heroes, hm?' the Lieutenant questioned, her gaze sweeping around the bridge. Nobody else moved. Danrich repeated his angry query.

'What the hell is this?' he snapped. 'This is mutiny! You'll all be hanged for this.'

'Will we indeed. That is fascinating, Captain,' the Lieutenant replied. 'Lieutenant Anna Callantine at your service, but I'm sure you knew that already. Or perhaps you did not, given the way the Imperial Navy treats its crews. Well, some of us have decided that enough is enough.' She gave a sharp gesture and some of the mutineers moved out, surrounding the bridge, grabbing crewmen and officers alike and shoving them roughly into a group in the centre of the deck. All except the Captain, who Callantine permitted to remain in his seat. She took a step closer to him.

A powerful woman, judging by the way she carried herself, and yet no more physically imposing than any of her fellow mutineers, especially when compared to some of the lower deck workers with their broad shoulders and rippling muscles. What made her powerful was the sway she seemed to hold over her followers. They obeyed her orders without question. She must have been able to successfully poison their minds with whatever nonsense she and the other ringleaders had come up with for a justification. No doubt she would be happy to tell him in due course. Most mutineers and traitors went to great lengths to try and justify their crimes against the Emperor and the Imperium. Callantine would probably be no different.

The bridge crew gathered in the middle of the bridge, fearful and watchful, whether looking for an opportunity to escape or to send out a warning to the rest of the ship. Calls were coming in from other departments and decks on the internal network, signaled by flashing lights on various consoles. As soon as the bridge crew had been disarmed, the armed gang that had stormed the ship's command centre began to take over their former duties at the direction of Lieutenant Callantine. Routine calls were answered, letting the reactor room, medical bay and rear cargo hold know that everything was still just fine, and there was no need to panic; after all, the bridge was still there, still answering their calls.

Callantine kept abreast of the whole operation. She was in charge, at least up here on the bridge. There was no telling which other members of the crew might, even now, be taking other key sections of the ship such as the engine rooms and main gunnery control. If they suspected anything was amiss, the guards at those key locations might be on high alert, but the routine messages being answered by the bridge would have assuaged any fears. The Lieutenant approached the Captain again, her sharp blue eyes twinkling.

'What are you trying to achieve here, Lieutenant?' Danrich asked, narrowing his eyes. 'Going to hold us to ransom? Do you think the Lord-Admiral will have any truck with mutineers, out here, this far from home? He'll blow this ship apart and none of us will stand a chance, including you.'

'That may well be true. I do not know the Lord-Admiral as well as you. We...mere mortals...' she made a sweeping gesture to include her co-conspirators, 'seldom are able to consort with nobility, wouldn't you say? But that isn't important. Many of us would not want to, anyway. You see, these brave men and women have decided that they have been out here long enough. Quite simply, Captain, they want to go home.'

'They go home when the Lord-Admiral decides,' Danrich replied. 'They go home when the Emperor wills it. Neither you nor I can choose.'

'That's precisely where you are wrong, Captain,' Callantine countered. 'I have chosen, and all these fine men and women agree, and they have chosen too. They want to go home, and if we decide to take this ship back to Hydraphur, there is nothing you can do to stop us.' To prove her point, she pressed the tip of her chainsword against his throat, the sharp, serrated teeth cutting lightly into his skin and drawing blood. 'The Lord-Admiral will not bother sending anyone after us. He can't spare the ships, not after the mauling the fleet suffered. Nothing could catch us anyway, except a destroyer, and you know as well as I do that a destroyer would stand no chance of bringing us to heel.'

'And you would throw away your career and your life just to see home a little sooner?' Danrich questioned. 'Is any planet worth being labeled a traitor to the Imperium?'

'I believe so,' Callantine replied. 'One planet, every planet. What's the difference? The Emperor does not care for me, or for you. He cares not for this crew, yours or mine. He cares only for the Imperium, the whole entity. It matters not how many of his children die, so long as his will is done. That is something to be both feared and admired, don't you think?'

'Enough with your philosphy,' Danrich spat. 'You'll all hang for this, mark my words. You know it as well as I do, Lieutenant. You see what happens to traitors. It happens all the time. It is a necessity, and believe me, you will be made an example of for the rest of the fleet.'

'We shall see, Captain. Time will tell,' Callantine responded.

'Lieutenant, a vox message from destroyer section Tertius.' One of the mutineers was manning the vox console.

'On speaker,' Callantine ordered. 'Do not reply.'

'Polaris Maxima, this is destroyer section Tertius!' came the urgent cry. 'We have engaged hostile contact! I say again, we have engaged hostile contact! Relay message. We need immediate assistance!'

Danrich glared at the Lieutenant, who made no attempt to answer the call for help. 'Polaris Maxima, this is destroyer section Tertius! Are you receiving my transmissions? Please respond!'

'Polaris Maxima, this is destroyer section Tertius! Enemy contact is a...' There was the sound of an explosion, and the decompression sirens, followed by frantic scrabbling. The message resumed a few moments later, now in the breathy cadence of a man wearing an oxygen mask while the world fell apart around him.

'Captain Danrich! This is Commander Gracchus! Can you hear me? In the Emperor's name, please answer! We're being torn apart! Can anybody hear me? Can you hear me, Captain Danrich? Can you hear me, Captain Danrich? Can you hear...'

The vox went dead.

Patience

The surface of the moon was not a place to spend your time, being a desolate, airless wasteland. That did not matter at all to the thing that was dragging itself through a gash in reality itself. A great presence, a creature most foul, born from the deep darkness of the Empyrean. A beast, whose true name was all but unpronounceable to humankind, it crawled free of its strange and ever-changing prison, out of the world of Chaos and into the world of men.

Almost lizardlike in appearance, with great curving wings that burned with a dark fire. A monster, many would say. Evil, certainly. A being of Chaos, of maleficence, of confusion and fear. Wearing tattered rags, the creature carried a long, ornately carved staff clutched in one eldritch claw. It looked around, surveyed its new location. The dark side of the moon. Not ideal for observation of the planet, but conversely, ideal for remaining hidden, for now. The creature was content to bide its time, to wait. Patience, it urged to itself. Patience was the key. It was finally here, but there was no need to hurry. Everything would work out exactly as planned. There were so many variables to consider, but consider them it had. Perfection, as always. Every outcome mapped, every choice borne in mind. Like a tree with infinite branches, the possible futures were so numerous that it almost caused the creature physical pleasure to think about them all. It liked choice. It liked change. It was fun to see the mortals scramble to alter their plans in response to the countless different twists and turns along the path of fate.

The creature settled down to wait among the lunar dust and boulders. It had always known that it would end up there, sitting in the crater with nothing but the darkness of space above and pale rock all around. Sure enough, it had come to pass, for it had been called to this plane by the death cries of a million souls, who had been snuffed out in an instant in a great event that had been designed for one single purpose.

To summon the Daemon Lord.

There was not much left of the Chaos battleship. The Daemonfate had ripped itself apart, its reactors overloading and unleashing torrents of energy throughout the ship's hull, shattering it entirely. Its crew were dead to a man. Despite the fury of the ship's destruction, there were still hundreds of bodies floating in space among the debris. There were only fragments of the craft remaining intact, nothing larger than a few feet in length. Several Imperial shuttles and lighters trawled through the wreckage, spotlights playing over the pallid, grey faces of the dead and the thousands of fragments of metal that slowly spun, tumbling endlessly end over end in the void, at least until they were pulled down by the planet's gravity and burned up on reentry. The search parties were looking for something, anything, that could explain the strange actions of the enemy ship. Why had it simply launched itself on a seemingly needless suicide mission against the Imperial fleet?

Lord-Admiral Marcos wanted to know. He needed to know. If this had been some last ditch gasp for glory or a vain, forlorn hope of success in battle by the enemy captain, then that would make sense. That could be accepted. It would not be the first or the last time that such an action was taken, either by a ship of the Archenemy or one of the Imperium's own. That was not the case here. The Daemonfate had made no attempt to fight. It had simply come swooping in and exploded. What was even stranger was that, judging by the report from the Polaris Maxima, it had seemingly fought with, and annihilated, destroyer section Tertius in the outer system. That was assuming, of course, that the same ship had been responsible for the loss of the escort section. If not, then they might have more problems than merely explaining a suicide run.

The erratic behaviour of the Daemonfate puzzled Marcos the most. Why fight, and then not fight? Why raise the shields halfway through the engagement. after exposing itself to heavy fire, and not raise them at the start of the battle? Or, given the eventual nature of its mission, why raise them at all? Chaos forces did not simply commit suicide, at least not en masse like that. There had to be some ulterior motive that the Imperials could not see, some reason for their sacrifice.

But the search teams found nothing. There was only broken metal, twisted plasteel, and the bodies, burned by the heat and scarred by the blast. Nothing of any importance had survived the explosion, which was hardly surprising. The main reactors had overloaded and any force which could obliterate a battleship that was several miles in length was unlikely to leave much behind at all.

More destroyer sections and small groups of frigates had been deployed to both 'sides' of the planet in order to continue monitoring the space that lay beyond it and was hidden from the sensors of the main fleet. If one Chaos ship could come from seemingly nowhere, then there could most certainly be more of them out there, and Marcos did not want to get caught again. The Polaris Maxima had estimated one day's work to repair its vox system. Marcos had offered to send over a team of maintenance personnel, but the message from the signal lamps had been a negative; no need. Problem is well in hand. A simple task, no doubt, some easy but relatively time-consuming fix, and all would be well once again.

On the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement, as usual, the Lord-Admiral stood at the command lectern. Things had taken yet another strange turn, in orbit around this strangest of planets. A single frigate had been dispatched to check on destroyer section Tertius. The Polaris Maxima had reported no further contact with them since they said they were moving to investigate unknown signals. The frigate scouted out the area among several large asteroids, and sure enough, it found the wreckage of the Imperial escorts, destroyed either by the Daemonfate or, potentially, some other, as yet unknown enemy craft that might still be lurking out there. With no detailed information from them, no report received by vox due to the Polaris Maxima's system failure, it could not be determined for certain what had actually destroyed section Tertius.

With no evidence to the contrary, Lord-Admiral Marcos had to work on the assumption that the Daemonfate had dealt the killing blow to the destroyer section. A few escorts would pose no threat whatsoever to a battleship, unless it was completely caught napping with its shields down, perhaps during repairs. Even then, the destroyers would need some very lucky torpedo hits in order to inflict significant damage. Escorts alone taking out a capital ship had happened before, yes, but very, very infrequently.

Even though, before the Daemonfate appeared, there had not been any space combat for weeks, the strength of the Imperial fleet was still falling. The loss of the destroyer section was not a huge setback in and of itself, but when the fleet was as understrength as it already was, every ship was precious. Any more losses and their ability to even defend the planet at all would be questionable. Then again, that was not their aim. Their aim, at least in theory, was just to defend their forces that happened to be operating planetside, as well as the supply and transport ships in orbit. Yet Marcos, at least, could not help but feel that their role had grown significantly since they arrived at this particular planet, unlike all those they had visited before during the Crusade. He felt that they had brought Chaos and death to these ponies and the other species of Kuda Prime. The forces of the Archenemy had surely been tracking them across space, Even if they had truly been led to the planet by something upon its surface, as the princess had suggested, and the testimony of Navigator Pericles had backed up, the Chaos warfleet would probably not have been operating this far out in the first place if not for the Imperials. Even if their presence had nothing whatsoever to do with the Crusade, though, there were humans among the enemy fleet, and, though the fundamental forces of Chaos had nothing to do with humanity, predating them by aeons, the traitor forces who had aligned themselves with the Dark Gods were most definitely a result of the Imperium's very existence.

Marcos continued to feel that something, in some way, was warping his view of this place and its inhabitants. Why did he feel the desire to help and protect them, these strange Xenos creatures? Before arriving here, the Lord-Admiral had never met an alien that made him feel anything other than one of two things; disgust, or pure hatred. The haughty, self-righteous Eldar with their disdain for the 'lower species' that humanity represented to them, and the Tau with their socialistic philosophies and superior technology inspired the former; the brutality and pure aggression of the Orks, the cold and unfeeling arithmetic of death exhibited by the Necrons, and the unbridled horror of the Tyranids, inspired the latter.

Yet here was a species, these ponies, Xenos like all the others, but somehow different. He could not quite place why, despite his meeting and conversations with the princess, despite studying all the data collected by the scouts, reconnaissance patrols, orbital scans and that which had been provided by the ponies themselves. It could not simply be that they possessed the power of psykers; there were other alien species with similar abilities, notably the Eldar and certain species of Tyranid.

Perhaps an explanation lay with the Tau, those distant dwellers of the opposite fringe of the galaxy, bipedal humanoid creatures with blue or grey skin, physically frail but possessed of fantastically advanced weaponry. They possessed powerful fusion plasma weaponry, a far superior version of the Imperium's own plasma technology, and anti-gravity technology that rivalled or exceeded that of the Eldar. They had the only working system of faster-than-light travel to have been developed that did not require the use of the warp and its inherent dangers. They had harnessed autonomous technology and artificial intelligence in a way that humanity had never succeeded in achieving; the history books told of the dangerous Men of Iron, failed attempts at creating ancient robotics and AI constructs, which had at first proven loyal and highly capable fighters, but later had risen up in an attempt to overthrow their human masters. The war to defeat these constructs was long and bloody, but mankind eventually triumphed, though much of its power across the galaxy had been shattered. As a result, the development of artificial intelligence or related technologies had been banned ever since on all human worlds, yet the Tau had possession of a great many autonomous systems and drones for combat and other purposes. Intelligent central computing systems were fitted to all of their vehicles and combat battlesuits, a vast improvement, though it might be blasphemous to say it, over the Imperium's relatively simplistic machine spirits.

The glue that held this advanced society together was the Ethereal Caste. These spiritual and societal leaders, like all Tau, had almost no presence in the warp whatsoever, which had no doubt helped to protect their nascent civilisation from the attentions of the Dark Powers during their development, which was a relatively recent phenomena, according to the data that Imperial scholars had managed to gather. The race possessed no psykers, at least not in the way humanity would recognise them, perhaps as a result of their lack of warp presence; alternatively, that could be the cause of it. Either way, despite their lack of psychic power, the Ethereal ruling caste held a peculiar sway over their subjects. There was loyalty, yes, and then there was absolute, unquestioning, unthinking obedience. This was very much a case of the latter condition. There were reports from the few Imperial teams that had made peaceful contact with the Tau that being in the presence of these Ethereals had an almost calming effect, soothing, feelings of peace and tranquillity.

There was certainly no guarantee that the mechanisms, whatever they might be, were even remotely similar, but that kind of feeling was exactly what Marcos had felt when in the presence of the pony princess. Others had noticed it too, both on board ship and noted down in combat and diplomatic reports. It was not an overt sensation, not a feeling of being forced into a certain frame of mind or to think a certain way. There was no pulling at the psyche such as one might experience from the foulness of Chaos. Marcos had never felt compelled to do or say anything as a result; rather, it made him feel that certain things should be done, that it was the right thing, the only thing, that needed to be done. To stay in orbit, to help the ponies eradicate the last traces of Chaos rather than leave them to their own devices to either continue the Crusade or return to Hydraphur. Celestia had never told him he should do these things. She had never demanded it, not even raised her voice. Yet whatever she suggested felt instinctively to be the right thing to do.

This subtle persuasive power, it seemed, was one that Celestia shared with the Tau Ethereals. Though Marcos knew nothing of the mechanism the latter used to project such an aura, it seemed almost certain that Celestia's ability was a result, in some fashion, of the unknown particles which she, and every other pony, gave off to a greater or lesser extent. The quantity and intensity of particles the princess produced was vast compared to the normal 'unicorn' ponies and Changeling drones which had been measured or dissected. Indeed, an orbital scan for the concentrations of the particle while Celestia had been aboard the ship had shown that the rest of the planet combined produced barely more than half as much again as the princess alone.

The problem was that the ponies had no presence in the warp. Rather, as Navigator Pericles had said, they lay outside of it, pressing in. This was where things differed from the Tau and their Ethereals, who did, at least, have a presence inside the warp itself, albeit an incredibly minimalistic one. That alone surely meant that the incredible psychic power displayed by Celestia, her sister, and the Changeling Queen, were not actually psychic at all, at least not in the way Imperial science understood it. Without a presence in the warp, one could not tap into its incredible energy and potential. That was how human, Eldar, and Chaos psykers operated, how they were able to hurl bolts of pure energy, weave complex illusions, levitate, and perform other fantastical feats. Celestia and the other ponies, outside of the warp, could not draw on the same resources to supply the powers they wielded.

So how the hell did they do it?

Time underground passed slowly. It reminded Twilight too much of the Hive for her to be comfortable with such a subterranean existence, even if it was only for a few days. It was dark and it was wet, but at least it was not hot. That would have been the last straw, filling her mind completely, instead of only partially, with memories of the volcano that she had been imprisoned beneath. She fervently hoped that they would not have to remain underground in Canterlot for as long as she had spent in the Hive. Yes, she was safe here, in theory at least. She had her family, her friends, and her Princess around to help and support her, but she still couldn't quite shake the fear that had gripped her as she had been assisted down the smooth, stone staircase into the palace catacombs.

Twilight had long been a kind of shut-in, almost hermitlike in her lifestyle, preferring to simply read and study rather than get out and socialise, but taking things to extremes until Princess Celestia had ordered her to go to Ponyville. Her old self might have enjoyed exploring the caverns, which offered a close, cosy feeling; or claustrophobic, depending on one's opinion. Twilight, after her experiences in the Hive, now leaned more toward the second point of view.

She was keen to try and change her mindset back again. Twilight knew she had to overcome her worries. She could not let herself succumb to the memories of her imprisonment and torture. Princess Luna had told her that several times, and Twilight knew that she was right. However hard it might be, and however unusual the conditions in which they now found themselves, Twilight could not afford to be consumed by her doubts. At any time they might get her Element back, and she could be called upon to use it. Whatever else she felt, she was determined not to let her friends down if it came to that. If she had to use her Element, or fight in any other way to protect them, then she most certainly would, that was one thing she was certain of. She had never let doubt cloud her judgement when it came to her friends. They had never let her down, and she would never let them down either.

Doubt may never have clouded her judgement, but it was still gnawing at the back of her mind. Twilight knew that she would be ready and willing to fight if she had to, but would she be able? Would her body be up to the task? The palace doctor told her she was making good progress, and advised her to stay out of the damp areas of the caves. She had not suffered any direct physical harm from her ordeal other than malnourishment and dehydration, but Twilight, to her dismay, found that she still needed help getting up and down stairs or anything similarly arduous. Living in a dark and damp cave was most decidedly not the best place to be recuperating from any kind of ordeal, but it was a necessity, according to the humans.

One of their teams had arrived yesterday, one of their strange hovering aircraft apparently landing in the palace gardens. A dozen humans had appeared at the decontamination area, and been thoroughly hosed down as a precaution, even though they had only spent a few minutes above ground in the fallout area. Their leader, a Major Endis, had held a long conference with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna about both the nature of the hazard posed by fallout, and the methods they could employ to help clean it up and mitigate the dangers. Twilight was not party to the discussions, but Celestia and Luna both seemed satisfied with the results.

While the princesses talked, Twilight had been resting as best she could. She was in one of the dryer caverns, relatively speaking, and had been given one of the precious few actual beds available; only a military style metal cot, but certainly better than a mere sleeping bag like most ponies were having to use. Half a dozen blankets had been issued to her, and she had spent most of the day wrapped in them, partly for comfort and partly for her health. The doctor had insisted, and continued to monitor Twilight's progress even while they were underground. She was appreciative of the attention, but also feeling a little smothered by it.

To try and get away from it, Twilight had left her bed and wandered off a little deeper into the caverns, still wrapped in one of the blankets. She had found a small, empty chamber which had been cleared out of most of its supply crates, which had been cracked open to distribute the emergency rations which lay within. Nopony was there, but there was a decent amount of light provided by a few candles, and Twilight sat on the edge of one of the crates, just thinking. Being alone was how she had spent much of her life, and after several years of happiness around her friends, it was nice to just be able to take a few minutes to focus on her own thoughts. She found that it helped her to process everything that had happened, not just her capture and imprisonment, but the whole invasion, the appearance of aliens, and the catastrophic damage that was being done to Equestria. Not healthy topics to dwell on, some might say, but for Twilight, thinking was healing. It was what she did best, and what she had always done whenever she felt down, sad or confused.

'Hey sugarcube...you ok in there?' Applejack had appeared at the cavern entrance, her trademark hat planted firmly on her head as always. 'You should be in bed. Least that's what the doc said.'

Twilight looked up, and managed a smile. 'Hi Applejack. I'm ok. I know what she said but I just...wanted to stretch my legs a little. Since we can't go up for a walk in the gardens, well...I figured this was the next best thing.'

'You want some company?' Applejack asked. 'Or do ya want to be alone fer a while? Ah'm supposed to be helpin' with the dinner soon, but ah can spare a few minutes if ya want.'

Twilight decided she had spent enough time inside her own mind, and nodded. 'I'd like that.' She patted the crate beside her, and Applejack trotted over, sitting down. 'I just felt like being alone for a while without everypony fussing over me, just giving myself some room to think.'

'Ah know what ya mean.' Applejack nodded. 'Like when granny won't leave ya alone when you're sick n' ya just wanna rest. She'll bring ya another blanket, and another, and an extra pillow, then she'll come back with a hot water bottle, then a bowl of soup...' She trailed off rather abruptly, and Twilight could tell that she had found herself caught thinking about her family. She had still referred to Granny Smith in the present tense, but Twilight was well aware of her anguish about her missing loved ones. There had been no sign of them since the invasion, and Applejack had not had the chance to return to Ponyville, though that likely didn't matter now. Perhaps she never would. The town was gone, and it might end up being completely leveled and the land turned over to some other use; farming, perhaps, since Equestria would need to rapidly try to regain food security before the winter.

Twilight took hold of Applejack's hoof comfortingly. 'I'm sorry, Applejack. I know there's nothing I can say that would make you feel any better. There's still hope, though. There's always hope. Ponies survived from Canterlot when it was taken...' Her words just made her feel worse for her friend. She was lucky. Her parents had survived in the hills, and Shining had been with the princesses and well protected. Applejack's family, and those of her other friends, had been left to their own devices. Maybe they had reached safety, escorted by local Royal Guard units. Or they could be living in the woods or the mountains like ponies from Canterlot had. Or perhaps they were all dead, every single one of them. Big Mac, Applebloom, Granny Smith, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Maud and the other Pie sisters. Nopony knew, and perhaps they would never know the truth.

'S'ok, Twi,' Applejack assured her. 'Just...hard not ta think about them, ya know? Can't help wonderin' where they are right now. Are they in some cave somewhere like us? Or are they up there now with ma and pa?'

Twilight knew that Applejack's parents died years ago. 'I don't know. But we'll find out. It might take a while, but we'll find out what happened to them all,' Twilight assured her, with false confidence. 'I guess we'll be living here in Canterlot for the foreseeable future.'

'Yeah...Rarity's pleased with that, at least,' Applejack replied. 'Can't say ah'm too enthusiastic about it. She's changed her tune too, now that we're essentially livin' in the basement.' She managed to chuckle and gave a small smile to Twilight, who returned it.

'We'll be back on the surface before you know it. Those humans that came were talking about how to clean up the fallout. Once it's gone then we can go back to living in the palace, and Rarity can be happy again,' she assured Applejack.

'Yeah, ah hope they can get rid of that stuff. Ah hate to see Rarity sad like this,' the farmpony replied. 'And ah hate to see you sad, too. Ah can't imagine what ya must be feeling after what you went through. Ah know it's a cliche to say, and it might not make much difference, but ah'm always here for ya, and so are the rest of the girls. If ya wanna talk, or just sit in silence, or ya need a shoulder to cry on, or whatver it is. We'll be there for ya, sugarcube, always.'

'Thanks, AJ.' Twilight smiled. 'I know you will. I know it's something that I can't really talk about or explain too well, what happened to me. It's all still a little unreal. But it was thinking about all of you that kept me going.'

Applejack gave Twilight's hoof a comforting squeeze. 'You'll work it out, sugarcube. You'll move on and one day you'll forget all about your troubles. It's just gonna take a little patience, that's all. Just patience.'

Just Another Day

The morning came bright and clear over Canterlot. Hardly a cloud was in the sky, the murky stain that had been the fallout plume long since dispersed, carried away by the wind far to the northeast. The streets were still empty, coated with the hazardous ash and dust which had been deposited like a blanket across the city. There were no ponies about. No ponies, but there were humans.

The Imperial cleanup team, sent by the Lord-Admiral's personal command, was getting to work, as agreed with Princess Celestia. Each man and woman wore a protective suit, similar to those worn by the ponies running surface patrols, but considerably more advanced and offering a lot more protection from the hazards of radiation. They were equipped with bulk foam generator equipment, designed to coat a street, a wall, or any other surface, with the substance, which could later be washed off with water, the foam having 'captured' the radioactive particles within it, cleansing the streets far more effectively than merely brushing the fallout away or hosing it down with water. To clean the entire city in such a fashion would be an impossibly lengthy and manpower-intensive procedure that was not practical in the slightest, which was why the cleanup team had been assigned to the palace grounds only. They were to clean the exterior of the palace buildings, the gardens, and the pathways and pavement so that the complex could be reoccupied and the ponies could return to the surface from their subterranean exile.

Such was the hope. The chemicals would wash away the radiation, but not the fear and confusion felt by many of the civilians who now huddled together in the caverns. To all but the most scientifically minded of ponies, radiation was, if not a complete unknown, then certainly something of a mystery. None of them had ever had cause to encounter it in their daily lives before, at least not before the humans arrived. They were told that it was invisible, yet should be feared. The ash that coated the streets above them was not the radiation itself, but merely a carrier for it, a vector, like an insect that harboured a deadly disease. It was a fundamental force of nature, part of the very fabric of existence itself, like gravity, heat or magic. Yet unlike all of those, it could be deadly with even a small amount of exposure, which was why they were confined to their underground domain, temporarily, at least. Not long, they were told. Maybe two more days, perhaps less, depending on how fast the human cleanup team could work.

Those ponies who had sought, and found, refuge in the mountain caves during the Chaos occupation of the city were used to living in similar conditions, for the catacombs were hewn from the same rocks as their former temporary domain. That was something, at least, around which they could unite, a shared experience from the very recent past that was still fresh and foremost in their minds. Conditions were far from ideal, but there was a comradeship forming among the citizens of Canterlot, between those who would not have even mingled in the same social circles before the war. The capital had been a hotbed of high society and the focus of much of Equestria's culture and upper class citizenry, but that did not mean it had been home only to the snobs and nobles. Many residents were from middle or lower class backgrounds, and whereas before they would have tended to stick to their own quarters of the city and to their own social groups, now they were all mingling together, sharing food and shelter with each other, talking and singing, even laughing.

The social cohesion and community spirit pleased Princess Celestia. What did not please her was the enforced delay in any further progress towards the final recapture of the rest of the planet. Baltimare had gone, Ponyville had gone. Manehattan and Canterlot had been retaken, while a large detachment of Pegasi had recaptured Cloudsdale as well, facing no resistance, finding the floating city to be completely empty and devoid of the enemy. But much remained to be done.

The grand cities of Fillydelphia, San Fransiscolt and Trottingham still lay in enemy hands, according to scouting reports. The Changelings were out there somewhere and still needed dealing with. The human enemy still held numerous smaller towns across the land, and there were reports of bandits, rebels and criminal gangs taking advantage of the disruption to prey on weak and innocent ponies for their own gains. Infrastructure needed to be rebuilt, contact made with lost settlements, the army built back up to fighting strength, captured enemy technology analysed for the purpose of possibly reverse engineering it for pony use.

Trade with the Griffons had resumed a healthy pace, but trade across the sea to the Zebras had dropped off to zero. Conditions on the other continent were unknown, with no reports or messages being received from there. The humans had spared no ships to investigate the smaller continent and its dense jungles and steep mountains; their interests, naturally, lay where the largest population had been, and that was where their enemy had landed, meaning Equestria was still the focus of their attention.

Celestia did not know whether or not the humans would honour their word and actually depart the planet for good once their battle was won, but if they did, a long, hard road lay ahead for everypony as they tried to rebuild their shattered nation. If they did not, then they would feel her wrath as a result. It was not an outcome any of them would relish. Celestia did not wish to cause the humans harm, especially after all of the help they had rendered to her and her subjects in fighting off the invasion by their mutual enemy. Even now, their men laboured topside to clean up the palace and make it fit for habitation once more. But she knew that, in diplomacy and warfare alike, things were rarely quite so simple. Time would tell exactly what would happen, but she knew one thing for certain. She, and the ponies under her command, would do whatever was necessary to protect Equestria.

The heavy steam locomotive thundered across the desert, following the single track and kicking up a small cloud of dust from its passage. Its wheels clacked on the metal rails as the coupling rods span like mad things to drive them and the pistons worked furiously to keep up the flow of steam to the cylinders. This was not the quaint engine that worked the branch lines of the Equestrian rail network, or even the bulky freight hauling locomotives that plied their trade between Equestria's industrial cities. This was a beast, a military monster, clad in armour plating, its twenty-four wheels pounding out the miles as steam belched from its smoke stack. At its front lay a metal plough, a 'cow catcher' in common parlance, designed for shoving obstacles aside before they could derail the engine. Behind it came a string of seven cars, but ordinary rolling stock, these were not. The lead and rear cars were flatbeds, loaded up with sandbags that encircled the wagons. Each of these carried two rapid-fire anti-air cannons, the same type of 40mm gun mounted on board Equestria's airships. The three cars in the middle of the train were more normal in design and purpose. Two were passenger cars with armoured shutters instead of windows, used for accommodation, while the other was outfit in three parts; an infirmary, a small kitchen, and a workshop. The second and fifth cars were not really cars at all, but mobile fortresses. Each was fitted with thick armour plating, and the castles were crowned with two turrets apiece. Each was fully armoured, could rotate three hundred and sixty degrees, and hurl a 75mm high explosive shell almost ten thousand yards.

The armoured train was one of five which had been used to patrol the lines in the more remote areas of Equestria, where bandit raids and Changeling attacks were far more likely, and support less readily available, than in the more densely populated interior regions of the country. They roamed the rails, acting as a deterrent by their mere presence, similar to the airships, and responding to calls for assistance from remote towns or from other army and Guard units.

This particular train, one of only two now known to still be in working order, was following the route between Las Pegasus and Vanhoover, part of a regular patrol duty set out by Western Command to keep the two cities linked and in close contact. Supplies were moved down the line twice a day, and the rest of the time, the armoured train, christened Timberwolf by its crew of some fifty ponies, accompanied on board by two platoons of infantry for defensive purposes. Rare was the foe who wanted to engage an armoured train in combat, and rarer still was one who had done so and survived.

The train's unicorn commander, the inappropriately named Captain Peace Pipe, stood in the workshop section of the central wagon. There were tools for repairs both of the train itself, and the gear and equipment of the crew and passengers. Three mechanics, as well as the locomotive's crew, were available for repairs to the wagons or engine itself, and Peace Pipe was speaking to one of the mechanics.

'We finished work on the mechanism of X Turret, sir,' Corporal Longstaff informed him. 'Just the ball bearings needed greasing up, that was all. It's back in full working order now.'

'Good work, Corporal,' Peace Pipe nodded. 'Any other mechanical issues to report?'

'No, sir. We repaired that shutter that was sticking, too. No problems,' Longstaff replied.

'Alright. Better get that turret looked at anyway once we get to Vanhoover,' Peace Pipe ordered. 'We don't want to have to keep working on it all the time. See if the boys in the depot can get it working smoothly, maybe take it off the runners and give it a real once over.'

'Yes, sir.' Longstaff nodded. 'I bet they'll be happy to get their hooves on our gun truck.'

'They always are.' Peace Pipe chuckled, glancing round as he felt the train begin to slow down. A few moments later, one of the crewponies entered the workshop.

'Sir! Something on the tracks ahead. Driver's slowing down.' Peace Pipe followed him out of the wagon, heading forward through the passenger car and the lead anti-air wagon. The train's water and coal tenders had a ladder system in place for crew to move between the locomotive and the rest of the train, and Peace Pipe made his way up and into the cab, where the driver and firepony stood, coated in sweat and soot from the heat of the firebox, as well as the desert air.

'Skipper,' the driver, Sunbeam, greeted him. 'Up ahead.' He gestured with a hoof, and Peace Pipe brought his binoculars up to his eyes, peering out ahead.

Some distance ahead, on the track, was an obstacle. The binoculars revealed it to be a cart, parked squarely across the track. It was, most decidedly, not a natural occurrence. The terrain, which had been sandy, was starting to turn to rock as they were heading north towards Vanhoover and the foothills of the Hyperborean Mountains.

'Full stop, driver,' Peace Pipe ordered. The brake was used to bring the train to a halt, with a great hiss of releasing steam. Peace Pipe sounded the alert signal with three blasts on the engine's whistle, and the train's crew jumped into action, manning the guns and turrets. The infantry formed up with their gear and weapons in the passenger cars, awaiting orders. The Captain observed the cart on the tracks. It had not been there the last time they passed through the area, and it most certainly did not appear of its own accord.

'Looks like somepony's been active out this way,' Peace Pipe muttered. 'What's the deal? They want to derail us? They'll need something more substantial than that.'

Peace Pipe's second in command, Lieutenant Warhawk, arrived in the cab, and the Captain passed over the binoculars to him. 'Cart on the track. What do you think?' Warhawk checked it out.

'Looks like they're trying to lure us in, or maybe keep us away. Hard to tell, skipper.'

The obstacle was well placed at a point where the sandy terrain turned to outcroppings of rock, which provided cover for potential hostiles. The badlands had long been home to outlaws evading justice and rebel groups seeking to overthrow the monarchy or the government. After the invasion, that had not changed. If anything, their numbers seemed to have been burgeoning and their ranks swelled by deserters, criminals and disillusioned ponies who had fled the towns and cities to escape and found welcoming hooves happy to take them in.

The cart could have been placed with the intention of having the train smash into it, possibly derailing the locomotive and one or more of the cars, thus immobilising the train. It could have been designed to make the train stop, as it had, to investigate, making it vulnerable to an ambush. Or it could have been loaded with explosives in the hope that the train crew would choose to simply smash straight through such a flimsy obstacle, setting off the makeshift bomb and destroying the engine. Fortunately, the Timberwolf had another option.

At Peace Pipe's order, the A Turret, at the front of the first fortress car, rotated with a metallic whir to face directly forward. A shrapnel shell was loaded, replacing the usual high explosive round so as to avoid causing damage to the track. A boom echoed across the desert as the shell raced from the barrel and detonated, shredding the wooden cart and spraying splinters across the rocks. Apart from the shell, nothing exploded; there was no bomb in the cart, but the single shot nevertheless triggered a sudden reaction.

Their plans thwarted, the train having stopped well short of the cart and the planned ambush, a hundred ponies suddenly sprung up from cover behind the rocks. They had to cat; if the train continued on past the point where the cart had been placed, it would have seen them anyway. At least this way, they retained a little bit of the element of surprise. Everypony held a rifle, which was of no use against the train itself, but a good angle would threaten any exposed crew. A volley of fire pinged off of the metal armour plating and blew holes in the sandbags of the lead car.

'Damn it, they're ambushing us anyway!' Peace Pipe growled, ducking down as bullets struck around the cab, cracking its armoured glass in a couple of spots. 'Pass the word back! All guns open fire! Infantry to positions, move!'

The turrets mounted on the two fortress-like cars began to swivel. The anti-air guns took aim as a large group of Pegasi suddenly rose from behind the rocks and into the sky. Unicorn magic began to strike the engine, denting and singing the armour. The infantry on board the train took up firing positions, opening the armoured slats to shoot out at the enemy. Several squads hurried out onto the flatbed wagons to man the sandbags and add their firepower to the battle.

The main cannons of the Timberwolf blazed into action, their deadly shrapnel and high explosive rounds tearing through those of the enemy who were foolish enough to expose themselves. They wore no uniform, no identifying marks or particular equipment, but from their numbers, they must have been one of the larger rebel factions who operated out in the desert, where Equestrian surveillance had traditionally been weak due to the distances and inhospitable conditions encountered. The treasonous groups knew that Equestria had come under attack and that it had come as close to falling as it ever had during its long history, and they were eager to help it tip over the edge. Any attack they could carry out would please them greatly, and what better target than one of the symbols of Equestrian might and, in their mind, oppression?

The trains had roamed the land freely, often in conjunction with an airship or two, which would drive the rebel bands and outlaw gangs away, fleeing in fear from the mighty craft and straight into the guns of Timberwolf or one of her sisters. But with the lack of government or military intervention over the past weeks since the invasion, with forces in the western region confined to the cities of Las Pegasus and Vanhoover by standing order, the rebels had been having free reign to expand, form alliances, recruit new members and raid and plunder local towns for supplies and weapons.

That explained their numbers here in the desert. There were at least two hundred ponies, and they were willingly fighting against the government, against the Equestrian army, who in previous years many of them would have cheered through the streets after a victory in some border skirmish or other. Some of this could be explained by the sudden invasion, and either fear or a sense that the military had failed them. But much of it was deep-rooted distrust of the monarchy. There had always been dissidents within Equestria, and Celestia had successfully crushed many a half thought-out rebellion during her millennium in command. This recent nascent uprising was no different. Some ponies resented the length of her reign, others felt that ponies should have a democratic say in their governance beyond merely electing mayors and regional governors. All, it seemed, were willing to die for their beliefs.

The rebels were spreading out in an attempt to surround the train, which had been their original plan, but the Timberwolf had stopped short of their ambush site, forcing them to adapt their plans. The train was still surrounded by sand, not rock, meaning there was little cover, but some small and gentle dunes did offer some protection for the advancing ponies. The Pegasi among them were spreading out to avoid bunching up and making a tempting target for an accurate high-explosive shell from one of the main guns. The anti-air weapons were keen to engage, but the Pegasi tried to keep low, using the terrain for cover where possible while approaching. Some carried rifles, while others held improvised grenades, petrol bombs and satchel charges, the only weapons in their inventory that could harm the train.

Or so it seemed. As the main guns roared, something appeared upon one of the rocky outcrops that was not a pony. Rather, it was a field gun, no doubt 'liberated' from one of the smaller army outposts that had either been abandoned as a result of the recall order from command, or overrun by the rebel bands. The pony crew of three were trying their best to shift it over the upward slope, but in this aspect their ambush plan faltered slightly until two more ponies hurried to their aid, getting the gun up to the peak. They began to set it up rapidly.

'Field gun, two o'clock!' Peace Pipe shouted, observing the gun through his binoculars. 'Relay the word to the forward gun wagon!'

The message flew back down the line to the front fortress car, and both turrets began rotating toward the enemy field gun. Magic smashed into its armour in an attempt to distract the turret gunners, but they were not deterred. The field gun crew managed to set up and let loose a shot, which narrowly missed the front passenger car, detonating in the sand alongside the track and throwing up a cloud of the substance, which drifted in through the firing slits, obscuring the vision of the infantry manning the defences. The gun crew worked feverishly to load another shell and correct their aim. They managed to fire again, this time striking the edge of the fortress car, dealing a glancing blow as the shell detonated, denting the plating but not stopping the B Turret from firing.

A shell arced out across the distance and exploded in close proximity to the field gun, showering it both with shell fragments and splinters of rock kicked up from the stoney plateau. Two of the ponies manning it were shredded into ruin by the deadly rain, limbs going tumbling away as their bodies fell limply, lifelessly, to the ground. The gunner gave a loud shriek of pain as something struck his hind legs, but he retained enough sense to try and finish the job of loading another round. The two survivors, the ponies who had gone to help move the gun up the hill, tried their best to help him, but they were not trained in the gun's use, and were more of a hindrance than an aid. Nevertheless, he managed to slam the round home and close the breech, taking a quick sighting and pulling the firing lanyard at the same moment that the A Turret roared into action.

The shells passed in mid-air, the high explosive round from the train shattering the field gun's carriage, twisting its metal shield and sending the two helper ponies sprawling. The gunner, what was left of him, dropped to the ground. But his round also struck true, just in front of the A Turret which had just killed him. This time the angle was different, enough to punch through the armour partially before detonating. Fire and blast ripped through the structure and into the crew compartment. Superheated gases roasted the lungs of two of the ponies inside, while the shockwave killed another. Mercifully, Turret A's gun had just been fired, meaning there was no round loaded which would have detonated and killed the rest of the crew. The well-designed wagon also had an extra layer of armour plating protecting the magazines which were located below the crew compartment, the shells being carried up by a hoist system. The internal armour held, and saved the front half of the train from likely destruction, but Turret A was out of action, most of its crew dead, the breech and barrel both bent and damaged.

'Son of a bitch!' Peace Pipe muttered, as shrapnel from the enemy shell whistled around the locomotive cab. He turned to double check that the field gun was gone; it was. But they were down one turret, and the enemy were closing from both sides, as well as above. The anti-air guns were working overtime, trying to cut down the airborne assault. Near misses were shredding the wings of the attackers, while a direct hit from the 40mm explosive round would reduce most of their body to a fine mist. But they were not attacking en masse, as the Changelings might. The enemy Pegasi were weaving and ducking and diving. It was like watching some kind of mass air display.

Peace Pipe removed his revolver from its holster, just in case. The Pegasi, if they got close enough, could drop down and land on board the train. If that was their objective. Judging by the grenades and bombs many of them carried, they might not wish to board or capture the train, merely to destroy it. Either way, they were in for a surprise if they thought the Timberwolf and her crew would simply lie down and take it.

'Driver, take us forward, full speed!' Peace Pipe ordered. Into the ambush zone, into the teeth of the enemy guns. That was rule number one for a solo force; to counter an ambush, go right into it. Don't retreat, don't merely stand your ground, initiate the counter-ambush drill and drive straight through the enemy. The Timberwolf was most decidedly a solo force, out in the desert wilderness, along, with any support dozens of miles away at best. The limited mobility inherent in a train confined to a track meant that techniques like using smoke for concealment would be of no use. No, the best things to do was to go forward, and that was what the Timberwolf did.

The wheels began to spin as the pistons started pumping, getting the heavy locomotive and its cargo moving. The surviving turrets continued to hurl shells at the enemy positions on the plateau, even as the train got closer to it. The enemy had launched their ambush despite losing the element of surprise. Clearly their plan had been to catch the train in the cutting between the rocky outcrops where they could immediately begin hurling grenades and petrol bombs onto it and engaging the exposed gunners and crew with rifle fire. Now that they had re positioned to attack the train where it had stopped, however, going through the cutting could well be the safest option.

The Timberwolf built up steam and speed, its guns flashing, rifles firing constantly from the sandbags and armoured windows. Enemies went down, and others scattered before it, not expecting such an action, a mark of poorly organised or poorly trained rabble. They were no professional force, despite their numbers and devotion to their cause, whatever misguided notion that may have driven them.

The train rumbled into the cutting, where ponies fired down on it from above. A few grenades were hurled, most bouncing harmlessly off of the sides of the wagons. A couple made it onto the roof of the central workshop wagon, detonating with no effect on the armour plate. The train carried on around a curve in the track, as the X and Y turrets in the rear car struck deadly blows against a group of ponies who attempted to follow the train into the cutting. A patrol bomb burst against the side of the locomotive, scorching the paint. The pony who had thrown it was immediately shot through the head for her troubles. The Timberwolf continued on around the bend. Peace Pipe peered out through the windscreen. There was something up ahead, something on the track. Another cart? No.

'Driver, stop!' he shouted. 'B Turret, target at 12 o'clock! Pass the word! Pass the...'

On the tracks ahead, the second field gun that the rebels had been able to loot from a small, abandoned army post sat positioned right in their path. The crew hardly needed to aim. They fired their single shot, then hurled themselves clear. The shell smashed straight into the front of the engine, and suddenly, the Timberwolf was in trouble.

Derailed

The shell from the field gun, fired at almost point blank range, tore through the frontal armour of the locomotive, exploding beneath. The boiler housed within was punctured by shrapnel, and a huge, roiling cloud of steam erupted from it, billowing up like a volcanic eruption, shrouding the entire engine and the first two cars in a hot white mist. Half a dozen of the enemy on the rocks beside the tracks were caught in the cloud, scalded to death without a chance to react.

The crew in the locomotive cab were protected by the armoured walls and thick glass, which cracked in several places as bits of the shattered boiler smashed into it. The sudden release of pressure had flashed all of the water inside the boiler to steam, ripping the casing, and much of the front end of the locomotive, apart, like peeling back a banana skin. The brakes screeched as the driver had applied them to try and stop the train, but they had built up enough speed that they could not come to a halt before striking the field gun that sat in the middle of the track. The gun was swept up the slope formed by the cow catcher plough and tossed aside. The impact was not enough to derail the train by itself, but the force of the steam explosion had damaged several of the leading wheels, bending them and forcing them off of the rail they were supposed to be gripping. It was not a catastrophic derailment like it might have been had they struck something more substantial, but it was enough to throw the engine off kilter, no longer following the track as it should. The front end of the locomotive scraped across the bare rock for a hundred feet or so before the train's momentum was spent and it finally came to a shuddering halt.

Peace Pipe picked himself up from the floor of the cab and looked about. It was like standing in a thick coastal fog, or inside a cloud high atop some mountain. Steam hung in the air all around, blanketing the train, even making its way inside the cab. Mercifully, it cooled relatively quickly once out in the atmosphere, at least to a level where its temperature was no longer hazardous to the crew. The train was out of action; they would most certainly not be going anywhere any time soon, and the train itself would likely never move again. Certainly the locomotive would not be salvageable. Its front end could not be seen through the smoke, but it was a safe bet that it had torn itself apart as the great pressure contained within the boiler had been vented through the hole caused by the shell.

The Captain gripped his revolver tightly in his hoof. The enemy, most likely, would not settle for derailing the train. They would want to make sure it was destroyed once and for all, and that went for its crew as well. They would no doubt be moving in already, using the steam cloud for cover as they closed on the Timberwolf. 'Arm yourselves!' he ordered the driver and firepony. 'They could be on us at any second.' Six rounds in the cylinder, plus his magic. Bring it on.

The steam began to steadily dissipate as it cooled, a vast cloud that swirled with the gentle breeze that flowed across the desert plains, slowly opening up and revealing the landscape around the train once again. The locomotive cab was not the best place to be; it was isolated from the rest of the train by the coal and water tenders, and Peace Pipe led the way back, scrambling over the top and down the ladder onto the first anti-air flatbed. Some two dozen ponies were there, the gun crews and the infantry who were manning the sandbags, their rifles scanning the steam cloud cautiously. At a signal from the Captain, the gun crews remained at their posts, ready to engage whatever targets might present themselves. If any Pegasi attempted to attack from above, having the 40mm guns ready to go would be a life saver.

Gunfire crackled from farther back down the train, beyond the shroud of steam. The rear cars were under attack, no doubt, and within moments, so were those at the front. A shout from the left side brought Peace Pipe's attention to half a dozen of the rebels, advancing through the swirling steam cloud. A volley of rifle fire brought most of them down, but where there had been six, suddenly there were a dozen. Another shout from the other side of the wagon meant there were enemies there, too. Surrounded again.

That was not something of particular concern to the mares and stallions of the Timberwolf's crew. Though they did operate frequently with the airships and Assault Infantry of the Air Corps, it was just as common for one of the armoured trains to find themselves carrying out missions alone, far from any support or help, as was the case here. It all depended on local conditions and what, exactly, needed doing. Often the train operated by itself when the target was close to a rail line, when the airships assigned to each sector were busy with other tasks, or when a particular brand of area denial tactics were needed. The airships needed to return to base and refuel frequently, but the train could be fitted with extra coal and water tenders or the more efficient diesel locomotives for when long-term operations were required. To further save on fuel, the train could be pulled for moderate periods by mere pony power, thanks to a combination of earth pony muscle and unicorn lightness magic. Such methods had been pioneered on the long distance main line services between Las Pegasus and Canterlot, and quickly spread to other long journeys to save fuel and wear on the engines.

Shots came through the steam at the crew on the flatbed and locomotive, puffs of dust rising from the sandbags that shielded them. Return fire was swift and brutal, and screams carried on the wind as more of the traitors died. A petrol bomb came arcing from the shadow of the cloud, bursting upon the sandbagged side of the wagon and catching one of the infantry, igniting his fur. He immediately dove to the floor and rolled to put out the flames, aided by two of his fellows who beat at the incipient blaze with their hooves and successfully extinguished it. Turret B let off a shell with a sudden roar that startled Peace Pipe, and three of the rebels went down, tumbling across the stone. The Timberwolf may have been wounded, but she was far from dead.

The steam cloud cleared enough to see both sides of the cutting that the train now sat within. There were still enemies up on the rocks, now visible to defensive fire from the infantry on the flatbeds and in the passenger cars. They were firing down upon the train's crew from the rocky sides of the cutting. There were enemies up ahead, and, judging by the gunfire, there were enemies to the rear as well. What was more, there were enemies overhead.

The hostile Pegasi who had been sneaking their way toward the train had now arrived above it, but with the Timberwolf derailed, a new thought had entered their minds. No longer did they want to destroy it; that was already done. The engine was a shattered mess and the train was not going anywhere. Instead, they now wanted to board the train, to clear it, to capture it, despite their earlier indications of simply wishing its destruction. Whether they wanted to merely massacre the crew, salvage equipment, or take the train cars for their own nefarious purposes, first they would have to get on board and stay there. But there was no way in hell the crew of the Timberwolf were going to allow that.

The enemy began to charge from both sides, met by rifle fire, but protected by a few unicorn shields here and there. More grenades were thrown, or dropped by the Pegasi above, who were immediately countered by a devastating volley from the anti-air guns. A dozen unfortunate ponies tumbled from the sky, their wings simply torn apart by the explosive power of the shells that detonated in their midst. A blast of magic struck the sandbags and tossed many of them aside, like a foal kicking down a tower of wooden blocks it had made. Several of the infantry stumbled and fell, struck by the bags, while others took their place, engaging the enemy with rapid fire. The rebels were trying hard to get to the train, from both sides and above, Pegasi swooping down, unicorns shielding the earth ponies who were rushing forward.

B Turret fired again, a shrapnel round, cutting down half a dozen of the enemy with metal splinters that ripped mercilessly through their frail bodies. But the turret could only face one direction at once, and while it was engaging enemies to the left of the train, the rebels on the right could advance. They pushed forward under cover of a rain of grenades from up on the plateau, with their rifles flashing. Return fire cut down several of them, but there were more unicorns among them, putting up shields for cover from the hail of bullets coming from the train's defenders.

The heavy cannons of the rear fortress wagon's twin turrets could be heard booming, along with the crackle of rifle fire, as the train was under attack at both ends, as well as from both sides. They were most decidedly surrounded now, with contacts on all sides and no way of moving the train with the locomotive in ruins. They would have to fight, and that was no problem as far as the crew were concerned. That was what they trained for, what they lived for.

The rebels now pressing home the attack had the advantage in terms of numbers and elevation, but the train and its crew had the advantage of firepower and defence. The enemy were advancing across mostly flat, open ground and rocky outcroppings with little concealment and less cover, save for that provided by a scant handful of protruding rocks and the shields of the unicorns among their number. Other unicorns farther back were hurling magic bolts and blasts to try and dislodge the defenders, but it was the Pegasi that would prove the most immediate problem.

There were at least a hundred of them in the sky, and with the train disabled they swooped down to take advantage, trying to get in beneath the umbrella of fire provided by the anti-air guns which were still blazing away, killing some, but there were too many to bring down all of them, and they were too spread out. To add to the problem, only the infantry on the flatbed cars could engage them; those inside the passenger cars could not direct their shots at a high enough angle, and the armoured topside of the cars lacked skylights, as a design decision so that Pegasi or other enemies in just such a position above could not simply hurl grenades down and into the cars.

The infantry on the flatbed had other things to concentrate on, namely the advancing enemy beside the tracks, meaning that only the anti-air guns were actively trying to thwart the efforts of the Pegasi, but that needed to change. At Peace Pipe's command, the infantry around him switched targets, ducking down from the sandbagged bulwarks they were manning and aiming upward instead. As the Pegasi reached a position to throw down their grenade or satchel charge, rifle fire found them and knocked them out of the sky, trailing blood. Several explosives that were already primed detonated in among the rocks with thunderous reports.

They kept on coming, not deterred by the heavy gunfire that met them, nor by the anti-air weapons, nor by the main turreted guns of the train that continued to bark in defiance. Soon they were swarming the air around the train, taking half-aimed shots at the defenders on board or attempting to throw petrol bombs onto the flatbeds in an effort to knock out the 40mm guns that were wreaking considerable havoc among their brethren of the skies. Flames licked across the sandbags where near misses had grazed the flatbed's defences, while a satchel charge tossed onto the roof of one of the passenger cars went off with a thump, denting the heavy armour but not penetrating it.

Enemy infantry were still closing in across the cutting, glowing magic shields protecting those of their number who could fall into cover behind them. Others were not so lucky, and were mercilessly gunned down by the infantry on board the Timberwolf. A counter-blast from one of the unicorn defenders shattered one of the shields, sending the unicorn casting it sprawling and exposing those behind to a volley from the ponies in the lead passenger car. Four of them went down, and the two survivors scrambled for cover, though there was none to be found. They both died under continued gunfire, as did the unicorn, killed before he could resurrect his shield, squirming around in agony before a final bullet smashed through his brain and ended his suffering.

The Pegasi high above were still threatening the train with their bombs. They were the priority target, since there were no more field guns to be seen. The only items which could actually destroy the train's armoured cars were the satchel charges that the Pegasi carried, seeking the perfect opportunity to drop them down in the hope of the blast being able to punch through the armoured rooves of the fortress cars and passenger carriages. The anti-air guns were doing a grand job of keeping them at a distance, but eventually they would run out of ammunition, or their gunners would be killed, or some lucky Pegasus would get a good throw in, and everything might be for naught.

Another unicorn's shield suddenly disappeared, along with the pony himself, and the four others crowding behind him. A moment later they reappeared, and now, they were on board the train. The crack of displaced air that signaled a teleportation spell made Peace Pipe turn as the rebels appeared on the flatbed. They opened fire immediately, and two of the defenders went down before anypony could react to the incursion. Peace Pipe ducked for cover behind an ammunition crate and quickly brought up his revolver, squeezing off two shots before throwing up a shield with his horn as two of the enemy tried their best to kill him.

Other ponies leaped into the fray, and one of the enemies found herself gutted by a bayonet as a quick-thinking pony stabbed it deeply into her. The enemy unicorn tried a bit of trickery, and two ponies threatening him found their rifles suddenly turned into broomsticks, utterly useless for what they were trying to do. The rebels, evidently, did not stick to the book when it came to combat tactics and spells.

The enemy unicorn took a few steps back. He was dark blue, with a clean, white mane and tail, and sharp eyes of emerald green. Around his neck he wore a Sheriff's star, clearly stolen from some town he and his gang of traitors had looted. Unlike the other rebels, he had no weapons save for his horn, though he wore an empty holster, presumably for effect, or to make some grand philosophical point to his underlings.

'Death to the princess!' he shouted, just about the most shocking thing that could be heard coming from the mouth of anypony. 'Death to her followers, who are too blind to see the truth!' The infantry were not deterred, charging into close combat to protect the gun crews. Peace Pipe leveled his revolver at the unicorn, but his shot was deflected by the sudden reappearance of the traitor's shield. The unicorn turned and used his horn to fire a blast of magic that smashed the door to the fortress car. He sprang forward through it.

'Son of a bitch...!' Peace Pipe grunted, leaping to his feet and following him through the melee. The few enemies that had boarded were being overwhelmed by the defenders on board the flatbed, although their distraction from their firing positions was helping other foes get closer. Peace Pipe scurried through the clash of bodies and into the fortress car, in hot pursuit of the unicorn who sought either to kill the gun crews or to detonate the magazine.

Inside, the gun wagon was something of a charnel house, with the bodies of those ponies killed by the field gun's shell lying sprawled in unnatural positions, two of them badly burned and charred by the fire that had torn through the compartment. Another pony lay dead with most of his face missing, gently steaming, a victim of the enemy unicorn. Peace Pipe hurried through the tight, narrow spaces, ducking under metal beams and supports, inhaling the smell of burning flesh and spent munitions. Turret B had been in action continuously since they had made contact with the enemy, despite the damage suffered by the other end of the wagon, and he had to watch his step to avoid spent shell casings that littered the floor of the compartment.

Peace Pipe ducked under the main central structural spar that separated the two turrets, coming to the bulkhead door that divided them and served to help confine any explosion that might occur to one of the two compartments, hopefully stopping the blast from ripping through the entire wagon. The door, usually kept closed in combat except when messengers were passing through, stood wide open. He moved through, his revolver raised and ready.

The unicorn was not in sight, but he had left a trail of death in his wake. B Turret's gunner sat slumped dead in his seat, while the loader and gun captain were sprawled on the floor, all the victims of unicorn magic which had burned holes into their bodies. As Peace Pipe moved on, he found another body, this one the B Turret messenger. Ahead lay a slight turn in the passageway that led to the door to the front passenger car. Peace Pipe galloped to the doorway, but as he rounded the corner, he was very nearly decapitated by a sudden blast of magic, just barely managing to duck.

The unicorn was standing by the door to the next carriage, either having trouble opening it or deliberately delaying his exit. Perhaps he was waiting for the opportune moment to strike, or perhaps he knew he was being followed. Either way, he was ready to fight.

Peace Pipe raised his revolver and fired, the round deflected by the unicorn's shield, the sound of the weapon's discharge deafening in the confined space of the narrow corridor with no ear protection. A bright lance of magic tried to cut him down, but Peace Pipe was able to jerk his body to the side, before his own horn flashed in response, a concussive push that shoved the blue unicorn against the metal wall behind him. He grunted as the wind was knocked out of him, but Peace Pipe's follow up attack slammed into his shield and was harmlessly absorbed.

He tried again, but again the unicorn's shield stopped him. His mouth was contorted in a snarl of anger, anger at the establishment, at the military, at the princess and those who wore her uniform. Evidently something had happened to make him disillusioned with life in Equestria, and his words and actions suggested whatever it was had happened long before the human invasion had begun. Peace Pipe put up a shield of his own in response to the unicorn's horn glowing, and a bolt of magic struck it, being absorbed.

Such a tight space was not the ideal setting for a magic duel. There was little room for retreat, though Peace Pipe could at least move back around the corner if he had to. The two unicorns were equally matched, but something had to give, and soon, it did. The rebel unicorn tried a sudden lunge forward, driving his shield toward Peace Pipe, with the intention of burning him with it; if it came into contact with him, it would at the very least scald him, and at worst, inflict fatal burns and destruction of tissue, in much the same way that a blast of offensive magic would. Peace Pipe, however, was able to rapidly counter with his own shield, raising it just in time. Both shield connected with each other, and with a violent bang, both shields tried to absorb each other, and in the process, they shorted each other out, hurling both ponies backward.

Peace Pipe slammed into the wall behind him as the rebel unicorn did the same, both stallions falling to the floor and slowly picking themselves up. The rebel was quicker, but it didn't matter. A shot rang out and he stumbled, looking down in dismay, grasping at his chest before flopping back onto the floor, blood seeping out from a hole just below the plundered Sheriff's badge he wore.

Peace Pipe rose to his hooves and moved to stand over the unicorn, wary of any tricks or attempts to use magic, and ready to counter with his own horn. He leveled the revolver and its single remaining bullet at the unicorn's head, receiving a laugh as a result.

'You fool. You're all fools!' the unicorn spat, though his spittle was flecked with blood, the bullet having evidently punctured a lung. Even when he was dying, he could not help but vent whatever poison had infected his mind. 'You think the princess loves you, you think she cares. You're wrong,' he wheezed. The pool of blood in which he was lying was growing rapidly, the heavy-caliber bullet having gone straight through him.

'The Princess is our sword and our protector,' Peace Pipe replied. 'She would have been yours as well, if you had let her.'

'Ha!' The unicorn coughed, blood flecking his blue coat. 'She did not protect us. The threats she should have dealt with once and for all, she did not. She did not act on her responsibility. The Changelings, Discord...she should have killed them when she had the chance, but she spared them...what kind of leader would spare creatures like that?'

'A leader who is just and true,' Peace Pipe replied. He may have been reading straight from the pages of the hymn books issued to every recruit, but he was most decidedly not preaching to the choir.

'True...true to what? Have you lived out here?' the unicorn hissed. 'Have you seen how ponies have been neglected? Left behind, abandoned by their so-called leader? No jobs, no investment, no protection from Changeling attack, no protection from bandits...so you might as well become one yourself...'

'No protection? What do you think this train is?' Peace Pipe growled. 'We are your protection. At least, we were, before you turned away from Celestia's light.' Deep down he knew he didn't have time for this philosophical nonsense with a traitor, but part of him said that he simply had to make the unicorn see the error of his ways, or at the very least, try his best to do so, as futile as it may prove to be.

'Celestia abandoned us long ago,' the unicorn replied, coughing up more blood. 'She cares only for blood and nobility. Would you forgive your own sister for such heinous acts as those which Luna committed? Would you accept her back to your own bosom so freely? Of course not. Would you spare a traitor?' The unicorn looked up at him with steadily fading eyes, just speaking having taken up most of his dwindling reserves of energy.

'No,' Peace Pipe replied simply, and pulled the trigger.

Exposure

With the intruder dealt with, Captain Peace Pipe returned to the front flatbed car, reloading his revolver on the way, not a particularly easy task with hooves due to each bullet needing to be loaded into the cylinder individually, but accomplished with dexterity thanks to his magic. The boarding party that had been teleported by the rebel unicorn all lay dead, with only three casualties among the crew, who were dividing their attentions between the Pegasi overhead and those enemies on the ground still doggedly trying to get on board.

Several of the rebels actually managed to get a foothold on the side of the wagon, but were quickly dispatched by bayonet or bullet. With the loss of both turrets of the front fortress car, they may have thought it was their lucky day, that they could get aboard in sufficient numbers to dislodge the train's crew from their armoured castle and take control themselves. The ponies of the Timberwolf were determined to show them the error of their ways, not just in that thought, but in their entire belief structure. The Royal Equestrian Army had the word Royal in its name for a reason, not just for show. It was Celestia's army, they were her loyal soldiers, and her word was law, regardless of what disillusioned fools like the rebel unicorn might wish to believe.

The traitor force may have been learning about their mistakes, but that did not dissuade them from their chosen task. If anything, the more of them who fell, the harder the others tried to fight. Accurately thrown petrol bombs found their mark and set two of the infantry ablaze. This time merely rolling on the deck would not put them out; they were pony torches, afire from head to tail. A quick-thinking unicorn picked up several sandbags from the defences and ripped them open, pouring their contents over the two unfortunates. The sand smothered the fire while other ponies batted at the smouldering fur of the victims.

The Pegasi who had thrown the bombs swooped down, accompanied by half a dozen others, and suddenly there was a melee on the flatbed once again. Several of the Pegasi carried swords, hacking and swinging wildly, only half-trained in their use. Lieutenant Warhawk, on the other hoof, was probably the best swordspony in the Heavy Independent Rail Brigade, the unit which operated all of Equestria's armoured trains. He drew his own blade, taking the attack straight to the enemy. Parry, parry, deflect, thrust, kill. One rebel collapsed with a sickening scream. The other turned from trying to stab a pony defending with her bayonet, and instead lunged at Warhawk. A simple flick of the hoof and a bit of balletic motion, and Warhawk was behind the rebel, and the rebel was slumping wordlessly to the floor.

Peace Pipe had to tear himself away from watching the excellent display, because another of the Pegasi had landed just in front of him. This one held not a sword, but a rifle. Peace Pipe raised his revolver, but the Pegasus gave a rapid flurry of its wings, setting a rapidly moving column of air in motion, blowing the Captain backwards, staggering him and forcing his revolver out of his hoof. The rifle came up, and Peace Pipe ducked, his horn glowing at the same time. A powerful surge of magic blasted through the Pegasus and sent his intestines flying out of his back like a rope being fired from a grapnel gun, draping themselves over the sandbags behind him. A brief look of shock appeared on his face before he collapsed into a crumpled heap.

With the defenders now occupied in hoof-to-hoof combat on the flatbed, the enemy on the ground were able to get up close, into angles where they could not be hit by gunfire from the passenger cars. They climbed aboard the locomotive and the flatbed, scrambling up the sandbags. Peace Pipe raised his revolver and shot down the first mare to crest the wall of sandbags. Another followed, a grenade ready to throw in his cocked foreleg. Another shot sent him tumbling back down, the grenade bouncing away and exploding, nearly ripping the hind legs from one of his own accomplices.

The position was becoming untenable. The enemy were starting to swarm all over the flatbed, and Peace Pipe knew they had to fall back. He blew his whistle three times, and the survivors began a fighting retreat to link up with the defenders in the rear section of the train. Those who could disengage first covered the retreat of the others, one by one, into the fortress car through the doorway as rifle fire pinged from the armour. Peace Pipe kept up a magic shield to protect the last few ponies as they ducked inside, and then followed them in. With a quick signal, another unicorn took up the task, covering the doorway with a magic shield of his own to stop the enemy following.

The interior of the fortress wagon was still as close to a slaughterhouse as it had been when Peace Pipe had left it minutes earlier, but there were now the sweaty bodies of almost twenty ponies crammed into a space meant for eight. They filed through, some looking with horror upon the bodies of their fallen comrades.

'Lieutenant Warhawk!' Peace Pipe called. The Lieutenant squeezed back past the others, his sword slick with blood. 'Yes sir?'

'Get back to the rear wagon. Tell them to disengage their brake,' Peace Pipe ordered 'Detail somepony to standby to detach this car from the rear section of the train.'

'Yes, sir!' Warhawk headed back to the rear again, while Peace Pipe looked around. The plan would need careful timing, but he was sure it would work. As the ponies made their way back to the passenger car, the Captain used his magic to open up the access hatch to the magazine below. There were a hundred shells stacked up on the racks, ready to be brought up to the forward turret above. In the rear section was another magazine, identical, both separated from each other by a heavy blast wall of thick metal.

'Private!' Peace Pipe called out to the pony holding the shield across the doorway. 'On my signal fall back to the other side of the bulkhead!'

'Yes sir!' the pony nodded, keeping up the shield, which was being hammered both by bullets and bombs, to no avail. Peace Pipe used his horn to create a small ball of magic, carefully lowering it down into the magazine before replacing the access hatch. He hurried back to the rear section and repeated the process, opening the rear hatch cover, inserting a ball of magic, and replacing it. 'Now, private!' he shouted. 'Fall back!'

The unicorn obliged, running back down the car and through the bulkhead door, not daring to teleport himself in such a confined space; the results of a small miscalculation could be messy and fatal. Once he was through, Peace Pipe closed the bulkhead door. It would not stop the enemy as they could simply open it from the other side, but it was not meant to. 'Alright, let's go,' he urged, following the unicorn back to the rear door. A pony was waiting there for them.

'Last ponies out. Uncouple!' Peace Pipe ordered as they crossed over to the passenger car. The pony lifted the connecting pin out with a metallic clunk, which separated the fortress car from the rear section of the train. Peace Pipe closed the door behind them as they entered the passenger wagon, where some sixty ponies were now gathered, both infantry and crew.

The front of the locomotive had been derailed from the track, but the rear wheels, and those of the coal and water tenders, had not. Their brakes had been applied by the driver in an attempt to stop, and they were still activated. The track was on a slight upward slope as it headed toward the northern mountains, meaning that the uncoupled rear section of the train, with the brakes of the last wagon released, began to steadily roll back down the track the way it had come. The locomotive, front flatbed, and front fortress car remained in place, as did the magical fuses that Peace Pipe had planted in the magazines.

The enemy flooded forward, swarming over the fortress car. Some were already on its roof in an attempt to bypass it before the shield was removed from the doorway, all unaware of what Peace Pipe had done. Soon enough, they found out. The two magically timed fuses burned out at the same moment, releasing the energy contained within each ball of magic. They rapidly expanded and, as they came into contact with the stacked shells, they exploded.

The whole fortress wagon tore itself apart in a tremendous fireball, smoke and flame billowing skyward as deadly shrapnel scoured the surrounding area. Every pony on board the stationary section of the train was killed, along with many who were still on the rocks or running down the cutting. The blast rocked the rear section of the train as it rumbled down the line, at a safe distance thanks to the gentle incline. Flaming metal rained down from the sky and rattled off of the roof of the passenger car as Peace Pipe observed the results of his handiwork.

The enemy assault had been devastated by the blast, a good number of their force wiped out. Those near the front of the train that had survived were in disarray, while those who had been attacking the rear were now dazed and confused. Their target was now on the move, what was left of it, and they had suddenly taken huge losses in the blink of an eye. Some began to retreat, running for the relative safety of the rocks as the train returned to the sands of the desert, the two surviving cannons chasing them as they tried to hide.

Soon enough, all the enemy were fleeing, their plan scuppered, their leaders dead, harried by gunfire still from the train, even as they ran for safety. Once they were gone, and the train had traveled some distance down the sloping gradient, Peace Pipe ordered the rear wagon's brakes to be applied, bringing them to a stop. They had escaped the enemy ambush, fought them off and driven them away, but now they faced a new problem. They were stuck out in the middle of the desert.

Peace Pipe ordered everypony to get some food. The kitchen in the central car was used to make a meal, hungrily consumed along with water by the crew and infantry. They waited for several hours under the burning desert sun that scorched the sand and heated the metal train cars like ovens. Small electric fans whirred fitfully as they tried to cool everypony down, with no success. The guards outside had the worst of it, but somepony had to keep watch. They wore caps instead of helmets, which had small flaps of canvas dangling from the rear to protect their necks. The wounded were treated, minor damage repaired as best they could, until the heat of the day finally began to give way to the coolness of the desert night.

Then, under Peace Pipe's command, earth ponies hitched up to the lead passenger car. Unicorns cast their spells on the train, and the straining ponies began to pull the remaining wagons along, back to the site of the ambush. It was empty, deserted save for the bodies of the fallen. The fortress car smouldered, smoke rising from the ruined shell. The infantry took up positions in the rocks around the cutting, watching for any sign of the enemy, but seeing none. Other earth ponies were hooked up to the locomotive, and the spells were cast again. The engine, tenders, lead flatbed and the fortress car were towed clear of the tracks. The metal rails were bent and badly buckled by the explosion, but the train carried several lengths of spare track for just such purposes. The crew were trained in the replacement of damaged sections, and they were able to make the swap. The train was moved forward, everypony loaded back on board, and the earth ponies continued to pull them along, all the way to their destination. They arrived in Vanhoover late, disheveled, stained with blood and grime and dust. But they were alive.

The Polaris Maxima was a fine vessel in her prime, but, Captain Danrich had to admit, she had passed that some time ago. Even before they departed on this Crusade, she was worn and tired, but now, after several years away from port, she was sagging at the seams. The ship was in need of a full overhaul, which was why Danrich had been looking forward to a return to Hydraphur after capturing this system. That had seemed likely; this was the very edge of known space, and there was nothing beyond. Surely the plan was to turn back. That idea seemed now, however, to be something to be questioned.

These mutineers had claimed to want to return to Hydraphur, at least to begin with, yet they also seemed to be in league with the forces of the Archenemy. The arrival of the Chaos battleship surely was not a coincidence. The more he thought about it, the more it enraged him. To think that he had been harbouring traitors on his own ship! Those corrupted by Chaos, the forces of evil. He had thought his crew to be above such things. Yes, there had been rumours, yes, there had been disquiet. There always was, on every ship in Battlefleet Pacificus, and every other fleet across the Imperium. That might have been a breeding ground for mutiny, which he had initially believed to be the case here. But not for outright treason. The law might show little difference between the two, and that was understandable and correct, for the punishment should be, and was, death. But in reality there was a world of difference between being a mutineer because you were dissatisfied with your lot in life, with the conditions on board, or with the officers and commanders of your vessel, and being a mutineer because you were in league with humanity's Archenemy. The oldest foe and that most heinous of crimes, not just a crime of the physical, but of the spiritual. Destroying or stealing a ship or killing its crew because of some direct physical grievance was worthy of death, of course, but to do so because you had abandoned not just your oath of service, but your belief in the Imperium, your trust in mankind, and your faith in the Emperor? That alone would warrant something worse than death, if human ingenuity could conceive it.

That was what faced him now. He had to find a way to make these mutineers, this detritus hardly worthy of the name human, pay for their crimes. That would be difficult, however, since he was still restrained. He, along with the rest of the bridge crew, had been moved down to one of the cargo bays for the last few hours. Why, he did not know. Perhaps the brig was already full of other loyal crewmen who had been rounded up by the traitors in their midst.

The cargo bay was full of crates, which contained various supplies for the ship and her crew. Now it was in use as a makeshift prison. There were some fifty prisoners being guarded, all loyalist crew who had been captured by the traitors. There were half a dozen guards keeping watch over them. Some of the prisoners had their hands manacled, like Danrich, while others at least had the use of their hands, for what little that was worth. One false move and the traitors would be more than happy to gun them down, perhaps even executing the whole lot of them for some minor infraction committed by one or two of their number.

A Captain no longer in command of his own ship; that was Danrich's position, and it was the nightmare of any commander. To be so impotent, to be deprived of the very thing that gave you your rank, status and title, would be galling in any circumstance, but to have lost the ship to traitors, servants of the Archenemy...and so cheaply, too! There had been no warning, no opportunity to stop them, no indication that there was any kind of mutiny in the works. Just the usual meaningless rumblings about low pay, long hours, tiring work, the same things that every ship commander had to deal with, all over the galaxy.

Not every commander, however, was subject to the loss of his ship to the forces of the Archenemy. This was not even a mutiny, but rather a hostile takeover. Danrich most certainly knew that it was a situation that had to be remedied. If nothing else, the ship must be set to self destruct if it could not be retaken. It was an abomination to let such a venerable craft fall under the sway of the Dark Powers, and while there was still breath in his body he was determined not to let them keep her.

How exactly he would achieve that remained to be seen. It was a forlorn possibility, given the situation. Danrich did not know how much of the rest of the ship the traitors controlled. Was it only the bridge? Were they the only prisoners that had been rounded up? Had the rest of the mutineers already been hunted down and killed by the ship's security forces? Without access to the internal vox net, Danrich had no way of knowing. Under armed guard, there seemed little prospect of the bridge crew escaping their imprisonment. Perhaps they could rush their guards, but at least a few of their number would be killed in the attempt, and he was not sure he could convince enough of the crew to go along with such a plan. Far better for sure to wait for some opportunity to arise. Surely it had to. The Emperor would provide.

Eventually, provide he did. Several more of the traitors entered the room, barking orders, shouting for the prisoners to be pulled to their feet. Almost the moment they entered the guards leaped into action, gesturing and prodding with their shotguns and lasguns, dragging the more reluctant men and women upright. Perhaps they were going to all be shot anyway; the traitors would have little use for excess baggage, so to speak, unless of course they needed help with manning the vessel.

The guards began to lead the prisoners out of the cargo bay, and Danrich stood up before one of them. 'Where are you taking us?' he demanded to know. 'You, answer me!'

His answer came in the form of a lasgun butt to the stomach, doubling him over as the wind was knocked out of him, a reward for his insolence. The guard dragged him back to his feet. 'Get moving with the others!' he growled, shoving Danrich roughly along, in line with the rest of the captured crew. They were led out of the cargo bay and into the endless, labyrinthine corridors of the Polaris Maxima's middle decks. They could have been heading anywhere. Danrich, as much as he was Captain and had spent six years aboard, rarely ventured so far down into the bowels of the ship, having little need to do so. As a result he did not know where every little corridor and rat run actually led, but he didn't need to. He had a good head for space operations, and he knew where all of the important locations on the ship were to be found. He knew which was was forward, and which way was aft, even down here in the middle of the maze of passageways.

The cargo bay, he knew, was not too far away from one of the main armouries on board. There would be guns and ammunition there, armour too, helmets, vests. If only he could get there, get some of the others with him. They could arm themselves, gear up, get to the bridge and send a warning, or get to the reactor core and overload it...anything to stop the traitors making off with his ship.

Others were with him, he knew. Simple exchanged glances with some of his superior officers, a small nod here and there. They knew, and they were waiting for his signal. Whenever the moment was right.

It didn't take long. The group turned a corner, into another corridor that Danrich recognised. He knew where he was, and he knew how to get to the armoury from there. The guards were leading them along, more bringing up the rear, but the centre section of the column of prisoners were mostly unguarded. Up ahead was a junction, with passageways branching off both left and right. The perfect spot.

'Now!' Danrich shouted, bolting to the right, down the hallway, in the direction of the armoury. He heard shouts behind, more footsteps as others followed him. There were gunshots and screams. Those who were aware of the Captain's plan sprang into action, trying to waylay the guards, overpower them, take their guns. Those who were not apprised of the situation nevertheless caught on immediately, and did their best to help. Some fled, following the actions of their officers, while others moved to help the struggle with the guards. Shots were fired, and men went down. The guards backed away, firing, each shotgun blast cutting down one or two of the bridge crew with agonised screams.

Some men ran left, others ran right, with the Captain. A few tried to run straight ahead, past the guards, but they were cut down with no hesitation. They scattered in all directions, in an attempt to escape the guns of the guards, who successfully fought off the attempts to overpower them as another half dozen armsmen came running from around the corner to support their fellow mutineers, backing them up with more gunfire, leaving the junction littered with bodies and slick with blood.

Danrich ran as fast as he could go, down the passageway and around the corner. He was not used to such physical exertion, spending most of his time on duty sitting in his Captain's chair. The armoury was not far away. There were a few others with him, the gunnery officer, the two junior engineering officers, one of the bridge armsmen. If they could just make it to the armoury...

His plan was a desperate one, but there was little else that could be done. If the armoury was still in friendly hands, all was well. If it was unguarded, just as good. If it was in the possession of the enemy, which seemed likely, then there would be a fight. Perhaps not even a fight, perhaps merely a slaughter.

'Through here,' he urged, gesturing to the maintenance hatchway at the side of the corridor. Together with the gunnery officer he removed it, ushering the others through, into the ventilation ducts. It was a simple climb, up one floor and then along, and, assuming the ducts followed the corridor layout, it would bring them in close proximity of the armoury. Danrich slipped into the confined space, replacing the cover as best he could to try and cover their tracks.

The ventilation system for such a large ship required large vents, big enough for a man to crawl through. Up they went, following the steady slope of the metal system, the gunnery officer bringing up the rear. The duct leveled out again, but there was noise behind them. Something in the vents with them, scrabbling through the tunnel. Surely the guards could not have reached them so fast?

There was a sudden strangled scream from behind him. Danrich looked back, over his shoulder. The gunnery officer was pinned to the floor of the vent by a sleek, black beast with glowing green eyes, busily ripping his throat out. A Changeling, he realised, with a sudden fearful jolt. The Lord-Admiral's broadcasts had warned of the possibility of the spread of these creatures through the fleet, that they could be hiding anywhere in the lowest regions of any ship. Now, it seemed, there was one in the ventilation system. As if traitors weren't enough to deal with...

'Go, go! Get moving!' he shouted, urging the men ahead of him onward. They scrambled to the next hatch, kicking it out and jumping down, intent on getting away from the creature which was intent on finishing off the gunnery officer, who was trying valiantly to struggle against it. Danrich tried to turn back and help, but there was little room to move, and the Changeling, despite its preoccupation with one victim, tried to snatch itself another. Its horn glowed and flashed, a bolt of green energy upon him int he blink of an eye, catching Danrich's left arm and burning through the flesh. He grunted, but he could see there was nothing he could do to help. To stay would be to die from the next blast of energy, and he hurled himself out of the maintenance hatch, landing with a thump onto the deck.

He looked up, and straight into half a dozen lasgun muzzles. There were guards all around, men and women who he would have called comrades until scant hours ago. Now they were the enemy, to be feared and hated in equal measure. The others who had been with him in the vents were prisoners once again, and so was he, his brief try for freedom foiled completely. To add insult to injury, there was Lieutenant Callantine, the ringleader, striding toward him with a triumphant smirk on her face.

'Well well. Someone tried to get clever,' she commented, standing before him. What was she doing all the way down here? Shouldn't she have been up on the bridge?

'Come to gloat?' Danrich asked, holding his wounded arm with his other hand. 'Don't bother. I don't care what you have to say, traitor.'

'You keep using that word, Captain,' Callantine replied. 'Are you sure it is the correct one?'

'Oh, I suppose you'd rather think of yourself as, what, a patriot? A realist? Freedom fighter, perhaps?' Danrich spat. 'You're just a pawn if you think the Dark Gods care about you. Turn away from the Emperor and you walk a very lonely path, Lieutenant.'

'But Captain, I am not lonely,' the Lieutenant retorted. 'None of us are lonely, for we have each other! And there are so many of us, Captain. So, so many of us...'

She was trying to scare him, make him afraid. But there was no evidence of any mutinies elsewhere in the fleet, nor of any coordinated plot of treason. Hopefully it was confined to his ship, as sickening as the thought was, that his own vessel, his own crew, had been the ones to succumb to the taint of Chaos. Danrich decided to try another tactic, to try and reverse the feeling of fear onto her.

'You're not alone on this ship, you know,' he informed her. 'You remember the briefings. The Changelings? They're on board as well, you know. Who knows how many of them might be lurking in the shadows?'

'My dear Captain, I do not fear the Changelings,' Callantine replied, 'any more than I fear you.' The Changeling drone which had been chasing them through the ducts appeared, and hopped down from the maintenance hatch. Callantine appeared totally unperturbed. Danrich glanced over at the drone.

'What, is this one your pet?' he growled.

'No, no. Not my pet, Captain,' Callantine replied. 'My child.'

Confusion

Captain Danrich looked back at Lieutenant Callantine, but she was gone. Standing before him instead, laughing, fangs bared, was another Changeling, considerably bigger than the drone, with a long, crooked horn.

The Queen.

It had to be. She matched the descriptions that had been circulated throughout the fleet. There could be little doubt. Danrich felt a bolt of both fear and confusion shoot through him. He was not sure if this was better or worse than harbouring traitors on his vessel. Instead, the Polaris Maxima was playing host to Xenos. Not just any Xenos, either, but a species they had been warned to be on the lookout for, a species that could pose a threat to not just the fleet, but the entire Imperium, were they to be allowed to leave this Emperor-forsaken planet. Now, they were on board a warp-capable starship; not for the first time, but this time, they were in control of it.

That explained how Callantine, or rather Chrysalis, as she had been named in the fleetwide alert messages, had managed to get from the bridge to the lower decks so fast. The Changelings, like some of the horned ponies, possessed the ability of teleportation. None of the guards who were surrounding the few survivors showed any signs of being unnerved or scared by the sudden appearance of Changelings in their midst; were they all Changelings too?

There had been no way of knowing, no possible way. Even if there had been a nascent mutiny forming on the lower decks, which was entirely believable, there was certainly no way of telling that it was being either caused by Changelings, or perhaps merely adapted for their own methods. Their disguises were too good, essentially perfect. Maybe a psyker could have detected them up close, but the ship's internal sensors, rigged to scan for the unknown particle that all of these 'magic' creatures gave off, had seen nothing. The alert had not been triggered even once, and Emperor only knew how many of these beings were now aboard the cruiser. They were in control, that much was clear, and he was face to face with their leader.

Danrich tried to mask his surprise. He had expected only to be facing a mutinous band of traitors, not a Xenos invasion.
'What about that ship?' he asked, referring to the Daemonfate. 'It arrived just as you took the bridge. You're going to tell me that was a coincidence? You're working with them, aren't you? With the Dark Gods.'

'These gods of which you speak mean nothing to me, Captain,' Chrysalis assured him, with another chuckle. 'Perhaps one day I shall come to meet them face to face, if indeed they do exist. But for now, I will content myself with this ship.' She took a step closer to him. 'After this ship, perhaps this fleet. Or perhaps I will simply bypass all of that, and head straight for...Hydraphur, isn't it? Your fleet headquarters, hm? What delights must await a weary traveller in such a place.'

'You think they'll just let you waltz right back into Hydraphur?' Danrich replied. 'If they know who you are then they'll blow you to hell before you get within a million miles, and even if they don't, any ship returning from a place like this will be quarantined as a matter of routine. You will be interrogated. How are you going to explain why you have the senior officers imprisoned?'

'Why, that's simple. By the time we get there, you won't be prisoners any more,' Chrysalis replied. A threat, no doubt. Perhaps they would be shot, or thrown out of an airlock.

'Well, what are you waiting for? Why not kill us now, Xenos? Danrich asked, narrowing his eyes.

'Well that's simple as well, Captain,' Chrysalis answered him. 'We still need you.'

'You need us? What could you possibly need us for? Hostages? As soon as the Lord-Admiral finds out this ship is lost, then he'll destroy it. You realise that, don't you?'

'Hostages? No, no. Once again you are mistaken, my dear Captain,' Chrysalis chuckled, addressing him with a smile. 'No, we need you for food.' She hissed menacingly, despite her cheerful and incongruous grin, her forked tongue flicking out. Danrich felt a sudden stab of dread inside him.

'Food? You're going to eat us?'

'No!' Chrysalis replied with another chuckle. 'Heavens, don't you even listen to your own fleet reports? Changelings feed on love, Captain, not flesh. Not entirely, at least. We are certainly capable of consuming other things as we once did in the past. But we have evolved beyond such simplistic measures of sustenance. Although, of course, we might decide to eat...one or two of you, if there is another attempt at escape. Just as an example to the others, you understand.'

'Feeding on love...what nonsense!' Danrich glared up at her. 'Such a thing is impossible.'

'I could give you a practical demonstration, Captain, though of course you would scarcely even notice any difference, either in me or in yourself,' Chrysalis answered. 'Suffice it to say that such a thing is very much possible for us. Though perhaps creatures as...primitive as yourselves might not understand,' she mocked. What seemed most remarkable about the whole situation was the ease with which Chrysalis and her minions had adapted to the wonders of human technology and ingenuity that now surrounded them everywhere. The Queen was treating everything with an almost casual approach, as if suddenly finding herself on the bridge of an interstellar warp-capable combat starship where mere days before she had been scrabbling around living in a cave was the most natural transition one could ever make in life.

While the fleet reports to which Chrysalis had referred, and the technical and biological data issued by the Adeptus Mechanicus from the Ferrus Terra, had both warned of the Changelings' potential for infiltration, they had not explained how they might adapt to differing conditions so readily, not how they might acquire the specialist knowledge necessary to understand Imperial technology, customs and tactics. Unless the entirety of the mutiny consisted solely of Changelings in disguise, which was always a distinct, terrifying possibility of its own, then it seemed that Chrysalis had somehow acquired enough knowledge of such matters to actively fool other crewmembers, including officers, that she was the real Lieutenant Callantine. She had even, Danrich was loathe to admit, fooled him.

The question thus remained; was the real Lieutenant Callantine planning this mutiny anyway, or had it been entirely hatched, planned and executed by the Changeling Queen? Danrich was not sure which seemed worse; to have his ship entirely taken over by Xenos, or to have to contend with both Changelings and traitors on the same vessel. Either way, the chances of regaining control of the Polaris Maxima seemed extremely remote.

After several days' intense work, the human cleanup team in Canterlot had completed their task. The palace walls, courtyard, and rooftops had been scrubbed with decontaminating material and washed off with water, and the building could once more be used for accommodation. Radiation levels across the city had dropped, as a result of natural decay, to below one percent of the initial levels upon the first arrival of the fallout. Radioactive water used in the decontamination process had been either collected by the team or diverted into one particular sewer, keeping others clean. Every effort had been taken to eradicate the dangers of any residual radiation within the palace walls so that the ponies could move out from their troglodyte existence below ground and back into some semblance of normality.

They had emerged, blinking, into Celestia's sunlight, eyes narrowed against the glare. it was a clear day with barely a cloud in the sky, a far cry from being under the death plume which had forced them underground in the first place. The palace was how they had left it; the humans had not touched anything inside, for fear that they would transfer the fallout to the interior of the building. What few of the palace's treasures remained after the enemy occupation were still intact.

Though there were plenty of guest rooms and spare beds inside the palace, there were not enough to accommodate everypony who had been forced underground. Many of the soldiers were billeted outside in the courtyard, at least until the rest of the city was deemed to be habitable once again. It would not take long, the humans informed them; the radiation would continue to decay naturally, and within another week, they estimated, it would be down low enough that the ponies could once again roam freely throughout their capital city. The fallout underhoof like snow would still be unnerving, and might make many remain in the clean zone provided by the palace, but it would be all but harmless to them by that point, so long as they did not ingest anything that had been contaminated with radiation.

Twilight was very glad to make it back to the surface. The caverns had been made tolerable by the presence of her friends and family, but it certainly bore no comparison to life above ground. Even a Canterlot that had been half destroyed by war was preferable to the darkness below. Artificial light from lanterns, torches and magic could bear no comparison with Celestia's solar rays which now bathed the city, warming Twilight's face as she trotted through the courtyard.

Despite her second enforced subterranean exile, she felt a lot better than she had done a few days ago; stronger, more able to move on her own. She didn't need any help to walk, as she had when they were forced to head down there. It was certainly not some property of the catacombs which had resulted in her recovery, but merely a gradual process since she had returned to Canterlot. Just being in familiar surroundings and among those she knew and loved was the biggest boost to her, mentally if not necessarily physically.

She was not in the courtyard for any particular reason. She had just felt like going for a walk, a stroll through the gardens in the sunlight after being cooped up below ground. It was a wonderful sight to see, the palace reoccupied, as it should be. The royal standard flew from the rooftops, signalling that the Princess was in residence once more. Twilight had been assigned to the same room she had been in before, but she had wanted to get out of there for at least a while.

She was not alone, either. There were other ponies around. Some were soldiers and Guardsponies, who were billeted outside, but there were civilians too. Some foals were playing, giggling as they chased each other around the palace yard. Laughter was something which had been in severely short supply lately, even with Pinkie Pie present, and to hear the laughter of foals made Twilight feel good inside. It was, at least, a semblance of normality in this turbulent time, a time of great upheaval and confusion, of change. They would have to get back to such things, to the good times, at some point. She had to believe that it would happen.

'Miss Sparkle?'

Twilight looked around. A Guardspony had trotted over to her.

'Yes?' Twilight replied.

'Could you come with me, please? The Princess wishes to speak with you.'

'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is hailing us on vox.'

'Ah, finally,' Lord-Admiral Marcos muttered. The light cruiser had been out of contact for some hours following its vox breakdown at the most inopportune moment, just prior to the arrival of the Chaos battleship. If the Daemonfate had come to fight, then such a breakdown might have proven very costly. As it was, it did not much affect the outcome. The destroyer section was already all but lost before any warning could have been transmitted to the fleet, even with a working vox system, and an early warning of the battleship's arrival would not have changed the result of the battle. The Daemonfate intended to blow itself up, and it had. Why, Marcos still did not know, and that nagged at him painfully. There had to be some reason for its strange action.

'Captain Danrich, report,' Marcos ordered, as the vox link was established with the Polaris Maxima.

'My Lord, our vox system is now repaired and fully operational,' the familiar voice of Danrich came through the speakers. 'I must apologise again for the system failure at such a juncture. Those responsible for its maintenance have been...appropriately sanctioned as a result.'

'Understood, Captain. As it happens it did not matter very much,' Marcos assured him. Almost a day had passed since the battle, or rather the suicide run, had occurred, and they still had not learned anything more about the motives behind it. 'We still do not have any solid explanations as to the actions of the Chaos ship. Do you have any theories to promulgate, Captain?'

'No, My Lord,' Danrich replied. 'I am afraid I cannot offer anything more to the conversation regarding it. The actions of the Dark Gods are always mysterious. Perhaps their act was designed merely to confuse us into just this kind of state of paranoia?'

'That is a distinct possibility, Captain, yes,' Marcos agreed. 'But if that were the case, why would they choose to sacrifice their crew as well as their ship? Why not retain them for use elsewhere? Trained crewmen are hard to come by, and it takes time to train others.'

'Perhaps they had taken enough casualties in the previous battles to render the ship difficult to fully man,' Danrich suggested. 'Operating with a skeleton crew?'

'Our sensor records show that the Daemonfate only received moderate structural damage during the previous engagement,' Marcos replied. 'It seems unlikely that they could have taken that many casualties. No, there is something nefarious afoot here, as there always is where Chaos is concerned. Captain, I want you to return to your previous position and take over from the frigate Charybdis-2 as picket ship. Keep watch especially on the sector of space where destroyer section Tertio were destroyed. There may well be more of the enemy out there and we cannot afford to take any chances.'

'Yes, My Lord,' Danrich replied. 'We shall proceed there at once. My Lord, should we send a ship to investigate that area?'

'We cannot afford to spare any,' Marcos explained. 'If anyone is operating with a skeleton crew, it is us. Our strength is depleted and I cannot afford to risk any more ships that far out from the planet. If the enemy comes at us again, we will need every available ship and every available gun to fight them off.'

'Yes, My Lord. And if they come in numbers too great to resist?' Danrich questioned.

'Then we resist anyway,' Marcos replied. 'If it becomes necessary, we hold them off for as long as we can while the ground forces are evacuated onto the transports.'

'We would abandon this planet?' Danrich asked. 'After expending so much energy here? So many lives?'

'If necessary, yes,' came the blunt reply. 'That would not be my preferred outcome, but...if the enemy returned in sufficient numbers, then there would be no sense in throwing what remains of this fleet away needlessly. After traveling so far and accomplishing so much, it would be a bitter blow to turn back and abandon this place, but it may have to be done.'

'But My Lord. Is there not something...special here?' Danrich questioned. 'Is there not something we seek to keep from the grasp of the enemy?'

'Yes, there is,' Marcos responded. 'But it is something that we still do not really understand the fundamentals of. The Mechanicus have examined the bodies of both ponies and Changelings in forensic detail and still come up with no explanation as to the cause of their abilities, nor how to adapt it for our own uses. It may be that the enemy will have the same problems, if that is indeed what they are seeking here.'

'Could an Astropathic signal not be sent back to Hydraphur requesting reinforcements?' Danrich suggested. 'Another fleet could be with us within weeks.'

'Or it might take them years,' Marcos pointed out. 'The vagaries of the warp are never that easy to understand, Captain.'

'But My Lord, did not the Astropaths report that this...pony princess...acted as a kind of beacon to them? Could that effect not help guide reinforcements to us?'

'In theory, yes,' Marcos replied. 'But I spoke with the Astropaths myself. The effect of the princess within the warp is curiously potent, but only over a limited distance. It is a beacon, yes, but perhaps only sector-wide. Not like the Astronomican. The reinforcement fleet would still have to make it in close to us before they picked the signal up, and that could take them months anyway. For all we know the princess could be dead by then.'

'A tragedy for their species should it come to pass, no doubt,' Danrich scoffed, with scorn evident in his voice.

'No doubt,' Marcos agreed. 'I take it you do not think highly of her?'

'No, My Lord, I do not,' Danrich replied. 'She is capricious and conniving, doing whatever she thinks is necessary to protect her own kind, even at the expense of others.'

'You sound like you know her personally, Captain,' Marcos chuckled.

'Just what I have read in the reports, My Lord,' Danrich responded quickly. 'An opinion formed perhaps erroneously...you have met her, I...have not.'

'Indeed I have, and I am still not sure exactly what to think of her,' Marcos admitted. 'She is...an enigma, shall we say. I have no desire to abandon her or her people to the Archenemy, however, so get your ship in position, and keep your Auspex arrays working at full power. I'll expect updates every hour. Is there anything else to report, Captain?'

'No, My Lord. Nothing else to report.'

'Very good. Marcos out.'

With the vox link shut off, 'Captain Danrich' could revert to his real form. Chrysalis stood once again on the bridge of the Polaris Maxima, surrounded only by loyal drones. There was no need for them to appear as human, at least most of the time. There were no humans on the bridge any more, and the only time they needed to briefly switch to their disguise was when a particular control panel or piece of equipment required a more deft and delicate touch from a finger, rather than a hoof, to operate. The bridge of the ship was under the total control of the Changelings, as were the reactor room, armouries, medical bay, launch bays and gun batteries. The key points of the ship were now staffed entirely by drones, in disguise where necessary. Not all of the ship's crew needed to be killed off just yet. Many of them were living in total ignorance of the events that had unfolded elsewhere aboard the vessel. Such was the daily life of a man or woman on the lower decks of an Imperial capital ship; things could transpire many decks above that would never filter down to the countless thousands who toiled in the dim light. Sometimes a Captain could be replaced, by entirely legitimate methods, and for years afterwards the men working in the maintenance tunnels and ammunition magazines far below would genuinely believe that the previous Captain was still in command.

In essence, the same thing had happened here. Queen Chrysalis was Captain now, or Lieutenant Callantine, or whoever else she needed to be to continue the masquerade. The Lord-Admiral had seemed totally clueless to her true identity, as indeed had Captain Danrich before him. The Hive Mind of the Changelings had rapidly informed her, weeks ago, of the nature of life aboard Imperial vessels, and of the conditions which could potentially be exploited. A nascent rebellion had already been forming on board the Polaris Maxima, and therefore that was the ship which the Queen had chosen. It was a simple matter of ambushing and replacing a minor crewman who was planetside for a supply run, one of the few permitted since the Imperium became aware of the Changeling threat, . It was broadly similar to what had been done to create the initial incursion into space, aboard the human flagship, the Emperor's Judgement. This time, however, the Queen herself had taken the reigns, riding the human shuttle up to the starship she was now in command of.

Once aboard, she had laid low for a couple of days, receiving a lot more information from the other undercover drones aboard, before finally acting. Lieutenant Callantine, the ringleader of the proposed mutiny, would be an easy and obvious target for her. Many other crewmen were already following her and were ready to put their plans into motion. They were dissatisfied with the way the fleet was being used to help aliens, the length of time they had been away from home, and the lack of any apparent timetable for when they would finally be leaving this place. What better way for Chrysalis to take over the ship than to, essentially, have the humans do it for her?

Callantine, the real Callantine, had died alone in the showers down on deck 15, the water washing away the blood and the body being dissolved by a simple spell. Thus, Callantine had become Chrysalis, and Chrysalis had become Callantine, leading the mutiny to its inevitable conclusion, with the takeover of the vessel. There had been no real resistance, because none of the officers knew it was coming. Callantine and her co-conspirators had done a good job of keeping things secret from those who had been in command. It was only the fortuitous replacement of several members of the plot with Changeling drones that had clued Chrysalis in to the plan at all. She had been only too happy to use the ploy for her own ends.

It had been a simple matter to secure the ship's vital systems, with help from the human mutineers who were blindly following their leader in blissful ignorance of her new, true identity. Once they had served their purpose and each compartment was under their control, the humans among them were quietly eliminated by those of their number who had already been replaced by Changeling drones. The more that were killed, the more of the other drones who had been in hiding on the lower decks could come out and join in the party, adopting the appearance of the fresh corpses in their stead, until the whole mutiny was made up of Changelings and Changelings alone.

With the ship under control, it was time for the Changelings to set about converting it into a kind of mobile Hive, to suit their needs and to permit their continued expansion. More drones would need to be hatched in order to take control of the rest of the fleet. The crew of many of the larger vessels was in the hundreds of thousands, if not more, in the case of the two capital ships, and while the Changelings would not need the full compliment to get the vessels working, they would still need far more drones than there were currently, even if they could collect all of those who had been left down on the planet below.

It would take time. Compartments would have to be selected, those that were most suitable. Dark and damp, preferably; those on the very lowest decks would suffice. Several small compartments in the deepest bowels of the ship had already been transformed in anticipation of a boarding action just such as this, adding to their numbers on board before striking the heavy blow once their Queen arrived. Hatcheries and breeding chambers would be needed, to produce drone after drone after drone. It would be a relatively simple, albeit time consuming, task to create such spaces, using both magic and the plentiful Imperial equipment available on board for assistance. Once it was done, the ship could be filled with drones, all sustained on the love produced both by themselves for their Queen, and by the surviving human crew for their Emperor. Once the time was right, they would strike. It was not time yet.

But Chrysalis was a patient Queen.

The New Normal

Twilight followed the Guardspony inside the palace. With attempts being made to get things up and running once more, there were soldiers and servants coming and going through the corridors, running errands, delivering reports or simply patrolling the halls.

Princess Celestia sat upon her throne, back in her rightful place after a temporary exile underground. She greeted Twilight with a smile, something which, along with laughter, had been in short supply since the invasion.

'Twilight. It took the guards some time to track you down,' the Princess began. 'That is a good sign. I take it that you are feeling much better, given that you were able to walk the grounds of the palace alone?'

'Oh, yes, Princess.' Twilight nodded. 'I do feel much better...a-a lot stronger.'

'Good, good.' Celestia nodded and smiled again. 'The doctor tells me your physical results from the tests conducted while we were in the catacombs were showing excellent improvement. I wish to express again my relief that you are back with us safe and well, and my regret that we could not have come to your aid sooner.'

'Oh, no, you couldn't have found me any sooner,' Twilight replied quickly. 'The Hive could have been anywhere, anywhere at all. I'm surprised you found it at all...or rather, the humans...that's what Princess Luna told me. That the humans found it...'

'My sister was correct,' Celestia confirmed. 'I enlisted their assistance in searching for the Hive, due to their technology. Their ships have the ability to observe Equestria from above, and evidently in enough detail to pick out things that others may miss. I told them only that they were helping us locate our foe. They do not know about the Elements, and they do not know about you.'

'But why would they help us like that?' Twilight asked. 'Aren't the Changelings our problem? I thought they only stayed here to help us fight their own enemies.'

'The Changelings have become a potential enemy for the humans, as well,' Celestia replied. 'Of course you are aware of their ability to impersonate anypony with almost uncanny accuracy. As it turns out, that ability extends to humans, as well. Changelings disguised as human soldiers attempted to attack me when I was visiting one of their positions. They succeeded in killing one of the human Generals as a result. I informed their Lord-Admiral of the threat, and I believe he has taken it seriously.'

'Yes...' Twilight nodded. 'That was what Chrysalis told me...she said that was her plan. To get on board the human starships, to use them as a source of love...to expand and travel across the stars with her children...'

'And become ever more powerful?' Celestia added. 'This human empire apparently contains countless trillions of citizens. An almost infinite supply of love for the Changelings to consume.'

'Would that work?' Twilight questioned. 'Her plan...could it actually succeed, Princess?'

'In theory if the Changelings could get aboard one of their ships, then yes, they could travel the galaxy,' Celestia nodded. 'I do not know if the humans possess any method of detecting the Changelings, but if they do, then they certainly did not utilise it at Manehattan where they ambushed myself and the human General. If they cannot detect the Changelings at all, then...'

'But...isn't there some kind of limit?' Twilight asked. 'A limit to how many Changelings can be sustained?'

'Yes, and that limit is based on how much love energy they can obtain,' Celestia replied. 'There is a finite number of creatures here on this planet that they can obtain it from. Assuming they can extract love from humans in the same way as they can from ponies, then there are trillions of potential sources out there just waiting for them. The more energy they receive, the more powerful the Queen becomes. The more energy they receive, the more drones they can breed. The more drones they can breed, the more powerful the Queen becomes. If the Changelings can reach a human world, then potentially there is nothing to stop Chrysalis from becoming perhaps the most powerful creature in the galaxy.'

Twilight's improved mood took a rapid turn for the worse at the confirmation she was hearing from the Princess. What Chrysalis had boasted could indeed become reality, a sickening thought. To hear Celestia state the same basic facts as the Queen had meant that her words had not just been mere propaganda. The Changelings might indeed spread across the stars.

'Then we have to stop them!' Twilight cried. 'We have to stop Chrysalis!'

'Yes, we do,' Celestia agreed. 'But we do not know where she is. The Changelings fled after the battle at the volcano. Our airships are too slow to follow them, and the humans apparently could not track them successfully from orbit either. No doubt they have established a new Hive somewhere, but given the trouble we had in locating their last one, I would not be confident of finding their current home any time soon. To add to the problems we face, Chrysalis is still in possession of the Element of Magic, and we must recover it at all costs. It might be the only way we can succeed in defeating her.'

'That's why she wanted to capture me,' Twilight nodded. 'That's what she said. She needed to take at least one of the physical Elements themselves away from us to stop them being usable.'

'And in that, she has succeeded,' Celestia replied. 'Until we can recapture that Element, all of them are useless.' She paused for a moment. 'Though we do not know where the Changeling Hive is now located, I fear they may still be among us. You recall the explosion some nights ago?'

'Yes, of course...' Twilight nodded. It had jolted her into wakefulness when she should have been resting, and she had stood at the window watching the confusion and panic.

'The investigation revealed that the fire that caused the explosion was started deliberately,' Celestia continued. 'It was a military ammunition store, and a pile of debris was set ablaze against the building. I believe it was most likely caused by the Changelings.'

'Then...that means they infiltrated the city,' Twilight pointed out, receiving a nod from the Princess.

'I hope it is not the case. But the fire was started deliberately, which leads logically to one of two options. It is always possible that it was the work of rebel elements. They have been more active lately, but their activities are generally confined to the western regions. I believe, however, that it is more likely that we do indeed have Changelings among us.'

'Do...do you have any leads?' Twilight asked. 'Any idea where they might be? Who...who they might be disguised as?' The idea of Changelings hiding among the denizens of Canterlot was not a new one, for it had happened before. But this was somehow different. This was a time when Equestria was engaged in a fundamental battle for its very survival against something that was not of this planet, and the Changelings were under threat from that same force, to say nothing of the Imperials with whom Equestria was theoretically allied. And yet they still wanted to expend time and energy on attacking Canterlot?

'I am afraid not,' Celestia replied. 'We do not have any evidence to suggest that the Changelings may be disguised as any particular pony. All we do know is that the fire occurred during the hours of darkness, when the night time curfew was in effect. It does not prove anything, but that certainly suggests that they may be disguised as somepony who would be permitted to be on the streets at that time. A Guardspony, a firepony, a soldier. We do not know.'

'What if they're still here?' Twilight questioned. 'What if they attack again?'

'Then we will respond as best we can,' Celestia assured her. 'I have ordered the guard to be doubled on all key buildings once the city is cleared, but I am not sure they will strike again. They had plenty of opportunity to do so while we were underground. The military depots and stores were unguarded. Unless the Changelings were also aware of the dangers of the radiation, then I see no reason why they would not have raided those stores while there were no defences around them.'

'But how could they know about the radiation?' Twilight asked. 'The Changelings don't use technology, and even if they did, how could they have learned about the fallout?'

'There are only two reasonable explanations for that,' the Princess replied. 'Either their infiltrators here include at least one among those who received the briefing from the human cleanup team, or the humans also have their fair share of Changeling trouble. If they could somehow have gotten a drone on board one of the human ships already, then it is entirely reasonable to suspect that they would know not only of the effects of radiation, but also of the fact that there was a cloud of it descending across Canterlot.'

'Well if it comes down to that, then I'd rather they were up there than down here,' Twilight replied pensively.

'Are you sure of that?' Celestia questioned. 'After all, when the Changelings are down here, we can at least fight them when they reveal themselves. Most ponies cannot if the enemy is in space. And consider also. The Imperium possesses weaponry capable of obliterating Canterlot in mere minutes. Both the Changelings and the Imperium know of our location here, but for now, at least, only the Changelings want to destroy us.'

With Baltimare a shattered ruin, there had been no need for human forces to remain in situ there. All Imperial units had been pulled back to rest, refit, and await their next orders, which came several days later. They were to form up for an assault on the city of Fillydelphia. A centre of pony manufacturing, Princess Celestia had been most insistent that the city should be taken.

There was a danger, of course, that the Archenemy might perform the same trick again and detonate another atomic weapon to destroy the city as Imperial forces began to enter it. But that had been a one off event so far. They had not done so in Manehattan, nor in Ponyville, and there was no particular reason to believe that they would do so in Fillydelphia. Intensive scans had been made of the city by Auspex, searching not just for visual or thermal evidence of enemy positions, but also for any traces of radiation readings that might give away the presence of atomic weaponry inside the city. They had found nothing, no indication that there might be a similar trap lying in wait for the attacking forces.

Nothing could be completely ruled out, however. It would be relatively simple to contain any device inside a suitable container, lead-lined, perhaps, which would stop the residual radiation from being detected. That may have been how the weapon escaped detection in Baltimare, and could always be attempted again if the enemy so chose. The odd decision to destroy the city so suddenly rather than fight for it still unnerved many of the men and women of the Guard who had fought there. There was no apparent rhyme or reason to it, so far as they could see from their lowly position on the ground. Perhaps, they reasoned, those in command above could have figured out a reason behind it, but theirs was not to reason why.

They would gear up for the next attack, just the same as they had for the last. Their tanks and APCs and mobile artillery would be on the move once again, to another city, another battle. It was just another day, like any other, in the life of the Imperial Guard. The only difference was that this time they would be doing it seemingly at the behest of a Xenos, but that had become the new normal for the soldiers of the Western Fringe Crusade.

The Polaris Maxima was not the only place where there was disquiet among the Imperial ranks. Many of those fighting on the ground were beginning to question their reason for being here, for continuing to fight on this planet. There were questions about the motives of the Crusade's command staff. Why were they still taking these cities, when there was a doubt over whether the planet would even be taken for the Imperium at the end of it all?

The pony princess seemed to be telling their commanders what to do, and then they were ordered to do it. The reasons behind the continued cooperation with the ponies was hard for some of the men to discern, or at least to rationalise. Those who had not seen the princess in action in combat could only base their opinions of the power of the species on their military and firepower, and while their airships were quite impressive in their own way, in terms of firepower the ponies did not bring anything significant to the table that would justify working alongside them. Almost all the heavy lifting was still being done by the Imperial Guard, which many of its members resented. Fighting to take a city for the Emperor was one thing, but fighting to take it for an alien was quite another.

Resentment and unease was not a universal feeling among the ground forces, however, far from it. Many among them, at least in whispers over campfires and in their tents at night, admitted to strange thoughts and sensations. Something about the planet, or its inhabitants, was getting to them, nagging at their minds. Some of them reported feeling calmness, sometimes even during combat, feelings which they had never felt before on any other planet, either during the Crusade or before. Some were glad that they were still on the planet, that the Crusade had not yet moved on. They found, despite the death and destruction they had brought with them, that Equestria seemed to be a place worth fighting to protect. The value of a garden world, some argued. A pristine landscape. That was how it had appeared from orbit, at least, but there was at least a modicum of development and industry that the ponies, and to a lesser extent the Griffons, had established. Nevertheless it was, by Imperial standards, still an untouched sphere.

Though most would never admit it, many of the men and women fighting in Equestria felt a strange draw to the place, inexplicable, but intense. There was some quality to it, some...magic, perhaps, that could not be quantified clearly. To each one of them, it meant different things, but the end result was similar in many cases. Many of them found themselves wishing that they could stay after the war was won, leave the fleet to return to Hydraphur and stay on this unusual planet. Those especially who were from hive worlds, ecumenopoli or death worlds, where nature was non-existent or simply reserved for the rich, where the air was thick with smog and the only snow that fell was particulate matter from thousands of filthy factory chimneys, felt the strange desire to remain. Not just temporarily, not just while the job was done, but even beyond that. Who would want to return to a life like theirs, once they had experienced the verdant paradise of Equestria, even if it was filled with strange Xenos creatures?

Such thoughts, mere thoughts alone, would be grounds for, at the very least, a thorough interrogation by a Commissar or Inquisitor, or at worst, could even be grounds for execution, if it was deemed that they were the result of alien interference, psychic phenomena or some hitherto unknown influence, which was why the enlisted men and women made sure to keep their conversations quiet and private, among themselves, only sharing their thoughts with trusted friends. They did not want their officers to catch wind of their strange new obsession. But it was not only the enlisted who shared such feelings. Some of the officers, too, had caught the fever for the place they were supposed to be liberating. Some even whispered that the Lord-Admiral himself was so afflicted.

It would explain their continued co-operation with the ponies, rather than simply destroying them from orbit and claiming this world for the Imperium. What would ultimately become of Kuda Prime remained to be seen, but whatever happened to it, it would live long in the memories of those who fought there.

The city of Manehattan was a shadow of its former self, a mere shell, more a mausoleum than the living city it used to be. Its streets were mostly empty, buildings shattered and crumbling after the occupation and subsequent recapture by the forces of the Imperium. Where once there had been the hustle and bustle of daily life, there was now nothing but dust blowing through the streets.

Ponies had lived here, hundreds of thousands of them. Mares, stallions, foals, the young and the old, Pegasi, Earth ponies and Unicorns alike, all thrown into the great Equestrian melting pot. Not just ponies, either, but Zebras, Griffons, donkeys, too. Even a few Yaks had made a home in a small neighbourhood of the city, 'Little Yakyakistan,' where they produced traditional craftware, music and food for curious tourists who could not make the journey to the far-flung wastes of the north to visit their homeland proper.

Manehattan had been a thriving metropolis, the largest city on the planet by some considerable distance. There had been exciting street parades, fireworks in the harbour to thrill the foals, ferries plying their trade across the bay, the shouts of taxi cab drivers and street vendors, the bells of fire trucks and the countless hooves, click-clacking on the cobbles and concrete. Now, there was none of that. The city was all but silent, lying dormant like a volcano, waiting for ponies to reoccupy it and return it to its former glory once more.

The first vague attempts had been made to do just that. With the city not just cleared, but cleansed of the taint of Chaos by Princess Celestia, a pony occupation force had taken over from the human assault troops who had recaptured it from the enemy. They had been present for several weeks, doing their best to clear the streets and generally improve conditions. Civilians who, similar to the situation in Canterlot, had been hiding in the surrounding countryside during the hostile occupation, had returned to the city, rounded up by Guardsponies. They, too, were putting their best efforts into things, trying to make Manehattan livable once again.

It was not a simply task, and it would not be completed any time soon. While certain sections of the city were still inhabitable, having taken only minor damage, many areas were strewn with debris and filled with the bodies of the fallen. They had been removed in a painstaking undertaking, using magic to get rid of the corpses. To bury them all would have been impossibly time-consuming, and they were already starting to decay and putrefy. That was the most important task. If the city was going to be made livable again, then the outbreak of disease had to be guarded against, and the removal of bodies was the most basic precaution to be taken in that line.

There was far more to be done than simple cleanup, however. Patrols had to be mounted, the perimeter secured, deep sewers and tunnels checked for any remnants of the enemy who, despite the thorough job done by the humans and the Princess, could still be around in hiding. Supplies of fresh water had to be established. The pumping stations were down, some destroyed and others without power, but underground springs and long-buried streams could be utilised to provide for a small population, at least. Food was also extremely limited, and the occupying force relied almost entirely on the dried rations they had brought along with them. Manehattan had little in the way of farmland anywhere around its perimeter, and none within it. Foraging parties were sent out into the surrounding countryside to try and locate extra sources of sustenance. If the city could not be fed, then it could not be held, and the pony force would have to retreat, soldiers and civilians alike.

A return to normalcy in Equestrian life could take years, maybe even decades, as a result of the devastation caused by the invasion. Magic would undoubtedly help enormously in the attempts to rebuild, but it was not a complete solution to their woes. The city, and the rest of the nation, would need time and enormous effort to get back on its feet, assuming the humans gave them the opportunity to do so. There was considerable doubt about that among the rank and file ponies, even, or perhaps especially, among those who had fought alongside the Imperial Guard on the field of battle elsewhere in Equestria. None of them had the slightest idea what the humans would actually do once their own enemy was defeated here. Would they leave? Or would they turn their attentions to their erstwhile allies?

Doubt was a powerful thing, but so was hope. Embodied in the persona of Princess Celestia, their hope for the future was that Equestria could once more regain its power and prestige, its standard of living, its way of life, even if it could never regain the ponies that had been lost. As long as they had hope, they could do anything that needed to be done. That was their earnest belief, and it was what drove them onward.

It was what drove the crew of the V-Class airship Vanquisher, onward as well. Their patrol route took them around the northern perimeter of Manehattan and then out across the bay, keeping watch for any threats, any sign of the enemy or anything unusual that might pop up, such as dragons. It was, all things considered, a normal routine for a scout airship like the Vanquisher. That was what it had been built for, that was what its crew were trained for. Routine patrols were usually boring, even after the human invasion. This one was no exception to the rule. The crew were alert, of course, eyes out across the horizon in case something should threaten the city. But they had flown a great semicircle around the north of Manehattan, and seen absolutely nothing outside of the city limits, save for one of the resource parties heading off to forage for food.

No doubt their trip out over the harbour would be similarly unproductive, and that, so far as the crew were concerned, could only be a good thing. Unproductive meant no enemy contacts, no trouble, nothing untoward. Just the way they liked it. The airship droned out across the water, drawing a few scant glances from the ponies working in the harbour district, where many burned bodies still remained to be cleared away. Thousands of the human enemy had died in the massive conflagration which had reduce the entire wharf area to ashes, and there would be no waterborne trade on any appreciable scale passing through the city any time soon.

Which was odd, given what one of the spotter ponies managed to just about glimpse in the distance. He blinked, rubbed his eyes a little, produced his telescope and zoomed in for a closer look. Somewhere out on the horizon, where the water met the sky. It looked like it was a mast, but how could that be? Surely there were no ships out there now. A mirage, he reasoned, a fata morgana on the distant edge of the curvature of the planet, tricking his eyes. He found the location in his telescope and checked it out. It couldn't be. But it was, and it was not alone.

From his perch atop the airship's gasbag, the Pegasus brought his hooves to his mouth to cup it and direct the sound down towards the deck so others could hear his cries of alarm.

'Contact to the east!' he shouted. 'Ships! I see ships!'

Somewhere Beyond The Sea

The sighting was confirmed by other telescopes, other eyes, other ponies. It was no mirage, it was fact. There were ships, cresting the distant horizon, visible from the deck of the Vanquisher, though not from the city just yet. Guns were manned and run out, damage control stations made ready for action, the decks cleared. Eager ponies awaited the order to fire, training their cannons upon the targets. There were five in total, two large vessels and three smaller ones. Smoke was billowing from their funnels, trailing behind them, blowing in the wind.

Where were they from? Who was aboard them? Were they part of the forces of the human enemy?

Those ponies who had worked with the Equestrian Navy before quickly confirmed that was not the case. They recognised the vessels, especially the two larger ones. They were not enemies. On the contrary, they were friendly. To doubly confirm that fact, the vessels began to flash messages with signal lamps to the airship and, once they were in range, to the city itself.

The message was quickly relayed via messenger Pegasus to Canterlot, and to the Princess herself. They had made contact, not with the enemy, but with their own.

Princess Celestia received the surprise, though very welcome, news of the return of Grand Admiral Prince Bluewater and his expeditionary fleet. They had put to sea during the first hours of the crisis at Celestia's command, and only now were they making contact again, due to the conditions which had prevailed in Equestria for the past several months. The small fleet had long since been given up as lost among the Equestrian commanders. After all, Bluewater was not exactly known as the most experienced or competent of leaders, or sailors, for that matter. His appointment had been more of a political consideration than anything else. The Navy had long been the poor stepchild of the Equestrian armed services, paling in comparison to the Army, Royal Guard and especially the Air Corps, all of which had more functional patrol and protection duties across the nation. The Navy, however, had little functionality when Equestria was not at war with the Zebras, whose nation lay beyond the eastern sea.

Equestria's other enemies historically had not needed naval intervention to combat. The Griffons were to the north in the mountains, the Changelings could pop up wherever they pleased, and the dragons tended to stick to the mountains or deserts. Military control of the eastern sea had never been of extreme importance, and Equestrian territorial waters could be patrolled more effectively by airships, which were faster and better armed than early pony warships had been. In the days of sail, one huge galleon had been constructed with much pomp and circumstance, given the name Equestria, sailed out into the harbour on its maiden voyage, and promptly rolled over and sank as the gunports for the black-powder cannon had been left open to fire a salute to the watching Princess when an unexpectedly large wave had swamped the ship.

Such an ignominious attempt at ruling the high seas was naturally met with some derision from the Zebricans across the sea once word made it to them of the failure. Their own navy was small and focused almost entirely on home defence, consisting mostly of canoes and small skiffs. The Equestrian Navy, however, was not content to simply be remembered for that singular failure, and had embarked on another building spree, constructing another large galleon, the Triumphant. This time, it lived up to its name, besting a large flotilla of Zebrican skiffs in a skirmish that had seen essentially the end of the Zebra navy as a realistic force. Such a large ship as the Triumphant could essentially sail wherever it pleased without fear of destruction. It was faster than the canoes and skiffs, had more firepower than the entire Royal Artillery at that time, and a crew large enough to make a significant incursion ashore should they desire it.

Since the days of sail, peace was the order of the day between Equestria and the Zebras. The Royal Equestrian Navy had always maintained a token force that was mostly used for anti-piracy operations, since pony buccaneers were really the only other force to build anything significant in the way of warships. They menaced the trade clippers that plied the routes between Manehattan and the Zebra homeland, stealing and looting cargo whenever the desire struck them, similar to the rebels and bandits found elsewhere across Equestria, except with no particular political agenda. Merely plundering whatever suited them tended to be their only desire.

As technology progressed, sail gave way to steam, and the modern Equestrian Navy far outclassed the wooden ships and iron ponies of the pirates who still occasionally opposed them. Its coastal corvettes were sleek and fast ironclads, still fitted with sails but also steam turbines, the latest in propulsion. The flagship of the fleet, the ENS Celestia, and her sister ship, the ENS Luna, were very much the pride and joy of the Navy. Though they were classified only as frigates, they were almost three times longer than the frigates of old, the sailing vessels which had been the mainstay of the fleet for several centuries. The two giants of the seas were fitted with cemented steel armour, and two huge turrets, each housing a pair of monstrous twelve-inch guns, the largest ever forged by the foundries of Fillydelphia, capable of all but obliterating a pirate galleon in a single volley. Their belts of thick armour protected them from anything an enemy could throw at them; it would take a gun of equivalent caliber to their main battery, or Alicorn-level magic, to penetrate it. Their steam turbines drove them onward at a surprisingly rapid rate for such huge beasts, meaning that the Celestia and Luna, like their namesakes, could roam wherever they pleased with impunity.

At Celestia's command, the fleet had put to sea with the first invasion alarm. There had been little information as to what threats Equestria might face at that time, and having the fleet sitting in port would invite its sudden destruction by an enemy who might know where to find them. Being out on the high seas gave them a far greater chance of survival- though not, as it turned out, against the humans, who could have easily used their orbital sensors to locate the warships if they wished, through their magnetic signatures or the heat from their engines, or even by visual observation of the smoke from their funnels.

The Vanquisher had sent a fast messenger Pegasus to Canterlot to alert the Princess, and now at her orders was dispatched itself to bring Grand Admiral Bluewater back to the capital for a report. A lot had changed since he had put to sea. When the airship arrived, it was directed by signal lamp to hold position outside of the city and remain airborne. The landing fields were still contaminated with fallout, and the human cleanup crew had been directed to turn their attentions to that area as a priority. Instead of landing, Princess Celestia made her way via teleportation to the deck of the Vanquisher.

Grand Admiral Bluewater was found down in the Captain's ready room, where he had been waiting to land. The Admiral found himself somewhat taken aback by the sudden arrival of the Princess, and he managed to compose himself and get to his feet, throwing a sloppy salute in her direction.

'Your Highness! I did not expect you to be coming aboard,' he greeted her.

'As you were, Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'The airship cannot land at the moment due to...a certain environmental condition that is affecting the landing fields,' she explained. It would take rather too long to fill the Admiral in on the precise nature of that condition, so she simply glossed over it. 'I understand your fleet has returned to Manehattan bay. That is most pleasing news. All is well with your ships?'

'Yes, Your Highness,' Bluewater answered with a nod. 'All of my vessels are intact and in fighting trim,' he stated proudly. 'Though we are low on certain supplies. I...was extremely dismayed to see the state of Manehattan, so I imagine we are not going to be getting resupplied from there...?'

'Sadly, no,' Celestia replied. 'The city was occupied by the human enemy for some weeks.'

'Then those humans who visited the palace were not to be trusted after all? As I predicted,' Bluewater scoffed.

'On the contrary, Admiral. Manehattan would still be under enemy control if not for their most able assistance,' Celestia replied. 'We have been working alongside them to help retake key cities from our mutual enemy. As it turns out there are two...sects of humans, if you will. One, the Imperium, who you already know, and their enemies, who they call the forces of Chaos. I take it from your lack of awareness of this that you have not encountered this human enemy during your patrol?'

'No, Your Highness,' Bluewater replied with a confused frown at learning so much new and surprising information so quickly. 'We did not encounter any humans whatsoever. I have not seen any since I left Canterlot. None of my crews have even seen these humans at all. I suspect many of them believe I have been talking nonsense to them for weeks.'

That would not be a surprise, Celestia thought to herself. Bluewater, older brother of Prince Blueblood, had no family tradition of seaponyship, or indeed military service. His position was, at least in part, meant as a method of keeping him out of the more important things, such as diplomacy, with which minor royalty might otherwise be expected to cope. Initially Bluewater had merely been a kind of figurehead leader for the Navy while a regular non-grand Admiral was actually directly in charge of operations, similar to how many fire departments across Equestria had a civilian fire commissioner in theoretical command, while a chief of department remained in actual day-to-day command of the force. Through political wrangling, however, and the creation of the Chiefs of Staff as an advisory council to the Princess, Bluewater had been able to have the lower rank disbanded, leaving himself as the top dog in the Navy both in fact as well as in title.

Nevertheless, he had, it seemed, managed to bring his small fleet back home without losing any of his vessels, though the lack of contact with any humans suggested it could have been more of a pleasure cruise than a serious military operation. The ships of the fleet, however, were not designed to operate away from port for so long without resupply.

'Tell me, Admiral, where did you obtain fresh coal for your boilers with Manehattan in the hands of the human enemy?' she asked.

'New Zebrica, Your Highness,' Bluewater replied. 'We had not received orders from you or your sister for many days, and our supplies of coal were running low. Since you had ordered us to remain at sea away from Equestria, I did not deem returning to home port to be a wise move. I ordered the fleet to sail for New Zebrica, where the local authorities were happy to aid us with replenishment,' he explained. 'In fact, the Zebra Chieftains invited me to a grand reception in their jungle palace. It is really a magnificent building. Have you been? But of course you have...'

Celestia cut off his ramblings. 'You said that you saw no humans. Did the Zebras inform you of any contact with that species?'

'No, they made no mention of them,' Bluewater answered. 'I tried explaining to them, but they could only picture Diamond Dogs...I suppose the similarities are quite striking, really, if one has seen both species as I have.'

'They have had no encounters with humans at all?' Celestia pressed, and Bluewater shook his head.

'As far as I know, Your Highness. They certainly did not tell me if they had. They did, however, report an encounter with something else.'

'What?' Celestia queried.

'That is why I returned to Manehattan, Your Highness,' Bluewater replied. 'After several weeks enjoying the Zebrican hospitality, the Chieftains reported to me that one of their hunting parties had come across what looked to be a new construction.'

'What kind of construction?' Celestia narrowed her eyes.

'They were not completely sure, Your Highness, so I sent a patrol out to investigate,' the Admiral explained. 'They reported that it looked like a Hive. A Changeling Hive.'

'Are you sure?' Celestia asked. 'Were they certain that is what they saw?'

'They seemed certain, Your Highness, yes,' Bluewater nodded.

'And it seemed like a newly built Hive? Constructed recently?'

'Yes, Your Highness, that is what both my patrol and the Zebra hunting party reported,' Bluewater confirmed. 'The hunters had been to that location before on numerous occasions, and they had never seen any evidence of activity there in the past.'

'Then we know their location,' Celestia announced triumphantly. 'We know where they have fled to. At least, perhaps. Did either the Zebras or your patrol report any signs of Changeling activity in that area?'

'No, Your Highness. My patrol did not see any Changelings, and the Zebras have reported much the same thing,' Bluewater replied. That did not necessarily prove anything one way or the other, but the sighting of a seemingly new Hive, with or without Changelings being actually sighted, was a strong indicator that it was where they had fled to after the battle.

Celestia gave Bluewater a quick summary of the anti-Changeling operations that had taken place while he and his fleet had been away, to bring him up to speed. The Hive, the volcano, the eruption, the missing Element and Twilight's capture, all brand new information for the increasingly bewildered Admiral.

Princess Celestia sent word back to Manehattan for the fleet to dock and be resupplied to the best of the ability of the small occupying force that was currently stationed there. The trio of smaller ships moved in and were tied up, made fast by thick ropes to the wharves, while the two larger frigates remained out in the bay due to their size, their heavy anchors holding them in place against the ebbing and flowing tides of Manehattan harbour. Their own ships' boats were pressed into service; the lighters and barges which would normally had been operated by the port staff were either destroyed or damaged, meaning the only way to load up new coal and victuals for the two capital ships was to use their own smaller cutters and pinnaces for the purpose. Those boats could carry far smaller quantities than the big coal barges, however, meaning that the process would take a considerably longer time, which was just as well, for Grand Admiral Bluewater still had to make the journey back from Canterlot aboard the Vanquisher. The fleet would not go anywhere without their leader, no matter how inexperienced he might be in the matter of naval combat.

What would happen next, what the Princess would decide to do, remained to be seen. A rash action would not help anything. This information had to be processed, thought through carefully and thoroughly. If everything went in their favour, if this Hive was indeed a new one, then it could be the break they needed. If Chrysalis was there with her minions, then it might, just might, be their chance to recover the missing Element.

Even while Grand Admiral Bluewater's fleet was returning to its home port and being resupplied and re provisioned, other forces were on the move as well. The Imperial Guard were preparing to make their encircling move on the city of Fillydelphia, the last major Chaos stronghold in the central southern regions of Equestria. Home to the National Arsenal of Equestria, the largest collection of government-owned buildings to be found anywhere in the land, Fillydelphia had been not just a military hub, but the focus for weapons development and equipment production. The factories of the Arsenal churned out thousands of rifles, hundreds of artillery pieces of all calibers and sizes, and countless millions of rounds of ammunition for every weapon in use by the various branches of the military.

It was sometimes said that Canterlot was the brains of the Equestrian armed forces, being the location of its high command, chiefs of staff, and the Princess who was supreme commander. The two major military garrison cities of Vanhoover and Manehattan, one east, one west, were likened to the lungs. In the same analogy, Fillydelphia was very much the heart providing constant, dependable service, day in, day out, without which the other organs would collapse, wither and die. An army without weapons could not fight, and a weapon without ammunition could not fire. Fillydelphia provided it all, the lifeblood of the nation's military might, that coursed through every vein and artery of the land to provide the means by which its soldiers, Guardsponies and aircrew could protect Equestria.

That was all very much meaningless at the present time, and had been since the invasion. Fillydelphia had been rapidly occupied by the Chaos forces, as the pony garrison had very much not been expecting such an assault from the stars and had little defence against it. They had put up a valiant fight, barricading several factories as strong points, but they in turn were pounded into rubble by heavy human artillery and tank guns. Only magical shields offered any lengthy resistance, but even they were breached with ease by the human las-weapons. Eventually, the city had fallen, spirited resistance being of little use against overwhelming force and numbers. The usual massacres and slaughter of the civilian population had followed. No news had come out of the city since the day of the invasion.

Any information on conditions there relied entirely upon the humans and their scanning systems to observe Fillydelphia from orbit, which they had been doing for some days, both to check for any evidence of more atomic weapons, and in a more general sense to check for enemy positions and numbers. The majority of the buildings of the National Arsenal complex were still mostly intact, according to reports. There were a number of large factories, with tall chimneys and smoke stacks and numerous smaller outbuildings, storage sheds and warehouses surrounding them. Much of the rest of the city was similar in design and layout to Baltimare, with a mixture of light and heavy industry with some residential areas and open spaces. The Imperial forces were becoming quite experienced with attacking such similar cities, and, it was hoped, Fillydelphia would be little different in that regard.

Princess Celestia had insisted upon the recapture of the city due to its strategic importance for Equestria. Remaining pony military forces were already stretched very thin, and some key supplies were running low. There were stockpiles of ammunition and equipment, which had been broken open as needed, but even they were starting to run low. If they were to continue fighting, they needed more. Logistics was a very harsh mistress, and the Equestrian military was no different from the Imperial Guard in that respect. Even if the humans were doing the bulk of the fighting against their own kind, there was still the matter of the Changelings to consider, especially now that new information had come to light about their possible location. Celestia was determined to deal with them, once and for all, one way or another.

Twilight had observed the arrival of an airship unknown to her, spying it entering the valley as she took a walk along the walltop of the palace grounds. She had decided, partly on the recommendation of the doctor, to institute a daily walk routine for herself, to help get her underused muscles back into the groove. As she felt a lot better than she had a few days earlier, that was a much easier prospect to face than it had seemed when she had first returned to Canterlot. Her family, friends, the Princess, familiar surroundings, all had done much to aid her recovery from the trauma she had faced while a guest of Queen Chrysalis and her vicious minions. While the physical scars were fading, the mental ones, even with all that help, would not be shaken off so easily.

Twilight still felt that she had let the Princess down, despite repeated assurances to the contrary. She had not been alert enough to prevent her own capture, and it might have led to the capture of all the rest of her friends, too, if not for a Guardspony patrol who, fortunately, had been on the ball and had scared off the Changeling team who, it was safely assumed, had been there for just such a purpose. Not only that, but she had got ponies killed trying to rescue her from the Hive. No matter how many reassuring words she heard from Spitfire, Celestia and Luna, that kind of thought did not go away easily. It preyed on the vulnerable mind, even if one did not realise it, tormenting with the thoughts of how differently things might have turned out if only this had been done, or that had not.

Twilight wanted to move on, but it was not that simple. She wanted to forget and put her ordeal behind her. She wanted to believe in the words of the Princess, as she always had before, almost unconditionally. But something was different this time, and she did not know exactly what, or exactly why. All she knew was how she felt, and she still felt...wrong.

The airship had entered the valley and come to a halt not far from the city, rather than landing. Twilight knew that the landing fields were still being cleared of the radioactive fallout, but she did not know why this airship had arrived in Canterlot. It was not one of those assigned to the city, which had left upon receipt of the fallout warning. They were not expected back just yet, instead being quartered temporarily in Vanhoover or Las Pegasus until messengers from the capital reached them, calling them back. This was a different airship, and she did not recognise it.

She did, however, recognise the Princess, when she saw a sudden flash of light upon the airship's deck. Twilight wondered what she was doing. The airship did not move, suggesting that she was not going anywhere aboard it. After a few minutes, she gave up watching and continued with her walk, as there was nothing else to see. She came down from the palace walls and wandered through the gardens for a little while, before returning to her room to rest upon her bed. Again she tried her best not to let her mind dwell upon her fears and doubts, instead attempting to focus on the positives. Her family was alive, her friends were alive, she was safe, back in Canterlot, her first home, but not her real home. That was Ponyville, and the town she had grown to love was gone, wiped away, erased from the map by the flood waters from the Hoofer Dam. That sad knowledge most certainly did not help with her mood. She knew that many of those she had met and regarded as friends were likely gone, dead but not buried. Who knew what foul things the human enemy might have done to them before, or even after, their deaths? It did not bear thinking about.

A knock came at her door after a while. She wasn't sure how long, as she had lost track of time while in her reverie. A servant entered. The Princess wished to speak with her once more.

Twilight followed the servant to the throne room, where she had seemingly spent more time lately than she had when she actually lived in Canterlot- although of course, she now lived in Canterlot once more. Perhaps it would be her permanent home from now on. That might not be so bad- after all, it was a place she knew, and her friends from Ponyville would be in the same position as her.

Celestia greeted her, with a warm but serious expression on her face. She explained the purpose of the Vanquisher's visit, and that Grand Admiral Bluewater and his fleet had returned from somewhere beyond the eastern sea. He had been to the Zebrican lands, she said. There, he had learned something, she said. There, he had learned from the locals of the appearance of something, she said.

Something important, something dangerous. A Changeling Hive, she said.

Twilight hardly knew what to think. She had expected it, of course, that the Changelings would show themselves again eventually. They had not been defeated or destroyed. But for news of their location to come so soon...a shock, right to the system. A line which had long ago been crossed had been all but demolished by the recent actions of the Queen and her drones. They would be pursued, Celestia assured her, pursued with endless vigor. Right to the ends of the earth, hounded and harried until there was nothing left worthy of the name.

Twilight almost cried.

The Crown

It took two days for the fleet to be replenished, a lengthy process made far longer by the lack of proper barges and lighters. In normal circumstances that would have given the tired sailors a chance to roam through the back streets of Manehattan, enjoying the local cuisine and the hospitality of the mares in the local brothels. There was no chance of that now, not with most of the city lying in varying degrees of ruin. If any occupants of those brothels had survived the invasion, then they were most certainly engaged in more wholesome activities now, helping to rebuild the city and make it liveable once more.

That would be a far harder job that would last an enormous amount of time compared to the resupply of the fleet, but every pony-hour of labour devoted to loading the ships meant one less devoted to the city, and each crate of food or sack of coal that was diverted meant fewer resources for the occupying forces. But such had been the order from the princess, and so it was done, with as much speed and efficiency as could be mustered. Most of the ponies performing the tasks were not trained stevedores or sailors and that only added further delay to the process, much to the frustrations of the ships' officers. At least the Zebras had been faster, even if the quality of their coal was a lot lower than that from the rich Equestrian coalfields.

Though the small fleet had been away from home port and home waters for some time, they had not been totally idle while they were across the sea. At Grand Admiral Bluewater's direction, the corvettes had performed coastal patrols inside Zebrican territorial waters in search of any potential human threats. They had found nothing, no trace whatsoever of human activity, either from the Imperials or from their mutual enemy. That meant one of three things; either the humans were unaware of the existence of either the continent or the Zebra nation, highly unlikely given their position in orbit and their advanced technology; they were intent on wiping out the larger military powers first before moving on to the Zebras, a possibility; or there was something present on the main continent, in Equestria or the Griffon Kingdom, which they desired to possess or destroy, but which was not present on the other, smaller continent.

Bluewater and his sailors did not know exactly what that might be, but he had been quickly filled in by the Princess upon visiting the palace. Either they were after the Elements, or they were after magic itself, possibly in the form of the royal sisters, the most powerful magical beings on the planet, or perhaps merely through mass harvesting from any number of ponies, similar to how the Changelings might seek to extract love energy.

A great many developments had occurred while the fleet had been out of harbour, and Celestia had insisted to him that his sailors only needed to know the bare minimum in order to operate effectively and carry out her orders overseas. Too much information delivered to them too quickly could lead to panic, she had said, and of course she was right. Keeping discipline on board the ships of the fleet was as important as it was in any other branch of the Equestrian military, and panic was the worst possible emotion for a military unit to suffer from. Love and faith would drive them on, hate and anger would spur them to greater efforts, even fear could concentrate the mind and body with a fierce sense of wanting to live. But panic, panic rendered ponies ineffective at best, and useless at its absolute worst. It made effective command and control all but impossible, especially if the officers were afflicted by it also. Coordination between units was extremely difficult, it was hard to hold a defensive line or to press home an attack if units were stricken with panic and falling back without orders to do so.

Thus, the fleet would sail with most of its crews still in the dark about the true extent of the calamity which had befallen Equestria. Manehattan's capture and half destruction was clear for all to see, but news about Canterlot, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, and Ponyville was suppressed, kept quiet, with only the senior officers being told of the scale of the occupation and the nature of their work with the Imperium to counteract their mutual enemy. Such secrecy was not common among the Equestrian military. Historically, their officers and commanders had been open regarding military and political developments that would affect their units either directly or indirectly, such as the Zebrican development of chemical weapons and their consequent deployment. The circumstances now were different.

The threat posed by these humans was potentially on a par with anything they had experienced before, if not even greater. Not merely in the sense of the firepower they possessed, and had unleashed on numerous occasions, but also in terms of their mere presence, their mere existence. The denizens of Equestria and its neighbouring states had long laboured under the illusion that life on their planet was the extent of it anywhere in the universe. Only those with an astronomical bent such as Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna had seriously considered the possibility of the existence of life beyond the stars beyond anything as a possible costume to wear on Nightmare Night. Now, here they were, aliens among them, above them, all around them, working with them as well as opposing them. A more bizarre set of circumstances would be hard to imagine.

Thus it was that the fleet, finally provisioned and with its commander back aboard, weighed anchor from Manehattan Bay and set sail once again for the land beyond the sea, to the Zebrican Kingdom, on the orders of the Princess herself. Their journey might turn out to be pointless, or it might have major implications. They had to determine, once and for all, without any doubt, if the Changeling Hive was real, or if it had been identified in error. If it was occupied, or abandoned. The most important questions of all had to be answered; was Chrysalis there, and whether she was or not, where was the Element of Magic?

Princess Celestia had many things to think about, to worry about. At the best of times, there had always been innumerable tasks facing the regent of Equestria. In peacetime, most of them were mere trivia, and in truth could quite capably be left in the hooves of one of her countless underlings. Only tradition tied her in to many of the events she attended, opening ceremonies she presided over, and minor quibbles she was called upon to mediate. Other tasks had always been her purview because they were serious, demanded immediate attention or otherwise held a national significance. In wartime, these naturally multiplied.

Firstly she had to consider the relations between Equestria and her human allies. However temporary that truce might end up being, it was holding for the moment, and that was a reason to be thankful, if not quite cheerful. While Celestia knew that she could use her powers of control over the sun to destroy their fleet, she was under no illusions that their ships, though fewer in number now than when they had arrived in the system, could do cataclysmic damage to the nation before they could be eliminated. Potentially, they could even possess weapons unknown to her which could have the power to destroy the entire planet, either physically or by way of rendering it uninhabitable in some fashion. Their atomic weaponry, capable of destroying a city in the blink of an eye and unleashing energies only she herself could match, had been referred to as 'crude' by both the Lord-Admiral and the cleanup team who had been assisting in Canterlot. If that was the Imperial definition of crude, what exactly did they consider to be a sophisticated weapon?

Keeping the balance between trusting the humans, letting them carry the weight of cleaning up the mess that their fellows had unleashed upon Equestria, and keeping them at a safe distance with a healthy amount of wariness, was not easy. The Lord-Admiral seemed trustworthy enough, but the Princess still knew relatively little of human culture and societal norms. It was entirely possible that he was lying through his back teeth to her the entire time, secretly manipulating her without her knowledge, guiding events to his own ends in a most Discordian fashion, though without the use of magic. It was equally possible that Celestia's own attempts at just such subtle statecraft were proving entirely successful, and that the Lord-Admiral was the one truly being manipulated by her. She had gotten that impression several times, only for some curve ball to come seemingly out of nowhere and make her question the truth of the matter once again.

Piled atop the strange new alliance was the fact of what they were allied against. These humans had a dark counterpart, those who had turned to embrace chaos and disharmony, something the ponies were familiar with, though not quite in the same fashion. The Imperials referred to them as the 'Archenemy,' a strong term but one which, given what Celestia knew of their history, seemed fitting. They had betrayed their species and their leader, a pain Celestia knew only too well. But whereas she had accepted her sister back to her bosom with a full pardon, making her family once again, the human Emperor never got the chance, instead being forced to kill his son, to destroy him utterly, before, apparently, falling into a state of near-death for millennia since. The traitorous followers of that son, Horus, were still roaming the galaxy today in search of blood, in the service of their new masters, the so-called Gods of Chaos.

How real all of that was, Celestia did not know. But it was certain that the human enemy had been able to somehow summon or conjure up a variety of strange and sickening creatures which had never been seen in Equestria before. Even Alicorn magic would struggle to simply create life where there had been none before, suggesting that the foul creatures were not being created, but rather transported from somewhere else; 'The Warp,' the humans called it. These beings had carved a deadly swathe through the ranks of the Imperial forces, though they had wilted and withered before the power of the Princess. If they came from some other planet, or from some other dimension, no doubt greater threats could follow. They were, perhaps, the source of the disquiet both Celestia, her sister, and Twilight had all reported feeling, deep down at the back of their minds, ever since the invasion began.

As if that were not enough, there had been reports of increased rebel activity out in the west, an area thought to be safe from the human enemy. No landings had been made out there, but pony outlaws and traitors were roaming with relative impunity in the deserts. That was nothing new, but they seemed to be emboldened by the relative lack of military presence. One of the armoured trains had apparently been ambushed and derailed, according to a report reaching her from Vanhoover, by a large and organised group of rebels who made use of captured military hardware including artillery pieces. That was a worrying development; rebel groups normally operated with small cells and used small-scale raids on outlying villages or outposts as their modus operandi, having neither the numbers nor capabilities for attacking anything larger. This assault on such a potent symbol of Equestrian military might was concerning, both in and of itself, and because of the potential for such unrest and rebellion to spread as a result of the invasion.

To top everything off, the old enemy had returned. The Changelings, even after the destruction of their Hive, were not finished. They had not gone away. Chrysalis was alive, and she had the Element of Magic in her possession, just to complicate matters. If this new Hive in the jungle turned out to be the new home of the Queen and her drones, then Celestia would have had no hesitation in simply requesting that Lord-Admiral Marcos obliterate it from orbit, if not for that confounded Element. Yes, they had rescued Twilight from the volcano Hive, for which Celestia was eternally grateful. But without her Element, Twilight was just another unicorn like any other, albeit one with above average magical power. The Elements themselves could not function without all six of their number being present. Even a single one being missing, or stolen, in this case, rendered the entire setup useless. The golden necklaces were just meaningless trinkets without any value until their missing member, Twilight's diadem, was returned to their ranks. It had to be found, and recovered, but Chrysalis was hardly likely to simply give it up. She knew that the Elements were a means for the ponies to defeat her, to destroy what she had worked to build. The Elements were fundamental magic, and they were powerful, almost impossibly so, even more powerful than Celestia or Chrysalis themselves, which was why they were a danger to the Changeling Queen. That was why they had to be kept and had to be guarded. Obviously the protections provided for Twilight had been inadequate before, but now all of the remaining Elements and their bearers were under double guard, triple whenever they left the palace. Hopefully it would be enough, but it would all be meaningless if they could not recover the Element of Magic.

Many times in the past, Celestia had faced down foes which were new to Equestria, but never had there been a set of circumstances quite so complex and confusing. A single threat, no matter how powerful, was infinitely more manageable than four separate and distinct sources of aggression. Equestria, as had been clearly demonstrated, was not even remotely equipped to fight two of those sources. The humans and their dark counterparts presented an existential threat and one that was quite unlike anything Celestia had seen before. The very outlook that she, and by extension the rest of Equestria, would have to hold from now on had changed completely. The Lord-Admiral had told her that it was possible that, even if they defeated the enemy and the fleet withdrew, it was always possible that some other Imperial force could visit their planet at some point in the future. That was not a thought to be relished. From what he had said, it was likely that many, if not most, other fleet commanders of the Imperium would either obliterate their civilization from orbit without so much as a second thought, or invade in an attempt to sweep the planet clear of natives, much as the Chaos forces had tried.

Having to plan for threats from beyond the planet itself was not something to which Celestia was accustomed, save for preparing for her sister's return from exile on the moon. Their arrival had not been foreseen; there had been nothing in the ancient prophecies that spoke of hairless beings, or alien Diamond Dogs, or anything that resembled the humans or their ships. They came from a place beyond the realm of magic, where magic did not spread and could not see. The prophecies, such as the Mare In The Moon, relied on magic as the very basis for their function. They could not predict events from outside of those places that magic held sway, and without them, even Celestia could not predict events that might unfold hundreds of years in the future. If she could not predict something, then she could not plan for it.

It was possible that, without magic being so prevalent in Equestria, technological development might have been massively more advanced that it currently was. Resources were plentiful, as was knowledge and expertise. There were many highly intelligent pony scientists and engineers, though many of them used magic to aid with their designs and constructions. If a lack of magic had concentrated minds on the need to, say, mechanise agriculture in order to feed a growing population instead of using earth pony magic to boost crop yields and unicorn magic to automate ploughs and packaging of goods, then tools and vehicles might have been developed to achieve the same results. The only sphere where technology marched ahead was in the military. Internal combustion engines for airships, long range guns, steam turbines for the Navy, new machine-rifles for the infantry. Without magic, if all efforts were focused on technology instead, how much more advanced might Equestria be? Could they have even been at a level where they could fight off these humans, in space as well as on the ground?

Such thoughts were fine for idle minds to dwell on, but Celestia's was far from an idle mind. Regardless of what might have been, the reality was that magic offered ponykind its only realistic method of salvation should the humans renege on their truce and turn their weapons against Equestria. The military could not stand against them, even if they had been at full strength, which they were most decidedly not. Only the Princess and the Elements could defeat them, and even the Elements were a doubt. The human ships were in space, and, so far as any pony knew, the Elements had a decidedly limited range.. If they were on the ground when used, there was absolutely no guarantee that their effects could even reach orbit to threaten the human fleet, even assuming their effects were enough to disable or destroy the gargantuan craft which hung high above, still visible through a telescope at night, as clear as a bell.

Celestia gazed down from the windows of the Celestial Tower, the highest point in the palace and the city, along with its twin, the Lunar Tower, a short distance away. She could see Canterlot spread out below, most of it still empty, the streets coated with radioactive dust in stead of busy ponies going about their lives. Many had no lives to live any more, at least beyond the useful busywork assigned to them by the palace staff and guards. Every civilian had been pressed into service in an attempt to restore the city, or at least the palace, to working order. There were young and old, mare and stallion, unicorn, Pegasus and earth pony, battle-hardened veterans and newborn foals. They were all her responsibility. The Princess had always kept them safe. She had always kept Equestria safe.

Even now, in these most troubled of times, there were cheers in the halls whenever Celestia passed by. Soldiers saluted, foals smiled, civilians bowed. Despite the damage done to Equestria, faith in the Princess still held firm. Even though, as far as many of the civilians must have been concerned, she and her sister had abandoned Canterlot and seemingly fled, when they had relocated to Cloudsdale in an attempt to both protect the Elements and stabilise the situation and re-establish some sort of control over the unfolding invasion and chaos. Celestia would protect them. Celestia would provide for them. That was how it had always been, and that was how it must, surely, always be.

It was far from being that simple, the Princess herself knew. But she would most certainly do everything in her considerable power in order to live up to their expectations, and to the ideals by which she had always ruled. But the burden she carried was a great one. The crown she wore would always be heavy on the heart, though light upon the head. The responsibility was hers to bear. For a thousand years it had been hers alone, but now that she once again shared it with her sister, it hardly seemed to make the weight any lighter. For her subjects, it was an almost impossible thing to imagine. The personal responsibility not just for the personal safety of each and every one of the millions of inhabitants of Equestria, but for their prosperity, opportunity, their very development as a species. The economic, social, political and military future of Equestria and, by extension, all of the other species on the planet, depended entirely on what Celestia decided to do. That was how it had been ever since she first wore the crown.

Perhaps one day, that crown would be passed on to somepony else. Celestia already shared duties with her sister, but while there was a civilian government beneath them who oversaw the day to day running of Equestria, the power still remained squarely in royal hooves. That would never change, despite what some of the pony rebels and anti-monarchists who were roaming the deserts might wish. Celestia would never give up power, not because she craved it the way Queen Chrysalis did, but because she knew that there simply was nopony else who could take over the reins as head of state. Leading Equestria did not simply mean bureaucracy and attending fancy balls and galas. Anypony could do that. There was far more to it than that. For one thing, whoever was in charge had to possess enough physical power to fight, both to keep the nation safe and, indeed, to keep their own throne safe from usurpers. There was a reason that only Celestia and Discord had ruled Equestria in the last several millennia. Only someone with the power of Discord could have overthrown the royal sisters, and only the royal sisters could have overthrown him in turn.

Princess Luna was the only other possibility to be ruler of Equestria, and while she technically was a co-regent with her sister, Celestia was very much the senior sibling in every respect. That was partly down to being older than Luna, but there was also the more sinister note that had crept into the relationship between the royals and the populace since Luna's betrayal. Not everypony trusted her; even those who did trust the monarchy in general, and Celestia in particular, still had their doubts about the former Nightmare Moon. It was an understandable concern. They could not be entirely certain that she did not still harbour whatever dark forces had driven her to treason, somewhere deep down inside her psyche. There had always been grumblings, right since the day she was banished; Celestia should have killed her, many said, even if she was her own sister. Too dangerous to be left alive. That argument had been made every time the Princess had defeated a great and powerful enemy, that banishment or imprisonment was not enough, too risky or simply not befitting their crimes. Celestia resisted such calls, especially those that concerned Luna. It was not her way to kill where something else would suffice.

At least, that used to be the case. These human enemies had come to Equestria purely to spread fear, purely to kill and maim and destroy. Even Chrysalis and Sombra had carried out their actions for a reason beyond merely some base instinct for violence. Such attitudes were completely irredeemable. There was no possibility of persuading one of those slavering fanatics to give up their ways and repent their actions. They had come to destroy Equestria, and for that, they had to die.

That was why she had ordered public executions of some of the captured enemy, right there, in the palace courtyard that she was looking down upon from on high. It had not been the easiest command she had ever given, but it had been, she felt, necessary. This was a struggle for survival unlike any Equestria had ever faced, and the ponies, military and civilian alike, had to be made aware of that. The difference had to be pressed home to them, made clear in their minds. If this enemy won, they would not be left mostly to their own devices, as ponies had been under Discord, nor would they be imprisoned and enslaved as ponies had under King Sombra. They would be killed, slaughtered mindlessly and wholesale. The evidence was there for all to see, if they could only see what had happened in Manehattan, Baltimare and Ponyville. Celestia hoped that Twilight understood that. If she were, one day in the distant future, to become the new leader of Equestria, then she would have to learn, the hard way if necessary. Sometimes, brutality had to be met with brutality in return. That was a decision that Celestia knew and accepted, but having to make it was the cost of wearing the crown.

Southern Sun

Straddling the lower reaches of the Foal River, the city of Fillydelphia was the southernmost major settlement in Equestria. To proceed much farther south, one would need a boat; the wide river, which ran from west to east through the city, took a final turn to the south just downstream, and emptied into the narrow Southern Straits that separated the main continent from a series of mostly uninhabited islands that stretched as an archipelago down to the ice sheet that surrounded the south pole. As an inland port, FIllydelphia was home to plenty of merchant ships, some fast clippers and others side-wheel paddle steamers, which plied the lucrative route between their home port and Manehattan, up on the eastern coast. They lay idle now, anchored in mid-stream or tied up to the wharves and piers.

The National Arsenal buildings sat idle and empty, not churning out the vital equipment and ammunition that the Equestrian military needed to function. Occupied by the enemy, most of them had been looted of anything of value. Several had been set ablaze for no reason other than to watch them burn. Destruction for its own sake, a hallmark of the forces of Chaos wherever they went in the galaxy. As dawn broke, the sun rising slowly above the horizon, bathing the land in a golden glow, the silence and stillness was shattered not by birdsong, but by a chorus of guns.

Imperial artillery batteries stationed some miles away from the outskirts of FIllydelphia roared into life, pounding enemy positions around the edge of town. There was a strong outer ring of defences, in contrast to Baltimare, where there had been merely a crust of poorly built trenches and a couple of pillboxes. Here, there were several lines of trenches, all interconnected, heavily laced with razor wire and earthen bunkers every few hundred feet. Logs, sandbags and dirt had all been used to reinforce the trenches, front and back, lined with duckboards and proper firing steps. These were no decoy trenches, no half-hearted attempt at making a pretense at defending the city to lure the Imperials into a trap. There could still be a trap waiting to be sprung, of course, but these were real, strong defences. The Chaos troops wanted to defend this place.

Earthshaker cannons and Basilisk siege mortars, moved into place overnight, hurled hundreds of rounds of high-explosive at the defence lines. There were trenches on both banks of the wide river. The city was split in two by the fast-moving water, the north district and south district, but the Imperial attack would come only from the north. Forces moving down from Baltimare and coming east from the main landing grounds had linked up several days earlier, and had been preparing to take Fillydelphia, the last major Chaos stronghold left in Equestria. They had been driven out of much of the country, their forces in several other cities wiped out completely. Once they were cleared out from Fillydelphia, it was entirely possible that the Lord-Admiral would deem the Imperial job here to be completed, with whatever else that decision might entail.

The artillery pummeled the trenches for an hour, unleashing hell upon the defenders huddled down in their dugouts and pressing themselves against the trench walls in a desperate effort to stay alive. Artillery fire was always surprisingly ineffective against targets in well made defensive positions, and so it proved again here, inflicting some casualties, but sparing the majority of the enemy infantry from the barrage of explosives and shrapnel. Marauder bombers struck at key positions with impunity. There were no Chaos aircraft to deter them from their mission, nor much in the way of anti-aircraft fire coming from the ground.

Another sudden barrage of artillery fire caught the enemy as they prepared to repel an assault, a deliberate ploy instigated by General Jahn. A sudden artillery bombardment at dawn surely signaled an imminent attack, drawing men to the firing steps, manning the bunkers and deploying into exposed positions once the barrage stopped. Hitting then again, after a short delay of a little over a minute, was sure to inflict more casualties than the first barrage had achieved, and so it proved, the shrapnel shells cutting down a good number of troopers who had rushed to their defensive positions.

Only then did the assault begin. Troops were moving in, armour and mechanised infantry advancing across the grassland that surrounded the city, pushing down from the north. Their target was Fillydelphia, and they would not deviate, despite the thought at the backs of their minds that Baltimare had gone up in a sudden flash of light, killing many of their fellow Guardsmen. Clearly here, though, the Archenemy intended to fight for every inch of ground, not simply suck as many Imperial units as they could into a trap.

Defensive fire lashed out at the advancing forces, las-rounds, missiles and a few scattered plasma bolts targeting the onrushing Leman Russ tanks. As part of the vanguard, the 2nd Stourmont Armoured Regiment swept onward, leading the way yet again.

Captain Mayner's eyes were glued to his thermoscope. There would be no easy run this time, no simple passage to the target as there had been in Baltimare. Heavy fire was coming their way, despite the artillery preparation. Even as he watched, the image in the viewfinder turned into a blinding white mess of static as a Marauder dropped a stick of incendiary Promethium bombs across the first trench line, scattering burning fuel across a wide area, setting alight everything even remotely flammable, including wood, canvas, uniforms and flesh. Several men clambered from the river of fire that one of the trenches had become, floundering wildly before collapsing, burned to death.

There were bunkers ahead, pillboxes, with anti-tank weaponry. They were firing at the advancing tanks, doing their best to stop the push, defend the city the Chaos forces had conquered. The Imperial forces were not going to let that stand. Battle cannons roared in defiance, kicking up dirt and smashing into the bunkers, caving in the dirt or ferrocrete walls where they struck dead on target, burying the Chaos gunners under their own defences. Such a swift death seemed unfair hen delivered to such brutal men, men who had swept through the city murdering and pillaging anything in their path. Or at least, it would if they had not been meting out such violence to aliens.

Assuming the locals were indeed aliens in the truest sense of the word. They were horses, a species originally native to Holy Terra. Yes, they could talk, and yes, they seemed to have developed inexplicable psychic powers, but was there not a possibility, as others had suggested, that these creatures originated from the same place as humanity? Mayner had not heard any definitive statements on that fact from his leaders, either at Regimental or Crusade level. A fleet-wide proclamation could have been issued, for example, by the Lord-Admiral if the investigations had turned up anything conclusive one way or another. Nothing had been forthcoming, however. Was that because the Mechanicus science ship could not determine the truth, even with all of its equipment and the intellect of its crew? Or was it because they knew, but did not want the men and women of the Crusade to know?

Mayner banished such things from his mind. This was neither the time nor the place to wonder about the true nature of the Xenos they were fighting alongside. The true nature of their enemy was as clear as it had ever been, and that was what mattered. Ridding this world of the taint of Chaos and the foul stench of ancient treachery. If they were ordered to wipe out the horse-aliens afterward, so be it.

All around Big Beautiful Doll, the other tanks of the Regiment swept onward. There were two armoured regiments leading the charge, supported by three more regiments of mechanised infantry. Heavy air cover, as always, had been provided by the Navy, and fighters, bombers and gunships roamed freely overhead, untroubled by enemy interceptors. Only a few scattered strings of tracer fire attempted to reach out and touch them. The majority of the enemy defences were focused on repelling a ground assault, for the enemy commanders had surely known it must come.

Their planning was now proving to be quite necessary, but also, in places, quite inadequate. The tanks were designed for exactly such a task as this, forcing a breach in a fortified enemy line to carry home an assault, to open up gaps for the infantry to move along behind and clear the trenches. Once the nut was cracked in enough places, the whole system of trenches could be rolled up by the Guard, and then attentions could turn to the real prize of the city itself which lay beyond.

A tank ahead and to their left suddenly burst into flame and rolled to a halt, men scrambling to bail out of the burning wreck. A few moments later, another tank to their right front seemed to almost lift clear of the ground as something exploded beneath it.

'Minefield!' Mayner shouted a warning to his driver. He grabbed the vox. 'Cobalt Alpha One Actual to all Cobalt callsigns, be advised, minefield ahead, I say again, minefield ahead!'

Dinnis, the driver, had slowed the tank at the warning cry, and the other vehicles of the regiment began to do the same after Mayner's vox call. The tank ahead which had struck the mine had bounced like a child's toy as a hefty explosive charge went off beneath it, set off by the weight of the vehicle, which was considerable, even when the pressure per square inch was reduced somewhat by the broad treads of the Leman Russ. Though its port track was shredded and had worked itself free of its bearing wheels, and the left sponson was bent out of shape, the tank itself was still operational. Its remaining guns spat defiance at the enemy, even as its fellows tried their best to navigate now that they knew there was unseen danger in their path.

Minefields were highly effective area denial tactics. A weak defence like the one at Baltimare likely would not bother with them, either through lack of time or resources. But a well-planned defensive position with an astute commander would sew the approaches to their line with both anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. The Chaos forces had had ample time to do just that. The big danger with mines was that, if properly buried, they were undetectable except by specialist equipment, and while part of the preliminary bombardment had been targeted on the flat land in front of the enemy trench line to hopefully detonate any mines which had been placed there, the artillery had evidently not done a good enough job.

The minefield presumably stretched all the way up to the enemy razor wire, almost a mile distant. How far to each flank it had been laid could only be guessed at, as could the density of the field and the total number of mines which had been laid. There was no way for the attacking troops to know. When the enemy had presumably been preparing their defences, the fleet with its Auspexes and cameras in orbit had been marooned on the far side of the Warp Storm, or else, more recently, their attentions had been diverted elsewhere in preparation for other attacks.

An anti-tank mine, a powerful shaped-charge explosive designed to direct its energies upward and into the vulnerable underbelly of an enemy tank, was a tank crew's worst nightmare. They were strong enough to destroy a tank, ripping through its weaker underside armour and shredding the crew from below, or at best destroying a track or the engine and immobilising the vehicle right in the killzone of the defences the mines had been laid in front of. Worst of all, they were essentially invisible to tank crews, who had no realistic means of detecting their presence other than, as Mayner had, observing one of their own kind run over one.

Sometimes if the minefield was not well guarded or had been placed deliberately behind the lines on a supply road or highway, infantry could probe ahead of the tank in search of the mines, either by hand or with special detector equipment. But that was a hazardous proposition, since an enemy aware of this tactic would likely intersperse anti-personnel mines among their larger counterparts, to catch unlucky engineers out. Of course, some less scrupulous commanders in Imperial history had ordered men from penal battalions to simply run through minefields, with or without telling them about it, in order to set off mines before the main assault force arrived. That was not an option here, however, even if there were any punitive battalions present on the planet. Lord-Admiral Marcos and General Jahn were not the sort of men to sanction such a wilful waste of human life, even if they were criminal scum.

The tanks would just have to be careful, slow their advance and keep a sharp lookout for any signs of mines ahead of them; disturbed patches of earth, discoloured grass, small lumps or rises in the terrain which could equally be a mine or the residence of some local burrowing creature. That was fine if it was on some backwater road where mines had simply been laid by retreating forces. But this was a minefield under constant, heavy anti-tank fire. Moving slowly in such a place was inviting a fiery death by lascannon or shell. Little else could be done, however, other than simply soldiering on under support from the skies.

Captain Eliss Muran brought his Lightning strike fighter around. A call had gone out for close air support from one of the armoured regiments, the 2nd Stourmont. That was a familiar name to him. It was a tank from that regiment which had picked Muran up after he bailed out during the approach to Manehattan. How long ago that all seemed now, though it was only a few weeks earlier. For those in the service of the Emperor, time could somehow contrive to both fly by and also stagnate, with the chronometer barely advancing, depending on what situation one was in. In combat, minutes could seemingly pass in a matter of a few seconds, while on guard duty, a long ship's watch or waiting for the squadron scramble signal, the hours stretched out ahead into eternity.

Muran had expressed his gratitude to the crew for bothering to bring him aboard. Many Guardsmen might well have left him out there in the rain and the danger, given the rivalry between the Navy and the Imperial Guard, to say nothing of the danger it might expose the crew to. Muran had paid his respects with a quick prayer to the Emperor when he boarded to discover the tank's driver had been killed. A few inches either way and the shell which killed him might well have finished off the gunner, the loader or the commander instead, or perhaps all of them.

If the crew of that tank were still down there, if they had survived the flood at Ponyville, the atomic blast at Baltimare, and wherever else they might have been deployed, then Muran wanted to repay his debt to them. He lined up on the first trench line, sunlight glinting distractingly from the canopy. Clear skies overhead; perfect flying weather. He pushed the stick forward, dipping the nose toward the earth.

The enemy trenches were laid out not in a straight line, but as a series of interconnected V-shapes, meaning that any tank or infantry squad that got into a position to fire straight down the axis of the trench could only strike at one section, and not simply mow down the entire enemy force with one belt of heavy bolter ammunition. The layout also protected against bomb, shell and grenade blasts, diverting and cushioning any explosion and protecting those around the corner in the next section of trench. To something firing from above, however, it offered little help.

Unlike his last close support run, there was little need for detailed instructions from a liaison officer on the ground this time. The enemy were in the trenches, and the friendlies were to the north of them. Simple. Muran picked a target, one particular stretch of trench much like any other. There were flickers of las-fire coming from it, and the muzzle flash of something heavier, a stubber perhaps. A streak of smoke marked the trail of a missile which had just left a small firing pit to the rear of the trench itself. Muran made that his focal point. He flipped up the cover on his stick and pressed the firing stud twice, letting loose a pair of Hellfury incendiary rockets.

They raced across the distance and detonated above the trench and missile pit, scattering submunitions which detonated into a great cloud of fire, burning incendiary gel raining down on the hapless defenders. Ammunition in the missile pit began to cook off as the Lightning raced by overhead, and men drowned in the flames, their trench section consumed in an inferno. Muran climbed away as his wingman, Rall, swooped in to perform the same function on another section of the line, with similarly deadly results.

Muran brought his jet around. He could see the tanks moving forward slowly, much more slowly than would be usual. A shock attack would be the usual tactic, smashing the enemy line before they could react, or at least before they could destroy enough of the tanks to make a difference. Something was slowing them down, and though the order relayed to Muran from fleet command had not specified what, it seemed that a minefield was the most likely candidate.

From above, he could see the real scale of the enemy defences. They were not confined to the small section he had attacked, nor even to the frontage being assaulted by the Stourmont Armoured. The trenches and strongpoints extended across the entire front, like a great semicircle around the city. Three lines of defence, equally spaced, connected by communications trenches and studded with bunkers, strongpoints and even a few berms, in which were parked enemy tanks. They did not have many vehicles forming part of the outer lines, but each tank could act as a powerful focal point for defence.

The minefields that the Imperial tanks had run into could have covered the entire frontage of the assault. Or, it could have been designed to guide the attacking forces into particular areas, funnel them into the barrels of the strongest guns and the heaviest concentrations of defence. There was no way of telling from the air, just as there was no way of telling from the ground. Muran was glad that aircraft did not have to worry about invisible threats lurking potentially in their path at any given moment like the ground forces did.

He brought the Lightning around, heading back toward the enemy trenches. He still had missiles left to fire, a handy contribution to be able to make to the course of the battle raging down below. He picked out another section of the trench to target. The Imperial tanks were gaining some ground and getting closer, but they were still at a safe distance. Two more presses of the firing stud, and two more missiles blasted from the rails. The enemy down below could do nothing about it. Desultory fire came his way, a few badly aimed las-rounds and some autogun or stubber fire, doing nothing to stop the Lightning's progress as it raced overhead, the conflagration caused by its missiles igniting another section of trench and killing a dozen or more men who thrashed about in a futile attempt to extinguish the blaze which engulfed them.

Muran craned his neck to watch Rall sweep in with bursts of autocannon fire ripping up the dirt and grass around the enemy mortar pits placed between the trench lines. It was not a quick job, not like Baltimare had apparently been. Muran had not been there; he had been on a rest day, the rotating schedule of combat squadrons on and off duty designed to rest pilots before they became overtaxed. A tired pilot was not just a degraded pilot in terms of ability, but could even become a dangerous pilot, both to himself and to others. Air combat demanded split-second reflexes, and anything less was an invitation to get killed or get a fellow pilot killed. As a result, pilots and aircrew got rather more time off duty than the poor infantry or tank crews they were currently protecting.

Looking away to the south for a moment, Muran could see the coastline, the end of the mainland and the beginning of the sea. As he pulled his Lightning into a climb to rejoin the rank of fighters and ground attack aircraft stacked to run the gauntlet, he could see out beyond the coast. There were distant islands, off on the hazy horizon. Idly he wondered what might lay out there. Had these ponies explored that way? Surely they had. It was not far, and they had those airships. As a pilot, Muran had to admit to some admiration at those craft, vast things that they were. The airships were elegantly designed and seemed ferociously effective against the ponies' normal enemies, from what he had been told. In combat against the forces of Chaos, it had to be said, they were surprisingly successful too, dealing heavy damage to both enemy infantry and aircraft during the battle of Griffonstone, and, he had been reliably informed, during the recapturing of Canterlot, the pony capital city, as well. All of this had been achieved with what the Imperium would regard as primitive technology. The principles, however, were just the same as any of the far more advanced aerostats which plied their varying trades on thousands of Imperial worlds.

The islands to the south seemed to stretch away to infinity. There was a strange beauty to this world, he had to admit. It would make a fine addition to the Imperium, with its rolling plains perhaps used for farming, or the whole planet simply turned into some kind of resort for dignitaries and nobles from across the galaxy. That would surely be a waste; why not open it up to every man, woman and child who dwelled within the borders of the Imperium? Then again, Muran felt a strange sensation that it would be a shame to deprive the native inhabitants of this place. They lived here, and had done for a long time. Yes, they were Xenos, but there was something nagging at his mind that they deserved to be allowed to keep their planet. Keep their home.

He tried not to think too much about that. After all, it wasn't even up to him. It was up to the Lord-Admiral. He was in command of the entire Crusade, and ultimately, unless he received orders from some higher authority, what he decided would be what happened. Muran knew from off-hours spent in the officers' mess on board ship that he was not alone in sharing such disquieting feelings. Everything he knew, everything he had been taught, would say that the ponies did not matter at all. They were aliens, just filthy Xenos despite their resemblance of a native Terran creature. But something, something would not go away. Something kept saying that things were not that simple at all. He did not know if the ponies were descended from Terran creatures, perhaps delivered here by some rogue trader in centuries past. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But even if they were truly alien, something kept saying it, speaking to him, whenever he looked down upon this land from on high.

The ponies should be spared. Had to be spared. He could not believe he felt that way about them, but there it was, laid out before him. When he first encountered these creatures, he would have said emphatically that they should be put out of their misery. But now? Now, things were different. He had seen them in action, he had spent time in their world. Now, he had a new opinion. Now, he thought, despite their nature, or perhaps because of it, that they should be allowed to live.

He did not know why he thought that way, and he did not particularly like it. But it was a simple fact now, in his mind and in his soul. The ponies should be spared. The ponies should live.

Changes

'What the hell is that?'

Rall's voice over the vox brought Captain Muran back to focus. Something had appeared above the city, floating, though slowly descending. A creature, a large one. At first he had thought it must have been the Xenos princess, given the tales that circulated in the mess about her interference and assistance in various battles. But this was far larger than these ponies, even the princess. This was a grotesque creature, a monster.

It had great feathered wings and horns, a lizard-like tail, reptilian features. Or at least, sometimes it did. Muran activated the zoom function on his heads-up display, turning the jet toward the apparition, and suddenly it was not a reptilian creature any more, but rather a strange thing, almost like a jellyfish, floating above the city. Then, suddenly, it was merely a cloud of darkness, blotting out the sun impossibly, before reverting to its original form when he blinked a few times. A sudden sense of unease came over him; whatever this was, it did not belong here, and it was radiating a palpable sense of evil. It could only be the work of Chaos.

The vox net was abuzz with shouted orders and demands for action. This thing had been noticed by every unit on the field, and they were clamouring to know what had suddenly appeared above the city, but nobody could provide any confirmation. Orbital sensors were quickly trained upon the city, but suffered from the same problem. The thing itself seemed to be changing constantly, or if not changing, then at least not retaining the appearance of order. It was Chaos personified.

Even within moments of its arrival, it began to affect its surroundings, either deliberately or just through its mere presence. Viewed from a distance, the air around it seemed to shimmer, waver, distort whatever was seen behind it into almost impossible patterns and colours. Viewed from up close, from inside the city itself, one could only guess at what seemed to be unfolding above them. There were no Imperial troops inside the city yet, and it was just as well; even seeing the apparition from afar was enough to make some men bleed from the eyes, or simply start laughing out loud for no discernable reason, much to the disquiet of their fellows around them. The touch of Chaos, of madness, had descended upon Fillydelphia.

Perhaps the thing, the creature at the centre of an expanding illusion, was not really there at all. But something was most definitely having an effect upon the area, that was undeniable. It could be seen not just from the ground, but from the air, and from orbit as well, where the Emperor's Judgement and the Mechanicus vessel Ferrus Terra had been observing the course of the battle, monitoring for any signs of atomic weaponry, but also for something just like this. The appearance of the Daemonic forces of Chaos had always been a possibility at every battle which had been fought on this planet. Sometimes they did not deign to show themselves, but other times, they most certainly did, notably in Manehattan.

The sheer variety of creatures which could be unleashed from the warp itself was essentially infinite, as were their numbers, subject only to the whims of the various deities which controlled that most incomprehensible realm. Some were mere imps, tiny beings of almost pure warp energy which only existed for a few minutes, enough to perform whatever task they had been assigned and nothing more. Some would simply hurl themselves at an enemy and explode, either killing through explosive shock or, perhaps, transporting whatever matter was caught in the blast radius into another dimension, a dimension of untold horrors and madness. Others might act like a living drill, just having enough life in them to bore straight through a man, or an Ork, or a Tyranid, and out the other side, killing its target before expiring itself in a puff of smoke.

More advanced creatures could act like attack dogs or snipers, mobile warp artillery, or crazed beasts, attacking the enemy with cunning, guile and skill, or with brute force and firepower, sometimes both in equal measure. They were the foot soldiers of Chaos- even though the majority of them lacked feet, or indeed in many cases, appendages of any kind. They would be unleashed upon any foe which the Gods of Chaos deemed worthy of their attention, however brief and violent that attention may be.

Those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end could usually expect nothing better than a quick death, and if they were particularly unlucky, they might be subject to some of the cruellest fates imaginable in an impossibly cruel universe. They might find themselves trapped for all eternity inside their own mind, hearing nothing but the hideous laughter of Slaanesh. Some would be devoured by the warp, atom by atom, in such a precise and orderly fashion as to keep them alive and conscious all the way through as their body was agonisingly torn apart slowly, so slowly, according to the intricate plans of Tzeentch. Others would find themselves infected with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of deadly and virulent diseases and then unleashed back upon their own kind, with full awareness of their actions but no ability to control them, shambling, petilential zombies designed to spread the word of Papa Nurgle. Others who might perchance to be captured would be sacrified en masse in a mindless orgy of bloody violence, ripped limb from limb in fountains of gore by the berserkers of Khorne, to provide for the Skull Throne.

At the top of the Daemonic food chain came the Greater Daemons, the ultimate servants of their patron Gods. Among them were the Lords of Change, the chosen ones of Tzeentch and masters of trickery, deceit and change; great reptilian creatures, with feathered wings, and horns.

The Lord-Admiral could not be completely sure, but he did not like what he was seeing on the Auspex. A sudden, massive surge in warp readings had been detected on the moon for a mere moment before vanishing, and then, a second later, another huge increase in detected levels, this time above Fillydelphia. That was most certainly no coincidence, and surely meant that something which had been on the moon was now on the surface. Sure enough, something had appeared, and through the mists of confusion which seemed to affect even the sensors aboard the flagship, there were glimpses of something which bore a disturbing resemblance to a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, a foe of tremendous potential and power, and one which should give even the mightiest offensive reason for pause.

The Imperial Guard had been able to deal with the incursions of lesser Daemons in Manehattan, at least to some degree, though it had taken the intervention of the Xenos princess to banish them entirely. A Lord of Change was an entirely different prospect, holding more power in the twisted, ancient staff it carried than countless billions of its relatively feeble underlings possessed between them. It was likely that mere firepower along would not be enough to bring such a creature to its knees, let alone defeat and banish it entirely. Such Daemons could never be truly killed, only sent back to the warp from whence they came, where its essence would rejoin the Immaterium itself until called forth again, until freed by some future act by the followers of Chaos.

To achieve such a goal as banishment, millions had died in the past in struggles too vast in scope for mortals to comprehend. Great psychic power was all but a necessity for defeating such a creature, and that was one thing the Crusade fleet was lacking in. They were not accompanied by a detachment of the holy Astartes, whose mighty Librarians could wield the power of their minds in physical form to defeat any but the mightiest of foes. Nor did they have sanctioned psykers among their ranks; the High Lords who had authorised the Crusade had deemed that to be an unnecessary and unacceptable risk, given that the fleet would be entering barely charted territory, with some systems not even existing in the historical record, any data which had been collected in the distant past having been wiped out as a result of the Heresy, the Age of Strife, or one of countless other events which had caused irreparable damage to Mankind's store of knowledge about the galaxy they inhabited. Other than the Navigators, without whom the entire Crusade could never take place at all, it had been deemed an unnecessary risk to potentially expose psykers to unknown enemies, anomalies, and unexplored areas of space, due to the potential for disaster. Too many psykers in the past had succumbed to such things, either turning on their friends, becoming vessels for Daemons, coming under the sway of a hostile force or simply exploding with quite astounding violence. Given the nature of the unknown particle and the strange powers possessed by the ponies and Changelings, it seemed that, for once, high command had made a sensible choice.

That did not, however, help when it came to fighting a Greater Daemon. Such creatures had great powers of their own, psychic abilities that exceeded those of almost any creature in the galaxy save for the most powerful individuals. Men's minds could be overwhelmed just by being in the presence of such a being, driving them insane or making them turn their weapons upon themselves or their friends. Even if they retained their sanity long enough to fight, they would find that las-bolts and shells had little impact upon the otherworldly form of such a powerful creature. Its flesh was not mere flesh, but rather created from the energies of the warp itself, at least to some degree. All but the most powerful physical attacks would do little more than irritate such a beast.

Even though the Lords of Change were monstrously powerful psykers, it was rare to see one out on the field of battle. That was not due to any form of cowardice on their part, nor on any lack of ability or strength. Rather, it was because they preferred to manipulate events from behind the scenes, driving forces against each other, inciting rebellions, spreading rumour and misinformation through the back channels which existed on every Imperial world, and probably on every Eldar, Ork, and Tau world also. The Necrons, ancient folk made metal in an effort to overthrow their former masters, would be rather trickier to persuade, and the Tyranids proved to be a complete anomaly, causing problems even for the mighty Chaos Gods with their warp shadow and the presence of the immensely powerful Hive Mind.

Nevertheless, when they wanted to fight, A Lord of Change was as tough an opponent as could be found anywhere across the galaxy. They used their psychic powers to devastating effect, whether fighting a single man or an entire army. There were few who could stand against one in direct combat, and fewer still who would want to. Their staff, which each of the Daemons carried, acted as a conduit for warp energy, which could be directed in a variety of extremely violent ways if it so desired. Deception and deceit would still form part of its arsenal, even when openly engaged in direct combat.

A general halt order was issued to all attacking forces laying siege to Fillydelphia. Sensors were still taking readings, but it seemed likely that they were being confronted with an entirely new menace, something which they had not exactly expected to meet on the battlefield of a planet such as this. A new battle plan needed to be formulated, and quickly. The assault on the city could not continue in the same manner which had been expected, not with this Daemon now floating above it, slowly descending, making its way down to the ground. Why was it here? What was it trying to achieve? Trying to second guess such a mighty servant of Tzeentch was all but impossible for all but the most capable minds.

The third enemy line of trenches was being cleared, and the infantry had paused with the sudden blinding light in their eyes. A few surviving Chaos infantry had been buoyed by the apparent arrival of their Daemonic ally, and rose up in defiance. The Guard quickly struck them down, and the trenches were finally cleared. There was clear passage through to Fillydelphia, but the order had come down for them to hold their positions while those with much greater responsibilities than them tried to work out what exactly to do.

The tanks halted just south of the final trench line, guns trained on the city and on the thing which was floating above it. There were many rumours that rapidly spread among the men as to what exactly it was; some of them even guessed correctly. There was no panic, not as such, but there was huge concern. The men were afraid, and they were right to be afraid.

Thermscopes directed at the creature returned no reading at all, as if nothing was there. Radiation meters were also negative. Scans for warp energy, however, picked up enormous readings, millions of times above the background levels, and a clear indication that, even if it might not appear so visually, there was something of incredible power above the city of Fillydelphia. Many of those on the ground reported seeing different things; yes, there was a reptilian, lizard-like creature at times, but also a beautiful woman, a vision of the person's own mother or father, the Emperor himself, and also a mere mound of ashes, a simple mass of matter, a twisted, snarling face contorted in dark laughter. There was no consistency with the visions it presented, a mark of its Chaotic power and intent.

An uneasy silence had fallen across FIllydelphia. Gunfire had ceased with the defeeat of the last of the enemies in the third trench line, as the Imperial tanks and infantry waited for further orders. What commands would come down from the flagship? They had a target; a distant one, admittedly, several miles away, but well within range of the artillery and most certainly in range of the air support that accompanied the assault force. Surely they weren't going to just sit there while this creature descended unmolested from the skies?

It did not take too long before a decision was made. The ground forces were once again ordered to hold their current positions, while the long-range artillery, located behind the assault force, were to target the Daemon with airburst shells. Aircraft were to stand by for the possibility of being called in to engage, as well. There was not much confidence among the men on the ground that it would have much effect. Most of them were not even sure what exactly it was that they were facing, but they all knew it was Daemonic in nature. If nothing else, they could all feel it, the presence of this great intellect and great power, in a way a similar feeling to that which many of them had felt ever since landing on the planet, though this new sensation was very definitely maleficent in nature.

The guns were lined up, rows of self-propelled artillery pieces, their supports and jacks lowered into the ground to counter the recoil which would otherwise throw off their aim in between each round fired. Precise time delay fuses were fitted and set, and shells rammed home into the waiting breeches. Training wheels were spun around, sights set on the centre of the bizarre aerial distortion that hovered above the city. The gunners could not necessarily see the exact target, due to the swirling mass of warp energy which could take on manifold forms according to the whims and eddies of either the Empyrean, or of the Daemon itself, controlling the illusions from within. Many of the gunners had no idea what they were truly firing at, for their orders were simply to aim for the centre of the anomaly, without too much description of what exactly it might be. The less information that was spread to the rank and file about the nature of the threat, the better; there was less likelihood for panic if they did not know what the sensors appeared to be confirming.

With the guns loaded and the crews ready, the order to fire was given, and a hundred heavy shells left a hundred raised barrels, lifting skyward on arcing trajectories, toward the anomaly. Gun captains and officers watched on intently, hoping for a decisive outcome to their barrage, a timely reminder to the Generals of the power and stalwart reliability of the artillery as a combat arm vital to the success of any mission. The shells soared high, reaching the top of their arcs and screaming down onto the target from above, detonating with a ripple of fiery explosions that echoed across the battlefield like thunder.

And they did absolutely nothing.

The creature, to those few who could actually glimpse it through the swirling haze of confusion, seemed completely unperturbed by the violence which had been unleashed upon it, the attempted hammer blow having failed miserably. But more shells were already on their way; once the first rounds had struck home, gunners were able to commence rapid fire with a quick salvo of five rounds per gun. Those who had been slightly off target were able to adjust their aim before continuing fire, and more shells blossomed into clouds of smoke and flame against the armour of the warp, which glittered and swirled like the waters of the river that it had formed above.

To Lord-Admiral Marcos, it reminded him of the ethereal mane of the Xenos princess, though with a distinct and deeply unpleasant air of the twisted and evil about it that could only have been brought by Chaos. He watched the bombardment through the vid-screens aboard the Emperor's Judgement. He had little doubt that the relatively puny bombardment by mobile artillery would have no effect, but General Jahn had insisted that his men at least be allowed to try. After all, what else could they do? They could not simply sit there and watch, like some fancy light show being put on for the benefit of servicemen on leave.

He was right, of course. An attempt, at least, had to be made to fight this thing immediately, as soon as it arrived in the area of operations. Even if it was futile with the forces currently on the ground, it was unconscionable to simply allow a threat of such magnitude to freely announce its arrival. It had to be fought, and fought with everything they had, if necessary.

The hundreds of rounds of artillery fire being hurled at it by the ground forces were clearly having no effect, as the Daemon continued its stately descent toward the city, not slowed in the slightest by the bombardment. They would have to try something else. This time, it was the turn of the air support to unleash its firepower upon the enemy. When the artillery fire ceased, the Lord-Admiral gave the order.

Captain Muran swung his aircraft around, once again heading toward the enemy. This time, however, he was not supporting the ground troops, nor was he attacking stationary, defenceless infantry from above. His target now was...well, he was not quite sure. It had many forms, it seemed, or at least it allowed itself to be perceived in different ways. Some kind of Daemon, and the way the assault had been paused almost immediately upon its appearance probably indicated that it was one of considerable power, a fact backed up by the unleashing of heavy artillery fire upon it, and its consequent indifference toward such an attack. Now, it was his turn.

There were several dozen Lightnings supporting the attack, as well as a similar number of Marauder bombers, all of whom were now heading to engage this Daemonic presence. There had been Daemons before, yes, at various operations of which Muran had been a part, but never before had he been directed into aerial combat against one. Nor had he seen anything like the almost miasmic and mesmerising effect which surrounded it, like some kind of acid trip, almost, an infinite number of patterns and colours revealing themselves but for a moment before vanishing like the early morning mist, only to be replaced by something else. It was equal parts tantalising and disturbing, some base instinct drawing one's gaze and thoughts in, while simultaneously some primal revulsion made one back away in horror.

Muran shook away his thoughts by instead focusing on the targeting system, gazing down at the readouts which were illuminated on the instrument panel in front of him. He still had four incendiary missiles on his underwing racks, along with his twin lascannon and the autocannon, with which to attack this monstrous creature. Judging by the failure of the artillery, he doubted his payload would do much good against the Daemon, but an order was an order, and he was not going to disobey it.

He lined up using the instruments, trying not to stare at the morass of weird and wonderful imagery being broadcast around the focal point of the creature itself. It was all there to distract, to confuse, to hide the truth from those outside, but the presence of this deception merely helped confirm the fears of those in command, and prove the identify of the threat they were facing. Only a servant of Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the god of intrigue and confusion, would enact such a grand charade, trying to protect itself while simultaneously announcing its arrival with spectacle.

'All aircraft, fire at will!' came the call over the vox. All around Muran, jets were closing in on the target. Those few covering interceptors with air-to-air missiles loaded could fire from range as soon as the order was received, their weapons lancing out across the distance and exploding against the strange shield. Again, they had no effect, like the artillery fire before them. Closing in, the other fighters equipped with ground attack missiles were able to launch theirs, and Muran pressed the firing stud four times, unleashing all of his remaining Hellfury missiles.

The incendiary weapons burst into an inferno against the shield, flames dripping down as if they were on the wall of a building, even though there was nothing truly there. Dozens of other missiles slammed into the miasma with a similar lack of effect.

'Break left, break left!' Muran ordered his wingman, and they peeled off to port with the intention of coming round again behind the Marauders which were now running in. The heavy bombers were loaded up with bombs, rocket packs and other air-to-ground ordnance which they had been unleashing upon the enemy trenches. Now their attentions were focused on an airborne target, which their weaponry was not designed to engage. The turret gunners, however, with their heavy bolter mounts designed for protection from enemy fighters, could rattle away, letting loose streams of high explosive shells. The bombers climbed and passed over the target, releasing their plasma bombs and Promethium canisters, spraying barrages of rockets from underwing pods. The city reverberated with the echoes of explosion after explosion as the air forces hurled themselves relentlessly against the implacable foe, who continued to show little care for the efforts of the mere mortals trying to harm it.

Muran swung around in a wide arc and aimed at the centre of the target again. His lascannon flashed brightly, throwing around energies which could punch clean through a tank's hull or the thick ferrocrete of a bunker. The autocannon roared, stitching a trail of explosive rounds across the strange projections in the sky, almost like watching someone empty a bolter's magazine into a vid-pict screen. The only difference was that it seemed to do absolutely nothing to the creature or its defences. Muran held down the trigger, hosing the target with gunfire before peeling away again. Rall followed behind, his weapons equally useless. The Marauders, their payloads expended, headed away, turning toward their forward bases for resupply, leaving the Lightnings to continue the struggle against the Daemon.

Muran turned again, watching as an entire squadron of strike fighters blazed away at the target, their weapons flashing. Why was it just sitting there, slowly descending? Why wasn't it doing anything? Muran couldn't understand.

But mere mortals were not meant to understand the whims and plans of Tzeentch. In the passing of but a moment, all of the illusions, the smoke and mirrors, the strange apparitions, vanished. There remained only the lizard-like creature which had first been visible, with its feathered wings, long reptilian tail and a crooked staff clutched in one bony claw.

That was when the Daemon Lord struck.

Flight

A squadron of Lightning strike fighters consisted of twelve aircraft in total. Despite being optimised for ground attack, they could still tackle all but the most advanced or well-piloted enemy air units in a straight-up dogfight, or wreak havoc on the ground with rockets, missiles and bombs. They were fast, agile, and well armed. And they were all wiped out with but a single flick of the Daemon's wrist, so subtle that it was barely even visible to the naked eye.

A thick wall of warp energy appeared from the empty air in front of the jets, leaving them no chance to climb over or dive beneath. The entire squadron slammed into the barrier at high speed, and each aircraft exploded on impact, transforming into a million minuscule fragments of shrapnel which poured down the warp barrier like rain. A dozen good pilots, good men and women, gone in a heartbeat. The Daemon Lord was not content with that.

The head of its staff crackled with arcane energy, and suddenly there was warp fire all around. It leaped after the Marauder bombers which had been heading back to their airbases, leaving the combat area. The flames of the Immaterium played over their fuselages and wings, and another half dozen aircraft went down in pieces, shredded by the explosion of their fuel tanks or any remaining ordnance on board. Their added distance from the Daemon had been no saviour for the crews of the heavy bombers.

More Lightning swept in to try and counter the threat, their lascannon flashing brightly, autocannon chattering. This time they had a definite target, not just a morass of atmospheric phenomena into which to aim their weapons. They could focus their fire, hit the target directly, and do it in unison with their fellow pilots, teaming up to bring down the Daemon Lord.

The Daemon Lord in question, however, had other ideas, and with another simple gesture, broke the minds of two of the incoming pilots, without their even realising it. It could have destroyed the flight of Lightnings itself, as it had with the first squadron, but what would the machinations of Tzeentch be without some alterations here and there, without some more complex actions? Without some change?

The two pilots who had been afflicted by the psychic powers of the Daemon pulled in behind their fellow aircrew. Their target now was not the same as the others. Their target now was the others. Their lascannon blazed into life, and four Imperial pilots met their deaths at the hands of their own. The two survivors, brains warped by madness, proceeded to dive their aircraft straight into the river below, with nary a thought for any other course of action, simply because that was what the Daemon wished them to do.

Captain Muran watched on with confusion and horror as his fellow pilots were wiped from the sky, swatted down with no effort by this beast from another realm. Their firepower had failed against it. Their courage, while admirable, was also futile. Their heaviest ordnance had been expended upon the target and it had done no damage whatsoever. What else could they do? Even as he brought his jet around for another run, he watched several more Lightnings destroyed in the blink of an eye, brought down without explanation by their own wingmen. The foulness of Chaos had infected them, it seemed, and there was no telling who might be the next ones to become afflicted by the blight. Only the Daemon knew the answer to that. In that sense, attacking it was no different to attacking any other target; there was always the uncertainty and randomness of battle to contend with. There was no way for an infantryman to know which bullet might find him, or when. Each artillery shell that passed overhead was one which would not kill him, but it was always the one you didn't hear that got you. Pilots had no idea if they would be next on the targeting list of enemy flak gunners until the puffs of smoke began to burst around them, although they did, at least, have the presence of a missile warning receiver that alerted them to any Auspex targeting locks on their aircraft.

Even that limited luxury would be denied them here. This Daemon would not be attacking them with missiles or guns, but with the power of its mind, its very essence, its dark, twisted soul, unleashed upon the mortal plane. That was something for the theologians of the Ecclesiarchy to discuss more than the frontline soldier, but its effects were just as real and just as terrifying as any physical weapon in the possession of any of mankind's enemies. More so, if anything, because it was not a device, not technology that was doing the killing. The intent of the weapon itself was just as malevolent as that of the being which wielded it.

There were orders over the vox, insisting the assault from the air continue, while other dissenting voices were trying to order the opposite. It was a clash of callsigns, with squadron officers requesting instructions from their wing commanders, who in turn were trying to juggle replies to their subordinates with calls further up the chain of command. The attacks were having no effect, men were being driven mad by their proximity to such a powerful psychic being. Surely it was folly to continue trying to destroy this creature in such a way?

But the orders from high command were insistent. An attempt had to be made to destroy this creature at once, however costly it might prove to be in human lives and materiel. At least one more wave of aircraft had to be sent in, doing whatever they could, expending any remaining ordnance and, if necessary, their lives, in the pursuit of the destruction of this foul blight descending upon the city. It would be, perhaps, a futile gesture, but then again, some lucky pilot might find the weak spot and strike the death blow the Imperials were seeking.

Captain Muran turned once more to face the enemy, looking into the disturbing visage of change itself, entropy personified. A reptilian appearance, this thing possessed; puzzling to Muran, who had never been afraid of snakes, lizards or other similar creatures, though he knew it was a phobia shared by many across humanity. Was this really the true face of this Daemon? Was this what it really looked like in its natural form? Or was this merely yet another conceit, another attempt at confusion by a creature bound in service to a god of deceit and trickery?

Perhaps there was not a single man in the Imperium who knew the real answers to those questions. Most would baulk at the process of even attempting to find out, as it would lead one down a very dark and dangerous path. Chaos was so insidious that merely to try and study it in an academic context could lead one straight to madness, or worse, to the same treason which had befallen so many formerly loyal men, and even the superhuman Astartes, during the Horus Heresy and at various points in history since.

Orders were orders, and, as men and women had been doing since the dawn of the Imperial age, it was their duty to follow them and obey, without question or hesitation. Muran targeted the creature in his heads-up display, getting it in his gunsight once more. He could at least try, drain his power packs, empty his autocannon magazine. The order had not exactly been given for ramming attacks, but if it came down to it, he knew that there would be those among the aircrew, probably those among his own squadron, who would willingly sacrifice their lives in a suicidal final dive if it meant a chance, however small, of destroying this Daemon for good.

He did not count himself among those men. While a combat mission always carried risks, some more than others, and loyalty to the Imperial cause was always a trait worth carrying close to one's heart, there was a fine line between bravery and foolishness. If it could somehow be known, with reasonable certainty, that a Lightning on full afterburner smashing into the Daemon would destroy it or banish it, then that was one thing; a loss of one pilot and one jet in return for the destruction of one of the most potent enemies of mankind was the kind of simple arithmetic that theatre commanders always hoped to achieve, and Commissars and Ecclesiarch Confessors longed for, because it gave them the chance to call for volunteers for the heroic sacrifice, and give a rousing speech to those left behind as they saluted their comrade on his desperate ride, just the kind of thing which would play well on the propaganda vid-picts played to civilians back home.

It was doubtful whether any such vid-records would ever be shown of this particular battle, regardless of the outcome. It was such a backwater part of the galaxy, and news of strange, enigmatic new species with potent psychic powers did not make good viewing for the masses. They were fearful enough as it was without new Xenos to concern themselves with, however benign the aliens might actually be. Their true nemesis, of course, was Chaos, which was exactly why they were fighting this battle.

The creature was dead centre in his crosshairs. Muran pulled the trigger again, and the autocannon blared, the twin lascannon, slaved to the main trigger so all guns could be fired in unison, flashed brightly. Other aircraft were making their runs, too, striking hard as they swooped down from above, out of the sun. Once again, just like the last wave, it did nothing. The Daemon continued to float down toward the city below, and it continued to defend itself, no longer with trickery, but with raw power. Several Lightnings disintegrated in mid-air, while others simply continued their dive all the way into the river below, their pilots either dead or captivated by inexplicable visions only they could see.

Muran's autocannon clicked empty. He had expended its entire ammunition supply, an easy task if one held down the trigger for more than a few seconds, given its prodigious rate of fire. The two lascannon continued to spit fury, but even their power packs would run dry soon enough. A few more shots was all Muran could manage before he had to turn and break left to avoid a collision, which he doubted would affect the Daemon in any way. The more firepower was hurled at it, the more questions arose as to why it was allowing itself to endure such punishment, even if it was not feeling any physical pain. It was not the usual tactic of such a Daemon to engage on the field of battle directly.

Behind him, several more Lightnings were struck down from the sky with ease, the Daemon seeming to delight in plucking their wings one by one. Suddenly its attention, seemingly on a whim, turned to Muran's aircraft, and a mixture of blue and purple light played over the fuselage and canopy, crackling like electricity, and having a similar effect to a huge surge of that fundamental force running through the Lightning's systems. Lights went out, while others illuminated, blood red warnings and amber cautions, at least temporarily before they all went dim as well. The engines suddenly cut out, and even the control column became heavy, the electrically-assisted hydraulic elevators and ailerons losing their boost and relying entirely on mechanical effort to move them. The Lightning had lost all power, just as it had when he had been flying through the storm clouds near Manehattan. That time, a simple restart procedure had resolved the issue, but this was no normal electrical overload. This was warp energy, and as Muran feared, the restart operation did nothing. The engines would not light, the vox was dead, his controls sluggish. He looked around for Rall, and found that his wingman was still there beside him.

So far as Muran could determine, Rall's jet was unaffected by the attack which had crippled his own. He made a gesture to signal that he was alright, which Rall returned. He then pointed his fingers down before making a flat shape with his hand, signalling that he would have to land. He then signalled for Rall to rejoin the attack, but his wingman shook his head firmly, trying to signal something else that didn't quite come across in translation.

Rall remained alongside him as Muran's Lightning began to descend gradually, gliding as it was powerless, losing height as it headed away to the north. Muran started looking for a suitable place to land. The emergency diversion airbases were too far away, and a quick systems check told him that his orbital injection engine was out as well, meaning he could not make it back to the Emperor's Judgement either. An emergency landing was the only option, either that or ejecting, and given the effect of the warp energy on the Lightning's other systems, Muran didn't much fancy relying on the separate, isolated, but still electrically-actuated canopy release or automatic grav-chute deployment mechanisms for survival. Far better to trust his own hand and the hydraulic and mechanical connections to the aircraft's control surfaces.

The Lightning could belly land anywhere that was relatively flat and smooth. Rough terrain was a no-go, and if the chosen landing area was too hilly, disaster was just as likely to result. The Lightning normally landed using skids rather than wheels, as it was frequently deployed from, and had to return to, starship docking bays, whose metallic floors would offer little resistance to tires, being rather like ice when compared to ferrocrete or tarmac which would be used in forward airbases to coat runways. A belly landing was a risky proposition, but, when setting down anywhere other than a prepared airbase, it was the only sensible option. The landing skids could catch easily in branches, bushes, animal warrens, depressions in the ground, craters, tree roots, boulders or any number of other obstacles which could end up in the Lightning's path, resulting in the craft likely flipping over. Landing with the relatively flat underside of the craft spread the weight across a larger surface area and gave far more stability and control. The only downside was that there was the potential for rupturing the ventral and wing fuel tanks or underwing armament. Normally, external stores would be jettisoned before such a landing, and the fuel dumped through wingtip vents. But with no electrical control whatsoever, flying a dead aircraft, Muran could not activate the fuel dumping mechanism. At least, he thought, I've already used up my missiles.

Ahead lay the grasslands of southern Equestria. He had been over the middle of the city, where the river ran through it, when his jet had been struck, and now he was passing over the friendly lines on the outskirts. Though he had only been at a few thousand feet, he still had plenty of lift and could potentially glide for several more miles if necessary, but there was a large expanse of seemingly smooth terrain just beyond the trenches, where the Imperial long-range artillery had set up. That would be his landing spot, he decided. Best to set down in range of friendly forces who could pick him up, maybe get him to an airbase where he could take a spare fighter back up, back into battle.

The joystick was heavy in his hand as he manipulated the control surfaces of the Lightning, having to reply on mechanical backup linkages instead of the electrically-aided hydraulics. The craft was entirely dead, all of its systems fried. It was hard work using his feet to move the rudder pedals, and his arms to move the stick and control the elevators and ailerons, but he managed to bring the Lightning in on a steady glide, getting lower. The ground ahead grew in the canopy as he lost more and more height. Rall stayed just behind him, ready to start circling over the landing site as was standard practice to guide in rescue teams, assuming any would be sent. Failing that, Muran knew he could just walk to the artillery positions which were less than a mile behind him.

As well as the digital readouts, the Lightning did possess a purely mechanical altimeter, which gave a broadly accurate reading of Muran's height above mean sea level, having been calculated for this particular planet when the fleet deployed for landing operations; not entirely useful given that he was not trying to land at sea level, but a broad indicator of how high he was. As the jet came lower and lower, its shadow began to grow, cast on the ground below it. Muran used it as a better guide to his altitude above the grasslands. The ground ahead appeared mercifully flat, just a few scattered bumps here and there, and he knew he had picked a good spot for setting down. The backup airspeed indicator showed his approach speed; a touch on the high side, countered by raising the nose slightly. One false move at the wrong time could see the jet tumbling end over end, ripping itself apart and turning into a blazing fireball as the fuel tanks ignited, since he had not been able to vent them as he normally would. Lower, lower, still lower, the shadow sweeping across the land below. Still too fast, raise the nose again. A little more. Flat grass in front, angle of attack good. One hundred feet. Fifty, perhaps. Thirty, twenty. Landing flare, lift the nose, bleeding the speed off, losing lift, slowing, slowing, sinking...

With a sharp jolt, the Lightning struck the ground and began to slide across the grass, churning up the dirt in its wake. It juddered and shook as the belly of the craft scraped along, mercifully not tearing through the relatively thin outer shell and exposing the fuel tanks inside. The remaining speed of the Lightning rapidly bled off as it tore up the field, slewing to the left before coming to a halt, left wing down, scuffed and battered but intact and upright. Muran felt a sudden urge to slump in his seat; a belly landing was always hazardous, and one where the controls were unresponsive due to the electrical failure and where the tanks were still half-full of fuel was one that no pilot would wish to have to navigate.

But navigate it he had, successfully, and now it was time to get out of the jet. There was still the danger of fire; nothing had yet been ignited, but it was always possible that the skin of the aircraft's underside had been penetrated enough to cause a leak of Promethium, and even a small spark, or contact with a hot exhaust or the engine intakes, which were still cooling, could be fatal. Muran reached up for the emergency canopy jettison latches. They had to be pulled down and then flipped up, to avoid any possibility of an impact during flight setting them loose and depressurising the cockpit. Though Muran wore full oxygen gear during flight at all times, a depressurisation could still prove fatal by way of rapidly fogging up the cockpit due to the sudden pressure drop, which would cause visibility to drop almost to zero, and if he couldn't see out of the jet, he couldn't see where the enemy were, or what was in front of him.

With the latches released, he was able to push at the canopy, making it rise up. He disconnected his oxygen supply, removing his mask and unfastening his harness. Rall circled overhead, and Muran gave him a thumbs up to signal that he was alright. Rall responded by waggling his wings in acknowledgement. Beyond simple communication like that, there was no way for the two men to talk to each other, thanks to the vox of Muran's lightning being knocked out. He tried again to signal for Rall to go rejoin the fight, but again, his wingman did not comply.

Muran grabbed his emergency pack from the cockpit, checking his laspistol, just in case. Yes, he was behind friendly lines, but nothing was certain. Better to be safe than sorry. He stepped down onto the wing and then hopped down onto the dirt, checking over his craft. Beyond the inevitable scratches and dings to the paintwork from a belly landing, there was barely any damage to be seen. A perfect touchdown, if I do say so myself.

He set off southward, towards the Imperial artillery positions he had flown over. They were likely to be the nearest friendly unit to him, certainly that he was aware of. They would have a working vox which he could use to relay his position to squadron command, or to the fleet if necessary. He doubted very much that any effort would be wasted in trying to pick him up, but he at least had to let them know that he was alive. Most likely he would have to spend the rest of the battle with whatever unit he came upon first. It would not be the first time; in Manehattan, he had ended up with one of the tank crews, after all.

The city lay up ahead, though most of it was out of sight due to the terrain. The artillery had positioned themselves atop a low ridge overlooking Fillydelphia, which blocked Muran's view. He began to walk, heading across the grassy terrain, leaving his downed jet behind him. It had only taken minor damage and would hopefully be recovered in due course by the maintenance personnel assigned either to the nearest airbase or the Emperor's Judgement. There was no sense in wasting a perfectly repairable aircraft, at least assuming the electrical system could be fixed. The warp energy could have completely fried it and left it, and by extension the whole aircraft, utterly useless.

As a pilot on the ground, Muran was equally useless now, deprived of his chariot and its firepower. All he could do was walk and hope to link up with another unit, then await the resolution of the battle. He could hear the sound of engines, vehicles on the move somewhere up ahead. They sounded close, and getting closer, it seemed. A convoy to the front, perhaps, he could hitch a ride with?

There was a row of small trees and bushes up ahead, whether natural or planted by ponies, he could not tell. Something suddenly pushed through, crushing several saplings beneath it. It was a Basilisk, a mobile artillery vehicle, heading toward him. They must have seen him go down and sent out a recovery team. But if that was the case, why not send one of the Salamander support vehicles? Surely the Basilisks were still standing by in case they were called upon to fire at the Daemon once more?

There was another Basilisk coming through the bushes, then another, and another farther down, a whole battery of them. There were Salamanders, too, and Trojan supply vehicles, all churning up the grass as they headed toward him. Were they repositioning, moving to a better location? He flagged down the nearest vehicle, and the Basilisk pulled up beside him, the crew peering down from the open fighting compartment.

'Climb on!' the commander urged with a gesture. 'Hurry it up!'

Muran clambered up onto the track guard and then into the compartment with the crew. 'Thanks. What's the rush, Lieutenant?' he asked the commander.

'They called the retreat!' the Lieutenant replied. 'Didn't you get the order?'

Muran shook his head. 'My vox was fried. 'Everybody's pulling out?' he questioned, leaning against the side of the compartment as the Basilisk lurched into motion once again, heading to the north, away from the city and the threat of the Daemon.

'Everybody,' the Lieutenant replied with a firm nod. 'General retreat, orders of high command. They're going to hit that bastard from orbit.'

Trying Again

Lord-Admiral Marcos had seen the failure and futility of the attacks on the Daemon, vividly depicted through the vid-links and displayed on the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement. Artillery, missiles, lascannon, all had failed to deter or slow the creature, the foul spawn of the warp. The sudden burst of energy detected by Auspex on the far side of the system's moon must have been related somehow- perhaps the Lord of Change had always been there, waiting, for millennia, for this opportunity. Or perhaps, as now seemed increasingly likely, its appearance had something to do with the strange actions of the Chaos battleship Daemonfate.

There had been a certain escalation which had been noted by Imperial strategists aboard the flagship, though without any particular indication as to whether it actually meant anything. FIrst, there had been a small Daemonic incursion in Manehattan, after the initial heavy bombardment by Imperial siege artillery. Then, there had been the fire, which had torn through the dockside districts of the city where the enemy were holed up. That might have been accidental, but it was immediately followed by a Daemonic incursion much greater in scope than the first. After that had come the destruction of the dam in Ponyville with the resulting casualties it incurred. An atomic weapon detonated in Baltimare had been next, seeing the deaths of thousands of the enemy, at minimum, and many Imperial troops, too. And then, finally, there had been the inexplicable suicide of the Daemonfate, and its crew not just of thousands, but of over a million. A million men, a million souls, twisted and warped by Chaos, but souls nonetheless, all wiped out in mere moments.

Though there was no concrete proof of any connection, it seemed that the Archenemy had been trying, with increasing fervour, to cause enough death or agony, either cumulatively or in one single event, to summon the Lord of Change. A Daemon of such power and strength would not be a simple matter to bring to the material world, and their early attempts, if that was indeed what they had been planning, had been failures for one reason or another. But perhaps, the death of the Daemonfate was the trigger that was needed. Maybe it had merely required a certain number of souls to be sacrified, or perhaps the importance of the ritual was that those souls had to die willingly; it was possible that the failures of fire, flood and radiation had suggested to whoever was in command of the enemy forces that a sacrifice of his own men was needed to complete their task, an offering of proof of loyalty to the Lord of Change and his dark patron god.

That was all speculation, however. Truthfully, it did not matter what exactly had summoned the Daemon to this place. What mattered was how they would defeat it, and drive it back into the Immaterium from whence it came. The ground and air forces had failed, so it was time for them to fall back. Marcos had issued the order through General Jahn; all Imperial ground units were to retreat to a minimum distance of eight miles from the edge of the city, and await further orders. It was time for the Navy to try its hand at the task.

All across the plains north of Fillydelphia, Imperial forces were in retreat, as per the orders they had received from high command. Tanks and infantry, artillery and aircraft, were all pulling back to the initial jump-off points from which they had launched the offensive just after dawn that morning, abandoning the hard-won trenches that ringed the city and heading back north. The orders they had received had been explicitly clear; fall back, as fast as possible but in good order, clear of the city and clear of the target. Every unit was to comply, there were no exceptions to the order.

Despite the fear instilled by the presence of any Daemonic entity, let alone one of such great potential power as this, there was little panic among the ground forces. It was not a flight borne of terror, but of a reasonable and very sensible order issued by high command, for a good reason. Nobody wanted to be in the target area of an orbital strike, which was exactly what they were now planning to unleash upon their foe. The most powerful weapons at their disposal would surely annihilate this creature, however strong it might happen to be. Some of the men were most confident that this would be the case, while others did not share their enthusiasm and were incredibly doubtful that a mere increase in energy output would make much of a difference; after all, that was all that separated a lance from a lascannon, when it came down to it. If lascannon and shell and bullet had done nothing to this creature, why should any of their other weapons?

Aboard the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable, batteries were prepared for firing, coordinates logged, entered and relayed. The target was locked on by the main Auspex arrays, tracking the warp signature given off by the beast now that it was out in the open and fully exposed. Before a single shot could be fired from orbit, however, Lord-Admiral Marcos had to make a vox call, as strange as it seemed even to himself. Before they engaged the target with such powerful weaponry, he felt it best...no, he needed to get approval.

'Your Highness, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos,' he began his message. 'Our assault on Fillydelphia has developed some...complications. A very powerful creature, A Greater Daemon, has appeared on the field of battle.It is an extremely dangerous and cunning enemy, and...'

'I know, I felt its arrival,' Princess Celestia interrupted him. 'My sister and I are both aware of its presence, though not of its true nature. Nevertheless, we can feel its malevolence. What have you called to tell me, Admiral? That you cannot defeat it? That you wish us to assist you, or that you wish to destroy it from orbit?'

'We are planning to strike it from orbit, Your Highness, yes,' Marcos replied, the princesses' perception once again impressing him. She had not even been present at the front, as she had at Manehattan, and yet she apparently not only already knew of the Daemon's arrival, but also had correctly predicted his plan for dealing with it. 'Unfortunately it is located within the city of Fillydelphia itself, Your Highness. In order to engage the target, we would be compelled to destroy a large part of the city alongside it. Do I have your permission to do so?'

'We need that city, Admiral,' Celestia made a pointed reminder to him. 'We need those factories, the river port. Do you not think you can destroy this...Daemon...some other way?'

'I do not believe so, Your Highness,' Marcos admitted. 'I am not entirely confident that a strike from orbit would be able to destroy it, either, but it is the best chance we have. Our most powerful weapons brought to bear will give us the greatest chance of defeating this evil before it can spread. I must stress, Your Highness, that this being is incredibly dangerous, not only in a straight fight but also behind the scenes, psychologically, sometimes imperceptibly. It might make a small change here or there which seems inconsequential, but ten years later will result in the fall of an otherwise impregnable fortress or the death of a king or governor.'

'Or a Princess?' Celestia quipped, drolly. 'Do you believe I could be of assistance in combating this menace?' she questioned.

'Truthfully, Your Highness, I am not sure,' Marcos replied, for it was indeed the truth. While he had seen the power Celestia could wield, and had read through the mission reports and seen the vid-pict images of her fighting off hordes of Daemons in Manehattan, this particular Daemon was in a different league compared to those minor underlings which had threatened to overrun the assault force out to the east. He had no idea if the Princess could stand against a creature like that; he would not be at all surprised if she could, but equally, if she was not up to the task then she would die needlessly. Part of Marcos, the old part, told him that would be a good thing. Let the Xenos fight the battle for their own homeland; she wanted the factories of this city, so she should sacrifice herself to win them back. But another part, the new part, said that would be wrong. Not just wrong because it would deprive the Crusade of a valuable ally, but intrinsically wrong, on some moral level.

It was a feeling which still confused him greatly, not least because it seemed to get stronger the more time he spent here. He was not even on the surface, merely in orbit, and yet something about this place where he had never set foot in person, and something about its inhabitants, still grasped at his consciousness in a way that he had never felt before about any place save for his home planet. Even compared to that, this place was somehow different. There was, as strange as it sounded to try and explain to himself, an inherent goodness within the Princess, and that seemed to s[read to the land as well. Perhaps not to every pony, perhaps not to the other lesser species at all, but certainly to some. What would normally have led to confusion and the rapid order for some kind of destruction, at least of the species if not the planet due to fears of warp taint or psychic trickery, had stayed his hand for some reason here, on Kuda Prime. Marcos could not explain why to himself, and he feared he would not be able to explain it to the court-martial panel back at Hydraphur, either.

There would be questions, of course, questions about the fleet's many operations elsewhere, about space combat, about logistics and attrition and the Archenemy and oh yes, by the way, why did you decide to spare this race of psychic horse-aliens from destruction once you found out about their capabilities, Lord-Admiral?

But that was far in the future. Perhaps he would never even make it back to Hydraphur alive and all of his fears would be moot. Although, of course, in that case he would have to answer to the Emperor himself in the next world, but that would be alright. Marcos trusted the judgement and wisdom of the Emperor infinitely more than he trusted the judgement and wisdom of the men of Segmentum Command.

'If you desire my aid then I shall be here awaiting your request,' Celestia replied to his previous statement, jerking him out of his reverie. 'If not, then I wish you and your forces the best of luck in dealing with this creature. Are you certain there is no other way to defeat it?'

'This is no ordinary threat. It might be possible to lure it out of the city, Your Highness,' Marcos replied. 'Imperial forces are in retreat in preparation for the orbital strike, clearing the target area. If the Daemon were to pursue them, then it would leave the city and it might be spared. However we do not know what its intentions are. It may well remain where it currently is and try to turn Fillydelphia into a stronghold of some kind. If that were the case then we must strike now before the enemy forces have a chance to dig in. Other than our orbital weaponry, the only chance of defeating such a Daemon would be with another being of tremendous psychic power.'

'In your estimation, Admiral, would I qualify under that definition?' Celestia asked coolly.

'Yes, Your Highness, you would, but again, I must caution you,' Marcos answered. This Daemon is far greater in power than those you fought previously. I do not know what feats it might be able to perform. It is a master of change and trickery. It is unusual for one of these creatures to actively fight on the frontline, as far as can be discerned from Imperial records. It must be here for some particular reason, but I do not know what that might be.'

'Then I will put a simple question to you. Do you want to tackle this thing alone, or do you desire assistance?' Celestia asked, waiting for the reply.

'We will attempt to lure the Daemon from the city, Your Highness, in order that we may attack it from orbit,' Marcos replied. 'If that fails...then I will contact you again to discuss our next moves.'

'Very well, Admiral. I shall be waiting for news, whether good or bad,' Celestia responded, before Marcos cut the link and turned to General Jahn.

'General? Have your men pull back another two miles, ten mile inner perimeter. We're going to try luring this bastard out into the open terrain before we hit it.'

Jahn nodded and quickly issued the requisite orders for the thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles to continue their retreat, putting more distance between themselves and the city. While they would doubtless like to get more distance between themselves and the Daemon, too, the plan was to lure it out in pursuit. Once it was in the countryside, hell would rain down upon it.

Lieutenant Miana crouched low in the bushes. Her lasgun was by her side, and in her hand instead was a thermoscope. Sergeant Ransome lay beside her, the vox set in his firm grasp. Ahead of them lay the gently rolling plains of southern Equestria, the terrain surrounding the city of Fillydelphia. Like the rest of the assault force, they had fallen back as ordered, leaving their captured positions on the outskirts and retreating to the countryside. As part of the liason company of the 23rd Brenner Scout Regiment, the two of them had been detailed to take up a position some nine miles from the city, well in advance of the bulk of the Imperial forces which had pulled back to a ten-mile perimeter. Their duty was simple; observe, and report.

It was not an enviable position to be in. They were alone, isolated, far out in front of their own unit, which itself was deployed in front of the majority of the friendly regiments. If the enemy decided to suddenly rush out from their positions in the city, Miana and Ransome would be the first Imperial units to encounter them. But they were not here for that. They were in their exposed position because the high command, in their infinite wisdom, needed someone to report from the ground on the results of their orbital strike. A battle damage assessment of the attack might let them know exactly what effect it had, much faster than their own Auspexes could see clearly through the inevitable smoke.

'Good sight lines...this will do,' Miana advised Sergeant Ransome, who spoke into the vox.

'Dagger 5-3 to fleet command. In position. Will advise on results of strike, over.'

Through her scope, Miana could see a ridge in the distance. That was where the friendly artillery had been located before the retreat. Now it was abandoned, empty shell casings glinting in the sun, visible even at this distance, a good couple of miles away. There was also a downed Lightning fighter, another good reference point.

She knew that there were other spotter teams up and down the line, assigned to a similar role. Every scout regiment would have at least one team deployed to report on the effectiveness of the orbital strike which, they had been assured, would see the demise of the Daemon once and for all. Like most Imperial propaganda, the majority of Guardsmen had immediately doubted the veracity of that claim. but Miana, Ransome, and the other spotter teams would be the first to see if it was true or not.

Assuming, of course, that the Daemon took the bait. A creature of such alleged intellect should know better than to run into a clear trap. At the very least it should realise that it would be walking, or floating, straight into the teeth of the guns of a thousand tanks and countless lasguns. Of course, whether that knowledge would cause the Daemon to do anything other than laugh remained to be seen.

Miana waited, and waited. Scouts always did a lot of waiting. Waiting for orders, waiting for the enemy, waiting for something, anything, to happen. Something usually did, but sometimes it could take forever. She could not see the city itself from her position, save for the tops of the tallest chimneys. The Daemon had descended well below that height, being seen to touch down inside the city boundaries, close to the fast-flowing river. Where it was now was a mystery to her, but it was expected, hoped, if that was the right word, that it would come toward them, in pursuit of the foe who had seemingly ran away rather than continue the fight.

The hope of the high commanders came true several minutes later. There it was, the Lord of Change, hovering a few feet above the ground, its feathery wings flapping needlessly, as they were not the source of its ability to fly. It loomed above the ground, floating over the grasslands and heading toward Miana and Ransome. There was a lot of ground between them, but Miana felt the dread, the horror merely from seeing the thing with her own eyes. It was coming, getting closer, slowly but steadily. It was not alone. Hundreds of traitor infantry accompanied their new master, striding confidently across the open country, lasguns ready to meet the threat of the loyalists who had fled before them. As far as they were concerned, the forces of the Corpse God had fled before them, the men of the False Emperor running scared with their tails between their legs, too afraid to face their patron Daemon on the field of battle. A few losses in the air, a failure of their artillery to inflict damage, and they ran away crying like children.

That was when the first strike hit.

A great flaming column of light descended from the heavens, igniting the grass and the clothing of the men beneath it a moment before it struck the ground. A huge plume of smoke and dust was kicked up by the blast, infantry caught on the edge hurled into the air like rag dolls and tossed about helplessly. The first strike was not quite on target, missing the Daemon by a couple of hundred feet, but it was not the only shot which had been fired. There was another titanic flash and blast, a little farther along the line, closer to the Daemon, which did not flinch as it continued onward, floating just above the ground. More men died, turned to ash by the intense, impossible heat. Thousans of burning embers started small spot fires in the grassland around the target area.

Unlike their implacable leader, most of the Chaos infantry began to panic, to break and run after only the first two shots of the bombardment. They fled in all directions, trying to scatter, to hide, anything to escape the certainty of death which the Imperial fleet was unleashing. But there was nowhere to hide, no protection out on the open plains, and no defence against the strikes. Some of the men ran forward, beginning a futile charge, but even that would just carry them into the guns of the waiting Imperial ground forces, who were eager for blood as well after being ordered to retreat. Braver men, or those captivated sufficiently by the presence of their Daemonic patron, remained with the creature, chanting foul prayers whose sounds were rendered inaudible by the thunderous cracks of displaced air caused by each strike, and the rumbling bass of the blasts upon their impact with the ground.

Lieutenant Miana flinched at the sudden fury of the first strike, even though she had been fully expecting it at any moment. The ships in orbit above were in position, and ready to open fire. Those first shots had merely been rangefinders, designed to check if the ship's Auspex targeting arrays were calibrated correctly. One shot from the Emperor's Judgement, and one from the Indefatigable.

'Dagger 5-3 to Fleet Command, both strikes on target. Fire for effect, over,' Miana spoke into the vox. A curt acknowledgement was received in reply, and those few simple words unleashed hell. Not just one or two shots this time, but a veritable rain of lane fire and plasma blasts falling from the skies. Those enemies foolish enough to have remained with their leader died in a heartbeat, hundreds of lives snuffed out in suffocating heat and light, engulfing their very being before vaporising them from existence entirely. Most of those who had tried to run would join them in death soon enough.

Lance strikes peppered the countryside, deep rolling booms shaking Miana and Ransome to the bone as they rang out across the land. Flaming corpses cartwheeled almost comically, as if they were playthings tossed aside by a careless child. Perhaps, ultimately, that was what the Daemon was; a mere child playing with its toys, except that its toys were men, women, human beings that were being warped to is own ends, their minds bent to its will by its psychic power. While Miana most certainly had no sympathy for the men who had betrayed the Imperium and the Emperor, she could not help feel at least a mild sense of indignation on behalf of her entire species. After all, these were still humans, being used for the twisted purposes of malevolent entities that did not even inhabit this dimension, this material plane where all life, in the traditional sense of the word, existed.

The fleet poured down fire from above, turning the grassy plain into a hellscape, blowing great craters in the ground and littering the bare, blasted land with bodies and flame. Fast-moving grass fires chased after each other across the gentle hills like children out enjoying the morning sunshine. There was no playful laughter, though. Only the screams of the dying, carried on the breeze in between each round of explosions. The target area was pummelled incessantly, kicking up a huge cloud of dust and thick smoke that obscured everything, drifting gently across the landscape, swirling eddies lifted by the heat from the flames which wreathed the area. The whole ridge line where the artillery positions had been located was almost squashed flat by the bombardment, suffering a considerable reduction in height as tons of earth became dislodged and hurled about by the tremendous forces being unleashed by the lance batteries of the Indefatigable and the ventral mass drivers and plasma launchers of the Emperor's Judgement. A fierce punishment for a fearsome foe; the judgement of the Emperor truly was in play, a divine retribution from the heavens striking at one of His most hated foes.

For ten minutes the barrage from orbit continued, with only a few moments of peace and silence here and there as weapons recharged or adjusted their aim to account for orbital drift. A stray shot could wipe out a considerable number of friendly forces, and would be unforgivable, no doubt resulting in either the Auspex operators or the gun layers being shot. The land was reduced to ruin, a smoking moonscape where no living thing, man, plant or animal, could survive. But what of the Daemon?

Aboard ship, they waited eagerly for word. Had their strike been effective? As the last few shots rained down, Maina prepared to make her report. A deafening silence suddenly reigned across the land. The bombardment was over, and surely, that was that. Maina peered through her thermoscope. The smoke obstructed any attempts at making visual confirmation of the kill, but the thermoscope would hopefully reveal the thermal signature of anything within the shroud of dust and debris.

She scanned around. There were a few rapidly cooling bodies here and there, one or two men who were still remarkably clinging to enough life to drag their pitifully burned and maimed bodies a few feet through the smouldering dirt. There was nothing on the scope apart from that. No sign of the target. The smoke began to gradually clear, and she took hold of the vox handset, ready to speak.

'Dagger 5-3 calling Fleet Command. Good effects on target. No, repeat no contacts. Standby for visual confirmation.'

The thick smoke parted almost like a curtain in a most theatrical way that surely could not have been an entirely natural occurrence. Lieutenant Miana grasped the vox handset tightly and spoke again.

Dagger 5-3...I have visual contact...target is...target is alive.'

Things Are Different Now

'Damn it all!' Lord-Admiral Marcos swore, pounding his fist on the edge of the command lectern where he stood on the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement. 'Damn that foul creature! Hit it again!' he ordered. The Daemon still lived, according to the report from the surface, and not just one report. More were coming in as the smoke cleared and other spotter teams gained sight of the creature. A heavy barrage of orbital artillery had not been enough to kill it, so what would it take? Would a second attack be sufficient? Perhaps it had been weakened, at least, by the fury unleashed upon it from the skies. At the very minimum, the attack had done away with several thousand traitor infantry, a tiny consolation, though the real prize remained the Daemon. Its death or banishment was vital to any concept of actually securing the planet and clearing it of the minions of the Dark Gods.

'My Lord, should I order the ground forces to make a stand?' General Jahn asked from across the bridge at the holo-map. 'We can hit it hard from defensible positions.'

'With all due respect, General, not as hard as my ships can hit it,' Marcos replied, 'and that did nothing to stop it. If they stay where they are then your men will likely die in droves. Order them to fall back, General, at least another five miles. With any luck that thing will stop its pursuit and return to the city. It clearly has some kind of plan, otherwise it would not have shown up where it did or when it did.'

'But My Lord...' Jahn began to protest. 'If we retreat now, the enemy will only have a chance to dig in deeper, tighten their grip on the city. We may never get it back.'

'Things are different now, General,' Marcos replied, striding over to the holo-map to stand beside Jahn. 'The city is no longer our primary concern. All we must focus on is destroying that Daemon, or banishing it back to whence it came, at the very least. If we cannot remove it, then we cannot capture the city anyway.'

'I understand that things have changed, My Lord. But the men are now cowards,' Jahn responded. 'They will not like being ordered to retreat again.'

'Would they like being ordered to stand and die fighting a foe they cannot possibly hope to defeat?' Marcos pointed out. 'Because that is what will happen, General. You know it as well as I do.' Jahn did, and he conceded.

'Very well, My Lord. I shall order all forces to fall back to a twenty-mile line,' he replied with a nod. 'But what if the creature continues to pursue?'

'Then we hit it again from orbit and hope it changes its mind,' Marcos answered. 'Failing that, there is one other possible option.'

'What is that, My Lord?' Jahn questioned, adjusting his monocle.

'The Princess,' Marcos replied simply. 'We have seen her demonstrate considerable psychic prowess. I think it is fairly safe to say that she is the most powerful psychic being on this planet other than that Daemonic bastard, and if our physical weapons fail, then we must turn to the weapons of the mind. We do not have any psykers of our own, at least none who can wield their powers offensively. Therefore we must enlist her aid. I have already spoken to her and she offered her assistance, and I would say it is time we call upon it.'

'But My Lord...how can a Xenos be trusted to fight this menace for us?' Jahn replied with a frown, a reasonable reservation given the Imperium's exposure to aliens throughout its history. Even the ones who could be temporarily relied upon for support, such as the Eldar or, occasionally, the Tau, would always seek to stab humanity in the back at the first available opportunity.

'Because she will be fighting for her own land,' Marcos explained. 'She wants that city back under her control. She needs the manufactories for the war effort and she seems determined that the city not be destroyed if at all possible. A threat that might lead us to have to destroy the city is not one she would take lightly, whether she trusts us or not, and regardless of if we trust her, either.'

'Yes, My Lord, but...this threat is one which we need to ensure is destroyed, at whatever cost,' Jahn pointed out. 'If that means we sacrifice some of our troops in the process, then is that not a price worth paying?'

'Yes, General, it would be. But throwing our men against this Daemon is simply sending men to their deaths for no good reason. They would not stand a chance against it, you know that as well as I do,' Marcos replied. 'We lack the psykers we need. We have no Astartes with us, no members of His holy Inquisition. Our technology has proven inadequate. What else can we do but ask the Princess for aid? She has said she would be willing to provide it. It is either that or abandon the city entirely. Or worse, abandon the planet, and I will not abandon this place to the Archenemy!'

'But My Lord, what is so special about this place? Why not just...let the enemy have it?' Jahn asked, a pointed question which Marcos found himself unable to answer, at least in a way which would satisfy the General's curiosity as to his decision making.

'Because...' he began, before a brief pause. 'Because the Imperium of Man does not simply let the enemy have anything. We fight them at every turn, on every planet in the galaxy, because this is our galaxy, not theirs. The Milky Way is the cradle of mankind, and it belongs to us! If we can strike bargains with a few Xenos species here and there, as we have in the past, then it is worth it in order to defeat our true nemesis.'

Jahn thought for a moment before replying. 'As you say, My Lord. The Archenemy must be defeated at any cost. But I must caution restraint where it comes to dealing with this princess, no matter how helpful she may seem to be. If she is so powerful psychically, how are we to be sure that she has not been corrupted by Chaos?'

'I suppose we cannot be absolutely certain. But she has given no indication of that whatsoever. In fact, given that the Navigators reported that she has no presence actually within the warp, it might be possible that she cannot be corrupted at all,' Marcos responded. 'But you are correct to urge caution, and we shall continue to be cautious. The Ferrus Terra is monitoring all readings coming from the planet. I am sure they will be continuing their observation of the Princess as well. If there is any indication of Chaos influence over her, they will report to me immediately on their findings. I do not think they will find any, however. I do not believe she is acting maliciously. I believe she is merely doing what she thinks is in the best interests of her species, which is all you can expect of any leader.'

'Yes, My Lord. In that, you are correct.' Jahn nodded. 'I will defer to your judgment in these matters of diplomacy, in which I am little versed. I just hope that she is not somehow manipulating us all.'

'I doubt that very much, General,' Marcos replied. 'But even if that were the case, what harm could there be in having her fight this creature? If she bests it, then a great threat is removed, and if she does not, then it will tell us that we must find some other solution.'

'What other solution could there be, My Lord?' Jahn questioned. 'Is the princess not already the backup plan only because we have no other?'

'For the moment, yes,' Marcos admitted. 'But we shall think and we shall scheme and we shall plan. This Daemon is not the only one capable of doing such things. We shall find an alternative. There is always a way, General. There is always a way.'

Another clear order had been given, going out across the vox nets. All units were to fall back to a twenty mile perimeter, well clear of the city and of the Daemon who had survived everything that could be thrown at it so far. For many units, that was simply a matter of continuing where they had left off, turning their vehicles back around and heading north across the grassland. But for the spotter teams who had been deployed ahead of the main force to observe the results of the orbital strike, things were not to simple. They had no transport directly assigned to them, but rather would have to make it back to the main line where vehicles from their companies would be waiting. It had been feared that giving vehicles to the teams would attract the attention of the Daemon and thus undermine their purpose as covert spotters.

There was plenty of open ground to cover for Lieutenant Miana and Sergeant Ransome. They were lugging their bulky vox set and thermoscope back from the bushes which had been their concealment. There was still a terrifyingly long way to run, given what was looming behind them. The Daemon was still advancing, still coming toward them, not deterred by the bombardment. It seemed to be totally unscathed, to judge by what Miana could see through her thermoscope, although she did not need any magnification or enhancement now to see the beast clearly.

It was a hideous sight, even at the distance they were, a good mile away, but it was clearly visible to them as it hovered, floating above the ground, propelled by the power of its own mind and the bizarre properties of the warp which it usually called home. At the best of times it would be a deeply unnerving sight, but out there, alone, far in advance of the main Imperial line, it was overwhelmingly petrifying to see the Daemon continue its relentless forward progress. Perhaps at some point it would stop, but it did not seem eager to do so at the moment, and each second brought it closer. It could float faster than the two of them could hope to run.

The vehicle was visible up ahead, a Salamander scout car assigned to their company, sitting idle among a thicket of trees in a probably futile attempt to camouflage it against the sight of the Daemon. No doubt it could see in ways that were totally alien to mankind, rendering it pointless. It offered the spotters salvation, if only they could reach it in time. The Daemon was still closing in. Whether it cared about them, two tiny targets, mere individual humans, could only be guessed at.

The Salamander was waiting for them, the vehicle commander visible peering over the coaming of the crew compartment, making rapid motions with his arm, urging them to get a move on. The open grassland seemed to stretch out to infinirt in front of Lieutenant Miana as her legs worked tirelessly to get her and her thermoscope to the Salamander before the crew decided they couldn't wait around any longer. She dared not risk any more glances over her shoulder for fear that she would be paralysed into immobility by the sight of her pursuer.

Mercifully, the Salamander crew decided to stay long enough for the spotter team to reach them, and she swung her thermoscope up into the crew compartment before climbing up herself, offering a hand to Sergeant Ransome who followed her aboard.

'Driver, go, go, go!' the commander ordered, and the Salamander's powerful engine roared into action. The Salamander, relatively nimble for an armoured vehicle of such size, swung around and rapidly made tracks to the north, away from the horror that was following on behind them. Miana slumped down in the bottom of the vehicle. They were not safe, not by a long shot, but at least she could rest as the vehicle bounced over the uneven terrain. Her legs wouldn't need to carry her away any further; technology would see to the rest. Just as technology had tried to see to the destruction of the Daemon.

And just like that technology, this technology failed as well.

The Daemon's attention was drawn to the Salamander by the sudden rapid movement, even if it hadn't spotted the vehicle before. It had no need to zoom forward and strike down at them. A mere gesture with its staff was enough, a dip of the crooked device, and a rapid bolt of energy leaped out and struck the Salamander on its right side. Broken track links went flying as shrapnel cut through the air, taking the head off of the vehicle's commander, his decapitated body falling in a heap into the foot well of the crew compartment, just behind the driver, who found himself suddenly useless as the vehicle was not responding to his control inputs. The right track had been shredded, rollers and sprocket wheels bouncing free across the grass as the Salamander slowed right up and came to a halt.

Miana grabbed her lasgun and held onto it tightly, for what it was worth. There was absolutely no chance of her pitiful weapon inflicting any damage on the Daemon, but it was a comfort just to feel it in her grasp. That was something that the basic training given to all Guardsmen and women stressed; the relationship between the soldier and their weapon. It was to be more than a weapon, it was to be a companion, a lifeline, a friend, an extension of the body. Without your lasgun, you were nothing, so they were told. You could not fight effectively without one.

Of course, you could not fight most enemies effectively even with one. The lasgun was a standard issue weapon because it was cheap, easy to mass produce, and easy to train all but the dumbest conscript to use with good effect. It was accurate, relatively powerful, and had a large ammunition supply thanks to the rechargeable power packs that fitted into the weapon. However, compared to many of the more advanced weapons wielded both by the Imperium and its enemies, the lasgun paled into insignificance, being little more than a glorified flashlight despite its ability to blow limbs clean off of bodies and punch holes in brick walls and stone. Against a foe such as the Daemon, for instance, the lasgun was about as effective as throwing rocks at it.

'Get out, get out!' the Salamander's driver shouted. 'We're immobilised! Run!' He scrambled out from the driver's seat and climbed up to jump over the side. Miana stood in a half panic. They had been making good progress, getting clear, and now, just like that, they were stuck, broken down, the Salamander incapable of movement. For a moment, so was she. There was no way they could get away on foot. The Daemon was closer now than it had been when they reached the Salamander which was supposed to save them and whisk them away.

But they had to try, because it was the only option. The Salamander would have taken them to link up with the rest of the Imperial units that were in retreat, but on foot, they simply would not be able to catch up to the highly mechanised force. They would be left behind, at best, to fend for themselves until they could walk the ten or so miles to the new rally point. At worst, they would be abandoned to the Daemon, and that seemed the most likely outcome now, with no transport and the beast closing in from behind.

Miana jumped down from the crew compartment with her lasgun, and began to run. Sergeant Ransome was with her, following the driver across the fields in their headlong flight as they ran for their lives. Even without looking back, they could feel the gaze of death upon them, feel its presence, involuntarily, in their minds, probing, searching for weakness. It did not have to search very deeply. Terror, hate, fear, all were close to the surface, forefront in the minds of those the Daemon pursued. Though to them it seemed as if the creature was deliberately targeting them, in truth they were little more then a sideshow, a distraction from its true, inscrutable purposes. They just happened to be in the way, and since they were in the way, why not do away with them entirely, remove a small potential obstacle for the future?

Why not indeed. The Daemon spared but a moment's half-thought to such a course of action. There was no reason not to kill them. But why kill them quickly? Why kill them painlessly? Why not give them a particularly troublesome and unusual death? Yes, that would be what it would do. It had waited a long time to be brought back to this plane, and once it had arrived, it had spent even longer, albeit a fairly brief period, on this planet's moon, hidden away, away from scrutiny, away from suspicion, waiting for this moment to descend upon the servants of the Corpse God and their strange alien allies. After such waiting, what was a brief delay to deal with a few stragglers?

It turned its attentions fully to the trio of small figures running before it, fleeing for their lives in a futile attempt to escape or outrun the judgement of Tzeentch, the Architect of Fate. This was, the Daemon reminded itself, all pre-ordained by the Changer of Ways. It was always going to be the case that it paused to kill these pathetic humans. It had always been their destiny to die here, and its destiny to kill them. That was something to rejoice over. It was all coming true, because there could be no other outcome.

A small twitch of its hand was all that was needed, and the first of the three figured suddenly collapsed, writhing in untold agony as the warp flooded into his mind, swirling deep within his psyche, unbidden images and hideous fantasies playing out in his brain, overloading his senses and quickly driving him mad with direct exposure to the warp and all of its denizens, now able to prey and feed upon his psche.

There were two more figures to deal with, one male and one female. A flash at the tip of its staff, and the Daemon sent a pulse of energy, like a disc, which cut across the landscape and sliced the female in half at the waist. both pieces of her body tumbling in different directions. Not enough to kill her immediately, but leaving her with no chance of survival. There was one final target for the Daemon, and a slight movement of the finger produced another outburst of energy, and the final survivor's eyes both popped like balloons. He screamed audibly and fell to his knees, scrabbling around blindly and aimlessly, unable to see anything any more. The Daemon watched for a few moments, pleased with the seemingly random and chaotic nature of the man's flailing movements, though knowing, of course, that it all followed a plan. It made another small movement with its finger, and this time it was the man's head which popped.

The Daemon was pleased enough. With that brief sideshow out of the way, it could turn its attention to furthering the plans of Lord Tzeentch, for that was why it was here. That was why a million or more souls, knowingly or unknowingly, had been sacrificed to summon it. It served Lord Tzeentch, and his will would be done.

Princess Celestia had received the vox call from Lord-Admiral Marcos with mixed feelings. On the one hoof, she had been expecting and hoping for some kind of update regarding the attack on Fillydelphia- she had declined the offer to attend as she had at Manehattan due to the continued contamination of Canterlot and the various other problems facing her and her military. On the other hoof, however, it had not been the call she had been hoping to hear. No sweeping advance, to simple operation, no city returned to her control. But it did, at least, explain what the presence was that she had suddenly felt.

No, that wasn't strictly true. She had felt it at the back of her mind long before, right since the arrival of the first humans in orbit around the planet. It seemed a lifetime ago now, though it was a matter of weeks prior to the present day. Something had been lurking, almost whispering, in some distant corner of her brain, a malevolent presence, something that could not quite be explained. She had spoken to Luna about it, and her sister had reported the same sensations. Nothing untoward had been reported by any other ponies, however- none of the palace staff, guards or visitors had experienced similar symptoms of unknown origin. After the humans arrived, it had been confirmed that both Princess Cadence and Twilight Sparkle had felt similar sensations, though they had been in different places. That, combined with the palace staff's apparent ignorance, meant that the cause could not have been some local issue, perhaps the presence of a magical artifact within Canterlot, or a Changeling infiltration. Whatever the cause was, it had to be coming from somewhere else, somewhere that allowed it to affect all of Equestria.

Except it did not affect all of Equestria. It seemed, rather specifically, to target alicorns, as well as Twilight, one of the most powerful magical prodigies ever to be seen by the Princess. No earth ponies or Pegasi had reported similar feelings, nor had any unicorns save for Twilight. There had to be some connection and some explanation for that. Four of the most powerful magic users in Equestria, in different geographic locations, all suddenly feeling this unknown sense of dread and intrusion in the back of their minds at the same time? That was not a coincidence.

Celestia had pondered on the cause at the time, and as more and more was revealed by the Imperials as to the nature of the foe which had landed on the planet, it seemed more and more likely that the Chaos forces were, in some way, responsible for the phenomenon. It would not be unique; there were magic artifacts and there existed spells which could cause a similar sense of targeted paranoia, as well as other emotions, such as love, lust and anger. But no artifact could affect the Crystal Empire, Ponyville and Canterlot at the same time, and nor could any spell be cast that could do the same, not without visiting each location in turn. As far as could be ascertained, the humans had no technology that could do the same either, meaning that the cause was unknown. All that Celestia and the others could explain was that it felt as though something was coming, something was getting closer, and something was gnawing away at the minds with whispers and promises.

Now, it seemed, they might have their answer. This Daemon creature had been spoken of as a great threat by the Lord-Admiral, who had not been entirely confident of the ability of his men to defeat it in combat. From his explanations it sounded as though the creature was exactly the kind of being that would play such mind games as the Alicorns and Twilight had been experiencing, trying to sew confusion, distrust, fear, whatever emotions would aid its diabolical schemes. Perhaps before its arrival it had, somehow, been doing just that?

Celestia knew the humans referred to their version of magic as psychic powers, those who wielded them were called psykers. To accomplish a feat such as that, this Daemon would have to be a most powerful psyker indeed, given that, if its arrival had been from a similar source to those Daemons she had fought in Manehattan, it had seemingly come from another dimension or some kind of parallel universe. To be able to influence the minds of those in another dimension was a skill which neither she, the great ancient mage Starswirl the Bearded, nor, as far as she knew, even Discord had ever been able to manage. In fact, while scientists had proposed the theory of other dimensions, there had been precisely zero proof discovered by any Equestrian society of such a thing existing before. Perhaps that was simply because their technology was not up to scratch, for technology lagged far behind its potential due to the existence of magic.

If this Daemon was the one behind both the intrusions into her mind, as well as the invasion of her planet, then Celestia felt a great desire to take care of it personally. The ruin and death brought to Equestria could never be forgiven or forgotten, and the punishment would have to be most severe as a result, and the Princess was eager to avenge the dead. There were many of them to seek justice for. Equestria had been ravaged by the invasion and its aftermath. Many towns were still completely out of contact, their status unknown. There simply had not been the forces to spare to go and check on them, with military ranks thinned by the sudden assault from the stars, and now run ragged trying to keep some semblance of order even in the few pony strongholds that remained under friendly control, mostly out to the west. Now that they had to provide forces to occupy and try to rebuild Manehattan, their resources were dwindling still further, which was why Celestia was so keen to recapture Fillydelphia. The National Arsenal could be fixed up easily enough and put back into service providing equipment and ammunition, vitally needed.

Celestia had been on the way to see her sister and speak with her regarding the new developments when she found herself being ambushed in the bright halls of the palace by one of her guards, who hurriedly trotted up to her from behind.

'Your Highness!' he began. 'The human spotters wish to speak with you at once. They have another message for you from the Lord-Admiral.'

Celestia had simply nodded, and followed him. He took her to the throne room, where Atter and Mons awaited, still serving as the communications liason party between the fleet and the ponies, providing constant communications between the Lord-Admiral and the Princess whenever the occasion warranted it. Celestia nodded at them both as she entered the chamber. She had been expecting another call, though perhaps not quite so soon. Perhaps the Lord-Admiral's plan had succeeded even faster than he hoped it might? Atter offered her the handset, and she took it, as usual, using her magic to float it up to her face so she could speak into it, though she would have to move it again in order to hear properly, as the set was not designed for use by ponies..

'Go ahead, Admiral.'

'Your Highness,' Marcos replied quickly. 'I am afraid I must ask for your assistance.'

A Thunder 'Cross The Land

Twenty miles from the city, the retreat came to an end. Vehicles slewed to a halt, tanks turned and pulled up behind hillocks and trees, gun barrels bristling and ready for action. Men leaped down from the rear doors of Chimera transports, taking up defensive positions as best they could manage on the sweeping plains north of Fillydelphia, the city they had abandoned. No swift victory here; the promised capture of the city would have to wait. The orders had come down to fall back, so that was what they had done, thousands of men and hundreds of vehicles, getting ground between themselves and the Daemon which had derailed the entire attack by its mere sole presence.

Those who had witnessed the orbital bombardment lay waste to the countryside had looked on with horror as the creature emerged unscathed from the hellstorm which had been unleashed upon the land. For many, the retreat order had come as a great relief; leave the fighting of that thing up to someone else. But others wanted to fight, felt it was the right thing to do, the only solution. Chaos had to be fought and defeated wherever it appeared and whatever its form, surely? Never mind that the orbital strike had failed; enough determination and grit shown by the men on the ground would be enough to overcome any foe. That was how humanity had been winning its battles for millennia; sheer manpower, throwing wave after wave of infantry at any problem until resistance finally buckled under pure weight of numbers and massed firepower. There was little finesse involved with most Imperial operations, simply because it was usually easier to just hurl entire regiments into the meat grinder until something gave than it was to come up with suitable alternatives. Sometimes, even a foe as great as this Daemon had been overcome in such a manner. It was mankind's speciality, because men were its greatest, and most disposable, resource.

There was concern among the ground forces as to what exactly was being planned, if not throwing them against the creature. Orbital strikes had failed- what other options did they have? They possessed no great minds who could fight the Daemon one on one in a mighty battle of wills, no Inquisitor with some sacred relic giving him impossible strength, no member of the holy Astartes who could take immense punishment and dish it out in even greater quantities in return. If they were not going to be the ones to strike back, then who would be?

So, with an air of confusion and fear reigning across the newly established Imperial lines, they waited, digging in as best they could. They had come equipped for a rapid assault and for city fighting, not for holding a defensive position out in the countryside. There were few sandbags on hand, though plenty of earth to fill them with. There was no razor wire, no mines, only personal entrenching tools and no heavy, cumbersome daily rations. They were not meant to fight a defensive battle, but if truth be told, none of that preparation would likely make any difference against the Daemon, and all of the men knew it. If it continued to pursue them, all they could do was to pray and rely on whatever plans that high command were making. Surely they were making plans, weren't they?

Princess Celestia had proceeded to Luna's chambers after her conversation with the Lord-Admiral. There, she had explained the situation to her sister; the attack on Fillydelphia had broken down. The arrival of the Daemon to the material plane had been keenly felt by the younger sister as well as the elder, and Celestia had explained that it seemed to be the most likely explanation for the disquieting feelings they had both been experiencing.

'So what is to be done about this creature, sister?' Luna questioned. 'You said the humans have already attempted to use their most powerful weapons on it, and they have failed. How do they plan to defeat it if their weapons do not work?' the younger sibling asked.

'There is a simple answer to that, at least in theory,' Celestia replied. 'They plan to use me.'

'You, sister?' Luna frowned.

'Yes.' Celestia nodded. 'I offered my aid to them if it became necessary. I believe they now deem that to be the case.'

'But sister, this creature must possess great power. It would not be wise for you to attack it alone,' Luna pointed out. 'No matter what the humans might desire.'

'They lack anybody of sufficient magical power...psychic power, as they call it. The Admiral believes that only one in possession of power that is of a similar nature to that of the Daemon will be able to face it down in combat with any hope of success. I see no reason to doubt them on that point, given that the same tends to hold true here in Equestria,' she pointed out, with memories of Discord and, poignantly, Nightmare Moon coming to mind, and the power of the Elements, still rendered useless by the missing link in the possession of Chrysalis.

'But what if they only want you to fight the Daemon because they believe you will fail against it?' Luna asked. 'If they want to remove you as a potential threat to their fleet, then what better way to do so? That way they do not have to sacrifice any of their forces in an attempt to defeat you.' Luna could not bring herself to say kill. The thought of losing her sister, not just for a thousand years but for good, was one that the younger sibling could hardly convince herself to think about even in passing. Her long years on the moon had taught her more about love and family than she had perhaps learned during the rest of her lifetime, and the biggest thing she had learned was how precious it was, and how you should do anything to hang onto it, to protect the ones they loved, even at the cost of sacrificing yourself, if it became necessary.

'I have thought about that possibility,' Celestia assured her sister. 'But I do not believe it would be the case. If I were to be defeated by the Daemon, then they would still have to deal with it themselves, and they have shown that their weapons are ineffective against it. I do not know how much of a threat it might pose to their ships in space, but it most certainly poses a grave threat to their forces on the planet, otherwise they would have already taken care of it.'

Luna nodded slowly. 'That may be the case, I suppose. But I would urge caution nonetheless, sister, both because of this Daemon and because of the humans that wish you to fight it. I will come with you.'

'No,' Celestia replied swiftly and firmly. 'You must remain here.. You will be in command while I am away, and, if necessary, you will take the the crown and become sole ruler of Equestria.'

'Do not talk like that, sister,' Luna pleaded. 'Do not go, if you fear you may not return. Do not do these humans' bidding for them.'

Celestia accepted that the pony military could never stand against the Chaos forces, which was why she had stuck with the tentative alliance, building up trust with the Imperium, but in the process also being keen to demonstrate her own personal power, without overtly threatening the humans. Just enough to let them know that she would not simply roll over and let them take the planet, and that she had the power to back up that confidence. She needed them, but they, as far as she could tell, did not really need her. Captain Soren, the first Imperial officer to make contact with her all those weeks ago, had practically admitted that humans were an expansionist, greedy race who were out here on a mission of conquest, far from their home planet. They were not necessarily seeking resources, but merely power, stability, and control over what they deemed to be their galaxy. Once the Chaos forces arrived, their intentions changed, but what Celestia did not know was how long their new purpose would last before they reverted to their original plan of conquering whatever lay before them. She did not relish the thought of having to fight the Imperials; after all, Lord-Admiral Marcos seemed to be a man of honour, at least on the surface, and he had lived up to his end of the bargain so far, even going as far as to provide specialist cleanup teams to aid Canterlot's recovery from the fallout.

The Chaos forces and their Daemons, however, were anything but honourable. They had murdered and despoiled their way across Equestria, butchering anything and anypony which lay in their path, regardless of whether it was a threat to them or not. Vicious brutality on such a level was all but unknown in Equestria, with even the greatest villains of its history stopping short of such atrocities, with the possible exception of Chrysalis and her Changelings, who had been happy to rape and murder their way through the occasional village when conducting a raid, but nothing on the scale unleashed by the human Archenemy. Manehattan, the largest city on the planet, had been virtually wiped out, emptied of its entire population, save for a few thousand who had survived in the surrounding countryside. Hundreds of thousands of innocent ponies had seemingly been slaughtered en masse, with no regard for any of the norms of warfare which Equestria knew.

If all that had been carried out by what amounted to the rank and file of the Chaos armed forces, and this Daemon represented the elite, the commanders manipulating the strings behind the scenes, the ones responsible for such barbarism, then what did that suggest about the fresh horrors that the creature might unleash upon the land now that it was here in person?

'I am not going because they want me to,' Celestia replied. 'I am going because it must be done. Consider the alternatives. There are only two. Either the Imperials abandon us, break the alliance and flee, leaving the planet to the Daemon and its followers, in which case we will have to fight it anyway, along with whatever else it is able to unleash on Equestria if it is allowed to take root here. The other alternative, based on what we know about the Imperium of Man, is that their fleet will attempt to destroy all life on this planet, hostile or otherwise, to try and deny it to their Archenemy. If that happens then I believe I can destroy their ships, but I do not know if I can destroy them fast enough to salvage anything on the surface.'

Luna listened to her older, wiser sister explain her reasoning, and as usual, she was correct. The Imperials feared Chaos above all else; this Daemon seemed to be a kind of anathema to them, sending their forces into an immediate retreat almost as soon as it was sighted, according to the information Celestia had relayed to her from the Lord-Admiral. What they feared, they would not hesitate to destroy, and if there was no other alternative left to them, they might indeed resort to destroying the planet, or the biosphere, or whatever the most extreme method available to them might be. That included ponies. Luna knew that, apart from Celestia's control over the sun, ponies possessed no means of taking out the human ships so long as they remained in space, which meant she had to stay alive at any cost to have any leverage over them. But if she did not fight the Daemon, then who would?

'Let me go in your place, sister,' Luna replied. 'Equestria can function without me It did so for a thousand years. But without you...you are their figurehead. I am just a princess, but you are The Princess. They need you. I need you.'

'No, Luna,' Celestia replied. 'You must stay. You are not yet fully recovered from your wounds. I will not let you risk your life against this Daemon in such a state.'

'But I am supposed to just sit by and watch you risk yours?' Luna cried, raising her voice to her sister in a rare showing of anger and dismay. 'I am fit and well, sister, I am recovered and you know I am. Please, do not be so stubborn as to do this alone. Perhaps this creature cannot defeat you. But perhaps it is special, perhaps its powers are different. It is not from this planet. Perhaps you will be vulnerable to it. Take me with you, or at least take Cadence, or Twilight, or Shining Armour, or anypony who can fight! Take the whole army!'

Celestia shook her head. 'The army would be more a hindrance than a help, Luna. Twilight is not yet recovered either, Shining has duties here as Guard Commander, and Cadence is not as well trained in using her magic for attack as you or I. I must go alone.'

Luna sighed, looking down at the stone floor of her chamber, the rich carpets long since torn up and burned by the Chaos occupiers. 'Then at least promise me you will not continue the fight needlessly. If you fear the Daemon is too strong, then flee. Either that, or call for aid. I will come.'

'The humans will be monitoring the fight, I am sure,' Celestia replied. 'I will instruct the Lord-Admiral to relay a message to their communications team here at the palace if I make a pre-arranged signal. I promise I will call for aid if I need it, sister, and if necessary, I will abandon the fight. But somebody has to confront this Daemon, one way or another, and I will do what needs to be done.'

'I know you will, sister,' Luna nodded. 'You always do. That is why the ponies love you. Just remember that they love you because you provide for them and care for them, and if you are gone...then perhaps the will to rebuild our very civilisation will go with you.'

The sensors of the Emperor's Judgement closely tracked the progress of the Daemon. It had proceeded onward across the plains, to the spot where the Imperial forces had halted initially, some eight miles outside of the city of Fillydelphia. There, it had halted, for reasons unknown to any of those aboard. The Magi of the Ferrus Terra could offer no explanation either. Perhaps it merely recognised the spot where its quarry had halted, and for some reason, symbolic or pragmatic, had decided to stop at the same location. There it had remained, giving the ground forces something to be worried about, some some time, before turning and floating back toward the city itself. There, it remained, hovering above the rooftops like some sentinel, keeping lookout for an unknown sight that it wished or expected to see.

The gunners in orbit stood by their guns, awaiting any possibility of receiving commands to repeat their performance and send down another barrage in an attempt to snuff out the Daemonic presence below, but no such orders came through. Instead, high command issued orders to the ground troops to stand by, with the possibility of another rapid push forward into the city should the Daemon be removed as a threat. How exactly that might come to pass was not made clear to the commanders on the ground. It did, however, become clear soon enough.

With a dazzling flash of light, something else appeared in the sky near to the city. In contrast to the mottled grey and blue palette of the Daemon, which resembled that of a corpse, the new arrival was a brilliant, pure white. Most of the ground forces could not make out what exactly had appeared at such a distance, and most would not have recognised it if they had. But some commanders and vehicle gunners could peer through their magnoculars or thermoscopes, and get a much clearer view. Those who had fought at Manehattan recognised their former saviour.

Princess Celestia spared a glance down at the city of Fillydelphia It seemed to be intact, mostly, with little visible damage to the majority of the buildings. The factories of the National Armoury appeared to have suffered hardly any external damage, though what they might be like inside she could only guess. She returned her attention to the sole reason for her presence above the city.

The Daemon had already turned to face her. It was reptilian in nature, a cross between a lizard and a bird, though its slightly hunched appearance gave it a passing resemblance to Discord, another so-called Lord of Chaos who had, eventually, been overthrown and imprisoned. It had feathery wings, slit-like eyes and a scaly coating on its wiry body. It was slender and smooth, like a snake, and considerably larger than Celestia, towering above her, but mere size did not intimidate or impress her. The Daemon held a long, crooked staff in its right claw, a shape not entirely dissimilar to that of Queen Chrysalis's horn, with some kind of glowing crystal or orb embedded into it at the top. It was clad in ragged robes that hardly seemed worth the effort of wearing, and its rows of serrated teeth were bared in her direction.

'I have been expecting you,' it hissed, its voice surprisingly lilting, almost sing-song, not the deep baritone that might be expected from such a large creature, yet still carrying clearly across the sky between them, or perhaps it was partially being played inside of Celestia's mind. 'Either you, or the other one. One of you had to come, of course. There was no other choice. You are the one they call Celestia, yes?'

'That is correct,' Celestia replied, her wings beating steadily. 'And to whom am I speaking?'

'It would take many days for me to state my true name,' the beast replied. 'Even if I did, you could never comprehend it, nor speak it yourself. Your kind will know me as Malaranth the Infinite.'

'Your name and whatever titles you choose to give yourself do not scare me, Daemon,' Celestia retorted. 'I am Princess Celestia, sovereign of Equestria, and you are in my land. I suggest you leave.'

The Daemon chuckled, a dainty sound. 'I am afraid that will not be possible, Princess. Not until my Lord Tzeentch decrees it. Which, of course, he may do at any time. After all, everything is always changing.' To prove its point, Malaranth was no longer a lizard creature before her, but rather some kind of anomaly in space and time, a swirling vortex of blue and black, lacking a mouth yet continuing to speak. 'Everything is always changing,' it repeated, 'whether or not an individual is aware of it. You would be surprised how much even the smallest of changes can divert the course of history from its original strand and its original destination.' Malaranth changed back into its true form, stroking its chin as if pondering some great philosophical question.

'If everything is changing, then why not change yourself and leave?' Celestia asked. 'Otherwise I will have to make you leave by force.'

'I am prepared for that eventuality, of course,' the Daemon replied with another chuckle. 'It would be interesting to match wits and skill with you. I must admit to being somewhat fascinated as to why you refer to your psychic powers as magic. I know the Imperials here also share that curiosity.'

'You can call it what you wish, Daemon,' Celestia answered it directly. 'We call it magic, and I can give you a practical demonstration if you desire. I will ask one more time. Leave this place and do not return.'

'That will not be, I'm afraid,' Malaranth flapped its wings once. 'As I have explained, I am here because Lord Tzeentch has decreed it. It has long been written, and although everything changes, some things also stay the same. It was my destiny to be here on this day. It would take far too long to explain why, even to one such as yourself who cannot die of old age. It may not kill you but I am certain it would bore you.'

'This Lord of yours, why does he wish you to be here?' Celestia asked. 'What purpose do you hope to serve?'

'Merely to keep you from interrupting his plans. There are contingencies for that, of course, everything is mapped out. But it would be so much more convenient if you were to be persuaded to change your approach, either peacefully or by force.' The Daemon's wings flapped again, perhaps in anticipation of a coming battle.

'What are his plans? Perhaps I will agree not to interfere,' Celestia suggested. 'I care not for your quarrels with the Imperium.'

'Do you not? That is odd, considering you have formed an alliance with them,' Malaranth replied pointedly. 'Why would you do such a thing if you did not share at least some of their aims?'

'My only aim is to protect my citizens and their homes,' Celestia replied angrily. 'Your kind have invaded our land, not just from the stars but from the very fabric of reality itself. Now there is another of you. Why?' she demanded. 'What do you want here?'

'The same thing that Lord Tzeentch wants everywhere,' the Daemon explained. 'Change. Change, no matter the cause or cost. Change that may alter a single fact, or cause mighty empires to fall, or to rise. Change is the ultimate, the alpha and the omega. Everything changes, Princess. Everything changes.'

'Meaningless,' Celestia pointed out. 'Change is the natural order of things. Entropy. Why would you or your lord need to physically be present to make it happen? Just let the universe run its course and your lord will be happy enough.'

'You misunderstand, Princess. Natural change is pleasing enough, but my Lord Tzeentch is change. The denizens of this universe may believe they are living their lives according to random fate, or according to the will of their own gods and leaders. But in reality, they are dancing to the tune played by my Lord behind the fabric of their existence. Neither you nor I are immune from that fact. Things were set in motion many centuries ago which led to this moment in time, this exact course. For mortal men...or ponies...the upset of one's schemes may come as a deep shock, may cause anger or pain or suffering. But for my Lord Tzeentch, a failure is but another form of change.'

'Then accept that change and leave this place!' Celestia repeated her demand to the Daemon. 'If it does not matter to your lord, then go back to where you came from. I am sure he will have other orders for you to carry out elsewhere.'

'On the contrary. My orders were broad and general, and this moment in time was always destined to be, the result of a million other different changes over the years,' the Daemon explained. 'But one does not simply abandon the task decreed by Lord Tzeentch. If a plan fails due to outside interference or some natural phenomenon, then so be it. But to fail to even try and carry it out would be a dereliction of duty of the most egregious nature, and would result in a rather...unpleasant end to one's career, and one's life.' The Daemon chuckled grimly. 'That is why I cannot simply allow you or anyone else to meddle unrestricted with the plans of Lord Tzeentch, or with my own, through which I carry out his will.'

'Then I shall have to force you to leave,' Celestia replied. 'If you will not change your mind, then I shall change it for you.' IT seemed there was no prospect for any more negotiation. The Daemon, though it has spoken eloquently, would have to die.

Celestia's horn flashed, and unleashed a beam of pure energy, aimed like an arrow straight at the heart of the creature, or at least where she assumed its heart would be. A thunder rolled across the land.

Dance With The Devil

Canterlot was almost a busy, bustling place once again, at least the area around the palace. The human cleanup team had done a good job of sweeping the streets and the exterior and rooftops of several buildings, thus freeing them up for pony use. Some of the civilians had been moved out of the palace and into the newly available structure, freeing up more space inside the palace itself for use by the military, both for accommodation and for the storage of supplies, which could finally be brought up from below ground where they had been in use as emergency equipment. The threat of fallout had passed totally due to the decay of radioactive elements, but much of the city remained contaminated and as a wise precaution, the ponies had been told to stay clear of those areas until they could be given at least a superficial clean by the human crew and their chemical sprays and foams.

Twilight was happy enough to remain in the palace and its grounds. Though she used to live in the city, she had not spent much time exploring it in the past, as that was when she had been something of a shut-in. Her books and studies had been all she really needed, and they offered her solace when she felt down. They still did, to some extent, but she had since learned of the immense value of friendship. In many ways, Twilight regretted that she had only learned of it after going to Ponyville, and not while she had still been in Canterlot. It was a beautiful city, or had been before the invasion, and it deserved more attention than she had been able to give it back then.

Now, of course, it was no longer in the best shape for accepting visitors or tourists, even if anypony left in Equestria would ever have the appetite for tourism again once this war was over. There would be more important things to worry about, mourning and rebuilding being chief among them. Equestria had been devastated, and while she knew relatively little of the details of what exactly had been going on outside the walls, she had learned enough to know that the destruction was widespread. It was not confined only to the places she had been; Ponyville, Cloudsdale, Griffonstone, Canterlot. Other cities had been affected too, and not just affected, but wiped out, by the sound of it. Such devastation had never been unleashed, so far as she knew, by any other enemy in Equestria's history. Not Discord, not Sombra, not Chrysalis, nor Nightmare Moon, as the latter had thankfully been stopped before her hoped-for eternal night had plunged the world into a freezing famine, with mass starvation due to almost total crop failure.

Twilight had no idea when the destruction and war would end. She hoped it would be soon, but there was no indication that things were yet drawing to a head. At least part of the city had been made inhabitable once more. She could see the area in question from the top of the palace battlements, as she took her walk around the grounds and up along the walls. The beautiful, dreaming spires of the palace itself towered above her, while those of various other buildings, shorter and less ornate, but still impressive, dotted the skyline of the city as she looked out across the rooftops. Maybe one day, all of the buildings she could see would be made livable again, and ponies could start to return in numbers. Assuming there were enough ponies left to even fill the relatively small capital city. Even that was potentially in doubt, given the almost universal death and destruction visited upon them by the enemy. At least the Changelings had fled; not far enough for her liking, but somewhere beyond the sea, to the other continent, perhaps to terrorise the Zebras instead, or perhaps to regroup, bide their time, plan another attack on the palace, with their whole army, and with the capital's defences still in relative disarray. An understrength garrison, potentially already infiltrated by Changelings, low on supplies and with parts of the city still uninhabitable would make for a ripe target for Chrysalis and her minions.

Twilight had never truly hated anyone or anything before, but she knew now deep down inside her that she hated the Changelings. She hated their Queen. Not just because they had imprisoned her and stolen her Element, but because ultimately she had accepted Spitfire and Luna's argument that the deaths of ponies during the attack on the Hive had not been down to Twilight, but rather down to the Changelings themselves. Even faced with a threat from beyond the stars, Chrysalis had not been moved to fight against it, as the Griffons, erstwhile enemies of Equestria, had done. Nor had they remained seemingly neutral, like the Zebras. The Changelings had continued their grudge match against ponies, against Celestia, against Equestria, even as a new enemy with the power to destroy all life on the planet had come calling. Though Chrysalis had tried to explain her reasons to Twilight during her captivity, the young mare had not cared to hear it. No excuse could justify what the Changelings had tried to do, not in her mind. Others, such as Nightmare Moon, had been reformed by the power of the Elements, and perhaps that was why Chrysalis had stolen one, to prevent such a tactic being used on her; rather than fearing death or imprisonment as a result of the elemental power they wielded, perhaps Chrysalis feared being reformed most of all? Then again, that was a justified fear in a way, because using the Elements in that manner was really more akin to forced brainwashing, in a category with various spells that were outlawed due to their similar effects, not quite dark or black magic, but not far off.

Despite Twilight's opposition to such magic, at least in general and on principal, she found herself half wishing that they could, some day in the future, use the Elements on Chrysalis for just such a purpose. If that was her fear, then she should suffer through it, a fate worse than death for an unrepentant mass murderer. On the other hoof, if the Elements killed her, then Twilight would certainly feel a kind of grim satisfaction at seeing her new foe dead, and that was a feeling that disturbed her. To want to reform a creature was one thing, borne of good will and moral principle. But to want them to die, to actively wish that they would burn or bleed or scream for mercy, was a concept entirely alien to Twilight. She was starting to get some kind of sense into Princess Celestia's thought process when she had issued the orders that the Chaos prisoners should be executed, and she did not think that she liked the feeling at all.

The Imperial fleet was still in orbit. Chrysalis's plan, so far as she had relayed it to Twilight, involved getting aboard their ships and casting off for pastures new, elsewhere in the galaxy. Part of Twilight hoped they would go, ridding Equestria of the Changeling menace once and for all. But another part wanted her dealt with here and now, and still another part feared that the Queen's plan could somehow contrive to come true, spreading across the heavens, far and wide across the galaxy, conquering it all.

Twilight wished she could be spending her spare time watching the Imperial ships, studying the craft as they floated in space high above. What marvels of technology they must be. to travel between the stars with such relative ease. Twilight considered herself a well-educated and smart pony, and rather scientific for such a powerful unicorn, but she found herself pretty much at a loss to explain exactly how those ships could accomplish such feats of endurance, speed and, above all, size. Surely something as big as the ships she had seen through her telescope could only have been built actually in space, otherwise there would be no way to lift something to bulky out of a planet's gravity well, and...

That was it! The telescope! Not hers, but Princess Luna's. She had used it, on the first day, or maybe the second, of the invasion, to look at the ships in orbit. If it had survived the enemy occupation, she could use it again, make notes, so many notes. It might provide some useful information that would come in handy in the future, or at the very least, it would keep her busy, instead of letting her thoughts dwell on the bad things that her mind had been filled with of late.

Twilight trotted down from the palace walls and back to the building itself. Luna's quarters were up in the Lunar Tower, which was where the telescope was located. It was a fair climb up the staircase, and Twilight was tired once she reached the top, perhaps exerting herself a little more than she should have. There, she found two members of the Night Guard, Luna's personal protection force, clad in armour of dark purple and blue.

'Is the Princess in her quarters?' Twilight asked, somewhat breathless from the climb.

'No, ma'am,' one of the guards replied. 'She is in the throne room.'

Twilight was disappointed, but she wanted to get Luna's permission and not simply barge into her quarters, even assuming the guards would have let her do so. She headed back down again, making several stops to catch her breath on the way, and wandered through the palace to the throne room itself.

There, she found Princess Luna, seated, oddly, on Celestia's throne. Though the two sisters were theoretically co-regents, it was universally acknowledged that Celestia was the senior of the two, and if it came down to it, would be the one to take command, which was why she had been the one in charge of negotiations with the Imperium, the military response to the invasion, and the raid on the Changeling Hive. Luna usually acted as her deputy, taking control when her sister was away on business or some royal visit.

'Princess Luna!' Twilight greeted her with a smile, as the guards allowed her passage into the throne room itself.

'Twilight,' Luna replied with a nod. 'Is something the matter?'

'No, Princess. Actually, I was just wondering if I could use your telescope. You know, the one you showed me before? If it's still working. I had completely forgotten about it, but it's such a beautiful design and I was just thinking about how I could use it to observe the human starships and maybe learn something about them, how they work...that kind of thing!' Twilight explained breezily, feeling more purpose in her mind than she had since she had been taken by the Changelings. Here was something that she could do, something that might be useful. She could help out again, use her scientific knowledge, such as it was, for the greater good. She was no expert physicist, but she had a good grasp of a wide variety of scientific and technical subjects, with one of her specialties being astronomy. Not quite starship-gazing, but not far off, and...

Luna interrupted her rambling train of thought. 'My telescope? Yes, it is still intact, by some miracle. Perhaps the Chaos troops never bothered to climb all those steps. You may of course make use of it any time you wish, Twilight.'

'Thank you, Princess!' Twilight smiled. It seemed like the first time in ages she had done so, though she was sure she must have when she was reunited with her family or her friends. 'I don't know if I can discover anything that will be of value, but...maybe! I mean, there's always a chance.'

Luna nodded. 'Indeed. There is always a chance.'

'Where, uh...where is Princess Celestia?' Twilight asked. If she had not been told otherwise by the Night Guard, and she had just visited the throne room on the off chance, then she would have expected to see Celestia on the throne, and not Luna.

'She...has gone to Fillydelphia,' Luna answered her query, after a moment's hesitation.

'Oh...to supervise?' Twilight asked. 'To see how the attack is going?'

'No, Twilight,' Luna replied simply. 'She has gone to fight.'

The incandescent beam of magic struck the Daemon bodily. Or at least, it would have done, if not for an almost imperceptible movement of the beast's staff, which resulted in some kind of shield suddenly leaping forth from the crystal at its tip. The magical blast struck the shield bodily, a loud crack ringing out over the city and the surrounding countryside. It did not penetrate the shield, and the Daemon quickly leaped into action, retaliating against Celestia, its staff flashing as it released a blaze of death, a stinging retribution aiming to burn the pony princess. A golden orb surrounded her, and protected her as well as the Daemon's staff had done. The flames played across its surface, but Celestia suddenly teleported away, appearing behind the Daemon and firing another shot from her horn, a powerful blast that would puncture any substance known to either ponykind, or mankind. Again, the Daemon's shield protected it from any harm.

'Impressive...' it muttered, seemingly as keen to analyse Celestia's power and her attacks as it was to avoid them and carry out its orders. The opening exchanges of the battle had taught it much about the Princesses' strength, agility and defences, and it clearly found what it saw to be worthy of some amount of respect, however little that might mean to Celestia. 'Hm, perhaps it would be a good idea not to kill you. I am sure you would make a fine addition to Lord Tzeentch's throng. After all, who says that a pony cannot work for Chaos?'

'I do,' Celestia replied firmly. 'We have fought your kind before and we will continue to do so, as long as you threaten our homes and our lives.'

'Ah yes, the one you refer to as Discord.' Malaranth nodded. 'A most curious case, it has to be said. He is not one of us, not in the strictest sense. In possession of great power, very great power indeed, but not the desire to use it in the correct way. He is not born from the Immaterium as I am. In fact, his true origins seem to be one of the few secrets in the universe unknown even to Lord Tzeentch. Nevertheless, his power and potential was recognised long ago. Many offers have been made over the years; position, title, power, wealth, whatever he may desire. Yet he has never accepted any of them. It seems that Discord wishes to remain a true enigma, neither directly helping nor hindering Lord Tzeentch. And that, in a way, is more pleasing to my Lord than any aid which Discord could give. After all, what is more unpredictable than unpredictability itself?'

Celestia had, after encountering this Daemon and being told about its nature, imagined that Discord was most likely descended from the same species, if that was the right term for these alien creatures from another dimension. To be told otherwise was something of a surprise, and to learn that Discord was as confusing to the enemy as he was to the inhabitants of Equestria was oddly reassuring. It might also go some way toward explaining Discord's notable absence since before the invasion. Perhaps he had sensed something coming and wanted nothing to do with the Chaos forces who had apparently made him various offers down the years. Perhaps he was trying to truly be neutral in this particular struggle, as unlikely as that might sound. But the Daemon had a point; Discord did not seem to do the things he did on behalf of anyone else. He seemed to operate entirely based upon whatever he felt like doing on any given day, which could vary wildly from changing some flowers into flowers of a different colour for no real reason, or overthrowing Equestria on a whim.

'If that is so, then perhaps you will not mind being defeated in a similar way to Discord,' Celestia replied to the Daemon's story. 'I will be happy to send you back to wherever it is that you came here from.'

'We shall see,' Malaranth answered with a chuckle. A flash of light from its staff made Celestia teleport away, but this time it was not a direct attack. Instead, she found herself surrounded by vapour, a thick fog forming from nowhere. It was like flying through a cloud, and with a similar reduction in visibility. Celestia found herself looking around for any sign of the enemy, but seeing nothing with her eyes. She turned to her magic instead, an instantaneous spell being cast and showing her the auras of any living creature nearby. There were some humans below, enemies no doubt, somewhere within the bounds of the city they were occupying. Tiny pinpricks of light denoted rats or flies or other inconsequential creatures below. Ah, there it was, the large silhouette, glowing unmistakably. She readied another magical blast at the tip of her horn, but instead of hurling it across the sky, she teleported it next to the Daemon, where it detonated into a fireball.

She flew up higher, after a few seconds breaking through the cloud layer and into the open, bright rays of light from her sun streaming down upon her in the clear, late morning sky. A moment later, there too was the Daemon, lightning fast reflexes having evidently allowed it to escape from the teleported magic bomb in the split second before detonation. Its feathered wings flapped powerfully as it drew level in altitude with her.

'Very clever, Princess, very good indeed,' it said, once again throwing praise instead of insults. 'But still a little simplistic, no?'

Celestia did not bother to reply to him, instead teleporting another magical bomb right beside the Daemon, which detonated immediately, blasting raw energy across the sky. Somehow it escaped again, its form now shimmering, like light reflecting from the surface of a lake, somewhat similar to the effect present in Celestia's mane and tail. 'Lightning never strikes twice, they say,' Malaranth laughed, though Celestia's repeated attack had nearly caught it off guard. Whitish-blue arcs of psychic energy, like electricity, crackled from its suddenly outstretched left claw, leaping and dancing through the air, propagating at a breakneck pace toward Celestia. She responded with her own, golden lightning, and the heavens rang with the sound of duelling thunder.

Those on the ground watched on in awe and terror. The Chaos infantry in Fillydelphia did their best to take shelter, as many of them were directly below the action in the sky. The Imperial ground forces, though miles outside of the city, could see the battle clearly through their scopes, and they were afraid. Though this pony Princess was supposedly on their side, here she was going toe to toe against a Daemon of such forbidding psychic power that its mere presence was enough to drive men insane, and from what they could see it was an even contest. If she lost, if she died, then the Daemon would have free reign to turn its gaze onto them. But if she won, then she would be free to do the same, and if she chose that course, then who could stand against her?

Most of the men still hoped for the Princess to be victorious, however. What came after would remain to be seen, but nothing could be worse than allowing a Chaos victory. A Daemon like that had to be exterminated at any cost, and most likely, Exterminatus would result if they could not destroy it through any other means. A heavy bombardment from orbit by cyclonic torpedoes and mass drivers, virus bombs to turn all organic matter into a kind of soup, before being ignited in a global firestorm. Destruction of the entire biosphere, all life on the planet snuffed out in a matter of minutes. It might not even kill the Daemon, but it would deny Chaos their thrall over the planet's inhabitants, a merciful end, many would say, for the strange Xenos creatures that lived here. A quick death was preferable to a lifetime of suffering and horror living under the rule of the Archenemy.

For some of the men, those from more traditionally superstitious home worlds or those who had simply never seen such power wielded by a creature that was friendly, at least for now, it was a more symbolic experience. The Princess resembled a messianic archetype, an avenging angel striking from the heavens to engage in the almighty struggle with the Daemonic, come to save them all, offering salvation where no other could. Those among them who had seen her fight before were not surprised, and those who had been feeling the strange calmness and serenity since landing on the planet felt there had to be some connection; not only because of the visual symbolism, but because those feelings only seemed stronger when the Princess was present, even at such a distance. That, surely, could not be a coincidence. The men watched on from their defensive positions, hoping for success, for the death of the Daemon. None of them were in any doubt that it would not go down easily, if it went down at all, but if anyone could destroy it, it seemed that the Princess was the most likely candidate.

The dueling lightning played across the sky, a stalemate, with neither the Daemon or the Princess able to achieve a breakthrough. Malaranth was the first to cut it off, and he quickly teleported away. It seemed that he had not reappeared, but then suddenly a beam of dark light erupted from the river below. Celestia dodged to the side, swooping down, using her wings to carry her onward as the psychic shot missed her and raced away into the stratosphere. Her horn glowed for a few seconds, and suddenly the area of the river around the location of the shot was bubbling, steaming, boiling like a kettle, in the hope of roasting the Daemon alive. It was not to be, as Malaranth was gone, reappearing in the sky. To the observers on the ground, the Daemon now looked like a hideous vision of death, all contorted fangs and corpse-like, sagging skin, a horrific sight to behold.

To the Princess, it looked the same as ever, still in its true form, feathery wings flapping steadily. Its staff flashed and out of nowhere, there was a hole in the sky, some kind of orifice in reality itself. Like water going down a plughole, the air around the opening began to be rapidly drawn in, a vacuum-like effect sucking up everything around the gash in the sky. Celestia felt herself being pulled quickly back toward it, and in the blink of an eye she was gone, teleporting to safety, well clear of the opening. A powerful blast from her horn sealed the hole shut, like cauterising a wound.

Malaranth was not content, and with a flick of his staff, another tear in reality was created near to Celestia. This time, instead of everything being sucked in, something began to come out. Daemons, dozens of them, much smaller than Malaranth but evidently summoned by his command, or perhaps just drawn to the opening in their world by natural curiosity. What lay beyond the opening was a vision of hell, swirling energies and unnatural warp fire blazing brightly, searing the eyes of any man who dared look at it, even from twenty miles distant.

The smaller Daemons, a mixture of bizarre flying discs and winged manta ray-esque creature with a multitude of horns. As each one emerged into realspace, they hurled themselves at the Princess with gay abandon, seemingly uncaring for their own safety. Celestia had to back up a little, using her wings, but she was able to start striking them down almost immediately, rapid blasts of magic and flashes of golden lightning killing the horrors by the score as they burst free and lunged at her.

But her attentions could only be in so many places at once, and she could not fight off hundreds of lesser Daemons and still keep track of Malaranth. The Greater Daemon changed position, getting behind the Princess. Its staff flashed, and suddenly the sky around Celestia was burning.

Fight For The Future

The steps back up to Princess Luna's chambers seemed twice as long as they had the last time she had climbed them just a few minutes earlier, but Twilight was determined to make the ascent anyway, even though it saw her reach the top out of breath. The telescope awaited, and with it a chance to study the human ships. Perhaps just as importantly, it would give her something to keep her mind off of what Luna had told her.

Princess Celestia, her mentor and friend, ruler of all the land, was out there fighting, alone. Fighting something that even these human ships that she wished to examine had failed to destroy. Twilight knew that, unlike the Changelings, there was nothing she personally could have done to change things, to prevent Celestia from going or the Daemon from appearing at all, and so she did not feel guilty, but she felt scared. She knew that Celestia could most certainly handle herself in any fight, no matter how strong or cunning the foe, but to be out there alone, fighting something from another world- no, another dimension- was a situation where anything could happen. Anything could go wrong. What they knew about the Daemon could be written on the back of a single hoof. Luna had relayed to her what Celestia had told her, having heard it from the humans, but it was a vague collection of adjectives and superlatives that contained very little concrete information. Evil. Cunning. Powerful. Devious. None of that gave any indication of how to fight the creature.

Luna's telescope was just as beautiful and ornate as it had been in Twilight's memory, from the last time she had seen it. That had been a lifetime ago, practically as the invasion was just beginning. The device had somehow escaped any damage by the Chaos occupation forces surprising given the needless destruction they had wrought on tapestries, statues, stained glass windows and other priceless relics, just for the sake of sport or entertainment. Perhaps they had not recognised what it was, or perhaps they did know, and had spared it because it was a potentially useful piece of technology and not merely some cultural artifact with no practical use.

Though it was daylight outside, with sunlight beaming down, the Imperial ships were large enough that they could be seen through a telescope, even against the backdrop of Celestia's bright sunlight. It was not the ideal time of day for orbital observations, but Twilight wanted to distract herself from the potential peril that her teacher was in. There was nothing else she could do about the situation except try to forget it was happening.

A few training wheels were adjusted, focus dialled in. Twilight leaned down and peered through the viewfinder of the telescope. It was aimed skyward, at whatever quadrant had been under observation last time it was used. Twilight did not know exactly where the human ships were located, but she made a reasoned guess. Given that fighting was going on around Fillydelphia, and Luna had said that the humans had tried to attack the Daemon there, it stood to reason that at least one of the ships would be in some type of geosynchronous orbit above the city. Fillydelphia was to the south of Canterlot, right down at the tip of the continent, so Twilight trained the telescope in that direction.

Despite being quite ancient, the telescope was a powerful device, with a significant magnification thanks to its lenses, allowing a pony on the ground, or rather slightly above it in the Lunar Tower, to observe proceedings high above, not just in orbit, but many light years away, in good detail. Stars, galaxies, nebulae, all were visible through the viewfinder on a dark night if one knew where to look, and what you were looking at.

Twilight did, or at least she did when she had access to a good star chart or a list of suitable stellar coordinates. There was so much to see, if only ponies took the time to turn their gaze upward instead of being so focused on their own lives. Of course, things were different now, and nopony had any time for anything so frivolous as stargazing during a struggle for survival. Even this, Twilight told herself, was no mere recreational activity. She was going to be performing a useful service, potentially gaining scientific data on the enemy ships to collate with that obtained by the observatory outside Griffonstone which, although it had been focusing its efforts on studying the warp storm, had also collected some data on the Imperial fleet in the process, albeit with little information as to what they had been looking at.

Twilight knew a little more than the Griffon astronomers, having already studied one of the ships on the night before the invasion. She was no expert on starships, however; no pony could claim that title, since until the human arrival nopony had even known such things were actually physically possible to construct. There were scientific theories, of course, regarding rocket propulsion or magic levitation to power simple craft, but even the wildest science fiction writers of Equestria would have baulked at including something as large as the human craft in their stories, for fear of being ridiculed. Too big. Impossible. Don't be ridiculous, something that large would never fly!

Yet fly they did, in a manner of speaking, sailing through the vacuum of space to bring thousands, perhaps millions, of humans to this planet. Twilight wanted to see another one close up, and she scanned the heavens eagerly to locate one. It was tricky against the blue sky, as the craft were not backlit by the moonglow or the light from the stars. She stuck to her task, and after a few minutes of diligent searching, she located something, in the skies over Fillydelphia, far above.

There it was, unmistakably one of the human vessels. Far too angular and deliberate in shape to be an asteroid, not bright enough to be a comet reflecting light from the sun. No, it was one of their ships, for certain. Twilight twiddled a few dials with her magic, zooming in her view for a better and closer look at the craft. It was mightily impressive, even from such a distance, the ship being many miles geographically south of her, and some several hundred miles above. Perhaps it was the same one she had seen before; it certainly looked similar, though Twilight could not remember every last detail of what she had seen through her own telescope. Her notes and sketches had long since been lost, delivered to the palace to show the Princess but presumably destroyed either during the fighting or afterward by the occupation forces.

She examined it closely, getting a good look through the viewfinder. Detail was relatively limited thanks to the brightness of the sky, but one thing that would have been obvious even to a casual observer was its sheer size and bulk. The ship had to be longer than the entire city of Canterlot, several miles long at the minimum. Scale was difficult to judge, but a good guestimate could be obtained by various trigonometric calculations, which Twilight was able to perform on a few bits of scrap paper. She obtained a broad estimation of between four and five miles for the ship's length. Was this one of the largest in the fleet, or was this a mere scout or escort? The former would be impressive enough, but if it was the latter, then just how big would the capital ships be?

Given its position over Fillydelphia, Twilight reasoned that there was a good chance that the huge vessel she was observing was one of the Imperial battleships, cruisers, dreadnoughts, command ships or whatever they happened to call their largest ships of the line. It was only when she zoomed out a little more to get an overall impression of the length that she realised there were two of them. Another ship close by, a little farther back- higher in orbit, she reminded herself- perhaps a bit smaller, though not much, than the one she had been observing studiously. A brief calculation told her that, yes, it was shorter, though not by a huge amount, somewhere around three or so miles, give or take and accounting for any error. It was always possible that she had made one, and either over or underestimated the length of the ships. She was not used to recording sightings of things so close to the planet, and certainly not in orbit around it, with the exception of the moon.

She zoomed back in again with the telescope, scouring over the other ship's hull with a keen eye, looking for anything she could identify. Naturally, nothing she could see meant anything to her. Were those protrusions weapons? Cameras, sensors? The space equivalent of gangplanks for boarding? She could only guess at what features the ships had, what technological marvels might be found within. Part of her, a large part of her, that inquisitive and scientific mare, longed to somehow get aboard one of those human ships. To travel far and wide across the galaxy, an infinity of new possibilities opened up to her. New knowledge, already being gained just by the mere awareness of the existence of life beyond their planet. What wonders might exist elsewhere, what secret truths of the universe might she learn?

Or, what horrors might she uncover. What new and exotic means of death and pain and suffering, what cruelty. Perhaps there were questions out there that nopony was meant to even ask, let alone know the answers to. Perhaps even Celestia, the font of all pony knowledge and wisdom, a would find new and disturbing truths out there.

You are the future, not Celestia.

But to travel the galaxy, Twilight would have to leave her home, leave Equestria and all her family and friends behind. She doubted very much she was ready to do that, given that she had needed her friends to snap her out of her slump after being rescued. There was also the small but inconvenient matter of the fact that the Imperium, on the whole, was rabidly xenophobic, so far as she understood it. There were of course exceptions, those among the humans who simply didn't care about alien species, didn't consider them all to be a threat, or had a more open mind than most, but she doubted such a ride aboard an Imperial starship, authorised or not, would last very long without her getting one of those red beams in the back of her head, or perhaps worse.

She contented herself with watching the ships from the ground. Only Celestia and Luna had ever left the planet, and perhaps that was how it should be. After all, they controlled the sun and the moon. Twilight controlled nothing, not even her own destiny. Maybe one day, if Celestia willed it, and if these Chaos gods that were claimed to exist did not object, she might travel into space, fulfilling a crazy lifelong dream, but most likely she would be earthbound for all of her life. That would be alright, too; if she could not travel among the stars, then she would stay at home, in Equestria, and protect it, from whatever threatened it, to the best of her ability.

Which was not saying a great deal. Yes, she had her magic, and she was still powerful as unicorns went, but she did not have Alicorn magic. There was a limit to her power, and without the Element of Magic, she would struggle against the most powerful foes. The Elements had to be complete to be useful, and even if she was there with her friends, her Element was not. Unless they could wrest it free of Chrysalis's grasp somehow, then the Elements would remain a mere set of trinkets, gaudy baubles with no purpose.

But your potential is limitless.

There was some slim hope, at least. They knew where the Hive had relocated to, it seemed. Out in the jungles of the eastern continent, somewhere in Zebrican territory. Maybe somehow they could get it back, snatch it from the Queen, preferably killing her in the process. But if not, then all Twilight could do was to sit and watch the human ships and wait. Wait to see what happened. She gazed south idly, no longer focused on the human craft. Princess Celestia was out there somewhere, alone, struggling against an unknown foe. What if she needed help? What if she was hurt? What if...if it was even possible...what if she had been killed?

No, that could not be true. She would know, somehow. Every pony would know. They would feel it, and Twilight had felt nothing except vague dread at the danger her mentor was in. The distraction of the telescope had worked only temporarily, and now Twilight's mind was once again fully focused on worry. Not panic, but concern, deep concern, because she could not help. She could not influence events, not from here. Luna had told her not to fear, but fear was the mind killer. Once again she had to console herself with the thought that Celestia was the most powerful magical being in Equestria. She could handle anything, whether it came from this planet, or from another dimension.

Probably.

The air had turned to fire. Celestia instinctively held her breath; to breathe in the flames was something that was best avoided, even for an Alicorn. Her shield sprang up like a bubble around her, keeping the fire at bay as she dove down out of the sudden inferno. The Daemon was a tricky foe, both resilient and resourceful as far as its powers of magic went. Not a creature to be trifled with, clearly, and with abilities like a more malevolent version of Discord, which was certainly saying something. While the Daemon had spoken with forked tongue, twisting its words and speaking meaningless phrases much of the time, one thing was clear, at least. Malaranth the Infinite did what it did because it was working at the behest of some master, this Lord of Change, Tzeentch, it called it, a name that sounded most harsh and grating on her ears. She could quite understand why, as the Lord-Admiral had explained to her at some point, many humans felt violently ill at just hearing the names of Daemons or other Chaos entities, or at simply seeing their foul sigils and symbols. While such things had not had the same effect on her, there was no doubting that they did hold a certain disquieting air to them.

Free from the firestorm, Celestia turned, tracking the Daemon with her aura spell. Despite its fiendish deviousness, it could not escape her gaze, and she spotted it up above, observing from where it had unleashed the flames upon her. Her ethereal mane and tail remained un-singed by the heat, and she quickly responded with a flurry of magical blasts in his direction. She teleported away in case of any retaliation. There were still minor Daemons skittering and flitting about the sky, and they needed to be dealt with also. The orifice in space and time was still disgorging more of the foul creatures into her realm, and that could not be permitted to stand.

She spotted the opening and made a beeline for it. Her horn glowed again, and intense, magical heat began to cauterise the wound in reality, as she had done with the previous portal. A dozen Daemons coming through the hole were turned to ash in a fraction of a second, being unfortunate enough to run right into her powerful spell. Some of their fellows that had already made the journey tried to stop her, coming at her from behind or from above. Her shield protected her, their attacks bouncing harmlessly off, their own bodies hideously burned when they tried to ram into her. They continued their futile efforts as the Princess sealed up the rift, only to be suddenly struck a hefty blow from the side. Her shield held, and she turned to look with an angry scowl on her face.

Malaranth was coming at her again, this time using its staff to hurl powerful bolts of energy at her as his minions pecked away at her from all around. The attacks could not penetrate her shield, but they were making Celestia angry. The Daemons would not give up; she suspected they never gave up under any circumstances, perhaps driven by some base instinct to always fight, hard-wired genetically for killing. Whether that applied to Malaranth as well, she did not know. It seemed unlikely; the Lord-Admiral had said that such Daemons were not usually to be found on the frontline, preferring to manipulate things from behind the scenes, which made its presence here more puzzling. Had it come to the planet specifically to fight Celestia, because it knew that its minions were not strong enough to defeat her? Had it come to distract her from some other occurrence? Had it come to scare the Imperials, or to halt their attack, or was it some great combination of all of those things?

Celestia's horn glowed once again, all along its length, and suddenly, her shield became a rapidly expanding ball of energy, crackling and buzzing, growing, being launched outward. Everything it touched burst into flames and flashed to ashes. Even the air ahead of it spontaneously combusted. Malaranth, seeing the onrushing wall of death, managed to teleport itself away, out of the line of fire to a safe distance. Celestia's magic orb reached its full extent, and with a loud crack of displaced air it returned to its original state, just a small bubble around her, keeping her safe. While Malaranth had escaped harm, every one of his surviving minions that had made it through the tear in reality had been wiped out, atomised or flashed to steam by coming into contact with her magic.

The Daemon was all alone once more, cut off from its supply of reinforcements, but that did not seem to faze it in the slightest. If anything, it seemed quite happy about the changes in its situation, judging by its gentle laughter. There was something disconcerting about a being of such power and apparent evil having such a lilting voice, soft, almost feminine despite its great bulk and imposing presence. It had never addressed itself as being male or female; it was always possible that Daemonic genders did not conform with those of ponykind. Perhaps it was a genderless species, or perhaps it possessed traits of both the males and females of its race. But, Celestia supposed, many outsiders would no doubt say similar things about her; in appearance and voice, she was the epitome of feminine beauty and grace, elegant to the extremes required of her noble standing. Yet in battle, none could match her raw power, aggression or skill. Despite, or perhaps because of, Equestria being a matriarchal society, it had historically been the stallions who had made up the bulk of the fighting forces. Even today there were still slightly more stallions than mares in most branches of service, as was the case with the Yak Empire, Zebrican Kingdom and Griffon Kingdom also. Anybody who did not know any better would assume that the Princesses of Equestria sent their males off to fight and die while staying comfortable at home in their palace. As was being ably demonstrated in the skies above Fillydelphia, nothing could be further from the truth.

Despite the setbacks, Malaranth showed no intention of giving up the fight. Indeed, it seemed keen to continue, and did so immediately, as a searing white light filled Celestia's vision, blinding her to the world around her. So the Daemon thought, at least, but Celestia was able to continue using her aura spell to track Malaranth's movements. The Daemon tried to take advantage of her apparent temporary infirmity, but she was ready for him, and even the Lord of Change had to admit to being surprised for a fraction of a second, although it supposed it should not have been. Celestia was proving quite a handful, which was what it had expected to be the case, but no matter. In fact, it was quite pleasurable to put its powers to the test once again after so long manipulating events from behind the scenes. There was a certain enjoyment to be found in combat, the thrill of battle, and it was just as much a mental test as a physical one, which pleased Malaranth greatly. This was a battle of wits, not just of brawn, a one-on-one struggle for supremacy with another master psyker. Those were hard to find, even in a galaxy as war-torn as this.

Even if it fell, Malaranth knew that it would not change Lord Tzeentch's plans. They were already firmly in motion, and had been for some time. Even in this remote corner of the galaxy, the Changer of Ways had long ago made his mark, paving the way for this latest scheme. Come success or failure, Tzeentch would be happy. Happy, because there was always change. Change was the constant. And what pleased Lord Tzeentch also pleased Malaranth the Infinite.

Celestia unleashed a wave of golden energy at the Daemon as it tried to surprise her, forcing it back as the magic made contact with the creature. One of its feathered wings was singed by the intense power, before it was able to move away, out of the line of fire, and try to retaliate with a swirling helix of warp energy, channelled through its staff. Celestia teleported away, but its passage left a stain upon reality itself. Not a tear, but a kind of residue, dark energies dripping seemingly from nothing in mid-air.

Malaranth turned away from the physical, and back to the mental. It tried a piercing attack directly into Celestia's mind, to tear and ravage her psyche. Any mortal man would have gone mad in seconds, tried to claw out his own eyes or perhaps turned his weapon upon himself. But Celestia resisted. Not just resisted, but fought back, even. Whether it was deliberate or just a natural response, her mind was fighting the invasion, and if forced Malaranth out. The Daemon was not entirely surprised, but it was impressed. It had known that Celestia had no true warp presence as humans and other species did, but existed outside of the warp pressing in, and that was what had intrigued Malaranth the most when he had studied what was known about his target planet. There were things that even Lord Tzeentch did not know and that could not be found in the confines of the Warp, explanations for the powers of these ponies among them. Perhaps Malaranth could find an answer here, in person.

'You are truly a most impressive specimen, Princess,' Malaranth assured Celestia, drawing a glowering look from her as she clearly did not like being addressed as if she were part of some science experiment. 'Unfortunately, it is time for me to finish this task and ensure the success of Lord Tzeentch's plans. You are welcome to try and stop me, of course, but I fear that even you will be unable to do so. Nevertheless it has been a pleasure making your acquaintance. I wonder if your sister will be as...potent as you?'

Celestia did not rise to the obvious bait of using her sister to try and make her act rashly. Instead, she sat back, waiting for Malaranth to make a move instead. Soon enough, it did. Suddenly there were two portals, not just one, opening in the fabric of the sky around her, both disgorging hordes of hideous Daemons. Malaranth was pressing again into her mind, and at the same time, it began hurling balls of energy at her rapidly. An onslaught from all sides.

Celestia teleported away and began hosing down the lesser Daemons with a continuous beam of golden magic, killing hundreds. But there were more of them this time, and Malaranth was attacking relentlessly, shot after shot flying from its staff in her direction.

For any observers, it was hard to keep track of everything that was going on. There was so much light and energy being flung around the sky, so many swirling creatures all of a sudden, so much mayhem being unleashed. Celestia used a quick perception spell to help her, which had the effect of seeming to slow down time for her in relation to the world around her. It helped her avoid attacks, dodge incoming fire, and track enemies. And it was not enough.

The Daemons were all over her, and while she doubted any one of them could harm her, perhaps in their teeming thousands they might be able to force their way through her shield so that Malaranth could land the crippling blow it was seeking. If she concentrated on the numberless minions, then the Lord of Change might be able to hit her with something powerful enough to have the same effect anyway. Being outnumbered was not a problem for the Princess, but being both outnumbered and facing a foe of equal or greater power to her own was. She could only focus her attentions in one place at a time.

Another quickly expanding orb of magic killed thousands of lesser Daemons, but they continued to pour forth and assail her. She sealed up one of the rifts with her magic, but Malaranth immediately opened another. More Daemons eagerly flew out of the new tear in reality, throwing themselves at Celestia relentlessly. She could not spare any time to attack Malaranth directly. Each time she closed a rift, Malaranth opened another. It was a losing battle and merely a matter of when her strength would eventually fade enough for her to make a mistake, which it could then exploit.

For ten minutes the struggle continued, with untold numbers of Daemons melting away before the intense gaze of Celestia's golden magic. With a seemingly endless flood of the creatures coming through the rifts, Celestia realised she could not win the fight alone. She could keep them at bay, but not defeat Malaranth at the same time.

Reluctantly, she teleported away, north of the city. She raised her horn to the sky, and fired off a bright blast of magic.

Light And Darkness

Aboard the Emperor's Judgement, Auspex crews monitored the fighting below. They were used to tracking combat formations, identifying enemy units and relaying coordinates to friendly forces. Following single combat was not their usual purview, and it proved considerably trickier than their normal duties. For starters, there were only two combatants to track- or at least, there were to begin with- and that was a lot harder than following huge columns of men or vehicles. To add to that, there was interference, some obviously from the warp energies the Daemon was using. But there was some other cause as well, and it seemed to peak every time the princess made use of her so-called magic. Emissions of the unknown particle also peaked at those times, cementing the theory put forward by the Magi of the Ferrus Terra that some property of the particle, or of the pony magic, was causing the interference, which had been mostly low level, but had been affecting their sensors ever since they entered the system, especially when trying to scan planetside.

Both General Jahn and the Lord-Admiral were monitoring the fighting, gathered around the holo-map and vid-screens. There was footage being broadcast both from orbital cam-units and from those on the ground, albeit at quite a distance and at maximum zoom. It was of great interest, as there was a chance to learn much about their adversary, as well as their ally. They had seen the princess fight massed enemies alone before, and they had seen her fight a single strong adversary in conjunction with her sister and her armies, but they had not seen her face both at the same time, alone. A Lord of Change, a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch, was a foe that almost none could stand against, as much for its psychic and mental powers as its physical strength on the field of battle. Yet Celestia was proving its equal, only showing any kind of difficulty when she was faced with overwhelming numbers of lesser Daemons to fend off, as well as their mighty master. Even then, she was more than holding her own, where even holy Astartes Librarians, mighty Inquisitors, or Eldar Farseers might struggle.

Marcos was more impressed the more he watched, as was the case every time he observed the princess, whether she was fighting or not. Even the more sceptical General Jahn had to admit to being impressed also, by the fluidity and grace of her movements and the power she was exerting. Every indication supported Marcos's judgement, that the princess was best kept on side. Making an enemy of her would not be wise, given the control she seemed to have over the system's star, despite the apparent impossibility of such a fear. But the galaxy was a large and confusing place, and the more humanity explored, the more bizarre and seemingly impossible things they had run into, time and again. This was no different. A horse who was a princess and also an extremely powerful psyker, able to fight a Greater Daemon alone and control a star from millions of miles away? Who was to say there were not even more strange things awaiting on the next planet along?

Of course, the Crusade would not explore any more planets. This was as far as they would go, Marcos had decided. Lord-General Galen had agreed, before his untimely demise. Attrition had taken a heavy toll on the fleet, as well as the ground forces to a lesser extent. Many men had died during the journey, and more had died here on this planet, but there were still enough guardsmen to take another planet, maybe two or even three. There were not, however, enough ships to do the same.

The princess had continued to fight, striking back against the hordes of lesser Daemons as well as trying to defeat the Lord of Change, but the numbers of the smaller creatures continued to grow, swarming her. Despite valiant attempts, she could not get clear of them for long enough to attack the greater Daemon. Suddenly she teleported away, and an arcing blast of magic erupted from her horn and into the sky, soaring into the blue before bursting like a red flare.

'My Lord!' the junior Auspex officer called. 'The Xenos princess has signaled for assistance!'

'Very good,' Marcos nodded. 'Contact the liaison team in Canterlot. Inform Princess Luna at once.'

'Yes, My Lord!' the vox officer replied. He sent the signal over the vox, alerting Atter and Mons, the liaison team stationed in the palace. As Marcos had promised Celestia, her sister was informed immediately of the signal. From the throne room of the palace, Luna was gone in a heartbeat.

Celestia turned her attentions back to Malaranth and his horde. They were charging at her again, having picked up her scent or simply spotted her magic flare to discern her new location after she had teleported away. A moment's respite had allowed her to send the call for aid, as well as gain distance from her foes. This latter fact was to prove particularly important a moment or two later.

Through careful movement and manipulation of the battle, Celestia had managed to draw the fighting away from Fillydelphia and back over the open ground to the north of the city. That protected the city from what was about to come, as the human gunners on board the two capital ships in orbit above opened fire again. Huge lance blasts and plasma beams struck down from the heavens, catching the massed ranks of Daemons by surprise and massacring them in droves. The target area was pounded by dozens of shots, targeted between Celestia and the city, and the Daemons were charging blindly into it. Though the attacks were striking the ground and the Daemons were flying, they could not stand up to the intense heat and energy of the lances and plasma beams through the air around them. Malaranth, however, could, as it had already demonstrated clearly, and again it resisted the power of the orbital strike. It continued its advance toward Celestia, but within a few moments, she was no longer alone.

Princess Luna, having made the trip rapidly down to Fillydelphia via a pair of teleportation jumps, arrived by her sister's side, floating above the ground below. Her expression betrayed the anger she felt toward the creature that would not simply leave the planet and leave them alone, but also the concern she had felt for her sister during the time she had been fighting alone. But now she had help, and the fight had suddenly become a lot more even.

'Ah, Princess Luna, how delightful that you could find time to join us here,' Malaranth greeted her. 'You need not fear. You have not yet missed all of the festivities. I am sure I can entertain you both at the same time.'

'Enough talk, Daemon!' Luna spat, her first words since arrival already aggressive, as she was ready to fight to aid her sister. If it would take two of them to stop this threat, then so be it. Luna had left Princess Cadence in charge back in Canterlot, as was the correct line of succession. It was not ideal, but if anything happened to the two sisters, there would at least be a command structure still in place back home to take over the running and ruling of Equestria.

'But talking can reveal so much about a person,' Malaranth pointed out. 'Or a pony, I'm sure. Then again, I have learned plenty about your sister just by fighting her. What a fine creature she is, and so powerful, too. I wonder if you will have the same skill and strength, Princess Luna?'

'I have been here mere moments and already I am tired of your prattle,' Luna replied angrily. 'We have nothing to say to you, Daemon. If you will not leave, then it is time for you to die.'

Luna's horn glowed, and battle was joined once more. Celestia joined in, and both sisters, together, struck back. Gold and blue lightning leaped across the sky toward the Daemon. Both Princesses fanned out to try and outflank Malaranth, who could only focus on one of them at a time. But a shield emanating from its staff held the lightning at bay, though it wavered under the combined force of the two sisters and their extremely powerful magic. One Princess alone was formidable, but both fighting together was a sight to behold, a force of nature being unleashed upon their foe.

Yet Malaranth was equal to the task of resisting them, even combined, at least in conjunction with its minions. Out of another gash in reality they came, pouring onto the field of battle, seemingly endless in number despite Celestia and the orbital bombardment having inflicted huge casualties upon them, thinning their ranks significantly. Now they had two targets instead of just one to focus on, but there still seemed to be more of them swarming over each Princess than there had been before when Celestia was the only pony involved in the fighting.

Celestia went high, while Luna swooped low. Their advantage in numbers had been rapidly offset by the appearance of a multitude of lesser creatures, which, while little more than distractions, did just that; distracted. It was hard to focus on Malaranth, but the two of them kept on trying, firing off blasts of magic in the Daemon's direction, while its staff deflected anything that came too close with a glowing shield wall of energy.

As the fighting drew closer to the city once again, a smattering of anti-aircraft fire suddenly added to the confusion, and to the problems facing the Princesses. Again it was not a threat by itself, but combined with the thousands of lesser Daemons and the power of Malaranth, the shields that Luna and Celestia were using to protect themselves were wearing down gradually, a war of attrition with so much energy striking their exterior. They did away with large swathes of the smaller creatures using their magic, killing by the dozen, much as they might wipe out Changeling drones in such a fashion.

Malaranth continued to observe, even as he fought, taking note of what he faced and what their capabilities seemed to be. It paid special attention to Luna, as it had already observed her sister in action and wanted to learn more about the younger sibling. Broadly, her power was similar. She utilised many of the same attacks, though with slightly less variety than Celestia; that was to be expected, as the younger of the two siblings. Luna most likely had learned less about combat, or perhaps simply chosen to specialise in certain areas of it. It seemed she might be slightly more agile than her sister, though perhaps that came at the expense of being less durable. Luna's shield could be the weaker of the two. That seemed common across the galaxy, wherever Malaranth had been and whatever species it had faced; faster things were more vulnerable than slower things. Whether it applied here would be interesting to see, a factor that could determine the battle, or play no part in its outcome. That was the beauty of change, after all, and of unpredictability. Everything Malaranth was reasoning about his opponents could be completely wrong, and that was a feeling that had a unique, interesting spice to it, a subtle flavour of entropy and uncertainty that was one of the most delicious sensations a follower of Tzeentch could hope to experience.

Celestia halted in the sky. She flapped her wings once, and a concussive wave of air pushed back a swarm of Daemons that were trying to envelop her, hurling them across the sky before they recovered their stability. In the gap afford her, Celestia let fly with a lightning-fast burst of golden magic which grazed Malaranth, its attention momentarily fixated on Luna. The Daemon spun around to engage the elder sibling instead, and with a flick of its claw, a wall of rock suddenly appeared, hanging in front of Celestia as she started moving again. She narrowly avoided slamming into it, and retaliated with a magic blast to destroy the wall. It went straight though; there was nothing truly there, all just an illusion to distract. By the time she flew through the wall herself, Malaranth was gone.

Her aura spell kept her on track, however, and the Daemon could not escape her gaze. Malaranth was still focused more on Luna, as he sensed a potentially easier target in her compared to Celestia. But Luna was keen to prove the Daemon wrong, and teleported behind it, firing a strong blast of magic, teleporting back in front of it, repeating the process, and doing the same half a dozen times, trying to rapidly hit the target with multiple bursts in an attempt to break through its shield. It was not enough, with Malaranth withstanding the onslaught. The Daemon immediately retaliated, catching Luna as she teleported behind it, with a huge fireball of warp energy that engulfed the younger Princess.

Celestia sprang to her aid, firing a focused beam of magic at Malaranth, striking its shield bodily and sending it reeling back a little. It was not enough to break through, or to harm the Daemon, however; a blast that would have destroyed an airship or an entire battalion of infantry did nothing to the creature. It was still there, still alive, and still fighting.

But so was Luna. Despite the enormous blast that had enveloped her, her shield had held firm and not buckled. Despite both Celestia and Malaranth being reinforced, the stalemate seemed to be continuing, with neither side able to gain an upper hand on the situation. The continued arrival of more Daemons always threatened to tip things in Malaranth's favour, and every time a rift opened, either Celestia or Luna would hurry to close it, while the other Princess covered them and tried to draw Malaranth's attention to them and away from the other. It continued to work well, but the Daemons continued through. Perhaps they were the same ones that had already been killed; essentially nothing was known about their true nature by either Princess, save for the few words Lord-Admiral Marcos had used to describe them. Seeing as how they seemed to come from another dimension or some other spectral plane that could neither be detected nor visited, so far as they knew, it was rather hard to find out any information on the Daemonic, their home, their origin or their powers.

Marcos had filled Celestia in with some brief information, as much as he could spare in the short time he had, but even he knew little about their true nature. Apparently such knowledge was heavily restricted within the Imperium, due to the deleterious effects that even simply studying Chaos could have upon a man's psyche. If men went mad just from reading about the Daemons, then it was no wonder they had not been able to fight them effectively.

Celestia knew that Malaranth the Infinite had tried to probe her mind, tried to cause a similar outcome as it might expect from most humans. But that was never going to happen. Her mind was too strong for such things, for she carried the will and the love of millions of ponies within it. They looked to her, and she provided, as she had for centuries. She would continue to do so, for eternity if needed. Ponies relied upon her. She was their leader, their hope and their inspiration, their light in the darkness and their guiding star in times of strife. In a situation like this, an unprecedented invasion from the heavens, she was all that many ponies could turn to, and she would not let them down. She, and the Equestrian military, may have been caught cold by the arrival of humans and their dark counterparts, but none could have realistically expected such things. Even Celestia had been surprised, and while that unnerved many under her command since the Princess was normally ahead of the curve, they had remained confident she would correct matters, perhaps even more confident than she herself had been.

Malaranth's attempts to infiltrate Celestia's mind had failed, and would be set to fail again if the Daemon should repeat the trick, but its physical attacks were very potent indeed. Only Discord and Chrysalis at the volcano Hive had offered a similar level of strength and trickery, but Malaranth had the added benefit that Celestia and Luna knew almost nothing about it. They could not predict its movements or actions, since they knew nothing about its mindset. That made it very hard to know what it might do next. Its ability to conjour up tear in reality to summon its fellows, for example, had been discovered the hard way. What other tricks it might possess could only be guessed at, at least until it revealed them.

Luna swooped down upon Malaranth as Celestia attacked from the front, trying to land a blow that would at least stagger the creature, if not finish it off outright. Magic blasts and psychic energy that missed their targets were chewing up the grassland around the edge of Fillydelphia, though the trio, along with the swarms of Daemonic minions, were getting closer to the city itself, almost fighting overhead, which drew gunfire from the Chaos infantry below whenever they could get a clear shot at one of the two ponies, trying their best not to fire near their Daemonic protector, not that it mattered much if they did, as Malaranth would shrug off such minor inconveniences just as easily as it had shrugged off the deadly touch of the lance beams from orbit. Neither side were easy targets, and neither side were going to go down without a fight. The numbers advantage of the smaller Daemons was telling, but not decisive, in the course of the battle.

The Princesses could rely only upon each other for support, but they made a formidable team. To bring along any infantry or air support from the pony military would have been a needless waste of life, and the human ground forces were staying well clear for the same reason. No doubt the Lord-Admiral wanted partly to use the fighting as a gauge on Celestia's strength, and Luna's also. He had not seen the younger sister in action thus far, and the sensors of the Emperor's Judgement were indeed paying close attention to Luna as best they could from orbit. But the truth of the matter was that the human infantry and all of their vehicles were seemingly useless against this creature. They had delivered massed firepower that far outclassed anything Equestria could field save for through magic. Not only that, but they had then topped even that with a display of deadly accuracy from above, striking from orbit, and that had seemingly done nothing either.

Nor, in truth, were Celestia and Luna achieving any progress. Occasional strikes were landing upon Malaranth, but it was able to absorb of deflect them with its psychic abilities, controlled through its staff. Perhaps if it could be separated from the staff? But no, that would not be enough. Some of its attacks were clearly not being channelled through the peculiar object it carried, but rather were being launched directly from its claws, or from its mind. Whether it acted as a conduit or as some form of booster to its power, neither Celestia, Luna nor the Lord-Admiral knew. Perhaps there was no staff at all in reality; perhaps it was an illusion, as convincing as the stone wall it had thrown up in Celestia's path.

Malaranth turned its attentions onto Luna once more. This time, it tried the same mental tricks it had attempted to play on Celestia, probing and searching for some chink or crack in her mental armour. Luna had been banished, it seemed, betrayed her sister in the past, as Lord Tzeentch no doubt had predicted- although nothing about these strange ponies was entirely certain. Yes, that could be a way in, Malaranth decided. Play on those insecurities, keep pressing and pressing, turn blood against blood, just as Horus had been turned against the Emperor. It had already happened once to Luna and Celestia- why could it not happen again?

Simply put, it could not happen because Malaranth could not gain access. Just like her sister, Luna's mind was closed to him, resistant. The two pony Princesses were quite unlike any of the countless other creatures Malaranth had fought in the past, directly on the field of battle or through pulling the strings behind closed doors. They were inscrutable, just like Discord, though rather less confusingly than in his case. Both Celestia and Luna held that same infuriating spirit and goodness that the Emperor possessed, which was part of the reason that Chaos had never been able to turn him against his people, nor his people, in their entirety, against him. The fact that their minds were not present in the warp the way other sentient beings were just made things harder. It did not matter too much, Malaranth decided. No doubt there would be others among the pony ranks that would prove more receptive to his ideas, with weaker wills or more flaws and vulnerabilities to exploit, and without the ability to resist that these Alicorns seemed to possess.

Perhaps it would not matter anyway. After all, the plan would proceed regardless of whether the two Princesses were defeated or not.

The Destroyer Leader Panthera Rex held station some twenty million miles from the planet, along with the two other Cobra-Class vessels of destroyer section Quintus. As part of the distant picket line of escort ships, section Quintus was patrolling the space around the planet which was out of view of the sensors of the main bulk of the fleet. There task was one where boredom was hoped for, longed for, because it meant that nothing was happening and that there were no threats to the fleet, nothing to concern the Admirals and commanders of the main task force. The crew and captains of Quintus well remembered what had happened to section Tertius- destroyed by the rogue Chaos battleship that had apparently been still lurking in the outer system, just waiting for a chance to strike out and kill. The ships of Tertius had fallen to its guns, but then curiously once it had reached the main fleet, it did not fire upon them, but rather just destroyed itself, overloading its reactors. Nobody aboard Tertius knew why that should have been the case, but many had seen it with their own eyes, or at least through their own sensors.

What had been made abundantly clear by that incident was that their task was a vital one. Early warning for the fleet was a necessity, as an unprepared ship could be struck a deadly blow before they could even get their shields up, if they were unlucky enough, or the enemy fast enough. It was exactly that tactic that Dark Eldar raiders and pirates tended to use; lightning fast strikes out of nowhere, straight from warp usually. They knew their ships could never stand up in battle to a craft of the Imperial Navy. Only through the tactics of a coward, hitting and running, could those foes ever hope to inflict any meaningful damage.

The men and women of the Panthera Rex's bridge crew were on alert, despite it being towards the end of a twelve-hour shift on duty. Auspex arrays had to be constantly manned to be effective, and the trio of destroyers were busy scouting out an asteroid cluster from long range. Such clusters were highly unusual- most asteroids, even those classified as being in groups or belts, were usually thousands of miles apart at the minimum. A cluster of objects such as this one would suggest that perhaps two extremely large asteroids had collided at some point in the past, or perhaps a small planetoid had broken up due to tidal forces from Kuda Prime or from the system's star, which the debris now orbited.

As had been ably demonstrated by the Daemonfate, such asteroid clusters could provide ideal hiding places for a ship that was on the run, evading detection or fleeing a battle. Even though this cluster had been checked before, it had to be checked again. The Daemonfate's location had not been picked up during several sweeps of the point where it eventually was to be encountered by destroyer section Tertius, and it was never possible to be too careful.

Long range scans were being conducted by the Auspexes of the Panthera Rex as the other two ships provided cover, their torpedo tubes loaded and ready to engage in case anything should leap out at them. The scans picked up metallic signatures, but they were consistent with the class of asteroid being scanned. Nothing untoward. No sign of the enemy. Sector all clear, move on to the next.

The three escorts proceeded through space, their engines silently humming in the void, driving them onward. Their sector would be in vox-sight of the relay picket, one of the light cruisers, the Brigand's Folly. A routine report was made; sector 7, all clear, proceeding to sector 8. The message was relayed to fleet command, just another patrol with no substance, no contacts.

The ships reached sector eight, bringing them back closer to the planet. It was just empty space, with no need for deep investigations or anything other than routine scans. Those scans had been conducted dozens of times before. But this time, something was different.

The warp fluctuation sensors of the Panthera Rex reported unusual readings. Those of the other two ships confirmed them moments later. The readings were coming from behind them, from farther out in the system. The Panthera Rex's captain ordered a turn, and the destroyers began to come about, but before they could bring their bows more than a few degrees around, hell erupted behind them.

Out of the Immaterium they came, one, two, half a dozen, more. The threat grids lit up with blood-red sigils, triggering an automatic alarm from the tactical consoles. The Rex's captain called for battle stations. His first instinct was to continue the turn, to face the unknown threat. A quick glance at the tactical map told him otherwise. Instead, he ordered full speed ahead, and shouted over to the vox officer, who responded rapidly, sending out a signal.

'Brigand's Folly, this is destroyer section Quintus! We have hostile contacts! I say again, we have hostile contacts!'

Incoming

Destroyer section Quintus kicked their main drives to full and drove straight for the planet, back to the fleet, back to protection and relative safety. Staying where they had been was tantamount to suicide. Turning to fight would have been even more futile.

Their frantic messages to the Brigand's Folly had been rapidly relayed to the rest of the fleet, which had immediately gone to full alert, forming up into combat formation. The Brigand's Folly, acting as a relay picket ship, had been withdrawn, with orders sent out for all scout ships and escort sections to withdraw to sector 1, which was the designation given to the space above the main continent. Destroyer section Quintus proceeded at full speed, with many a figurative glance over the shoulder.

Behind them came nearly two dozen Chaos capital ships. Leading the charge came four battleships, a trio of Despoiler-Class vessels and a Desolator-Class. There were four Repulsive-Class Grand Cruisers, a dozen Cruisers and Light Cruisers, and a small swarm of escorts and raiders. A Chaos warfleet, striking seemingly from nowhere. Evidently the Ruinous Powers were not content to simply leave this planet alone, nor were they content to send their Daemonic minions to try and conquer it. Now they were sending fresh men, ships and resources to replace those wiped out by the Imperial Crusade.

The planet had fallen mostly under Imperial influence, save for a few small, scattered holdouts and occupied towns. The main bastion of resistance was FIllydelphia, but Malaranth the Infinite was steadying the ship there and tying up the Imperial ground forces, as well as the two pony Princesses. The Imperial fleet in orbit was heavily depleted, a shadow of its former self. When it arrived in the system, several months ago, it was a mighty force, one to be reckoned with, one that could conquer entire star systems or terrify planets into submission by its mere presence and the threat of its guns. Now, it was a hollow shell, with but a handful of capital ships and a few squadrons of escorts. It was no longer a conquest force, or even an occupation force, in truth. While there were still large numbers of Imperial Guard aboard the numerous transports and planetside, their protection was limited. The fleet could not stand for long against a large-scale enemy attack, and yet that was exactly what was coming their way. A force even bigger than the initial raiding fleet that had pushed them back thanks to the warp storm was heading their way, and they had little time to prepare. What the enemy wanted was unknown- did they want to destroy the remnants of the fleet and avenge their own fallen comrades? Did they want to glass the planet's surface, destroy all life? Did they want to force the Imperials away and take control of the planet for themselves? Did they simply want to rescue their men who were trapped on the planet?

There was no guarantee that the desires of this latest warfleet coincided with those of the original attackers, who had seemingly been interested in capturing, killing or studying the Princesses in some fashion. Different sects of Chaos, and those following different gods, could just as easily fight each other as fight the Imperium, and the identities of these ships and their specific loyalties were unknown. For the most part, they were also irrelevant. Chaos was Chaos, and had to be fought and eradicated wherever it was possible.

Destroyer section Quintus had raised their shields in anticipation of a bombardment from behind, and it came shortly after, while they were still millions of miles from the protective umbrella of the rest of the fleet. Long range lance fire struck out at them, playing over the shields. The rear arc of each ship's defences had been reinforced by rerouting power from the front and sides, for extra protection as they ran for safety. A strike to the aft end of the ship's hull could cripple its main drives and render them helpless, dead in space and easy prey for the oncoming Chaos fleet.

The shields held against the scattered, long-range fire. The enemy was still distant, many millions of miles away, but closing fast, as they had left warp at a fair pace without slowing down. Their target was clear, even if their intentions were not so immediately apparent. The destroyers had an advantage of speed over the heavily armed capital ships, although Chaos escorts were just as fast, if not faster in many cases. They did not want to waste their torpedoes on such comparatively weak targets as Imperial destroyers; they were reserved for fighting capital ships, where their immense explosive power could be used to greatest effect.

Imperial escort squadrons from several other points around the system were being rapidly recalled and were hurrying back to get into combat formation with the rest of the fleet. The bridge of the Emperor's Judgement was busy. They had been focused on a fight on the ground below, but now they had to quickly change their attention to a battle for their own survival. Lord-Admiral Marcos had pounded his fists on the railing of his command lectern in frustration at the message relayed from destroyer section Quintus. Yet more Chaos interference and another threat to his fleet; that was the last thing they needed now. They had a good handle on things up to this point, clearing out Chaos forces from a number of cities on the planet, securing the space around it, driving away the previous enemy fleet after crippling it, though suffering heavy losses themselves in the process. The arrival of the Daemon was bad enough, a clear threat to their ground operations at the very least. But now there was a fleet as well, a threat to the entire Crusade, the fleet, the transports, and every creature on the planet, should they be allowed to get back into orbit and force the Imperial fleet away, or destroy it entirely.

A battle formation was rapidly adopted by the ships of the fleet. The Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable, the two capital ships, were protected at the centre of an array of smaller cruisers, light cruisers, and escort destroyers. Frigates provided outlying support. But the attentions of the fleet had to be on more than just protecting the capital ships. The vulnerable transports, tankers and cargo vessels had been assembled in a large huddle, placed behind the fleet, with their guns between the transports and the approaching enemy. They were on a course to come around the planet roughly at the equator, but there was no guarantee that was where they would emerge. Space, after all, was very much three dimensional, and it was entirely possible for Chaos ships to come over either pole or around the other side of the planet, rather than following the projected route.

Most starship commanders across the galaxy, however, tended to be more restrictive in their thinking. A study of the majority of major space engagements recorded in Imperial archives would tend to indicate the same things; if a battle was fought near a planet, then both fleets tended to orient themselves the same way as the planet itself, with up corresponding to the northern pole of the planet with reference to the galactic plane, rather than to any specific designations given by the local inhabitants. Attack and fighter craft tended to be the ones that would perform all kinds of fancy maneuvers, with several simple and sound reasons behind the relatively static nature of fleet combat.

For one thing, great hulking battlecruisers and battleships were far from the most agile vessels, and to turn or rotate into a different orientation could take an age. Ships that had batteries which could be used for ground attack, or which mounted weapons capable of being used for Exterminatus, usually had such weapons mounted ventrally, meaning keeping their bellies aimed toward the planet was sound tactical sense when in orbit. A uniformity of orientation also aided visual checks by ship commanders if their tactical displays happened to be out of commission, and assisted with damage reporting by friendly vessels. It also helped with emergency signalling, such as that performed by the Polaris Maxima. by making sure the infra-red lights were visible to other craft. Having one's ship upside down in relation to the enemy fleet was of no tactical advantage, except in the few rare cases where doing so would bring otherwise unused weaponry to bear on a target.

Lord-Admiral Marcos was under no illusions that protecting the transports would be a difficult task. The reports from destroyer section Quintus indicated at least twenty enemy ships of the line, along with a similar number of escorts, a force that far outnumbered and outgunned his own. He could sense the worry and the subtle panic running beneath the surface of the bridge crew. No matter how powerful a ship and how experienced its crew, there was only so much they could take on, only so many enemies that could be fended off before their destruction became inevitable. With no idea if the enemy target was the fleet, the transports or the planet itself, Marcos could not formulate a suitable battle plan. He could order the transports to flee into deep space, go to warp if necessary, but if the enemy fleet pursued them, they would be destroyed and those aboard would die to a man. Heavy bulk transports could not outrun, and certainly not outfight, either capital ships or escorts. Their crews and the Guardsmen in their holds would be totally helpless. There was no guarantee they would be safe if they remained close to the fleet, either. They could still be deliberately targeted if they were a target for the enemy. Babysitting duties were most decidedly not what capital ships were designed for, and the need to protect the transports tied Marcos's hands somewhat.

He also had to protect the planet. It would be impossible to prevent the enemy from getting into range to launch Exterminatus-class weapons, if that was their intention. He simply did not have the ships to protect all sides of the planet at once. Splitting his forces piecemeal would invite their rapid destruction at the hands of such a large force. If the enemy simply wanted to bombard the planet from the other side, there would be little Marcos could do about it, other than to move his whole fleet around it to engage, by which time it would already be too late. If the enemy wanted to occupy the planet, to land upon it and take it for themselves, however, they would need to take out the Imperial fleet, and that was what Marcos was counting on. As long as they wanted to engage him, then he could fight. His ships could fight, his men could fight. They had done so before and they would do so again. The Lord-Admiral had no doubt that every crewmember aboard every ship would give their utmost. Not to protect the planet or its inhabitants, not to protect the vulnerable guardsmen, not for glory or honour or even for the Emperor, but for themselves and for each other. The comradeship of a good crew had no compare throughout the known galaxy, save for the bonded Battle Brothers of the holy Astartes. Ship crews were forged in blood and made from steel, hardened in battle and through the shared hardships of life among the stars. The men on the lower decks might not like their commanders or their officers, and may even openly despise some of them, but they would fight and work and struggle for their fellow shipmates, the men and women who slept in sweat-stained bunks, ate the same slop served on the mess decks, and who toiled alongside them in the furnace-heat of the engine and reactor rooms, the hazardous exhaust gases and clanging metal of the Macrocannon galleries, or the blood-soaked horror of the wartime infirmaries.

And many times, none of that was enough. Marcos feared this could be one of those times. Quick mental calculations made an estimate of how many guns he had available to him, and how many the enemy likely had. Firepower alone did not decide battles, but it was always better to have more of it than less. Repairs, at least, had been completed on all ships since the last major engagement, and each vessel was in as good a shape as it could be, given the lack of spare parts and crew losses they had all endured. Not one single combat vessel did not bear any scars from previous fighting, and some had suffered more than others, but they were all ready to do battle again.

Destroyer section Quintus rounded the planet, appearing on the fleet's sensors as a trio of blue sigils. A welcome sight, but not enough to tip the scales of battle. Marcos sent a signal for them to form up on the left flank of the fleet; that was to say, the side closest to the planet, plugging a gap in the line. They reported the enemy fleet was still following them, following their trajectory toward the planet, which would bring them out at roughly the same point, coming around the planet and into view. The one advantage Marcos had was that the planet would have hidden his ships from the enemy Auspex scans. They could not know the exact positions of the Imperial ships, and nor could they know their numbers, unless they had somehow been able to communicate with enemy forces already on the planet somehow, astropathically perhaps. An opening salvo, catching the Chaos ships by surprise, could sew enough confusion to throw the enemy operation into disarray, but it was still a long shot. The enemy may not know their numbers, but they knew that Imperial forces were in the system. They would not be advancing blindly into danger. Their void shields would be raised, their weapons armed and ready.

If they were lucky, the Emperor would protect them. If they were unlucky, then He had already forsaken their doomed Crusade. The ships of destroyer section Quintus moved into position with the rest of the fleet, and every man and woman aboard every ship waited, with every gun that could be brought to bear aimed at the approximate area where the enemy would appear.

And appear they did, just as predicted. They were slightly above the equatorial plane of the planet, which suited the Imperial fleet since they were in a similar position. Several squadrons of escorts, destroyers and frigates, appeared, a nasty rash of red sigils on the tactical displays. Behind them came the cruisers, but it was the capital ships that were the real targets, the battleships and Grand Cruisers. Despite the inevitable warnings from the lead vessels which would have picked up the Imperial ships right away, the Chaos capital ships continued on, seemingly unconcerned, perhaps a statement of intent, or perhaps simply because the numbers were very much in their favour. The lead ships began to make the turn towards the Imperial fleet, and as the capital ships appeared, Marcos gave a simple, one-word order.

'Fire!'

If Canterlot without Princess Celestia seemed an incomplete place, then Canterlot with either Celestia or Luna seemed downright empty. Twilight had returned to the throne room to share with the night princess a few minor observations she had made of the enemy ships in orbit, only to find Princess Cadence in her place. While she was of course glad to see her former foalsitter, she had immediately asked the question that had to be asked. Where was Luna?

She had received the answer she was hoping not to hear. Gone to help Celestia in the fight against the Daemon. While it was good that assistance was available, it meant that Celestia had decided she may not be capable of tackling the Daemon alone. Even if she could, the mere fact that she had enough doubt in her mind as to call for aid meant that the creature she fought was a most formidable foe indeed.

Twilight most fervently hoped that the Elements would not be required to defeat the creature, for it was down to her inattention that one of them was missing. If only she had prevented her own capture...but she had told herself she was past thinking about that. She had accepted the words of Spitfire and Luna, she had moved on, or so it seemed. Just when she was starting to put it all behind her, something came and reminded her again of her error, her failure.

Cadence had offered comforting words, of course. She did it so well. She always had, right from when Twilight had been a foal and felt bad about something. She remembered once time when she had accidentally smashed the cookie jar when trying to grab a second treat, even though Cadence had already given her one. Her magic had not been as refined then as it was now, and down had gone the jar, shattering into a thousand pieces. Her first reaction had been to run, and then to cry. When Cadence found her and confronted her, she cried again, and Cadence had immediately turned from stern guardian to a second mother, giving Twilight a warm embrace with her wings. She was not mad, she had said, because Twilight had admitted her mistakes. Yes, she had run away at first, because she was scared. But when Cadence found her, she had confessed to the crime of breaking the jar, which earned her immediate forgiveness, a cuddle, and an extra cookie, while Cadence used her magic to repair the jar. Now Twilight had made another costly error, but this time, unlike the jar, the missing Element could not simply be reassembled or recreated. It was gone, perhaps for good, unless they could find Chrysalis and get it back from her grasp.

At any rate, Cadence was now in command until either Luna or Celestia returned to Canterlot. As the only other Alicorn, a heavy weight had suddenly fallen on her shoulders. Yes, she had been responsible for the Crystal Empire for a short while, but now, at least temporarily, she was directly responsible for the whole of Equestria, all of its military forces and all of its citizens. Cadence was far younger and less experienced than the two sisters in such matters, and while she had been a competent and well-liked ruler of the Empire, this was altogether different for her. Even if it was only for a few hours, the weight of responsibility had clearly already lined her face somewhat. The burden of controlling the entire country was one that only Celestia and, ironically, Discord, had known for many, many centuries. It was not something Cadence had been entirely prepared for, though she had been groomed into the role from a young age, and given her first real taste of power and control with the Crystal Empire. Twilight could tell that she was finding it an imposing challenge, but could offer nothing in the way of useful advice in return. All she could do was listen to the words of the temporary, acting commander-in-chief, nod, agree with her.

This was what Celestia was ultimately training you for, wasn't it? Should it not be you giving the orders? One day, it can be.

Cadence had naturally delegated all military matters to her husband, who was already Guard Commander. Shining Armour was the best pony for the job as he had a seat on the chiefs of staff council, which advised the Princess. Again, however, commanding the Guard was not the same as commanding the Guard, the Army, the Navy and the Air Corps all at once. Like his wife, Shining Armour hoped that the new conditions would be temporary. If nothing else, military and civilian alike needed at least one of the two sisters as a figurehead, though their roles were far greater and more important than that.

Twilight, meanwhile, was left with nothing to do. She could offer no guidance or advice to either her brother or Princess Cadence. She had no responsibilities as part of the city's defensive plan, at least not without her Element. All she could do was wait and hope, like all the other civilians in Canterlot. Hope that Celestia and Luna would return, and that they would be victorious. That was what had to happen. They had to come back, alive and well. Even if they did not vanquish the Daemon, they still simply had to come back.

But if they do not, then perhaps your potential can finally be unlocked.

The city was surprisingly quiet, though few ponies knew that Celestia had gone to fight, and fewer still that Luna had gone after her. Nevertheless, the mood, which had been somewhat buoyant after the return above ground and the clearing of much of the radioactive fallout, had become fairly subdued again. Perhaps ponies subconsciously felt the absence of their Princesses, or perhaps it was some function of the Daemon's presence on the planet. Twilight had certainly felt things. Whispers, it would perhaps be best to call them, inside her mind, long before this creature appeared. Right from the start, in fact, of the invasion. Part of her had said to herself that it was just a general unease, disquiet at the situation and fear of the unknown. But the more she had learned about the enemy, the more rumours had reached her about their atrocities and foul practices, the more convinced she had become that there was more to it than that. A subtle effect, perhaps, like when Discord had tried to persuade Twilight and her friends that they did not need each other's support to escape that maze, trying to turn them against each other in order to defeat them and the Elements they carried.

Unlike Discord, however, this effect had been more direct, voices in the back of her mind, whispering words that she, for the most part, could not even understand, yet which sounded malicious, evil. She knew that both Celestia and Luna had also heard them, and now she was fairly sure she knew the source. It had to have been this Daemon, speaking to them somehow from another dimension, because the words and the voice had suddenly become much louder.

With nothing else to do except worry herself, Twilight returned to Luna's chambers and to the waiting telescope. It was still trained on the same spot of sky she had been looking at before, and she peered through. That was odd. The ships were gone. Even accounting for orbital drift and planetary rotation, at least one of them should have still been visible at the low zoom setting. She moved the telescope to another nearby quadrant of the sky. Ah, there they were. Definitely the same two ships she had seen before, but now they were suddenly accompanied by more, another half dozen smaller vessels. They weren't there before, or at least, Twilight hadn't seen them. They must have all moved together. They seemed to be in some kind of formation. Only when Twilight zoomed in some more did she see that there were more craft, considerably smaller but still impressive in size, though she could not do the calculations needed to determine all of their lengths without plenty of spare paper. Another couple of dozen, it seemed. How had she not noticed them before? She had been studying the area of sky around the two largest ships quite intently. It seemed that the vessels had come together for some reason. Another landing operation, perhaps, in support of the Princesses? Maybe the smaller craft were transports. But, no, she was sure she had heard somewhere that the human transport ships were almost as big as the capital ships, if not even more bulky in some cases. Did their warships carry infantry in the same way that pony airships did? That would be an interesting study, at least for her brother, someone more martial-minded than herself.

Twilight blinked, and looked again. Despite the brightness of the blue sky, she could not just see the ships, but tiny dots, twinkling like miniature stars, heading outward from each craft. Some were streaks of light, other just pinpricks. Perhaps they were transports after all, and she was mistaken? Were these shuttles and landing craft, like those which she had seen at Griffonstone? No, they weren't heading for the planet, they were moving away, toward the eastern horizon. Twilight looked again, and it was only then that she made the connection, with a twinge of horror running through her veins. It was not landing craft that she could see. It was gunfire.

Fight Or Flight

At the Lord-Admiral's command, fury was unleashed upon the foe. Dozens of torpedo tubes, loaded and ready aboard the escorts, let rip with a vicious salvo of heavy plasma and nuclear warheads. The lances of the capital ships roared into life, and the Nova Cannon of the Indefatigable thundered with rage, its mighty report echoing along the companionways and shaking the entire length of the battlecruiser.

Perhaps through overeagerness, or through an inexperienced commander, the Chaos fleet fell into the trap, though they were not unprotected. Their ships began to turn as soon as they picked up the Auspex contacts of the Imperial fleet, and their shields were raised, but they had still been caught by surprise. The long-range weaponry of the Imperial ships had been targeted, at Marcos's orders, on the Chaos capital ships. Fired at the relatively close range of planetary orbital combat, they did not give the enemy any time to react before they struck.

The Nova Cannon shell detonated first, travelling at near light-speed. The titanic energies unleashed buckled void shields and shorted out emitters. Lances played over the shields and hulls of the enemy ships as torpedoes punched right through the energy screens to detonate against the vessels themselves. Flames blossomed from the side of several enemy ships as the torpedoes tore through their armoured outer plating. Thousands of traitor crewmen died in moments, and none of the Imperial gunners would lose any sleep over that fact. Their aim had been true, a hammer blow delivered to a cocky enemy who thought they could intrude with impunity on this place, this planet that was to become part of the Imperium. The fate of Kuda Prime was to be down to the Lord-Admiral, not any warfleet of Chaos, to decide.

As soon as the tubes were loaded, each escort fired again at the same targets. The lances of the two capital ships glowed white hot, hurling more death and destruction through low orbit toward the enemy, striking home with each shot. Attack craft swarmed out into space ahead of the Imperial fleet, with orders not to attack, but rather to defend, protecting the capital ships against enemy torpedoes which would inevitably follow as soon as the Chaos escorts managed to turn their bows on target. As the range closed, the rest of the ship's weapons could be brought into play, provided the angle was right, but to bring the broadside guns on target would require turning and exposing the flanks of the fleet to the enemy, a juicy target indeed for their torpedoes and lances. It was much easier to hit a target that was several miles long than it was to hit one which was presenting a head-on profile of a fraction of the size.

No Chaos ship was destroyed in the opening volley, but one of the Grand Cruisers and one of the Despoiler-Class battleships were hit especially hard, pounded by a dozen or more torpedoes each, their flanks ripped open, crippling entire gun decks and knocking out sensor arrays. The ships were still in the fight, however, and along with the rest of the warfleet, they turned toward their foe, ready to fight, lances already flashing, able to engage at any angle thanks to being mounted in turrets.

The Imperial ships were ready for them, lobbing more torpedoes at the enemy capital craft. The same Repulsive-Class Grand Cruiser that had already been damaged took several more strong hits to its flank before it could turn, and a series of internal explosions rapidly ripped through it, some ammunition store or secondary reactor having been hit and spreading to others nearby. Within moments, the ship was dead in space, slowly rotating thanks to the inertia imparted by its maneuvering jets. The rest of the Grand Cruisers came on target, along with the battleships they preceded in the line. Marcos ordered some of his cruisers to bring their broadsides to bear, and suddenly space was alive with flashing las-rounds, plasma bolts, missiles, shells and railgun projectiles, a huge amount of firepower being hurled at the enemy.

Chaos escorts lined up their torpedo tubes and engaged. Imperial attack craft rapidly sprang into action, targeting the incoming projectiles. The torpedoes were well over a hundred feet in length, minuscule in the context of space combat, but larger than the craft tasked with intercepting them. If they made it through the fighter screen, point defences aboard the ships of the fleet would strike out at them. If they made it through that final layer of defence, then they would punch through hull armour, powerful melta warheads detonating inside the decks, consuming all the oxygen in a string of compartments in a firestorm, or plasma charges ripping great gouges in the plating. A terrible toll could be taken by even a single volley of those deadly weapons, which ignored void shields, simply sailing right through if they were not stopped.

Another Nova Cannon shot from the Indefatigable ripped through the lightly armoured prow of one of the Chaos escort cruisers. It detonated in a mighty fireball that was rapidly snuffed out by the vacuum, tearing the front third of the ship into a ragged ruin, puffs of oxygen venting from exposed compartments. Battle was well and truly joined, as the Chaos ships swung into action. Several of the other cruisers came in at an angle, enough to still bring their broadsides into play against the Crusade fleet, who were stubbornly holding their ground.

Marcos ordered the transports to pull back. The fleet was forming a line of steel between them and the enemy, but there was no guarantee that the Chaos fleet would stop once they reached the battle line. They could well continue on, and with the transports lying just a couple of hundred thousand miles to the rear, they would be sitting ducks. The transports, tankers and freighters powered up their engines, throwing all available power to their aft shields for protection as they headed out into deep system, clear of the planet. It was the only, tiny, sliver of hope Marcos could offer them. If the line held and the fleet somehow fought off the aggressors, then it would not matter. But if the enemy broke through and the transports were still there, it would be a massacre. At least fleeing now gave them the option of going to warp and leaving the system entirely if circumstances necessitated it. The warships would be lucky to be extended the same courtesy. They had to fight. This was the Archenemy, no mere pirate or even Xenos. They were the anathema, and whatever one thought of this planet or its strange inhabitants, almost all would agree that it would be better for the place to be left alone under Xenos dominion than to let it fall to Chaos. That sentiment was echoed especially by those who knew something of the true psychic nature of some of its population, especially the Princesses and the Changeling Queen, who were all mighty minds inside vastly powerful bodies. To let the forces of darkness get hold of such beings would potentially be a threat to the Imperium in itself, if the Archenemy could somehow sway their minds and lure them to the service of the Ruinous Powers, however unlikely that seemed to actually occur. It was something which had to be guarded against.

Perhaps the best course of action would be, ultimately, Exterminatus. If they could not keep the enemy at bay, was it better to destroy the planet and all life upon it? Most likely, however, it was already too late for such a thing. The process of Exterminatus was not instantaneous. It took time, time that the Chaos fleet would not give them to carry out their task. They could still attempt it if it came down to it, lobbing a few virus bombs into the atmosphere as they turned to flee or as the last ship began to break up under heavy fire, but it would be a futile efforts, almost certainly.

In any case, such thoughts were jumping the gun rather a lot. The fleet was not dead, nor was it fleeing. It was fighting, and that was what it was designed to do, what it did best. The cruisers formed a shield line in front of the two capital ships, while the escorts remained on both flanks so as to hurl torpedoes at the enemy without getting in the line of fire of any heavier ordnance. They were not needed to form a torpedo screen; the attack craft and fighters were doing that. The Chaos escorts, however, were being employed for just such a purpose, and several off their frigates disappeared in blossoms of fire as they were struck by Imperial fire. Weapons designed to crack the hull of a capital ship made short work of the much lighter armour of an escort craft, shredding it and, at the very least, igniting dozens of internal fires while opening scores of compartments to vacuum, killing thousands. A single strike was enough to cripple a frigate, two would finish off a destroyer. But under Chaos doctrine, as well as Imperial, the escorts were expendable, designed for similar purposes; absorbing enemy fire, distraction runs, and an occasional lucky punch with their own torpedo armament. Being assigned to an escort was not a death sentence, for many plied their trade in system patrol duties or low-hazard convoy escorts, but a frigate or destroyer that was exposed to the rigours of combat often did not last very long, and nor did their crew. That was why they were churned out in their thousands by the mighty Imperial shipyards, all across the galaxy, part of the tried and tested philosophy employed by both the Navy and the Guard; might makes right, and if you can't have might, have numbers.

This day, however, the numbers belonged to the enemy. The Chaos fleet heavily outgunned their Imperial foes, and despite the brief early setback from the surprise attack, they were recovering rapidly and getting into good battle order, their ships adopting a spearhead formation. At the tip of the spear were the three undamaged Grand Cruisers, their fearsome firepower ideal for ripping through an enemy battle line, as had been clearly demonstrated during the initial arrival of the previous Chaos warfleet. Their captains hoped to perform the same function again and cut through the defensive wall that separated them from the transports, or perhaps merely to get in position above the main continent in order to start landing operations or perform their own version of Exterminatus. Nobody could say for certain.

Marcos surveyed the scene both through the viewscreen, the bridge viewports, and on the tactical displays that gave an indication of the course of the battle. The torpedo strikes had been effective, and more were on their way, being delivered by the Imperial escorts. Bombers were ranging out ahead of the fleet in an attempt to fire off strings of missiles at the enemy Grand Cruisers leading the charge and hopefully slow them down, but the bombers were horrendously vulnerable, especially without their fighter escorts, as those craft were being used to hunt down and destroy incoming torpedoes.

It was a deadly dance, a confusing swirl of red and blue icons and sigils on the holo-map and the tac displays that only a trained eye could decipher at all. It took years of training to become a successful naval officer, and decades of experience to be a good admiral. Marcos had all the experience and training one could desire, and that meant he could see that their situation was most likely futile. The enemy had the numbers and the firepower. They had the speed advantage, and the maneuverability edge; the Imperial fleet would be essentially rooted in place, either to protect the planet or to protect the lumbering transports as they slowly hauled themselves free of the planet's gravity well. That meant they could scarcely use the speed of their escorts to any kind of advantage, nor could they hope to outfly the enemy. Marcos briefly considered a counter-charge, driving at full speed through the enemy fleet. Against a weaker force, it would have been effective, but the lances and secondary batteries of four battleships and four Grand Cruisers would have overwhelmed their defences and ripped his ships apart within minutes.

Nor could they maintain standoff range. Retreating slowly while keeping their bows to the enemy would be tantamount to surrendering the planet without a fight, as the Chaos fleet need not pursue if that was their goal. Simply clearing the space around the planet and taking up residence in orbit would be enough, if they intended to make landings as the previous warfleet had done. With options disappearing left and right, Marcos was left with a hard choice. Cut and run, or fight to the last?

The Lord-Admiral ordered a destroyer section and two cruisers, the Polaris Maxima and the Astra Gloria, to take advantage of the linear nature of the Chaos fleet's approach. The enemy were, as predicted, all operating on essentially a level plane, as if they were driving down a road in space, rather than hanging in the void. Their engines allowed them to overcome the gravitational pull of the planet and cut through space easily, rather than following a single orbit as a satellite would. They could move to higher or lower orbits essentially at will with a quick burn of the thrusters or the main drives, or, as they were currently doing, to cut across the plane without actually entering an orbit at all.

The Imperial ships had the same advantages, and Marcos intended to make use of them. The two cruisers and their accompanying escorts drove out ahead of the fleet and then cut their drives, engaging their dorsal thrusters, driving them down into a lower orbit, beneath the plane of the approaching Chaos ships. Rotational thrusters fired as well, rolling the huge craft onto their side, relative to both the planet and the Chaos fleet. While still exposed to fire from the more distant enemy ships at the rear of the formation, the Imperial cruisers were now protected from the deadly, massed broadside weapons arrays of the three undamaged Grand Cruisers, unless the enemy vessels performed a similar roll maneuver, but with the rest of the Imperial fleet dead ahead and expected to pass through the sights of their broadside guns any moment, why would they do that?

Except that the rest of the fleet did not remain directly ahead. With another command, Marcos ordered the rest of his ships to fire their main drives in a brief burst of power, enough to push them up into a higher orbit. Suddenly they found themselves above the enemy fleet, which was still driving forward. The Chaos commanders had been expecting to drive into a wall of steel, not to have the Imperial ships part before them like a curtain. Evidently whoever was in command of the fleet was not an experienced admiral, perhaps some warlord or upstart sorcerer with grand ideas about his ability to coordinate a fleet operation. Even when the Imperial fleet split in two, the enemy ships failed to react swiftly, so intent were they on driving right through their opponent. Dorsal lances were able to rotate far enough to engage, but the heavy broadside armament, not just of the Grand Cruisers but the enemy battleships as well, were nullified in one fell swoop.

Marcos had hoped, and his hope had borne fruit. When the enemy fleet appeared around the planet, seemingly unprepared for an immediate engagement, he had hoped that its commander was either inexperienced or simply rash. If the enemy could be lured into one trap, why not two? The remainder of the Imperial fleet, now above the enemy, performed a similar roll maneuver to the other cruisers below, bringing their broadsides to bear. The escorts, lacking the heavy flank armaments of their capital ship charges, instead fired their dorsal and ventral thrusters, bringing their bows to bear from both above and below.

They had to be careful, and precise with their aiming, for any stray shots could slam into friendly vessels in a lower orbit, or into the planet below, causing devastation if they struck a populated area. Fortunately the only weapon apart from those reserved for Exterminatus that was capable of causing major planet-wide damage, the Nova Cannon, was oriented away from the planet and could not be used. The prow-mounted weapon on the Indefatigable accelerated a projectile to near light speed. Even if the potent plasma charge fitted to the projectile did not detonate, if the proximity fuse failed, entirely possible in a weapon designed to operate at far beyond orbital combat ranges, and the projectile sailed onward, the sheer energy of it simply striking the earth would result in a blast many times larger than the one which had recently devastated Baltimare.

The Nova cannon may not have been in the fight, but almost every other weapon in the fleet was. If there had been any atmosphere worthy of the name at such high altitudes in the planet's exosphere, then the noise created would have been among the loudest sounds ever recorded by mankind. Lances blazed, plasma and las-fire flashed and danced, macrocannons hurled hefty shells across the void. Rocket and missile packs let fly like celebratory fireworks for a victory not yet earned. The skies above Equestria lit up with brilliantly strobing gunfire, as the Imperial fleet pounded the passing Chaos ships from above and below.

The three Grand Cruisers had their shields set for maximum possible reinforcement forward. Their dorsal and ventral shields were weak, and under a heavy pounding, they collapsed. A few lance shots in reply struck Imperial shields, but were not enough to break through, although one destroyer tore itself apart thanks to a reactor overload caused by several lance strikes from oncoming enemy cruisers farther back in the formation. Individual Chaos ship commanders dared not break formation to move into a better position, for the punishments for disobeying one's leaders were even more brutal and draconian in the service of the Dark Powers than they were in Imperial fleets. All they could do was reinforce their dorsal and ventral shields and bring what few guns they could to bear.

The Grand Cruisers were peppered with fire. Torpedoes detonated against their hull plating, gouging chunks from it and ripping open compartments. One of the ships managed to redirect all possible power into its dorsal and ventral shields just in time, before the emitters burned out, and weathered the storm relatively unscathed. The other two ships, however, were not so lucky. Lances played across their hulls, tearing sensors and ornamental protuberances away, broken metal and ceramite spiralling away into the void, along with the bodies of those unlucky men to be in damaged compartments. Several of the dorsal lance turrets of the cruisers were ripped away and shattered by the blasts of their counterparts. The huge vessels were wracked by explosions deep within them, torn by hundreds of shots from outside, their hulls smashed and pulverised. The Imperial ships managed to inflict severe damage, blowing holes in the hulls of both Grand Cruisers. The third vessel with its intact shields managed to power through the gauntlet of fire, retaliating as best it could with its lances, striking a blow against one of the cruisers above it and knocking out several of its broadside weapons banks.

Following on behind the Grand Cruisers came the Chaos battleships. They had watched their vanguard torn up by the volleys of fire from the Imperials. One of the battleships had begun a rotation burn to bring its broadsides to bear on the Imperial ships above and below it, but the others continued on course, either awaiting orders or simply unaware of the change in dynamic, which seemed unlikely. Their sensors would pick up the movements of Marcos's ships, and so would their eyes, if they happened to look out of a viewport.

Farther back in the enemy line, some of the cruisers and escorts were now branching out from the single line of attack and moving up into higher orbit themselves to engage directly with the Imperials. However, the bow armament of the Imperial capital ships was still pointing in their direction, and they were engaged with heavy lance fire from forward-facing batteries, as well as a shot from the Nova Cannon of the Indefatigable, which blew apart an entire section of frigates in a heartbeat, with its projectile's time-delay fuse set for the shortest possible safe interval. Any closer would have risked damage to friendly vessels, or to the Indefatigable herself.

Chaos cruisers engaged with their heavy lances, striking the first serious blows of the enemy assault against the Crusade fleet. The single battleship that was turning was now joined by the others, which had finally seen, or been alerted to, their mistake, and the danger they were in. They moved to bring their main broadside guns to bear, but the Imperial ships were still able to pour down fire upon them. The battleships' potent shields took a heavy pounding, while torpedoes fired from the escort ships were able to inflict major hull damage to one of the giants.

With the enemy capital ships now caught in the pincer from above and below, but reacting to the threat, Marcos ordered all ships to apply full power, driving astern of the battleships, striking out at the enemy escorts as they passed by. A few well-aimed torpedoes struck the Emperor's Judgement in return, fired at ranges so close that they scarcely had time to arm themselves and leaving no chance for the point defences to identify, track, lock onto and fire at the signals of incoming warheads. The destroyers that had fired on the Imperial flagship took a heavy battering as a result of getting so close to the powerful broadsides of a battleship, and together the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable accounted for half a dozen of the smaller craft as they passed by. The enemy cruisers offered a stiffer fight, but they had not expected the Imperials to charge them. They too were pounded, but inflicted damage in return with their lance batteries, almost crippling one of the Imperial cruisers.

Meanwhile, below the enemy fleet, the Polaris Maxima and the Astra Glora were performing a similar move, but they were untroubled by enemy escorts or cruisers, the bulk of the enemy force having been lured away topside to intercept the Imperial capital ships. That gave the two cruisers and their modest but potent lance armament a chance to rake the unprotected underbellies of the Chaos battleships as they tried to rotate their lumbering frames around to combat threats from both above and below at the same time. It was not enough to bring down their shields, but it was enough to weaken them significantly, in coordination with the major bombardment they were receiving to their dorsal shielding. The Chaos battleships, in conjunction with the majority of warships, mounted almost no defences on their undersides, save for point defence turrets to protect against torpedoes. Ships of the line were not meant to get into rolling knife fights with enemy fleets; they were supposed to stand at a distance and pummel their targets with massed broadsides or powerful lance batteries.

Once the Imperial ships were clear of the Chaos rearguard, Marcos ordered them into a swift turn, braking jets flaring and thrusters burning hard to bring the ships about and get their broadsides on target. While the enemy were still in disarray at the sudden and aggressive actions of the Imperial fleet, Marcos hoped to strike them from behind. But the enemy commander was finally waking up, and his ships were already turning as well, intent on getting their guns on target before those of the Imperium. It was a deadly race, first to the post might not win, but would certainly do a hell of a lot of damage before they lost.

Round came the bows of both fleets, and as each gun battery saw a target in their scopes, they fired. An almighty barrage of shells, las-fire, plasma and missiles filled the void, aimed squarely at the aft sections of the Chaos ships. Marcos's ploy had worked, and his ships had been first on target, giving them at least a momentary advantage over their adversaries. The rear end of a warship was not unprotected, but it contained some of the most vulnerable points of any vessel. There were reaction-control nozzles and exhausts from the main drives, launching bays, and buried deep within, the main reactors, the beating heart of any craft, but also its most critical system. Hit the reactor, and one of two things would happen. At best, the ship would be dead in space, with all primary systems offline; gunnery, navigation, propulsion, sensors. At worst, if the reactor casing were to crack or a plasma manifold split, then the ship would disappear in a cataclysmic flash of searing light as the entire thing tore itself apart from within.

That was exactly what happened to one of the Chaos cruisers, struck by concentrated fire from the Emperor's Judgement as part of the first volley. A second sun appeared for a moment in the skies above Equestria's eastern horizon. A wave of torpedoes managed to cripple another cruiser, while massed broadside lance fire from the Indefatigable, the Polaris Maxima, and the Brigand's Folly poured into the aft section of the single Desolator-Class battleship, smashing engine nozzles and inflicting heavy superficial damage, though not being able to punch through the heavy ceramite and adamantium armour of the mighty war vessel. Its reactors remained safely ensconced within, though several frigates were not so lucky, and were ripped apart by internal detonations, fragments of their hulls and compartments spinning away wildly.

The lances of the Chaos battleships swung round to engage the ships behind them, scorching the surface of the shields of the Emperor's Judgement. The Imperial flagship responded with its broadsides, but lances were not the only threat facing her. The Despoiler-Class battleship in the Chaos fleet was outfitted for a similar role to that of the Emperor's Judgement, being a heavy support craft and carrier platform, carrying many more squadrons of fighters and bombers than other battleships would. They had joined the battle early on, but unlike their carrier, they were a lot faster and more maneuverable, and reacted much quicker to the changing battle situation. Now they were homing in on their target, and the Imperial fighters, out of position due to being focused on challenging the torpedo threat from the enemy escorts, had to rush to counter them, but not before many of them came into weapons range.

Hundreds of powerful missiles leaped from the rotary racks and underwing pylons of the Chaos attack boats and heavy bombers, slicing through the ether toward the Emperor's Judgement. Point defence turrets swung round in response. Assault cannons and mega-bolter mounts spun up with deafening whirs inside their crew compartments before unleashing a tsunami of bullets and shells that went streaming through space like the heaviest rains. Lascannons flashed, trying to get the range and bring down either the missiles or those that had launched them. Dozens were knocked out, warheads detonating prematurely and missiles spiraling off into the atmosphere or into deep space as their motors or guidance systems were damaged. But even the mighty defences of the Emperor's Judgement could only do so much against such numbers, and the feelings of success among her crew were rapidly brought back down to earth with a rippling series of explosions that shook the huge craft from stem to stern. Men were sucked out into space as compartments vented violently. Deck plating buckled under the blast from heavy plasma warheads. While the missiles were not as powerful as the torpedoes fired from escort craft, there were a lot more of them, and they had struck all along the port side of the battleship.

Marcos called for a damage report. Firefighting parties hurried to battle the spreading blazes in several compartments, those which had suffered damaged plasma conduits or fuel lines without being vented to space. Bulkheads and secure doors had held the blasts in check, but a number of guns had been knocked out, including some of the vital point defence weaponry. That mattered, because the Chaos bombers were still coming. Like their Imperial counterparts, they also had payloads of bombs to deliver.

Imperial Fury interceptors rushed to head them off, their lascannons blazing from thousands of miles out. There were several hundred bombers, and they were already getting close. The Emperor's Judgement drove forward with the rest of the fleet, turning and thrusting into a higher orbit once more to try and get back above the enemy ships. Her shields were still up, protecting them from fire, but the enemy bombers were already inside the protective barrier. It came down to a straight race between the Fury interceptors and the enemy bombers. The point defences blazed away, even knocking out a few of their own fighters in the process, a price worth paying if it kept the battleship in the fight.

The bombers closed in, losing dozens to the pinpoint fire from fighter aces and experienced pilots behind, and the mass firepower of the close-in defences, but there were too many of them to stop. They pulled up at the last moment, releasing their bombs in a toss-bombing maneuver. The bombers roared up and over the top of the battleship, entire squadrons vanishing in the blink of an eye under the heavy defensive fire, but their bombs continued on, not having time to be affected by the gravitational pull of the planet. They kept sailing on in the direction they had been released, which took them straight into the side of the flagship.

Purple and blue fireballs of plasma burst from the flank of the Emperor's Judgement as hundreds of bombs detonated all along the huge craft's hull. Old wounds were reopened from previous battles, and new ones created, torn into the skin of the ship. Ornamental facades and arches, designed to give the ship's exterior the look of a typical Imperial cathedral, crumbled into ruin. Faith was the ultimate armour against Chaos, but ceramite and adamantium ran it a close second, and neither could withstand the fury of superheated plasma in a surface detonation. It was like having the sun itself striking the hull.

On the bridge, Marcos stumbled and staggered against his command lectern as the ship rocked and swayed with the punches. He felt an overwhelming desire to curse the enemy, but did not want to show his anger in case the crew mistook it for fear. Blood-red emergency lighting bathed his face. The bridge itself was undamaged, but clearly his ship had taken a battering from the enemy bombers. Damage reports started to filter in from the lower decks. The news was not encouraging.

It would get worse very shortly. There were other craft launching from the Despoiler-Class battleship, though the sensor grids of the Emperor's Judgement, shaken by the many explosions aboard, would have trouble picking them up at first. It was only after they had cleared the Auspex shadow of their carrier vessel that they appeared on the tactical screens at all.

The Auspex officer who spotted them first quickly shouted out, relaying his discovery to Lord-Admiral Marcos, who even spared a futile glance out of one of the bridge viewports, though there was no way he could see anything so small or so distant. He stood tall at the command lectern and activated the internal vox, giving a simple order.

'All hands, this is your Admiral. Stand by to repel boarders.'

Boarded

The new contacts were numerous, and represented an unexpected threat to the Emperor's Judgement. They were not bombers or fighters, but assault boats and boarding torpedoes, specially converted ordnance turned into troop transports for the express purpose of getting men aboard an enemy vessel. Each torpedo could carry several squads; an assault boat could carry an overstrength platoon. And there were hundreds of them.

The Emperor's Judgement was not dead in space. Its engines still worked, and Marcos ordered them to perform a long burn to drive the battleship into a higher orbit. He was conscious of the need to remain fairly close to the planet, lest the Chaos fleet entrench itself in low orbit and perhaps throw up a similar warp curtain to before. No doubt if the Princess became aware of the problem, she could correct it as she had last time, but she was rather busy at the moment, still fighting the Daemon so far as he knew. He had to do all he could to prevent anything like it happening at all.

Several escort frigates saw the danger and leaped to the defence of their flagship, but the traitor capital ships were alert and their lances flashed, destroying two of the gallant craft, lost with all hands. Their lances continued to keep a clear path open for the assault forces, which were closing in rapidly. There was no doubt where they were heading. Most of the enemy fire had been focused on the Emperor's Judgement, attempting to render it either stationary or defenceless to aid their boarding attempt. The enemy seemed to know that the Emperor's Judgement was the flagship of the fleet, a reasonable guess given that it was one of only two surviving capital ships in the Imperial line-up. Taking it out of the fight would cripple the Imperial force, both in a physical sense, and also through the morale effect of having the flagship and their leader fall. Whether they intended to capture Lord-Admiral Marcos or to kill him, they clearly intended to get aboard his ship.

Imperial fighters and bombers moved to intercept the incoming assault boats, meeting them with heavy las-fire and missiles. Chaos void-fighters joined in the battle, squadron upon squadron of them trying to protect the assault force and get them to their target, the huge ceramite cliff that was the damaged flank of the Emperor's Judgement. A confusing dogfight erupted in space, with Fury interceptors dancing with Chaos Swiftdeath fighters, lascannons flashing against the dark background of space. Most of the smaller attack craft lacked any kind of void shields, relying entirely on their armour and manoeuvrability to survive the deadly gauntlet that was void combat. A single hit from a missile or from any of the main battery weapons of even the smallest capital ship or escort would destroy a fighter, turning it into scrap metal and the crew into floating corpses. Several hits from the weapons carried by the attack craft of the enemy, or by smaller point defences, would achieve the same effect. Only a few of the attack craft manned by the most experienced crews were outfitted with void shields, to give them a small edge in combat and to hopefully keep their aces alive.

Often, it was a futile task. The sheer amount of firepower being hurled around during a fleet action made space a hazardous place to be. It was deadly for many of the Chaos assault boats and boarding torpedoes, which fell in clouds of flame and venting gas as they crossed the void. But they were closing in, getting inside the shields of the Emperor's Judgement. The Imperial fighters were being held at bay by their Chaos counterparts, allowing the assault forces to slip in closer. The Emperor's Judgement was powering into a higher orbit, accompanied by cruisers and escorts, but the assault boats were tiny targets against the backdrop of space, and hard to target among the jumble of Auspex contacts. Some of the leading craft deployed additional countermeasures, chaff to help mask their signatures on the Imperial tactical screens, decoy drones that followed a simple forward path but appeared on Imperial sensors, thanks to Chaos trickery, to have an identical signature to the assault boats themselves. On they came, into the range of the point defences.

The defence guns were dialled in, and opened fire with a hailstorm of shells and plasma, destroying several dozen of the boarding torpedoes and assault boats. But many of the point defences had been knocked out by the bombing raid, and there were gaps in their coverage. The assault forces slipped into those gaps, sneaking in through the final screen protecting the battleship, bringing them right up alongside the huge mountain of ceramite and adamantium that towered both above and below them.

Inside the firing arcs of the point defences, the assault boats and boarding torpedoes set about their business. They moved right in close, the assault boats using maneuvering thrusters and the torpedoes simply powering straight in. They hit the hull of the Emperor's Judgement with a bang, immediately gripping on with pincer claws. The assault boats took a more gentle approach, nosing in with brief bursts of their thrusters. They too had gripping devices mounted to their bows which held them in place once they reached their target. Aboard both types of craft, men waited eagerly, vicious killers, howling lunatics, devoted servants of the Dark Powers. They were ready, a motley mixture of ship crew and traitor guard, regular ground forces intermingled with men of the Chaos navy. All of them were ready for battle, waiting to get to grips with the enemy. They had lost many of their number on the journey over from their carrier ship, which only served to spur them on. They wanted vengeance. They wanted blood.

Explosive charges fitted to some of the boarding torpedoes were placed by remote control against the hull of the battleship, while others prepared to make use of las-cutters. The assault boats readied their melta-charges, seeking to cut through the outer hull of the ship, its final layer of defence. Then they would be aboard, and then they could get to grips with the Imperials. They were looking forward to it.

At Marcos's command, thousands of men aboard the Emperor's Judgement had suited up. They were the armsmen, internal police force for the mighty vessel, and also its final defence against boarders. They were not trained to the same standard as Imperial Guardsmen, but then they were not expected to fight in the same kinds of conditions as those faced by the men and women who operated planetside. They were there to keep the peace, for the most part, dealing with fights on board before handing the suspects over to the Commissars or deck officers for punishment. They made routine patrols, guarded key locations such as armouries, and were responsible for the protection of visiting officers and other dignitaries who might come aboard the ship. But they also protected the ship against enemy action, although that was the one aspect of the role that no armsman ever wanted to have to put into practice.

Senior Armsman Marcallas most certainly agreed with that sentiment. The Emperor's Judgement had never yet been boarded in its long career, but then it did not customarily engage in combat with such a large enemy force when its own support fleet was so depleted. There had been no choice this time, however, and though Marcallas did not know the precise manner in which the situation had come to this, the message had been clear, broadcast over every vox circuit aboard the ship.

Standby to repel boarders.

A little more detail had come through moments later. The enemy was expected to attempt their boarding action on the port side amidships, near some of the heavily damaged sections of the vessel that had been ravaged by enemy fire. Marcallas and his squad were based there, on deck 28, neatly sandwiched just below one of the plasma manifold chambers and above a secondary macrocannon gallery which had taken a direct hit from something large and loud, and stopped returning fire as a result. The deck plating had buckled in places as a series of explosions had torn through the level below, but nothing had broken through to deck 28. The enemy, however, may well do just that.

Marcallas had never been boarded, but he had been part of boarding parties sent over to attack or capture enemy ships in the past, mostly pirate vessels which had held captives who needed to be freed, though a Dark Eldar raider had been the target once in an ironic role reversal for its Xenos crew. It was an action which had given him the scar on his left cheek, which still ached whenever conditions were damp, which was surprisingly frequently considering he was on a starship and not a planet.

As a Senior Armsman, Marcallas was in charge of a squad of men and women, twelve in total. They were all with him now, and they all looked nervous. None of them had seen real action before, not having been chosen to be part of any of the boarding operations performed during the Crusade thus far. Nor had they been part of the brief bout of violence when the Changeling prisoner had broken out of confinement and run riot through the ship. That was a totally different section and deck of the vessel; they had only heard about it through the grapevine of gossip and rumour, where the truth had been shrouded in the usual hyperbole guaranteed to appear in such stories.

There was no need for hyperbole where the forces of the Archenemy were concerned, however. Indeed, it would be difficult to deliberately over exaggerate their aggression, bloodlust, foulness or depravity to be any greater than the reality. The most hated enemy of the Imperium, and now they were trying, daring, to get on board the Emperor's Judgement?

They may have made it through the defences, Marcallas thought, but I'll be damned if they'll get through us.

They were positioned well back from the outer hull, on the other side of a large chamber that could be used for storage, though was presently almost empty, save for a few crates and boxes which the armsmen had hastily dragged over near to the hatchway for use as impromptu cover. A quick alert signal had been flashed through the deck vox system, alerting all hands that at least one enemy assault boat had attached itself to the hull in their vicinity, outside of this very chamber. There was no danger of depressurisation- the assault boats and boarding torpedoes formed an airtight seal with the hull of the target ship, since otherwise its own passengers would risk immediate suffocation upon opening the hatch if it let the air escape.

His squad had been joined by two others from elsewhere on deck 28, and Marcallas knew there were more armsmen in other compartments on either side, as well as in the companionway outside. There were deck hands, too, members of the ship's crew neither trained nor necessarily armed for combat, but wielding whatever improvised weapons they could find; chains, metal bars, fire axes, plasma torches, saw blades, anything that could be gathered up. They were as determined as any armsman to protect their ship, their home, and their comrades.

The armsmen themselves were carrying mostly shotguns, with some, including Marcallas, armed with autoguns, all ballistic weapons. It had been deemed long ago and far away that such weaponry was the best for use aboard ship, perhaps due to the reduced potential for overpenetration compared to las and plasma weapons, which could potentially penetrate the outer hull of a ship and cause an explosive decompression. Only certain units, such as officers' bodyguards, bridge protection crews, and those men guarding key locations, would be issued with lasguns or hellguns. That restriction would likely not apply to the enemy, who could be armed with anything, and would probably be armed with everything.

Ominous sounds could be heard from outside the hull, echoing through the storage chamber where they waited, crouched low behind the boxes and crates. The chamber was large enough that the armsmen's shotguns would be of limited use in the first moments of an engagement. Only once the enemy got closer would they be in effective range, meaning the autogunners would shoulder the task of the initial fire that would have to either pin the enemy down, stop them in their tracks, or at the very least slow their advance and inflict a few casualties. A stubber had been set up as well, about the heaviest piece of armament that they had at their disposal. Speed was key in such an engagement, as it was with breaching any structure or room in urban combat, and what was a battleship if not a giant, tremendously well-armed city in space?

The bangs and clanging outside the hull were getting louder. Marcallas wasn't sure exactly what he was hearing, but he knew it wasn't good. The enemy would be breaking through at any moment. He made sure his squad was well positioned, using the crates for cover. Another section was covering the hatchway behind them, and the stubber was loaded and ready for action. They were poised, anxious but confident, as confident as they could be, in their ability to throw back any attacker, to hold the ship, and to make the enemy pay for their arrogance.

The enemy had other ideas.

With an almighty crack, explosive charges punched through the outer skin of the Emperor's Judgement. A cloud of dust and fragments of metal filled the air, obscuring the defenders' vision and shrouding the breach in smoke.

'Here they come!' Marcallas shouted over the din. He took aim with his autogun in the general direction of the opening blown in the hull, though he was unable to see it directly.

Instead of enemies, a volley of grenades emerged from the smoke, bouncing on the deck, either thrown by the men within the assault boat or launched by some kind of projector mounted on the front of the craft. Marcallas ducked down, but a few men who had not expected the ordnance to come flying at them were caught by shrapnel and went down bleeding.

Behind the grenades, there did indeed come the enemy. A baying mob, some shouting obscenities and others howling lusty war cries, bellowing as they charged. Most carried lasguns or autoguns, but some were armed only with close combat weapons. Ship's crew, perhaps, rather than traitor Guardsmen or members of whatever passed for armsmen aboard Chaos vessels. There were several dozen in all, perhaps a platoon or so, though Marcallas did not stop to count them all. Instead he pulled the trigger, hosing the enemy down with the entire magazine of his autogun. The stubber opened up close by, bullets pinging off of the interior of the thick hull and cutting down the enemy as they charged forward.

They were far from a uniform force. Indeed, most of them were not wearing real uniforms at all. A few of the enemy wore tattered remnants of fatigues of whatever Regiment they had deserted from, but with any Imperial insignia defaced, crossed out or torn away, replaced with the sigils and foul icons of Chaos, as a further insult to the unit and the Emperor they once served. Some men were shirtless, while others wore simple overalls or other garments. A few, perhaps officers or NCOs, wore armour of varying kinds, ranging from Imperial flak vests to pieces of spare metal crudely welded or glued onto metal or leather frames to protect limbs or heads. Many of them wore helmets, though almost none were helmets that they had any right to wear. There were pilots' helmets, the familiar profile of the Imperial Guard's combat helmet, the full-face visors of the Adeptus Arbites, even a couple of strange leather hats that seemed more suited to an Ork than a human.

Marcallas ducked back down again to reload, whipping out a spare magazine and replacing the empty one. Gunfire echoed around the storage chamber as the Chaos boarding party spread out, firing back. Unlike the armsmen, they had no cover, but that did not seem to dissuade them at all. If anything, it spurred them on as they rushed at the Imperial defenders, eager to close with them, both to stop them firing and to get into hand-to=hand combat range. No doubt many of the Chaos troops were pumped full of stims and other combat drugs, to stimulate their bloodlust and make them ignore or forget the dangers that they faced. A boarding action against anything less than a defenceless freighter was likely to result in heavy casualties, on both sides, but especially for an attacking force if the defenders knew the first thing about how to resist them.

A ship the size of the Emperor's Judgement could hardly be expected to be captured outright by any boarding force, either. It was the size of a city and would require just as many men, if not more, to clear it entirely. Losses would be heavy; internal automated defences, turrets and tracked servitors, could inflict massive losses, and the armsmen and crew would be fighting desperately for every inch, every companionway and every compartment. Blood would be spilled in copious amounts to capture even a single deck. As a result, boarding actions had to be predicated on capturing strategic points; the bridge, the backup command centre, main reactors, engine room and the main launch bays, so that additional troops could be shuttled over with relative ease for reinforcement without the hazards of using boarding torpedoes in a risky move. Even then, on a ship as big as the Emperor's Judgement, it would require a concerted effort and the concentration of forces to overcome the resistance at even a single one of those locations.

But first, they had to get through the outer ring of armsmen, who were not about to surrender their positions. Marcallas opened fire again, catching one man in the legs and sending him tumbling, trampled upon by his own comrades as they charged over him. Las-fire killed several of the armsmen as they crouched behind the crates, leaving their heads exposed to accurate or stray shots. The stubber took up the slack and gunned down half a dozen Chaos troops. Their lack of cover was a disadvantage, but they were rushing to close the gap and cross the open chamber. As they drew closer, they came into shotgun range, and the rest of the armsmen were able to add their weight to the struggle. Their heavy slugs and buckshot rounds tore limbs clean off, sending men sprawling.

The stubber emptied its belt-fed magazine, and the loader struggled to hurriedly reload as quickly as he could. The weapon was cumbersome, and reloading was a lengthy process, slow enough that the enemy was able to cross most of the room in the interval. Shotguns picked off a few of them, but they returned fire and drew nearer and nearer. A shot struck the woman next to Marcallas, knocking her down with a pained grunt, blood leaking from her neck. There was no time to treat her wounds or drag her to safety. The enemy were almost upon them, baying for their blood.

Marcallas took rapid aim again. A man was coming straight for him, lasgun raised, but Marcallas fired first, putting him down with a hole through his face. No time to think. Aim again and fire again. Another man went down. There were more coming, getting closer; he could see them in the corners of his vision. They were jumping over the crates to his left and right. One man lost his whole head to a shotgun blast, while another had a great ragged hole torn in his chest by a similar shot. But they had reached the defences, and now it was no longer a firefight, but a bloody struggle for survival.

Marcallas had no bayonet on his autogun, but he still had ammunition. He took a step back from the crates. The enemy were there, they were with them. He had to be alert, watch both flanks as well as straight ahead. More men were pouring out of the smoke, the remainder of the passengers aboard the assault boat, which remained clamped to the side of the Emperor's Judgement like a parasite. Now, not only were there parasites on the outside, but the infection had spread within, too.

A man lunged at Marcallas, seemingly from nowhere, swinging a sword in his direction. Not a fancy power sword or howling chainsword, but a regular blade, sharp enough to slice his arm clean off. He jumped back, almost falling over the body of the armswoman who had fallen beside him. He brought his gun up and fired, but the man had moved, ducking to the side and swinging again with his sword, missing Marcallas, who fired again, and this time he did not miss. The man crumpled up, dropping back and draping himself over one of the crates, dead, his sword clattering onto the metal deck.

Marcallas took a quick glance left and right. The enemy were now all over the defensive line, and armsmen were engaged in close combat, caught as they tried to reload or simply moving to meet the enemy, using their guns as clubs. The section officer, an ensign overseeing the defence of the area, gave a loud blast on his whistle, and with a roar, the crewmen waiting out in the compaionways came rushing in to aid their armsmen comrades, swinging their improvised weapons, meeting the Chaos charge with equal fury. They met halfway, and the melee, already confusing, devolved into a complete maelstrom of grunts, shouts, screams, and the occasional gunshot.

Marcallas swung the butt of his autogun at the back of one man's head as he tried hard to decapitate another armsman with a spiked axe. The traitor stumbled and turned to face Marcallas, allowing his fellow armsman to recover his own autogun and put several bullets through the man's spine, dropping him in an instant. Marcallas could not help his comrade to his feet, because another man was coming for him, a glinting bayonet on the end of his lasgun, aimed straight for the Senior Armsman's gut. Marcallas took a desperate step back and narrowly avoided impalement. The man had overstepped himself with his charge, and struggled to check his forward momentum and turn. Marcallas lashed out with a boot to the back of his leg, dropping him to one knee, before finishing him off with a shot through the head.

The enemy were being held. More than that, they were being pushed back, slowly driven away from the defence line, losing many of their numbers. The timely reinforcement by the ship's crew had turned the tide and prevented the attackers from being able to take control of the chamber. The armsmen and the rest of the crew fought side by side. No longer were the armsmen objects of terror or ridicule, not lackeys of the officer classes, keeping the peace through unnecessary force and abusing the rules and regulations. Now, they were comrades, fellow crewmen, and no self-respecting member of the Imperial Navy would abandon a fellow crewman to the depredations of the Archenemy. They stood and fought together, driving the enemy back, and slaughtering them to the last man.

And it was all in vain. A shrill double blast on the section officers' whistle told every man and woman to fall back. Farther along deck 28, just a few compartments up, the enemy had forced a breakthrough out into the companionways, rolling up a section of the armsmen's line and linking up with their fellow boarders who had been pinned down in other compartments. If Marcallas and the others did not fall back, there was danger that they, too, could be overrun. The officer, a young woman who barely looked old enough to have hit puberty, gave them directions with nerves of surprising steel for one so young, directing them down the companionway in the dim light, through the bulkhead door to the next section. The door would be barricaded, blocked off, to stymie the enemy assault and hopefully keep them contained. If they could be held, the section they occupied could hopefully be deliberately decompressed from the bridge or engineering. There were no living crewmen still in that area.

Marcallas made his way hurriedly through the doorway, with his squad in good order alongside him. The rest of the survivors cleared the section and headed into the next, and when the last man was through, the ensign ordered the airtight door to be closed and sealed. Burly men complied, slamming it shut and spinning the locking wheel. Even as they did so, explosions shook the ship from somewhere close by. They may have the enemy contained here, but what was going on elsewhere?

The Struggle

The situation was confused, to say the least. Lord-Admiral Marcos knew that the enemy was aboard his ship, somewhere down below. He knew there were multiple points of entry; Auspex readings, as well as visual confirmation from other ships, indicated at least two dozen different assault boats, as well as approximately fifty of the smaller boarding torpedoes, attached to the hull of the Emperor's Judgement. While a significant number of men could be put aboard by that many vessels, compared to the crew of the battleship they were but a pinprick, but they were a pinprick that could do damage, and more were on the way. The Auspex had picked up a second wave, a mixture of assault craft, boarding torpedoes, and even some larger shuttles, perhaps hoping that the first wave would have been able to secure a docking bay.

Marcos had other targets to strike as well. The enemy fleet was still out there, and still fighting hard, despite the initial successes of the Imperial counter-thrust which had caught them off guard. The battle situation had reversed, with the Imperial fleet now occupying the space that the Chaos fleet had occupied upon coming around the planet, and vice versa. They were still within weapons range of each other, but now the surprise gained by the Imperial maneuvers had worn out. Their fleet had moved, tried its best to catch the enemy napping, and succeeded, but only partially. Now it was once more a straight fight between the two sides, and despite taking some heavy damage, the Chaos forces still outnumbered and outgunned the Imperial fleet. Marcos's plan had been effective, but not effective enough, and now they faced the same problem as before; the potential for annihilation by the enemy's massed guns. To add to the problems, the enemy was now between them and the fleeing transports, a calculated risk and one that had to be taken, but now representing a problem.

If the enemy went after the transports, all the Imperial fleet could do was try to stop them with massed firepower. They would be unlikely to be able to overtake the enemy, and if they tried to do so it would likely result in their destruction. To simply sit and take the enemy fire instead of making the tactical maneuver that they had would have led to the Imperial ships taking a massive pounding right at the start of the battle, and probably ending any hope of victory, however slim that hope might be. Their move had allowed them to inflict damage to almost every enemy ship, not enough to destroy or disable them, but hopefully enough to degrade their combat capability to such an extent that the limited forces at Marcos's disposal would be enough to achieve victory.

The lances of the two capital ships continued to fire every few seconds, aiming at vulnerable areas of the enemy vessels, or weak points in their void shields exposed during the tactical maneuvering. they were doing what they could, but it would, probably, not be enough. Marcos ordered the fighter screens to switch their whole focus onto protecting the Emperor's judgement from the incoming second wave of enemy boarding craft, while the battleship continued to thrust into a higher orbit along with the rest of the fleet. They needed to be in a position where they could cut their losses if needs be, and make a break for deep space, catching up with the transports and either making a stand, regrouping, or leaving the system entirely. Marcos was loathe to make any of those choices, but he knew that they would have to be strongly considered. Already reports were coming in from various ships of damage taken.; systems offline, casualty reports, weapons knocked out of action. The Chaos ships were turning and bringing their broadsides to bear now, adding considerable firepower to their assault. If Marcos were unlucky, he might lose his entire fleet with little done in reply.

Yet the idea of abandoning the planet was anathema to him now, not just because of the men they would leave behind and condemn to the worst excesses of Chaos control, but because they would be doing the same thing to the ponies. He had made a promise to the Princess, and he did not intend to break it. But he was not charged with the protection of Xenos, however powerful and persuasive they might be. He was charged with carrying out the will of the Emperor. As an Admiral in His Imperial Navy, Marcos had but one duty, and that was to achieve victory for the Imperium and for the Emperor at whatever cost. if the fleet had to die for that, then it would die, but throwing away his ships and his men needlessly was not what Marcos had in mind. It was decided, then. The Princess could look after herself. Perhaps she could look after her people as well. That was not Marcos's duty, however much it seemed like it was in his increasingly confused mind. He had to protect the fleet. If he had to, he would fall back, no ifs, no buts, no hesitation. If he had to abandon the planet, then he would.

Senior Armsman Marcallas and his squad were waiting, again. The enemy would be coming, surely, at any moment, and the tension once more was palpable. He could cut it with a knife, though his knife was far more likely to be used to cut someone's throat. Despite being used as a club, his autogun was still working, fine testament to the robustness of such weapons. The same could be said of the lasgun, the infantryman's best friend, which kept on working through the harshest conditions that might be encountered on any planet across the galaxy. Just like the men who wielded them, the lasgun and autogun were stalwart and strong. Naturally, they were used just as much by the forces of the Archenemy, for much the same reason.

The armsmen and crewmen had pulled back into the next section, which was a long and fairly narrow corridor, linking to a maze of passageways. Men had been posted at every corner, crouching behind makeshift barricades that had been hastily thrown up from any detritus or loose fittings that could be located. The ship had not been designed with internal defence particularly high on the list of priorities, as it was not supposed to come to that point. The point defences, main weapons and the fighter compliment of the Emperor's Judgement were meant to keep an enemy at bay, in conjunction with the escort vessels. There were natural chokepoints aboard as a consequence of the ship's layout, but there were very few actual defensive positions as such. On some decks and near key sections, automated turrets were deployed, only activated during an uprising, mutiny or boarding action, as was the case with the ship's compliment of weapons servitors, bio-augmented and mostly mindless human-machine hybrids with limbs replaced by powerful weaponry. None were assigned to this sector, however, and in any case would be stretched thin by the numerous enemy landing sites which were spread across many decks, both above and below Deck 28.

Deck 28 itself was relatively unimportant, holding just a few weapons batteries, a small docking bay over on the starboard side, and plenty of bunk rooms and stores. That was why they had no weapons servitors; it would scarcely matter to the operation of the ship as a whole if the enemy were to seize the deck, even if they took all of it. They could be contained there and eventually flushed out, and they would be unable to do any serious damage in the meantime. That, certainly, was the theory. If boarded, each deck would be turned into its own fortress, with all doors and elevators to other decks closed and secured, guarded constantly. No passage between decks would be permitted except for emergency evacuation if the enemy had boarded one particular location, trapping them on whichever deck they had made their landing on.

None of that was very pleasing to the men and women of Deck 28. They were on the unexpected frontline of a sudden struggle. Where they had mere minutes earlier been manning their damage control stations and emergency posts, ready to react to a decompression or an explosion aboard, to treat casualties from enemy fire, now they were being thrust straight into the action, for which none of them were overly well trained. The armsmen received training in using their weapons and in combating both mutinies and boarding actions, but there was only so much that could be drilled into them with regards to how to act in such a situation. The possibility of being boarded on such a large ship was meant to be remote, something akin to the drill on how to use the emergency lifeboats and escape capsules. Probably it would never come down to that, either because a crew would have an uneventful tour of duty or the ship would be destroyed outright without any possibility of escaping the disaster. Being boarded was a distant thought to most crewmen, something that was meant to be, to all practical intent, impossible.

Yet it was happening, and men and women had died already as a result. Marcallas and the rest of his squad did not know what was happening on other decks. Had the enemy already reached the bridge and taken control? Surely not. The heavy guns were still firing, shaking the deck and the whole structure of the craft, unmistakable as anything else to those with ears used to innumerable practice firings in outer star systems, used to train both the gun crews and the Auspex targeting crews up on the bridge in cooperation and accuracy. If the enemy had taken the bridge then the targeting systems would surely have been shut down, depriving the gunnery crews of anything to aim at except distant dots of light. Even though the two fleets were close together in cosmic terms, they were still, at a minimum, hundreds of miles apart, impossible for any man on board to see to perform manual targeting.

The ship was still in friendly hands, then, but the same could not be said of parts of Deck 28. The enemy held at least one section of it, and were sure to push on and try to take the rest. The bulkhead door was a fair distance in front of them, appearing surprisingly menacing in the dim light, like a portal to hell. The red emergency lighting had replaced the normal, sterile white lights that illuminated the lower decks. For most of the men, it had been months, if not years, since they had seen any real daylight, and while the output of the illuminator strips and glow-globes had been deliberately configured to try and replicate the beneficial qualities of solar output, it could only go so far, meaning most Navy enlisted personnel had a pale and pasty appearance to their skin.

Marcallas had done his best to mollify his squad's fears. They had taken a casualty, Armswoman Djanik, and that had affected them all deeply. Despite the various engagements they ship had been through, none of the squad had ever suffered more than a small scratch or bruise as a result. To lose one of their own and witness her doom was not an experience any of them had been prepared for, though most had seen other crewmen die during battle. It was different when it was a squadmate, a close friend rather than a stranger or a casual acquaintance from another department or section. The universe was a cold an unfeeling place, but that did not mean that the men and women who inhabited it had to be.

With a bang, the door flew open, separated from its hinges, the hermetic seal well and truly broken by an explosive charge planted on the other side of the bulkhead. Immediately, grenades rained through the opening, bouncing and detonating well ahead of the defences that had been set up. Moments later, men began to storm through.

Marcallas gave a rallying cry to his squad, and leveled his autogun, opening fire. Other guns around him fired in unison, including the stubber which had been successfully evacuated from the other compartment. Howls of anger rose from the lungs of a host of Chaos troopers, who stormed forward, heedless of the storm of lead that met them. As they closed the range, shotgun blasts rang out, adding to the cacophony and the carnage. Many men went down, struck mortal blows, but dozens of others continued on, lasguns and autoguns blazing. Several armsmen fell to their ragged fire, casualties that were not ideal. There was only a relatively thin line of men and women protecting the opening, and the crews were not exactly eager to give up any ground to the enemy. If they could hold the corridor, then they would most certainly do so. They wanted to. They had to.

The Chaos infantry charged onward, into the bullets and buckshot, losing many of their number. But more continued pouring through the opening in the bulkhead, a never-ending stream of men. The Chaos troops from the assault boat that had faced Marcallas and his men had been dealt with, but there were others, many others, who had now joined together in one large band, several hundred strong, it seemed, to charge the barricades.

Marcallas quickly had to reload, his magazine empty after hosing down the enemy with bullets. He slammed home a fresh clip and took aim again. It was easier to hit than to miss in the confined space of the companionway, and it quickly became a slaughterhouse, the deck plating coated in blood and fallen bodies. Losses did not deter the enemy, driven on by hatred of the Imperium and everything it stood for. They closed the distance with startling rapidity, bringing them once more into close combat range with the defenders, and the fighting again devolved into an orgy of violence.

Chaos infantry leaped over the barricades, heedless of the danger. Shotguns accounted for several of the more eager men, but then could not be used as the enemy was in among the armsmen. The risk of friendly fire was far too great. A stray shotgun blast could fell several enemies- or several comrades. The stubber, set up just behind the front line of crates and other obstacles, found itself being quickly overrun by the enemy, its operator forced to fall back, the loader cut down when he tried to make a stand. One particularly brawny Chaos soldier tore the gun from its pintle mount, intent on turning it upon its rightful owners. With the ammunition belt dangling down beside him, he spun the weapon around and took aim, not even bothering to rest it upon the barricade for accuracy, merely bracing himself against the recoil as he opened fire. He managed to gun down three unfortunate armsmen before autogun fire took him out, the gun clattering to the deck as he collapsed backward over the barricade in a most unathletic fashion.

The loss of the stubber meant the first line was untenable. The enemy was among them, and those farther back could not fire into the melee for fear of hitting their own men. There had been too many enemies for their firepower to stop before they covered the distance to the barricades. More men were still coming through the breach where the bulkhead door had been, charging forward to join the fray and support their fellows.

Marcallas and his squad held fire, not daring to shoot lest they hit the other armsmen who were now fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand combat. They could move up and support, join in with their fists and knives, but the enemy outnumbered them and they would not be enough to tip the balance in favour of the Imperials. Far better to hang back and wait for enemies to present themselves as targets. That was what the other squads were doing. The ensign had not given them an order to do otherwise, and so Marcallas stayed put, autogun aimed, hoping for a target.

The men who had been manning the first line of barricades were falling under the blows of the enemy, attacking with bayonets and axes. Blood spattered the walls of the narrow corridor as men went down screaming, hacked or bludgeoned to death. As they fell, more enemies became viable targets for the armsmen manning the second line of barricades, and they opened fire wherever they could get a bead on an enemy, killing several. The final few surviving armsmen in the front line tried to flee, but only one managed to escape, the others being shot from behind. As soon as the running armsman made it safely to the second line, they opened fire en masse, dropping half a dozen of the snarling Chaos infantry as they turned their attentions to the next line of defenders.

The enemy had a much shorter distance to cover to reach the second line than they had to reach the first, and once again they charged. There was little else they could do, in reality. The compaionway was too narrow for any tactical maneuvers, and there was essentially no cover for the majority of Chaos infantry. A few could crouch behind the makeshift barricades, but the rest would be vulnerable, able to be picked off one by one by the armsmen if they stopped to try and trade fire with the defenders. Their only recourse was to charge, and that was something that the forces of Chaos loved to do, regardless of whether they followed the Blood God Khorne or any of the other Dark Powers.

Marcallas fired again, picking off two axemen as they tried to close the range. Shotguns roared around him as other armsmen blazed away, but again the enemy were quick. Several men almost made it to the barricades before going down sprawling. Scattered las-fire killed two armsmen, and the ensign blew her whistle. The signal to fall back.

'First section, fall back, second section, covering fire!' Marcallas ordered his squad, and they jumped into action. Four men remained in place along with Marcallas, firing at the enemy, while the remainder of the squad left cover and retreated down the passageway. The rest of the defenders at the second line were doing the same, a bounding retreat with each section covering the other as they pulled back, and then swapping roles, hoping to suppress and pin down the enemy while the retreat was underway to safer positions. Marcallas ducked out and ran, slipping into cover behind a large piece of spare deck plating being used as a barricade. The rest of his squad made it to safety, but several of the armsmen went down as the enemy began to open fire on them.

The third line of barricades was no safer or easier to defend than the first or second lines had been, and once more the enemy charged. They were fought for less than a minute before the ensign ordered another retreat, whittling down the strength of the boarding party, though they seemed to be getting almost constant reinforcements from behind as more men joined the struggle from other assault boats and boarding torpedoes. Neither Marcallas nor the ensign had any idea how many more men there might be coming through from the other section, but with the almost limitless extent of the ship to cover, it was sensible to lure them in and let them overstretch themselves while taking casualties all the while. It was far easier for the defenders to replenish any losses than it would be for the boarding party, who would have to link up with other units already aboard or wait for another wave to arrive from across the void. The ensign was playing a shrewd game, despite her youth.

Again she gave the order to fall back before the enemy could reach them, and back they went, around the corner where the companionway turned. Men were already waiting there, and they were pulled back as well. They were heading, ultimately, for the deck armoury, which lay a short distance farther along the ship. They made several more stops to try and hold the enemy back, but each time they were ordered to retreat, back to safer positions. Each time, however, they inflicted more casualties on the enemy as they charged forward, wearing them down.

The deck armoury was partly designed as a fallback position should the deck be overrun. Every deck hda at least one; some had half a dozen or more at strategic locations. Deck 28 possessed just a single example, as there was little of note to protect anywhere along its length. The armouries were constructed to be a fortified position, often at the centre of the deck in relation to the ship's length, where armsmen and officers could hole up in event of a boarding action, taking up defensive positions both to protect themselves, and to protect the armoury, which contained small arms, ammunition, and the few heavy weapons permitted on board, mostly stubbers and heavy bolters, though some meltaguns were also provided, as well as ordnance such as breaching charges and plasma grenades, in case the ship was boarded by something that regular small arms simply could not kill, such as traitor Astartes or some of the larger Tyranid beasts.

Eventually, after seemingly hours in the twisting compaionways, though more likely less than fifteen minutes since the assault had begun, Marcallas and his squad reached the armoury. It was a hexagonal structure that rose from the deck at the centre of a large chamber, empty apart from the armoury itself, with a considerably higher ceiling than the small compaionways, showing the true height of each deck aboard a battleship. The armoury bore some similarities with an Adeptus Arbites precinct house; the exterior was studded with stablights and a few turret-mounted stubbers. Metal shutters covered the windows, and twisting metal staircases led up to the entrance, lined with thick plasteel for use as cover. This was where deck 28's combat servitors had been assigned; there were two of them, and each was almost as big as a Space Marine in full armour. A deadly mixture of man and machine, half organic and half mechanical, the two servitors had heavy armour plating where their chests and torsos should have been, protecting them against most small arms fire. Their legs were now a series of servo-motors and pistons, driving them forward, if the situation warranted it, much faster than any normal man could run. At least one eye, and both eyes on one model, had been replaced with optical trackers and targeting systems, while in place of their right arms, each servitor carried a heavy weapons mount that sprouted from their shoulder. One possessed a six-barreled assault cannon, while the other held a double-barreled heavy flamer. Both weapons were fed from the backs of each servitor, where a large fuel tank was mounted to provide for the flamer, and a large backpack-type device containing thousands of rounds of ammunition for the assault cannon.

Marcallas felt a lot better when he sighted the armoury. This was a proper position to fight from, not a makeshift line in the middle of a companionway with little cover and no room to maneuver. They would hold the enemy here, he was sure, or die trying. His squad was directed into position, with the armoury officer, a lieutenant, taking over from the ensign as commander of the combined defence force. There were already men defending the armoury; it was never left unguarded, even when most of the deck's armsmen had been called away to defend the boarding sites. The turrets were online, the servitors were standing by, there were men manning the defences, facing outward in all directions. The armoury was ready and waiting for the enemy to dare and try to take it.

They did not have long to wait.

Critical

The skies above Fillydelphia were ablaze with light. Magic and psychic energy were being unleashed in quantities scarcely seen in Equestria since the royal sisters had done fierce battle with Discord so long ago. The disturbances were affecting the weather, and in addition to magic lightning, natural lightning now flashed from clouds that had suddenly formed seemingly from nowhere. A gloriously sunny day had become an overcast battlefield.

The Imperial ground forces looked on with twin fears. As well as the Daemon, they had now learned through broadcasts from fleet command that their ships above were under attack from a newly arrived Chaos task force. A lot of worried eyes, though formerly glued to the fight raging on the planet, had turned skyward in the knowledge that death could rain down upon them at any moment, so far as they knew.

Celestia and Luna were untiring, fighting with every fiber of their beings. They could sense the malice that continued to radiate from the Daemon, and they knew it had to be stopped. Whatever needed to be done, they were willing to do it. Unaware of the arrival of the Chaos fleet, the two sisters worked in unison, using their numbers advantage to strike at the Daemon from two places at once whenever they could. Despite their power, and despite the Daemon's trickery and use of its lesser minions, a stalemate had developed. Neither side were able to strike a killing blow, nor even one to cripple their opponent. They were too agile, their defences too strong. Both Princesses and Malaranth the Infinite could teleport away from danger, block strikes with their shields. Celestia and Luna were not willing to give up ground, for this was their land, their home, their demesne. Many had tried before to take it from them, and ultimately, all had failed. They were determined that this would be no different, whatever powers Malaranth might be able to field against them.

The Daemon seemed equally determined, but in a rather lackadaisical fashion. It was fighting hard, of that there was no doubt. But was the creature merely fighting to buy time for some unknown event to occur? It had intimated as much to Celestia, boasting that it was trying to stop her from interfering with the plans of its god, but that it would not really matter if it failed to do so. Its cryptic and hollow words meant little to either Princess; they were concerned merely with defeating the foe, regardless of its intentions or schemes.

More magic flashed as Celestia tried yet another blazing beam of magic. Malaranth flashed out of existence for a moment before appearing elsewhere, swinging down low toward the city. The Princesses followed it, getting in range of ground fire again but with no effect. The Chaos infantry must have viewed the seemingly invincible Princesses in the same light that the Imperial ground forces viewed the Daemon; they kept fighting, taking no damage, no matter what they or their Daemonic patron were throwing at them.

The rooftops of Fillydelphia flew by beneath them. The abandoned city was still intact, for the most part, a sign that maybe one day it could return to being the thriving seat of industry and military output it had been until the invasion. Inaccurate fire came up at them from below, small arms an an occasional rocket, mostly missing wide of the mark and having no effect even when it did make contact with the shield of either Princess. Buildings swept by, rooftops, chimneys, smoke stacks and power lines. Blasts of magic and energy flickered between the cooling towers of a power station on the edge of the town. Before the war it would have provided power for most of the city and its factories. Now the plant lay silent, generators unmaintained and turbines stationary, perhaps never to turn again.

Another column of magic blasted from Luna's horn, narrowly missing both Malaranth and the smoke stacks of the factories and the power plant, sailing away into the distance. The return shot from Malaranth's staff struck one of the chimneys, and it began to topple, folding up on itself like a deck of cards and collapsing in several distinct sections to smash into rubble upon the streets below. The Daemon teleported away again, moving clear of the power plant. The Princesses followed, and again rifts were opened in reality. Lesser creatures of its evil kind poured forth from the other dimension to join the fight, another of Malaranth's seemingly endless distractions that were stopping Celestia and Luna from being able to deal a killing blow.

The Daemon took them soaring high into the sky, far above the city. The plains of Equestria stretched out before them, the clouds, newly formed thanks to the energies being unleashed, hung just above them, lightning playing out its fancy show around them, a most prophetic and grand spectacle, making Malaranth appear as the bringer of the apocalypse while simultaneously casting Luna, and especially Celestia, as rather messianic figures. If any ponies had been around to witness the struggle, they would have found their faith only strengthened to impossible new heights at witnessing their leaders defying this creature and the fundamental laws of nature in their efforts to protect Equestria and its surviving citizens.

But there were only humans and Daemons watching, and the humans were leaving. From their vantage point on high, Celestia and Luna could see the Imperial formation, north of the city, was on the move. They were heading north, away from Fillydelphia, raising a dust cloud from their many vehicle wheels and tank treads, for reasons unknown. Were they just repositioning, or had they lost confidence in the ability of the two Princesses to defeat their enemy? Was there some other reason unknown to the sisters as to why they would be leaving their posts?

'Do you see your friends, how they flee?' Malaranth pointed it out in case they had not noticed. 'I call them friends, but I should say allies of convenience, of course. That is all they are, and that is all you are to them. Do you worry that they are abandoning you?'

'We worry about nothing, Daemon,' Luna replied impetuously, in her loud Royal Canterlot Voice, booming across the rooftops for the Chaos infantry below to hear. 'All that we are concerned about is defeating you.'

'Yes, of course, Princess,' Malaranth chuckled. 'Your allies are concerned with the same thing, but they have failed, and I am afraid you will fail also. They flee because they will shortly be facing another threat. But as you say, you do not concern yourself with such things. Why would you? Let your allies handle the other problems while you fight the good fight here. Well, it may be good, but it is ultimately futile.'

While Luna traded barbs with the Daemon, Celestia had been wondering exactly why the humans would be retreating now. Not at the start of the battle, but halfway through, and not at a time when it seemed as though the Daemon was about to emerge victorious. They were still there fighting it, both Princesses, clearly visible to the human spotters even from twenty miles distant as they flashed about the sky. The news, however misleading and obfuscated it may be, that there was another threat about to emerge made Celestia immediately wary. She had felt another sensation at the back of her mind, beginning just a short time earlier, that was similar to that which she had felt when the enemy were making their first landings. More than just the sensation of a single entity, a single mind somewhere that was trying to contact her, to influence her, as Malaranth had manifested itself. This was more of a collective sensation, a general feeling of unease from the presence of something malign. Not some grand intelligence like the Daemon, but a collection of small voices, small sensations, combining into one larger pressure.

Whatever she had felt, she imagined it had to be the threat to which the Daemon was referring. No doubt it would reveal itself in time, but her focus remained firmly on Malaranth and finally ending the fight. Everything they seemed to try had no effect, and the stalemate was clearly continuing. The only thing that was aiding Malaranth was his constant streams of underlings. With thousands of them throwing psychic attacks at the two Princesses, some were bound to connect, and though they were a fraction of the power wielded by the one that had summoned them, together they all added up, impacting the shields of both sisters.

Once again Celestia tried her expanding magic bubble, incinerating hundreds of the smaller Daemons as they came into contact with the sphere of death. Malaranth again evaded, simply teleporting away, sitting tantalisingly close yet too far away for it to harm. Each time one of the sisters got a clear shot, surprising the Daemon, it still managed to presciently disappear somehow, in a most aggravating fashion, almost as if it were deliberately toying with them.

As Celestia rose up into the sky again to try and get a better angle to strike the Daemon with her lightning magic, something appeared above her, and began to fall, dropping past her vision just a couple of feet from her face. She reflexively caught the object with her magic, bringing it back up. It was a scroll, tightly bound with the royal seal of Equestria. But scrolls did not simply appear from thin air, except when...

She rapidly unfolded the scroll and scanned over its contents. It was just a couple of lines, but it told her all that she needed to know. She teleported to Luna's side and relayed the new information to her sister. It took both of them mere moments to decide on their next course of action.

Luna let fly with a swirling maelstrom of magic from her horn, flying off in all directions, striking down countless smaller Daemons, igniting the sky around her. Celestia's horn produced another of her spheres of magic, so deadly to the lesser creatures. Malaranth teleported away nonchalantly again, but when it looked for its foes, it found nothing. The Princesses were gone.

Twilight nervously paced back and forth along the stone and marble floors of the throne room. She was terribly bad at waiting, even at the best of times, and this was far from being the best of times. She had been observing the skies as a way to try and distract her from her thoughts, but had instead seen something much more concerning, both for herself and the rest of Equestria. There was gunfire in the heavens, flashes of what she would have assumed to be magic if she didn't know better. The human starships were equipped with immensely powerful weapons, the workings of which she could not even begin to guess at. Anything with the power to destroy some of the ships she had seen, which were several miles long at a minimum, had to be capable of unleashing massive amounts of energy that could only be matched by the strongest unicorns and, of course, the Princesses. The fact that she could see the flashes of weapons fire from the surface meant one of two things; either the Imperial fleet was testing its weapons for some reason, or they were engaging in combat.

Having rapidly decided it could only be the latter, Twilight had hurriedly tried to focus her telescope- Luna's telescope, she had to keep correcting herself- on the points in space where most of the gunfire seemed to be ending. It must be where the targets lay, and she zoomed in again to the maximum she could manage and still retain a decent field of view. There, yes, were more ships. These were different in design, though broadly similar in appearance to those she had already seen. There were more curves and flowing lines, in contrast to the blocky sharpness of the Imperial ships that made them seem like flying palaces or castles. Some of these new ships did possess such a design, however; older versions of the same class of vessel, perhaps, or copies designed by the human Archenemy? From what she had been told, Twilight remembered that the Chaos forces had betrayed their Emperor and turned against the Imperium millennia ago. Perhaps they stole the plans for Imperial ships and built some themselves? Surely it was impossible that any mechanical construct, especially one of such impossibly vast scale, could still be in functioning, spaceworthy order after thousands of years?

Assuming, of course, that she was indeed looking at Chaos ships. Mention had been made in passing by humans of other species out there in the galaxy, with strange names. Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar...she thought she was remembering the names correctly. There was always the possibility that these ships were from some other race, despite their similarity in appearance. After all, Griffon airships looked broadly like those of the Royal Equestrian Air Corps, did they not?

Twilight had watched the titanic exchange of fire for several minutes, lost in the scale and scope of what she was witnessing. These ships were hundred of miles above the planet's surface and thousands of miles apart from each other, yet everything was as clear as a bell, despite it being daytime. She then remembered that she had to tell somepony about this, and quickly teleported herself down to the throne room where she now found herself. Cadence had been there, and Twilight had hurriedly explained what she had seen to the acting regent of Equestria.

Cadence had not known what to do; what could she do? Other than Twilight's vague sightings, which, while visually clear, had not exactly given her any intimate knowledge of what precisely was happening up there. It was only guesswork; somewhat educated guesswork, but guesswork nevertheless, and national action could never be taken based upon that. It was only a few minutes later that the human liaison team, Atter and Mons, had approached Cadence with a report from orbit. The Lord-Admiral was too busy to speak, but had ordered an alert message to be sent to the palace. The message confirmed the fears of Twilight. The ships she had seen were indeed new arrivals, and they were indeed ships of the human Archenemy, come to support their Daemonic patron, no doubt, or perhaps to rescue their surviving forces on the planet. Either way, it was critical that the news be relayed to Celestia and Luna at once. If the Chaos fleet managed to drive off their allies, it would leave Canterlot completely open to destruction from above, or to another occupation attempt by enemy landing forces.

But the Princesses were miles away. Cadence could have teleported down to them, but it would have taken time and left the city and the nation essentially leaderless, especially if anything should happen to her on the way there or the way back. The Princesses had no vox system, as the humans called it. The team assigned to them were right here beside Cadence, and not with the sisters. It had seemed that they had no way of communicating, until Twilight remembered Spike.

She felt bad not to have thought of him immediately. It gave her pause when she thought about how she felt more distant from her friends than she ever had since she had met them, and Spike was her oldest friend of all. She had known him all his short life, and yet she felt like she had hardly spoken to her since she had been captured. But then, she had hardly spoken to anypony, except when they had intruded on her thoughts, such as when they had visited her while she was bedridden, or Applejack sitting with her in the catacombs. In a way, she found that she was alright with that. She had partly returned to the mindset of how she had lived her younger years when studying in Canterlot; even with friendship she had always enjoyed being alone at times, to gather herself and think the thoughts that she dare not think when in company, but since she had returned from the Hive she found that she actively wanted to be alone, a condition she had not experienced since before she moved to Ponyville. It was one of those thoughts that she only wanted to think when she was alone, but now, she felt like it most of the time. If I was alone, I could think about this properly, she told herself. That's why I want to be alone. A self-fulfilling philosophy, driven by something that she did not fully understand.

Spike's ability to send enchanted scrolls to Princess Celestia directly using his fire breath, no matter where the Princess might be located, was the only way anypony could think of to contact her while she and Luna were out fighting, and so Cadence had sent a guard to bring Spike to the throne room as quickly as possible. When he arrived, Spike was eager to help, having felt like a bystander ever since the invasion, not being able to fight and not being able to help Twilight with her studies, since she had no time for such things and then had disappeared for almost two weeks while in Changeling hooves. Now, here was his chance to be the big hero that he so longed to be once more. Having helped save the Crystal Empire, Spike had just been waiting for his time to come again.

Twilight and Cadence rapidly drafted a scroll to be written and sent, informing Celestia as succinctly as possible of the arrival of a Chaos fleet and the fighting now underway in space. Once it was prepared, the scroll was affixed with the royal seal, given to Spike, and sent on its way by a flourish of magical flame.

Then the waiting began. Would Celestia receive the scroll? Would it reach her at all, when she was so far away? Most scrolls Spike had sent to her had gone from Ponyville to Canterlot, a fairly short distance. This was much farther away, as Celestia was down in the south at Fillydelphia. There was no cast-iron guarantee that the scrolls would function as designed over the longer distance. Even if they did, she might not receive it, perhaps not noticing its arrival among the maelstrom of battle, which each of them pictured in their minds. Doing battle with some monstrous creature from another world would stretch even the great minds and talents of the two royal sisters. It was far from unlikely that the scroll might not even be seen, instead simply falling to earth in some remote location, on a rooftop or hillside, never to be seen again.

Twilight especially found her mind good at conjuring up disaster scenarios, reasons why Celestia might not receive their message and warning. Perhaps she was dead, but no, they would know, as she had told herself before. They would have felt it. Perhaps she was incapacitated, unconscious, trapped, a prisoner somewhere. Perhaps she was desperately trying to save her sister, or the human ground forces, Perhaps...

Perhaps she was in Canterlot. A sudden flash of light illuminated the throne room, and there she was, and Luna, too, both royal sisters returned to their capital. They looked tired, a little drained perhaps, but they were not injured.

'Princess Celestia! Princess Luna!' Cadence quickly jumped up from the throne. 'Thank goodness you received our message.'

'Yes, that was good thinking, to use Spike's scrolls,' Celestia nodded, slowly settling down onto the floor of the chamber, with Luna landing beside her. 'We received your message and decided it was prudent to withdraw from the area until we know more about this new threat.'

'Indeed,' Luna agreed. 'The Daemon mentioned another threat would be coming. One presumes this is what it was referring to.'

'I saw them, Princess!' Twilight blurted out. 'I was using your telescope to look at the Imperial ships. I noticed they were moving and I didn't know why, then I saw...'

'Slowly, Twilight, slowly,' Celestia urged her. 'You saw the Imperial ships, and then you saw these other ships, correct?'

'Yes, Princess.' Twilight nodded, pacing herself better and continuing her explanation. 'I saw them moving and then I saw flashes. I guess it must have been weapons fire. I looked at where the fire was going, and that's where I saw more ships.'

'And you are certain these ships were not merely more Imperial vessels?' Luna questioned.

'No...I'm not sure at all, Princess,' Twilight replied. 'I don't know what the ships of any of these other species look like. Before today, I had only seen Imperial ones. The first ship I saw before the invasion, that was an Imperial ship, according to what we know. They arrived before their enemy did. In fact, the only non-Imperial ship I had seen was that one that blew up in the atmosphere.'

The ship, the Grand Cruiser which had detonated so spectacularly upon its reentry dive had not exactly been clearly visible, being shrouded in an ionised sheath of superheated plasma thanks to the compression of air in its path during its descent, and there was precious little left of it now, being scattered across the southeastern coastal plains in billions of tiny pieces. All Twilight had to go on was the fact that the ships she had spotted newly arrived in orbit did indeed look different to those they seemed to be fighting.

'Well, we can safely assume that at least some of the new ships you saw were Chaos vessels, given that the humans reported it through their spotter team,' Celestia pointed out. 'Clearly they are engaged in a battle, though how many of these enemy vessels there might be, I cannot say. Have the humans been able to get into contact with their Admiral again?'

'No, nothing,' Cadence replied. 'They are trying now. I sent them up to the top of the Celestial Tower. They thought they might get better...what did they call it...reception? Better reception from up there. I don't know how that gadget of theirs works.'

'Radio waves!' Twilight piped up again, causing all three Princesses to look at her, as well as Spike. 'I mean...at least, I think so,' she added. 'Something like that. Different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation can propagate through different media at different rates. In a vacuum they will travel at the speed of light, and...'

'Thank you, Twilight. We do not need a physics lecture at this point,' Luna rebuked her. 'What we need is a plan. How do we defeat this Daemon, and how do we prepare for this Chaos fleet?'

'We may not need to prepare for the fleet,' Celestia pointed out. 'It is entirely possible that the Imperial ships will be able to fight them off.'

'What do we know about the strength of the Imperial fleet?' Luna asked her sister. 'You have been in contact with their Lord-Admiral on numerous occasions.'

'I have, but he has remained tight-lipped,' Celestia replied. 'I believe he is not too keen on revealing his strength, or otherwise, to me. However, the last time I checked, there were one hundred and eighteen vessels.'

Twilight blinked. 'What? But you just said that the Lord-Admiral didn't want to reveal his strength to you...'

'He did not,' Celestia nodded. 'But he had no choice. A simple spell was all it took to scan the sky and determine the exact number of vessels.'

'But Princess, why did you not tell us of this before?' Twilight stood with her mouth slightly agape, both at the casual way Celestia had admitted to determining the Imperial numbers, and at the fact that she had not shared the information with her.

'I told my sister, and I told your brother,' Celestia replied to Twilight directly. 'They were the ones who needed to know. You did not. I did not wish to unduly alarm the population by revealing exactly how many Imperial ships were in orbit around our planet. It was bad enough for ponies to know that we were being invaded by beings from another world without their apparent strength being revealed also. All it would have done would be to spread additional unnecessary panic and rumour.'

Celestia had a point, a very valid point, but Twilight could not help but frown. Was she not important enough to be told these things? No, she supposed. She was not. Whatever opinion others might hold of her, and whatever powers she might possess, she was still just an ordinary citizen. Celestia's student, yes, but not a soldier, not an airpony or a guardspony or a military planner, nor even a civil governor or mayor. She was just a student and a young mare, and what would knowing the true numbers have actually meant for her? Celestia was right, she might have simply panicked. She was sure the population as a whole would have done, and there had been enough panic as it was, just from the simple fact of coming under attack.

'When you saw these new ships, Twilight, how many of them were there?' Luna questioned. 'Could you count them?'

'I couldn't count them all, Princess,' Twilight replied. 'There was too much weapons fire...I counted about fifteen, I think, although some might have been the Imperial ships, instead. It was hard to be sure.'

'One hundred and eighteen ships against fifteen hardly sounds like a fair fight,' Cadence pointed out. 'If that's the case then there shouldn't be anything to worry about.'

'That is assuming having the numbers advantage is all that matters,' Celestia answered. 'I counted that many Imperial ships, but I do not know what functions they all have. There is no guarantee they all have the same strengths and powers, or the same armament. After all, many, in fact the majority, of those ships I detected were much smaller than some of the others. It is reasonable to assume that the larger ships are the more powerful ones, if the Imperials follow the basic principles that are applied to our own airships and naval vessels. Given the number of soldiers and the variety and quantity of equipment they have landed, it would also be reasonable to suppose that a large number of those vessels are transports of some form or another. That does not mean they cannot be a warship as well, but again, from our own experiences, transports and support craft tend to be less well armed than warships. Of the absolute largest vessels, I detected only two. One of them was undoubtedly the flagship to which I was taken to speak with the Lord-Admiral. If that is the most powerful vessel in the fleet, then it seems that the Imperial force may not be quite so large as we imagine.'

'Then it is possible they could lose this fight?' Cadence asked, with a worried frown. 'What then? Would they flee, or be destroyed, or...?'

'That would depend on the mindset of the Lord-Admiral, would it not, sister?' Luna queried, to which Celestia nodded.

'Yes, it would. While I have spoken to him on numerous occasions, I still cannot quite grasp his true feelings with regards to this planet. I believe it is unlikely that he would simply abandon his mission, but if the safety of his entire fleet were to be put in jeopardy, then who can say how he might react in reality?'

'But if they flee, we will have no protection against their Archenemy!' Cadence cried.

'That is not strictly true,' Celestia replied, calmingly but somewhat cryptically. 'If the Chaos fleet finds itself victorious and in orbit around our planet, then they may well come to regret it rather quickly.'

Fighting Withdrawal

Lances tore through the superstructure of the Emperor's Judgement. Its starboard void shield had gone down under a concentrated pounding from three enemy cruisers and one battleship, all of whom had set their sights upon the Imperial flag vessel. Her own main batteries responded in kind, and in conjunction with the Indefatigable they turned one cruiser into a blazing wreck, gutted by internal plasma fires that even the emptiness of the void could not quench.

Where one fell, however, there were still a dozen more, squaring off against a rapidly dwindling Imperial force. Two whole frigate squadrons had gone, turned to ash and shattered metal. Only half a dozen of the small craft were still fighting, accompanied by a score of the somewhat hardier destroyers. Four cruisers were still operational, the Brigand's Folly, Polaris Maxima, Astra Gloria and the Barnham's Pride. Add in the two capital ships, and that was the sum total of the surviving Imperial battlefleet.

It was a sad moment, to see his fleet reduced to such a shadow of its former self. Lord-Admiral Marcos knew this would probably be his last command, one way or another. It was unlikely he would be sent out on such a grand adventure again even if he made it back home to Hydraphur. Segmentum Command was notoriously fickle in such ways, stripping men of command or reassigning them for the smallest infractions. Deliberately not sending in a report about such a species as these ponies, or indeed the Changelings, and the threat they could pose or the help they could provide through proper Mechanicus investigation, was most certainly more than a minor infraction, depending on how those back at Hydraphur chose to see it.

They would not, of course, understand what the situation was really like out in the field. The reality was the decision had been his to make, as Crusade commander, which was why he had made it. But inevitably if his superiors disagreed with his assessment and his reasoning, which they probably would, then that could be the end of his career as an officer, either forced to resign in disgrace, reassigned to some backwater as a patrol ship commander, or brought before a court martial, tried, and executed.

To reach that point, of course, he had to make it back to Hydraphur in the first place, and the Chaos forces were going to do all they could to prevent that. Heavy firepower was being thrown at the battleship in an attempt to knock out the command structure of the Imperial fleet and make it easier for them to overcome the remaining resistance. The Imperial ships had their main drives throbbing with power, driving them away from the planet, into the relative safety of higher orbits. They had the advantage of speed over the Chaos forces, who were still mostly in the process of turning, bringing their ships about to face them once more, or to bring their broadsides to bear. Even a slight head start was better than none at all, and might allow them to break contact successfully.

Marcos kept a wary eye on the tactical map as the Emperor's Judgement continued to power up and away from the planet. The Chaos forces were in pursuit, starting to come about, at least some of them. Other ships seemed content to remain in place, no doubt to form an inner cordon around the planet in case of any Imperial tricks. They wanted their prize and they seemed determined to keep it this time, not to squander it and be forced away as they had previously, albeit only with the help of Princess Celestia who had broken through the warp storm and allowed the Crusade fleet to strike.

Damage reports from across the flagship continued to stream in from multiple decks, as well as reports on the fight against the boarders. They had been mostly contained, and wiped out entirely on several decks. The second wave of assault boats that had been coming in had been destroyed by the fighter screens, with only a couple of the small craft reaching their target. They contributed nothing to the operation and there were more important things to deal with than a few small scattered boarding parties on board the lower decks. They were being kept in check, away from the important areas of the ship, and no doubt the armsmen would wipe out the remainder sooner or later.

Marcos had to focus on the grander scale, on the battle as a whole and on the disengagement from the fight. They were being overwhelmed and if they had stayed to fight they would not last very long. Even running away might not save them from the overwhelming odds stacked against them. The enemy continued to inflict more damage on the fleeing Imperial ships. More men died.

The torpedo alarm went off again as another wave of projectiles hurtled in toward the rear of the Emperor's Judgement as it tried to flee. Point defences engaged the torpedoes as they drew closer, knocking most of them out, but three of them smashed into the rear hull of the ship. Mercifully none of the engine exhausts were damaged and the main drives remained fully operational. An Imperial destroyer section moved in astern of their flagship for extra protection in case any more torpedoes were launched during the retreat.

Other destroyers unleashed their own wave of torpedoes toward the Chaos forces in retaliation before turning to flee with the rest of their comrades. Several impacts were made on the Chaos capital ships, but no major damage was done, and it did not slow them down at all. They continued to turn, and engage their main drives, perhaps to pursue the Imperials to destruction or simply to shepherd them away from the planet so that they could turn their malevolent intentions onto it. The Imperial ships still had a head start, and they managed to get into formation, protecting the flagship as their top priority.

The transports and the tankers were well away into deep system by now, and clearly they had not been a priority for the enemy to intercept. Their focus had been on the warships of the fleet, the threat to their own vessels that had to be wiped out if they were to establish dominance over the planet. Their focus did not shift, even as the Imperial fleet turned to run. Fire was poured into their aft void shields, with lance and las-blast alike pummeling the protective barriers in an attempt to break through. More torpedoes came in, and were swatted down by the rear guard of destroyers, who were willing to sacrifice themselves to protect the much larger ship.

The Emperor's Judgement was still fully operational, with the vast majority of its smaller batteries still intact, and its main lances functioning at peak efficiency. Their barrels glowed white hot with each blast, able to cool only through the venting of large heat sinks into the void, as operating in a vacuum meant that there was no atmospheric media for the heat to propagate into through radiation, as it would if such a weapon were to be fired on the surface of a planet.

The flagship's most deadly weapon, its waves and squadrons of bombers and attack craft, had been recalled. The smaller vessels did not possess warp drives, and if a total retreat became necessary they would end up being left behind if they were still fighting. Instead they made landings or were recovered aboard the docking bays by magnetic grapple, safely ensconced within the ship's hull, and protected, if needs be, from the perils of the warp by its Gellar field.

Throwing a fleet into a full scale retreat was not an easy proposition at any time. It required coordination which was all but impossible to achieve successfully in the heat of battle, where vision was dimmed, sensors could be jammed, and bridge crews very much had other things on their mind that took priority over accurate station keeping. Yet without precision, an orderly retreat would be impossible. A fleet had to maintain whichever formation it had been ordered to take, in order to provide protection against the enemy, from whichever direction they may attack. If ships got too close, they would impede each other's ability to fire freely and engage the enemy, cutting off firing arcs or resulting in friendly fire. If ships drifted too far apart, enemy vessels could slip in between them and break up the entire formation, or launch torpedoes at close range.

The Imperial ships managed to keep station relatively well. The sensors registered the tankers and transports as being some five hundred million miles ahead, well out into the system, far beyond visual range and only detectable as glowing icons on the tactical displays. They were clear of the planet and running as hard as their tired superstructures and overworked drives could carry them. Their crews, and especially their passengers, must have been gripped with fear every time the alert sirens sounded. Transports were all but defenceless against even the smallest aggressor, with only a few point defence turrets and sometimes a single battery of macrocannons to try and dissuade pirates or smaller escorts such as corvettes and light frigates. The crew, at least, had action stations to take up and tasks to perform during an attack, something to occupy their mind. But the Imperial Guard passengers, stuck in cramped and crowded holds and bunk decks, had no such function. If an enemy boarded a transport loaded with guardsmen, then they would find themselves in for a very nasty surprise, but if the ship came under attack by torpedo, lance or bomber, then the passengers were totally helpless, like a newborn. There was nothing they could do to influence the situation at all. The only thing they could possibly do was pray to the Emperor for salvation.

At the moment, that was something the entire fleet needed to do. They were being hounded all the way by heavy enemy fire, even as they attempted to disengage. The enemy were sending a portion of their vessels in pursuit, including half a dozen cruisers and two of the battleships. The other battleships had taken heavy damage and remained in orbit, but the force that was following the Imperials was more than sufficient to destroy them, if that was their objective. At the very least they had succeeded in forcing the Imperial ships away from the planet. Perhaps they would erect another warp storm to defend the planet from any more attempts to retake it, as they had done before, or perhaps their task would be completed quickly enough that such actions would not be needed, if they were here to destroy the planet rather than capture it.

Marcos urged his ships onward, needing to get every last drop of speed that they could from their drives if they were to outrun their pursuers. Lances played out across the void in both directions, with those aboard the Emperor's Judgement and Indefatigable acting as stern chasers, trying to harass the oncoming enemy and inflict damage here and there if possible, in the hope of slowing them down. It was not as effective as the gunners would have hoped, and the Chaos ships continued their pursuit eagerly.

How far they would follow remained to be seen. Would they hound them and pursue the Imperial fleet until they could surround and destroy them completely? Would they pursue until they overhauled the slower transports and break off to destroy them instead? Or would they only follow until the Crusade had been pushed sufficiently far from the planet for the Chaos forces to complete their objectives?

Marcos did not want to find out, but he had very few viable options. The transports had to be protected, as they were defenceless. The planet was already lost to them, at least for now, and Marcos knew there was nothing else he could do about that. If the planet was gone, then it was gone, and the focus had to turn to the defence of the fleet.

'My Lord!' The sharp voice of General Jahn cut across the bridge as the monocled man strode over to the Admiral. There was an unusual look of anger on his face, and Marcos was sure he knew exactly why.

'You cannot simply abandon the planet!' Jahn began, once it had become clear to him what was going on. His attentions had been focused on the battle below against the Daemon, even when the fleet came under attack. That was, after all, his duty as commander of ground forces. Lord-General Galen, his predecessor, might well have had a similar reaction, as both officers shared the uncommon trait among those of high rank of caring for the lives and the wellbeing of their troops.

'We have no choice, General,' Marcos replied simply and directly.

'But you cannot abandon my men! Why was I not consulted about this?' the General raged. 'There are thousands of them down there and you are willing to leave them to die at the hands of the Archenemy?'

'It is not a case of being willing, General,' Marcos answered. 'As I said, we have no choice. Under normal circumstances then you would of course have been consulted over any such decision. But this is very much not normal. If we stay and fight, then we all die, both my men and yours. If the fleet is destroyed, then your men down on the planet will die as well. I will not sacrifice my ships and their crews for no purpose.'

'But...but...' Jahn sputtered, though Marcos could tell that he already knew and understood the reality of what the Lord-Admiral had said to him. Losing the fleet was a pointless endeavour as it could not save the guardsmen on the ground unless it could wipe out the Chaos force, which it simply did not have the strength to do any more. The General nodded. 'You are correct, of course, My Lord, but...there must be something we can do. There has to be some way we can get back to them, to rescue my men.'

'If there is any opportunity to do so, General, then you have my word that we will take it,' Marcos assured him. 'But such a chance seems to be remote, at best. For now, all we can do is to regroup with the transports and protect them. There are many more of your men aboard those ships who cannot defend themselves.'

'Yes, My Lord. Any assistance your ships can provide to them will be appreciated, both by myself and my men,' Jahn nodded. 'I believe we still have sufficient forces aboard those transports to retake the planet from scratch, if we must. Am I correct in saying that the Chaos fleet appeared to have no transports of their own?'

'Yes, General,' Marcos informed him. 'You are correct. Our sensors detected only warships. While it is entirely possible that their ships may well have some troops aboard, they do not have any dedicated transports among their ranks. What that tells us about their intentions, I can only speculate.'

'Nothing good, I am certain,' Jahn replied, drawing the obvious conclusion. If the fleet had no transports, then they were not there for conquest, but for destruction. They may or may not bother extracting their own troops- concern for one's subordinates was not a renowned trait among the officers of the Archenemy- but regardless of whether or not they decided upon a rescue operation, what must surely follow would be Exterminatus, or perhaps worse than that. Perhaps some twisted Chaos version of the same principle, that would see the planet turned from lush, verdant garden world not into barren rock as it would be after an Imperial bombardment, but into a maelstrom of the bizarre, a house that Daemons built.

There had been reports gathered from across the galaxy by particularly brave or foolhardy Rogue Traders, or by hardened Astartes or Daemonhunter strike teams, of planets whose very essence had become Chaos. Ruled by a Daemon, perhaps similar to the one that had been struggling against the pony Princesses. Perhaps that was why it had come- to conquer the planet and bend it to its will, reshape it in the image of its patron god, Tzeentch- what better way to declare its allegiance to the god of change than to transform a natural paradise into a great shrine to the Dark Powers? Such planets were few and far between in realspace, thankfully, but such places were rabidly quarantined by the Inquisition and Imperial Navy patrols, for even a moment's exposure could drive an entire ship's crew insane.

The thought of this planet, Kuda Prime, becoming one of the Daemon Worlds made Marcos angry. Not just angry, but almost frothing at the mouth, apoplectic with fury about the desecration of such a place, and that in turn made him concerned. Why did he even care? It was just another planet, one among millions. Other than the inhabitants there was nothing special about it. But there was the very reason. The inhabitants. Yet again, he found his judgement clouded by his awareness of the existence of the ponies, and specifically the Princesses, Celestia in particular. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop thinking about her as being more than a mere Xenos. She was not one to be classified in such a way. She was something more, but even as he thought those thoughts, he knew it was dangerous to do so. After all, she was just a Xenos, no matter how powerful she may be. Yet it was not her power that made him feel that way. It was her inherent goodness, or something equating to it. As insane as that would sound to the inevitable court martial panel, or potential Inquisitorial hearing, that was why he had not submitted his report to Hydraphur. That was why he did not want to reveal the existence of such creatures to the Imperium as a whole.

Everything mankind touched, it burned. Everything good became bad under their auspices, no matter how well-intentioned people may be. Eventually, even the greatest triumphs would become disasters. It seemed to be the fundamental crutch of humanity, the weight it had to bear upon its very broad shoulders, and the very reason why it struggled so hard and so desperately against Chaos. Chaos represented the ultimate failure of mankind, because Chaos was the lack of order, and order was what kept the Imperium together. Order was what kept humanity functioning. But every time the Imperium had tried to impose that order upon other species, it had failed miserably. That was why mankind was at war with almost every species in the galaxy, and that was why Marcos wanted to protect the ponies from such a fate. They did not deserve to be enemies, they deserved to be friends, allies, or at the very least, a subject of scientific study under controlled conditions. They did not deserve to be destroyed and wiped from the face of their own planet, and Marcos knew that, if he transmitted a full report to Segmentum Command, that was the most likely result.

One did not have to be a pessimist to see the problems facing the fleet, or the planet if they did indeed abandon it to the enemy. The stark reality was that they were now fleeing for their lives, and leaving behind thousands of men and women to die, or worse, at the hands of Chaos. Yet as Marcos had insisted to General Jahn, they had no choice. Marcos, however, still had plans.

At his command, every ship in the fleet cut their main drives. Inertia continued to carry them onward through space, but then in unison the ships fired their port bow thrusters and aft starboard thrusters, which began to spin them about their axis even as they continued to move forward. The sudden act caught many of the Chaos ships by surprise, and as the broadside guns of the Imperial ships came to bear, they opened up on their pursuers.

Explosions rippled across the bows of the Chaos ships. Heavy firepower from the macrocannons of the Emperor's Judgement tore open the prow of one Chaos cruiser, while torpedoes from Imperial escorts struck hard blows against one of the battleships that followed on. Return lance fire blazed against the bow shields of the Imperial capital ships, but the Chaos forces had been caught out again.

And yet again, it was not enough. The ships continued to rotate through a full three hundred and sixty degrees, permitting them to unleash their bow armament and both broadsides before they resumed their course and cut their thrusters, rapidly firing the reverse combination of jets to stabilise themselves as their main drives kicked back in at full power. The Chaos forces had taken more damage, but they were still in pursuit. They had not slowed down, save for those ships which had been heavily damaged, but that left plenty more which were still coming.

The Imperial ships accelerated again, resuming their attempts to get away from their pursuers who were still firing and moving. The trick had caught them by surprise but had not been a crippling blow; Marcos had not expected it to, but every little helped, chipping away at their forces at any opportunity. It was the only way they were likely to escape, and certainly the only way they were going to ever retake the planet. If the enemy fleet remained at its present strength, that would never happen.

'Distance from the planet?' Marcos asked the Auspex crews.

'One hundred million miles, My Lord,' came the reply. 'Pursuing forces are four million miles astern. The transports are fifteen million miles ahead.'

'Very good. Helm, continue on present course,' Marcos ordered, hands clasped behind his back. 'Once we come within five million miles of the transports, all ships are to turn and engage the enemy.'

The transports were much slower than the warships now coming up on them from behind. Even a battleship was faster than most of the ungainly supply ships, but even the fast attack transports had to move slower than they could in order to keep station with the rest of the support vessels. As a result, both the Imperial and Chaos fleets were closing in rapidly, and the Imperials would be forced to defend the vulnerable transports. They could not simply overtake them and continue to flee, even if it might make the enemy change tack and allow the warships to escape. That was not what Marcos wanted. As he has said to General Jahn, they would protect the transports. They had to. There were tens of thousands of soldiers still aboard, maybe more.

The Crusade fleet continued to close in on the transports, trading fire with the Chaos ships. A last stand was surely coming. They had fled far enough from the planet that they were now approaching the system's star, which lay some fifty million miles distant. Getting too close would be dangerous, but It could also interfere with the targeting sensors of the pursuers, who were aiming into the sun. The Imperial ships were not, instead firing to their rear, where their sensors were scanning against the emptiness of space, unaffected by the intense radiation and heat output of the sun. Just like all of Marcos's fancy maneuvers, it would not be enough to stop the enemy, but it might give them the slightest edge that they needed, which could be the difference between life and death for the men of both the fleet and the transports.

'My Lord, we are five million miles astern of the transports,' the Auspex officer called across the bridge. It was time to make a stand, to turn and fight once again, not just for a moment this time, but to fight until the end, one way or another.

'Very well,' Marcos nodded grimly. 'All ships, form line abreast. Engage pursuing craft with all available weapons,' he ordered.

The fleet did as commanded, swinging about and slowing down, thrusters blazing against the blackness. The radiation from the sun interfered with the sensors of the Chaos ships, enough to give the Imperials a few seconds advantage as they rotated through the void. Again a hail of broadside fire struck the pursuers, who also began to slow, sensing this was the end of the pursuit, that the Imperial fleet would stand and fight here. The transports continued their lumbering progress onward, desperately running for safety in the outer system. They would go to warp if given the command by Marcos, heading back to Hydraphur to explain what had happened, how the fleet had given their lives to keep the Chaos forces from pursuing the defenceless transports and annihilating the guardsmen carried within. There was nothing else the transports or their passengers could do, except to watch with bated breath, with prayers on their lips and fear in their hearts. If the line held, they would live. If it failed, they may well die, as warp engines took time to spool up. The jump to the Immaterium would not be instantaneous, and no ship's captain wanted to be responsible for abandoning his fellows with a premature jump. They would wait for the Lord-Admiral's order. If it came, then it came, and they would run. If it did not, then they would stay. It was as simple as that.

To the rear of the transports, light flashed across the void, and battle was joined.

Defenders Of The Faith

Lance blasts flashed out across the void, playing across shields on both sides of the struggle with equal intensity, forming crazy, psychedelic patterns. The guns of the Emperor's Judgement and the Indefatigable poured relentless fire upon their foes, who were maneuvering to bring their own broadsides to bear. Torpedoes slashed out through space and struck deadly blows upon Chaos capital ships. For some of the Imperial escorts, they were the last ones in the magazine, having expended so many during the fighting that they had run out, with no possibility of resupply with the flight of the transports and support ships.

Unlike the first such maneuver, the enemy was ready for this one, expecting a final stand at some point, and they responded in kind, their formation fracturing as their ships broke away from each other, some taking position with broadsides on display, and others presenting a narrower profile with their bows toward the Imperials.

The Emperor's Judgement's bombers and interceptors were launched, as were the more limited supply of attack craft supplied to other vessels. They would act as a screen against incoming torpedoes and their Chaos equivalents, at least in theory. Their numbers had been depleted, however, by the previous engagement in orbit around the planet, and the squadrons were not operating at peak efficiency. They were keen, however, and pious, qualities that mattered in any Imperial servant, whether they be the highest Lord Militant or the lowliest labourer. They all served the Emperor, and they would al die for Him in the same way as any other man or woman.

The death rate among attack craft crews was often spectacularly high due to the innumerable hazards to such small craft, flitting about the giants around them like minnows around some kind of Void Whale, those humongous creatures that were perhaps the largest living beings in all of creation. Before launch, as before any flight, a ritual prayer had been performed by each squadron's Confessor or deck Priest, to absolve the men and prepare them for what may be their final mission in service to the Emperor. It was a solemn ceremony, but a very necessary one, given that the attrition rate meant that at least one attack craft would be lost on each sortie, even if no enemy were to be sighted. Launch or recovery accidents, mechanical failure, space weather or other hazards could cripple or destroy a fighter or bomber and kill its crew with ease, and such fates often befell entire flights of attack craft on long deployments.

With the fate of the fleet in the balance, every available attack craft had been manned and made ready for battle, including the Lightning and Thunderbolt fighters and Marauder bombers. Though they were primarily intended for atmospheric operations, like most aircraft operated by the Navy there was some degree of interoperability. Starhawk bombers could be used for ground attack in a pinch, and the trio of different aircraft intended to operate planetside could likewise be used as exo-atmospheric craft in an emergency situation. Their crews wore fully sealed flight suits with oxygen provided since they were often launched from ships in orbit when conducting an attack on an enemy position down below. The orbital injection engine and maneuvering thrusters could be used for operational control within the vacuum of space, and while a Lightning or Thunderbolt would not be as effective as a Fury, the dedicated void fighter of the Imperial Navy, they could add a tiny edge that might just make the difference between survival and certain death, between victory and defeat.

Captain Eliss Muran had found himself unexpectedly thrust back into action as a result. Despite being part of the attack runs on the Daemon down on the planet just a short while ago, he and the rest of Hammer Flight had been pulled from their squadron quarters by the sound of the general alarm. Muran had time to take a shower and grab a snack before the alarm had sounded, but that was all. No time to rest, nor to debrief from the last mission, either the attack on the Daemon or the strafing runs against the enemy trenches. The whole day so far had turned into a complete blur in his mind. Even at the height of a major engagement it was unusual for a pilot to be called to fly so many sorties in one day, because concentrating for so long on flying was too tiring and would lead to almost inevitable mistakes, any one of which could cost the pilot's life when travelling at high speed.

Nevertheless, in times when it was needed, pilots would fly two or three times the number of sorties that was considered to be optimum, either in support of ground forces or in defence of the carrier ship upon which they were based. The latter was very much the current situation, and so Muran had found himself heading down to the hangar bay once more. There had barely been time for the squadron's engineers and technicians to give his aircraft the once-over after the last mission, but it was to be called into service once again. The weapons racks had been hastily reloaded with anti-aircraft missiles, replacing the incendiary Hellfuries that had been used for ground attack. The autocannon's magazine tub had been refilled and the lascannon power packs replaced, perhaps in record time, as the process had been underway when the alarm sounded and had been rushed through. Each aircraft of the squadron had been quickly reprovisioned in just such a way, servitors and personnel working in unison to get them turned around and ready for battle once more.

Then, there had been a long wait, so typical of military life. Rapid, scrambled preparations followed by sitting and doing nothing, yet on edge all the while, adrenaline still flowing through the veins in anticipation. Would they be called into action? Surely the fleet could handle whatever was being thrown at them. The pilots sat in their cockpits, waiting, wondering. They knew little of the battle going on outside, other than the few rumours spread by the deck crews. The call to repel boarders had concerned them, but still they were not called to fight. Then there was something of a lull. The shaking and creaking of the ship under heavy fire diminished, died away. Had they won? Had the enemy retreated?

Muran and his fellow pilots had no idea of the true nature of the situation. It was not the enemy which had retreated, but their own fleet, and once they reached the outer system and the ships came about, the order came down from the bridge. Launch all craft. Every last one.

And so Muran and the rest of Hammer Flight found themselves hurtling through space. Combat in the void was something they all trained for, as their aircraft were more than capable of it, but it was not something that the average Lightning pilot ever expected to have to deal with in reality. The ship had its own Furies for that role, and it was only because of the emergency nature of the situation that faced them now that the atmospheric craft were being called into action as well.

Flying through space was like flying through a vid-pict screen. Everywhere there were flashes and bursts of light of all kinds of colours and intensities as weapons fire blazed out across the void. Any single shot being exchanged could destroy Muran's Lightning in a heartbeat, as a relatively fragile aircraft could not withstand the punishment that any of the main batteries could dish out. In atmosphere, enemy anti-aircraft fire often used tracer rounds in every few shells to help with visual tracking and aiming, and along with las and plasma fire it could be sometimes glimpsed passing through the sky, but out here against the blackness of space, every single round could be seen, thanks to the light from the system's sun shining upon the ordnance. Even shells and kinetic impactors that had no motive power of their own, nor any chemical or physical reaction that would cause light to be emitted, could be seen as glinting metal slivers, like flying through a shattering mirror.

Muran realised with sudden horror exactly how far they were from the planet. It was still visible, just about, as a tiny blue dot. At least, he assumed that was what he could see; given the distances involved it frankly could have been some other galaxy or an impossibly distant star, but it definitely had that bluish tinge to it that suggested water, atmosphere, life. It had to be the planet, and it showed exactly how small it was compared to the vastness of space. Yet here they were. Here he was, out in the middle of absolutely nothing in a tiny metal box, hurtling onward.

The Lightning was more difficult to control in the vacuum than it was in atmosphere. There was no air to manipulate the control surfaces, meaning that the craft was far less maneuverable than it should be, having to rely on the relatively brute force methods of short bursts of the main injection rocket motor for propulsion, and puffs of the thrusters, normally used for fine-tuning an approach to a docking bay, in order to rotate the craft. It was tricky, and realistically only the best pilots of atmospheric craft would be likely to survive even the smallest space engagement due to it requiring a totally different mindset and different control inputs. Yes, they might practise use of the space controls when launching and recovering to the carrier ship, but that was very different to attempting to engage the enemy using the same methods.

'Hammer Flight, ops room.' The vox buzzed in his ear, a message from the combat commanders aboard the Emperor's Judgement who were in control of attack craft operations. 'Steer heading two-one-zero relative, azimuth plus twenty. Engage hostile bomber squadron, identified as contacts sixty-nine through eighty.'

Muran took a quick glance at his tactical readouts, switched to void operations mode in order to reflect the realities of the situation around him. The orders meant they were to turn to a heading of two-one-zero degrees relative to the galactic centre, and twenty degrees above the galactic plane. With careful manipulation of the Lightning's rocket motor, Muran responded to the command, replying over the vox.

'Hammer Leader, steering heading two-one-zero relative, azimuth plus twenty. Hammer Flight is engaging hostile bomber targets.'

Rall, his wingman, was alongside him and turning also, while the rest of the flight followed on behind. The other half of the squadron was astern of them, following a similar turn toward the targets, which were invisible against the blackness except for glints of sunlight from canopies and metal fuselages. They were indistinguishable from dozens of other similar craft coming in, meaning Muran would have to rely on his tactical display to pick out the correctly assigned targets that the ops room had given him.

A few seconds of powerful thrust was enough to set his Lightning on a fast run toward the enemy bombers, showing up as numbered targets on his display. Each target was given a number, and he noted with dismay that the numbers were running into the thousands. Waves of fighters and bombers were heading their way, but a similar number of Imperial attack craft were responding to the defence of their fleet, having been rapidly scrambled as soon as the ships made the turn to stand and fight. Every available atmospheric aircraft had been sent out as well, to help replenish the diminished reserves of the dedicated void-capable Furies and Starhawks. Several battles had occurred since there had last been any opportunity to take aboard fresh pilots or new attack craft, and each fight had seen heavy losses among their number. The atmospheric aircraft had taken much smaller losses, and were available in their hundreds to join the fight.

Muran adjusted his tactical display to only show the area ahead of him where lay the specific targets his flight had been assigned to strike. He checked over his weapons loadout. Missiles, lascannon and autocannon were all ready. No doubt they would be very much needed in the very near future.

'Hammer Flight, Hammer Leader. Tally ho. Bandits in sight,' Muran informed his pilots. 'Range ten thousand miles. Go for target lock and standby to fire on my mark.'

A chorus of replies acknowledged his order. Ten thousand miles was almost infinity when applied to atmospheric operations, yet in the emptiness of space it was a hair's breadth only. Their targets were still essentially invisible to them even as they continued to close in rapidly, both sets of attack craft traveling at extremely high speeds, one to defend and the other to attack. Captain Muran flicked the master arm switch to on, readying his weapons for firing and activating the targeting computer of the jet. Last time he had used it, he was targeting individual Chaos infantrymen, who would perhaps have killed a couple of Imperial Guardsmen with their personal weapon. This time he was targeting void bombers which could, at least in theory, strike the killing blow that resulted in the destruction of a capital ship and the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of men and women. That was what he had to prevent. That was why he and the rest of his flight had been deployed to support the fleet. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and throwing Lightnings into the void line was indeed evidence of desperation.

The targeting computer of Muran's Lightning achieved a lock on one of the bombers as they drew closer and closer. He fired two missiles, one from under each wing, their rocket motors carrying them through the void. They were not the same anti-aircraft missiles that would be used in atmospheric combat, but rather more specialised versions fitted with attitude adjustment thrusters for pinpoint corrections in their course. Other members of his squadron fired as well as they achieved a lock, and a wave of missiles threw themselves at the enemy bombers, which were still well beyond visual identification range. The missiles were in range, however, and several of the craft disappeared in bright explosions which were very much visible to the Lightning pilots.

Muran felt a grim satisfaction at getting his first void kill. That would have to be designated by a slightly different symbol painted on the nose of his aircraft- although, of course, his original aircraft had already been destroyed, going down over Manehattan when he had ejected. Ever since then he had been flying a series of replacements, either strike fighters or copies of his own interceptor variant. A new, dedicated aircraft had not been assigned to him yet, due to shortages. Perhaps now he would never be assigned one at all. This may well be his last fight, and his last flight.

The Lightnings were in the middle of the gulf between the Imperial ships and their pursuers, far enough away from the enemy vessels to not have to worry about their point defences, as they were beyond their range. Fire from the main batteries of both sides, however, remained a threat. The Chaos warships were beginning to turn, to bring their own broadsides into action, filling the void with projectiles and flashing energy beams, forming a deadly gauntlet through which each attack craft would have to fly. No doubt friendly fire would claim lives on both sides; there was always one unlikely crew who ended up flying straight into a lance blast that could shatter a mountain, and simply vanishing into the ether as a result.

That was not how Muran wanted his career to end. If he had to die in a void fight, then let it be from an enemy fighter. There was honour in that, at least, rather than dying to something that he could do nothing about. It was a fight between two equals, no matter what the enemy pilot was- traitor human, Tau, Eldar, even an Ork in his incredibly crude flying contraptions that seemed ready to fall apart at any moment. They were all fellow pilots, and they were pursuing the same calling as he was. Something about flight gave them the same sense of freedom- but for Muran, being out in the void was rather different. There was no sign of the comforting sight of ground below that meant there was always somewhere to return to. If the Emperor's Judgement and all other Imperial ships were to be destroyed or go to warp without recovering their attack craft, he would find himself stranded, and with the planet the only possible source of survival in such a situation, it seemed extremely unlikely that his injection engine's rocket motor could provide enough thrust to get him moving toward it fast enough to reach safety before the relatively limited oxygen supply on board ran out. If that happened, then his pilotless Lightning would continued on course even with the rocket out of fuel. If his navigation system was accurate enough, then the aircraft would enter a terminal dive and burn up in the atmosphere, but if it was off by even a fraction of a degree from such a distance, then the Lightning would sail on past the planet and continue for all eternity out into the impossible emptiness between this galaxy and the next.

That was not a situation to relish, or to let one's thoughts dwell upon, and Muran tried to focus on the job still at hand. The threat screen was lighting up with enemy Auspex contacts. Fighters, coming in fast, breaking off from their escort of the bombers to move and intercept the Lightning force that had been launched from the Imperial flagship. They were no second-rate void fighters, but dedicated Swiftdeaths, designed exclusively for combat in space, unlike the Lightnings they were now homing in on. That did not, however, necessarily make them superior. The caliber of the pilot was just as important as his steed, and Muran, while not an expert on space combat as such, was a master of his craft, in every sense of the word.

'Tally ho, bandits inbound, break, break, break!' he ordered. The other Lightnings of the flight engaged their maneuvering thrusters to turn out of formation. It was tough to move effectively in a vacuum, as most Lightning pilots were accustomed to using the flight control surfaces that were only effective in atmosphere; the elevators, ailerons and rudder. Having to rely entirely on the thrusters and occasional bursts of the main rocket motor was a large step up from simply using them for general orientation toward the carrier ship and then for fine tuning their approach into a docking bay.

Many of the Lightnings rotated to face the oncoming enemy fighters, tracking them on Auspex. The Lightnings were now traveling sideways through space, having rotated about their axis but still moving in the same direction their last use of their rocket motor had propelled them in. This allowed them to fire at targets that were located off of their axis of movement, which helped confuse enemies who might imagine a fighter moving one way on their tactical screen to be defenceless if they approached from behind, only to find a nasty sting in what they thought would be their opponents' tail.

The Lightnings were far from defenceless, even if they were not optimized for space combat. More missiles left the racks, their rocket motors powering them onward to counter the Swiftdeath fighters that were coming in from several sides. Being able to orient parts of the formation in different directions meant the Lightnings could engage both threats at the same time with missiles, and Hammer Flight scored several easy kills against surprised enemy pilots who had perhaps underestimated their primarily atmosphere-based foes.

Missiles blasted off in return, heading for the Lightnings. Rapid evasive maneuvers of the kind that would have been second nature to their pilots were almost impossible in a vacuum, as the Lightnings could not take advantage of their turning circle or rapid climb rate in the same way. They lacked the dedicated combat thrusters and vectored plasma drives of those attack craft designed specifically for void combat, meaning outmaneuvering enemy missiles was all but impossible for them. Instead, chaff and flares were the order of the day, and they were just as effective in a vacuum as they were in atmosphere. The flares drew away any heat-seeking missiles, although with the Chaos forces firing against the backdrop of the system's star, that was hardly necessary anyway. The chaff, simple but effective strips of metallic foil that deceived enemy Auspexes, either by obscuring the real target or by acting as a decoy and appearing to be the target itself, still found their place also; if anything, the fact that the clouds of chaff were not dispersed by the wind or gravity as it would be on a planet meant they were even more effective, as they continued along on the same trajectory as the Lightning was moving when it released them, almost as a moving shield against targeting from behind.

Incoming missiles detonated astern of the Lightnings, mostly missing them entirely and sparing them even superficial damage. Hammer Eight, however, at the rear of the line, was not so fortunate, and disappeared in a cloud of flame and smoke as he was struck by a plasma missile that tore his jet apart. Not even a final scream came over the vox, and his death made no sound- dying in a vacuum was as silent as the grave.

There had been a casualty, but the Lightnings were giving better than they were getting. Several enemy bombers and at least two fighters had been knocked out, but in the titanic struggle raging around them, that was a mere pinprick against the mighty Chaos fleet now besieging the remnants of the Crusade. Where half a dozen had fallen, there were hundreds, or thousands, more scattered out across the abyss, and there was no way the Lightnings could hope to face off against them. Fortunately, they were not alone, as there were also a similar, though depleted, number of friendly Furies, as well as other Lightnings, and Thunderbolts, that were also heavily engaged in the fighting.

They were still outnumbered, however, and even as the Swiftdeaths swept by overhead and astern, more targets continued to appear on the periphery of the threat display screen as their Auspexes detected more and more of the enemy attack craft as they came into range. The enemy capital ships were many thousands of miles distant, but still appeared as vast, imposing hulks, silhouetted by weapons fire and illuminated by the blazing sun which, fortunately, appeared to be interfering with their sensors at least to a small degree. With such a potent source of heat and radiation lying directly in line with their attempts to target the Imperial ships, picking out the actual vessels against the backdrop of noise and clutter on an Auspex display was difficult, even for those with senses preternaturally sharpened by the grants and gifts of Chaos.

Imperial gunners were having an easier time of it, it seemed, for as Muran happened to glance around for threats he could see huge blooms of leaking plasma erupting from at least two of the Chaos capital ships. Lances continued to blaze on both sides, with flickering shields and explosions adding to the confusion of such a battle, on such a grand scale and across such vast distances as to be all but incomprehensible to those who had not grown up around such things.

It was still remarkable how anyone could have a full understanding of what was going on. Captains might command squadrons or companies, Generals would command Regiments. But each one of the ships Muran could see had a crew at least of the same size as most Guard Regiments, and the battleships had crews that were probably larger than entire Army Groups which might be assembled to conquer a whole planet. It truly was warfare on a mind-numbing scale, one that could test the strength and faith of any man.

But Muran and his fellow pilots were pious individuals, who paid fealty to the Emperor as any man or woman of the Imperium should. They were defenders of the faith, sent out to fight in the Emperor's name, with His word on their lips and His courage in their hearts.

All they could do was pray it would be enough.

Despair

The bridge of the Emperor's Judgement swayed once more as something else struck home, another shot from any one of a dozen sources that seemed to be concentrating all of their available firepower on the Imperial flagship. It was, after all, a wise move, and if Marcos knew which of the enemy battleships held their own fleet commanders, he would have ordered his ships to do the same.

As it was, there appeared to be no way of telling. The ships had no identifying signature that recorded them as being the ship of any particularly noteworthy Chaos admiral or Lord. Nor had their sensors detected any particular discrepancy in the number or length of encrypted vox signals either being transmitted or received by each battleship that might identify a command and control vessel. The Emperor's Judgement, on the other hand, was almost certain to be listed in Chaos records as Marcos's flagship, perhaps even as the flagship of the Western Fringe Crusade itself, depending on how up to date their information was. The Dark Powers had spies everywhere, and unlike most Xenos infiltrators, it was very hard to detect someone who was as human as those he spied upon, with a suitable cover story and no obvious affiliation to Chaos, such as the ritual tattoos many practitioners had applied to their bodies.

Even if the enemy did not know for certain of the identity of his flagship when they arrived, it would have been a simple task to establish contact with Chaos survivors on the ground, or perhaps with the Daemon through some psychic link, and be informed of the facts. The previous Chaos fleet learned the hard way of the identity of the Emperor's Judgement; they learned of the name Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, too.

Whatever his reputation may or may not have been among the enemy, the battle was not going well for the Lord-Admiral. His ships were taking a heavy pounding under the relentless fire of the enemy, who had been dogged in their pursuit and were now vicious in their attempts to destroy the remains of the Crusade. They were closing the gap and showing little interest in pursuing the transports. No doubt they could be dealt with later, or perhaps they did not care if the Guardsmen and equipment got away. Perhaps they simply wanted pure revenge for their fellows who had died in their millions when their ships had been destroyed, their lives snuffed out in the void of space. Perhaps that was why they were so intent on the destruction of the warships and not the transports and their precious human cargo.

If they could buy time for the transports to get away, then that would be something, at least. They had been forced to flee, or they would have died in orbit around the planet, which meant they had caught up to the slower cargo vessels, which were now able to pull away once more. It was far safer to make the jump to or from warp in the outer system, despite the antics of the original Chaos warfleet which had dropped from warp almost on top of the planet, a reckless but effective move which had allowed them to get a drop on the Imperials. Once the transports were far enough out for a safe jump, Marcos would give them the order- assuming he was still alive.

The Emperor's Judgement was taking powerful hits from several Chaos cruisers and Grand Cruisers, as well as the two battleships, which were all focusing fire. Imperial escorts were attempting to maneuver in order to protect their flagship and also unleash their own torpedoes. They were running low, having expended the majority of their supply already. Their numbers were also dwindling, as the escorts were usually the first to die in any engagement, being far less well armoured than the capital ships they were charged with protecting. The same applied in reverse, however, and a dozen or more Chaos escorts had been pummeled into mere hulks by Imperial attacks. Starhawk bombers rode the tidal wave of defensive fire to try and get in close to the Chaos battleships and inflict killing blows with their missiles and bombs, dipping inside their fluctuating shields and unleashing their payloads. They died in droves, bodies tumbling out into the inky blackness, but they got in a good hit, like a staggered pugilist bouncing off the ropes with a mighty uppercut.

A hail of plasma bombs rained down on the lead Chaos battleship, inflicting mortal wounds to its dorsal lances and crippling most of its main Auspex arrays. Thousands died, a fair price for the loss of so many pilots, shattering the battleship's primary armament and gutting several upper decks, opening them up to the void. Though the battleship had taken heavy damage, it had taken the majority of the Imperial bomber force to achieve such a goal, and it had not destroyed the ship entirely, merely inflicting a good pounding. The other battleship, and the cruisers, were in good fighting shape, despite the attentions of the Indefatigable's lances and a number of accurate torpedo strikes from Imperial destroyers.

Their numbers were starting to tell. The Brigand's Folly took a powerful hit, a volley of lance blasts to its port side shields, dropping them, and carving through the thick hull with the next barrage. A desperate call came in over the vox from the cruiser's captain. They were on fire, flames spreading rapidly through the internal web of plasma conduits. Fire suppression had failed, automatic sprinkler and deluge systems failing to check the progress of the blaze, and halon gas purge systems having similar trouble due to the intense nature of a plasma fire when compared to regular combustible materials. Even though they were designed specifically for the job, too much damage had been inflicted to the ship's midsection by the lance strikes, knocking out fire detectors and killing firefighting teams. The plasma conduits led back, eventually, to the main reactor chambers, which was very much the one place on board that fire was the most unwelcome visitor of all.

With the fire suppression system shattered, heavy damage to the port side, most weapons batteries out of action due to the failure of the plasma conduit grid, and the potential for a reactor explosion, the captain of the Brigand's Folly announced with a heavy heart over the vox that he was giving the order to abandon ship. It was yet another blow to the Crusade fleet, now down to three cruisers. There was little possibility of any of the other ships being able to rescue survivors from the Brigand's Folly. They were still heavily engaged in combat and could not be distracted with recovery operations. Lifeboats, escape pods and shuttles began to launch from the dying cruiser, men running for safety before it was too late. The fire was spreading to the reactor chamber, and there was going to be one hell of a bang if it spread to the reactors themselves. They had to flee, but might well find themselves adrift in a tiny, cramped capsule shared with half a dozen others, floating amidst a deadly barrage of gunfire as mighty ships dueled for supremacy and survival around them. Forgotten among the drama, they would likely either be caught by a stray shot and destroyed, or simply abandoned in the heat of battle, left to die as their oxygen ran out, their escape pods having extremely limited mobility, and with the planet many millions of miles distant, the odds would not be in their favour.

Lord-Admiral Marcos accepted the message from the stricken cruiser, but could do little to help. He could not switch even a single craft over to search and rescue mode, lest they all be destroyed as a result. The fight had to continue, for they had no choice, no choice at all. All hands were needed to keep manning the barricades and throw everything they had left at the enemy, because it was the only way any of them would survive the fight. Outnumbered and outgunned, suffering losses and casualties and damage, the Crusade fleet was in a bad way, and it was only getting worse.

If they turned to flee, they would die running. If they stayed to fight, they would die struggling, but at least the transports might make it to safety; that would be some small sliver of comfort, at least.

The Brigand's Folly erupted with a titanic blast, ripping the huge ship apart from the inside as the reactors touched off, the fire having reached and consumed them, with nothing left to fight its spread. Debris from the explosion tore into scores of escape pods and lifeboats, killing many of the crew who had fled in the vague hope of survival, but for them it was not to be. For the rest of the fleet, survival looked equally unlikely.

Another destroyer exploded right in the centre of the viewscreen, and Marcos knew it was time to supplicate himself, to take the ultimate step he had been pondering since the Chaos fleet arrived. The only way his ships and his men would live to see another day was if he called for help. But there were no Imperial forces within a sector of his location. No battlefleet could rush to his aid, no Astartes task force or probing Explorator fleet or even so much as a single Planetary Defence Force corvette. It was time to explain what was happening, why his fleet had pulled out of orbit. It was time to tell the truth to the ponies and to their Princess, before it was too late.

'Vox!' Marcos called. 'Open a channel to Canterlot.'

The telescope in the Lunar Tower had proven a useful device for observing exactly what seemed to be going on up above in the heavens. At the best of times it was hard to figure out, as neither the Princesses nor Twilight were au fait with the intricacies of space combat. Nor were the human liaison team able to provide much insight, as they were only knowledgable when it came to ground operations and ordering orbital strikes, and not with actual battle procedures for combat between such behemoths as those which could be observed in the void.

To the ponies, each craft looked pretty much the same, and as they swirled and swarmed about each other any concept of which side might have the upper hand was completely lost. Nevertheless it was an enthralling spectacle, seeing such titanic machines of war doing battle, though there was of course grave concern also as to the potential result of the fighting. If the Chaos forces were to emerge victorious, what then? Would death rain down upon them from above? Would there be another invasion? Perhaps one, and then the other?

The danger was clear and obvious, and Twilight spent much of the time she was not looking through the telescope simply pacing nervously, wearing down the stone floor of the observation chamber with her hooves as she moved back and forth again and again. She knew that there was nothing she could do to help in such an event, other than protect those immediately around her as best she could with her magic. There were plenty of Imperial forces on the ground, scattered al across Equestria where they had helped to take back many towns and cities. No doubt they would fight hard against any invasion, not for the ponies, but simply to try and save their own skins in the hope of buying enough time for rescue. Rescue, however, was surely an extremely unlikely prospect in the event of a Chaos victory; they would besiege the planet, surround it as they had done before, and if the Imperial fleet were destroyed or had fled entirely, then there would be no ships and no reinforcements available to attempt to launch such a mission to the planet.

Some ships certainly seemed to be pulling out of orbit, but whose they were was hard to say. Each Princess studied the battle through the telescope in turn, and tried their best to plan against any potential invasion. No pony knew if the human Archenemy would bother with landing ground troops or not, because nopony knew what their ultimate objective was, but given the presence of the Daemon before the fleet's arrival, and some of the things it had said, Celestia and Luna both deemed it likely that the new fleet was working in conjunction with the creature, rather than opposing it. That made it likely, they surmised, that more forces would be landed if possible, to support the Daemonic creature's plans, whatever they may be. The Equestrian forces could not hope to stand against another attack for more than a few hours, if that. Only with Imperial assistance could any semblance of society be saved in such an eventuality.

The fighting above seemed to intensify, and then apparently die down, with far fewer flashes of weapons fire. Many of the ships were on the move, heading toward the sun and out of sight, as the glare prevented any kind of viewing through the telescope. It seemed that some of the ships were running away- but which side?

At Celestia's instruction, vox messages were tried by the liaison team, but they received no reply. An ominous sign, perhaps, but Celestia was certain that she could still recognise the ship which she had been transported to, and which she presumed was still the Lord-Admiral's command craft. It too was heading away from the planet, though whether it was in pursuit or whether Marcos was the one fleeing, she could not be so sure. If his ship was still intact, then perhaps there was some other reason for the silence- a communications blackout, maybe. Perhaps weapons fire interfered with the transmissions, or, as Atter suggested, perhaps the enemy were jamming the signal. Celestia had asked to be kept abreast of the situation whenever possible, and until now Marcos had been perfectly willing to comply with that request, suggesting that things might not be going as relatively smoothly as they had been even a day earlier.

While the silence was worrying, Celestia was not unduly concerned just yet. The crews of the Imperial ships had far more important things to worry about if they were still fighting. Communication with the ground could come later; would come later, she had assured the others. Twilight, at least, remained unconvinced. She did not know the Lord-Admiral, had not spoken to him and certainly not met him in person. Nor had she seen his ship up close, as Celestia had done. Deferring to Celestia was usually a prudent course of action, but Twilight still could not quite convince herself that the Princess was necessarily correct this time- after all, if the Imperial fleet was destroyed, there was certainly no way the Admiral would be getting in contact with them.

In the absence of any evidence, and with the ships fading away from view as they pulled away from the planet, the attentions of the ponies had to turn instead to those few craft that remained in orbit. There were some still visible, perhaps a dozen or so in total. Why were they staying behind when the others seemed to all be leaving? Were they Imperial vessels, intending to protect the planet in case another wave of enemies should appear?

Twilight peered through the telescope again. She didn't think so. They looked to her more like the ships she had seen arriving, not the ones which had already been up there. If that was the case, then it meant the Chaos forces were now in control of the orbital approaches to the planet, and that was very, very bad news indeed.

Celestia agreed with Twilight's assessment. It seemed the ships were hostile, which meant they had to be prepared for any eventuality. They could not be one hundred percent sure of their identities, but it was prudent to act as if they were Chaos. The Royal Guard sounded the general alarm for Canterlot, which saw ponies rushing to the now-cleansed walltop defence positions. The fallout had been removed or reduced to acceptable levels of radiation across the entire city by now, which included the landing grounds, allowing the airships to return from their temporary exile. They were scrambled as well, their crews prepping for liftoff in record time, getting their craft into the air, the drone of their engines throbbing across the valley. Cannons were manned and loaded, defensive sniping spots and emplacements filled with guardsponies in full combat armour. Most likely it was a pointless exercise; either the Imperials were still in control of the skies, or the Chaos forces would hit the city from orbit, or land troops directly within the walls as they had during the initial invasion. But if nothing else it made the ponies feel better. Finally they were doing something useful again, instead of simply cowering in the catacombs or cleaning up the city as best they could. They were out there defending it, and it helped the civilians, too. It was not humans defending their battlements. It was ponies.

With the battle seeming to be either concluded or merely having moved out of sight, the Princesses and Twilight headed back down to the throne room. There was nothing else to see through the telescope that would help them. Celestia tried her scanning spell again. It showed that there were no more than twenty ships in orbit around the planet, and while there had been one hell of a fight above, there was no way that many ships could have been destroyed without it being evident even to the ponies- the few massive explosions they had seen seemed to show that. Widening the radius of her spell showed that there were a lot more ships farther out from the planet. That was where the rest of them had gone, no longer in orbit but heading off elsewhere. Why? Were they running, or moving to intercept some other incoming threat?

In the throne room, they could plan more effectively for the defence of Canterlot. The rest of Equestria would have to mostly fend for itself, as it had done since the first invasion. Communication was still too slow for effective coordination of efforts across such a large area, and the humans had continued to refuse efforts to obtain some of their vox sets for pony use; keeping their technology to themselves, either out of mistrust or a desire to limit its spread to less technologically advanced civilizations.

The human spotter team, however, still had theirs, and shortly after, while the Princesses were in the midst of planning and poring over a map of the city in conjunction with Shining Armour, a messenger pony hurried to them.

'Your Highness!' he addressed Celestia. 'The humans say they have made contact with the Lord-Admiral!'

Celestia immediately left the planning table. That could be left to Shining Armour, and might not even be necessary. It depended on what she could learn from the Lord-Admiral. What exactly was happening up there- and could the Imperial fleet help her?

Captain Muran expended his final missile with a silent puff of exhaust from its motor. It streaked across the blackness toward an enemy bomber and tore into its fuselage before detonating inside, ripping the crew to shreds. All of his flak and plasma missiles had been used up, leaving his Lightning reliant on its lascannons and single autocannon to engage any more targets that might present themselves. There were still plenty around; hundreds of enemy fighters, bombers, attack boats and perhaps even more boarding torpedoes. The boarding teams that had forced entry into the Emperor's Judgement had been, so far as he knew, kept well in check by the armsmen and the rest of the ship's crew. Muran had not picked up any boarding craft on his Auspex, however; any further attempt would seem pointless unless the enemy desired to capture the Lord-Admiral for propaganda purposes. They already had the firepower advantage to simply keep pounding the fleet until it was nothing but wreckage. Boarding no longer held any significant tactical advantage. Instead, wave after wave of attack craft were being thrown at the Imperial line, and the line was faltering.

The numbers of blue sigils on the tactical screen was dropping steadily. Furies and Starhawks were taking heavy losses from enemy fire; the attack run on the Chaos battleship had cost the bomber force at least half their remaining number. Hundreds of Starhawks, gone in mere minutes, with a few thousands crewmen on board. That was to say nothing of the losses aboard the capital ships and escorts, which were sure to be catastrophic, running into the low hundreds of thousands judging by the devastation Muran could see from the outside.

There were gashes and gouges torn in even the thickest hulls, plasma and oxygen venting freely from many spots. The Brigand's Folly lay nearby. All pilots had been warned to stay clear of the crippled ship, as its main reactors threatened to overload at any time. Muran noticed that the cruiser was moving again; heading toward the enemy line, in a last ditch effort to inflict damage. Some enterprising fool or fools were at the controls, heroes steering the doomed ship into range of the enemy so that they might be caught in the blast from the reactors. it was a noble thing to watch, knowing that men or women were preparing to die in such a way. Perhaps it was the captain himself, going down with the ship, or maybe some junior officer had volunteered for the task. In truth it did not much matter either way. The important thing was that it was being done, and done in the name of the Emperor.

But would He save them? Could He? Could anything?

They were a long, long way from His radiance, basking in the glow of some foreign, far distant sun. All around, Muran could see evidence that their final stand was faltering, failing. There was heavy damage, turrets missing, entire shoals of attack craft lying dead in space, slowly rotating in whatever manner they had been when their last control input was made. There went the Brigand's Folly, all available power from the threatened reactors diverted to the forward shields. An absolute torrent of fire was flung against it by the enemy; perhaps they were aware of its plan, or perhaps they simply feared a potential torpedo attack or boarding action. Either way, the shields flickered and died, and lances, las-blasts and plasma began to smash into the thickly armoured prow of the Imperial cruiser. In a parallel of the earlier Daemonfate incident, the armour managed to hold long enough for the cruiser to get in close, trying to maneuver between the two battleships. But the Emperor called his servants home a little too early, and the Brigand's Folly disappeared in an actinic flash as the reactors overloaded and tore the ship apart several thousand miles away from the nearest Chaos ship. Apart from some minor damage, mostly superficial, the pair of battleships were unharmed by the gallant act of the brave men and women of the Brigand's Folly's stay behind crew. Brave, yes, but ultimately futile.

Just like the resistance of the entire fleet. They were being ripped to shreds by the enemy, the gambit of the Brigand's Folly had failed, the Astra Gloria was little more than a husk with a few small gun batteries still firing. The Polaris Maxima was hanging back somewhat, moderate damage visible to its port side. The Barnham's Pride was still fighting with all guns blazing, but both the Indefatigable and the Emperor's judgement were visibly stricken, not out of the fight and certainly not dead, but surely suffering massive casualties and severe damage. Clouds of debris surrounded both ships, parts of the hull shot away or ablated under the heat of a lance blast. Shattered attack craft. Bodies.

That was the only thing that would be left of them all, soon enough. Muran was sure. This had to be the end, unless Marcos ordered the ships to go to warp immediately. Even then, chances were they would not survive the attempt, since it would require the lowering of the void shields and the raising of the Gellar field, and while many shields were already down, those that remained were probably preventing the total destruction of at least half a dozen of the Imperial vessels.

The target lock alarm sounded in Muran's ear. Something, somewhere, was picking him up and painting him as a target. His rocket motor was running low on fuel; the Lightning was not designed for particularly extended space operations, and certainly not for violent combat maneuvers while being powered by the orbital injection engine. It was meant for a single, smooth burn to lift the craft into orbit, followed by a short secondary burn to get it on track with the carrier ship. Too much movement would drink through the liquid fuel in a hurry, which was exactly what had happened.

Nevertheless, Muran had to use up more precious lifeblood in order to dodge the incoming missile which had been fired at him, perhaps by a fighter or perhaps by the point defences of one of the Chaos destroyers he was veering a little close to. He had run out of chaff and flares. With so many threats around, they had to be expended liberally, as something seemed to lock onto his craft every minute or two. The scale of the battle threw every other air engagement he had ever been part of into the shade; there were thousands of attack craft whirling silently through space, both friend and foe, and against the backdrop of black it was hard to determine who was who. Looking toward the blinding light of the sun made it even harder, though the photoreactive cockpit canopy and helmet visor both tried their best to keep glare to a minimum and help Muran see what he was looking at. Again, here was an area where the Lightning suffered compared to the more specialised Fury and Swiftdeath fighters, which had much stronger anti-glare features. The Lightning was never meant to get this close to something as bright as the sun, a ball of swirling energy and a maelstrom of heat.

The missile detonated harmlessly astern of Muran's Lightning, and Rall, his wingman, managed to catch up and rejoin formation. He too was running low on fuel both for the main motor and the maneuvering thrusters. A return to the Emperor's Judgement would seem prudent, to refuel and rearm, but there was no guarantee their squadron's hangar bay was in any fit state to receive them. There was heavy damage to the battleship's flank, and to prove the point, even as Muran spared it another glance he could see explosions rippling along its hull amidships, right where the hangar bay he had flown from was located. Perhaps it was the end of the flagship. Maybe he was seeing the destruction of the last of the Crusade, the death of its commander. He turned his head and rotated his Lightning to face the Chaos ships.

With a sudden, blinding flash, he began to witness their destruction instead.

Salvation

The brilliant beams smashed into the Chaos fleet with little warning. Though their sensors picked up the discrepancy and recorded the fluctuations in energy, their operators were clueless as to the cause until it was too late. They burned against the void shields, which resisted only for a few moments before collapsing, emitters shorting out. They bored through the hulls like a drill, melting away feet of adamantium and ceramite as it it were paper and wood. The first ship to be struck, a cruiser, threw all available power into its port shields to try and stop the sudden onslaught, but it was futile. Within moments the beam had cut straight through the entire ship and out the other side, almost splitting it in half. Explosions belched out vapour and plasma from internal compartments as the next ship in line, a destroyer, took a direct hit. Within seconds it had ceased to be, its reactors breached, detonating in a spherical fireball.

Other Chaos ships tried to turn, move out of the line of fire as they could see more of the white-hot beams coming straight at them. But they were far too slow, and another three destroyers paid the ultimate price. One of the Grand Cruisers took a heavy hit that tore straight through the bridge and killed the entire command crew, punching out the other side and expelling half a dozen hangar bays and their contents into the void. The Chaos battleship that had already been damaged by the Imperial bombing raids was next to be hit, and despite frantic thruster use and bringing its main drives to full reverse, it could not escape. Nor could two of its frigate escorts escape the cataclysmic blast which annihilated the entire, miles-long craft, the main reactors exploding and followed by a string of huge blasts as secondary reactors and ammunition magazines went up.

Some of the Chaos ships panicked. How could this be happening? It was impossible. They tried to run, and in the confusion a frigate and destroyer collided, almost welding themselves together, firmly locked in a deadly embrace as another of the beams found them and blew them to pieces with another reactor explosion. The escorts were so relatively small, and the beams so wide, that there was no possibility of maneuvering to try and protect the aft section where the reactors were located. Nor could armour or shields offer more than a few moments of defence against them. What was this, cried the Chaos captains? Some new Imperial trick, an unknown weapon carried by the Crusade fleet?

But the attacks were not coming from the Imperials. They were coming directly, impossibly, from the system's star. Raw solar energy was being weaponised and hurled through space to kill and destroy. No human weapon could cause such a thing, and no psyker could accomplish that, not even their Emperor. Was there another foe out there, the Necrons, perhaps? Their starships were known to be able to hide inside a star's corona. But even they, perhaps the most technologically advanced of the foes of Chaos, could not accomplish this feat.

Lord-Admiral Marcos stood watching from his command lectern, with an undisguised feeling of utter relief clearly displayed on his face. His fleet, it seemed, had been saved right at the last, when all hope seemed lost and the enemy had been close to striking the killer blow that would finish them off entirely.

The only assistance they could have possibly received in this darkest hour would not come from humanity, but from a Xenos, a Princess with the powers of a goddess, who he thought might just, conceivably, be both able and willing to help them in their desperate plight. And so he had sent a message over the vox. Boosted by the powerful signal repeaters aboard the Emperor's Judgement, his call reached the planet, and the liaison team stationed at Canterlot. He was able to speak directly to the Princess once more, and to ask for her aid. He was willing to beg if necessary, if it offered any hope of saving his fleet and his men.

It had not been necessary. Celestia was more than willing to help, once she had been informed that the ships in orbit were, indeed, those of the enemy and not of the Imperial Crusade. That meant they were a threat to the planet and to the ponies as well as to the humans. Marcos had asked for her aid in defeating the Chaos ships that were besieging his fleet in the deep system- they were being overwhelmed and if nothing else was done, it was likely that they would be destroyed in short order, ending all Imperial presence in space in the system and leaving the ponies and the Imperial ground forces extremely vulnerable to whatever Chaos might be planning.

In reply, Celestia had agreed to help but had pointed out that she had no means of telling which ships were which from such a distance. She could detect individual vessels with her spell, but they all seemed alike to her, glowing auras suspended in the inky blackness of her mind's eye. She needed a way of telling friend from foe, lest her efforts to assist turned into disaster. Marcos was once again astounded when she told him that she could detect the ships, even those no longer in orbit, but he quickly remembered that nothing surprised him truly any more, not when it came to these creatures and their leader in particular. He did not bother asking exactly how she managed it, but he was able to come up with a solution. It was simple enough; all of his ships would stop moving, and once the Brigand's Folly had completed its death charge, Marcos issued a fleet-wide order to that effect. Anything large enough for Celestia to detect that was in motion would be an enemy. It did not mean that every stationary ship would be Imperial, but it did rule out any friendly fire. Marcos hoped the Princess could thin the herd of enemies that faced them.

And that was exactly what she did, in about the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

The bridge crew knew their Admiral was in conversation with the Xenos leader, and they had seen her exhibition before when she had destroyed the asteroid. But this was something else entirely. Not one single, focused beam, but dozens of them, lancing out one after the other from the boiling bulk of the sun, flashing across the void and smashing into the enemy. Not just a single ship; first one, then another, and another, all being struck in succession by the rays of superheated plasma direct from one of the largest nuclear furnaces in the galaxy, and far more effective than any lance beam or plasma cannon could ever hope to be. Even the strongest void shields, mounted on capital ships, proved to be little more than a very temporary inconvenience. Armour melted away before the blasts.

As he watched, Marcos's relief turned to grim satisfaction. The enemy, so confident in their pursuit of the Crusade, had suddenly run straight into an unexpected problem, and found themselves, in turn, being totally outclassed by something that they could not understand. Their confusion was clear to see, as ships turned in every direction, command and control breaking down as the Chaos fleet came under fire from a source that was both unknown and seemingly impossible. No doubt it seemed a ridiculous concept to those witnessing it; the sun itself was hurling energy at them, in a way that defied physics, even to the strange and twisted Chaos interpretation of that concept. They were not in the warp, where such things might have been possible according to the whims of their gods. Yet something, some being or force of godlike power, had harnessed the very essence of the stars themselves to strike deadly blows against an invading force. Perhaps even more notable, the attacks seemed to be selective. The Imperial vessels in the vicinity were not being attacked, which ruled out any possibility of it being a natural or uncontrolled phenomenon.

They knew someone was responsible, but they did not know who.

Marcos knew the truth, and he had never been so glad to see a Xenos of any species display its power. Eldar sorcerers and Farseers had sometimes forged temporary and unsteady alliances to fight alongside forces under his command in the past, and their psychic powers were impressive, but faced with a situation where they could protect human forces, the deceitful Eldar would almost always choose not to bother, to save themselves the trouble of doing the same job later. Tyranid synapse creatures and Hive Ships and the forces of the Archenemy held nothing but evil intentions toward the Imperium. Finding a creature with both the power and desire to help save an entire Imperial fleet from certain destruction was all but impossible outside of Holy Terra itself, and yet that was exactly what the Crusade had uncovered.

There was no doubt Celestia was doing this to help save her own people. Nothing less could be expected of any good leader. But the immediate threat to the ponies came from the ships still in orbit, not those that were attacking the Imperial fleet, but those ships out in deep system had been her first target. She had made the decision and taken the action to try and save human lives, a deliberate choice and one that Marcos could still only marvel at even as he watched one of the Grand Cruisers slowly tear itself apart from within, riddled with internal plasma explosions that were spreading from stem to stern. Perhaps she felt it was right, or perhaps she knew she could still protect herself and her ponies from the ships in orbit if she had to, even while focusing on the rest of the enemy force.

Either way, Marcos was more than grateful. He and his forces had done their bit to protect the ponies, and now their Princess was doing the same in return. It was clear to him that without the sudden outburst of solar activity, the fleet would, even now, be undergoing its final death throes. Her assistance was driven by her apparent ability to detect the ships, even those not in orbit, with unerring and unnerving accuracy. Had she only recently developed this ability? Or did she simply not wish to use it earlier on? Perhaps, Marcos reasoned, she had simply not mentioned it to him, and maybe during the initial invasion she had been caught unprepared. Perhaps it was not a passive ability, but required an active mental effort; in which case she could not have reacted and scanned the skies until she had been made aware of the arrival of something in orbit in the first place, when the Crusade fleet had warped into system and started to make planetfall.

Whatever the reality and the full extent of Celestia's real power, it was just yet another in the string of revelations which continued to impress the Lord-Admiral at every turn, making him both more in awe of, and more wary of, the Princess. After all, she may have been saving their hides, but as much as anything this was another demonstration; on a larger scale, and with a more stunning outcome than the destruction of a mere piece of space rock, but it was no doubt designed as much to show that, yes, her wrath could quite easily be turned upon the Imperial ships if they did something to upset her. Everything she had done since that first meeting with Marcos had told him the same thing about her. She was smart, and she was dangerous, and that could be a very deadly combination if one got on the wrong side of it.

He was glad that the Crusade fleet was still on her good side, otherwise it could have been his own ships being turned into empty hulks and lifeless clumps of gently spinning debris. As it was, the Chaos fleet was suffering that particular fate, and Marcos relished watching every moment of it through the viewscreen, and seeing the number of red sigils on the holo-map dwindling. A proud and deadly fleet was being steadily reduced to scrap, and thanks to the arrangement with the Princess, the more they tried to maneuver themselves away from danger, the more of a target they became. The Imperial vessels held position steadfastly, those crews with access to viewports or displays screens watching in awe and shock as the foe which had been about to strike them down suddenly died in their droves, ships of all sizes exploding in incandescent flashes of exploding plasma and warp energy. Not even the fabled, semi-mythical tales of the Blackstone Fortresses or the greatest of the Necron war machines could bring about such massed destruction in such short order, and if they could, then it would certainly lack the same precision. This was not a shotgun blast, but a scalpel, making cuts in all the right places and annihilating the Chaos fleet before their very eyes.

Confused cheers and shouts of joy rose from the throats of thousands of Imperial crewmen and attack craft pilots. They did not understand the source, but all they cared about was the result. They could see the enemy dying, trying to flee and being cut down mercilessly. Some new weapon that the Magi of the Mechanicus had come up with, perhaps? Or as others suggested, something discovered on the planet, some ancient and unknown source of great power that the Lord-Admiral had been keeping up his sleeve until the time was right? In a way, they were right.

Twilight had stayed with the Princesses as they retreated into a war conference. What she had learned from studying the skies was of little help to her now, and once again she felt utterly powerless when confronted with such a major danger. Even with the Element of Magic in her possession, she would feel inadequate against this foe, but without it she felt completely impotent, bereft of any ability to engage or cope with whatever might follow. The human ships, Chaos ships now, she reminded herself, were in orbit, far out of her reach with even her strongest magical spells. After all, there were no spells in any of the textbooks about attacking or moving objects that were in orbit. The treatises on astronomical movement and phenomena she had read had all been unanimous in stating the simple facts; the only heavenly bodies that could be manipulated were the sun and the moon, and that could only be done by the Princess of the Day, and the Princess of the Night, or some other pony or group of ponies with the combined power to do so. The truth of the matter was rather more complex; after all, Celestia did not exactly raise the sun. It rose of its own accord, as the planet rotated, bringing day and night to each continent in turn. Most ponies accepted that to be the case, though the ritual of raising the sun and the moon were still adhered to by the Princesses.

What was clear, however, was that Celestia could move the sun if she wanted. She had done so in the past, albeit only slightly, more for effect and demonstration in the ancient times than anything else. Moving it too far would create unpredictable tidal effects in relation to the planet, which could cause a catastrophe as great as anything ponies could possibly imagine. It could perturb the orbits of asteroids in the solar system and send them hurtling on a collision course with the planet. It could cause increased gravitational stress, causing the breakup of tectonic plates and impossibly massive earthquakes and tsunamis. It could affect the day/night cycle and the ability of the planet itself to support life. That was why she did not move the sun, and why Luna did not move the moon- but they could if they had to.

Twilight knew this, but that did not help ease her mind. Moving the sun or the moon did not necessarily equal the ability to fight an orbital threat, and while she knew that Celestia had somehow opened up a hole in the Chaos-spawned warp storm, she did not know precisely how it had been done. Attacking or affecting the storm was different again from attacking individual ships. It did not necessarily follow that because she could do one, she was capable of doing the other.

Nevertheless, there was reason for some optimism when the human liaison team had announced that the Lord-Admiral was calling on their vox system. Celestia had answered, and together with Luna, Cadence, Twilight and Shining Armour, had been appraised of the situation in as brief yet concise a fashion as Marcos could manage. Twilight was more unnerved than ever by his admission that the Imperial fleet was being overwhelmed, but Celestia had quickly assured the Admiral, and by extension everypony else, that she could help.

That brief moment was enough to turn Twilight's fear into hope again. If Celestia felt she could help, then Twilight knew the Princess could save them, and the Imperials as well. She had never doubted Celestia's ability to fight; only her ability to do it far away from the planet. When she had voiced her ability to detect ships in orbit, Twilight had wondered if that meant she could fight them as well. It seemed possible; now, it seemed certain. The Princess herself had said as much, and Twilight doubted that was just an attempt to appease or calm the Admiral. It seemed that she intended very much to fight, somehow, the Chaos ships, even as they were now many millions of miles from the planet, according to the Admiral. They were, however, drawing steadily closer to the sun. All part of his hopeful plan.

And his plan had come to fruition. Twilight had listened as the Princess had dished out her orders to her underlings, and accepted the Admiral's request. Her horn began to glow, and, though nothing seemed to change as far as Twilight could tell, she knew she was watching great concentration, great effort, and the wielding of great power. Far above, unbeknownst to Twilight, Marcos's hope for salvation was being granted, not by his own Emperor, but by her Princess. Just as she had helped and saved so many ponies down the long years of history, now she was helping humans, protecting them from their greatest foe using the fundamental power she possessed, far in excess of any other creature under normal circumstances. Even her sister could not stand against her directly if Celestia did not wish it. Nor could these ships, being so far away and unable to effect her or influence her actions. They could do nothing to protect themselves against a force of nature itself, for that was what Celestia represented.

Twilight stayed quiet, just watching, observing, learning even though nothing seemed to be happening. She knew that vast forces were being set in motion, even if it would be impossible for her to actually see. She could use the telescope, but she could not look directly at the sun even with that- it did not offer protection for the eyes from such a light. Even if she could she did not know if she could see anything of the attacks which Celestia was surely unleashing upon the Chaos ships. So she contented herself with watching her mentor kill thousands, possibly millions, of humans in a matter of minutes, trying her best not to think of the enemy as worthy of such consideration in the first place. So what if they died? They all came here just to kill, to maim, to rape, plunder and despoil the land. That was all. They were worse, far worse, than Discord or Sombra or even the Changelings, their other current mortal enemy. They had no objective other than to cause misery, no goal they could claim as their noble cause, no matter how misguided it might be. Pain was all they knew, and had to be dealt back to them in equal measure.

At least, that was what Celestia had tried to drill into Twilight's mind. Her brother had done the same, trying to explain why he had been party to the execution by firing squad of some of their number. Twilight had come to agree with them, for the most part. Everything she had seen of this enemy showed they had no redeeming qualities, not exhibiting a shred of remorse for their actions or for the shameful pleasure they took in spreading so much suffering wherever they went. Ponies had died, towns and cities had been wiped off the map or turned into charnel houses as a result of their passage, buildings burned with families trapped inside, foals torn unborn from their mothers' wombs for no reason other than as a symbol of their vicious cruelty toward, seemingly, all their fellow living beings. None had been spared, save for those who had managed to escape detection through one means or another. Clearly, if the Chaos forces did have an ultimate objective on the planet beyond simple murder, then it was carefully concealed behind a smokescreen of violence for violence's sake.

Some small part of Twilight, the part which had guided her conscience through all of her trials and tribulations, alone or with her friends, still told her that violence in return was not the answer. But she certainly had no alternative ideas. Celestia, her mentor and teacher, clearly had no qualms about unleashing the full potential of her vast powers if she deemed it necessary, even when the deaths of countless beings would hang on her conscience for the rest of her life- assuming, of course, that the Princess actually thought of these enemies as creatures in the same way that she would with, say, a Griffon or Yak or Zebra.They were sapient beings with a conscience, with free will, with a moral code, however different it may be to that of ponies. They had principles which they lived by; all these Chaos humans had was the principle of pain, and that was no principle at all.

Perhaps that was why Celestia showed no emotion over the prospect of killing thousands of them. Perhaps they had angered her to the point where she could see no other alternative, and they did not deserve the kind of mercy she had shown even to some of Equestria's greatest villains. Above it all, though, Twilight knew, lay the overriding desire of the Princess to protect Equestria and protect her subjects. That was ultimately what drove her to carry out whatever tasks she put her mind to. That was why she did what she did, and in the way that she did it. Everything would come down to the simply equation. Would it protect Equestria? Very clearly, destroying the enemy fleet would help to protect the planet and its many inhabitants, and regardless of any other factors, that was why Celestia was carrying it out. Not purely to help the Imperials and maintain their shaky alliance, but to protect her sister, and Twilight, and Cadence, and the rest of the population of Canterlot, and all the other towns across the land.

Twilight sat quietly, just watching and thinking, as Celestia stood still and silent, her horn glowing brightly as she manipulated the sun with her magic to meet her goals and carry out her will. It did not last for too long, though to Twilight it seemed half an eternity had passed, though it had only been a few minutes in truth. Such a timescale to change the course of a war; so short, so impossible except for something as powerful as the human's atomic weapon, or a being wielding an equivalent level of magic. Control of the sun, however, put the atomic blast that had destroyed Baltimare to shame. It put the mightiest weapons mounted on the human ships, friend and foe alike, to shame. It was, perhaps, the ultimate weapon so far as ponies were concerned. Maybe even the Elements of Harmony would fall into line behind such power. Twilight tried to convince herself of that latter fact as a way of escaping the reality that she had been trapped in since being captured; that she had been responsible for the loss of the Element of Magic, and thus rendering impotent the entire set. Maybe it was true, maybe it was not, but what was undeniable was that in the absence of the Elements, Princess Celestia was very much their best hope for survival and ultimate victory, whoever the enemy might be.

After a few more moments of pondering, Twilight noticed that Celestia's horn had stopped glowing. She looked up expectantly at her mentor. The Princess turned to her with a steady gaze, no hint of emotion being found in her eyes, though her mane and tail continued to flutter steadily in the absent, ethereal breeze.

'It is done,' she said simply.

Close To Home

The last of the Chaos pursuit force died silently in the void, a destroyer and a cruiser, now on the run instead of being the ones chasing, finding themselves unable to outrun the flashes from the star. The sun had affected their sensors, and then it had been the cause of the deaths of every single member of every single crew which had set out to chase down the Crusade and bring them to heel. None had survived. Marcos's tactic of keeping his ships stationary had worked to perfection, giving Celestia definitive instructions on who exactly she should be targeting, and who was a friendly that she was protecting. It was a simple but necessary arrangement, since Marcos had no idea of how exactly the Princess could actually see his vessels at all. Some form of psychic energy, her magic, presumably, but what she actually saw he did not know. it might have been possible to use some form of emissions control, perhaps varying reactor output, venting plasma as a signal, or flashing infrared lights or activating emergency beacons. All such tactics had been tried and tested when awaiting help from other Imperial vessels, and all had been effective when the relief force knew what to look for and how to detect it. Celestia, however, had no Auspex equipment, no scanners or radiac equipment or thermoscopes. She only had her magic, and the only way Marcos could think of that she would be able to distinguish between the Imperial ships and those of the enemy was by keeping his still. It had worked like a charm.

Now, the fleet was in the clear, what was left of it. They had taken heavy damage, it was true, but at least they were safe for now, enough to enable the crews to make some emergency repairs. They had to keep their guard up, however; not all of the Chaos fleet had followed them, and some were still in orbit around the planet, no doubt having received word of the sudden attack from some of their fellows before they were destroyed by the Princess. How they would react could only be guessed at. Would they flee, come after the Crusade, attack the planet? Would more reinforcements be on the way already? Other ships, Daemons, perhaps the traitor Astartes?

Marcos had requested that the Princess attack the ships in orbit as well, but she had been rather more reluctant to do that. She had seen what had happened when the Chaos Grand Cruiser had plunged into the atmosphere during the initial invasion and exploded, showering the southeastern coastal region of Equestria in burning debris. She most decidedly did not want that happening again, and with several dozen ships still in orbit, the risk was extremely high. It was also possible that she could miss the target with one of her beams of energy cast out from the sun, and strike the planet directly by accident. She had told Marcos that she would act against those other ships if it became absolutely necessary, such as if they began attacking Equestria from orbit, but that she felt the risk was too great for disaster otherwise. The Admiral had tried to convince her to finish them all off right away, but she had suggested that the Crusade fleet might take care of the problem.

Marcos had quickly informed her that his ships were no longer in a fit state to fight any kind of large running battle with the remnants of the Chaos fleet. They had been whittled down through attrition and damage to a force barely able to defend itself against any credible threat, much less go on the offensive as they had done earlier in the campaign for Kuda Prime. Three cruisers with damage, a heavily damaged flagship and a single battlecruiser along with a couple of sections of destroyers and frigates may have been overwhelming numbers against a pirate fleet or Dark Eldar raid, but against a trained and prepared Chaos fleet, even a diminished one, the odds were not in the favour of the Crusade.

Celestia was not swayed enough to bring her power to bear against the rest of the Chaos fleet so soon, but told Marcos she would consider that as a potential course of action. She still had the Daemon to deal with, but Marcos pointed out that his ships could offer no aid unless the space around the planet was cleared of enemy vessels. No more troops could be landed and no orbital fire directed. Though the Chaos fleet seemed to have no dedicated transport ships, each of the larger vessels was more than capable of carrying at least a few thousand troops and the landing barges and equipment they would need, even if they might not be able to deploy heavy vehicles or artillery. The possibility of a second invasion was very real, and while there were plenty of Imperial forces already on the planet, without orbital cover they would lack the ability to redeploy freely using their landing barges, or even to make movements by road, for fear of inviting enemy fire down from the heavens. Control of space was vital for any successful planetary operation, either for defence or in attack. Without it, ground-based firepower was meaningless; unless the enemy wished to capture certain facilities or locations intact, then there was nothing to stop them simply pounding targets from space with impunity.

The next step for the fleet was to take stock; to simply sit and recover as best it could from the mauling it had taken at the hands of a superior force, before the Princess's timely intervention. It was certainly no exaggeration to say that she had saved them from total destruction, or at the least from having to abandon the system entirely. Now there was still a chance that it could be brought under Imperial control properly; or at least, under pony control, depending on exactly how things panned out. Marcos had not forgotten the promises he and Lord-General Galen had made to Celestia. If the Chaos forces could be rooted out and defeated completely, cleansed from the planet, then his fleet would leave the system and never return. That was what he had said, and he still intended to abide by his word. As a man of principle and honour, that was the least he could do, even for a Xenos. A Xenos who had, admittedly, just saved his life, and the lives of every other man and woman aboard the Emperor's Judgement.

Damage reports were still flooding in from all decks and all ships. Not a single craft had escaped without damage of some kind or another. The Brigand's Folly was gone, reducing their cruiser count to just three. Of those, only the Polaris Maxima had suffered anything less than heavy damage. The venerable ship had taken mostly superficial hits, with its shields proving up to the task of protecting it from its position at the front of the Imperial line during the flight, and toward the rear during the final stand. That had been Marcos's order, broadly, but the ship's captain had seemingly taken a firm interest in the welfare of his crew, something which could be said for every captain in the fleet. The records would show that it was indeed the captain and some of the senior officers of the Brigand's Folly who had ridden the ship on its final death charge into the midst of the enemy, in the vain but glorious hope of saving the rest of the fleet. The rest of the crew had been evacuated, abandoning ship as per the captain's orders. Several escort vessels had sold their lives dearly in a similar fashion, to protect the capital ships from waves of torpedoes, being destroyed in their stead in at least two instances.

The number of escort ships was now down to a critical level. A battleship or a cruiser was a formidable force in space combat for sure, but unescorted it could be a sitting duck in the face of a well organised enemy. Attack craft and torpedoes were meant to be warded off by frigates, destroyers and corvettes, letting the capital ships focus on their opponents of a similar class. In a straight fight, a battleship could only be taken down by another battleship, a well-fought battlecruiser, two or three cruisers, or a shoal of torpedoes or bombers that managed to make it through their defences. Escorts were designed to deal with those two latter possibilities, but the fleet no longer possessed enough of the smaller craft to be able to protect both the flagship and the Indefatigable to any meaningful extent. If they focused their efforts, then the Emperor's Judgement could just about be given all-around protection, but that would leave the rest of the fleet vulnerable to being taken out by huge swarms of bombers or torpedoes, and with no support in a slugging match against multiple enemy capital ships, the Emperor's Judgement was still just as likely to succumb.

The flagship herself was likely to not fare too well in another engagement. It had taken heavy damage to its port side, with numerous weapons batteries being knocked out. Hangar bays were out of commission, meaning the surviving attack craft would have to double up in the surviving bays, leaving little room for anything more than superficial maintenance work and refueling. Some craft might even have to be ditched entirely, their pilots recovered by shuttle. Damaged superstructure elements might pose a potential integrity problem; they would have to be checked over by engineering teams, or else going to warp might cause them to rip away entirely. Compartments that had been opened to the void would have to be resealed and checked by technicians before they could be reoccupied, and all of that would take time. All of that would be necessary, however, to bring the ship up to a fit state to fight once more. The same could no doubt be applied to the rest of the ships of the fleet as well. They had all taken a pounding. Casualties needed to be treated. No doubt there were shortages of trained personnel to operate certain systems or weapons; that was not so much of a problem, as there were many such systems that were out of action anyway.

The void around them was littered with the broken wrecks of dozens of ships, mostly enemy, but a few Imperial ships also. Thousands of bodies gently tumbled through the emptiness, dead and left to float for eternity through the blackness, perhaps falling into an endless orbit around the sun which had been the cause of their deaths. A fitting end for the kind of scum who would come to attack an innocent planet with inhabitants that meant them no harm.

Except, of course, that description very much applied to the Imperium, too. The Crusade had not entered the system necessarily with the intention of taking control by force. After all, they did not know if there were any inhabitants when they arrived. But the whole purpose of the Crusade was to capture planets and star systems in the name of the Emperor. They arrived unbidden; they were not summoned by locals, not requested to aid in the overthrow of some corrupt governor or for defence against a pirate raid. They were there to conquer, to take by force if necessary. That was how the Imperium operated, and had done for thousands of years. There was good reason for that; it was the only way the Imperium could even survive. They had to be ruthless, utterly ruthless, when it came to protecting and expanding their territory, or else the pressure being applied from both within and without would see the whole structure crack like an egg, beset on all fronts by traitors, Daemons, heretics and aliens. Mankind had only survived this long by doing whatever needed to be done, both to their own citizens and to others who may have no say in the matter.

Marcos knew that the same approach should be taken with regards to the aliens on this planet. But he also knew that the Princess had just given a pretty convincing demonstration of why it would not be wise for him, or for any other Imperial officer, Inquisitor, or Astartes Chapter Master to necessarily treat them in the same way as they would with any other species. If Marcos honoured his pledge to her and withdrew from the system, then it would be entirely possible that the Princess might react to any ships she detected in the future entering the system in the same way- by attacking them, without asking questions or waiting to see who exactly was approaching her planet. Imperial lives could be lost in such a way, and ships would not be able to get close enough to the planet to open fire on it with Exterminatus-class weaponry. Even if they could, there was no guarantee, from what he had seen so far, that such weaponry would actually be capable of killing the Princess anyway. Artillery, missiles, heavy weapons, tanks, all had failed to harm her. The powers of the warp had done nothing to her, either, and that was power which could bend the very fabric of reality to the will of its user. But then, so could her magic; whatever its source, it performed a similar function.

Sadly, that was the very reason why future Imperial expeditions might be mounted to this planet, even if the Crusade fleet did leave. Such a resource, a potential power that could be exploited by the Imperium, would be too enticing for the High Lords to turn down if they were to learn of its existence from Marcos's report. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he should omit mention of the power of the pony magic from his report, but the more he knew that he absolutely had to include it. After all, others had seen it in action, measured its effects.

No doubt the Magi aboard the Ferrus Terra had been steadily transmitting astropathic data back to their own superiors, who would relay it back to Mars itself, and that information would even now be in the hands of the Mechanicus hierarchy. What they would choose to do with it was anyone's guess. There was an intense rivalry between the Mechanicus and the Imperial Navy, between the Mechanicus and the Astartes, between the Mechanicus and...well, just about everybody. They jealously guarded their secrets from all competitors and those whose possession of the knowledge might jeopardise the dealings and objectives of the Magi themselves. It was entirely possible that the Mechanicus leadership would keep the information about the ponies secret from the rest of the Imperium. It would not surprise Marcos in the slightest if that was what they did, perhaps pursuing some of their own attempts to exploit the knowledge they had gained, maybe mounting their own expedition to Kuda Prime to try and recover a living specimen of sufficient power to be used. They already had, Marcos knew, some of the unicorn ponies aboard their ship for testing. Whether they were still alive or were now dead, he was not sure. He could ask, but he doubted that Arch-Magos Darius would answer his questions very openly, if at all. Matters of the Mechanicus were not to be the concern of the Navy, he would no doubt say. Marcos could push, use his authority as Crusade commander to find out- after all, the Ferrus Terra was part of the fleet and under his command- but even if he did discover the fate of their captives, there was no way Darius or any of the others aboard the research vessel would tell him what information they had transmitted back to Mars. That was sacred to them.

Marcos reasoned that, if the Mechanicus kept the information sequestered within their own command structure, it might be possible for his own report to omit details on the ponies, the Princess and their magic that could attract the attention of the High Lords themselves. Then again, that might be a false truth. After all, thousands of servicemen and women had witnessed pony magic, either from the Princess, her sister, or one of the other unicorns who had fought alongside them. There was no shortage of witnesses to the effects; the only hope was that the source was misconstrued by the rank and file as run-of-the-mill psychic powers, rather than the reality. The Mechanicus had confirmed that the source of pony magic was distinctly different from human psychic powers, or indeed the psychic powers of any other species. The Princess and the rest of them had no presence in the warp as mankind did. Maybe, potentially, Marcos and the few others who knew the truth could hush things up.

But that was not the way to go. Marcos had his orders to carry out, and the truth would come out one way or another, whether or not he was party to it. There were sensor recordings, Auspex readings, after action reports; a wealth of data that investigators from the Navy or the Inquisition could go on to establish what really happened. Now that it seemed possible that elements of the Crusade might indeed make it home to Hydraphur, such things had to be considered in the cold light of day, and Marcos had to consider his position. He was the Admiral, he was the leader of the Crusade. It was his duty to report the truth; it was the duty of the High Lords to turn that truth into lies, to spin it into whatever propaganda they wished. Perhaps pony magic would become the latest anathema and the latest deadly foe for the Imperium, or perhaps it would become the new wonder toy that all citizens should lust after, a way to wield psychic power without the risks.

Perhaps it would come to nothing at all, never made public in any way. If the Mechanicus investigations determined that there was no way to adapt magic for human use, for example, then it was certainly possible that they would destroy all records lest some nosy Inquisitor discover the facts and fear that the Magi involved in the research might have been exposed to some kind of taint or manipulative effect that the magic possessed. Such fears were entirely justified when it came to psychic abilities, after all; who was to say that the pony magic did not have a similar quality?

Perhaps the Lord-Admiral himself had already fallen victim to it. The Princess certainly seemed to possess a magnetic quality to her words and her presence. He listened to what she had to say not just because he needed her assistance, but because he wanted to listen; it felt like it was only right, the proper and logical thing to do, even when he found that he would normally disagree with such statements. He did not feel compelled to agree with whatever the Princess said, but he certainly felt the influence of her personality and her force of will every time he spoke to her, even over the vox from thousands of miles away. Such a trait would be deemed heretical, no doubt, by the Inquisition, if they learned of it, regardless of whether the Princess used it voluntarily or passively. Of course, her very existence would be considered heretical in and of itself, given her power and the control she had over the sun, a force which not even the Emperor Himself could wield. And if the Emperor could not do something, then nobody should be allowed to, at least according to the Ecclesiarchy. If they captured the Princess, perhaps she might be studied first, but if the more extreme and puritanical elements within the Imperial high command structure got their way, she would simply be executed as soon as possible- if, indeed, that were possible at all.

Even now, Marcos had no idea what was truly possible when it came to the Princess. She remained an enigma, as did the source of her power and the source of the pony magic in general. Much had been speculated by the Magi, but that was all it was; speculation. So far they had no concrete proof of anything that could directly explain it. Whether the reality be natural biological phenomenon, psychic link or something bordering on the Daemonic, it would not go down well with the Ecclesiarchy or the Inquisition.

'My Lord,' called the vox officer. 'Message from the Polaris Maxima. They are asking if we require assistance with repairs. They say they have half a dozen spare maintenance teams on standby.'

They would need all the help they could get to bring such a large ship back up to code and get it ready for combat as soon as possible. The Chaos fleet were still in orbit around the planet, but could potentially launch another attack at any time, though hopefully if that happened the Princess would jump to their aid once more. There was always the possibility of enemy reinforcements arriving as well, which would present a larger problem depending on where exactly in the system they dropped out of warp. There was no way the Crusade could prevent a determined force from punching their way through and linking up with the enemy at the planet; not in their present state. Repairs were already underway but would take time, and time was always one of the most precious commodities that any commander had at his disposal. It was not to be wasted or squandered, but spent wisely and carefully on tasks that would reap the best rewards. Getting the Emperor's Judgement back in fighting shape was vital, whether they tried to fight for the planet or whether they headed for home. The warp was a dangerous and unpredictable place that might well deposit them somewhere else entirely, and if they were not ready to fight, they could be vulnerable to Orks, other Chaos ships, Dark Eldar raiders, pirates, or a thousand and one other dangers besides.

The flagship's own repair crews were hard at work in the worst affected areas, but some of the damage control teams had been killed in the battle. Others were cut off by damage, and there were at least a dozen spots that required more resources to fix up than could reasonably be thrown at them without help. Several decks, it had been rapidly determined, would have to be kept abandoned until they could return to spacedock at Hydraphur.

'Very good, Lieutenant,' Marcos replied to the vox officer. 'Signal the Polaris Maxima. Tell them we'll take all the assistance they can provide.'

Midshipman Kaplen manned his duty station down on deck 11. The ship was still on combat alert despite the broadcasts through the speakers which had played exhortations from the ship's Confessor during the fighting, and then a message from the bridge informing them that the enemy fleet had been destroyed. It had seemed a remarkable turnaround- the preacher's messages had suggested they were facing their potential doom, overwhelming odds being thrown against them and only faith in the Emperor, iron-clad and unyielding faith, could possibly hold the line and win the day. Then suddenly, just like that, they were victorious. Kaplen was not going to question it; survival was survival, and a victory was a victory. As a junior deck officer, he knew little of exactly what went on elsewhere on board the ship, and certainly not what the precise tactical situation might be as regards to the battle. His remit was basically control of the two starboard docking bays within sector 9 of deck 11. It wasn't much, but it made the young man feel proud. His parents had worried and fussed that he was falling in with the wrong crowd, and at such an early age. He had been just 14, and the gangs of the Underhive had almost gotten their claws into him before his father had a stern talk with him and shipped him off to the local garrison as a way of escaping the downward spiral. From there, he had signed up for the Navy; the idea of adventure had always grabbed him and that was why he had fallen in with the gangs in the first place.

A few years of training had made him into a crewman, but more than that, it had made him into a man. His father had been pleased when he had heard of his successful graduation to the ranks of the non-commissioned officers, sure that it would lead to only good things for his son who had been heading down the wrong path, and was now in the service of the Emperor. His father had been right. He had not seen the old man for several years now, but the training and the Ecclesiarchy scriptures, lectures and speeches had ingrained in his soul the need to fight for the Emperor, and for the Imperium. Though it was relatively rare for someone of his low social standing to become even a junior officer in the Navy, which tended to cling to the old and outdated traditions of class equaling rank, he was far from unique in becoming a Midshipman from such a background. Countless others had served in such a way before him, and many more would no doubt do so after. Kaplen knew he was doing the right thing, and he was proud to be part of the Crusade, to be part of the crew, and to be given the responsibility over other men and women, and over a section of the deck that he and several thousand others called home.

Deck 11 had escaped serious damage during the battle, at least on the starboard side. There were reports of macrocannon galleries being blown wide open over on the port side, smashed by heavy enemy fire, including several torpedo strikes. But they might as well have been a world away, given the size of the ship; even those crew of the same deck might never meet men from the other side of the vessel. They each had their duties, and they knew what needed to be done. No doubt many men had died carrying out their duty on deck 11's port side. The starboard shields had held for the most part, however, and Kaplan and his crews had been kept very busy repairing and rearming returning Lightning fighters, loading the heavy ordnance onto the underwing pylons and fixing fresh belts of autocannon shells into place. Normally the craft under his care would deploy to the planet's surface, to fight hostile aircraft, but through necessity they had been pressed into service as void fighters. A surprisingly high number of them had returned unharmed, considering they were not designed for fighting in space, and their pilots not trained particularly well in that specific skill. There were many other squadrons aboard ship, and Kaplen did not know how well they had fared in the fighting, but he was very glad to welcome home many of the familiar faces of the men and women of Sapphire Flight. As the fighters were being rearmed, however, a call had come down from deck command, a relay from the bridge. The landing bays were to be cleared, both of them, for incoming craft.

Kaplen had shouted his orders, relaying them to the crewmen under his command. The Lightnings had been withdrawn into the support chambers and loading bays located to the side of the hangar itself, where maintenance was performed and where spare craft were stored. There were no longer any spares left; though many pilots had survived the battle, there had of course been losses suffered by Sapphire Flight, leaving plenty of room for the Lightnings to be moved out of the way. The vox call had informed the Midshipman that repair crews were expected, aboard heavy landing barges. One would be coming in to each hangar bay, provided they were cleared sufficiently of equipment and personnel. A squadron of Lightnings, or a single barge, could be accommodated within each bay, and Kaplan again felt a brief flush of pride at knowing he was responsible for the operation of two of them.

He could see on his monitors; here came the barges. One for each bay, auguring in, guided by the flashing beacons and the automatic guidance systems which had locked on to the incoming craft. They slipped in through the localised void shields, dropping slowly to the deck, and settling down on their landing struts. Kaplen kept watch on both hangar bays through his vid-screens, located in the supervisory station above. Both barges had docked, and his work was mostly done. His men and women had done well, guiding them in successfully. Now it was his turn. The first craft to arrive was the lead barge, containing the primary team assigned to that sector, according to the vox message. Kaplen headed down to Bay No. 20, where the barge in question had docked.

Men and women were hurrying around, securing connections and prepping support equipment, making sure the barge was properly docked and secured to the deck. Once everything was confirmed, the signal was given to the barge's pilot. The belly of the large, slug-like craft began to distend, and then crack open, a ramp dropping to the deck with a clang. Members of the repair teams aboard began to depart, walking down the ramp with their equipment, carrying heavy plasma torches and toolboxes full of different instruments. An officer was among them, and Kaplen approached her, saluting.

'Lieutenant. Midshipman Kaplen at your service. Welcome aboard the Emperor's Judgement.'

'Thank you, Midshipman,' she replied. 'Lieutenant Callantine reporting for duty...now, perhaps you'll show me to the bridge?'

'The bridge?' Kaplen blinked. 'But Lieutenant, you've been assigned to deck 18. apparently there are heavily damaged sections with severe structural...'

'Oh, do not worry, Midshipman Kaplen,' Callantine replied with a smile. 'I am sure that will be attended to in due course. But first, I would like to speak to the Lord-Admiral.'

'With all due respect, Lieutenant...I would imagine that the Lord-Admiral is rather busy at the moment, and...'

'And he does not wish to speak to a mere Lieutenant assigned to repair work?' Callantine suggested, smirking. 'Fear not, Midshipman. He will make time for me.'

Kaplen looked up at the ramp of the barge. More men were coming down it, yes. But they were not alone. There was something else there, behind, farther up in the darkness of the interior of the craft.

'Hey! Hey, look out! There!' Kaplen gestured wildly. 'Contact! Enemy contact! Behind you!' he shouted into Callantine's face. The Lieutenant just laughed.

'Behind me? Oh, what are you worried about? Do not fear, Midshipman. They are my children.' Kaplen stared at her, aghast, and then he began to scream, as the things he had seen suddenly advanced upon him. He turned and tried to run, but it was futile. He barely made it half a dozen steps before the things were upon him. Down he went, to the deck. Midshipman Kaplen died, still screaming.

Inside These Walls

It had been a long, hard sail across the open sea, for the second time in a week. Conditions were considerably more unsettled than they had been during the last crossing; a spell of bad weather seemed to be forming not too far off the coast, ready to move in, either towards eastern Equestria or perhaps moving east itself into the Zebrican Kingdom. Grand Admiral Bluewater was most certainly not a meteorologist and could not predict which way the band of cloud and drizzle was most likely to head, but it did not matter. His fleet had driven through it, and out the other side, into clear air as they approached the other continent.

Bluewater knew that the navy was very much the bastard stepchild of the Equestrian military. There was no denying that, any more than there was any denying that his initial appointment as naval commander had been very much as a result of his political wrangling, rather than any actual military experience on his part. He had wanted a position of some respect and power, unlike his brother Blueblood who was content merely to be a pampered prissy prince and letting his name do the talking for him. Not that Bluewater hadn't done that on occasion, of course, notably to get the job as the self-styled Grand Admiral, but he wanted to be respected as well. Being the head of the Royal Navy had not given him quite the boost in respect he had desired, however, due mainly to the fact that the Navy itself lacked the respect afforded to the other services.

Equestria had never been a particularly big naval power, due to the fact that its holdings were concentrated almost entirely on the planet's main continent. Yes, there were some outlying islands, especially the souther archipelago, which had always needed patrolling, but beyond that there had never been a major need for a strong naval force. No power had arisen to challenge Equestria's automatic domination of the seas. They did not use many ships any more, not since the introduction of the airship fleet, which allowed for coastal and regional patrols of plentiful duration, and airships were frequently used to escort high-risk cargoes that were being moved by sea. They were significantly faster than naval vessels, and better protected thanks to their shields, armour and heavy anti-air armament. That was why the former galleons and other ships of the line had been supplanted over the recent decades, their numbers dwindling until they were done away with entirely. Only recently had the two frigates, the ENS Celestia and the ENS Luna, been commissioned and constructed, to give some semblance of power projection back to the navy, and by totally outclassing anything

They were fine, steam-turbine powered vessels, and easily handled the heavy seas as the small fleet had passed through the squall lines off the coast. They had made good time once they were through the storms, and had reached the Zebrican Kingdom, mooring up once again at the port where they had resupplied on their previous visit. They had a definitive objective this time. The Hive they had been told about before had to be definitively identified. There could be no mistakes. They had to know for certain if it was indeed the target they sought. If it was, then they would have to send one of the fast ships back to Manehattan as soon as possible so that the message could be relayed to the Princess. If it was not- then they had wasted their time.

Grand Admiral Bluewater had no reason to doubt the word of the Zebra hunters and scouts who had informed him about the existence of the Hive on their last visit. They had seemed convinced that something was indeed there, something that had not been there before. His own patrol had seemingly confirmed the sighting. That was what they had reported; it looked like a Changeling Hive, but of course they dared not approach close enough to find out for sure. There was no sign of Changeling drones, but if they were trying to lay low, that was hardly a surprise. They would be in disguise, as animals, birds, perhaps insects or even trees. Maybe they already knew that they had been sighted, either by the Zebras or the ponies. If it was the former, that perhaps would not unduly concern them. It was not the Zebras who were chasing them, after all, but the forces of Celestia.

The Zebras had been surprised, though quite pleased, to welcome their pony visitors again so soon. The trio of smaller corvettes had been tied up at the wharves of New Zebrica, while the two frigates stood off in the bay. They were too big to dock at the relatively small port, which usually only saw Zebrican skiffs and the occasional trade clipper from Equestria. Bluewater's ships were resupplied with coal, as they had been on their previous visit, while the Admiral and his officers were feted by the Zebra Chieftains again in their extravagant jungle palace, built from rock and wood and decorated with ornate carvings and sculptures, rich rugs and wall coverings that represented each of the many proud tribes that now formed one unified nation. Bluewater enjoyed the extravagance- after all, he was a prince, and it was only fitting that he be treated in such a way.

But he was still there for a specific purpose. Celestia had given him his orders, and while the majority of crewponies did not know the exact nature of their mission, his officers had been informed, as had the shore parties who would be responsible for identifying the Hive, making absolutely certain that the target was what they thought it was. They were to scout conditions, look for signs of life. The construction of the Hive had been reported as looking fresh, recently built. If indeed it was a Hive then it surely had to be the location that Chrysalis and her minions had retreated to after their volcano lair had been discovered.

The next morning, the landing teams had been sent ashore. There were three in total, each led by a Lieutenant from one of the corvettes. The ponies selected were not exactly soldiers; ships of the navy did not carry members of the Assault Infantry as did their airborne cousins, nor did they usually embark soldiers of the army, unless being deployed for some specific mission. This would be the ideal opportunity to bring along army support, but there had been no units in or near Manehattan that could be spared. This task would fall on the shoulders of the crews, and every ship maintained at least a platoon's worth of trained ponies outfitted primarily for the defence of the ship against boarders, but also for landing operations.

With Zebra guides, they trekked through the jungle, hacking away at vines and cutting through branches with magic as necessary. It was hot and sweaty work; the climate was more humid than it was in most of Equestria, and much of the Zebra lands were covered in verdant, lush foliage that made it rich in natural resources such as food, timber and various herbs, spices and other extracts which could be used as medicines, potions, in scientific processes- or for chemical warfare, which the Zebras had experimented with frequently in the past.

On they trekked, several miles inland from the city, where the jungle became so thick that only the bravest and most experienced hunters and trackers would operate. For a nation used to living in such conditions, that meant something. Their progress slowed right down, every yard being a struggle against nature. There were steep, muddy slopes, vines, thick underbrush and all kinds of potentially poisonous plants, fungi and small creatures. The expert Zebra guided made sure the ponies did not fall foul of any of nature's pitfalls, and in turn the ponies provided the motive force, hacking away with their combat knives and swords, burning through small areas of especially thick brush with magic. They were laden down with equipment; their armour, repeating rifles, canteens, knives, flashlights, axes, rope, demolition charges. Everything they might conceivably need once they reached the Hive.

Their orders were specific, coming right from the Grand Admiral himself. They were to locate the Hive, mark its specific location on their maps with the aid of the Zebra guides. The precise coordinates would have to be recorded. If there was no sign of Changeling activity, they were to approach and examine the entrance. If they were attacked, they were to pull back immediately; that would be enough proof. If they found nothing, then they were to return to the ships post-haste with a report.

As they neared the location where the scouts had spotted the Hive, they switched to a stealthy approach. Silence was maintained, with the Zebra hunters leading the way, their faces daubed with camouflage paint. The lead scout signaled that they were getting close, and the party split into three, each group of ponies forming up into a smaller column of crew from each corvette. Accompanied by a guide, they slowly, cautiously encircled the location, taking up positions and peering through the trees.

Binoculars and indeed the naked eye confirmed. Every pony saw it. This time there were three dozen witnesses. It was unmistakably a Hive, nestled deep within the jungle, perched on the edge of a rocky outcrop and draped in vines. There was a small clearing around the entrance, and no sign of any drones. No sign of movement at all.

Hesitantly, the officers in charge of each column ordered the advance. Half of each unit remained in a covering position, ready to engage if there should be contact. The rest, along with the Zebra guides, moved forward cautiously, their rifles at the ready. Changelings could spring out from the tunnel or other hidden entrances at any time.

But they didn't. The three teams, approaching from different sides, reached the tunnel entrance unmolested. There had been no hisses of alarm, no flashes of magic, no blood spilled. What would they find inside? Their doom?

The answer was simple enough. They found nothing.

The Hive was empty, though it had very clearly been occupied until very recently. There were decomposing animal carcasses, bones, fruit just starting to rot. Every chamber they searched was devoid of life. Not even a bug or a spider seemed to be living in the darkest recesses of the tunnel network carved from the rock. Of the Queen, or her minions, there was no sign.

The search teams returned to the surface. There was a Hive, but no Changelings. Several of the Pegasi among them took to the air, climbing up above the treeline. The jungle stretched out like a canopy across the land, stretching off to the north, east and south for endless miles into the continental interior. To the west lay the glittering fringe of the sea, from whence they had come. Out there in the bay sat the twin frigates, the silent grey ironclads looking out of place against the glistening blue backdrop. The Pegasi produced signal flags, part of a semaphore system that enabled them to communicate with the fleet. Flags held in different positions signaled different letters and numbers. A quick message was flashed out to sea. A signal lamp on the bridge of the ENS Celestia flashed back in reply. The communication continued for a minute or so. Two of the Pegasi flapped back down into the jungle, leaving just one, who moved over to the side and, after a short delay, sent another message with his flags. A few moments later, there was another flash on board the flagship. Several seconds passed.

A roar filled the air, a sound like tearing canvas, or the Manehattan-to-Baltimare Express thundering past. A plume of smoke erupted in a brilliant pulse of light, sending trees rocking and bending as though in a hurricane. Seemingly from nowhere, the calm of the jungle, all chirping birds and whirring insects, had been shattered utterly.

The signalpony, now some half mile from the smoke plume, send a rapid message with his flags, one hoof up, the other out at his side. An answering flash came from the Celestia, and several seconds later, another roar filled his ears. Another explosion, flattening trees. The signalpony sent the same message; one hoof up, the other out at his side. More seconds passed, then another roar and another bang. This time, he raised both hooves above his head. There was a flash from the Luna. then a roar, and an explosion once more. He raised his hooves above his head again. Flashes greeted him from both frigates, and he waited with bated breath.

This time, a roar like the end of the world filled his ears, and a string of explosions rippled across the jungle. Trees toppled and shattered, their branches shattered and torn. His job as signalpony was done; the initial ranging shots from the Number 1 turret of the ENS Celestia had been slightly off target, but he had corrected its aim with his flags; one hoof up, one hoof at his side. Adjust aim right, the particular flag used giving the number of degrees correction required. Once the flagship was on target, it was the turn of the Luna, who, relayed targeting information by the Celestia, managed to get her first shot right on the money. A quick signal, and both ships had opened up with both barrels of both turrets, eight shells in total whistling in and ripping up the jungle canopy, tearing trees apart with blast and shrapnel, exposing the rocky roof of the Hive below for the second volley. More shells streaked in and detonated against the earth.

The Hive was not constructed like a bunker. It was merely hollowed out from the rock and turned into living space for Changelings. There was no reinforcement, and as a result of the sudden bombardment, dirt and dust and rock cascaded down from the ceilings of the many chambers. The mighty twelve-inch cannons roared again and again, and more shells came in, smashing into the ground above the Hive, digging great gouges and craters in the earth, shaking the foundations of the Changeling construction. Cracks appeared in the rocks, weakened by the digging and tunneling the Changelings had conducted. The guns fired again, and more damage was done. Rocks tumbled into the subterranean chambers of the Hive, ceilings and walls giving way under the sudden and unexpected pounding. Rubble poured down, filling smaller rooms entirely and causing larger ones to crumble. Another volley came in, and another, and another. The Hive cracked and crumbled, a symphony of rumbling rock and collapsing terrain, the ceiling of the structure falling in on itself. More shells provided extra impetus, more damage, more violence. The Hive gave way with a groan, the entire thing collapsing in on itself with a thunderous crash and a burst of dirt and dust spraying skyward.

That was the contingency plan. By Celestia's order, if a Hive was found and it was occupied, then it was to be left alone and a message relayed to her in Canterlot. If an abandoned Hive were to be found, then it was to be destroyed in the most expedient manner possible; using the main guns of the fleet. With the exception of the more specialised main bombardment cannon fitted to certain airships, they were the heaviest guns ever produced. Unlike the bombardment cannons which were specially made by Air Corps gunsmiths and teams of trained experts in Vanhoover, the naval guns were produced by the National Arsenal in Fillydelphia. They had a long range and packed a mighty punch, their heavy armoured tips capable of smashing through solid rock before detonating, shaking and rattling the subterranean Hive and bringing it crashing down.

The Hive tumbled into a sinkhole, trees and rubble falling with it, the ceiling of the great chambers within crumbling under the firepower of the Equestrian frigates. The Hive had been destroyed, but that left one very big question totally unanswered. The discovery of the place had seemed to indicate they would find Chrysalis and her minions there as well. but the scouting party had seen nothing at all. No Changelings were present in the Hive, though they had seemingly recently moved out. The question was, where had they gone?

The general alarm began to sound on deck 11. The reason why was not immediately clear to most crewmen, but to Lieutenant Jarrick, supervisor and district security officer for the starboard midsection, lights flashing on the panels in the deck armoury showed him the location. It was coming from the starboard side, hangar bay number 20. The Lieutenant investigated further, checking on the signal source, scrolling through the security logs that were displayed on his vid-screen. He selected bay 20 and read through. Situation Report: Nominal. Situation Report: Nominal. Fluctuation Detected In Forcefield Power Generator 1A (Condition Corrected). Ah, there it was, the most recent flag.

Biohazard Alarm: Unknown Contaminant Detected.

Unknown contaminant? Jarrick frowned. The maintenance team must have brought some kind of pathogen over with them from the Polaris Maxima. Perhaps it was from the planet. He checked the system logs for specifics. It didn't quite match up. The alarm was only sounded after the landing barge had already docked and reported its hatches open. If it was some kind of virus or pathogen in the air, it would have been detected sooner than that.

Another alarm sounded. This time it was from hangar bay 21. The same alert; Unknown Contaminant Detected. Two separate landing bays with the same problem? There must be a widespread contamination aboard the Polaris Maxima, then. But surely her crew would have detected such a contaminant with their own internal sensors and corrected the issue, or quarantined themselves if necessary?

Another alarm. Bay 24. Three alarms? What the hell was going on? That was not normal. No way it was a system error, though. If it was, every bay in the section would be going off, not just those with recently docked barges and shuttles. Something didn't quite seem to add up. Perhaps it was not an airborne contaminant within the barges themselves, but something within the equipment they carried for maintenance work, only being picked by the sensors once their gear had been opened in preparation for getting to their tasks. Something still didn't add up, though. Jarrick picked up the vox handset.

'This is Lieutenant Jarrick calling bay 20. Status report,' he ordered. He received no reply from the hangar bay in question, where the first alarm had sounded. He tried again, repeating his call with the same result.

'Lieutenant Jarrick calling bay 21. Status report!' he called, trying a different location, the site of the second alarm. Still no reply from them, either. He tried bay 24. Nothing.

'What the hell is going on?' he muttered. Comms trouble too, or something else?

'Chief Petty Officer of the watch!' he called, getting a quick response from his NCO crew chief.

'Sir?' she called back.

'Assemble a team. Head down to bay 20 and find out what's going on,' he ordered. 'Take an engineering section with you in case there's some problem with the comms.'

'Aye, sir!' The Chief Petty Officer set off from her station to round up a security detail and head down to the hangar bay for a search. The Lieutenant needed to know what was going on before he made any kind of report or request for help from other decks. It might be nothing, but just in case, he needed to reestablish contact and find out what had caused the alarms to go off and cut communications.

It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Three bays in his sector, all with recently docked craft. Something was going on.

He tried again to contact the hangars but still got no response from any of them. The alarms were still sounding; if there was no problem, someone would have cancelled the alarms by now, or at least called in to explain what was going on. Something must have either disabled the comms within the hangars, or, more worryingly, disabled the crews on duty there, as well as the maintenance teams who had come aboard.

The Chief Petty Officer headed out of the armoury with a squad of armsmen, and a trio of deck engineers, who tagged along with the hope of being able to repair the vox system or correct whatever condition was causing the trouble. The armsmen were equipped with shotguns and autoguns; there was always a danger that a few survivors of the Chaos boarding parties had holed up somewhere in the dank depths of the ship and found their way to deck 11 to wreak further havoc. But the chances of them evading the security sweep was low, and moving between decks when the ship had been on lockdown was very difficult. Combine that with the coincidence of the incoming barges having docked moments before the alarms sounded, and that seemed an unlikely prospect.

Jarrick watched the displays for any sign of further developments. No more alarms went off; the other hangar bays, where no barges had docked, were quiet. He was able to get into contact with bays 22, 23 and 25. All reported no problems whatsoever. The security station was not equipped with detailed scientific displays. That would be the responsibility of the deck command station, who were now getting in contact over the vox.

'This is Lieutenant Jarrick,' he spoke in reply. 'Go ahead, Deck Command.'

'Deck Command, we're receiving anomalous readings from hangar bays 20, 21 and 24,' they informed him. 'Can you confirm and specify the source?'

'I can confirm, sir, but we have no source as of yet,' Jarrick replied. 'I have a team en route to investigate. I have no vox contact with any of the three affected hangars.'

'Understood, Security. Are any of your other hangars affected?' the command station asked.

'No sir. All clear,' Jarrick replied. 'Full vox contact and no reported issues.'

'Understood, Security. Stand by and relay information as you receive it,' the command station ordered. 'We're sending a scanning crew down to you to investigate the readings.'

'Yes, sir. I'll let you know as soon as I learn anything,' Jarrick assured his superior. 'Security out.' He switched channels and tried to call the Chief Petty Officer who he had dispatched.

'Go ahead, sir!' she spoke, her voice crackling over the link.

'Any sign of anything?' he asked, receiving a negative reply.

'No sir. We're approaching bay 20 now. Standby for a report.' The footsteps of the team could be heard as they approached the door to the hangar bay. The door ground open with a clank, and there were more footsteps, and then a shout.

'Contact! Contact front!'

Rapid bursts of autogun fire and the boom of shotgun rounds barked, causing Jarrick to lean away from the speaker instinctively.

'Report! What's going on?' he shouted, while reaching over to slam the deck alarm button. Sirens began to blare, signalling the whole of deck 11 that something untoward was happening. The vox system played a string of gunshots and then some unnerving screams, static crackling over the link. The Chief Petty Officer did not say anything else; whether her vox had been knocked from her head, whether she was too busy, or if she was already dead, jarrick did not know. What he did know was that somebody was attacking his armsmen.

More squads hurried into the armoury to gear up upon receipt of the deck alarm. Nobody knew what was going on. Jarrick couldn't get a hold of the team, the vox being overwhelmed with screaming and hissing. He shut down the link and called the command station.

'Deck Command, Security! We have an emergency in hangar bay 20. Hostile contacts, type unknown,' he shouted. 'Requesting support teams and additional personnel at once!'

'Copy that, Security,' came the reply. 'Additional personnel en route to you now.'

Jarrick grabbed his own hellgun from the rack and readied it for combat. He did not know if it might be needed, but he had to be prepared. Squads of men lined the armoury walls and defences, getting ready to defend it if necessary.

'Contact!' someone shouted. Something was coming down the passageway. A single figure.

'Hold your fire!' Jarrick ordered, eyeing over the figure. It was one of the engineering section who had gone in with the Chief Petty Officer. he was alone, and covered in blood, staggering desperately toward the armoury.

'Medic forward!' the Lieutenant shouted, heading over to approach the man. Two other armsmen ran to aid him, carrying him into the armoury. Jarrick was with him, kneeling alongside him as the medic worked on him. Deep gashes were opened in his side, and some kind of burn was affecting half of his face, turning it into a mass of black tissue.

'What happened?' Jarrick questioned. 'Was it the Archenemy? The Chaos boarding party?' The man slowly shook his head in reply.

'No sir...' he croaked.

'Then who is it?' Jarrick demanded.

The man could utter but a single word before he passed out from the shock.

'Monsters...'

Danger

The alarm began to sound all across the ship. There was confusion and chaos as men and women ran to take up their combat positions again. The Emperor's Judgement had been at a state of readiness anyway; they had never stood down from action stations after the battle, but rather had adopted a repair state, where half of the crew manned their stations while the rest worked on fixing up damage caused by the fighting with the Chaos fleet. Now, every man was back at his station. The alarm was accompanied by a broadcast over the internal vox net.

'Attention, all hands. Prepare to repel boarders. I say again, prepare to repel boarders.'

More boarders? Again? There were rapid-fire rumours quickly spreading around the lower decks as to exactly how that could have happened. The previous broadcast had assured them that the enemy fleet was dead, defeated in battle. The Chaos boarding party had been contained and presumed to have been wiped out. Had some of them survived, tucked away in the bowels of the ship? Was there another enemy vessel out there, hidden, that had somehow managed to slip more men aboard?

Armsmen squads quickly fortified every deck armoury and secured the key locations around the ship, while crewmen gathered up whatever weapons they could bring to hand. On the bridge, Lord-Admiral Marcos had received a string of reports from his scientific officers. Anomalous readings had been detected on deck 11, which had triggered the initial alarm. Internal sensors had picked up the readings and automatically transmitted the alert, relaying the message to the bridge. More detailed investigation revealed that the cause was the detection of the unknown particle, the apparent source of pony magic, according to the Magi of the Ferrus Terra.

Given the location of the particles being detected, it seemed likely to Marcos that there must be an infiltrator among the maintenance team coming aboard- a Changeling, he presumed, given that a pony, who could not change its appearance, would be detected immediately by the crew. They had had quite enough trouble with the Changeling who had successfully infiltrated the bridge disguised as Major Harding, and Marcos did not want a repeat. He had ordered a team quickly dispatched to the hangar bay in question, but before he could even complete his command, more alarms had sounded from two other hangar bays. All of them were the locations of incoming landing barges from the Polaris Maxima. Were there multiple infiltrators?

But it made no sense. From previous experience, Marcos knew that a Changeling in disguise, either as a man or as something else, could not be detected by the internal sensors of his ship. That was how the impostor Harding had managed to reach the bridge unmolested and kill his close friend, Lord-General Galen. Despite extensive work on the system by members of the ship's technical teams and input from members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, there had been no significant advances that would improve the ability of the sensors to detect a disguised Changeling. That meant, if it was indeed a Changeling infiltrator who had tripped the alarm, that it must not be in disguise at all.

But how could it infiltrate the ship if it was undisguised? Surely the members of the repair team would spot and react to its presence, either during the transit through space or certainly once they arrived. Unless it was hidden away somewhere in the unpressurised sections of the barge; could Changelings survive in the vacuum of space? Surely not.

Marcos had then been alerted by a shout from the science officer. The readings of the unknown particle in hangar bay 20 had just skyrocketed, pegging out the sensors and then essentially overwhelming them entirely. Something in the hangar was giving off an impossibly high reading. It was the same situation as when Princess Celestia had been aboard the ship.

Marcos had immediately ordered a shipwide combat alert. This was no coincidental appearance. This had to be a deliberate boarding action. There were readings in three hangar bays, all of which had just received landing barges or shuttles carrying the repair teams from the Polaris Maxima. Now this sudden spike in the readings; just how many Changelings were there in bay 20?

Deck 11 was quickly sealed off, save for incoming squads of armsmen who were sent to reinforce the defences there. A report came from the starboard midship security station on the deck. They had sent a team to check on the hangar bay, and that team had come under attack; wiped out, it seemed. The sole survivor had reported monsters, foul black creatures that had been swarming over the hangar bay. That was the confirmation Marcos needed.

It had to be the Changelings, making some kind of boarding attempt under the direction of their Queen. No doubt Celestia would be interested to know about this- but if the incident could be contained, there would be no need to mention it to her at all. After all, Marcos had not told her about the previous infiltrator who had made its way aboard. He did not wish to show her the weakness of Imperial security when it came to these creatures. He knew that Celestia's main priority was to locate the Changeing Hive and defeat their Queen, but her previous attempt had only been partially successful, viewed by Marcos from orbit as the bulk of the pony military forces struck at the volcano Hive. The Queen and many of her minions had escaped quite readily, it seemed, and she had apparently managed to fight both Celestia and her sister to a standstill, in a similar fashion to the Greater Daemon in Fillydelphia. What the Changelings might want with his ship, Marcos could only guess. They had attacked Marcos and Galen, it was true, but he did not know why. The truth of what they sought had never been revealed by the first infiltrator when it had been in captivity in the brig. What were they after this time? Technology? Weapons? Him?

It would be alright. They had just fought off a Chaos boarding party, and they would fight off a Changeling boarding party too. Marcos was confident. He ordered the vox officer to open a channel with the Polaris Maxima. They would need to be alerted to the possibility of more Changelings being aboard their own vessel. Clearly the contamination had come from the cruiser, and there could be more of the creatures hidden away in the lower levels of that ship also.

'My Lord, I have the Polaris Maxima,' the vox officer informed him.

'Captain Danrich, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos,' he began. 'Be advised, we have detected Changelings on board our ship, in the hangar bays where your repair teams docked. I advise you to go to battle stations at once and conduct a full investigation of your own vessel. There may be more of these creatures on your ship.'

'Understood, My Lord,' came the familiar voice of the Captain of the light cruiser. 'We shall conduct a sweep at once!' Danrich informed him. 'Are the enemy contained?'

'Yes, we have sealed the affected deck,' Marcos replied. 'I do not know how the Changelings managed to escape detection until they came aboard. It is possible that they were on the outside of the barges or in some unpressurised area. Conduct an external sweep of your vessel also,' he ordered. 'They might be hiding in plain sight.'

'Yes, My Lord. It will be done,' Danrich assured him. 'We shall check every inch of our ship for them.'

'Very good, Captain. Keep me informed if you find anything. We must rid ourselves of this scourge as soon as possible,' Marcos muttered, before signing off. His fleet did not need any further trouble from Changelings, not now. There was still much to be done; more Chaos ships to be cautious of, the Daemon to defeat or drive off. The ponies would not be abandoned, not under Marcos's watch, but his own house had to be put in order before they could return to their duties on the planet. The Archenemy would be defeated, but first, this small infiltration had to be dealt with.

Lieutenant Jarrick peered over the barricade. The armoury was fully manned, bristling with guns. Its defensive turrets were activated. A trio of gun-servitors were also in position, barrels scanning for targets, the pilot lights of their flamethrowers glowing faintly. They were watching the passageway that led out to the hangar bays, down which the bloodied survivor had stumbled. He was dead now; the medics had tried their best, but he had gone into shock and they had been unable to revive him.

The monsters he had reported must be the Changelings, Jarrick reasoned. He knew little of them, almost nothing in truth, but there had been reports of these strange new creatures disguising themselves as men. One of them had come aboard the Emperor's Judgement before, and been dealt with, though the specifics of that incident had not been revealed to the majority of the ship's crew. Jarrick, as a security officer, had been told more than most, because he would have to be on the lookout for just such infiltrations in the future- and now, here it was. Ironically, given all of the concern over their ability to disguise their true form, it seemed that the Changelings were not in disguise this time at all.

They were, however, still sneaky. While the defenders were focusing their attentions on the passageway to the hangars, not many eyes were turned upward. At the top of the armoury chamber were pipes and vents, supplying water, plasma, heating, sewerage and ventilation connections to and from various sections of the ship. Some of them connected to the hangar bays, providing emergency ventilation and supplies for compressed air, hydraulic fluid and electrical cables. The spaces were too small for a man to enter, or indeed for a Changeling. But Changelings were adaptable, and a small swarm of flies escaped through the vents in the air duct above the armoury, rapidly descending upon the waiting men, soundlessly and without any indication of their presence until they had closed the distance.

Suddenly, they were not flies anymore, but Changelings again, and they were upon the defenders. There were shouts of alarm and men turned, looking around in confusion. It was too late for several of them, cut down by sharp horns. Green blasts of energy flashed across the upper level of the armoury and more men fell with holes burned in their chests. Suddenly the fight was not outside the walls, but within, as Changelings descended upon them seemingly from nowhere.

Nobody had suspected such a move. No creature the size of a Changeling should have been able to get through the vents above, but that was the only way they could have outflanked the armsmen. None of the defenders knew the true extent of the shapeshifting abilities of the drones that faced them in combat. In fact, most of them had never seen so much as a picture or vid-image of the creatures. There were cries of dismay as many men thought they had been somehow discovered and boarded by Tyranids, for the Changelings bore a strong resemblance to some offshoot type of that foulest of alien species.

They fought with a speed and agility that terrified and stunned their human opponents, using their horns as bayonets as well as guns, firing off blasts of their magic as they advanced, swooping down from above with bared fangs and hissing tongues, shock and awe against the overwhelmed defenders. Now, as their attention was taken away from the passageway they had been watching, more Changelings began to pour forth, coming into the chamber from all three hangar bays which had been occupied on deck 11.

Lieutenant Jarrick knew his position was immediately in trouble. The armoury was not supposed to be attacked from above. It could not physically be, by most enemy forces; the pipes and vents were too small for a man, Eldar or Ork to crawl through, and it would take an age to cut through the thick deck above with plasma cutters. Enemies capable of flight could in theory climb above and attack from the top down, but such enemies were relatively rare, and since even they would have to enter the chamber from one of the passageways around the edge, they certainly could not achieve the element of surprise the way the Changelings had.

Jarrick's hellgun flashed and cut down one of the drones as it tried to get inside the barricade. It flailed and fell, dropping down to the deck outside. The auto-turrets rattled away as and when they got targets, but since the Changelings were coming from above, outside of their line of fire, only the two turrets aimed at the passageway from the hangar bays could actually engage the enemy with any kind of regularity. Where they hit, they did damage, tearing through the chitinous armour of the drones, at least those who were not protecting themselves with forcefields of green magic, shielding themselves from the majority of in coming fire. Only the few hellguns of the senior crew were able to penetrate their shields, as las weapons seemed to be, from the field reports, the only one which could reliably do so.

Another fearsome component of the armoury's defences were the trio of servitors. Two were armed with flamers and the other possessed an assault cannon. The flamers were proving a deadly threat, scorching and burning some several dozen of the Changelings as they swarmed in from above and below. Changeling horns and even their magic blasts could do little more than char and scorch the metallic, mechanical components of the man-machines. They were effective at holding the tide at bay; at least, for a while.

Just when it seemed the servitors might prove the vital link in the defensive chain, one of them exploded violently in a green and orange flash, spurts of burning Promethium splashing onto unlucky armsmen nearby and igniting their uniforms and flesh. A servitor couldn't just simply explode- could it?

Another green flash tore one of the armoured turrets from its wall mounting, ripping open the ammunition feed belt and sending unspent bullets tumbling and clanging from the deck. Jarrick looked around in confusion as deck plating, solid, steel deck plating, began to rip itself free, wrong-footing many of his men and sending them tumbling. Where they fell, the drones were upon them in moments, stabbing and biting ferociously. He did not know what was happening, but then suddenly he could see the source.

Out among the sea of drones, one figure stood out. It stood tall above the others, more than twice the height of the rest. Its horn was not curved like the others, but rather crooked, like a jagged cliff face rising from the green sea of hair that formed its mane. Even if its sheer size had not been an indicator of its status, then the aura it gave off would have been. It did not radiate evil in the way that a Daemon would, but it most certainly radiated intent, power and control. The lesser Changelings parted like a field of corn before it, allowing it to pass among them while still providing a protective screen against Imperial fire from the armoury. Not that it needed it; the creature possessed the ability to produce a shield with its psychic powers, but unlike the smaller drones, this one was proof even against las-fire, which had been identified as a weakness of all magic save for that of the pony Princesses and the Changeling Queen.

That left little doubt in Jarrick's mind- they were not only facing Changelings, but their leader as well. He did not know what her exact powers or abilities were, but he feared they had just experienced a display of them. The assault cannon-wielding Servitor turned its weapon toward the Queen, riddling her shield with a stream of bullets from the six blazing barrels. There was an impressive show of sparks, but the shield was untroubled, and the Queen now had a new target. The servitor suddenly lifted into the air before being slammed back bodily against the barricades. It did little to the tough, mostly metal man, but then it found itself being tossed across the chamber like a ragdoll, assault cannon still firing ineffectually into the ceiling as its targeting sensors were thrown off, unable to gyroscopically compensate. The servitor smashed into the far wall of the chamber at high speed and tumbled down into a heap. Still, the resilient cyborg tried to rise, but its mostly organic left leg was broken down to a pulp, and a dozen drones swarmed onto it, cutting and stabbing and burning with their magic.

Now there was just the one servitor left, and it was struggling against the sheer numbers of drones. Their shields were able to protect them against the flames, at least for a while, but they moved much too fast to be able to put the exact durability of their magic against heat to the test. Gunfire was also ineffective, but the drones had to lower them to attack physically, or to make use of their magic for other purposes, as they lacked the dexterity and power being exhibited by their Queen. That made them vulnerable to shotgun blasts at short range when they lowered their shields to lunge at their enemies, and several went down hissing. Others were caught by the bursts of flame from the servitor as they tried to leap in and attack it with their horns and fangs. After several notable failures to inflict any damage on its mostly metallic surface, however, the methods of the Changelings changed notably. Instead of leaping at the servitor as they did with the armsmen around it, they stayed back, horns lowered and firing.

Just like the dreaded Tyranids which they so resembled, these Changelings were learning en masse, thanks to the neural connection they shared through their Hive Mind. Whereas a human soldier might shout a warning to his squad, or make a vox call to his platoon, about the strengths and weaknesses of an enemy, the Changelings were seemingly able to alert their entire assault force, perhaps their entire species, at once through the sheer power of the mind. It was deeply terrifying to witness; what else might they be capable of doing with such mental abilities? What other information might they have already gleaned and shared from their brief time aboard the battleship?

All Lieutenant Jarrick was concerned with was how the armsmen could defeat them. The Changelings were proving surprisingly resilient for such a technologically primitive species. Their shields, though natural in origin rather than technological, seemed to be very effective against almost everything the defenders could throw at them. Even where they had been struck without their shields, the chitinous bodies of the Changelings appeared able to shrug off quite a lot of violence, and not every shot would kill or even delay a drone that was in the process of launching an attack of its own. Their numbers also gave them another advantage- and then there was the Queen. With so many other targets around, the armsmen were not able to focus their fire upon her, but Jarrick felt sure that even if they did it would make little difference. She seemed completely indifferent to the shots that did come her way, and focused her attention instead on taking care of particular strong points in the Imperial defences- turrets were torn from their mountings, and the final servitor, surrounded by drones and taking a toll with its flamer, found its head separated from its body by a disc of glowing green energy; perhaps not the biggest problem for a being that was more machine than man at this point, except for the fact that its targeting sensors were in its head, and without a connection to the logic engines and servo-motors that powered the rest of the body and the weapon, the servitor was nothing more than a useless lump of metal. The drones surged in as one, on cue from their Queen, and tore the rest of the thing to pieces.

Jarrick knew they were in deep trouble now. He kept low, as blasts of magic were flashing across the barricades, and headed back inside the armoury to his station. He keyed the vox and sent out a call.

'Security to Deck Command, come in! We are in danger of being overrun, I say again, we are in danger of being overrun!' he called urgently. 'Requesting reinforcements!'

'Deck Command to Security. The deck has been sealed,' came the reply. 'No reinforcements can make it through to you.'

Jarrick's heart sank. Surely the only chance they had was to stop the Changelings here. They had fallen on the armoury from above, meaning they had found a way through the pipes and vents, and while the ship's crew may have sealed off all bulkheads, turbolifts and stairwells, they could not close off every single vital artery that the vessel depended upon for operation. Without hydraulic fluid, fresh air, water, sewerage, electricity, plasma, and communications, the Emperor's Judgement would be a dead entity, just a huge lump of metal hanging in space with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

'Deck Command, that won't be enough!' he shouted. 'The Changelings can get through! They know about the pipe chases and the ventilation ducts! I don't know how, but they do! It's the only way they could have gotten the drop on us here.' There was a pause before a reply from the vox.

'We will pass on that information, Security. The deck will remain sealed, however. No reinforcements can be sent.'

'Copy that...' Jarrick replied. So that was it, then. They were all going to die, it seemed. No rescue, no backup coming to help. No escape, either; the armoury was designed to be held, not to be abandoned, and fighting their way through so many drones seemed an unlikely prospect. The armsmen were taking casualties, being pressed from all sides now as the Changelings swarmed around, some taking to the air while others remained on the ground level, crawling all over the outer barricades which had been overrun already.

Jarrick shouted an order for the armsmen to fall back to the inner cordon. The exterior defence guns had been lost, and ammunition needed to be resupplied from the stores. The men fell back in bounds, covering each other as best they could, though their shotguns lacked range and only a relatively small number had autoguns. There were fewer of them now, having taken casualties in defending the walls. They had failed to keep the Changelings out of the Armoury walls, and all they could do was retreat to the inner fortress structure itself. Jarrick ordered the doors sealed, and they clanged shut, armoured firing ports being used to good effect along each wall for armsmen to poke their barrels through and engage at point blank range as the Changelings began to approach closer, clawing and banging at the metal, unable to break through.

Jarrick checked his hellgun's power cell. He still had half of its charge remaining, enough for plenty of shots. He sent another message pleading for support to Deck Command, but received the same negative response. A few grenades were tossed out through the firing slits, doing an unknown amount of damage to the Changelings. The exterior vid-cams which had dotted the outside of the structure had been destroyed or damaged in the fighting, and all of the feeds on the security monitor were blank. Jarrick didn't know what was going on outside.

He soon found out. The Changeling magic seemed unable to penetrate the thick steel, though drones were clearly firing at the Armoury, but something certainly could. He looked up in alarm as the roof and the top few feet of the Armoury structure began to peel away like the lid of a tin can containing emergency rations. Other men looked up as well, aiming their guns in confusion. The roof fell aside like the petals of a flower opening up, and revealed a single Changeling.

It was the Queen, floating above the structure. Her crooked horn glowed menacingly. A hail of bullets and shells greeted her appearance, and they all bounced harmlessly off of her shield. After a few seconds of firing, most of the armsmen had emptied their magazines at her to no effect, and had to reload. Sweaty hands scrambled in ammo pouches and belts for new shells, new clips to load.

At an unspoken command from their Queen, a hundred or more drones suddenly appeared over the lip of the now open-topped Armoury. They dove down upon their all-but defenceless foes, and the Armoury became a slaughterhouse.

The Chaos fleet had been shattered, thrown into deep disarray by the destruction of the pursuit force they had sent to bring the Imperial Crusade to heel. They had taken heavy losses, and though it was not their entire force which had been lost, it was a significant fraction of it. That did not, however, mean they were defenceless, nor did it mean that they did not have a plan.

With ships still in orbit around the planet, the Chaos fleet still controlled access, either to or from the surface. Imperial reinforcements could not reach those on the ground already, nor could any evacuation take place. A new stalemate had formed. No longer did the Chaos remnants on the planet have to contend with the threat of orbital bombardment. Though few in number after the relentless Imperial efforts to eradicate them, they could still pose a threat in numbers, and they still had in their possession the city of Fillydelphia, a key target for their opponents.

Their Daemonic ally had proven key in forcing the Imperials back from the city, mostly through fear rather than overt action. But more needed to be done. There were plans which, though temporarily derailed, could now be put firmly back on track. Keen minds intended to do just that. And so, from the bowels of the ships now in orbit around the planet, came dozens of landing barges and shuttles. There were no dedicated transports among the fleet, but each capital ship and destroyer had at least some troop carrying capacity of its own. Each craft carried men both for defence against boarding, but also to conduct such operations themselves and to make landfall planetside when needed.

Down into the atmosphere went the numerous craft, escorted by several hundred fighters and bombers. They had targets, hastily drawn up by tactical planners aboard ship. The situation was markedly different to the last time Chaos forces were able to launch aircraft for a ground attack sortie from orbit, but, if Tzeentch was willing, the outcome on this day would be successful, a victory for the Dark Powers and for the Lord of Change.

Lower, still lower they descended, hulls glowing white hot from the forces of reentry as they made the passage into the atmosphere of the planet and stabilised their approaches. Some split off from the main group to proceed south to Fillydelphia and reinforce the friendly units stationed there, but the vast majority of the force continued on to the main objective, set in their sights. They were going to finish what they had once started, and capture it permanently.

On The Line

Twilight had spent some time just sitting in her room. Not very long, but long enough to think over what exactly she had just seen. She certainly had no reason to doubt that Princess Celestia had indeed done what she had claimed, and when word came through from the Imperial fleet, that was the confirmation and the proof that, perhaps, a tiny part of her mind had sought. The Chaos fleet had been destroyed, the message read, or at least the part of it which had been threatening their allies. Apparently there were still other enemy vessels in orbit, which did not surprise Twilight. After all, she had seen them with her own eyes through the telescope earlier in the day.

What Twilight felt was a mixture of relief and revulsion. Their allies, though alien, were still helping the ponies retake their land and force the vile enemy from their homes, and their help would surely be vital in defeating the renewed threat to Equestria, both in the form of the Daemon and the Chaos warships. What other surprises they may hold up their sleeves could only be guessed at by her, as she lacked the knowledge of their forces, command structure, weaponry, ships and capabilities to make any kind of judgement. But on the other hoof, Celestia had shown little hesitation and no remorse in the destruction of an entire fleet of space-faring vessels of frankly gargantuan size, containing who knew how many humans. Yes, they were the enemy, and yes, they were threatening to destroy Equestria and her ally, but something still rankled with Twilight. This was not the mentor she knew from her youth.

But, she rationalised, this was not the Equestria she knew from her youth, either. Things were very different, totally different now. There had been fights against great peril before; Discord, NIghtmare Moon, Sombra- but the nature of this threat was entirely other, something nopony had expected or been able to plan against. Even Celestia had been caught out, though she had maintained her usual calm demeanour through the whole ordeal of the first invasion and the subsequent fight back. Twilight had most decidedly not done the same. Panicking was part of her nature, not a blind hopeless panic, but a reasoned, rational panic. While she had always accepted that there were aspects of life that could not be controlled or planned out in the minute detail she so enjoyed, she always sought to minimise those aspects in whatever ways she could. If something could be smoothed over or avoided entirely through planning, then she would do everything she could to make it happen. The less she was not in control of, the less could go wrong.

But the invasion from the stars was so far beyond her control that it frightened her. Not just beyond her control, but perhaps what had made it so terrifying for her was that it was beyond Celestia's control, too. Her whole life, Twilight had been watching the Princess rule. Even the lands beyond Equestria's borders essentially submitted to her will in these modern times, though they made great shows of not doing so formally. With control came order, and with order came stability, certainty. That was what Twilight strived to experience at all times; it was just her nature, that was all, she told herself time and again. Living in Equestria and being so close to the Princess herself had given Twilight that stability for most of her life, save for occasions when peril threatened. But even then, she had always been supremely confident, either in her friends, the Elements, or that whatever plan Celestia had put into place would come to pass in just the precise, detailed way she had intended it.

And they always had, until faced with the one possibility for which Celestia had no plan, could not have conceived of one sensibly. There was no precedent for anything like this before. Even the wildest fiction writers making the most outlandish claims might have baulked at telling such a story for fear of ridicule, and yet here it was unfolding before Twilight's very eyes, reality, not mere prose. No words on a white background, these, but real life and with real consequences.

Twilight could see the consequences for Equestria. Death, destruction, decay, division. Loss and grief on a grand, apocalyptic scale. But what the consequences would be for herself, she did not yet know with any truth or certainty. Her faith had been alternately shaken and restored, brought low only to soar to new heights. Her broad, basic trust in Celestia's word and wisdom had never wavered, but at introspective times like these, she now wondered if perhaps, sometimes, it should have.

As was so often the way in these new, troubled times, her reverie was broken by a loud sound. This time it was a wail, mournful and deep, echoing out across the rooftops of Canterlot. It was a sound she had not heard, so far as she could recall, since she was in Ponyville on the morning of the invasion. It was the sound of the raid sirens, the mechanical devices used to alert the population of a town or city to approaching danger. They were most commonly sounded when a dragon raid was imminent, hence the name, but they were also used to warn of natural hazards such as tornadoes, floods or Parasprite infestations. Twilight had a feeling they were not being sounded this time for any of those more familiar reasons.

A loud knock came on the door before a guardspony opened it. 'Miss Sparkle, please come with me at once. The Princess has requested your presence in the throne room.'

Twilight gathered herself and her thoughts and followed the guardspony out of her room. She did not know what was going on, but trusted- there was that word again- Celestia to fill her in on the pertinent details. They made their way quickly through the corridors of the palace and into the throne room, where the Princesses were already gathered. Celestia addressed her simply and quickly.

'Twilight, the humans have informed us of enemy aircraft on course for Canterlot. You and your friends are to gather and lead as many of the civilians as you can down into the catacombs.'

'I...what?' Twilight blinked. 'Uh...yes, Your Highness, but...'

'No buts, Twilight. You do not have your Element, and the other five must be protected,' Celestia informed her.

'I know, but...' Twilight exclaimed, though she was not sure exactly what she was objecting to. Perhaps it was a result of her earlier introspection, just deciding to stand up to Celestia in some tiny way, rather than blithely accepting whatever she had to say. She quickly returned to her usual self with a nod. 'We'll round up as many civilians as we can, Princess. But what about you?'

'We shall be defending the city,' Celestia replied. 'If these new enemies wish to try and take it, then they shall receive a rude reception. We shall see to that ourselves.'

'Where is my brother?' Twilight asked, glancing around as she could not see him.

'Shining Armour is already at the wall,' Luna chimed in. 'He has taken command of the military operations to defend the city.'

Of course. Twilight should have known, but she never liked the idea of her brother being exposed to danger. It was, of course, his job to do exactly that, and Twilight was deeply proud of him for it, but his workload and the perils of service had increased significantly since the Chaos invasion. How many guardsponies and soldiers had been lost? She had no idea, and she wasn't sure her brother would know either. Proper record keeping had been all but abandoned out of necessity, as ponies scrambled to react to the invasion and then to try and keep the fabric of Equestrian society from coming apart at the seams.

'Be swift, Twilight. Take the civilians to the catacombs,' Celestia urged. 'Come, sister, Cadence. We must go.' The trio of alicorns teleported away with a crack of displaced air, leaving Twilight alone in the throne room. She blinked, taken aback by the suddenness of their departure. A guardspony hurried to her.

'Miss Twilight, this way. Your friends are waiting for you.'

Twilight nodded. She had a task to perform, delegated by the Princess herself. She knew that her friends would be able to accomplish it, and that she had to help them. It did not matter that she was not being allowed to fight- she knew that she would only get in the way of the soldiers. She was no tactician like her brother, not a strategist like Celestia. She was but a student, a bookworm, with a lust for knowledge but not for power.

And so she found her friends, the other five Elements, anxiously waiting in the courtyard of the palace, not knowing what was going on, only that they had been summoned and escorted by guardsponies. Twilight quickly filled them in, and they went to work; together, as always, to protect those around them, to do what they could in the face of danger. Elements or not, that was their true calling.

Above the city, a vast dome of coruscating purplish-pink energy appeared, springing into life seemingly from nowhere. Some ponies recognised it from a previous incident. This time it was Princess Cadence forming the defence of the city, as she had for the Crystal Empire in the struggle against King Sombra. Alicorn magic had not been tested against orbital weaponry; the Canterlot shield that had collapsed under the onslaught after the initial invasion had been powered by multiple unicorns, and had failed. It was hoped that an alicorn would offer considerably more resistance. Although Cadence was weaker than the royal sisters, she did excel in defensive magic, and if she was powering the shield it would allow Celestia and Luna to operate freely in protecting the city in a far more active role.

Guardsponies and soldiers lined the walls, rifles at the ready, cannons and firing embrasures manned. It was not the first time the city had come under attack, and it would probably not be the last. The ponies were well trained in its defence, and they were ready for the enemy to come at them once again. Celestia and Luna waited below the shield. Perhaps it would be enough for the enemy to see the shield, and realise they could not break through. It was unknown what awareness these current invaders had of the actions of their predecessors. If they knew what had happened to them, then they would know that their aircraft could not make it through the shield; they would be dashed to pieces, as surely as a ship would break upon the harsh rocks of a storm-wracked cliff. If they did not, then the fight might be over before it even began.

Spotters in the highest towers sent out the alarm. They had spotted enemy aircraft, incoming fast from the south. Guns were trained. Ponies crouched down over their sights, taking aim, just in case they could somehow strike a fatal blow. The cannons and anti-air guns were eager to engage, as they knew from previous experience of airship crews that such weapons could destroy the human flyers, so long as they led the targets properly and took careful aim. The aircraft came in closer, now slowing down. It seemed they had to strike the shield and be destroyed.

But then something unexpected happened. A dark red glow suddenly filled the sky in advance of the first incoming jets, rapidly spreading and coming into contact with the defensive shield. There, a tremendous battle occurred, at a sub-atomic, molecular level, all but invisible to the onlookers, as two impossible forces struggled against each other. The aircraft got perilously close to the shield wall before there was a flash, and an opening was suddenly torn in the shield. Into the breach came the fighters, the bombers, and the landing craft.

The gunners opened up from the ramparts, and their fire, perhaps surprisingly accurate to the Chaos pilots, brought down two of the leading fighters, which spiraled away into the ground. The aircraft swept on over the city walls, and the bombers released their payloads. Fire blossomed on the wall and in the streets, killing several dozen guardsponies and soldiers with blast and shrapnel. Ponies ducked into cover as bombs detonated around them, while others stoically remained at their posts, blazing away with the rapid fire anti-air weaponry, stringing hits together and causing a bomber to explode in mid-air before it could disgorge its weapons.

The landing craft approached, drawing fire from the ground as it became apparent what their identity was. Their objective was evident; guns were trained on them, and they opened fire, but the landing barges were much more resilient than the fragile fighters, and little damage was done by the relatively small and primitive weaponry of the ponies. Other forms of attack, however, proved much more effective.

Celestia and Luna swooped in, the royal sisters opening fire with blasts of magic that cut straight through the armoured hulls of the landing barges. Men inside were incinerated and badly burned, explosions ripping through the insides of the two craft which had been targeted by the Princesses. Down they went, slamming into the open ground just outside of the city walls, but other craft roared onward. The strange red energy formed again as the first aircraft reached the other side of the shield, making another opening for their egress after dropping their payloads. The landing barges came in low and slow, making easy targets but resisting the efforts of the pony gunners, who ducked as they swept in overhead.

It had been an unexpected turn of events. The pony defenders had been prepared for the enemy beam weapons to penetrate the shields, but nopony had been anticipating a breach in the shield in such a fashion. The enemy was not meant to be inside the walls, over the city. They were supposed to be kept at bay, yet somehow, their defences had failed them. Some force which they had not previously encountered had cut a path right through Cadence's shield and allowed the enemy aircraft to get through.

Celestia and Luna focused their efforts on bringing down the much larger landing barges, identifying them correctly as troop carriers that posed the real threat to Canterlot. The fighters could prowl and the bombers could cause damage and death, but only infantry could wrest control of the city away from its rightful owners, and neither Princess was willing to let that happen. Another of the landing barges exploded into a fireball, spraying shrapnel across the outer curtain wall of the city as it tumbled to earth. There were too many craft for them to engage them all, however. Large-scale magic could certainly have brought down the whole flotilla, but would have caused huge damage to Canterlot and many deaths among the defenders at the same time.

As a result, shuttles and barges made it through the duel gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire from below and magic from above. Small arms fire pinged ineffectually off of their hulls as they made their approach, the pilots lining up on any piece of open ground that seemed wide enough to accommodate the bulk of their craft. Braking jets flared and thrust vectoring systems kicked in, bringing the bulky, lumbering craft down at a steady pace. Ponies on the walls scrambled to try and rotate their guns, to turn the cannons around and either engage the landing barges, or whatever might come out of them.

A straggling fighter was blown to smithereens by Luna's magic, but the rest of the attack craft had made it through and out the other side. Some looped back around over the city, staying above the magical shield which, despite being holed twice, was still otherwise intact. Cadence had not given up her attempts to protect the city, and she struggled to close the breaches. Something was preventing her from doing so, fighting against her magic. Whatever the red energy was, it was now acting as a barrier of its own, crackling and pulsating around the edge of each opening and stopping them from sealing.

One landing barge settled down on a wide boulevard, the Boulevard of the Alicorns, the largest street within the city. Squads of ponies were hastily redirected to move and counter the enemy, and they took up positions along the edge of the street. The boulevard led from the heavily damaged station up to the palace gates, where artillery was already being wheeled into position, the last few spare cannons available to the ponies. The ramp of the landing barge dropped, and out they came, screaming and shouting their war cries. Several hundred men, a motley crew armed with a mixture of weapons and wearing a broad collection of different uniforms.

Rifle fire met them, along with a cannon shell that detonated close by, killing a whole squad from the blast and shrapnel. They returned fire, not just with their small arms but with a pair of autocannons mounted beneath the ramp overhang which kicked up dust and dirt, blowing chunks out of the heavy ornamental flower pots and benches behind which the ponies were crouching. The high-calibre shells cut straight through exposed bodies, and several ponies died in the first volley of fire.

The cannons on the walltop were swung around, lined up, and fired, blowing holes in the street and sending out a deadly wave of splintered paving tiles which sliced through the enemy infantry. Men tumbled down the ramp, thrashing wildly in their death throes as still more poured out behind them from the interior of the craft. A quick-thinking gun crew put a shell into the passenger compartment of the barge, turning it into a charnel house as men were torn apart, blood coating the walls as a squad was simply wiped out before they even had a chance to deploy and get their boots on the ground. The explosion also caused damage to the interior of the vessel, shorting out several systems and causing a small blast to rip through its lower flank as something inside detonated.

Ponies worked the levers of their repeating rifles as quickly as their hooves allowed. One particularly brave squad advanced under cover of a unicorn shield, pumping close-range fire into the enemy from the direction of the front of the landing barge, which had no defensive guns covering it. Other unicorns used their magic offensively, firing off blasts and discs of energy in a range of different hues. If one struck home, it would kill a man, or at the very least knock him down and incapacitate him.

Las-fire blazed from dozens of barrels as more and more men charged down the ramp, spreading out rapidly into an approximation of a combat formation. Many lacked helmets or flak vests, while others wore riveted metal armour plates, or even hardened leather, which was no more proof against a high-velocity bullet than a sheet of paper would have been. It might, however, protect them in the event that they should engage in close combat, and that seemed to be the primary motivation of many of the Chaos infantry, even those armed with lasguns which could penetrate magic shields. They began to quickly advance, partly to get out of the killzone that the ponies had rapidly established, and partly, it seemed, to close the range so they could get into melee combat.

That was not unique to this current band of Chaos forces. Pony strategists and tacticians had quickly noted the fondness of the enemy, even during the initial invasion, for getting into melee range. While an engagement would start at range, it would not remain there for long if the Chaos infantry had their way. Even when backed up by heavy weapons, tanks or aircraft, which could enable them to potentially wipe out a pony position from a safe distance, the enemy had shown a surprising propensity for closing the gap and fighting hand-to-hoof. While pony officers carried swords, and the enlisted troops carried combat knives, there was no great melee tradition in the modern Equestrian military; such charges and rushes had gone out with the invention of gunpowder, and with modern rapid-firing weaponry available to all sides, any charge by ponies or by any of their traditional enemies, save for the Changelings, would be to invite disaster and see your force whittled down in short order by accurate fire. The Changelings, with their mobility, flight, camouflage and magic, were still able and very willing to fight up close and personal, but the Chaos forces had no need to do so in most cases. Their ranged firepower was more impressive than anything the ponies could field except for the strongest magic, and yet they still rushed in to fight in close quarters, driven by some desire for dominance, to prove their physical strength and superiority, or just out of sheer, naked bloodlust.

The Boulevard of the Alicorns was not the only place in the city where Chaos was making its landings. Two barges swung over the walls of the palace and attempted to set down in the gardens. Celestia suddenly appeared above them, teleporting over to intercept, and her horn glowed. The landing barge had just barely settled onto its struts and the ramp had just dropped. Men began streaming out of the hold, but as they did so, they felt the ramp move under their feet. The barge began to climb again, its engines straining to counteract the sudden upward force. Men tumbled from the ramp, some dropping down before they got too high to safely do so, others clinging on to struts and handrails inside the troop compartment to prevent falling. Some were not so lucky, and fell from the ramp, breaking their necks and backs upon landing. The barge could not overcome the force that was propelling it, and Celestia's magic succeeded in its objective, hurling the barge, engines screaming, into the mountainside north of the city. It detonated with a loud crack and a mushroom of flame.

The other barge had managed to disgorge most of its troops before it became the focus of the Princess and her wrath. A sharp beam of magic cut the craft in twain, rendering it incapable of further flight. The men scrambled out of the troop compartment, spreading out across the gardens but met by heavy gunfire from the palace's defence contingent. There were ponies in the towers and windows of the main building and several outbuildings, as well as behind the statues and hedgerows of the gardens themselves. Celestia added her weight to proceedings, crackling golden lightning flashing across the grass and the bushes, burning men alive and singing the lawns of her precious gardens, a famous and well-loved attraction before the war that always lured tourists from right across Equestria. Now it was becoming a deathscape, with bodies falling left and right, bullet holes and pock-marks in the flowerpots and statues, and blood watering the flowerbeds and shrubs.

More barges were coming in through the hole in the city shield, despite Luna's efforts to stop them. She could only engage so many targets, and there were plenty of them. Some others looped round to enter through the other hole on the northern side of the city, thus dividing the attentions of the defenders even more. Celestia left the defence of the gardens to her ponies and turned to intercept the second prong of the Chaos pincer movement as it tried to force entry from the other side. The first barge through the hole exploded in mid-air as it was struck by a powerful blast of magic. Burning debris rained down upon the rooftops of Canterlot below, along with blasted, torn corpses that fell from the sky. The next two barges tried to take evasive action, but they were slow, lumbering beasts and maneuverability was not at the top of their list of attributes. One ship dove for the deck and managed to dip beneath the rooftops, but the other was blasted into a useless hulk which plunged to its fiery grave just inside the city wall.

The city was under siege again, beset on multiple flanks by the enemy. Its outer defences had been breached, but the ponies inside remained resolute in the face of such sudden danger. They had the example being set by their leaders, who many could see in the skies above, protecting them, defending them, and they in turn had to defend the civilians. It was their duty, and they were not going to let their Princess or their country down. More landing barges and shuttles came in through the twin breaches, more fighters controlling the skies, more bombers. The pony airships were fighting outside of the shield, and the Guard and Army fighting within. They were not going to relinquish control of the city for a second time. Not while even a single pony remained alive and able to raise their weapon.

At least, that was what they hoped.

Under Attack

The catacombs rang and shook with the sound of explosions above ground. Rivulets of dirt ran down from the ceiling, scattering upon the heads and shoulders of the ponies crouching within, sheltering once again from the storm on the surface. The miserable conditions of a few days prior had returned to their lives; cowering civilians and their taciturn guards, keeping watch over the entrance to the catacombs and a keen eye on their charges for any internal problems that might arise. They were responsible for the safety of the civilians, but if the enemy made it to the catacomb entrance, it might well become their tomb.

The ponies, civilians especially, had spent too long underground. They were not used to being cooped up below the surface, or to the rigours necessary for living in such close confines. The guardsponies and soldiers, at least, were accustomed to such a lifestyle, living in barracks and operating in the field. But many of these civilians had known nothing but pampering before the war. They were from Canterlot, the home of the Equestrian elite, the upper crust of society who never wanted for anything. Some were waited on hoof and snout by butlers and maids. Then again, so were the Princesses- and they were anything but defenceless.

Nevertheless, the majority of ponies were accepting of the need for their confinement during the attack, as they had been during the days when fallout blanketed the city with its deadly touch. This was no different to them. They understood the why, the necessity of it, even if they did not exactly embrace the facts and all that they brought with them. They put their faith in the military and in the Princesses, even as explosions shook the streets above their heads.

Twilight shared both their optimism and their fear. This was the second time she had been forced to take cover in the caverns below the palace, and this time the threat was far more direct than the invisible action of the radiation had been. They were under attack, with the enemy swarming all over the city. Twilight had seen them coming in as she and the last of the straggling civilians had made their way down into the catacombs under protection of some of the soldiers. Something, somehow, had forced a hole in Cadence's magic shield. That should not have been possible- Alicorn magic was impervious to the enemy beam weapons, that had been proven many times, although not by Cadence herself. Admittedly she was weaker than the royal sisters; Twilight knew that, at least in terms of raw power. But she specialised in defensive and healing magic. This was her role, this was what she was best at. Those human beam weapons should not have been able to punch through her shield like that. But if it had not been those weapons that had achieved the breakthrough, then what was it?

Twilight had seen the red glow around the breach in the shield. She had initially assumed it to be some kind of residue from the beam weapons, but her analytical mind told her that wasn't possible. That was backed up by a few stray shots that she saw from incoming human aircraft or enemy troops who were already on the ground. They simply dissipated against the shield like she had seen others do against Celestia's defences on several occasions. Had the enemy developed some new weapon that was somehow effective where all their others had failed?

Twilight tried to think of how exactly that could have been accomplished. Alicorn magic had proven strong enough to resist almost everything that could be thrown at it, either those weapons employed by ponies, their enemies, or indeed the humans. No physical projectile could pass through; bullets, cannon shells, the human beam weaponry, all failed to penetrate. It was possible that one of the human orbital weapons mounted on their ships could knock down an Alicorn shield; they had done so to the Canterlot dome during the initial invasion, but that had not been powered by one of the Princesses, but merely by a few unicorns. But there had been no orbital attack, just the glow of red around the opening which had been formed. Apart from powerful magic, Twilight could think of nothing else which could cause such a thing.

But perhaps that was the answer. Magic may have caused it- just not the kind of magic they were used to. Twilight knew that humans used the term psyker to refer to a magical creature capable of projecting its energy. She also knew that the Princesses had been fighting the Daemon in Fillydelphia, and that it had possessed such powers. Maybe it, or some other psychic being among the ranks of Chaos, had been called into action to breach the shield where every other recourse had failed. Whatever the cause, it was a pinpoint, surgical cut, not a massive hammer blow from orbit as they had attempted previously during the first invasion. Whether that was indicative of new capabilities, or simply a new objective on their part, Twilight did not know.

Nor would she find out by remaining below ground. She wanted to be up there, helping, but Celestia and Luna had insisted. Her place was helping the civilians, not helping them, and they did have a point. But Twilight felt that she had to make up for her mistakes. She had got herself captured, the Element taken, still not yet back in their possession. Her failure still haunted her, despite repeated assurances that it had not been her fault. She had to make up for it, she just had to, somehow or another. This was the perfect way, surely; if she could figure out how the enemy had made the breakthrough and punctured the shield, they could counteract it, close the gap and keep them at bay in the future. But she could not do that from underground.

Yet she could not leave, either. The guards were restricting anypony from leaving, on orders from the Princess herself. It was too dangerous above ground, they told her, and several others who were anxious to get back topside. And so she had to sit and wait with her friends, keeping morale up as best she could; everypony else's, if not exactly her own. Each explosion reminded her that ponies were fighting and probably dying to help keep her and the others safe, and that she, despite the lack of her Element, should be up there fighting with them. She glanced at the stairs that led back up to the surface, guarded by two soldiers, with several more positioned on the staircase itself and covering the exterior doorway. yes, she could teleport herself away and back to the surface, but if she did that, then she would be failing the Princess once again.

She could not bring herself to do that, and so she sat silently, sullenly, in the semi-darkness, wondering what things were like above ground.

On the Boulevard of the Alicorns, a bloodbath was unfolding. The Chaos infantry from the first landing barge had advanced right into the teeth of the pony guns, and despite their technological advantage, their flesh was just as vulnerable to bullets and shells as that of any pony. They died in numbers, but they had help on the way. Two more barges came in, their defensive guns sweeping the tree-lined edges of the wide thoroughfare with fire, keeping pony heads firmly down as the barrages of shells passed over their positions. Cannons on the wall fired at the incoming craft, but did only superficial damage, not having armour-piercing warheads. They were unable to penetrate the hulls. More field guns were being rolled into position at the far end of the boulevard, protecting the approaches to the palace.

The citywide command centre, established after the recapture in the main public library, was working overtime trying to deal with the incoming threats. They had no instant communication like the humans did, instead having to rely on rapid messengers, usually Pegasi, or on signal flags or lights. The city telegraph system was only in very limited service. Like that of the fire department, it could give rapid reports of an incident, provided another pony elsewhere could access a transmitter key and was in a safe enough spot to send a message, but for the most part, communication was proving difficult. The enemy could not only communicate, but also move, much faster than the ponies could. Their aircraft were in and gone before anti-air guns could be brought to bear on them, and the rapid fire weapons were proving ineffective against the more heavily armoured landing barges that were ferrying in troops and equipment.

There was no panic in the command centre, but a certain air of distinct unease. Corporal Breeze could detect it all around him; he certainly shared it. The young guardspony had been detailed to serve his tour of duty today at the command centre as part of its protective company, a unit assigned to guard the nerve centre of the city at all times, day or night. His last eventful tour had been when he had detected and reported the fire in the ammunition depot at the theatre which had taken the life of a firepony and destroyed a large proportion of spare ammo and explosives for the city's defenders. Now this; another invasion of the city? Wasn't one enough?

Breeze gripped his rifle tightly. His armour was prepared and ready, covered in grey and black camouflage paint and netting to hide its usual metallic appearance. Ever since the appearance of the second Chaos fleet, all guardsponies had been ordered to match their army colleagues and have their gear ready for combat, rather than policing, duties at a moment's notice. The Guard normally patrolled in their regalia and glittering golden armour, an imposing and obvious symbol of their power and their purpose as an extension of Celestia's will and dominance over her citizens. The mere sight of the armour and the famous blue helmet plumes could be enough to dissuade a would-be mugger or graffiti artist from his or her crime.

But the Guard were also combat trained, and ready to defend Canterlot, or any other town or city they might be posted to. Holding a city as big as Canterlot with a force as small as they currently had available, however, was something of a pipe dream. Once the Chaos forces had been pushed out, it was expected that that would be the end of it- the end of realistic threats to the city. Nopony had counted on another fleet appearing and renewing the assault on the planet. It had seemed the human enemy had been broken, and now they were at the doorstep once more.

Breeze held his position at the edge of the command centre's main room, what had formerly been the library's central archive. Great stacks and shelves full of books were already covered in dust after the weeks of neglect, while others had been burned in a senseless act in the rear courtyard by the occupying forces. The open space of the main atrium had been turned into the command centre, with large map boards displaying the city and the surrounding area, both at a general scale and also street by street grids. There were maps from the planning department of sewers and of the catacombs, so that action could be planned using subterranean access if needed. There were unit designations and lists of equipment, telegraph receiving stations, staff ponies and officers with much gold braid on their caps and epaulets coming and going, bringing and issuing orders and corrections, which were sent out by fast messenger, or over the telegraph if possible. The ponies on duty were augmented by some of the off-duty staff who had been hurriedly called in. Those who had been able to make it to the command centre had been put straight to the grindstone, assisting with the heavy workload now facing everypony. A citywide canvas of all units had to be conducted, and the enemy attack was making it very difficult to do so.

The Chaos landing barges had come in at several strategic positions across the city, including the palace, the most obvious target, and the Boulevard of the Alicorns, the largest thoroughfare. The library, however, had escaped attack so far. Perhaps the Chaos forces, new arrivals to the planet, were unaware of the importance of the building and had simply targeted the other spots due to their universal strategic importance; wide, open areas suitable for landing their barges, the road clearly being a major route for supplies and reinforcement, and the palace, the largest building complex in the city, obviously having some kind of value, either as a command centre, a factory, military base or some other spot of significance.

The library bore no obvious external marks that would identify it as an important building to a Chaos force. There were no vox antennae, no Auspex dishes, no vehicles parked outside save for a few carts and wagons which also lay dotted around other sites. There were no large-scale defensive positions nearby, no sandbags or bunkers, and no banners or standards flew from the roof. Basic precautions had been taken in case of enemy observation, Chaos or Changeling alike, and the building still appeared to all intents and purposes to be just a library from the outside. Inside, however, was another matter, with the hustle and bustle of a busy command centre that was trying to coordinate a response to the sudden invasion.

Corporal Breeze's task was simple enough. He was to maintain perimeter watch and keep an eye on the western entrance to the building, which overlooked a street adjacent to the Boulevard of the Alicorns. Several squads had deployed into the street as a defensive force, crouching behind wagons and benches. There were no prepared defences; there had been no time to construct any, and since the threat of attack had seemingly receded, other than potentially by Changeling infiltration, large-scale defensive works such as barricades had been dispensed with. The library was not under direct attack, but it was situated perilously close to one of the major enemy landing sites. Heavy gunfire could be heard from the other side of a row of buildings; the boulevard was right there, and the landing site was but a few blocks to the south. The guards were on alert; an attack could come at any moment. Chaos could break through the line of defence and find their way to the library, or one of their imposing airships might find a place to set down its cargo nearby.

Breeze kept a close watch on those ponies coming and going. Though this was a Chaos attack, clearly, it was always possible that Changelings might be taking the opportunity afforded to them by the confusion of an invasion to further their own ends, by infiltrating the command centre. They could also, perhaps, be working in conjunction with Chaos, although there had been no evidence of that so far- at least, none which had reached Breeze's ears. There was a lot of information withheld from low-ranking ponies, after all, and there were many rumours doing the rounds. It was rather hard to know which ones to believe.

Breeze had seen nothing unusual or suspicious, though he knew full well that Changelings could easily integrate well enough to blend in totally with the ponies around them if they so desired. They could walk, act and talk just like a pony when the situation called for it. He wasn't unduly concerned about that possibility, however; it was unlikely the Changelings were trying something like that, and even if they were, there were far more immediate and greater threats to his personal well-being in the area for him to worry about. The gunfire was getting closer; only a little bit, and quite slowly, but things were definitely on the move. The initial report had said but a single landing craft had come in on the Boulevard of the Alicorns, but a later messenger, plus visual sightings from the library rooftop, confirmed two more of the ships had landed.

There were others across the city, Breeze knew. Not the exact figure, but from the numbers of messengers coming and going, it was clearly more than just a couple. The threat was not confined to just a small area, but was citywide, just like the last time, when he and his unit had been forced to flee, escorting a large group of civilians to safety as best they could up in the mountains. That seemed like both a lifetime ago, and mere hours in the past. Time moved slow and fast for a guardspony, depending on what exactly they were doing. There were long shifts of utter boredom when not even a single minor nuisance crime would be called in, and then there were days like today. A few more of the former and a few less of the latter would have been very welcome to the young corporal.

His duty was still clear, however, and he stayed firmly at his post, listening to the rattle of gunfire and the crump of ever-closer explosions. Enemy aircraft whipped by overhead, and occasionally from his doorway post he could see one of the Princesses flitting about the sky, a sight sure to boost the confidence of even the most wavering raw recruit. If they were still up there, then there was still hope of fighting off the enemy attack.

Another of the ponderous landing craft came in, dropping down out of sight behind the rooftops, heading either for the same place on the Boulevard of the Alicorns as the other three, or at least somewhere close to it. Breeze watched it in a mixture of fear and admiration; how could such a craft fly? It had no wings to speak of, nor did it have any kind of gasbag like Equestrian airships did. There seemed to be no means of either propelling or lifting the craft at all, and yet there it was, as plain as day, visible to his naked eyes, and it was very definitely flying, or at the least, hovering. Perhaps it was magic- there had certainly been attempts, successful ones, to make non-aerodynamic objects fly using the power of unicorn magic. Maybe the humans had tried something similar and struck on a working formula?

A shout distracted Breeze and made him turn his head. The cry went up again, but he couldn't determine from where. Above him? Yes, it was above him, on the roof. Ponies were shouting, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He leaned out of the doorway and looked up in the hope of spotting some signal being relayed down.

He saw no signal, but he certainly saw what the cries of alarm were about. An enemy aircraft was coming in. Not one of the huge landers, but something much smaller and sleeker, yet menacing in its design. This one definitely had wings, and it had various things slung beneath them. Given its purposeful dive, Breeze could have guessed at their purpose even if he had not seen similar craft already in action above the city. This was like any one of a score of other aircraft that were moving to and fro above, but there was a very good reason why this particular one had caused alarm on the roof.

It was heading straight for them.

Breeze turned back from the doorway and screamed into the command room. 'Incoming aircraft! Take cover!'

The cries filtered down from the roof at the same time, ponies shouting from the upstairs balcony to warn those below. Breeze didn't dare to risk another glance outside, but instead flung himself to the floor, covering his head with his hooves and opening his mouth to equalise the pressure in case there was an explosion.

There was, and what an explosion it sounded like to him. Despite his precautions, he went deaf, at least temporarily, only hearing a huge, cataclysmic bang before losing his auditory connection with the world around him. Dust cascaded down on him from above. He felt a brief wash of heat, then more dust, falling in torrents, like taking a shower in the stuff. Something struck him, then something else, and he felt himself being rolled over involuntarily. The dust now rained down on his face, and he reflexively turned his head away, his eyes tightly shut, throat clogged with the powdery material.

After a few moments of violence, there was no more, and Breeze coughed, silent to him though he could feel the vibrations passing through his body. He had to clear his throat, and managed to do enough to breathe, at least, rolling onto his side and then his stomach, heaving and hacking, spitting out powder and dust. He opened his eyes, but the dust was so thick he could hardly see the floor. He did not feel injured, and got himself up on his hind hooves, trying to stand up but feeling something above him that should not have been there.

He fumbled for his rifle, and found it on the floor a few feet away. The darkness was almost as cloying as the dust itself, but then as he searched for the exit, a brilliant shaft of white light suddenly cut through the fug. He crawled toward it, only to find it disappearing before him. Then, it reappeared once again, and he made a few more feet of progress before it faded to a pale half-light. He kept going, and after an eternity in the darkness he reached the outside world once again.

Though he had only been a few feet from the doorway, the dust had been so thick as to obscure all light coming from the outside, except for one spot where it managed to break through temporarily, a beam of sunlight reflecting from a shattered window pane opposite, shining like a lighthouse intermittently as dust swirled and eddied through the street. Breeze looked down at himself, covered in plaster dust and almost unrecognisable. There was debris scattered all around, broken bricks and chunks of plaster and wood. There were bodies in the street, and he recognised some of them as ponies from the roof team. He glanced up at the library.

No wonder. The roof was gone, and so were the top two floors, where some of the administration and archive rooms were located. Every window was shattered, and he could feel his hooves crunching broken glass beneath them as he walked unsteadily, dazed and still deafened by the explosion. The enemy aircraft must have dropped a bomb, or fired a cannon shell, or something- whatever the enemy used to attack ground targets. Perhaps there had been nothing signifying a command centre to a Chaos pilot, but with ponies on the roof, the library still looked like a target.

Now they had been struck, and Breeze could only wonder what that meant for the defence of the city. There was the strategic command centre in the palace, yes, but that was geared to fighting the war at a grander scale, not to the defence of the city itself. That was why they had been in the library- it was inconspicuous, just a fairly large building of a few stories, not dissimilar to many others in the surrounding district and not military in intended purpose. It was meant to hide them. Perhaps it had, perhaps it had not, but either way, the building was now a smoking ruin.

What of the staff? Breeze looked back at the doorway he had crawled from. Dust hung in the air like a blanket, and inside there seemed to be only darkness. There were probably survivors; after all, he was alive, though he had been very close to the exit. But how could he or anypony else even get back inside to check?

Speaking of anypony else, was there anybody around? He looked left and right. Yes, there were ponies, a few dazed defenders who had ducked into cover as the bomber had made its run. Members of the squads who had been posted in the street were still alive, and they were hurrying over to the library to do what they could. One pony approached Breeze, speaking to him. All Breeze could do was shake his head and point at his ears; he couldn't hear.

The pony nodded and gestured for Breeze to cross the street. He then pointed to his rifle and nodded; keep hold of it, you might well need it.

Breeze trotted across the street and rested against the wall of a building. He watched other ponies trying to gain entry to the library while others crouched behind the battered flower pots and benches to cover the street. His eyes turned skyward in case the enemy bomber was coming back for another run, but it was nowhere to be seen. There were other aircraft streaking by, but they were at a higher altitude, heading elsewhere in the city, evidently.

He thought he had heard something. Yes, he had- he could hear the roar of the aircraft, though it was more of a dull rumble. At least he had not been deafened permanently; his hearing was returning. After a few more moments he could hear the shouts of the would-be rescuers, trying to get inside the library. He looked, and could see that they were helping two ponies from the rubble. They were walking on their own hooves; a good sign. Walking wounded. They were directed across the street as Breeze had been, to get a few moments rest.

A few moments would be all they would get, however. Something flashed across Breeze's vision. He blinked, unsure if he had seen or imagined it. It happened again, and again, and then one of the survivors staggering across the road stumbled and fell. He must have tripped. Breeze took a step forward to go help, but then he saw the bubbling wound on the pony's flank. Something else flashed through his eye line again, and he turned his head.

No more rest. Not now. Only violence.

Street Fight

Corporal Breeze gripped his rifle and turned to face the enemy. They were surging onto the street, at least a couple of squads. There were shouts, audible to him now that his hearing was returning. He could hear ponies shouting orders, and the enemy shouting hatred, spewing bile.

He looked for cover, and found it all was taken by other guardsponies, save for a large lump of what had once been the outer wall of the library. His head was still swirling a little, concussion perhaps, from the blast. He still knew what to do, however, and he went prone behind the lump of debris, raising his rifle.

Up ahead were enemies, humans spreading out into the street and taking potshots at the ponies. Those guardsponies who had been trying to extricate survivors from the library had moved to cover, firing from the doorways with their repeating rifles. The enemy were firing their red beams, and from their briefings and his experience with the first invasion, Breeze knew that the few defensive shields being thrown up by the unicorns on the street would be futile against their attacks. Nevertheless, any protection was better than nothing, and offered psychological help at least.

Breeze took aim, sighting in on an enemy soldier, who had his beam weapon raised, squeezing off wild shots at the defenders. Breeze breathed out, remembering his training. He fired, and the man went down, falling to his knees, getting back to his feet and staggering like a drunk, falling flat on his face and lying still. None of his comrades paid him any mind, which was no surprise given what the ponies knew of their enemy. Two other men crossed the street, guns blazing on rapid fire, and one of the ponies in Breeze's vision died, slumping against the wall of the building he was crouching beside.

Breeze readied a second shot and picked a new target. This human was female, and she was wielding two pistols, both of which were spitting red beams at the ponies. She was trying to reach cover across the street, and Breeze was determined that she would not succeed. He breathed out and fired, and he missed.

He cocked the lever of his rifle and tried again, firing. He winged the woman, but she half stumbled, half dove into cover behind a building pillar. Breeze grimaced. Missing the target was never a good thing, but he quickly switched to another human. There were plenty of them, more coming out of the alleyway up the street, as well as the doorway of one of the buildings. Evidently they had forced a breakthrough of the defences lining the Boulevard of the Alicorns, and were pushing through into the rest of the city. Whether they wanted to capture or destroy the command centre or simply link up with friendly forces, Breeze had no idea. It really didn't matter either way. He just had to keep shooting.

Breeze pulled the trigger, and his target went down, a bullet passing right through his brain. There were more of them than there were guardsponies, however, and their weapons packed a punch which was just as deadly. Several ponies were lain out, sprawling dead in the street. The human beam weapons were fearsome indeed, and Breeze could clearly remember the panic he had felt when facing them for the first time. Not only did it appear to him that the humans had weaponised magic and somehow managed to project it from a rifle, but the sight of their shots punching straight through the shield of one of the unicorn guardsponies had seemed chilling. It shouldn't have been possible, but there it was.

Nor should it have been possible for the humans to create an opening in the city shield, but they had, somehow. Breeze did not know how, but the hole in the shield was clearly visible from the ground, a worrying wound in the defence of the city through which the enemy had been able to pour. Now they were among them, in the streets and alleys and buildings of Canterlot, for a second time.

His hearing had now fully returned, and the deafening clamour of battle threatened to make him wish for the ethereal emptiness of the previous few minutes when he had been dazed. Bullets and red beams flashed past his head as he ducked low behind the lump of rubble. It was the only cover he had, but there was a better position behind a large concrete flowerpot, now vacant since the pony who had been firing from there now lay dead in the gutter. Breeze weighed it up; stay in cover, or move to a safer position but have to cross open ground?

A red beam blew a chunk from the cobbles close to his head, and he made up his mind. He waited for a lull in the firing, when the enemy were reloading or occupied with other targets or changing position themselves. A volley of rifle fire came from the ponies around him, and Breeze got up, galloping across the short distance to the large flowerpot. He ducked down and scrambled into cover, pressing his back up against the much more substantial protection he had been seeking. The flowerpot offered more cover and better resistance to the enemy fire than the debris.

Breeze turned and peeked around the side of the pot. The enemy were still in the street, firing from doorways and over similar pieces of street furniture, engaging the few pony defenders. Several more ponies had arrived from somewhere, the other side of the building, perhaps, drawn in by the gunfire to assist their fellow guard. They were helping, but their numbers were still not equal to those of the enemy.

Two grenades came in, exploding in the road and throwing up sprays of stone fragments from the cobbles. Breeze felt the sting of pain as numerous small fragments cut and scratched his skin. More enemies were now coming from a building farther down the road, swelling their numbers still further and putting more pressure on the increasingly beleaguered ponies. Their position in the street was untenable, but they were loathe to abandon the command centre, even though it had been destroyed. There were still ponies in there, trapped. Surely some were still alive, and could not be left behind.

There may not be any choice open to the ponies, however. The enemy were pressing them hard, hounding them and attacking with vigour and hatred. They were not rushing forward blindly, not yet at least, but they were aggressive and firing as they moved, keeping the defenders pinned down as they tried to get closer. A surprising display of discipline from the Chaos infantry after their initial charge from the landing barge, which had been made necessary at least in part by the fact that they had been deposited straight into the midst of a killzone, with pony infantry on two sides and artillery on the others.

The narrow street, on the other hand, would act as a natural funnel, and a blind charge would have seen heavy losses on their part, not that such things had ever stopped them before. The more cautious approach was perhaps dictated by the terrain and not by any sudden caution on their behalf. Breeze didn't much care what the reason was; he was just glad not to find himself rushed by dozens of rabid Chaos infantry. A firefight with them was bad enough, and was inflicting more and more casualties on the pony defenders. If they didn't pull back soon, they might well be overrun. Breeze wondered why nopony was giving the order, and he looked around. Where were the officers?

He realised with a thrill of panic that there were no officers. No living ones, anyway. He was the highest ranking pony there on the street; a mere corporal, the lowest rung of the non-commissioned officer ladder, now in charge of the defence of what remained of the headquarters building. The decision was in his hooves. He could not communicate with headquarters for orders; the enemy bomber had very much seen to that, and thrown him into this mess in the first place. He had to make the call; stand and fight, or retreat?

He wasn't even sure the other ponies around him had noticed that he was now the ranking guardspony on the scene. He didn't know they would actually listen, whatever command he might give, but technically, his word was now law in the absence of any superior. He examined the situation. They were few in number, the command centre had been destroyed. There was no possibility of conducting rescue operations while under attack. Reinforcement was unlikely given the lack of communication, though there were a couple of Pegasi among the defenders who could be sent with calls for help if necessary. Sending them off, however, might weaken the line sufficiently that by the time they arrived, the position would have been overrun anyway.

Another pony died with a steaming hole instead of a face, and Breeze knew he had to act quickly and decisively. He found his courage and conviction; after all, he had been given that stripe on his arm, they had made him a corporal for a reason. It was time to live up to the trust the Guard had put in him.

'Fall back!' he shouted. 'Fall back! By section if you can. Fall back to the intersection!' He pointed up the street, in the direction of the palace. That was the way they had to go, back to more defensible positions, to link up with friendly forces and continue the fight from there. It was the only way.

Fortunately, ponies listened. They recognised his voice, and in the absence of orders from anypony of higher rank, they obeyed his command. By section, they turned, covering each other, each unit protecting the next with a barrage of rapid rifle fire as the others pulled back to new positions, then in turn repeating the process for their fellows. Gradually all the survivors fell back in strides down the street, putting distance between themselves and the enemy. The Chaos forces tried a charge to catch them off guard, but accurate defensive fire put a stop to it almost before it could truly begin, with half a dozen more humans lying dead in the road.

Down the road was the intersection Breeze had mentioned in his shouted orders. It had been guarded by a squad, and they were now adding their own firepower to that of Breeze's new command. For yes, he was now in charge of these ponies, at least until they ran into somepony of higher rank. That was his plan; link up with friendly forces farther back, where somepony with some actual experience could take over. He was fine with commanding a section, which his rank entitled him to, but now he was charge of some twenty or so ponies, almost a platoon, which was above his pay grade.

They made it back to the intersection mostly unscathed, only losing one more of their number during the retreat. The defenders there offered cover fire for the retreating guardsponies, and they linked up, getting into cover wherever they could. The enemy were moving up, swarming over the ruins of the headquarters building now. The intersection offered a bit more in the way of a defensible position, though m it was not ideal. It would do temporarily, but enemy forces could move up from the Boulevard of the Alicorns and outflank them. Units could come from all sides; that was the trouble with an intersection, after all. The stone and brick buildings offered good cover, however.

Breeze looked around. Any officers? He couldn't see any. No NCOs, either. Was he still in command? There was another corporal, at least, the same rank as him. He kept his head low and trotted over to her.

'What's the situation here?' he asked. 'Any officers around?'

'None that I know of!' the blue mare replied. 'What about HQ?'

'It's gone!' he shouted, over the din of battle. 'I don't know if any officers got out...'

'I guess you're in command, then!' she replied. Owing to seniority in terms of his length of service, Breeze was the senior corporal among them. Though he had not been in the Guard for long, he had, at least, been in the service for longer than she. That was not exactly what Breeze had wanted to hear. Now more than a platoon of ponies were relying on him. What was he to do?

The situation had not changed very much. They were still threatened by the advancing enemy, but now there was the potential for being outflanked, also. There were still no signs of friendly forces around, though he knew they had to be nearby. A strong force had been in position at the Boulevard of the Alicorns, just one street over. Should they head over there?

Breeze looked up the side street toward the boulevard. There was some swirling smoke blocking his eyesight, but the boulevard was still visible. No sign of the enemy; that was one thing. But no friendlies, either. Would it be worth the risk of changing positions? Or should they remain in place and hold the enemy back?

He wished he knew what to do. He had no training in that level of tactical operations. A corporal was meant to oversee a section of between four and five other ponies, or a single artillery piece and its crew. A corporal would do what his sergeant told him to do, and his sergeant would do what his lieutenant told him to do. That's how it was, and that was how he had been trained. He tried his best to keep a level head and think objectively.

A few moments later, his next action was decided for him. They came under attack from the flank, though not from the boulevard- from the other side, deeper in the city, to their left. Cries of alarm greeted the new attack, as red beams flashed around them. The enemy must have made another landing somewhere else in the district. Now they were charging in and blazing away with their weapons. Positions which were protected from enemy fire from the street ahead were not proof against fire from the side, and several ponies went down.

Breeze had to act again, and quickly. He shouted orders for the ponies to retreat to the boulevard. There were friendlies there; there had to be. Ponies turned and retreated, moving by bounds again, covering each other. Some unlucky ponies had to cross the street to run to cover, and several didn't make it. The rest ran for the boulevard, and Breeze swung round the corner into cover. Two ponies slid in beside him, pressing themselves flat against the wall and firing back around the corner at the advancing enemy.

The Boulevard of the Alicorns was wreathed in smoke. The large bulk of the trio of enemy landing barges could be seen to the south, while to the north, the flashes of artillery pieces marked friendly positions in and around the palace compound. That was where they had to go, but half of the platoon was in cover on the wrong side of the street. Crossing over would expose them to heavy enemy fire from the Chaos infantry advancing up the side street.

'Private Winter Storm!' Breeze shouted. 'Cover the street! Block them off!'

'Yes sir!' the unicorn replied. His horn glowed and he directed it into the middle of the street. His magic formed a shield, but this one was completely opaque. It was not enough to keep out the fire of their red beam weapons, but it acted as a screen, hiding the movements of the ponies as they crossed the street. Breeze ordered them to move one by one. Each mare and stallion made it across to the north side successfully. Once they were over, Breeze took his turn, galloping across the street. The red beams flashed and cracked around him, but he made it to the other side, rolling into cover behind the building.

Breeze ordered them onward, towards the palace. There were no friendly forces on the street ahead of them, but there was movement outside the palace walls, which was where they headed. Shots rang out behind them, and the rearguard opened up with their rifles as enemies began emerging from the side street they had just abandoned. Ponies on the line ahead were waving them in, and Breeze urged a faster pace. Aircraft screamed overhead, and a building ahead erupted into a fountain of dust, crumbling and collapsing in on itself, debris spilling out onto the boulevard as the outer wall gave way.

The pony line was up ahead. The palace's curtain wall formed the baseline, and the street outside had been fortified with sandbags and wooden emplacements since the recapture of the city, and those positions were now occupied by guardsponies and soldiers. They held their fire as Breeze and his ponies approached, and they clambered over the barricades into defensive positions among their fellows.

Breeze quickly looked for an officer, and found several of them. A Guard captain approached him, and he saluted her.

'What unit are you with?' she asked him.

'Headquarters protection force, ma'am!' Breeze replied. 'I have a report...'

'What's going on over there?' she demanded. 'Why did you leave your post?'

'Ma'am, the headquarters building was destroyed by an enemy aircraft!' Breeze quickly explained, as firing resumed around them, rifles and cannons roaring. 'There were heavy casualties...we couldn't get back into the building, and then we came under ground attack, and...'

'Slow down, corporal,' she urged. 'The headquarters is gone?'

'Yes ma'am...completely destroyed,' Breeze assured her. 'They must have used a bomb or a rocket or something, I don't know...the whole building came down, the roof...I doubt anypony survived in the main chamber.'

'Were there no officers who escaped?' she asked, with a concerned expression creasing her face.

'Not that I know of, ma'am,' Breeze replied. 'We tried to conduct search and rescue operations, but we came under ground attack and our position was untenable. As the ranking pony I ordered a retreat.'

The captain nodded grimly. 'Alright, well, you're part of the palace defence force now. Messenger!' she shouted, and a Pegasus quickly approached. 'Relay message to the palace command. City headquarters reported destroyed by enemy air action. Requesting additional instructions.' The Pegasus saluted and took to to the sky, flitting up and over the towering palace wall to race the message to the strategic command centre inside the building.

The captain ordered Breeze to position his ponies on the left side of the defensive line, facing out across the broad expanse of the Boulevard of the Alicorns. Enemies could be seen up ahead, and plenty of them. Whether they had overcome all friendly forces on the boulevard, or simply bypassed and got away from them, could not be determined, but even as Breeze watched, another of the heavy landing craft came in, settling down far up the boulevard on its landing struts and disgorging more infantry onto the street. A second barge began making its run, but exploded in mid-air.

Breeze looked up as Princess Celestia swooped overhead, her horn flashing as a great pillar of magic, like a blowtorch from the heavens, cut straight up the boulevard, burning and smashing the cobbles and sweeping across a mass of hostile infantry. Their screams were audible even from such a distance, and a cheer went up from the pony lines as their Princess went into battle once more. The command centre may be gone, but their leader was not.

Breeze found a spot and directed his ponies- for that was now what they were, at least temporarily- to take up positions. They crouched down behind the sandbags and wooden barricades, rifles aimed outward. The Princess had torn through the enemy infantry, but had then turned away, her attention drawn elsewhere. Clearly the boulevard was not the only action area within the city, and her focus could only be on one location at any given time. In the distance, Luna was still trying to plug the gap in the shield, successfully preventing any more aircraft from entering via that route, but unable to deal with those already inside.

There were multiple cries of alarm as a Chaos bomber swung onto an attack vector, heading straight for the palace gates and the defensive positions outside it. Breeze felt a jolt of fear and panic. Another air attack that he could do nothing about. One had destroyed the headquarters and nearly killed him, and now his position was in the sights of another enemy aircraft which seemed equally determined to carry out its mission.

But the pilot had not accounted for the palace's defences. Atop the southern curtain wall were a pair of the rapid fire anti-air guns, manned and ready. They had previously been engaging targets passing overhead, but now they had a more definite and more urgent target. Their barrels swung around, their crews pointing out the target, and they fired. The two guns hurled a lot of lead at the target, shells filling the air and bursting ahead of the incoming jet. It flew on, straight into the maelstrom being thrown up in its path. Shells exploded against its relatively thinly armoured fuselage and the leading edges of the wings, ripping and tearing away at the skin of the jet.

It ploughed on blindly, a trio of guns in a nose turret chattering in reply until a shell from the ground found the gunner and killed him. Defensive turret guns were not the bomber's primary weapon, however, and the bomb bay doors swung open as it continued on its direct course. More shells slammed into it, threatening to knock it off course, but it maintained its heading. Breeze ducked low instinctively. He didn't want to die like this. It wasn't fair. Now he knew how bandits and Zebras and Yaks must have felt whenever they were staring down the barrels of an Equestrian airship's cannons.

The anti-air guns continued to pound away behind him, and they found their mark at last. Fire blossomed from the starboard wing of the bomber, and a few moments later as it tried to pull up, there was an explosion and the jet ripped itself apart overhead, spraying debris across the sky like a shooting star. But the guns had found their mark too late, and two large, cylindrical objects, tapering toward the front end and with stabilising fins on the rear, dropped from the ventral bay of the jet before it exploded and plunged toward the defensive line. Breeze flung himself to the floor, ready for the inevitable.

It came, in the form of two tremendous bangs that shook him and vibrated the ground beneath. But unlike the previous bombing, nothing struck him, nothing landed on him. There was no heat washing over him. He blinked, rolled over and looked up.

A shield was overhead, still glimmering and dancing like the sea after being struck by the two bombs, which had burst harmlessly against it, smashing windows and exterior fittings from the corner buildings at the end of the boulevard, but doing no damage to the defences or the ponies manning them. Breeze looked for the source, and spotted it nearby. It was the captain he had spoken to, the mare who happened to be a unicorn. She had thrown it up just in time to protect them all from certain death. Breeze breathed a heavy sigh of relief and got back onto his hooves, peering out along the boulevard as the shield dropped again.

'Get up and fight!' the captain shouted, and with good reason. They had survived the bombing, but now there was another threat coming right for them. Breeze could see it closing in. Out on the boulevard, down the street ahead, came the enemy. Not just a few, not a small force, but hundreds of men and women, charging, shouting their war cries and screaming with bloodlust. Breeze gripped his rifle, and knew the touch of fear once more.

On The Deck

Lord-Admiral Marcos still had his hands clasped behind his back, as he always did, as if nothing was amiss. In actuality, however, everything was threatening to come crashing down around his ears, despite his external calm. The Changelings had boarded his ship for a second time, but this time, it was not a simple infiltration. It was an assault, a boarding party, an invasion. The Emperor's Judgement was in danger, a threat from the inside unlike any the flagship had faced before.

Deck 11 had been fully locked down and sealed, it was hoped. There were worrying reports coming out of the midship deck security armoury, before it had been overrun, that the Changelings had been using the pipe chases and vents for access and to move around the deck. If that was indeed the case, then despite all precautions, Deck 11 was not really secure at all. The Changelings could move between decks essentially at will; it was not possible to seal every single connection between decks. Though most systems on board were designed to operate deck-wide and not be shared between decks, for the purposes of maintaining pressurisation and atmosphere in the event of a hull breach, the simple fact of ship construction was that certain things had to flow between decks at certain points. Where those connections were made, the Changelings could slip through, as there was no way of closing off such openings in most cases. They were too small for men, and too small for something the size of a wolf or most domesticated pets, to pass through. But not, it was reported, for insects, which was how the Changelings had supposedly achieved their coup of taking the armoury by surprise and fury.

If they could do it on one deck, Marcos reasoned, then they could do it on any deck. He had contemplated venting Deck 11 somehow, but the ship's systems were not designed to perform such a function. Perhaps, in an extreme case, he could order one of his other ships to open fire on the Emperor's judgement in order to punch a hole in its hull at the correct point. But even that would only vent a few compartments, not the entire deck, thanks to safeguards and internal bulkheads and automatic doors and forcefields. With the Changelings seemingly in control of the entire deck, that would simply not be enough to stop them, or even to slow them down.

Armsmen had mobilised all across the ship, and every crewman ordered to arm himself with some kind of weapon, be it autopistol or knife or spare length of metal pipe. Key areas of the ship were locked down and reinforced with a triple guard of armsmen, equipped with hellguns and shotguns. Combat Servitors were in place also, and all shipwide internal defences had been activated, auto-turrets standing by for targeting data. The ship was on red alert, with other vessels closing in to render aid, offering boarding parties if needed, and, at the backs of the minds of each captain, the knowledge that, should the bridge fall, they might be called upon to open fire upon their own flagship with a full barrage of torpedoes to scuttle her and deny her use to the enemy. It was a last resort, but it would certainly not be the first time in Imperial history that such an action had to be taken. Perhaps Marcos might have to transfer his flag to another ship and continue the fight from there.

It might not be as simple as that, however. The Changelings had come over from the Polaris Maxima. There was no guarantee that the cruiser was the only other ship to have been playing host to the drones, and they could be in hiding aboard every vessel for all he knew. Intensive searches had turned up nothing, but Marcos knew that it was not that easy to detect a hidden Changeling. There was every chance that they had infiltrated other ships, despite their best efforts. Marcos regretted accepting the offer of assistance from the Polaris Maxima in the first place. He had imposed a ban on transfer between the fleet in a form of quarantine when they first learned of the Changeling threat, but that was weeks ago and no sign of Changeling activity had been detected. The flagship had needed help with repairs and, frankly, he had to admit to himself, he had pushed the idea of a Changeling threat to the back of his mind when the Daemon appeared, and especially when the new Chaos fleet arrived. They were clearly the main threat, and had received his full attention.

Now they were paying the price for his distraction, for his hubris, some would say, at underestimating the Changelings merely because they had seemingly done nothing for several weeks. The real question was how had they managed to et aboard his ship? They had come over from the Polaris Maxima aboard the transfer barges, that was obvious. But were they tucked away in the bowels of the craft? Were they adhered to the outside, something breathing in the vacuum? Or was the reality the most worrying of the three possibilities- that they were in disguise as the maintenance crews themselves? If that latter scenario was the case, then how many more members of the crew of the Polaris Maxima might be enemy in disguise? Had Marcos really spoken to Captain Danrich earlier- or had he been speaking to a Changeling?

There were more alarms sounding on the bridge now. Men were running to and fro taking messages and answering vox-calls from other decks, where concerned officers made what preparations they could for repelling boarders should they reach their location. The men were ready, over a million of them on full alert and as close to a war footing as a bunch of mostly untrained deck hands and labourers could actually get. But what was not clear was how many Changelings had actually come aboard. It could be several hundred, several thousand, or more. Princess Celestia had suggested there was a theoretical upper limit to the number of Changelings it was possible for the Hive to support, but who was to say she or her scientists were correct in that assumption? Besides which, they were very clearly no longer in their Hive anymore.

'My Lord!' an officer shouted. 'Message from Deck 10...they have hostile contact, My Lord.'

Marcos grimaced. As the security officers on Deck 11 had suggested, sealing off the deck had not been enough to stop the Changeling progress. What else could be done, he did not know. The only other option was to fight them to a standstill, which was exactly what he now hoped to do. Both Deck 10 and Deck 12 had been flooded with additional armsmen and Servitors, as well as crewmen who were former armsmen, guardsmen or Arbites and thus had more combat training than the average labourer. If they were going to be able to stop the drones, then that was their best chance. Perhaps, their only chance.

Senior Armsman Marcallas and his squad found themselves on Deck 10, far from their usual haunt of Deck 28. As a unit which had seen combat only recently, his squad and those others who had fought off the Chaos boarding party had been selected to form part of the blocking force that, it was hoped, would hold off the Changelings and keep them confined. They had been rushed through on one of the last turbolift runs through the ship before the system was shut down to try and stymie the movements of the Changelings between decks. Marcallas did not believe he had ever been to Deck 10 before- why would he have? It was rare for a crewman or armsman to ever leave his assigned deck during a tour of duty, let alone to go up another eighteen decks. It was almost as if he was in another world, completely new to him, and yet almost identical.

He had imagined the upper decks must be grandiose spectacles of design and importance, with senior officers everywhere, statues and banners and soaring arches like those which dotted the exterior of the vessel, and so many Imperial palaces and government buildings. But Deck 10, at least, was basically like Deck 28- all bare metal, steam and endless pipes and cables snaking through every available opening in the bulkheads and deck plating. Nothing important, it seemed, was located here, just as there was little of note down on Deck 28. Marcallas felt right at home despite being somewhere he had never set foot before.

The other eleven members of his section- they had lost Armswoman Djanik down below when fighting the Chaos forces- seemed equally at home, and they moved with practised feet. They had been blooded, tempered somewhat by exposure to battle, something which most of the other armsmen aboard had never had the chance to experience, even in away teams or boarding parties. That, it seemed, counted for more than Marcallas had imagined it might. They had been told the bare minimum; the ship had been boarded again, on Deck 11, and they were to move at once to Deck 10 to reinforce and hold the line against any further enemy advance. The journey had taken a few minutes aboard the rapid transport elevators, bringing them up over half a mile in vertical distance. They had to change elevators once, at the mid-station on Deck 15, boarding one of the upper deck lifts that took them the rest of the way to their destination.

They were directed in rapidly to a location fairly close to the middle of the deck, close to the starboard armoury but in a separate section, where a hangar bay opened out into a macrocannon gallery, which had been abandoned by its crew, the men and women of the labour gangs armed with clubs and axes and sent to join the line elsewhere on the deck. The passageways had to be held, they were told, held against the enemy. Only now were they told the truth of the situation.

They wouldn't be facing Chaos infantry this time, oh no. They would be facing down Changelings, a species none of them had ever come into contact with before, never even seen, not even on propaganda vids. Yes, one had come aboard before, but that was elsewhere on the ship, not on Deck 28, and so none of them had come face to face with the creature before. Those few among them who had been planetside for supply missions or security details had never encountered one either- at least, not in their true form. By all accounts, they could disguise themselves as other creatures, including, most worryingly, humans.

Immediately, the rumours which had circulated the ship after the Changeling attack on Lord-General Galen had begun to spread through the ranks of the armsmen again. Their section officer, the young Ensign Stanhope, did her best to quell them, and perhaps to her own surprise, she succeeded surprisingly well. The men were impressed by her command of the detachment down on Deck 28. She had shown a calm and level head despite her youth, and had helped keep casualties to a minimum and win the respect of those who obeyed her orders. There was not exactly optimism among the ranks, but with her in command, they, Senior Armsman Marcallas among them, felt a little better about the situation they were about to face.

Ensign Stanhope directed the men to take positions as best they could. The compaionways and compartments of the Emperor's judgement were not designed with internal defence being particularly high on the list. Practicality and access were paramount to the designers, but there were plenty of protuberances and pieces of machinery and equipment that the armsmen could crouch behind for a modicum of protection. The big problem they had was that nobody knew exactly where the Changelings were going to come from. They had to cover every direction, including above and below. There were pipes and access tunnels all over the place, and the worry, apparently, was that the Changelings could be able to sneak through where other aggressors would be unable.

Marcallas held his autogun tightly, just in case he would be called upon to make use of it. The Changelings sounded like a dangerous threat, but surely, he thought, they couldn't be more dangerous than a large Chaos boarding party, armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons? They had already fought off one of those, and now, he was certain, they would fight off this threat as well. They had to outnumber any boarding party. Not his detachment, but the crew in general. There were many thousands of armsmen on board, to keep order on such a vast vessel, and that was to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of crewmen who, though lacking experience and weaponry, still had the vigour of faith and the strength in numbers to tide them over and carry them forward to victory.

That may have been the case, but it very rapidly became clear that zeal would not be enough.

A Confessor reading ritual prayers stood just behind Marcallas' section, exerting them to gird their loins for the struggle against the insidious Xenos enemy that would soon be upon them. To very much prove his point, the Confessor found his head being removed from his shoulders virtually in its entirety, by a spinning disc of green energy that leaped from the shadows, seemingly coming from nowhere. His decapitated body collapsed in a heap on the deck, the book of prayer he had been reading from slapping closed as it landed.

Men turned in alarm as they felt blood spray onto their skin, and several of them faced a similar demise, struck from out of nowhere by blasts of green energy. Then case the loud hissing, like a steam leak. Had a pipe been hit? It was only when several dozen Changelings appeared from the darkness of the ceiling cavities that it became apparent the noise was not caused by steam, but by the rapid beating of many pairs of wings.

The drones came in so fast, nobody even had time to shout a warning. Sharp horns pierced exposed throats and punched straight through the armsmen's flimsy flak armour. Other drones fired off magic, cutting down more men. The armsmen reacted as quickly as they could, and shotgun blasts brought down a few of the Changelings at short range. Senior Armsman Marcallas raised his autogun and opened up, spraying bullets up into the darkness, trying to keep an eye open for any of the drones that seemed to be heading in his direction. From a quiet confidence thanks to Ensign Stanhope and the litany of prayers from the Confessor, he had found himself plunged into an abyss of fear. Not just fear, but a primordial soup of the stuff, drawing upon both the hatred of aliens and the insectlike nature of these creatures, to say nothing of their apparent prowess with psychic powers. Their great weapon, he had been told, was their ability to disguise themselves. Yet here they were, hurtling straight for the armsmen around him, in their natural, primeval state, all hissing tongues and sharp fangs and dark, chitinous exoskeletons. The officer who briefed them had been insistent on calling them Changelings, for that was apparently the local name for the species. Yet Marcallas was immediately convinced that he was fighting Tyranids.

His magazine soon ran dry, and he realised he had been panic-firing, simply holding down the trigger like a rookie in his first week of basic training. He knew better than that. He knew much better than that, having just been in a firefight with Chaos infantry where he had shown much better discipline. Something about this situation and the foe he was facing was unsettling him more than the usual fear of death or injury would. He quickly removed the clip and fumbled for a fresh one as the drones closed in. One in particular seemed to take interest in him, and swooped towards him at a high rate of speed. He panicked, dropping the full magazine which clattered on the metal deck plating.

The drone's head exploded and the rest of it fell to the floor. Another armsman had taken a precision shot, or as close to that as could be achieved with a shotgun. The surviving armsmen were being forced together, herded almost, into a huddled group centered around a loading bay platform where cargo was transferred from the hangar to the internal supply elevators for distribution around the ship. Several men and women were cut off and fighting a desperate battle against a ring of drones, who took turns swooping in and trying to stab them with their horns. Some of the men had lost their weapons and were defenceless against their attacks, while others tried their best to fend them off. It was an uneven fight and it did not last long.

Marcallas managed to kneel and grab the loose magazine, slamming it home and racking the charging handle. Another drone was ahead, in his sights, and he fired while moving backwards, toward the loading platform where the others were trying to gather and regroup. He could see Ensign Stanhope to his side, firing her pistol with a determined expression on her face. The other members of his section, who he was meant to be leading, were scattered around, disoriented by the swiftness of the Changeling attack. He could not see them all; perhaps some had been separated, or had fled to safety in another passageway. Perhaps some were dead. He did not know and could not find out.

Another drone tried to close in and stab him with its horn, but he was ready for it, and cut the creature down with a three-round burst of autogun fire. It fell to the deck, dead, but there were more of its fellows coming in, trying to get into close combat range. Others remained at a distance, using their horns to hurl blasts of energy at the armsmen, who now had to contend both with ducking behind cover to avoid their fire, and simultaneously trying to fend of the ravenous hordes at close range. That was hard enough on an open battlefield, but among the twisting passageways and machinery of the Emperor's Judgement it was almost impossible to juggle both threats at once.

More armsmen ran down from the next section along, summoned as reinforcements to help throw back the Changeling assault. They brought some drones down with autogun fire, but those with shotguns had to get much closer to inflict major damage on their targets. That took them into the firing line for retaliation, and though the surge of extra men had a temporary effect in boosting both firepower and morale, the sight of several of the new arrivals dying ignominiously rather reversed that trend.

Marcallas found himself being backed up still further, his section being pressured by enemies from above and from the front. Some drones remained up near the ceiling, in the semi-darkness, shrouded from clear view until they fired their glowing magic. They lacked, perhaps, finesse, seeming to only know different ways of inflicting painful and often fatal wounds on their opponents, or shielding themselves from harm, with little in between such as the more nuanced psychic control an Astartes Librarian, for instance, would possess. But simply causing harm was all they needed to do. They had no need to control minds or cause terrifying visions. Their presence alone was enough to cause that.

Marcallas took aim and fired another burst, missing his target. The drone skittered out of sight behind a large piece of pipework, before bursting from the other side and lunging at an unfortunate armswoman, who went down to the deck with a hole pierced right through her body by the drone's curved horn. He fired again, and this time he was on target, killing the drone, bullets punching into the back of its skull and mincing its brain. There was another nearby, and he moved the barrel to take aim, but something flashed across his vision much closer to him, and then he felt an impact. It knocked him to the ground, and suddenly there it was, looming over him, all fangs and hissing tongue and soulless, slitted eyes.

He thought that this was the end, but fortunately he still had a grip on his autogun. Before the beast could strike, he squeezed the trigger, and blew out the drone's guts from below. It screeched and staggered away, dragging its intestines behind it before collapsing in a heap on the deck. Someone offered Marcallas a hand up, and he took, it getting back to his feet and looking around. The drones seemed to be everywhere, and the surviving armsmen had been forced back onto the loading platform and the surrounding area. The reinforcements from the next compartment had not reached them, finding themselves stymied at the entrance and held at bay by dozens of Changelings.

Ensign Stanhope was still directing operations as best she could. She seemed to be the ranking officer now, the Lieutenant who had been present now either dead or missing. Either way he was no longer in charge of the section of Deck 10 to which he had been assigned. The added responsibility didn't seem to faze her, and she calmly shouted orders; fall back, she called. Fall back.

Fall back where? Marcallas could see no escape, with the drones all over the place. But Stanhope had a plan, and she was pointing toward the stern of the ship, where the reinforcements were trying to push through but were taking heavy casualties. There was the danger of friendly fire, of course, but with twice the firepower being brought to bear, it would hopefully enable them to smash through and link up, getting clear of the killzone they were currently in.

Marcallas shouted for his section to join the push, while others around them covered the rear, trying to protect them from the drones who were closing in. Stanhope led the way, her pistol blazing, trying to carve a way through. If they stayed where they were, they were sure to die. Not that this would necessarily save them; they were still under attack from all over, drones swarming the other end of the chamber. Seeing the humans retreat, they rapidly pressed forward, attacking them from behind, killing several of the rearguard.

Marcallas ran for the door, firing his weapon at the Changelings ahead of him. It was working; they were carving a path through them. The drones had not expected a charge, and Stanhope's plan was proving fruitful. The drones ahead scattered, as they were caught under attack from both the front and the rear. The armsmen at the entrance beckoned for them to run, to hurry through. They could seal the hatch once the chamber had been abandoned, and hopefully trap the drones inside, at least temporarily. Stanhope and some of the men made it through, their boots clanging on the metal deck as they ran into the next section, and to relative safety.

Marcallas kept to the rear of his section, ensuring they were all together and heading for safety. They might survive at least a little while longer, it seemed. So would he. Perhaps not as long as he wished, however. He felt something strike his left leg, below the knee. Pain jolted through him, and he stumbled, collapsing to the deck. He kept a tight grip on his autogun and tried to scramble to his feet. More pain in his leg. He looked up ahead. Most of the armsmen had made it through the hatchway into the next section. Men were firing from the entrance, over his head, at the drones he knew must be behind him. One member of his squad glanced back and noticed him. Armsman Benyamin. He stopped and turned, running to his section leader, arm outstretched, offering a helping hand. A blast of green energy struck him bodily in the chest and stopped him almost cold. He took two more uneasy steps before flopping to the floor, dead.

Marcallas knew he was dead, too. He couldn't run, and they couldn't reach him. Benyamin had tried, and had met his end in the process. He tried crawling, tried getting back up, and just about managed to get on his knees, but it didn't matter. He could see the hatch being closed ahead of him, as a last few stragglers dove for safety. Others were cut off, too far away to make it in time. He counted himself among them. Was there some other salvation, another way out?

Yes. Somehow, mercifully, there was a side passageway, just ahead of him. Evidently it led to some kind of maintenance access, maybe, or merely linked the starboard side of the ship to the port side. He scrambled forward on hands and knees, managing to get to his feet and limp through sheer adrenaline. Gunfire and magic flashed behind him as the last few survivors tried to fight off the inevitable, those who had not gotten through the hatchway in time now finding themselves surrounded by drones. Marcallas, however, had a possible escape route. He staggered onward, trying not to put pressure on his left leg as he did not know how much weight it could take, if any. His calf stung and throbbed with pain, but he dare not look down at it, both because he did not wish to see his own blood and exposed muscle, and because it would waste precious time. He had to keep moving; it was the only chance he had.

So on he went, down the passageway, in the half-light provided by glow-globes in the ceiling and walls. Steam washed across the passage ahead. Some kind of maintenance tunnel, clearly. There was no longer any gunfire behind him, and he prayed that the drones had not noticed him fleeing the chamber. After all, they had not attacked him as he crawled for the passageway entrance.

But it was a forlorn hope, and the skittering of hooves on metal behind him proved that point. He could hear them; they were coming, coming for him, nobody else. Just him, along against the Xenos. Just him, with his trusty autogun, trapped in a narrow passageway. Maybe there was some turnoff ahead, or some door, some chamber he could seal himself into. But no. Instead, there was just a blank wall at the end of a maintenance shaft that led to nowhere. No other exit. It did not lead to anywhere, and now he was trapped.

Marcallas swallowed hard. A quick prayer to the Emperor was all he had time for. He gripped his weapon tightly in sweaty hands and turned, leaning back against the wall, all of his weight on his right leg. The passage he had just limped down was dark, and yet he could see them coming. He could see their eyes.

He raised his gun and fired, holding down the trigger, spraying the narrow passage with bullets, emptying the magazine. That was all he could do. The clip ran dry and he hit the release catch, grabbing for another. There were screeches from the darkness, screeches of pain and anger. But the eyes, the eyes were still there, getting closer. He fumbled with the magazine and slammed it home, opening up again. This time, his bullets pinged and ricocheted in all directions, deflected by a sudden wall of dark, glowing green which had appeared, covering the passageway and illuminating it somewhat. It was the sight Marcallas had dreaded.

There they were. He could only count seven, but there had to be more. He was sure there had been more than seven pairs of eyes there in the gloom. Maybe if the Navy had bothered paying extra credits to install better lighting in their maintenance tunnels, he would have a better view. He found himself laughing at that thought- what a thing to be thinking in your last moments! Nothing profound, nothing romantic or heroic or dramatic. Just a complaint about a minor aspect of Imperial life, and life aboard ship, the life he now knew, and the life he would take to his grave.

For there was no doubt in his mind now, no possibility of escape. He was going to die, in some forgotten corner of a forgotten deck of a ship that may well find itself forgotten in the annals of Imperial history. He certainly couldn't fight his way out, and nobody was coming to save him. Armsman Benyamin had tried, and had died in the process. He was trapped, and the Changelings were coming.

He loaded another magazine and fired again, but with the same result. The green shield stopped his attack, the spent bullets clinking on the deck plating, unable to penetrate the magical screen to inflict any damage whatsoever to the drones beyond. They were steadily advancing on him, as if they were stalking their prey, which, of course, they were. He let go of the trigger. It was pointless to keep shooting. It wasn't accomplishing anything. Might as well accept the inevitable, to go out singing the glories of the Emperor, nothing but devotion and faith on his lips. That was what the Confessor would have said, before his head was separated from his body by the Changelings' surprise attack. But he still had bullets left, and it would be a shame to waste them all.

The shield went down, and the drones charged, sensing his weakness and hesitation. They wanted blood, and they would get it. But Marcallas decided he would not let himself be aware of it happening. He flipped his autogun around and pressed the barrel against the underside of his chin. Faced with the alternative, it was easy enough for him to pull the trigger.

Capital Gains

Corporal Breeze rested his rifle on the sandbagged wall he was crouching behind. Here they come...

Ahead of him on the Boulevard of the Alicorns, the enemy were charging, several hundred of them making progress down the wide avenue and firing their weapons as they drew closer. Evidently their desire to remain at a distance had now been replaced by the typical bloodlust which had been the driver of all Chaos forces encountered by the pony military since the start of the invasion. Not every single man would blindly run at a defended position, but there were massed bayonet charges, organised to a certain degree and designed to overwhelm the defenders with a rush of bodies. Against an undisciplined defending force, such tactics could be very effective indeed, inspiring fear, not just of death but of close combat, of mutilation and blood and gore, of one's physical strength being put to the test and found wanting.

Against a well organised line of trained soldiers and heavy arms, however, a bayonet charge would lead to nothing more than a bloody mess with dozens dead. That seemed the likely outcome here; the boulevard was wide and offered good sightlines for defenders, open space with little cover. Was it not rather foolish to be charging headlong at the palace wall in such a fashion? Surely even this most bloodthirsty of enemies must realise the futility of their efforts.

Breeze fired and worked the lever of his repeating rifle. The cannons roared around him, hurling shells at the oncoming enemy who continued to advance into the teeth of the pony guns, seemingly heedless of the danger. Bullet and blast found them and they began to fall, dead before they hit the ground. They returned fire, but though their red beams punched through the defensive shield held up by the captain, they could not penetrate most of the defensive works behind which the ponies crouched, protected from the worst of the danger.

But then, just like that, things changed. One of the enemy dropships appeared overhead, quickly drawing the attentions of the anti-air gunners on the palace wall. But then, just like the city shield, red energy began to crackle around the defensive position, tearing open a hole in the captain's shield as she tried her best to maintain coverage and protection for the whole area. The charging enemy headed straight for the hole, now having a target to aim for, a way inside.

The anti-air gunners failed to open fire, for reasons that were not apparent. Breeze glanced back and up at the wall. The gunners had a clear target. The dropship was much closer to them than the enemy bomber had been, which they had successfully engaged. Why were they not doing the same? Had they run out of ammunition? Were their guns damaged? And what the hell was causing that opening in the shield?

Breeze loaded another clip into his rifle. The enemy now had a way through and into their positions, assuming they could survive the gunfire which could now focus down on a single point. If anything, they were merely going to be funneled into a killzone by whatever had opened up the shield, presumably in an attempt to try and assist the enemy attack. He sighted in and prepared to fire as soon as the first soldiers appeared in the breach.

Appear they did, but not where anypony had been expecting them. There was a loud crack of displaced air, then several more, accompanied with flashes of purple light, off to Breeze's left. He glanced over. Reinforcements teleporting in?

Yes, but not pony reinforcements. A dozen men now stood among them. At least, he assumed they were men. Their faces appeared the same as those of the humans, but they were much, much larger, towering over the ponies, being almost twice their average height, if not slightly more than that. They were clad in armour from their feet to their necks, and some of them had helmets rather than bare heads, with glowing eyepieces. Their weapons were almost the size of one of the anti-air cannons up on the walls, great bulky and blocky guns clasped in massive gauntlets. One of their number wore a cape and held a long staff, which was wreathed in arcane fire.

Breeze swung his gun around in alarm. There were shouts of dismay from along the line. Unicorns could teleport, yes, and Changelings, but now humans, too? None of the defenders had encountered such a thing before from either the Chaos or Imperial forces, and it had caught them by surprise. The dozen men who had materialised brought their weapons up and began to fire, and ponies began to die. There were screams and confusion. Some ponies charged with their bayonets, but it was futile as the enemies were covered with armour. Bullets bounced off of them, while in return their hand-cannons ripped ponies apart, exploding ammunition blowing great holes in their bodies, punching clean through their armour before detonating inside them.

One of the field guns was hastily rotated to try and engage the targets with a canister round as ponies scattered before them. The captain, her shield rendered useless by the infiltration and the red energy, dropped it and turned to fight, firing off a rippling blast of magic at the towering figures. It struck one of them on the shoulder, and blew a chunk from his pauldron but did not break through to injure the man himself. She tried again and struck home, as the targets were relatively slow moving, perhaps their only disadvantage. Again, her magic failed to penetrate. She teleported to the side as the man opened up with his gun, blowing holes in the cobbles and sandbags . Another unfortunate pony lost his head, his brains spread across the barricades.

The captain reappeared and fired again, catching the man in his chest, staggering him for a moment before he swung his weapon around to target her. Again she teleported away as bullets pinged off the armour of the aggressors. The field gun fired with a roar and sprayed the area with ball bearings, an anti-personnel round which had almost no effect on the hulking, armoured giants. The captain tried a rapid string of magical blasts, peppering the enemy from behind but still achieving nothing more than scoring and burning the paint and melting the top few inches of armour. Nothing seemed to be able to break through the armoured suits they wore, and their guns continued to chew up the defensive line.

More ponies died, unable to combat the powerful enemy effectively, having no weapons which could harm them. Some tried to get into cover, to move away from the threat, but the enemy on the Boulevard of the Alicorns were now free to engage with all of their weapons as they charged into close combat, now evidently buoyed by the arrival of their powerful allies. The defenders now faced threats from two places at once, and they were being squeezed. Some ponies leapfrogged the sandbags to fire at the armoured beasts from the other side, but in doing so exposed themselves to fire from the massed ranks of the enemy on the boulevard. Others tried to flee to the flanks, which was more successful, but the position they had held strongly until mere moments ago was now in danger of crumbling before their very eyes.

The armoured enemy holding the staff turned his attentions to the captain as she was proving the trickier threat, thanks to her unicorn abilities of teleportation and offensive magic. Again she flashed out of existence and then back into reality again, continuing to fire her magic even though it seemed to have little effect against the foe. It was her duty, after all, to keep on trying and trying until she could try no more. The staff-wielding enemy wanted to make sure that time came sooner rather than later. The head of his staff crackled with swirling energy, a deep red in colour, like that which had opened up the shields. When the captain reappeared once more, it fired, engulfing her.

It did not kill or burn her, but she collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain, clawing at her own head and eyes, beset by visions and horrors unknown and unknowable that tormented her now rapidly decaying mind. Where she had stood proud moments before, unyielding before the enemy, now she was little more than a gibbering fool on the ground. It was a sight that shocked both Corporal Breeze and the rest of the defenders who saw the incident take place. What foulness had been unleashed by this man?

Breeze backed away, urging his ponies to follow- not just a section, but now a platoon or more of ponies who had been under his command since the attack on the command centre. He had to try and reorganise them, defend the line, hold the palace walls. But how could he do that when their weapons seemingly had no effect on the great armoured beasts that faced them? Even magic was failing to slow them down, and the captain was either dead, dying, or going slowly insane inside her own head. She couldn't help them now, and Breeze's section was separated from any other officers by the armoured echelon that was tearing through them. To make it worse, there were hundreds of enemy soldier streaming down the boulevard toward them, with screams and curses on their lips.

The only way they could go was back through the gate and into the palace, but the gate was closed and sealed. They could go west along the wall to the street, but they would be heavily exposed to incoming enemy fire from the boulevard, as well as from the armoured enemies should their attentions turn that way. They had to get inside the palace walls and to safety. It was the only way. To stay would be to see the whole defensive position crumble before their eyes, dissolving into a mess of scattered groups trying to fend off a vastly superior force, and eventually to nothing but a carpet of bodies lining the cobbles in front of the main gate.

Other ponies, he could see, were trying the same thing, banging on the gates for them to be opened, but that was not going to happen. Unless Princess Cadence dropped her shield around the whole city and switched instead to protecting only the palace, the risk of opening the gate was simply too great. There were forces inside the walls, yes, but their attentions had been greatly diverted by the landings being made inside the walls. Princess Celestia had dealt with the major threat they posed by destroying the landing barges and killing many of the troops who had set foot inside the grounds, but several dozen had either made it to the palace buildings or were taking cover in the gardens and were in the process of being hunted down by the guardsponies and soldiers. A force still lined the walls, and there were several platoons deployed inside the gate area, but it would have been folly to open the gate to try and save a few pony lives.

'Go up!' Breeze shouted to his followers. 'Over the wall, go! Pegasi, airlift! Unicorns, levitation or teleportation!' he ordered in a voice that sounded much more confident than he felt inside. The ponies complied as best they could while under fire. Pegasi took to the air, lifting their earth pony comrades on their backs or in their hooves and heading to the top of the wall. Unicorns gathered small groups of ponies around and began to either teleport them to safety beyond the wall, or levitate them quickly, one by one, up and onto the parapet to join the other defenders who were already firing from the walltop. It was a risky business as they were under enemy fire, but it was necessary, as with the gate closed it was the only way to get inside the palace walls and the relative safety that would bring.

The messenger Pegasus the captain had dispatched to the palace had not had time to return with orders. Perhaps, Breeze consoled himself, their orders would indeed have been to fall back inside the walls, given the current situation. But the current situation was not the same as it had been when the messenger had left. Now, they were being attacked from inside their own lines by enemies they could not harm, and from outside by hundreds of men. An order given now would seem logical, sound. But an order such as this in the mind of somepony who was unaware of the developments would seem half-treasonous. Giving up ground, holy ground, almost, just outside of the palace walls to the enemy without a direct order from a superior? Perhaps even the Princess herself was the only one who could truly authorise such a thing. Or, perhaps, it would be the right thing to do regardless of how it might appear. Breeze did not know, but he did know that he lacked the time to have an in-depth mental discussion with himself over the correct course of action to take. He and his ponies had to move now or they would be overrun, unable to fight effectively on two fronts at once with their flank in danger, even with covering fire from the walltop.

One by one the ponies went up or teleported away from the danger. Breeze could see the armoured enemies still chewing up and spitting out other defenders who were standing and fighting, their rifles still unable to penetrate the armour. Several of the enemies lacked helmets, meaning at least their heads were exposed, but that still required an accurate shot to hit them in a relatively small target area, and it was hard to take careful aim when under attack from two sides and with bullets and deadly red beams flashing around your ears. The defensive position was finished, anyone could see that. But maybe they could hold the wall from above and behind it; just not in front of it.

Breeze kept low and emptied his magazine in the direction of the onrushing enemies, killing two of them. There were many more, however, all eager to close the gap, and they were making excellent progress in their attempts to do so. Just a few more seconds would see them in close combat range.

'Corporal, over here!!' a pony shouted. Breeze turned to look. It was a Pegasus, Thunderclaw was his name, beckoning him over. 'Hurry! I'll get you up there!' He gestured to the walltop. Breeze knew he was right; it was time to go. He slung his rifle over his back and galloped to Thunderclaw.

'Make it snappy!' he ordered, clambering onto his back and holding on tightly. 'Don't leave anypony down there!' Breeze looked around and saw a few ponies still fighting around them. They were his responsibility, but he had to get clear himself or nobody could command them. That was how he convinced himself it was the right thing to do, to leave while some of his ponies were still fighting, to not be the last pony out. Wasn't he meant to be? Wasn't he meant to stay until the last?

Thunderclaw carried him up through the gunfire, to the walltop. The palace walls were not as high as those of the city itself, but they were more grandiose, decorated with aesthetic delights that wowed many visitors to Canterlot even before they began the official palace tour. There were gargoyles, sweeping curves, arches. Before they had been destroyed by the enemy, there were decorative mosaics and frescoes, banners like those which lined the hallways of the palace itself. They were some fifty feet high, topped with crenelations and lined with rifles. Guardsponies were posted every few feet as part of the defensive preparations of the palace. Even in the emergency situation which had developed, there had been time to occupy their positions and man the guns mounted there, both field guns and anti-air weapons. If they could not hold the street outside, then they could at least hold the wall.

Thunderclaw approached the walltop with Breeze on his back. 'Almost there, corporal!' he assured his passenger. But though they had climbed higher, they had not left the gunfire behind, and Thunderclaw grunted in pain as a bullet went straight through his left wing. He carried on going, but then a red beam hit his right wing, burning away most of the feathers on the leading edge. Thunderclaw rapidly began to lose altitude, both wings trying to flap but being damaged and unable to provide enough lift. 'Jump, corp!' Thunderclaw shouted. 'Jump!'

Breeze looked at the wall. He was close, but surely not close enough. Thunderclaw was going down, however, and if he stayed on his back they would probably both plunge to their deaths on the street below. A fifty foot drop was hardly survivable, unless somehow the Pegasus's body cushioned his fall sufficiently to save his life. If he stayed, he was most likely dead. If he jumped and missed, then he was dead for sure. But if he could jump and reach the wall before Thunderclaw dropped below the parapet, then he would live. It was a simple choice, and one he had but a split second to make.

Breeze had a mere moment to analyse the jump. It was a good few feet, with nothing to push off from except Thunderclaw's falling body. But he surely had to try. He did as the Pegasus had instructed, and lifted himself high on his haunches, pushing down with all his might with his hind legs. He felt himself rising free, floating in mid-air, Thunderclaw falling away behind and below him. The gap seemed infinite, the time interminable. But finally he landed heavily atop the wall, bouncing with a thud from the crenelated parapet and rolling onto the wall itself, among the rest of his ponies. Thunderclaw disappeared from view, falling, falling back down into the maelstrom of battle, unable to remain in the air with both wings injured.

Breeze rolled and sat up. He was alright, no harm had befallen him. Thunderclaw was gone, he knew that much, if not dead from the fall then certainly dead now; the enemy were swarming the defensive line, and he would have been hacked down at the first opportunity, of that there was no doubt. But what now? The wall was well defended, with guns and firing ports and plenty of ponies, Guard and Army alike. But the cannons could not be depressed far enough to engage the enemy, not now they were at the food of the wall. The defence would have to focus around rifle fire and magic, two assets that the ponies did, at least, have good amounts of.

Breeze scrambled back to his hooves and removed his rifle from his back. It would be needed once more, and he trotted to the edge of the wall. The enemy infantry had reached the end of the boulevard and linked up with their armoured brethren. They were now firing up at the ponies above them, who were returning fire from behind cover as bullets and beams chipped away at the thick stone and concrete. Several ponies had stashes of satchel charges which they were tossing over the side, the explosions below killing dozens of the enemy as they crowded around at the base of the wall.

One benefit of fighting the human enemy instead of, say, Changelings, was that their foot soldiers could not fly, unlike drones, or Griffons, or rogue Pegasi that the Guard fought on a somewhat regular basis. The downside was that the humans compensated for that with their own aircraft, which were far more maneouverable and much faster than pony airships, or even a particularly fast Pegasi. Perhaps the Wonderbolts could catch up to one; Breeze didn't know what their top speed actually was, but they roared overhead and were gone within a second or two, disappearing among the spires of Canterlot before looping round for another run. Some of them were attacking other points in the city, but at least two had their attentions on the palace, though they could not freely fire without fear of harming their own men.

Breeze peered over the parapet and quickly ducked back as bullets whipped around his head. There were several officers barking orders, which was something of a relief to him. He did not like being put in charge of more than his fair share of ponies. Rising above his rank was not a good idea for any pony, until they were suitably trained and experienced. He was more than happy to turn over control back to those in whose hooves such power should rest. They had to hold the line, hold the wall, and keep the enemy out of the palace grounds. He didn't know that the palace grounds had already been infiltrated from within by other enemy landers, but either way, they had to keep this large force at bay.

Accurate fire and explosives tossed from the walls brought down large numbers of the enemy infantry below, but the rest of them tried to take cover behind the sandbags and barricades. They offered some protection from the barrage coming from above. The armoured enemies joined in, their heavy boots thumping on the cobbled stones as their guns fired explosive rounds at the defenders, blowing holes in the parapet and killing several ponies.

Breeze heard shouted orders from a nearby Lieutenant. Hold the wall and keep shooting. That was simple enough. What else could they do, after all? He took up position and peeked over the edge, aiming his rifle. He pulled the trigger. It was easy enough to hit someone; there were so many men down below that it would be harder to miss than to strike a target. He worked the action and emptied his magazine, reloading with a fresh clip. More rifle fire continued around him as the ponies tried their best to keep the enemy back, stop them from trying to climb the wall. There was no direct access from outside, no stairs or ladders that led up onto the walltop from the boulevard beyond the gate. The Chaos forces would have to climb up somehow, with grappling hooks or ropes, if they wanted to get over the wall.

Of course, they did not necessarily have to go over the wall to gain access to the palace grounds. The armoured infantry, heedless of the barrage of rifle fire coming down at them, advanced in formation to the gate. The huge metal doors towered over even their large frames, barring entry. They had resisted countless invaders down the years, hurling back battering rams and siege engines. But all of those attempts had been primitive, compared to the technology available to the humans. The Chaos forces possessed similar technology to the Imperials. One of the supermen advanced to the gate and drew an item from his belt, affixing it to the gate by the use of a magnetic adhesion strip. It was simple but enough to hold the device in place as the men withdrew to a safe distance. The few ponies who had witnessed his action braced and shouted warnings of an impending explosion, but none came. Instead, a fountain of sparks and light erupted from the gate as the Melta-charge got to work, burning white hot and simply melting through the tough metal surface, doing exactly as its name implied.

A hole appeared in the gate, rivulets of molten metal running through the grooves in the cobblestones. One of the huge men approached the gate and gave a firm kick at the damaged section, knocking more of the metal away and clearing a path. He stepped through with the thud of his boots on the cobbles echoing. There were shouts from the wall. The enemy was through. There was a breach. There was confusion and panic on the wall. If the enemy was inside, they had to throw them back, force them out. But how could they do that when they couldn't harm them at all?

Cleaning House

Corporal Breeze scrambled to the rear of the palace wall. It overlooked the path up to the palace itself, with formerly well-tended grounds on either side, now rather overgrown and scraggy after months of neglect. The grass was long and thick, bushes unpruned and patches of weeds were everywhere. Now, there was a plague, too. A plague of Chaos.

Men were streaming in through the opening in the gate, spearheaded by the armoured giants and their heavy guns. There were defensive positions inside the gate, placed there in case of a breakthrough, and ponies opened fire from behind the barricades. They struck down some of the infantry following, but could not harm the vanguard. A field gun roared and did at last inflict some damage on them, ripping the arm away from one of the leading figures. It hardly seemed to slow him down, however, and he was still able to wield his weapon in his other hand and return fire.

The ponies on the wall turned their attention to the breach and switched from firing down at the enemies outside the wall to those who had made it through into the palace grounds. The best, perhaps the only, way to stop them making further progress was to hit them rapidly, from more than one direction at the same time. Ponies attacked from the walls as well as from behind the barricades inside the palace grounds, catching the enemy infantry in a crossfire while staying out of the line of fire of their own comrades. Their rifles and magic proved deadly to the lightly protected men who crowded the breach, forcing their way through, pushing and jostling and shoving with their fellows to try and beat them through the opening and into the palace grounds. The armoured phalanx at the head of the enemy attack, however, continued on. The staff-wielding man pointed the head of the long device at the barricades ahead of him, and they burst into flame, the wood crackling and charring. Another gesture made the ground ahead shake, and the cobbles crackled as ponies stumbled. Earthquakes were rare around Canterlot, which was one of the reasons the city had been able to stay in its relatively precarious position perched on the mountainside for so very long. This tremor, however, was localised entirely to the area ahead of the Chaos assault, enough to drop ponies to their knees and knock over sandbagged barriers, exposing the defenders to fire while simultaneously limiting their own ability to retaliate effectively.

The ponies behind, on the wall, however, were unaffected, and continued to pour fire into the mass of men below. Corporal Breeze called his ponies over and they joined in, lining the walltop and unloading their magazines into the throng. Return fire, red beams galore, strobed around them, blowing chunks from the stonework and killing several ponies, including one unicorn who tried to protect himself with a magic shield, only to remember with horror, or perhaps learn for the first time, that the human beam weaponry could pass right through it. Ponies who were aware of that fact remained crouched low behind the wall for protection. Everypony should have known it; it had been part of the briefings given to all Equestrian troops as soon as the facts had been definitively established. But in the heat of battle, when every second counted and instinct so often kicked in, it was easy to forget and to rely instead on the old truths; magical shields stopped enemy fire, and it used to be as simple as that.

More enemies rushed through the breach. Some of them began to head to the sides, to the staircases that led up to the palace wall. If they reached them, and got to the walltop, then the defenders there would be cut off from an escape route. There were too many enemies entering the breach to be able to stop them all, even as a couple of thrown satchel charges detonated below and killed dozens of men, spreading blood and body parts across the breach point. They kept on coming, however, and they were making rapid progress toward the stairs. The problem was obvious, and the Lieutenant in charge gave the orders to retreat along the walls, splitting the force in two, with half going left and half going right. They were to secure the top of each staircase, and if the position seemed untenable then they were to continue to fall back, a fighting withdrawal along the wall to link up with friendly forces farther down, or to descend the next staircase and move to reinforce the line in the palace grounds.

Breeze shouted orders to his group, retreating from his position in turn with those around him, moving in bounds and covering each other. Unicorns threw up shields as ponies passed vulnerable points. It would not protect them from the red beams, but it would defend against bullets, which the humans were also making good use of, and against the high-explosive rounds being fired by the guns of the armoured enemies. Some ponies had already secured the top of the stairs, but were pinned down behind the stonework as shots were pumped into it from below, the enemy attempting to force their way up and onto the wall. They were determined, but the ponies were equally determined to try and throw them back and hold their ground.

Breeze ordered his ponies into position. There were some crates and barrels along the wall and ponies crouched behind them, aiming their weapons at the stairs. Those guardsponies at the stair head were firing down with their rifles, trying to duck and avoid incoming fire at the same time. One of them tossed a satchel charge over and down, which detonated with a loud bang a couple of seconds later. There were screams, and renewed gunfire from below. Two ponies were caught and killed by the red beams, and others moved up to take their place and keep up the pressure on the enemy. Climbing to the top of a flight of stairs while under fire was not the easiest of tasks, and Breeze knew they had to not let up even for a moment, for that would be to invite disaster and allow the enemy to make the progress they were seeking. He and the others around him had to forget the rest of the fight, forget the battle still going on down below where the armoured enemies were trying to break through to the palace. They had to focus on their own struggle or they could very easily be overrun.

They also had to watch to see that the other group farther down the wall were holding their own, otherwise it would be a simple task for the enemy to outflank them and gain access to the wall, rolling them up easily enough with enfilading fire. Very little attention could be spared for the enemy still outside the wall, as they posed little threat until they had made it through the breach. There was no way they could climb up the vertical face, even with the aid of the various architectural decorations that studded it. The threat would come from inside, from the staircases.

One man made it to the top of the stairs and was immediately riddled with bullets, tumbling back in a heap and rolling down the stairs he had just struggled to climb. More snarling men were trying to follow him, but pony rifles were accurate, and were now joined by several shotguns since the range was short. One human lost half his head to a blast of buckshot, while another had a hole blown in his chest. Soon the stairs were slick with blood from the fallen, and still they had not made the walltop. The ponies there were holding, but the same could not be said for those down in the palace grounds.

The armoured phalanx of Chaos infantry were proving all but unstoppable, a juggernaut rolling over everything in their path with inexorable fury. Their weapons tore through cover, blowing holes in barricades and popping sandbags like balloons with sprays of dirt as the explosive shells did their work. Where they found ponies, the results were even more messy, with fountains of blood and viscera. The armour worn by the guardsponies was not proof against their exploding rounds, nor against the psychedelic light show that crackled and flashed from the tip of the staff held by the largest of the armoured men. It burned and scarred, and it killed. The field gun crew were wiped out as the dark magic ignited their ammunition supply, detonating in a single loud blast that demolished the barricade around them and killed half a dozen other guardsponies. The line was faltering and fading fast. Some ponies broke and ran, seeing the futility of remaining at their posts. Others stood to fight, determined to hold the line no matter what odds they may be facing.

Ultimately, their choices mattered little, for the result was the same. Those that stood were killed, and those who ran were killed also. The armoured men, backed up by hordes of infantry, were ruthless and precise, leaving none alive. Where they found a wounded pony, they finished them off with a shot to the head. Where they found a corpse, they made absolutely sure that it was a corpse before moving on. Whether it was pragmatism or a bestial lust for violence, none could tell. Again, it did not matter in truth. They had a clear path through to the palace, the last of the resistance fading away before them. Only a few ponies made it back to the palace buildings, and with no support and no possibility of stemming the tide, the position of the forces on the wall became increasingly precarious.

'Let's go, ponies!' the Lieutenant shouted, drawing Breeze's attention. 'Time to move. Fall back, along the wall. We'll head round to the west side and get down there. Make for the service entrance and get inside the palace! We'll link up with the main force.'

Breeze repeated the orders for his group, and once again they began to move, in turns, covering each other. Satchel charges were tossed down the staircase to hinder the progress of the enemy, while signals were made to the other group along the wall, letting them know to fall back as well. If they stayed where they were they would be totally isolated soon enough, and doubtless wiped out in short order.

Enemy aircraft still whizzed around overhead, but above the roar of their jets, Breeze could hear something else, a deep drone. As he moved with the others, he looked for the source, and spotted it in the distance. Coming in through the initial hole in the shield was an airship, just about able to squeeze through the gap. It was one of the giant Princess-Class vessels. Breeze had seen that the Equestrian airships posted at the city had been in the air, but they had been outside the shield, trying to thin the numbers of the enemy aircraft. Now, at least one of them was trying to bring the fight inside, to defend the city, perhaps to use its bombardment cannon and main guns to protect the palace. One of the enemy jets tried to follow it through, and slammed into the airship's shield, ripping off its starboard wing. It spiralled away and exploded down in the city somewhere, a plume of smoke rising.

Seeing the airship inspired hope, but did not mean anything would necessarily change. After all, Breeze had seen both Princesses overhead and the enemy had still managed to force entry to the palace grounds. They might be able to enter the palace itself, as well. Nothing seemed to be able to stop the armoured men. He scrambled along the wall with the rest of the unit until they came to the next staircase on the western wall. Down they went, crossing the small patch of open ground to reach the service entrance to the palace, where deliveries were made during peacetime. The doors were opened for them by other guardsponies stationed there, and in they went.

The palace was organised chaos, as it always was, but this time they were not preparing for the Grand Galloping Gala or the Summer Sun Celebration. They were fighting for the palace, for their lives and for the Princess. Guardsponies were running crates of ammunition through the halls, while soldiers were firing freely from the windows and balconies which dotted the south side of the building. The enemy were still advancing, and still the armoured men could not be stopped. Breeze and his group were directed to reinforce one of the balconies that overlooked the grounds outside. When they arrived, there were already dead ponies, lying in pathetic heaps on the floor. Several holes had been blown in the marble railings, which offered only scant cover against the fire coming from below. Rifles cracked and ponies with determined expressions held the line as best they could. Trapped in the palace, there was likely nowhere for them to retreat to now. There were secret passages, yes, but few knew where they were or how to access them. Breeze felt fear now, not just anxiety, not just anger and worry and hatred for the enemy, but real, naked fear. He could die, at any time, but more than that, the city could fall, again, perhaps for good this time. Nopony could know what would happen next.

The airship was getting closer, looming large overhead, approaching the palace and shrugging off everything the enemy was throwing at it. Only the red beam weapons could punch through its shield, and when they did, they did minimal damage. It tempered his fear somewhat, but things only settled down in his mind a few moments later, when he saw something else in the sky.

It was the Princess, returning from the fight elsewhere. Breeze had almost forgotten that an entire city had to be defended, being focused down so much on the area just ahead of him during the battle. Celestia had been busy, no doubt, trying to stop the enemy landing barges from setting down, trusting her ponies to hold the line where she and her sister could not. Now she had come back to her palace, and she went straight back into action again. Golden lightning crackled from her horn and jumped between the men advancing on the palace, igniting entire squads, turning men into pillars of fire. She switched instantly from lightning to a single concussive blast of magic, a lance from the heavens which sliced one of the mighty armoured figures in half. Their armour, proof against all the physical weaponry that Equestria could line up against them, failed under the tremendous magical power of the Princess. She had fought their kind before, at Griffonstone, and she had triumphed, and she would do so again here. Breeze watched on with a sudden surge of pride and hope, banishing his fear to the back of his mind.

Celestia hovered high above, repeating her attack as the armoured men brought their guns to bear on her, switching targets from the palace defenders to shoot at their leader instead. Her shield deflected everything, their shells detonating against its rippling surface. She killed another three of the armoured men, but then the staff-wielding enemy unleashed a strike of his own, a blast of energy racing out to meet the Princess. She met it with a blast of her own, and the two collided in mid-air. A thunderous boom echoed across the city as a great explosion rent the ether above, shattering windows in the palace.

Breeze ducked instinctively, in awe of the sudden explosive light show being put on by both Celestia and the human. Had he somehow acquired an ancient Equestrian relic for his own ends? Surely he must have, for it seemed that he was using magic as well, despite lacking a horn. There were any number of ancient artefacts scattered across Equestria, some lost for centuries and some merely kept in museums. One of them could give a human the ability to wield magic in much the same way as a unicorn would, at least in theory. Perhaps the human had been able to find one, through interrogation or sheer luck, or maybe using some piece of technology in his possession.

He tried again, firing up at Celestia once more, but the Princess teleported away, appearing down low above the humans and killing another of the armoured men, punching straight through his armour and his body with a powerful magic blast before swinging around to face the staff-wielding human. She tried to get the drop on him, but he was ready, moving preternaturally fast and bringing his staff up, meeting her magic halfway with his own. Another explosion rippled out from the point of contact, flooring even the heavily armoured humans who stood nearby and rattling the walls of the palace.

Breeze stumbled. He could no longer see Celestia as she had dropped below the level of the balcony, but he could still hear the fighting, smell the ozone-like tang of magic in action, and he knew she was still there. He quickly learned, however, that time could not be wasted simply watching the Princess fight. There was still a battle to be won, and shouted orders from officers informed him that the enemy had forced a breach at the service entrance and were inside the palace. His unit was being pulled off of the balcony to go down and fight.

He ordered his ponies back and followed the officer, a Lieutenant, who was leading both them and another platoon's worth of ponies, a mixture of Guard and Army, thrown together by the circumstances. The palace was sacred ground, it was Celestia's home, and they had to defend it with their lives. They all knew it was a possibility; death was an accompaniment to any guardspony's life. It came with the job, after all. This was about more than life and death now, however. It was about the future, about reality and history and faith. Equestria hung in the balance, everything the Princesses had worked for for so long and everything so many ponies had fought and died to forge and then preserve down throughout the years. Now it was their turn to make their stand.

The palace corridors were wide and mostly empty, devoid of cover which would benefit the defenders more than the attackers, as the ponies had been able to set up barricades at regular intervals, making use of every piece of available furniture they could get their hooves on. Gunfire could be heard up ahead, around the corner near where Breeze and the others had entered the palace from the courtyard outside. The enemy were once more rampaging on the sacred ground of Celestia's home. They had to be stopped and thrown out.

Breeze rounded the corner. There was the barricade he had had to climb over to gain access to the palace when they had arrived. It consisted mostly of chairs and several tables stacked up, from behind which ponies were firing their rifles and shotguns. The corridor ahead was dotted with bodies where the enemy had already taken casualties. The first barricade, at the far end of the hallway, had already been taken, hence the call for reinforcements to hold the line and keep the enemy back. There were dead ponies there, too, not just humans, more sad sacrifices against this cruel foe.

The enemy had come in through the doorway, Breeze could see, but they had also punched a hole in the wall, presumably with explosives, and men were coming in from the side as well, clambering through the breach and opening fire with their red beams. There was only a squad of ponies holding the barricades, having lost the rest of their number trying to hold the doorway and the first barricade, and Breeze's unit arrived just at the right time. Their extra guns were thrown into the line, ponies taking up positions along the barricade, resting their rifles on tables and protruding through the slats in the backs of chairs. There were plenty of targets, with several dozen humans attempting to advance down the hall, trying to stick to the walls where they could find some meager cover in the form of the ornamental and architectural pillars that lined the hallway. They were proof against a pony bullet but were barely wide enough to conceal a man behind.

Breeze directed his ponies into position and then set himself up behind a wooden dresser which had been dragged from some guest room into the hall to serve as part of the barricade. He took aim and fired two quick shots, bringing down one man with a strike on his chest. Many of the humans lacked any visible body armour at all, even the simple flak vests worn by the Imperial troops. Breeze didn't know if that meant they were considered to be expendable cannon fodder, untrained militia or an ad-hoc formation of sorts, or if it meant the enemy were undersupplied in general. That seemed unlikely, given how many aircraft they seemed to have brought with them, plus their ships in orbit, of course. No doubt their holds contained vast quantities of war supplies for prosecuting their attack on the planet.

Several more men came in through the breach in the wall, but their numbers were being steadily thinned by accurate fire from the pony defenders. Some of the Chaos troops tried charging under cover of smoke, tossing a grenade which filled the hallway with clouds of the stuff, but though they were able to close the gap, shotguns among the defenders cut their advance short as they emerged from the smoke at close range. At the Lieutenant's command, two Pegasi used rapid beats of their wings to drive the smoke away, pushing it down the corridor away from the barricade and exposing the enemy to fire once more.

The enemy found themselves halted. Despite inflicting more casualties on the guardsponies and blowing holes in the barricade with their beam weapons, igniting several small spot fires and wounding other defenders, the Chaos forces were unable to make any progress down the hallway against determined opposition. The survivors began to pull back, leaving the palace building and retreating, leaving the bodies of their dead behind. Breeze was able to relax a little, breathing deeply, though it seemed all he inhaled was the scent of gunsmoke and cordite. He did not know if the battle for the palace was over, but the battle for this particular hallway was, at least for now. The guardsponies kept watch, tended to their wounded, removed their dead. There was still the sound of gunfire from outside' evidently the fighting was not yet over.

Outside the palace, Princess Celestia had dispatched the last of the armoured men, sending him to his grave with most of his lower torso blown away by a ball of magic that had exploded against him. The palace grounds were now host to a new, morbid sculpture garden, as it was littered with twisted and contorted bodies. The EAS Luna hovered over the scene, its shield glowing as it fended off an occasional rocket or burst of gunfire from enemy aircraft. its namesake was still busy trying to mop up enemy aircraft as they raced above the city, while her sister was now confronted with but a single enemy.

The staff-wielding human had resisted her efforts to strike him down, seemingly possessing magical power of his own, thanks to the weapon he carried. Celestia took position in the sky above him, and her Royal Equestrian Voice boomed out across the palace grounds.

'Leave this place, and you may live,' she roared. 'Stay, and you shall perish. What say you, human?'

The figure responded with a chuckle, his staff held at the ready, both a weapon and a tool with which he had kept himself alive in the face of her fury. With an artificially enhanced voice of his own, he responded.

'My my, you wish to talk now, hm? Very well. My name is Parthax the Infidel, and it is a peculiar pleasure to meet you face to face at last, Princess Celestia.'

Old Foes

Princess Celestia knew full well that the word of Chaos could never be taken at face value. She had learned that in the past with Discord, who had proven time and again the wisdom of doubt on her behalf. Then the Daemon, Malaranth, had again spoken with forked tongue, hiding reality behind meaningless bluster and diversion. Now this human claimed to be Parthax the Infidel?

From what she understood from the Imperial forces, Parthax was presumed dead. He had spearheaded the first invasion of Equestria by the Chaos forces, and had then gone missing, but presumed to be on board his flagship, the Soul Harvest. After Celestia had broken through the warp storm and the human fleet had been able to re-enter orbit around the planet, they had routed Parthax's fleet and destroyed the Soul Harvest. Parthax had been believed to have gone down with his ship; after all, whatever or whoever was powering the warp storm must have died with it, for its destruction saw an end to the swirling tempest which had surrounded the planet.

Celestia knew the name as she had been briefed by Lord-Admiral Marcos, but, as Parthax himself had mentioned, this was the first time they had met face to face, if indeed this was he and not some impostor or rival sorcerer claiming his title. He matched the description provided; eyes aglow, a strong, rugged appearance, slitted pupils, a cape, a staff, the same heavy armour as the other mighty foes Celestia had bested moments earlier. Perhaps this truly was Parthax? But if so, how had he escaped the destruction of his flagship, and how had he managed to return at the head of another fleet?

'Parthax The Infidel?' Celestia spoke. 'I was under the impression that you were dead. What a pity it would be if that were to prove to not be the case.'

'Oh, the proof is right in front of you, Princess,' Parthax replied, his voice silky-smooth despite his warped appearance, twisted by Chaos and with his armour daubed with symbols and sigils which would no doubt be anathema to the Imperials, but had no effect on Celestia beyond the vague hints of a sense of unease at the back of her mind, which was a common symptom of exposure to Chaos in general, she had noted, both through personal experience and reports from Luna, Cadence and Twilight, as well as field reports from various military units who had confronted Chaos forces. It was a similar feeling to that which Discord instilled in her upon their first meetings, so many moons earlier, though more persistent, even when she was not in such close proximity to the forces of the human Archenemy. Their mere presence in orbit or on the surface of her planet was enough to cause disquiet, it seemed, even in alicorns.

'Why should I believe your words?' Celestia questioned the alleged Parthax. 'Not that it matters, ultimately. It does not matter how you choose to style yourself, or if you are the human you claim to be. You will fail, all the same.'

'I will fail, you say? But you believed I was already dead, that I had already, therefore, failed in my mission here. I hate to disabuse you of that notion, Princess,' Parthax retorted. 'But I feel that I must correct your historical record. For posterity, you understand.'

'For your ego, you mean?' Celestia suggested. It seemed that Parthax had a high opinion of himself, such that he made a specific point to let her know his apparent true identity, as if she should be scared or in awe of his name. She was wary, of course, but if he hoped to instill fear into the Princess, then Parthax would be sadly mistaken.

'My ego?' Parthax chuckled, a slightly serpentine sound that reminded Celestia quite strongly of her nemesis, Queen Chrysalis, and her lizard-like tongue. 'My ego matters not, Princess, but even if it did then my successes speak for themselves. They do not refer to me as the Torturer of Worlds for no reason.'

'And yet your invasion failed,' Celestia pointed out. The initial assault on the planet had indeed been stopped short, though only with the invaluable aid of the Imperial fleet and ground forces. 'Why do you imagine this time will be any different?'

'Because I know now what I did not know before,' Parthax replied. 'I know about you.'

'You imagine that will change things?' Celestia responded. 'If you believe I would ever aid you in your schemes, then...'

'No, no, of course not.' Parthax laughed. 'Clearly you are a creature of strong will and strong mind. I am sure there is nothing that I could ever say or do to make you assist me. Even if I had your beloved sister as a hostage, for example. I do not, however, so do not fear. The last I saw she was attempting to stop my forces from passing through this barrier you have erected around the city. Most impressive, by the way. There are few creatures in the galaxy that can perform such a feat purely from their mental prowess.'

Celestia did not comment about Luna, or about the shield. It was wise not to mention Cadence, since Parthax had not yet spoken of her. Perhaps he was unaware of the existence of a third alicorn at all, or perhaps he had simply chosen not to mention her. It was best to let him imagine that she herself was powering the shield, which she could of course do if needed. Just like the Elements, hiding Cadence from the awareness of the enemy could prove to be important in the future.

'How exactly do you imagine you will change things, then?' she asked. Her wings flapped steadily, though unnecessarily, as she was using her magic to effortlessly maintain altitude, hovering above Parthax as he stood surrounded by the bodies of his men, yet seemingly unconcerned by their fate, or by the potential for facing his own death at her hooves.

'Because I know what you can do,' Parthax explained simply. 'Perhaps I underestimate you. You could call it that, though that is not exactly the truth of it. I sensed your power from afar. That is why I came to this planet in the first place, you see. I did not know exactly what I had sensed, but I could feel a presence that simply had to be...investigated. It was most unusual. I believe your new friends must have detected the same thing, Princess. Did it never occur to you that they might be here, in truth, for much the same reasons as those you have been fighting?'

It had, of course, and that had been Celestia's initial concern when the Imperial fleet had arrived in orbit; that they had come either for her or for the Elements of Harmony, neither of which could be allowed to fall into their hands, both because of the power they possessed and because of their importance in dealing with threats to Equestria that nothing else could handle. There was little that could stand before Celestia and her sister, and those things that could would fall before the Elements. That was the advantage they still possessed over both the Chaos and Imperial forces. Her own strength had been ably demonstrated by the destruction of part of the Chaos fleet, but the Elements had not yet been revealed either in word or in deed. So far as she knew, neither her ally nor her enemy was aware of the six relics and their powers. At least, not her human enemy.

'I have no doubt the Imperials had their own intentions when they came here, just as you did. But they have shown restraint, and they have shown support for us. They have aided us in the fight against you and your kind, because you are their mortal enemy. I have no doubt that is their true motivation, not altruism toward us. But they have helped us where you and your kind have brought us only pain and death. They are an ally, at least for now, regardless of what may happen in the future, and you are a sworn enemy of both of us.'

'Ah, but Princess, all I desire is knowledge. Knowledge! Nothing more than that,' Parthax replied. 'Knowledge that I am sure you could give me, either voluntarily or by force if needs be. For you see, your power is most unusual. It does not come from the same place as my own, yet it very much rivals anything else I have seen in potency. It is a curiosity, and I would hate for the potential you represent to be wasted, simply thrown aside or struck down by the soldiers of the Corpse Emperor.' Parthax made a grandiose gesture with his staff. 'I know I said before that I could not see any way in which you would aid me, but consider the simple fact that if you help, if you allow me to...study the source of your power, then I, and the forces under my command, shall leave your planet alone. We have no quarrel with your species, so to speak. We merely seek answers to questions previously unknown.'

Celestia did not buy a single word of Parthax's offer. It was all clearly lies, so clear in fact that she was almost insulted by his suggestion that she would simply roll over and submit to questioning, torture and who knows what else in order that he could establish whatever facts he wished to possess as regards to her magic. Even if she were so inclined as to offer aid in his quest, the fact that his forces had twice invaded Equestria and killed countless ponies, destroying towns and cities and tearing up the very fabric of society, would have rendered even the most pacific and innocent of ponies into a warmongering hawk who wanted nothing more than to destroy this human foe for what they had done to Equestria, to their home. That was all the reaction these Chaos forces deserved, for they had shown no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The Imperials had begun with aggressive intentions, but at least for now, they had turned their efforts elsewhere, and were content not to conquer or subjugate Equestria. The same could most decidedly not be said for Chaos.

'I have no doubt that you would be delighted if I were to accept your offer,' Celestia responded to the sorcerer. 'But at least do me the courtesy of considering me not to be entirely stupid. Even a fool would see through your lies, and I can assure you that I am no fool.'

'I never suggested that you were, Princess,' Parthax answered back swiftly. 'Indeed, everything I have learned of you suggests you are highly intelligent. Just another reason to provoke my interest in you.'

'I suggest you take your interest elsewhere,' Celestia responded. 'There is nothing here for you.'

Parthax chuckled. 'There is much here to intrigue and enrapture one such as myself, one who seeks the new and the different. Status quo is so boring, as Lord Tzeentch himself would assert. I happen to agree. There is a lot on this planet which is unusual, perhaps unique, and you are no exception, Princess. Your uniqueness is what gives you your power, and that power is useful. It would be wise for someone to harness it, someone who truly knows the secrets of the galaxy beyond this planet. You are powerful, Princess, but you are also ignorant of the truths of life in the universe. Any society without space travel will be so, for that is the simple truth. If you cannot leave your planet, then how can you possibly know what lies beyond? What threats and opportunities, what other cultures and species may inhabit the stars? Now, you have learned some small part of the reality, Princess. A very small part, but still, it is a good place to start. do you not wish to learn more, to have your power and glory spread across the galaxy?'

'I desire nothing more than the protection of my citizens,' Celestia replied clearly. 'The sooner you understand that, the sooner you will know that you should leave now if you value your life, for I see no reason to keep you alive.'

Parthax laughed. 'Such aggression, more worthy of Khorne than the Lord of Change, but understandable, one supposes. I regret the...vehemence with which my men have acted toward your citizens and your planet, but you see, you must forgive them. It is not so often they are presented with the opportunity for such...unrestricted action. They may have been rather overzealous with their prosecution of the conflict.'

Overzealous would be the understatement of the century, given the way the Chaos forces had raged across the land, raping and pillaging, despoiling everything they touched and killing for sport or to sate their bloodlust, and not for any military purpose. Whatever Parthax might say was meaningless, for their true intentions were clear from the start. These were not the actions of some force of soldiers releasing pent up anger and frustration. These were the actions of a force of killers, who held no care for innocent life, or perhaps no concept of its existence at all. Such naked evil had never been seen in Equestria before, even with all of the villains that had ravaged her over the centuries. Celestia could only hope their like would never come again.

'This is your final chance,' she spoke coldly. 'Go now. Leave this place, or you will die here.'

'As you wish, Princess.' Parthax had clearly seen the danger he was in, perhaps explaining why he had been so willing to talk to Celestia. She had proven to be his equal in single combat, and his armoured guardians were dead, scattered around him. The men who had accompanied them had fallen in their hundreds, victims of Celestia, of Luna, and of the city defences. Though they had forced a breach into the palace, they had failed in their mission to capture it, and were now in retreat, leaving Parthax almost entirely without support. He spoke again, his sickly-smooth voice belying his obvious evil nature. 'I am at something of a disadvantage here, but no matter. I shall go, and I shall return again, and we shall speak once more, without interruption, I hope. Farewell for now, Princess Celestia.'

Parthax's staff flashed, and he blinked out of existence, leaving just a small puff of smoke where he had once stood among the bodies of his fallen comrades.

The news on board the Emperor's judgement was not good. Deck 10 had apparently fallen to the Changelings, despite extra security being put into place and additional armsmen being rushed there to defend it. Men had died, and the more the command staff threw into the mix, the more casualties they suffered. The Changelings were dangerous in close combat, a cross between a Tyranid and one of the unicorn ponies, with many of the advantages of both creatures, and few of the disadvantages, combined with the ability to disguise themselves almost completely infallibly as whatever they wished.

Internal vid-cams were helping the crew track the Changelings' movements, but as soon as the drones came across one, they destroyed it. Evidently they were aware of the purpose of the devices, and knew that they would aid the crew and hinder their efforts to capture the ship. That, it seemed, was a product of their hive mind and related psychic abilities. If one drone learned, through any method, of the purpose of the vid-cam device, every drone would know the same fact within seconds, or perhaps even instantaneously.

The fight had been hard, but Deck 10 had apparently now come under Changeling control almost entirely. There were most likely still crewmen on the deck, but with movement locked down and communications severed to the affected areas, there was no way for the bridge to know for certain if there were any survivors from among the armsmen or deck crew. Assuming the bridge was the target of the Changeling attack, then Deck 9 was next in line, and it too had been reinforced with extra defences, bolstered with more armsmen and more guns. Every man and woman had been given some kind of weapon, no matter how primitive. It was necessary. The enemy had to be stopped, or the entire ship could fall to them, and that would throw the whole fleet into disarray.

On the bridge, Lord-Admiral Marcos was seeing something he had never seen before. He was watching his ship slowly slipping from his control, right under his nose, and he seemed to be powerless to do anything about it. The reports had poured in, men screaming for aid and reinforcements, shouting warnings and calling for the deck to be locked down. It had already been secured, and men had been posted on Deck 9 at every accessible entry point, including not just companionways and turbolifts, but also at wherever pipes and conduits came up from the level below. Guards might not be able to stop the drones coming through, but they could at least slow them down, inflict casualties and sound the alarm for certain sections to be closed off and sealed. It might be enough to keep the Changelings in check.

Several of the fleet's troop transports were pulling alongside the flagship. Their holds were still loaded with guardsmen who had not been deployed to the planet, or those units which had been withdrawn from the fighting to rest and recover. At the command of the Lord-Admiral, several regiments had been mobilised. It was a large concentration of men, but the Emperor's Judgement was the equivalent of a small city, and would need a consequentially sizeable force to effectively defend. Only the Guard were trained and equipped well enough to fight such an enemy in such a fashion. The armsmen were brave and tenacious in the defence of their ship, but they were armed only with autoguns and shotguns, which were ideal for defending tight spaces and passageways, but did not necessarily offer enough firepower to kill tougher or armoured enemies. Heavy weapons were lacking, and there were only so many armsmen to go around. Some were already dead, and others were detailed to guard key locations and keep the decks secure, meaning there were not the huge numbers that might be required to actively retake captured decks from the Changelings and bring them back under the control of the crew.

Men were standing by to board the Emperor's Judgement and come to the aid of the beleaguered flagship and its crew, but nobody knew exactly how many Changelings they were dealing with. It was unknown how many were aboard, or exactly where they had come from. Nor did anyone know how many others might be out there among the fleet, aboard other vessels, potentially, which could include the transports that were now coming to the assistance of the flagship. Caution had to be utilised, but the ships of the fleet had to be informed of the details of the attack so that they could be alert to the same dangers that might spread to their vessels. The fear was that it could equally spread unnecessary paranoia among the crews; there might be no danger, it could just be an isolated incident. Or, there might be Changelings lurking aboard every ship, on every deck, waiting for the right time to strike and kill.

Marcos did not know the purpose of the Changeling attack. Nobody did. Were they after him, as they had gone for the Imperial leadership before when they killed Lord-General Galen? Were they working with Chaos? Were they, despite Celestia's affirmations to the contrary, working with the ponies in secret? Were they pursuing their own agenda, and if so, what was it, and what did they hope to gain? Did they want to turn the guns of the Emperor's Judgement on Equestria, and finally wipe out their alleged old foe once and for all, allowing them to take control of the planet for themselves? That seemed like a distinct possibility, perhaps driven by the destruction of their volcano Hive which may have been the catalyst for their actions. The only thing that was known for certain was that they were on board his ship, and they were killing his crew.

'My Lord! Message from Deck 9!' the internal vox officer called from his station across the bridge. 'They are under attack!'

'This is it, then,' Marcos grunted. They had been waiting for the next attack for some time, as the Changelings had apparently been content to take a break, and there had been a lull in the fighting, with no attempt to push and capture the next deck for thirty minutes or so. The bridge crews had been closely monitoring all of the internal systems, from the vid-cams to the detection network and the status of bulkhead and door seals.There had been no activity for that half hour period, but with the systems on decks 10 and 11 down, nobody knew what the Changelings were doing during that time. It seemed now that they had been preparing to push up to the next deck, which was the expected action. The sensor officer called that the internal detectors were starting to register large readings of the unknown particle on Deck 9, confirming the presence of Changelings there.

'Inform Deck 9 that they are to hold the line,' Marcos spoke, though they had been told that many times already. 'Reinforcements are on the way to them. Bring those ships in, and prepare the docking bays on Deck 6 for the transfer of men and equipment from the transports.'

'Yes, My Lord!' Junior officers scrambled to obey. Time could be critical, or else they might lose Deck 9 as well, if the Changelings were as determined as they had been during the initial boarding. There were a string of rapid reports from the deck as Changelings popped up at several locations and began to fight with the armsmen and armed crew. The internal vox officer informed Marcos of a similar report from Deck 12; the drones were pushing down as well as up, presumably heading for the main reactor, or perhaps the lower security backup station. They seemed to have a disturbing knowledge of the ship's internal layout, gained through some unknown means.

'My Lord!' Another shout drew the attention of Marcos. One of the armsmen stationed around the bridge on guard duty was pointing up. His sharp eyes had caught movement; flies, a small cluster of them, coming out of one of the vents up near the ceiling of the bridge chamber. Such insects and similar vermin were not uncommon aboard ship, where garbage control was sometimes lax and the sanitation systems often malfunctioned, being millennia old. A minor nuisance, normally. But the reports from the lower decks had suggested that the Changelings were making their advance using the vents, ducts and cable chases that ran through the ship like tunnels. It would be impossible for a man to fit through, or indeed a drone in its true form. But flies...

'Action stations!' Marcos roared, drawing his laspistol. 'Defend the bridge!'

Many of the crew looked at him with confused faces, but the armsmen leaped into action. Suddenly where there had been flies, there were Changelings, hissing tongues and sharp fangs. Shotgun blasts rang out as green magic flashed, and within moments the bridge was a battlefield. Men were dying, falling across their consoles and slumping to the deck as they scrambled for cover, trying to get away from the nightmare now unleashed in their midst. Armsmen moved in, their guns flashing. The lighting went out, some panel or switch somewhere struck by a stray shot or blast of magic. Blood-red emergency lights glowed, white and green flashes from gunfire and magic causing a strobe-like effect, as if they were in some kind of nightclub in the seedier parts of Hydraphur, back at fleet headquarters. The internal sensors were beeping almost in mockery, alerting the crew to the presence of the unknown particle on Deck 1, the bridge.

Marcos ducked down behind his command lectern, taking aim with his laspistol. The vox officer was trying desperately to send out a message, but a curved horn pierced his back and sent him staggering forward, slumping across the console, his message incomplete, perhaps not sent at all. An armsman was all but torn in half by a blast of magic, while a drone about to pounce on a defenceless ensign ended its life with its brains splattered against the bulkhead behind. There were at least a dozen drones, maybe more, twenty, perhaps. The squads of armsmen had been caught on the hop, not ready for such a sudden attack, and several of them already lay dead. Others were moving in to try and corral the Changelings, but they were taking losses. Magic shields protected some of the drones as they shielded themselves and their brethren, but no such option was available to the crew. All they could do was shelter beneath their consoles and run for better cover, run for the turbolift to take them away from the bridge. Marcos knew he had to do the same.

He took a snap shot and wounded a drone, before scrambling over to the next console, keeping low as magic flashed above him. The turbolift was ahead, and two Lieutenants were trying to access it, calling the elevator up to the bridge. The doors slid open, and both men died in a heartbeat.

More drones had somehow accessed the lift, though the system had been secured against going below Deck 8. It was not possible for them to simply take the lift up from the decks they held. Yet, they had apparently found some way of getting on board, presumably from another deck which they had accessed through the vents and pipes. One of the Changelings was notably larger than the others, and they advanced from the lift, cutting down armsmen from behind. Marcos had only one course open to him, and he wasted no time, sprinting as fast as his old legs could carry him, flinging himself against the door of his ready room and bursting through, closing it behind him. Salvation, albeit temporary. The illusion of safety. For the second time since arriving at this planet, his ship, his bridge, his inner sanctum had been violated by these Changeling enemies.

The gunfire outside continued. Marcos tried the vox on his desk, to get through to another deck, to the security centre, to anyone. But the system was dead. He kept his pistol trained on the door in case a drone should burst through it, but none did. Eventually, the noise from outside ceased. The battle for the bridge was over, one way or another. Marcos could not get through to anyone, nor was there any other way out of the ready room. He had no personal teleporter device, such as those carried by some of the Astartes.

There was movement outside the door, audible to him as he kept his gun trained. Friend, or foe? Perhaps he could go down fighting at least, or perhaps the armsmen had done their job well. Perhaps the vox officer's call for reinforcements had got through. Or perhaps not. From outside the door came a feminine voice.

'Lord-Admiral Marcos, isn't it? What a pleasure to finally meet you. Why not come out here, so that we can have a little talk?'

Escapee

'Come along, Admiral. I am waiting.'

The female voice again, from the bridge outside the ready room door. Marcos had kept his pistol aimed, in case the drones should try to break in and kill him, but it seemed that they wanted him alive. Or, to be more accurate, she wanted him alive. He could only assume that the voice was that of the Changeling Queen, though he had never encountered her before. Somehow, she had found her way aboard his vessel, to his bridge, no less.

He had no intention of giving himself up, but he could not see any other option. He had his pistol, but they had the numbers. He might be able to take down two, perhaps three of the drones before they got him, and if the Queen decided to attack herself, then he would probably be dead before he could even pull the trigger. He would certainly not be able to make it to the turbolift, or the emergency ladders, the only ways off of the bridge. The only other option open to him was to turn the laspistol on himself, but Marcos was too proud to take such a route. He certainly understood the mindset of those men and women who, faced with imminent and painful death at the hands of a Dark Eldar torturer, the rape and destruction of their mind and soul by Chaos, or being fed into a Tyranid reclamation pool and turned into a biological soup to feed their next invasion, would do the job themselves to spare them from pain and terror. There were many fates out in the universe that were worse than a mere painless, instant death. But Marcos had always known that, whatever end the Emperor might have planned for him, he would face it like a man, and like an officer.

With no chance of escape and no appetite for suicide, Marcos reasoned that there was only one course of action that he could take; surrender. But that would be anathema to him, to any officer of the Imperial Navy. Ships had surrendered, of course, in the past, but the ignominy of such a fate would leave any captain hanging his head in shame. Many captains, captured by the enemy and later freed, had been sentenced to hang, or at least to hard labour, if it was determined by a tribunal that they had given up their ship too easily. The crew had fought hard, he was sure, but they were confronting an enemy that was essentially unknown to them. Even with Celestia's help and the information she had provided, Marcos and his senior officers were operating almost in the dark when they tried to develop a plan to fight the Changelings.

The internal sensors of the Emperor's judgement had let them down, even though they had worked perfectly. They had detected the emissions of the unknown particle, which was what they had been calibrated for. But to the frustration of the technicians as well as the senior staff, they could only detect a Changeling using that method when the drone in question was in its true form, and not when it was in disguise. That fundamental flaw had reduced the most advanced ship in the Crusade fleet to the same level as the primitive ponies when it came to detecting Changelings. Perhaps even behind them; it was possible that the ponies might have psychic abilities that could detect a drone or force it to take its true shape. They seemed to have magic for just about everything else.

Marcos could not bring himself to surrender. His ship may be lost, or it may not. He did not know whether even now a rescue party might be fighting its way to the bridge to recapture it. Had command been transferred to the security centre, as per procedure? Did the rest of the ship even know the bridge had been taken? Where was General Jahn? Who, if anyone, was now in command of the ship? But if he did not surrender, what other choices did he have? He could not escape the bridge or fight his way free.

His decision was made for him a few moments later. A green flash lit the ready room. Marcos turned with his gun raised, but felt it being torn from his grasp by some invisible force. At the same time, he found himself being lifted bodily from his feet, and slammed against the wall, as he stared at his aggressor.

No ordinary drone, but clearly a Changeling. It was the larger creature he had briefly glimpsed coming out of the turbolift. Evidently tired of waiting for him to surrender, it had decided to force the issue. Its much larger stature, rather incongruous golden diadem topped with a reddish-purple star, and large crooked horn marked it out as being very much different from the rank and file drones which had accompanied it. This must be the Queen, Marcos surmised, and was proven correct when the creature spoke, in the same smooth, feminine voice which had been calling him from outside of the door.

'Not feeling particularly cooperative, Admiral? That's alright. You can continue living your little fantasy, but your ship is mine now.'

The Indefatigable kept station alongside the Emperor's Judgement, some two thousand miles distant. The fleet had pulled into a tight defensive formation after the engagement with the Chaos pursuers, in case of another attack while they were performing emergency repairs. Nothing had been forthcoming, at least not from the Archenemy. The flagship, however, had reported boarders; not Chaos, but Changeling. As the only other capital ship left in the fleet, the Indefatigable was the logical choice for Lord-Admiral Marcos to transfer his flag to if it became necessary, and should it be necessary, command of the fleet would ultimately fall to the Indefatigable's captain, Marsten, if anything should happen to the Admiral. A sober man with a sharp mind and good tactical nous, Lukas Marsten had been in command of the mighty warship for eight years as he neared the twilight of a long and proud career in the Imperial Navy. His ship was equally proud and storied, having fought in many of the great battles of the Segmentum Pacificus. It had taken heavy damage during the fighting for Kuda Prime, however, and again in the most recent battle, pounded by hostile lances and missiles. Nothing critical had been damaged, though, and the ship was still operational despite taking numerous casualties. There would be many space burials in the days to come.

The news from the flagship was concerning, and Marsten had brought his ship in closer as ordered, to keep the transports safe as they moved in to deliver guardsmen to help defend the Emperor's Judgement. It was possible, though unlikely and unproven, that the Changelings might be working in conjunction with Chaos, and Marsten had ordered his ship to keep a constant watch on the space around them, with junior officers glued to their Auspex readouts in case there was any sign of movement from the rest of the Chaos fleet in orbit around the planet. They had not moved, even as their comrades were destroyed by the sun, which had surprised Marsten almost as much as it must have surprised the crewmen of the Chaos ships. The cause had only been vaguely explained to the captains of the fleet by the Lord-Admiral after the event, and it had made Marsten feel both relieved and unnerved. It had come from the same source, apparently, as the previous single beam which had struck out across the heavens and alarmed the Auspex crews of the fleet before destroying a large asteroid. The pony princess, Marcos had said, was the source, and also of the solar flare which had opened a hole in the warp storm and allowed the fleet to pass through and attack the enemy.

The Indefatigable kept station as the transports moved in and began to launch landing barges and transport shuttles, to carry troops across to the flagship. Marsten kept one eye on the vid-screen as it showed the craft in transit, but as they closed in upon the side of the Emperor's Judgement, they began to turn away, their thrusters flaring in the darkness, returning to their transports. Marsten frowned. Was something wrong? A malfunction? But all of the barges and shuttles were heading back. None of them were continuing on to the flagship.

'Captain, vox signal from the Emperor's Judgement,' the vox officer called to Marsten, who rose from his chair.

'Put it through, Ensign,' he ordered with a nod, and the officer complied, sending the signal through to him.

'Captain Marsten, this is Lord-Admiral Marcos.' The familiar voice came through loud and clear, and Marsten was relieved to hear the voice of his commander. There had been doubts, given the attack on the flagship, as to whether Marcos could have retained command of the ship. Was this call going to be a signal to Marcos to prepare to receive the Admiral and his command staff aboard the Indefatigable, to transfer his flag over to the other vessel?

'Go ahead, My Lord,' Marsten replied. 'What is the situation on board?'

'The situation is good, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'I have returned the Imperial Guard reinforcements. We have successfully contained the threat to three decks, and are now in the process of eradicating the remaining Changelings. I expect the entire ship to be back under our control in the next two or three hours.'

'That is a great relief to hear, My Lord,' Marsten responded. 'There were fears for the safety of your ship, and for you yourself. Will you be remaining aboard, or will you be transferring your flag?'

'No, I shall be remaining here,' Marcos assured him. 'The danger is minimal, and the enemy contained. We have taken casualties, regretfully, but the incident will soon be behind us and we can turn our attentions back to our true enemy.'

'Yes, My Lord. We have kept a close watch on the remaining Chaos vessels. They have not broken orbit,' Marsten informed Marcos, who he was sure would have been too busy coordinating the defence of his ship to pay attention to the inaction of the Archenemy. 'They appear content to remain in place. Perhaps they are pursuing some goals on the planet surface.'

'Oh, there is no doubt that they are doing that, Captain,' Marcos replied. 'What exactly they are looking for, I do not know, but at this point, there is little that we can do to stop them.'

'We can move on them, My Lord,' Marsten suggested. 'Hit them now. They will be expecting us to be licking our wounds, or perhaps to flee entirely. If we move in...perhaps using the sun to clear our path?' he offered, referring to the pony princess and her remarkable abilities. If she had been able to strike the Chaos pursuers, then she could probably do the same with the ships in orbit around the planet, although Marsten appreciated that was a rather different prospect, given the potential for collateral damage if one of her attacks should miss its target and strike the planet instead.

'No, no,' Marcos replied. 'We will leave them to their devices.'

'But My Lord, we cannot simply abandon the planet, can we?' Marsten exclaimed. 'What about our men? There are still many units on the planet's surface, and...'

'I am aware, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'I am very aware of that fact. I am not suggesting that we will abandon our men; merely that we will not strike now. The ships of the fleet are damaged and in need of repair, and we must wait until we have cleared these Changelings from the lower decks here. We will continue to monitor the enemy, and react accordingly if they attempt any kind of maneouvere against us. But for now, we must standby and tend to ourselves before we can possibly move in to help those we have left behind.'

'Yes, My Lord,' Marsten responded, though not without misgivings. He felt sure that they could punch through the remaining ships of the Chaos fleet, once the Changelings had been cleared out of the flagship. Repairs had been underway since the fighting had ceased, and while they had been interrupted aboard the flagship they had never stopped across the rest of the ships of the Crusade. Maintenance crews and Techpriests had been working non-stop to fix damaged bulkheads and seals and return weapons to working order. The fleet was, if not exactly ready for battle, then certainly on the way to being prepared for it once more, and Marsten trusted his crew. As deputy fleet commander by default of seniority among the other ship captains, he trusted the crews of the whole Crusade, as well, but he also trusted the judgement of Lord-Admiral Marcos. The man had led them this far and accomplished much, taking worlds and systems for the Emperor and driving to the edge of known space, to the very fringe of the universe, after all.

'Very good. Carry on, captain,' Marcos ordered. 'Continue with repairs to your vessel. I will inform you of our next move once we have eliminated the threat on board this ship.'

'Yes, My Lord. We shall try and get the ship back in full working order,' Marsten replied. Marcos ended the vox call, and Marsten was left to ponder what he had said. He was sure that Marcos would not be truly considering abandoning the planet, or the men left behind on its surface. He had shown no inclination to retreat when the warp storm was raging around the planet and keeping them at bay; back then he had been determined to somehow find a way through the barrier and rescue the trapped Imperial forces, as well as continue their operation to capture the planet. Ever since that time, however, he had seemed different, as though his ultimate goal had changed, shifted in some fashion. Now, he seemed to be less concerned with the capture of the planet, which had been their initial aim, and more with the protection of it against the forces of Chaos. An admirable goal, to be sure, for a world tainted by the Ruinous Powers would be of no use to the Imperium anyway. But that no longer seemed to be his only motivation. Marsten had seen, during officers' conferences, that Marcos now seemed to have a desire to protect the planet not to preserve its garden world status for the Imperium, but to protect the inhabitants who lived there currently. To protect the ponies.

That is how it seemed to Marsten, at least. Perhaps the reality was different, but there was certainly no doubt that the Lord-Admiral had seemed to take advice and even guidance from the pony princess, letting her dictate, to some extent, the actions of the fleet and of the Imperial Guard also. While it was true that she undoubtedly knew her planet and its features better than Marcos or anyone else in the fleet, to give any kind of influence to a Xenos was...questionable at best, and outright treasonous at worst. Marsten knew that such things had been done in the past, of course. As a senior lieutenant some years ago, he had fought alongside the Eldar in a successful effort to keep Chaos ships from landing on a distant planet where they were attempting to retrieve some ancient artifact; he could no longer quite remember the name of it. Once the Chaos fleet had been driven off, Marsten had fully expected the Eldar to launch a surprise attack on the Navy vessels, but they had merely slipped away, their task completed. Just because they had not struck their erstwhile allies on that occasion, however, most certainly did not mean that they would not do so elsewhere, as indeed they had many times in the past, and there was absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that princess Celestia would not try the same thing. She had demonstrated the ability to destroy a fleet; if she truly desired the protection of her planet, why would she not destroy the Crusade, as well?

She had worked with them, yes, and the Guard and the Navy had provided her with considerable support in her efforts to rid her world of not just the forces of Chaos, but also the Changelings, who were apparently an old foe of the ponies. Doing the dirty work for her? Marsten would admit that it seemed possible that the Chaos forces had only arrived at this planet as a result of their own arrival, perhaps a force which had been in pursuit of the Crusade with the intention of either destroying it or perhaps precluding any further success on their part; the natural instinct of the traitor forces was to attack the loyalists, after all, in any way they could which might possibly hurt the Imperium.

Marsten did not know what the true intentions of either the ponies or the Changelings were when it came to their dealings with mankind. All he had to go on was the facts as they were presented to him; the ponies were willing to work with them, had asked for help and had responded in kind, fighting alongside the Imperial Guard. The pony princess had used her considerable powers to defend the fleet against the Archenemy, destroying their pursuit force and sparing the Crusade from total destruction at their hands. The Changelings, on the other hand, had shown nothing but aggression, killing several key figures among the Crusade's hierarchy and now apparently boarding the flagship of the entire fleet. From his limited knowledge, Marsten was not sure which represented the greater threat to the fleet; the insidious Changelings and their ability to camouflage themselves and to infiltrate among the crews with no evidence of their presence, or the pony princess who clearly possessed the ability to simply destroy their ships out of hand if she chose. Whether she was likely to do so was a mystery to him, for only Lord-Admiral Marcos had actually spoken to her.

Perhaps that was part of the problem, and the reason behind the change in his approach, and consequently the approach of the entire Crusade. Maybe if someone else had talked to the princess, they would have a different view of both her and of the planet as a whole. Lord-General Galen had spoken to her also, but of course he was dead; another contributory factor, perhaps, to the change in the Lord-Admiral. Galen had been a close friend of Marcos, and a certain influence on his approach, giving great strategic and tactical insight into Imperial Guard operations. General Jahn, while still an experienced officer, was perhaps not held in quite the same high regard by the Lord-Admiral.

Marsten watched on the vid-screen as the landing barges returned to their transport ships, having been turned away by the Lord-Admiral; no longer required, he had said. The situation was now under control, quite a remarkable turnaround in such a short space of time, given that the call for Imperial Guard reinforcements had only gone out shortly before. Captain Marsten had not encountered the Changelings himself, relying entirely on images of the corpses of dead drones shown during officers' briefings for his knowledge of their appearance and abilities. He had confidence in the armsmen of the fleet and their ability to fight off any threat that might board one of their vessels, but it was still an impressive thing to have turned a situation around so quickly.

He certainly hoped that such an enemy should never come aboard the Indefatigable, but it was possible that they were already aboard. That was the danger these Changelings posed; that nobody truly knew where they were at any given time. Nobody knew if any of the individuals around them were truly human or not. It was a threat which was as much psychological as physical. It had already been causing distrust and fear among the crews of the fleet, at least those members who knew the truth of the threat. The majority of crewmen had not been informed of the nature of that aspect of Changeling physiology for that exact reason; so as to not spread fear and confusion unnecessarily. It would not take much for the possibility of Changeling infiltration to be turned into an excuse for violence, or even for uprisings and mutinies; we thought our officer was a Changeling!

As the barges returned to their transports, one small shuttle launched from one of the upper decks of the Emperor's Judgement, dropping away into the void as its engines flared, driving it forward and away from the battleship, heading in the direction of the Indefatigable. It was a tiny dot against the blackness of space, but it showed up clearly on the Auspex arrays. It was not a noteworthy event; after all, there were plenty of other shuttles around, returning to their transport ships with their cargoes of Imperial Guardsmen. This one seemed no different, other than that, if the Auspex officers were paying particularly close attention to the shuttles instead of watching the surrounding sectors for threats and monitoring the Chaos ships, they would have noticed its track came from the flagship and not the transports like the others.

'Captain, we are being hailed,' the vox officer informed Marsten.

'The Lord-Admiral again?' he asked, getting a negative response.

'No, Captain. One of the shuttles.' Marsten cocked his head slightly. Why would one of the transport shuttles be hailing them? They had not launched any of their own who might be requesting docking clearance. And yet...

'They are requesting clearance to dock with us, Captain,' the vox officer added.

'Why? Who is on board?' Marsten asked curiously. The Lord-Admiral had staunchly stated that he would not be moving his flag over to the Indefatigable, and he had made no mention of personnel or equipment transfers to or from Marsten's ship. The vox officer made inquiries with the shuttle's pilot, and gave a reply.

'It is General Jahn, sir.' Now Marsten was very curious indeed.

'Put him through to me, Lieutenant,' he ordered, and the vox officer transferred the connection. 'This is Captain Marsten of the Indefatigable,' he spoke. 'Identify yourself.'

'This is General Jahn,' came the response, his voice certainly identifiable over the vox link. It sounded shaken. 'Captain, the bridge of the Emperor's Judgement has fallen to the Changelings. I believe the Lord-Admiral to be dead or captured.'

That was most certainly not what Marsten had expected to hear. 'General, I have just spoken with the Lord-Admiral myself,' he replied. 'He informed me that the Changeling threat has been contained.'

'Then that was not the Lord-Admiral you were speaking to!' Jahn exclaimed, the urgency in his voice audible even over the crackling vox link. 'Please, Captain. The ship may not have fallen in its entirety yet, but the bridge is gone, and the Lord-Admiral with it, one way or another.'

Questions began swirling through Marsten's mind. Was this a Changeling trick? Was Jahn a Changeling in disguise, or was, as the General seemed to be suggesting, the doppelganger actually the Lord-Admiral whom he had just finished speaking to? Were they both Changelings? Were they both the real deal, but there had simply been a communications breakdown somewhere along the line? He muted his microphone and turned to the Auspex crew.

'Track that shuttle,' he ordered. 'Where did it come from? Be precise.' After a brief check using the transmission to identify which shuttle was sending it, a reply came from the Auspex officer.

'It came from the Emperor's Judgement, sir. Deck 5.'

Captain Marsten thought for a moment. The Lord-Admiral had said that the Changelings were contained, having been halted whilst in possession of decks 10 and 11. By contrast, General Jahn said they had reached the bridge, though not necessarily by capturing every deck in between.

'Bring us aboard at gunpoint if you must, Captain, but bring us aboard, or the whole fleet will be in danger!' General Jahn urged over the vox link. Marsten took another look at the viewscreen that showed the battlespace outside his vessel. The Emperor's Judgement, a vast bulk even from such a distance, magnified by the zoom optics to also show the transports, shuttles and barges that were on the move. If the Changelings wanted to conduct a deception operation and sneak a team aboard his ship, then they would surely not have made their mouthpiece, a drone disguised as Lord-Admiral Marcos, inform him that the attack had been well contained and then have another drone disguised as General Jahn contradict that fact openly. Conversely, if the Lord-Admiral had been speaking truthfully, then this could not be a Changeling trick, as the creatures were contained to decks 10 and 11- and the shuttle had launched from deck 5. But if he had been correct, there would not have been time for the drones to capture the bridge and Jahn to reach and launch a shuttle since the end of Marsten's vox call with the Crusade's commander. But if the General was telling the truth, and the Lord-Admiral was a Changeling, then...

The possibilities were myriad and infuriatingly confusing, swirling inside Marsten's brain. He had tried to trust logic, but logic had contradicted itself, so all he could do was to trust his gut. He unmuted his microphone and spoke.

'General Jahn? You have permission to come aboard.'

What To Do?

Captain Marsten ordered the armsmen to take General Jahn to the side of the bridge, along with his aide. A call was coming in from the Lord-Admiral; or at least, someone alleging to be the Lord-Admiral. Jahn's case had some convincing points to it, but there had been nothing untoward in Marsten's previous conversations with Marcos to indicate something might be awry.

'This is Captain Marsten,' he spoke into the vox microphone. 'Go ahead, My Lord.'

'Captain, you took aboard a shuttle that launched from this vessel,' Marcos answered. 'Tell me, who was aboard?'

'General Jahn, My Lord,' Marsten replied. 'He has informed me of some apparent troubling news.'

'Oh yes? And pray tell, what news is that?' came the reply from the Lord-Admiral. Marsten glanced over at Jahn before replying.

'He says that the bridge was captured by the Changelings and communications were cut. He also says that you were either captured or killed in the process.'

'Then the General is clearly mistaken, Captain, since you are speaking to me,' Marcos chuckled. 'There were indeed some internal communications problems. It seems the Changelings must have caused some damage to the networks on the lower decks which resulted in relay issues.'

'But with all due respect, My Lord...' Marsten responded. 'How can I be certain that you are not a Changeling? I have reports of the bridge falling to the enemy, with enough discrepancies from the report you gave me earlier that I cannot be sure of the true situation aboard the Emperor's judgement.'

'I see...' Marcos paused for a moment. 'By the same token, how can you be sure that General Jahn is not a Changeling trying to sew disinformation? To turn you against your fellow man?'

'I cannot, My Lord. That is why I have him in custody along with the rest of the shuttle crew,' Marsten explained. 'I have taken precautions to ensure the safety of my ship as best I can, but I need to know. If the fleet is in jeopardy...I have to take appropriate actions.'

'Yes, I understand that, Captain,' Marcos answered. 'But we must stand together against this and every other foe. You are welcome to send over a detachment to investigate conditions here, or even to come yourself if you so wish.'

Marsten knew that, if it was indeed a Changeling making such an offer, that sending a team over would result in their death and, probably, their impersonation by drones, to be sent back to the Indefatigable as infiltrators, to promulgate the spread of their own kind throughout the fleet. He was truly starting to understand the real threat that the Changelings posed, not just to the Crusade but,potentially, to the whole Imperium, if they were to be allowed to leave this planet. The briefings had played down that aspect of the enemy somewhat, but it was being displayed clearly here. He did not even truly know if he was speaking to his own Lord-Admiral or to an impostor, nor did he know of a way to find out for certain. To imagine that paranoia creeping across the whole galaxy was something that Marsten scarcely dared contemplate- and that was the best case scenario. At worst, an undetectable infiltration force, a combination of Genestealer, powerful psyker and Imperial Callidus assassin, numbering in the tens of thousands at minimum, could end up taking over countless worlds, perhaps without the Imperium even becoming aware of its presence.

'With all due respect, sir, if there is any threat of the Changelings on board being uncontained, then I cannot risk any of my crew on such a surveillance mission,' Marsten replied over the vox. 'I will need to find some other way of confirming what exactly is going on over there.'

'Then it seems we have a stalemate on our hands,' Marcos answered a moment later. 'As you say, you have no way of telling the truth of the matter from aboard your vessel, and you cannot potentially risk your crew to find out. I understand that, Captain, a commendable care for your men. I will confer with my senior staff and see if we can find some kind of solution to this impasse. Marcos out.'

The light on the vox went off, indicating the call had ended. Marsten took a step back, pondering. There was much to think about, to be sure. He turned to General Jahn, or the Changeling who claimed to be him; whichever was reality. He was over to the side of the bridge, still cuffed and bound with his aide beside him. Both men had several shotguns aimed at them, and other armsmen stood ready around the bridge in case of any trouble. Yet they had remained docile and silent during Marsten's conversation with Marcos, perhaps an indication they understood the situation perfectly because they were who they claimed to be. Or, perhaps, a coincidence.

'General, once again the Lord-Admiral informs me that all is well aboard the flagship,' Marsten spoke. 'Why should I disbelieve him?'

'You should not, Captain,' Jahn replied. 'At least, not just because I tell you to. Your caution is completely justified, but I do not know how I can convince you beyond doubt of the reality of the situation. I would say this, Captain. You must judge for yourself whether I am telling the truth or whether I am lying, and I would urge you to consider everything you have heard, everything you know about the situation. There must be some clue which can help you decide who is speaking the truth. There has to be an indication. There has to be something.'

Marsten knew the General was correct. There was always something, even if it was just gut feeling, instinct, no more than that. Some tiny inkling that one thing was right and another thing was wrong. What was puzzling him about the General's claims was that the Changelings had apparently captured the bridge without having taken deck 5, where he had been allegedly located in the security centre. How could they have managed that if the decks were sealed and they were supposed to be contained?

Commissar Terkov appeared more impatient than he was. She stood nearby, her hand still on the butt of her bolt pistol, just in case it should be needed. Like many of her profession, she had always been rather eager to dispense the Emperor's justice herself, should it become necessary. Discipline was enforced on board ship by an iron fist, and not a velvet glove; such was the case all across the Imperium, purely out of necessity if nothing else. The glue holding the entire human race together was the fact that, as much internal strife and division they may suffer from, there were external threats that were far greater in scope than any mere man could comprehend. Only by banding together and propping up the walls of the Imperium could it ever hope to survive against the Dark Powers, the Orks, the Tyranids, Necrons...and now, perhaps, Changelings as well.

'General, you say that the Changelings managed to capture the bridge, yet they did not capture the security centre, at least not while you were located there. Did they capture another section of deck 5 but leave the security centre alone?' Marsten asked. 'And how did they manage to overrun so many decks so fast? The last reports we had were that they were contained on decks 10 and 11.'

'They did not capture any of deck 5, Captain,' Jahn replied. 'Not so far as I know. They bypassed us entirely.'

'How? Did the Lord-Admiral not lock the ship down?' Marsten asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Of course he did,' Jahn replied. 'Immediately upon the receipt of the alarm. The ship was sealed, which was why I was not able to return to the bridge. All access ways and turbolifts were shut and guarded.'

'Then how could the Changelings get through? Can they teleport?' Marsten grunted.

'I believe it is possible that some of them can,' Jahn replied. 'But that is not how they did it. They used the pipes. The cable chases, the openings below the deck plating...steam conduits, I don't know. But there were reports from the lower decks as they were being overrun that the drones had appeared from above the deck armoury. As you know, there are no access points from higher decks above the armouries for security reasons. Only tiny openings that no man could hope to fit through. Nothing larger than a rat could ever hope to pass through such openings, and there is no way that a Changeling drone could do so in its natural form. But, of course, they can shapeshift, Captain.'

Marsten saw immediately that Jahn was correct. Whether or not he was trying to trick them into believing his story, his words were more than plausible, and the truth was simple. No crew could hope to block or seal every single tiny connection between decks. There were thousands of them, tens of thousands, maybe millions, of cables, pipes, vents, conduits and wires running between decks, many of which were vital for ship function. They could not be blocked, nor could they all be guarded. If the Changelings knew that they led to other decks, there was essentially nothing to stop them making use of them. To a fly, such openings may as well have been ten-lane superhighways.

'Then they have free reign of the entire vessel,' Marsten pointed out. 'If they can use routes that small to make their way around, then how can they be contained? The entire flagship might be under their control by now.'

'Then the flagship must be destroyed,' Commissar Terkov spoke pointedly, bluntly as she always did. 'If we cannot be certain that it is still under Imperial control, then protocol dictates...'

'I know damn well what protocol dictates, Commissar,' Marsten snapped. 'But I will not be responsible for the death of Lord-Admiral Marcos and a million other men just on the word of one escapee and the suspicions of a couple of officers. We need to be sure. There has to be some way we can determine for certain whether we are still in control of the Emperor's Judgement. I am not going to act until we have proof one way or the other.'

'Then we must contact the other ships in the fleet,' Terkov replied. 'They have to be made aware.'

'And who is to say they will believe us?' Marsten pointed out. 'They may well think it is our ship that has been infiltrated, if it appears we are trying to undermine the Lord-Admiral. So far as the rest of the fleet knows, he is still alive, well, and in command. They know nothing of the potential capture of the bridge, and if the Changelings really are in command of the ship, they are hardly going to pass that message on.'

'And if the Changelings are in command, how long will it be until they strike again?' Terkov questioned. 'The Emperor's Judgement is a far more powerful warship than even the Indefatigable, and if they were to attack without warning, it would be devastating to the fleet. We are in a defensive formation, Captain,' she reminded him. 'A formation designed to defend from an attack from without, not an attack from within.'

Marsten nodded. Terkov was correct, of course. The ships of the fleet were positioned to defend against movement from the Chaos ships still in orbit around the planet, or against some new arrival if they had called for reinforcements. In such a formation, the main guns of the fleet were aimed outward, and while the weapon batteries that dotted the hull of each vessel could engage the flagship if needed, they would not be prepared to do so. They would be caught cold, scrambling for the firing controls, and even then, the gunners would not fire without orders from their own officers, who in turn would have to wait for command from the bridge. There had to be a mistake, they would say. The flagship would not fire on them on purpose, would they?

'Unless we can get on board the Emperor's Judgement, we cannot tell for certain the extent of the Changeling contamination,' Marsten pondered. 'Vox!' he called. 'Try to contact the main security centre of the Emperor's Judgement.'

'Aye, sir!' The vox officer put out a call, not to the bridge and the main external vox net of the battleship, but to the security centre where General Jahn claimed to have come from. He had also said that external comms had been shut down; the call should not get through at all, unless either the General was lying, or unless the Changelings had captured the security centre and lifted the block on external comms in an attempt to maintain a semblance of normality, to keep up the alleged masquerade that all was well aboard.

'I have the security centre, Captain,' the vox officer called across the bridge. 'Do you wish to speak to them?'

Marsten exchanged a glance with Terkov and with the General. Something wasn't adding up somewhere. If Jahn was a Changeling, why would his story have been so easily disproved by a simple call to the security centre that he alleged had been sealed off? He wanted to see if the security personnel's story would match.

'Yes, put them through,' Marsten ordered, activating his vox microphone. 'This is Captain Marsten of the Indefatigable. I received word of possible Changeling activity on your deck, and above. What is the situation there?' he asked.

'This is Lieutenant Sanna, sir,' came the reply. 'Situation is normal. The Changelings did not reach this deck, Captain. They were held down below. None of them made it past deck 9.'

So their stories matched, then. Marcos and this security Lieutenant, Sanna. That either meant it was the truth, or that they both shared the same story because they were being fed information by the same Hive Mind, in an attempt to further the deception. He ended the call, ordered the vox officer to try and contact the lower security centre. He received the same result, the same answers that didn't answer anything, or perhaps answered everything. The vox and Auspex consoles of the Emperor's Judgement would be recording the fact that the Indefatigable was sending vox messages to these locations, but Marsten figured that it did not matter. If the Lord-Admiral was still in command, then he would understand and appreciate the obvious caution that Marsten was exhibiting in trying to confirm his story. If the Changelings were in control, then it hardly mattered if they knew of his vox calls to the flagship, as they already knew he had his suspicions.

'Well, Captain?' General Jahn spoke. 'Their stories match, do they not? A little too clinically, perhaps. Much of the language they used when speaking to you was rather similar, wasn't it?'

'Yes, General, but then it would be. Standard procedure, vox protcols and the like,' Marsten replied. 'It does not prove or disprove anything.' Jahn nodded before replying.

'It does not, Captain. But perhaps there is another vox call you could make which might.'

The Indefatigable was an ungainly craft, at least by terrestrial standards. It was a whale, a vast mountain of ceramite and plasteel and thick metal. It certainly could not fly in the conventional sense. Atmospheric stresses would tear it apart, unable to support its own weight with any kind of significant gravity acting upon it directly. But it did not need to fly, not in space. In space, even a craft of such size could maneuvere relatively easily using thrusters, powerful jets of reaction mass and plasma that could swing the bow of the billion-ton vessel around, sweeping through the degrees in a matter of seconds. Even a battlecruiser was relatively maneuverable in space, though not compared to a smaller, faster, lighter craft.

At Captain Marsten's command, the helm had swung the bow around, bringing the Indefatigable perpendicular to the Emperor's Judgement as the main drives pushed her forward, maintaining the broad formation with the battleship that had been ordered by the Lord-Admiral, but now with the bow facing toward it, rather than toward the planet.The port side of the Indefatigable was now pointed toward the planet, the bulk of the vessel hiding its flank from the Emperor's Judgement. It also hid the secondary vox transmitters mounted there. At Marsten's order, the vox officer transmitted a tight band, mono-directional beam signal, a simple vox call, not over the usual net, but rather over the low-power emergency frequency. It was a frequency monitored by all Imperial personnel on the secondary channel of their vox, a universal guard frequency usually reserved for mayday signals, rescue and search operations, and other emergencies. It was also normally transmitted in the clear, on all bands and across the full spectrum, but this one was narrow, a single beam with a single intended target.

The defences of Canterlot had been manned again, as best they could after taking casualties in the latest attack. The wounded had been removed into the palace for treatment, and some of the civilians, though only adults, had been permitted to head above ground and assist with the recovery. Everypony was wary, still scared that another attack might come in at any time, a fear that was very much shared by the guardsponies and soldiers who would be on the frontline of any action. The airships hovered above, a trio of welcome protective guardians keeping a watchful eye on the city and its surroundings, in case of the reappearance of the Chaos foe. The defences had already broken, buckling under the surprise attack, and there was much doubt that they could offer much in the way of resistance if the enemy came again. They had been repulsed once, yes, but at the cost of numerous casualties, wounded and dead, and some destroyed field guns.

Princess Celestia had sent several messengers to Vanhoover and Las Pegasus, calling for reinforcements for the capital city. No doubt they would be coming, but they would take time to arrive, to travel the distance from the two western cities. Some could be delivered by air, if there were any airships available, but the majority would have to come by land, either rail or by marching. That could take several days, and the enemy could be coming back at any time. That left the city in a dangerous position, undermanned and with holes in their defences that it simply had no spare resources to plug.

As a result, Princess Celestia had tasked the human liaison team, Atter and Mons, to broadcast vox calls from the top of the Celestial Tower, to the Imperial forces to the south, and their main landing grounds and staging area out to the west. They were calling for reinforcements, for aid to the beleaguered city. The humans had provided the forces necessary to clear the city in the first place, but at Celestia's direction, all but a token Imperial force had left, leaving Canterlot in pony hooves. Even that token force had been whittled down, taking casualties during the fighting, leaving just a handful of men in the city in addition to the liaison team. Celestia did not want to have the city occupied by large numbers of Imperial troops, and it hurt her to ask for aid, but she knew that the pony forces in Canterlot could no longer effectively defend it against another large-scale enemy attack by themselves. The Imperial forces, with their dropships and mechanised ground forces, could reach the city much faster than pony reinforcements could arrive, and provide the extra protection that they needed.

Assuming, of course, that the Imperials actually accepted her requests. Commissar Birbeck, in de facto command of the operational ground forces, had already expressed his distrust of the ponies and their true motives, and had been reluctant to commit forces to their aid in the past. General Jahn, out in space, was in overall command of the ground forces, but since the Imperial fleet had been forced away from the planet, his ability to communicate with his own troops had been somewhat limited.

Atter and Mons were able to contact the main Imperial landing ground, where thousands of troops were waiting for orders that were simply not coming from any Imperial source. They were idle since the assault on Fillydelphia had been repulsed, and no new Imperial offensives had been mounted since, due to the removal of orbital support. Instead they had scattered into dispersal positions around the perimeter of the camp and in the wilds of Equestria outside, to minimise the target profile for an enemy orbital strike that could hit them at any time. To the relief of the liaison team, and no doubt to the relief of the pony civilians, if only they knew, several companies had been tasked by the senior officer at the landing grounds to move and support Canterlot; he had no other orders, and a certain limited degree of autonomy with the troops under his direct command. Though it would only be a couple of hundred men and some Chimera fighting vehicles, even that small reinforcement could prove crucial in defending the city if Chaos should strike again.

While they were in a communications lull, in between exchanging messages with the landing ground and the incoming reinforcements, Atter and Mons picked up an unexpected signal. It was on a tight band, and it was on the emergency channel. It was not a shock to receive a message on that channel, given the situation the Imperial forces found themselves in, spread across the continent with enemy remnants and potentially large numbers of Chaos reinforcements being deployed. What was a surprise was the source of the message. Atter quickly sent one of the pony guards galloping off in search of the Princess, who teleported into the room at the top of the tower a moment later.

'You have a message for me?' she asked.

'Yes, Your Highness,' Atter replied with a nod. 'It just came in, on the emergency channel, asking for you in person.' He presented the vox handset to her, and she floated it over to her ear with her magic.

'This is Princess Celestia. Go ahead.'

'Your Highness,' came the reply. 'We have not spoken before. My name is Captain Lukas Marsten, of the battlecruiser Indefatigable. I have some troubling news, and a request.'

'What news, Captain?' Celestia asked. The vox link was crackly, a product of the distance over which the signal was coming. Despite the focused beam there was much signal attenuation. Marsten's reply sent a chill through the Princess, though she maintained her usual calm exterior.

'I believe that the Emperor's Judgement has been captured by Changelings.'

'Captured?' she questioned. 'The entire ship?'

'That is unclear at this time, Your Highness,' Marsten replied. 'But I have reason to believe that the ship has been compromised. I also believe that Lord-Admiral Marcos has either been killed or captured by the Changelings, and the bridge and other key locations on board have fallen under Changeling control.'

'How can you be certain, Captain?' Celestia asked.

'We received reports from the Lord-Admiral of a Changeling attack on his ship, shortly after maintenance teams were taken aboard from another vessel of the fleet,' Marsten explained. 'They were able to take control of several decks and seemed to still be making further progress. The Lord-Admiral requested additional troops to be shuttled to the Emperor's Judgement to assist, only to then cancel that request several minutes later. I then received a shuttle aboard my own vessel carrying General Jahn, who you have spoken to before. He reported that he had received a brief distress signal from the bridge, before finding all internal and external communications had been severed abruptly. He was able to board a shuttle and come aboard my ship to report his findings and his fears.'

Celestia had indeed spoken to General Jahn before, over the vox link, when discussing operations with both him and the Lord-Admiral. She had found him to be a sensible and sober man with much apparent experience, and had no reason to directly doubt his words, unless, of course...

'If the Emperor's Judgement has been taken, how can you be sure that the General Jahn you took aboard is not actually a Changeling?' she questioned. Marsten was ready with a quick response.

'I cannot, Your Highness. Not with absolute certainty. But his story seems to check out. I have him in custody aboard my ship just in case, but there are enough discrepancies that suggest he may well be correct. I have spoken to the Lord-Admiral twice since the General alleged that he had been captured or killed. While I did not detect any direct evidence that I was not speaking to the man himself, I found that he claimed the Changeling incursion had been dealt with and was being crushed, despite having called for reinforcements just minutes earlier. The two security centres aboard the ship reported the same thing, even though General Jahn said he had just come from one of them, and the situation when he left had been very different.'

'I see...' Celestia pondered. 'May I speak with the General?'

'Yes, if you desire it,' Marsten replied. A few moments passed before a different but more familiar voice greeted her over the link.

'Your Highness, this is General Jahn. We have spoken before.'

'Yes, General, we have,' Celestia answered. 'You believe the Lord-Admiral to be dead, or in the custody of the Changelings?'

'Yes, Your Highness,' Jahn replied. 'I was at the main security centre on board the ship when we received a brief signal from the bridge. It was only brief, and it was cut short, but it reported that the bridge was under attack. I believe that the Changelings were using their ability to shapeshift to move between decks despite the ship being on full internal lockdown. I believe they were passing through vents, ducts and pipes that are far too small for a man, or even a rat, to move through. I believe that is how they were able to reach the bridge without capturing the security centre, which is located between that deck and their initial incursion site.'

That was certainly possible. Celestia remembered well the time the Changelings had tried to infiltrate Canterlot using the sewerage pipes and water access tunnels. It would be entirely within both their character and their abilities to attempt a similar thing on board the flagship. Celestia told them as much, and Captain Marsten returned to the vox.

'Do you have any way of confirming that the Changelings do indeed possess the ship?' Celestia questioned him. 'It would be unwise for you to assume that to be the case without definitive proof.'

'We do not, Your Highness. That is why I have contacted you. I must ask you for a favour.'

Seeking The Truth

Twilight had, once again, done as Princess Celestia had commanded. She had returned underground, to calm the civilians, or at least that was the theory. Exactly how calm they could truly be when the city was still in mortal peril was questionable at best. Many of the foals were openly terrified even though the immediate danger had passed; the catacombs were full of sobs and tears. Twilight knew she was not the best pony for the job, despite what Celestia had said, but she knew that she had the right ponies around her.

Over there, Pinkie Pie was playing with a group of foals, bouncing balls with her tail and making them giggle with funny faces and jokes. Applejack was leading a singalong as she strummed on a banjo that somepony had found from Celestia-knows-where among the ruins of the city or in the subterranean stores. Fluttershy was acting as a kind of therapist, speaking soothingly and calmly to a few ponies with rattled nerves, overcoming her own fears to help others. Rainbow Dash was telling some rousing war stories to those ponies who resented crouching in a damp hole and would rather have been above ground and taking the fight to the enemy. Rarity was making the rounds, handing out rations and even some flowers she must have picked before the civilians had been forced underground again. And Twilight? Twilight just stood around watching them do what they did best. She couldn't think of how she herself could help out in such a way. Yes, she was respected, she was sure. Ponies would listen if she told them to do something. But did they really relate to her? Could she get in their heads in a positive way and allay their fears the way her friends were doing?

She didn't think so. It just wasn't in her nature. Even after several years living in Ponyville and learning all about friendship, she still found that it did not come naturally for her. She could do it, yes, but only by thinking directly about it; not exactly forcing herself, but making a conscious effort. She could see the benefits, and that was what her time in Ponyville had taught her, but taking advantage of them was still something that she had to think about, to let herself get outside of her comfort zone. Normally she could immerse herself in her research, in her books or her telescope or any number of experiments, and distract herself from her surroundings for a while whenever she felt like she would be overwhelmed emotionally by the effort of trying to form or maintain friendships. But not any longer, not at the present time. Her works and books were all gone, along with the library itself, her home. She wanted to be doing something active, to be taking part in the defence of the city, to be truly helping out. But Princess Celestia had decreed otherwise, told her that she had responsibilities below ground, rather than above, and that was what she would stick with, no matter what her own head told her.

Your potential is limitless. You should be doing more than foalsitting.

That may have been true, but it didn't make her feel any better about herself, or about her capture. She didn't know if that was why Celestia had relegated her to helping out in the underground and not fighting on the frontline. At the very least it had to be related to the loss of her Element, which rendered the whole system useless. But, she reminded herself, I can still fight. That was nothing short of the truth, and she didn't know why Celestia would not let her anymore. She had been happy for Twilight and her friends to take the lead against Discord, against Nightmare Moon, Sombra...albeit with the Elements as a backup in most cases of it should be needed, but they had also fought any number of other threats that would not require the Elements to defeat, but which could be just as deadly. These enemy infantry and aircraft certainly fit into that category. So why the reluctance to let Twilight fight?

Is Celestia afraid for your safety? Or does she fear letting you fight for some other reason?

She didn't know, but she wanted to find out. She was determined, and so she left Applejack and Rarity, Rainbow and Pinkie, Fluttershy and Spike, and headed up the stairs to the surface again. The guards let her past; Celestia had not confined her to the catacombs in a literal sense, and she was still free to move around the palace grounds. No doubt her friends would be also, though they had remained below tending to the civilians since the attack unfolded and had not ventured out.

The palace grounds had been cleared of bodies. Where they had been carted off to, Twilight could only guess. The smouldering wreckage of several Chaos landing craft lay in the rear of the building, among the gardens Celestia had long cherished as a prize part of the palace, and of the city itself. She had ordered their construction countless moons ago, and while they were still mostly intact, there were sections that were severely damaged, with burnt foliage, holes in the lawns and shattered statues and trees. There was bullet and shell damage to the walls of the building, yet more shattered windows and bloodstains. Most of the damage which had been repaired from previous attacks had been re-inflicted with a vengeance, and areas previously unharmed had suffered at the hands of the enemy.

Twilight headed inside the palace., working her way through the throngs of guardsponies and palace staff who were trying their best to restore order and carry out Celestia's orders. She made her way to the throne room, where she had seen Celestia earlier that day. Now, however, she found the elder Princess was absent, and her younger sister was there in her stead.

'Princess Luna!' Twilight trotted in, and Luna waved the guards away with a hoof, allowing Twilight to approach the throne where she sat.

'Twilight Sparkle,' she greeted her. 'How are conditions in the catacombs?'

'They are...fine, I suppose,' Twilight replied. 'As fine as they can be, given the circumstances. I guess ponies are kind of getting used to all this kind of thing.'

'It is a sad day when this kind of suffering becomes the norm in Equestria,' Luna pointed out with a weary frown. 'We must seek to return to the times we knew before, the times of peace that my sister fought so hard to achieve, and for so long to maintain.'

Twilight nodded. She certainly agreed with Luna on that point. Most of the threats she and the other Elements had fought had been dealt with in relatively short order; days, at most. Even Sombra's occupation of the Crystal Empire had only lasted a couple of weeks before he had been killed. This invasion had been going on for months. Twilight wasn't even sure exactly how long; she had lost count. To find another event of greater duration in Equestrian history, one would have to go back to before Celestia's reign, to when Discord had been the ruler of the land. The turmoil created then was matched only by this current madness.

'I hope we can, Princess,' Twilight spoke. 'I truly do...but I don't know how we will be able to. I don't know if we can defeat these enemies.'

'These enemies are no different to any we have faced before,' Luna replied. 'They are a threat to Equestria and its citizens, and they must be destroyed or forced to flee. There can be no doubt about that, and no room exists for an alternative solution. Diplomacy is not an option with these Chaos fanatics, nor with Queen Chrysalis, not any longer.'

'Were there negotiations with her before?' Twilight asked. Chrysalis had said as much when she had Twilight prisoner, but Twilight took everything the Queen had said with a hefty pinch of salt.

'There were, years ago,' Luna confirmed. 'My sister tried to negotiate with her, but no agreement could be reached. The Changelings are a ravenous species and they were more than willing to take without permission, not just love energy but material goods as well. Whatever they needed to sustain themselves, they would steal from us.'

Twilight did not want to repeat the side of the story she had heard from the Queen; that Celestia had ended negotiations because she feared Chrysalis and the potential threat she posed to her own power base. But the fact that Luna had confirmed that such negotiations did indeed occur planted just that small seed of doubt in Twilight's mind about how much of Chrysalis's diatribe may have actually been true. If that small fact was correct, why not the rest of it? Perhaps her statement had been the true nature of events. Twilight did not know, but it was one more thing that she could, though most likely would not dare, to ask Celestia about.

'I suppose that they are not that different to these Chaos humans, then,' Twilight pondered. 'Where is Princess Celestia?' she asked after a moment. 'I was hoping to speak with her about something.'

'My sister is occupied at the present time,' Luna replied. 'Some pressing business...she received a communique from the Imperial fleet.'

The bridge, as Lord-Admiral Marcos had feared, had become a morgue, with the bodies of a few of his senior staff and many armsmen now piled willy-nilly in a corner, with no thought or care for their dignity. Blood splatters, some an unearthly green but mostly the familiar shades of red, dotted the deck and the command consoles, some of which had been smashed and shattered by gunfire. There were numerous other survivors, which was some comfort, including most of the bridge officers. They were alive, but bloodied and bowed, kneeling near his command lectern, with Changeling drones guarding them with menacing expressions and lowered horns, aimed as though they were rifles.

Marcos had no idea if the distress call from the bridge had made it through, nor did he know the state of his ship. Fighting might still be ongoing, or it might have ceased already. The vital sectors could all be under Changeling control, or they might still be in the hands of the crew, depriving Queen Chrysalis of the victory she sought. The Queen herself had marched him out onto the bridge, and now two of her drones forced him to kneel near to the other captives. Their hands were not bound, but their weapons had been stripped from them. The survivors had glanced at their Admiral, hoping for ideas, for inspiration, for some solution to their predicament and a way off of the bridge. But Marcos had nothing. Kneeling with the others for some time, he then found himself in shadow, and looked up.

Chrysalis stood in front of him. She was surprisingly intimidating, despite her relatively slender appearance. Her body was thin and her legs shared the same disconcerting holes that the drones possessed. Her horn, however, was much larger than that of the drones, some four or five times as long and sharply crooked, as opposed to the smooth curve of her underlings. It was far larger than any of the pony horns, too, with the exception of Princess Celestia. Marcos recalled her horn being roughly the same size, and therein lay a possible connection theorised by the Magi of the Mechanicus aboard the Ferrus Terra; the logical conclusion, they had deduced, was that the size of the horn directly corresponded to either the amount of magical potential a creature possessed, or the actual amount of power or energy they held within themselves, manifesting as the unknown particle they had detected since arriving in the system. It seemed to fit, certainly; both Chrysalis and Celestia, as well as Luna, who Marcos had not met in person, were known to possess horns much larger than that of their followers, and they were the three creatures who had displayed extreme levels of magical power so far, during their battle near the volcano Hive and, in Celestia's case, in controlling the system's star through means that completely escaped his understanding, and had seemingly stumped the Magi as well.

'My, my, an Admiral without a fleet at his command,' Chrysalis addressed Marcos directly, a smug smirk on her face as her tongue flicked across her lips. 'An Admiral whose flagship has fallen to the enemy, an enemy he perhaps did not even realise was present until it was too late.'

'What do you want with my ship?' Marcos growled at her. if she were anything like Celestia, he thought, then it was possible she could be reasoned with, though how likely that was he did not know.

'Quite simply, Admiral, I need it,' Chrysalis replied. 'My other ship would not be large enough for all of my...new children.'

'Other ship?' Marcos narrowed his eyes. 'What other ship?' He feared that he might already know the answer. Chrysalis did not even move, not even blinking, and one of her drones scurried over to the vox console, using its magic to manipulate the controls. The active vox tone played, and Chrysalis spoke.

'Calling the Polaris Maxima. This is your Queen. Respond.'

Rather than the voice of Captain Danrich that Marcos would expect, indeed had heard for himself not so long ago, there was a chittering sound, vocal hisses and screeches that, while untranslatable, certainly sounded to Marcos like sounds of happiness. They were the same sounds the drones on the bridge had made when he had been dragged out of the ready room, to be displayed like some prize pig for them to gloat over. It seemed that the Polaris Maxima was no longer an Imperial vessel, either, a fact that caused Marcos pain, and Chrysalis undisguised joy.

'Do not be sad, Admiral! You still have all those other ships out there that will follow your orders without question,' Chrysalis pointed out. 'Or rather...they will follow my orders.' Her horn flashed for a moment, making Marcos wince, and then there was no horn anymore. Nor was there any Chrysalis. Instead, he was looking in a mirror. He was looking at Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, commander of the Western Fringe Crusade, hero of Tarffan IX and lifelong Navy man. For that was what he saw before him; an identical copy of himself, with the same haircut, the same uniform, the same medals. The only thing that was different was the expression he wore; not a glare of anger, but the same insufferable smirk that the Queen had worn until a moment earlier. Then, there she was again, after another brief flash of magic. 'In fact, they have already carried out my commands. Those troop transports you ordered into close proximity in order to deliver reinforcements? They have already turned back. You will not be getting any help from your fleet, Admiral, I am afraid. This ship is mine now.'

'Why?' Marcos asked. 'What the hell do you want with this ship? Are you not content with trying to overthrow the Princess? Is she not your real enemy?'

'Why yes, she is,' Chrysalis replied, with a little flutter of her insectlike wings. 'But the arrival of your fleet gave me pause for thought, for it taught me that there is so much more than just Equestria that I can conquer. There is an entire galaxy out there, just waiting! Think of all the love...' Her wings flittered again. 'So many creatures with love for themselves, for each other, for their gods and masters and lords, for life itself...' Chrysalis noticed Marcos's expression and chuckled. 'You see, Admiral. You may not have believed it when you were told this, but we Changelings truly do feed on the emotion you and I both call love. Not romantic love, at least not exclusively. Love in its broadest sense, agape as well as eros, platonic...every possible form of it you could imagine, Admiral. There are several million creatures on our planet, but from what I understand, there are trillions...more than trillions. An almost infinite supply of creatures out there among the stars, both human and otherwise, who all exhibit some form of the emotion...even if it is simply an Ork Mek's love of speed...'

She paused for a moment to savour Marcos's expression again. 'Yes, Admiral. I know about the Orks. I know about the Necrons and the Tau and the Eldar, and of the Tyranids...who I must say, I do feel some affinity with. You see, when I, or one of my drones, come into direct contact with a human, we are able to impersonate them perfectly, but physical contact with them means that we also absorb their knowledge. You can see how such a trait is...desirable.' She smirked and her tongue played across her lips once more.

'So you want to conquer the universe, is that it?' Marcos replied derisively. 'Better creatures than you have tried, and failed. The Milky Way is a vast place, filled with horrors.'

'Then it sounds very much like Equestria, only considerably larger,' Chrysalis commented. 'I have no doubt that there have been attempts to conquer the entirety of the galaxy before. Indeed, your own Emperor tried and failed, did he not?' That comment drew a frown from Marcos and the other prisoners, and elicited a chuckle from Chrysalis. 'Even he could not overcome the odds stacked against him.'

'You could not even conquer Equestria,' Marcos spat. 'What makes you think you can conquer the galaxy? Even delusions of grandeur have their limits before you become something to be pitied, not feared.'

'Perhaps I cannot,' Chrysalis replied. 'But consider, Admiral, if you will. Every creature that loves is a source of energy for me and for my children. The more creatures we have access to, the more love we can siphon. The more love we can siphon, the stronger we become; the stronger I become, and the more drones we can spawn. There are only so many creatures on our planet, thus there is a limit to my power. Out there in the rest of the galaxy, though?' She licked her lips. 'Unlimited power awaits. One only has to get there to exploit it, and that, Admiral, is why I need your ship.'

Marcos did not want to dismiss her out of hand. It might sound like an insane plan, but she had come this far, hadn't she? Somehow she now possessed at least two Imperial warships, a fair chunk of the surviving combat elements of the Crusade fleet. 'You know you'll never succeed in such a plan. Why not content yourself with destroying your rivals and ruling this planet?' he asked her.

'Small minds, Admiral, small minds,' she tutted. 'I shall indeed destroy my enemies, using your ship to do it. But that is only the beginning, you see. One must truly dream big to achieve that which is their ultimate destiny, no? It seems your ultimate destiny was to lead this fleet to its death and destruction. What a sad end to a proud career.' Chrysalis chuckled, seemingly a common trait of hers.

'Spare me your patronising tales,' Marcos grunted. 'Why have you not simply killed us all and moved on to your next target?'

'Well, you see Admiral, I do like to gloat,' Chrysalis replied. 'Some may call it a character flaw of mine...I am sure Princess Celestia would. Now, speaking of Celestia, that is most interesting...I believe you have met her in person, hm?'

'Yes. What of it?' Marcos questioned.

'Oh, nothing. I just found it interesting. How do I compare with her in your estimations, Admiral?' Chrysalis asked with a smirk.

'Well, she did not try to take my ship from me when she came aboard, so I would say that puts her rather higher than yourself in my mind,' he replied. Far from the expected annoyed look, Chrysalis just laughed once more.

'I had thought a representative of the mighty Imperium might have respected power and aggression over diplomacy, at least from what I understand of your kind,' she pointed out. She was interrupted, however, by a sudden beeping from a console. Immediately she teleported to it, and began to hiss angrily. A moment later, Marcos knew why. Though he could not see the console, he could see out of the viewscreens.

Lancing out across space, great flaming beams of energy were cutting through the void. He recognised them at once; it seemed the Princess was busy once more. Chrysalis watched with anger until she realised that the beams were not targeting the Emperor's Judgement, or indeed any of the Imperial ships. They were racing toward the planet.

'Well, well. Is this the Princesses' doing?' Chrysalis asked, rounding on Marcos. When she had touched him she had absorbed his memories of the assistance Celestia had given his fleet, and now she was seeking the confirmation that her rival was acting out again, for some purpose or another.

'I do not know,' Marcos replied truthfully, though it certainly seemed like it was the handiwork of Celestia. After all, what other force could possibly cause the same dramatic and impossible spontaneous release of so much energy from a celestial body?

Chrysalis returned her attention to the console and the viewscreen. The beams were on course for the planet, and more specifically, the Chaos ships in orbit around it. Alerted by their sensors, the ships tried to maneuver, jets flaring against the backdrop of space, silently pushing the huge craft forward or astern, anything to get out of the line of fire. But the speed of the energy blasts was tremendous, and Marcos was sure they were moving considerably faster than during the last attack. The blinding flash as each one crossed his vision made him wince, and he turned his attention to the planet on the viewscreen. Chrysalis, or one of her minions, who had evidently inherited the technical knowledge of one of the bridge crew, brought the screen to maximum zoom, so that the outlines of the enemy ships could just about be discerned against the blue and white backdrop of the planet.

Marcos watched in confusion as the first of the ships exploded well before the first beam seemed to reach it. A brilliant flash marked the end of a Chaos cruiser, There was a second flash, and another ship died, then another. Only then did the beams of energy seem to reach them, and only then did Marcos realise that they must be traveling faster than the speed of light. They had not moved that fast during the previous attack, or the demonstration- but that was a display of brilliance by Celestia, he realised. The planet was far enough away that too much warning would give the Chaos ships time to move clear and avoid the attacks. The electromagnetic emissions profile from the star would match that of the previous solar attack and would alert them to the potential danger, which had wiped out their comrades, but the strikes would arrive much faster than any which had been delivered before, and leave the Chaos forces no chance to maneuver to safety. The attacks were precise, accurate, even over such a vast distance, millions of miles. To be accurate enough to hit a target a couple of miles in length at such a distance was almost impossible except for the most advanced targeting cogitators. The target area would have been some tiny fraction of a milliradian, and any miss would likely strike the planet and cause destruction. That, Marcos knew, was why Celestia had been reluctant to destroy the remains of the Chaos fleet earlier. Yet now she was doing exactly that. He did not know why, though it pleased him greatly to see Chaos ships fall and burst into plumes of venting plasma and atmospheric gas.

Chrysalis, too, seemed pleased, judging by her excited giggles as she watched the destruction unfold across the void. As the wreckage drifted, floating around the planet until their orbits decayed enough for the shattered remains of the Chaos ships to burn up in the atmosphere, Marcos felt the familiar thrum of the main drives of the Emperor's Judgement kicking into gear. Chrysalis used her magic to activate the vox net, and spoke in a disconcertingly familiar voice.

'This is Lord-Admiral Marcos to all ships. The Chaos fleet has been destroyed. Maintain formation and advance. We are returning to the planet.'

Marcos could see on the tac-map display that the fleet were complying with his- her- command, the cluster of blue icons moving toward the planet. He knew what Chrysalis had said; that she would wipe out her enemies at home before moving on among the stars. But there was nothing he could do except watch the planet draw closer, getting larger in the viewscreen.

Various alarms and alerts beeped from a number of consoles, including one particularly insistent beeping as they drew nearer to the planet and began braking procedures. The ships began to slow, including the Emperor's Judgement. The fleet moved into orbit in the space occupied, until very recently, by the forces of the Archenemy, preparing to take up positions above Equestria. The vox buzzed, and Chrysalis answered in Marcos's voice.

'This is Marcos, go ahead, Captain.'

'My Lord, this is Captain Marsten,' came the reply, the voice of the Indefatigable's commanding officer. 'After interrogation, I have determined General Jahn's claims to be false. He is not a Changeling, I do not think, merely a traitor. I will return him to your vessel aboard the stolen shuttle, if you would care to prepare a welcoming party to transport him to the brig.'

'Very good, Captain. I will have a team standing by for the General,' Chrysalis replied, before signing off. Marcos did not know what the exchange was about, but his brow furrowed. General Jahn was not a traitor. He was a good man, an upstanding officer. He would not betray the ship or the Emperor. But even if he had...why would Chrysalis want him returned, and why did Marsten believe the words he had just spoken to the Queen?

Marcos did not know, and feared he may never discover the truth. He did not know why Chrysalis had not simply killed him, other than what she had said about gloating. Perhaps the Changelings wanted human slaves, or perhaps they were merely trophies to be paraded in front of countless drones before being publicly executed. Either way, Marcos could see no way out of his predicament.

Docking Bay 5A was prepared to receive an incoming shuttle. General Jahn was aboard, being returned to the Emperor's judgement for supposed trial or imprisonment. The guards all knew that Captain Marsten had apparently been duped into believing the Lord-Admiral's story, and disbelieving that of the General. So much the better, but they were ready for anything, just in case. A trick was quite likely; the Captain had seemed rather reluctant to accept the Admiral's word at first. It was possible he was sending over a combat team to try and retake the ship, or at least the security centre.

In came the shuttle, through the forcefield, settling down on its landing legs, engines shutting off with a decreasing whine. The ramp lowered, and half a dozen armsmen disembarked, meeting their opposite numbers who were guarding the docking bay and providing a prisoner escort. Where was the General? There was no sign of him coming down the ramp in shackles. The guards were wary. A trick? A trap? A bomb?

There was a subtle blurring of the air inside the docking bay, only barely perceptible and lasting for but a moment. Then, there was a blinding burst of incandescent light. The guards shielded their eyes in confusion, raising their weapons. It was most definitely a trick, flash grenades perhaps. But as their vision returned, they could see a most unexpected sight, and a most alarming one.

As one, they opened fire.

Taken By Surprise

Lord-Admiral Marcos heard another alarm sounding on the bridge. It drew the immediate attention of Chrysalis, as it was a loud and insistent sound. Marcos recognised it as the internal alarm system, signalling some problem aboard the vessel. Whatever it was, it was enough to distract the Queen and draw some angry hisses from her lips. The shuttle carrying General Jahn was supposed to be docking; perhaps some kind of rescue mission was being mounted?

Marcos doubted any such attempt could possibly succeed. A shuttle could only hold so many men, perhaps a few platoons at most. Unless they had dug up some Astartes Terminators from somewhere, then a few dozen men could not hope to take an entire ship. If the Changelings had truly captured the whole ship, or at least the key points, and if they had indeed used the vents and pipes to navigate around the vessel by shrinking down to the size of flies or bugs, then how many drones, similarly sized, could they have fitted onto the landing barges which had docked masquerading as the maintenance teams from the Polaris Maxima? Given that there could be tens of thousands of bees in a single hive, there could be tens of millions of drones, he estimated, potentially aboard the Emperor's judgement, more than enough to overcome the crew, most of whom were untrained and under-equipped, not ideal conditions to attempt to resist a boarding action. If the ship was indeed overrun by drones, then any rescue mission by Imperial troops would be surely doomed to fail.

Marcos knew full well what the alternative was supposed to be. If a ship fell into the hands of the enemy, then it should be scuttled by its crew, by overloading the reactors if possible. If that could not be done because the crew were dead or the reactors were under enemy control, then it fell to the other ships in the fleet to destroy the captured vessel before it could be used against other Imperial assets; before its guns could be turned upon the fleet. The Emperor's Judgement and Polaris Maxima combined could certainly inflict crippling damage to the rest of the fleet, if not destroy it outright, if the Changelings were permitted to launch a surprise attack. The heavy broadsides of the battleship could smash the Indefatigable if it was taken by surprise, and if the Changelings knew how to fly attack craft as well, then the battlecruiser could be in real trouble within moments of any attack being launched. Two other cruisers and a few escorts was all that remained of the combat force of the Crusade, and, caught short-footed, they would be very hard pressed indeed to defend against an attack from within their own ranks.

Queen Chrysalis, however, did not seem best pleased by the development, whatever was happening on board that was causing the alarm. The internal sensors could detect weapons fire, hazardous material leaks, technical issues, or concentrations of the unknown particle, thanks to the tweaks made to the system by the calibration teams. All Marcos could do was hope that, whatever it was, it would continue to cause the Queen great distress.

The guards in Docking Bay 5A opened fire in alarm. At the top of the shuttle's ramp was not General Jahn, as they had been expecting, but rather a pure white figure, surrounded by an ethereal glow. It was most definitely no General, nor even a human, but rather an old foe.

Princess Celestia returned fire with her magic, cutting down several armsmen. As soon as they died, they revealed their true form; not men, but Changeling drones, their weapons clattering to the deck. The real armsmen who had arrived with the shuttle fanned out, shotguns blazing, as more men appeared from the shuttle's interior. Celestia teleported to the other side of the cavernous hanger bay and began attacking the enemy from behind. Some drones reverted to their natural form of their own accord to strike back at the Princess with their magic instead of the human guns. It made little difference, as she deflected their attacks deftly and sliced them open with powerful beams of her own magic, punching through the shields of those drones who had changed and burning away the uniforms of those who remained in human form.

A stray blast of magic struck a stack of containers that held fuel or some other combustible material, and a great ball of flame rose to the rafters like a mushroom, sucking in oxygen from the surrounding area. More drones entered the hangar bay from the companionway outside, and were met by a blast of crackling golden lightning that fried them instantly. Their sizzling bodies fell in all directions as Celestia mopped up the last few drones who tried to put up resistance, being backed into a corner and slaughtered unmercifully by their oldest enemy.

That was the proof that had been needed. With the hangar bay clear, a message was hastily sent by vox over to the Indefatigable, confirming that the Changelings were indeed in command of the flagship. Captain Marsten grimaced at the news, but at least his plan had worked. He had figured that Princess Celestia would likely know the most about the Changelings and how to potentially identify them, hence his surreptitious contact with her using the directed vox beam, in order to avoid alerting the flagship in case it was indeed in enemy hands. She had confirmed that she could, indeed, detect a hidden Changeling with her magic, but that the fleet had been out of range for her to teleport to them. A shuttle could not be sent to her with the Chaos fleet in orbit, and so she had agreed to eliminate it with precision shots of her solar energy, in the hope that, with the enemy ships gone, the Lord-Admiral or whatever Changeling was in command would order the Crusade fleet back into orbit around the planet, bringing them into range of Celestia and allowing her to teleport to the Indefatigable, which had been identified by its position relative to the largest vessel, the Emperor's judgement, in order that Celestia would be able to identify it correctly using her augury spell.

Once aboard, Marsten had quickly briefed her on the latest information they had, and ran through the plan again. Celestia would board with the shuttle that was meant to be delivering the General back into custody. Marsten had reasoned that the Changelings would probably suspect an ambush, and so the shuttle had been loaded with armsmen in case a battle should develop. Celestia had assured him that she could take care of herself in that event, and that, if she detected Changelings in the hangar bay, she would come out fighting to get the drop on them. Sure enough, that was exactly what she had done.

Marsten admired her bravery, being willing to leap into the unknown aboard a vessel she had never set foot on before- but that wasn't true, he reminded himself. She had indeed visited the ship once before, though only once, and only for a brief conference with Lord-Admiral Marcos- the real Lord-Admiral Marcos- and Lord-General Galen. That was certainly not enough to acquaint her with the layout of the ship or how to get about, but then she hardly seemed to need it, given that she could teleport from the planet's surface up to the Indefatigable with no evident trouble whatsoever. Presumably she could also navigate the ship in a similar fashion, and that was indeed the plan.

On board the Emperor's judgement, armsmen beat a steady pace as their boots thundered down the shuttle's ramp, securing the hangar bay and covering the doors and main ventilation ducts. If the Changelings came, they would find a warm reception from their human intruders. Meanwhile, Princess Celestia disappeared with a pop and a flash, materialising once more in the security centre on the same deck, much to the surprise of the drones stationed there. A quick spell showed there were no humans in the room, and Celestia chained her lightning attack together, wiping out almost the entire complement of drones in a heartbeat as the energy crackled and jumped between their bodies in a spectacular light show that set off half a dozen different alarms, for half a dozen different reasons.

Far from being the ones leading the action, the Changelings now found themselves on the back hoof, having to react to something completely unexpected. They had been prepared for a potential human assault from the shuttle, but not for an angry Princess with a definite mission in mind. They were scrambling to deal with the incursion without alerting the ship's crew- for many, indeed most, of the human crew were still alive. Many were completely unaware of anything untoward since the initial alarm for a limited Changeling boarding action in the mid-decks of the vessel, while others had been placated by false messages from the bridge or one of the security centres that suggested the attack had been dealt with. To cleanse the entire ship of its human crew would be a mammoth task, and one that could not be carried out with any degree of alacrity so soon after the actual boarding had taken place. It would take a long time, even with so many drones aboard.

With the security centre cleared, Celestia teleported back to the hangar to quickly inform the armsmen, who left the hangar and headed through the corridors to reach the centre and secure it, with the hope of establishing control over the ship's critical systems. It would be necessary to stop the Changelings from potentially overloading the reactors and destroying the ship, and if they could regain control of the propulsion and internal security systems, they could hopefully take a big step toward recapturing the vessel. If they could take control of the weapons systems and slave control away from the bridge and to the security centre, then it would be safe for more armsmen and Imperial Guard to board and help wrest control back from the drones.

Celestia, meanwhile, had another destination in mind, and once she had passed the word and set the humans on their way, she teleported away once more, moving through the ship with ease, as Marsten had suspected she could. She was heading up.

Twilight had spoken with Princess Luna, and learned that her sister was apparently busy with royal duties. She had been holed up in the Celestial Tower, Luna had said, and so Twilight had returned to the catacombs, or rather she had been heading in that direction when something made her stop.

Overhead, there had been a sudden flash in the sky which had made her look up. She couldn't see the cause at first. The sky was clear, save for a few ragged clouds here and there. But then there was another flash, and she could see that it was not something in the sky, but rather something above it. Way up in the heavens had been the source of the flash, and Twilight knew something had happened to one of the Chaos starships. There could be no other explanation, as nothing else could have caused such a phenomenon. It looked to be an explosion; but what was the cause?

Twilight had rushed up to the Lunar Tower, passing the guards who let her through. The telescope awaited her, and she guided it towards the broad area of sky where she had seen the flash. Even as she swung it around, there was another flash high up above. When she sighted in, she could see one of the Chaos ships, or rather, what was left of it. The craft that was several miles in length was shattered, huge chunks of debris spinning in the void. Something had destroyed it, taken it out, and Twilight suspected she knew the cause. She scanned the sky and found another patch of debris where a ship had been. She left the eyepiece of the telescope and trotted to the balcony, looking up at the slightly higher Celestial Tower, and there she saw what she had expected to see.

Princess Celestia was standing on the balcony, not visible from the ground but certainly in view from the top of the twin tower. Her horn was aglow, sheathed in golden light, her eyes closed as she was clearly concentrating on some great task that required all of her considerable mental faculties. Twilight knew she must be carrying out the destruction of what remained of the Chaos fleet that orbited the planet, an almost casual act that would result in millions of deaths but might just save Equestria and its citizens from destruction. She felt a desire to call out, or to go up and speak to the Princess, but she knew that any distraction from her mission could have disastrous consequences. Wherever extremely powerful magic was in use, any distraction or loss of concentration could lead to a serious mis-step. Twilight knew that Celestia had to be flinging magic or solar energy across the void to destroy the ships in the same way she had wiped out the main portion of the hostile fleet. But these ships were in orbit, and if the energy was coming from the sun, then even a slight miscue could lead to it smashing into the planet instead of the enemy vessels. That perhaps explained why Celestia had retreated to the high tower for privacy, rather than remaining in the throne room with other ponies around, as she had the last time she struck out at enemy vessels. Concentration was paramount if she did not want to inflict some serious damage to Equestria, the very land she was meant to be protecting.

Twilight took another look at the sky through the telescope. There were several more flashes, but she couldn't see anything else. Either the explosions were occurring out of her viewing arc and reflecting off of something, or the ships that were now being destroyed were too small or too far away for her to resolve, even with the telescope. Soon, they stopped altogether. Either the job was done, or the rest of the Chaos fleet had fled from the barrage that Celestia had been unleashing upon them.

With nothing more to see, she left the Lunar Tower and returned to the ground, hoping to speak to Celestia when she returned to the throne room. She headed there, but found only Luna, still directing ponies to various tasks.

'Princess Luna! Has Princess Celestia returned from her duties yet?' Twilight had asked.

'Yes, Twilight,' Luna had replied, 'but she is not here.'

'Oh? Where is she? Can I speak with her?' Twilight had questioned, but Luna merely shook her head.

'She is not on the planet's surface any longer,' Luna had replied somewhat cryptically, before explaining when confronted with Twilight's confused expression. 'She has gone to the aid of the human fleet. Apparently they have suffered from a Changeling attack on their flagship.'

This news had sent a shock of alarm through Twilight's whole body. Changelings, in space? On board one of the Imperial ships? That was exactly what Chrysalis had said her plan was, but Twilight had doubted her ability to actually pull off such a stunt. She wanted to expand the Changeling race across the galaxy, from planet to planet, but surely such a thing was not possible...was it?

Celestia was on her way to find out, Luna explained, and to assist with the recapture of the battleship if indeed it had been taken from right under Imperial noses. It was an audacious plan, and Twilight hoped that it was not actually being carried out; perhaps there had been some mistake. Perhaps it was the forces of Chaos, not of Chrysalis. But if that aspect of the Queen's plan had come to fruition, who was to say that the rest of it might not, ultimately, come to pass as well?

Lord-Admiral Marcos watched on as Queen Chrysalis grew visibly angrier as she looked at the console. He didn't know what she was looking at, but something had clearly upset her, and though she issued no orders verbally, drones on the bridge began to move, covering the turbolift doors. Some drones retained human form so that they could standby with guns, as well as magic. Evidently they were expecting company, and it soon arrived, though, in a classic reversal of fortune, not through the entrance they had been planning on.

Princess Celestia appeared in a flash of white light, a halo surrounding her as she hovered near the ceiling of the bridge. Chrysalis reacted instantly, snarling in anger and lunging toward the Princess, her horn aglow. Marcos and the other prisoners flattened themselves to the deck as the drones scattered, turning to engage the threat which had caught them by surprise. Magic flashed across the bridge, and Marcos began to fear an explosive decompression at any moment. A blast too powerful could penetrate the hull and suck the atmosphere from the bridge, along with anything not nailed down- including him.

'Celestia!' Chrysalis hissed angrily. 'Come to play, have you? Welcome to my new ship...but I do not take kindly to uninvited guests!' She lunged with her horn, but Celestia dodged easily enough, trying to grasp Chrysalis with powerful binding magic. The Queen was just as fast, however, and she teleported away to the other side of the bridge. Several drones charged at Celestia, but were swatted down like the flies they had masqueraded as to gain access to the bridge in the first place. The drones still in human form fired. Shotgun blasts rang out, but to no effect. Celestia's shield of gold protected her The drones moved toward Celestia intently.

She teleported away, and to the side of the prisoners. There was a brief wavy sensation in the air, like looking through a heat haze, as Celestia stood beside them. Then her horn glowed, and they vanished.

Marcos felt a sudden tingling play across his skin, then saw a kaleidoscope of colours in his vision just for a moment, and then he was in a hangar bay. He blinked and looked around. A hangar bay, yes, but where exactly?

Men approached him; armsmen, though wearing the collar insignia of a different ship. They were from the Indefatigable, he realised, and they were helping him to his feet.

'My Lord! Are you hurt?' one of them asked him, but he waved the man away.

'I am uninjured,' he shouted. 'Where am I?'

'Deck two of the Indefatigable, My Lord,' the armsman's officer informed him. 'The Xenos Princess...'

'Yes, she saved us, it seems,' Marcos nodded and grunted. Not for the first time, either, he added subconsciously. The fleet as a whole would most decidedly no longer be there if not for Celestia; there would be no Emperor's judgement for the Changelings to have captured. Then again, if she had not broken the warp storm's grip on the planet, the Changelings would have never made it aboard his ships in the first place.

'Take me to the bridge,' Marcos demanded, receiving instant action from the armsmen.

'At once, My Lord!' the officer replied, quickly leading him out of the hangar bay and into the corridors of the battlecruiser, towards a turbolift.

'Where is the Princess?' he asked. 'Did she return to the Emperor's Judgement?'

'I believe so, My Lord,' the officer replied. 'Though it is possible she returned to the planet. Captain Marsten will know more.'

Marcos hoped so, because things were moving rapidly once again. Whereas the situation had been relatively stable after the main Chaos fleet had been destroyed by Celestia, ever since then things had escalated so quickly that Marcos had hardly had time to comprehend what was going on. The remnants of the Chaos force were gone, and his own ships were now back in orbit around the planet. What else might have been going on, he did not know.

The turbolift took him up to the bridge, where Captain Marsten was waiting for him with a salute and a firm handshake. 'My Lord. it is a great relief to see you unharmed.'

'Thank you, Lukas,' Marcos replied, shaking the Captain's hand. 'I must say I was not expecting such an...efficient rescue.'

'Neither was I, My Lord,' Marsten replied. 'But I thought that the only way we might determine if you were truly alive or not would be with the help of the Princess.'

'How are you certain I am really me?' Marcos questioned. He had overheard the Queen, her voice disguised as himself, speaking to Marsten over the vox, and the Captain had been quite vocal in expressing his lack of certainty over who exactly he was speaking to and precisely what was going on aboard the flagship.

'The Princess, My Lord,' Marsten explained. 'I thought that she might have some method of detecting Changelings; after all, they have been fighting them for who knows how long. I sent a directed signal to the liaison team in the pony capital requesting her aid. Luckily, she informed me that she did indeed have a...spell? A...psychic ability to detect disguised Changelings. We formulated a rescue plan, and she told me that she would only teleport you or any other survivors to safety if she cast the spell and made sure that it was a real human, not a drone, that she had encountered.'

Marcos nodded. He was not entirely surprised to learn that Celestia had some means of detecting drones in disguise, but he couldn't help but feel slight anger that she had not shared it with the Imperials before. Then again, humans could not perform magic- at least, not the precise kind that the ponies possessed. If it was an active spell, that had to be cast, then it would be of use only in certain situations, when purposefully searching for Changelings, or seeking to screen large numbers of ponies or people.

'Captain, you need to make the rest of the fleet aware. The Polaris Maxima has been taken by the Changelings also,' Marcos informed Marsten, drawing a surprised look from him. 'The Changeling Queen took great pleasure in gloating over that fact and proving it to me over the vox link. I am afraid the entire ship may be under their control, or at the very least, the bridge.' Marsten nodded with a grim expression.

'Understood, My Lord. What are your orders?'

'Alert the fleet, but tell them to hold their fire. They are to be alert to any hostile action by either the Polaris Maxima or the Emperor's Judgement. If they come under attack they may defend themselves, but otherwise, do not fire unless I give the command. All ships are to hold their orbit around the planet. Any vessel that attempts to communicate with the Polaris Maxima or the Emperor's Judgement without my express authority will be considered to be hostile and under Changeling control. And Captain?'

'Yes, My Lord?'

'As far as the rest of the fleet knows, I am dead, and you are in command,' Marcos replied. 'If there are other Changelings out there aboard other vessels, then they need to imagine that we are indeed in complete chaos with a loss of leadership.'

'Yes, My Lord.' Marsten nodded, quickly issuing the commands to his vox officer. 'General Jahn is here, also. Do you wish to speak with him?'

'Yes...are you certain he is himself?' Marcos asked, getting a nod in response.

'Yes, My Lord. The Princess cast her spell on him...on the entire bridge crew, I believe. I guess she wasn't taking any chances,' Marsten explained. 'The General is in my ready room. Come, let us speak with him.' Marsten led the way, but their progress was interrupted by a cry from the Auspex officer.

'My Lord! Look!' He drew their attention to the viewscreen. Marcos turned to see what the fuss was about.

A blast of green energy had erupted from the top of the Emperor's Judgement. sending debris tumbling as it lanced out across the void. It was an evident reminder that the battle was far from over. Another blast tore through the dorsal section of the ship, just where the bridge was located. This one was gold in colour. Clearly neither Chrysalis nor Celestia were going to give up the struggle.

Farewell, Old Friend

Celestia dodged Chrysalis's attack as the blast of green Changeling magic ripped through the ceiling of the bridge. Immediately there was a loud bang, and a roar filled her ears, along with the wailing of the decompression siren. The air began to pour out of the bridge, normally protected by void shields and thick external shielding baffles. These defences were not designed to protect against damage inflicted from within, however, and the ceramite hull, while capable of taking lance fire and direct hits from missiles, proved to be unable to withstand the incredible power being unleashed by the dueling royals.

A thick fog filled the bridge as the moisture in the air, carefully maintained by the climate control systems to approximate that on a habitable world, rapidly cooled and condensed due to the sudden pressure change. It lasted only a moment or two before the air was sucked out through the ragged hole and into the void of space beyond. Both Chrysalis and Celestia were able to maintain their positions despite the powerful suction effect that dragged every loose item with it, including many of the drones, the bodies of the dead human bridge crew, and countless pieces of debris and sundry pieces of equipment, spewing out of the gash in the hull along with the venting atmosphere, catching the light from Celestia's sun and glinting like a momentary constellation.

Both royals were protected from the vacuum by their shields, the lack of atmosphere not of concern to them. Celestia, at least, could survive even without it if necessary. The proof lay with her sister, and her exile to the moon, which showed beyond question that Alicorns could indeed survive in a vacuum. The Princess did not know if Chrysalis had a similar ability, but either way, her shield kept her safe. The lack of air did, however, mean that she could no longer hear, which had the benefit of being unable to hear Chrysalis's taunts, but also that she couldn't hear anything which might be of value to her. She could at least see something of value; Chrysalis wore the Element of Magic atop her head in place of her normal crown.

Chrysalis flashed about, teleporting to and fro in the blink of an eye and firing magic across the bridge. Celestia managed to avoid each shot, which tore gouges in the deck plating and bulkheads, ripping straight through the thick metal and taking consoles and display screens with them. Chrysalis was fast; faster than Celestia recalled her ever being before, even the last time they had fought outside of the volcano Hive. Her magic seemed stronger, too, more powerful and more direct. Maybe there was indeed some truth in what she had explained to Twilight, about her intention to increase her power through exposure to large numbers of humans, gathering more love enabling her to create more drones, and thus expand her strength through their love for her, allowing further expansion and so on and so on, in a theoretically endless loop. If that was indeed the case, then she had to be stopped, here and now.

Celestia tried once more to use her restraining magic on Chrysalis, to bind her limbs and horn with magic tendrils and prevent her from moving or using her own magic in retaliation so that she could grab the Element from her. It had to be taken back, or failing that, it had to be destroyed so that Chrysalis could not obtain the other Elements and use them against Equestria. She tried desperately to hold Chrysalis, to lock her in place and overpower her. Once again, it failed. She could not get through the Queen's shield. That, too, seemed even stronger than before, barely even rippling when struck with a heavy blast of magic, showing no signs of breaking or buckling under the pressure of Celestia's strongest attacks so far. Nor was she affected by the decompression and the exposure to vacuum.

The bridge of the Emperor's Judgement had become a junk yard, shards of pulverised metal and ceramite floating and filling the air like a dirty snowstorm. Celestia did not know of the capabilities of human repair teams and maintenance crews, but it seemed that the bridge would likely be beyond saving, given the state it was now in. Another hole was opened to the void as one of Celestia's shots missed wide and tore through the exterior hull as effectively as any point-blank lance beam would have done.

There had to be some way of stopping Chrysalis, but Celestia could not see it. Perhaps with Luna's help? But they had failed to defeat her before, and if anything, the Queen seemed even stronger now than she had at the volcano. If she was not defeated now, she could get even stronger, until she was beyond the ability of anything, even the Elements or all three Alicorns, to end the threat she posed to not just Equestria, but, potentially, the rest of the galaxy as well.

The fight moved on, the bridge not being enough to contain the two royals. Chrysalis teleported outside of the ship's hull and fired down upon it, a monstrous blast of energy that shattered what remained of the bridge deck almost entirely. Celestia's shield was bombarded by debris and the white-hot burning energy of the Queen's intense magic, magic which had only one purpose; to destroy, and to kill. Her shield held, though she could feel it starting to falter under continuous exposure. She hurriedly teleported away, onto a lower deck. Chrysalis's magic was definitely stronger; there could be no doubt any longer in her mind. Such a blast would not have caused any particular stress to her defensive shield before, but a relatively limited exposure had given her pause for thought this time.

The lower deck was overrun with Changelings, dozens of drones moving back and forth, suddenly startled by the appearance of the Princess in their midst. They hissed and snarled in alarm, alerting their fellows and, through their mental link, their Queen also. Green magic flashed and struck Celestia's shield, and she responded with a powerful eruption of golden lightning that leaped between drones, killing most of those in the wide corridor where she had materialised, frying their brains and singing their bodies. Within moments, Chrysalis was there again, appearing in a flash of light as she teleported in from outside the ship none the worse for wear from her time spent floating in space.

Celestia tried her lightning again, this time aimed at the Queen. It finished off the few drones that clustered around their leader, but once again could not penetrate Chrysalis's defences.

'Running away, are we?' the Queen sneered, able to speak once again as the lower deck currently had an atmosphere, unlike the ruined bridge. 'Have you finally realised the futility of your actions, Celestia? You cannot defeat me and you know it!'

'We shall see,' Celestia replied simply. She tried another blast of magic, but Chrysalis dodged to the side, her wings flittering, though she did not need them, using her magic to move much faster than any physical action could carry her. Celestia's magic struck something farther down the corridor, a generator perhaps, some kind of power conduit. An explosion ripped through the passageway, filling it with thick brown smoke. The lights flickered and the deck plating shook beneath them. More drones began pouring out of a doorway behind Celestia, though they did not concern her. They were as ineffective against her shield as her own attacks seemed to be against those of her arch-nemesis.

'Why not just accept the inevitable?' Chrysalis questioned, teleporting behind Celestia so she could attack her without threatening her own children.

'Nothing is inevitable, Chrysalis. Not unless one surrenders to it,' Celestia answered. Somewhere, the power supply to the deck faltered and failed, and the lights flicked off. Blood red emergency lighting bathed the corridor and the combatants. The eyes of a hundred Changelings glowed malevolently behind their Queen, arrayed in serried ranks as if they were on the broad plains of eastern Equestria, and not in the cramped confines of a narrow metal corridor aboard an Imperial starship.

'Perhaps you should surrender, then,' Chrysalis chuckled. 'I am a reasonable being. If you surrender to me, then you have my word that you will be unharmed.'

'Unfortunately, your word means nothing any longer, Chrysalis,' the Princess replied. 'You do not really expect anypony to trust anything you say, do you?'

'Alas, no,' Chrysalis answered. 'You have brainwashed them all to follow your plan, to follow you as though you have all the answers to the questions they never thought to ask. But you have no answer to me, do you?' she smirked.

'You can continue to imagine yourself undefeatable, if you wish to live in your dream world,' Celestia replied. 'What goes on inside your head does not concern me, only what you do to my citizens.'

'And yet here you are,' Chrysalis gestured with a hoof. 'Here you are, not in Equestria any longer. Not even on the same planet! Even when I am not affecting your precious kingdom, you cannot keep your nose out of my affairs. Do you really pursue me with such vigour because you believe I am a threat to Equestria? Or is the reality that you cannot get over the fact that I bested you?' She smirked, memories of the Royal Wedding running through Celestia's brain, as Chrysalis had naturally intended. The Queen had indeed beaten Celestia in single combat, though only because she had caught her by surprise with the extra power boost that absorbing the love between Shining and Cadence, as well as the rest of the festival goers, had given her. The power she had displayed then was a shadow of her current strength, however, and that was Celestia's biggest concern.

'I am here because your actions threaten not only Equestria, but also my human ally,' Celestia replied. 'You do not imagine that I could allow you to have control of a ship of this power, do you?'

'No, but that is not your decision,' Chrysalis replied. 'This ship is already mine.'

'Perhaps. But perhaps not for long.' Celestia teleported away once more, drawing an angry growl from the Queen as her foe vanished. She would surface again soon enough; there were drones all over the ship, after all. She could not hide from the Hive Mind.

Twilight paced nervously. She had so many questions, and Luna could only provide so many answers. She needed more than that; she needed reasons, and she needed assurance, a guarantee that everything would be alright.

'But, Princess Luna...' she began once more. 'Why did she go up there? How did she go up there? To...to space?'

'Twilight, it is simple,' Luna replied, still sitting on her throne, seemingly as calm as Celestia would have been in the same position. 'She teleported to the human vessel because they were under attack by the Changelings. Her goals were threefold; firstly, to assist our allies in the same way they have assisted us. Secondly, to stop Chrysalis and her Changelings from obtaining full control of an Imperial space vessel. And thirdly, in the hope of recovering the Element of Magic from Chrysalis herself.'

'But she's all alone up there!' Twilight pointed out; not strictly true since there was an entire Imperial fleet, but metaphorically, certainly correct. She was the only pony out in space. 'You should go with her!' Twilight urged Luna.

'If I went with her, then who would be here to defend Canterlot?' Luna pointed out reasonably. 'With all due respect to Princess Cadence...she does not have anywhere near the combat experience that either I or my sister possess, and we have already seen that the enemy Sorcerer has the ability to break through her defensive shield. My sister and myself both agreed that one of us must remain in the city at all times. That is why she went alone, Twilight.'

The younger mare nodded. Luna's words were, of course, sensible. She knew Celestia was more than capable of handling herself, but being in such an alien environment, alone...

'I understand the caution, Princess, but...what if something goes wrong?' Twilight asked.

'The benefits outweigh the risks. That is what we have determined,' Luna replied. 'My sister was the obvious choice to go. She has visited the human ship before, she has developed a relationship with the Imperial commanders, and she stands the best chance of defeating Chrysalis.'

'And if Chrysalis's plan is coming true? If she is gaining strength and power all the time, with every human she comes near to?' Twilight questioned. 'What if she is too strong for Princess Celestia to beat her?'

'Then she will retreat, if it becomes necessary,' Luna assured her. 'My sister is wise; she is not foolish. She knows that even she may have limits when it comes to combat. But if Chrysalis is on board, and we can only assume that she is, then the best chance to defeat her is for my sister to be there, helping the humans to take back their vessel. We have to try, for a vessel of that size and power in the hooves of the Changelings could be the end of Equestria as we know it.'

Twilight nodded. She knew that part to be true, just from the force of a potential impact with the planet if nothing else. They had seen for themselves the destruction that could be unleashed by such an action when the Chaos cruiser had exploded in the atmosphere during the initial invasion. That had not even struck the planet, yet it had still caused a tremendous amount of damage to the eastern coastal plain, according to surveillance reports from the airship EAS Canterlot when it had gone in search of Chrysalis and her Hive. A collision with the planet's surface could be an extinction-level event that would be on a par with any potential asteroid impact.

An asteroid, Twilight knew, could be diverted easily enough with Alicorn magic, no matter how large it might prove to be. Celestia had indeed performed just such a feat on two occasions in her life, and had told Twilight of them both when she was studying advanced astronomy and astrophysics at Celestia's Magic School. Asteroids could be deflected or moved with magic, but a ship was powered; it had engines which could drive it across the stars, between solar systems in an impossibly fast time. There was no guarantee that a ship, fully powered and with collision in mind, could actually be stopped by magic in time. Nor, once the ship reached a certain point, would its destruction by magic be a safe solution. If the ship had entered the atmosphere and made enough headway, then, like the Chaos cruiser, its remains would be spread across the sky like rain, to pummel and pulverise whatever lay below. A city, Canterlot, for example, would be a sitting duck, unless a shield could be raised in time.

'Is there nothing we can do to help?' Twilight asked. She longed for something meaningful and useful to fill her time again, instead of the chore of tending to the civilians. That was not what she was good at, and was why she had left her friends down in the catacombs dealing with them, while she roamed the palace grounds in a desperate search for fulfillment, for something to tell herself that she still had a purpose.

'All we can do right now is to wait, and defend the city if it becomes necessary,' Luna replied to her query with the same response that Twilight had heard several times from her sister. It did nothing to help her mood, nor assuage her fears, even though she knew deep down that Luna was right. Once again, waiting was all they could do.

The main reactor chamber was busy with drones, some in disguise, others not. The human crew had been slaughtered, caught by surprise; they had no comprehension of the fact that Changelings could appear on their deck, in their midst, so far from the reported point of boarding many decks above. Yet appear they had, and they had taken full control of the reactors, the great beating hearts of the Emperor's Judgement that provided both its lifeblood, for powering its internal systems and weaponry, and its motive power, through the monstrous engine nozzles mounted on the rear of the huge craft. Without the reactors, the ship could not function, could not carry out the will of whoever was in command of the vessel.

That was where Celestia appeared, causing just as much surprise as the drones themselves had done. She had been briefed by Captain Marsten on the broad layout of the ship, and where the vital areas were located, including the bridge, though she was already aware of that particular position, as she had visited it herself previously. The reactor chamber was one of the places that Marsten had specifically mentioned, as it was, together with the bridge, one of the two most important locations on board the ship.

The reactor chamber was a cavernous space, the size of several hangar bays combined into one vast area, dominated by the two reactor cores themselves. They throbbed and thrummed with barely restrained power, swirling plasma in vast quantities kept inside by magnetic fields and a thick containment vessel, to be directed and shaped as required. Each one held the power of a small sun inside.

There was now a sun outside the reactors, as well. Celestia went to work immediately, firing off her lightning attack. The drones were caught by surprise, and large numbers of them died immediately. The large space of the reactor room was an advantage for the Princess, enabling her to fly around, stay above the range of enemy shotguns, not that she needed to; her shield kept her safe from the drones, no matter how they tried to attack her. They did what they could, but Celestia was not there to fight them. She was there for an entirely different purpose.

Chrysalis appeared mere seconds into her rampage, alerted by the Hive Mind she shared with her drones the moment Celestia materialised in the chamber. The Queen's pursuit was relentless, as she fully intended to keep control of her ship, the ship she had stolen from right under the noses of the Imperium.

Celestia had other ideas.

She tried to distract Chrysalis with some more of her golden lightning, which scattered the remaining drones, even as more of the creatures began to flood in from the surrounding corridors and passageways to support and aid their Queen. More of them died under the barrage of crackling magic, but others were able to avoid harm, taking to their wings or charging across the deck toward the Princess in a futile effort to strike back at her, or at least to distract her. But her mind was set, focused on what she had to do. She had been informed by Captain Marsten of exactly what the best method of achieving her goal was, and advised that it was the best course of action. When she had teleported away from the bridge, she had momentarily returned to the bridge of the Indefatigable, where Lord-Admiral Marcos had been taken. Made fully aware of the situation, combined with his own experiences, Marcos had agreed with Marsten that there was only one course of action which could be taken at this point.

'Still you run, Celestia!' Chrysalis teased, her tongue hissing angrily as she flitted among the support beams and columns of the reactor room. 'Why not stand and fight? Afraid, hm? You know you will fail, that is why you run!' she shouted.

Celestia did not intend to fight, not at this moment. She knew that Chrysalis was right; she could not defeat the Changeling Queen, not by herself and not with Chrysalis at such a level of power. The Element of Magic would have to be sacrificed; it could not be recovered. At the edge of the chamber, she lowered her horn, fired one long, powerful blast of magic, and teleported away as swiftly as she could.

The magical shot tore through the thick metal pressure vessel that contained the No. 1 reactor core. The protective covering and sheath was designed to protect the reactor against damage, falling debris, fire and blast, even from the explosion of a torpedo warhead inside the reactor room itself. It was not, however, designed to protect it against Alicorn magic, and Celestia's attack ripped through into the boiling, molten interior, where plasma swirled and eddied like a whirlpool in a river of heat and pressure. With a hole in the containment vessel, all of the pressure and power contained within the reactor had a way out, an escape from the molten core.

A blinding flash of white filled the reactor hall, and filled Chrysalis's eyes. She hissed and snarled in anger, having no time to speak before there was another, almost instantaneous flash, and the reactor exploded.

'Captain, power surge!'

The Auspex officer on the bridge of the Indefatigable shouted across the deck, and Marsten was ready with his order.

'Raise shields!'

The battlecruiser's shields went up, and flash traffic was sent to the other ships of the fleet that were close enough to be potentially in harm's way, though all vessels had moved to what was hoped to be a safe distance from the Emperor's judgement at Marcos's command, in anticipation of what was to come. Marcos had taken the responsibility on himself to give the approval for what was now starting to unfold on the viewscreens. As the ship's commander, it was his duty.

His vessel had been lost, completely lost to the enemy. It was overrun with Changelings, untold numbers of them swarming over each deck. They had come on board disguised as flies, hidden away in the transport barges; there could be millions of them, and an effort to recover the ship would result in vast numbers of Imperial casualties. Celestia had said that she could not spare the time and effort to clear the ship herself; she and her sister were needed in Canterlot until all the threats they faced had been defeated. With the ship under enemy control, Marcos had no choice but to move his flag to the Indefatigable, and give the order no captain ever wanted to give.

Celestia had carried it out on his behalf. A tremendous blast ripped through the hull of the aft section, blinding against the black backdrop of space until the viewscreen's polarisation filters kicked in and dimmed the flash. There was another a moment later as the other reactor core went up, and four miles of battleship tore itself apart in a heartbeat, debris spiraling away in all directions, propelled by the force of the blast. Entire decks were totally vapourised, flashed to nothing in a moment by the incredible heat unleashed by the detonations of the two mighty reactors. A second sun appeared in the skies over Equestria as the Emperor's Judgement died, the noble vessel, veteran of a hundred campaigns, finally succumbing to the ravages of battle and the sharp grip of a previously unknown enemy.

'Farewell, old friend,' Marcos muttered. His faithful steed of so many years was finally gone.

'I am sorry it came to this, Admiral.'

Marcos turned away from the viewscreen. Princess Celestia stood behind him on the deck. He had been so caught up in watching his ship die that he had not even heard the pop of displaced air that signaled her arrival, though she stood only a scant few feet away.

'Thank you, Princess...and thank you for your assistance in this matter,' Marcos addressed her with a sincere nod of his head. 'I know you must be eager to return to your city, and to your sister, but I appreciate your help with this...disaster.' Celestia returned the nod of respect, and Marcos turned to speak to the bridge crew.

'Vox, alert the Barnham's Pride and the escort groups. They are to target...'

'My Lord, strange readings in the debris field!' The Auspex officer interrupted him, singing out his warning.

'What kind of readings?' Marcos queried, swinging round to the viewscreen. The remains of the Emperor's Judgement now formed a dead nebula above the planet, millions of tons of twisted metal and blasted ceramite, the graves of potentially thousands of surviving crew and countless Changelings. Countless drones, but not, it seemed, their Queen.

'Heavy concentration of the unknown particle, My Lord,' the Auspex officer called. 'It's pegging the scale out. Can't get an accurate reading.' Marcos stared at the viewscreen, and sure enough, there, floating in the midst of the debris cloud, was a small green bubble. He ordered magnification, and the screen revealed the sickening truth.

The ship had torn itself apart with enough fury to shatter an entire mountain range, to kill any living creature, from this world or the Immaterium, except perhaps a Greater Daemon or one of the living Necron gods. Yet there, amid the sight of such fury and destruction, was Chrysalis, appearing to be none the worse for wear for her experience.

'By the Emperor...that's impossible!' Marsten spat in disbelief. 'Nothing could have survived that!'

'And yet,' Celestia replied, 'it appears that something did.'

Breaking Orbit

'Bring us about!' Lord-Admiral commanded. The Indefatigable answered the helm, its mighty bow swinging to starboard, sweeping through space.

'Signal the Barnham's Pride and the Astra Gloria,' Marcos spoke once more. 'Tell them to bring their lances to bear on the debris field.'

'My Lord, the Polaris Maxima is leaving orbit!' the tactical officer called. Marcos frowned. The Polaris Maxima, according to Chrysalis, was under Changeling control. Marcos had heard the vox call, heard it be answered with nothing but the hissing and shrieking of innumerable Changeling drones, and he knew that she was correct. That was where the attack on the Emperor's Judgement had originated, sending drones over on board the landing barges in disguise as maintenance teams, while hiding thousands upon thousands of Changelings on board in the form of insects and bugs to minimise the space they took up in the cramped barge compartments. He had been about to issue the orders for the cruiser's destruction before the appearance of Chrysalis had distracted him, and now the ship was trying to break orbit and flee.

'Signal the Barnham's Pride and the escorts! Have them engage and pursue the Polaris Maxima. That ship is under Changeling control. They are to pursue and destroy. The Astra Gloria is to remain in position and target the debris field with her lances.'

'Yes, My Lord!' The vox officer rapidly relayed the signals and orders to the ships of the fleet. They were few in number now, and with the flagship gone, their combat power had been greatly reduced. The fact that the Polaris Maxima could no longer be counted among their number was a further blow, and a shock to many of the bridge crew of the Indefatigable when they had learned of it. The loss of the two ships, including the mighty battleship that was the linchpin of the entire fleet, put paid to the Crusade once and for all. They were barely holding their own, and despite Celestia's destruction of the Chaos fleet, the Imperial ships could hardly exert control over the planet any longer even without any enemy vessels being present. They were not even a fleet at all any more, but more of a rag-tag escort force for the transport ships, a mission which, at least, they were still proving to be successful at.

The two cruisers that remained in Imperial hands moved to obey their commander's orders. The Barnham's Pride fired her engines, swinging about. The Polaris Maxima was thousands of miles distant, and had a head start on its pursuers, but the escort squadrons were much faster. The Astra Gloria, meanwhile, turned her broadside toward the debris field that had been the flagship of the fleet. There were two disparate threats that the Imperial ships had to deal with; one was a flight risk, with the potential to carry out Chrysalis's plan of spreading Changelings across the galaxy. The other was a foe of unknown, but vast, power, and a currently unknown intention, now that her commandeered battleship had been destroyed. Would she surrender? Would she flee and board the Polaris Maxima? Would she try and return to the planet? Or would she stand and fight?

The dorsal lance batteries of the Polaris Maxima rotated and flashed their fury back at their pursuers, the bright beams cutting across the void. Most missed their targets, a hallmark of the inexperienced Changeling gun crews, perhaps. They may have inherited the knowledge of their human victims as to the operation of Imperial equipment, but that did not necessarily mean they inherited all of their talent and experience in doing the same thing. They knew the basic mechanics of aiming, charging and firing the lance turrets, but they were no experts in the task.

The shots they did manage to land struck the forward shields of the pursuing vessels. The Barnham's Pride returned fire with its own lance batteries, as the escort destroyers and frigates raced ahead to try and intercept the fleeing cruiser, hoping to get into torpedo range. Marcos's orders were clear; the Polaris Maxima had to suffer the same fate as the flagship of the fleet. The loss of the Emperor's Judgement had been a great shock to the crews, but not totally unexpected. The fact that the ship had been boarded by Changelings was known throughout the fleet, which meant that there was always a chance, however small, that it would have to be abandoned or destroyed as a result if things got too far out of hand. But so far as the rest of the fleet had known, the Polaris Maxima was still one of them, still a friendly vessel, still under Imperial control. To learn that it had been a Changeling vessel for Emperor-knows how long came as a great blow to morale, and a boost to the Changeling's plans of spreading confusion through the ranks. If the Polaris Maxima was a Changeling ship, who was to say that there were not others among the fleet that were also in the possession of the enemy?

The Indefatigable swung around, its lance turrets tracking the target. Chrysalis, somehow, impossibly, unscathed by the monstrous explosion which had annihilated the battleship and left nothing but a field of debris, had to be dealt with. Neither Celestia nor the bridge crew of the Indefatigable knew if she could fight in space effectively, if she could harm the ship with her magic, or if she could teleport through the void shields, but nobody was in the mood to take any chances. Two ships had been lost to the Changelings already; any more would be unacceptable and a complete disaster for the remains of the fleet, to say nothing of the cost in human lives that would result if another vessel had to be destroyed.

'Lances on target, Captain!'

'Starboard batteries report ready, Captain!'

Marsten looked at the Lord-Admiral, who nodded, and he turned to his bridge crew with a simple command.

'Fire!'

Flashes of light and fury erupted from the starboard side of the Indefatigable, while the dorsal spine blazed with lance fire, all targeted on the singular point in space. The targeting mechanisms and cogitators of the battlecruiser, like those of any other ship, were not designed to aim for such a small target. Chrysalis was roughly the size of a single tall man, similar to Celestia, slightly taller than most humans and notably longer as she was quadrupedal, but almost invisible against the blackness, if not for her glowing shield. Even that was not enough to target upon, as she was some thousands of miles from the Indefatigable and only visible on highly zoomed-in vid-pict feeds. The smallest things that a capital ship could realistically target were individual attack craft and torpedoes, but even they could only be effectively engaged by the close-in weapons and point defence systems that studded the exterior hull. The larger macrocannon and lance batteries could strike a general area, but they could not be relied upon to lock onto anything smaller than a pirate skiff or cargo shuttle with any degree of effectiveness whatsoever. The targeting systems had instead been slaved to the Auspex scanners which were detecting the unknown particle; Chrysalis, her horn, to be most specific, was the source of the emissions, and locking onto that source would lock the guns onto her.

And so the bombardment began, pummeling a single tiny point in space with sustained weapons fire. The guns of the Astra Gloria added their weight to proceedings, firing from the other side of the debris field. Heavy plasma bolts, feet-long macrocannon shells, powerful lance blasts and barrages of missiles pounded the remains of the Emperor's Judgement with a heavy and deadly concentration of firepower, enough to rend and tear the shields and hulls of even the galaxy's mightiest warships.

It continued for ninety seconds, as per Marcos's orders, and then it ceased, the guns falling silent. Anxious eyes scanned the viewscreens and the Auspex readouts. The Lord-Admiral, Captain Marsten, and Princess Celestia waited for news, for confirmation.

'My Lord, I am still picking up the anomalous readings!' the Auspex officer shouted.

'Continue barrage, another ninety seconds!' Marcos ordered. 'Have the Nova Cannon readied for firing.'

'Yes, My Lord!' came the reply. The Nova Cannon was the Indefatigable's greatest weapon, the most powerful device fitted to any Imperial warship. The cannon accelerated a heavy projectile to a huge fraction of the speed of light, imparting it with truly vast amounts of kinetic energy. Firing one at the surface of a planet would have the same effect as a medium-sized asteroid impact, causing vast destruction across a wide area. Firing it at a single creature was the equivalent of squashing a spider by dropping a mountain on it.

The Indefatigable's bow swung around again until it was lined up on target. The debris field lay dead ahead. All the while the lances had been blazing away again, as the Lord Admiral had ordered, along with the guns of the Astra Gloria, pounding the target area with as much firepower as they could muster. Now, the Nova Cannon was being brought into play, with the hoped-for objective of ending things once and for all. Celestia could only watch on. She did not know exactly what a Nova Cannon was, but given that it was only now being brought to bear, she imagined it was an extremely powerful weapon that the Lord-Admiral had reason to suspect would be able to finish Chrysalis off where his other weapons had failed.

'Nova Cannon on target and ready to fire, My Lord,' the tactical officer called, drawing a nod from Marcos.

'Fire.'

The impellers spooled up, magnetic and gravometric coils that ran almost the entire length of the battlecruiser's belly accelerating the heavy shell at a steadily increasing pace. By the time it reached the muzzle, it was traveling close to the speed of light, and it crossed the distance between the ship and the target in a fraction of a second. Having passed the safe arming distance, the shell was activated, and milliseconds later, it detonated.

A tremendous fireball filled the void, illuminating the debris field for a mere moment before the flames were snuffed out by the vacuum of space. A strike powerful enough to destroy a ship like that from which it had been fired had been delivered to the target area, a vast explosion many dozens of miles in diameter resulting from the smart time-delay fuse, designed to set the warhead off once it reached the correct distance from the Indefatigable. Aboard the launch vessel, more tense moments passed as the bridge crew and their pony guest awaited confirmation.

'My Lord!' the Auspex officer called. 'I am no longer picking up the unknown particle in the debris field.'

'Confirm with the Astra Gloria!' Marsten replied, as Marcos nodded, nodding slowly. A few moments passed and the vox officer sang out across the bridge.

'The Astra Gloria reports negative readings also, My Lord. The only source they are detecting is aboard this ship.'

'That will be you, then, Princess,' Marcos spoke softly. 'Now, we must catch that ship before it is too late. If they get to warp...'

'It will not matter,' Celestia replied. 'If Chrysalis is dead, then the Changelings aboard that ship will not be able to achieve their aim. Without a Queen, they will be leaderless. The Queen is the nexus of their hive mind,she directs them,gives them orders and purpose. They will not be able to expand across the next solar system, let alone the entire galaxy.'

'Nevertheless, that ship is Imperial property. If it is in enemy hands, then it must be destroyed,' Marcos pointed out.

'Would you not rather recapture it?' Celestia asked. 'I cannot help but notice that your fleet is something of a shadow of its former self.'

Marcos grimaced, but nodded at her perceptive comment. 'I would like nothing more than to retake the ship, Your Highness, but to do so would sap our resources even further. Many men would be lost in the process, with little ultimate justification. It is the same reason why I had to order the destruction of the Emperor's judgement.'

'I understand, Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'With or without their Queen, it would be unwise to allow the Changelings to leave this system.'

'I agree,' Marcos nodded. 'They must not be allowed to spread. They have proven themselves to be an enemy of the Imperium and shall be exterminated.”

'Do you wish me to assist you in its destruction?' Celestia offered. Her prowess with controlling the sun and using it to annihilate enemy ships had been proven several times, and she once again showed she was willing to continue to offer her assistance if it was needed, despite her own responsibilities elsewhere.

'I do not believe your assistance will be necessary, Your Highness, but thank you,' Marcos replied. 'I know you must be eager to return to Canterlot. Fear not, Princess. We shall destroy the vessel, just as we destroyed the Queen.'

The Barnham's Pride was a long-serving cruiser, a true veteran of the Segmentum fleet. Like its commanding officer, Captain Burress, the ship had seen much action in all corners of space, from the Segmentum centre on routine patrol, to the far reaches of the edge of the galaxy, where it found itself now, only one step from interstellar space. It also found itself in one of the more peculiar missions of its long and distinguished career; chasing down an Imperial ship that was attempting to flee to Imperial space, but crewed and controlled by a hostile and previously unknown alien species, who had infiltrated the vessel unbeknownst to the rest of the fleet, taken command, either killed or imprisoned the human crew, and were now trying to flee the planet and spread their filth across the rest of the Imperium.

That could simply not be allowed. The Imperium had enough enemies as it was, beset on all sides by threats. This irritation needed to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible. The Polaris Maxima was heading for the outer system, hoping to reach a safe distance from the planet so they could engage their Immaterium interface drives and jump to warp. The pursuing vessels had a fairly brief window in which to destroy it.

The escorts were pushing ahead, their drives thrumming. They were much faster than the fleeing cruiser, able to overhaul it, but, unless they could land killer blows with their torpedoes, they would be incapable of destroying it. The Barnham's Pride and its lances were the best bet of bringing the Changeling ship to heel. The torpedoes could punch through the shields of the target to strike the hull directly, but they were vulnerable to point defences. The lances could bring down the shields, but it might take time, and time was not on their side. The Polaris Maxima had only to reach a safe distance from the planet and the star to be able to go to warp without fear of potential damage from the gravitational forces of both massive bodies.

Torpedoes fired from the destroyer squadrons formed a swarm as they raced across the void, moving faster than their foe, their heavy plasma and nuclear warheads arming themselves once they were clear of the safe radius from their launch vessels. The rear aspect of the Polaris Maxima had only a few point defences, being mostly dominated by its huge engine exhaust vents and baffles, and several torpedoes were able to get through the shield and smash into the stern of the cruiser. Explosions tore through the hull, knocking out several of the engines, but the Polaris Maxima was still able to move. It was also able to fight, and its lances returned fire, targeting the faster escorts as the Barnham's Pride was still many miles farther astern. One destroyer took heavy damage, knocking out its shields and ripping open several decks, unable to withstand the power of the capital-killer lance beams.

The Barnham's Pride let off another volley of lance shots, striking the aft shields of the fleeing cruiser. They wavered, but they held. Fire from the escorts' macrocannons pattered off of the shield and inflicted further damage to it, but it still held firm. Another spread of torpedoes left the tubes, streaking across toward the target. The point-defence lascannons and missile batteries opened up, destroying most of the incoming projectiles, but again several broke through the last line of defence and struck the stern. More damage was caused to the engines, explosions ripping through the corridors and compartments. Many of the surviving human crew were being kept there by the Changelings, prisoners on their own vessel, and now falling victim to their own comrades in their attempt to stop the ship from leaving the system. Hundreds died with each torpedo impact, immolated in the plasma fires or sucked out into the void, flailing helplessly halfway between the planet and the sun before twitching one final time and becoming lifeless corpses, destined to sail the cosmos for all eternity.

Drones tumbled out with them, however, the intended targets of the Imperial assault meeting the same end as their Queen. More torpedoes smashed into the ship, causing further damage. The engines failed, as did the stern shields, and within moments the Polaris Maxima was dead in space. Now, every weapon her pursuers possessed could be brought to bear effectively. Lances played across her hull, missiles and macrocannon shells peppered the aft sections. Explosions and fires burst into being at numerous points, plasma venting from damaged compartments and shattered feed lines. Inertia carried the ship forward, but it was no longer accelerating, and the Barnham's Pride was now able to close the distance to her.

As the pursuing cruiser drew closer, its main broadside batteries came into range. Captain Burress ordered the ship to swing about and bring its port side to bear on the enemy, not exactly a balletic movement but surprisingly graceful given the size of the ship. The ranks of heavy macrocannons and railguns lined up on target, and each gun fired as the Polaris Maxima entered its firing arc. The stern of the ship was a relatively small target viewed from behind, but the Changelings could no longer manoeuvre their vessel. Desultory defensive fire was spat back at the Barnham's Pride, having little effect on its flank void shields. The escorts swirled around the stranded Changeling ship as it continued to drift forward, taking heavy fire, struck by more torpedoes that ripped through its outer skin to detonate inside inner chambers. Lances flashed silently, aiming for the stern section where the main reactors were located.

The Changelings could do nothing about it. Their ship was disabled, many of their weapons were being picked off by Imperial fire. The surviving lance turrets spat their defiance, striking the bow shields of the Barnham's Pride and stripping away the protective barrier around one of the frigates entirely. They pounced, with every available weapon now turned upon the exposed escort. The fragile vessel could not stand up to the onslaught, and it exploded under the barrage of lances and macrocannons.

The Imperials responded with furious anger at seeing one of their own ships destroyed by this most peculiar enemy, in this most peculiar circumstance. Their heavy attacks continued, smashing the Polaris Maxima and pounding its exterior into fragments. The lances cut through the hull plating like butter, shredding entire strings of compartments. The last of the Changeling lance turrets were knocked out, their barrels sitting idle and useless. The defenceless cruiser continued to be pummelled by mass firepower, more torpedoes blasting into it, until one found the reactors. Though armoured and able to withstand lance strikes, the heavy plasma warhead of the torpedo was enough to crack them open like an egg, and the Changeling controlled ship died in a brilliant double flash, the twin reactors detonating like giant bombs, carrying a great cloud of debris forward on an endless trajectory through space as the light from the blast faded away. Captain Burress reported back over the vox.

'Barnham's Pride calling Indefatigable. Mission accomplished, My Lord.'

The ragged remnants of the decimated Crusade fleet returned to planetary orbit to conduct a thorough search of the debris field which had once been their proud flagship, as Princess Celestia returned to the planet below. Twilight and Luna were anxiously awaiting her arrival, and both were glad to see her back safe and sound in Canterlot after her sojourn to space. They were even more glad to hear what she had to say; both Changeling controlled ships had been destroyed, along with all their occupants. That, at least, was one less threat they would have to worry about in the future.

Twilight, once again, felt a sense of unease mixed in with her relief at the return of Celestia and the defeat of Chrysalis. Her mentor, her Princess, had carried out the destruction of the flagship herself; so she had said, freely admitting it, no less. The deaths of the Changelings did not upset her; she held no affection or consideration for them after what they had done to Equestria in the past. But there were humans on that ship as well, unknown thousands of them, perhaps more. They must have all perished as well, at Celestia's hoof, no less.

There had been no talk of an evacuation of the ship; Celestia had not mentioned it, and nor had anypony else. The ship must have had a vast crew, and how many of them were still alive when the ship was destroyed, Twilight could only guess at. Perhaps they were all already dead, if every single deck had been in possession of the Changeling boarders. Or perhaps thousands of them had been awaiting rescue, for their own kind to counter-board the ship and retake it, freeing them. Instead of salvation, they met their deaths.

But it had not been Celestia's decision. She said that Lord-Admiral Marcos had issued the order himself. He was the commander of the Imperial fleet, of their entire force here on and around this planet. It was his call to make, and he had made it. But for whatever reason, he had chosen Celestia to carry it out, and she had willingly accepted the task, destroying the Imperial flagship from within when it became clear that nothing else could be done. To recapture the ship would have been too costly, the Lord-Admiral had decided. They would lose too many more men taking it back, and he could not justify it. So instead, it had to be destroyed. That was a fair and understandable choice to make; but why did it have to fall to Celestia? Why could the rest of the human fleet not have destroyed the ship instead?

Again, Twilight did not know. She wanted to ask the Princess and find out. There was so much she wanted to ask, but though Celestia had returned to Canterlot, that did not mean that she was no longer busy. Almost immediately upon her arrival she was off again, in conversation with Princess Luna about some important matter or other. Twilight knew that Celestia was not ignoring her, but simply had other tasks to attend to, but she still felt like she had to talk with her mentor.

She waited for a moment when the Princess was free. She had many things to ask, and she approached her.

'Princess Celestia, do you have a minute to talk?' she asked.

'Twilight. Yes, of course,' Celestia replied. 'What is on your mind?'

'So much, Princess...' Twilight sighed. 'There's so much on my mind, so much I need to ask you.'

'It may have to wait...' Celestia glanced over Twilight's shoulder. A guardspony was hurrying down the throne room toward her, with the human liaison team in tow.

'Your Highness!' he called. 'Message from Imperial ground command!' Celestia took the vox handset with her magic once Atter and Mons arrived.

'This is Princess Celestia.'

'Princess, this is Commissar Birbeck,' came the voice over the box. 'Be advised, you have bandits inbound on your position. Ground and air forces from the south. Copy?'

'I copy, Commissar,' Celestia replied. 'How many?'

'If I wasted time counting them all, then they'd be on top of you,' Birbeck grunted. 'They bypassed our line...don't ask me how, because I don't know. Just get ready for a fight.'

'Understood, Commissar,' Celestia answered grimly. 'We will be ready.'

Besieged

Twilight's questions would once again have to be put on hold, to stew and fester in her mind. There were more important things to be thinking about right now, both for the Princess and for herself. The enemy were coming for them yet again.

At Celestia's direction, Twilight had once more retreated to the catacombs, to assist and calm the rest of the civilians, much to her evident discomfort. She had done as commanded, however, not wanting to let her mentor down, yet suffering much anguish over the decision to relegate her to the sidelines yet again. Celestia had been unable to retrieve the Element of Magic from Chrysalis, and now she was dead, and presumably, the Element was gone for good.

Canterlot, at least, was no longer as defenceless as it had become after the last enemy attack. Imperial reinforcements, requested by Celestia over the vox net, had arrived in the city, several companies of infantry and armoured vehicles, mostly troop carriers but with some tanks mixed in, reaching Canterlot in the late afternoon. Not long after that, dropships and shuttles brought in significant numbers of other troops to bolster the defences. This second wave came at the behest of General Jahn. With the Imperial fleet back in orbit, he and Lord-Admiral Marcos had been able to once again communicate with their ground forces, and order Commissar Birbeck to work with and support the pony forces to defend the city, despite his reluctance to help Xenos forces. Begrudgingly, Birbeck had conceded that there was a value to continuing pony assistance in their campaign to defeat the Archenemy, notably the support of the Princess, and had agreed to commit more men to defending the capital.

Infantry had been deployed to support the Royal Guard along the perimeter walls, setting up heavy weapons to support the pony rifles and field guns. The armoured vehicles of the Imperial Guard were positioned at openings in the curtain wall; at the main gate, and at several points where holes had been blasted in the thick stone structure. Sandbagged berms had been rapidly constructed for protection. More Imperial troops had been positioned around the palace and other key points. Some had been part of the initial operation to recapture Canterlot, some weeks previous. They knew the city, at least broadly, and that was why they had been chosen.

In addition to the Imperial forces, pony troops had arrived from Vanhoover and Las Pegasus via transport airship transfer. Several thousand fresh Guardsponies and Army infantry had been delivered to the city, to defend their capital against Chaos aggression. They, too, had been inserted into the perimeter defences, as well as shoring up weak spots throughout the city and protecting the palace. The city was in much better fighting shape than it had been the last time the enemy struck at it, with far more firepower and more bodies to be thrown into the line if needed. That did not, however, mean that it was safe from attack.

The Imperial forces, theoretically, should have kept any land attack out of the vicinity of Canterlot. They occupied a line to the south of the city, which was between Canterlot and Fillydelphia, which was where the bulk of the surviving Chaos troops were located. That line was meant to stretch the full width of the valley, from one rocky, mountainous side to the other, an unbroken chain of defence. Yet somehow, the enemy had slipped past them, and were now on their way to the capital once more. Birbeck had no answers, or at least none he was willing to admit to. Perhaps the Imperial Guard had been caught napping, or perhaps they were not actually holding a full defensive line like they were supposed to be.

At the time of the initial detection of the first movements among the Chaos troops, the Imperial fleet had not been in orbit, still kept at bay by the Chaos vessels. Under the protection of their own ships, such a move made great tactical sense; obstacles in their path could be bombarded from above, clearing out stubborn Imperial positions and carving a way through to Canterlot. It would also shield them from Imperial assets trying to do the same thing. Now, however, the opposite was true. The remnants of the Imperial fleet were now back in orbit and in possession of the high ground, and while their ranks had been thinned, the Indefatigable at least was still in a position to provide some support from orbit if needed. The Chaos forces, however, were getting too close to Canterlot for indiscriminate fire. Not only had they bypassed the Imperial line, they had made almost impossible progress toward the city.

The pony airships above the city quickly relayed reports down to their Princess; they had visual contact on both air and ground forces, closing rapidly. Their shields sprang up as they turned they broadsides toward the incoming hostile aircraft, ready to engage. The city shield burst into life a moment later, this time with Luna providing the power for it, in the hope that her magic might make the difference between allowing the enemy through and keeping them well and truly at bay. Ponies and Imperial infantry on the walls crouched down, rifles and lasguns aimed over the parapets. Anti-air guns and Hydra mobile AA vehicles raised their barrels to the sky in anticipation of a plethora of targets that might be in their sights at any moment. Field guns and tank cannons took aim at the approach road up the mountainside, waiting for the first enemy vehicle to come into view.

As they waited, a strange sense of unease came across many of the defenders. A malaise, creeping into their minds, scratching at their brains, telling them that something was wrong. And something was indeed wrong.

The sky darkened noticeably, and the city shield shivered and shimmered as though someone had cast a stone into a pond. Then, just like before, a hole opened up in the shield, but not only did a gash appear in the protective dome, but one also appeared in reality itself.

Just above the city, inside the shield, a horrific purple and red tear was opening up in the air, the fabric of the material plane being ripped open from the other side. Through it came a mass of small Daemons, winged and disc-like entities. There was a bright flash of light, and something else appeared; a terrible creature, unknown to most of the ponies and the human soldiers, but recognised at once by Princess Celestia.

Malaranth the Infinite manifested itself above the city, surveying Canterlot from on high, in pursuit of its latest conquest. Fillydelphia had been taken by Chaos, and now its sights were firmly set on the capital. Hostile aircraft swept through the hole in the shield, while on the road outside the city, ground forces now advanced toward another hole which had been opened around the main gate area.

In a moment, pony plans for defence had been thrown completely out of order. There were enemies inside the shield, and more enemies coming in from the outside. Troops had to be repositioned to meet the new threat, and enemy troops would likely soon be landing from dropships as well. That was something which had been planned for and expected, and there were pony and Imperial troops stationed throughout the city, not just at the curtain wall. They would soon find themselves coming under attack.

Celestia had feared that the Daemon would not be content to sit in Fillydelphia forever, given that it seemed to have an agenda to pursue. She had expected that, if it was not destroyed, it would come, and now it had. With the enemy, through the Daemon or the Sorcerer Lord's powers, had broken through the shield, even though it was Luna's this time and not Cadence's. She ordered her sister to drop the shield, as it made no difference any longer. Luna would be needed on the frontline this time, and so would Cadence. This was no exploratory attack, no reconnaissance in force like the last attack ultimately seemed to be. This was the commitment of the bulk of the remaining Chaos forces on the planet. They were set for an endgame here. Their ships were gone, their fleet annihilated. They had lost control of every city they had captured other than Fillydelphia, and the Imperial fleet was back in orbit and able to threaten or destroy them from above. They had nothing else to lose.

And so they came, the city shield dropping as Luna ended her spell and prepared to fight alongside her sister once more. Gunfire began to ring out across the city as the roar of jets overhead drowned out almost all other sound. Enemy fighters and bombers were streaking past, being engaged by the trio of airships and the ground-based guns. The Hydra batteries of the Imperial Guard poured deadly torrents of fire skyward, bringing down several of the slower, lumbering ground attack aircraft. The more agile fighters drew some fire, but were able to avoid the streams of bullets and shells. The torrent of smaller Daemons also attracted gunfire, killing some of the foul creatures as they burst into puffs of warp matter and ichor.

There was no panic among the defenders, at least not in the way the forces of Chaos might have wished. They had already fought off one attack, albeit without Daemons. The presence of the creatures of the Immaterium terrified many hardened Guardsmen and caused much confusion among the ponies, but they did not panic outright. The ponies knew that their Princesses were near; Celestia would protect them, as she always did. The humans knew that their ships were in orbit, ready to provide support, with large numbers of fresh Guardsmen ready for deployment as reinforcements if needed. Many of them also, perhaps, had some small amount of faith, however heretical it may be, in Celestia. Those that had seen her fight before, in Manehattan, Fillydelphia or elsewhere, knew her power, ably demonstrated every time she took to the field of battle. Unlike human psykers, she also seemed to be immune to the powers of the warp and the denizens who dwelled within it, a further boost to her profile in their eyes.

The heavy guns of the EAS Luna roared into action, sending an arcing broadside of shells into the Daemon, Malaranth. They detonated against its flesh, but had no visible effect. The lesser Daemons swarmed and swirled through the streets, seeking targets for their violence. There were no civilians on the surface, however, and what they did find was ponies and men alike with loaded weapons. Combat erupted all across the city as Daemon clashed with defender, warp energy and bullets criss-crossing the streets, smashing windows and gouging holes in the wood and stone of the buildings. The city had already taken heavy damage in previous attacks, and this latest assault threatened to inflict even more. Equestrian history was being written, but was also being destroyed, and ancient buildings and preserved monuments took hits from bombs that rained down from enemy aircraft. The pony airships could only attack so many targets at once, and the Hydra batteries had their firing arcs limited by the spires and rooftops of Canterlot.

Outside the main gate, the first Chaos thrust was blunted by accurate cannon fire from a quartet of Leman Russ tanks, located in flanking positions alongside the roadway and the damaged outer wall. Half a dozen Chaos tanks were knocked out, slewing to a stop on the steep track that led up to the gate. Several infantry carriers were destroyed as well, and pony field guns were able to engage the dismounted soldiers, their high explosive shells causing numerous casualties as men scrambled for what limited cover was available, only finding safety behind the wrecks of their destroyed vehicles and an occasional boulder. Desultory las-fire spat at the city wall in response, while the surviving Chaos tanks opened up with their cannons, but they had too many targets to hit at once. There were the Leman Russ tanks, pony field guns, human missile and lascannon teams atop the wall. Two more tanks were knocked out, threatening to clog up the roadway entirely and preclude any more attempts to assault the city by land.

With the land assault already bogging down rapidly, two Chaos ground attack jets swung around to assist. They flew through the confusing storm of bullets, las-fire and magic, looping around across the valley before turning back in toward the main gate. The air defence battery on the city wall gave an alarm and brought their guns to bear, the rapid fire pony guns chattering away, throwing up strings of black puffs as shells burst around the incoming aircraft. Rockets left their underwing pods, and men and ponies dived for cover, shrapnel raining down on them as chunks of masonry and stone tumbled from the great structure. The aircraft roared overhead and out across the city, making a sharp left turn around the palace towers, where more fire stabbed out at them. Another circle brought them back round on an attack run, and the anti-air guns fired once more, striking one aircraft as it was about to release its payload of bombs. The shells cut through the cockpit armour and ripped the pilot to pieces, smashing the controls and igniting a fire inside. The second jet dropped its bombs, which detonated outside the wall, pounding one of the Leman Russ tanks and killing its crew with the concussion from the blasts. That jet raced by overhead, afterburners flaring as it carried itself clear of the city.

The other jet, however, had nobody at the controls. The pilot was dead, and its last trajectory before he died had put it on course straight for the wall, which had been its target. There were shouts of alarm and dismay from the defenders, who tried to scatter, to flee the inevitable. Those farther down the line and not in the danger zone could only watch in anguish and horror. Men flung themselves to the side and Pegasi flapped desperately into the air to escape. The screaming of the twin engines reached fever pitch the moment before the jet slammed into the thick curtain wall. Its unspent bombs detonated, as did its fuel tanks, and a great blast shook the southern side of the city. Smoke and flame rose high into the air, mushrooming up from the crash site. Men rushed into the carnage, pulling their fellows to safety, while some of the Pegasi used their powerful wing beats to clear the smoke away, pushing it out across the approach road so that, as well as improving their visibility for rescue operations, it also obscured the vision of the approaching enemy. There were shouts for medics, for more guns to the wall, for the engineers to check the stability of the structure.

The wall itself was ancient and had withstood much over the years, from historical siege artillery hurling heavy boulders up to modern field guns and their explosive shells. The sheer kinetic energy of the aircraft and its exploding bombs, however, was too much for the section which had been directly struck, and a portion of the wall some thirty feet across had simply slumped down and collapsed outward, spilling stone and cement out onto the road beyond the gate. It was not a catastrophic breach, but it did offer an easy access route for any enemy units that could make it up the mountain. There were bodies, too, some crushed beneath tons of rubble, others resting broken and twisted atop the collapsed section. Some were still on the wall, badly mangled by blast or scorched by flame. Rivulets of burning aviation fuel trickled across the stone-flagged walltop. Buckets of sand were poured over it where possible, such equipment being provided every few dozen feet along the wall in case of fire, though they had seen very rare use given that most of the wall was of masonry construction.

With the wounded being pulled clear, action had to turn once again to defence. The tanks outside of the wall were still firing, and the enemy was still advancing. The fight for the gate was far from over, and the fight for the city was just beginning.

Princess Celestia knew that she, and the Imperials, had been taken by surprise. Another attack had been expected, yes, but not so soon, and not using both ground and air forces, not without proper warning. The Imperial defence line to the south was meant to have stopped just such a thing from happening, to halt the enemy or at the very least delay them and send warning to friendly positions farther north, including Canterlot. The return of the Imperial fleet to orbit was supposed to have precluded such attacks altogether, yet here the enemy were, and not just attacking from without, but from within also. Daemonic manifestation evidently held no respect for the sacrosanct ground of Canterlot, the home of the Princesses. The creatures seemed able to appear wherever they wished, perhaps summoned by Malaranth, their evident superior, or by Parthax. The cause did not matter, only the effect, and the effect was that the capital, her capital, was in danger once more.

With her sister by her side, Celestia took to the air, leaving the palace and rising above the rooftops of Canterlot. It was madness, a sea of violence and noise. There were jets overhead, airship cannons roaring, strings of tracer rounds rising from the city streets, blasts of stray magic racing away into the sky, the thud of explosions and the staccato chatter of rapid-fire guns. Canterlot was historically no stranger to violence, despite its secluded location, but until the invasion, this kind of warfare had been confined to elsewhere in Equestria. This was death on an industrial scale that the capital had been spared until a few months ago. The city might never be its old self again; the damage was extensive, and would no doubt get worse before this latest fight was over. Many of its citizens were dead and gone, and they could never be replaced. No memorial or monument would ever be sufficient to express the magnitude of suffering which had been unleashed upon the land by this terrible foe. No statue in the palace gardens could immortalise the thousands upon thousands of honoured dead, those ponies who laid down their lives for their land and for their Princess.

That was why they had to be avenged, instead. These invaders had to be defeated once and for all, driven from Equestria, from this planet, and from this plane of existence, back to whatever other dimension they called home. The Warp, in Imperial parlance, or the Empyrean, or the Immaterium. The humans had many names for it, but what it should truthfully be named was Tartarus, a holding area and prison for all of the worst scum of the universe, for abominations most foul who lusted for nothing but blood and power and death. Creatures that made mad King Sombra and his rule of slavery seem tame in comparison. Even Chrysalis had goals of progress and success for her race, and while she may have used every underhand trick in the book to try and achieve them, she did not conduct her wars in the same base, carnal way as these Daemons and their lackeys. It was death they sought, and here in Canterlot, it was death they would find.

Celestia and Luna rose higher. There were many targets for them to deal with. Aircraft, infantry, dropships, tanks, Daemons. But the primary concern had to be Malaranth, floating above the city as if it was waiting for the Princesses to join it. Its power made it the greatest threat to the city, with the possible exception of Parthax the Infidel, whose personal strength and abilities were still not fully known, even by Celestia, who had engaged in combat with him. Parthax, however, was not floating above the city like a beacon. Malaranth was.

'Greetings once more, Princess Celestia,' Malaranth addressed her in its smooth, silken voice that completely belied its huge size and intimidating appearance. 'It is a pleasure to see you again. And to you as well, Princess Luna. Two royal sisters of such immense power...my, my. I can taste it, you know. Your power, your...magic, you call it? Yes. Two beings such as yourselves are most intriguing.'

'Intriguing? You treat us like a scientific experiment,' Celestia answered.

'Well, perhaps that is the case.' Malaranth chuckled. 'You are certainly deserving of study. Quite the anomaly. Beings of such power as yourselves must have a presence in the warp, and yet you do not. That is most puzzling, not just for myself, but the Imperials also. Why do you think they showed such interest in this planet?'

'It does not matter why they came here,' Luna responded. 'Nor does it matter why you are here. What matters is what you have done. There can be no future for you here except for your death. That is the only reward for such brutality.'

'Princess, I'm hurt,' Malaranth replied. 'I have done nothing to your city; not yet. I have only just arrived here myself. What happened to your city before today was not my doing.'

'Perhaps not, but it happened because of your followers,' Celestia pointed out. 'They sought to summon you and your kind to come to their aid, no?'

'Indeed so, Princess. But regardless, I am not here to fight,' Malaranth spoke once more. 'I am here to make you an offer. We, that is, my god, the Changer of Ways, desires the knowledge of how exactly you and your powers work. You see, human psykers who possess similar powers to yourselves are vulnerable to the warp, for they leave a psychic imprint upon it, as do almost all living creatures. You and your kind are among the few exceptions. We desire to learn how that is possible. That is exactly what the Imperials want to know, as well, for they believe they can use it to their advantage, to retro-engineer some way of adapting your abilities to insulate their own kind against Chaos. They want to use you as lab rats. To dissect you, to cut you open and rummage inside you until they find what they are looking for, until they find their answers. They will kill you for your secrets, Princess. Both of you. Have no doubt of that. That is what they do, for it is only through such desperate acts that the Imperium survives against the rest of the universe.'

'And what exactly do you want to do with us?' Luna asked angrily. 'We have seen what you have done to our world. We have heard from the Imperials what you have done elsewhere. Are you truly asking us to believe that you would not do the same, or worse, to us, if we gave you the chance?'

'Yes, Princess, for we would not condemn you to death on some cold metal slab in a laboratory,' Malaranth answered. 'We do not make you this offer to deceive you. We do not make this offer so that we can dissect you. We make you this offer so that you may fight alongside us, to join our ranks and truly prosper. Why condemn yourselves to ruling over a single kingdom? You could control entire sectors of space. My lord can grant you further powers, enhance your already prodigious strengths. You could truly become the gods you were born to be.'

Celestia and Luna exchanged a single glance. A meaningful glance, between two sisters who, despite, or perhaps because of, what they had gone through together down the centuries, loved each other deeply, more than anything else in the universe, more than their power, more than their titles, more, even, than their citizens. Together, they turned back to face Malaranth. Together, they lowered their horns. And together, they fired.

Streets Of Rage

The enemy was coming again, waves of armoured vehicles making the climb up the winding mountain road toward the gates of Canterlot. The trio of surviving Leman Russ tanks protecting the city wall continued to fire, targeting the incoming vehicles with their armour-piercing rounds. Despite the damage to the city wall, the Imperials had relocated and continued to operate a pair of lascannons from atop it, as well as man-portable missile launchers, all set up to engage enemy armour and protect the approaches. There were soldiers out there, too, and the small arms of both ponies and men were called into action to keep them at bay. There was a hole in the wall, and if the enemy infantry could reach it, they might be able to force a breach. If they could force a breach through the rubble-strewn and smoking hole, then they could potentially open the gate from within and allow the enemy vehicles through into the streets of the city.

Allowing tanks to rumble freely around the city could be the death knell for Canterlot, already besieged and under heavy assault from above and from within. The Imperial commander in the city, Major Barritt, who had arrived with the initial set of reinforcements called for from the main western landing zone, had set up his headquarters in the palace to co-locate with the pony command centre also situated there. The defence of the city had to be co-ordinated, or it could fall completely. The defenders, while not exactly taken by surprise by another attack coming in, had been wrong-footed by the speed of it, and the fact that enemies had materialised inside the city walls, as well as attacking from without. Barritt knew that the Princesses were dealing with the Daemons, or at least with their leader, as best they could. He had to co-operate with the pony commander, Shining Armour, to direct their forces to defend key points, take back captured districts, and hold a strong line, to not allow the enemy ground forces to link up with their airborne allies. Chaos infantry were being dropped all across the city, dropships and shuttles settling down on rooftops and open spaces, disgorging their cargo, and taking off again, defensive guns spitting las-fire. Anti-air positions brought down several of them, but the majority were able to make their drops successfully, supported by ground attack aircraft that attempted to suppress the air defences and give their transports a clear run.

The two commanders had agreed on a basic strategy. There were more ponies than Guardsmen in the city, but the ponies lacked heavy portable firepower, other than their magic, and they also lacked proper communications equipment. As a result, Barritt and Shining Armour had agreed to attach at least one Imperial squad to every pony platoon, so that the ponies, the bulk of the city's defenders, could be properly coordinated and directed from HQ, with orders issued through the vox sets carried by every squad of Guardsmen. That caused some resentment and confusion among the Imperials who had never fought alongside the ponies before, but some of their number were drawn from units which had fought to recapture Canterlot from the Chaos occupying forces, and thus had experience of working with the Equestrian military forces in a cooperative effort. They had been sent for that very reason, to help with coordination and interoperability between the two forces, who used completely disparate equipment, methods of communication, weaponry and tactics.

Corporal Breeze was among the ponies to be assigned to work in direct cooperation with some of the Imperial forces. Fresh from his previous encounters with the Chaos enemy during the last attack, the young NCO and what had become his unit had been chosen, folded in with an understrength platoon, and found a human squad of Imperial Guard attached to their Royal Guard unit. Already their communications gear had proven its worth, allowing them to receive rapid orders from city headquarters to move to the corner of 5th Street and Baltimare Avenue and take up defensive positions around the hospital building there. Other units were also directed in from elsewhere, with the intention of forestalling an enemy push from the public park where numerous enemy dropships had landed. Their likely target was the palace, and the hospital lay in between the two. Several units had already been stationed there, as it was a good point to fortify and a sizeable building with good fields of fire, but now reinforcements, including Breeze's unit, were being rushed there to support the defences.

While the fog of war was lifted somewhat for the ponies by having instant communication with headquarters, thanks to the vox set their human allies carried, that was not enough to compensate for the scale of the fighting that was erupting all around them. There were jets roaring by overhead, explosions in the distance, crackling gunfire. There were shouts of dismay and anger on the vox, from human infantry requesting reinforcements, calling out enemy locations, asking for air support or mortar fire. The city was well and truly under siege by the enemy, and not just from the air like in the last attack. Knowing their capital was being besieged again lent renewed purpose to the ponies, filling their hearts with a sense of righteous anger. This was holy ground. This was Celestia's home, and they would fight for every inch of it, as they had done every time danger threatened.

The hospital was a squat, modern building, concrete and glass and metal, quite a contrast with the old historic buildings around it, though one wing, the original and much smaller Smallpox Hospital of Canterlot, was constructed of brick and wood. The structure dominated the intersection, occupying the southwestern corner of the junction of 5th Street and Baltimare Avenue. The two streets were already littered with debris from previous attacks, with several of the hospital's neighbouring buildings having been struck by bombs or shells and either partially or completely destroyed. There were broken structural members, roof crossbeams, tiles, brick, masonry and glass strewn across the junction and the roads that led off of it.

Being a key location, a single Imperial tank had been assigned to the hospital's defence, in addition to the infantry provided. The Leman Russ idled on the street that placed it between the hospital and the palace, nestled in behind a small but substantial mount of brick debris from a collapsed shop that had spilled out across the road like a landslide, and now offered some concealment and, hopefully, cover for the tank, taking the edge off of any incoming armour-piercing rounds and potentially detonating lascannon fire and missiles before impact with the vehicle itself. The tank was hull-down behind the mound, meaning its turret and its main cannon could still engage targets, though its sponson-mounted heavy bolters could not.

Corporal Breeze had never been up close and personal with such a mechanical beast before, and it both impressed and scared him. It looked so impersonal; just cold metal, though he knew that there were men inside it who would fire the guns and make the tracks turn. The machine belched out smoke when in motion, but while idling, its engine note dropped to a low throbbing rumble, with nothing from the exhausts except a heat haze that distorted the air above the twin vent stacks at the rear of the vehicle. The turret-mounted cannon was surprisingly short and stubby; what Breeze knew about artillery ballistics told him that a longer barrel generally meant a higher muzzle velocity and greater range. What this tank seemed to be mounting was more akin to a field howitzer fielded by the Equestrian Army. Its other weapons seemed even more alien and deadly to him. The two side-mounted guns reminded him of the repeating anti-air cannons and machine-cannons mounted on airships and ground facilities by Equestrian troops, but with some kind of belt feed system, rather than the box magazines the ponies used on their similar weapons. The gun on the front of the hull looked like nothing else he had seen up close, with slatted grooves and vents, suggesting it produced a tremendous amount of heat rather rapidly during firing that required dissipating. Equestrian machine-cannons had small enough magazines that heat buildup was not a major problem, while the anti-air cannons were fitted with water-cooled jackets that went around the barrel for just such a purpose.

All in all, the war machine left Breeze feeling that he was very glad it was on their side, though reports over the human communications system- the vox, it was apparently called- indicated that the enemy had similar vehicles, known as tanks, outside the walls. Breeze hoped they did not make it inside. They had enough to deal with as it was. There were infantry coming in, and that was what the defenders had to concern themselves with. That, and the enemy air forces, which consisted not just of jets and dropships, but also Daemons.

Breeze tried not to look up too often, for the sky was filled with terror. There was the potential for a jet to come swooping down, as it had before just outside the palace walls, where he and the rest of his unit had been spared death by the quick thinking of the unicorn Captain. But there, high above, was also a fight unfolding on an altogether more momentous scale. Princess Celestia and her sister were engaged in combat with some kind of huge birdlike snake monster. When Breeze had first laid eyes upon it, he had been convinced that Discord had returned, such was the resemblance it bore to the Draconequus from a distance. On closer inspection, though looking at it for more than a few seconds made him feel nauseous, it became apparent that it was not the Lord of Chaos and former ruler of Equestria, but merely some creature with rather similar features. It must be, he reasoned, what Celestia had been fighting down in Fillydelphia. The details of that event had not been widely disseminated around Canterlot, but some facts had trickled down. Celestia had gone to Fillydelphia because a human attack on the city with the intent to recapture it had broken down due to the arrival of a monstrous creature. The Princess had fought the thing to a standstill. That was all that Breeze had heard, and while it was possible that it was all lies or incomplete information, the arrival of this thing above the capital strongly suggested that it may have been the creature in question which Celestia had been engaged with.

Now she was fighting it again, along with Princess Luna. Both royal sisters were swirling around, teleporting in and out of the area, and lighting up the sky with blasts and flashes of magic. Deep booms rolled across the city as stray magic struck the ground. Breeze had no idea what the creature was capable of, but he knew what the Princesses could do, and they were demonstrating it once again in the skies above their home city. If the Daemon truly was a great threat, then it was likely that only the Princesses could protect the rest of them from it. While it warmed Breeze's heart to see his leaders putting their lives on the line for their citizens, he could not help but feel some small amount of fear; what if they failed? What if the creature was more powerful than they were? What if things did not go the way that Celestia planned?

Even apart from the winged thing they were fighting, there were still many other enemies that needed defeating before Canterlot could be safe. They had Imperial help, yes, and that was very much appreciated, especially by those who had seen the humans fight before, but the city was understaffed before, and it was still understaffed now. There were simply not enough troops in Canterlot to ensure a full and effective defence of every quarter, every neighbourhood and every street. That was why they were being concentrated at key points, such as the hospital.

Breeze and his unit were ushered into the hospital's maternity ward, which directly overlooked the crossroads. Breeze climbed the stairs with his rifle in his hooves, up to the fourth floor. There were several rooms that had windows out onto the junction. The humans already had several heavy weapons set up on lower levels; missiles launchers on the corner, and a single lascannon partway down the line, aimed at the other side of the street.

Breeze's platoon moved in and took up positions along the string of patients' rooms, looking out over the street. There were good sight lines across the road toward the park where the Chaos troops had landed. Even now, more dropships were swinging in, setting down in the park for a few seconds before taking to the air again, their passengers delivered along with their weapons and equipment. It may have been the last roll of the dice for the Chaos occupying forces, but it was far from a futile effort. They clearly still had plentiful numbers of infantry, to say nothing of the Daemons. Breeze didn't know how many tanks and other forces the enemy had outside of the city, but if it was anything like the numbers that seemed to be landing inside it, then Canterlot was certainly in a lot of potential trouble.

At the direction of the platoon's Lieutenant, Breeze and his section were directed to occupy two of the patient rooms near the corner of the building. The rooms were connected by an interior door, allowing passage directly between them. Most of the windows had been blown out by previous explosions, and the remaining glass was knocked out by rifle butts as ponies positioned themselves, crouching down with their weapons aimed out of the windows, keeping the crossroads covered. Not only was the landing area in the park a threat to the palace, but the main city gate was not too far away, and any enemy force which broke through from the outside would likely spread out to try and encircle the palace as best they could, which could bring them down to this crossroads, too.

Gunfire was crackling from the vicinity of the park. There were friendly elements in contact who had been defending the park, a company of human infantry and a battery of Equestrian field artillery. The effectiveness of the pony guns was made evident by the two smoke plumes rising from the park that represented the funeral pyres of a pair of dropships which had been struck by shells as they attempted to make their approaches. What had become of the artillery since, however, was unknown, but no more dropships had been shot down and they seemed to be having no difficulty in making their landings any longer. The force at the park had reported over the vox that they were in danger of being overrun, and had called for reinforcements, but no forces could safely reach them without leaving either the city wall or the palace perimeter dangerously exposed. The best that could be offered by Major Barritt and Shining Armour was to reinforce the backstop position at the hospital crossroads and allow the force at the park to fall back to it. That was exactly what was planned, and what was now being carried out.

Breeze kept a watchful eye over his ponies, and also over the crossroads. He wondered if the enemy knew they were there; if they did, then the defenders could expect bombs to rain down on them at any time, just like the last attack. He remembered vividly the destruction of the city headquarters at the library, being covered in brick dust and debris. He remembered the last-ditch save made by the unicorn Captain, to protect the defensive position at the palace walls from an air strike. Breeze had developed a strong hatred of enemy aircraft, and not without good reason. He hoped that they would not draw the attention or the ire of the enemy flyers again.

At least they had plenty of other targets, including Imperial vehicles, the pony airships, and the anti-air weaponry which would threaten their own survival. The palace itself was now under Cadence's shield; while it was always possible the enemy could force a breach in it the way they had done so twice with the city shield, they had not yet shown the ability to shut down the shield or the magic powering it entirely. It was deemed prudent to keep the palace protected from enemy bombing or artillery since the command of the whole defensive operation was being conducted from there, as well as it being the location of the civilians, huddled in fear in the catacombs below.

'Contact!'

Breeze looked down the street as the shout was repeated. 'Contact, front! 500 yards!'

He sighted in with his rifle. There were indeed figures on the move. The human vox operator, stationed in the hospital corridor behind the patient rooms, called out. 'Friendlies incoming from the front, check fire!' The cry was relayed along the line, to every unit guarding the crossroads. The troops defending the park were on the move, pulling back as per the plan. Breeze took out his binoculars and peered through them. There were human troops, Imperial Guardsmen moving at a steady pace, though looking weary. More than that, they looked bedraggled; some were missing their helmets, while a few were even lacking their weapons. Many had wounds, blood smeared on their uniforms or on their faces. Clearly they had been through a fight, and it was a fight that was now heading for the hospital.

A company of Imperial Guard should have had somewhere between eighty and two hundred members, depending on the Regiment and type of unit they were from. There were only a few dozen coming back down the street. Of the pony gunners, there was almost no sign, save for four earth ponies running alongside the humans. Evidently the defenders had taken heavy casualties in the fight for the park, and while they had ultimately lost control of it to the enemy, nobody could accuse them of having surrendered possession easily. They had fought to buy time, if nothing else, for the main line of defence around the palace to be strengthened, which was exactly why Breeze's unit had been moved up. The hospital's defenders would now be further bolstered by the remnants of the force from the park.

The main hospital block was not the only building occupied. The ruin which was providing cover for the tank had heavy weapons teams located among the rubble, while the buildings on the other side of the street, mostly specialised hospital departments and nursing accommodation, also had small units on their upper floors which overlooked the junction. It was hoped that the first enemy units could be lured into the killzone, and then the rest of them kept at bay. Road junctions to the left and right of their position were also covered, forming a great semicircle of defences around the palace, with the rear wall of the complex also forming the edge of the city, preventing the palace from ever being truly surrounded by ground forces. An inner cordon around the palace complex provided a second line of defence if the first should be breached.

With the bedraggled survivors coming into the fold, Corporal Breeze returned his attention to the street ahead. The building on the corner opposite, a six storey housing block for nurses and trainees, obscured his complete vision of the road that led to the park, but he could see a fair distance down it fro his fourth floor perch. The enemy were out there, and they would be coming. Perhaps not for a while, perhaps in mere moments. he did not know. But he did know that the defenders would be ready for them whenever they did.

They did not have long to wait. Shouts of, 'Contact!' rang out again after a few minutes. Troops were advancing down the street from the park, and the units in the buildings across the road reported that there were also enemy units moving into back alleys between the buildings, in an attempt to subvert the defences and find a way through. Every alleyway was covered, however, by at least one squad. There were no easy holes in the ring of steel around the palace. The enemy would have to fight to break through.

The defenders held their fire, hoping to lure the enemy in. It worked, up to a point. One of the enemy soldiers spotted something; scope glint, a rifle barrel, the tank turret; and shouted a warning. The men advancing up the street began to scatter, and shouts to open fire rang out around the hospital. Several hundred lasguns and pony rifles blazed away, cutting down a dozen Chaos soldiers in the first volley. The survivors scrambled for cover, which was limited on the street. There were a couple of buildings into which some of the infantry were able to run, but from those buildings they could hardly engage any of the defensive positions. Those caught on the street had to crouch as low as they could behind a couple of wooden carts and street furniture, lampposts and planters. There was nothing else. A heavy bolter tore one of the carts to splinters in seconds, blowing chunks out of both the cobbled stones and the bodies of the men trying to hide behind it.

Breeze fired a couple of shots from his rifle, but it was not long before he could no longer see any targets. The enemy had retreated into the buildings alongside the street, and those who had been caught far enough along that Breeze could see them were all dead or dying. There was heavy gunfire from the other defensive positions as they could still engage the targets. The vox broadcast alerts to units in the two corner buildings, the accommodation block and the radiography building on the other side of the junction that the enemy could potentially gain access to their buildings from the structures they had taken cover in.

Shortly after, that proved to be the case. There were messages exchanged from the human teams; the enemy had found some way to get into the nursing block, either through a back door, a lower window, or perhaps by breaching a wall. There was audible gunfire inside the structure, and the flashes of weapons fire could be seen through the windows. A minute later, they were inside the radiology block as well.

Several more squads were sent running across the street to assist, trying to keep both buildings in friendly hands, but the enemy were able to pour their entire attacking force through the two buildings, funneling them into the fight, the meat grinder of urban combat, going room to room and floor to floor. The defenders were isolated on the top floors, and their reinforcements were unable to break through to link up with them. Men and ponies fired in through the windows, but they were taking casualties. Breeze could see them falling, lying motionless in the street, and the rest of them were pulled back, crossing the street again in the other direction. There was no sense expending more men and ponies than necessary in trying to hold the buildings. They still had a defensive line, and the more that died, the weaker it would be.

The enemy began appearing in the windows of the buildings they had captured, and finally Breeze had a target again. He drew a bead on one man, in the fourth floor, the same as him. The man wore a snarling face mask, no doubt mirroring his real features beneath. Breeze put a round through his upper chest as the man was aiming down at some other pony or human elsewhere in the main hospital building. The man dropped from view, but there were more targets in other windows, and now the enemy was starting to push up the street again toward the crossroads. The tank roared into action along with the heavy weaponry, trying to keep them at bay.

Breeze picked another target and fired, ducking down below the window to move along to give orders to his ponies in the other room next door. As he passed between the two rooms, he heard a shout of warning. 'Missile launcher, fifth floor!'

He stepped into the next room, and saw three ponies diving for cover. A fraction of a second later, he saw why, then he felt it. A missile streaked in through the window and exploded. Breeze was hurled back, the wind knocked out of him, and then everything went black.

Tightening The Noose

The targeting cogitators of the Indefatigable had been tracking the enemy ground forces since the ship had been alerted to the Chaos advance. The ship had been out of position at first; she was in orbit, yes, but not above Canterlot or its surroundings. The re-entry back into orbit after the Chaos fleet was destroyed had been hasty, just to get them back around the planet, not necessarily in any specific position. The battlecruiser had been forced to maneouvere to place itself above the pony capital where it might be needed, abandoning their search of the debris field left by the Emperor's Judgement, by which time the Chaos forces were upon them. Orbital strikes had blast radii, they had potential targeting errors, they had a circular error probability, all of which meant that hitting the enemy in such close proximity to the city could cause a catastrophe if something went wrong and a projectile went off target.

The solution to that was to use lances to strike the ground targets. They traveled almost at light speed and did not lose much accuracy over such a short distance, yet could inflict heavy damage to anything caught beneath them. Lord-Admiral Marcos had called the liaison team in the capital to get them to ask Princess Celestia if she desired his aid from on high, but they had told her she was not there. She was fighting, and she was fighting the Daemon Lord once more. Marcos had been taken aback by the news, but only for a moment. It was logical that Malaranth would try to strike the city; after all, it contained what seemed to be the most likely prize sought by the Archenemy- the Princess herself. She seemingly intrigued Chaos as much as she intrigued the Imperials, and along with her sister and the defeated Changeling Queen, she represented the greatest concentration of the unknown particle anywhere on the planet, and perhaps in the universe. A source of such power as she had demonstrated several times was well worth the investigation and even potentially worth the many deaths suffered as a result. Marcos was still wary on whether he should release the full detail of the operation to capture Kuda Prime to his superiors, but it seemed increasingly futile to attempt anything else. So many members of the Crusade had seen the Princess or some other pony performing feats of magic. There were sensor records, vid recordings, eyewitness testimony, after action reports, not all of which could be covered up, besides which, the Adeptus Mechanicus may well have already been in possession of the facts, relayed by the Ferrus Terra.

Marcos, having come to learn something of the Princess and her ponies, did not wish them any harm. He hoped that by continuing to aid them in cleansing their land of the taint of Chaos, Celestia might offer her knowledge and expertise regarding her magic to the Imperium willingly. He did not want to take it by force; he never truly had, and now he very much doubted his ability to do so even if he did. Celestia had destroyed an entire Chaos fleet, had battle the Changeling Queen and a Daemon Lord, and marshaled her ponies through perhaps the toughest test they had ever faced. Bringing down a few damaged Imperial vessels would be child's play for her. Now they were in the endgame, and she showed no signs of backing down even when her own capital was being besieged. The guns of the Indefatigable could help, but they could only do so much.

At Marcos's order, the ship had moved to prepare for an orbital strike. It rolled over in space to present its dorsal lances to the planet below. The Auspex scanned the terrain below, providing a precise geophysical survey of the landscape and feeding it into the targiting cogitators. The lance batteries swung their barrels around, rotating them in the horizontal and vertical axes alike to bring them on target. Thermal imaging showed strings of glowing white shapes below, grinding their way up the mountainside track. Enemy vehicles, tanks and personnel carriers and mobile artillery, the last gasp for the Chaos troops. This was surely it. There would be no more, certainly not from the planet itself. It was always possible that another enemy fleet could warp into the system, but they had already lost two. Would they be so willing to expend a third? Whoever was in command of the operation, at least from the human side of Chaos, would either be reluctant to continue wasting his or her forces in a meat grinder, or would look at some fellow warlord's failures and decide they wanted no part of the embarrassment.

Unable to contact the Princess, Marcos made vox contact with Major Barritt and another pony, Shining Armour, who apparently was the commander of the Royal Guard and the pony defence of Canterlot. It was an unenviable task given the nature of the enemy attack, both from outside the walls and from inside. The city was well designed, to funnel the enemy into but a single ground route up the mountain road, which could be blocked with mines or remote-triggered landslides if needs be. But when the ponies had designed Canterlot, they had planned on facing their own threats, not human ones. Changelings, dragons, other ponies, Griffons- not Daemons from another dimension, not tanks, not dropships and not orbital firepower. It was something of a miracle that the city had not been wiped out entirely by this point. The Chaos forces had several periods of time where they could have erased it from orbit, assuming they could have punched through the defensive shield. That they did not, and that they had attempted to conquer it and were now trying the same thing again, gave proof to the suggestion that they were after something, most likely the Princess and her sister.

Whether they wanted the two ponies alive or dead was another question entirely. They had been eager enough to throw everything at Celestia when she had been aiding Imperial forces in Manehattan, and again down in Fillydelphia. The Daemon Lord itself seemed to have something of a fixation on battling her in single combat, perhaps to test her strength or perhaps with the intention of killing her itself. The ways and intricacies of the creatures of the warp were usually beyond the ken of mere mortals, no matter what rank they might happen to be, and Marcos had no idea of its true intentions. All he knew was that he could not engage it from orbit, as it was over the city; not that doing so would achieve much necessarily, given that it had failed the last time it had been attempted. What they could do, however, was to engage the approaching enemy vehicles, at least once they had permission.

'My Lord, I will be more than glad for any support you can lend us from orbit,' Major Barritt was saying over the vox, the link crackling with interference from some source or other. 'So far as I know the Princesses are keeping the Daemon at bay, at least for now, but we have large numbers of creatures and enemy infantry inside the city. We're in danger of losing the main gate entirely. If I thin my line any more to reinforce it, then we might risk a breakthrough elsewhere.'

'Understood, Major. Please put me in contact with the pony commander there,' Marcos replied, hands clasped behind his back like always, though he was no longer on the bridge of the Emperor's judgement. His faithful steed was nothing more than a huge debris field, an artificial nebula destined to float around above the planet, perhaps for months, perhaps centuries, until the orbit finally decayed and the remains finally burned up on re-entry.

'This is Commander Shining Armour,' came the muffled reply a moment later. There was some fumbling and knocking over the link before his voice came through much clearer; evidently the pony was not used to using the vox handset. 'This is Commander Shining Armour,' he repeated. 'Go ahead, Admiral. What can you do for us?'

'Commander,' Marcos replied. 'My flagship...my new flagship...is in orbit above Canterlot. We are standing by to engage the enemy outside the city walls. We have identified and are tracking numerous targets that we can safely engage without damage to the city.'

'Are you certain, Admiral?' Shining Armour asked. 'I have seen what some of your space weapons can do. Can you be absolutely sure there will be no collateral damage?'

'Yes, Commander,' Marcos assured him. 'Our targeting systems are accurate, and the enemy targets we have identified are a significant way down the approach road from the city itself. We can also dial down the power output of our lance weapons to ensure there is a smaller blast radius.'

'Is there a danger of causing landslips?' Shining asked. 'Weapons of such violence could cause great damage to the mountain itself, no?'

'They could if they were fired at full power,' Marcos replied. 'At full power the mountain itself might well cease to exist if we gave it a full barrage. But we would be cutting back significantly on what they are capable of. The city shield itself was struck numerous times by enemy orbital weaponry during the initial invasion, from what I understand, and the terrain survived that. It will survive this, you have my word, Commander. Are you empowered to approve this attack in the absence of the Princess?'

'Yes, Admiral,' Shining replied. 'As city commander, the defence of Canterlot falls to me if the Princess is occupied elsewhere. If you are absolutely certain there will be no risk to the city, then you have my permission to engage enemy targets that are a minimum of one quarter mile away from the city wall, and any and all targets that lie in the valley itself.'

'Understood, Commander. You have my acknowledgement of your parameters,' Marcos informed him. 'We will adhere to them.'

'Thank you, Admiral,' the pony responded. 'I think we need all the help we can get.'

'We have reinforcements en route to you,' Marcos advised. 'We have ground units coming north from the Fillydelphia containment line, and I am organising a drop from orbit, once conditions permit, with more Guardsmen to join the city defences. We are also sending a large contingent of our surviving fighter aircraft to help clear the skies for you.'

'Thank you again, Admiral,' Shining Armour replied. 'It is all much appreciated. The city would still be under enemy control If not for you and your men.'

'And my men and I would be dead if not for your Princess,' Marcos answered. 'I think that is a fair trade, Commander. We shall commence our strike shortly. Marcos out.'

The city wall was taking a heavy pounding, tank shells slamming into it and rivers of dust pouring from the impact points. It could take shells; they were just modifications of the kind of projectiles that pony and Griffon field guns hurled. What was inflicting the real damage was the lascannon fire and plasma bolts, both of which melted the stone at the impact sites, weakening the structure around it more than a simply high explosive round could do. The hole that had already been torn in the wall by the aircraft crash was fiercely contested, as enemy infantry had made it to the breach, a trio of personnel carriers making a suicide dash for the gap and unloading their cargoes. One was knocked out immediately, the second just before reaching the wall, but most of the passengers survived to leap from the wrecks, and the final vehicle disgorged its complement entirely before being destroyed by a point-blank shell from one of the defending Leman Russ tanks, which was in turn knocked out by a pair of melta-bombs applied to the rear engine deck by Chaos troops.

Other men crossed the approach road to deal with the other two surviving Imperial vehicles. Many didn't make it, but some were able to clamber up onto the deck and turret of the nearest tank. Heavy bolter fire from its companion pinged off of the hull and tore most of the Chaos troopers to bloody ribbons, but a melta-charge applied to the turret hatch burned through and set the crew afire. A few moments later the ammunition supply detonated, a dozen high-explosive battle cannon shells shattering the turret as a great blast mushroomed up out of the wreckage. The final surviving tank found itself protected by defensive fire from the walls that kept the enemy infantry from mounting a similar suicide charge to plant melta-bombs, but though the Leman Russ was able to knock out two more enemy tanks as they advanced, the numbers were not in its favour, and a lascannon round cut straight through its turret armour, killing the gunner and commander and inflicting severe burns on the loader.

The enemy vehicles continued advancing to support their infantry at the base of the wall, fighting for the breach. There were only a couple of dozen, but there were more on the way aboard armoured personnel carriers, a long string of vehicles extending down the roadway like a snake, all heading for Canterlot up the single, relatively narrow mountain path. That made them an inviting target.

A blast from the heavens rocked the valley, shaking the defenders on the city walls as a brilliant streak of bluish-white light appeared from nowhere and slammed vertically into the mountainside some several hundred feet below, right on the third hairpin turn the road took after leaving the city gate. There were vehicles there, a cluster of tanks trying to negotiate the sharp bend, their tracks clawing at the ground to drag them up the mountainside. The blast struck in amongst them, practically vapourising one of their number and melting the external armour of several others. The explosion of the lance beam striking the ground rolled two of the tanks over, and one of them tumbled away down the cliff, with nothing to stop its momentum until it struck the hard boulders below.

The vehicles behind the blast site halted. Some tried reversing in a panic, but the next strike hit farther down the trail, detonating with a loud rolling boom and instantly blocking the road both with a smoking crater and the burning wrecks of several personnel carriers. Chaos troops, their uniforms aflame, tumbled desperately from the shattered vehicles, rolling and writhing on the ground. One man plunged over the edge of the cliff and fell like a comet, ablaze from head to toe. There were some hundred or so vehicles, a large portion of the enemy force, caught between the two strikes, unable to advance and unable to retreat. That allowed the massacre to begin.

The Indefatigable unleashed its fury, its lances glowing as they began to pound the target area. Though their yield had been reduced, as Marcos had assured Shining Armour they would be, the weapons still possessed more than enough power to destroy a column of enemy vehicles, and that was exactly what they did, pummelling the approach road and turning it into a charred wasteland, pockmarked with craters and broken wrecks of Chaos tanks and carriers. Platoons of infantry burned in the white heat, with nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide from the steely, unblinking gaze of the Indefatigable's thermal targeting sensors.

It was over in a matter of minutes, pillars of smoke rising from the mountainside and a pall hanging above the approach road. The enemy forces which had reached the city, or had gotten closer than Shining Armour's designated cut-off distance of a quarter mile, were separated from the rest of their force down in the valley, and that was where the Indefatigable's attentions turned next. There were large numbers of other vehicles and infantry on the move. They had begun their march when Chaos still held sway, when their ships were in orbit covering their advance and providing protection. Now they were exposed, in danger from on high and unprotected by their own vessels. The Indefatigable had free reign to engage; there was nothing the Chaos troops could do about it. Those that were caught on the mountain road below the initial target site had begun to retreat, falling back to the valley floor as the road was impassable. But there would be no escape there, either. The valley floor was a flat plain with no cover from the heavens. The Chaos troops tried to scatter, to present smaller targets to the Imperial flagship. They knew what was coming, and they knew that there was nothing they could do except pray to their dark gods for salvation.

Their gods were not listening, indifferent to the plight of their minor minions. The lances fired again, each one aimed at a different target, and the slaughter began anew. The Indefatigable had free reign to strike at will, picking each target one by one, striking fear into the hearts of the hardened Chaos troopers as they knew their death was inevitable. It was just a matter of time, a violent lottery as to which vehicles or which cluster of sheltering infantry would be struck next. It was a taste of their own medicine, the equivalent of a poor wretched pony family cowering behind a locked door or down in a darkened cellar, listening to gunfire above and the screams of their neighbours as Chaos soldiers rampaged through their town, killing indiscriminately, waiting for the sound of splintering wood as their own door was kicked in and the lasgun raised.

Even as the battle for Canterlot raged, the valley was slowly cleansed of Chaos presence, one by one, vehicle by vehicle, soldier by soldier. The Indefatigable and her crew carried out the task with grim satisfaction. The best way to strike at Chaos was from a position of absolute power and superiority, where you could not be struck in return but could inflict maximum damage upon the Archenemy, and that was exactly what was happening here. In the city itself, however, things were not so clear cut in favour of the Imperials or their pony allies.

The decks of the EAS Fillydelphia were a hive of activity. The main batteries thundered, with the clanging of spent shell casings interspersed with the rapid boom of the anti-air guns firing flat out, their barrels glowing beneath their cooling jackets. There were just so many targets; enemy aircraft and flying Daemons were all around. Together with the EAS Las Pegasus and the vast bulk of the EAS Luna, the Fillydelphia was engaged in a mutually supportive formation. The trio of airships hovered above the city, maintaining position over the east side of Canterlot and able to protect each other with their guns. If a cluster of Daemons tried to peck away at the shields of one airship, the others could pick them off with their anti-air batteries. Though the airships had been loaded up with extra ammunition supplies, they were burning through it at a prodigious rate thanks to the sheer proliferation of targets presented to them.

Early on in the fighting, Captain Ironside had ordered the gunners aboard the Filydelphia to ignore the great monstrosity that was the Greater Daemon, and not to waste their rounds on it. An initial volley had done nothing to it; besides which, the Princesses were dealing with the creature, and there were so many other enemies that needed to be engaged. Bombers were dropping their payloads upon the troops below, fighters threatened the airships with their red beam weapons, and swarms of Daemons offered the prospect of overrunning the ground defences with sheer numbers. The airships were able to thin their ranks somewhat, and sharpshooters on board each vessel took an additional toll, but there were five of the creatures for every one that fell, with more coming through the rip in reality every few moments to add to their numbers.

An enemy fighter swooped in with its twin lascannon firing, punching through the Fillydelphia's shield and destroying one of the main guns, killing its crew and igniting a fire on the top deck. Sand was poured over the incipient flames to quench them, and medics dragged the wounded to the relative safety of the sick bay below. Nowhere on board was truly safe, however, not as long as the red beam weapons could penetrate the shield. The airships were able to repel everything else that was hurled at them, but only Alicorn magic could stop the las-fire. Another fighter came running in with the same weapon, and Ironside ducked as a spray of burning splinters whizzed around him. One of the machine-cannons was ripped from its mounting, the gunner and loader both dead, tumbling to the deck. The fighter tried to pull up and target the airship's gasbag, but could not get an angle before it had roared past in a wide turn, clearly intent on coming about and trying again.

The Luna was also coming under fire. Several enemy ground units had seemingly taken it upon themselves to futilely engage the airship from below, as well as a few fighters that swirled around the mighty craft with the potential for much greater success. The Luna was positioned so that its main bombardment cannon could be fired toward the city gate, ready in case of enemy breakthrough and standing by to strike enemy vehicles outside of the city walls. As the largest and most visible pony military assets, the trio of airships were drawing plentiful attention, which was, in part, their purpose in normal operations, to potentially distract the enemy from a drop by the Pegasi Assault Corps, or an advance on a key flank by ground troops, both to keep the attention and ire of enemy gunners and also help to prevent them from repositioning easily by shelling them from above. Normally that was a mostly foolproof tactic, as hardly any force on the planet was capable of breaking through their defensive shield. These human beam weapons, however, possessed some special property, some quirk of science interfering with magic, that allowed them to cut and slice straight through, and that was not good when there were so many enemy aircraft all armed with the same weaponry.

The Fillydelphia took another hit, port side lower gun deck. An explosion rocked the gondola, and Captain Ironside swayed with it, leaning against the railing. The helmspony spun the wheel to port to counteract the inertia of the blast, which would push the bow of the airship to starboard.

'Fire down below!' came the cry.

'Damage control teams!' Ironside shouted, and they sprang into action at his command. If a fire found the main magazine, then the whole airship would turn into nothing more than several hundred tons of shrapnel, spread across the city. The nightmare spectre of a flaming gasbag slowly sagging and engulfing the gondola below, trapping and roasting the crew, was perhaps the only greater fear.

Both outcomes seemed entirely possible. As the main guns banged and roared and the anti-air cannons spat, more enemy aircraft wheeled in, their lascannons blazing away. Several ponies died, including one of the shield unicorns, charred holes in their bodies, and another gun was knocked out, the metal gunshield melting and warping from the heat. Spot fires ignited once more across the top deck, and something else exploded down below as the firefighting and damage control teams tried to contain the blaze on the lower gun deck. If it spread too far, the deck might have to be abandoned by the gunners due to the smoke and heat.

The enemy fighters were coming in again, two of them this time, side by side, guns flashing. Anti-air burst around them but they continued on undeterred, their eyes on the prize. They wanted the Fillydelphia to go up in flames. Lascannon fire struck the quarterdeck, and Ironside winced as he could feel the heat from the beams. Gouges were cut in the deck planking behind him, and he heard a scream, cut short. He whirled his head around in time to see the helmspony tumble to the deck, both of his forelegs severed at the knee, the wounds already cauterised by the heat. The airship's wheel had been mostly carried away, with the remains beginning to burn and char.

With a pop, the airship's shield went down. Ironside looked around in confusion, and then he could see why. Another of the unicorns powering it lay dead or dying, sprawled across the deck with a hole instead of a chest. Ironside called for the medics, and for the backup helm station to take control of the vessel, which was still swinging to port, the last control input made by the helmspony before he had been wounded. If it continued too far, then the front of the Fillydelphia's gasbag would strike the shield of the Luna. Without the shield for protection, striking the shield of the other airship would have the exact same result as if one of the enemy aircraft tried to fly into it; swift destruction, and the death of the Fillydelphia and her crew, wreathed in flame from burning lifting gas.

Ironside tried to spin the remains of the airship's wheel to starboard, but it was just a broken ruin now. The backup station would have to take charge, and luckily the call reached them just in time. The rate of turn slowed, then stopped, and then reversed, the huge gasbag and gondola turning back to starboard and safety. Safety, however, was a relative term, for even now the enemy fighters were coming around again. They were intent on finishing the Fillydelphia off, sensing its weakness now that the shield was down.

'Get that shield back up!' Ironside roared. 'Every unicorn, get to work! Pull them from the damage control teams if you have to, but get it working!'

The two fighters raced in again, guns chattering, including their autocannons this time, as they now had the ability to hit the ship directly. Luckily neither of them carried missiles, or if they did they had already expended them, but the autocannon rounds chewed up the deck planking. Ponies dived for cover, but there was little cover available, and several more of the crew died in the hail of gunfire. One of the aircraft aimed for the gasbag, pumping rounds into it before roaring away over the top, but luckily the armour plating held firm.

One more pass could finish the airship, either by igniting the gasbag, detonating the magazine, or knocking out the backup helm station. Even if the shield could be got back online swiftly, the red beam weapons could still penetrate it. The anti-air guns blazed away again, but the gunners had suffered casualties like the rest of the crew. A determined attack could be too much for the Fillydelphia.

'Airborne contacts!' somepony shouted. 'Twelve o'clock high!'

Ironside looked up from the shattered airship's wheel. Whoever had called was right, and had good eyesight. There were more black dots up there, a dozen in total, coming straight for them out of the blue.

This is it, then, Ironside mused. Two aircraft, they might survive, but not a dozen or more. The aircraft were coming in at such a steep angle that the anti-air guns could not even traverse enough to hit them, for their own gasbag would block their firing arc anyway. Ironside braced himself for the end of his vessel. The incoming aircraft opened fire.

But their weapons were not aimed at the Fillydelphia.

A City At War

Captain Eliss Muran pushed the nose of his Lightning down just a touch, correcting the trajectory. The atmospheric interface burn had gone perfectly, and the city perched on the mountainside was looming in his heads-up display. Canterlot, they called it, the capital city of the pony empire...kingdom? Principality, he supposed, given that Princess Celestia was its ruler. Whatever they referred to their nation as, Muran had to admit, they had a beautiful capital. Tall spires, elegant marble and gold and silver, royal purple and burnished bronze, glass and ivory glistening in the bright sunlight.

It would be a peaceful view, if not for the detritus of war. There were ugly plumes and clouds of smoke, fires burning in a dozen places. The damage to the city was visible even from fifteen thousand feet, as he and his squadron plunged toward it. It was an undeniable shame to see such destruction wrought to such a beautiful place, but then that was the nature of Chaos. Even the Imperial Palace on Holy Terra had been sundered and scarred by the filth that followed that darkest doctrine.

Muran was glad to be back at the controls of his jet, and glad also to be back in atmosphere. That was where he belonged, and where he excelled as a pilot. In space, his Lightning was slow, sluggish, almost antiquated compared to the true void interceptors that were designed especially for combat in a vacuum. Fighting in an effort to defend the fleet had been more terrifying than anything. In atmosphere, you could eject, and grav-chute down to safety. In space, you could eject just the same, for certain; the rocket motors of the ejection seat would function perfectly. But then what? You would be left floating, kept alive by your environment suit, assuming you had actually been issued with one for your sortie. If enough aircraft and voidcraft were operating at once, there might not be enough suits to go around. If you were lucky enough to survive in your suit, then you could live for a few hours at most before the air ran out. If you hadn't been recovered by then, you would die a horrific death, fighting for every last breath as carbon dioxide filled your bloodstream and fogged your brain. It might not be painful, necessarily- a brain deprived of enough oxygen might not truly feel anything at all- but it would not be pretty or peaceful.

Muran had not known exactly what he was looking at when the Chaos fleet had been destroyed before his very eyes. It was confusion writ large; the sun apparently decided of its own volition to destroy the ships that dared to enter its system, but only those of the Archenemy. The beams of light meticulously avoided Imperial ships. The rumours had begun to fly immediately; the Emperor himself had reached out to aid them in their plight. No, perhaps it was one of the Necron star gods? Eldar trickery, some vastly advanced science or warp-assisted energy.

But the most believable suggestion, oddly, was the one that, until weeks or months ago, would have seen you laughed out of even the seediest Hydraphur dive bar. An extremely intelligent and powerful horse-alien psyker with apparent total control over the star that breathed life onto her planet had harnessed her abilities to direct pure stellar matter and energy as a weapon to strike Chaos vessels in order to save the ships and crews of the Crusade fleet, whom she and her nation of intelligent, Low Gothic-speaking ponies were in a mutually beneficial alliance with.

Even now, just thinking about it sounded profoundly absurd, and yet it was reality. That was exactly what had happened, according to everything Muran had been told. That was the official line from fleet command as to the source of the attack which had annihilated the enemy vessels, and apparently they had scientific proof of the fact, thanks to Auspex readings and the Mechanicus investigators aboard the Ferrus Terra. As ridiculous as it would sound to anyone back at Segmentum Command on Hydraphur, or anywhere else in the Imperium, they had been saved by a Xenos horse Princess turning a star into the universe's most powerful lance battery.

After the fighting was over, and the Emperor's Judgement deemed to be a threat to the fleet, Muran and his surviving squadronmates had no home to return to. Instead, they were recovered aboard the Indefatigable, into a spare hangar bay. That was where they had launched from to engage in this operation. The alert had been sounded; any available aircraft were to deploy to the planet's surface to assist in the defence of Canterlot. Friendly units were on site, both Imperial and pony, and they were under heavy attack from Chaos ground and air forces. What was more, the Daemon, that foul creature which had faced down his squadron and several others in Fillydelphia without so much as blinking, or indeed receiving a scratch, was there. He could see it even from a distance, floating above the city. He hated the sight of it, and he was sure the rest of the Imperial force did also.

The Daemon was not the only thing above the city. There were also three pony airships. Two of them were the same kind of size and length as the one that Muran and Rall had struck down when they first made planetfall. That seems like a lifetime ago, the captain mused. Things had changed a great deal since then. No longer were the airships considered hostile, no longer would they open fire upon his craft as he drew near. Now they were allies, and the airships were not targets, but assets to be protected and fought alongside. The third airship was considerably larger than the other two, a great skyscraper in the sky, suspended by a thousand-foot gasbag and blazing fire from several dozen guns down onto the enemy in the city below as it tried to repel the invaders.

One of the smaller airships had lost its defensive shield, the bubble of energy that protected it from most incoming fire and which had proven troublesome to Muran and Rall when they were trying to bring down their first target. Only their lascannons had punched through, information which was quickly disseminated to the rest of the fleet and the ground forces, should it prove useful. As it turned out, there had been scarcely any combat between Imperial and pony forces, thanks to the arrival of the Archenemy. Something had clearly brought down this airship's shield, however, which rendered it vulnerable to the numerous Chaos aircraft that Muran could see, both with his eyes and illuminated on his Auspex screen. There were plenty of targets, that was for sure. His squadron would not go home empty handed with nothing to show for it. There would be more kill markings to chalk onto the outside of the cockpit if they survived to return to the Indefatigable.

Master arm on. Targeting cogitator, on. Weapons free. Missile lock. Fire one, fire two.

Missiles leaped free of their rails, their targets burned into their mechanical brains, tracking with the aid of the Lightning's Auspex array. More missiles raced away from the jets of the rest of the squadron, though they were still miles from the city and high above it. They were well within firing range, and the positive IDs on the enemy fighters meant there was no danger of collateral damage. They would not hit the airship by accident, but rather, hopefully, they would save it.

The missiles streaked in. Alerted by their threat warning receivers, the Chaos fighters tried to evade, but the city and mountainscape made it tricky. Maneouvering too hard would bring one face to face with a wall of either snow and stone, or concrete and glass, as one fighter found to its cost, slamming bodily into a cliff and exploding in a fireball. Others popped flares and chaff to distract the incoming missiles, but though some were deceived, most ploughed on regardless. Jets scattered, caught by surprise by the sudden attack from above. They had been too focused on the threats from the ground and the airships to stick with the cardinal rule of air combat; altitude means life, and height gives you the advantage, and nothing gave you more altitude than coming in from orbit.

Half a dozen Chaos jets went down in the first volley, spiraling away into the valley or slamming into the city below with mushrooming flames and cartwheeling debris. Hammer Squadron unleashed a second spray of missiles, and the Chaos aircraft began to break, not just the fighters but also the bombers and dropships. The Lightnings had a clear attack profile, and they were not alone. Three other squadrons of interceptors were screaming down from the Indefatigable, and with the loss of their flagship, they had vengeance on their minds. If they couldn't fight the Changelings, then the Chaos forces would do just fine as a target for their rage and hatred.

Enemy aircraft dove for cover in the valley below; others tried strings of twists and turns to outmaneuver the incoming projectiles. Some succeeded, others did not, but the thrust of the Chaos air assault was broken. It was no longer a coordinated effort, but rather a piecemeal attempt to survive against the sudden new threat. Vox messages to the city command ensured that ground-based air-defence units knew that the new arrivals were friendly, and Imperial helmets were raised with a cheer as the Lightnings roared overhead, a cacophonous display of air power to send a thrill through the heart of every Guardsman. Messages were flashed from the palace to the airships via signal lamp to ensure they knew the jets were friendly.

Chaos dropships tried to complete their landing runs before they drew the attention of the Imperial craft, for such lumbering vessels were defenceless against a fast interceptor. If they went down, their passengers would go down with them and contribute nothing to the attack on the city. Some enterprising or daring pilots settled their craft down in areas that were too small to land, instead positioning them so that the rear ramp descended upon some rooftop or large balcony of a building, while the maneouvering jets screamed to keep the ship hovering in position. Men thundered down the ramp, ready to fight. Others made daring runs for open areas that they could actually land in, swinging their dropships around at the last minute, taking fences and small trees with them in the jet wash as their landing legs made contact with the ground and the ramp dropped. Being on the ground for too long was to invite an attack. Other pilots, however, held the view that with Imperial air assets on station, getting out of the city and back to Fillydelphia was a likely impossibility. As a result, some crews shut down their engines, grabbed their personal weapons, and disembarked their dropships to join with the ground assault, rather than risk running the gauntlet.

Captain Muran watched the enemy aircraft scatter with some satisfaction. They had surprised them, that was for sure, and now it was a fight, not an ambush. Chaos fighters were turning to engage the threat, and he sighted in on one of them. The damaged pony airship was safe enough from air attack for now, giving them time to disengage or to get their shield back up. The enemy fighter was making a tight turn around below the city, sticking close to the valley side, and Muran picked him up, banking around to come in low and get behind him. The enemy pilot clearly had better situational awareness than the majority of Chaos aircrew had shown by not watching the skies and allowing the Lightnings to get the drop on them, for he quickly switched direction into a starboard roll away from the city and applied power, pulling up into a steep climb. Altitude is life.

Muran matched him, pulling hard back on the stick to try and line up the Auspex sensors to acquire a missile lock. He still had four of them left, plus his lascannons and autocannon, if he needed them. Other aircraft whizzed by on both sides, friend and foe alike. Battle was joined, and like all air combat engagements, it was destined to descend into a confusing, muddled mess that would be almost impossible to properly coordinate. Each pilot would have to rely on his or her own reflexes and skills to get the job done and come out of the other side alive and in one piece.

The enemy fighter twisted around, corkscrewing down into the valley to try and escape. The pilot's head was evidently on a swivel, as any good pilot's head should be, because he was able to counter Muran's efforts to get into a firing position. Muran, in turn, kept a wary eye all around him, turning to glance over each shoulder every few seconds, looking up through the roof of the canopy, looking down at his Auspex display, checking the threat warning receiver light and listening for the tone it would give off if he was to find himself being painted by an enemy. For now, down in the valley, he was alright, but if he climbed back higher then enemy fighters may well spot him and attempt to pursue. All he could do was focus on his target, but maintain situational awareness, and not be caught napping like the Chaos fighters had been.

His foe continued to elude his efforts, staying awkwardly just ahead of the lock, and just ahead of his gunsight's reticle. The pilot was good, but so was Muran. The enemy fighter pulled up, back toward the city, its jets belching flame as the afterburners kicked in to power it faster and faster, even though it was climbing. Muran followed, sticking with the enemy jet. Now they were level with the city again, and its spires whipped by. The Chaos fighter flipped up onto its wingtip to cut through the gap between two towers. Muran performed the same move, and kept on the enemy's tail, much to the Chaos pilot's disgust, no doubt. Maneuvers like that were sometimes the only way to shake a pursuer, and sometimes they were the last desperate effort to avoid being shot down, especially by a novice pilot who could see no other options. This pilot, however, was clearly not a novice.

That was demonstrated a moment later just before Muran could get a missile lock, when the fighter's airbrakes popped out and its nose went up. Its speed bled off rapidly, and Muran watched through the top of his canopy as it flashed by overhead. It was a spirited attempt to turn the tables on its pursuer, catch him by surprise and get behind him and into a position to open fire. Muran reacted immediately, pulling his Lightning into a tight turn to port. The rooftops of Canterlot passed beneath him, and he could see combat below- men and ponies were running through the streets, gunfire flashing across the courtyards and plazas of the city.

Up ahead was the palace shield, a glimmering dome protecting the city headquarters and the seat of Equestrian power and government. It was just another obstacle to be avoided, and Muran pulled up and over it, checking over his shoulder. The enemy fighter was still there, but his rapid turn had left it lagging behind him. It was trying its best to catch up, but Muran had a few tricks of his own left to pull. Down into the valley he went once more, leading the chase this time, before jinking around a large rocky outcrop in his path. The Chaos jet was still following, and so Muran pulled back hard on the stick. The Lightning's nose climbed as he soared upward. Hanging in the air for too long would let the enemy pilot get a missile lock on him, but Muran did not intend to waste time. The Lightning, as well as being as fast as its name implied, was also maneuverable, and as the vertical speed began to bleed away, Muran deployed the slats and engaged the thrust vectoring of the jet's engines. The exhaust nozzles swiveled to direct the blast of hot gases away from the vertical, instead adding speed to the aircraft's rotation. It flipped in a surprisingly short distance, bringing its nose around to face toward the enemy. The Chaos fighter was still climbing, and Muran could hear the increasingly insistent beeping of the threat warning receiver that told him the enemy pilot was close to achieving a missile lock.

Muran was not waiting for his missiles to lock on anymore, however. As the nose of his fighter dropped, he squeezed the trigger and unleashed a storm of fire from the Lightning's guns, two lascannons and a ventral autocannon. The Chaos pilot had no time to maneuver, and his missiles did not have time to lock on before Muran's shots, sweeping through a vertical arc as the Lightning continued to flip, struck the enemy aircraft. Something was hit; an engine, a missile, the lascannon power pack, and the Chaos craft exploded, fragments of debris spraying out across the sky. The burning wreck tumbled away to port as Muran cut the thrust vectoring and opened the throttles, retracting the slats and regaining full control of his aircraft.

He regained some speed before pulling up and returning to Canterlot, where the battle was still raging. While he had won his own personal fight, there were still many more Chaos aircraft to be dealt with, and a city to protect. His afterburners glowed as they carried the Lightning back into the sky, and back into the maelstrom.

Captain Ironside watched with some not-inconsiderable surprise as the newly arrived aircraft opened fire upon the enemy, rather than upon his airship. He had to admit to himself that he had never been so pleased to see a human- a friendly human, rather than the hated enemy that were all around them. Fortunately, the massed ranks of Imperial fighters managed to force away the Chaos aircraft, saving the Fillydelphia from almost assured destruction. The lull had given the crew time to get the shield back up and functioning, by pulling two unicorns away from the damage control teams, where they had been hard at work along with the rest of the lower deck crewponies to try and extinguish the flames that were burning on the gun deck. Thanks to their heroics, the fire was under control, though not yet extinguished fully, and it had been kept away from the main magazine. The wounded were being treated in the sick bay as best as could be achieved, and the remaining guns were manned and ready once more. The airship was saved, but it was not yet safe. There were still enemy aircraft around, albeit with most of them having at least one Imperial pursuer. Ironside had watched some dozen enemy aircraft of all shapes and sizes going down after suffering missile strikes or being struck by gunfire from the Imperial craft. Each one that exploded or slammed into the mountainside gave him a grim sense of satisfaction. Inflicted by the Imperials it may be, but such a punishment was the only reward fitting for those who would dare step on Canterlot's sacred streets in anger.

He was reminded of why it was so sacred. All he had to do was look up to see Princess Celestia and her sister fighting against the Daemon. Again he found that he could not look at it for more than a few seconds without feeling nauseous. He wondered how the Princesses could bear to stand against it, but they were made of sterner stuff even than he, a decorated, grizzled veteran of the Air Corps. His province was in fighting rebels, pirates, Griffons and Zebras, with the odd dragon thrown in. He had not been called in anger to fight against any of the more truly bizarre aberrations that terrorised Equestria on occasion, such as Ursa Majors, Bugbears or indeed Discord. Those kinds of creatures were best left to specialised units of the government's monster hunting programme, or in extreme cases, to the Elements of Harmony or the Princesses themselves. The airships were blunt tools, to be wielded against armies or in peacekeeping operations. They were not designed to combat magical creatures in quite the same way.

New orders had been flashed to the airships from the palace by signal lamp. The Fillydelphia was to move to the hospital, to reinforce friendly positions there. The enemy ground troops were making significant advances at several points across the city. Ironside could see that from high above. Some Chaos units had the helpful trait of carrying banners and flags, daubed with obscene symbols and messages, which allowed for easy identification, especially from the air, while others could be identified merely because their uniforms were not those of the Imperial units that were assigned to the city. Even that, however, could not always be relied upon, for Ironside had found that, far from the singular appearance of the Equestrian military, where every company, ship or squadron had the same uniform as the others, human units differed greatly in the colour, style and pattern of theirs. It was quite puzzling to him; surely such an apparently monolithic entity as the Imperium would have thought to unify its clothing and standardise its equipment for its military forces, for logistical purposes if nothing else?

It just went to show another difference between the humans and the ponies, yet there were many similarities, some of which were quite freakish. Their language, for example, the most obvious one, and while their uniforms may have been different, their rank structure was remarkably similar. The major difference that Ironside had learned was that the human aircraft were operated by their Navy, whereas pony airships were the preserve of the Air Corps. That made more sense, surely? Their starships were apparently controlled by the Navy, too, which puzzled Ironside still further. Perhaps they had just been the ones to launch the first vessel into orbit by some happenstance, and the name had simply stuck?

Ironside ordered his airship to swing out of line with the others and make the move over to the hospital complex. Friendly forces needed assistance, and the Fillydelphia would provide, even in its damaged state. Ironside had informed the palace using the signal lamp that they were still available for tasking and able to fight. He wasn't going to leave the battle when the fate of the city was at stake.

The hospital was across the other side of the city, a minute or so in flying time from their present location. Ironside looked ahead through his telescope. There was gunfire down there, flashes of bullets and plenty of the human red beams. He could see men in the street, and fire coming from multiple buildings that formed part of the hospital complex. Beyond that he could see more Chaos troops coming in from the park, spread out across the district. There were plenty of them, perhaps a thousand in total. If they all reached the defensive line, then the ring of steel around the palace might be broken.

Ironside ordered the starboard side of the Fillydelphia to be brought to bear on the enemy, as it had suffered no damage and all of its guns were in working order. Targets were selected and firing arcs calculated. High explosive rounds were loaded into each gun in preparation, and Ironside eyed the advancing enemy through his telescope. As he had noticed earlier, there was no uniformity among their ranks. There were as many different colours of clothing as there were colours of a pony's coat. There were different helmets, different masks, different weapons. Everything was different, and scanning across the massed infantry was like looking through a kaleidoscope. Perhaps that's why they are known as Chaos, Ironside mused, before putting his telescope aside and issuing a simple command.

'Starboard battery, fire!'

Hospital Blues

Corporal Breeze blinked as plaster rained down on him. An enemy gun, something heavy and ballistic, was punching a string of holes through the wall of the hospital. That was what it sounded like; and that was good, because it meant he could hear again. He remembered the rocket coming in. He had seen it, the actual projectile, for what must have been a fraction of a second but seemed like minutes, long enough to see every groove and curve on its near-conical surface, or so it had felt to him. He had thought it would be the last thing he would ever see, yet there was the ceiling of the hospital room above him.

He tried to sit up, and found that he was able to do so. He looked down at himself; there were no evident wounds on his body, other than a few scratches and contusions. His rifle lay beside him, covered in dust and debris. He picked it up and cleaned it off as best he could. it seemed unharmed, just like he was. He stood and staggered through into the room where the rocket had detonated, and it became immediately apparent that the rest of the squad in that room had not fared so well.

There was blood, on the floor, on the walls and even on the ceiling. Two ponies who had been closest to the explosion had become little more than grisly smears. One upper torso was intact, though the head was missing. The other pony's body was mostly still in one piece, but almost all of his skin and coat had been torn away, meaning he no longer resembled a pony at all but more a butcher's counter in some backstreet Griffon market. The two other ponies who had been firing from the window and had dived for cover were also dead, though they had been spared the worst of the disfigurement and dismemberment that had befallen their fellows, killed instead by the concussion and the blast that liquified their internal organs. Breeze was lucky to have escaped without serious injury, shielded somewhat by the door frame. He felt bile rising in his throat. He had seen death since the invasion began, but never quite so violent and bloody. The missile strike had shown the true fragility of the pony body.

Breeze managed not to vomit, and returned to the other room. The rest of his unit were still firing, working the actions of their rifles and trying to hit enemy infantry across the street. Breeze rejoined them slumping against the wall and breathing heavily.

'Are you ok, Corporal?' one pony asked. 'What the hell just happened?'

'Some kind of artillery...' Breeze replied. 'Hit the other room, it's...it's gone. I'm alright.'

'Artillery? Shit...they have portable artillery?' the pony muttered. The missile had come from the accommodation building opposite; it was clearly being carried by an enemy soldier, and the ponies had nothing that was portable that could provide such heavy firepower, save for a unicorn's horn. Magic was, indeed, being used in an attempt to defend their position, with shields and offensive blasts being employed by the unicorns in the hospital. That just added to the cacophony that now filled Breeze's ears; at least his hearing was intact, and his eardrums had not burst from the overpressure. Indeed, above the sound of guns, he could hear something else, a drone, a whine, getting louder and louder.

He frowned. Was this a Chaos vehicle of some kind? Perhaps their tanks had broken through from the main city gate- but surely not so soon? No, it sounded familiar...not a ground vehicle, but...an airship!

Breeze peered up from the window, without exposing himself to enemy fire. He couldn't see anything, but the drone was getting louder still, and he knew he recognised it. It was definitely an Equestrian airship, finally some reinforcement for the hospital as they faced down the enemy charge. Breeze had always loved the Air Corps, but felt that the Royal Guard was a better choice for him since he was not a Pegasus. While there were plenty of unicorn and earth pony members of airship crews, Breeze felt that he wanted to be able to be in charge of his own destiny, and to be able to potentially save himself from any situation. Being trapped on a burning or crashing airship with no wings was the potential vision which had made him choose the more ground-based life of a Guardspony instead. There was, at least in theory, less of a chance of being killed in such a horrific way if you were merely guarding Canterlot.

That was different now, of course. Every branch of the military was now exposed to the same risks, with the possible exception of the Navy who had spent most of the invasion at sea or enjoying parties and Zebra whores while at port across the ocean. For the rest of them, death was now a constant companion, evidenced again by the sharp crack of bullets once again punching through the hospital wall all around them. Breeze and the others crouched down. The enemy were trying to push forward, to break the pony and Imperial line. They were, perhaps, being spurred on by the impending arrival of the airship, which could re-establish friendly air superiority in the immediate vicinity and render the Chaos forces vulnerable to attack from above.

'They're moving up!' somepony shouted. Heavy gunfire from lower floors indicated that the defenders were trying to stop short any push by the enemy, but a quick glance out of the window showed Breeze that they were not being deterred. Several dozen men were charging across the road, heedless of the gunfire from the defensive line. The tank, still parked at the crossroads, backed up slightly to allow its starboard heavy bolter sponson a clear firing arc, and it opened up, heavy shells cutting down several of the hostile infantry and leaving them in pools of blood in the middle of the street. But they were persistent, and many of the enemy reached the main hospital block, flinging themselves into cover against its walls and tossing grenades in through the ground floor windows. Others unloaded their magazines or lasgun power packs in through the openings, killing some of the human defenders, who retaliated with their own grenades. But the explosives were more effective and more devastating inside the building, their blast contained and magnified by the confines of each small room. More men died as a result, and others backed away, clearing the rooms and firing from the internal doorways that connected each patient room to the corridor.

A group of Chaos troops breached the main door and rushed into the lobby, only to be cut to ribbons by a stubber set up at the top of the central staircase. The lobby was heavily defended by Imperial infantry backed up by ponies who lined the upper mezzanine of the chamber, firing down at the doorway with their rifles. The few Chaos survivors scrambled back out to the relative safety of the street, but the main doorway was not the only way into the building. More troops were clambering through the ground-floor windows where they had cleared out the rooms or forced the defenders to retreat to the hallway. Overhead, out of sight from Corporal Breeze, the airship opened fire with a rippling crack of heavy guns, followed by the whoosh and roar of shells passing overhead, then finally a string of explosions as they detonated among the advancing Chaos reinforcements coming from the park to aid their brethren in breaking through the line.

Breeze could see none of that, only hear it. What he could also hear was gunfire downstairs. Even from the fourth floor, it was audible, and it meant that the enemy were inside the main hospital building- and that was most decidedly not good. Breeze risked another peek outside. More enemy were pushing up, buoyed by the success of their fellows in gaining entry to the main block. The street was not yet safe to cross, with Imperial and pony forces firing down from the higher levels of the hospital structure, but the first floor was now open. Those who could make it through the gauntlet of fire could flatten themselves against the wall of the structure and then make their way inside to join their comrades.

The stubber at the staircase was holding the enemy at bay, but more Chaos soldiers were moving in from the flanks, coming out of the first floor corridors from the rooms they had cleared. The Imperial forces pushed back to the corridor had retreated to the lobby to reinforce the defences there and prevent the enemy gaining access to the higher floors. But there was more than one staircase in the building; it was only a matter of time until the enemy found another, and if they were able to break through the troops defending it, they could roam freely into the higher floors.

Breeze couldn't worry about that right now. He had to leave those thoughts to the ponies and men on the lower floors, and focus on stopping any more enemies crossing the street to join them. He raised his rifle, drew a bead on a target, and fired. A man went down, writhing in the street. Others fired back, both at him and at other windows, other floors. Breeze saw another man appear in a window opposite, his weapon raised. Instinctively he ducked back, just in time, as a bright las-bolt flashed in just about where his head had been. Another of his ponies returned fire and killed the man, who slumped over the windowsill.

The airship overhead continued to fire, the echoing booms of its cannons reverberating in Breeze's head as every volley raced out in an arc. Explosions rippled through the open plazas and waste ground where the enemy reinforcements were still advancing from the park. It was a tough slog, now that the defenders were aware of their direction of travel. Shells were bursting among the infantry, tearing bodies apart and killing many. Those that did make it through the barrage were then exposed to fire from the tank protecting the crossroads, which had repositioned to bring all of its guns to bear now that it became apparent that no enemy tanks and very few heavy weapons had been landed in the park that could threaten it. Two heavy bolters, a lascannon and a battle cannon proved very effective at locking down the junction, but the enemy were still able to advance through the back alleys and the other buildings. Heavy forces were also pushing at the next junction along, defended by two companies of Imperial Guard who were holding firm. Farther along the line, however, the situation was different.

At the main gate, The enemy pressure had finally told. The Leman Russ tanks were gone, and the walltop was a shattered mess littered with dead bodies and wounded ponies trying to crawl to safety. Enemy infantry had pushed through the hole in the wall and managed to open the gate from the inside, at the cost of horrendous casualties. The assault force was all but wiped out, but they had opened the way for the rest of the advancing troops. Tanks rolled in through the gate, personnel carriers following behind and disgorging their passengers. Only a limited number of vehicles remained uphill of the crater and blocked road caused by the orbital strike, but there were still plenty of them. They rolled freely into the city, unmolested by the broken wall defences. The survivors among the defenders were left without heavy weapons and without tank support. Friendly aircraft made attack runs, destroying several vehicles, but the enemy vehicles were through and inside the city.

Corporal Breeze aimed his rifle once more. The enemy were advancing across the street again in ever-growing numbers. They were trying to flood the main hospital block with men in order to outnumber the defenders and try to break through the line toward the palace. They had to hold them back, but even with air support, that would not be a simple matter. The enemy clearly outnumbered them, and for whatever reason, they seemed to have picked this particular junction to be the focus of their main thrust from the park. Perhaps they believed its defences to be weaker than the surrounding areas; Breeze did not know if that was true or not, as he had not seen the other positions. Perhaps it was simply the closest to the enemy landing ground, or seemed to offer the safest approach.

The crump of grenade explosions could be heard ringing throughout the building. There was no word from down below on whether they should relocate, or if assistance was needed on the lower floors. The fog of war had descended again, despite the human vox operators being attached to each pony platoon. They could only relay what was being put out over the airwaves. The silence could mean two things; either there was nothing to be overly concerned about, or that the officers and vox-men on the first floor were either dead or too heavily engaged to send any messages at all.

Judging by the sheer number of enemies now rushing across the road, the latter seemed all too real a possibility. Breeze fired and fired until his magazine was empty, then reloaded and fired some more. Heavy fire from the hospital brought down many of the humans, and the tank added its own tally to the death toll, at least for a while. Though Breeze did not see its destruction he did hear it. Chaos infantry managed to bring up a pair of missile launchers and deploy them in the windows of the radiography building. Firing almost in unison, the two projectiles struck the turret and hull of the now-exposed tank, knocking it out of action and killing several of its crew. The survivors tried to flee, opening hatches and crawling or stumbling away toward the main hospital block, but they were gunned down before they could make it across the street, in a sick reversal of fortune from moments earlier when they had been inflicting the same merciless end to the enemy infantry trying the same thing.

Finally, the orders came through; the enemy were in the building, which Breeze and his troops already knew. They and the rest of the platoon were to move down to the rear of the third floor and help defend the emergency fire stairs, used to evacuate patients and staff in the event of a blaze in the building. Breeze directed his ponies, and they joined the survivors of the other squads and made their way to the rear of the building. Breeze was glad to be out of the firing line, at least for a moment, rather than being in constant danger of enemy troops in the building opposite. But within a minute, they would be back in the thick of the action.

They never made it to the emergency stairwell, because the enemy had already broken through. There were panicked shouts on the vox from the second floor, then the third, then the fourth. The enemy was charging forward, using their momentum to carry themselves onward and upward, heedless of casualties. Their only objective was to capture the building, however many losses they might take in the process, and charging up a stairwell heavily covered by enemy guns was bound to inflict huge numbers of casualties. However, there were enough Chaos troops that they were able to overwhelm the defenders, clambering over the bodies of their own dead to reach the Imperial and Equestrian troops as they frantically tried to reload. Each man and each pony in turn went down, either to gunfire or to the simple press of bodies, stabbing and kicking and mauling with frightening ferocity and vigour.

At each level, some of the Chaos troops pushed onward up the stairs, while others poured out across the floor to sweep and clear. The fourth floor was no different, and with howls of blood lust, men began to spread out, through the halls and corridors, fighting with whoever they found. Some rooms had no defenders, while others were strongpoints, heavily held, especially the main central ward room, formerly used to house cardiac patients. The room was long, though not particularly wide, with wood partitions every few feet dividing up the beds. Bullets and las-fire now ripped through them as men tried to take cover.

Breeze heard gunfire up ahead, and even without the vox calls, he knew they were in trouble. The enemy were on them, and this time it was up close and personal. He gripped his rifle tightly. The platoon leader shouted orders; move to the nurse's station, take cover. Third squad was to defend the hallway. Breeze led his ponies through the corridors and staff-only rooms. He had been to this hospital several times in his life. It was where he had been born, and now it might be where he would die, as well, not from a disease, but from a bullet. That serendipity was only just now occurring to him; what a cruel twist of fate it would be, a strange irony that only war could create.

The nurse's station was located at the end of the cardiac ward. There were some Imperial Guardsmen already there, firing out from behind the counters and the pharmaceutical storage room. Breeze and the others were directed to take up positions. There were already casualties; two men lay dead in plain sight, just outside the nurse's station. Gunfire flickered and flashed across the length of the room as the Chaos invaders exchanged shots with the defenders. Screams and shouts indicated that there was melee combat going on, as well. Now that the Chaos troops were inside the building, their advanced seemed relentless, unable to be slowed. Like others before them, they had shown a strong propensity to get involved in hand-to-hand, or hand-to-hoof, fighting, and in the close confines of urban warfare, inside a building, fights often devolved into exactly that, either by accident or by design. It was a situation that clearly favoured the attackers; the initiative was with them, they had bloodlust filling their veins, and they had the long history of up-close violence on their side.

Breeze's ponies took up positions and, where they could, opened fire. But the hospital ward was filling with smoke from gunfire, grenade explosions and small spot fires caused by lasgun fire. It was already hard to see halfway down, and the far end of the room was completely shrouded in smoke and obscured from view. Breeze found that he couldn't see a target for him to engage. The rest of the platoon tried their best, some firing blindly into the smoke, but Breeze put a stop to that.

'Only fire when you have a confirmed target!' he ordered. To fire wildly would likely result in friendly casualties, and he had no doubt that enough were already being inflicted on them by the enemy, without any aid from the defenders. The shouts and screams grew louder as the gunfire up ahead slackened somewhat. Nervous glances were exchanged between defenders. To add to their dismay, there were shots being fired in the side corridors as well, and in the smaller intensive care unit that was just on the other side of the main 4th floor corridor. The enemy were spreading out and pushing forward wherever they could, finding ways through, even hacking their way through interior plasterboard and breeze block walls using their bayonets and rifle butts to try and keep advancing, outflank the defenders, and get into close combat with them.

A nearby vox crackled with a warning message. 'All units, all units, be advised, the enemy has reached the 5th floor! I say again, the enemy has reached the fifth floor!'

Breeze could tell their position was starting to become untenable. Surely they would get the order to pull back? The enemy were on every floor except the top one, giving them free reign throughout almost the whole building via the staircases. The danger was obvious; they would be cut off, if they weren't already.

'All units, proceed to the fourth floor and fall back to the research annex!'

Finally, orders were being issued. Whoever was in command was awake to the danger. The fourth floor had a sky bridge connecting from the main hospital building to a research building operated by Canterlot University in conjunction with the city health services. With the ground floor taken, and all the stairwells in enemy hands, it was the only way out of the building. It wasn't far from the nurse's station, and Breeze was tempted to lead his ponies straight there. But he had to wait for orders from the platoon leader. A mass exodus would not be wise and could lead to the survivors being overrun. They had to pull out unit by unit, covering each other's retreat.

'Alright, first squad, covering fire!' the pony platoon commander shouted over the din of gunfire. 'Second squad, third squad, get moving to that sky bridge!'

Breeze remained crouched behind the desk of the nurse's station. His squad would hold the line, then move by bounds, covered by one of the other squads, repeating until they reached the sky bridge and a way out of the hospital. The enemy were still pushing up, and now, finally, Breeze could see a target. As the rest of the platoon peeled off, he sighted in and fired. Enemy soldiers were bursting through the smoke, along with several Imperial Guardsmen who were running for safety. One Chaos trooper used a bed as a springboard, and with a feral howl he leapt upon one of the fleeing troopers, dragging him to the ground and immediately stabbing at him viciously with a serrated knife. Breeze responded by putting a round through the attacker's head, and he slumped down dead. That was one less, but it was too late for his victim.

'First squad, move!' came the shout from the rear. Breeze shouted orders to his squad, and they broke contact, heading back out from the nurse's station as the remaining Guardsmen there covered the retreat. Breeze ran out into the hallway. A sign on the wall showed the directions to various wings and wards of the hospital, including a sign for the sky bridge. That was where they had to go.

The squad galloped along the hall, covered by the guns of the rest of the platoon, who were hiding behind every available piece of cover; pillars, medical carts, benches. When an enemy appeared, they fired, careful to avoid shooting near their fellows. The retreat went well, until they reached the next bend in the hallway. Up ahead were not the friendly forces they had expected, but the enemy. Evidently they were squeezing the fourth floor from both sides at once, and again they had made remarkable progress.

'Contact!' Breeze shouted. 'Contact front!' He ducked for cover as las-fire began to flash around him. He heard the gargled scream of one of his squad and the thud of her body on the floor. The crack of rifles responded, but they had been caught by surprise. They had only expected friendlies between them and the sky bridge. Now it seemed they were truly cut off. Breeze peered out from behind a pillar, feeling nothing but a deep sinking feeling in his gut. Unless they could punch through...

There were a dozen enemies firing at them, while others continued to advance toward them, shouting and hollering. Breeze was working almost like an automaton now, squeezing the trigger, working the action, firing again, and again, working the lever, slamming home a fresh magazine, firing. The enemy got closer and closer, losing men as they came, but still coming, all the time, on the move. Within a few more seconds, they were upon the survivors, and a bayonet flashed toward Breeze. He jumped back and brought the butt of his gun around, trying to create space. It was enough for the man who had attacked him to stagger for a moment, and that let Breeze take a few steps back. One of the other ponies fired a shot and struck the man in the stomach, sending him slumping against the wall. More men were pushing up, Chaos troops howling for blood. The only way out, the only chance of survival, was to push right through them.

The Mare Who Fell To Earth

The flaming comet descended rapidly into the atmosphere. To the surprise of those watching from below, it began to slow, eventually coming to a halt. The fires of atmospheric passage dissipated, and the shroud of plasma which had covered the thing within faded away to nothing as it slowed.

There had been shouts of alarm and confusion in the headquarters in the palace. Observers on balconies and at windows had reported the sighting, confirming the alert sent by Fleet Command in orbit. They had not been able to tell the ground forces the exact nature of what was coming their way; they simply didn't know. It had appeared from nowhere on their Auspex screens, only when it had begun diving into the atmosphere and igniting a trail which had flashed up on thermal monitors. All kinds of alarms and klaxons had been sounded by the sudden event, and they had been able to give the ground forces some warning; less than a minute, but still. It had been long enough, just, for Cadence to raise the shield and protect the city, only to find out that whatever was coming at them, it wasn't an asteroid, and it wasn't a torpedo.

Princess Celestia looked on in surprise as the shield went up. She knew of no threat that would require it to be erected again, and so she was equally surprised when she spotted the incoming trail of fire in the sky. She didn't know what it was any more than anypony else did, at least at first. She watched as it slowed, but could not devote all of her time and effort to paying attention to it. She was still fighting with the Daemon, and she teleported well away from it to give herself a chance to see what exactly was coming their way. Some secret Chaos weapon?

No. Celestia could sense that was not the case. She could sense power, yes, but not like that which radiated from the Daemon. It could only be one thing, one being. It had to be her sister, coming back from wherever the Daemon had sent her. It had to be Luna.

His eyes opened, for the second time in an hour. His head throbbed; his legs throbbed- all of them, but especially his left hind leg. Something was in his eyes; though they were open, he could see nothing. He tried to move, but felt both shooting pains and something pressing down on him. He tried to turn his head, and this, he found that he could do. He still couldn't see anything, but he tried blinking a few times. His eyes felt irritated and red, but at least now he could see. What could he see?

Just debris. Broken concrete, twisted pipes. The remains of something, some building. Where was he? Where had he been? The hospital...yes, the hospital. The squad, the platoon, and more...they had all been there, at the hospital, fighting to keep it under friendly control. Had it worked? Had they won the battle?

Evidently, they hadn't kept the hospital intact. That must be where he was lying; in the rubble, the ruins of a building meant to be engaged in the saving of life, not in the taking of it. Again, the irony washed over him; he wasn't dead, not yet, but others were. He knew- he had killed some of them himself, with his bare hooves. They had deserved death, to be certain, but his ponies had not. They could not be said to be truly innocent in the traditional sense; after all, they were armed combatants, who took on the risk of death when they signed up to the Royal Guard. But they were not evil, they were not ruthless murderers and savages like the enemy were. To die defending the capital was a noble end, of course, but to not die at all was still the far superior outcome.

Corporal Breeze turned his head again. A cracked pipe somewhere was leaking, presumably water, though perhaps it could have been oil or some hydraulic fluid. He had no idea what utilities went into the construction of a modern hospital building, but he could hear whatever it was dripping down. He looked down at himself. There was some debris covering his hind legs, and his chest armour was dented. Broken fragments of concrete lay like snowflakes across his body, but he found that, with concentrated effort, he could move, pulling himself away from the debris. Something creaked nearby, an unstable wall or floor. What the hell had happened to this place?

That was right; he remembered now. Something outside. There had been some kind of light, filling the windows of the sky bridge and illuminating the corridor where they had been fighting. It must have been some kind of explosion, perhaps one of the human atomics which had destroyed Baltimare and required them to spend so long underground? Then again, from the colours he had seen, it had looked more like magic. The Princesses had been fighting overhead, hadn't they? The colours reminded him of Princess Luna...perhaps she had attacked the hospital, either deliberately or by accident.

That had to be it. It made sense. A stray blast of magic, or perhaps a purposeful strike because the enemy had overrun the hospital complex and threatened to break through. He knew Luna would not knowingly endanger other ponies, but perhaps she thought the enemy was in complete control of the building. At the very least, the fourth floor had gone, and maybe the entire building. Breeze couldn't tell. When he noticed blood on him, he panicked momentarily, before he remembered the brutal violence he had inflicted on the enemy in the struggle for life and survival. Now, now he felt the revulsion that he should have felt earlier; he had done these things, things that the enemy would do, not he. Being a soldier or a guardspony meant violence was a likely way of life, but they tended to use an economy of violence. A gunshot was enough to bring a foe down. There was no need to pound its head to a bloody pulp,to gut them and bathe in their gore, to act like some feral carnivore and rip their throat out with your teeth. That kind of thing was a mark of the foe they faced, and to imagine himself reduced to the same level was nauseating, now that he was no longer consumed by the anger which had filled him.

Instead he felt both pain and relief. He was alive, but he was hurt, and what of his squad? Where were the rest of them? Lying among the rubble, Breeze could see no sign of anypony else. That wasn't quite true; there, lodged between two large slabs of concrete, was what seemed to be a body. Limbs were protruding out at crazed angles. It was a pony, to be sure, but from the colour of its coat it was not a member of his squad. Nevertheless, it was clearly dead, crushed by the debris. How many more ponies lay dead around him? How many were lucky and had fallen into voids or lay in relatively open spaces like he did?

Being on the fourth floor might have been a blessing. There was only one more floor above him, plus the roof, which could have fallen on top of him, and it was far more likely that anybody on an upper floor might find themselves escaping being crushed than anybody who was fighting on the lower floors. Breeze managed to sit up, slowly and painfully. He couldn't feel any serious injuries, but he had clearly taken a battering in the collapse. His left hip was discoloured by an almost prismatic bruise, which ranged from dark blue to a sickly yellow in hue. Some of the blood on him was clearly his own, oozing from a dozen cuts and grazes, though his coat was also matted with drying human viscera. His head still hurt, and feeling his helmet showed that it was dented as well as his body armour. Clearly he had struck something, or something had struck him, as the building fell around him.

Breeze was able to pull himself out from under the pieces of concrete, which were mercifully light and relatively small compared to some of the large blocks and slabs that he could see all around. A kind of tunnel had formed among the debris, leading away from the void in which he found himself. Perhaps it was a way out to salvation after all. The sky bridge was clearly gone, but he just might be able to get out of this mess.

With some pain, especially from his left hind leg, Breeze was able to roll over and start to crawl in a kind of half-crouch, dragging his injured leg and keeping low. There were protruding pipes and jagged edges that threatened to catch his head if he didn't duck down. It was dark, but there was light coming in from somewhere, filtering through the gaps and cracks in the rubble, enough for him to have been able to see his injuries, and now enough for him to be able to navigate through the debris. The ruined hospital creaked and groaned like a living creature as he passed through its innards. Perhaps a secondary collapse was imminent. There were more groans. But these were not the groans of shifting masonry.

Breeze froze. Something, besides himself, was alive down here. He stopped and listened; there they were again, faint cries nearby. Human or pony? It was only now that he realised he didn't have his rifle. Should he crawl back and look for it? He hadn't seen it, but if he escaped the building, he would probably need it. After all, there was a war going on out there. Slowly and painfully, he reversed his course, this time having to lead with his hind legs, which was awkward as the left one was starting to seize up somewhat, badly bruised and mangled as it had been. The void was just as he had left it, with no further collapse having occurred in the short intervening period. In the dim half-light, Breeze searched for his weapon, scrabbling through the dust and rubble. There it was; perhaps not even his, but certainly an Equestrian rifle. Would it even be functional? He gave it a quick check over, carried out the immediate action drill to check for any stoppage or blockage that might affect its ability to work. He extracted a fresh magazine from his webbing, tapped it on his helmet, swapped out the one in the rifle for the new one, made sure it was in place, worked the lever action. It seemed to be alright, though he wouldn't know for sure until he fired it in anger, by which time it would be too late to find out if there was some internal problem. He dare not fire it inside the rubble, though; even something as simple as a bullet being fired might affect the stability of the ruin.

He returned to the tunnel and began to crawl out again, staying under the protruding pipes. Again, he heard the groaning of some unfortunate soul, trapped among the concrete. He continued on, running into what he thought at first was a cobweb, but which he soon realised was a bunch of wires and cables hanging down slackly in his path. He pushed through them, forced from a crouch into a complete crawl as the roof of the tunnel was getting steadily lower and lower, while the groans got louder and louder. He gripped his rifle, pushing it along ahead of him in the best approximation of a ready position that he could achieve in such a confined space.

The tunnel took something of a turn, forcing him to roll onto his side to fit through the gap between a large slab of concrete and the crumpled remains of a hospital bed. By some miracle the passage through the rubble remained wide and high enough for him to get through. Whatever was holding up the ceiling was doing a fine job of supporting the weight of whatever lay above; another benefit of being only one floor down from the roof, as there was only one floor's worth of debris that could land on top. Breeze continued to crawl, and then he found the source of the groaning.

There was a body, or rather part of one, protruding halfway from the side of the tunnel, sticking out of the debris. Breeze reflexively tried to take aim, but that was difficult. He soon realised he didn't need to. It was a pony, not a Chaos trooper. She lay crushed beneath a big slab of concrete, all but her head and upper torso pinned under the rubble. Her legs were all trapped, and a large gash across her face did not hide the look of pain upon it. Blood was running into both of her eyes, making it hard to determine if she had suffered any injuries to them or not.

'I-is somebody there...?' she called out weakly, in a raspy voice. Breeze hesitated for a moment. This was not the kind of scenario he expected himself to be in when he saddled up for battle.

'Easy, easy...it's ok...friendly...!' he called out. 'Corporal Breeze with Apple Platoon...you?'

'Pr...private...ahh...' She coughed and grimaced. 'Private Mercury...C-castle Platoon...' Breeze crawled right up to her, putting his rifle aside. She looked in a bad way, but perhaps the severity of her injuries was being overstated by the conditions they found themselves in. The large slab of concrete that was pinning her in place might have been proving beneficial; crush syndrome in a trapped victim could result in disaster once they were freed, as toxins from the deoxygenated tissue in the trapped body parts could rush out once the pressure was released, causing kidney failure and a sudden and surprising death. Breeze knew nothing of that, however. He was not a doctor or a firepony, but a guardspony. He knew how to fight and he knew how to stop and deter crime. He didn't know how to save a trapped victim, or even, really, how to comfort them.

'How are you doing?' Breeze asked. 'It looks like we're stuck down here for now, but...'

'But what...?' Mercury asked. Her face wavered from side to side. It was clear that she couldn't see anything.

'There's a way out...at least, I think there is,' Breeze explained. 'There's a tunnel or something, a way through the rubble. I've been following it...I guess all this crap fell in a particular way, and...'

'I can't move...' Mercury whispered. 'C-can you get me out?'

Breeze eyed over the rubble. The slab of concrete probably weight a ton or more, and even if he had super strength, he could not have safely moved it without threatening to bring more debris tumbling down on top of them. He had to be honest with her.

'No...you're wedged in there pretty good,' he informed her. 'But I can crawl out and get help, and come back, and...'

'No you can't!' Mercury coughed, sobbing a little. 'I can't see, but I can feel. The whole building must be on top of me.'

'It's not that bad...' Breeze replied, trying to reassure her. 'They can get you out, the engineers or the fireponies or whoever. I can go get help.'

She shook her head. 'Don't...don't waste your time. If there's a way out, then you need to get to safety. You can't help me.'

'No! I can't just leave you down here!' Breeze blurted out. 'I can get help.'

'Everypony has better things to do than try to rescue somepony who's just gonna die anyway,' Mercury pointed out forlornly. 'There's still a war going on out there, Corporal. If you're not hurt, then you need to get back out there.'

Breeze was hurt, though not to the extent that he imagined Mercury might be beneath the rubble. Yet now he felt this was his duty; to stay with her and find a resolution, one way or the other, to her plight. He couldn't simply leave her trapped in the rubble. He told her as much.

'You can't stay down here,' she replied. 'What if there's another collapse? You'll die for no reason. You can get out. But...but before you go, can you...can you please...'

'Can I what?' Breeze questioned. 'Can I get you out too?'

'No, no...just, can you...' she swallowed. 'Can you...not leave me here like this?'

Breeze frowned. 'What do you mean? You just said...'

'I know what I said,' Mercury replied. 'You can't get me out, so don't even bother trying. But...don't leave me trapped here alone and...and...alive.'

Breeze closed his eyes. Was she really asking him to kill her? It would be a mercy kill, yes, but he couldn't bring himself to do that. He was no murderer...or would it count as assisted suicide? It didn't matter what the legal definition was. He couldn't do it, and he shook his head, even though she couldn't see him.

'No...you don't mean that. I'm not gonna do that,' he told her pointedly, but she managed to turn her head in his direction, and even though her eyes were covered with blood, he could almost see the desperation in them anyway. He could definitely hear it in her voice.

'Please! I-i'm...going to die anyway, if nobody is coming for me. Just...don't leave me here to wither away for days. Please...'

'I can get help!' Breeze told her again. 'I can find somepony...'

'No...just get yourself out. Just...shoot me,' Mercury whispered. 'Do you have a weapon?'

'I...y-yes, I do, but I can't fire it,' he pointed out. 'Not in here. It might...the vibrations and the sound and...and whatever...it might cause another collapse.'

'Then...please, find some other way,' Mercury begged. 'Stab me o-or suffocate me...do something! Please don't leave me like this...'

Breeze hesitated, frowning. He couldn't possibly do that. He wanted to help her, but not like this. Not like this. He was no murderer, he told himself again, and only a murderer could kill in such an overt way. But, then again, he had a sudden flashback to his earlier actions. Some of those human soldiers...he hadn't just killed them, he had brutalised them, slaughtered them. He had murdered them, because he had not merely done enough to defend himself. Even once his foes were down, he had continued attacking merely to satisfy his own sudden and inexplicable bloodlust. He had been so consumed by it at the time as to not think objectively about it, but now, with hindsight, it terrified him. If he could snap like that, what was to stop it happening again? If this war were to end and he and the rest of the Royal Guard were to return to policing duties, what was to stop it happening during some routine arrest, when a suspect tried to resist him? What if, instead of waiting for a unicorn with stun magic or grappling the suspect to the ground, he instead put bullets into some pony who, while perhaps not innocent, had not done anything worthy of death?

So far as he knew, Private Mercury had not done anything worthy of death, and yet she was begging for it. Breeze was not equipped to help her; he was not a survival expert or a doctor, and he didn't know if she could survive long enough for him to fetch help and for help to actually be available to deal with such things rather than fighting the invasion. If he couldn't find anypony, then she would suffer in agony for...hours? Days? He had no idea. After earthquakes in some of the more unstable western regions of Equestria, ponies had been pulled alive from the rubble of collapsed buildings up to two weeks after the incident occurred. He couldn't leave her like that, abandon her to such a terrible fate. Even if he went in search of aid, he might be killed on the way, and nopony would even know she was down here at all. He couldn't leave her to die alone in such a horrific way, either slowly suffocating from the eventual lack of air, dying of thirst, or perhaps lingering on for day after day in agony until finally succumbing to her wounds.

'A-alright...' Breeze muttered. 'I'll...I'll think of something, ok? You just...just, uh...' His first instinct to complete the sentence had been to tell her to hang on, but that kind of defeated the purpose. His second thought was to tell her to relax- equally inappropriate and impossible under the circumstances. 'You just rest,' he finally settled on, and Mercury nodded.

Now he had to find something to carry out his promise with. He couldn't use his gun in case of collapse, so how was he going to kill her? That wasn't something he ever imagined himself thinking, yet here he was. He tried to think of something. What had she suggested? Stab her...he did have his combat knife, but it would be hard to get enough leverage to inflict a fatal blow in such a confined space, and the last thing he wanted to do was to simply cause her more pain and fail to actually finish her off. Suffocation, she had also mentioned, but what could he use for that? He mentally went through his equipment.

Yes- his first aid kit might hold the answer. Every pony was outfitted with a small pack which contained a variety of items- disinfectant wipes, needle and thread, painkillers, and, importantly, a few bandages. Apart from his armour and helmet, Breeze wore no clothes with which he might be able to suffocate her. The bandages were the only things in his possession that were impermeable enough to hold over her mouth and prevent her breathing through them. He would probably have to use all of the trio of bandages provided in each pack, and while soldiers and guardsponies were not supposed to use their own first aid kit to help others- the idea was to use the kit of the casualty, so that another pony might be able to use yours to help you if you were wounded- Breeze decided this was worthy of an exception. He had no other ideas, and he didn't even know if it would work at all, but he had promised her. He reached down, fumbling to extract the kit and tear it open, shaking the contents out and gathering the bandages.

'Ok...I'm ready to, uh...' he trailed off. 'I can...hold something over your face,' he offered. Mercury quickly nodded.

'Yes...o-ok...please...'

'Are you sure? I mean, are you completely sure?' Breeze asked quietly, trying not to let his voice waver. 'There's no coming back from it.'

'I-i know...' Mercury sighed. 'But there's no coming back from this, either. I'm stuck here, and even if somepony got me out, I'd probably die anyway, so...so yes, I'm ready...I think...' She swallowed and nodded. 'I'm ready.'

Breeze crawled back up to her. He couldn't hold her hoof, couldn't give it a gentle squeeze. Her limbs were all trapped under the rubble. He put a hoof on her cheek instead. 'A-alright...I'll do it. I won't leave you like this. Is there anything you want to tell anypony? Your family? Parents, kids? Husband, wife? If I can find them, I'll tell them what you said.'

'M-my brother is the only one still alive,' Mercury replied. 'At least, he was yesterday. I don't know now, but...his name is Shutter Plate. He's a photographer, for fashion and stuff. Just...if you can find him, tell him I love him, and I love mom and dad, a-and I'm sorry.'

'I'll find him, and I'll tell him,' Breeze assured her; anything to make her feel better in her last moments. 'You did good, Private. You fought like a guardspony should,' he told her, even though he hadn't seen her fighting, didn't know what she had or hadn't done; she might have cowered in a closet for the entirety of the battle for all he knew. 'And you fell like guardsponies do. But you won't fall in vain. We'll take back this city...we'll be victorious. Your sacrifice will never be forgotten. I'll make sure of that.'

'Thank you...' Mercury whimpered pathetically. It was the sound of somepony facing their death, and Breeze knew he was the one who had to inflict it upon her.

'Are you ready?' he asked again in a whisper.

'Yes...' she nodded. 'Yes...'

'Alright...' Breeze's hoof shook as he bundled up the bandages and held them a few inches above her face. Her breathing was weak and shallow, partly from fear, no doubt, but partly from her injuries, injuries that meant she would die soon enough anyway. 'I'll count down. Three...two...one...'

He reached zero, and his hoof hesitated for a second or two longer before he found the courage to press the bandages down firmly, making sure they covered both her mouth and snout. Mercury snorted and gasped, her head twitching from side to side as her brain reflexively fought against that which she had asked for. She wanted to die, but her body didn't, and her natural reaction was to try and breathe, try and suck in some air, any air, from whatever source she could find. She rasped and wheezed as Breeze closed his eyes, feeling tears start to fall as he held the bandages firmly in place with a strong, though trembling, hoof. He had no idea how long he had to keep them in place to achieve his aim, but he kept them there as Mercury's desperate breathing became weaker and weaker and weaker. When there was silence, he held the bandages over her face for another minute before removing them, letting them drop to the floor of the tunnel.

His eyes slick with tears, Breeze found his whole body shaking now, not just his hoof. He leaned in over her face to listen for any sound of breathing. Her lungs were still, her face a mask of distress, the markings of how her life had ended. He placed his hoof against her neck; no pulse. She was gone. Breeze managed to steady himself, taking deep breaths, sucking in the vital air that Mercury had struggled to find in her final seconds of consciousness. He felt like he should close her eyes, but he couldn't tell if they were open or not; they were covered with blood that had now dried into her coat and crusted over her eye sockets. He settled for resting his hoof on her forehead, closing his eyes, and uttering the simple prayer for the lost.

'Celestia watch over her, and grant unto her eternal rest.'

Now, it was time to care for himself. With some difficulty he was able to crawl past her, trying to treat her lifeless body with the respect and dignity it deserved, but finding that he still had to crawl right over her head in order to escape. The tunnel continued on; not so much a tunnel, but a passage through the collapsed walls and floors that fortuitously offered just enough space for him to squeeze through, as if divine intervention had created it so that he could escape.

And escape he did, for the tunnel led toward the light, and after another minute or crawling, Breeze emerged into the open air. He looked around, looked down. He found he was perched on the edge of the collapsed structure, and where he had been four stories above ground, he was now closer to a single story high. The hospital had gone down like a pack of cards, not quite a clean pancake collapse but enough to leave the building a mere shadow of its former self. Breeze took a deep breath of air, not stale like it had been below the rubble, bur fresh, clear. He looked up to the skies.

There was the Princess, still fighting, still swirling through the air. And there was something else, something most bizarre. It looked like a shooting star, perhaps a comet, though even as he watched, it faded away. He frowned, squinted against the bright light after being in the darkened tunnel. What was he looking at? At the centre of the phenomena appeared to be a creature of some kind. Yes, it was- it had four legs, wings, and a horn. It had to be Princess Luna, he thought to himself. It had to be Luna. He looked again, more closely. It had to be Luna.

But it wasn't.

Standoff

Celestia's expectation turned rapidly to shock, and then to horror. She had expected to gaze upon her sister once the fireball had cleared away. She had expected to see her flesh and blood, her most beloved Luna returning from her second, and much shorter, banishment away from Equestria. Instead, she found herself staring at her old foe, a foe already believed defeated.

Queen Chrysalis.

There had to be some mistake. It had to be an illusion, perhaps something projected into her mind by the Daemon. She knew it could speak to her inside her own head; it had done so before. It was quite on the cards that it might be able to show images in much the same way. Illusory tricks seemed to be something of a forte of the creature, given some of the things it had tried while fighting Celestia down in Fillydelphia. That was what it had to be, surely. After all, Chrysalis was dead. She had been pounded by the human starship's most powerful weapons, a barrage that Celestia herself had watched from the bridge. It dwarfed anything that ponykind or any of its allies or enemies could hope to unleash without using Alicorn magic or something of a similar grade, and the ships had been firing dozens, maybe hundreds, of guns, each of which was designed to split a mighty starship open, to destroy the greatest war machines produced by the Imperium and her enemies.

Malaranth, however, did not appear to be taken aback by the apparent appearance of the Queen. That certainly lent credence to the theory that the Daemon was responsible for this apparition. That was the simple solution. The more unlikely, and more worrying, theory was that this was no illusion. This was no trick of the light or mental projection. That this truly was Chrysalis herself, somehow still alive against all the odds. If that really was the case, then...

'Ah, we meet at last, Queen Chrysalis!' Malaranth spoke, baring its teeth in what appeared to be an approximation of a warm smile. 'Imagine, the two most powerful creature in Equestria, facing each other once again...'

Celestia glanced rapidly between her two enemies. Malaranth yet again showed its strange ability to know about things which it had not yet encountered. It had never come across Chrysalis directly, yet knew her on sight from one source or another. Or perhaps, it was all in Celestia's head; the Daemon could be somehow reading her thoughts and using them to recreate a spectre of Chrysalis in order to distract the Princess from the fight that really mattered.

'Stand aside, creature!' Chrysalis answered in a suitably booming voice. 'My quarrel is not with you, but with her!' She glared in Celestia's direction, eyes blazing with hatred from her old foe. 'Do not stand in my way, or you will regret it!'

It was a convincing illusion, to be able to speak, but again that could be inside her mind. What could not simply be imagined was the blast of magic that erupted from Chrysalis's crooked horn and ripped through the sky toward the Princess. She managed to barely move out of the way, taken by surprise by the whole event and nearly caught in her confusion. She felt the heat and the movement of air as the magic passed her. That was definitely real.

'Such insolence would be quite refreshing, if I had not been hearing the same things from the Princess,' Malaranth commented. 'Come, Your Majesty. Consider the serendipity of your quest thus far. The sudden arrival of this fleet, infiltrating the Imperial craft...alas, it failed at the last, but that was due to unforeseen meddling, no?' Chrysalis turned with a snarl toward the Daemon.

'What are you babbling about, creature? Who are you?' she demanded. 'I have been denied my vengeance for too long to be sidetracked listening to you!'

'Perhaps you should listen, though, Your Majesty,' Malaranth chuckled. 'We could have a very productive arrangement, you and I. After all, it is no coincidence that you were able to achieve the first of your goals. It was merely bad luck that your mission did not succeed. Interference, as I said, from outside sources...' The Daemon looked around to Celestia.

'And what interest do you have in my plans, creature?' Chrysalis questioned, narrowing her eyes, slitted pupils boring into those of the Daemon.

'A great deal, Your Majesty,' Malaranth chuckled. 'A great deal...my name is Malaranth the Infinite, and my master foresaw just such a thread of fate as this. He anticipated what great power you could obtain.'

'Your master?' Chrysalis sneered. 'I bow to no master, nor to any mistress!' She looked over at Celestia, as the Princess floated at a safe distance, though still easily able to overhear their conversation. 'Celestia learned that once before, and she will learn it once more today!'

'I am sure,' Malaranth nodded, twirling its staff idly in his clawed hand. 'But would you rather fight both of us? Or would you prefer to have an ally on your side? After all, my master and I have foreseen your rise thus far. It would be an exaggeration to say we have masterminded it ourselves- that was your doing, Your Majesty- but we have hewn the strands of destiny, shall we say, to aid you.'

'Lies!' Chrysalis snarled. 'Why would you do such a thing? Who is this master you prostrate yourself before? You are a Daemon, yes? From some other dimension? So which of your dark lords do you obey? Tzeentch, is it?'

'Most perceptive indeed, Your Majesty,' Malaranth replied. 'Clearly the knowledge you have gained extends beyond that of your Imperial foe. Alas, your pronunciation is lacking, but it is difficult for any born outside of the Warp to speak our tongue correctly. You are correct, however. That is my patron, yes. The Changer of Ways, and he and I are both very interested in you and your kind. You and I desire the same thing, no? Power. Power is what you seek, and power is what we crave. We love the fickle nature of it, how easily it slips from one's grasp, how it can build and build and build, yet how it can be snatched away cruelly by those who decry it, those who believe that power corrupts, yet are all too willing to take on the mantle themselves after overthrowing their rightful masters...'

'Get to the point, Daemon!' Chrysalis snapped. 'You are going to make me some kind of offer, hm? To offer me assistance if I in turn will do your dirty work for you? Is that the long and short of it?'

'In a crude manner of speaking, yes,' Malaranth replied. Before he could continue his sentence, however, he was interrupted by a forked blast of magic, a twin-pronged golden arrow from the blue as Celestia resumed her attack, striking at both of her enemies at the same time in the hopes of catching them off guard as they engaged in conversation, usually a most incongruous thing to be doing in the middle of a warzone, yet seemingly commonplace whenever this Daemon was involved. He had a rather loquacious tongue and a propensity to use it, and Celestia was tired of hearing him talk.

It seemed clear to her now that this was indeed the real Chrysalis. Despite what she had seen with her own eyes, despite what the human bridge crew had agreed with, and despite what their sensors had confirmed, Chrysalis had not been killed by the immense barrage; all of that firepower, all of that energy, had proven to merely be a fantastical light show.

Celestia could offer a guess as to exactly what had happened afterward. The vast debris field left by the destruction of the Emperor's Judgement provided Chrysalis with somewhere to hide. The Imperials had promised to conduct a full and thorough search of the debris, in order to recover Chrysalis's body and her crown- a small additional favour requested by Celestia. She claimed it was a touch of vanity on her part, recovering a trophy from her deceased foe, her symbol of authority, in order to publicly display it to her own populace. In reality, she knew that Chrysalis was wearing the Element of Magic, and its recovery was still crucial. As Celestia looked up at her now, she could see that the Queen was indeed still in possession of the diadem which rightly belonged on Twilight's head, not on hers.

Evidently Chrysalis had been able to evade detection; either that or the humans had not bothered to comb the debris after all. She could have easily disguised herself as a human member of the ship's crew and then floated dormant, just another frozen corpse so far as the search teams would have been concerned. Perhaps she felt the time was right to strike, or perhaps some body recovery team had been about to collect her. For whatever reason, she had remarkable timing, to come in like a comet, streaking down from the sky in the middle of the battle for Canterlot. She was heedless of the potential danger of flying down into such a maelstrom, and that was a sign of either arrogance or, perhaps, a supreme confidence in her abilities and her power.

That confidence was clearly displayed when her shield sprang up, and easily deflected Celestia's attack. Malaranth teleported away, and Chrysalis laughed.

'Is that the best you can muster, Celestia? Where is your sister, hm? Has she abandoned you in your hour of need? Or did you have to banish her to the moon again?'

'Chrysalis! You had your chance to leave this planet,' Celestia replied. 'You had your chance to be something more. You failed. Why not abandon your quest? Listen to me. We may be enemies, but this Daemon, these creatures...they have invaded this planet, and this planet, like it or not, is your home as well as mine. We can put our differences aside long enough to fight and defeat them.'

It was a plea that Chrysalis, no doubt, would say smacked of desperation. Celestia would never offer a hoof to the Changeling Queen, not after all she had done. Not unless the Princess were truly desperate for assistance. In a way, she was; the Imperial forces were more than capable of, eventually, overrunning the Chaos ground troops. But the flood of Daemons, and their mighty leader, posed a different question, to which Celestia and her sister so far had not been able to find an answer. Loathe as she was to admit it to herself, Celestia had to accept that Chrysalis was now more powerful than she was. Something had empowered her, and she seemed to be getting increasingly stronger between meetings. It seemed that Twilight was correct. What she had been told by the Queen, and relayed to Celestia, seemed to be the case. Chrysalis's plan, exposure to more and more beings, was indeed growing her power, and the crew of the Imperial flagship had perhaps supercharged her. According to the Lord Admiral, the crew complement of the Emperor's Judgement was one million, four hundred thousand and fifty. If Chrysalis had been able to siphon off love energy from all of them, then that would be a huge boost to her power over what was available to her on the planet. Depending on the range of her magic and abilities, if she and her drones could obtain love from all of the other ships of the fleet as well, then it could increase her power tenfold.

'Now you wish to be friends, Celestia?' Chrysalis chuckled. 'How delightful that would be, hm? It would be as though we were fillies in elementary school. We could frolic in the grass and pick the petals from daisies. Or perhaps I could kill you instead!' she snarled, unleashing a blast of magic. Celestia swung to the side, flapping her wings.

'Think about it, Chrysalis!' Celestia urged. 'You can fight me all you wish, but if this Daemon and its Lord are stronger than you, then like it or not, you will fall under their sway, or you will die trying to resist them. You said it yourself, just now. You do not bow to any master.'

'Yet you wish me to obey you?' the Queen laughed. 'You are as delusional as you are conceited.'

'I do not wish you to obey me,' Celestia answered. 'We would fight as equals to banish this threat, and then, if we must, we shall fight each other once more. If you kill me but you fall to this Daemon, what will you have gained?'

'Nothing, you are quite correct,' Chrysalis replied. 'But if I kill you, and kill this Daemon as well? I will gain everything! Everything, Celestia. All that was once yours, and so, so much more. Can you even imagine? You don't know what it's like. You do not know what is truly out there, do you?' She laughed happily, as though they were the two proverbial fillies she had just mentioned, imagining what they would be when they grew up. 'You have not seen the reality of what I have seen. Every human I touch broadens my horizons. Every human my drones touch expands our collective knowledge. Everything you may have heard about their Imperium, their empire? It's all true, and more. So much more, Celestia! And it can all be mine!'

Celestia shook her head. 'You're the one that is delusional, Chrysalis. You are but a single Changeling, and you want to conquer the galaxy? You could not even conquer Canterlot, but you want to take millions of worlds?'

'Yes! And each one that I bring under my control will bring me more and more power! And the more power I obtain, the more worlds I shall take.' Chrysalis licked her lips in anticipation. 'Imagine the glory I shall bask in, when the entire galaxy is under my sway!'

'And how do you plan to get there, when the ships you controlled have been destroyed?' Celestia asked her.

'There are more ships up there,' Chrysalis pointed out. 'They are just watching and waiting. You do realise, don't you, that once their mission is complete, the Imperials will destroy you. Whatever is left of Equestria will be wiped out. It's in their nature,' she explained. 'If I could share with you the knowledge that I possess, you would see it to be true. They do not permit other species to survive, not if they pose any kind of potential threat. And you and I pose a potential threat to them, Celestia. They know this. Did you know that they have pony prisoners up there? Oh yes, Celestia, and not just prisoners. They are dissecting ponies to try and learn the secrets of our magic. They have some of my children as well. Perhaps you are partially correct. Perhaps we have a mutual enemy, but it is the Imperium of Man.'

Celestia had to admit that she was not entirely surprised to learn that the Imperium were apparently torturing and killing ponies. She knew that they had a somewhat adverse reaction to magic; apparently it conflicted with their belief that such things were heretical, yet it had proven most beneficial to them. It had saved their entire fleet, after all. The Imperials had fought and died alongside her ponies to protect Equestrian cities, to save Equestrian lives, however, and she could not simply throw that away; she certainly would never do so on the words of Chrysalis, a hated foe. Perhaps, years earlier, Celestia had made a mistake in turning the Changelings away. Maybe she had been afraid of the potential of the Queen and her power, but if that had been the case, then right here and right now, she was being proven correct. She should have been afraid.

'Whichever course you choose, Chrysalis, you will end up dead,' Celestia assured her. 'Either by my hoof, or through the actions of the Imperium or of Chaos. Do not be deceived by the words of this Daemon. It does not care one iota for you or your kind.'

'And neither do you,' Chrysalis sneered. 'You have proven that time and again. You want to eradicate us all. You want to wipe out my entire species, don't you, Celestia? You want to commit genocide to correct a slight, or perhaps merely to prove yourself right in your decision all those years ago. I told you before, and I'll tell you again now. You missed your chance. We could have been allies, yes. We could have even been friends. But that ship sailed long, long ago, and now, I'll speak the truth. You were right to be afraid of me.'

'Perhaps you were both right to be afraid of each other.'

Malaranth reappeared, floating above both royals. 'Consider that you are undoubtedly the two most powerful beings to live on this planet. If you were to work together, with my help...imagine what you could both accomplish! I have approached you both with offers of assistance. But together...together, we would form quite the unstoppable trio!' The Daemon chuckled effeminately. 'I heard what you said, Your Majesty. The Imperium is indeed your true enemy. They have tried to exterminate you, and Princess, they have used you for their own ends. Queen Chrysalis is quite right. Once they have achieved their goals, they will turn on you in a heartbeat. It is always the same when it comes down to it. They will murder you in cold blood just because you are a different species to them.'

'And how, pray tell, is that different from you?' Celestia asked Malaranth.

'Because I have come to uplift you. To aid you in seeing the truth. Our true enemy is the Imperium,' Malaranth replied. 'Not you.'

'Tell me you do not believe this, Chrysalis,' Celestia pleaded. 'This Daemon wishes to destroy you, and you are here alone against thousands of its kind.'

'Alone?' Chrysalis chuckled, a sinister smile on her face. 'I am not alone...'

From the east, they suddenly came. A black mass on the horizon, cresting the mountaintops, heading straight for Canterlot like a storm cloud. But it was no storm; it was a mass of Changelings, thousands of drones. Perhaps it was all that remained of the entire species, or perhaps it was merely an attack force. Evidently those aboard the Imperial ships which had been destroyed were not the last of their line- nor had the jungle Hive destroyed by the Equestrian Navy been the last hideout of the creatures. It had been empty; these drones must have been holed up somewhere else, somewhere equally difficult to discover, biding their time and waiting to be summoned by their Queen for one purpose or another.

The city's air defences, tied up with both Daemons and enemy aircraft, were caught by surprise at the sudden arrival, unable to react effectively even if they had been aware of the attack. There were too many drones to be effectively engaged, and as soon as they crested the mountain peaks, the Changelings began to spread out to minmise the effectiveness of any high-explosive rounds that might be hurled their way as they dove in, coming down on top of the city like a swarm of locusts.

They were not only after the ponies, but instead showed themselves willing to attack anything in their way, Imperial, Equestrian or Chaos alike. It mattered little to them, and it seemed all they wanted was to fight. Chrysalis clearly had some plan, either pure vengeance or something more intricate, but it added another dimension to the fight for Canterlot. No longer was there just a single enemy force for the defenders to deal with; now they had to defeat two.

Everybody was taken by surprise at the Changeling arrival. There had been no warning, only a brief few minutes since Chrysalis appeared on the scene. Her arrival had been reported to the headquarters from ground units, relayed across the city where possible, but she had arrived alone. Nobody had expected her to be suddenly joined by thousands of her minions. The surprise was even greater for the Chaos ground and air forces; they had never encountered the Changelings before, never had to face them in battle. At first, many Chaos troopers thought that they were friendly, just another sub-variety of Daemon being unleashed on the city. Their expressions soon turned to confusion and horror as they found themselves under attack by what they had imagine to be friendly.

In the headquarters, deep inside the palace, the arrival of the Changelings sent shockwaves through the command staff. Princess Cadence was adamant; she had to get out there and help Celestia. With Luna gone, and now Chrysalis returned as well as the Daemon, Celestia would surely be overwhelmed, she argued. Shining Armour and Major Barritt argued against it just as vehemently; she was needed to protect the palace. If the shield went down, there was nothing to stop the enemy from bombing the place to rubble, or the Changelings rushing in en masse, overrunning the HQ and massacring the civilians. That would be a disaster, and most likely lead to the loss of the entire city to one or other of the enemy forces.

It was a dilemma that could not be resolved easily. The Princess could, perhaps, handle herself against two foes, but if not, then she was in serious danger, and by extension, so was everypony else. Even if they held the city, losing Celestia would be a crippling blow to pony morale, and to any realistic chance of holding what remained of Equestria together. Cadence had her own direct responsibilities in the Crystal Empire, and Luna was too divisive a figure to act as the true, sole leader of Equestria in the absence of her sister. Many ponies held her responsible for her own actions as Nightmare Moon, even if Celestia didn't, and though there was no true overt resistance to her reintegration into society and the ruling structure, there was a large undercurrent that would surely lead to the splintering of Equestria if she were to take power. Of course, that relied on her actually still being alive.

Finally, with Shining Armour's pleading, Cadence agreed with her husband. She would stay and protect the palace, and the Imperials would shift more resources into trying to defeat the Daemon and, now, Chrysalis as well. With more troops being funneled into Canterlot, and the bulk of the Chaos armour being systematically wiped out by orbital strikes in the valley below, the tide would no doubt turn soon enough in terms of the ground war. But unless someone, or somepony, could defeat the two hostile leaders- three, counting the Sorcerer Lord Parthax- then all of that might be for nought.

Just as the fight below, so the fight in the air rapidly turned into another melee, a three-way standoff with great power being unleashed on all sides. Chrysalis was clearly not content to listen to Malaranth's words or accept his offer of an alliance- she did not trust him any more than she trusted Celestia. She split her attacks equally as a result, and proved to be a worthy foe indeed. Malaranth had kept an even keel fighting Celestia, finding that neither of them could break through each other's defences. But Chrysalis fought with an entirely different approach, and a different form of magic, and moreover, she was more powerful than Celestia.

'My, Your Majesty, how you have grown!' Malaranth chuckled as it deflected a blast from Chrysalis, unable to stop it entirely. 'Are you sure you will not take me up on my offer? Imagine how powerful you could become with the whole Imperium open to you.'

Chrysalis replied with a laugh, teleporting away from a shot from Celestia and firing off a ball of magic at her in reply. 'Once I defeat you both, then I will be free to pursue my own aims once more! I do not need your help, Daemon!'

'Ah, and yet, Your Majesty,' Malaranth replied quickly, 'You have already been the recipient of it.'

Take It Back

'What are you talking about, Daemon?' Chrysalis demanded. 'You have not helped me, and nor would I want your aid!'

'On the contrary, Your Majesty,' Malaranth answered, as jets screamed by overhead and explosions rippled below. 'Perhaps not overtly, and perhaps even by accident at times, but I, or rather my Lord Tzeentch, has been helping you for years. Decades, centuries.'

'What nonsense!' Chrysalis scoffed. 'You have been here on this planet for, what, days? A week or so?'

'Indeed. But behind the scenes, Your Majesty. Behind the scenes.' Malaranth chuckled. 'My Lord works in the shadows, in the mind...manipulation is key, Your Majesty. The threads of fate can be woven together, or separated into individual strands, all to achieve an ultimate goal many years in the future. the true nature of which even I may not understand until it comes to fruition. You are one such goal, Your Majesty. Many things were tweaked or altered just enough to set an individual, a ship, a planet or even an entire race, down a particular course. And your course was very important to us.'

Chrysalis frowned. Now she was listening. She was listening intently enough to not even bother evading a blast of magic from Celestia, which just bounced off of her shield. 'My course? I owe you nothing! Why would you be interested in me and yet not even show yourself on this planet until now?'

'Because sometimes the organic development is more important than direct meddling,' Malaranth replied. 'Small tweaks here and there can result in enormous changes down the line, and sometimes acting overtly will have less of an effect. We saw your potential, but we knew that it would take time to achieve it. You see, we saw what you could do. We know the abilities that you have, the strength your species has...and we knew you were perfect.'

'Perfect?' Chrysalis laughed. 'I have never claimed to be perfect. Even Celestia will agree with me on that.'

'Perhaps, but you were, and are, perfect for the task you were to be assigned. You were perfect for the exact kind of plan that you imagined yourself,' Malaranth explained. 'To spread your species among the stars, among the worlds of the Imperium, to sow discord and confusion, fear and disquiet. To upset the social order, to slowly tear down the Imperium from the inside out, as friend turned upon friend, father upon son, mother upon daughter, because they simply no longer knew who they could truly trust. When you cannot trust the man next to you, when you cannot trust your superior officer or your subordinate, when you cannot trust your governor or your neighbour or your own family...that is when everything starts to collapse. And that is exactly why the Changelings are perfect. You have proven it beyond doubt. You took control of the Polaris Maxima, an Imperial capital ship, without anyone outside of its hull being aware of that fact. You can mimic appearance, voice, mannerisms, almost beyond any possibility of detection. Moreover, you learn merely from touch, absorbing knowledge, and the more you know, the more convincing you become to those who you seek to deceive.'

Chrysalis was silent for a moment before responding. 'So you are saying...you have been using me all along? For your own ends?'

'Not using you, Your Majesty, no. Helping you!' Malaranth answered. 'Helping you to a mutually beneficial future. One in which both you and my Lord will gain. To this exact point in time. It was no coincidence that the Crusade fleet arrived here. Nor was it a coincidence that they were being pursued. It was all predicted, and sure enough, it came to pass. My Lord knew that the only way for your species to get off of this planet was for outside forces to come to your aid, in the form of starships. The course of both fleets were subtly manipulated over the months and years that they were away from port.'

'Enough!' Chrysalis shouted. 'You can call it what you wish, but the fact is you have been using me, and I do not take kindly to being used. Perhaps you will soon regret all of your so-called plans, Daemon!'

Her horn flashed, and Malaranth was forced to teleport out of the line of fire. 'Perhaps, Your Majesty,' it replied once it had reappeared. 'But nothing my Lord Tzeentch ever does is truly regretted. For every success, every failure, every outcome is still change, and change is His currency. Perhaps I shall be defeated here, or perhaps you will be. Perhaps we shall all three of us die, but it will matter not to Him. Lord Tzeentch revels in change. He Is change.'

'Then I am more than happy to help you meet with your maker once again!' Chrysalis snarled, firing once more. Malaranth moved away just in time, and Celestia joined in the fight, swooping into the fray. She was not sure who represented the bigger threat, Chrysalis or Malaranth. Both were immensely powerful creatures. Chrysalis was her old foe, Malaranth her new one. Both wanted to destroy Cantelot, or perhaps capture it, and either way they had to be stopped. But part of her said that she might be better off letting them fight each other. At least they might wear each other down, present openings in their defences, leave them vulnerable.

Chrysalis went after the Daemon with a fervor she had reserved only for Celestia herself in the past. Malaranth responded with furious attacks of its own, and the city quaked beneath the blaze of power displayed above it. Celestia kept her distance, keeping a weary eye on the combat, ready to step in at a moment's notice and engage if she spotted some kind of opening. But below them, below the trio of godlike beings, the rest of the battle continued to rage.

Corporal Breeze scrambled carefully down the side of the hospital. It was a ruin, and it would have to be torn down and replaced in the future- assuming there was a future for the city. It was more than a ruin, though. It was a tomb, a mausoleum for countless ponies. The Corporal had no idea how many bodies lay buried inside, trapped and crushed like Private Mercury. He again shuddered as he remembered her lying there helplessly, and he could still feel the warmth of her final breaths on his hoof, the last twitches of her dying body. Entire platoons must have been lost when the building came down, but he was sure that he was not the only one to have escaped with their lives. Others must have been lucky, able to dive to safety before the collapse, or crawl free afterward like he had.

Of course, that also applied to the enemy. Breeze kept hold of his rifle. He didn't know where the enemy might be, nor where he might find friendly forces. Had the whole line broken, or could he move down to the next intersection and link up with other ponies?

The streets were fraught with peril. Enemy aircraft wheeled overhead- or at least, he assumed they were hostile, but Imperial fighters may well have been mixed in as well. What was definitely hostile was the Changeling Queen and her minions, who he had seen flying in over the mountains, sending a jolt of fear through him. The Chaos troops were bad enough, but now to have to fight both humans and Changelings at the same time? He could do nothing alone, without his platoon. They were, he assumed, all dead, or at least most of them, lost in the hospital collapse. He had to find friendly forces. Wandering the streets alone was an invitation to a quick death from one source or another.

He moved as quickly as he could, though the ache in his left hip and hind leg slowed him down somewhat. He stuck to the shadows where possible, trying to stay hidden and not simply trot down the middle of the road. He kept a sharp eye out for any movement on the ground or in windows and doorways. Snipers could be around, or the enemy could have heavy weapon teams set up. He simply didn't know how far the Chaos troops had been able to advance in the time he had been trapped. Nor indeed did he know how long had passed while he had lain unconscious, though the fact that the Princess had still been fighting above, and continued to do so, suggested it had perhaps not been too long.

Breeze decided to head for the second line of defence, to the rear and closer to the palace. That was the best bet; moving along the line to another strongpoint might prove a grave mistake if the entire line had collapsed or been overrun. Better to head back and be reassigned to another location if needed. At the very least he could report the collapse of the hospital and the loss of the position to a superior so that they could adjust their plans as needed. Given the speed of the collapse, it was entirely possible that nopony in headquarters knew about it; none of the human vox operators would have had a chance to send out a message.

There was gunfire up ahead; at least, he thought it was ahead of him. In the canyons of the city streets, sound echoed and carried in strange ways, distorting the perceived direction for the listener. Soon, though, he could see gunfire as well as hear it. There were flashes ahead, both bullets and las-fire coming from the buildings close to the palace that formed the second line of resistance. Evidently it was still intact; the enemy had not yet reached the palace itself, and the defensive shield was still in place, Breeze could see. That was good. What was not good was that he was on the wrong side of the line. The enemy were between him and friendly forces. He could see them; men rushing across the plaza ahead, taking cover behind fountains and stone planters, ducking out from behind lamp-posts to return fire. But there were not just infantry. He could see at least three vehicles; tanks, like the one which had accompanied them at the hospital, though these were in the colours of the enemy.

They had broken through, then. The main gate must have fallen, and the enemy armour allowed to race into the city and roam the streets. That changed the dynamic considerably, and Breeze was no longer confident that the line would hold. He had seen what the Imperial tank had done, ripping through the ranks of enemy infantry with ease as they flailed helplessly against it with their small arms. It was perhaps the human equivalent of a strong unicorn with a magic shield and a powerful attack; able to take large amounts of fire and dish it out in return. If the enemy were bringing them to bear against the defences, then there was every chance they might break through toward the palace.

Breeze knew he had no chance of getting through the enemy and reaching the friendly line. Nor could he turn and go back. With enemy vehicles in the city, they could pop up anywhere at any time, and he didn't know if any resistance was still being mounted by the first line. All he could do, he decided, was to hide. To take cover somewhere until everything blew over. Or...wait, the sewers! Yes, he could...maybe...if he could get down there, he could bypass the enemy and reach the friendly lines. Over there was a sewer grating. He trotted over, looking both ways down the street. Nobody was around, but he could hear a rumbling, a grinding sound. It must be a vehicle, another tank; it sounded like the Imperial vehicle had when it was maneuvering into position. He had to be quick; it was getting closer.

Breeze gripped the grating and tugged on it. It moved, but only a little. He tried again as the noise of tank tracks got louder and louder. The cobbled street began to shake as the war machine neared. He pulled and strained as hard as he could, and finally the grating came loose. He scrambled into the hole, pulling the cover back across the hole so as not to arouse any suspicion. He dropped down to the ledge just below, as the world shook around him and a tank rumbled overhead, blocking out the light for a few moments, the clanking of its tracks and the whine of its turbine engine almost deafening in the confined space. Then, it was gone, the noise slowly receding. Breeze dropped down again.

The sewer was as he expected it to be; dark, damp and malodorous. It was old fashioned, too; Canterlot, being built on a mountainside long ago, lacked the modern and efficient sewage pumping systems installed in other cities like Manehattan. Rather it had simple tunnels, where water, usually from mountain streams but sometimes pumped in by a basic system installed as a backup, would flush the waste down from the city and into the valley below, where the pipes would arrive, finally, at a treatment facility, their being no room for such a building inside the city walls. Even though the system had seen extremely minimal usage since the invasion, it still retained the foul smell that was surely the stock in trade of any sewer, from the muck of decades of waste ingrained in the walls and floors of the tunnels.

Breeze wrinkled his nose at the smell, but if it got him safely to friendly lines, then having to inhale the stench of shit for a few minutes was worth it. There was not much light, but every few dozen feet, a street grating did admit some illumination from above, giving him just enough light to able to see clearly where he was walking. There were narrow walkways on either side of the sewer, allowing him to, theoretically at least, not have to walk through pony waste, though even the stones of the walkways were coated in a certain amount of filth. He didn't know how far he had to go in order to come up behind the lines. He was most decidedly not used to navigating via sewer street gratings. Nevertheless, he was able to make good progress under the city streets, unencumbered by enemies, though he could hear the gunfire still raging above. It grew louder as he approached the evident position of the enemy, then fainter briefly until it grew louder for a second time.

This must be it, he reasoned. He must be under the friendly lines, the second set of gunfire coming from the defenders. It was time to get back up to the surface; carefully, lest he be mistaken for an enemy and shot. He approached the next grating cover and clambered up to the ledge below it. He could see nothing peering through the grate. No movement was visible from his position, though he didn't have the best angle. He could still hear gunfire, but he knew he had to come up from underground at some point. Carefully, Breeze pushed against the grating. Like the previous one, it was heavy and resistant to his attempts to raise it, but it started to move as he leaned heavily against it with his shoulder. Finally it opened with a clang, and he scrambled out to the surface, quickly looking around in case he had been spotted.

There were ponies nearby, but they were busy for the most part, firing around corners and up from behind crates and barricades. He was beyond the defensive line and beyond the far edge of the square where the enemy were making their push. He was safe, temporarily, but safe, as always, was a relative term.

'Hey, hold it right there!' somepony shouted. 'Where did you come from?' Breeze turned to find a squad of reinforcements that were either coming up from the reserve or specifically assigned to guard the sewer grates in case the enemy tried just such a sneaky bypass of their line as Breeze had done. Several were aiming their rifles at him with suspicious eyes.

'From the sewer!' Breeze explained, holding his forelegs out to the sides as a sign of passivity. 'I-i was at the hospital...did anypony else make it out?'

'Yeah...yeah, I think so,' the squad's corporal replied. 'What unit are you with?'

'Apple Platoon, 4th Company, attached to the 2nd Canterlot Battalion,' he explained. 'We were in the hospital. I don't know what happened but it got hit by something. The whole thing collapsed. I got out, I figured I'd better get the hell back here and warn whoever's in charge that the line was broken, but...' he glanced over his shoulder. 'I guess that's pretty obvious to them by now anyway.'

'Yeah, no shit...' the corporal nodded his head. 'Alright, just...I guess fall in with us if your unit is gone. We need all the help we can get.'

'Right...' Breeze moved to form up with the rest of the unit as two of its members dropped the sewer grate back down. There were other ponies around, in windows nearby, and it seemed that Breeze was lucky not to have been shot out of hoof when he first appeared. Clearly the defenders were aware of the potential danger from below, and that eased Breeze's mind somewhat. What did not, however, was the prospect of going back into battle, but the palace spires looming overhead to their rear told him that he would have to do just that. With the rest of his new squad, he trotted to the frontline.

Though news was slow to filter down from the surface and into the catacombs, it was not too long after Chrysalis's arrival that Twilight became aware of it. It was a deep, deep shock to her already fragile state. The Queen was dead, wasn't she? That was what she had been told. That was what Celestia had said, and Twilight was loathe to admit that the Princess might be wrong about something so important. But it was, of course, possible. She had been wrong before, though only rarely. Chrysalis was a master of disguise and it was certainly possible she had simply lain low somewhere, waiting for the chance to strike again. But Twilight had wanted to believe that she was truly gone, that the Changelings were a dying race, no longer a threat and lacking the leadership that their Queen provided.

It was clear now that that was not yet the case. Not only was Chrysalis back, but it was reported too that there were drones, thousands of them, also attacking the city. At least, it seemed, they were not devoting their entire effort to killing ponies, but rather were also attacking Chaos forces in a seemingly mindless orgy of violence that the human enemy would be very familiar with. Chrysalis, however, surely only had one goal in mind. She had her foe, her nemesis, and it was Princess Celestia. She would want to get her out of the way, to finally defeat her, and it seemed that she might have the power to do just that. The news that filtered down also included the fact that Princess Luna had disappeared, presumed dead or captured.

Twilight paced up and down, as she had done so many times since being confined to the catacombs after the atomic attack. She and the other civilians had scarcely left the underground chambers since then, but this was it. This was too much for her. She knew she had to do something, she had to at least try. Chrysalis had returned, and so far as Twilight knew, the Queen was still in possession of the Element of Magic- her Element of Magic. If, somehow, just...somehow, she could get the Element back from Chrysalis, then she and her friends might be able to use their powers to help the city.

Twilight couldn't stand the inaction any longer. She gathered up her friends from their tasks. All the others still had their Elements on them. Only Twilight felt impotent and naked without hers, but if they could get it back, make the set whole again, then they might just be able to achieve something good. She explained her plan to the others. Applejack and Rainbow were approving; they hated the enforced inaction as much as Twilight. Pinkie was suitably excited by the prospect, while Rarity and Fluttershy expressed their doubts. Going above ground was dangerous, wasn't it? They had been told to stay below for a reason.

'I know what Princess Celestia told me,' Twilight replied to their comments. 'I know she told me to stay here and help the civilians. But she needs help too. The whole city needs help, girls. If...if Princess Luna is gone, then Celestia is fighting alone against both this Daemon and Chrysalis, and as strong as she is, I don't know if she can defeat both of them. But if we can get that Element, if we can take it back, then we can help. We can fight alongside her, and together, we can win!'

Applejack and Rainbow clapped their hooves approvingly, while Pinkie cheered at her speech. Though Fluttershy and Rarity were more reluctant, they nodded resolutely. They knew she was right, and they were certainly willing to put themselves on the line to help the rest of the city. Celestia had told them to assist the civilians, but that was exactly what they would be doing, wasn't it? Defending the city and protecting the ponies who called it home was the best way they could help out right now. Staying underground and handing out blankets was all well and good, but it would all be for nothing if one enemy or another was able to capture the city.

Together, the six Elements headed for the stairs up to the surface. The guards were resistant; they had been told not to let anypony out. But Twilight was insistent, and she was, after all, Celestia's student. The guards relented and let them pass, and the group of girls headed above ground, blinking in the sunlight. They looked around, looked up. Apart from Twilight, they were seeing the sun and the sky for the first time in quite a while. They also saw the palace shield, glimmering above them, held up by Princess Cadence, and she was the target of Twilight's mission.

In the palace, they found her, along with Shining Armour and the human Major Barritt, coordinating the defence of the city. The palace was safe from attack so long as Cadence kept her shield up, at least unless the Chaos forces worked whatever magic they had done before to create an opening. Maybe they would in due course, but they were still being held at bay by the second line of defence for the time being.

'Princess Cadence!' Twilight called. 'We can help. We have to help. I...I have to help.'

'Twilight?' Cadence looked over at the sudden intrusion. 'Twilight, no. You have to go back underground.'

'No!' Twilight replied firmly, shaking her head. 'I can't just sit around any longer. The city is in danger. Princess Celestia is in danger. I know you can't go out there and help her because you're protecting the palace, but we can. If we can get the Element of Magic back from Queen Chrysalis, then we can...'

'Twily, you can't go out there!' Shining interrupted her. 'It's too dangerous for you without that Element.'

'That's why we have to get it back!' Twilight argued. 'It's dangerous for the whole city without it. Princess Celestia can't fight both the Daemon and Chrysalis at the same time, and if she fails...then there won't even be an Equestria any longer, whether or not we win this battle.' Both Shining and Cadence knew Twilight was right, but that didn't make it any easier to agree with her request to fight.

'How will you get the Element back?' Cadence asked. 'You can't fight Chrysalis, Twilight. You'll die. She's not going to give it up just like that.'

'I don't know...' Twilight had to admit. 'I don't know, but...we'll think of something. There has to be a way, but we've got to at least give it a try! It might be our only chance of winning this fight.'

Cadence closed her eyes for a moment, and then nodded. 'It might be...what do you think?' she asked Shining, who looked over at his little sister with worried eyes.

'Just...please be careful, Twily. Go out, but do NOT go beyond our defensive line. If you see ponies falling back, then teleport yourself and your friends back here immediately. Just don't go pushing any boundaries, Twily. Promise me you won't.'

'I promise...' She nodded, meeting his gaze. We'll do what we can. Wish us luck.'

Look Out Below

Corporal Breeze crouched low once again. He was finding that coming under enemy fire was an all too common occurrence in his life, even for a guardspony. Surely this fight had to end eventually, sooner rather than later, preferably. The enemy could only throw so much at them, even with their Daemonic allies, before their resources began to run dry, or before they decided to cut their losses and not risk losing any more. There had to be a cutoff point.

But it didn't seem to have arrived just yet. From his position behind a sandbagged street barricade, Breeze could see enemy infantry pouring into the square, seemingly heedless of the heavy gunfire that greeted them and supported by several armoured vehicles that were helping them make a determined push on the friendly defences. There were shouts from both Imperial and pony troops, calling for heavy weapons to counter the oncoming vehicles, which advanced line abreast, presenting a clear target to any gunner who manned a weapon capable of breaching their armour. But those were relatively few and far between. Two pony field guns tried their best, but their best armour-piercing rounds, designed to penetrate armoured trains, airship gondolas and the hardened skin of dragons and similar creatures, could only bounce off the thick ceramite and reinforced plasteel hulls.

A human missile crew achieved greater success, smashing the turret and main cannon of one enemy tank. But the trail from their missile marked their position for the other tanks, and before they could reload, a heavy shell had gutted the whole second floor of the building in which they had set up station. Their lifeless bodies tumbled out onto the street like ragdolls. One of the tanks shattered the ornamental fountain at the centre of the square beneath its treads, firing its main gun and killing half a dozen ponies as their sandbagged barricade, much like the one Breeze found himself behind, erupted into a cloud of dust and torn sacking.

'We can't fight those things!' somepony shouted. 'We can't!'

'Pull yourself together!' somepony else snarled in reply, a sergeant or officer. 'Don't worry about their vehicles, concentrate on their infantry!'

Breeze followed the same principal; he couldn't harm the tanks, but he could kill the Chaos infantry. He had been resupplied with ammunition at the defensive line, and he had plenty of bullets for any willing customers. He took aim and fired, worked the lever, fired again. All along the line, ponies and men did the same. A lascannon struck one of the tanks, causing only minimal damage. In return, the vehicle put a shell through the window, and the lascannon's power pack detonated with a powerful thud, hurling debris across the plaza as part of the building above it came down in a cloud of masonry dust.

'Storm Shadow 5-2 to Fleet Command, requesting air support!' a human vox operator was calling, in the building behind him. 'Enemy armour in the open, east side of the plaza. Bring it in danger close!'

Air support, Breeze reasoned, would be nice to have right now. An airship was the usual method of ponies obtaining help from above, either that or Pegasi being sent to elevated positions. But these humans were talking about aircraft, fighters and bombers they called them, which dove down from the heavens to strafe a target area, showering it in ordnance that could catch their enemies completely unaware. The speed with which these aircraft moved was unmatched by anything except the Wonderbolts during one of their high-speed shows- and even they would likely find themselves unable to keep up if the aircraft really opened the throttles. After all, he reasoned, though he knew little of orbital mechanics, he did know that a huge amount of thrust and speed was necessary to launch any object into orbit, and orbit was where these aircraft apparently came from. The technology required was mind-boggling, and to fit it into such a small and sleek craft was even more so.

The human aircraft were quite a contrast to their tanks; bulky, lumbering, belching out smoke from their exhausts. In the right place at the right time, however, both could be just as devastating in their effect. The enemy tanks were pressing hard, guns blazing, striking out at multiple targets at once. As Imperial heavy weapons revealed themselves, they destroyed them systematically in turn. There were no friendly tanks in the area; there were not many in the city as a whole, as the priority had been to shuttle in infantry, under the assumption that tanks were not suited for urban warfare, especially in the narrow alleys and streets of an old city such as Canterlot. In most cases that was certainly true, as tanks would be exposed to enemy fire from all directions, above and below as well. Anti-tank grenades and melta charges, plasma bombs and heavy weapons could lie in every possible window, doorway, subway or sewer entrance, and in every pile of rubble. These enemy tanks, at least, were being well escorted by infantry to deal with such threats, and they were lucky enough to have been able to find a fairly wide plaza into which they could launch their attack, which minimised some of the risks for them.

It did not, however, protect them against air attack. If anything it made them more vulnerable to it, because it meant that they were sufficiently far from Imperial and Equestrian defensive positions that an air strike could hit them without hitting friendlies, though it would still be a near thing- danger close, as the Imperials put it.

'All units, be advised, friendly air strike in bound. Heads down!' The message was repeated through every vox set in the line and shouted in relay to the frontline units and the ponies who had no vox capabilities. Everybody ducked low, keeping their heads below the parapets or window sills. There had been plenty of aircraft wheeling overhead for the duration of the entire battle, and there had been numerous air strikes all over the city, but Breeze, at least, had not seen one quite so close as this one would be. Part of him was curious to keep watching, but they had been told to take cover for a reason. He kept his head down.

Two strike fighters swept in, Lightnings loaded with anti-tank and anti-infantry weaponry. They had been told by the air liaison that the friendly forces would be marked at the west edge of the plaza with red flares; everything to the east was fair game. Both pilots had full missile racks and ammunition belts, and they made a rapid pass, locking on to the enemy vehicles and unloading. Half a dozen missiles made short work of the tanks, pummeling them with heavy armour-piercing warheads and showering the plaza with shrapnel that rained down from the shattered hull armour. Incendiary bombs sprayed burning gel over the hordes of advancing infantry, thinning their ranks significantly in a most agonising fashion. More enemies were still advancing, and so the jets looped back for another run.

The Chaos forces were left in disarray by the first run, and in a shambles after the second. More firebombs dropped and spread flames across them, the screams filling the plaza and the ears of the defenders. The jets raced off, their task complete, the enemy attack broken. Some of their soldiers turned and fled, while others ducked into cover from the gunfire that was now erupting from the defenders once again. They had been shaken by the explosions, but the marking flares had done their job and kept the pilots' fire focused on the correct location and away from their ground troops.

Breeze peeked over the sandbags again. The plaza was awash with flames. Luckily the buildings around its perimeter were made of stone and concrete, rather than wood like much of the city, and thus there was little risk of fire taking hold and spreading through the entire district. There was no way firefighting operations, like those he had seen in action when the armoury building had been set ablaze, could possibly take place with a battle raging on.

But perhaps the battle was one step closer to being concluded. The enemy had been halted rather decisively here, and while they may still yet force a breakthrough elsewhere in the line, more Imperial reinforcements were en route to the city to help defend it. With any luck, they would arrive soon, and could be put into the line to strengthen it against any final enemy push, or against a resurgence of the Demons that were still flying from the warp rift at regular intervals. The fight certainly wasn't over yet, but Breeze felt himself able to relax a little bit as he watched the enemy survivors flee from the square, broken by the air attack and the loss of their tanks that had robbed them of their heaviest firepower. The ranks of enemy aircraft had been heavily thinned, as well, by friendly pilots flying continuous sorties over the city. The largest threat that still remained came in the form of the Daemon and the Queen, and a glance skyward told Breeze that they were still both very much active.

In fact, though they had climbed to a high altitude above the city, it seemed as though they were getting closer again. Yes, they were, definitely. They were descending, racing down toward the city once more. Breeze just hoped that they weren't on the hunt for his unit.

Twilight and her friends crouched low on the rooftop, peering out across the city. They had a decent view of much of the district, though the buildings all around prevented them from clearly seeing enemy ground forces. They could hear the gunfire, though, and being above the rooftops meant they were more able to pinpoint the direction from which it was coming. Smoke rising helped them narrow it down even more. A battle was raging all along the line, obviously, but there was heavy combat just to the east of them. That was where they had promised Shining they wouldn't go, and that was why they had stopped on this rooftop.

Overhead, they could also observe the combat between Celestia and her foes. It was true, then- that was most definitely Chrysalis up there, despite her apparent earlier demise. She was still alive. Twilight felt a mixture of fear and anger. She was supposed to be dead. Celestia had said that the humans had killed her with their huge starship-killing weaponry, but that was not the case. Either the Princess or the humans were mistaken about that, quite clearly.

Twilight was sure that Celestia would not have wilfully misled her regarding Chrysalis. The humans had seemed convinced enough as well that she was gone, so they must be experiencing the same state of surprise as she was to see the Queen returned. If she could survive the humans' most powerful weaponry, then what, exactly, was going to actually be able to stop her?

Perhaps the Daemon. They seemed to be fighting each other, as well as Celestia, though it was sometimes hard to tell due to the nature of the combat. There was plenty of teleporting into and away from the attack, appearing behind each other or above their enemies. There were beams and balls and flashes of magic being exchanged in all directions, great power being unleashed above the city. Twilight could not tell which creature had the upper hoof in the fight. It seemed to ebb and flow, with Celestia having the apparent advantage, before falling back and allowing the other two creatures to attack each other. They would do so, before one or both of them turned their attentions on the Princess. What did seem to be the one constant was that they appeared to be unable to decisively break through each other's defences. Chrysalis and Celestia had their magic shields, and the Daemon was able to block incoming attacks with its staff, which produced a similar effect to deflect or stop magic.

'How can the Princess beat both of those things at the same time?' Rainbow asked. 'I mean, I know she's the Princess, but...Chrysalis already beat her once before, and she couldn't beat her when they went to rescue you from the volcano, either. And that was with Princess Luna, too! What happened to her? Is she dead?'

'I don't know...' Twilight replied, with a small shake of her head. She couldn't believe that Luna was dead; if Chrysalis had survived her apparent destruction, then Luna could survive whatever had happened to her...couldn't she?

Then again, Chrysalis had quite clearly become much more powerful than either Luna or Celestia. That was what she had explained to Twilight when she had been imprisoned in the Hive. She would gain in strength steadily as she was able to gain more love energy from the humans as well as ponies and other creatures. That seemed to be what had happened, and that was a terrifying thought. If she had been able to gain enough power, then she might be truly unstoppable. Celestia was the most powerful magical being in Equestria, with the exception of Discord, who had seemingly absented himself from proceedings entirely. Perhaps he was trying to teach the ponies a lesson; don't rely on me to solve your problems. You need to learn to stand on your own four hooves against all kind of threats.

Or,perhaps, even Discord knew that he would be unable to help against an overpowered Chrysalis and a Daemon from another dimension. Maybe he was just being pragmatic and keeping his own skin intact. Twilight would not be surprised to learn that was the case.

'Shouldn't Princess Cadence be helping Celestia?' Rarity questioned. 'I know she is powering the shield, but...'

'She has to keep the civilians safe,' Twilight replied. 'She's the only thing standing between them and the enemy...enemies, I should say. Both the Changelings and Chaos wouldn't hesitate to massacre all the foals, mares and stallions alike. They don't care. We've all seen that many times.' Her friends nodded; they knew she was certainly right. Both the drones and the human soldiers would show no compunction in killing anypony who got in their way, the only exception being that the Changelings might decide to take at least some ponies as captives in order to feed on their love, a reliable and consistent source of the emotion so long as the prisoners were kept alive. They would certainly not be the first ponies to be taken and used in such a way down the years.

'But Celestia needs help!' Rainbow called. 'If she fails then what's to stop Chrysalis just attacking the shield and killing everypony anyway? And this Daemon thing...we don't even know anything about it! Not really. The humans won't tell us anything. It's all classified or whatever! They keep saying it's information that we shouldn't have access to, but how can anypony fight it properly if they don't know what it can do?'

'I don't know!' Twilight sighed. 'I don't know anything anymore. Only Princess Celestia knows anything about these things. She's talked to the human admiral. She's been on their ship. She just wouldn't tell me about it. I guess she figured it wouldn't make any difference anyway. Maybe there's nothing we can possibly do. Maybe she knows the Elements wouldn't work even if we could get mine back.'

'But if the Elements won't work, what makes her think that she can beat that thing herself?' Rainbow asked, watching the fight overhead with wary eyes. 'Isn't she just going to get herself killed? I mean, if she can actually die...can she die, Twilight?'

'I don't know...' Twilight had to reply, her own standard mantra in the recent days. 'I mean...I guess, if something powerful enough hits her? I've never actually asked her.'

'Well let's just hope we never have ta find out...' Applejack muttered, adjusting her hat. 'Ain't there somethin' you can do, Twilight? Can't ya help her with some spell?'

'I can't think of a spell that would help her,' she replied. 'I might just make things worse. There is no single spell that can defeat an enemy like this. Not that I know of, anyway, and I've been studying every book I could find that was packed away in the catacombs and whatever was left of the palace library. I couldn't find anything.'

'Well...ah guess we just gotta wait and see...' Applejack replied, before Rainbow gave a shout of alarm.

'Hey, they're coming down!' She pointed with a hoof. Chrysalis was indeed diving toward the city, with the Princess in hot pursuit and the Daemon almost lazily following on behind.

'Where are they heading?' Twilight questioned, looking up.

'They're coming right for us!' Rainbow warned. 'Twi, we gotta move, fast!'

Twilight leaped into action. 'Everypony gather round!' Her friend formed a cluster around her, and her horn glowed. With a flash, she teleported them off of the roof and back to the street, closer to the palace shield. She looked up again. Chrysalis had not been fooled, and she had adjusted her trajectory accordingly to track them. Her horn began to glow.

'Look out!' Applejack shouted. 'Run!'

The six Elements scattered, scrambling in all directions. There was no time for Twilight to recharge another teleport jump for them all with sufficient magical power to get them through Cadence's shield, if that was even possible. She hadn't tried to teleport through a magical barrier before, but it didn't seem like the best time to be experimenting with such things. Staying in a small cluster would be painting a target for the Queen, who now had six to choose from, whatever her intentions may have been. Her horn flashed, and Twilight, alert for the danger, teleported herself away as a blast of magic shattered the cobbles and sending up a cloud of dust. Several of her friends ducked into buildings for cover and shelter, and in the hope of causing Chrysalis to forget about them until Celestia or the Daemon took her attention away from them again in order to defend herself.

Twilight materialised on the roof of another nearby building. She had only just avoided the attack, and now having teleported twice in quick succession, she was feeling rather disoriented. Not light headed as such, but something akin to it, like something was inside her head that shouldn't be there. She tried to shake it off and looked around urgently to locate Chrysalis before she could attack her again. Twilight knew that she couldn't compete with the Queen in a fight. As powerful as her magic was for a regular unicorn, Twilight was just that; a unicorn. She was not an Alicorn and did not possess the same abilities as the Princesses, and even Celestia and Luna together had been unable to stop Chrysalis in her current state.

The Queen spotted Twilight a moment later, and turned upon her again. 'Celestia's little pet!' she snarled. 'I got what I needed from you; perhaps I should have simply killed you then and there instead of leaving you alive. But your love for your teacher was so rich in flavour!' She laughed. 'If only you could see the truth of it, Twilight Sparkle. If only you knew the reality. Should I explain it to you? Perhaps your friends already understand it, but you. You are too blinded by loyalty to see that you have been used, used since you were born!'

A blast of magic left her horn and demolished most of the building Twilight had been standing on. But again she had teleported away, just in time, much to the Queen's evident annoyance. Celestia swooped down to interfere, but Chrysalis swatted her away with a repelling field of magic. Celestia stabilised her flight and attacked in retaliation, a glowing golden blast that was absorbed by Chrysalis's shield. Again, the Daemon was content to take a back seat and watch proceedings. It was clear that Chrysalis now had a new obsession; killing Twilight instead of her real foes. Perhaps it was just to spite Celestia, or perhaps for the practical aspect that Twilight represented a potential threat if she somehow regained her Element. Either way, Chrysalis had turned her back on the Princess and the Daemon, which ordinarily would have been a costly, perhaps fatal, mistake to make.

But this was no ordinary Chrysalis any longer. She had grown far more magically powerful than any creature was ever supposed to become. The natural order had been broken. There was an upper limit of magical power, reserved for the greatest beings of Equestria; Celestia, Luna, Discord. Nothing was capable of being more powerful than they, not naturally, and while Chrysalis lacked Discord's magical peculiarities- the control over randomness that seemed to so delight Malaranth and his god- she made up for it in sheer power and strength. Even the Daemon from another dimension seemed wary of her, of the thing that it professed to have created. For it was the machinations of Chaos over the countless years that had led to this point, according to Malaranth. They had engineered everything from the start, just as they claimed to have engineered every change and every development throughout the galaxy. The only reason Chrysalis had become so powerful was because Chaos wanted to use her as a weapon against the Imperium, against the Emperor. For if no Psyker could challenge the human god, then perhaps they would have to try a subtly different approach.

Chrysalis, they had seen, had limitless potential, if only the circumstances were right. That was what Malaranth had explained to the Queen, and that was the part she had agreed with. It was the rest of his argument which had invoked her ire. That the course of her life had been manipulated from afar, even before she had been hatched. That the opportunity she had been granted had not come about by chance, and while she had seized it of her own volition, it had been placed before her for one precise reason; for someone else's ultimate gain.

That was exactly what Chrysalis now tried to tell Twilight. She, the young Miss Sparkle, had been used by Celestia, ever since she had been born, for the Princesses' own ends. The Elements had been brought together so that she could redeem her sister and reunite with her. There had been no need for Twilight's life to have been scripted for so long, no great ultimate purpose that had guided her friendship with the other Element Bearers. They had not been needed to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, for Celestia could have done that herself. Luna and the spirit which had gripped her soul had been weakened by their long imprisonment, enough that Celestia wouldn't have even needed to wield the Elements herself to defeat the Mare In The Moon. Her own magic would have sufficed.

'You do not want to hear it, Twilight Sparkle, I know that. I understand now, for it seems that we have something in common. I have been used my whole life, as well, though unlike you, I could not have possibly known that until this point in time. But you! You could have seen the truth any time, if you had only opened up your eyes and accepted that it might be possible.'

'Enough, Chrysalis!' Celestia boomed. 'You have said your piece, now face me! Your quarrel is with me, not with Twilight.'

'I know,' Chrysalis replied, with a sinister hiss. 'I was merely attempting the impossible, I suppose. You have indoctrinated your student well, Celestia. Well enough that she will never believe me, will never side with me. But even if it will not alter anything, she deserves to know the truth about you. All your citizens do, those that are still alive. Oh yes, you have done a fine job of protecting Equestria, haven't you, Princess?'

The anger in Celestia's gaze was almost coalescing into a physical presence as she stared down the Queen. 'You have said your little piece, spat your lies. Are you quite finished, Chrysalis?'

'No, but you are,' the Queen replied. Her horn flashed, and a roar rang out across the land as Celestia was suddenly struck by a tornado of magic. She rapidly threw up a shield around herself, but the protective bubble cracked, wavered, wobbled, and failed. The Princess was engulfed in green flame and then hurled bodily away, pushed by the kinetic force of Chrysalis's magic and thrown far, far across the valley. Neither magic nor her wings halted her flight, and her limp form disappeared from sight.

Twilight, standing dazed on the street below after three rapid teleports, gasped, and then screamed in agony. 'Princess Celestia! No! Please, no!'

This can't be happening.

There's no way this can be happening. Please, somepony...wake me from this dream, this nightmare!

Chrysalis stared down at her and laughed maniacally. 'That is all she deserves, Twilight Sparkle! You can still be saved. I'll offer you one single chance. Kneel, Twilight. Kneel, and swear allegiance to your Queen!'

Twilight stared up at her, aghast, shaking, broken. She could only think of one thing to say in reply.

'Go to hell!'

Chrysalis laughed again. 'So predictable. Just like your beloved Princess! So be it. You shall suffer the same fate!'

But Chrysalis had forgotten, momentarily, that the fight was not over. The Daemon, Malaranth the Infinite, was still floating above her, and it made sure she remembered that. Its staff glowed with eldritch power, and hurled a great fountain of warp energy at the Queen. It was not enough to seriously harm her; she had grown too powerful for that. But it caught her off guard, and stung her shield enough that, in her distracted state, she had not been providing it with enough magic to stay intact. Her shield popped like a balloon, and she snapped round to face the Daemon, now the only thing that stood between her and total control of the city. She was ready to destroy it, too.

Above Malaranth, however, a sickly purple and red gash was opening in the fabric of reality. Something tore its way free, and with a feral roar that rang out across the valley, it began a death plunge down onto Canterlot.

We Shall Overcome

Twilight struggled to comprehend exactly what she had just seen. Surely, it could not be reality. Chrysalis had defeated Celestia in battle once before, but only with help from the love energy gained from another Alicorn and her husband. Even then it had been a close thing, and the Queen had only just been able to emerge victorious from the fight. But now, this time, she seemed to have her revenge. This time, it seemed as though she had only been toying with her enemies for the duration of the battle. When she grew bored with it, she had unleashed such power that even Princess Celestia herself had been unable to withstand it, and now, now she was gone.

Twilight couldn't believe what she had witnessed. The ease with which Chrysalis had disposed of her foe was astounding and terrifying. If she could have dealt such a blow at any time, why did she prolong the fight? The only reason Twilight could imagine was merely to gloat, to grandstand and say her piece to Twilight, to Celestia and to the Daemon. Twilight had heard what she had said, and tried her best to ignore it. Everything the Queen pointed out did make a certain amount of sense. The way the Elements had come together, the way she had been sent out into the world from her cosseted position in Canterlot as Celestia's personal student to learn about friendship, when she had perfectly good friends right there in the city at university- Twinkleshine, Minuette, Moondancer. There had been no need, truthfully, for her to go and learn about friendship elsewhere. She could have done it just as well from home.

But Celestia would never have done something so selfish as to drive Twilight away from her position and her studies just to gain some personal benefit from Twilight meeting the other Elements. There had to be some true, long term motive for the Princess to do that, Twilight assured herself. Some future threat that the Elements would be absolutely needed against, a cast-iron knowledge for certain that the Elements had to be borne by six ponies, and those six in particular. That had to be the reality of it, and perhaps this was that very threat. Perhaps this was what Celestia had somehow known would come to pass, and had guided Twilight and her friends to make sure they were here, now, ready to react.

But that seemed doubtful now. There was nothing she could do without her Element. The other five would not function at all without their sixth member, no matter who was wielding them. Twilight faced the skies, faced what was sure to be her death. Chrysalis wasn't going to simply leave her alone. She had made her an offer, Twilight had turned it down, and that would be that.

But she had a reprieve, at least temporarily. The Daemon was attacking Chrysalis again, drawing her away just as she could have struck the killing blow on Twilight. The fight was not yet over, even if Twilight could scarcely play any part in it. Above the Daemon, something was happening, another one of the warp rifts. More Daemons would surely be entering the city now, perhaps a deliberate incursion to counter the masses of Changeling drones that were now swarming through the streets. Twilight could not see her friends. She didn't know where they were. She was alone.

But not for long.

Something tore itself free of the newly developed warp rift and hurled itself down at the city below. Twilight braced herself for another Daemon to join the battle, but her expression of grim acceptance turned to one of surprise when she saw exactly what was diving down upon Canterlot. It was not a Daemon.

It was Princess Luna.

Malaranth turned in surprise as it heard the howl of rage that Luna unleashed, plunging down from the gash in reality. It prepared to defend itself, but it was not her target. Luna raced past the Daemon in a death plunge with only one goal in mind. Chrysalis was taken just as much by surprise as Malaranth, and having just been struck by the Daemon's attack, she had been dazed enough to react slowly to the sudden appearance of somepony she had assumed was dead.

Luna slammed into the Queen at high speed, knocking her out of the sky. Both royals plunged toward the ground as Luna's horn glowed brightly, and then they disappeared below the rooftops. The ground shook as they struck it, sending up a cloud of dust from a street nearby.

Twlight gaped, open mouthed. Like Chrysalis, she had assumed that Luna was dead, gone for good. The reports that she had received while below ground said that the Moon Princess had disappeared, caught in the Daemon's fire. Yet here she was again, returned from the grave, or from wherever the Daemon's powers had banished her. Despite that, her attention was fixated on the Queen, and Twilight continued to stare as they came together and dropped from sight.

Something flashed at the corner of her vision, clinking down onto the cobbled street beside her. She turned to look. Something was lying on the street, just a few feet away from her. Her eyes widened once again, and she made a mad scramble for it, lifting it carefully with her magic, quickly checking. Was it intact? Was it damaged? It looked to be unharmed by all it had been through. She gently lifted it onto her head, its rightful place, where it belonged.

The Element of Magic was finally reunited with its bearer.

Applejack had ducked into a shattered store front to escape the attentions of Chrysalis, and had lost the rest of her friends. She considered returning to the point in the defensive shield where they had exited the palace grounds in case the others had decided on the same course of action, or heading to the frontline to see if they had moved there for protection. She peered out from the broken shop window. The street was clear; no sign of her friends. No sign of drones, or humans either.

She moved through to the back of the store. It had sold hats before the invasion, and there were still some samples and boxes dotted around the stock room. There was a back exit, and she forced the door with a swift kick, peeking out. There was an alleyway there, and she slipped out into it, trotting slowly in case of encountering any trouble. She had no weapon; any enemies she encountered would have to be avoided.

At the end of the alley, she peeked around the corner again, looking both ways. This street was not empty. Twilight was standing in the middle of it. 'Twilight! Psst, Twilight!' Applejack called, beckoning her over. Twilight looked around at her, and Applejack gasped in surprise.

'Ya found the Element...?'

Twilight galloped over to her and gave her a quick hug. 'Applejack! Thank goodness you're ok. I didn't find it...' She shook her head. 'Princess Luna...'

'Luna? Luna's gone, remember?' Applejack pointed out.

'No! She's back!' Twilight replied. 'I don't know how and I don't know what happened to her, but she just...appeared, coming out of one of those Chaos rifts, up in the sky. Didn't you hear her scream?'

Applejack had heard some kind of howl when she had been secreted inside the store, but she imagined it had been from the Daemon, not from a Princess. 'What happened?' she questioned.

'Luna attacked Chrysalis,' Twilight explained. 'She must have caught her by surprise...I guess her shield was down. I saw them fall to the ground, and Luna's horn was glowing. I guess she teleported the Element to me. I grabbed it...it looks like it's still intact!'

'Then we gotta find the others,' Applejack replied. 'If we have all the Elements again, then...then we can finally do somethin! We can finally make a difference. We gotta help, Twi. We can save everypony!'

Twilight nodded determinedly. 'Yeah...yeah,we have to. It might all be down to us. I don't know what else Luna can do. I doubt she can defeat Chrysalis and the Daemon. And...' she swallowed. 'I guess...I guess Princess Celestia isn't going to be able to help us.'

'Well, if that's true...then you gotta make her proud of ya, sugarcube,' Applejack assured her. 'Ya gotta carry the torch. She put her trust in you fer a reason, Twilight, and we all do too. We know you're the right pony to lead us and to use that Element of Magic.' She put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder.

'Thank you, Applejack.' Twilight replied with a brief smile. 'I guess I needed to hear something like that. I just hope we can actually use the Elements. We don't even know if they will actually work against that Daemon...or against Chrysalis. Not when she's so powerful.'

'Well there's only one way ta find out,' Applejack replied, adjusting her hat more squarely on her head. 'Now whaddya say we go find the others and put these trinkets to the test?'

Twilight nodded. 'Alright...we'll do what we can. Do you know where any of the others are?'

'Not for sure.' Applejack shook her head. 'Everypony scattered when ya shouted. Had ta get away from the Queen, but ah dunno where they are now. Maybe ya can teleport us onto a roof where we can get a better view?' she suggested.

'Maybe...I really don't want to keep teleporting, though,' Twilight replied. 'If we're going to have to fight Chrysalis and this Daemon, then we're going to need to be as strong and focused as we can be. Every time I teleport, it saps some of my energy, especially when I have to move multiple ponies...'

'Then we'll get up there ourselves,' Applejack replied confidently. 'Let's find a ladder or a fire escape or somethin', n' get to higher ground! At least our friends ain't too hard to spot. None of them are brown or grey or anythin' that'll blend in to the city.'

Twilight nodded and trotted with Applejack. That, of course, was true, but it also meant that conversely it would be easier for their enemies to locate them, also. It was not just Chrysalis that posed a threat; the city was swarming with Changeling drones and Chaos infantry. Trigger happy Imperials taken by surprise might also pose a potential problem especially if they saw Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash in the air and assumed they were Changeling drones in disguise. They had to find their friends as soon as possible, round them up, explain the situation to them, and get them ready for a fight. One way or another, they were going to be going into action sooner rather than later- as long as they could all be reunited.

Chrysalis did not stay surprised for long. With a growl of anger, she hurled a pulse of magic from her horn, tossing Luna back into the sky with the same speed which the Princess had shown on her downward flight. Luna quickly stabilised herself as Chrysalis flapped back into the air, now protected by her shield once more. 'Princes Luna! Well, well. And here I believed you to be dead already. Fear not. You shall share the same fate as your sister soon enough,' Chrysalis laughed, her forked tongue slashing out maniacally.

'You will pay for this,' Luna replied coldly. 'Both of you!' She included the Daemon in her address, and her appearance truly betrayed her anger, for she was not in her usual clean, pristine condition. Her coat, mane and tail were spattered with ichor, unknown substances that looked somewhat like blood but were clearly not, that adhered to her body all over. Her face looked as though she had applied war paint, but again it was some other substance that gave off a gentle steam. Whatever it was, it was not of this world- but then Luna had clearly returned to Canterlot from somewhere else entirely.

Where exactly that may have been was unknown to Chrysalis, though clearly Malaranth must have had some idea, given that it had been the Daemon's actions which had sent her there. Whether it had expected her to return, however, was a different question entirely, and one that only Malaranth could answer.

Luna's rage manifested itself in the form of a huge, powerful blast of magic which ripped across the rooftops of the city, engulfing Chrysalis completely. Beyond her, it slammed into a row of brick buildings and demolished them entirely, leveling the entire block and blowing a crater in the street. Luckily it was not a part of the defensive line, or else dozens of ponies and Imperial soldiers would have met their demise as a result of her attack. Even though it was her capital city, the city of the royal pony sisters, Luna was clearly consumed with anger, both at the Daemon for trapping her, and at Chrysalis. Somehow, she had known what had happened to Celestia, even though she had been absent, not even on the same plane of reality as her sister. Perhaps she could have observed the fighting from her location, or perhaps it was some kind of psychic link. Neither Chrysalis nor Malaranth knew the answer, but Luna was not exactly in the mood to explain it to them anyway.

When her magic died down, it revealed that Chrysalis was still alive, still there, and still protected by her shield. Luna's attack had not been enough, fueled by anger and hatred though it may have been, to defeat the overpowered Queen. So the Moon Princess tried again, and again Chrysalis disappeared in a cloud of magic. Yet she remained not just alive, but perfectly active, and very able and willing to return fire.

Luna teleported away and appeared behind the Daemon instead, turning her ire upon the fore who had sent her away. 'My dear Princess,' Malaranth began. 'I did not expect to see you again so soon...or indeed...ever.'

'I do not know where you sent me, Daemon,' Luna replied with a growl, 'but if that was your home, then it explains a great deal about your character and those of your followers. I can quite understand why you would go mad in a short space of time.'

'I imagined that is exactly what would happen to you,' Malaranth admitted. 'Either that, or you would find yourself torn apart by the denizens of that domain. But it seems that your magic perhaps acted in the same way as the Gellar Fields that Imperial vessels use to navigate the Empyrean. Your kind just continues to become more and more intriguing.' The Daemon let out a light chuckle as Luna tried to catch it napping with a blast of energy. It deflected with its staff. 'More intriguing, perhaps, but also more troublesome. Are you absolutely certain you will not accept my offer? Your sister was prideful, but I can sense that you are sometimes more pragmatic. That was how you found yourself banished to the moon, after all, wasn't it? Accepting the influence of some dark force, allowing it to control you, guide you toward what you believed was your true destiny, to rule over this planet. Why not allow me to help you in the same way? I can make that a reality.'

'Because I was a fool then, and I am no fool any longer!' Luna replied. 'It is creatures like you that reaffirm what I now know to be true. That my sister and I were destined to rule together, not apart, so that Equestria may be protected against the likes of you!'

'Yet here we are,' Malaranth answered. 'Here we are. Your sister is gone, and you were meant to be gone as well. It seems you are stronger than I gave you credit for, Princess Luna. To escape from the realm the Imperials refer to as the Warp is quite an impressive feat, even I must admit. I was not expecting to see you return, but that is just another of the possible strands of fate which my Lord Tzeentch weaves and follows at all times. It was always a possibility, no matter how small.'

'What a touching reunion!' Chrysalis snarled as she hurled herself into the attack again, engaging both of her enemies at once with a forked blast of magic, like her tongue reaching out to strike the Daemon and the Princess. Malaranth was caught a glancing blow, but Luna teleported away just in time. Like her, Chrysalis was angry. She was angry at the Daemon for its apparent manipulation of her life behind the scenes, and she was furious at Luna for stealing away the precious totem she had gone to such great pains to take and hold, ever since she had stolen it from its rightful owner. Yet Luna was not in possession of the Element of Magic. It was nowhere to be found on her, nor was she carrying it with her magic. So where had she sent it?

Luna had to hold the attentions of both of her foes, and she had to do it without her sister. She had to keep them busy until Twilight could gather her friends, bring them together, get into position, and use the Elements. It might work; it might not. But she knew that it came down to her and her alone to make sure they had a chance to try.

But Chrysalis was not stupid. She knew that Luna had not gone after the Element for no reason, nor did she believe it may have simply been lost in the struggle. Luna had deliberately gone straight for it, and teleported it away somewhere. There was little reason for her to be so determined to grab the Element unless the others were nearby, and having already spotted Twilight and her friends thanks to her drones and the Hive Mind she shared with them, the Queen knew exactly what Luna's plan was. The other Elements must be with their bearers, just waiting for the chance to unite them all together. And so Chrysalis turned her attention away from Luna's attempts to distract her. She only had one prize in mind now; recovering the Element of Magic- or perhaps obtaining all six of them.

Applejack and Twilight scurried through the streets, sticking to the shadows as much as possible. The frontline, so far as they knew, was still holding, but Changeling drones could fly, and that meant they could appear anywhere. Likewise, Chaos troops could be air-dropped behind the lines, if there were any dropships and landers still flying. A careful lookout had to be maintained while they searched, but Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had to be found if they were to be successful. It was a race against time, for there was no doubt that Chrysalis was aware of them, and would be keenly feeling the loss of the stolen Element. If she spotted them, any one of them, then it could be all over for Canterlot- perhaps all of Equestria.

They found Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash quickly enough. They were together, having flown in the same direction when the group had scattered to escape the Queen's magic, and had taken cover inside the upper floors of an apartment building, from where Rainbow had called out and waved to Applejack and Twilight. Reunited with some of their friends, at least, the pair headed upstairs to join them. Now, they had to find Rarity and Pinkie Pie.

'Thank Celestia you two are alright!' Rainbow exclaimed. 'We didn't know what had happened...'

'We're fine...do you know where the others are?' Twilight asked. 'We have to find them. I have the Element of Magic and we have to use it!'

'Huh...how?' Rainbow blinked. 'How the hay did you get that back from Chrysalis?'

'I didn't. Princess Luna did,' Twilight replied, drawing confused looks.

'I thought Princess Luna was...' Rainbow began, before Twilight interrupted her.

'There's no time to explain! I don't know how either, but she came back from...wherever she went. Now come on, we have to find Rarity and Pinkie Pie!'

'I saw Pinkie ran west when we split up,' Rainbow replied. 'Should we start in that direction?'

'Good idea.' Twilight nodded. 'Hopefully she and Rarity haven't gone too far. We need to catch up with them as soon as we can.'

'Then what are we waiting for?' Let's go!' Dash exclaimed, and the four ponies set off quickly in search of the two missing Elements. At least heading west would take them farther from the frontline, and farther from the Queen, who was still fighting Luna, although her attention could turn their way at any moment, especially if one of her drones managed to spot them and relay the information.

They passed several squads of pony infantry heading to reinforce the line, who recognised them and let them pass without incident. Even if there had been doubts over their identity, or indeed if they were ponies or Changelings, there was no time to question and quarrel with them. The troops were needed at the line, and the Elements were needed elsewhere.

They found Rarity shortly after. She had run into an army patrol, and had explained her plight of being cut off from their friends. Rarity encountered them first, hurrying over from the squad she had been trotting with and rejoining the group thankfully. She was unharmed, and meant there was only one more friend to find, but there was little time to celebrate.

Chrysalis had detached herself from combat with Luna, despite the best efforts of the Princess, and was roaming the sky seeking the sextet of mares. She did not have to search for long, even as Luna tried to bring her back to battle, desperately firing off futile magic. Chrysalis simply ignored her efforts.

'Stand and fight me, Chrysalis!' Luna cried, almost pleadingly.

'Oh, I shall,' the Queen replied. 'Once I have seen off another threat first.'

The five united Elements searched high and low for their sixth member. Time was running out. If they couldn't find Pinkie before Chrysalis found them, then possessing five of the six Elements would prove just as useless as it had when the Element of Magic was in the Queen's grasp. As they ran through the street in the direction of Pinkie's last confirmed sighting, a blast of magic suddenly struck a building just ahead of them. The mares screamed as it erupted out into the street, showering them with debris. But Twilight had reacted fast, shielding them with her magic from the splinters and shattered stone.

Chrysalis had found them, and lunged down toward them as the Elements sprinted for cover again in the buildings that lined the street. A squad of pony infantry had been advancing from the other direction, and now, confronted with the Changeling Queen, some of them dropped to one knee and opened fire with their rifles, and others turned and fled blindly.

Alongside the squad, a particular pink pony had been bouncing, having encountered them in much the same way as Rarity had met up with another unit. Twilight just about spotted the flash of the familiar shade through the smoke, and teleported alongside her.

'Pinkie! No time to explain, just stand close to me!' she shouted.

'Twilight!' Pinkie managed a smile even in the face of fear. 'Where did you g...' She was cut off as Twilight's horn flashed and teleported the two of them farther down the street, back where the rest of the Elements had been standing. Chrysalis snarled, climbing higher into the sky and aiming her horn down. They were out of time, surely.

'To me, girls!' Twilight yelled desperately. 'Hurry! Everypony get out here, NOW!'

Her friends scampered to comply. Their Elements were glowing gently at being in the presence of each other, but they weren't close enough yet. They had to be in tight proximity, and while Rainbow Dash was there in a flash, and Applejack not far behind, the others were slower, unable to sprint or fly as fast as the two athletes.

Chrysalis's crooked horn glowed a blinding, emerald green, and Twilight braced herself, throwing up a hoof to shield her eyes. They were too late. There was nothing she could do.

'NO!'

The cry had not come from her, but rather from above. Princess Luna flung herself into the line of fire, between Chrysalis and the Elements, just as the Queen unleashed her magic.

Luna's shield blocked the attack, lighting up the sky, but it was clear that it was not going to hold for more than a second or two against the onslaught. But a second or two was all that was needed. The six mares on the ground below came together at last, and as Luna's shield failed, her body first engulfed by Chrysalis's magic and then tumbling away in flames, the Queen's powerful attack, enough to destroy half the city, was met in mid-air by a brilliant chromatic arc, a shimmering rainbow of pure magical force.

Chrysalis snarled in anger, hatred in her eyes. She lowered her head, trying to apply more power to her attack, channel more magic through her horn. But it was not enough. There was a reason she had stolen one of the Elements, and that was because she knew that, even if she became as powerful as she was now, even if she had succeeded in her entire plan and absorbed all of the love in the galaxy, the Elements of Harmony had a fundamental power over every magical creature in Equestria, be they pony, Changeling, or Draconequus. She did not know if that would be enough to defeat her, if she had gained enough power to resist, but she was about to find out, as were the bearers of those Elements.

The rainbow of light gradually gained traction and headway, pushing hard against Chrysalis beam of magic and steadily driving it back toward her. She redoubled her efforts, but even pouring every ounce of her massive power into fighting it, she could not stop the peculiar force that the Elements possessed. She could not turn back the tide, and the power of friendship, and of fundamental natural energy, overcame the power of love and hatred. The Queen found herself engulfed in rainbow light, stripping her shield away. She screamed in anger, a final statement of now-impotent rage as she was consumed by the raw magic of the Elements.

Finish The Job

Malaranth the Infinite looked on with an expression that showed a mixture of disappointment, glee and a little confusion. This turn of events was rather unexpected. It had wondered what the purpose of the diadem that Chrysalis wore actually was; now it seemed to be in the possession of a rather diminutive purple pony down on the street below. This was not a pony it had been aware of before now. Nor did it know of the other five who gathered around the purple unicorn. That was quite intriguing to the Daemon. Was this some well-kept secret which it had been unable to find out any information on?

If so, it was clearly something that Princess Celestia wanted to hide, either from Malaranth, Chrysalis, or both. The fact that Chrysalis had found herself in possession of the crown now worn by the unicorn suggested that she was aware of the potential for exactly what Malaranth had just witnessed, and had taken steps to prevent it happening. The Changeling Queen had been struck by the blast of rainbow-shaded magic, which had quite simply turned her to a large block of stone, which had fallen to the ground below with a loud thud. That seemed to be the fate of whoever was exposed to this new form of energy or magic.

Malaranth was unaware of what exactly it was now facing, but Chrysalis had seemed to be aware of it. It must be something that had been used against her in the past, or perhaps against some other foe which she had learned of. The ponies down below, six of them in total, each seemed to be carrying some kind of amulet around their necks, with the exception of the purple unicorn which wore the crown instead. Could it be that these trinkets were the source of the power which had just ended Chrysalis's plans, rather than the ponies themselves? Unicorns, Malaranth knew, were the only race of ponies that could use active magic to attack others, and while there were two unicorns on the street, the other four ponies were not of the same race. Unless Malaranth had missed something rather important during all of his preparations regarding the interplay of different races, then the crown and the amulets must be the real source. That would explain perfectly why Chrysalis had been in possession of the crown- either she had stolen it from the ponies, or she had always held it and the ponies had been seeking to take it from her. Either way, her loss of the item had resulted, directly it seemed, in her downfall.

Would it now prove crucial in the fight against Malaranth? The Daemon did not know, but it knew that it would not be particularly wise to simply sit there in the sky any longer, acting as a target for the cluster of ponies still standing in the street below. Something would have to be done about them, of course, but perhaps it was best to use an expendable resource in the attempt, rather than immediately risking its own skin to do so. If the expendable resource succeeded, all the better. If it failed? At least Malaranth wouldn't have to bother with ridding itself of that particular thorn in its side. Or, perhaps, its other plan would come to fruition finally- only time would tell.

'We did it!' Twilight gasped, turning to her friends. 'We...we did it. It actually worked!' She laughed happily. Chrysalis was gone, the threat she posed now fully contained in the same way that the Elements had once been used to seal Discord away in stone. The city was not safe yet, but they had taken a very large and very important step toward ending this war once and for all.

'We always had faith, Twilight!' Rarity assured her. 'If not in the Elements, then in you.'

They had done the job they had been tasked with, but it had come, potentially, at a heavy price. Twilight and the others galloped over to where Princess Luna had fallen. She had been caught square in the blast of Chrysalis's magic, and now she lay in a crumpled heap in the street. She was badly burned, steam rising from her horn and large black and red scars across much of her body. Her wings were singed and shrivelled, many of the feathers burned away. Her eyes were closed.

'Is she breathing...?' Fluttershy questioned timidly as they approached the fallen Princess. Twilight tried to check her over, but found that instead she started shaking when she looked at Luna, the wounds she had received, the suffering she must have gone through. It was all her fault- the only reason Luna had been hit with Chrysalis's magic was because she had to buy time for the Elements to assemble. If Twilight had never lost the Element of Magic in the first place, none of this would have happened. Luna, and her sister, would have never suffered like this. Had Equestria lost its whole royal leadership in one fell swoop, because of Twilight's inattentiveness all those weeks ago in allowing herself to be captured?

Applejack and Rainbow Dash took over, checking Luna's body. The squad of soldiers who had been escorting Pinkie Pie galloped over to them as well. There was a medic attached to the unit, and she hurriedly examined the Princess. 'I'm not finding a pulse...I can't tell if she's breathing or not. There's too much burn damage. Can we get her into the palace? To the field hospital...'

'I-i can teleport her!' Twilight called out, suddenly snapping back to reality. She had to do anything she could to make things right. She had to act, or else she might go out of her mind entirely. Her friends and both Princesses had told her not to worry herself in that way, not to consider that any of this might be her fault, but no matter how many times they repeated that, Twilight still felt that little voice at the back of her mind, whispering to her. This IS your fault, Twilight Sparkle. You have failed everypony, whether you know it or not.

The same voice had been nagging and repeating ever since she lost the Element, perhaps even before that. She couldn't really remember any longer. She didn't know when it had started, but she knew that it was getting worse. It had been getting louder ever since the city came under attack again. Perhaps that was because she once again had clear visual evidence of her failure- collapsing buildings, bodies, flames, blood, death. The Elements could had ended Chrysalis's threat as soon as she had appeared, and perhaps they could do the same to the Daemon. She looked up, looked around the sky, but the Daemon had seemingly vanished. Scared away by the display of power from the Elements and the fate of Chrysalis?

'We're ready. Get us inside the palace. Everypony else stand back,' the medic called, kneeling beside Luna's body. Twilight stepped up, her horn glowed, and then she, the medic and the Princess appeared inside the palace, as close to the field hospital as Twilight could get them. The medic called for help, and there were gasps from the medical staff who came running out to assist her. Part of that was down to the fact that they believed Luna had vanished; that had been the last report that had done the rounds in the palace corridors. But another part of it was down to the fact that this wasn't meant to happen. Alicorns were immortal. They weren't supposed to come into the hospital ward disheveled, burned and not even breathing. Such a thing wasn't even possible! Yet here was the proof, lying in front of them.

A stretcher was brought out, and they hurried Princess Luna into the field hospital to do whatever they could. Twilight, however, could not stand around waiting to find out the results of their efforts. She had to get back out to her friends; as long as she was apart from them, the Elements were useless, and the Daemon was still out there somewhere. She teleported back onto the street where the others were waiting for her, still exchanging their own glances of disbelief and confusion as to how Luna could have succumbed.

Yet there was little time to ponder that now. A bright flash filled the end of the street, down against the palace shield wall, and suddenly there were figures there where the road had been empty a moment before.

'Contact!' one of the pony soldiers called, and the squad scrambled for cover. 'Hey, get down!' they urged the Elements, and with a glance Twilight could see why.

A squad of large, imposing, hulking armoured warriors stood before them, led by a tall figure holding a staff and wrapped in a cloak. It was not the Daemon; it was Parthax the Infidel, the Sorceror Lord and the initial commander of the Chaos effort to conquer the planet and destroy the Imperial fleet in the process. It seemed he had returned for his revenge. His first effort had failed, ending with the loss of his entire fleet. Superficially at least, it seemed this latest effort was going to end the same way for him. The second Chaos fleet had been wiped out by Princess Celestia, its ground forces knocked from pillar to post and now concentrating all of their remaining efforts and resources on this one final battle for Canterlot. It seemed unlikely that they could succeed from this position, unless, of course, either the Daemon or the Sorcerer Lord themselves were powerful enough to defeat all of the forces arrayed against them.

The pony soldiers opened fire with their rifles, flicking chips of paint from the armour the warriors wore, but doing nothing else to them. In response they swung their mighty weapons around, bringing them to bear on the ponies. Twilight and the other Elements scrambled into cover in the buildings that lined the street, as the soldiers had instructed them to do. They were not going to get separated this time; not again, after the near disaster which had come so close to befalling them. Without Luna's sacrifice, the Elements would have been destroyed before they could be activated, because they had all been apart when the Element of Magic was returned to Twilight. This time, they all stuck together, galloping into a cafe.

The pony soldiers valiantly engaged the enemy, but it was a futile effort. Those who were caught in the open were gunned down ruthlessly, explosive shells tearing through their bodies. Others crouched behind rubble, providing a little protection, but the fire from the enemy warriors was accurate enough that they could strike an exposed head just as easily as a whole body. It was the work of but a few moments for the street to fall silent again, the pony squad wiped out without mercy, unable to harm their enemies. No mere rifle could puncture the armour they wore.

Magic, however, was a different matter, and the first Marine to advance in line with the cafe found a hole burned straight through its chest plate. It staggered back, but stayed on its feet, at least until another blast struck it in the same spot and sent it tumbling to the cobbles. The rest of the squad moved up, with Parthax accompanying them.

'My, some horse-aliens do know how to fight, it seems!' the Sorcerer Lord laughed. 'Pray tell me, who exactly are we dealing with in there, hm?'

Another trooper tried to force entry to the store, raising a gauntleted fist to smash the door, but a ball of light, rather akin to a plasma cannon shot though composed of quite different matter, struck its helmet and dropped it, stone dead. The rest of the squad opened fire with their bolters, smashing wood, glass and masonry, churning up the interior of the cafe, ripping tables and chairs to shreds and all but annihilating the bar, long since emptied of its alcohol by the first Chaos occupation force. But they did not harm anypony who remained inside; Twilight's magic had erected a shield, keeping the Elements safe from the heavy barrage. None of the Marines possessed las-weapons, instead being outfitted with the standard issue sidearm of both the Astartes and these, their traitorous cousins. While their explosive bolts could slice through both pony and Imperial body armour, and even that of relatively thin-skinned vehicles, with ease, magic was something else entirely, resistant to ballistic attacks.

'Perhaps you believe you can defeat me?' Parthax laughed from outside. 'Come out and face me, then, pony! Let me see what you can do!'

Twilight did not rise to the bait. She knew that Princess Celestia had fought Parthax before, but she had not, and she did not know what capabilities the Sorcerer Lord might possess. The Elements might prove effective against him, or they might be useless. Either way, she had to keep them safe, as well as their bearers; her friends. That was what she had been entrusted with by Celestia.

Or had she? She still couldn't shake the feelings of discontent, or the voices in her head that were telling her to abandon her quest. To forget about the Elements; after all, the Elements were just a pawn in Celestia's long game, just like Twilight was. But she could be so much more.

Celestia had always told her that she had hidden power, hidden strength. Maybe the Princess had only told her those things in order to get the Elements in working order, but perhaps it was true. That was what these voices were telling her now. Twilight could be more than just a lacky for the Princess, to hang on her every word, obey her every command like some indentured servant with no free will. She didn't need to do that any longer. She had learned what she needed to know, how to exploit her real strength, that which lay within herself, not that which others handed to her. She carried an Element, yes, but she didn't need to limit herself to just one. Celestia had proven that their powers could be wielded by a single pony, and a pony with all that power at her command would be unstoppable. She could forge her own path, they told her. She could lead the way. After all, Celestia and Luna were gone, weren't they? Dead or at least incapacitated. Who would rule Equestria in their absence? Discord? Cadence? No, no.

Twilight Sparkle.

That was what the voices had been whispering to her for weeks, and now, she knew that they were telling the truth. The voices were guiding her all the way to this point, just as Celestia had been guiding her to activate the Elements and rescue Luna. If nothing else, why should Twilight continue to follow the Princess if she had been using her all along? Now, it was time for her to step up and seize the opportunity presented to her, in the same way that Queen Chrysalis had attempted to do. It had not ended so well for her, but she had come damn close to succeeding. Twilight would go all the way.

'Girls!' she called to her friends. 'We can't get out of this building without going through those soldiers. If I teleport us out, the Daemon will see us. Give me your Elements, quickly!' she encouraged them. 'I can't risk all of your lives. I have to keep the Elements safe, and I have to keep you all safe, too.'

Her friends reacted to her call, having no reason to doubt her sincerity and her actions. Each of them tossed their necklaces over to Twilight, who caught them with her magic and threw them around her neck. In a matter of moments, she was in possession of the ultimate power in Equestria now. That meant she no longer needed her friends- which, maybe, she had known all along, ever since Celestia had sent her on her quest to find friendship. It had all been a long and twisted lie, after all, and while she certainly had feelings for her friends, who had stuck by her through so much, she knew that they would likely turn on her once they saw what she was going to do. But it had to be done, didn't it?

Yes, Twilight. It has to be done.

You are the only one who can take this opportunity, Twilight.

Do what must be done.

Take your rightful place. Celestia was grooming you to be a leader, a future Princess, wasn't she?

Why not take the next logical step? Instead of being a Princess, you can be the Queen!

Your friends will understand- one day.

'Wait here!' Twilight ordered her friends. They nodded grimly, hunkering down in the back room as best they could while the Marines reloaded their weapons. Twilight stepped forward, broken glass and wood cracking under her hooves. The enemy took aim at her, but Parthax gave a shout.

'Hold your fire!' The Marines lowered their weapons, and Twilight advanced toward them.

'My my, what have we here, hm?' Parthax chuckled. 'Such a...diminutive creature. Not like your Princess, though equally brave, it seems. Or perhaps foolhardy. What is your name, little one?'

'My name is Twilight Sparkle,' she replied simply.

'And what are you, hm? Are you a soldier?' Parthax asked. 'You have no weapons. Are you royalty? You certainly have enough trinkets and jewellery for that.'

'What I am is the Element of Magic,' Twilight replied, 'but what I represent is everything. What I represent is the future.'

'What a grandiose claim!' Parthax cackled. 'What makes you speak like that, little one?'

It is simple,' Twilight answered. 'Would you care to see for yourself?'

'By all means!' Parthax smirked, a twisted grin on his weathered features. 'Let us see what gives you such unmatched confidence.'

'As you wish.' Twilight stepped forward. Her horn glowed, and magic tore through half a dozen of the assembled Marines, sending them tumbling like bowling pins. Only one of them got back up again, and Twilight finished him off with a bolt of purple energy to the helmet. The rest of the Marines turned their guns on her again, but she was gone. She reappeared above them on the rooftop of the building, hurling more magic down at the surviving armoured troops. More went down, leaving just Parthax and a single Marine alive.

'Ah, very impressive!' Parthax laughed. 'You certainly take after your princess, don't you? Where is she now, hm? Why is she not here to face me herself like she was before?'

'The Princess is gone,' Twilight replied calmly. 'She was the past. I am the future.'

'You, little one?' Parthax sneered. 'A few flashing lights do not qualify you to be the future of anything. You need more than that if you want to rule. You need an iron fist- that may be tricky for one such as yourself, who lacks hands...' The Sorcerer Lord chuckled.

'Believe what you wish. I shall show you,' Twilight replied, her voice having changed subtly. Those who did not know her might not notice anything unusual, but her friends would be able to detect it. The emotion had drained from her voice, replaced with an almost monotone sound, like a machine instead of a pony. Something inside her had broken, whether or not she even realised it. Something fundamental had snapped.

Her horn glowed again and she casually dispensed with the final surviving Marine, who found himself cut in half by a sweeping blade of magic, like a giant ephemeral sword. Parthax swung his staff around, and when Twilight fired her magic once again, he was ready, and blocked her attack, deflecting the bolt before replying with a burst of warp energy from the tip of the staff. Twilight dodged aside, then teleported behind Parthax, who heard the pop of air displaced by her reappearance and began to turn to face her. But he was slow compared to her, encumbered by his armour, and Twilight fired at him from behind. Her magic struck him and tossed him to the floor with a grunt.

Parthax's armour was singed and smouldering, but it had not been breached. The kinetic energy of the blast had surprised him and knocked him off his feet, but he was not injured, and quickly scrambled back to his feet. 'Time to stop playing around and end this!' he laughed. 'I hope you have enjoyed your brief fantasy, little one. It is time for you to return to reality once again.' He swung his staff around, but again Twilight was faster, and another blast of magic left her horn. Parthax had to throw up a protective barrier, deflecting her shot. She tried again with the same result, and so she changed her approach. No longer did she bother with her own magic, but instead turned to the Elements she carried around her neck and on her head.

Not since the distant day when Celestia had been forced to banish her sister had a single pony tried to utilise all six Elements by themselves. If any one of the other Elements had tried to do so, most likely it would have failed. But Twilight was the Element of Magic, and while that particular Element was not exactly in command of the others, it was the one Element that tied all of the others together. It had been the Element which only came into being when all of the others were together, and now Twilight controlled them all.

She focused everything in her mind, focusing on the Elements and their powers, their strengths. She channeled them all, using her control of the Element of Magic, and each Element began to glow, one by one, rapidly in turn, until all six were illuminated. Parthax turned his staff to sweep it across a wide arc and unleash another blast of warp energy at her, but the Elements were already activated.

A burst of colour leaped from her tiara, engulfing Parthax before he could do anything about it. His staff could no longer help him, as he was swallowed by the powerful magic, the fundamental forces that the Elements represented. Unknown to humanity or to Chaos, the Elements did their work once again, and the Sorcerer Lord, the Infidel, the scourge of countless worlds, was rendered nothing more than a block of stone, just as Chrysalis had become.

As the light from the Elements faded away, Twilight approached her defeated foe. She turned, and took a page from Applejack's book. She raised one hind leg and kicked out against the newly formed statue as hard as she could. it shattered, crumbling into a thousand pieces, tumbling to the floor.

Her friends hurried out to congratulate her. 'Wow, Twilight! That was awesome!' Rainbow announced.

'You were magnificent, darling!' Rarity exclaimed.

'Ah knew ya could do it, sugarcube!' Applejack smiled.

'Ooh, that calls for one heck of a party!' Pinkie giggled.

'Um...that was...inspiring...' Fluttershy added.

Twilight turned her backs on all of them. She didn't need them any longer. They were in the past. She was the future. It was that simple; maybe it would take time for them all to see the reality, but they would, eventually. Just as she had seen the truth. It had been drip-fed to her, perhaps, but she had long heard those voices in her head, whispering to her. Only now did she see the truth, and it was a glorious truth indeed. She was the one who would take Equestria forward. That was what the voices had told her all along. She had been ignoring them for so long, but it all seemed to come together here. Chrysalis had made her see the light, and Parthax had been the test case to prove it to herself and to everypony else.

Twilight teleported away from her friends, leaving them dazed and confused. She was gone. She was the future.

The Future

The other five Elements were left bewildered. Twilight had gone, disappeared, leaving them in the street without their necklaces. At least they were all still in friendly hooves- weren't they?

Twilight's actions had unnerved her friends, because it hadn't seemed like her. At least for the last couple of minutes before she disappeared, she hadn't spoken to them, hadn't even turned to face them or greet them with happiness. She didn't revel in her victory over the human Sorcerer Lord. Instead, she had simply gone, taking the Elements with her, all six of them. Why? Where had she gone? None of them knew the answer to that question. Nor did they know what to do next. Without their Elements, they were helpless in the fight, especially against the Daemon. They were unarmed, naked out on the streets, which was exactly the fear that had made some of them so reluctant to head outside of the shield in the first place.

Applejack took charge, telling the others in a stern voice that Twilight had obviously got some other plan in mind, and that the only thing they could do now was to head back inside the shield, back to the safety of the palace walls and Cadence's protective bubble. They couldn't hope to achieve anything useful without the Elements or without Twilight, the only one among them who possessed proper offensive magic. Rarity knew a few spells that might help, but none that were really fit for any kind of combat. Twilight would return, hopefully with the Elements, whenever her task was complete. That was what they all assumed and had to believe. After all, it wouldn't be the first time one of their group had gone off on their own scheme without filling in the rest of them on the details- Pinkie Pie with her Parasprite remedy, for example- and they had no reason to doubt Twilight. But it seemed most strange that she would take all of the Elements herself. The others had assumed she had taken hold of them just while she fought the Sorcerer, for just such a reason as that which she ultimately used them for- to defeat him. But why would she keep hold of them once he was done away with?

They began to trot back to the spot in the palace shield where they had exited onto the streets. They would take shelter inside and await whatever developments may arise. But Rainbow spotted something, and called out. She pointed over the rooftops. None of the others could see at first, but within moments they could observe what had got Rainbow so startled. It was Twilight, and she was flying.

Not technically flying, but rather levitating, using her magic to lift her higher and higher into the sky. She was surrounded by crackling energy, wreathed in magic, and a closer inspection would have shown that her eyes no longer had pupils or irises. Instead, they were both glowing white, gleaming like beacons as she ascended. The Daemon, Malaranth, who had faded away after the defeat of Chrysalis, now appeared once more, and Twilight was heading right for it.

Her friends gasped. Twilight was heading straight into danger, the same danger, they presumed, that she had wanted the rest of them to avoid. That was why she had taken the Elements from them, wasn't it? She had them in her possession, around her neck and on her head. She had used them against the Sorcerer, but, from what was known about the Daemon, it was in a different league entirely to any mere human, no matter how powerful they may have been. The Elements had been enough to defeat Chrysalis, but they had been wielded by all six of their bearers, which was how they were meant to be used to maximise their effectiveness. Even if Twilight could launch an attack upon the creature, there was no guarantee the weakened Elements would be enough to defeat it.

'What the hay is she doin...?' Applejack muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. 'Why didn't we just attack it from the ground? With all of us? This ain't the day for bein' the hero and goin' off by herself!'

'She must have some kind of plan, darling,' Rarity replied. 'She wouldn't risk herself like that unless she knew something that we don't. Perhaps she knows about some weakness this thing might have?'

'If she knew about a weakness, then Princess Celestia would've taken advantage of it when she was fighting it!' Rainbow pointed out. 'Twilight wouldn't keep it to herself.'

'Unless the weakness involves the Elements,' Rarity replied. 'Princess Celestia didn't have the Elements available to her. We've only just got them back all together again. Maybe she read something in the palace library...'

'Or maybe she's just bein' too damn brave!' Applejack snapped angrily. 'She's gonna get herself killed goin' up against that thing by herself!'

'What can we do?' Rarity asked. 'Only Rainbow and Fluttershy can fly. We can't help her up there.'

'No, but we can go and get Princess Cadence,' Applejack replied. 'She can help. She's the only Alicorn left...if anypony can defeat that thing, it's her. And if the Elements don't work, then...she's our only hope anyway.'

'Wait, girls!' Rainbow called. 'Look! What's she doing?' She pointed up at Twilight again. The purple unicorn was now level with the Daemon, facing it, floating high in the sky above the city. Yet she showed no signs of attacking it. The Elements did not glow; only her eyes did that.

'Ah dunno...ya think she's trying to reason with it?' Applejack suggested. 'Cause if she is, then she's gone nuts! That thing won't listen ta anythin' we have to say to it. Why doesn't she just attack it? Ain't that why she's gone up there?'

It wasn't.

'So, Twilight Sparkle,' Malaranth spoke in an even tone, its voice silky smooth. 'It seems that you have finally made a choice, made a decision. Tell me, is this the case?' it asked her.

'Yes,' she replied simply. 'That is the case.'

'That is pleasing to hear,' Malaranth nodded. 'Regardless of which outcome you have picked, change will be the result, and that is what my Lord and I are seeking. I trust you understand that now.'

'I do,' Twilight answered. 'It makes some amount of sense to me now.'

'Wonderful,' the Daemon smiled, an unnerving expression on the face of so monstrous a creature. 'So please, tell me Twilight Sparkle. What have you decided to do?' it asked her. 'Will you stand against me? Or have you seen the light and seen your true potential?'

'My potential is limitless,' Twilight replied, parroting one of the subtle phrases which had been spoon-fed to her for weeks, since before Malaranth arrived on the planet, even before the invasion fleet had entered the system and done battle with the Imperial Crusade. She hadn't even realised it was happening most of the time, because it was so subtle. Just her own mind making noises; that must be it. That was all it could be. Just her own brain telling her what she secretly knew deep down, the kind of things she would never admit to others, not to her friends and certainly not to Celestia. But it had been laid bare before her now. Inside herself, she must have always felt that way.

That was why Celestia had chosen her, at least in part. Theoretically any other pony could have been chosen to be an Element. They did not need innate magical power; after all, only two of the current bearers were unicorns. They simply needed to have a connection with each other, as friends or, potentially, family could also share the same bonds that would enable them to use the Elements effectively. Twilight did not know enough about the Elements, even after exhaustive study in the palace library over the last few years, as to whether the Elements could be wielded by all-earth pony or all-Pegasi teams, or if at least one unicorn was a definitive requirement, for that had never been tested before.

Princess Celestia could have picked any pony to carry the Element of Magic, or at least any unicorn, but she had picked Twilight, through the long process of the return of Nightmare Moon and her own apparent absence from the scene. It went all the way back to when she had chosen Twilight to attend her magic school and then to become her personal student. Ponies were not chosen willy-nilly for such positions, and Twilight had always known she had been chosen because she was special, because of the magical potential she had displayed to Celestia when she had come to visit the magic school and Twilight had been attempting to hatch Spike's egg as part of her exam. The power she had shown was much greater than would be expected from anypony else of her young age, and that had to be why Celestia had chosen her. Such potential could easily come in useful in the future, as indeed it had, and that, combined with her new-fround friends, had enabled Luna to be saved from her exile. Celestia could have defeated Nightmare Moon, of that Twilight was certain. But without the Elements operating at full power, she could not have purified her sister, returned her to her true self and reunited with her. But the Princess must have had a greater vision for Twilight's future, too. Perhaps not quite along this track, but nopony ever said that Twilight had to obey Celestia's every word. Not even Celestia had actually said that. Only Twilight had believed it without question, until now. Now, she knew that she could forge her own path. She didn't need to rely on Celestia to give her guidance and direction, not any longer.

'You are correct, Twilight Sparkle,' Malaranth chuckled. 'Your potential can indeed be limitless, depending on the answer to my question. Do you stand with me, or against me?' it asked her.

'I am with you...' Twilight replied, her eyes aglow, her brain fogged with deceit and trickery, steadily building and building inside her until it chose the perfect time to strike at her young and vulnerable mind- just the kind of mind that made a perfect target for the insidious whispers of Chaos. A brain filled with much power and potential, but still young and malleable, able to be influenced despite the great respect and affection she held for her mentor, Princess Celestia. Even the strongest ties could be broken with enough persuasion, however, and Lord Tzeentch was not a force that cared for wasted time. No time was ever wasted when letting it pass by would create change, influencing events far in the future. Sometimes the best course of action could take centuries to come to fruition, and consisted of simply doing nothing, of sitting back and waiting, perhaps with a few subtle whispers here and there. A few months of persuasion being poured gently and steadily into the mind of a young unicorn, shaken and rattled by the damage to her world and to her own outlook on life itself? Well, that was nothing at all, a mere infinitesimal effort by the minions of Change. Compared to the longer game of setting things in motion for the fleets to clash overhead, for Chrysalis to gain her foothold among the Imperial ships, and for this ultimate endgame to come to pass, it would barely even warrant a conscious thought for the Changer of Ways, and yet it could have just as dramatic an effect on the outcome of the battle for Kuda Prime, for Equestria, and perhaps for much more than that.

'You are with me? I am most pleased to hear that...' Malaranth chuckled, spreading its arms out wide as if in greeting to its new-found ally. 'Together, we shall end this battle, and then you shall received the grace and favour of my Lord Tzeentch. Or rather, I should say...our Lord Tzeentch.'

Twilight simply nodded. She did not know anything about the Chaos God herself, but she would learn. She would learn who it was who had ultimately enabled this scenario to play out, knowingly or unknowingly, by manipulating the threads of fate for millennia, all across the galaxy. Everything would be revealed to her. Malaranth would make sure of it. Chaos was never one to turn down a potentially powerful creature, whatever its species may be. Anything that could harm the Imperium, their one true enemy, and the Eldar, their oldest and most inscrutable foe, would be considered fair game for them to make use of in their never ending quest.

'Twilight!'

'Twilight!'

The call came from down below, ignored by the pony it named. It was repeated, this time by multiple voices, and Twilight looked down, as did the Daemon. It was her friends, the rest of the Elements shouting up to her. They had changed their minds about returning to the palace when they had seen Twilight approaching the Daemon, just in case their help would be needed. Now, it seemed that their whole world view was being twisted. Twilight was not attacking the Daemon like she was supposed to be. So why had she gone up there? It seemed to the rest of them that she was falling into line with the creature, not even arguing with it or trying to persuade it to leave or to stop fighting. She seemed to be content to simply float there with it- and that wasn't right.

Applejack decided something was wrong. She didn't know what, but clearly Twilight's abrupt departure without explanation meant something was amiss. As the de-facto leader of the remaining Element Bearers, Applejack had taken charge and decided that they would stay outside of the shield and keep tabs on the situation. She polled the others to see if any of them wanted to go back inside where it was safe. None of them had done so, even Fluttershy resolutely accepting the potential danger that they would have to endure in order to see what was going on. Now they had to act, not just sit and watch. Twilight was in danger if she didn't see what was going on; either that or she was under some kind of spell, doing what the enemy told her, which was even worse. They had to find out what was happening, and so they now stood in the plaza below, near to the palace shield but unprotected from the enemy, the Daemon- or anything else.

'Twilight!' they called again, and the unicorn gazed down at them from above.

'Twilight! Ya gotta attack that thing!' Applejack shouted. 'Use the Elements! That's your plan, right? So get on with it!'

'Why would I attack?' Twilight questioned, her voice drained of all of its usual vim and vigor, just a monotone drawl. 'It has made me see reality. I finally know what my purpose truly is.'

'What are you talking about, Twi?' Rainbow Dash called. 'Your purpose is the Element of Magic! You belong down here with us! Come on, Twilight! Get down here and give us our Elements so we can fight this thing!'

'But we are not to fight it,' Twilight replied. 'It is not my enemy, and it should not be yours, either. It can help us, all of us. We can rid ourselves of the shackles of oppression, throw these humans out of Equestria for good, and embark on a new journey to true greatness, with myself as leader.'

'With...what?' Applejack blinked. 'Twilight, what are ya talkin' about? Snap out of it! Just take a look at that thing and you'll know it's the enemy! Now get back down here, quick!'

'I will, once we have accomplished the tasks at hoof,' Twilight replied. 'The scourge that is the Imperium of Man must be removed from this place, and replaced by the benevolence of Chaos and of our Lord Tzeentch. Disbelievers will also be purged.'

'What the hell is wrong with you, Twilight? Listen ta me!' Applejack shouted. 'That thing's brainwashin' you! Yer talkin' a whole bunch'a crap. Get your head together, we need ya! Equestria needs ya! This ain't no different to any other time we fought somethin. We fought Chrysalis and Discord and Sombra, and we're gonna fight this thing, too! But we need you. We need the Elements. So get the hell back down here before it's too late!'

'No,' Twilight replied. 'You cannot fight change. I see that clearly now. I see it more clearly than I have ever seen anything before. No matter what you try and do, you cannot stop reality. What I have seen is reality, and that reality will be revealed to all of you very soon.'

Applejack shook her head in disbelief, turning to her friends. 'She's gone mad...she's brainwashed...somehow that thing got to her. Ah don't know how, but...we gotta get her back. We gotta make her see that she's bein' used! If she ain't gonna listen to us, then...then ah dunno...her brother! We gotta get Shinin' Armour out here.'

'But he's busy!' Rainbow pointed out. 'He's in charge of the defence of this whole city.'

'He can leave it with the human officer, whatever his name is,' Applejack replied. 'Somepony's gotta make Twilight see what's really goin' on. Does anypony have any better ideas? She won't listen to us, and Princess Celestia is...gone...'

'Applejack is right,' Rarity nodded quickly. 'We have to try anything we can to make her snap out of it. We need her! And we need the Elements, too, and right now we don't have either.'

'Why did she take them off of us?' Rainbow questioned. 'We could have fought that human all together. She didn't need to shoulder all of that burden herself. What else was she thinking? Maybe she has some plan. Maybe she's trying to trick the Daemon into thinking she's on its side!'

'If that's her plan then she's had plenty of time ta attack it when it's guard is down!' Applejack pointed out. 'Naw, somethin's wrong with her mind. We gotta...'

She was interrupted by a cry from Rainbow. 'Look out! Move!'

Applejack looked up, and dove to the side, scrambling for cover as Twilight fired a blast of magic down at them. The sudden attack drew horrified gasps from Rarity and Fluttershy as they hurled themselves to safety. Twilight was not only not attacking the Daemon- she was attacking them, her own friends. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong, and it needed to be put right. But without the Elements of Harmony, what could they do? If Twilight had been corrupted by Chaos magic, in much the same way that Luna had been corrupted by the darkness, the Elements could potentially purify her just as they had purified the Princess. But Twilight held the Elements, and there was no way any of the other bearers could get them off of her. Even Rainbow would be hard-pressed to fly fast enough to prevent Twilight simply teleporting away, intercepting her with magic, or erecting a shield around herself.

But they had to do something, even if it was just distracting Twilight until some other solution could be found. The Imperials could help, perhaps- their aircraft might be able to defeat Twilight. But defeat meant kill, if any weapon was used other than the Elements. Killing their friend was simply not an option, not that any of them had the means to do so anyway. Applejack shouted for Rarity and Fluttershy to retreat back into the palace, alert Princess Cadence and Shining Armour to the new development as quickly as possible. Meanwhile she, Rainbow and Pinkie, the three most agile and fast-moving members of the Elements, would continue to distract Twilight, hoping to keep her busy and prevent her turning her ire upon the palace or teaming up directly with the Daemon to further its maleficent plans for Canterlot. It, and Twilight, had to be stopped, and they had to be stopped here and now.

Applejack, Rainbow and Pinkie split up, sprinting and flying in different directions in the hope of confusing Twilight and making her waste time. But she focused on Applejack, homing in on the farmpony and firing off blasts of magic in her direction, evidently perceiving her to be the biggest threat, as she knew that Applejack was the de facto leader of the Elements whenever she herself was absent and would be best placed to organise the others to take the fight to her. Applejack ducked into buildings and alleyways, but Twilight had the advantage of altitude, and could look down from above into hiding spots that would be unknown from the ground. Applejack's best defence was to simply keep moving, dodging from side to side, going through structures and doubling back, coming out of side doors.

Magic blasts leveled several of the buildings she had been running through, Twilight's attacks just a second or two behind her, not leaving her much room for error. One trip or fall or even a simple stumble could prove fatal, as Twilight clearly demonstrated her desired effect by destroying entire buildings. She wasn't trying to capture or subdue her friend. She was trying to kill her.

Applejack continued her desperate flight from danger, drawing Twilight away from the palace as best she could. But her options were limited, for the outer city wall ran to her right, and if she was to stray too far to the east she would run into the frontline, and a different kind of danger. She had to keep running. Just keep running, and everything would work out. Whenever she reached a junction, she would make a turn, either left or right, or sometimes back the way she came. Maybe it was pointless and she was just exhausting herself for no good reason. Maybe she would run into a dead end with no way out, and be slaughtered by her own friend, by one of the ponies she thought that she could count on above all others, one of the most dependable and caring mares who embodied friendship itself. That would not be a fitting end, either for her, for their friendship, or for the Elements as a force for good. She just had to keep going, keep running, until something could be done, some solution could be found.

'Twilight!'

The cry echoed across the rooftops, faint but audible, coming from the direction of the palace. Applejack could barely hear it from ground level, especially with the clattering of her hooves on the cobbles. But it repeated, and then once more, louder this time, and it got Twilight's attention. She looked round with her soulless, white, glowing eyes, all trace of understanding and civility gone from her gaze, a deeply disturbing sight to those who knew her well, which included the one who had called her name.

Princess Cadence rose above the rooftops, the source of the distraction which had drawn Twilight's attention away from Applejack. That allowed the earth pony to slip away, escaping Twilight's gaze unnoticed. The plan she had rapidly drawn up was that, once something had happened to distract Twilight, all of the rest of the Elements would regroup back where they had last stood together, in the plaza near the palace. As she galloped through the streets, Applejack could see that the palace shield was still standing, despite Cadence no longer being the source. It was now protected by a multi-hued dome of magic, presumably being powered by multiple unicorns to give the palace and its command staff at least a modicum of protection. It wasn't Alicorn magic, but it would hopefully hold up against artillery or bombs.

'Twilight!' Cadence called again, her wings flapping gently as she hovered above the city. 'Listen to me, Twilight. You need to listen to me,' she pleaded. 'Give me the Elements, Twilight. I don't know what you think you're doing, but it's wrong. You're not listening to reason. You're listening to evil.'

'I am listening to reality,' Twilight replied in a monotone voice. 'The reality for us all, the single truth.' She kept her empty eyes trained upon Cadence.

'I am the future.'

The End Of All Things

Corporal Breeze slammed another magazine home into his rifle. The enemy attack was slackening, finally, but they were not giving up just yet. There were still numerous Chaos troopers trying to press the defensive line, and every so often they were joined by a small swarm of Changeling drones, who seemed content enough to attack whatever was in front of them. Breeze had no idea if the death of their Queen, reported over the human vox net to widespread cheers from the beleaguered defenders, had affected their behaviour in some way. A Hive Mind was still a Hive Mind, regardless of if it had a Queen or not, meaning that they could presumably still share information with each other instantaneously. But Chrysalis's defeat could equally have shattered some subtle psychic link, the one which meant that, though every drone was linked mentally to each other, they all obeyed their Queen instantly, unthinkingly, without question. Without her strong mind to guide them and issue orders, perhaps they had reverted to their natural state of aggression and uncontrolled rage?

Either way, they were happy to attack Chaos, Imperial and pony troops alike, all with the same zeal and anger, hissing and spitting and biting. Their numbers and their magic made them a potent threat, even to the advanced human weaponry, though las-fire could cut through their shields just as well as they could cut through those erected by unicorns. But when a horde of drones descended like a cloud of locusts, all but the most prepared defensive forces could find themselves overwhelmed in short order, demonstrated again in Canterlot as unsuspecting Chaos troops were set upon from behind and above. That in turn distracted them from attacking the pony and Imperial line, and as long as both foes were fighting each other, the defenders of Canterlot could pour fire into the enemy with glee.

Breeze was happy to do so, and that was why he was getting low on ammunition. The whole building was running low as they had been firing near continuously for- ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? The Corporal had lost all track of the passage of time, as was common in high stress situations, combat being a prime example. After action reports showed that some ponies would imagine an engagement had lasted a couple of minutes when it had actually been more than an hour, and vice versa. A brief firefight could seem to last an eternity when the adrenaline was flowing, coursing through their veins. He didn't know how long this particular battle had been going on, but the fight for the city seemed to have lasted a lifetime. He could feel the fatigue of the day threatening to creep over him. His limbs ached from holding his rifle for so long, and even adrenaline couldn't disguise that fact indefinitely. A rest would come eventually, no doubt, but for now he had to keep focus, stay strong and do the job he had been trained for. That was all.

There was a simplistic repetitiveness to the actions of a soldier or a guardspony, especially in combat. Aim, shoot, reload. Aim, shoot relead. Repeat ad nauseam. Time could fly under those circumstances, but it wasn't just time that was flying. The enemy were turning, running. All across the plaza, everywhere Breeze could see, Chaos troops were in retreat. There were some tentative cheers from the defenders, They were cautious. This could easily be a trick, but they were certainly not going to be lured into an ambush. This was a defensive line protecting the palace and the rest of Canterlot; it was not an engagement out in the fields or the plains. They had a specific objective- hold the line. It seemed that they had achieved that task. Why the enemy was retreating remained a mystery, but at least for now, there would be some respite for the beleaguered ponies and Imperial troops.

Breeze managed a few cheers as the enemy fled, and then he slumped down against the wall of the room. The exhaustion now washed over him like a wave, and he felt a sudden, intense thirst. It wasn't surprising, having been coated in dust and plaster from the collapsing hospital. He didn't have a canteen, but, to his surprise, one of the Imperial soldiers noticed his evident dishevelment and offered him a drink.

Breeze took it with a slightly shaky hoof. 'Thank you...' he muttered, bringing the canteen to his lips and gulping down several swigs of cool, refreshing water. There was nothing finer in all the land to quench a thirst, and it brought Breeze a new lease of life. He passed the canteen back to the human.

'Looks like they're on the run,' the man commented. 'I guess we've seen them off. Maybe they've finally figured out that we're not going to give up.'

'Yeah, maybe...' Breeze nodded, standing again slowly and looking out of the window. 'I hope they're gone for good.'

'No guarantee of that,' the human grunted. 'Chaos is like a bad rash. They just won't go away for good. But we gave them a good hiding either way.'

'Yeah...' Breeze watched the last few Chaos troops scurrying away. 'Thank you. All of you. You know, all of you humans...Imperials, whatever you want to call yourselves. Thank you for standing with us. I know this isn't your city or your planet.'

'No, but it is our fight,' the man replied. 'Those Chaos bastards are the same wherever they show up, whether they're fighting us or fighting someone else. A lot of other men would say that what we're doing here is wrong. Fighting alongside aliens...' He shook his head. 'To many people, that's anathema. Aliens are supposed to be our enemies, too. But Chaos? Chaos is the Archenemy. The way I see it, the enemy of our Archenemy is our friend...at least temporarily. But far be it from me to make that kind of judgement call. If my Commissar overheard me saying that, she'd probably have me shot.' he chuckled wryly. 'That's the way of the Imperium, unfortunately. But you fight well, for such...strange creatures.'

'I'll take that as a compliment,' Breeze chuckled. 'We do what we can with what we have. There's a lot of strange creatures on this planet. We're used to dealing with them, but not with humans.'

'Don't worry,' the Guardsman replied. 'Humans are the real experts at fighting humans. We've been doing it for millennia. I suppose we'll be doing it for the foreseeable future, too. Chaos isn't going to stop until we're all dead, and we're not going to stop fighting back, because the minute we do, that's the end of the Imperium.'

'Right...' Breeze nodded. He understood. Ponies fought other ponies, too; not as often as they had in the past, when open warfare had occurred on many occasions between unicorns and earth ponies and Pegasi, or even between individual city-states and other factions. But that was long ago, before Celestia and Luna had risen to power, even before the three races of pony had come together to form Equestria itself. This was a different time, when harmony was supposed to reign over the land. Of course, that was merely a hopeful notion, for Equestria had never truly known peace. Be it Chrysalis, Sombra, Discord, Nightmare Moon, Griffons, Zebras, or pony rebels, somewhere, somepony was always fighting to defend the nation and its ideals. That would never change, so long as there was but a single pony left alive. Breeze knew that, and he was proud to play his small part. No matter what would happen next, he had acquitted himself well in his first true engagement in full-scale combat. They had routed the enemy infantry- but what would become of the Daemon? What would become of the city? What would become of all of Equestria?

'Twilight!'

Princess Cadence called out across the rooftops again. 'If you won't listen to me, then listen to yourself! Listen to what you're saying! That's not you. Not the real you. The Twilight Sparkle I know would never say that kind of thing!'

'I am no longer the Twilight Sparkle you know,' the purple unicorn replied simply. 'Is that not obvious to you?'

'Of course you're still the same Twilight!' Cadence called despairingly. 'There is only one Twilight! No matter what you might believe at this moment, I know that deep down inside, you're still the pony I have known since you were a little filly. Don't you remember your life until now?'

'Of course I remember,' Twilight answered. 'I remember how I was used, manipulated, forced to follow the path laid out for me by somepony else instead of being able to choose my own fate.'

'Even if that was true, Twilight, how is that any different to what's happening to you now? You're being manipulated by that Daemon!' Cadence replied. 'Can't you see that? It's using you, Twilight. Messing with your mind, making you believe only what it wants you to believe!'

'And now that is what you are trying to do, too,' Twilight responded. 'Just as Celestia did for years, until she got what she wanted out of me. But now she is gone, Luna is gone, and soon, you will be gone, too. Then I shall become more powerful than any of you. That is my true destiny.'

'Twilight, your destiny is to lead your friends. To carry the Element of Magic into battle when it is needed. Not to usurp the power of all the Elements for your own selfish and misguided endeavours!' Cadence argued. 'You are a pony, not a Daemon. Think, Twilight! Think, and listen to me! Do not listen to that creature. Do not listen to whatever voices are in your head. They are leading you astray at a time when Equestria needs you most! Think why they would want that to happen right at this moment.'

'The time for thinking is past,' Twilight replied dryly. 'I have been thinking about the truth for weeks now, and it is all finally clear to me.'

'It's not as simple as you think, Twilight,' Cadence shook her head. 'Whatever you might think happened in your life, however you now feel things were caused deliberately to push you down this path, that is the path you have been walking, and it is the path you must continue to walk. Equestria needs you. Your family and your friends need you!'

'And I need you, Twilight Sparkle.'

This voice did not come from Cadence, or from the Daemon. Instead it rang out across the city, as though it were being broadcast from some loudspeaker, perhaps over the network of warning sirens. But it was no siren calling out to the unicorn.

It was her Princess.

There were cheers of joy, audible even over the slowly receding din of battle. Those who had not seen the earlier fight cheered merely for the sight as they often would, but those who had seen the shocking sight and had gasped in fear and impossible horror, now found their voices once more in a resounding roar of triumph.

Princess Celestia was battered and bruised, but unbroken, despite the violence with which Queen Chrysalis had seemingly dispatched her. Those who had witnessed it could only imagine the power required to cast their Princess aside with such ease, and assume that it must have been enough to kill her. But Alicorns were resilient, their bodies were powerful, and their magic was strong, and Celestia's was the strongest of all. It had taken her time to recover from her experience, from her wounds. But Alicorns healed rapidly, even without using any magic to speed things along, and it would take more than being thrown across a valley and into a mountain to defeat Princess Celestia.

Even Princess Cadence, however, had to admit some surprise to herself. She had worried that she was the last Alicorn, the only survivor of her kind, but it was not so. She was no longer alone against the Daemon and its unlikely unicorn ally. There was another voice to be added to the conversation, a voice many, Twilight included, had thought lost.

'Twilight,' Celestia spoke, calmly and coolly, the weight and gravitas her voice carried not diminished in the slightest by her ordeal. 'I need you. We all need you. You know this, no matter what lies have been fed into your mind.'

Twilight replied quickly, her voice still the same monotone drawl it had become ever since she had stolen away all six of the Elements from her friends. 'The lies planted in my mind were seeded there by you, Princess Celestia. If you want somebody to blame for this, you need only look in a mirror.'

'You know that I did what I did for the future of Equestria,' Celestia answered, moving to float beside Cadence. 'You know that the Elements are vital for our defence. You have used them yourself, this very day, no less. I saw the rainbow from across the valley, Twilight. I know you have clearly defeated Queen Chrysalis. You have already shown their power, and you know what power they hold, perhaps also against forces that are not from this planet, or even from this plane of existence. Would you truly now hand them over to our last remaining foe, and throw away everything you have worked so hard to defend?'

'If I deemed it necessary, yes,' Twilight replied simply.

'And why would you deem it necessary, Twilight?' Celestia called. 'Think. Just think! Why would you consider this enemy to be your friend, yet happily defeat Queen Chrysalis? Did she not try to poison your mind with similar thoughts when you were her prisoner?'

'She did,' Twilight replied. 'But I did not believe what she said. Now, it seems, that I should have listened, for she was correct all along.'

'But if you did not listen to her, then why are you listening to the voices in your head? Why are you listening to whatever it is that only you can hear?' Celestia asked. 'You know that you are not alone in hearing things. You told me and my sister many weeks ago, when the invasion first began, that you felt something in your mind, a disquieting presence, something that did not belong there. We told you that we also felt the same thing. It rapidly became clear to us that our new enemy, Chaos, was responsible in some fashion. It is now evident that the source of that is your new ally.'

Celestia narrowed her eyes and looked at Malaranth, who, in a most incongruous fashion for such a foul-looking creature, yet in a most fitting fashion for a servant of the Changer of Ways, was content to simply float nearby and let the exchange of words continue. Perhaps no intervention would be necessary; after all, it had already won the battle for Twilight's mind. Surely nothing could be said to break that sway now. Her soul had broken, finally succumbing to the incessant whispers and half-truths at the most opportune moment- just as Malaranth had foreseen. What it had not forseen was Celestia's return. The blow from Chrysalis had seemed decisive, and the Queen had seemed so confident that she had emerged victorious against her old foe, that Malaranth had to admit to a brief moment of what might be called letting its guard down. of assuming that the Princess was dead. Never having come up against Alicorns before arriving at this planet, however, Malaranth had clearly underestimated their strength and resilience. It was a correction that would have to be kept at the back of the Daemon's mind until all of the Alicorns were definitively dead.

'Perhaps you are mistaken, Princess,' Twilight replied. 'Perhaps the source is merely my conscience telling me what I have always secretly known. That you used me for your own ends, just as Queen Chrysalis tried to explain to me. I refused to believe her because I knew she opposed me. Not because she opposed you. She was afraid of the Elements, and rightly so. She was not afraid of you, and neither am I.'

'I have no wish to make you afraid of me, Twilight,' Celestia sighed. 'You are my student and you are my friend. Until today, you considered me a friend also. Clearly something has changed. Something has affected you and made you think differently. If you take a step back and think about this objectively, you will see without doubt that it is the Daemon that has caused this.'

'That is what you will tell yourself, Princess,' Twilight answered back. 'That is how you will try to justify this, how you will try to convince yourself that it is right to attack me. That it is right to take the Elements away from me by force. You will tell yourself that your loyal student must have been led astray by outside forces, that there is no possible way she might simply have seen the light for herself. I am afraid you are mistaken, Princess, but so be it.'

'Do not be foolish, Twilight Sparkle,' Celestia cautioned. 'Do not throw your life away needlessly. You are a vital part of the defence of Equestria, with or without the Elements. Whatever else may have entered your mind, you know this. You know that your family and your friends love and care for you. They want you to return to them, safe and sound, and so do I.'

'My sister speaks nothing but the truth, Twilight!'

Eyes snapped round, taken by surprise once again, the second time in several minutes. The voice came from the streets below, but within moments, its source revealed herself. Princess Luna was in much worse shape than her sister. Her burns had not healed, despite medical attention and her Alicorn physiology, nasty red and black welts covering much of her body. She was able only to stagger along, and her wings seemed to be barely able to support her weight once she took to the air. But she was alive.

Celestia and Luna shared a long glance of mutual relief and understanding. There was no time for a proper familial reunion at the moment, but Luna had feared Celestia dead after Chrysalis's attack, and while Celestia had not seen her sister fall victim to the Queen, her evident absence from the field of battle had suggested some similar fate had befallen her. Clearly, Luna was badly hurt as a result of being caught in such a powerful blast of magic, but she was soldiering on through the pain out of sheer necessity. As far as she knew, Chrysalis might have still been active- when she was hit by the Queen's magic, it knocked her unconscious, and the medical staff inside the palace only had limited knowledge of what was going on outside of the shield. The battle had been at a pivotal moment, and Luna had mustered her depleted strength to get back out there and help the Elements.

The landscape had drastically changed since she had been taken to the hospital, however, and Luna had emerged into a different world to that which she had inhabited before being wounded. The Elements were no longer in the possession of their bearers- or at least, five of them were not. The Element of Magic still resided atop the head of Twilight Sparkle, where it belonged, but now she held the rest of them, too. Moreover, she was with the Daemon, not attacking it, and Luna knew instinctively that something had gone badly wrong in her absence. At least now her sister was present, as well as Princess Cadence, the full might of Equestria's Alicorn rulers being brought to bear against this final threat. Either the Daemon fell, or else it would be the end of all things so far as the nation was concerned. If the Daemon defeated all three Alicorns, and had possession of the Elements, Equestria would be finished, utterly helpless and incapable of defending itself against either the Daemon or the many other potent magical threats that would surely threaten it in the future. It would be the end of ponykind, if that was what the Daemon desired.

Twilight looked at Luna as she took her place at her sister's side. Despite Luna having saved her life, and the lives of her friends, a short time before, there was not even a glimmer of recognition in the unicorn's eyes, which were still glazed over, glowing white. She seemed to have forgotten everything except that which the Daemon wanted her to remember.

'Your sister is a liar,' Twilight replied straightly. 'She merely desires more power for herself. You know that. That is why you rebelled against her all those years ago, isn't it?'

'The past is another country. They do things differently there,' Luna replied. 'Ponies can change, Twilight. Ponies do change, of their own volition, and not because they are being forced into it by powers beyond their comprehension. You are under the sway of a force we know little about.'

'Just look at us, Twilight,' Celestia urged. 'Look at us, and think. Think, think, think. Remember. Remember who you are. Remember who you used to be, not what this creature wants you to be. Remember your family, your friends. Remember us! I know you are still in there, Twilight. I know you can hear me. The real you.'

Twilight said nothing in reply. There were still voices in her head, the same ones from before, whispering to her, reinforcing their message, telling her she was doing the right thing by abandoning her responsibilities and turning against her rulers. Keep the Elements for yourself, they told her. Kill Celestia! Kill Luna! Kill Cadence! You have the power now!

But Celestia was correct. The real Twilight, her true self, was still present. The power of the Daemon's subtle persuasions was great, able to turn lesser ponies' minds completely, to build and build the mental pressure like bending the branch of a tree, until at a critical point, it would snap their consciousness and render them utterly helpless to resist the next stage. For ordinary mortals, that would manifest itself as a simple act of treachery, turning their weapons on their fellows until they were gunned down. But for psykers, it was highly likely that they would be exposed, once their mind was broken, directly to the powers of the warp, which would engulf their psyche, destroying any remaining shred of their soul and turning them into a conduit for some other Daemonic entity to take over their body and burst forth into the physical plane.

Equestrian magic, however, was not psychic energy in the same way that humans, Eldar, and the other races exhibited. It was a different kind of essence, one which could not be truly understood by any outside of the pony race- or indeed by most within it. There were things in the galaxy that even Chaos itself did not know in full, and, despite their attempted manipulation of the threads of fate over the years, pony magic was one of them. Twilight's mind, and her magic, while overwhelmed by the manipulation, was not gone. She was not brain dead. Her psyche was still there, marginalised in one corner of her being, and it could still hear the voices. All of the voices, both within and without.

She had thought Celestia and Luna both dead, sapping her of her mental strength, which was what had allowed the Daemon's whispers to finally overwhelm her defences. But now she could hear them. She could see them, looking through eyes that she no longer controlled. It was enough to hear her mentor and Princess addressing her, the real her, not the simulacrum which now occupied her body. It lit a spark inside her, the same spark she had felt only once before, when she first united with the other Elements and realised her true purpose. It was a reminder to her. Celestia's words rang loud and true in her mind. Remember who you are.

With an immense mental effort, Twilight fought. She fought against the darkness that threatened to consume her whole. She pushed back against the encroaching pressure that wanted to crush her very soul and extinguish her light from the galaxy. She threw off the shackles that were confining her to the deepest recesses of her own mind. Perhaps any other pony would have not been equal to the task, but Twilight had two advantages- her magic was stronger than almost any other unicorn, and she had the unique connection with both her friends and her Princess, forged in fire and blood as they had fought time and again to protect Equestria. Twilight knew that was what she had to do once again. They needed her. Equestria needed her. Her family, her friends, her Princess, they all needed her, now more than ever.

With a silent, internal roar of anger, Twilight's true self burst forth, overwhelming the dark forces which had taken over, and regaining control of her own mind and body. Her eyes returned to their natural state, no longer all milky white. She blinked a few times. There was Celestia. There was Luna. There was Cadence. Down below, there were her friends. And there, beside her, was the enemy.

Twilight had the Elements, and she knew what she had to do. She teleported away, down to where her friends were gathered, appearing next to them to gasps of surprise. 'Girls!' she shouted. 'Quickly, to me! Take your Elements!' She used her magic to levitate each Element toward its appropriate bearer.

'Twilight?' Applejack exclaimed. 'What...hold on a second, you're workin' with that thing!'

'No, no! That wasn't me,' Twilight replied. 'Not the real me. I just...something took control of me. But then I saw you all and I heard Celestia and Luna and Cadence...now hurry! We have to...before it can act!'

But the Daemon was already acting. Having seen the Effect of the Elements on Queen Chrysalis, Malaranth knew it needed to stop them being used. Once it knew where Twilight had gone, it immediately assumed that she had regained control of her faculties, and that meant she needed to be stopped. The Daemon raised its staff and unleashed a blast of psychic energy, straight from the Empyrean and directed at the cluster of mares down below.

It never reached its target. Instead it found itself deflected off of a shimmering golden wall which had suddenly appeared in mid-air. Malaranth looked around. As it suspected- Princess Celestia's horn was aglow, holding up a shield to protect Twilight and her friends while they prepared the Elements. No matter. Teleporting to a new position would still give it a clear shot. Malaranth relocated, raised its staff, and fired again.

This time, a midnight blue wall of magic blocked its attack. Luna, though weakened and hurt, still had magic and an iron will. Malaranth was thwarted again, and tried another angle, reappearing in the sky just above the rooftops. But it was too late. Twilight had distributed the Elements to her friends, and reunited with their true bearers, they began to glow. A multi-hued blast of elemental magic erupted from them, combining into one great wave and swamping Malaranth, engulfing it just as it had done with Chrysalis and Parthax.

Unlike those two, however, it did not destroy or defeat the Daemon. Malaranth took a powerful blow that sent it reeling, but it was not enough to kill. Evidently, energy from the warp was as resilient to magic as magic was to the powers of the Immaterium. Even the Elements were not sufficient, for they had not been created to fight against forces from another dimension. Malaranth chuckled in its sibilant fashion.

'Your trinkets appear to be insufficient,' it commented. But the Elements were not the only weapons the ponies possessed.

'Together!' Celestia shouted, her voice booming across the city. 'On my signal!' Luna and Cadence teleported to surround the Daemon, with one Alicorn on three sides and the Elements on the fourth. 'Now!' the Princess roared, and it was too late for Malaranth to react. Three beams of magic, one gold, one pink, one midnight blue, slammed into the Daemon, forcing it to try and shield itself as each Princess strained every possible muscle and sinew, digging up every last reserve of magic they could possibly call upon. The Elements, recharged and ready, at full power thanks to being carried by all six bearers, fired again. The rainbow sliced through Malaranth's shield, enough to denude it of protection but not enough by itself to defeat the creature. But combined with the firepower of the three Alicorns, the most powerful magical beings in Equestria? That was enough.

Malaranth did not scream or cry out, offering no parting word or curse, no final laughter. The combined magic, united with one common purpose, wiped the Daemon from existence. It did not kill Malaranth, for no Daemon could ever truly die; but it was enough to banish it, to force it through the membrane of reality, away from this world, away from Equestria, and back to the warp from whence it came.

A City Spared

There was a lot of disbelief from the streets of Canterlot. Many ponies and Imperial Guardsmen had witnessed the confrontation above their heads. It had scared human and pony alike, for there had been two of their greatest foes; Queen Chrysalis, and a Greater Daemon from the warp. The ponies had cheered when Chrysalis had been defeated, and cheered again when Princess Celestia returned. When the Daemon vanished, there was silence at first.

Ponies didn't know what had happened. Neither, in truth, did most of the Guardsmen. In other circumstances, just looking at a Daemon could drive men mad, but something here in Canterlot seemed to have eased those fears. Something kept the men calm, and nobody turned their guns on themselves or their fellows. There was fear, of course, nerves and uncertainty. But something kept them under control and kept them fighting. They had to simply concentrate on their task and leave the mission of defeating the Daemon to others more qualified in such things. Since the Crusade's most powerful weapons had failed, and since they had no powerful combat psykers of their own, that meant they were reliant entirely on the ponies to defeat the manifestation of Change, the servant of their arch-nemesis.

The irony was not lost on many, but it didn't seem to bother them in quite the way it should have. Relying on Xenos for help was anathema to many in the Imperium, and a fight against Chaos especially was deemed to be one that mankind should be undertaking itself. But to others, help was appreciated no matter the source, and in this case, it had proven crucial. The Daemon was gone, banished by the power of magic, not by mankind.

It took some time for the cheers to begin. Nobody was really sure if the Daemon was gone, given that it had teleported numerous times. Only after it failed to reappear was anyone willing to believe that it was actually gone. Even then, the cheers were sporadic at first, coming from areas where the enemy ground forces had already retreated. Ponies, unsure of the true nature of the Daemon, only began to cheer once they heard the humans doing the same. Their Princess had emerged triumphant, with the help of her sister, niece, and the heroic Elements of Harmony. The cheers soon became near-universal across the city, echoing over the rooftops even above the sound of gunfire. In places where Changelings were still fighting, the troops cheered as they fired, battling away to rid the city of the last of their foes. The Chaos ground forces were now in full retreat, harried by Imperial air power and with nowhere to truly go. They retreated into areas held by their own men, but that just made them targets for air strikes. Those who advanced were gunned down by the entrenched and determined defenders, now bolstered by their evident victory over the greatest threat which faced them.

The tide had well and truly been turned now, the backs of the enemy broken. The Changelings were the only real threat that remained, for their magic protected them from most human weaponry other than lasguns, and they could disguise themselves. But they were not bothering with their doppelganger ability any longer; their rage at the death of their Queen meant they just wanted physical violence, to enact revenge. They had helped to distract the Chaos troops during their own attack, however, meaning they had both helped and hindered the defenders in their quest to protect Canterlot.

Imperial reinforcements were arriving, by air and, slowly, by land, as hundreds of tanks which had raced north up the valley were able to close with and wipe out the remains of the Chaos attack force which had already torn to shreds by the orbital strikes. They were swept aside by the tide of Imperial metal, freed from their responsibility to defend the line around Fillydelphia now that the Daemon was no longer there. Enough Imperial forces remained in place to contain the final Chaos holdouts in that southern city while still permitting substantial numbers of men and vehicles to be split off and sent to relieve Canterlot. Air-landing units were also sent from the reserve and from orbit, and soon the skies over the capital were thick with Imperial aircraft. Bombers, together with the pony airships, began to bombard the remaining Chaos positions inside the city, doing their best to avoid too much unnecessary collateral damage, as per Princess Celestia's orders.

Imperial commanders were more keen than ever not to upset the Princess, having seen what she was capable of doing to the Chaos warfleet. Lord-Admiral Marcos had been observing the whole battle for Canterlot from the bridge of the Indefatigable, where he had relocated his command. At least this time the starships of the Imperial Navy had been able to help influence the battle, both by deploying fighters and bombers to support the defenders, and in a more active role by blasting the advancing Chaos troops as they tried to climb the mountainside toward the city. The road that wound its way up was shattered, and would need very lengthy repair work before it could be used to reach Canterlot by anything more than a man on foot. The rail line was also gone, effectively isolating Canterlot from the valley floor below.

Of course, it would not be completely cut off from the rest of Equestria. Airships could be used to fly in supplies, and Pegasi could still fly up to the city. What was becoming increasingly clear to both Marcos and the ponies on the ground was that they would have that chance, something that had seemed to be hanging in the balance until mere minutes earlier. The threat to the city was receding rapidly, and while it certainly could not be declared safe, the existential threat which had loomed over Canterlot and the rest of Equestria had finally been crushed by a combination of pony magic and human technology. The war for Kuda Prime was not quite over, but for the first time in a long time, ponies could look skyward without the fear of Chaos and terror falling from the heavens.

'My Lord, we have completed a full-spectrum scan of the planet, its atmosphere, and the surrounding system out to a distance of one hundred million miles. The Ferrus Terra has also completed its own survey. Both vessels concur- we have zero warp energy readings, zero hostile contacts, zero indications of warp rifts or other unknown phenomena. The skies are clear.'

Lord-Admiral Marcos nodded. He had adopted his customary position at the command lectern, with his hands clasped firmly behind his back as usual. The bridge staff of the Indefatigable would expect nothing less from their Admiral, renowned for holding his composure during the worst crises that could confront a fleet commander over decades of loyal service. And what crises had befallen the Western Fringe Crusade during their time at the galaxy's edge! Confronted with strange aliens, set upon by the forces of the Archenemy from all sides, losing most of their fighting power and countless souls to the Ruinous Powers, as so many expeditions had before, and so many more would again. They had uncovered a troubling new power source and its unusual equine wielders, only to find themselves forced to rely upon the selfsame Xenos for salvation, first from the blockade, then from destruction, and then from damnation.

It was abundantly clear to Marcos that, without any sugarcoating or beating about the bush, neither he nor the rest of his fleet, nor the ground forces under General Jahn, would still be here if it had not been for the pony Princess. Many of those on the ground knew that to be the case, as did the sensor officers and bridge crews of every surviving warship and transport in the fleet. There could be no covering that fact up, either from the personnel of the Crusade or from his superiors back at Hydraphur. His official report could twist and turn and try to use every possible loose end and loophole to suppress the truth, but there was almost a certainty that wouldn't fly. There was far too much evidence. All Marcos could do was present his honest opinion regarding the whole affair, expressing the belief that, in the absence of any spacefaring capability, the ponies would pose no threat to the Imperium and should therefore be left well enough alone on the fringe of known space where they would cause no problems.

It was entirely probable, however, that Segmentum Command at Hydraphur would ignore his recommendations completely and simply send another fleet, either to complete the goal which Marcos had originally envisaged once he established contact- namely, to learn the true secrets of the pony magic and use them for the benefit of mankind- or to wipe the entire species from existence to protect the Imperium from any future developments which might threaten it. After all, the ponies had mechanised transport, airships, well established electrical distribution, highly urbanised cities, large calibre artillery- how long would it be until they were able to achieve space flight, and become a potential risk to the Imperium in the future? Such a thing was far from being beyond the realms of possibility. Many species, humanity included, developed and advanced rapidly in terms of technology, moving from the cradle to the stars within a few generations. There was no reason the ponies couldn't do the same.

But they had not shown any aggressive intentions. Princess Celestia had stated several times that and her species had no quarrel with the Imperium, or indeed with Chaos until they had invaded the planet. For what it was worth, he believed her. It remained to be seen if the rest of the Imperium would do the same.

The instinctive reaction of all of Twilight's friends was to remain on guard, just in case. It seemed that the Daemon was gone, dead, banished, whatever ultimately happened to such creatures. But it had shown the ability to teleport and to fade in and out of reality seemingly at will; there was no guarantee it wasn't going to return and take them all by surprise. It was only once the cheering began to ring out across the city that the Elements relaxed. Once they did, their new instinctive reaction was to run and embrace each other, a warm, tight hug between the best of friends, and between comrades in arms who had just lived through a period of great danger. The war might not be quite concluded, but it seemed now just to be a technicality, a case of mopping up operations to sweep the shattered remains of the Chaos and Changeling armies from the field of battle.

Their embrace was long and silent, but the silence said more than words ever could. They were still alive, all of them, by some miracle. The Elements had proven their worth once again, and so had their bearers, and while others cheered the swinging of momentum in favour of the defenders and the destruction of the Daemon, the six young mares just held onto each other, more glad to be together and reunited with Twilight than anything else. There would be time for celebrations later on, once the battle had been truly won. For now they were content just to spend a quiet moment in each other's company.

'Ah knew you'd make the right call, Twi,' Applejack whispered after a few moments. 'Ah knew you'd come back to us. Yer too strong to let that thing beat your mind.'

'There was no way I could have fought it without you,' Twilight replied. 'All of you, and the Princesses. It needed every one of you to help me break away from that thing. It was filling my mind with its lies. It's only now that I see that it had been doing that for a long time. It was subtle at first, but it kept getting louder and louder...'

'Don't worry, darling. It's gone now,' Rarity assured her. 'It won't be able to hurt you any longer. Applejack is right. You are too strong, too smart to let it take you away from us for too long.'

'You have a lot more confidence in me than I had in myself,' Twilight answered with a small, sad smile. She had long underestimated her strengths and abilities, even with Celestia's personal help to develop them. It had started with her interpersonal skills and friendship, building up her social confidence and knowledge so that she could have productive relationships with other ponies. Then it had moved on to more advanced things, schooling her for leadership, taking command, first of the Elements and perhaps, ultimately, of more than that, if she was given the opportunity. It had seemed for months now that she would be denied anything of the sort, under the constant threat of Chaos and Changeling alike. But now, all of that was gone, like a storm cloud rolling away, leaving a bright summer day behind it. It wasn't that simple, of course, but it lifted a huge mental weight from the minds of those who had been struggling for so long against the forces of darkness.

'C'mon sugarcube, that ain't like you,' Applejack gave Twilight a comforting smile. 'We know ya have confidence in yerself, and in us, and that's why we have confidence in you. That's why we follow you. That's why we do what ya ask of us. It's the same reason we all follow the Princess.'

Twilight nodded. 'I understand...I know you're right, girls. I just can't help feel that I nearly cost us everything. All of us.'

'Well don't worry about that,' Rainbow chimed in. 'It wasn't your fault, what happened to you. But what you definitely did was fight back. What you did was know who you are and what you can do, and what you can do is kick some ass!' She grinned and gave Twilight a warm embrace, a friendly hug, one on one this time, to express her personal gratitude for Twilight's actions. Physical toughness, that embodied by Applejack and Rainbow Dash, was one thing, but mental fortitude of a level required to fight off the intrusions of a Daemon which had taken control of her very soul was something else entirely. Only an Alicorn, or an extremely talented unicorn, could have done such a thing. Celestia and Luna had clearly resisted the urges, for they had spoken to Twilight of hearing disquiet in the corners of their mind right from the start of the invasion, perhaps, in Celestia's case, even before that. But apart from the Princesses, none save the most powerful wizards, Starswirl The Bearded perhaps, could have hoped to overcome the powers which had afflicted Twilight and bent her mind to their will.

Twilight had calmed down, thanks to being around her friends once more. it was a constant help, seeing them there, and when she looked up, she saw the Princesses, too. Celestia was flying down toward her from above. The Princesses' usual unflappable expression still remained on her face, but with it, there was a clear undercurrent of relief in her eyes. Relief for herself, for her city, for her subjects, and for Twilight. They were past the worst of it, and Celestia was clearly glad of that fact. She wrapped her broad wings around Twilight.

'You have done well, my faithful student,' the Princess spoke softly. 'You have all done well. You have made me so proud once again. Proud of every one of you. Equestria has a long memory when it comes to such heroic acts, and it will not forget all you have done here today.'

'Thank you, Princess...' Twilight replied, her voice wavering a little even now. 'We couldn't have done it without your support, or without your sister. She saved us. She saved us all. If she hadn't returned when she did...then we would have lost this battle, and the city...and maybe everything.'

Celestia nodded. 'My sister did exactly what she had to do to ensure we will be victorious in this fight, as you did, Twilight. Only the bravery of ponies can hope to keep Equestria safe. That is how it has always been, and that is how it shall always be, no matter the threat we may be facing.'

Twilight nodded as well. So many ponies had been lost; nopony knew the true figure. The bureaucracy of the state had been torn apart by the invasion and towns, sometimes entire regions, were still out of contact with the capital, hindering efforts to figure out the true death toll of the Chaos attack. It might take years to get even broadly accurate casualty estimates. Another census would most likely be taken at some point in the future, assuming enough civil servants had survived the slaughter to actually carry one out. But that was a different time. That was the future, not the present, and Twilight could only be happy that Canterlot had seemingly been saved at the eleventh hour- not by her, not even really by her friends, but by Princess Luna, who had taken the brunt of Chrysalis's magic at the crucial moment. A second's hesitation, a second's doubt in her mind, and the situation right now would be very different indeed. That was what made the sight all the more tragic. Twilight gasped, and Celestia turned to follow her gaze.

Where Luna had been floating, flapping her wings gently to remain aloft, now she was falling. Cadence reacted quickly, using her magic to arrest Luna's plunge before carrying her gently to lay her on the ground beside her sister. Celestia quickly examined her.

'Sister! Can you hear me? Luna!' She scanned over the face of her fallen sibling. Luna's eyes were closed, her breathing shallow, just as before, when Twilight and her friends had found her after they had defeated Chrysalis.

'They took her to the hospital before!' Twilight spoke up. 'After she saved us...but I guess she discharged herself. She knew we needed help...'

'Then I shall take her back there at once,' Celestia replied. Her horn glowed, and she and Luna disappeared inside the palace, where the field hospital had been set up. Luna had pushed herself to her limit to get back in the fight, and then to use every ounce of magical power she had to help banish the Daemon, and it had clearly taken its toll on her. Her wounds had not healed after Chrysalis's attack, and they were just the superficial external ones. She had paid a heavy price for her courage, and Twilight and her friends could only watch on with renewed fear in their hearts as Celestia whisked her sister away.

With the Chaos troops and the surviving Changeling drones pinned in to the eastern section of the city, the Imperial forces were able to attack them with abandon with no danger of friendly fire. The drones, driven now by only their base animal instincts and perhaps a desire to avenge their fallen Queen, were disorganised and fighting both Chaos and Imperial troops, but despite their magic, Imperial firepower began to tell. Bombs rained down from above, pounding the survivors, their numbers dwindling, morale failing, ammunition depleting.

A small band of Chaos troops holed up inside a public library, which was pounded into rubble by Imperial artillery. Another group snuck away into the sewers, but Imperial and pony troops were waiting for them, having taken advantage of their knowledge of the city layout to ambush the enemy, clearing the sewers one tunnel at a time. They did the same above ground, once the enemy had been hit hard by air support, going house to house, sweeping and clearing each building. The city had to be cleansed, completely cleansed of the taint that Chaos had brought upon it, and even a single Changeling could pose a problem if it could disguise itself as a pony. The city had to be wiped clean and given a fresh start. There was no possibility of rebuilding if there was any danger of further attacks, even if by scattered bands of infantry or drones.

The Imperial operation was as thorough as it had been on a hundred other planets, bringing the Crusade across the galaxy's edge to this, their final stop, the end of the Milky Way. Many had fallen to defend this alien city, at the behest of their Admiral, but soon, there would be no more death, no more violence for them to suffer through. The Crusade's journey was at an end, and they would be surely returning to friendlier climes once this battle was at an end. There were no more worlds left for them to conquer, unless they wished to strike out across the endless void to the next nearest galaxy.

Imperial reinforcements crushed any remaining Chaos resistance outside of Canterlot, clearing the valley entirely and reestablishing control over the surrounding area. The situation was monitored closely from orbit by the Lord-Admiral aboard the Indefatigable, in case of any unexpected developments. But there were none. No more Chaos warships appeared from the Immaterium to come to the aid of the surviving enemy. There were no hidden clusters of enemy tanks emerging from some cave, no wave of infantry rushing down from the mountaintop. The forces that had laid siege to Canterlot were all that remained of the enemy, save for a few scattered units in Fillydelphia, which Marcos sent a detachment to destroy. It would not be long before the whole planet was completely cleared, and then attentions could finally turn to what was to come next, both for the fleet and for the planet.

Smoke drifted lazily across the rooftops of Canterlot. The guns had fallen silent, and night had fallen, the moon shining brightly in the clear sky through until the early hours of the following morning. The battle was finally over, for the city and for the planet, and while the civilians were still being held in the catacombs just in case, there was cautious optimism that they might be able to leave the palace on the following morning. Many would be fearful, of course, nervous about leaving the relative safety of the underground tunnels which had shielded them from so much over the past few weeks, but their city was finally safe again.

That was small comfort to the cluster of ponies waiting in the grand hall of Canterlot Palace, desperate for news. The wait had begun in the afternoon, just as soon as they knew that the situation in the city was under control and the Imperial forces had things dealt with sufficiently that the attentions of the pony commanders could turn elsewhere, and had lasted now into the early hours of the morning. Ghostly light streamed into the hall from the heavens, illuminating the group. Princess Cadence, Shining Armour, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie. All gathered around the vacant thrones of the royal sisters, both notable by their absence and explaining the anxious looks on the faces of those assembled under the moonlight.

The hours had passed while the doctors and military trauma surgeons had been hard at work in the makeshift field hospital, the most important and complex procedure they had ever undertaken. But none of them had ever worked on an Alicorn before; their physiology, while similar in almost every way to any other pony, was distinctly different and more intricately linked to their own magic.

Silence had mostly reigned during the long and lonely vigil in the throne room. Nopony knew what to say. Shining Armour occasionally moved to confer with a messenger pony who brought news from the final mop-up operations in the city, but other than those interruptions, most ponies stayed quiet.

The main doors opened. Princess Celestia entered the chamber, her armoured horseshoes clicking on the stones of the floor. Every eye in the room turned to her. She looked up, scanning the room, locking eyes with each waiting pony.

Over the rooftops of Canterlot, the golden rays of the sun crested the mountains, bathing the city in its glow as morning came. With it, drowned out and obscured, the moon slowly faded from the sky.

Fare Thee Well

The thrusters of the numberless array of dropships and bulk landers formed a new constellation in the southern and western skies over Canterlot in the pre-dawn glow. They were coming and going from Fillydelphia and from the main Imperial landing grounds out on the plains, far from the capital city but still visible as they rose into the heavens. Their fight was over, their war won, at least in this tiny corner of the galaxy.

Chaos forces had been eradicated. Lord-Admiral Marcos and Princess Celestia had seen to that, for neither of them wanted to leave any trace of the foul contagion behind on this otherwise pristine world. Imperial strike teams had hunted down every last pocket of resistance, with some particularly fanatical Chaos troopers and cultists fighting to the last round, refusing to surrender or retreat from their positions, however untenable. Where a particularly strong resistance had coalesced around a defensible position, it was ravaged from orbit before sending in airborne infantry aboard dropships to finish off any survivors.

But many of the Chaos forces had seen their morale well and truly sapped by the death of their leader and the defeat of their Daemonic patron. They had seen their fellow soldiers wiped out in their thousands, sometimes by their own commanders in pursuit of some grander goal to which the rank and file were not made privy. They had seen their most hated foe break every precept of Imperial doctrine and team up with strange horse-aliens, fighting alongside each other to defeat the servants of the Dark Powers. They had seen their fleets annihilated by powers that even they could not truly comprehend, and with them, their only way off of the planet. Some banded together to commit ritual suicide, in the hope of being reborn as greater servants of their gods, that they may continue to fight for them. Some tried to flee, but Valkyrie gunships and fast-moving armour made flight impossible. Some surrendered, though they were very much in the minority, mostly those who had only recently fallen under the sway of Chaos, or those who had feigned allegiance to obtain food or adventure. Whether they surrendered to Guardsmen or Guardsponies, the result was the same- summary execution, on the orders of the Lord-Admiral and the Princess.

The mop-up operation had taken another week until the Imperial auspexes were clear. Only then could the planet be declared free of taint, restored to its former tranquility. The guns had fallen silent after so many days that time had ceased to have meaning to many of the local inhabitants, especially those civilians who had been forced to reside underground for so long, devoid of any natural light or idea of the natural cycle of day and night beyond the serving of emergency rations at regular intervals. With the war won, they had emerged, slowly, tentatively, from their subterranean cocoon, to feel the sun on their faces again, to see the stars.

To see the Moon.

The news had been slow to spread. At first, only Princess Celestia's closest circle were made aware. She had told them personally, inside the throne room. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke four simple words that had sent daggers of ice through the hearts of them all.

'My sister is dead.'

The Elements wept. Cadence all but collapsed, only supported by her husband. None of them had even been sure that an Alicorn could actually die; it had never happened before. It was widely known that they were functionally immortal in a chronological sense, and could not die of old age or disease, but Luna had not been felled by that. She had been felled by magic and madness, by a combination of Changeling and Daemon. It had taken all the might of the Warp and of royal power to topple her, and even then she had fought and fought and fought, through hour after hour of surgery, but ultimately, her wounds had been too grave, too far-reaching, too unknown to pony science and medicine. She had suffered internal injuries from the force of Chrysalis's magic, but there was more than just that.

The Daemon's strikes, and the nature of the strange realm to which Luna had been temporarily banished, had added another facet to her suffering. The surgeons had been baffled; they had never seen anything quite like it. The ichor-like substance which had been splattered all across Luna's body after her return had acted like acid, burning her skin and the muscles and organs beneath, but even removing the substance, irrigating the wounds, applying salves and creams and potions failed to stop the spread. Drugs would not reverse the progress of the alien burns. They had tried using magic to cauterize the tissue ahead of the spreading wounds, like a firebreak against a forest blaze, and that, finally, had stopped it, but it was a stop-gap solution to that single issue. While the medics had been focused on that, Luna's other wounds had still to be treated, and the doctors could only do so much, even with a full trauma team, which they had managed to scrape together; a Royal Guard surgeon, an anesthetist from Canterlot University Hospital, two army nurses. If the sounds of bombs and guns outside the shield didn't make their hooves shake as they operated, then the identity of their patient surely did.

Despite their heroic efforts, travailing through the night, working in the light of flickering candles as the tiny emergency generator they had needed all of its power to run the life-support machinery, the damage was simply too great, and their understanding of Alicorn physiology, through no fault of their own, was too limited. All they could do was to treat Luna like any other pony, using the same techniques and medicines in the same way that they would in any other operation. But the fact remained that she was not like any other pony. Any other pony would have already been dead, torn apart by Chrysalis's overpowered magic or their soul ripped from their body and cast astray in the hellscape wilderness that Luna had been temporarily banished to. It was that difference, that great strength and divine form of both mind and body, shared by the royal sisters, that had kept her alive through the impossible, but it was that difference, that unknown component, that had confounded both medicine and magic and precluded any effort to save her.

And so, ponies wept. There was grief not just for the lost, the fallen residents of Equestria, but for Celestia as well. Her sister, her oldest and closest companion, her only true family, had been torn from her bosom again. This time at least it had not been she who had caused it, but this time, it was not temporary. Luna was gone from this world, if not from existence altogether, and barring any similar such disaster befalling her, it would be a long time before Celestia was able to see her sister again. What would happen to a fallen Alicorn was a mystery to pony science, and nopony knew if they would ever see their Night Princess again. Would she manifest herself in some way, as a spirit, perhaps, on the day that she died? Or would her soul appear imprinted upon the moon once more, as it did during her banishment? Or would that be the end of it, of any contact whatsoever? The survivors had wept for the death of their co-regent, their beloved Night Princess, lost to them for so long, for a millennium, returning for a few short years before being cruelly snatched away from her rightful place at her sister's side. Nopony truly knew what that meant, and as far as they knew, neither did Celestia, despite her immense power and knowledge. Or perhaps she did, but chose to withhold it from her citizens. Only she would ever be certain of the answer to that.

The bells of the palace had tolled, every night at dusk, at the moment day changed to night, a solemn, solitary sound of mourning ringing out across the ruined city. Everypony had lost a part of themselves, but they all knew that Princess Celestia had lost more than that. Most of the survivors had lost family members too, but even that was not quite the same. Luna was more than just a sister to the Sun Princess. She was part of her, and part of Equestria, the fundamental forces that drove their society. A large rift had been torn in the fabric of Equestria when Luna had been banished, and it had only been made whole after she had returned. Now, that hole was there again, a part of Equestrian society that had been imagined irremovable by so many generations before.

Even when she was banished, the old folk tales foretold that Luna would return, even if the story of the Mare In The Moon had become confused, distorted and somehow separated from the fate of Celestia's sister, who remained in the history books, usually listed as a mysterious disappearance in the old tomes and scrolls. Now, of course, ponies knew the truth; they knew the sad tale behind Luna's banishment and Celestia's anguish, and now they knew that the Sun Princess was once again suffering the trauma of the loss of her dear sibling, but this time, the loss was permanent. Yet Luna may have been gone, but the moon would continue to rise and set. Simple physics would see to that, and Princess Celestia would continue the charade of raising and lowering both celestial bodies; as she had during Luna's banishment, so she would after her death.

As the bells tolled, the Imperial forces began to gradual process of withdrawing their units, first from the city, and then from all across the planet. Their time had come and gone, their mission accomplished. They bad fought and bled and died alongside their temporary allies, the strange race of quadrupeds whom many had once considered as blasphemous as any other species of Xenos that they had encountered during the Crusade. But now, there was a strange mixture of unease and acceptance among the rank and file, an intriguing phenomenon that the Inquisition would no doubt take a keen interest in, were they ever to learn of it.

From the western plains, bulk landers rose into the heavens, transporting Imperial vehicles and war supplies. They had the priority; in a telling indictment of the attitudes of Imperial bureaucracy to its citizens, a tank was valued more highly than its crew, a howitzer more valuable than its gunners. They would be the first things shipped up to orbit, to fill the holds of the huge cargo vessels. Once the hardware and materiel were in orbit, the guardsmen would follow. Some units were already being shifted around, airlifted to the landing fields or, in the case of more specialised units, taken straight into orbit, but the majority of the personnel assigned to fight on the planet's surface would remain there for at least another day or two.

The ponies, those that had survived the chaos and the madness that had unfolded, were glad to see their human saviours, as well as their Princess, both of whom had contributed blood, sweat and tears to the continuation of Equestria as a nation, and to ponykind as a species. To the civilians, the Guardsmen were heroic figures, battered and bruised but unbowed in the face of evil. To the Guardsponies and soldiers, they were brothers and sisters in arms, simply fellow warriors facing off against the unknown. The Guardsmen and the Guardsponies had fought back to back, shoulder to shoulder, against the forces of change and chaos, and they had emerged from the other side with a shared sense of comradeship that would have been impossible at the beginning of the crisis. Needs must, as the saying went, oddly a phrase known to both ponies and humans, another bizarre coincidence of their shared language, which gave many pause to ponder. How exactly was it that these ponies knew Low Gothic? A coincidence? Or something engendered in aeons past, either by Celestia or by the Emperor, or even, though such a thing could scarcely be voiced, by the forces of Chaos?

There was rejoicing, of course, at victory, as the official pronouncement was made by Princess Celestia, bellowing out the declaration of peace in her Royal Canterlot Voice, the message being rapidly relayed to other cities as quickly as fast patrol airships or Pegasi messengers could carry the word. What little remained in the way of supplies that could be classed as luxuries had been broken out, alcohol being passed among the survivors freely, wine and beer and hard liquor flowing in celebration, fine caviar and other treats formerly reserved for royal banquets being shared by everyday ponies, guard and civilian alike. They had all come through it together, the greatest threat ever faced by Equestria, and they had triumphed. More importantly on an individual level, they had survived where so many others had fallen. Families had been torn apart, entire regiments of soldiers and guardsponies had been wiped out. Cities had been annihilated by forces scarcely understood by even the greatest Equestrian scientific minds.

Yet, as with every other crisis, ponykind had come through- broken, battered and scarred, but unbowed. They had not knelt and bent their heads in supplication to the aliens who had come to despoil their planet. They had not stood idly by and accepted their fate. They had not surrendered. They had not flown the white flag- they had flown the Equestrian royal standard, with a prayer to their Princess in their hearts and her name on their lips as she led them into battle. Every single pony still alive knew they had lived through something profoundly historic, something that would, in the future, become intertwined and interwoven with the many ancient tales that formed Equestria's backstory. The songs and poems would regale thoughtful young foals of the future with stories of how brave the loyal Guard and Army and Air Corps had been, how the twin evils of Chaos and Changeling had been hurled back with sword and rifle and cannon, and how the ultimate blows had been struck by the magic of the Princesses and their Element Bearers.

The stories would also tell of the strange ally that ponykind had found, for not all of the visitors from beyond the stars had been driven by evil alone. Despite the propaganda power wielded by the Imperium that cast any and all alien creatures as being worthy of death, Lord-Admiral Marcos and his men had fought alongside the ponies, and they had fought hard and well. Without their aid, everypony knew that things would have turned out differently. Without the intervention of the Imperial fleet after Celestia cleared the warp storm, Griffonstone would have been overrun, and with it, the Griffon nation would have fallen. Even if the Princesses and the Elements had been able to escape that inevitable bloodbath, which was probable, they would have found themselves relentlessly harried across the planet, just as they had been followed from Canterlot, until the Chaos forces found a way to obtain what they wanted.

It was a sad dichotomy, however; the Chaos plan had involved summoning Malaranth The Infinite, which took a huge amount of sacrifice. The wheels of change had been in motion for years, and every single cog in the great machine had been required to fall into place. If the initial Chaos fleet had arrived alone, before the Crusade reached the planet, then they could have smashed the pony military into submission with contemptuous ease. But as they had found, the Princesses were not such a simple proposition, and Parthax The Infidel's plan involved their capture or death so that he could study their magic in the hope of learning how to use it for evil. Yet none of the conventional weapons possessed by their ground or space forces were capable of harming the Princesses.

Summoning the Greater Daemon was the only way that Chaos could unleash a creature potentially capable of holding Celestia or Luna to account and fighting them on a level playing field. Yet even the Daemon was not ultimately intending to defeat the Princesses by itself. It was Queen Chrysalis who was meant to hold the key, for thanks to her unique ability to gain power the more love she could obtain, the Changeling leader theoretically had infinite potential. The arrival of the Imperial fleet was a necessary catalyst to help her gain enough power to be able to overcome Celestia, but not the Elements, which tied their strength to the mystical and the ethereal as much as the real world. Having been defeated by them once before, Chrysalis had been determined that the Elements would not be a factor in this fight, and for a long time, she had succeeded.

If she had remained in control of the Element of Magic, then she would have been victorious, and that would have left her free to continue on with her initial plan, to travel the void using the knowledge extracted from her human victims to allow her Changelings to operate starships. Not only had that been Chrysalis's plan, but ultimately it had been Malaranth's, too, for only a being of impossible power could hope to challenge the Emperor and finally bring about the collapse of the Imperium itself. Other daemons had disagreed with its plan, for after all, the Imperium were the great foe, with the Emperor as the influence and power behind it, and to destroy them completely would deprive Chaos of much of the purpose that drove it forward to continue the endless struggle for control. But, as Malaranth had argued to its fellows and to Lord Tzeentch himself, if the Imperium were to collapse, it would be the largest galactic shift of power, the largest change, to occur since the fall of the Eldar Gods- and what could be more unpredictable than that?

That was why Tzeentch had, long ago, given Malaranth the final approval needed to pursue the plan, for if it succeeded, then everything changed, and if it failed, then it would have failed because of an unexpected twist in the timeline. Either way, Tzeentch and his Daemons would be pleased at the results, for even a failure was not truly a setback for the Changer of Ways- merely a brief distraction, a blip in the swirling morass of entropy and time and alterations that was his specialty. What was life-altering or life-ending for entire planets could be nothing more than a momentary pique of interest for Tzeentch. Such was the nature of Chaos, and such was the way of the universe.

The rows of Equestrian flags fluttered in the gentle breeze, flying at half mast in mourning as they had done every day for the past week, lining the Boulevard of the Alicorns. The broad street had been returned to something approaching its former glory through diligent work from soldiers and labour gangs of Imperial Guardsmen and, at Lord-Admiral Marcos's direction, work teams from the lower decks of the surviving Imperial capital ships to make up the numbers. Bodies had been cleared and burned or buried, wrecked vehicles towed away, blood and gore hosed away from the cobbled stones. There was no disguising the war damage to the shattered buildings, but that was partly deliberate. Nopony could possibly forget the horrors they had just been through and there was no point in pretending otherwise, but at least some effort had to have been made to clean up the Boulevard. After all, this was no ordinary evening.

The Boulevard of the Alicorns was lined with Royal Guard, bedecked in their gold and blue armour, polished to perfection and glinting in the pale light of a full moon. No longer were they wearing their combat uniforms, but their ceremonial ones, spears held to attention in their forehooves instead of the rifles they had been carrying for months. At the far end of the Boulevard stood smaller contingents from the Navy, Army, and Air Corps, both the Airship Command and Pegasi Assault Force, in full dress uniform, lining the route from the palace gates, which lay open wide. Princess Celestia and her honour guard, including Commander Shining Armour clad in his purple ceremonial gear, stood atop the battlements above the gateway. Twilight and the other Elements were also present, heads bowed. A phalanx of Equestrian airships hung in the sky above the city, flanking the Boulevard of the Alicorns.

Coming slowly down the Boulevard was a simple wooden cart, pulled by four ponies, one representative from each of the military branches. The cart was draped in black cloth, and atop it lay a coffin, midnight blue with silver filigree and handles. This was no ordinary evening. It was a time unique and unmatched in history.

It was the funeral of a Princess.

Princess Luna lay in her casket, an expression of peace upon her face, surrounded by flowers of all kinds, freshly picked by the foals of Canterlot from the mountainside and the valley below. Her crown rested upon her head, where it belonged. There had been no actual government plan for a royal funeral of such magnitude, for no Alicorn had ever died before. The Boulevard of the Alicorns led from the palace to the city's main station, which was where any deceased notables who died outside of the city would normally be brought by train before transport to the palace for the ceremony. Even though Luna had passed away inside the palace, Princess Celestia had decreed that she should still make that final trip so that as many ponies as possible could see their Princess. Elements of both royal and military funereal protocols had been adapted and expanded at Celestia's direction to try and evoke as grand a spectacle as could be achieved given the ravishing the land had undergone during week after week of war, for Luna was not just a pony, not just a Princess, but to the inhabitants of Equestria, she was a goddess of the night.

As the bier rolled down the Boulevard, the guardsponies that it passed raised their hooves in a final salute. Luna was escorted by every surviving member of the Night Guard, the sub-branch of the Royal Guard dedicated to the protection of the Night Princess. Just like the Solar Guard, they had been decimated in the fight for Canterlot Palace, when they had tried to fight off the invading Chaos forces to buy time for the Princesses to escape the city. There were only thirty ponies escorting the coffin, clad in their deep blue armour, three ranks of five ponies to the front, three to the rear. The only sound was the clopping of their hooves and the gentle creak of the bier as its wheels rolled over the cobbles.

Closer to the palace gate stood not just ponies, but others, too. There was a large contingent of Griffon soldiers, in similar armour to their pony counterparts. There were Zebras from the eastern lands, a small Buffalo contingent in their war headdresses, and a company of Yak lancers. Then, there were humans. A large group of Guardsmen lined the remainder of the street, lasguns held at the present. Every race and creature who had fought for the survival and the future of Equestria was represented in the Boulevard of the Alicorns.

The bier rolled through the gates and into the palace yard, where there were more ponies gathered. Here, however, the representation was not military, but rather civilian, with large crowds of survivors gathered, invited by Princess Celestia to attend, every pony who had lived through the siege of Canterlot and shared in the same dangers as her sister. They prostrated themselves on the grass and cobbles, sobbing and weeping, faces twisted in anguish and wet with tears. Some threw bouquets and nosegays of flowers onto the cart, to add to those that already accompanied their beloved Princess. More guardsponies did their best to keep the mourning crowds back. For those among them who had expressed doubt and incredulity upon hearing the news, seeing Luna's lifeless body in the flesh only drove home the truth of it even harder than for those who had accepted the facts.

In the gardens of the palace, a similar cleanup job had been performed, doing what could be done to beautify the area, just as a body would be suitably dressed before a funeral. Seating had been provided, and dignitaries were present; the Griffon King, Zebra Chiefs, Prince of Yakyakistan. Lord Admiral Marcos and General Jahn were present, too. Celestia had asked if they would be willing to attend with no expectation of agreement, but the Lord-Admiral had insisted on coming.

Luna's casket was drawn to a halt in front of the seating area, as the crowds of civilians were moved up by the guards to witness the event. Twilight and the Elements, clad in mourning dresses hurriedly sewn by Rarity from whatever scraps she could find about the palace, took their seats. The soldiers and guards who had lined the Boulevard filed in as well, filling up the garden. There were contingents from other cities, too, not just Canterlot, and officers among the dignitaries. Captain Ironside, Grand Admiral Bluewater, other heroes and also-rans of the war, distinguished veterans joining with newborn foals to mourn.

Celestia and Cadence stood at the front, beside Luna, and in the silvery light of the full moon, the Sun Princess began her address.

'My loyal subjects. Honoured and distinguished visitors. My lords, fillies and gentlecolts...' She paused for a moment. Though her voice was a strong and loud as ever, there was an undisguised sadness to it. 'Thank you all for attending this ceremony. This...farewell.' She looked over at Luna, lying so serenely beneath the light of her own moon. 'For you all, this is the first time that you have had to say goodbye to my sister. You are all too young, though I know that almost all of you remember her return and redemption. But for myself, it is a second parting...' She paused again to look skyward at the orb hanging in the sky overhead. 'Luna spent a thousand years up there. Please, I want you all to look at the moon tonight.'

To a pony and to a man, every single creature present turned their eyes to the heavens. For some, it was a duty to obey their Princesses' request. For others, it was a compulsion, and even those who did not follow her felt bound by some immutable desire to look at the moon. It was a cloudless night; the Pegasi had seen to that, at least at the lower altitudes. Higher level cirrus and cirrocumulus had been taken care of by Princess Celestia herself- the formation and movement of weather cells, systems, and winds across the planet were in large part driven by the heat from the sun, which meant they could be manipulated, with surprising precision, by the Princess.

'My sister never broke,' Celestia continued. 'She never wavered and she never lost hope. Even while her body was controlled by evil, her mind remained sharp and clear, and she was determined to return to us. To return to my side, to her rightful place as your Princess. That is exactly what she did. She fought through the hardship, through the loneliness, through the pain and suffering, to do what had to be done, and that is exactly what she did again last week. It is no hyperbole to state the simple facts. The simple truth. My sister saved this city. She saved our brave Element Bearers. She saved me, she saved you. She saved every single one of us. Make no mistake about that, and remember it. Celebrate it, every single day of life you have left, every single day that her sacrifice gave to you. Every evening when you look out of your window, look to the skies, look to the moon, and say a prayer to Luna, Princess of the Night, Princess of the Moon, Keeper of Dreams. Say a prayer to my sister.'

Celestia took a step back. Her voice had quavered during the last few sentences of her speech, and Cadence took over, making her own statement, her own impassioned and loving memorial to the lost Princess. Her voice rang out across the gardens, reaching every corner and every ear, just as Celestia's had. There were many nods of agreement and much sniffling and sobbing, mostly from the civilians but some even coming from among the military ranks. Stoicism could only carry a pony so far.

Cadence finished her speech, and Celestia stepped forward again, leading a prayer to the Moon Princess before speaking again. 'I know that every single one of you have suffered during this time of such grave crisis. I know every single one of you has lost somepony you cared for. You have all lost family. You have all lost friends. Here and now, I want to say that I share your pain. I understand your grief and your emptiness. You have only to look around to see what has been done to us. The damage to this city, to this nation, to this planet, and to each and every one of our souls will never be truly repaired. We can never replace those who have fallen. We can never repay the debt we owe to those who took up arms to defend our beliefs and our culture. They are heroes, and they will be remembered, every single one of them. We will build a memorial to the lost. We will build an entire city, a grand necropolis, within which we will intern every single victim of this global tragedy, lest we forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice. My sister is merely one among many. None of those other heroes received a ceremony like this. Circumstances precluded that. But I want to dedicate this night to every one of them. All of our lost. Those citizens who died, and those serviceponies who died doing their duty. This is for all of them, guardspony, soldier, airpony, sailor, civilian, and for Princess Luna. We will never forget our glorious dead.'

Celestia stepped back again, and bowed her head. Cadence did the same, and everypony else followed suit. The Night Guard stepped up, marching into position to the side of the casket. All thirty of them now carried rifles. Shining Armour trotted to the front of the crowd, standing beside them, a stern expression on his face, but with a twitch pulling at the corner of his mouth. 'Honour Guard! Atten-hut! Present...arms!' he bellowed. The Night Guard snapped into action, coming to attention before holding their guns at the present.

'Ready!' Shining called. They cocked their weapons.

'Aim!' he cried. They pointed their guns to the sky.

'Fire!' he bellowed. A crackle of gunfire rang out across the silent city.

'Ready!'

'Aim!'

'Fire!'

Another volley sent shivers down the spines of those in attendance.

'Ready!'

'Aim!'

'Fire!'

A third and final round of shots rolled across the valley.

Shining and the honour guard stepped back, their job done. Now it was the turn of the army. Taking their cue from the volleys of gunfire, a battery of artillery, stationed above the city on the mountainside, had been waiting for their time. The faint voice of the battery sergeant major could be heard echoing down from the slope above.

'On the occasion of the funeral of Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna, Number One Battery, 10th Regiment, Royal Artillery, will fire twenty one rounds. Prepare to fire twenty-one gun salute!'

'Battery, load!'

'Battery, make ready!'

'Battery, fire!'

Bright flashes burst through the veil of darkness, illuminating the city and followed a moment later by a roar, as the first field gun blazed into brilliant, violent life. Each gun fired in turn, seven in total, until the entire battery had sounded its cry. The crackle of gunfire rang out like a bell across the valley, audible miles from Canterlot, carrying the death knell of a Princess through the air. The seven guns fired again, and then a third time, before falling silent, smoke coiling from their barrels, their tribute paid.

Attention then turned back to the skies. Major Spitfire flew at the head of her Wonderbolts, a phalanx of highly trained ponies racing through the sky, a symbolic gesture of love, a flypast to honour Princess Luna and all of the fallen. They passed over the crowd, drawing gasps and applause from those below, accustomed to such flypasts more in times of joy than of sadness. A minute passed in silence, then another. Ponies began to share glances. Was this the end? Why wasn't Celestia dismissing them? Then a low drone filled the air, rising to a hum, then a shriek, then a roar.

Five Imperial Lightning strike fighters appeared over the city wall, flying above Canterlot, trailing smoke and startling the civilians who were unaware of their participation. Captain Eliss Muran, flying lead, pulled back on the stick as he passed over the palace, and his Lightning climbed away, afterburners glowing like suns in the darkness, leaving the rest of his formation to race onward as he ascended to the heavens like a homesick angel, a symbolic departure usually referred to as a missing man formation, but in this case, missing mare would be more apt. There were more sobs and cries from the assembled ponies as some of them recognised the significance, not just of the act itself, but of the fact that it was being carried out by humans, by Imperial aircraft, by a species that had no prior knowledge of ponykind before they arrived in orbit and had to suffer through the same struggle, to honour the fallen Princess who their own dogmatic Imperial faith tried to convince them should have been exterminated on sight. Clearly, these men and women felt differently.

As Muran roared into orbit and the rest of his flight disappeared to the south, silence returned to Canterlot. Celestia stepped forward again, her head held high, looking to the sky and the receding glow of Captain Muran's afterburners.

'Goodbye, my sister,' she spoke, tears running down her cheeks. 'Until we meet again, fare thee well...'

Homeward Bound

Lord-Admiral Marcos surveyed the planet below, the gleaming blue and green orb surrounded entirely by the darkness of the void. This planet was most peculiar in so many ways. Despite being out on the fringe of the galaxy, it was teeming with life, lush forests, bright mountain peaks, glittering oceans. Despite being so far from the Emperor's light, some of the creatures that lives upon it spoke Low Gothic as well as he did- more eloquently, perhaps, in some cases. They had functioning societies, industry, science, as well as psychic powers- or rather magic, similar but sufficiently different to have incited so much attention both from the Adeptus Mechanicus and Chaos.

Perhaps it had all been a coincidence, but perhaps it had been destiny that drove the Crusade fleet to this place at this time. Marcos had thought about it often enough, but still knew nothing for certain. He had been told of what the Daemon had declared when it had tried to persuade Chrysalis and then Twilight to fight alongside it, but the words of a Daemon could never be trusted in any way, shape or form. It may have been true that Malaranth had been manipulating events for hundreds or thousands of years, or it may have been a coincidence the Daemon had leaped upon as a tool to use in its attempts to win the battle and gain possession of an active source of the Equestrian magic for its own ends. Ends which, it pained Marcos to admit, were basically the same as those of the Mechanicus. The Alicorn magic would have been weaponised by either faction, should it have been able to obtain a specimen- though clearly as events had shown, neither Luna, Cadence, Celestia or Chrysalis were going to simply roll over and submit, and all had proven more than capable of defending themselves. The whole thing may have ultimately been a fool's errand, for there had probably been no realistic way to capture any of the four royals who possessed the right kind of magic. Nor had there been any way to kill them, not with conventional weaponry, as both Chrysalis and Celestia had most decidedly demonstrated on numerous occasions.

If nothing else, however, the Crusade's presence had helped preserve the planet as a whole from exploitation by Chaos. If the fleet had not arrived but the Chaos ships had, then Celestia and the ponies would have been fighting blind, and while the Princess herself would have withstood the attack, the rest of Equestria might not. She and her fellow Alicorns could only be in so many places at once, and the pony war machine, while impressively advanced for such a simple society, could not stand up to Chaos in any meaningful sense. The likely result in his mind was that Celestia would have eventually been forced to unleash her full power and control over the sun to rid the world of the taint, which would result in its sterilisation, not just of Chaos but of all life, perhaps including her own. Then, the planet would no longer be a lush garden paradise, but a barren ball of airless rock, and that would be a true tragedy.

It was only now that Marcos could see the truth of that. Losing this planet, as strange as it was, would be a tragedy indeed, for it was so strange and unlikely as to make it unique. The Emperor himself must have touched this planet in some way, for the inhabitants to know the human language. It couldn't happen by accident, and there had been no evidence in Imperial records of any explorator fleet or rogue trader making it out this far. Nor did the pony historical records and oral traditions hold any evidence of bipedal creatures resembling humans, or of visitors from beyond the stars. There was no other explanation except divine intervention or convergent evolution of an identical mother tongue, and the latter of those options seemed to be so infinitesimally small as to essentially be zero. Though neither Marcos nor Celestia nor anyone else would ever be able to prove it either way, it seemed that there must be some relationship between humanity and these ponies.

The space between the planet and the remains of the fleet was dotted with transports, bulk landers and small shuttles, a continuous conveyor belt of craft bringing supplies and personnel back into orbit. The whale-like transport ships were awaiting them, steadily refilling their cavernous holds with the men and materiel that had formed the lifeblood of the Crusade's planetside operations for so long, here at Kuda Prime and elsewhere, a dozen other worlds and more besides. They were men who were battle hardened by their experiences, widely traveled and tough both physically and mentally to have come so far and seen and fought so much. Now, they were finally on their way home, maybe not to their planet of birth, but at least to Imperial space, friendly territory, or as friendly as life ever got in the Imperium. Hydraphur would welcome them with open arms, as heroes.

Or else they would be met with anger. They had been exposed to Chaos and to an unknown force, the pony magic. The Adeptus Mechanicus would have sent messages back from the Ferrus Terra to their superiors, but would those messages have been received? Such long-range communication was notoriously unreliable, and messages could vanish entirely in the ether or take decades to arrive instead of weeks. The warp was fickle and hard to read at the best of times, but any message sent purely by vox would take centuries, maybe millennia, to even reach the nearest inhabited world. To reach Hydraphur by such a message could take aeons. The warp held the best chance of sending a message successfully. If the word had got through, then the Crusade fleet may well be met with guns when they returned, either to hold them in quarantine or, perhaps, to wipe them out. It would be a simple enough task for the system's defence forces, given the parlous state of the Crusade's combat power, having taken so much attrition during the course of their mission.

If the Inquisition or Segmentum Command decided the fleet should die, then they would die. Marcos had no illusions about that. He had seen it done on numerous occasions, sometimes to a single shuttle, sometimes to an individual, sometimes to an entire flotilla. He himself had issued the order to enforce such a strict quarantine several times, enacting the wills of the high commanders whom he had been serving under. Given that, perhaps it would be better to not return to Hydraphur after all? Their mission had been accomplished. Worlds and systems had fallen under Imperial sway thanks to their Crusade across the fringes of the galaxy. Was that not enough? Had they not done their duty in the eyes of the Emperor? Of course they had. So who could begrudge them life instead of death? They had earned their survival, paid for it with the blood of their fellows.

That was why Marcos understood. He understood why some of his crews, many of them in fact, and many of the Guardsmen, had expressed a desire to remain on Kuda Prime. Several months ago, Marcos would have laughed openly in the face of anyone admitting to such feelings. He would have had them clapped in irons and imprisoned in the brig for treasonous thoughts, giving them time to reflect on their choices. He would not have executed anyone for such thoughts, however, and that was where he very much differed from Senior Commissar Birbeck. The Commissar had shown that quite clearly when he shot Sergeant Argan of the Parvian Lancers, tasked with arresting the Lord-Admiral, after he refused to comply.

Birbeck was typical of the traditional view of Commissars among the rank and file- ruthless, brutal, willing to execute someone for the slightest infraction in order to retain his authority and to retain discipline in the unit. That was what the Commissariat was for, after all. But ordering the arrest of the Lord-Admiral, who had earned the respect of all those who had survived the Crusade up to this point? While technically within Birbeck's purview, it would take a very bold or very senior Commissar indeed to dare carry out such an act against someone with such a high rank. Birbeck wasn't even a naval Commissar, but an Imperial Guard one, adding further complications, though again technically his authority carried across both services. Many Commissars had tried to overthrow their commanders in the past, for a variety of reasons ranging from true duty to the Imperium through to a lust for personal power, but their success had been predicated on the support of the men and women under him. If the rest of the unit supported the commander and not the Commissar, then such an attempt would end rather swiftly and usually bloodily, as Birbeck had found out to his fatal cost.

Marcos was content, then. Birbeck's failure had allowed him to conduct a purge of those officers who had supported his efforts to overthrow the legitimate leadership of the Crusade. They had tried to conduct their business in secret, but vox records could be tracked and interviews conducted with likely suspects. Some dozen openly confessed and were confined to the brigs of their vessels for the return journey to Hydraphur. A couple of particularly vehement opponents of Marcos tried to fight it out with the armsmen and were gunned down for their troubles. Others perhaps escaped the net, as they had kept a cleaner trail than others with no loose ends, content to slip back into the shadows of obscurity now that the attempted overthrow had failed. It had been something of a half-hearted play anyway. After all, it had been months since the fleet arrived at this planet and began to consort with the horse-aliens, and while Birbeck had hardly been alone in his criticism of that, neither he nor anyone else had been compelled to act to prevent it. It was only when news began to spread of Guardsmen expressing desires to remain on the planet that Birbeck had felt the need to step in, and while he had some support, it had clearly not been enough.

Unlike Birbeck, Marcos had some honest sympathy with those who wanted to stay. It wasn't too much to ask, really- a few hundred, or even a few thousand, missing men who did not return with the fleet would hardly be missed. They might not even be noticed by Imperial scribes, such was the vast and bloated nature of bureaucracy. They could be written off in official reports as casualties of war, either dead or, perhaps more appropriately, missing in action. They could be free to live out their lives in relative peace and comfort, helping rebuild the shattered nation, if Celestia would allow it. That had to be better than slaving for day after day in the bowels of a hot and steamy tank or gun deck, and the men had worked hard for so long. It might be treasonous to even think of such ideas, as Birbeck evidently believed, but Marcos had already taken many decisions that the majority of Inquisitors might deem to be so. When it came to this particular planet and this particular species, the Lord-Admiral no longer cared for such potential censure.

That was why he had approached Princess Celestia to request some form of political asylum for those among the Crusade fleet who wished to remain behind and stay to live out the rest of their lives in this planet instead of under Imperial servitude. Marcos had carried out a fleet-wide survey of opinions and reasons among those who had answered in the affirmative when asked if they wanted to stay. The most common responses had been that the planet reminded them of their homeworld, the planet reminded them of some picture-book ideal of a paradise, the desire to help the ponies rebuild their society, and the undeniable draw of the Princess and her seemingly pure and honest soul. In fact, many said that the whole planet gave them feelings of calm, almost serenity and harmony, whenever they were not involved in battle. It seemed to have a soothing effect on the psyche of many personnel, and having visited the surface for himself several times now, Marcos could understand why.

Even war-torn and ravaged as it had been, Canterlot still held much of the majesty that it must have in its prime, those scant months earlier. It reminded Marcos of the residences of the grander and more hedonistic planetary governors he had seen, and also of images and paintings of parts of the Imperial Palace on Holy Terra. Canterlot palace itself was just as pure and elegant as the Princess who dwelt within, white and gold to match Celestia's coat and royal regalia. It was most befitting, and with much of the rest of the city being of similar style and design, it became clear that Canterlot was very much a capital city for Celestia to rule from. Perhaps she had designed it herself? Marcos had neglected to ask her such questions when he had visited her inside the palace to ask whether there could be accommodations made for personnel from the Crusade to remain behind.

She had agreed. Marcos had expected some kind of debate, at least, but Celestia had not even asked for any concessions to be made, other than that the humans should provide, where possible, their own temporary housing, or material to build such structures themselves. Equestria's housing stock had taken a battering and despite the massive casualties, there were going to be problems in finding places for all the survivors to live. Entire cities such as Manehattan and Baltimare had been rendered essentially uninhabitable, while others like Ponyville had been wiped from the map entirely. It would be a complex balancing act to get society functioning again, and Marcos had offered to provide plentiful supplies for the ponies to use. Celestia had accepted gratefully, and even now, as Marcos watched the transports bringing personnel to orbit, he could also see a string of shuttles and landers taking supplies down to the surface. Ration packs, prefabricated barrack units and tents, water purification systems, medicine. All of the items were in short supply in Equestria thanks to the war, and Marcos wanted to provide plenty of help. He felt it was the right thing to do, something which, again, Commissar Birbeck and his co-conspirators would have vehemently disagreed with.

In return for the supplies, Princess Celestia had agreed to turn the current location of the main Imperial landing zone, out to the west of Canterlot on the plains, into a town for the humans to live. Some forty thousand men and women from both the Guard and the fleet had signed up for the chance to remain behind. For many it was an easy choice. Those who had no family to return to had nothing to look forward to at the end of their military service. For some, their home planets no longer existed at all, having been rendered lifeless or destroyed altogether by a vast cosmic force, Exterminatus, a Tyranid splinter fleet, or the touch of Chaos. Others were wanted criminals or gang members back on their planet, where a death sentence or life in a penal work camp would await their return. The military tithe provided a way out at least for the duration of their service, but this was an opportunity for a fresh start, especially for those who never wanted to be part of the criminal life in the first place, which was very attractive.There were still others who simply did not buy into the Imperial doctrine and faith as much as the Ecclesiarchy would wish; there were always outliers in every group who, while not necessarily disbelievers, simply didn't fall properly in line with the creed that was being dictated to them.

The Imperium, it seemed, would be better off without many of these people in it, and those same people would be better off without the Imperium. It was a win-win situation. Those who had been conscripted had served their tour of duty in some of the most dangerous environments to be found anywhere in the galaxy, fighting from planet to planet and ending up here. Those who volunteered were, theoretically, if not in reality, entitled to withdraw their service and ask for an honorable discharge from the Guard or the Navy. The Imperium being what it was, that almost never came to pass until their full allotment of time had passed. It was rare indeed for an Imperial citizen to be able to leave the Guard or Navy before their term of service was completed, other than through a dishonorable discharge, which inevitably led to a firing squad more often than not, or through a medical discharge as a result of wounds received, which led to a pathetic disablement pension that forced most recipients to spend their days begging in the gutters of whatever Hive city or desert village they happened to hail from.

Once the personnel transfers were complete, it would be time for the fleet to begin the process of withdrawing from the system, leaving it in the capable hooves of the Princess. It had been a long time since the Crusade arrived, and how it was finally gearing up depart. They had suffered grievous losses, and while the fleet had been expected to continue on at least a little further to explore the galactic fringe, there was certainly no possibility of that now. They would no longer be heading away from Terra, but toward it, homeward bound to Hydraphur and the familiar surroundings of its orbital dockyards and supply depots. Away from the glittering marble and rolling green plains of Equestria, and back to the grinding pistons and throbbing generators and hissing steam of the Imperium's industrial heartland. It would be quite the contrast for the men who had been on the ground for weeks on end, but then again, so would returning to the cramped holds of the transports that would carry them back to Imperial space. It would be a return to the lives they all knew. How long it might last would be up to the Imperial authorities.

'Your Highness, I have a vid call coming through for you.'

That was most definitely not a sentence Princess Celestia had ever imagined hearing in her palace before, but now it was reality. The Imperials had delivered a number of what they referred to as 'vid sets,' to go with their vox units. The latter transmitted audio only, but the former could also show live images. The humans had graciously donated enough sets for the ponies to equip every city and town hall with one set, and every military base and outpost with two, including some mobile units for use aboard airships. They had also donated a large number of vox sets with instructions on how to modify their straps and webbing to allow them to be carried easily by ponies, for distribution to both military and emergency units. It was a paradigm shift in communications as far as Equestria was concerned, freeing them from the limitations of their limited telegraph network or fast Pegasi messengers. Now, Manehattan could instantly contact Vanhoover, on the other side of the continent. Celestia could speak directly with any of her provincial governors or generals. Army and Royal Guard patrols or outposts who came under attack could immediately call for reinforcements or air support.

'Who is calling?' Celestia asked, receiving the expected answer.

'The Lord-Admiral, Your Highness.'

'Very good, put him through,' Celestia ordered, and the guardspony who had been trained in the use of the vid-set activated the call. Marcos's face appeared on the screen.

'Your Highness,' he nodded. 'It is good to see you for what I can only assume will be the final time.'

'Likewise, Admiral,' Celestia replied. 'You are ready to depart?'

'Yes. all of our men are aboard, apart from those who elected to remain behind,' Marcos explained. 'We will be breaking orbit within the hour. Please look after our people, Princess. They have given much to aid you in your fight for freedom, and they have all chosen to stay with you. They have not been forced. We have not offloaded our troublemakers on you, I can assure you of that.'

'We will treat them well, Admiral. You have my word on that,' Celestia replied, seated atop her throne, the best place for her to be for this final goodbye. 'I want you and every one of your Guardsmen and crews to know that Equestria owes you a deep debt of gratitude for your service and sacrifice. I extend my personal thanks, and the thanks of every survivor of every race.'

'And in return you have the gratitude of myself and every member of the fleet,' Marcos responded honestly. 'it is no exaggeration to say that you saved every one of us from the Chaos fleet, Your Highness. That is a debt that can never truly be repaid. However, I hope we have left you with sufficient supplies to help you rebuild as best you can. I know this must be a most surreal experience for many of your citizens, but hopefully...hopefully you can build a better, stronger society from the ashes of the old. It has been done before. Our Emperor did just that back on our home planet after a terrible war nearly destroyed our civilization. He united every warring tribe and faction into one greater combined humanity. If anybody can do that here on this planet, you can.'

Celestia nodded sagely. 'Thank you, Admiral. We appreciate all of the supplies and equipment you have given us, of course. We shall do our best to live up to the noble ideals that your Emperor seems to embody.'

'And we shall do the same,' Marcos replied. 'It is our Emperor who drives us onward, but I can see clearly that it is you who drives your race, Princess. You and your sister. Before we depart, I just want to express my deepest condolences again to you personally. Princess Luna was extremely brave and determined. I can say the same about you. I am sorry that she is not here with you today, but her sacrifice was not in vain, for without it, you would not be here, and it would be impossible to say what else might have been lost.'

'My sister has long made a habit of being brave. A thousand years facing nothing but emptiness can only be endured by those with a will of iron, and it will forge steel from flesh for those who survive it,' Celestia answered. My sister and I have always been prepared to sacrifice ourselves if it became necessary to save Equestria. Until now, even with all we have faced before, I never truly believed that it would be. But time makes fools of us all, Admiral. We cannot, it seems, fight our destiny.'

'Indeed, Princess, indeed,' Marcos nodded. His ships were being prepped for transit, bulkheads being sealed, generators tested, the final few shuttles and picket fighter squadrons brought back aboard. Pre-departure prayers were being led by Confessors, while many of the crews performed their own rituals, ranging from a quick shot of home-brewed liquor to complex and deeply superstitious strings of actions designed to ward off disaster in the Warp. Astrogation cogitators were being spooled up, coordinates inputted and paths mapped. The fleet's Navigators were meditating, planning their routes and actions through the Maelstrom to get the Crusade back home safely. They were almost ready to go, and Marcos knew he had to sign off and get back to the final preparations. 'Our destiny remains unknown to us. Only the Emperor knows how and when we shall die. Perhaps you know the same for your ponies, Princess, or perhaps you do not. Either way, it has been perhaps the strangest honour of my life to have met you and to know you. I must attend to my fleet and our departure now, Your Highness.'

'Of course, Admiral.' Celestia nodded. 'Thank you again for your assistance, for we should have been lost without it. We shall never forget, and we shall never forget your honoured dead who fell beside our own. Please, remember our agreement.'

Marcos took a step back from the vid-screen so that rather than just his face, his upper body could be seen as well. He came sharply to attention with a stiff and smart salute, dropping his hand back to his side before bowing. 'I will not forget it, Your Highness. I want to remind you again that I can offer no guarantees, but I will do everything in my power to ensure that your planet is not disturbed by the Imperium anymore. On that, you have my solemn oath. Farewell, Your Highness. Marcos out.' The screen went black.

One by one, the destroyers and frigates began to peel away from orbit, followed by the heavy transports, tankers, and logistics ships. The Astra Gloria followed the Barnham's Pride, their main drives glowing. In Canterlot, it was dark, and Twilight Sparkle peered through the telescope in the Lunar Tower, a name that now served as a memorial rather than an indicator of who lived within it. She could see the human ships as they moved into higher orbits, then ignited their main drives and pushed away from the planet's gravity well. She felt a lump in her throat as she looked on. There was something beautiful about it, something deeply moving and symbolic. They were beings from another world, another system, another section of the galaxy entirely. They had traveled so far, fought so hard, and now they were going home again. That knowledge that others were out there would haunt Twilight for the rest of her days, she already knew that, especially because of the Admiral's final words to Celestia.

I will do everything in my power to ensure that your planet is not disturbed by the Imperium anymore. On that, you have my solemn oath.

If the Admiral succeeded, then this might be the last sighting, by Twilight or by any future pony, of any kind of alien contact. If they never came again, and if the humans who remained on the planet integrated into society and never sought to send a distress call, would the whole episode fade into the stillness of the pages of history, like the Mare In The Moon? So many species and creatures had been believed either to be mythical or simply extinct until they reared their heads again one day. Would humans and Daemons and the invasion become more myth than fact to future generations? So much in Equestrian lore was hard to decipher and hard to place into a category of truth or lie, or perhaps an embellished half-mix of both. Already Twilight found herself fearing that this whole invasion would, one day, fall into that same trap, and she was determined that it never would.

Unlike previous generations, they had two means of ensuring that; firstly, there were humans who had remained behind on the planet, and secondly, they now had vid-screen technology from the Imperials, which would allow recordings to be made. With designs on how to make the technology, which Equestrian scientists had been vaguely working on already at a very basic level, vid-screens could one day be mass produced. One in every home and in every school. That was Twilight's wish, so that everypony could watch the recordings they would make. Interviews with the humans and Guardsponies, tours of the rubble and the burned-out streets. Direct addresses from the Princess. How wonderful it would be, once society returned to normal.

But that was far, far in the future, and for now, all Twilight could do was watch the twinkling string of lights as they slowly receeded from the sky above, homeward bound. They, at least, had a home to return to. Twilight did not. Ponyville was gone, reduced to matchwood and carried away by the floodwaters. But, she knew, she had been lucky. Extremely lucky, compared to so many. Her family were all still alive, her closest friends, too, though countless others had died with the town. She herself had escaped death by a second when Luna intervened to protect the Elements, but she was still alive. She was still alive, and though she was alone, it was because she had chosen to be, to watch the human fleet leave, for that is how she had seen them arrive. That was a beginning, this was an ending. There would be no more death and destruction now.

Aboard the Indefatigable, Lord-Admiral Macros had adopted his customary position at the command lectern, hands clasped behind his back, steadfast as ever. That was how he had arrived in the system, and that was how he would leave it. The Indefatigable was, fittingly as the new flagship, the last vessel to break orbit. The first of the transports were reaching the jump point outside of the planet's gravity well, and once the Astra Gloria reached them, the venerable cruiser flashed out of the material plane. Several escort squadrons followed, tearing holes in reality and slipping through into the Warp. The transports began to follow, the Ferrus Terra taking the techpriests of the Mechanicus into the Immaterium. Tankers and frigates, one by one, made the jump, and it was time for the Indefatigable to join them. But before they left orbit entirely, there was one more task for the battlecruiser to carry out.

'Navigation?' Marcos called.

'Coordinates marked, My Lord.'

'Very good, engage main drives,' the Lord-Admiral ordered. The huge craft began to swing about, its underbelly still pointing down at the planet. 'Seal the bridge.'

The armsmen locked it down, securing the doors and turbolifts. No man in, no man out. Marcos had hand-picked his most loyal officers to form the bridge crew for the departure, for good reason. Captain Bormann, his faithful flag officer, stood beside him, and apart from Captain Marsten, the Indefatigable's commanding officer, every other member of the bridge crew came from the Emperor's Judgement, from those rescued by the Princess from the clutches of Queen Chrysalis. Only those most trustworthy men could ever be permitted to carry out such a task as this, for to shirk one's duty was criminal at best, heretical at worst.

'Auspex?'

'Auspex, aye! Target locked, My Lord!'

'Tactical?'

'Tactical aye. Weapons ready, My Lord!'

'Let it be known and recorded,' Marcos announced, 'that by the authority vested in me by His Imperial Navy, as Lord-Admiral of the fleet, and as commanding officer of the Western Fringe Crusade, in His Holy name, I, Lord Admiral Arlen Marcos, do hereby declare this planet, Kuda Prime, to be home to a foul and insidious abomination against nature and against the Emperor, a power with the potential to cause severe and widespread damage to Imperial morale should word of it be allowed to spread, and a power with the potential for devastating consequences should it ever leave the planet or be manipulated and acquired by those hostile to the Imperium. For this reason, I, Lord-Admiral Arlen Marcos, do hereby declare Exterminatus upon this world. May Imperial justice account in all balance. The Emperor protects.'

Marcos turned to the tactical officer with but a single word on his lips.

'Fire.'

From the belly of the battlecruiser, a dozen spherical objects were released from hidden tube-launchers. They sped toward the planet with but one purpose. Virus Bombs, an older, yet no less effective device used to carry out the monstrous but necessary task of Exterminatus, the death of an entire world. An extremely deadly pathogen would be released into the atmosphere, spread rapidly across the planet by the high-altitude winds. The nasty virus turned all organic matter to sludge in a matter of moments once it fell to the surface, genetically engineered for speed and virulence, a form of incredibly fast-acting necrotic for flesh mixed with an extremely potent herbicide for plant life. Once the organic matter had been reduced to its component and highly flammable state, a single lance beam would finish the job, spreading a tsunami of flame across the planet, rendering it as utterly sterile as if it had been struck squarely by a solar flare.

The bombs fell into the atmosphere and detonated, spraying their toxic contents into the rarefied air. The Indefatigable climbed away from the planet, rolling onto its back relative to the surface. The Auspex officer continued to monitor planetary atmospheric conditions. Everything was going precisely according to the plan, and after several minutes, Marcos issued the second fire order. One dorsal lance blazed into life, a beam of incandescent light streaking across the void, the spark to light the all-consuming flames that were designed to destroy all life, cleanse the planet of all organic matter. A great flash lit the planet just above the eastern ocean as the strike hit home, a blazing glow in the atmosphere, spreading rapidly, like a curtain being drawn upon this strange and tainted world.

The Indefatigable continued on, reaching the jump point. Hopefully their last act before leaving the system would be enough to cover their tracks, atone for their earlier transgressions so far as the Imperial commanders would see it; the cavorting with aliens, fighting alongside them, allowing Chaos and Changelings to board vessels of the fleet. It was necessary. It was vital. If they had not done so, the entire Crusade fleet would have been wiped out, and the powers and artifacts that had a home upon the planet would have fallen into the hands of Chaos. Now that the battle was won and the remains of the fleet had been extricated from the curious clutches of Queen, Daemon, and Princess; this was the right time for their final task in the system, for their last parting shot. Many would ask why it hadn't been carried out sooner, but Marcos knew he would have his chance to explain once they reached Hydraphur.

The Gellar Field went up, void shields were charged in readiness to compensate for any structural damage. The general alarm was sounded and the crew braced themselves, for the shock of the warp entry could be quite violent at times. Almost the entire crew, save for those on the bridge and in the weapons bays on the lowest deck, were unaware of what had just happened. They had no clue of the Exterminatus order, for such was the lot of most deck-dwellers, who rarely received word of anything significant to happen either inside or outside the hull of their vessel. What they did know was that Hydraphur beckoned- they knew they were homeward bound at last.

'All decks report ready, My Lord!'

'Very good.' Marcos nodded. 'Take us to warp.'

The warp drive charged up with a whine, shaking the deck plating, and with a sudden purple flash, the Indefatigable was gone.

Interrogation

The shipyards of Hydraphur were vast, huge constructs that hung in the sky like moons when viewed from the planet below, an artificial city in the void. Interconnected rows of dry docks, supply platforms, arc-welding bays, transfer stations, landing platforms and cavernous construction chambers that would rival any mountain in size, where new ships for the battle fleets of Segmentum Pacificus were fabricated and assembled by vast gangs of manual labourers and swarms of servitors, overseen by suitably zealous Techpriests who operated the more complex machinery. The planet and the shipyards were protected by rings of defensive gun and lance batteries, minefields laid to funnel incoming traffic into safe shipping lanes, and further out, roving planetary defence craft and naval escorts. It was the seat of Imperial naval power in the Segmentum Pacificus, a cauldron of heat and activity where the shield of the Emperor, the warfleets of the Navy, were built, maintained and repaired.

It was also the site of Segmentum Command.

'Again, Lord-Admiral. Explain it again.'

Lord-Admiral Marcos sat before a simple metal table, in the glare of several bright lights. General Jahn sat beside him, but the rest of the large, austere chamber was empty, saved for a large raised dais, which seated three other individuals, only half visible thanks to the lights being shone upon the pair at the table. Faded statues of the Emperor and Malcador The Sigillite flanked their interrogators, the dull eyes of stone having witnessed thousands of such scenes over the years since they were installed in this chamber. Those whose actions had been called into question would be summoned to testify before their superiors to explain themselves. This dank, empty room had seen many men condemned to death for heresy or treason, others dragged away in shackles for a lifetime of hard labour or psychic cleansing.

'Lord Commander, you have all the facts at your disposal,' Marcos responded to the question from the shadowy figure at the centre of the trio of interrogators. Lord High Admiral Biscayne, Lord Commander of the Segmentum Pacificus, the highest ranking naval officer in the region and Marcos's direct superior, was a formidable and ancient figure, hardened by a lifetime of service to the Navy and the Emperor. To his right sat Grand Magos Delema, the senior member of the Adeptus Mechanicus at Hydraphur, and to his left, most worryingly of all, sat Lord-Inquisitor Martaan, representing the sinister and secretive Ordo Xenos, whispers of whose mere presence could be enough to pacify entire worlds into submission or terrify them into mass suicide. Together, the representatives of the three bodies would act as judge and jury in this case, as they had done for many others.

It had taken three months of realspace time for the remains of the Crusade fleet to reach Hydraphur, though only a week appeared to have passed inside the warp and inside their Gellar Fields. There had been no further mishaps, for they were able to retrace their course to previous systems, and as they did so the light from the Astronomican burned brighter and brighter with every parsec that passed. The Emperor guided his children home to Hydraphur, where they had been met with jubilation from the workers and planetary citizens. News of their previous conquests had reached Hydraphur long ago, and several signals transmitted from orbit around Kuda Prime had briefed Segmentum Command as to the broad basics of what had happened there.

That was why, far from the jubilation being universal, the entire fleet had been met with armed weapons platforms and a large flotilla of escorts accompanied by a trio of battleships and half a dozen cruisers, standing ready just in case. Exposure to Chaos, Changeling infiltration and unknown psychic energies carried risks, and so the entire fleet was quarantined and ordered to power down all but essential life support systems. They were kept under guard for a whole month while the crews and the Guardsmen were screened carefully, one by one, by Imperial sanctioned psykers and personnel from the Ordo Xenos and Ordo Malleus. Mass testing was performed; psykers who were attuned to search for abnormalities were on the lookout for any discrepencies. Any sign of Chaotic or Daemonic contamination would see a man dragged out of line and taken either for psychic scrubbing or for execution as necessary. Any indication that the mind was not that of a human would see execution on the spot- the risk of a Changeling infiltrator morphing into a fly or a bird while being dragged away and simply escaping custody was too great to risk otherwise. Despite the loss of two Imperial ships due to Changeling contamination, there were only a few dozen positive cases from the rest of the fleet, mostly Guardsmen. Troops and security were on standby to act, but at least one psyker and almost a hundred Guardsmen, armsmen and members of the Adeptus Arbites were killed in violent clashes with Changeling drones who had been exposed and reverted to their true form, lashing out with fangs and magic before being gunned down. Likewise there were less than fifty men who were deemed to have been tainted by Chaos who were taken away, never to rejoin their units or their ships again. Once every single member of the Crusade had been screened and cleared, they were allowed to finally leave their vessels. Marcos and his command staff had been the first to be tested due to the importance of their testimony, and over the past weeks they had engaged in many meetings, briefings and conversations with members of Segmentum Command and the naval hierarchy, culminating here in fleet headquarters with the final interrogation that would determine the outcome of the official investigation into the Crusade's actions at Kuda Prime.

'Indeed I do possess the facts, Admiral, but not necessarily the deeper truth behind them. Please, explain again,' Biscayne demanded, his stentorian voice matching that of Marcos, who was not bowed or afraid despite the stark and scary surroundings and the nature of the interrogation.

'Very well, My Lord. The Xenos Princess was able to direct her control of the system's sun, to weaponise it, with an uncanny accuracy, able to strike individual targets over a range of tens of millions of miles with no form of Auspex. No radar, no lidar, no gravometric grids, no thermal sensors, not even visual detection,' Marcos explained, elaborating for the third time. The reports and after action logs from the Crusade fleet had been pored over again and again by data-scribes and Inquisitorial aides, by Segmentum Command and even by the High Lords of Terra themselves, those august individuals who ruled over the Imperium in the Emperor's stead, such had been the interest stirred by the surprising revelations from the Western Fringe Crusade.

'Query: no mechanical assistance?' Grand Magos Delema interjected. 'Exertion of psychic power over such distance and of such magnitude is virtually unknown in the galaxy.'

'Indeed, Grand Magos, which is why our Adeptus Mechanicus support ship analysed the readings and recordings and determined them to be not of psychic origin, at least not in the way we would traditionally understand it,' Marcos replied.

'Your report further states, Admiral, that you expressed misgivings initially toward working with these creatures,' Lord Inquisitor Martaan spoke, a measured and cool voice, no doubt a voice which had lulled a thousand alien-lovers into a false sense of security before pronouncing sentence and carrying it out, either with his power sword or his plasma pistol. 'I wish to hear you explain exactly why your opinion wavered from one side to the other, from distrust to collusion and thence on to extermination. It seems suspect to me, Admiral. No matter how many times I read the report, I cannot quite determine what made your mind sway, like the wheat blowing in the breeze, just before it is cut down by the reaper's blade...'

Marcos ignored the thinly-veiled threat at the end, and addressed the nub of the issue. 'Because, My Lord Inquisitor, I realised the reality of the situation. At first I acted to rescue our ground forces which had already made planetfall. We had already begun diplomatic talks with the ponies...'

'Ah, yes, ponies. The name of this species. Is that how they referred to themselves, Admiral, or did your Crusade apply that epithet due to their relation to Terran horses?' Biscayne questioned.

'That is how they referred to themselves, My Lord,' Marcos replied, before continuing. 'We had initiated diplomatic talks, as had been done many times before with other minor Xenos species, as you all know. We did that because they initially appeared to be of no threat to us. There were no large power sources on the planet beyond that associated with an early-industrial society, they had no spacefaring capacbility or satellites, we detected no radiation readings other than those consistent with the natural background levels. We believed they were of no threat. Upon landfall our troops reported observing ponies using telekinesis and other rudimentary psyker abilities. Once the Ferrus Terra, our Mechanicus support vessel, obtained some...live samples...we were able to determine through study and post-mortem autopsy of the dead that we were not dealing with ordinary psychic activity. By that time we had been forced away from the planet by the Chaos fleet. It was only after the Princess tore a hole in the warp storm that we truly knew that there was something more complex at work. We then established positive vox contact with our troops on the ground, and found they were already working with the ponies and griffons.'

'Necessity breeds ingenuity and adaptation, hm?' Biscayne mused, though Lord-Inquisitor Martaan expressed a different view.

'Necessity breeds desperation, Lord Commander, and once the immediate crisis has passed, that desperation can turn to acceptance, and to normalising. Once that occurs then the acceptance can spread, unchecked, like a rot through the mind and soul. That is where we must be most wary, gentlemen, whenever a ship or unit, or indeed an Inquisitor, may I add, is forced to work alongside aliens by circumstance. The Eldar, for instance, are extremely good at manipulation, manipulation of the mind so subtle that one would scarcely feel anything was amiss, yet find oneself acting out the desires of the Xenos, not of the Emperor. Do you not feel, Admiral, that this may have happened in your case?'

'My Lord, I never once acted for the pure benefit of these aliens,' Marcos replied indignantly. 'Any gains they may have accrued from our actions were necessary byproducts of the fight against the Archenemy, and against this new and insidious foe...'

'The Changelings, yes?' Martaan questioned. 'They first revealed themselves to you directly in your very own ready room, didn't they Admiral? General Jahn, you took command of all ground forces when Lord-General Galen was murdered, correct?'

'I did, My Lord Inquisitor,' Jahn replied. 'As second in command of the Imperial Guard contingent, that task fell to me, and I carried it out with the dual intention of cleansing the taint of Chaos from the world as the Emperor commands, and to avenge the Lord-General's murder.'

'And yet the majority of the fighting against the Changelings appears to have been carried out by the ponies and the men of the Navy,' Admiral Biscayne chided, a nudge against the Guard indicative of the rivalry between the two services.

'That was because our primary task was to fight back the Chaos invasion,' Jahn pointed out reasonably. 'Defence of the fleet was left up to the armsmen and the crews, as it always is, and with all due respect to those from both services, this was an impossible and unexpected situation. We had no knowledge of the Changelings' existence when we arrived at the planet. The Princess did not tell us about them for some time, giving plenty of potential opportunities for drones to infiltrate ground forces and, through landers and shuttles, to get aboard the ships of the fleet. They were totally undetectable, My Lords, unless and until they were in their true form. Their disguise was perfect.'

'So the alliance with these horse-aliens began as one of necessity. Once your own forces were rescued and the Chaos forces were on the run, why did you not enact Exterminatus then and there, before the second Chaos fleet arrived?' Inquisitor Martaan asked, looking at Marcos.

'At that time, although we were more aware of the nature of the threats posed by the Changelings and the potential threat of the pony magic, we still did not have a full understanding of the true power that the Changeling Queen or the Princess actually possessed,' Marcos explained. 'Those facts only revealed themselves to us at a later date. Namely when the Queen survived the destruction of the Emperor's judgement and a full bombardment from ship-killing weaponry, including a Nova Cannon, and when the Princess showed her ability not just to manipulate the star, but to use it in an incredibly precise way to carry out her will. That was when we truly knew we were dealing not just with a powerful psyker, but with a creature of both intelligence and real, dangerous strength. Alas, by that time, the Greater Daemon had already been summoned, and that naturally became our immediate focus. Our orbital strikes were insufficient to harm the Daemon, and I knew that unleashing Exterminatus upon the planet while it was still present posed a serious risk of either boosting the Daemon's power, or worse, being the spark that the Ruinous Powers were seeking, and turning the planet into a Daemon world. The Daemon had to be banished first.'

'But at this stage you had already reasoned that the planet should die?' Martaan demanded.

'Yes, My Lord,' Marcos replied after a moment. 'I knew that the Princess and the Queen posed too great a threat, for two reasons. First, any attempt to approach the planet by Imperial vessels was likely to be met by the same destruction as had been unleashed on the second Chaos force. The Princess had already demonstrated her ability to destroy an entire fleet within a matter of seconds if she chose to do so, and she had spoken to me of her willingness to do so again if she felt her planet was in danger. Secondly, while I recognised and understood the potential benefit to the Imperium of studying and exploiting her magi...unusual psychic powers for our own gain...I also very clearly understood the danger of letting that same source of knowledge fall into the hands of the Archenemy, or indeed any other species whose goals do not align with those of the Imperium. Such a situation would be unthinkable, and to permit it would be for me to be complicit in such heresy. I have never engaged in such foul thought or action, and I was not about to begin with Kuda Prime.'

'It is regrettable that the planet had to be sacrificed, given that it was a garden world. A potential land campaign could have been mounted to clear out the local inhabitants with ease, judging by your reports on the state of the pony war machine,' Martaan retorted, responding to Marcos's impassioned defence of his actions. 'The Crusade fleet could have withdrawn and returned at a later date with support from the Ordo Xenos if needed. We would have been most keen to obtain a specimen, one of the pony Princesses or the Changeling Queen...alive, preferably, but even deceased, they could provide us with a wealth of information.'

'Yes, My Lord inquisitor, but I am not sure you have fully grasped how difficult it was to kill any of those creatures,' Marcos replied. 'The Changeling Queen survived firepower that could destroy a fleet. She only succumbed to some kind of psychic artifact possessed by the ponies, which seemed to stop her dead within a moment. However, it appeared that even that might not have been enough to actually kill her. It appeared to our investigators that she had merely been put into some kind of stasis, encased within stone or a similar material. The Princess did not allow us to conduct a full investigation of her body. Despite her willingness to work alongside us, I believe she shared the same reservations about the secrets of pony psychic abilities leaving the planet as I did, albeit she did not want the truth to be learned by the Imperium either.'

'Note: understandable caution,' Grand Magos Delema interrupted, his bionic eyes whirring as their lenses adjusted focus, switching his views between Jahn and Marcos while obtaining biometric data; heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, all were being recorded and imprinted in the Magos's memory circuits. Though such data didn't constitute proof of anything, there were certain physiological signs that the human body would often undergo when lying. The Magos routinely recorded such data from his own underlings for no particular purpose other than to potentially intimidate or embarrass them at a later date, and he had no qualms about doing so here. It might just catch one of the two defendants in a lie- though nothing had shown untoward so far. 'The Xenos Princess was not aware of our experiments on captured ponies. Counterpoint: unless she was informed of same by senior Crusade fleet staff.'

'To the best of my knowledge, Grand Magos, the Princess was completely unaware of such...activities,' Marcos replied. 'I certainly never told her of such things, nor did any of my command staff.'

'So having made the determination that the Princess had to be destroyed, Admiral, why did you not open fire upon the city...ah, Canterlot...' Biscayne checked his notes. 'Yes, Canterlot. Why did you not fire upon the city as soon as the Daemon and the Changeling Queen were eliminated? Why did you not initiate Exterminatus then?'

'Because we still had several hundred thousand personnel on the planet, Lord Commander,' Marcos answered simply. 'Sacrifice for a noble goal is one thing, but to throw away the lives of loyal citizens of the Imperium where they may be safely spared is brutality of the highest order, and I would have no part in that. The Exterminatus order could not reasonably have been given until all of our men were evacuated. Given that the Princess believed us to be allied at this point, I felt there was no danger of delaying the order until our men could be brought to safety.'

'A reasonable conclusion, Admiral,' Inquisitor Martaan nodded. 'The Ordo Excorium have conducted their own investigation into your decision and have concluded with you that it was prudent to allow the evacuation before ordering the Exterminatus.'

The Ordo Excorium was a small subset of the Inquisition tasked solely with investigating Exterminatus orders, who issued them, and for what reason. They were the least-used Ordo, according to most statisticians, only dealing with hundreds of cases per year, rather than millions of incidents like the Ordo Malleus, Ordo Hereticus and Ordo Xenos had to respond to, given the scale of the Imperium. Exterminatus, being the most draconian response that any Imperial commander could impose on a world, did not happen that often, partly because it was irreversible and partly because it led to inevitable and intense scrutiny from the Inquisition. Many commanders preferred to throw away the lives of thousands or even millions of their men to forcibly cleanse a world of taint, rather than submit to an interrogation from an Inquisitor over whether their judicious use of Exterminatus was justified or not.

'Yes, My Lord Inquisitor,' Marcos replied. 'I am pleased that the Ordo Excorium has understood my reasoning behind the delay. I have no desire to needlessly throw away the lives of my men or those units attached to my command if there is a possibility of saving them. The Crusade had already taken high casualties across the numerous planets we had taken, and especially at Kuda Prime.'

'So once you had evacuated your personnel, Admiral, you decided to fool the Princess?' Biscayne asked, and Marcos nodded.

'Yes, My Lord. I knew that if the fleet was still in orbit when we launched an attack on the planet, the Princess would be able to attack us and destroy at least some of our vessels, especially the slower transports,' he explained. 'That was why I ordered the fleet to head to the jump point before initiating the attack. That way, the Princess would believe that we were honouring our word and departing the system peacefully. Once her guard was down, that was the moment to strike, catching her unawares and leaving her little or no time to respond.'

'Evidently it worked,' Martaan remarked., stating the obvious. 'You were able to carry out the task without loss, despite the presence of an intelligent and powerful creature with the capability of destroying your vessels. That is to be considered a victory, even if losing the source of study for such a potentially useful source of power can only be considered to be a negative outcome for the Imperium.'

'I regret that I could find no solution that would suit our ends, My Lord,' Marcos answered. 'The Princess would most certainly not come willingly, and I knew of no force great enough to compel her to do so, nor to defeat her in battle without taking most of the planet with her anyway.'

'Indeed, it is regrettable,' Lord-Commander Biscayne agreed. 'But it sounds unavoidable. Given the circumstances, I do believe that you chose the lesser of two evils, Admiral. Far better to prevent this phenomenon being used at all than to allow it to fall into the hands of Chaos.'

'Opinion: I concur,' Grand Magos Delema chimed in. 'The Adeptus Mechanicus has been able to make significant preliminary progress in our studies of the captive ponies and Changelings. While they are not of the subspecies Alicornus Dominatus, every drone and every horned pony has some concentration of the novel particle within them. Work will begin shortly on extracting the energy for further detailed study. It is hoped that with enough research, we may be able to synthesise the particle for further use by Imperial science. A stable source of an artificial version of the particle could lead to any number of future breakthroughs in a variety of subjects.'

'I understand from your report, Admiral, that you agreed to release all captive ponies from your custody and turn them over to the Princess,' Martaan added. 'Why was that?'

'A gesture of goodwill, My Lord, to keep her onside,' Marcos explained. 'There was little harm in it, I felt. We would still retain our Changeling captives, and their...magic, for want of a more precise term...'

'Interjection: We have chosen to use the term Alternative Psychic Energy Source,' Delema interrupted.

'The Changelings' psychic energy source was functionally identical to that of the rank-and-file ponies,' Marcos continued. 'There was no real need to keep both species aboard when one would suffice. It was only once we arrived here at Hydraphur that I leaned the Mechanicus had...retained some pony specimens, despite my order.'

'Does that aggrieve you, Admiral?' Martaan asked. 'Surely you had no love for the creatures?'

'What aggrieves me, My Lord, is merely that the Adeptus Mechanicus contingent assigned to the Crusade decided to flout the authority of their designated superior officer and subvert the chain of command merely to further their own private ends. After all, Grand Magos, can we not agree that we are all on the same side here? The side of humanity and the Imperium of Man?'

'Response: The operatives aboard the Ferrus Terra carried out their duties as instructed by their Adeptus Mechanicus superior. Namely, myself,' Delema responded. 'Before the Crusade departed I ordered that samples, both living and deceased if possible, of every novel species encountered, should be procured and preserved for study and dissection, both aboard the Ferrus Terra and upon their return to more well equipped Mechanicus facilities. To that end, my operatives decided that my order outweighed that issued by you to hand over all captive ponies.'

'They were under my command as Crusade leader,' Marcos pointed out. 'They had no right to ignore my orders, Grand Magos. It could have jeopardised the security of the fleet.'

'Be that as it may, Admiral, this is not the time for sectarian infighting between Imperial organisations,' Biscayne chided. 'We are all aware of the historical animosity between the military and Mechanicus commands. Let us not repeat it here and now. This session is to establish the facts about the events of the Crusade, not to revisit old wrongs.'

'Agreed,' Martaan nodded. 'Please focus on the task at hand, gentlemen. I understand full well that the Adeptus Mechanicus has a tendency to act as a law unto itself, but in this particular instance it did not materially affect the outcome of the withdrawal from Kuda Prime, did it, Admiral?'

'No, My Lord, it did not,' Marcos admitted. 'Though only because the Princess was unaware of it, as was I. If she had known that they were retaining...specimens, was it, Grand Magos? Then there may have been consequences...perhaps negative consequences for the Mechanicus.'

'Interjection: It is unclear if the Princess was aware of the differences between the Imperial Navy and the Adeptus Mechanicus, beyond the very broad outline of each group. It is equally possible that the negative outcomes you refer to might have been imposed upon the Navy, and not upon our own vessel,' Delema retorted.

'It would still have been the fault of your operatives if that had been the case,' Marcos answered, prompting Biscayne to interrupt again.

'Enough bickering, gentlemen, please. We are here for the facts, and the facts are pretty well established by now. We have the reports, we have the sensor logs, we have the autopsy records and now we have heard oral testimony. It is time to make our decision, gentlemen. If you will excuse us, Lord-Admiral. General.' Biscayne, Delema and Martaan rose from their seats at the dais and withdrew from the chamber, the door closing with a clang- a potentially ominous sound, the signal for either life or death, depending on the results of their deliberations.

Marcos turned to Jahn. 'Well, General, I suppose they will keep us waiting now. I'm sure they have already made their decision.'

'But the spectacle is important to them,' Jahn nodded. 'Understandable, of course. I am sure I have done the same when considering bringing charges against a subordinate. No doubt you have also acted in such a fashion, Admiral.'

'Indeed, it has been known,' Marcos agreed. Neither officer spoke anything more than simple words with each other, for they knew that the room was almost certainly outfitted with recording equipment, hoping to overhear anything incriminating from those who were on trial while the officials were out of the chamber. It was common practice in the Imperium, and many criminals and traitors had been exposed in just such a fashion. But Marcos and Jahn were old campaigners and knew all of the tricks; they weren't going to say anything that wasn't in the report, or that they hadn't already announced in their official testimony. It would not take more than a few misplaced words for the interrogators to assign blame where it wasn't necessarily due. Words, either spoken or written in an official report, could be twisted to suit a preconceived narrative. If they had decided Marcos and Jahn were already guilty, then they would be able to extract enough from what they already had to suit their decision, to make it fly with their superiors and other officials.

Time passed as they had predicted, making the two officers sweat it out. With no chronometer it was hard to tell how long they were alone, but Marcos estimated twenty minutes or so. Then, Lord-Commander Biscayne, Lord-inquisitor Martaan, and Grand Magos Delema returned, taking their seats at the the dais once more, ready to pass their judgement.

'Please rise, gentlemen,' Biscayne ordered, and Marcos and Jahn pushed back their chairs and stood. Marcos adopted his familiar stance, hands clasped firmly behind his back.

'We have considered all the evidence put before us, as well as your verbal testimony,' Biscayne continued. 'It is the judgement of this tribunal that, in carrying out the act of Exterminatus upon the planet of Kuda Prime, you were acting in the best interests of the Imperium of Man in denying an asset to the enemy. Therefore, our judgement is that you shall both be found innocent of the crime of treason, and of the crime of misuse of the power of Exterminatus. The Ordo Excorium independently reached the same conclusion.'

That was a relief, at least, but it was not the only charge leveled against the Crusade's commanders. The issue was more broad, stemming back to before they issued the order to carry out Exterminatus. Biscayne continued.

'It is further the judgement of this tribunal that, on the charges of consorting with Xenos, of sharing classified information with Xenos, of aiding and abetting Xenos, and of heresy and blasphemy, that you shall both be found innocent of those crimes also. In our judgement, your actions were proportionate and appropriate, given the scale of the threat you faced in the form of a twin assault from Chaos and from a new and highly dangerous species of Xenos, designated by the Adeptus Mechanicus as Equus Incognitus. The records clearly show that what information you did share was done purely to permit short-to-medium term tactical interoperability between your forces and those of the newly discovered species Equus Sapiens. Such actions fall under the accepted guidelines of both the Imperial Guard and the Imperial Navy, when driven by necessity, and especially when prompt remedial action is conducted once the period of emergency has passed, which is what happened here, with the issuance of the Exterminatus order. Therefore, this tribunal decrees that both defendants are cleared to leave this chamber without a stain on their character or integrity, and with no marks on their records.'

Marcos and Jahn came to attention, sharp salutes answered by the Lord-Commander, who stood, while Grand Magos Delema and Lord-Inquisitor Martaan, being outside of the military command structure of the Imperium, did not. The two officers, now cleared of all charges laid against them, departed from the chamber. The door clanged shut behind them, the sound of freedom and justice. Marcos extended a hand, and Jahn shook it.

'Looks like we'll be heading back to work tomorrow,' Marcos chuckled. With the charges no longer hanging over them, the two officers would be returning to duty with their heads held high, back to their respective commands, at least temporarily. There was not much of the Crusade left, and the units and vessels would be transferred to other sectors and other missions soon enough. Marcos expected he would be given some kind of headquarters assignment at Hydraphur, perhaps shipyard commandant or chief of the planetary defence force. It was a common enough switch, for an Admiral who had led a major Crusade or successful campaign to be moved to a more peaceful posting as a reward for six months, perhaps a year. Other Admirals, however, declined the posting and requested another active assignment, leading more combat forces into action. Marcos wasn't sure yet which way he would swing if presented with the opportunity, but he was glad that he was going to be given the chance.

'Back to work...not sure where they will be sending me. They're going to disband the Guard forces assigned to the Crusade, so I shan't have a command until they reassign me,' Jahn replied. 'I doubt our paths will cross again any time soon. You know how Imperial bureaucracy can be.' He chuckled. 'It was an honour to serve under you, Admiral. I just wish I had not had to become the commander of the Guard forces in the process.'

'As do I, General,' Marcos replied. 'Lord-General Galen was a damn fine man and a damn good officer. I can say truthfully that you embody the same qualities as he did. It was a pleasure to serve alongside you. I hope we shall meet again someday, Emperor willing. Somewhere quiet and calm, where we can remember the old days.'

'Yes, one day all of this will be a distant memory,' Jahn mused. 'Our names will fade from history...I suppose you might get a statue somewhere, for birds to relieve themselves upon.' He chuckled. 'Those strange creatures we encountered...just a footnote in some document buried deep within the bowels of the Segmentum archives.'

'Indeed, General, indeed,' Marcos nodded. in agreement. 'Such is the fate of all Xenos, of course.'

'Such is the fate of all Xenos,' Jahn repeated, extending his hand. Marcos shook it once more, and the two men shared a knowing smile before turning and going their separate ways, Marcos back to the Indefatigable and Jahn to the Imperial Guard headquarters block. If their paths never crossed again, then at least they could go to their eventual graves with their secret intact, undiscovered and undisturbed.

Ascension

The skies over Ponyville were clear, just a few wisps of cloud drifting slowly. The warm sun shone down onto the land below, just as it had since the planet's creation. The town was gone, wiped away by the flood unleashed by the destruction of the Hoofer Dam nearby, just one in a string of incidents during the war to end all wars. There was no life there any longer.

Except for a single purple mare.

Twilight Sparkle had forced herself to go to Ponyville, to face the ruin of her former home, to see where so many of her friends had suffered and died at the hands of the Chaos invaders. She had to confront her own sadness, she had decided, in order to try and progress into the future, to move on. Ponyville was not her home any longer. She didn't know what was, truthfully, which was partly why she was there. As long as some part of her belonged to Ponyville, she could never move on. Not really.

The streets were strewn with debris, mostly wood from the shattered and collapsed buildings, yet anything resembling a complete structure was totally absent. Every building had been erased from history, and, most likely, so had many of the names of the residents. Twilight had undertaken to record every single name she could remember, for posterity, because she did not want to forget the faces of those she had known and those who had fallen. She hadn't known every single resident in town, so her record could never be complete, but the town's archives, in the town hall, had been wiped out with the rest of the building. Nopony else was going to make such a record, and so Twilight would.

The tree-library was gone, but the mighty oak had refused to be erased from history altogether. The roots and the thick stump remained, anchored firmly in the ground, just about the only thing that remained apart from a few water pipes and the outlines of the foundations of other buildings marked in the mud and sludge which covered most of the streets. Twilight perched herself on the edge of the large stump, taking a quill and paper from her saddlebag and starting to write.

Applebloom.

Big Mac.

Granny Smith.

Lyra Heartstrings.

BonBon.

Cheerilee.

Mayor Mare.

Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle.

Octavia Melody.

Vinyl Scratch.

Roseluck.

Aloe and Lotus.

Mr & Mrs Cake and the twins.

There were more, of course. Countless more, both from Ponyville and elsewhere. There was utter devastation all across the land, from the frozen north to the dusty deserts of the west and the damp coastal plains to the east. Humans, those strange beings from beyond the stars, and Changelings, the old foe from beneath the earth, had seen to that.

Twilight stopped writing and simply looked around for a while, staring blindly into the middle distance, just thinking about what came before, about who and what had been lost. She fell so far into her own reverie that she didn't even notice the approach of another figure until it spoke to her.

'There you are, Twilight.'

The purple mare looked up into a familiar face of ethereal beauty. 'Princess Celestia...yes, I...I just wanted to...come back home...'

Celestia sat down beside her student. 'I understand, Twilight. Closure is important, whenever you can find it. It can be hard to process what has truly happened without it. I know you lost many of your friends here. I wish there was more we could have done to help, but everything was so very confused when the attacks first began. We committed what we could to the fight, but...'

'I know, Princess.' Twilight nodded. 'I don't blame anypony for what happened, no plan could have accounted for alien invasion. I just feel that I owe it to them all. To every one of them. I started writing their names down...' She floated the scroll over to Celestia with her magic. 'You know, in case nobody else did. In case the census records in Canterlot were damaged, or just...just in case ponies forgot...'

'A most noble initiative, Twilight,' Celestia smiled. 'But the palace archives survived mostly intact. It seems the Chaos invaders were not particularly interested in dusty old books, but rather with the shiny, the expensive...and the breakable. I believe the population records are still intact. Certainly most of them are, we have been using them to account for casualties in Canterlot and elsewhere. I'm sure we will get Ponyville's statistics covered shortly. But you should continue with your writing, Twilight. It is a beautiful thing to do, and I think it will help you achieve some of the peace you seek.'

Twilight nodded, looking up at the sky above, Celestia's sun in the corner of her vision, the clouds pushed by high-altitude winds. It was the wind which had enabled the ruse to take place as it had. Equestria lived yet, and would hopefully live in peace, because of them.

The Indefatigable, as it was preparing to leave orbit, had indeed fired half a dozen virus bombs at the planet's surface, at the orders of Lord-Admiral Marcos. The ship's tactical records would show that, and the physical evidence was there, too, in the form of a depleted rack of the civilization-ending ordnance. They had been fired, and they had entered the atmosphere of the planet, as they were designed to do. They detonated, as they were designed to do. And they were ignited by a shot from one of the Indefatigable's lances, as they were designed to be. Everything had worked exactly as it was meant to, and yet Equestria, the ponies, and all the life on the surface, still remained. The planet had not been burned clean, purged of everything living. There had been no holocaust, no firestorm sweeping the surface, for the simple reason that the virus bombs had not turned all organic matter into sludge the way they were supposed to.

That was down to the winds, and to the scheme cooked up by Lord-Admiral Marcos and Princess Celestia. It was the closest that Marcos could come to a guarantee that the planet would never be affected by the Imperium again, the promise he had made to the Princess. With messages already sent to Hydraphur from the fleet and the Ferrus Terra confirming the existence of life on the planet, Marcos reasoned the only way to get as close to a guarantee as he could that Imperial interest in the planet would end was to make the Imperium believe that the planet had been destroyed, that all life had been wiped out, and thus that there was no reason to visit the planet any longer. Anything of use or value, the Imperium had to believe, had been turned to ash. Otherwise a curious Inquisitor coming across the report by chance might decide to send another expedition. The Adeptus Mechanicus might take it upon themselves to send an Explorator Fleet, whether or not Segmentum Command were even consulted about it, to try and recover a source of Alicorn magic for their own ends. As long as it was believed that the pony race was still extant, the risk remained.

The only way to make the Imperium believe the ponies were gone was to seem to enact the final rite of Exterminatus. There was plenty of justification for the act, given that the planet could have been claimed to be still contaminated by Chaos, infested with surviving Changeling splinter groups, and home to the Princess and her unique and concerning power, control over the sun, which would risk any future Imperial approach to the planet being met with deadly force, given Celestia's desire for her race to be left in peace. Marcos had entered his reasoning into his report, ending with the fact that he had made his decision to destroy the planet to deny Alicorn magic to Chaos, who could reasonably return, potentially, at any time to try and claim their prize, despite the bloody nose they had suffered in their previous attempt.

Together with the Princess, Marcos and General Jahn had hashed out a plan. Celestia's control of the sun and its energy output meant that she could carefully manipulate the weather patterns of the planet. Marcos had learned that to be truth rather than mere speculation at the funeral of Princess Luna, when he had commented to her about the cloudless skies that accompanied the ceremony. The great climatic cells that drove the planet's weather could be affected by changing the amount of solar energy directed at any given point on the planet's surface, something which the Princess could perform with ease by manipulating the output of the giant body of superheated gas over which she had ultimate power.

By adjusting the climate temporarily in such a fashion, Celestia was able to steer the high-altitude winds, jet streams, trade winds and other large-scale aeolian features of the planet in a particular direction; though the effect was not sustainable without causing severe disruption to the planet's established climate, it could certainly have a successful short-term effect, which was used to carry the pathogen from the virus bombs in a certain direction. Marcos had deliberately targeted an offshore location, some three hundred and fifty miles due east of Manehattan. It was a deep part of the ocean with no islands and no organic matter above the surface for hours of sea travel in any direction, the perfect spot to detonate the bombs. There was nothing beneath them for the virulent pathogen to turn to sludge.

To prevent the dispersal of the aerosol across the rest of the planet, as per the designed intention of the virus bombs, Celestia's magic manipulated the climate sufficiently to create a fast-flowing, circular cell of wind, not quite a hurricane but just a swirling vortex that kept the virus hemmed in to a small area above the ocean's surface. if it couldn't reach organic life, it couldn't enact its deadly effect, and the lance blast would not spread flame across the whole planet. That, however, opened up another issue- the sensor logs and Auspex recordings of the Indefatigable would show that. The investigators would learn quickly enough that the Exterminatus order, for whatever reason, had been unsuccessful, that there had been no ignition, no firestorm. That was where the second stage of the deception came in.

Several Royal Equestrian Navy ships held position some miles from the aerial maelstrom of swirling wind to provide ground-based monitoring of the deception. At the centre of the vortex, Princess Celestia herself floated, protected by her shield from the virus and from the lance beam which struck down from the heavens, igniting the gas cloud around her, a great fireball, sized to rival that of the atomic weapon which had obliterated Baltimare, though with vastly less explosive force and more pyrotechnics. Celestia's horn had glowed as she had sent out a vast, coruscating golden-yellow wave of magic, like a rapidly expanding halo that raced across the sky, picked up by the sensors aboard the Indefatigable. With the Ferrus Terra and its more sensitive instruments already having gone to warp, and the Indefatigable being the only ship still in orbit, it was a small matter to suitably tamper with the Auspex readings to record the energy wave as being the result of the successful detonation of the virus bombs and the propagation of their deadly effect, rolling across the planet, scorching the atmosphere as all formerly living matter ignited in a global holocaust.

That subtle editing of the facts was why Marcos had had his own bridge crew, from the Emperor's Judgement, on deck for the final act in the saga of Kuda Prime. He both trusted them to keep silent about the deception and to have the technical prowess to carry it out without leaving any telltale digital fingerprints, obvious signs of tampering that would have the inevitable Inquisitorial investigators frothing at the mouth as evidence of a potential coverup. Any artifacts or discrepancies in the data logs would raise eyebrows with an experienced technician or a Mechanicus augur-scribe, and would raise the spectre of a summary execution for all involved should the Inquisition catch wind of it. But the data-scrub had worked.

The Exterminatus, so far as the Imperium was concerned, had been a success, thanks to the continued close co-operation between Celestia and the Lord-Admiral. Marcos had felt an obligation to honour his words, because of the same feeling that had induced many of his men to remain behind on the planet. He felt the pureness in the Princess, and the pureness of the land over which she ruled. Yes, there was violence, there was danger. There had been wars, against the Griffons, the Changelings, Discord. One commonality between all species, it seemed, was violence, no matter how peaceful their intentions. But overall, the land had been at peace before the humans came. There was none of the caste violence and gang warfare that plagued Imperial hive worlds, nor any Ork or Tyranid infestation, although the Changelings filled their own niche there. There was no political infighting over who was in charge, as there was on countless Imperial worlds with weak or malleable governors. There was a single leader, above all, held in revered majesty, atop a golden throne, with prayers spoken to them every night and every day. The planet reminded many people of home, and the Princess reminded many of them of their Emperor.

Some would deem that thought alone to be heresy, for any direct comparison of any man to the Emperor in any meaningful way would be blasphemous. To compare a Xenos to him, however broadly, would be worthy of immediate, summary execution in the eyes of the Ecclesiarchy. Yet the Princess had exerted a magnetic pull on the psyches of many, including, Marcos had to admit, to himself. It was easy for him to see why so many had chosen to stay, given the state of Imperial life they would have to return to otherwise. Their existence was cheap, cheaper even than their equipment and weapon in the eyes of the Administratum. Human life was not something to be cherished by their leaders, but something to be expended, like ammunition. That attitude was a direct opposite to that expressed by the Princess and espoused by every aspect of pony society.

Their history had its share of tribal violence between the different classes of pony, but they had been unified and given purpose, and harmony had prevailed within their community for a long time, even as they fought off external threats from other races. They focused on improving the lives of their citizens and not just survival, a luxury that, admittedly, was not really afforded to the Imperium. But where the Emperor, in all of his might and divinity, had united humanity against the threat of destruction, that unity had proven to be temporary. There was tribalism today, though only rarely outright bloodshed; between the Navy and the Guard, the forces of Terra and the forces of Mars, between the superhuman Astartes and those who represented the purity and origin of man, between the religious zealots and the realists, between sub-factions of the Inquisition, and countless other divisions.

Equestria, however, had not yet succumbed to such base instincts, other than a smattering of republican rebel groups that were few in number and even weaker in true power. The distinctions were clear to see, and many of those who had remained behind had seen the chance to lift themselves from the endless mire of life on a hive world or inhospitable planet if they returned home and lived through the rest of their military service. Their disappearance was easy enough to smooth over in Imperial records, for their names were simply appended with the catchall and technically true term of MIA- missing in action. Nobody ever probed such things deeply, for in the sheer scale of modern warfare, entire regiments could simply disappear without trace for any number of potential reasons. Nobody would notice, and nobody would care. Such was the fate of thousands in a galaxy of uncountable trillions.

Canterlot was recovering, very slowly, incrementally, day by day. The human immigrants and the masses of equipment and supplies the fleet had donated were proving most helpful as the city and the rest of Equestria rebuilt the shattered fabric of the national infrastructure. The first priority in the capital was to repair utilities and get them functioning, so as to help avoid the spread of disease and stimulate the recovery of the rest of the city. Water, sewage, gas and electricity lines were worked on around the clock by teams of pony engineers, and large squads of Imperial Guard and crewmen from the fleet with any kind of mechanical or engineering experience. Those basic things, taken for granted for so long by the inhabitants, had been heavily damaged in the war, but were vital for safe habitation of Canterlot, and every other city across the land.

It would be a long time before life returned to normal, but at least the land was at peace once again, and, importantly for the future, the Imperium believed the planet to be a dead world. Also vital for stability as the shattered nations recovered, Queen Chrysalis had been finally defeated. She had been by far the largest planetary-based threat, even without the extra power afforded her by the arrival of so many new sources of love energy, and now that both she and the invaders were gone, there was a real chance for a strong and lasting peace across the whole planet. Such was the hope, at least. The public mood was slowly improving- very slowly, but it was rising, as better contact was established with other cities, and it was learned just how little impact some of them had felt from the war. Vanhoover, Las Pegasus, and several other medium-sized towns had been almost completely spared from harm, either by miracle or design, thanks to the fact that the primary target of the Chaos forces had been Canterlot, for that was where the royals lived. The cities out to the west had escaped relatively unscathed, vigilantly guarded by the Royal Guard and forces from both the Army and the Air Corps against threats from banditry and Changeling attack. The Chaos troops had spent the first days of the war looting and pillaging a swathe of the countryside and the towns and cities surrounding Canterlot, in an effort to pursue the Princesses, but then their wrath had turned to other large cities that were relatively closeby, such as Manehattan and Baltimare. The cities out to the west, lying beyond the deserts and mountains, had not come under their baleful gaze, as the Imperial troops had been able to intervene and prevent any further expansion by the invaders.

Canterlot had not been so lucky, but at least it had been spared the absolute annihilation wrought upon Baltimare. Nopony knew when that city might become livable again, for although the majority of radioactive fallout had been carried away by the winds, enough of the deadly byproduct remained that the very earth itself was contaminated. Princess Celestia had declared Baltimare to be a black zone, a no-go area to all civilians, a designation formerly reserved only for the Everfree Forest. They had a lack of military resources to enforce any kind of actual cordon, but nopony wanted to willingly expose themselves to the invisible danger anyway. Manehattan and Fillydelphia, at least, could be slowly reoccupied by civil engineering teams, supported by human equipment, to perform the same restoration of utilities as was taking place in the capital. It was mundane work, but it was exactly what the teams had been set up to do, and it was vital to give the survivors somewhere safe to live.

And there were survivors- more than had been imagined, but less than had been hoped. As well as those in the undamaged cities and towns of the west, many ponies had taken the same course as those from Canterlot, and fled into the hills, the caves, or the forests of Equestria, living off the land, easy to do as ponies ate grass, plants and fruit as the main constituents of their diets anyway. It had allowed thousands of ponies to survive in the wild, despite the occupation forces conducting searches of some areas surrounding the cities they had captured. They had been discovered and brought back into the fold by military patrols, and by airships broadcasting messages from the Princess over loudspeakers to inform ponies of the hard-fought peace that had been secured at such a great cost. After wandering the wilderness, they would finally be welcomed back into the fold.

As the rest of Equestria struggled back to their hooves, little by little, in Canterlot, ponies were gathering once more, though not for a funeral this time. They were gathering for a most unusual ceremony, one never witnessed in their lifetimes, indeed never before in history. They were gathering to bear witness to an ascension.

Princess Celestia stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard of Canterlot Palace, where she had often given official royal addresses to the citizens of Equestria. A contingent of Royal Guard in full armour flanked the hallway leading out to it, which was where Twilight Sparkle now found herself walking, alone. Her friends were in the crowd below, but they had given her their final, friendly words of encouragement before she embarked upon this solo walk. Celestia was waiting, she knew, with her usual motherly smile and kind face, the face never seen by her enemies, only by her friends and loyal subjects. There would be a crowd, too, of citizens gathered below in the courtyard to witness what was to come.

It was as much a mystery to Twilight as to what was going to happen as it was to the crowd. Celestia had told her it would be a special ceremony, the next step in her evolution from lowly unicorn to star pupil and then to royal protege. But Twilight had nothing to compare that too, nothing she had witnessed herself, or anything in the history books. Maybe it would never happen again, either. Twilight hoped not, for it had only come about because of a particularly momentous and tragic event. She stepped through the doorway and onto the balcony.

Bright sunlight hit her eyes for a moment, before she was suddenly in shade. Princess Celestia's outstretched wings were blocking the rays as she stood before Twilight, a warm and compassionate smile on her face. Here, to Twilight, she looked not like her national leader, but her teacher, her inspiration, the reason she was who she was today, and the reason she had been in any kind of position to wield her Element and lead the others into battle. Twilight stepped forward to take her rightful place at Celestia's side, bringing on a cheer of appreciation and the clopping of hooves from the courtyard below.

'My loyal citizens!' Celestia addressed the crowd in her Royal Canterlot Voice, drawing everyone to a hushed, respectful silence to hear their leaderspeak. 'We gather here today for a special and solemn purpose. It is not often that such an event can or must be performed. Alas, circumstances have decreed that, as you all know, my sister is not with us today.' There were sobs and anguished cries from below as they were reminded of the absence of the Night Princess. 'Her sacrifice will never be forgotten and will linger in our collective memory for the rest of time. We will never let her name fade from history.'

There was more applause from the courtyard, ponies deeply respectful of the loss the Princess had suffered, and of the bravery and goodness shown by her sister, putting to rest once and for all the doubts which had still swirled in some ponies' minds over her past as Nightmare Moon. There was nothing but light in the true Luna's heart. She had demonstrated that beyond any doubt in her final act of courage. Celestia continued on with her speech.

'Her loss leaves not just a hole in my heart, but a hole in Equestrian society. It can never truly be filled, but we need to move forward. We need to advance into the future, even as we mourn that which we have lost from the past. That is why we are here today.' Celestia turned to Twilight. 'My most loyal and faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. Your progress has been nothing short of remarkable, especially since you moved to Ponyville and made so many wonderful friends. I mourn with you for those who are no longer here, but I also celebrate the success of the Elements of Harmony.' She glanced down at Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who watched on from the courtyard with Shining Armour and Princess Cadence.

'Without all of them, again, we would not be here today,' Celestia continued. 'Without you, Twilight, we would not be here today. It is earlier than I had planned, but I believe you are truly ready for the next step in your own story.' Celestia's horn glowed, the spark needed to ignite the flames of evolution. White light surrounded Twilight, slowly lifting her into the air as the onlookers gasped. A swirling mass of magic engulfed her, a mixture of Celestia's with her own innate power, combining to drive the development which would completely baffle Imperial scientists and Mechanicus Magi should they have witnessed it. The light began to recede, and Twilight began to descend until she was back on the balcony. As the light faded away and she became visible again, Celestia bowed her head. 'Fillies and gentlecolts, behold your newest Princess!'

A murmur ran through the crowd, a mixture of shock and excitement. Twilight stretched out her new wings, broad and strong, and there was a cheer, led initially by her friends, the Elements and Spike, before Cadence and her family joined in. It rapidly spread across the crowd. 'Bow to the Princess of Friendship!' Celestia commanded, and ponies lowered their heads out of respect. Twilight turned to her mentor, who had a broad and happy smile. 'Congratulations, Twilight. you have proven time and again that my faith in you was completely justified. I always knew you would become a new Princess. I just did not imagine it would be quite so soon. But this is the right time. Equestria needs a new symbol of hope. They need a new Princess to replace my sister. Equestria needs you, Twilight. I need you. Will you rise to the challenge?'

Twilight hesitated for a moment. She looked at her mother and father, she looked at her brother. She looked at Spike, and at her fellow Elements, all smiling up supportively. She looked back at her Princess- her fellow Princess.

'Yes, Your Highness. I will...'

The land was strange, soft, rolling, like a blanket. There was darkness above, but a glow permeated the very essence of reality. It was a pale glow, pleasant, like a clear night reflecting from a field of snow. Yet there was nothing around. Everything was empty; no hills, no trees, no buildings, no life.

This was where Princess Celestia had spent every night since the end of the war, a solitary, lonely place, deep inside her mind, a dreamscape that only she could visit and that only she could see. Although, that was not strictly true.

'Greetings...'

Celestia looked around. There it was again, the floating, swirling dark cloud, so strange at first but so familiar now.

'There you are...' She smiled softly, taking a step closer- not entirely accurate, more like simply floating, though without using either her wings or her magic. She had no need, not in this place. The power of her mind was enough; it didn't need to be projected through her horn when the whole thing was inside her own head.

'Today was the day, then?' the anomaly asked, and Celestia nodded.

'Yes...'

'How did it go? I imagine Twilight was her typical self?'

'Very much so,' Celestia chuckled. 'She was as nervous as anything, of course, but she quickly calmed herself, as she always does. She did exactly what was expected of her, and I'd expect nothing less.'

'So now she is a Princess...how far she has come, all under your guidance.'

'Yes, she is.' Celestia nodded. 'But I did not create her. I merely showed her the way forward. She trod her own path to get where she is today. Every obstacle that was presented to her, either by myself or by others...she overcame them all, together with her friends, taking advice where it was needed and showing leadership where it was required. She learned to embody all the qualities that a Princess should have.'

'She will make a fine addition to the royal family. I know she will, because you have taught her so much. Just as you taught me so much.'

'I think you'll find she was far more receptive to most of my words than you,' Celestia chuckled, as the undulating emptiness around her shifted, morphing formlessly into some other vision of nothing, but with the sky slowly lightening. 'She gained much from you as well, you know. Twilight is most perceptive. She knows to obtain knowledge and information from whatever source she can, to interrogate, to question, to think, to learn.'

'Indeed...you certainly have an eye for the right mare at the right time. I'm not sure any other pony could have achieved everything Twilight has.'

'Neither am I,' Celestia agreed, as the landscape shifted again, steadily filling in, both with colour and detail. No longer was it an empty, blank canvas, but it was beginning to resemble the realm she ruled over, with grass, rivers, towns, rolling countryside with the golden light of the sun blazing down from above. 'I knew she was special right from the first time I met her. That was plain to see. It has been a harsh learning curve for her, especially these past few months, but she took everything that was thrown at her and kept going. She has shown true strength of both body and mind, especially to overcome the insidious words of the Daemon.'

'Yes, especially that. I have seen the realm they dwell in, those most foul of creatures. Only briefly, but I pray that no pony should ever witness such a sight. To have prevented such horror being unleashed upon Equestria is the single greatest feat ponykind has achieved, and the most necessary. Merely to learn that there is another plane of existence, even beyond those that we know about, is...most disconcerting. To see what that plane is truly like is terrifying. Would you do what was necessary to prevent ponies falling into such a place? If you had to, would you do what was necessary to stop such foul, soulless beings from enslaving and twisting your subjects into simulacra of their former selves, driven out of their minds with fear and confusion, forced to serve dark intellects even greater than yours for all eternity?'

'Yes.' Celestia nodded. 'Whatever it takes.'

'Whatever it takes?'

'Whatever it takes,' the Sun Princess nodded. The landscape around her was almost complete filled in now, like a live three-dimensional map of Equestria. 'No price is too high to prevent a fate like that.' Without warning, everything around her was bathed in a golden-yellow glow, and all turned to fire, the light impossibly bright from the heavens, igniting grass, trees, wood, buildings, everything, blasting the entire dreamscape into a barren, charred, airless wasteland. 'No price too high...'

'And what of the Imperium?'

'They won't be returning,' Celestia spoke confidently.

'You trust the Admiral and his plan?'

'I do.' Celestia nodded. 'I do...it is his superiors I do not trust, and truth be told, neither does he. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but I am confident he will uphold his end of the bargain.'

'I know I ask you that every night.'

'You do,' Celestia chuckled. 'But I do not mind. It is nice just to speak with you.'

'I should let you rest.'

'I am resting.' The land around her was once more fully coloured, fully detailed, a far cry from the empty space, the blank template it had been before, or the sun-scorched, radiation-bathed hellscape it had become in her momentary diversion. 'But I know what you mean.'

'Then I shall leave you now. I have other ponies still to attend to...'

'I will speak with you again tomorrow night,' Celestia smiled. Overhead, the moon and the sun, both rising in the now-bright sky, came together, slowly merging, coagulating into one great glowing orb.

'Of course you will. Goodnight, until tomorrow, and until you come to join me here.'

Celestia closed her eyes, and then opened them. She was no longer in the dreamscape, neither the empty void that filled her heart, nor the temporarily restored scenery that gradually filled that void, at least for a brief period, each night. Instead, she was in her bedchamber, within the palace. It was dark; or rather, it was dark in her room, but light was shining through the crack in the curtains. Celestia rose, casting aside the bedsheets. She walked over to the curtains, pulling them open with her magic and stepping out onto her balcony.

Night over Canterlot was as silent as the grave. Everypony got what rest they could. No construction work went on after dark. There were no ponies in the streets, for there was nowhere to go. There were no revelers stumbling home and drunkenly singing after visiting a tavern or a brothel or a nightclub. There were no early-morning deliveries of milk or newspapers. Just the silence of a city which had come close to death but had barely clung to life. Evidence of that was everywhere; the stark, spindly beams of shattered rooftops, streelights and signs bent and twisted like an ancient pony riddled with arthritis. Several airships hung motionless and quiet over the city, keeping watch and acting as reassurance to the population. They were safe, but Celestia wanted them to feel safe, too.

The city was quiet now, but furious rebuilding efforts were underway during daylight. There may have been no nocturnal activities to speak of, no nightlife, no business, no economy. But there would be. One day, everything would be back to normal. It would take time and effort and sacrifice, but things would go back to how they once were.

Sacrifice.

It was a full moon; that was why she had awoken. Her body knew to make sure. It had been one lunar month since the funeral. Since the last full moon. Since the moon was laid to rest. She gazed out across the rooftops, breathing in the silence, the stillness. Celestia turned her face skyward. The moon seemed farther away than ever before, yet she knew it was close. The city was still, but she was not alone. She would never be alone, not from this moment until the day she died, be that a in week, a century, or aeons from now. Then, whenever that should happen, they could finally be reunited.

'Goodnight, sister,' she spoke softly, before turning slowly to return to her chamber. 'Until tomorrow night...and until we meet again.'

Author's Note

This is the final chapter and the conclusion of this story! I hope you've gained some enjoyment from reading it and thank you to everyone who has given it a look, especially those who have stuck with the whole thing and ESPECIALLY those who followed from the beginning and endured the multi-year hiatus only to come back and finish reading the rest too. Thanks for all the comments and likes and helpful hints too.