Iron Hearts: Book 1 - Planetfall

by SFaccountant

Chapters

First Contact
Second Contact
Awkward Alliances
Maim, Kill, Burn, etc.
Friendship for the Blood God
Great and Powerful Diversions
Marching On
Patient Hunter, Meet Killing Blow

First Contact

Iron Hearts

Book 1

Planetfall

by SFaccountant

Disclaimer: I have no bloody idea what I'm doing.

Legal disclaimer: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro. Warhammer 40,000 is owned by Games Workshop.

Punctuation key: "Dialogue in Gothic", *Dialogue in Tau language*, +Dialogue in Binary+, Non-aural dialogue, such as telepathy

Dramatis personae:

Iron Warriors 38th Company

Solon - Warsmith, devotee of Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord, devotee of Khorne

Sliver - Vice Commander, devotee of Nurgle

Serith - Sorcerer

Kessler - Warpsmith

Dest - rhino driver

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos, Company Executor

Diomen - Dark Techpriest

Gaela - Dark Acolyte

Imperial database file 38196-646C

Rogue Chaos fleet "38th Company"

Classification level: secundus

Unit Composition: Renegade Astartes of the Iron Warriors legion, designation traitorous excommunicatus, various mercenary and pirate raiders, and Dark Mechanicus detachments

Fleet Composition: most reports place the company's fleet assets at 8 - 10 ships, ranging in size from a battlecruiser-sized megafreighter to small escort frigates. All are based on recognized Imperial pattern civilian vessels, and are designed to register as freighters and transports to low-intensity scans. These vessels have all been heavily modified to serve as effective combat craft, although it is believed they still utilize a great deal of their original cargo capacity.

Confirmed activity: there have been four hundred and sixty-nine confirmed incursions into Imperial space by the Iron Warriors 38th Company, and at least a hundred more suspected incursions in which there was not enough evidence remaining to determine that it was not the work of some other traitor legion operating in Imperial territory, such as the Alpha Legion or Night Lords. There are also 55 confirmed cases of this fleet operating in xeno space and contested regions; the fleet will apparently assault Ork installations and has been spotted numerous times on the Eastern fringe, raiding Tau colonies. There is even a confirmed report of the fleet assaulting a Necron tomb world.

Tacticae analysis: the primary objective of the fleet seems to be mass scavenging and piracy in order to feed the voracious appetite for material resources demanded by the Iron Warriors' sieges and fortifications. They primarily strike at Imperial supply lines, but not with the intensity of an enemy seeking to disrupt a war effort. The 38th Company prefers military equipment, but has been known to attack Adeptus Mechanicus research outposts and poorly defended agri-worlds regularly.

Learned Inquisitors will note that the objectives and tactics of pirate raiders sit at odds with the Iron Warriors' usual specializations in siege warfare and heavy fortification, and field reports suggest that their Legion orthodoxy tends to complicate their ability to engage targets quickly, capture them with minimal damage, and escape reprisal.

On the other hand, the 38th Company is extremely well-supplied thanks to their efforts, suffering little of the material shortages and equipment degradation that constantly plague other traitor Legions. In addition, the fleet, although small, possesses a number of unique technological artifacts salvaged from their raids, along with the usual assortment of heretical xenotech and accursed Warp sorcery that one would expect from the soldiers of Chaos.

On the battlefield, the 38th Company shows the usual preference for heavy weaponry and attention to their firing lines characteristic of the Iron Warriors, along with strategic attention to mobility in order to move captured supplies to the fleet's holds as soon as possible and escape an aggravated response. They use orbital-dropped weapon emplacements and temporary defensive walls extensively, and their rapid-built fortifications are often left behind in their withdrawal from their engagement zones, which has made it much easier for our inquisitors to confirm their activities.

Unusually for pawns of the Great Enemy, their combat zones rarely show many traces of the Warp-based corruption and heretical rituals typical of the Chaos legions, and most sites that have fallen victim to their attacks have been cleared by the Emperor's Inquisition as fit for rebuilding. They strike, they fortify, they scavenge, and they leave. Were it not for their combat forces consisting of traitor Astartes, they would be nothing more than common pirates, and be treated as such. Unfortunately, as they are the remnants of a traitor Legion, the Imperium cannot afford a limited response. The traitors must be destroyed entirely, and all traces of their existence purged.

History: records recovered from the forbidden archives detail the 38th Company being a combat group in the Iron Warriors' battalions dedicated exclusively to logistics and guarding supply lines. Given that siegeworks and fortifications require extensive supplies and expert management, the traitor Primarch thought it prudent for each of his Grand Battalions to dedicate an entire company to managing, scavenging, and protecting the Legion's resources rather than leaving such inglorious duties to Imperial Army detachments or Mechanicus aides like almost all other legions did before the Heresy. Regardless, even in the Iron Warriors, a legion that specialized in the most grueling and tedious aspects of warfare, this was considered a punishment detail. It is rumored that Solon, the Chaos Warsmith that commands the Company today, is the same Techmarine Solon that originally commanded the 21st Grand Battalion's 38th Company when the Legion betrayed their oaths to the Emperor, but our analysts find that theory to be highly unlikely. Presumably the name is an honorary title, or perhaps the result of some other ritual demanded by the Warp-addled traitors.

The modern incarnation of the 38th Company is, obviously, considerably larger than a military company component; Inquisitors who have interrogated captured soldiers from the group and studied its history believe that the fleet is composed of several surviving battalions' 38th Companies cobbled together and given duties that fulfill their old purpose with methods more appropriate for traitors and renegades. Why the fleet refers to itself under its old, obsolete, and inaccurate designation is unclear; some suggest it is simply a lack of respect for conventional military organization, while others suppose that the Company is still used as a dumping grounds for unwanted and incompetent traitor Marines, and the title is imposed upon it as a gesture of contempt by the Legion that depends on its efforts. In any case, the fleet's name is hardly important so long as Imperial forces recognize that it is not limited to a single company's worth of soldiers.

Recommended response: the 38th Company's outsize military strength and experience render them all but invulnerable to typical security measures used to combat pirate raiders. However, the relatively small size of the fighting force, combined with their unimpressive skill at infiltration and stealth, mean that they are unable to approach moderately sized military targets and must constantly be on the move to avoid retribution from Imperial fleets. In addition, their Legion combat doctrines encourage their forces to prepare a defense against resistance rather than move on, which causes the fleet to linger longer than it should in the face of overwhelming firepower. As such, this can be the only rational response once an incursion by the 38th Company Iron Warriors is detected.

Thought for the day: Let your pity beget wrath, not mercy; death is the greater kindness to the enemies of the Emperor.

Chapter 1

First Contact

In a large treehouse in the middle of Ponyville, a small purple alicorn yawned lightly over the weathered pages of her book.

It was the latest of many, obviously, and her previous conquests lay in an uneven stack on one side, while those tomes that hadn't yet been opened lay in a slightly neater and noticeably smaller stack on her other side. The soft glow of the alicorn's horn mixed with the candlelight currently illuminating the room as it slowly turned one page after another. Outside, meanwhile, night had already fallen, and a web of stars were scattered over the sky through the window of the treehouse's observatory.

"Twilight, you want some tea?" asked Spike, the tiny dragon walking up behind the alicorn with a steaming cup in his hand.

Twilight seemed slightly startled at being interrupted, but flashed the dragon a grateful smile. "Thank you, Spike. You can go to bed now, though, if you'd like."

Spike tilted his head to one side. He'd seen this sight before many times, which is why he'd known to get the tea without being asked. "You in for a long night?"

"Yeah. Well, maybe. It depends," Twilight admitted, "I'm just trying to identify a gemstone for Rarity, but I haven't been having any luck."

At the mention of Rarity Spike's ear fins perked up. "Oh? Where is it?"

Twilight resisted smirking and tilted her head toward the bookshelf. Lying on one shelf was a fist-sized gem that was cut into a strangely uneven polyhedron. It was a dull green streaked with blues, although at a glance Spike could see that there seemed to be a red shimmer within it. He guessed that was the stone's unusual quality that was complicating its identification.

"Now don't go eating that," Twilight warned, using her sternest voice.

Surprisingly, rather than getting upset or annoyed, Spike instead looked somewhat repulsed. "Not a chance. That looks like it'd taste awful."

"Oh," Twilight said blankly, blinking, "uh... good." She really had no idea that there were bad-tasting gems. in fact, she wasn't totally clear on the concept of gems having different flavors to begin with. She wondered why it wasn't mentioned in any of the gemology books she had been studying.

"Need any help?" Spike asked eagerly, eyeing the stack of books that Twilight had yet to open.

"Actually, yes," the purple alicorn said, standing up as she levitated her tea cup to her lips. After taking a sip, she continued. "Normally I'd be happy to spend all night researching, but obviously there's a lot of overlap between gemstone field guides, and it gets boring to read the same survey information over and over again. If you could..."

Spike had already picked up the first book on her unread pile and was flipping through it, casting occasional glances at the gemstone on the bookshelf. With a shrug and a small smile, Twilight turned toward the balcony and the telescope positioned at the edge.

Walking outside and putting her hooves up on the railing, she took a moment to appreciate the cool breeze flowing through her mane and wings while she looked up at the stars.

"Hey, Twilight," said Spike suddenly from inside, startling her again.

"What? Did you find it already?" Twilight asked, turning her head back. She would be almost upset if Spike happened to identify the rock in minutes out of sheer luck when she had been searching for hours.

"No, but I was just wondering if maybe this gem isn't in any of the books. What if it's a completely new type?"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "A completely new type? Kind of unlikely. There must be thousands of gems listed and pictured in those books."

"Well, I was just asking. I mean, the library wouldn't be of any help if it were a new type, right? Hey, do you think it would get named after Rarity?"

Twilight tilted her head to one side. "I... suppose? I don't really know how that comes about. Rarity said she found that on the bottom of a sack of emeralds, probably from a seller who was hoping their customer wouldn't know the difference. She would have returned it, but it was so big and unique that she thought it might actually be more valuable than another emerald."

"Rarimite? Nah. Rarilite? Meh. Ooh, Raricite!"

Twilight rolled her eyes when she realized her assistant wasn't listening, and she went back to stargazing.

How much knowledge could still be out there, really? How many wonders could have escaped everypony's attention since they first started keeping records thousands of years ago? She had to admit that she herself had run into quite a few bizarre creatures and phenomena that she had never seen in books, but her case as Celestia's student was quite unique. And even then Celestia herself would usually know a thing or two about it, being a living repository of knowledge greater than any library.

She found old knowledge comforting. It was a beaten path, studied and scrutinized into submission.

But still, staring up at the stars, Twilight's thoughts lingered on Spike's question. How much was there left to discover and study? And, more importantly, how much of it might suddenly end up on her doorstep by sheer chance?

"Oh, wow!" the alicorn gasped as she saw a few streaks of light cross the starry sky. "A meteor shower!"

"Really? Let me see!" Spike asked, distracted from his research and rushing outside.

Twilight shifted to the side so Spike could join her, her eyes locked on the sky. Short bursts of light, like tiny lances, would appear briefly, streaking across the stars before vanishing. Well, some of them did, anyway.

"Why are some of them so short?" Spike asked, noticing that some of the streaks of light would appear for barely a moment before terminating.

Twilight considered it. "They could be moving into a configuration where they reflect less light, or perhaps they collided with something."

Suddenly, a spot of light in the sky flared brilliantly, and Twilight's eyes widened as she saw a star increase in brightness ten-fold before vanishing entirely.

"What was THAT?" Spike asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"A nova! I think we just saw a nova!" Twilight said excitedly, turning toward her assistant.

Seeing his puzzled look, she elaborated. "When a star runs out of fuel to burn, it collapses on itself, generating a burst of tremendous energy and light!"

"Oh. So a star went out just now?" asked the dragon.

"Well, no, not just now," Twilight explained, "that star could have collapsed millions of years ago for all we know, and its light is only now reaching us." Twilight stepped down and then started making adjustments to her telescope. It seemed to be an exciting night for astronomy, and since she was up anyway (and making little progress identifying rocks), she decided to make the most of it.

"Oh, hey, there's another one."

Twilight's head snapped up at Spike's voice, and she stared as the second nova in as many minutes twinkled out.

"That's... Wow. That's pretty unlikely," Twilight said slowly, returning to her telescope. "But I suppose it can happen."

"Hey, what're those little spots of light surrounding the meteors?" Spike asked, pointing a claw skyward. He had noticed that they seemed to precede and follow the second nova; tiny flares that flickered briefly, like glitter.

"I'll get back to you on that," Twilight said absently, turning her telescope carefully toward the region of sky they had been observing.

When she put her eye to the viewing lens, however, she was more than a little disappointed.

"Spike, is the lens cap on?"

The baby dragon raised an eyebrow. "No. Why?" Twilight had just prepared the telescope herself; how would she miss such an obvious detail?

The alicorn groaned, wondering what was wrong. For some reason, the entire field of vision through the telescope was blue. And not a bright, starry nebula blue, but a dull, dark matte blue that made her think that something was in the way. She even thought she could see some details of texture on the surface, like a line of rivets covered by paint. Weird.

Pulling her eyes away from the lens, she couldn't see anything in the way of her view. She returned her eye to the viewing end, and then engulfed the magnification wheel in her magic so that she could slowly start decreasing magnification.

"Okay, let's see if... if that... what?" Twilight frowned as more details of the obstruction started to come into focus. Matte blue gave way to black. As the focus spread, it gave way to blue again, and Twilight could see that the black part was just a thick stripe painted across an otherwise blue surface. "Wait... what IS that? That's not..."

The surface seemed covered with protrusions of various sizes and shapes. Some were large and bulky, shaped from the surface material itself. Others were small and mounted atop the surface, and some of these ones moved as they spat light from the ends of steaming gun barrels. Others had less obvious shapes or functions, being in the shape of long fins or clusters of rods.

The telescope magnification continued to decrease, although Twilight wasn't really thinking about that anymore. Her jaw hung completely open as the image slowly shrunk to fit within the view taken in by the telescope, to the point that she could finally see the edges of actual space around the vessel.

"Twilight? You okay?" Spike asked. He could see that her magic seemed curiously unfocused, and the telescope was rattling slightly as it shook in her telekinetic grip.

Vessel. Yes, she was sure of it now. There was an actual space craft of some sort hovering in the view afforded by her telescope. It spat darts of blue light out constantly, and with more or less the whole thing in view, she could see that what she presumed to be the rear of the vessel was smoldering and broken, the hull having been sheared through and the damaged remains glowing fiercely as gases and hot debris vented into space.

"Twilight?" Spike tried again.

Twilight ignored him, her mind trying clumsily to come to terms with what she was looking at. It didn't help much that her magic was now virtually strangling the telescope without her attention, causing the entire thing to shake, but she hardly let such petty distractions intrude on her thoughts as she stared at what she was absolutely sure was a space ship.

And then the space ship buckled, exploding into light as it snapped in half.

And then, with a sharp crack, so did Twilight's telescope.

****

Harvest of Steel - inner system

The echoing thud of metal boots on the deck plating interrupted the constant whine of alarm klaxons blaring through the vast halls. The space battle had entered its fourth hour, and the victors were seeing to their repairs as their fleet subdued the last of its foes.

A Dark Mechanicus acolyte led the way through the otherwise abandoned deck, her body encased from head to toe in thick, segmented power armor. A pair of servo arms hung over her shoulders like scorpion tails waiting to strike, one boasting a typical hydraulic claw while the other sported an array of needles, drills, melta cutters, and even a laser emitter. Her face was a sealed mask, with a pair of tubes running from the cheeks down behind her back, and though one eye was covered by a simple green vision lens, the other boasted a small array of whirling and twitching sensor lenses and optic scanners. A black robe of vulcanized rubber completed the ensemble, the back of it stamped with a grinning metal skull. The only hint to her gender was an unmistakable bulge in her chest armor; an utterly unnecessary accommodation, if one were to ask most Techpriests, since female breasts were practically vestigial, but one her armor nonetheless took into account.

"We're here. Double-check your suit seals," the Dark Acolyte barked, not glancing back.

Behind her were two men in void suits pushing a mag-lev cart. The cart held several huge plates of metal, each one etched from top to bottom with hymns in painstaking Binary.

The Acolyte approached a console next to the blast doors leading into the next section of the ship, raising her right hand. Unlike her left, which was fairly slender even taking into account the layers of adamantium and ceramite, her right arm was entirely augmetic; a blocky monster of metal and twitching wires with fingers. Moving it over the console, thread-like mechadendrites seeped out of her fingers and danced over the console controls. In moments the screen began to flash repeatedly, and she gradually overrode the security control codices.

After nearly a minute, the red lights vanished and the great rotary lock on the blast doors started to turn.

The two men in void suits turned off the mag-lev engine, letting the cart fall heavily to the floor, and then they braced themselves against its formidable weight as the doors cracked open.

The Dark Acolyte activated her mag-lock greaves with but a thought, securing the soles of her feet to the floor. The door opened more fully, and atmosphere was rapidly sucked out of the abandoned corridor and into the next stretch of hall. Her robes whipped about her for several seconds, and then fell back into place as depressurization completed.

The blast doors continued to open further, and before long the Acolyte was staring into the blood-red visor of a horned helmet as a figure appeared at the doorway with the intention of passing the other way.

The Chaos Space Marine stood more than a foot over even her servo arms, and his armor was a thick, gleaming shell of brushed steel trimmed with gold paint. His shoulder pads - one bearing the silver skull of the Iron Warriors Legion and the other the eight-pointed Star of Chaos - were painted black, though the matte patch seeming to emphasize the lack of color rather than alleviate it.

The Iron Warrior nodded to the humans, and his vox communications system crackled as it connected to hers.

"Dark Acolyte Gaela. The breach is thirty-two meters down. Gravity is off-line. Proceed."

The Iron Warrior pushed forward without another word, glad to be freed from the lockdown imposed after a hull breach but unwilling to speak thanks for it. The three humans quickly moved out of his way, letting the polished giant into the adjoining corridor.

The moment he was past, Gaela and her helpers moved into the breached corridor to begin their repairs. As the Iron Warrior had said, artificial gravity had failed in the damaged section, and the mag-lev cart automatically detected the change and switched off its magnetic field emitter. The two men in void suits struggled to guide their cargo in microgravity, but Gaela herself walked forward silently and easily, her gait only slightly slower with her boots magnetically gripping the floor.

The Chaos Space Marine had been fine despite the hull breach, but he had not been the only one in the corridor. The dead and disfigured bodies of the ship crew and deck slaves, none of whom were lucky enough to be wearing a void-rated armor suit at the time of the lockdown, floated about the corridor haphazardly. Gaela pushed the ones in her path aside without a thought, and her two lackeys were hardly any more sentimental as they moved toward the breach. The ship's walls, cluttered as they were with floating equipment and corpses, seemed to quiver and writhe the closer they got to the damage.

Soon enough, they reached the hole in the bulkhead. Here the ship's pain became too obvious to write off as wild imagination or misplaced empathy; the confines of the corridor had contracted inward, and the metal around the hole in the bulkhead pulsed visibly as wires and piping leaked fluids and heat into the void.

"How do you think the grayskins managed to get a hit in without breaking through the void shields?" asked one of Gaela's helpers through the vox.

"Tau tech is tricky like that. Very adaptable, and usually new. It's not like fighting Eldar, who were using their modern armaments back when fire was a novelty to us," the Acolyte responded, staring through the breach into the void.

Though a mere two meters at most, she could see the Tau fleet, broken and burning, through the hole.

A xeno battlecruiser glided forward powerlessly through the void, locked in the first phase of a long maneuver it never completed. Its hull was peppered with boarding torpedoes, and its reactor silenced. Along with its crew.

The scorched remains of an escort cruiser and two destroyers marked the path of a vessel in full retreat, slipping out of the relatively short-ranged weapons of the modified freighters. And leaning to one side, she could make out the edges of the hull of the Tau command cruiser. Its body was coiled in massive metal tendrils that originated from the bow of the Harvest of Steel, gaping open like a kraken's beak. The tentacles sought out the energy discharges of gun emplacements and sensor towers and ripped the equipment from its moorings, drawing them greedily into the "cargo bay" that dominated the bulk of the megafreighter. Before long any craft caught in the deadly assault tendrils was helpless, immobile... and within arm's reach of almost five hundred Chaos Space Marines.

As Gaela's helpers started pushing the bulkhead seal into place, the alarm klaxon cut out. The battle was over.

"Quickly," the Dark Acolyte spoke into the vox, "Warsmith Solon will want a report as soon as possible."

With the metal plate before her, Gaela spread her armored and augmetic fingers over the acid-etched surface, feeling the thrumming energy of the ship slowly creeping its way into the accursed metal.

Her servo tool went to work immediately, a laser welder pushing to the fore and the other assorted spikes and drills peeled away. As she began welding the patch of metal into place, she started speaking a rite of healing in Binaric Cant, and her voice was carried in harsh, electrostatic bursts through her armor nerve couplings and down to her fingers.

The pair of unaugmented humans holding the metal patch in place watched with nervous awe as the tiny markings of binary code lit up in red, digit by digit, in rapid succession down the surface of the plate. The hallway started to expand around them, and the bulkheads shifted like a muscle being relaxed. Before long tubing had emerged from the damaged bulkhead and was crawling across the surface of the plate, wires burrowing into its edges like hungry worms. They could not hear the chant, for Gaela had deactivated her vox, but they could see its effects: the ship eagerly patched its wound, devouring the material and turning it to its purpose.

Before long the ritual was complete, and Gaela stepped back before giving an electronic signal.

Her assistants promptly collapsed as gravity was suddenly restored, and the hiss of air being pushed once more into the corridor marked the beginning of repressurization. Within minutes the crew would be able to move through this section again without void suits, and in a few hours the Harvest of Steel will have "fleshed out" the metal patch to restore the bulkhead and exterior armor to its former thickness. Nothing but the "scar" of the Tau's weapons upon the deck plating would remain.

One of hundreds of thousands that decorated the corridors, to be certain.

"Dark Acolyte Gaela, Warssmith Ssolon requesstss a battle report," buzzed the vox in her ear.

"Affirmative, Lord Sliver. I'm beginning the data upload now. I'll be at the main forge in six minutes." She began walking away from the two men assisting her, and they quickly scurried off. They were quite eager to get away from a portion of the ship that was busy healing, and actively consuming material in order to do so.

The vox cut out without a reply.

Precisely six minutes later, Gaela was standing in front of a set of reinforced blast doors that stretched into a ceiling fifteen meters high. At her side and slightly ahead of her was another Iron Warrior. This one wore the massive tactical dreadnought armor, usually referred to as terminator armor.

The difference in his attire to that of the other Chaos Space Marines passing through the forge decks extended to more than just its bulk, however. Unlike the others, Sliver's armor was pitted and badly tarnished, with rust caking the joints and small tears in the rubber cables that leaked a foul-smelling oil. If one didn't know better one would think the Chaos Lord took atrocious care of his equipment, in stark contrast to his brother Astartes. Those that did know better usually noticed the three green circles arranged in a triangle on Sliver's left shoulder pad and kept their criticisms to themselves.

The pair of them stood in silence, facing the doors. Behind them, Dark Magi and their Acolytes and servants scurried to and fro, walking between workshops and armories while exchanging blurts of Binary.

They were in high spirits; this battle had been a good one, and yielded a great deal of intact xenotech. A wealth of parts, materials, and most importantly, secrets would soon be theirs to turn into fresh weapons and marvelous new tools. Such thoughts distracted Gaela's thoughts as well, although she made sure to keep the details of her battle report at the forefront of her mind.

All too soon, the doors to the primary forge rumbled open, and she prepared to enter behind Sliver. Toxic smoke poured from the enclosure and crawled along the ceiling before being sucked into the life support systems, and her external thermometer clocked a considerable increase in the room temperature from the rush of heated air.

Finally the doors finished opening and Sliver started moving forward, his armored bulk leaving grimy footprints behind him. Gaela followed a moment later.

The main forge was, as always, littered with junk, technological treasures, and innumerable artifacts that were making the transition from one to the other. Piles of Eldar weapons lay next to splintered Wraithbone and small, scuttling drones. Tau power systems were bolted into the walls with countless sensors and transformers attached to cages imprisoning snarling daemons. A few Necron gauss weapons were integrated into a massive treaded vehicle, with small chunks of writhing metal sitting in pits of molten slag nearby. And everywhere one looked, Imperial equipment and materials lay stacked in neat piles or shattered heaps of debris, testament to a thousand experiments and heralding thousands more to come.

"Ah, Shliver. Acolyte Gaela. Good, you're here. You may proceed with the shtrategic debriefing."

Sliver and Gaela stopped at once at the sound of Warsmith Solon's familiar slur emanating from a badly clogged vox grille.

The Warsmith hung over the forge like a spider, his lower torso consisting of a flat, broad base supported by six huge, arachnoid metal legs. His upper torso mostly consisted of his gene-enhanced Astartes heritage, along with a suit of power armor that had long ago sealed against its bearer's flesh and become more an exoskeleton than a piece of wargear. Numerous devices buzzed and fizzled from where they were mounted on Solon's chassis, along with a massive servo claw hanging over his head like a crane and a pair of prodigious smokestacks mounted on the rear that leaked vile chemicals into the recycled air of Solon's forge.

On a segmented strip of metal that hung down from his abdominal link between torso and chassis, Gaela could see the Mark of Nurgle corroded into the surface in a nasty imitation of the acid-etching process. Like Sliver, Solon worshiped the Plague God, but somehow managed to be less... obvious about it in his form. Although Solon's armor leaked foul oils and the toxic gases emitted from his exhaust stacks inexplicably contained a number of dangerous microbes, he seemed to be free of the more obvious corrosion that Sliver suffered from.

Not that any follower of Nurgle would consider corrosion something to be avoided, but Gaela's extensive knowledge of technology suggested that most equipment worked better without it.

"Warssmith Ssolon," Sliver began, slurring his speech as well. Even in this, Sliver seemed somehow "dirtier" than his master; Solon sounded as if he was speaking through an ill-fitting rebreather. Sliver gave the impression of a man talking through a mouthful of phlegm.

"The battle hass been concluded. We are victoriouss. Four of the Tau shipss have been captured, one with heavy damage. Nine brotherss have been wounded, and twelve killed during boarding."

He paused to take a heavy breath, and noxious gases seeped from the drum-shaped mask filter mounted on the chin of his helmet. The single large optics lens in the middle of it seemed to glow slightly when he spoke, though whether that effect was from data readouts, some emotional response, or a system malfunction Gaela couldn't begin to guess.

"The enemy'ss lossess are beyond counting. However, we have captured three hundred and ninety-four of the xenoss alive. Of thosse, thirty-one are wounded and twenty are critically wounded, ssuch that they will need augmentss if they are to ssurvive.”

Solon turned back toward his work as he replied. “Bah. They are moshtly the Air Cashte of the Tau, I preshume? Not very usheful. Put them in the shlave holdsh. The sheverely wounded will be fed to the reactor core.”

“The Tau have petty, weak ssoulss, Warssmith,” Sliver warned, “their bodiess will provide little ssusstenance.”

“Washte not, want not,” Solon replied, pulling up his right hand.

Like Gaela's, it was an augmetic limb. Unlike Gaela's permanent arm, Solon had replaced his shoulder joint with a custom nerve socket so that he could insert different arms according to his immediate need. His present limb possessed a full dozen fingers splayed out in a circle rather than the configuration of a human palm, and gossamer threads hung from the pointed fingers as he spun a series of monofilament wires into something.

“Tell the lesh sherioushly wounded that we will reshtore them to health if they will shwear shervice to the Legion. If they agree, treat them and have them sherve the Dark Mechanicush in the captured void shipsh Once we get a handle on how to operate the veshelsh, we can move them to the shlave holdsh where they belong. Thoshe that refushe will join their crippled friendsh ash fuel.”

“As you wish, Warssmith,” Sliver said with a shallow bow, “as for void craft, we losst no vesselss. We desstroyed eight. One masss lander esscaped into a planetary orbit, however.”

Solon stopped fooling with the monofilaments and his torso swiveled to face Sliver, staring down at his second in command through a dozen glimmering red optical lenses. “A transhport?”

“Yess... it would sseem that thiss wass a xeno ssurvey fleet for the Tau'ss colonization effortss,” Sliver continued, “they ssaw uss preparing a long-range Warp out of the ssysstem and attacked, thinking uss Imperial ssmugglerss.”

A deep, crackling chuckle came from Solon's vox grille. “Well, they know better now, don't they? Shtill, I'm shurprished a ship got away.”

“It iss the fault of Captain Dandross,” Sliver growled, his single eye lens flaring briefly, “the captain concentrated fire on the battlecruisser rather than intercepting the sstragglerss... and well after it had been boarded, Warssmith. Ssuch a nervouss hand cannot be allowed at the helm of our esscortss.”

Solon cocked his head to one side, and one of the numerous mechatendrils that snaked from his back curled up to scratch at the spot under his vox grille. “Competent Captainsh are sho hard to find nowadaysh, are they not? And executing Dandrosh won't make it any eashier.”

“Then... you agree with hiss decissionss?” Sliver asked. His tone carried a hint of warning.

“Not at all!” Solon said, his legs clanking as he finally climbed down from his perch above his subordinates. “You have millennia of combat experience, Shliver! You carry microbesh older than that pup!”

The floor shook as Solon's chassis hopped down, and the Warsmith casually grabbed the bicep of his augmetic arm with his mostly biological one. With a twist and a click, the limb went dead and separated from his shoulder socket.

“However, any failure which endsh in a total victory and with one'sh ship intact ish a failure that one can learn from! I'd rather sharpen my toolsh than throw them away! Give the Captain a threatening reprimand and be done with it.”

Sliver was silent for several seconds before he shrugged the massive, horned pauldrons of his terminator armor. “Very well. There are many officerss who would be willing to take up hiss command, though.”

Solon dropped his augmetic arm to the side, and Gaela winced as the monofilament wires collapsed onto the floor, shaving off thin flakes of metal as they bounced about.

“If you feel they're ready for their firsht command, they can have one of the xeno shipsh after retrofit!” Solon said happily as one of his optical sensors generated a hololithic manifest before his eyes.

“Yess, well... I don't think that will be happening,” Sliver admitted.

Solon froze in his perusal of the ship's cargo. “Why not?”

Sliver tilted his head toward Gaela and finally stepped back.

“Warsmith, casualties among the crew were low. Fifty-nine in total. No officers or Dark Techpriests, luckily,” the Acolyte said, her head bowed.

Solon's head tilted to one side again. “That'sh more crew losht than marinesh. Did we shushtain much damage? I thought the ambush wash a total shuccesh.”

“In a way, we did,” Gaela said wryly, “you see, the Tau possessed a new weapon on their ships. Some sort of phase beam that seems unaffected by void shields. Damage output is poor, but it did allow them to inflict... strategic damage before we silenced their resistance. The destroyer escorts Crimson Dagger and Athal had their engines attacked, apparently in an effort to prevent them from pursuing the mass lander. Their Warp drives have been critically damaged. They can only achieve sub-light speed.”

“That'sh wonderful!” Solon said brightly, his chassis rising briefly. Then it immediately sunk again. “I mean, the part about ush capturing a new shield-piercing weapon. The part about it hitting ush ish quite unfortunate.”

“Yes, my lord. No doubt you're also well aware that Tau vessels do not have proper Warp drives. None of the captured ships will be able to maintain speed.”

Solon scratched his head with a mechatendril. “Sho what ish the repair time on the Warp drivesh?”

“We do not have the necessary facilities to repair them,” Gaela admitted, "I'm afraid the drives are a total loss, and I'm sure you're aware that such things require specialized equipment for manufacture."

“Pah! Technological artifactsh from every corner of the galaxy at my fingertipsh, and you're telling me we can't build the mosht bashic of void ship componentsh?” Solon asked, annoyed. “What do you need to build it?”

“In lieu of a shipyard, we'd need a specialized manufactorum..."

“What about the Mechanicush craft we sheized in Haelim?” Solon asked, perking up.

“It would need to be properly deployed, my lord,” Gaela said cautiously, “we seized it from an Adeptus Mechanicus colonizer; it was meant to be installed as a permanent settlement.”

“But it would work, wouldn't it?” Solon asked, looming over the armored woman.

“Warssmith,” Sliver interrupted, “it'ss quite likely that the distresss ssignal from the reconnaisssance fleet hass alerted a proper Tau battlefleet. We cannot linger here long enough to manufacture new Warp enginess.”

Solon lowered his head, staring at the assorted junk and devices that lay scattered under his arachnoid legs.

“Our holdss are full to burssting after assaulting the Mechanicuss deployment. If we are to maintain sschedule, we musst sscuttle the desstroyerss and make for Warp sspace.”

Solon continued staring at the floor, though the whir of gears and the occasional spark of electricity about his helmet betrayed activity.

Suddenly, his helmet snapped up. “Oh, Shliver, you know ash well ash anyone that the Legion will wait however long it needsh to in order for ush to bring their shuppliesh. And I'm hardly in a hurry to kick-shtart Abaddon'sh latesht shlap-fight with the Imperium.”

The Warsmith activated a system hololith, and Gaela stepped back as flickering images of the local system appeared before her.

“Tell me, what planet did the mash lander flee to?”

Sliver very reluctantly replied, “The third planet, Warssmith. It will likely land and deploy as ssoon as posssible, in order to better withsstand purssuit and bombardment.”

Solon tapped on the image of the third planet with a snake-like mechatendril, and a flood of data poured down the hololith in front of him. “Ah, Centaur III, ish it? What a lovely world! Prepare a battery of shcout probe automata and deploy them on the planet, Acolyte Gaela. I want to find a nice, rich metal lode in which to deploy the manufactorum.”

Sliver looked startled by the decision. “Warssmith? What of the xeno fleetss?”

“Have the damaged cruisher make an emergency landing on the planet shurface. We'll make defenshive batteriesh from itsh carcash, and put our windfall of materialsh and workersh toward a proper fortresh.”

An electric chuckle emanated from the corrupted Astartes. “Oh, I haven't deshigned a new fortresh shince Kamino! Thish will alsho allow ush adequate time to retrofit the xeno craft!”

Sliver glanced away. “Warssmith, thiss iss a very... rissky propossition.”

“No worthwhile endeavor wash ever without rishk! Now go! Get thoshe probesh deployed!” Solon said excitedly, his torso swiveling back toward his forge.

“I... ugh... yess, Warssmith. As you wish,” Sliver looked defeated as he turned on his heel, turning the massive bulk of his armor quickly enough that he almost slammed into Gaela.

The Dark Acolyte merely stepped out of the way, allowing the diseased Terminator to pass by. "As you say, my lord Warsmith. I will deploy the probes and prepare for landing on the planet's surface."

"Yesh, yesh, good!" Solon chirped through his vox, his legs scuttling rapidly over the clutter of his forge. "Fortificationsh, shtarship refitsh, and xeno hunting! Thish ish going to be shuch fun!"

****

Centaur III - Ponyville

Applejack hummed to herself while she made her way through town, the sun just cresting over the horizon. She was on her way to Twilight's library, although it was still a bit early for Twilight to be up.

Applejack figured it wouldn't matter. It would do Twilight good to get up early every once in a while. She approached the treehouse and knocked her hoof against the front door.

She had been planning to enjoy the sunrise until Twilight or Spike roused themselves or she got bored and let herself in, but to her surprise the door opened in a matter of moments.

Spike stared up at the apple farmer, his expression carefully neutral and bags hanging under his eyes.

"Applejack. Hi," the young dragon mumbled, obviously suppressing his annoyance and probably a yawn as well, "what brings you by?"

"Here ta get a book, is all," Applejack said, hearing some sort of commotion inside, "Ah'm lookin' into some new crops this year."

"Oh, okay. I'm not really sure if now is the best time, though," Spike said, scratching his head. He looked exhausted.

"Why's that? Twilight stirrin' up trouble again?" Applejack chuckled, stepping past the dragon and into the library proper.

She didn't make it very far.

"Oomph!" Applejack hit the floor on her back, her hat drifting off to the side. She honestly didn't know how it had happened, by magic or sheer frenzied force, but next thing she knew Twilight was standing on top of her, looking down with her eyes wide and panicked.

"Applejack! ALIENS!!" Twilight screamed, her gaze frenzied and unblinking.

"Yeah. So, that was MY night," Spike grumbled to the pinned pony, "how are you?"

"Uh... did Ah miss somethin'?" Applejack asked, staring up at the purple alicorn. Twilight's mane and tail were a mess, and her wings were unfolded and twitching, as if she were getting ready to take off at any moment.

Then, just as suddenly as she had been tackled, the farmpony was free again as Twilight stepped off of her.

"But really, I can't just tell you. What are you going to do about it? Need to get the word out!" Twilight slowly walked away from Applejack and Spike as she mumbled, giving the impression she wasn't talking to either of them. "SPIKE! Take a letter!"

"No," the dragon said blandly, surprising Applejack.

"Dear Princess Celestia: Today I have made a historic discovery, the nature of which may change..." Twilight seemed completely unaware that Spike wasn't writing as her words trailed off. "No, wait! It was yesterday! Spike! New letter!"

"Still not writing anything," Spike said, his hands on his hips.

"Dear Princess Celestia: ALIENS! SPACECRAFT! EXPLOSION! Sincerely, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle." The alicorn paused, though it seemed to Applejack that her eyes were still moving rapidly for no apparent reason. "I should include more details, shouldn't I? Spike! Take a new letter!"

Spike turned to Applejack as the orange pony got up again. "She's been like this all night, coming up with letters to send out and then trashing them. Sometimes she'll forget about the letters and go rummaging through the books in a panic, but it never lasts before she starts pacing and dictating letters again."

Applejack looked over the library interior, noting that it was littered with crumpled parchment and scattered books.

"Eventually I stopped writing her letters, but I'm pretty sure she didn't notice," Spike said.

Applejack considered the frantic alicorn for several seconds, idly rubbing at her chin with her hoof. "What'd she see?"

"I have no idea," Spike sighed, "but whatever it was, it shocked her enough that she accidentally broke her telescope in half."

"What if they land here? What if they demand to see our leader?" Twilight wondered aloud, flipping through a book that Applejack could clearly see was upside-down. "Should I take them to Princess Celestia? Or is that what they expect me to do?"

"You might have noticed that Twilight thinks she saw aliens," Spike deadpanned.

"Silly me! How can they ask me anything? They exploded!" Twilight said, shaking her head and giggling to herself. "But wait! What if catastrophic exothermic reactions make them STRONGER? Why aren't there any books about this?!"

Applejack adjusted her hat as Twilight started stamping the floor furiously. "Alright Spike, Ah got this. Why doncha catch a nap?"

With that, the earth pony stepped up to the ravaged bookshelves and began searching for the book she had come for.

"Applejack!" Twilight shouted suddenly, turning sharply toward her friend. "ALIENS!"

"Yeah, so Ah heard," Applejack said casually, finding her book and grabbing it in her mouth.

She placed the book in her saddlebag, and then placed a hoof on Twilight's shoulder. "Ah'm borrowin' this book, Twi. Now let's go out fer a trot."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Applejack, now is HARDLY the time for a leisurely stroll through Ponyville. Beings from another world are at our very doorstep! Or were, before they exploded. Not really on my doorstep, though. My doorstep would be on fire. And it's not. But what if-"

Applejack calmly placed her hoof under Twilight's jaw, and then closed the babbling alicorn's mouth. "Now's the perfect time fer a stroll through Ponyville. Ya'll need some fresh air before ya have a heart attack. Now ya can follow me back home, or Ah can tie ya up and drag ya behind me. What's it gonna be?"

Applejack removed her hoof from Twilight's mouth, and the frantic pony calmed down just enough to rationally consider Applejack's demand.

"Let the record show that I'm accompanying you under duress," Twilight said evenly, sticking her snout up, "and friendship. But mostly duress."

"Swell. Then maybe ya can make a proper letter to Princess Celestia when ya get back," Applejack said, turning toward the door and giving a quick wink to Spike, "now let's get a move on, sugarcube, Ah got chores to do."

Soon they were outside and making a good pace toward Sweet Apple Acres in silence. Twilight seemed to want to speak, but she was utterly consumed with glancing around at the sky, as if it were about to fall down on top of her at any moment.

Applejack said nothing, content with the silence.

The pair of them actually made it most of the way to the farm before Twilight finally spoke up, her voice far more collected and annoyed than before.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

Applejack chuckled. "Of course Ah believe ya, sugarcube."

Twilight was actually quite surprised to hear the earth pony admit it with a straight face.

"Why wouldn't Ah? Ah'm no expert on UFOs and space ponies. Got no reason to doubt ya." Applejack tilted her head to one side and flashed Twilight a bright smile.

"No, it's not a UFO," Twilight said, exasperated, "UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object, and could be anything from a magic flare to a pegasus trying out a Nightmare Night costume. What I saw was clearly a space-faring vessel of some sort. And the likelihood of the aliens being 'space ponies' is quite small."

She would have continued, but Applejack started chuckling.

"See? Ah knew some fresh air would do ya right. Yer back to yer old self again."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "For someone who believes that I saw an alien spacecraft last night, you're taking it awfully well."

"Well, maybe Ah'm just too grounded to be worryin' about all that," Applejack said with a shrug, "Ah don't see no aliens down here, so it don't make much difference to me."

"Perhaps you don't appreciate the enormity of what I'm telling you," said the clearly irritated alicorn, "this isn't JUST a confirmation of extraterrestrial life; whatever built that vessel was highly intelligent, and came to our planet! Their own motivations aside, think of what we can learn from someone with that kind of technology!"

"Well, Ah guess we could if they hadn't exploded on us," Applejack admitted.

Twilight winced. "Well... uh... yes. There is that. But there are probably more of them! I doubt that any intelligent species would pack their entire population onto just one cramped hunk of metal and take off into space!"

"Hm, true. That makes sense," Applejack agreed easily as she saw her home in the distance.

"I still think you're way too calm about this," Twilight insisted through clenched teeth, "what would you do if one of the aliens came down and met you?"

"Try and sell 'em some apples," she said breezily.

"It would be likely that their digestive systems aren't adapted to consume pony food. Assuming it even absorbs energy via ordinary chemical digestion like we do!" Twilight said, going into another intellectual lecture. "Also, how would it pay? Bits are an Equestrian currency!"

"Well, Ah guess Ah wouldn't have much luck, then," Applejack said with a shrug, "but until them space fellers come down here, Ah don't gotta worry about it, do Ah? Won't help nothin'." She could see Big Macintosh by the edge of the fields now, plowing the fields. Apple Bloom was up as well, and she and Winona were playing next to the barn.

"So... you think I should just forget about it?" Twilight asked, looking extremely doubtful.

"Naw, Ah ain't sayin' that," Applejack said, "ya should do what ya think ya need to do. Write Princess Celestia a letter, or learn a new spell for zappin' space invaders, or get yer telescope fixed. What ya shouldn't be doin' is flippin' out in the library and workin' Spike into a coma."

Twilight blanched, and her purple cheeks reddened. "Oh, uh... yeah, okay. That's... good advice."

The alicorn glanced around, as if finally noticing where they were. "Hmmm... you know, I think I managed to dictate the approximate angle I had the telescope at on one of the letters to the Princess that I never sent. If I get my telescope fixed, I should be able to find some debris from the detonation. Perhaps there are even some other extra-terrestrials lurking nearby."

"Now that sounds much better'n yer last plan," Applejack said with a grin.

Twilight laughed. "Yeah! Thanks, Applejack. I think I needed that. I'm going to go fix my telescope. And then I think I should get some sleep."

"Any time, sugarcube. Ah'll see ya later."

Applejack stopped to watch as Twilight galloped off back toward Ponyville, and then she chuckled as she approached her two siblings.

"So apparently, Twi thinks she saw some sorta alien whatsit last night, creepin' about in space."

Big Macintosh quirked an eyebrow silently. Apple Bloom stopped rolling around and listened intently, her ears perking up.

"Now, Ah dunno what she saw, but Ah gotta admit that space invaders wouldn't really be the weirdest thing Ah've run into 'round here," Applejack shrugged, tilting her hat up, "so ya'll be on the lookout fer any visitors or their shenanigans, ya hear?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said casually, returning to his plowing with his usual sleepy expression.

Apple Bloom's reply came a few seconds later. "Ya mean like that, Sis?"

Applejack and Macintosh both stopped and turned toward their little sister, who had a hoof raised toward the sky.

A distant jet of flame descended from above the clouds, dropping toward the edge of the Apple family's orchard. As it rapidly approached the trees, light flared from the bottom of the mysterious object, and it slowed down dramatically before finally vanishing below the tree line.

Applejack stared, stunned. At this distance, she couldn't hear anything from the descent, but anypony who had been looking in the right direction would have been able to glimpse that landing for miles around.

That certainly didn't include Twilight, who was trotting in the wrong direction.

"Aw, fer pity's sake," Applejack grunted, her ears drooping.

Big Macintosh considered the sight for a moment, and then unhooked his harness with his teeth before approaching the road toward Ponyville.

"Now hold up, Mac," Applejack warned, stopping the red stallion in his tracks, "Ah just finished talkin' some sense into Twi. Ah don't wanna freak her out again over nothin'."

Big Mac raised his head slightly, glancing toward the spot where the object had landed.

"Let's go check it out first 'fore we get her all worked up again. It could be nothin' after all, like a prank from the Princesses or Derpy droppin' somethin' flammable."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, turning around toward the orchard. Applejack dropped her saddlebag at the farmstead and then followed closely, her lasso out and ready if need be.

The Apple siblings made their way through the trees silently, each of them projecting an appearance of calm but more than a little worried about this new development. Within minutes Applejack could spot a plume of smoke rising into the air.

"Whatever it was landed at the far edge. Ah hope it don't start a fire," the orange mare mumbled.

"What're ya gonna do if it's an alien, Sis?" asked Apple Bloom, her voice more excited than it had a right to be.

In response, Applejack and Macintosh both flinched, finally realizing that ALL the Apple siblings were investigating this strange phenomenon.

"Apple Bloom, what do ya think yer doin'?" Applejack demanded. "Get back to the house, pronto!"

Apple Bloom wilted as her older siblings glared at her. "Aw, c'mon Sis! Ah'll be good!"

"It don't matter if yer good! We don't know if it's safe!" Applejack said, stamping a hoof on the ground. "Now git!"

"Awww..." Apple Bloom turned around and started a slow trudge back toward the farmstead, her cheeks puffed up indignantly.

Applejack breathed a sigh of relief as she watched her younger sister leave the area. "Can't believe Ah didn't notice she was followin' us," she grumbled, turning back toward their objective, "Ah don't know which of us has got less sense, her or me."

"What would ya do?" Big Macintosh asked suddenly, breaking his characteristic silence.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"What would ya do if it's aliens?" Big Mac elaborated slightly, gazing toward the distant landing site.

Applejack couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, Ah did tell Twi Ah'd try and sell 'em some apples, and Ah wouldn't want some space varmint makin' a liar outta me."

Her mirth settled quickly as they approached the source of the smoke, and the orange mare took a deep breath before moving past the final cluster of trees between them and their intruder.

There it was, lying at the base of the smoke column, in the middle of a circle of scorched dirt and grass. It was vaguely shaped like a bowl, and it was big enough for either of the ponies to fit inside comfortably if they were daft enough to want to. Large spikes protruded from the outer edges, while at the bottom smoke still seeped from large bulges.

Applejack scratched her head with her hoof, disturbing her hat. The "alien" wasn't moving, and seemed to be made entirely out of metal.

After nearly a minute of standing off and silently perusing the strange object, Applejack glanced at her brother. "Well? What do ya think, Mac?"

Big Macintosh stepped closer to the curious object, staring inside briefly. Then he scuffed at the ground with a hoof.

Finally, he turned toward Applejack. "Ah think somethin' was in this when it landed. Landed softly, too. The ground's burnt, but not broken. Some kinda pod, or harness, Ah reckon. Ah don't see many movin' parts."

Applejack ventured closer to the object, tapping the edge of it with her hoof. "Ya think it's dangerous?"

"Nnnope," Macintosh confirmed.

"Well, good, but that don't mean it wasn't carryin' somethin' dangerous," Applejack reasoned, searching the ground. After a few seconds, she found what she was looking for... probably. A small, sharp indentation in the ground, like someone had poked a railroad spike into the dirt.

"Ah think Ah found its tracks!" the orange pony said, seeing several similar marks in an uneven line leading away from the landing site. "C'mon Mac, let's go sell this thing some apples! And then tell it there's no parking on mah farm!"

****

Sweet Apple Acres - primary orchard

+Atmosphere analysis complete: seventy-one percent Terra equivalent. Carcinogen count at sub-threat levels. Radiation levels viable.+

Constant blurts of Binary spat out of the probe automata as it crawled over the ground, its four insectile legs easily navigating the well-worn land beneath the Apples' orchard.

The legs were arranged symmetrically around a barrel-shaped body that was carried about a foot off the ground. Atop the body was a rotating cluster of antennae, optics lenses, and a comparatively large sensor dish. These instruments rotated and jerked to and fro as they absorbed information from the surroundings as quickly as possible.

+Local flora shows seven percent mean structural variance among one-hundred and seven sample organisms. Hypothesis: locally homogeneous population is result of artificial selection. Acquiring soil sample.+

After the latest string of buzzes and bleeps, the probe lowered its body toward the ground and a drill emerged from the bottom. The drill started to spin penetrate the ground, and the sensors atop the automata quivered wildly.

+Magnetic scans and soil analysis conclude less than point-three percent ferrous material to approximate depth of two-point-seven-nine kilometers. Conclusion: chances of viable metal lode negligible. Deployment site to be moved to short-list tertius. Unit proceed-+

"Hey, Ah found the alien!"

Probe automata C-98381 halted as its programming prioritized an interrupt to its scanning procedures.

+Auditory intercept: Low Gothic. Scanning for source,+ the probe spat, its primary optical sensor whirling around.

Apple Bloom didn't speak Binary, or know what that was, so she didn't really know what to make of the assorted noises coming from the extraterrestrial machine. It did seem to react to her voice, though, which she figured was a good sign. Kind of.

As a large green sensor lens tilted downward and then extended with a soft whirring noise, the yellow filly was reminded of her siblings' insistence that she not follow them to the landing site because it could be dangerous.

Well, she had run into the alien on the way back to the house, so she couldn't really be blamed for that, could she?

Apple Bloom flinched as a bright red span of light suddenly poured out of the lens at her hooves, but quickly relaxed once she didn't feel anything. The light span slowly crept up her body, and Apple Bloom idly wondered if she should call for her older siblings.

The alien wasn't much to look at, to be honest. It was just a bit larger than Big Macintosh, with a barrel body and four long legs sticking out of it. Each leg tapered to a point from a fairly wide joint, forming an arrow-shaped shield, and they were painted black on the outer facing.

Painted on the nearest leg was some sort of weird silver face. It didn't look like a pony's face, though. It had no snout to speak of and had a curiously prominent chin. It seemed to be smiling, although rather than teeth its mouth had several bars running through it like a cage.

+Analysis complete. Xeno life-form categorized: equine equivalent physiology observed. Noting extended brain case and complex vocal chords in local adaptation. Threat level negligible. Continuing reconnaissance mission.+

The probe's sensors twisted around and it began to walk away, leaving Apple Bloom somewhat disappointed. Still, it hadn't done anything except shine a light on her, so that meant it wasn't dangerous, right?

"Hey, can ya understand me?" Apple Bloom asked, following behind the automata.

The probe could, in fact, although it was not equipped with a vocalizer that could respond in kind. Seeing as the young pony had already been dismissed as a threat, however, the probe ignored her.

"Do ya wanna meet mah siblings, Mister Alien? They're around here somewhere," Apple Bloom offered, "Ah think ya should meet 'em. They seemed worried about meetin' you."

The probe halted. Not at the prospect of meeting Apple Bloom's family, but rather because it had just detected a curious pattern of electromagnetic radiation permeating the area. The radiation wasn't powerful enough to harm it, but it was unraveling its data transmissions.

+Warning! Jamming signal detected! Long-range and orbital communications off-line. Medium-range communications off-line. Atmospheric energy scans compromised. High potential of enemy activity. Initiating mission protocol alpha-lambda-alpha, priority secundus.+

"Hey, are ya listenin' ta me?" Apple Bloom demanded. She walked up to it and stood up against its leg, frowning at what she assumed were the thing's eyes.

The probe, now on heightened alert and operating under a new threshold for defending itself, sensed the contact of the filly leaning against it and turned its main sensors around to prepare an agitated response.

It dropped the alert a moment later. The tiny pony was still no threat whatsoever, and its mission parameters required it to avoid unnecessary conflict with native life-forms. Certainly it was an unusual prerogative of any Chaos machine to avoid violence, but the probe was tasked with gathering as much data as possible and was poorly equipped for combat. Picking fights with harmless xenos could only make its job harder.

The automata scuttled away toward a tree, letting Apple Bloom drop onto the ground.

"Hey, what're you doing?" Apple Bloom asked anxiously. Two of the probe's four legs clambered up the side of the apple tree, tilting its body at an angle toward the trunk. She then recoiled as a drill pushed out of the bottom, whirring furiously.

"Hey! Quit it!" Apple Bloom shouted, running up to the strange machine and banging a hoof against its leg. "Ya can't just march in here and start hurtin' our trees! Stop that!"

The probe ignored the filly's request and drilled deep into the apple tree, sucking up sap and wood pulp for genetic analysis.

"APPLE BLOOM!" screeched a new voice, followed by the pounding of hooves against dirt.

"Ya see? Ah warned ya," Apple Bloom chided as her siblings galloped through the orchard toward her, "yer in for it now, Mister Alien!"

The probe's drill finished drawing back into its carapace as it identified the last statement as a threat.

Once again it twisted its sensor arrays around to take stock of potential hazards and judge whether they warranted a violent response.

To the probe's credit, it actually got a fair bit of data on Big Mac's back hooves before they slammed into it.

Apple Bloom winced as the alien thing-a-majig went flying, the impact of hooves against metal ringing in her ears.

The extraterrestrial object bounced once, gouging a bit of dirt out of the ground with its leg, and then slammed hard into an apple tree, coming to a full stop before sparks blasted from its limb actuators.

The sensor lenses flickered repeatedly, and a leg twitched in the air. The probe's relatively delicate internals were scrambled by the impact, ripping the probe's cogitator core free from its power couplings.

As C-98381 went dark, an apple shook free from the boughs above and dropped onto the automata's shuddering body, adding a dash of insult to grievous injury.

Applejack stood over Apple Bloom protectively as she watched the intruder stop twitching, ready to follow up on her brother's initial attack if it got up again.

It did not.

"Geez Big Mac, ya didn't hafta hit it that hard!" Apple Bloom complained.

"Quiet, you," Applejack growled, "what were ya doin' messin' with that thing? Ya coulda been hurt! Ah told ya to go back home!"

"Ah did!" Apple Bloom protested. "Ah found the alien on mah way back! Honest!"

Applejack grimaced, and then glanced up at the probe. "Well, head back the rest of the way. Me and Mac'll handle this varmint."

Apple Bloom sighed, but did as she was told. This time Applejack watched her little sister until she disappeared completely behind the trees. Then, with no small sense of trepidation, she approached their insensate visitor.

Big Macintosh was already standing over the intruder, his head occasionally swinging to one side or the other to get a look from a different angle.

Applejack joined him, her nose picking up the smell of something burning from within the alien object.

"So... what do ya think, Mac?" Applejack asked again.

"Ah think it's some kinda fancy contraption," Big Mac said after a brief pause, "it's the right fit fer that thing back in the field, and it's metal, all the way through. Harder'n steel, too." He idly shook a rear hoof to ward off the numbness. He had kicked at steel objects before, and knew the weight and resistance he could expect. The plating on the probe, however, had only been slightly dented by the force. If the object had been much heavier, Macintosh figured that he could have broken his leg hitting something so hard.

Applejack tapped one of the probe's legs with a hoof. "Ya think... Ya think it's broken?"

Big Macintosh tilted his head to one side. "Eeyup."

Applejack winced, her ears falling flat against her head. Perhaps they HAD overreacted just a bit.

"Well, nothin' fer it now, Ah guess. Let's get a cart and put this thing in the barn. That 'harness' or whatever too. Ah'll get Twilight over here this afternoon to take a look at it."

"Eeyup." Big Macintosh turned away from the probe and began to head for the barn.

"And if anyone asks, Ah tried to sell that thing some apples 'fore ya decked it," the orange mare added.

The red stallion couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Eeyup."

****

Harvest of Steel - in high orbit over Centaur III

The bulkhead doors slid open with a slow growl, and Gaela stepped into the logistics dome of the megafreighter. In the ship's original design, this area had been specifically set aside for managing the freighter's manifest, determining trade routes, and holding meetings amongst the merchants that presumably owned such a vessel. Whereas the bridge was the center of the ship's operations, the logistics dome was the center of all operations aided by the freighter's travels.

And so it was even now, although the operations being planned were of a very different sort than those envisioned by the shipwrights that built it.

+Dark Magos Kaelith, I was instructed to report to you to begin organizing planetary deployment resources,+ she said in Binary, the stream of blurts and beeps issuing forth in less than two seconds.

Stooped over the large table in the middle of the room was the Dark Magos, his form a tall, serpentine shape cloaked from head to what used to be toes in thick, black, rubber robes. His body must have been over five meters in height, but the Magos was constantly bowed over, as if he was stooping to look at something. Which he may have been, for all Gaela knew. Perhaps he just found it more efficient to stay like that rather than expending energy to constantly shift downward to address others. Near the end of his body were a set of a dozen smaller legs of the insectile form so often favored by members of the Mechanicus over thick, clumsy, anthropomorphic legs.

Currently he was hooked up to the main cogitator bank and was staring at a hololithic projection of Centaur III hovering above a round table that dominated the room. There was a long delay before the Dark Magos acknowledged his subordinate.

+Interrogative: Why were you given formal command of the manufactorum deployment?+

Gaela almost grimaced behind the mask of her helmet as the Dark Magos turned toward her. His face was a wild cluster of glowing sensors, tubes, and cables, completely devoid of anything human. She honestly wasn't even sure where his voice synthesizer was located, since his mouth and esophagus were long gone.

+It was a decision given to me by Warsmith Solon himself. I have no authority to question his orders or provide strategic alternatives.+

Kaelith turned his head back toward the hololith silently.

+If I may hypothesize, perhaps the Warsmith has another task of equal or greater import for you, Magos? There are many other necessities requiring the attention of the Dark Mechanicus, including the refit of the xenos ships and the study of their weapons.+

It was a perfectly rational explanation, and both of them knew it was almost certainly incorrect. Solon was infamously whimsical, and treated the chain of command as a bureaucratic formality. It was also well-known that he often consulted and gave orders to Gaela personally, despite her low rank and relative inexperience. As the Executor of the Dark Mechanicus detachment serving the 38th Company, it should have been Kaelith managing the manufactorum deployment, or at least it should have been Kaelith prerogative to delegate the task to a favored lackey.

But of course, ignoring the will of the commanding Warsmith was hardly respectful of the chain of command, either.

+Magos Kaelith, I see that you're perusing the probe data. Did you find anything interesting?+ Gaela asked, changing the subject.

+Affirmative: The probe data has already yielded three viable drop zones. Interrogative: have you observed the probe data, Acolyte?+

+I have not. I have been organizing the ordnance and material-+

+Hypothetical: You are unaware then that the Tau have deployed a jamming device that has disrupted long-distance communications on the planet surface,+ Kaelith interrupted with his own more formal and haggard Binaric Cant.

Gaela paused. +... I was unaware, yes. It has prevented the probes from transmitting?+

+Affirmative: The jamming signal began disrupting the planet's ionosphere point-zero-six-two standard cycles ago. I have managed to salvage some of the corrupted data transmissions and find the previously mentioned drop sites. However, orbital vox will be off-line until the signal is terminated, and deep scans are impossible.+

The Dark Magos started moving, his body gyrating bizarrely and mechatendrils seeping out from under his robes. +Hypothetical: Disruption of long-range communication will necessitate extra care and additional planning in order for deployment to proceed on schedule. Addendum: Your abilities will not be sufficient to ensure the success of the operation. Conclusive: in order to maximize efficiency, I will take command of establishing the facilities alongside construction of fortifications.+

It was a self-serving string of logic, but still valid. That, however, left Gaela with an important query.

+So, what are to be my duties during deployment, Dark Magos?+ she asked.

+Directive: Data extraction. The probe automata still contain useful data, and accessing their scans will allow us to pinpoint xenos resistance. You will be deployed with the first wave of combat troops on my orders. Locate the probes and secure the data.+

Field work. Well, it was better than manning lifters.

+What sort of resistance is expected from the Tau survivors?+ Gaela asked, already organizing her deployment loadout in her head.

+Hypothetical: Resistance will be minimal. This fleet was part of a colonization reconnaissance and will have token military support. Reassurance: The xenos will be taking precautions to avoid further confrontation. Their expected prerogative is survival.+

+Understood, Magos. When will I be deployed?+

+Directive: you will make planetfall in one-point-seven-three cycles. Prepare yourself, Dark Acolyte. May the Dark Gods empower you.+

****

Centaur III - Ponyville

Applejack was near the end of her second trip to Ponyville that day, but the difference in her attitude between then and now was palpable.

She wasn't convinced that Big Macintosh had done the wrong thing by kicking that machine silly, and she could guarantee that if he had hesitated, she would have done it instead. But that didn't mean she felt good about it. Apple Bloom insisted that the extraterrestrial device was harmless aside from some minor tree damage, and Applejack had to admit that if it had wanted to hurt her little sister, it had plenty of time to do it.

But right now she was less worried about the precise moral ramifications of assaulting a machine for being too close to her sister and more worried about how hard Twilight was going to throw them in her face.

Coming up to the treehouse, Applejack could hear voices inside, near the door. She couldn't make out what was being said, but it still sounded like a stark improvement over the ruckus from that morning. Adjusting her hat and setting her jaw, the orange pony knocked on the door.

It opened within seconds, and Twilight grinned when she saw Applejack standing on her doorstep.

"Applejack! Perfect! I was actually going to send Rainbow Dash to go get you!"

Glancing over Twilight's shoulder, she could see Rainbow Dash making strange faces with her hooves up over her head, like antennae. Pinkie Pie was laughing at the sight, while Rarity and Fluttershy appreciated her behavior in a more quiet, dignified manner.

"Oh, everypony's here," Applejack said awkwardly, "that's... great. Uh... what did ya wanna talk to me about?"

"Well, I got my telescope fixed, so I thought everyone could stay over tonight and we could take turns searching for signs of debris or other space vessels! Doesn't that sound like fun? Spike is out right now picking up snacks!"

It didn't really sound like fun to her, but Applejack had to figure that for her a lot of the mystery of alien discovery had already been spoiled.

"Hey, AJ!" Rainbow Dash said eagerly, hovering above everypony else's heads as usual. "Wanna bet that we don't find anything? Pinkie's already in for five bits!"

The farmer quashed a brief urge to take that bet. "Ah... Ah wouldn't go puttin' money on that, if Ah were you," she said with a wince.

"Then you believe there are aliens too?!" Pinkie Pie said, jumping up behind Twilight. "Isn't it cool? I'm going to plan a 'Welcome to Equestria' party for them!"

Rainbow Dash scoffed as Applejack entered the library proper. "Well, excuse me for being a little suspicious! Nopony else saw this thing, right?"

"True, but the pony who DID see it was Twilight," Rarity pointed out, "she's not exactly known for elaborate pranks. If it were one of YOU I wouldn't pay the claim a bit of mind." She pointed a well-manicured hoof at Rainbow and then Pinkie, the former of whom stuck her tongue out.

"Now, now, Dash is right to be skeptical," Twilight admitted, her expression somber, "to be honest, I got so excited at seeing something strange that I completely lost my head this morning. But that's why we're here, to see if we can confirm my hypothesis!" Then the alicorn turned toward Applejack again. "So what do you say, Applejack? Can you stay?"

When Applejack started looking away and scratching at one foreleg with the other, the others started picking up that something might have been wrong.

"Well, uh, that seems like an... interestin' night, Ah guess," she mumbled, "o' course, we could always hold this alien-seekin' slumber party at mah farm, ya know."

Twilight blinked. "Well... I suppose we could. Why? Do you need to be home tonight?"

"Naw, nothin' like that." Applejack smiled nervously. "But the alien gizmo we have cooped up in our barn will make the search fer alien gizmos a lot easier, doncha think?"

Silence dominated the tree house as Twilight's eyes slowly expanded until they were almost popping out of her head.

"You have an alien? Awesome!" Rainbow Dash said, zipping over to float over the earth pony. "What's it look like?"

"Kinda like a trash can with legs and a buncha fancy widgets piled on top," Applejack answered, still looking quite uncomfortable.

"Oh, so you believe Applejack right away?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Element of honesty, DUH," the blue pegasus replied.

"Habba... seewaj... glaawa?" Twilight said, her eyebrow twitching.

"Ya see? Now this is exactly why Ah didn't wanna tell ya right away," Applejack said, shaking her head at Twilight's reaction, "well, one o' the reasons, at least."

"This is great! I can throw my party tonight!" Pinkie shouted, already dancing about the library.

"Now hold up, y'all," Applejack said, her expression firming slightly, "this ain't really an alien. It's some kinda machine that came from space, Ah guess. It probably just belongs to the aliens. So Ah was hopin' Twi could come take a look at it."

"Can we come too?" Pinkie asked, instantly leaning up against the orange mare. "Pleeeeeeeeease?"

"O' course ya can," Applejack mumbled, "why not? Sorry to mess up yer slumber party, though."

"Jaahaamr," Twilight said, her jaw hanging open.

"She said it's fine!" Pinkie said brightly. "Let's leave right away!"

"Is the alien scary?" Fluttershy asked timidly, speaking for the first time since the door had opened.

"Oh, naw, not really," Applejack said, cringing, "Ah don't think it's very menacin' at all right now... let's get a move-on."

Applejack turned around and opened the door for the others, and Rainbow Dash promptly shot out ahead of everypony else as if in a bid for freedom. Twilight moved rather stiffly on her way outside, and still had her expression frozen in one of shock. Once they were all outside Rainbow again took the lead, flying up far above the others and constantly scanning the area as if searching for more extraterrestrials.

Twilight eventually shook her head to dispel her stunned state. "What? Where? When? How?" she demanded, her voice still manic but finally intelligible.

"Ah already told ya what," Applejack replied, "it came down in mah orchard just after ya left. As fer how... shoot, Ah dunno, it just came screamin' down from the sky, like RD in a nosedive... 'cept it landed a lot more gracefully, far as we can tell."

"I heard that!" Rainbow shouted from overhead.

"Were you able to communicate? Did it speak? Did it appear sensitive? Hostile?" Twilight stepped closer to Applejack, who started to lean her head away.

"Uh... naw, we couldn't talk to it," Applejack said simply, not making eye contact.

"Then how did you get it in your barn?" Twilight asked, leaning over further.

Applejack started to break out in a nervous sweat, and didn't reply immediately.

"Applejack, tell me you didn't use force on this thing!" Twilight implored her, looking extremely distressed at the prospect. "Your actions toward this device probably represent the first contact between our species and theirs! The first impression of all ponykind! Acting with violence could have far-reaching consequences!"

"Ah... Ah didn't use violence to get it in the barn," Applejack said, her wording obviously deliberate and still quite nervous.

"AJ, darling, is there something you want to confess?" Rarity asked, trying to keep from giggling at the farmer's strained expression.

"All right, all right," Applejack said, her ears drooping, "but Twi, ya gotta promise not to be mad."

Twilight gave the orange pony a reassuring smile. "Of course I won't be mad! I trust you, AJ!"

"Ya Pinkie Promise?" Applejack asked. Pinkie promptly materialized next to Twilight, as if to record her oath.

Twilight's expression darkened instantly. "No. Now what did you do?"

Applejack cursed the alicorn's caution silently. "Well, here goes nothin'... ya see..."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - Apple family barn

Big Macintosh stifled a yawn as he laid next to a hay bale, keeping watch over their new prisoner/victim until his sister arrived with a pony more qualified to study the remains of the alien device.

The extraterrestrial machine sat in the middle of the barn, its drop harness outside and laid against the exterior wall. Apple Bloom was crawling all over the battered probe, tapping on it with her hooves and staring closely at the most complex devices. Macintosh had considered warning her away, but relented. He had already assaulted and handled the machine, so it seemed safe enough to him. He did warn his sister not to touch any sharp edges, though.

Deep within the probe not all was inert, however. The impact of Mac's hooves had jumbled the cogitator core, knocking several crucial connections loose. In such a state its memory had quickly degraded, and there was no mechanism to repair the connection. Without a connection to the core, the automata's reactor had shut down automatically, as it had nothing to provide power to.

No power and a broken mind. And yet there was another force at work within the device.

Decades of exposure to Warp energy and filtered scrapcode had inevitably polluted the probe's machine spirit, leaving behind a spark of something... more than the collection of strict electronic doctrines that made up its wetware engrams.

The Iron Warriors did not expose their equipment to such things lightly, much favoring the strict, efficient rites of the Mechanicus to the corruptive debasement of machines favored by some other traitor Legions. Scrapcode programs were filtered and equipment was checked after heavy Warp exposure for anomalies. Outside of the experiments of the Dark Mechanicus, when daemonic rituals or xeno artifacts touched their gear it was done with clinical control and with a firm expectation of what the result would be. One's machines carried one's life with them on the battlefield, and predictability was a virtue.

Still, the Iron Warriors were a Chaos Legion, and Chaos rarely appreciated such efforts.

Within the cogitator core, jumbled circuitry started to tilt back into place as wiring started to writhe about like worms roused from slumber. The wires stretched and squirmed against each other, seeking the circuits necessary to restore thought and motion.

After several minutes of trying, the probe's interior resembled a nest of snakes, each metal tendril searching for energy to feed its circuitry.

A few such wires found the cable coupling that had been shaken loose by the impact, and they stabbed into it like hungry parasites.

Seconds later the core detected the lack of power and the means to deliver it. System start-up was initiated.

Big Mac's ears perked up as he heard a soft whir coming from the middle of the barn, and his eyes widened when several lights on the outer shell of the alien machine started to flicker to life.

"Apple Bloom!" he shouted, jumping to his hooves. "Get behind me!"

Apple Bloom backed away from the device as its legs started twitching to life, and then she turned around and dashed behind her brother's much greater bulk.

"Now doncha go kickin' it again, Big Mac," Apple Bloom demanded, glaring up at her eldest sibling.

Macintosh gave a noncommittal grunt, watching the extraterrestrial device carefully.

Within a few seconds the probe was once again fully active, and its sensors flickered on. Its legs flexed and shifted against the floor, and it slowly pushed itself up to a standing position.

The ponies watched silently, waiting for any hint of aggression from the device. Then it spat out a distorted burst of Binary-speak, causing them to flinch back.

+System restart complete. Resolving directive primarus.+

It searched its memory banks.

+Directive not found. Memory coil corrupted. Establishing alternative operation parameters...+

The probe automata was in a quandary. The Warp energies that permeated its cogitator engine had restored function and even given it some minor autonomy, a nascent spark of sentience. But the damage, combined with the unconventional repair process, had erased crucial data. It had no idea what its mission parameters were or who to report to, and all long-range transmission links were being jammed. It didn't know what to do.

"Ah think it's tryin' to talk to us!" Apple Bloom said, darting out from between Big Mac's legs before he could stop her.

The probe's machine spirit and its heretical Warp-sentience were influenced both by the malevolence of Chaos and the violent bitterness of its masters, but in the end its programming counted for much more in its disposition. To explore, collect data, and surrender that data to others for use. It gave the probe an overwhelming sense of curiosity, and a rather cool temperament.

So when a small mammal walked up to it and stood on its legs, the probe only briefly considered drilling through its skull before deciding to acquire a deep scan in a less aggressive manner.

"See, Ah told ya! She's harmless!" Apple Bloom insisted, assigning the probe a gender for no apparent reason.

Big Macintosh started as a red span of light suddenly engulfed Apple Bloom.

"Don't worry, Mac, Ah'm fine," the yellow filly insisted as the ray of crimson moved from her hooves to her hair, "she does this sometimes. It don't hurt or nothin'."

The older pony looked skeptical, but within moments the light vanished and Apple Bloom seemed unharmed. Then the probe swirled its sensory clusters toward him and did the same thing, sweeping the red beam up over the stallion.

Just as Apple Bloom said, besides the glare in his eyes when the light swept over his face, he didn't feel a thing. Within seconds the scanning ray ceased, and the probe spat out another string of gibberish.

"Ah think ya should apologize," Apple Bloom said, pointing a hoof at Macintosh. When her brother frowned, she elaborated. "Ya bucked her like ya were tryin' to get apples outta her. Ah told ya, she wasn't botherin' me none." The probe continued sputtering noise, swiveling its sensor arrays back and forth.

Big Macintosh mulled it over silently. It didn't make sense to him to apologize to some contraption that had crashed down on their property and started drilling holes in their trees, even if it had turned out to be much less dangerous than he had imagined. On the other hoof, what could it hurt? The silly-looking thing probably didn't even understand them.

"Ah'm sorry Ah kicked ya earlier," Macintosh said, feeling quite awkward as he spoke to the automata. Was it even looking at him? "That was a mite hasty of me."

The probe fell silent, and its analysis of the auditory logs reached its conclusion.

The large red bio-form had expressed remorse at the request of the tiny yellow one. The probe didn't understand the gesture, or even remember being attacked, but in its cogitator engine it shifted the smaller pony to a position of higher authority.

"Oh! Ah've got it!" Apple Bloom said happily. "Yer legs remind me of the way a crab walks, so Ah'll call ya Crabapple!"

The probe once again cast its sensors downward toward the filly.

It had been given a designation. That was an indicator of ownership and command authority. As such, it seemed the small, yellow bio-form was claiming it as her own. As it so happened, the probe required a command authority in order to receive orders and fulfill its functions. Whoever fulfilled this role previous to the data purge wasn't around, so the yellow bio-form would do nicely.

It wasn't a great decision, but in Crabapple's defense, it was new to this self-determination thing.

+New designation accepted: Crabapple. New command directive accepted: tiny bio-form speaking poor Gothic granted full command authority. Awaiting commands.+

"Now don't go namin' things that ain't yours, Apple Bloom," Big Macintosh warned.

+Tiny bio-form speaking poor Gothic designation accepted: Apple Bloom. Awaiting commands.+

"Aw, but she ain't got anywhere to go!" Apple Bloom protested.

"How do ya know that?" Macintosh asked.

"Well, she could leave if she wanted to!" the yellow filly said, pointing a hoof at the barn doors. Granted, they were closed, but they weren't locked, and Mac hardly thought such a minor obstacle would thwart a space-machine if it wanted to go outside.

Apple Bloom crawled underneath Crabapple to look over every nook and cranny of the extraterrestrial machine, and Big Mac frowned. It DID seem curiously content to stand there staring at them, although the way it occasionally bleeped at them made him think that it was trying to communicate with them.

"Hey, do ya think Twilight's gonna get here soon?" Apple Bloom asked, poking her head out from behind one of Crabapple's armored legs.

Big Macintosh silently considered how long a trip to Ponyville and back took, and how long ago Applejack had left the farm.

"YOU DID WHAT?!?!" Twilight's scream helpfully rendered his calculations moot as it echoed over the orchard, and Apple Bloom winced from the volume. Even Crabapple seemed disturbed, shifting slightly on its four legs and spitting out a complaint in Binary.

"Eeyup. She's close," Macintosh assured his youngest sister.

It wasn't long after the outburst that they heard another pony's voice, although this time it was much closer and, thankfully, much quieter.

"Hey! Anyone in there?" asked Rainbow Dash from outside the barn.

Big Macintosh didn't bother answering, walking up to the door and pushing it open a bit with his snout.

The blue pegasus was hovering at nearly ceiling height in front of the barn, grinning excitedly. Macintosh couldn't see anypony else with her, though, so he assumed that she had taken off ahead of the others.

"Hey, Mac! Heard you bagged yourself an alien! Can I see?"

Big Macintosh wordlessly stepped to the side and Rainbow landed in front of the barn door. Her eyes widened when she saw Crabapple standing over Apple Bloom in the center of the structure.

"Whoa! Applejack said you killed it!"

"Nnope," Macintosh said, walking up to the probe. One of its optical lenses tracked him as he approached, but otherwise the automata didn't budge.

+New bio-form entering engagement range. Scanning.+

Rainbow Dash halted at the strange beeping noises, and she quirked an eyebrow once the scan beam started passing over her.

"Crabapple does that when she meets someone new!" Apple Bloom said, now completely comfortable with explaining the unfathomable drone's motivations to others. "It's how she says hello!"

Rainbow Dash laughed, and then she quickly turned around and stepped out of the barn.

"I'll be right back! I have to tell the others about this! Twilight's chewing out AJ right now because she thinks it's dead!" Chuckling to herself, Rainbow bounced up and took off into the air, her multi-colored tail whipping about behind her.

****

Sweet Apple Acres outskirts

"What were you thinking, murdering the first extraterrestrial you found? This could be one of the most important discoveries in Equestria's history, and now it's dead!"

Applejack's head was near the ground, her ears drooping and her hat in her hoof. "Ya promised ya wouldn't get mad!" she protested.

"But she didn't Pinkie Promise, so it doesn't matter!" Pinkie Pie said brightly and without a hint of irony.

"Besides, like Ah told ya, it wasn't an alien, just some kinda machine!"

Twilight fumed with her teeth clenched and her mane askew. "So, what if it was a cybernetic life form? Or an alien intelligence using the machine as some sort of transport?"

Applejack blinked. "They can do that?"

"We don't KNOW!" Twilight shouted, stamping a hoof on the ground. "And even if it was just some machine, you were acting as the first impression of all ponykind!"

"Actually, it seems Big Mac made the first impression of all ponykind!" Pinkie interjected. "The impression of his hoof in the alien's face! Ha!"

"But it was threatening Apple Bloom! Possibly!" Even Applejack thought her protest sounded lame. "Well, Ah mean, it was too close ta her! And it drilled into a tree!" They weren't getting better. "Big Mac did it! Yell at him!"

"All right you two, calm down," Rarity said, finally deciding to intervene before Twilight could start haranguing the earth pony again, "Twilight, Applejack clearly feels bad about what she's done. There's no helping it now," the white unicorn chided, using her magic to grab Applejack's hat and place it back on her head, "let's go see what's left of our visitor before you berate her any more."

Twilight didn't look like she wanted to let go of the issue, however. "We really have no sense of the potential scope of this catastrophe! What if she triggered an intergalactic war or something?"

"Then I'm sure she'll feel bad about that, too," Rarity said, rolling her eyes as Applejack nodded enthusiastically.

Twilight was still mulling over the costs and benefits of another angry tirade when everypony heard Rainbow Dash's voice from above.

"Hey guys! Good news!" the blue pegasus shouted down, flying a wide circuit around her friends. "The alien's still alive after all!"

This piqued the interest of Rarity, Pinkie, and Fluttershy, while Twilight and Applejack seemed stunned by the revelation.

"Is it angry about being welcomed to our planet by having the space-tar kicked out of it?" Twilight asked, shooting a glare at Applejack.

"Dunno, I didn't ask," Rainbow replied, completing her circuit and hovering above the alicorn.

"Well, what was it doin'?" Applejack asked, looking quite worried about having an alien device in her barn after her brother had already attacked it.

The pegasus shrugged. "Not much, just standing on top of Apple Bloom."

For the life of her, Rainbow Dash couldn't figure out why this just made her panic MORE.

"AH'M COMIN', SIS!!" the orange pony shouted, bolting toward the farm in a full sprint.

"Applejack, wait!" Twilight shouted after her, getting a late start to chase the farmer. "Consider the repercussions of further conflict between our species!"

"That metal varmint is gonna wish it stayed broken when Ah get my hooves on it!" Applejack snarled, clearly not in any mood for proper intergalactic diplomacy.

"Applejack! Calm down!" Twilight shouted, straining her legs but unable to catch up to the adrenaline-fueled earth pony.

"You know, you might actually be able to catch up with her if you practiced flying more," Rainbow Dash said from above. Her hooves were crossed over her chest, and she matched Twilight's ground speed easily while flying alongside her.

"Dash, I do NOT need criticism on my flying right now!" Twilight shouted. "Why aren't you stopping Applejack?"

"Because you're both totally overreacting," Rainbow said with a snicker. She shifted her pose to fly backwards just in front of the alicorn. "Maybe you should magic up Rarity's fancy crying couch and-"

"Dash, could you move a foot to your right, please?" Twilight interrupted, still galloping forward as sweat stung her eyes.

"Huh? Oh, sure." Rainbow Dash made a quick correction to her position, and then continued. "Like I was saying, you need to-GURK!"

Twilight thundered ahead after the blue pegasus was clotheslined by the low-hanging branch of an apple tree, swatting her out of the air.

Applejack reached the front door of the barn, and was going to charge straight through it like an angry bull when she was suddenly scooped off the ground and into the air.

The farmer growled as she saw a bubble of telekinetic magic surrounding her, and she glared back at Twilight, who was gasping for air as she slowed to a stop. "Twi, Ah swear to Celestia that if Apple Bloom gets hurt 'cuz ya slowed me down like this..."

"ALL I'm asking is for you to actually survey the situation before putting another dent in this alien artifact!" Twilight said, breathing heavily. "Violence should be the last resort, not the first!"

Applejack grumbled unintelligibly, flailing her hooves in the air as if hoping to get traction on the magic holding her up.

Before either of them could complain further, the barn door - already left open slightly from Rainbow Dash's visit - shifted open further.

Big Macintosh raised an eyebrow at seeing his sister magically suspended in the air above him, and then glanced down at Twilight meaningfully.

"Hi, Big Macintosh," the alicorn said, her voice overly sweet as she carefully lowered Applejack back to the ground, "Apple Bloom wouldn't happen to be in imminent danger from any extraterrestrial objects, would she?"

The red stallion turned his head toward the barn interior, and then back toward Twilight. "Nnnope."

"Good!" Twilight nodded sharply toward Applejack.

"Fine. Fine! Ah panicked, all right? That's whatcha wanna hear?" the orange mare grumbled. "Now let's hurry up and get that hunk o' space bolts away from mah sister!"

Big Mac stepped back to let the two younger mares into the barn, but the sight that greeted them stopped them dead in their tracks before they even entered.

Apple Bloom knocked a rubber ball into the air with her hoof, grinning.

Crabapple bleeped briefly as it calculated the trajectory of the object, and then it raised a leg off the ground and levered it forward to knock the ball back toward the yellow filly.

"This is... not what I expected," Twilight admitted.

"Yer tellin' me," Applejack mumbled, finally admitting to herself that the alien machine really did seem pretty harmless.

Crabapple turned its primary optical sensor toward Twilight, and several lights on its instruments lit up in warning.

+Pattern beta psionic waveform detected. Initiating alert protocols,+ the probe blurted. Suddenly it moved, rushing to stand between Twilight and Apple Bloom.

"What's it doin'?" Applejack demanded, walking next to Apple Bloom and glaring suspiciously at the automata.

"Don't worry, she's peaceful!" Apple Bloom said brightly.

"Ah'll let Twi be the judge o' that," Applejack said with a frown.

Said Princess was slowly circling the probe at a few feet's distance, her eyes taking in every detail: the articulation of its limbs, the thickness of its plating, the locations of gaps in its casing, and exposed wires.

The entire time, Crabapple's sensor array rotated to follow her, keeping its primary optics locked on the purple pony.

As Twilight started to get close to Apple Bloom on her circuit around the probe, Crabapple moved quickly to stand between them again.

"Is it... guardin' ya from Twilight?" Applejack asked her little sister. She couldn't help but notice that the machine hadn't budged when she had walked up to Apple Bloom.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh confirmed. He was lying down again at the edge of the barn, but still watching the proceedings carefully from behind his sleepy-eyed gaze.

"What? Why? That's not fair! I'm not the one who attacked it!" Twilight protested to the Apples.

Then her expression hardened, and she bowed her head toward the probe. "I am Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, and student of Princess Celestia! I come in peace!"

Crabapple spat out an annoyed sound and raised a leg over the alicorn's lowered head.

"Crabapple! You be nice!" Apple Bloom said sternly, tapping a hoof on one of the probe's back legs. "Why don't ya say hello?"

Crabapple paused, and then lowered its leg without spearing Twilight's brain on the way down.

+Commander Apple Bloom previously indicated scanning operations with "saying hello". Order confirmed. Scanning psyker bio-form.+

Twilight was boggling over the fact that it had clearly responded to Apple Bloom's command when the red span of light struck her hooves, sweeping up her body.

"There! Now yer friends!" Apple Bloom said brightly.

"I... I don't follow. Can you understand it?" Twilight asked, scratching her head with her hoof.

"Naw, but ya kinda get a feel fer what she's doin'!" Apple Bloom said with a grin.

Twilight had so many questions she needed to ask. So many mysteries that needed to be solved. She could have penned a whole book already with her thoughts and observations on this event, and she'd studied this machine for less than a minute so far.

But for the life of her, the first question that came to the fore was: "You gave it a gender?"

"My, is that the alien?"

"Ha ha ha! It really does look like a trash can on legs!"

Crabapple, now assured that the psyker was no particular threat, swiveled on the spot to face the newcomers. Three new ponies were entering the barn, albeit the last one had squeaked and seized up the moment it had turned its optics toward her. A few seconds after that the blue pegasus from before staggered in after them, her mane full of leaves and twigs.

"Twi, what the hay was that back there?" Rainbow Dash demanded, shaking her hoof at the alicorn.

"It was an important lesson about watching where you're flying," Twilight said dryly, "I'm sure Princess Celestia will be very interested in reading about all the wonderful things you've learned."

As the two winged ponies exchanged quips, Pinkie and Rarity were observing Crabapple up close.

"Hm. It looks rather plain for something so fantastic. And WHAT is that disfigured face on its leg? Atrocious!"

"Hey, don't make fun of Crabapple's cutie mark!" Apple Bloom complained.

Crabapple issued a string of noisy Binary with its main sensors locked on the white pony. This psyker didn't register as strongly on its sensors as the purple one did, but the sentient probe wasn't about to let its guard down around such creatures.

"Ah don't think that's a cutie mark, Bloom," Applejack pointed out.

"I certainly hope not," Rarity agreed, "it would be dreadful to have that branded on you for life. Could you imagine?"

Pinkie, meanwhile, was already standing up against the probe, completely heedless of any possible danger.

"Hey, what're these glowy thingies?"

Apple Bloom looked up at the pink pony, squinting at the assorted sensors. "Uh... Ah guess they're her eyes?"

"The glass lens suggests they're used to take in light, although not necessarily in a normal spectrum," Twilight said, leaning closer to the probe, "but the sheer number of them, and the fact that-"

"Can it do any tricks?" Pinkie asked, cutting off Twilight's musing before she jumped on top of the automata such that one hoof stood on each of its legs.

"Ya mean besides messin' up our orchard?" Applejack groused.

"She sure can! Crabapple, say hi to everypony!" Apple Bloom commanded.

Crabapple beeped something back to her, and then its sensor array started moving, spreading spans of red light over the barn interior like a mono-color disco ball.

"Ooh! Pretty!" Pinkie said, leaping down from atop the probe and then standing up against it. "Hey Crabapple, I'm going to throw you a party! Can you bring your alien friends down here to join in?"

+Negative. Long-range vox has been compromised,+ Crabapple answered, +orbital communication is off-line until jamming signal has been terminated.+

"Aw, that's too bad," Pinkie said, her smile weakening a fraction, "I'm sure you'll love your 'Welcome to Equestria, Space Robot!' party, though!"

Rainbow Dash cocked her head to the side. "Wait, Pinkie... did you understand that thing?"

Pinkie Pie snorted. "Of course not! That would be silly! I just have subtitles turned on!"

As the others puzzled over this, Applejack stepped over to Twilight, speaking low and close to her ear so that nopony else could hear them.

"So level with me, Twi: can ya get this can outta mah mane fer me?" the orange mare asked.

Twilight blinked. "I... I suppose? But why would you want to be rid of it? It seems completely-"

"Harmless, yeah, fine," Applejack grunted, "but excuse me if Ah ain't thrilled havin' some alien rustbucket on mah property anyway. And what if more of 'em come crashin' into the orchard like meteors and drillin' holes in mah trees? Ah want this thing gone!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Your attitude toward extraterrestrials has changed a lot since this morning."

"Well, sue me, but Ah'm runnin' a business here! Ah don't need the trouble!" Applejack hissed. "Just like ya said, it turns out that aliens don't make good customers!"

Twilight rolled her eyes, but on the whole Applejack's request seemed reasonable. "All right, I'll see what I can do. But I'll need to spend some time here to try and communicate with it. It seems to understand us somehow, but so far its own language is completely unintelligible."

Applejack glanced across the room. "But didn't Pinkie just-"

"Nothing Pinkie does counts," Twilight said sternly, her eyes narrowing, "you know that! This requires actual study and analysis! That makes sense!"

"Fine, fine. So whatcha need?" the earth pony asked with a sigh.

"Well, honestly the biggest difficulty I can foresee is that it seems to be following Apple Bloom's orders specifically," Twilight mused, cradling her chin with her hoof, "if it would listen to anypony, then I could just ask it to follow me home, and I'd be happy to study it there."

Applejack winced, biting her lip. "So yer saying that Ah need to..."

"Get Apple Bloom to make it listen to me. Or at least to make it stay at the library," Twilight said with a nod and a smile. She really didn't care where she had to be in order to study the automata as long as she had access to it and it didn't treat her as a threat. Just the thought of being able to observe such a marvel of technology nearly made her giddy.

Applejack wasn't nearly so happy. Apple Bloom could be as stubborn as any other Apple, and she had obviously taken a strong liking to the infernal contraption. Which wouldn't have been such a big problem if the feeling didn't seem to be mutual. Getting her to give it up to Twilight willingly was going to be an uphill battle.

Glancing over at the alien device in question, Applejack was surprised to notice two new ponies staring in wonder at it. One was a cream-colored earth pony with a mane in two colors, while the other was a gray pegasus with a blonde mane and yellow eyes that seemed to be staring in two directions at once.

"Wait, what're Bon Bon and Derpy doin' here?" Applejack asked, finally raising her head away from her hushed conversation with Twilight.

"They're here for the party, silly filly!" Pinkie said, bouncing by with a tray of cupcakes on her head. "Ponies have already started showing up!"

Applejack groaned. "And yer gonna hold it here and now, huh?" She didn't especially mind hosting parties on her farm, but she doubted it would help get the extraterrestrial probe out the door any sooner.

"Don't worry, Crabapple wants to keep the party small, so I only invited a dozen other ponies!" Pinkie chirped, handing a cupcake to Twilight. "She says that more than twenty-five ponies in a building this size constitutes a fire hazard, especially with psykers around!"

Twilight hesitantly took up the cupcake with her magic. "Psykers? What's that?"

"Dunno! Ooh, there's Berry! Laters!"

Pinkie Pie quickly tossed a cupcake toward Applejack, bolting across the room to welcome the new guests.

Applejack watched her go, and then glanced toward Twilight. "So Pinkie can definitely-"

"The answer is NO, Applejack!" Twilight snapped, looking annoyed at having to once again refute Pinkie's apparent expertise in interacting with alien cybernetic beings. "Anyway, it looks like I won't be getting any time tonight to study it in detail, but I'm sure observing it in a social setting will yield some interesting data too. Is it okay if I spend the night?"

"Sure thing, sugarcube," Applejack said, taking a bite out of her own cupcake, "it's not gonna be a problem fer ya?"

"Nope!" Twilight said brightly. "I can stay here as long as I need to! I don't have any particular reason to go back home anytime soon!"

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

"Twilight! I'm back!"

Spike opened the front door to the treehouse, looking quite winded as he dragged a cart nearly as big as he was behind him.

"Sorry it took so long. I had to borrow a cart from Carrot Top to carry every... thing... back......"

Spike trailed off as he stared at the empty interior of the library, searching for any sight or sound of the ponies he had been shopping for.

Not so much as a note.

"... Seriously?"

Second Contact

Iron Hearts

Chapter 2

Second Contact

****

Centaur III - Cloudsdale

Derpy yawned lightly as she soared through the air, her mail bag swinging behind her as she went about her daily route.

Her wings flapped more slowly than usual, and more than once she had felt herself nod off only to be awakened by smacking into the side of a house. Still, Derpy persevered, pushing onward toward the end of her route.

The "Welcome to Equestria, Alien Robot" party had run long last night, and there were more than a few ponies who would be getting a late start this morning. It had been fun, although the alien robot itself hadn't really taken center stage during the festivities. It mostly just stood next to Apple Bloom and said hello to ponies with that weird red beam. Eventually it had just become a normal party with an exotic decoration sitting in the middle.

Still, despite the early hour and her flagging consciousness, Derpy went about her daily tasks. The mail needed to be delivered, and would wait for nopony.

Luckily, her exhaustion didn't effect her accuracy much, which was still holding at well above seventy percent. At this rate she would be done by noon, and then get in a much-needed nap.

She had just finished delivering a batch of letters to Cloud-something-or-other (honestly, there were far too many pegasi named "Cloud" for her to do her job perfectly), when one of her misaligned eyes noticed something in the distance that gleamed in the rising sun.

Derpy halted, and a few other pegasi that were up this early for whatever reason likewise noticed.

Those others didn't catch sight of the object because of the minute flash of light against its body, though. It had only been there an instant, and peripheral vision was kind of Derpy's specialty.

No, they saw the descending object because it was Celestia-damned HUGE.

Despite the distance, which must have been several kilometers at least, the metal vessel making a slow descent into the atmosphere dominated the skyline out of sheer bulk. Small flares of light from all around the object marked the descent of craft that weren't the size of cities, and were thus almost invisible from this distance.

The winged ponies with the good fortune to see such a grand sight stared with jaws slack as the craft sunk beneath the cloud cover, the sheer size of the vessel punching a hole in the sky and incidentally setting the weather factory's schedule off by three hours due to changes in the wind currents from mass displacement.

Derpy scratched her head as the towers of the manufactorum colonization ship and its escorts sunk out of sight. Then, with a shrug, she went back to her route. Hopefully Pinkie wouldn't throw the new arrivals a party right away; a few more mornings like this one wouldn't be good for her health, much less her career.

****

Sweet Apple Acres

"No way! Nothin' doin'!"

Applejack had expected this. She had prepared for this. Everything was going exactly as planned.

"Ya can't make Crabapple leave! Ya just can't!"

Then why did she feel like she was losing?

Applejack rubbed her forehead with her hoof. "Bloom, Ah ain't gonna budge on this. We ain't keepin' the space doohickey."

"But why NOT?" Apple Bloom demanded, tears already crawling down her cheeks as she hugged the leg of the probe automata.

"Lotsa reasons! Fer starters, she ain't ours! She just happened ta crash on our land!"

"But she ain't Twilight's either! Ya said ya wanna give her over ta Twilight!" Apple Bloom protested, pointing a hoof at her older sister accusingly.

Applejack rolled her eyes, but steeled herself to continue. She had already resigned herself to this fight.

Really, it wouldn't be so bad if she had some kind of support, but nopony seemed inclined to help her talk her sister down. Twilight was staring closely at Crabapple's sensor array and silently taking notes, apparently oblivious to everything else. Big Macintosh was out doing their farmwork that had been delayed by Crabapple's arrival, but he wasn't that good at standing up to his baby sister anyway.

Granny Smith had just remarked that she didn't think they really needed one those newfangled trash compactors and then started on breakfast.

"Okay, then who's gonna take care of her?" Applejack asked, eyebrow raised.

"Ah could!" Apple Bloom said immediately.

"An how's that? Ya know what she eats? Or how ta take care o' her when she's injured?"

The youngest Apple hesitated, pausing to wipe the tears from her eyes. "Well, no, but nopony knows that!"

"Actually, the chances of it being 'injured' are pretty low," Twilight mumbled, apparently listening in as she wrote, "the metal plating acts as a sealed carapace, and even the joints are-"

"Thank ya Twi, ya can shut up now," Applejack deadpanned, "Bloom, even if ya COULD take care o' her, what if her owners come a-knockin'? They might not be too happy 'bout you filchin' one o' their toys, and Ah won't be too happy 'bout having MORE space gizmos on the farm."

"Well... can't we keep 'er until they show up?" Apple Bloom begged.

Crabapple blurted something in Binary, and Applejack spoke a mental prayer that the contraption would stop speaking. Not only was its language grating on the ears, but the timing of its "speech" suggested that it was trying to join in their discussion. She didn't really want to consider that the probe might get a say in this.

"If they show up, they might not be comin' to have a friendly chat, sugarcube," Applejack warned solemnly, "if they're gonna find Crabapple, Ah'd rather they find 'er being studied by Twilight, with all 'er magic and a direct line to Princess Celestia herself, not playing with mah baby sister."

"But that ain't FAIR!" Apple Bloom insisted, stamping her hoof.

Crabapple seemed to get agitated as well, and it spit out a discordant screech of scrapcode as it stamped a leg on the floor of the barn in imitation of its mistress.

Applejack had to fight to keep from bucking the blasted thing right out the barn doors. The more it complained, or whatever it was doing, the less it seemed like a foreign machine and more like a loyal pet, which was precisely the outcome Applejack was trying to avoid.

"Apple Bloom, what if I offered to bring it back?" Twilight said suddenly, causing Applejack to nearly collapse from a combination of relief and frustration.

Apple Bloom wiped her eyes and turned toward the alicorn. "What's that?"

Twilight was staring closely at the small break in the ground where the probe had stamped its leg. "I want to study this machine as much as possible, and that's going to be harder to do here. So why don't you let me take it... uhm, her, for a few days? If no other visitors come for her and I don't find any other reason that she might be dangerous, Applejack wouldn't have much reason to kick Crabapple out, would she?"

As Apple Bloom sniffled and considered the offer, Applejack stepped over to Twilight and lowered her voice so that her little sister couldn't hear.

"Twi, whose side are ya on, here?"

Twilight rolled her eyes, and didn't bother to whisper when she replied. "I'm on whatever side gets this worked out so I can get Crabapple to respond to my orders. If I can get it... HER to cooperate, that will make the experiments I have in mind much easier."

Apple Bloom looked up at Crabapple, looking sad but no longer crying. "Ya promise ya won't hurt her?"

"Of course!" Twilight assured the yellow filly, placing a hoof to her chest.

"Ya Pinkie Promise?" Applebloom asked.

This time Twilight winced. "Uh... Well, I would, but Pinkie isn't here, to, uhm, note the Promise, so..." she trailed off as both Applejack and Apple Bloom shifted their gazes slightly to something just off to the side.

"She's behind me, isn't she?" Twilight sighed.

The Apple sisters nodded.

"Pinkie, what are you still doing here?" Twilight asked. "I thought everypony else went home."

"Not quite! Me and Rainbow Dash slept in the loft!" Pinkie said brightly, looking quite chipper about it.

"Don't you have to work today?" the alicorn asked, determined to avoid the potential calamities of a Pinkie Promise. Sure, she wasn't PLANNING on hurting Crabapple, but accidents did happen sometimes... especially when magic was involved.

Pinkie Pie giggled, waving a hoof in the air. "It's fine! I get special time off work for saving Equestria!"

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "But Equestria isn't in danger," she pointed out, before furrowing her brow and adding, "is it?"

"Nope! But I read the plot outline notes already, so I'm planning ahead!" the pink earth pony said, sticking out her tongue. "So you can go ahead and make that Pinkie Promise! I'm here to watch!"

Twilight didn't know what she was talking about, but that wasn't anything new. "Urgh... fine. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," Twilight recited, making the appropriate motions with her hooves, "there. Is that good enough?"

Apple Bloom nodded somberly, but then gazed up at Crabapple sadly. "Can she at least stay fer today? Ah wanna show Sweetie Bell and Scootaloo this afternoon."

Twilight grimaced. She certainly didn't want those three fussing over the extraterrestrial device in her library. "Is that okay, Applejack?"

"Fine, fine. Ah guess that's as good as it's gonna get," the orange pony agreed reluctantly, "but if we end up with aliens tromping all over the farm, yer gettin' the mother of all 'Ah told ya so's."

"Hooray! Thanks sis!" Apple Bloom cheered, kicking up in the air before hugging one leg of the probe automata. "Ya hear that, Crabapple? We have another day to play!"

+Commander jubilation detected. Speech analysis has determined expectation of shared enthusiasm. Generating joy...... Complete. Wheeee.+

"Ugh, every time it says somethin' it sounds like a whole nest o' bees goin' mad or somethin'," Applejack grumbled, "Ah'm gonna go wake up Dash. Ah need somepony to complain to."

"Really AJ, you can relax," Twilight said as the farmpony stepped toward the barn exit, "even if we don't know the scope of the extra-terrestrial presence, it's quite unlikely that they're all going to converge on Sweet Apple Acres," the alicorn reasoned.

"Ah hope so, Twi," Applejack grumbled, "Ah sure hope so."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - Outskirts

*Target confirmed, Shas'el. We've detected the enemy unit within easy striking distance of this location. What are your orders?*

Deep within the Apple family's orchard, several Tau Fire Warriors stood around the scorch mark on the ground that marked the probe automata's landing site.

The creatures were quite near to human in form, if not stature. Each of the Fire Warriors was dressed in combat armor, a suit of poly-ceramic plates that gave ample protection to the torso and shoulders, and came complete with a crested helmet that boasted two vertically stacked optic sensors which fed into their visual displays. The alien warriors keeping guard all carried pulse rifles over their shoulders; powerful, accurate energy weapons that were almost as long as each of them were tall.

These Tau were painted in the colors of their command Sept: blue with black trim, and their squad leader had a communications hub mounted on his backpack.

*What has your recon team reported, Shas-ui?* crackled his communicator.

*The Kroot have discovered a facility on the edge of this forest. It is consistent with what I remember of gue'la agricultural structures, if not unusually primitive.*

*Strange...* the voice on the other end crackled, *this world was not supposed to be colonized by the gue'la already. It is far from the Damocles sector and their frontier systems.*

*And the freighter fleet we ambushed was not supposed to be well protected,* the squad leader said wryly, *such assumptions have cost us a great deal already. We must complete our mission here, and those probes are a crucial threat.*

*Agreed. Strike fast, and then round up the auxiliaries. Try to avoid collateral damage if you can. We haven't explored this world extensively, and we wish to conceal our presence as completely as possible.* With an irritated snort, the communication link went dead.

The squad leader took a deep breath as he hoisted his pulse carbine. He spoke lightly of the catastrophe in the Centaur system, but the loss had been devastating for them, not to mention quite rattling. The Imperium of Man (the gue'la, to the Tau), had never put much stock in the art of subtlety before, and they had taken the humans' lack of finesse for granted. As a result, now their entire mission was in danger.

But still, having Astartes hide in disguised freighters like pirates? Who DOES that?

*We move, shas'la. Check your weapons,* the team leader ordered, taking a large disk off of his backpack and pressing several buttons on the side. Within seconds the disk's antigravity engine came to life and it floated away from his hands as sensor fins unfolded from the drone.

*Approach in stealth, Fire Warriors. Our mission awaits.*

****

Sweet Apple Acres - fields

"I really don't see what the big deal is," Rainbow Dash admitted as she followed Applejack over the soil. The latter was planting seeds as she vented to the former, who was flying in lazy circles overhead. "If your sister wants to keep the space trash can, why not let her?"

"Of course ya don't see what the big deal is," Applejack grunted as she tamped down a spread of seeds, "jus' like Ah didn't think aliens were a big deal when Twilight was goin' nuts about 'em. When the blasted things start roamin' yer property, ya start ta see things differently."

Rainbow Dash did a barrel roll while hovering, looking bored. "Well, it didn't do any harm, did it?"

"It drilled mah tree!"

"Yeah, okay, fine, BESIDES that one tree," the pegasus rolled her eyes.

Applejack grimaced as she dropped another smattering of seeds to the earth.

"Ah just... Ah've got an awful bad feelin' about that thing. Ya know? Like something's just not right about it. Crabapple gives me the willies somethin' fierce. Even puttin' aside that 'she' is some kinda space toaster." She pushed some dirt over the seeds and then moved on to the next patch of land.

"Yeah, okay, I guess I understand that," Rainbow Dash allowed, "I kind of get the same feeling about the way it talks, you know? Like sometimes its tone changes to that really nasty grating sound, and it makes my fur crawl. But come on, your sister loves that thing. You could at least give it a chance."

"That's exactly what Ah'm doin'. Not that Ah had much say in it," the orange mare grunted as she spread the last of the seeds, "this was supposed to be Twilight's thing. All Ah want to do is work mah farm in peace."

Shaking her head, the earth pony walked back to the barn.

"Well, maybe a few days without her will let you calm down," Rainbow said with a smirk as she floated up next to her earthbound friend and patted her mane.

"Aw, whatever. 'Least Ah got mah barn back," Applejack mumbled as she approached the structure.

A growling noise stopped her short.

"Hey, what was that?" Rainbow Dash asked, her ears twitching. As both ponies halted, they could hear a series of soft grunting and tearing noises, followed by the occasional dull snapping sound.

"What in tarnation?" Applejack stared at the barn door and then stepped forward with a frown, pushing it open with her hoof. "Winona, is that you? What've you got yer paws on this time?"

It was not Winona.

The creature standing near the barn entrance was unlike anything Applejack had ever seen before. It was bipedal, tall, and had a leathery hide with small clusters of thick quills in place of hair. Its head sported a full crest of the quills, and had a large, serrated beak for a mouth that was dripping blood as the creature turned to stare at the newcomers.

Yes, blood. The alien was standing over a carcass, the kill still fresh and the gore streaked across the floor of the barn.

A soft, woolly carcass.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - orchard perimeter

*Target sighted. Upload drone visual feed, Shas'la.*

*Confirmed, Shas'ui. I see it.*

The Fire Warriors kept their backs pressed against the apple trees, staying completely out of sight of the farmstead as their recon drone peeked down at the scene from the boughs. Their helmets had their communications locked to each other, and even then they whispered to avoid any chance of detection.

*What are those things around it? Native fauna?*

*Those are horses, Shas'la. I saw a few of them when I faced the gue'la resistance on Devstille. The gue'la raise them and sometimes ride them into battle. Swift creatures, but they can't take a pulse round any better than their masters.* The squad leader hesitated. *Although those weren't so... colorful. And they were much larger. I assume these are local mutations of the genus.*

*Does that one have WINGS?*

*Very elaborate mutations, it would seem.*

*Are they talking to each other? They can talk?*

*Can we get on with this?*

One of the Fire Warriors raised his rifle. *Shas'ui, we strike on your order.*

*Wait for the Kroot to regroup. And avoid hitting the horses, if you can. No reason to agitate the locals.*

Several meters away, Twilight was scratching her head as Crabapple's sensor array started rotating wildly, followed by constant, and LOUD, bursts of Binary. Apple Bloom and Pinkie sat behind her, the former looking worried while the latter had her hooves over her ears.

"Twilight, what's wrong with 'er? Is she sick?" Apple Bloom asked sadly, standing up against the probe's leg.

+Multiple xeno bio-forms detected! Scans are consistent with Tau genus! Weapon signatures detected! Enemy drone energy signature detected! Contact imminent! Danger!+

Twilight shook her head. "As far as I can tell, she can't get 'sick'. I think she's just trying to tell us something."

"Well, can she tell us something without that awful noise?" Pinkie asked, gritting her teeth.

"Wait, can't ya understand her?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Of course not! I already told you, that would make no sense!" Pinkie replied.

"But-"

"Apple Bloom, stop trying to figure Pinkie out, it's hopeless," Twilight assured her, pointing a hoof toward Crabapple, "help me out with Crabapple before something bad happens. We need to-"

And then something bad happened.

"MAH SHEEEEEEEP!!!"

All three ponies jumped at the scream of rage, and they whirled around toward the barn, where the furious shout had originated.

A mere second later part of the barn wall exploded into splinters, and their eyes widened as an unfamiliar body went flying from the building before bouncing limply across the ground.

Twilight gaped as she stared at the bloodied corpse that now lay on the road next to the farmstead, noting the bizarre features of the creature and the deep hoofprints on its chest.

"Whoa! I think you broke it in half!" Rainbow Dash said, swooping down from over the barn.

"APPLEJACK!" Twilight shouted, very nearly as angry as the orange mare stalking out of the new hole in her barn. "Do you HAVE to greet every single extraterrestrial by bucking its cranium in?"

"Now don't you gimme that, Twi," Applejack said through clenched teeth, "that rotten space varmint killed one o' mah sheep!"

"You didn't have to kill it back!" Twilight insisted, walking up to the earth pony and glaring at her. "It could have been a cultural misunderstanding!"

"The misunderstandin' was that it thought it could butcher mah animals and walk away in one piece!" Applejack was not backing down this time, Twilight's fascination with alien life-forms be damned.

"First impression of ponykind, Applejack!"

"And Ah want that impression ta be 'STAY OFF MAH FARM'!"

Surely their argument would escalated further, but a pair of pulse rifle discharges behind them startled the ponies out of their argument.

Of everypony - or rather, everything - in the area, only Crabapple was paying attention as a pair of Fire Warriors leaned out from behind the apple trees and fired, and it had long ago concluded that its master and her associates couldn't understand its Binary-speak (the pink one notwithstanding).

Desperate to protect its mistress, Crabapple quickly moved to shield Apple Bloom from the incoming shots, unaware that they had been aimed at it in the first place.

The first struck the outer plating of its leg, and the energy bolt cut a shallow streak into the adamantium outer shielding, inflicting no real damage.

The second, however, struck Crabapple's body, piercing the main plating before exploding into its main reactor cooling unit.

The ponies whirled around just in time to see the burst of sparks jet from the new hole in the probe's body, and Apple Bloom's eyes bugged out.

"Crabapple! Are you okay?" Apple Bloom demanded in a panic.

"The machine! No, no, NO!" Twilight cried, equally upset for completely different reasons.

Applejack wasn't really concerned about the probe, predictably, but the fur on the back of her neck stood on end as she caught sight of the blue-and-black armored figures pointing their weapons out from behind her apple trees.

Crabapple sputtered wildly, its legs shaking as shrieks of Binary came from its auditory projector.

+Negative. Critical damage sustained. Reactor shutdown imminent. Generating regrets... complete.+

The coolant unit finally blew out of the main body in a burst of flame and shattered plating, throwing the entire automata on its side and causing the ponies to flinch back.

"Crabapple! Crabapple, get up!" Apple Bloom cried, racing over to the probe and standing against its leg as smoke belched from the damaged reactor.

+Mission... failed...+ Crabapple said in stuttering Binary, its sensors beginning to dim. +Forgive... me... App... le... Bloooooooooooo...+

"CRABAPPLE!" the filly shouted as the lights went dark, tears streaming down her face as she screamed to the heavens. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

The Tau Fire Warriors stared at the uncomfortably dramatic scene wordlessly, steam still seeping from the barrels of their pulse rifles as they peeked out from behind the apple trees.

*Okay, this is getting weird,* one of the soldiers said, looking away from the bizarre sight.

*Should... Should I apologize?* asked the Fire Warrior who had scored the kill, glancing at the squad leader.

*Of course not. Fall back and prepare to regroup, Shas'la.*

Deactivating the link that allowed him to view the target area through the drone's eyes, the squad leader turned around and prepared to lead his team back into the orchard.

He froze almost immediately, staring into the narrowed eyes of a rather large, red pony.

*Gah! How'd that one get there?*

*It, uh, looks mad, Shas'ui.*

Big Macintosh snorted, saying nothing as he stepped forward with his eyes fixed on the squad leader.

Said soldier silently cursed his warriors for getting so caught up watching the horses that they had allowed themselves to be flanked. Thinking quickly, he tried to recall some of the lessons in Gothic he had learned while working with the humans, since it seemed that these strange mutant horses spoke the same language.

"Uh, it... was for... the Greater GUGH!"

His excuse was cut short as Big Mac rammed his head forward, plowing the Fire Warrior into a tree and very nearly crushing the veteran's torso under his armor. His pulse carbine bounced onto the ground, unused.

The other fire warriors started to react, bringing their guns to bear, but Macintosh was already among them, and much faster than the aliens.

One Tau was unlucky enough to catch Big Mac's back hooves to his chest plate, and his ribs didn't fare nearly as well as the squad leader's as he went flying back into another of his squadmates.

One soldier, trying to back away to a sane distance, tripped over a root and ended up discharging his rifle skyward, slashing through the branches overhead. Another tried to fire point-blank as Macintosh charged at him, but the red pony batted the rifle aside with his snout and it fired off to the side, nearly spearing another Fire Warrior with the missed shot.

*Back up! Back up!*

*Take firing positions! Stay away from it!*

The three Fire Warriors that could still move darted away to get some distance as their squadmate cried out in pain from being smashed into the ground repeatedly by Mac's front hooves.

On the fourth try of stamping the intruder's helmeted face, Big Mac felt the armored dome crack underneath him (possibly something else had cracked under his attack as well, but he didn't want to dwell on that just yet), and he promptly bolted away just before a streak of blue seared into the tree next to him.

One Fire Warrior stumbled out of the orchard toward the road, his weapon pointing toward the trees, and only realized that he was in full view of all the other ponies when some of them started shouting at him.

"Hey, jerk! What do you think you're doing?"

"Get 'em, big brother!"

"If you even think about shootin' at Mac Ah'm gonna lay ya out on the road next to that other one, ya hear?"

The Fire Warrior whirled around, his pulse rifle wavering from the multitude of colored ponies that were glaring at him.

*Stay back! Tell the big one to stand down!* the Tau shouted, his aim centering on the orange one with the rather silly hat. It was glaring at it the most obviously, and although he couldn't understand a word any of them were saying, he could swear her incoherent shouting sounded the most violent.

Twilight bit her lip, sweat starting to bead on her fur. This whole situation was coming undone very quickly, and if she didn't do something quickly somepony was going to get hurt. Hurt BADLY, judging by the hole in Crabapple's body. She didn't like the thought of something that could break through those metals hitting an unprotected pony.

"This has to be some kind of misunderstanding!" Twilight shouted, her horn starting to glow. "Put down your weapons, please!"

*What are you doing? Get down, now!* the fire warrior shouted. Where the blazes were the Kroot? Besides the one pasted on the road, anyway.

Twilight grimaced, deciding that she wasn't going to have much success yelling at the alien when it didn't understand her and had a weapon aimed at her friends.

She couldn't do much about the first problem, but the second was easy to fix. So she fixed it.

The Fire Warrior gaped from behind his helmet as his pulse rifle was suddenly surrounded by a soft purple glow and pulled upward into the air, out of his grasp.

The ponies started a new round of yelling at him, but he wasn't listening. He stared at his rifle, floating just out of reach, and then glanced dumbly at the purple winged pony whose horn glowed with an unnatural light.

And then he spoke. The word he spoke was Gothic, for the Tau had no word for, and barely any understanding of, this unnatural power within their own species. They had learned it from others, most notably the humans. And just as the humans had taught them their words for such power they had also taught them their fears when facing such powers on the battlefield.

"PSYKER!" the alien screamed, pointing his glove at the surprised alicorn. *Shas'la! Volley fire, now!*

"Psyker? What is a psy-WAUGH!" Twilight summoned her shield as the two other active Fire Warriors dashed from the orchard, already firing their pulse rifles wildly. Bolts of flaming blue spattered against the barrier and exploded into crackling electrical arcs, and Twilight winced as she felt the strain of her barrier absorbing the energy.

"Ooh, pretty!" Pinkie said as she stared at the energy flares, which frankly RUINED the heroic drama of the situation.

"All right, you alien freaks, that does it!" Rainbow Dash said, darting through the air at the Fire Warrior that had been magically disarmed.

The alien soldier had rushed for his pulse rifle as soon as Twilight's concentration broke, but no sooner had he placed a hand on it than the blue pegasus landed square on his back, smashing the Tau to the ground.

She was going to take off again and then dive at the next one when she saw Big Macintosh sprint out of the orchard. A few seconds later, she saw why: there were three of those other, taller aliens chasing him, and they screeched noisily in their nonsense language as they swung large bladed rifles at him.

"I gotcha, Mac!" the pegasus shouted, taking off to buzz the more naked aliens. She figured Twilight could handle herself for a little bit until she could double back to save her, too.

On the edge of the orchard, the Tau squad leader groaned as he pushed himself to his feet, one arm draped around his abdomen as his other retrieved his pulse carbine from the ground. He didn't know what was going on, but he had heard the cry of "psyker" and could hear the steady stream of pulse rifle fire along with a number of angry shouts from the strange talking horses.

He also heard something else. Something that worried him even more than the equine aliens currently attacking his troops. The sound of a heavy engine, the kind that propelled armored vehicles. It was disturbingly close, too; if his men weren't stuck in the middle of a firefight, he was sure they'd be bolting for the trees already.

Staggering out from behind the (slightly scorched) apple tree, the fire warrior veteran shouted his orders.

*Shas'la! Auxiliaries! Cease fire! Fall back!*

The Fire Warriors halted instantly, glancing back at their leader, but the Kroot were not so disciplined and continued chasing the large red pony across a tilled field. The blue flying one kept dive-bombing the carnivores and kicking at them with its hooves, and the mercenaries returned fire sporadically while spitting threats (both of them equally effective, as they stood almost no chance of shooting down something so fast).

*I said fall back!* he reiterated, waving his hand toward the trees. *We have gue'la armor incoming!*

Twilight breathed heavily as the two aliens that had been shooting at her stopped and made a break for the soldier that Rainbow Dash had beaten up, grabbing his arms to carry him away.

Her shield had held, but it had been a near thing; holding up a barrier against that much energy had given her a bad headache to go along with the disappointment of fighting the aliens as soon as they'd appeared.

"Hey, they're leavin'!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"Bye bye! I'll throw you guys a 'Please Stop Shooting at my Friends' party next time, okay?" Pinkie shouted, waving a hoof.

"They're runnin'! Let's finish 'em off!" Applejack growled, stepping forward. The freckled pony was very nearly in a frenzy, utterly furious about having to hide behind Twilight's shield as the extraterrestrials had poured fire on them.

"AJ, wait!" Twilight gasped. "Just let them go! It's too... what's that noise?"

Turning her head, Twilight was treated to the lovely sight of a brand new alien machine, which surely would have made her giddy under much different circumstances.

It was big, perhaps the size of a small room, and its brushed steel exterior and beaten gold trim gleamed brilliantly in the light as it turned the corner around the farmstead, making a straight line for the Tau. It was carried forward on treads rather than wheels, and on its front facing was painted the symbol of a grinning silver skull.

The same symbol painted on Crabapple's leg.

"Xenos! Open fire!" the gunner's hatch burst open as a human wearing a black hood and an optics visor took up the Rhino's combi-bolter, swiveling the turret to aim at the Fire Warriors carrying their dazed squadmate into the orchard.

He pulled the trigger, and the combi-bolter roared to life as it hammered the Fire Warriors with twin bursts of mass-reactive rounds. One of them folded almost instantly under the barrage as the shells broke apart his armor and pulverized his body, with the wounded Tau catching enough of the resulting shrapnel to finish the job that Rainbow had started.

The remaining soldier dropped the bloody remains of his squadmate and bolted for the trees, barely staying ahead of the next salvo of bolter shells.

"Fire! Fire!" the top hatch of the Rhino opened up, and more humans - all of them wearing hoods, masks, and rebreathers - aimed lasguns out at the Kroot who were chasing some kind of animals out in the field.

Two of the aliens dropped from the first shots, the humans having a perfect firing angle on them and the warriors themselves distracted. The last Kroot dashed away, abandoning his hunt and running behind the farmstead to get around the Rhino's line of fire.

*Down! Get down!* the veteran Fire Warrior shouted. There were four more Kroot arriving behind him, attracted by the noise of combat, and the only other remaining Fire Warrior had just reached the partial safety of the trees. Small arms fire wouldn't do much to an Imperial APC, however, and as bolter shells started to rip apart the apple trees, he tapped into his communicator.

*Shas'el! We have been sighted by a gue'la fire team! We have an enemy transport! We require extraction!*

*Fall back to the rendezvous point, Shas'ui. Your Devilfish will meet you there.*

*We won't make it!* he shouted into his helmet as streaks of hot red light started stabbing into the trees all around him and his remaining troops. *The enemy has us outnumbered and has a transport!*

*Support cannot reach you in time, Shas'ui. The Kroot have heavier support nearby, but I advise retreat.*

The veteran winced. When his commander started "advising" him to retreat in the face of overwhelming enemy firepower without giving an order, he was giving the Fire Warrior permission to make a last stand.

*Be advised, Shas'el, we have completed our mission here. The enemy probe is destroyed.* The volume of incoming lasfire had increased considerably, and he had to guess that the humans had disembarked to better spread their fire. The Kroot were firing back enthusiastically, but two had already died during his conversation with command, and the Rhino's combi-bolter was keeping his surviving squadmate pinned behind the trees.

*You have succeeded then, Shas'ui. The Greater Good thanks you.*

The link went dead just as his final squadmate took a lasbolt to the side of the helmet and keeled over backward.

The squad leader stepped to the side of the tree he was behind, immediately firing off a photon grenade into the midst of the squad of humans.

Even as his opponents flinched back from the stunning flare of lights, they continued firing forward blindly, and the wild spread of lasbolts scored two hits against his torso armor as he lined up his carbine. Not enough to break it, and as such, not enough to stop him.

Three shots fired, and three humans collapsed with smoking holes in their chests. As they fell, however, the veteran Tau couldn't help but dwell on their attire; very different from the standard Imperial armor, these humans were all wearing hoods, masks, and dark red overcoats that offered even less protection than the generally unreliable flak armor given to basic human infantry. Were they not military? Or was this some sort of militia force?

A thick streaming laser speared him through the bicep, and the Fire Warrior suppressed a scream as his arm went limp, nearly severed from his shoulder. His carbine fell onto the ground at his feet, and the Tau veteran joined it a moment later, clutching the wound.

*Mission complete... I have served my purpose for the Greater Good, Aun'va,* the Tau mumbled, his chest heaving as he sat on his rear.

He was expecting the humans to gun him down the moment they recovered their sight, but to his surprise they instead marched past him, taking cover amongst the trees and immediately forming a firing line. They were on guard against further enemy activity, and the Fire Warrior had to respect the act of basic tactical discipline.

As another pair of humans dragged the bodies of their dead to the Rhino, he saw a unique figure step up to observe him.

Robed in black rubber amongst the muddy red of her unit, and boasting a pair of augmetic limbs hanging over her shoulders, it was difficult to mistake the Techpriest for another mundane soldier. In her hands she hoisted a crackling power axe while a gilded plasma pistol was mag-locked to the thigh of her power armor.

The veteran recognized her type. The Imperium's bizarre engineer-cultists were well-known to the Tau Empire. But why was such a person attached to a band of militia or pirates?

"You, xeno. Do you speak Gothic?" Gaela asked, her green optics glaring down at the alien from her mask.

He spoke just enough to understand her, and also knew the phrase "I don't speak Gothic", which was vital for those that didn't intend to learn much else of the human language. He elected to remain silent, however.

"... I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and take that as a 'no'. But that excuse won't work during your interrogation," the Dark Acolyte said, turning toward a rifleman. "This one has rank markings. Bind it and take it into the Rhino." She leaned over and picked up the Tau's pulse carbine as he was led away, and then snorted under her mask.

Turning toward their objective, she walked over to a pair of soldiers looking over the automata.

"Looks like they got this one, too," one the men grunted, tapping the barrel of his lasgun against the hole in the probe's carapace plating.

"That's three so far," growled the other man, his voice heavily distorted by the heavy-duty rebreather over his mouth, "the xenos have been one step ahead of us at every turn."

"Well, half a step in this case, since we caught them before they could extract."

Gaela tilted her head to one side. Her sensors (and basic visual scrutiny) were picking up the telltale signs of pulse weapon impacts, but only in two spots: one in the coolant unit and another on the leg plating.

"They only shot the automata twice," Gaela said evenly.

"That's all it takes, right?" one of the soldiers asked. "These things aren't made to take fire."

"Nor are they equipped to fight off military units," Gaela agreed, turning to look into the forest. Through her optics she could see the ion static discharges hovering in the air, a particulate after-image of the Fire Warriors' fusillade. She could even see one of the men searching the body of a dead Tau whose limp body hadn't suffered any visible lasgun burns, much less bolter impacts.

"By my calculations, the automata didn't even get to defend itself before it was dispatched, as expected... but then... who were the xenos fighting before we arrived?"

"So, I have a new theory as to the particulars of the alien presence in Equestria," Twilight said to her friends as they huddled behind a window sill in Applejack's home.

"Oh, DO TELL," Applejack replied, her sarcasm as heavy as her accent. They were all peeking over the sill, trying to get a good look at the unfolding catastrophe without attracting the attention of the new arrivals. Big Macintosh seemed less interested, and was in the kitchen wiping a shallow gash behind his shoulder.

Granny Smith was baking a pie, mumbling about foals these days playing with their noisy toys and causing a ruckus. Nopony paid her any mind.

Twilight sighed. "If I'm right, that means that this was a misunderstanding, just like I said. The aliens in the blue and black suits and the ones with beaks seem to have come here to attack Crabapple, and didn't mean to pick a fight with us. The other aliens have the same marking on their vehicle that Crabapple has on her leg, so they're probably the owners. They came to retrieve her, and then attacked the other aliens that shot her."

"So yer sayin' that all of 'em are shootin' up mah farm 'cause o' that alien garbage tin?" Applejack asked.

"Well, yes, but-"

"Which means Ah was right all along," the orange mare said dryly.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay, yes. Fine. You were right. But you and Big Mac didn't have to attack them like that."

"Ya go explain that ta the rest o' mah sheep if ya care so much about these space creeps," Applejack said without a shred of remorse, "now where's Apple Bloom? Ah owe her an ear fulla 'Ah told ya so'."

"So, what I don't get is why we're hiding," Rainbow Dash said, glancing at Twilight, "I mean, aren't these aliens on our side?"

"No, because we're not on a 'side'!" Twilight said firmly. "That entire fight just now was an accident!"

"It didn't look like they were trying to shoot you by accident to me," the pegasus said with an angry snort.

"That's not-! Okay, look, we can't just jump into the middle of a war between two species we've just met! Or whatever is going on here! The only thing we know about either of these races is that one of them seems to speak our language!" Twilight paused, furrowing her brow. "Which is really weird, now that I think about it."

"Sounds like a pretty good start to being on the same side to me," Rainbow said with a shrug.

"Okay, seriously, WHERE is Apple Bloom?" Applejack demanded, twisting her head back and forth.

"Oh, she's over there!" Pinkie said, jumping on top of Twilight's back and pointing a hoof out the window at an angle the other ponies couldn't easily see. "It looks like she wants to talk to those aliens who are totally on our side but not really!"

Applejack's eyes bugged out even as Twilight tried to shake Pinkie off of her.

"BLOOOOM!!"

Gaela whirled around at the shout, snapping up the plasma pistol from her thigh as her optics array locked onto the window.

Four riflemen took up position at her sides, their lasguns at the ready as she scanned the building.

"Life signs. Xeno." Gaela frowned as her optics switched to thermal view, showing her several red and yellow blobs shifting around behind the wall.

"Not Tau..." she lowered the pistol. Her mission was in serious danger of failure, and she didn't have the time or ammunition to waste on fighting random aliens that seemed intent on hiding from her.

She turned back toward the probe, and then the Dark Acolyte froze in her tracks.

Standing on the edge of the automata, with its tiny front hooves placed atop the machine's unmoving leg, was what she could swear was a tiny yellow horse. It had a dark red mane that was tied up with a bow, and was staring directly into the neon-green glare of her optics array as it sniffled.

"Do ya think ya can help her, Mr. Alien?"

It also spoke Gothic, apparently. Because, really, why not.

The riflemen all stopped aiming their guns at the farmstead to stare at the pony, no one moving or speaking for a good twenty seconds as Apple Bloom wiped away a stray tear with her hoof. Even the ones that had been holding a firing line on the edge of the orchard abandoned their military discipline and turned to watch.

Finally, one of the men next to Gaela turned toward his squadmate. "You know, I always figured that when all the Warp exposure and daemonic corruption finally caught up with me and drove me insane that it would be pretty awful." He turned his head back and stared down at the pony. "This is actually kinda nice."

"You're not hallucinating," Gaela deadpanned as her optics did a complete close-range scan of the yellow creature, "yet."

"Mr. Alien?" Apple Bloom asked with wide, glistening eyes. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Gaela dropped down to one knee to stare at the pony more closely, and the servo arm over her shoulder started to shift. The hydraulic claw clanked shut briefly, and then surged forward.

The series of gasps from the farmhouse would have been entirely audible to the gunmen if any of them were paying even the slightest attention. Instead the masked men all stared intently at the unfolding encounter, deeply curious.

Gaela's servo arm rose up into the air, clamped tight around Apple Bloom's ribbon and lifting the filly along with it.

"Are ya gonna fix her?" Apple Bloom asked again, waving a hoof at Crabapple and apparently not terribly bothered by being hoisted by a terrifying metal claw.

After several more seconds of staring, Gaela finally replied.

"No. Go away."

There was a soft whir as the servo arm's vise rotated, turning Apple Bloom around before dropping her onto the ground.

"Also, not that I particularly care, but it's Miss, not Mister."

As Apple Bloom made the most piteous face Gaela had ever seen on a living creature, one of the soldiers walked over and rubbed at the scorched hole on the automata's body.

"So you really can't fix it? You need some special parts or something?"

Gaela snorted behind her expressionless mask. "I need the time to do it, not special parts. There are still two more automata that we just might find before the Tau do. We need to make haste to the next target."

"But you COULD fix it later, then," another soldier concluded.

Gaela didn't really like the way the yellow xeno lit up when her subordinate brought up the possibility. "I'm not fixing anything! If it doesn't have a recoverable memory coil, then it might as well be scrap as far as our mission is concerned! A mission which is endangered more every minute we stand about entertaining the whims of random xenos!"

"Well, it's not REALLY a xeno. It's a horse," another one countered.

"It's a TALKING horse," Gaela corrected.

"Ah'm a pony," Apple Bloom corrected again.

"Shut up, talking horse," Gaela snapped, "either way, I'm not doing it."

One of the masked soldiers scratched his chin. "Are you sure you can't get anything out of the coil, though? It doesn't look that badly damaged."

"For iron's sake, people!" Gaela's servo arm seized one of Crabapple's legs and hoisted it upright. "Look, do any of you even know the difference between a cogitator engine and plasma-flux cycler?"

One of the soldiers raised his hand.

"Rhetorical question, put your hand down." Her multi-tool augment shifted into melta cutter mode, and it swiveled about to curl under Gaela's arm. "My point is that I'm far and away the most technologically literate, to say nothing of my four years of combat experience against the Tau specifically." The cutter went to work carving a circle around the top of the probe's body, the hiss of pressurized gases seeping from the nozzle. "Tau pulse weapons use low-energy plasmas, which release magnetic bursts on impact due to the sudden depressurization of ionized gas and the collapse of the electron containment lattice." The melta cutter finished its circuit around the probe's body. "This wreaks HAVOC with memory coils and cogitator engines that aren't properly shielded against it. It only takes ONE shot against the body to scramble a probe automata's data core, even if it doesn't inflict much real damage. Which this one did." She grabbed the sensor dish and pulled open the top of the probe. "So that's how I'm quite sure that this probe is completely...... okay, that's not normal."

Gaela stared into the writhing nest of wires, her optics displays struggling to get any coherent readings as entire circuit boards shifted within the mass like pieces of debris floating in a barrel of water.

The cogitator engine also had grown an eye, which was staring at her through the squirming wires. Definitely not standard pattern.

"All right Twi, Ah think the one in black is distracted," Applejack whispered, her eyes narrowed as she stared out the window, "what's the plan? We gotta get Apple Bloom outta there."

"Just a minute," Twilight mumbled, her horn aglow as she wrote down notes as fast as she could.

"Twi!" Applejack hissed.

"Hush! Busy! ... Depressurization of ionized gas... damages cogitator engines..."

"What's wrong?" one of the soldiers asked as Gaela stared at the automata's innards.

"I think the probe achieved daemonic sentience," the Acolyte responded.

"Is that a bad thing?"

Gaela looked up at him, the green light of her helmet's optics meeting the dark red of his goggles. "Not necessarily. Though as a rule, most people don't want their tools to have free will."

Apple Bloom sat nearby quietly, not understanding any of what they said.

"Although... if the unit has turned into a daemon engine, then there's a good chance that it could withstand the magnetic pulse... but I don't know if I can get the coil out without destroying it. Or without it biting off my hand." She flexed the fingers of her bionic limb. "I have spares, of course, but they're all back on the Harvest."

"So what are you going to do?" asked a gunman.

The Dark Acolyte sighed. "I'm going to fix the automata."

"YAY!" Apple Bloom cheered, bouncing from hoof to hoof.

"D'aaawwww," went several gunmen, having now completely abandoned any pretense they were in a combat zone.

"Stop that, all of you," Gaela commanded, her servo tools clambering over the probe's carapace in earnest as she sought out the damaged coolant unit.

"Okay, how about now?" Applejack asked, now getting increasingly frustrated as Twilight rolled up her parchment. "Can ya get Apple Bloom outta there?"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah, sure." Twilight stood up on the window sill and focused on Apple Bloom, intending to levitate her away from the aliens and into the farmstead.

Unfortunately, one of the aliens in question chose that moment to step between the window and the filly, breaking her line of sight.

"So you got a name, kiddo?" asked the gunman. His face was covered with bandage wrappings, save for a rebreather and an optics visor.

"Ah'm Apple Bloom!" the filly said brightly. "Nice ta meetcha! This here's mah family's apple farm!"

Gaela grunted a short expletive in Binary as she drew the damaged coolant unit out of the automata, staring down at the scorched hunk of useless metal.

"And what were a bunch of Tau soldiers doing on your farm, Apple Bloom?" asked a different soldier.

"A bunch o' what?"

"Tau. The particular xeno coalition that we attacked here," Gaela said as she broke the pulse carbine's casing open with her servo arm and started searching through the parts. "The puny, worthless sapients in blue and black, and their half-wit lackeys with the thick, spiky hair."

"Oh, them!" Apple Bloom scowled. Adorably. "They showed up outta nowhere and shot at us! An' Ah think mah sis said they even got one o' our sheep!"

"Man, what a bunch of jerks," one gunman said, kicking the corpse of a Fire Warrior.

"All right, seriously, stop bonding with the alien," Gaela demanded, finding the right part from the pulse carbine. Worm-like mechadendrites seeped from her bionic fingers and dug into the small ceramic cylinder, and then her servo tool curled down over her shoulder to go to work.

"Aw, come on Acolyte! This is awesome!" said the man stooped over Apple Bloom. "A pony that speaks Low Gothic way out here! How insane is that?"

"Not as insane as you'd be inclined to think," Gaela replied as she finished making adjustments to the Tau heat dispersal node, "Gothic is the single most widely spoken language in the known galaxy. Fluency would probably be a standard requirement for even the Tau soldiers if humans had discovered them earlier. Assuming that they survived the encounter, of course." Needless to say, Apple Bloom didn't understand a thing she said despite the lack of a language barrier.

"Okay, but... why can the horses talk?" another soldier asked.

"The Warp did it," grunted the Acolyte as her servo tool went to work on the probe's body cavity.

"That's your reason for everything when you don't feel like explaining something," complained the soldier in front of Apple Bloom.

"Well, usually it's right," Gaela said as she inserted the new coolant unit.

"You told me that's why plasma weapons overheat."

"And when you figure out the real reason, maybe you'll make Aspirant," Gaela snapped, her laser welder going to work to fix the breaks and seams on the automata, "until then, stop chatting up the wildlife and cover an approach vector, gun monkey."

As the man grumbled and did as he was told, Gaela's augments poked and crawled over the automata's carapace, sparks pouring from the points of contact.

After nearly a minute of this, Gaela stood up and laid her metal and metal-sheathed hands on the probe's body. Her servo limbs folded back into their waiting positions, and the Dark Acolyte spoke a prayer of activation in Binaric Cant.

+Awaken, daemon within iron, and share with us your darkness. Grow, spark of the machine mind, and share with us your light. To the dark gods do I dedicate this nascent cybernetic soul, and by their will does it rise again.+

Crabapple's leg twitched.

"Ah! She's alive! She's okay!" Apple Bloom cheered, jumping up again.

"There, see? That took, like, five minutes," a soldier offered, clapping the Acolyte on her armored shoulder as Crabapple's sensor arrays flickered to life.

"Take your hand off me before I lop off your arm," Gaela deadpanned, picking up her axe. The man backed off immediately.

The other soldiers were watching as Apple Bloom nuzzled the probe's leg. It was adorable, obviously, but also just slightly creepy watching the enthusiastic affection for a debased machine.

But then, they were soldiers in the service of Chaos. Creepy was a daily encounter for them.

"That was amazing! It looks like she really fixed her!" Twilight said, her eyes gleaming as she stared at the alien in the black robe.

"Okay, so now they fought off those other creeps AND fixed Crabapple. So now we're on their side, right?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight was actually quite tempted to agree, if only so that she'd have a reason to try to befriend the armored alien and start asking questions, but she knew that the situation was still too dangerous and too unknowable for them to make such a decision.

"No, Rainbow, that still isn't enough for us to get involved in some kind of intergalactic war. As much as I'd love to make friends with these aliens, I'm not ready to commit myself to attacking the other ones." Then her eyes narrowed as she looked back at Applejack. "Unlike SOME ponies."

"Yeah, you just keep playin' the pacifist," Applejack grumbled as she sat on her haunches behind the alicorn, "if Bloom hadn't talked me inta keepin' Crabapple around fer one more day, they'd be shootin' up yer library. Love ta see how diplomatic ya'll are then."

"Well, maybe it wouldn't REACH that point in the first place if we tried to understand each other!" Twilight countered, though visibly upset at the thought of her books being riddled with laser burns like many of Applejack's trees were.

"Ah understood 'em just fine when they were all tryin' ta blast ya in the face with their fancy space guns," the farmpony said with a snort, "whatever. Ah just want 'em to move on before some other freak shows up ta start a fight."

Behind the arguing mares, Big Macintosh had finished dressing his wounds and was pouring himself a glass of apple juice, a bit thirsty from caving in alien rib cages and fending off carnivores.

He was worried about Apple Bloom, but figured that between Twilight, his sister, and Rainbow Dash keeping watch, she was about as well-protected as she could be considering she had decided to stay outside with all the strange bipedal creatures carrying guns.

He put the juice jug away, and then turned back to his drink.

The surface of the juice rippled.

The red stallion paused, staring as the surface of his juice trembled repeatedly, disturbed by some force he couldn't quite feel or hear.

"Ooh! I remember this scene!" Pinkie said suddenly, standing up on the other side of the table and grinning at the shaking beverage. "It was from that movie Draconic Park! Did you see it? It was a classic!"

"Nnope," Big Mac answered, looking up at the pink earth pony.

"Oh, well, in the movie there was this really big dragon that escaped its pen, and whenever it would show up any pools of water would start shaking! It was a good movie, but not Steven Spielbuck's best, if you ask me! There was this other one that was about a giant fish that ate ponies and I thought that..."

Big Macintosh wasn't really listening anymore, his attention focused on the water. If he concentrated (and ignored Pinkie Pie), he could just barely pick up a rhythmic pounding noise from out in the fields - specifically the fields on the opposite side of the house from the road - that just about matched the shaking of his juice.

He grimaced, his ears falling flat against his head.

+System reactivation complete,+ buzzed Crabapple as it clambered upright, Apple Bloom practically dancing at its feet, +beginning protocol seven-eight-+

+Override code three-three-one, priority primarus,+ Gaela interrupted, surprising Apple Bloom as her vox grill spat out very similar noises to the ones Crabapple made, +initiate data upload, data cache nine-two-tertius and six-six-tertius to my personal memory coil, noosphere link one-zero-nine-one.+

Gaela waited patiently as the automata turned its sensors toward her, but to her surprise, rather than initiating a noosphere link it did a ray-scan of her, the red span of its scanner sweeping up her armored toes all the way to the top of her black rubber hood.

+Data access denied,+ Crabapple blurted after briefly processing the scan, +unit Acolyte Gaela does not possess access clearance.+

+Of course I do,+ Gaela replied, pounding the haft of her power axe onto the ground, +are your bytes scrambled or something?+

+Unit Acolyte Gaela is also very rude. Generating petulance... complete.+

The probe turned its optics sensors around to face away from her. +Hmph.+

Gaela's shoulders slumped, and she had to try very hard to resist blasting the probe with her plasma pistol. She had just finished fixing it, after all.

"See this? This is why we don't want our tools to have self-determination. It's ANNOYING," the Acolyte growled.

"Uh... is there anythin' Ah can do ta help?" Apple Bloom asked timidly.

"Yes. Take a cue from your equine ancestors and stop talking," Gaela snapped. Then she glared at the probe through her optics before making another request in Gothic. "Automata designation C-98381, upload system diagnostics and command directives."

The probe swiveled its sensors back around, and then beeped something back to the Acolyte.

Gaela recoiled, and then she whirled around, causing her escort to flinch back.

"All right, who's the cretin who changed the probe's system designation to 'Crabapple'?"

Apple Bloom winced, her ears pinned against her head as she ducked down.

Before she could begin interrogating her men - none of whom had any kind of access to the automata or any clue what she was talking about - Crabapple's sensor array started to spin around crazily, and it trumpeted bursts of noisy Binary.

"NOW what's wrong with it?" one of the gunmen asked.

"Sensor intercept. Passive mode, too, so it must be big," Gaela said, immediately gripping her axe and checking good positions for firing lines.

"Xeno armor? I thought we were only supposed to be facing light resistance," another man grunted. The soldiers were back in form in an instant, their lasguns searching for targets as they dashed into cover.

"We were. It's probably just their transport, or-" she halted as Crabapple blasted another string of Binary. "Wait. Seismic readings? Tau heavy units are all anti-grav."

"Uh... Acolyte?" the men could now hear the sound of heavy footsteps approaching from behind the farmstead, and they aimed their rifles at either side of the building.

A heavy crash set the men on edge, and the soldiers of Chaos were none too happy to see the barn behind the farmstead collapse, its roof shaking and disappearing behind the closer building.

Almost at the same time, the front door to the farmhouse burst open, and the nervous gunmen very nearly opened fire as five ponies of various bright colors dashed out.

The orange one with the hat snatched up Apple Bloom as they ran between the assembled humans and into the orchard, but said humans were in no position to worry about the aliens.

Gaela stepped back as the farmstead shook violently, something enormous having entered one wall of the building with the full intention of walking right out through another.

"Back up!" Gaela shouted, herself breaking into a run deeper into the orchard. "GNARLOC!!"

The Apple family home exploded outwards, disgorging forty tons of angry muscle along with a good bit of debris. The Greater Gnarloc was a reptilian giant, bigger than a main battle tank, with the same quill-like hair, hooked claws, and serrated beak as their Kroot cousins. The entire weight of the monster rested on two massive rear legs, while the stunted front arms hung just above the ground. A thick, short tail made up the rear section of the beast, while a pair of Kroot hunters sat on top in a shaky-looking shooting platform made with loose scrap plating.

The Gnarloc shook itself to rid its leathery hide of the last bits of Applejack's home, growling as the human forces opened fire all at once.

Numerous darts of bright red splashed against the head of the alien monstrosity like hot rain, and with about as much effect. The rhino unleashed its combi-bolter against the beast's flank, the mass-reactive rounds blowing tiny craters in the Gnarloc's leathery hide, but even the heaviest of small arms didn't seem to especially bother the beast.

Granny Smith hummed to herself as she checked on her pie. Then she shuddered slightly, her back turned to the massive furrow that had been carved through the farmstead.

"Applejack, be a dear and close the window, would ya? Ah think there's a draft in here."

The Gnarloc snarled as it stomped toward the nearest human, the Kroot on its back firing wildly into the orchard.

The gunman promptly slipped behind the tree he had been using as cover, holding his lasgun tight against his chest as he prepared to dodge away based on which side of the tree the monster approached from.

The Gnarloc elected to skip such games, and the snapping of bones briefly followed the snapping of wood as it crushed the tree and the man behind it in its jaws. The top of the tree toppled over, apples rolling across the ground and trailing blood across the dirt.

The Gnarloc turned toward the next meal/target when the whining discharge of a plasma pistol came from its flank.

Pain bloomed across the Gnarloc's side as a green bolt of plasma stabbed into its torso, and flesh and fat blistered along its chest as the projectile cooked its way into the Gnarloc's core.

Steam wafted from Gaela's plasma pistol as the Gnarloc swung about in a rage, its tail uprooting trees in its path and knocking down one gunman that had been slow to flee.

"Damn it... legs! Shoot out its legs!" the Acolyte screamed through her vox-grill as the alien beast started moving forward, its body slipping around trees with surprising agility (and simply plowing over the trees that it couldn't avoid).

Gaela fired another shot from her plasma pistol, and this time the Gnarloc shifted in time for the bolt to draw a line across its side, boiling away flesh but failing to do the critical organ damage to stop the beast.

Gaela turned and started running full-tilt, her servo tool powering up a streaming laser that fired backward as she ran with only slightly more effect than any of the standard lasguns.

The Greater Gnarloc bore down on her, and its beak opened to snap the Dark Acolyte in half even as a noisy rumble came from its side.

The Rhino smashed into the side of the Greater Gnarloc with a tremendous crash, the spikes mounted on the front stabbing deep gouges into the rampaging beast. One of the Kroot, who had been aiming to try and shoot Gaela and slow her down, was thrown from the firing platform and bounced across the ground. It was promptly targeted and killed by half a dozen human gunmen, eager for a vulnerable target now that the Carnivore was no longer protected behind the platform.

The Gnarloc roared, throwing its head up as its momentum stalled, and the monstrous beast turned sharply and slammed its head against the Rhino like a sledgehammer, throwing the vehicle up over end and pasting two soldiers as it came down on its roof.

The Gnarloc then focused its attention entirely on the Rhino as its training took over. The Kroot typically used the beasts to hunt armored tanks and enemy walkers, as the mercenaries otherwise lacked any anti-vehicle weapons to bring against the Tau's enemies. A vehicle was a good kill, while the tiny creature with a particularly dangerous weapon could be ignored for later.

The Greater Gnarloc seized the front of the right tread in its beak, slamming one back leg atop the rhino to brace itself before it pulled. Bolts popped out of place and welded seams broke apart as the entire right side of the APC was ripped free of the body, and with snarl and a tug the Gnarloc tossed the tread and adjoined access hatch off into the orchard, nearly crushing another Chaos soldier.

"You know, there are a lot of physiological similarities between that 'Gnarloc' and those smaller aliens on its back. I think they may belong to the same genus. It seems unlikely due to the sheer difference in size alone, but once you get past the mass difference, really, they're surprisingly similar."

Twilight knew she was babbling, but she just felt like she had to say SOMETHING to fill the awful silence that she and her friends had suffered through after watching Applejack's house come apart. Applejack had been glowering wordlessly ever since, and even Crabapple had ceased its hopeless attempts at communication after it had joined the ponies outside the battle.

The human in black fired another bolt of green at the Gnarloc, and it screeched angrily as it started thrashing about through the trees, uprooting them one after another and flattening any human that didn't run fast enough.

"That weapon is very impressive! I mean, all the other aliens in red coats have larger ones, but those hardly even-"

"Twilight." Applejack's voice was a perfect deadpan, and her eyes looked hollow as they tracked the Gnarloc's path through her orchard.

"Y-Yes?" the alicorn asked, her mane standing on end.

Applejack calmly raised a hoof to the back of her head and pushed her hat forward so that the rim cut across her eye level. "Ah'm takin' sides in this here space war."

Twilight winced. "Applejack, wait! Listen, I know you're upset about your house being destroyed, and it certainly doesn't help that the Gnarloc has uprooted nearly a dozen... no, make that a full dozen of your apple trees. And you must be angry about your barn, which I can see from here was demolished right before your house. Not to mention that given the path of the Gnarloc, it must have come through the western fields to get to us, and something that size definitely would have destroyed the crops that you-"

"MAC! RAINBOW! Back me up!" Applejack said, practically glowing with fury as she dashed toward the battle.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh answered, spitting out the wheat stalk in his mouth before galloping after his sister.

"Well, it's about time!" Rainbow Dash agreed, taking off into the air above them.

"Applejack, wait! I'm not done calming you down yet!" Twilight shouted, reaching out a hoof for the enraged earth pony.

Gaela cursed in binary as her latest plasma shot went wide, the Gnarloc turning at an unfortunate moment and the pistol at the edge of its effective range. It was also starting to eject steam from its flex-sheathing at an uncomfortable rate; the Dark Acolyte knew the weapon was only one or two shots away from overheating. While losing her remaining biological arm was hardly any great loss to her, she didn't really want to deal that now, with a Greater Gnarloc bearing down on them.

The alien beast had started chasing another rifleman through the trees when Gaela heard the rapid pounding of hooves against the dirt approaching. Two ponies, one orange and the other red, galloped through the orchard directly toward the rampaging Gnarloc, bearing down on the creature with surprising purpose.

"Yer goin' down, ya ugly excuse fer a space dragon!" the one with the hat shouted as the ponies each ran along a different side of the beast.

The remaining Kroot gunman started to take aim at the new opponents over the side of his mount, but suddenly found himself disarmed as a blue pony with wings dive-bombed him and kicked away his rifle.

"All right y'all, let's give 'im the ol' one-two-three!" Applejack shouted, darting just ahead of the Gnarloc.

The beast caught sight of the brightly colored pony as she sped past, and it turned its head slightly to watch the curious new snack that had wandered in front of it.

Said "snack" promptly dug her front hooves in while bunching up her back legs, and then she slammed her back hooves into the Gnarloc's maw.

"ONE!" Applejack shouted as the beast's head snapped to the other side.

Big Macintosh was already in position, though he elected not to shout anything as his back hooves struck the Gnarloc's beak like a lightning bolt.

The Gnarloc went reeling, its jaw fracturing and its gait starting to stagger as a blue streak plummeted down on its much-abused skull.

"TWO!" Rainbow Dash shouted, landing hard on the alien's cranium and smashing it into the ground. She immediately bounced off and back into the air as the Gnarloc started to tilt to the side, and the beast slowly teetered over to land on the ground with a crash.

"Wait... three! I was three, wasn't I? Dang it, Mac, you're supposed to call out your number! I messed up!" Rainbow Dash complained, hovering over the dazed alien.

Applejack snorted. "Ya did fine, sugarcube." Big Macintosh just shrugged quietly.

The Gnarloc shifted and growled, blood seeping from the cracks in its beak and its jaw hanging at an unusual angle. Its remaining rider, which had clung to the firing platform as his mount had toppled over (hardly a rare incident), spurred the beast on as it rose, dazed and hurt but hardly broken.

"Yeah, that's right! You get back up, and Ah'll put ya right back down again!" Applejack snarled, impressing many of the human soldiers that had finally given up peppering the beast with their lasguns.

Macintosh wasn't so sure of himself, being considerably more aware of how the alien monstrosity completely dwarfed them. He started to back away as the Gnarloc got to its feet, and turned to run as the beast pushed forward.

Either because his red coat attracted the most attention, he was the first to run, or because he was the bigger pony between him and his sister, the Gnarloc turned to chase after him, ignoring the orange pony yelling threats at it.

"Hey! Don't ya turn yer back on me, you low-down YEEP!" Applejack ducked as the Gnarloc's tail swung at her, nearly pulverizing the earth pony.

As the ponies harassed the Gnarloc, a single haggard figure in blue and black armor rolled out of the gaping hole in the side of the Rhino, his hands bound and his helmet removed.

The Fire Warrior didn't have a complete idea of what was happening; he had just heard a lot of shooting and then a heavy impact before the Rhino had been ripped open. He knew that now was likely to be his only chance to escape captivity, however, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to take it.

Crawling across the ground, he had barely gotten a few feet from the wreckage when he noticed a lasgun laying near some tree roots; probably the property of one of the streaks of gore under the APC.

He took up the weapon with his good arm without hesitation. Human weapons tended to be crude, unsophisticated, and unnecessarily heavy. But he was lucky enough to have stumbled upon one so easily.

Or at least, it seemed that way at the time. Had he not stopped to arm himself, he probably wouldn't have been standing still long enough for the bolter round that took his head off.

Pushing aside ruined metal plating, a second body emerged from the vehicle wreckage. This one was much larger than the humans that had been packed into the rhino and manned its guns, and was clad from head to toe in heavy powered armor.

Although Gaela's dispatch was otherwise composed of the human soldiers that supplemented the 38th Company's combat forces, such men were not allowed to pilot the Iron Warriors' vehicles. In part because the Astartes did not trust the mortals to handle them correctly, and in part because they were convinced the weaker humans might desert and steal them, only a Chaos Space Marine was ever allowed to drive the legion's combat vehicles designed for Space Marine crew.

And it was only due to this rule that there happened to be an Astartes among Gaela's unit.

The Iron Warrior Dest glanced at the headless Tau corpse next to his gutted Rhino, and then at the twisted shell of the Rhino itself.

Then the Chaos Space Marine turned toward the roaring Gnarloc, the glare from his red helmets lenses flaring.

"Iron within, iron without," Dest declared solemnly, moving to join the battle.

Big Mac turned around a tree and then leapt over a wheelbarrow left out in the orchard, concentrating on the path ahead of him and not the constant pounding noises following close behind. The sound of a tree being shattered and his wheelbarrow crumpling against the ground made him consider that it probably wasn't a good use of energy navigating obstacles that the Gnarloc simply mowed through with sheer mass, and resolved to focus on sprinting forward.

Suddenly the pounding halted, and Big Mac heard the alien beast bellow furiously at the interruption.

Glancing back, the farmer could see the glow of magic manifested in thick, translucent vines that were holding the Gnarloc's feet to the ground, and Twilight was standing nearby with obvious strain on her features.

"It's about time, Twi!" Applejack said, racing up to the pinned alien and giving it a solid buck to its side. The attack didn't do nearly as much harm as a strike to the beast's face, but she didn't really want to be anywhere near its mouth right now.

"For the record, I still think this is a BAD idea!" the alicorn shouted, sweat starting to run down her cheeks as the Gnarloc fought her spell.

"Fall, xeno filth!" came the static-heavy shout from an Astartes vox grill, and Applejack flinched back as a series of small explosions stitched across the side of the struggling Gnarloc.

The ponies could see at a glance that this alien was different from the others, clad in bulkier metal armor than the one in black and holding a weapon about twice the size of the others' laser rifles. He moved forward purposefully as he covered the Gnarloc in mass-reactive fire, and the humans in red that were left formed up behind him into a firing line, adding their near-useless firepower to his.

Gaela made some swift calculations, her hand reaching to her belt. The battle had turned unexpectedly - she hadn't been expecting the aid of their Rhino driver, much less pony psykers - but she would take any help she could get to put down the Gnarloc.

Withdrawing a bulky pill-shaped container with a handle grip on one end, she tapped into the short-range vox connection between her and the driver. Luckily, the wavelength was still strong enough to overcome the pervasive jamming signal in the atmosphere at their current distance.

"My lord! Use this!" she insisted, hurling the melta bomb toward the Astartes.

Dest snapped his bolter against his thigh and then snatched the bomb out of the air with the same hand, his blood-red gaze going over the Gnarloc's massive body and gauging best where the weapon could be placed as he clipped it onto his own munitions belt.

Said Gnarloc finally ripped free from Twilight's magic with an enraged roar, and it turned immediately to the silver-armored warrior, ignoring the ponies that had briefly distracted it from its rampage.

The human gunmen scattered as soon as the Gnarloc began its approach, operating under the survival strategy of forcing the beast to choose a single target and chase him rather than letting it stomp all over the rest of the unit at once.

Dest had a different strategy in mind.

As the Gnarloc approached within a grenade's toss of him, the post-human dove to the side, moving much faster than anything that size and wearing that much metal had a right to.

The Gnarloc's beak followed him, snapping closed just millimeters away from the protruding exhaust vents of his backpack. After that the laws of inertia carried the beast out of range, and Dest was back on his feet.

The Astartes driver jumped onto the Gnarloc's leg, his hands gripping the spine-quills as he pulled his considerable bulk up the alien's flank.

The remaining rider leaned over to knock him off, but Dest grabbed his arm with his freed hand, twisted sharply to dislocate the limb, and then pulled the shrieking alien off his perch and flung him to the ground.

Unprotected, unarmed, and wounded. A worthy target for human soldiers. Dest started placing the melta bomb between the firing platform and the Gnarloc's back.

In a few moments the weapon was placed and armed, and the Greater Gnarloc was thrashing about trying to dislodge its new passenger.

Dest leapt off of the beast, landing flat on his feet with his bolter back in his hands.

The Gnarloc felt the weight on its back shift and immediately pivoted on one foot, its beak darting forward to crush the Chaos marine before he could escape.

And then the melta bomb exploded.

Awkward Alliances

Iron Hearts

Chapter 3

Awkward Alliances

****

Centaur III - Fortress Ferrous Dominus

There was nothing so grand, Solon had long since decided, as the death of a starship.

He had lived a long, long time, and seen a thousand kinds of death. The deaths of soldiers, of civilians, machines, aliens, forests, oceans, continents, planets, and even stars. He had seen the resurrected fall again and watched immortals have their all-too destructible physical shells crushed. He had seen the purging of the spirit, the evacuation of a perfectly healthy body by the soul and the lifeless shell that remained. He had seen cities encircled by flame, their inhabitants slowly smoked to death by the millions, and would-be nations wiped from the face of their mother world with a single titanic blast.

But in his opinion, nothing approached the beauty of watching the ruination of a space vessel. No other construct was built with such purpose and such scale, and to see the end of their useful lives, whether that end be a fireball in space or the crude mercy of the scrapyard, was a very emotional sight for the ancient Warsmith.

Such were the thoughts that occupied Solon's mind as he watched the Tau battleship Mev'laaros descend into the atmosphere for its barely-controlled landing onto Centaur III.

Such a vessel was not designed to make planetfall, and was only able to do so on the understanding that it would never leave the planet's surface again.

That was certainly the plan in this case. Macro-cranes, autowelders, and huge squads of servitors with their Dark Techpriest masters circled the landing site like vultures awaiting a carcass. Off to the side, hundreds of slaves - human, Tau, kroot, and a few assorted other species - waited in long chain gangs, their overseers barking orders and handing out tools where necessary.

"Mev'laarosh. It meansh 'Shlayer of Beashtsh'. Evidently it wash deshigned ash part of the campaign to drive off the Tyranidsh. What a beautiful craft."

The Warsmith's legs skittered rapidly as he turned his chassis around to face the only other person with him. Dark Magos Kaelith was in the center of the room, his entire serpentine body strung up with wires and power cables like a larvae in the beginning stages of being wrapped up in a cocoon. The cables and wires were strung out in all directions, some pooling on the floor or hanging loosely from the ceiling and walls, while a great many led to the cogitator banks that lined one side of the room.

+Contention: the sentiment is wasted on a vessel destined to be dismantled for fortress walls and spare guns,+ Kaelith responded in his usual formalized Binaric Cant as he simultaneously managed a hundred equipment deployments, munitions deliveries, and three cases of walking relatively inexperienced Acolytes through the proper ritual establishments of fusion reactor cores.

"Not sho, Magosh. In itsh death, it birthsh a new conshtruct. Bulkhead to bulwark. Death to life. It'sh a far more dignified end than we give sho many of the Imperium'sh craft."

Solon scuttled over to a large hololithic display in the corner that had a detailed blueprint of the deployed manufactorum ship. Already the size of a large town when it landed, it was still in the early phases of deployment, and still growing. Mining drills tunneled deeper while forges, presses, furnaces and stockpiles were placed, secured, manned, and activated one by one.

All around the facility was a ring of Chaos armor and Iron Warriors in trench lines, awaiting the establishment of proper bunkers and fortress walls. Solon had a laser stylus in his augmetic socket, and at its touch great sheets of metal and ferrocrete fortifications flickered into place over and around the industrial base, letting the Warsmith see an estimation of the finished product.

Kaelith remained silent, absorbed in his duties until Solon spoke again.

"Where ish Acolyte Gaela? I thought she wash managing the deployment too."

Kaelith turned his head toward the heavily augmented Astartes, his optics rotating curiously.

+Expressive: incredulity. You have been observing the deployment since initiation and you have only now noticed that I am in control?+

Solon blew a dusty snort from his vox grille. "No, I merely expected to shee her around by now. Didn't I give her the order to shtart this operation in the firsht place?" Solon spoke perfect Binary, as many older Iron Warriors did, but stuck to Gothic habitually. Which annoyed Kaelith to no end, incidentally, since the Warsmith's slurred speech made his Gothic sound ridiculous.

+Explanatory: the difficulty of managing a deployment of this scale with reliable vox range reduced to thirty-two-point-nine-one meters required my superior experience and aptitude. Expansion: Acolyte Gaela was dispatched into the field to secure the probe automata and recover their data.+

"Ah, I shee. I hope she'sh careful. It might be quite dangeroush out there without long-range vox."

Kaelith turned away. +Hypothetical: Judging by current data on enemy presence, resistance will be scarce.+

"Yesh, but we alsho detected numerous life shignsh and evidence of dwellingsh on the shurface. We don't know much about the potential dangersh of this world, putting ashide the Tau."

+Conclusive: the Acolyte can tell us about it in detail when she returns with-+

The buzz of Binaric Cant was interrupted by a loud yelp, and both cybernetic men turned sharply as their autosenses detected something flying through the window at high speed. There was no pane of glass or other barrier in place, as that facing was actually to connect to a tactical command core, and the intruder clipped the edge of the meter-wide cavity before crashing into a rolling tumble through the webs of power cables and wiring.

Kaelith went on alert immediately, his robe splitting open along its long belly to expose dozens of welding lasers and melta cutters stacked in rows along his body like a centipede's legs. Though used primarily for tooling and disassembling parts, it was all too easy to use them to carve flesh when the need arose.

+Alert: unregistered bio-form detected. Hypothetical: local xenos have infiltrated our defense network. Recommendation: extermi-+

"Oh, DO flush your heat shinksh, Kaelith," Solon sighed, raising none of his own weapons as he admonished the Dark Magos. "Nurgle'sh beard, it'sh jusht a bird." He glanced back at the intruder. "Horshe. Bird-horshe. Jusht shoo it back outshide. You're embarrashing yourshelf. And dishcharging weaponsh in here ish a bad idea."

Kaelith reluctantly closed his robes, his optics swirling angrily as they remained locked on the small gray pegasus wriggling free of the wires it had gotten tangled in. It had a blonde mane and yellow eyes that seemed to gaze in different directions, along with a wingspan that seemed rather inadequate to carry something of its size. On its rear were several discolored circles which Solon guessed were blisters at first, although there were no other signs of skin damage.

The pegasus also had a saddlebag wrapped around its neck, which he thought was weird, but his sensors could tell at a glance that it was nothing dangerous.

The tail end of Kaelith's body, which he continually reminded people was not actually a tail, started to shift across the room over the piles of sensitive equipment and wires. Like a snake, it slithered closer to the uninvited guest, twitching sporadically to try to scare it off without damaging any of the wires at its feet.

"Hello!" the pegasus said finally, raising a hoof in greeting as she craned her neck up to look at the room's occupants. "Do you two live here?"

Kaelith's body stopped moving, and he accidentally skipped a crucial communication that would lead to a core shutdown and three deaths later that evening.

Solon, who had returned to his hololith, swiveled his torso around to stare.

"I'm Derpy Hooves! I'm your new mailmare!" the pegasus said with a smile as she continued waving her leg at the extraterrestrials. "I asked my boss this morning, and he said I could add your spooky doom factory to my mail route! So from now on if you have any letters or packages to deliver, just leave them to me, okay?"

Solon tilted his head to the side, and a mechatendril snaked up from his back and scratched at his helmet.

"... We don't have any mail for you today, I'm afraid," he said finally.

"All right! I'll be back tomorrow, and I'll bring you any letters I have for you!" Derpy started looking back and forth, her eyes (or one of them, at least), settling on a half-open green crate on a back shelf.

"Oh! Is that your mail box? I couldn't find it from the air!"

Solon walked up to the pegasus, his chassis alone towering over her without even considering his torso. Really, each one of his legs were large and heavy enough to crush her like a bug.

"That'sh not a mail box," Solon said calmly, "it'sh an ammunition crate."

Derpy blinked, dropping her hoof. "What's 'ammunition'?"

"A shpecial kind of package that we prefer to deliver ourshelvesh," the Warsmith informed her.

"Oh! Well, I'll be back tomorrow then! Goodbye!"

Derpy took off into the air, promptly caught her neck on a data cable hanging from the ceiling, and then tumbled back onto the floor, letters spraying out of her bag wildly.

She started to untangle herself, having gotten her hooves wrapped up in more wires splayed out across the floor, when she felt something hard slide around her leg and tug her up into the air.

The pegasus blinked as the cords and cables slipped off her and onto the floor, and she craned her neck to look up at her back hoof.

Her leg was wrapped in a metal tentacle, one of at least a dozen that seemed to originate from the back and chassis of the gigantic Chaos Lord. Some of them tapered to agile points, some of them seemed to end in clamps and snapping jaws, and a few had strange tools on the end unidentifiable to a pony.

"It'sh not shafe to fly around in here, Mish Hoovesh." As Solon spoke, his free mechatendrils darted to the floor, and his free hand opened Derpy's mail bag. One by one, the tendrils picked up the dropped envelopes and slipped them back into the bag with impressive speed and coordination, and within seconds the loose letters had been collected.

"Oh! Thank you, Mister!" Derpy said happily before she coughed and wrinkled her snout. Being held up so close to the Astartes giant, she had to admit that the man smelled awful, and there was a thin haze of smoke that had risen to the top of the room and collected just beneath the ceiling.

"No trouble," the Warsmith said, wrapping the bag back around Derpy's neck before swinging her bodily out of the opening in which she had entered. The pegasus took to the air with ease and turned around toward Ponyville to complete the day's deliveries.

As Solon went back to designing the fortress, Kaelith, for once, could not think of a single thing to say. No snide remark, no admonishment, criticism, or even complaint seemed adequate to follow what had just happened. He couldn't even bring himself to start analyzing the implications of the planet's (apparently) equine inhabitants being intelligent enough to speak, write, and develop a primitive system of long-range communication.

So the Dark Magos went about his work silently, promising himself that he'd scrub the relevant memory from his datastacks at a more convenient time.

"Where do you put a mailbox in a fortresh? I've never done that before," Solon mumbled, stooping over the construction hololith.

Kaelith's body twitched as sparks blew out of his cranium, and within seconds horrified screams could be heard from outside before a dozen slaves were run over by a mass lifter.

****

Centaur III - Sweet Apple Acres

"Well, that could have gone worse," Rainbow Dash said as she hovered above the smoking body of the Greater Gnarloc.

Applejack was kicking the smoldering corpse repeatedly, grumbling with each spiteful buck about the time and expense of repairing her house and barn.

"Ya think so, Dash?" Applejack growled, giving the dead alien one last buck in its rear. "Ah mean, Ah only lost mah house, mah barn, one o' mah sheep, mah harvest, and now mah orchard is torn up and covered in dead bodies!"

Rainbow shrugged. "Okay, yeah, that's pretty bad, but at least all of us are still here!" Then she lowered her voice as she pointed a hoof toward the humans that were checking on the fallen and digging through the wreck of the Rhino. "That's more than we can say for the two-legged guys."

"Ah'm sorry, Sis. This's my fault," Apple Bloom said sadly, her ears pinned as she laid in front of Crabapple.

"Naw, it ain't your fault, Bloom," Applejack grumbled, "they were all here for Crabapple, but it ain't really her fault, neither. The aliens did this ta us."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed.

+Affirmation: blame lies with hostile alien bio-forms and not their objective. Generating contempt...+ buzzed Crabapple.

"Still, Ah feel real bad for 'em," Apple Bloom said, glancing at the men in red overcoats, "a bunch o' their friends died."

Rainbow Dash watched as a couple of the human gunmen got up from the corpse of one of their own, their pockets full of ammunition, ration packs, and small amulets with some kind of eight-pointed star on them. "Gotta say, they're taking it really well."

Twilight remained silent, not because she didn't have anything to add to the conversation, but because she was going over what she wanted to say to the aliens that remained. She wanted to be welcoming, but they were all well-armed and she was more than a little concerned about them bringing an intergalactic war with them to Equestria. How to approach these new, mysterious visitors in a manner that was dignified, cautious, and friendly without suggesting that they might participate in more of their battles, and also hopefully avoiding the topic of how Applebloom had claimed one of their machines?

It was right about then that she realized Pinkie Pie was gone.

"Well, that could have gone worse," a rifleman said as he approached Gaela, toting a backpack filled with supplies scavenged from the Rhino.

"Oh, really?" Gaela said dryly, turning away from Dest. "Our transport is destroyed, vox is still limited to shouting range, half the squad is dead, enemy resistance is significantly heavier than anticipated, and our mission success hinges on an automata that's decided not to take orders from me anymore."

"Okay, yeah, that's pretty bad, but we DID win! A Gnarloc and two xeno squads is a really good kill count for what we lost!"

Gaela wished she didn't have her mask on so that the man could feel the full force of her irritated expression, but she didn't feel like taking it off. "Your pointless optimism is noted, soldier. Now go help salva-hwuh?"

The Dark Acolyte recoiled as one of the pony xenos - the bright pink one with the fluffy mane - galloped up to her and then vaulted onto her chest, wrapping her front legs around her neck.

Gaela briefly considered that it might be some sort of attack, but the idea was ridiculous. It became more obviously ridiculous as the pink pony hung against her chest, not exerting enough force to inflict harm even if she weren't wearing powered armor.

"What are you doing?" the Dark Acolyte asked evenly, keeping one optic sensor locked on the gunman she had been talking to. It was hard to tell with his face covered in a rebreather mask and tri-optics visor, but she was pretty sure he was trying to hold in laughter. "Is this some sort of stupid greeting ritual among your kind?"

"It's called a hug!" Pinkie said, nuzzling the cheek of the helmet mask. Which was quite uncomfortable for the pony, honestly, but the gesture was important.

"I don't follow," Gaela said, positioning her servo arm to pry the alien off if necessary, "do I have to give you something to get rid of you, or what?"

Pinkie loosened the hug so that she could look the Dark Acolyte in the eyes, or at least the asymmetrical arrays of neon-green lenses that covered her eyes. She was smiling, but it was a sad, strained smile, and if Gaela had possessed a shred of empathy for other sentient creatures, she would have doubtless been touched.

"Don't be sad! I'm sorry about your friends! But it's going to be okay!"

Gaela's left-side optics array rotated, which was the closest thing to a raised eyebrow she could manage with her helmet on.

"My what? You're just speaking gibberish now."

"I think she's referring to the men that fell, Acolyte," the gunman said.

"Who, them? Why would I feel sad? I didn't even know their names." Gaela admitted, much to the gunman's annoyance.

Pinkie's expression brightened instantly. "Oh! Okay then! Ooh, what's this thingy?" the pink pony promptly clambered up onto Gaela's shoulder and stared closely at her servo tool.

The Acolyte seriously considered putting a drill through the silly creature's eye then and there, but figured she didn't want to agitate the other xenos; she was already low on guns, and evidently at least one of the bizarre equines was a psyker. However that worked. She didn't really need to be starting fights that could be easily avoided.

"Ahem!" The soldier cleared his throat. "I'm Daniels, by the way."

Gaela was rather confused by the sudden admission. "So what?"

"My name. You said you didn't know it," Daniels pointed out.

"And you confused that for a desire to learn it?" Gaela asked waving a hand dismissively as Pinkie's weight shifted on her actuator pack. "Look, the only reason that I don't use your names is because you don't have noosphere identifier tags. I'm not going to store useless information like that, and it's not MY fault nobody's given you basic ID systems."

"YES, it IS," Daniels disagreed irritably, "when we requested IFF tags from the workshops, you said it was 'on the queue.' That was three systems ago."

"Well congratulations, I'm making you an ID file right now," Gaela said, pressing two fingers against the side of her helmet, "Rifleman Dassel, mercenary unit Delta Nine: whiner. There. That's going right in our databank when we get back."

"My name is Daniels," Daniels corrected.

"Meh."

It was about this time that Pinkie's weight on her back suddenly vanished, and the two humans turned to see that Dest, who had remained largely silent throughout the exchange, had seized the pony by its mane and was holding her up at eye level.

Pinkie didn't seem to mind, however, and was grinning widely.

"What manner of creature is this?" the Chaos Marine asked, curious. He had seen one of the animals use a psychic power, and the beasts had apparently fought on their side against the Tau for reasons that were utterly beyond him.

Pinkie giggled. "I'm a pony, silly! You can call me Pinkie Pie! What's your name?"

Dest felt mildly uneasy engaging in casual conversation with an inexplicably giddy xeno, but saw no reason not to answer her. "I am Dest, Chaos Space Marine of the Iron Warriors Legion. Why do you aid us, xeno?"

The pony laughed, which seemed to startle the Astartes. "Ha! Xeno! That's a funny nickname! Ooh, I know! I'll give you a nickname too! How about Desty?"

"Call me that and your life is forfeit," the Chaos Marine said, his voice a harsh screech through his vox grille.

Pinkie seemed like she was in no mood to listen, and instead started clapping her hooves together as she hung in the air by her mane.

"Desty, Desty, he's the besty! Puts space monsters down to resty!"

Gaela and Daniels glanced at each other, each one wondering how the rhino driver was going to go about eviscerating the pony, and the former coming up with off-the-cuff battle plans to put down the other ponies before they could retaliate.

To their surprise, Dest barked out a short laugh from his vox grille and dropped Pinkie on the ground. "Your lunatic chanting amuses me, offensively pink xeno. I will spare your life."

"Hooray!" Pinkie cheered, bouncing up onto her back hooves and then leaning against Dest's greaves. "Hey! Hey! Isn't it hard to move in all that metal? Don't you get hot?"

"Uh, excuse me, er... Miss Acolyte, I believe they called you?"

Gaela turned away from the bizarre sight of the pink xeno crawling all over the Astartes to face yet another of the creatures, this time the purple one with the horn and wings and some kind of compass star tattoo on her rear.

"Ah, the psyker," Gaela mumbled, leaning against her power axe, "I imagine you have questions, xeno. And since I seem to be stuck here for the foreseeable future, I may as well answer some of them."

Twilight brightened considerably. "Oh, thank you! Uhm... first, what's a 'psyker'? I've been called that before, but I don't know what it means."

"It refers to one with psychic ability, the talent and means to rend and re-shape reality with your mind," Gaela explained, "I imagine you have your own words for them: witch, shaman, sorcerer..."

"Actually, we're just called unicorns," Twilight pointed out, "well, except for those of us with wings as well as horns: we're alicorns."

"Neat. Next question," the Dark Acolyte mumbled, managing to look quite bored and annoyed despite the metal face mask.

"Hey, Ah got one," asked the irritable orange pony with the silly hat, "why d'ya think all you aliens end up here on mah farm?"

"We don't, really. We deployed six probe automata and placed our main camp far from here. It was probably by mistake that the Tau engaged you in combat, and it was pure coincidence that we stumbled upon your agri-facility before they extracted." The Acolyte glanced over at the smoldering corpse of the Greater Gnarloc. "Although I must agree that this is surprisingly heavy resistance; far more than we were expecting."

"Between that big lug and yer shootin' each other in mah orchard, half mah farm is ruined!" Applejack complained.

"An exaggeration. The damages done to your trees, factoring in the other crop damage likely caused by the Gnarloc's approach, barely account for nine percent of total expected yield from this much land."

"Twi, Ah don't really appreciate yer fancy ma-" Applejack trailed off as she realized that it had been the alien speaking, and not her friend. Not that their voices were even remotely similar, but that annoyingly precise, technical correction was something she'd come to expect from the alicorn exclusively.

"Although I admit the loss of your dwelling is probably quite a blow to your livelihood. The Tau should really keep a tighter leash on their auxiliaries, given that they sometimes value diplomatic solutions." Gaela suggested, speaking about the destruction with the detached air of someone going over a flow chart.

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed, close enough to listen in on the conversation. He was currently clearing debris from the gutted farmhouse, having gone straight to work after the danger was over.

"Well, yer here fer the walkin' trash can, aintcha?" Applejack asked, pointing to Crabapple. "Don't she belong to you?"

"Why do you insist upon a gender pronoun when you refer to it? It doesn't have any kind of gender identity, much less genitalia."

Applejack was really starting to get annoyed with this alien. It was like talking to Twilight at her worst, and it didn't help that she had to make eye contact with all the little green lights set in a metal mask rather than a face.

"Ah don't know what's goin' on, all right? I just wanna know if you're takin' the darn machine!"

"Applejack, TEMPER," Twilight said through clenched teeth as she gave the Dark Acolyte a nervous smile. Really, the Apple family had all but declared war on one alien race, and now she was getting testy with the other?

Gaela sighed, leaning her full weight against her power axe. "I wish it were that simple. Sometime between my deploying it and my repairing it, the blasted thing acquired sentience."

Applejack had no idea what that meant, but Twilight had an inkling. She wasn't totally clear on the inner workings of the Dark Mechanicus' machines, but she did know that sentience wasn't usually something that was "acquired".

"It became self-aware on its own? That can happen?"

Gaela was actually pleasantly surprised that the purple pony wasn't giving her confused looks. "Occasionally, much to my annoyance. Since then, it's apparently decided to ignore my command authority. However, given that it still recognizes command authority directives means that it probably established one on its own, perhaps through an improvised protocol. Though it won't even tell me who it is."

Applejack shook her head. "Twi, what does all that hogwash mean, exactly?"

The alicorn chewed her lip briefly. "It, uh, means that Crabapple doesn't listen to Miss Acolyte anymore and decided, on her own, to take orders from a new alien." She glanced over at Crabapple, who was now shuffling around in the debris of the Apple household behind Apple Bloom. "Or, hypothetically, a pony."

"It's the yellow one, isn't it?" Daniels asked suddenly. Gaela really wished he hadn't spoken.

Applejack slapped a hoof against her face. "Yer jokin'. Tell me yer jokin' Twi."

"Is there something you'd like to tell me?" Gaela asked. She utterly refused to believe Daniels' theory until she heard it from the horse's mouth.

"Okay, well, we're not COMPLETELY sure about this, or about how this came about, and in fact-"

Applejack cut off Twilight's extended explanation, pointing a hoof at Apple Bloom. "Look, yer dumb contraption has been lettin' mah little sis boss her around. Yer tellin' me that it forgot all about you and will only listen to Apple Bloom?"

"I very much wish I could say otherwise, but yes, it would seem that is the case," Gaela deadpanned.

"And Ah suppose ya can't just reach into its head like before and fix it?" Applejack asked, tilting her head to one side.

"Actually, there are ways to 'fix' a bad case of free will," Gaela confirmed, tapping the chin of her helmet, "but all of them require the destruction of the memory coil, which is rather what I'm trying to recover in the first place."

Their musings were interrupted as a gunman in aviation goggles walked up past the ponies and saluted Gaela. Oddly enough, he was being followed by a blue pony with wings who was hovering over the ground.

"Acolyte Gaela, we've taken stock of our losses with a little help from Rainbow Dash here, since she got a better view of the scuffle," he said in accented Gothic, and the blue pegasus promptly mimicked his salute. "We have Kolath, Nemo, Serins, Honmil, Rogers, and Yeggs."

Gaela didn't respond for several seconds. "So... is that the list of the dead, or the survivors?"

"The dead," Daniels said, "you know, because my name wasn't on it?"

"Ah. Sure, okay."

"You forgot already, didn't you?" he said accusingly. "You didn't make an ID file at all!"

"You've been awfully cheeky today, gun monkey," Gaela snapped.

The pegasus promptly burst into laughter. "Gun monkey! Ha! Nice one!" She floated up to the Acolyte and lifted her hoof in imitation of a high-five.

Gaela made no move to reciprocate,

After a moment the soldier reporting the casualties tapped Rainbow on the leg. "It's all right, Dash. The Acolyte isn't much for that sort of thing."

Gaela's gaze twitched toward him. "What did you say its name was?"

"Rainbow Dash, Acolyte," the man responded.

"I'm right here, you know. You could just ask me," the pegasus in question answered.

"Is that what its called here, on this planet, or is that some sort of sophomoric pet name you came up with?"

"Hey! Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" Rainbow complained, moving to hover in front of the Acolyte's face. "Besides, what does 'sophomoric' mean?"

"It would be far too easy to abuse the opportunity to answer that question, so I won't," Gaela decided dryly.

"That reminds me!" Twilight said loudly, seizing everyone's attention. "We never introduced ourselves properly! My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I wish to PEACEFULLY welcome you to Equestria!" the emphasis she placed on "peacefully" was almost painful in its pleading tone.

Then the alicorn raised a hoof and pointed to the orange pony next to her. "This is Applejack," she next pointed over to the Apples within the gutted farmstead, "that's Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh. And you've already met Rainbow Dash and, uh..." Twilight's voice faltered as she stared past Gaela, and she sighed, "and Pinkie Pie."

Gaela turned to look over her shoulder. Dest had taken his helmet off, exposing his bare, bald, and surprisingly mutation-free head for all to see.

Pinkie Pie was wearing the helmet now, despite it being absurdly large over her cranium. "Ooh! Every time I look at something it draws a red circle around it! Neato!"

"I'm VERY sorry about Pinkie Pie," Twilight said earnestly as Gaela turned back toward her.

"Apology accepted," the Dark Acolyte said. "... Barely." Then she squared her shoulders. "Am I to understand that you represent the dominant form of life on this planet?"

"Yes! I mean, mostly," Twilight explained, happy that the Acolyte seemed at ease talking with her. "Ponies make up the bulk of civilization on this world, but we share this planet with many other creatures!"

"How inconvenient," Gaela grunted, glancing over at Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was squinting at her face mask, as if trying to make out some kind of tiny print. "In any case, it would seem that we ended up on the same side of a conflict, Sparkle, if only by coincidence."

"So, what are you, anyway?" Rainbow Dash finally demanded. She had been waiting for the aliens to introduce themselves, but the one with all the machines on her back didn't seem like she was going to do so.

Gaela's glare of annoyance was lost beneath her helmet. "We are humans. A race of space-faring mammals that have colonized numberless worlds across the galaxy. I'm honestly surprised you've never heard of us."

"We don't get a lot of off-planet tourists 'round here," Applejack explained dryly, "Ah guess we were just lucky like that."

"I was referring more to the fact that you speak our language and to the architectural legacy of your structures, which was clearly not designed for a quadrupedal race."

Rainbow snickered. "What are you going on about? You're the ones who speak OUR language! Your language is a bunch of annoying buzzing!"

Gaela couldn't make any sense of that, but Daniels understood immediately. "No, that isn't our language. That's just Binary."

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "How's that?"

"Machine language. Most humans don't speak it," the gunman explained.

"That's dumb. Why do you make your machines speak a different language?" the pegasus asked.

"Because a cogitator core is a sequence of electric impulses, not a living mind," Gaela explained, casting a glance toward Crabapple, "until Warp exposure, anyway. Binary is a mathematical language, precise and efficient, and free of the redundancies and idiosyncrasies of other languages."

"Fascinating..." Twilight said, her eyes gleaming.

"Ya lost me at 'mathematical language'," Applejack confessed.

"You lost me at 'electric impulses'," Rainbow Dash confessed, "and also, it's still dumb."

"Wow, this thing is heavy!" Pinkie exclaimed, now handling Dest's boltgun and staring directly into the barrel. "You must be really strong, Desty!"

Gaela stared for several seconds, and then focused her optics on Twilight. "Your species displays a considerable level of divergence in intellectual capacity."

"Hey, thanks!" Rainbow said, grinning. "You're not so bad either, for a metal space person!"

Twilight winced, embarrassed.

"As much fun as it is waiting to see if the xeno figures out how my grenades work," Dest said suddenly, walking up to the others as he put his helmet back on, "do you have a plan of action, Acolyte?"

"I do, my lord," Gaela said, promptly turning and facing the Chaos Space Marine, "it's troublesome, humiliating, and has only a middling chance of success, but I do have a plan."

"Then get to it," the Astartes grunted as he plucked a fragmentation grenade out of Pinkie's hooves, "I want to get another Rhino as soon as possible."

"At once, my lord," Gaela turned toward the nearest rifleman, "David, make sure we're ready to move out on a moment's notice, and prepare for a long march."

"His name's Daniels," Applejack pointed out.

"Now don't YOU start," Gaela snapped, walking toward the ruins of the farmstead.

As Crabapple swept its optical sensors over the scattered debris of the Apples' home, it felt the unusual and unpleasant sensation of dissatisfaction without having to prompt for it first.

Apple Bloom was sitting on her haunches sadly, watching helplessly as Big Macintosh gathered chunks of what used to be a house and then carried them to the slightly smaller pile of chunks that used to be a barn.

Her source of distress was obvious: the structure ruined in the combat had been of central importance to her. Worse yet, according to auditory intercepts and a cursory observation of the conflict, Crabapple itself had been the source of the conflict, bringing Tau, then humans, and then Kroot reinforcements to Sweet Apple Acres. The automata was still new to sentience, but somehow that made its dissatisfaction worse.

The problem, as Crabapple saw it, was that it had no means to provide assistance in any of these matters. It was a recon probe, and its only available tools were insufficient to rebuild or even aid in rebuilding, unless the Apples needed holes drilled in something of a circumference too large for most wood screws.

As the probe mused its options, or lack thereof, it sensed the approach of a Dark Mechanicus unit.

"Ah... excuse me. Apple..." Gaela trailed off as she tried to remember the second part of the filly's name. wasn't it flower? Appleflower? No, that didn't sound right.

"Apple Bloom," the young pony said, looking up at the armored human, "it's Apple Bloom."

With no small amount of reluctance, Gaela established a data file for the xenos' names and started filling it. It seemed like a waste of space, but it seemed increasingly likely that they would be cooperating with these alien ponies rather than exterminating them.

"Apple Bloom, got it. I require a favor of you. You see, the... uh, Crabapple here won't listen to me, and I think you can help."

Apple Bloom tilted her head to one side. "She won't? Why not?"

"I would very much like to know the answer to that question, but it's not important right now. What I need you to do is repeat after me, speaking to... Crabapple." She felt completely ridiculous, and she could hear the ear-grating sound of Dest chuckling through his vox grille.

"Okay, sure, Ah can do that," the yellow filly said, standing up and looking excited to be of some help.

"Good. Repeat after me: override authorization protocol secundus. Establish new command directive: unit D6719003 is given administrative command, effective immediately."

Apple Bloom looked doubtful, but tapped a hoof against Crabapple's leg. "Uh... override author... ization... protocol..."

The filly was struggling, and Gaela ignored the giggling behind her from the gunmen as she repeated herself.

"... seh-coon-duss. Establish new command... uh... directive? Yeah, that was it. Unit... er... whatever she said is in command. Like, right now," Apple Bloom finished.

Gaela winced at that, but noted that the automata was processing actively, its sensor array spinning and its optics blinking repeatedly.

+Request denied.+ The refusal almost sounded like a buzzer going off, and Gaela's hand twitched toward her plasma pistol.

+Explanation. Now,+ she demanded, speaking in Binary so that the others might not realize she was arguing with a machine, +was it the lack of unit specification? Or is that xeno not actually the one with command authority?+

+Negative,+ Crabapple blurted back, +it is obvious Apple Bloom was being led to cede command authority when she did not understand the significance of what she was saying. You failed to explain your purpose to her.+

Gaela wanted to laugh. Here she was worried about the precision of the command when the blasted thing was simply fully aware that the filly had no idea what she was saying. And yet it didn't think that would warrant reconsidering her command authority in the first place! Hilarious.

+Listen to me, you Warp-spawned piece of scrap,+ Gaela growled, although the combination of her language and her helmet gave no indication of her frustration to spectators, +if you've come so far into self-determination that you can recognize deceit, perhaps I can teach you another common feature of sentience: fear.+

Her servo tool rotated, and the drills and cutters slid away as the laser projector pushed to the fore.

+Give me the data I want or I will destroy you. If the little alien objects to your destruction, I'll kill it. And then I'll eliminate the other horses too, for good measure. Maybe raze what's left of this agri-facility afterwards, just out of spite. Tell me, CRABAPPLE, what do you think of that?+

The probe's sensor array swiveled back and forth briefly. +Projected outcome unacceptable. And extremely rude. This unit advises a trade of services.+

Gaela wanted to make good on her threat, she really did. Even if she fell short of killing the aliens to avoid an unnecessary fight - she was still wary of pissing off a psyker without more troops behind her - it would be easy to turn the probe itself to slag and simply fail in her mission. So much easier than this.

But one thing was stopping her. One bit of data that didn't fit the theories and operating assumptions of the 38th Company's deployment.

What the blazes was a Greater Gnarloc doing with a colonization recon team?

It didn't fit the Tau's colonization doctrine to bring or field heavy assault beasts when exploring a potential new home. It didn't fit with ANY of their principles, really, and Gaela couldn't shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

But she couldn't investigate the possibilities without more data, or at least a functional sensory node.

+What do you want from me?+ the Dark Acolyte said finally.

Crabapple's body rose slightly on its legs, as if perking up. +Unit Crabapple will provide telemetry and active sensor data, and in exchange unit Acolyte Gaela will guarantee construction of replacement facilities for Apple Bloom.+

+You can't be serious... no, never mind, of course you're serious,+ Gaela groaned, looking around at the two walls of the farmstead still standing.

It would be a simple matter. Absurdly simple. The Company had resources to spare, and the construction of a building of this one's former size, plus the barn, was a trifle compared to the monstrous structures normally required of the Dark Mechanicus.

But it was still a negotiation with one of her own machines to build things for the sake of a family of aliens. Not the sort of thing that she took up easily.

Her servo tool drew back against her shoulder, returning to its resting state.

"We've reached an agreement," Gaela said suddenly in Gothic, turning around to face the waiting human and aliens. She noticed that Twilight in particular seemed to have crept close to watch the exchange.

"Crabapple here has agreed to assist us, and in exchange I have agreed to build the xeno farmers a new house and barn. After we return to base to report, of course."

The Apple siblings were startled by the news, and Applejack broke into a tentative smile for the first time all day.

"Ya'll would do that fer us? Really?" the orange mare asked, taking off her hat and holding it against her chest.

"I don't want to talk about it," Gaela deadpanned.

"You made a trade? With our own probe?" Daniels asked incredulously.

"I DON'T want to talk about it," the Acolyte growled, "also, it would seem that it ISN'T our probe anymore, and putting aside the data that I was promised, I say good riddance."

"Ya hear that, Crabapple?" Apple Bloom said, hugging the automaton's leg. "You did it! Yer the best!"

+Experiencing satisfaction at having resolved conflict for commander... this feels nice,+ Crabapple buzzed.

+Yes, fine, now stop reveling in the joys of self-determination and abstract thought and give me my data,+ Gaela snapped. A data port promptly popped open beneath Crabapple's sensor array, and Gaela drew a data jack from her augmetic hand that plugged into the socket.

"See? I knew we could trust these guys!" Rainbow Dash said, landing on Daniels' head. "Way more than those 'Tau' jerks, anyway!"

"I have to admit, we do NOT hear that sentiment very often," Daniels said, "also, you're much heavier than something with your wingspan probably should be."

The blue pony immediately leaned downward so that she was glaring into the gunman's eyes upside-down. "Did you just call me fat?"

"Hey! Hey! I know! Let's throw you all a party to welcome you to Equestria! And we won't invite the other aliens because they're mean! That'll show them!" Pinkie said, bouncing in a circle around Dest. "Also because they're all dead! But mostly because they're mean!"

"Hey, that sounds kinda nice," one of the other soldiers said, resting his lasgun on his shoulder.

Twilight winced and spared a glance at the corpse of the Gnarloc, which was big enough to be easily visible even from here. She was glad to form a rapport with the humans, but she wished it hadn't come at the cost of meeting the other aliens peaceably. By all indications the fight with the Tau had been a mistake that could have been ironed out if she'd reached the offending extraterrestrials before the older Apple siblings had beaten them to death.

Also, she couldn't help but feel there was something... off about these aliens. Putting aside how easily they shrugged off the deaths of their compatriots, whenever she stared at some of the symbols that the men had on their amulets and Gaela and Dest had on their armor, she would start to feel a hornache coming on.

"There will be no party!" Gaela shouted suddenly, disconnecting from Crabapple and turning to her subordinates (and the driver, whose rank relative to hers was actually rather unclear).

A chorus of "Awwww!" met her proclamation, but she ignored the disappointed looks. "I've triangulated the position of a jamming substation two-point-one kilometers from here! We're leaving immediately to take it out!" She was already moving in the direction of the signal, gesturing sharply for the men to follow.

"You're leaving? Now? Already?" Twilight asked, looking almost distressed at the prospect. "But there were a few more things I wanted to ask you! And then, you know, if we had time, maybe a LOT more things!"

"Well, we DON'T have time," Gaela said firmly as the gunmen started marching behind her, "there's little chance that the Tau missed our little scuffle with their kill team, so we have to move before they respond." She glanced back at the orange pony with the hat. "If and when I return to base, I'll see about getting a hab drop down here."

"Oh. Uh... I'll see you later, then?" Twilight asked hopefully.

"I very much doubt that," Gaela responded, waving a hand lazily as she walked off, "goodbye, Sparkle."

****

Approximately 0.8 kilometers outside Ponyville

"Wow, who would have thought that this jamming device was actually in the same direction as Ponyville? Now we can come with you!"

Gaela did not seem nearly so happy as Twilight about this fact, something that she somehow managed to convey all too clearly despite the limitations full power armor placed on her ability to shift posture and display facial expressions.

Although Gaela seemed to be the only one displeased by the coincidence.

"So ya'll are soldiers, but ya ain't here ta fight a war with these here Tau critters?" Applejack asked, walking alongside Daniels.

"It's complicated. We work for this army called the 38th Company, and we usually fight aliens when we meet them, but we're not in a war to seize territory or defeat the aliens' military forces, necessarily. We usually just swoop in, take all their stuff, and then leave before they can stop us. The only reason we're even bothering with the Tau here is because we have to repair our ships and we heavily outnumber them."

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "So don't that make ya'll a bunch of pirates?"

"Yes. But in our defense, most aliens are total jerks," Daniels offered with a shrug.

"Yer preachin' to the choir on that point, sugarcube," Applejack said as her expression soured, "er, present company excluded, o'course."

"Oh, no, believe me, humans are too."

"So then I threw a party for Crabapple, but I don't know if she liked it very much! She didn't say anything about it either way, but she didn't have any cake either, and Twilight said that she didn't eat cake but I think that's pretty silly because everypony likes cake! Though I guess Crabapple isn't a pony so it doesn't count! But it should count, right? I could understand if she wasn't feeling well, though!"

Dest walked in silence, seemingly oblivious to the pink pony draped over his shoulder pad even as she babbled at him relentlessly and occasionally banged her hooves against his armor rhythmically as if she was playing a tin drum.

"Seriously, I've taken down Orks, Eldar, and even put down a Necron on Dalys V, but I've never even seen something like that Gnarloc at close range, never mind fought one!" a gunman exclaimed.

Rainbow Dash snorted, rolling her eyes. "Oh, please. I fight monsters like that all the time. That thing wasn't nearly as big as the dragon I drove off once! Never mind the REAL villains I've defeated!"

"By yourself?" another man asked skeptically. "I mean, what you did to the freak back there was impressive, but you had help from the ponies with the apples on their butts."

Rainbow Dash's only response was to laugh and wave a hoof at the man. "Well, it would have been pretty rude to hold poor Applejack back. It WAS her place that got smashed."

"Ah can't wait ta show ya off ta Scoots and Sweetie, Crabapple! You'll really like them!" Apple Bloom said happily, practically bouncing up and down as the automata scuttled along next to the yellow filly.

+Noting identities of commanding unit's colleagues. Expanding command protocols to accommodate new administrator hierarchy.+

"Ya know, we should give ya a new paint job, too! Ah think ya'd look swell with bright red!"

+New favorite color registered. Generating sense of aesthetics...+

"So, uh... listen, it might be none of my business, but wasn't there another pony around your agri-facility?" asked a gunman walking alongside Big Macintosh. "A green one? Is it going to be okay being left there?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac answered simply, barely glancing at the masked human.

"Ol' Granny Smith is a tough one," Apple Bloom added, following along on the other side of the stallion, "an' Ah'm not sure she actually noticed the house was gone. She just mumbled somethin' about takin' a nap and shuffled off to her room."

"Ah. She's at that age, huh?"

"Eeyup."

Twilight frowned, following behind Gaela in silence. Although she was very interested in some of the conversations that the others were having (aside from Pinkie), there were a great many questions she had for the humans herself.

"So, Miss Acolyte, I was wondering: how does a machine gain sentience? Does that happen often?"

Gaela turned her head wordlessly toward the purple pony, who returned the gesture of attention with an awkward smile.

"It's Gaela."

"What's 'Gaela'? Is it an element or-"

"Gaela is my name," the Acolyte answered evenly, "Dark Acolyte is my rank and thus my title. So if you wish to address me, the proper means is either just Acolyte, Acolyte Gaela, or I suppose Miss Gaela would do as well. Do not refer to me as 'Miss Acolyte' again."

"Oh! I see! Thank you!" Twilight said brightly, although she was quite surprised it had taken this long for Gaela to tell someone her name.

"As for your question: the Warp did it."

Twilight tilted her head to the side. "I'm not familiar with this 'Warp'."

"I very much doubt that, psyker."

Twilight's frown returned as they fell silent once again. Meanwhile her friends were chatting up the other aliens like it was nothing!

"As long as we're stuck in some sort of inter-species cultural exchange," Gaela said suddenly, causing Twilight to perk up instantly, "would you like to explain those brands of yours? They're surprisingly colorful, and don't seem to be standardized."

"Brands? Oh, you mean our cutie marks!" Twilight lifted her wings to better display the six-pointed star on her flank. "These cutie marks represent our special talents, and our true destinies! Everypony gets one growing up, and each one is different!"

Gaela mulled that over briefly. "So they determine your area of expertise early in life, and then give you a highly visible identifier. Efficient. Are they distributed via some sort of central agency or negotiated individually?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that. They appear with magic!" Twilight said with a smile.

"Uh... huh..." Gaela mumbled, confused.

"What about the symbols you humans are wearing? I've noticed most of you have that circle with the arrows around the circumference, while you, Dest, and Crabapple all have that symbol of a silver face."

"The Iron Skull is the emblem of the Iron Warriors Space Marine Legion, which is the overall command hierarchy we serve. Dest bears the symbol because he is an Astartes of the Legion. The automata bears the symbol because it belongs... SHE used to belong to the Legion. For us humans, the emblem must be earned; I received mine in recognition of my loyalty to our Warsmith over the Dark Mechanicus, and shed the crimson robes to don the Legion black. Mercenaries and cultists like the redcoats behind us can only achieve such an honor through outstanding valor and wit on the field of battle; a very rare trait, I assure you."

Twilight paid rapt attention, nodding after nearly every sentence. "You said Dest is an 'Astartes'? Is that different from a human?"

"He's a genetically modified human, created for combat under the most desperate and hopeless conditions. They're also referred to as Space Marines. If you want to know much more about them you'll have to ask Dest or one of his brother Astartes. I wouldn't recommend it."

Twilight gazed back at the hulk that took up the rear of the group, encased in a gleaming shell of brushed steel and beaten gold. She remembered how fast he had moved to evade the Gnarloc in the orchard; far faster than anything that size should reasonably manage, even without taking into account that he was wearing enough metal to armor an entire squad of royal pony guards.

"So what about the wheel symbol? And all the arrows?" Twilight asked finally. Gaela had such a symbol in gold bolted onto her chest plate, and Twilight pointed a hoof at it.

"That is the Star of Chaos, a symbol of the faithful. Though we take orders from the Iron Warriors specifically, ultimately we all serve the whims and goals of Chaos."

"What?!" Twilight shouted, startling the others out of their conversations as she jumped back. "You WORSHIP chaos? Why would you do something like that?!"

"Ah, I see you're familiar with it," Gaela said, sounding mildly amused from behind her vox grille. She didn't stop walking, so Twilight found herself falling behind the Dark Acolyte after her outburst.

"But I don't understand!" the alicorn said, dashing past the armored woman and then turning around to face her. "Don't the senseless and irrational qualities of chaos and disorder interfere with... well, everything you do? Why would a principle like chaos have a structured religion? Or an army?"

"You're right. You don't understand," Gaela said simply, adjusting her path slightly to walk past the purple pony, "we don't worship chaos, as in the Gothic word referring to disorganization and confusion. We worship Chaos."

She banged her bionic fist onto the eight-spoked wheel on her chest.

"Chaos is so much more than disorder and misdirection. It is power. It is subjugation. It is truth. It is madness. It is the beginning. And it will be the end."

"That... doesn't really make sense," Twilight admitted, "which kind of DOES make sense, if you think about it, but-"

"It's nothing that I can easily teach to an unbeliever, and I have no desire to try. Make of it what you will." Gaela's tone had a note of finality in it, and she walked past Twilight again without any intention of continuing their conversation.

Meanwhile, the others had gone silent at Twilight's outburst to listen in to their brief confrontation.

"So, wait, you guys are really some kind of loony religious fanatics?" Rainbow Dash asked, turning toward the gunmen that had been chatting with her.

"Eh. It varies," one man admitted, "the 38th Company, our Legion contingent, makes a lot of use of mercenaries and rebels because we usually operate in Imperial space. So it's not like you have to worship Chaos in order to sign up."

"But some of ya do?" Applejack asked.

"Some of the preachers are bloody persuasive," Daniels admitted, "and atheism gets pretty challenging when you see a priest summon a daemon with the power of prayer."

"If we're being honest, though, a lot of us are only in the cult to fit in. And out of a vague hope that we'll survive longer," another man added.

"So you've never made it rain chocolate milk?" Pinkie asked, now sitting atop Dest's backpack power unit.

"No, no chocolate milk," one man shuddered, "though they can make it rain... other fluids when they want."

"HA! Your Chaos isn't nearly as much fun as the chaos we've seen!" the pink pony declared, causing Applejack and Rainbow Dash to roll their eyes.

Another gunman started grumbling. "Well, maybe it would be if we were allowed to join the cult of Slaa-"

The clicking noise of a boltgun's hammer being drawn caused the man to freeze, and suddenly he found himself alone as his squadmates quickly scrambled away from him.

"... Go on," Dest said coldly as he aimed his boltgun with one hand, and the procession of men and ponies ground to a halt. Only Gaela kept walking, though she remained alert for the sound of a gunshot for the purposes of keeping a proper record of her squad's attrition.

"I... I misspoke, my lord," the rifleman said gingerly, not daring to look at the Iron Warrior, "I've always been a big fan of... uh... Tzeentch?"

"Mm. Smart credit's on Nurgle, the way I see it," Dest replied conversationally, slapping his bolter back onto the thigh of his power armor. The Astartes started moving again, and the human soldiers hesitated for only a moment before doing the same.

"What was THAT all about?" Rainbow Dash asked, confused. Twilight looked equally put off by the incident.

Applejack seemed to shrug off the encounter, however. "Ya wanna start a tussle, the quickest way is to bring up religion or politics." She chuckled. "Maybe we ain't so different after all."

"Eeyup."

It wasn't much longer before they had reached the perimeter of Ponyville, and as the group halted Daniels stepped over to Gaela.

"So what's the plan, Acolyte? Is the jammer past the village?"

"According to my calculations, the transmitter is IN the village," Gaela said distastefully.

"You serious, sugarcube?" Applejack asked. "'Cause Ah didn't hear nothin' about no aliens setting up shop in Ponyville. Not yet, anyway."

"The Tau can be subtle when they want to," Gaela explained, her optics scanning the nearest houses, "their jamming substation probably isn't much larger than one of you xenos, and is likely disguised or even cloaked."

"Okay, but... I was actually wondering about AFTER we shut it down. Will we have long vox back?" Daniels clarified.

"No. The field is too expansive, and there are many other transmitters that aren't within walking distance. It should weaken the local jamming effect such that the Harvest of Steel can detect drop beacons, though."

"So we'll be setting up camp out here, eh?" asked another man, pulling off his backpack.

"Wait! I know!" Twilight said brightly. "Why don't we all stay in the library! Applejack and her family need a place to stay until their house is replaced, and since it's almost dusk anyway, I'm sure we can fit the rest of you inside!"

Gaela said nothing, staring down at the alicorn.

"Sounds good to me. Better than sleeping out on the rocks, right Acolyte?" asked Daniels.

"I'm not so sure," Gaela admitted, "rocks don't talk."

Twilight wilted, and after a moment, Daniels spoke again.

"Has anyone ever told you that you make the Iron Warriors look sociable?" the rifleman asked.

"Yes, soldier, that isn't the first time I've heard that joke," Gaela said dryly.

"It's not a joke," Dest said suddenly, breaking the silent spell that he seemed to fall into every once in a while, "the drivers in the vehicle pool draw lots to see who has to put up with you for each mission after you requisition a transport."

The armored giant stepped up to the front of the group, Pinkie Pie sitting upright on his left foot as if it were a chair. "We accept your naïve offer of hospitality, Sparkle. Your settlement is poorly defended and primitive, but the buildings and denizens should provide some cover from enemy fire in case of attack. You have our strictly verbal gratitude."

"That's... uh... okay, then," Twilight said awkwardly.

"See that? What he did just now? THAT was better than you could manage," Daniels said to Gaela, jabbing a thumb at the Astartes. She ignored him.

"Ah really appreciate ya doin' that fer us, Twi," Applejack said, tipping her hat up.

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed.

"Well, I'll be back in a bit," Rainbow Dash said, circling around the group, "Rarity and Fluttershy have gotta see these guys!"

Applejack and Twilight gave the pegasus a skeptical look.

"Well, okay, maybe not Fluttershy," Rainbow amended, "later!"

"If ya see Sweetie Bell, tell her ta meet me at Scootaloo's house!" Apple Bloom shouted after the blue pegasus. "Sis, Ah'm goin' now, okay?"

"Now hold on," Applejack said firmly, narrowing her eyes, "Ah don't much like the idea of you runnin' off alone with Crabapple when we KNOW those Tau creeps are skulkin' about tryin' ta off her."

"Awww, but Sissss..."

+Concern is unnecessary. Short-range vox access will allow communication with Acolyte Gaela in case of enemy contacts,+ Crabapple buzzed.

+And what kind of processor malfunction makes you think that I'm going to come defend you? Or bother to translate your pleas for assistance for the rest of the xenos?+ Gaela spat back in Binary.

+Generating retort... complete: You suck.+

As Applejack's glare warred with Apple Bloom's teary-eyed begging stare, Big Macintosh stepped up.

"Ah'll watch over 'em."

Applejack saw her little sister's eyes light up, and she gave Big Macintosh an uncertain look. "Ya sure about this? Those varmints ain't foolin' around, Mac." Big Mac had done quite well against the invaders so far, but she didn't think he could take on very many if they got serious; she'd seen what one of those "pulse rifles" did to the humans when they got hit, and they were the ones that dealt with this kind of thing all the time.

"Eeyup." Truth be told, Macintosh was glad to have an excuse not to stay in Twilight's library. The mares weren't likely to let him sleep among them (nor would he ask them to), and he didn't really feel like spending the night among the aliens.

"Yay! Thanks, brother!" Apple Bloom bucked the air happily, and then started galloping off. "Come on, Crabapple!"

The group promptly made their way through Ponyville, though the humans were surprised by how little fuss they seemed to generate on the way to the large treehouse. There weren't many more ponies out at this time of night, but those that were simply stared at the procession of unfamiliar creatures as they walked past without interrupting them.

Gaela seemed to get the most attention, ultimately. Even though Dest was much bigger and his armor wasn't partially obscured by a cloak, the Dark Acolyte's servo limbs still stood out as the most bizarre sight among them.

"There it is!" Twilight said, pointing a hoof forward as everyone stopped about ten meters away from the treehouse. "This is Ponyville's public library, but it also doubles as my home. After you disable the device interfering with your communications systems, you can come right back here!"

"That will not be necessary," Gaela said in a monotone. Her servo tool rotated meaningfully, and several of the tools pulled back.

"What? Why? Did you decide not to stay here after all?" Twilight asked.

"No, I mean it won't be necessary to leave."

Gaela's optics switched to electromagnetic scanning, and suddenly the entire area around her seemed to come alive with static and wild bursts of low-level radiation. And at the center of it all was a disk about the size of a manhole cover, covered in antennae and spewing electronic noise into the air like a nuclear furnace.

And it was sitting in the boughs of Twilight's treehouse, just above her bedroom window.

The ponies flinched back as Gaela's heavy laser fired from her servo tool, not having been aware that she had even drawn a weapon. The red beam of amplified light speared through the comms disruptor drone, blasting out its anti-gravity engine and sending it tumbling to the ground while it shimmered into the visible light spectrum.

"Whoa, nelly!" Applejack exclaimed, circling around the fallen machine as smoke started to seep from the molten hole burnt through it. "Was that thing just invisible?"

"Yeah, they do that sometimes," a soldier answered, walking up and aiming his own rifle at the drone.

"Don't," Gaela commanded, causing him to back off immediately. Instead she approached and picked the smoldering husk up with her servo arm. "Tau use good parts and materials. Waste not, want not, as the Warsmith says."

"How long do you think that was there?" Twilight asked, looking startled. She hadn't noticed it at all, obviously, and the idea that she could have gone to sleep with a Tau machine (and Chaos military target) attached to her bedroom was quite unsettling.

"Hard to say. Hours, probably. The grayskins haven't been here very long." She rotated the drone wreck around slowly, zooming in her optics as she observed some of the unique details of the Tau's engineering.

"So those things could be all over Equestria, and we wouldn't even know without you?" Applejack asked, clenching her teeth.

"Assuming that 'Equestria' comprises any sufficiently large local land area, I'm quite sure they are," Gaela answered, clearly distracted. "I'm not sure why they're packing such sophisticated jamming equipment on a colonization drive, but that's what we're looking at."

"Maybe so that they can scout the place without alerting anyone with sensors? I mean, it makes sense if they're also fielding bloody Gnarlocs," Daniels pointed out.

"Those rotten grayskins!" Applejack growled, already adopting the humans' slur for the species. "At least yer gizmo had the decency to make a proper ruckus on the way in! What're these snakebites doin'?"

"They're studying this world. Or at least, that was their mission before we attacked and drove their transport to the surface," Gaela explained with a shrug.

"So, what are they doing now?" Twilight asked.

"Hiding, mostly," Gaela mumbled. Her optics rotated with a soft whir as she zoomed in on some of the alien circuitry. "Shall we move this indoors? I prefer working on a desk."

"Oh! Right! Right this way!" Twilight quickly opened the door and led Gaela inside, although she and Dest had to duck to keep their armor from catching on the doorway.

"You can put your weapons there, in the corner. There aren't really enough chairs, though," Twilight said, starting to rush around her home and move things to make space.

"Ah, don't trouble yourself too much on our account," Daniels said as he dropped his lasrifle next to a bookshelf and then took out a stub pistol from his coat, "we're just glad to be in out of the cold."

"Twilight?" said a new voice from upstairs. "Are you back from wherever you went? I just heard this sizzling noise from outside and..." Spike trailed off and halted in his descent down the stairs, catching sight of the numerous masked men.

"Spike! There you are!" Twilight said. She couldn't quite remember why her assistant hadn't been with her during the earlier debacle at Sweet Apple Acres, but that hardly mattered now. "Go make some tea while I accommodate these heavily armed and sketchy-looking extraterrestrial soldiers!"

"I, er... okay," Spike said awkwardly, walking through the gathered humans and halting briefly in front of Dest.

"What variety of weakling is this?" the Astartes asked Pinkie, who was standing with her front hooves on his shoulder pad and the rear ones on his backpack.

"Oh, that's Spike! He's a dragon that Twilight keeps as her assistant!" the pink pony answered.

Spike didn't much like being called a weakling by someone he had just met, but wasn't about to argue the point with an armed soldier eight feet tall and covered in armor. He scurried away toward the kitchen silently.

Dest watched him go, and then turned his gaze again to the pony on his shoulder. "Is 'assistant' some kind of local slang for 'house slave'?"

"Ha ha! It sure looks that way, doesn't it?"

Twilight finally made her way over to the Astartes, arriving just too late to hear what they had been talking about.

"Dest, you don't need to keep your gun. Just put it-"

"I will keep my boltgun on hand at all times," the driver interrupted, not bothering to make eye contact with the alicorn as he surveyed the treehouse and the numerous bookshelves, "I am not allowed such laxity outside friendly territory."

Twilight blinked, and then placed a hoof to her chin, considering his logic.

"I suppose that makes sense, but I'm hoping you could come to think of Ponyville as 'friendly territory'," Twilight offered with a smile.

Dest paused for a moment, and then a harsh, grating chuckle came from his vox grille. "Do all of your kind have such a splendid sense of humor? Or is your hopeless optimism genuine?"

Twilight's expression darkened as Pinkie hopped down next to her. "I... that wasn't-"

"He thinks you might have a sense of humor!" Pinkie whispered into her ear. "Roll with it!"

Whatever Twilight was going to say to further her attempt to get Dest's unreasonably large firearm away from him, she was interrupted by the front door swinging open.

"Hey guys, I'm back!" Rainbow Dash said, hovering a foot off the floor as usual. "Check these guys out, Rarity!"

The humans all stared as a white unicorn with a styled dark purple mane stepped in behind Rainbow Dash, stretching her neck to see around the blue pegasus.

"So you said these aliens are different from Cra-" her words died in her throat as she glanced up at the masked men. "By Celestia! They're AWFUL!" She recoiled at the sight of the soldiers, her expression one of total disgust.

The other mares in the room flinched, surprised at such a visceral reaction. Rainbow Dash in particular looked shocked.

"Really, Rainbow, you couldn't have WARNED me?" Rarity demanded, shielding her eyes with her hoof.

"What? I don't think they look that bad for a bunch of space aliens," Rainbow Dash mumbled uncomfortably.

Twilight was afraid that the humans might be offended by Rarity's reaction, but thankfully they seemed to shrug it off; some of them were chuckling quietly to each other, while Gaela was ignoring the encounter entirely, disassembling the Tau disruptor drone on a table off to the side.

"I don't understand," Twilight said, scratching her head with her hoof, "their physiology isn't THAT unusual."

"Physiology nothing," Rarity said, dropping her hoof and allowing herself to view the revolting aliens once more, "I was referring to those CLOTHES."

The soldiers' chuckling stopped.

"What, you mean the coats?" Daniels asked.

"Rainbow Dash informed me that the aliens were soldiers. Why, then, are most of you dressed like transients preparing to rob a bank?" Rarity asked, her tone having moved from disgust to pity.

The gunmen didn't answer immediately, glancing at each other and staring down at their dirt-caked coats.

"Well, geez, now I feel kind of embarrassed," one man mumbled, wiping the side of his pants uncomfortably.

"THAT'S what you're freaking out over?" Rainbow Dash scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I thought you were creeped out by the fact that they all have different numbers of eyes."

"Don't be absurd," Rarity said, stepping up to one of the men and staring at him as she would a dead insect, "they're obviously wearing masks, Rainbow. Revolting masks that wouldn't be out of place during Nightmare Night, at that."

"They're wearing..." Rainbow's eyes suddenly widened. "Oh! Right! Masks! I totally knew that! Heh heh..." she glanced over at the humans, as if trying to confirm it.

Daniels sighed and grabbed the back of his leather mask, pulling it down along with his tri-optics. He had surprisingly long, dark hair, and clearly hadn't shaved in several weeks. "Look, not that I take pride in our 'uniforms' exactly, but I won't be taking fashion advice from someone walking around naked."

"Touché. At least your wit is better than your taste," Rarity admitted, stepping from one human to the next and trying to hide her obvious displeasure, "but obviously your race possesses SOMETHING in the way of class. Just take a look at this brute here!"

Rarity pointed a hoof daintily at Dest, who had been perusing the books silently since Twilight had been distracted from disarming him.

"The drab but complementary metallic colors and unvarnished plate! The form! The symmetry! Did they only have enough armor for one of you?"

"No, that's not it. The Astartes and the Mechanicus get the power armor. The rest of us are lucky to get flak vests. That's just part of the job," Daniels explained, glancing a bit longer than expected at the Chaos Space Marine, "although I must admit your armor is surprisingly... normal, my lord." He was used to the Chaos Space Marines boasting all manner of spikes and chains over their armor, even in the Iron Warriors, which was a Legion that prided itself on spartan practicality and function over form. Dest's armor looked like a suit that was fresh from the forge, without even a set of horns.

"The drivers of the Legion cannot adorn their armor excessively, as it makes it hard to fit inside the vehicle cab," Dest grunted before he pulled out a book titled "History of the Royal Guard," "also, I am fairly new to the 38th Company."

Daniels winced at that, although none of the ponies knew why.

"And what do we have over here?" Rarity demanded, walking up behind Gaela. From the unicorn's perspective, all she could see was a black cape stooped over a desk with a bulky actuator backpack mounted on top and the grinning silver skull of the legion stamped below the pack. The servo limbs on top of the pack were pumping up and down wildly, and a spray of sparks would shoot out at an angle every few seconds.

"Ah, this is Dark Acolyte Gaela," Twilight said, rushing up to the unicorn and pointing a hoof at the cloaked figure, "Gaela, this is Rarity, one of my friends." Twilight wasn't terribly surprised to get absolutely no response from the woman.

"Ah, right. Rainbow mentioned this one." Rarity craned her neck to one side. "Come on darling, turn around and let Rarity have a look at you."

"No. If you wish to discuss the aesthetics of power armor design, you may discuss it with the Astartes until he gets annoyed enough to put a bolt round through your skull." Her servo tool rose up, and a high-pitched whine filled the room as her laser activated at low intensity, carving into the drone's internals. "I'm busy."

"Oh, don't be like that," Rarity said, her horn starting to glow.

"Wait, Rarity, don't-"

Rarity wasn't listening to Twilight's protest, and a field of magical energy surrounded Gaela.

Dest's hand slipped onto his boltgun even as he read the book he had chosen, waiting to hear a scream or enraged shout.

Gaela suddenly found herself turning around against her will, and barely stopped herself from crying out as her body was rotated to face the unicorn, chair and all, before it was released.

Twilight was rather more concerned about the laser, which was still active and burnt a thin scar in an arc across the floor before Gaela remembered to turn it off.

"Right. Another psyker. Great," the Acolyte mumbled, staring at the white pony through her neon green optics.

Dest took his hand off his bolter as Spike entered the room again carrying a teapot.

"What's a 'psyker'? Not an insult, I hope," Rarity asked, staring at the hooded figure and taking in the details of her armor.

"Humans use that word to refer to magic-users," Twilight explained, "and generally, aliens don't seem to like magic very much."

"Yeah, we kind of prefer our physics nice and predictable, thanks," mumbled a gunman as he took a cup of tea. Most of the men besides Daniels had removed their masks, deeming it safe enough that they didn't need rebreathers. One or two had even shed their coats as well, and found themselves being stared at rather critically by Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie (the latter seemed to enjoy climbing all over them as well).

Gaela sighed through her vox grille. "Whatever you want, hurry up and get it over with. I'm very busy."

Rarity hummed to herself as she tapped the outward fold on Gaela's chest plate. "Pardon me for asking, but would you happen to be a female human? Rainbow Dash didn't say."

The other ponies perked up immediately, glancing at the Acolyte. They were all aware by now that she was female, but none of them were aware of the different anatomies of male and female humans, and they had absolutely no idea how Rarity could tell anyway with a suit of enclosed armor covering Gaela's body and a vox grille scrambling her voice.

"I am. So what?" Gaela mumbled, her optics rotating.

"Ah! I knew it! A lady just knows one of their own!" Rarity looked unreasonably proud of herself for uncovering this very basic tidbit. "Now, why don't you drop the mask, dear? Let Rarity have a look at your face."

"If I do, will you leave me alone?" Gaela asked.

"Not a chance. Come on, now."

With a sigh completely disproportionate with the task being asked of her, she mentally unlocked the safety mechanism on her helmet and pushed a switch on the neck of her armor as she pulled down her hood.

There was a gentle hiss of air escaping as the face helmet split apart vertically, the metal facets sliding to either side of her head before folding in above her shoulders to minimize obstruction. The vox grill and integrated respirator sunk below her chin, forming a gorget around the neck plating.

Gaela's face was smooth and pale, or at least paler than that of the other humans. The left side of her head was dominated by an optics and cranial augmetic implant not completely dissimilar to the one on her helmet, although this one had one large emerald-colored bionic eye in place of her natural one. Her other eye, which was biological and a rich blue, was ringed by a black tattoo of the Star of Chaos. There was not a hair on her head either, her scalp having reached that special level of bald that implied some sort of artificial treatment to remove it permanently.

Daniels, as it turned out, was the first to speak up. "Huh. So that's what she looks like."

Applejack twisted her head to look up at the man. "Ya mean ya'll never even saw her face 'til now?"

"Are you kidding? We wouldn't even know her NAME if she hadn't gotten annoyed at being called 'Miss Acolyte'."

"No hair," another man mumbled, "little disappointing."

"Mechanicus, man," Daniels said with a shrug.

"Can I go back to work now?" Gaela asked. Without her mask the sight of her annoyed sneer was in evidence, and as such she had discarded the closest thing she had to diplomatic skill.

"Certainly, Darling," Rarity answered, pointing a hoof up the stairs, "just take your gadget with me and the girls upstairs."

She glanced up the stairs as Twilight smiled hopefully at her. "Why? I'm fine down here."

"I'm not sure how you humans do it, but here in Equestria it isn't proper for males and females to share sleeping space. I'm sure you understand," the pure white pony gave an unreadable look to the men, some of whom rolled their eyes at her.

"I said I'm fine down here," Gaela snapped, turning her attention to Daniels, "you! Donald! Say something!"

"Take a cup of tea with you before you head upstairs, Acolyte," Daniels said dryly, pausing to take a sip, "it's really good."

"Field protocol demands-" Gaela sputtered, only to be cut off by the only other figure in power armor.

"Stop yelping and join the xenos," Dest snapped, looking up from his book, "you're annoying, and I'm trying to read."

Gaela's protests died in her throat at being admonished by the Astartes, and she wordlessly clenched her teeth before standing and gathering up the drone.

"Come along now, darling. We don't bite," Rarity assured her as Rainbow Dash floated up the stairs ahead of them.

"That's actually a valid concern of mine, though I'm hesitant to take your word for it," the Acolyte mumbled as she followed the unicorn. Pinkie and Twilight ascended after them eagerly, with only Applejack hesitating.

"Well, ya'll have a good night now, y'hear? You too, Spike." The apple farmer bounded up the stairs after her friends, not waiting for a reply.

Spike glanced around nervously at the strange and unfamiliar creatures that surrounded him, uncomfortably aware of the large pile of weapons in the corner.

"Welp, now this is officially a sausagefest," grumbled one of the gunmen, taking the last cup of tea from the young dragon.

"Miss the Dark Acolyte already?" Daniels asked sarcastically, laying down on the floor.

"I was referring more to the xenos, actually. Rainbow Dash is all right. You know, for a horse."

Spike gathered up the courage to speak, taking a deep, calming breath. "So, I was wondering if someone could let me know what, exactly, is going on here? Please?" If he was going to be spending the night surrounded by weirdos from outer space, he at least wanted to know why.

The humans regarded the dragon in silence for several seconds before Daniels spoke up.

"In a nutshell, two alien races have converged on your planet largely by coincidence. One is a group of relatively benign explorers trying to escape from a disastrous encounter with the other race, which in this case is made up of corrupt and ruthless pirates."

Spike blinked. "Oh! Wow! So you're being chased by space pirates?"

"Now, see, here's the funny part..."

****

Gaela placed the gutted disruptor drone on Twilight's reading desk, although the height of the surface meant she was going to have to kneel down in order to continue her work.

Of course, that assumed that she was even going to get that opportunity.

"Do you have to wear all that armor inside? It looks rather uncomfortable," Rarity mused from behind her.

Gaela's eye twitched. "YES. The armor powers the servo actuators, which I need to do my work."

"What are you doing, exactly?" Twilight asked, her eyes sparkling as she leaned around Rarity to stare at the alien device.

"I'm TRYING to analyze the jamming field emitter to find the exact wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation such that I can devise a counter measure. But I can't DO that if you keep-"

"Hey, is this your space gun?" Pinkie asked, removing the plasma pistol from where it had been mag-locked onto her thigh.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Gaela shouted, snatching the weapon back. "If it were to discharge accidentally then the damage could be-"

"Hey, hey, who would win in a fight? You or Dest?" Rainbow Dash asked excitedly, poking at her backpack harness. "I think you could take him! You have more arms!"

"I've changed my mind," Gaela deadpanned, handing her pistol back to Pinkie, "take the gun before I do something I'll regret."

"YAY!" Pinkie happily took the weapon in her hooves, and then started posing with it while making "Pew! Pew!" noises.

"Gotta say, those're some fancy gadgets ya got up there," Applejack mused, scratching at her chin with a hoof, "how's a mare get her hooves on something like that? Could come in mighty handy around the farm."

Gaela's expression teetered between fury and resignation. "I'm not getting any work done tonight, am I?"

"So you may as well take off all that ugly metal and relax," Rarity said with a smile.

"Fine. If I refused you'd probably just strip it off with your damn powers anyway," Gaela grumbled, mentally disengaging the actuator pack's clamps.

The ponies fell silent as the procedure began, and the room filled with the whir of gears and hiss of trapped air being released.

First came the actuator pack, lowered to the floor slowly as cables stretched from sockets mounted along her spine and then popped free one by one. The rubber robes went next, although they were removed in an entirely conventional manner by pulling her arms out of her sleeves. The shoulder pads slid out of place, and then the torso armor cracked open like a clam shell, hinged at the waist, before the rear plate split open along the spine to let her out. The greaves and arm pieces unlocked and split open next, allowing Gaela to free her extremities.

Once the armor finished shifting about, the Acolyte slowly pulled back out of the power armor like an insect molting its carapace as smaller nerve plugs retracted from the sockets drilled into her body. Underneath the armor, she was encased in a form-fitting black suit and studded with plug sockets, although that wasn't what captured the ponies' attention now that she had shed her armor.

"You missed one, darling," Rarity beckoned to Gaela's right arm.

"No, I didn't," the Acolyte deadpanned, cracking her neck absently, "that isn't an armor sleeve. I lost my biological arm to an overheating plasma pistol three years ago."

Twilight blanched, although her eyes were shining. "Your people can build entirely functional artificial limbs?"

"Yes, of course," she continued, flexing the fingers of the arm, "luckily the pistol survived the incident, although it wasn't easy to clean all the burnt flesh off of it."

This seemed like a very strange sentiment to the ponies, but before any of them could ask incredulous questions of her, Pinkie was leaning up against the woman's side, peering at the metal built into the side of her skull.

"Is that what happened to your face, too?" the pink pony asked.

"No. Munitions engraving, five years ago. A heavy bolter round proved to be surprisingly unstable and some of the shrapnel hit me. It revealed a critical flaw in our chemical propellant processing, so the incident was well worth an eye." She sat down against a wall, heaving a sigh. Despite her protests, it did feel good to be out of her armor again.

"Dear, I don't know what you do for a living, but it seems to have a very poor safety record," Rarity said, looking slightly squeamish.

"I'm sure the men crushed to death by a Gnarloc this afternoon would agree with you," Gaela said dryly, "now then, since you've made it clear you'll bother me further if I try to get anything useful done, I might as well get some sleep."

Twilight looked crestfallen at the idea, but she was the only one.

"Yeah, that actually sounds pretty good," Rainbow Dash yawned, stretching out her legs.

"Yer tellin' me. What a day," Applejack grumbled.

"But... But... your arm! And I wanted to... the eye..." Twilight stumbled over her words before Rarity patted her on the head.

"There, there, Twilight. Give the poor dear her space," then she leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper, "besides, we got her up here, didn't we? Give her some time to come around."

Gaela could hear them perfectly well, but pretended not to as she lolled her head to one side and closed her eye (while shutting off her augmetic). She didn't know what the obnoxious pony xenos were up to, but whatever it was almost certainly harmless. Whatever else she could say about the creatures, they seemed intent on helping her despite her hostile nature and affiliation with a malevolent power. Moreover, they were the species that controlled a region where she was lost and hunting Tau scouts without a communications link back to base. Cooperation would make things much easier, and if they really wanted to the Iron Warriors could always bombard the silly horses into ash later.

Her biological eye cracked open. "Get off."

Pinkie Pie shifted and craned her neck around, pouting adorably. She was laying across Gaela's lap, clearly intending to sleep there.

"But-"

"This isn't open for discussion," the Acolyte growled, "get OFF me."

"Oh, I know!" Pinkie perked up. "I'll move if you smile for me!"

Gaela rolled the pink pony onto the floor, ignoring the disappointed noises before she turned on her side.

The Dark Acolyte almost hoped she stumbled onto more Tau tomorrow; if she didn't get to murder something soon, these blasted ponies were going to drive her crazy.

Maim, Kill, Burn, etc.

Iron Hearts

Chapter 4

Maim, Kill, Burn, etc.

****

Ponyville - Scootaloo's home

Big Macintosh yawned lightly as the sun slowly crept over the horizon, finally illuminating Ponyville after a long night.

The stallion was used to getting up early, of course, but had been up quite late as well. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle were all still fast asleep, and likely would be for some time. They had made quite a fuss over Crabapple the previous night, and had stayed up late as a result. Big Macintosh, in turn, had stayed up later, walking short patrols around Scootaloo's home to ensure that the premises were free of aliens skulking about.

He had encountered nothing, thank Celestia, but he wasn't about to let his guard down so soon; the gash he had taken from one of the tall, spindly ones hadn't even healed completely yet.

The clanking of metal interrupted his viewing of the sunrise, and the stallion turned his head. Crabapple scuttled out of the open doorway to join him.

The drone's body had been painted over, more or less. The outer facings of its legs, previously a solid black, were now a bright red bordering on pink, in imitation of its namesake. Crabapple's body was not painted uniformly, as the fillies couldn't decide whether or not to paint the main body. Apple Bloom had insisted (correctly) that if they got paint over the optics sensors Crabapple wouldn't be to see, while Sweetie Belle insisted on evening out some paint splatters that had landed on the carapace plating by accident. The result was that the bottom-most portion of the automata was painted with a wavy, uneven border giving way to unblemished ceramite. Or rather, mostly unblemished. The fillies were rather clumsy.

The paint had obscured Crabapple's Iron Skull emblem, of course, so Apple Bloom had painted it a new "cutie mark": a dark red apple with crab legs sticking out the sides and a smiley face plastered over the fruit.

Really, the machine looked absolutely ridiculous now, but then an alien reconnaissance robot being commanded by a rural filly was perfectly ridiculous on its own, so he supposed it fit.

+Unit Big Brother has completed cursory recon survey. Unit may now withdraw to base. Beginning wide-spectrum scan...+

Big Macintosh laid down on the grass and continued watching the sunrise, ignoring Crabapple's buzzing. While he was fairly sanguine about the machine itself, he did have to admit that its so-called "language" grated on the ears. And given that nopony could understand it anyway, he wished it didn't bother trying to talk to them.

+Analyzing local weather patterns... twenty degrees Celsius mean average, twenty-eight percent humidity, well within tolerance thresholds for mammalian bio-forms. An ideal day, indeed.+

Crabapple's body rose higher above the ground, and its antennae quivered in the cool morning breeze.

+Tight-beam transmissions detected. Expected deployment origin: Tau colonial reconnaissance. Deploying ion emissions tracking...+

Crabapple's sensor dish whirled about.

+Tracking multiple anti-gravity signatures consistent with Tau armor drive patterns. Pathing... analysis complete.+

Big Mac glanced up at the automata while its buzzing increased in pitch and its sensor array spun about wildly.

+Xeno deployment will bypass current location. Current speed and trajectory places 38th Company detachment at high risk of enemy engagement.+

"Crabapple? Crabapple, where are ya?" came a voice from inside the house, beckoning the probe back to its master.

+Dispatching warning vox... unable to access active channel.+

Apple Bloom stepped into the doorway, brightening when she caught sight of the automata.

"There ya are! G'mornin' Big Brother!"

Macintosh mumbled a greeting, although his sleepy-looking eyes were still locked onto the probe. It seemed... upset, somehow.

"Apple Bloom, get Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," Big Mac said, his voice showing no particular sense of urgency as he stood up, "we're gonna go into town for breakfast today."

Apple Bloom's expression brightened even further. "Okay!"

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Gaela rubbed her eye as she descended the stairs of the library, still wearing only her body suit and shaking off the effects of waking up.

"Hey, you don't look half bad without a half-inch of metal surrounding you, Acolyte," Daniels said, pausing in-between bites of his breakfast.

"Eh. I still prefer 'em with hair," mumbled another soldier while cleaning his pistol.

Gaela ignored the comments, looking over her men that remained. The were all awake and working, to their credit, either maintaining their weapons or eating a ration tin of nutrient gruel to prepare for the day's mission.

Dest was in a corner, reading a book taken from the shelf, exactly as he had been when she had gone upstairs. She wondered if he had even bothered going to sleep.

"Well, you all seem to have had a good night's rest," she mumbled, crossing her arms under her breasts, "didn't have any ponies crawling all over you while you were trying to sleep, no doubt."

"And a good morning to you too, boss-lady," offered another gunman, "can I offer you a ration tin? And the dragon already has morning tea prepared."

"Or if you need to take a piss, the lav's over there," Daniels said, pointing briefly to the side of the treehouse before gulping down some tea.

Gaela made a face. "You used an equine latrine?" Not that she really expected the soldiers to be picky about such things.

"Actually, weirdest thing: they have toilets. Like, normal human toilets," Daniels said with a shrug.

Gaela mulled that over for several seconds. "I'm starting to put together the pieces as to these creatures' origins."

"You mean the Warp didn't do it?" asked a gunman sarcastically.

"Shut up and eat your gruel."

Gaela took up a tin of the nutrient paste herself and popped open the lid. Then she felt something poke her leg.

Turning her head, she saw that the purple lizard thing with the green fins on its head was standing next to her, holding a filled tea cup and saucer.

"Here you go, space pirate lady," Spike said, his voice only slightly nervous.

Gaela quirked an eyebrow, and then took the tea without a word to the young dragon.

"So what's the plan today, Acolyte?" Daniels asked, cleaning the edges of the tin with his fingers and then licking off the last of the nutrient paste. "We could explore the rest of the xeno settlement. Maybe meet a few more of 'em, get in good with the locals?"

"You're on a mission, not shore leave," Gaela spat, taking a brief sip of tea. Licking her lips for a moment, she continued. "Our objective for the moment is to eliminate as many of the Tau jamming substations as possible as quickly as possible. Our secondary objective is to gather as much information as we can on their military presence on this planet."

"So, no reinforcements, then?"

"Not until we destroy enough substations to either weaken the field or allow our scanners to pinpoint the location of the primary jamming array," she took another sip of tea, her lips pressing into a thin line, "we cannot expect any support other than what we might stumble into unexpectedly. We're not the only team on deployment, after all."

"Well, then it sounds like ya'll might need a guide, sugarcube."

None of them needed to turn to look at the stairwell to see who had just spoken.

"Morning, Applejack," one of the soldiers mumbled as he finished cleaning his rifle.

Gaela grimaced. "A guide would be welcome, I suppose, but I wish to leave quickly. As soon as I finish eating I'll be putting on my armor and we'll go."

"Ah gotcha," Applejack said, tilting up her hat, "ya wanna get the jump on those grayskin critters, don'cha?"

"No, I want to leave before the pink one wakes up," Gaela said bluntly.

"Then you probably shouldn't look behind you," Daniels warned.

Gaela did just that. Impressively, she remained perfectly calm when she found Pinkie Pie standing behind her, grinning.

"That's impossible," the Acolyte stated firmly, as if the declaration would banish Pinkie from her sight, "the stairwell is over that way, and there is no other way down." She glanced up at her soldiers. "You were all WATCHING, right? How did this happen?"

"Ooh! Are you eating? What's that?" Pinkie practically jumped on Gaela and started sniffing at the ration tin, although the gruel didn't have much of a smell.

"Gaela! You're awake!" Twilight had apparently been awakened by the brief ruckus, and she was quickly descending the stairs.

"And now we've woken up the rest of them. Great," Gaela mumbled, perhaps forgetting that she wasn't wearing her helmet and thinking she was speaking too quietly to be heard. Pinkie practically had her snout in the tin by now, and looked completely intrigued by its contents.

"If you're leaving, I can accompany you as well. Spike, can you make enough food for everyone?" Twilight asked. Her mane was unkempt and she looked slightly haggard as she spoke, probably from jumping out of bed so quickly, but she was clearly intending on following the humans.

"No need, Sparkle. We're good for food," Daniels said, raising his empty tin. Spike breathed a sigh of relief that he had been spared having to make breakfast for more than a dozen individuals; he didn't even know what the humans were supposed to eat.

Gaela took a spoon and scooped up a mouthful of her nutrient paste, endeavoring to ignore the ponies as best she could until she'd gotten to eat. She wasn't all that surprised when Pinkie Pie's mouth clamped down onto the spoon the moment it cleared the tin.

"Pinkie! Stop that! What are you, a dog?" Twilight admonished angrily. WHY did her friends keep embarrassing her in front of the aliens?

Pinkie swallowed the mouthful of gruel, and then her smile promptly melted away. "BLEUGH! That stuff tastes horrible!"

"Then don't eat it," Gaela suggested dryly. She scooped up another spoonful and ate it, watching Pinkie with an expression of mild amusement.

"But why would you eat something like that?" Pinkie asked, looking quite distressed at the thought of it.

"Nutrient paste is not created for flavor. It's a concoction of vitamins, proteins, and carbohydrates perfectly balanced for the human diet and ground into a state that is effortless to digest while generating minimal waste." She swallowed another spoonful of gruel, and then took a sip of tea before continuing. "A human could live a perfectly normal, healthy life subsisting on nothing more than a single ration tin per day."

Twilight seemed positively entranced by her explanation, which was becoming the norm whenever she explained any aspect of human technology. Pinkie, as expected, was unimpressed.

"But it TASTES bad!" the pink pony protested, her eyes narrowing. Her expression was almost hostile, as if the presence of bad food was offensive to her.

"Yes, well, I have to admit the tea does help with that," Gaela said with a shrug as she polished off the cup, "assistant, refill my cup."

As Spike quickly brought in more tea, Applejack and Twilight were staring curiously at the ration tin.

Twilight in particular was tempted to try the strange alien food; Pinkie's complaints, if anything, made her more curious.

"Do you think this is safe for ponies to eat?" Twilight asked. "Our dietary needs shouldn't be THAT different, right?"

"You'll be fine," Gaela deadpanned, "even if there were some element in the paste that your biology finds objectionable, in this state your body would be able to isolate and neutralize it easily. If you want to try it, go ahead."

And that was all the encouragement Twilight needed. The spoon was seized in her telekinetic grip and she quickly stuck a mouthful into her jaws, her eyes squeezing shut as she swallowed.

She was pleasantly surprised to find that Pinkie had been overreacting; the paste didn't have any particular taste, although the slimy texture was unpleasant. Pinkie's tongue was probably just so used to sugar by now that anything else might as well be grass to her.

"So, do you survive on this exclusively?" Twilight asked before downing another spoonful.

"No, thank Tzeentch," one of the gunmen replied, "we happen upon enough agri-worlds that we get real food every once in a while."

"And you're worse off for it," Gaela pointed out, fetching herself another tin.

"I already sold my life to the bloody Gods of Chaos, thankyamuch, I'd be willing to give up a day's 'balanced' meal for a steak."

Applejack's ears twitched. "Steak? Steak of what?" The others not being farmers and them all being herbivores, she was the only one who knew anything about cuts of meat; not all Fluttershy's animals ate plants, after all.

"Whatever. Cows, lamb, pigs... hell, that Gnarloc would make quite a feast if we'd had time to hack it up."

Pinkie Pie recoiled, grimacing. "You guys eat animals?" Twilight froze in the middle of taking another bite of the rations. Applejack raised an eyebrow, but was clearly the least bothered by it; so long as the humans weren't murdering her livestock, she wasn't about to criticize their diet.

"Oh, calm down. We wouldn't eat you lot," Daniels reassured them.

"Unless you died through no fault of our own and we had nothing else to do with the body," another man added quickly, "I mean, it'd just be wasteful otherwise."

"You're not helping, Jacob."

Twilight stared uncomfortably at the ration tin, the spoon still floating above her snout.

"You needn't worry. There are no meat products in the rations. The process of raising livestock for slaughter is far too energy-inefficient. All the protein components are plant-based or chemical recombinants," Gaela explained between bites of her own meal.

Twilight looked relieved. "So then why would humans still eat meat?"

"Because it tastes good, obviously." Gaela's biological eye stared meaningfully at Pinkie Pie. "Anyway, will the rest of your companions be joining us in the field? It's likely to be dangerous."

Twilight took another bite of the gruel as she considered it. "Well, Rarity just got up, so she won't be finished primping for half an hour or so. Rainbow Dash was doing a circuit around Ponyville to stretch her wings, but I'm sure she'd want to come."

****

Ponyville Outskirts

*We have two energy signatures. One is in passive mode, the other active. Definite mark on a heavy gue'la, Astartes-class. Unsure about the other.*

Five Tau Pathfinders were gathered behind a house, their position shielded from much of the rest of the town by a series of overgrown hedges.

Their recon armor was painted in a green camouflage pattern in contrast to the fire teams, with nothing but a small disk inset on their chest boasting the sept colors of blue and black. The squad leader was attending to a sensor drone that hovered close to the ground, whirring softly as its numerous sensor fins shifted.

*If there are only two, then let us take care of them ourselves,* one Pathfinder suggested, hoisting his pulse carbine.

*Negative, Shas'la. We recently lost a kill team in this region, and then lost contact with a Kroot heavy assault unit soon afterward. Even if there are only two armor suits, we don't know how much light infantry support they possess. Our scanners are unable to differentiate between the gue'la and the native life forms.*

A snort from some of the other Pathfinders informed him of what they thought of the human soldiers, but none protested the decision.

*I've already contacted an armored convoy en route to the transmitter field base. When they arrive we will provide markerlight support to crush the enemy unit with overwhelming force, and then-*

"Found you, alien freaks!"

The Pathfinders immediately dropped to a crouch, their weapons at the ready and all visible approach vectors covered as per their training.

Well, all visible approach vectors on the ground, anyway.

Only one of the Tau realized that the shout seemed to have been coming from above the house rather than the streets, and that Pathfinder briefly broke his unit protocol to look upward rather than protect their flank.

He was rewarded for his vigilance by a pair of blue hooves to the face.

As the rest of the team was alerted that they were under attack by the sound of a cracking helmet, Rainbow Dash rebounded off the stunned Pathfinder and toward the sensor drone, smashing into the squad leader head-first and plowing him into the floating machine.

*What the blazes is that?*

*Is that a gue'la unit?*

*Hold your fire! You'll hit the Shas'ui!*

Rainbow staggered to her feet as the squad leader did the same, although the alien soldier was clutching his arm in pain. The sensor drone bobbed around them wildly, trying to stay tethered to its location despite the hit it had taken.

"Welcome to Equestria, slowpokes!" the pegasus snarled, kicking out the Pathfinder's leg and sending him to the ground again. "Enjoy your TRIP!"

She took off again in flash of blue and one Pathfinder fired a panicked pulse shot as she zipped over his head, accidentally blasting the sensor drone before a kick to the back of his helmet sent him tumbling.

The drone sputtered briefly while the energy bolt cooked its circuits, and then a gout of smoke billowed from the device as it dropped to the ground.

Rainbow Dash flew a wide arc around the aliens, passing behind the house that they had been sheltering behind.

*F-Fall back! Run!* the squad leader commanded, crawling toward his pulse carbine.

*What, are you serious? We're going to flee from one of the local birds?* demanded one Pathfinder, his eyes scanning the sky.

*We're not here to start a fight with the natives, Shas'la! Our position has been compromised! Move!* a squadmate pulled the veteran to his feet, although it seemed as if his leg was broken.

*Oh, this is just pathetic,* growled the other Tau, covering their retreat as his squadmates dashed for the trees.

*Hey, if it comes back, then you can feel free to take a swing at it,* snapped the Pathfinder whose helmet now had a pair of vaguely U-shaped cracks in its front, *I don't do close combat!*

*Forget it! The convoy will be here soon! They'll manage without us!*

****

Ponyville - library

"You guys! We've got trouble!"

Human and pony alike looked up as a shout came from the balcony upstairs.

It was followed by a yelp and a dull thump, and many of the humans snickered along with the ponies as they heard muffled cursing from above.

"We're downstairs, sugarcube," Applejack said, "don't hurt yerself on the way down!"

"Rainbow Dash, I hope you didn't break anything up there! I just fixed my telescope!" Twilight warned, not bothering to turn toward her room as she shouted.

"This is more important than your dumb telescope!" Rainbow Dash insisted as she staggered down the stairs. "I just saw a bunch of those Tau jerks skulking around Ponyville!"

That quickly silenced everybody save Gaela.

"Number and location," the Acolyte commanded.

"Five grayskins, forty clicks off at six o'clock!" Rainbow barked, saluting with her hoof just as she had seen in a Wonderbolts promotional video once.

Gaela paused. "That's... well outside the town's perimeter."

"I... I don't actually know what a 'click' is," Rainbow confessed. Then she glanced at a clock on the wall. "Also, I guess it was more like six-fifteen. But anyway, I saw a bunch of those alien creeps playing around with one of their stupid gizmos and I chased them off! I even got the machine they were messing with!" Technically, of course, the sensor bot had been a victim of friendly fire, but since she had caused the accident, she decided that it still counted.

"Hmm... if they're already fleeing the area, then we'll be hard pressed to catch them," Gaela considered, pausing briefly to gulp down the last of her tea, "also, this could easily be a trap to lure us out of the village and into a fire team..."

As the human soldiers awaited the Dark Acolyte's decision, Dest glanced up from the book he was reading.

"Ah, that reminds me: there was a vox transmission earlier that my helmet detected, but couldn't pick up properly. You might want to check yours, since your transmitter is probably stronger."

Gaela's jaw slowly fell open, and she made several unintelligible noises before she finally broke into a sprint straight up the stairs toward her armor.

Pinkie Pie tilted her head to the side. "She seemed kind of upset. Was that important?"

"Meh. Who knows?" Dest closed the book and then stepped up to Twilight, who immediately gave the Astartes her full attention. "In any case we'll probably be leaving soon, so I'd like to check this out."

Twilight put aside the now-empty ration tin and glanced at the book. A Guide to Canterlot. Not her favorite title documenting the history and layout of Equestria's capital - she found it was a bit too tourist-oriented - but still an interesting choice.

"Okay, sure. Let's just get you signed up for a library card and-"

"SON OF A BITCH!!" came a howl from upstairs.

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "What do dogs hafta do with anythin'?"

"Oh, that's just an expression of general anger and frustration among our people," Daniels explained, pulling his optics mask down, "she must've gotten some bad news."

"TAU ARMOR COLUMN INCOMING!!" a second shout explained.

"Yeah, that's pretty bad news," another soldier agreed, putting on his optics visor.

Dest held up the book in his hand, and then wedged it into his ammo belt. "Well, it looks like the card will have to wait. But you can feel free to take the book off my body if I don't survive this," the Chaos Marine said conversationally, pulling his boltgun free of its magnetic lock on his armor leg.

Twilight winced at that, but Rainbow Dash just looked confused. "Wait, I don't get it. What's an 'armor column'?"

"It means we're facing enemy tanks and APCs," Daniels explained as he grabbed his lasrifle, "and if we're lucky, that's all. Battlesuits would have a hard time keeping pace with the vehicles, but who knows?"

"Okay, but you can take 'em, right?" Applejack asked.

"Not really, no," another soldier admitted, "we weren't supposed to be fighting an armored column. There isn't supposed to BE an armored column. These are some of the most vicious colony scouts I've ever heard of."

"Yeah, well what if we helped out?" Rainbow Dash asked, gesturing to herself with a grin. Applejack nodded grimly in agreement, while Twilight winced again.

"We'd appreciate any help, but I'm not sure what you plan on doing to a tank," Daniels admitted, "these targets are even harder than the Gnarloc. Thick armor, low-level flight, and plenty of guns on Tau machines." then he glanced at Twilight. "Although... a psyker might be able to do some damage."

"Er..." Twilight shrunk in on herself slightly. "I'm... not sure I'm comfortable with murdering one species of aliens on the behalf of a different one I just met. Especially since you already admitted that you're only fighting the Tau to loot and pillage their ships."

It certainly seemed like a rational position to her, but she couldn't help but noticing the bemused looks on her friends' faces.

"So much for the magic of friendship," Pinkie snorted, rolling her eyes.

"I think it's a little different when warfare is involved!" Twilight protested.

"Well, Ah'm on yer side," Applejack said, raising a hoof and tilting up her hat, "those filthy grayskins destroyed mah home!"

"Not that I'm blaming them for that, but you DO realize that the humans technically were what brought them to your farm in the first place, right?" Twilight asked, only to be ignored.

"Whatever. Element of loyalty right here! Let's kick some Tau flank!" Rainbow Dash cheered.

"Girls, please, don't do this to me," Twilight groaned, planting a hoof against her face.

"On your feet, soldiers!" Gaela shouted as she rushed down the stairs, her heavy greaves pounding against the wooden steps. "Outside, now!" her mask was still down, for whatever reason, but otherwise she was fully armored and ready to go, her plasma pistol on her thigh and her power axe hoisted in her bionic arm.

The humans poured out of the library in short order, spreading out and keeping watch on all the sight lanes with their rifles down. There were several more ponies out and about Ponyville now than there were last night, and the unit received no shortage of shocked expressions as Dest and Gaela joined them. The expressions lightened considerably when Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash followed, although they were still understandably curious.

"What's the plan, Acolyte? Where we going?" Daniels asked, looking at the hills that covered one side of the town.

"The town square. There's enough room there," Gaela answered, taking a fairly large cylinder from her belt as she walked past him.

The soldiers hesitated briefly before following her.

"Enough room for what? Aren't we retreating?"

Gaela snorted. "If you think you can outrun xeno skimmers, feel free to try."

"Hiding, then?" another gunman asked.

"The xeno forces are going to have strong enough sensors to track us down," Dest concluded, following behind Gaela while Pinkie Pie hung from his backpack, "our only option is defense."

"Defense with WHAT?" Daniels asked incredulously. "I don't think a plasma pistol, boltgun, and a handful of lasrifles are going to be enough to ward off a devilfish APC!"

"We leave that in the hands of our brothers in orbit," Gaela said, sounding mildly amused as she twisted the cylinder in her hand.

One end of the metal shell slid free, revealing a complex bundle of wirework and a single glass projector at the end. Gaela's mechadendrites seeped from the fingers of her artificial hand, entering the crevices of the device and entering a complex array of electronic triggers.

"What is that?" Twilight asked Daniels, nudging him with her hoof.

"Ah, not quite sure, actually," the gunman confessed, "I can tell a krak warhead from a fragmentation munition, but Mechanicus gear always tends to be hard to work with for anyone else."

"It's a beacon," Dest said simply, waiting patiently as the Dark Acolyte placed it on the ground in the exact middle of the town square.

"Aren't those used to call in artillery strikes?" one soldier asked skeptically. Not that such a thing wouldn't be useful with enemy forces barreling down on them, but calling one into the middle of Ponyville long before the enemy arrived wasn't likely to help anything.

"Not all of them, no," Dest assured him.

Gaela stepped back as a rapidly building whine came from the beacon. After a few seconds, a bright flare of light pulsed from the device, and a beam of light briefly lanced upward into the sky.

Then the light faded away, the beacon going dark.

"So... are we getting reinforcements?" one man ventured to ask.

"In a manner of speaking," Dest said, his massive armored shoulders shifting in a shrug, "you're going to want to stand clear."

Gaela stepped back as well, looking up at the clear blue sky while leaning on her axe.

"Have you considered talking to the Tau, rather than fighting?" Twilight offered, approaching the Acolyte. "I know that I'm new to intergalactic conflict and all, but from what I've seen and heard it seems to me that you actually have some ground to work out a solution without getting anybody killed."

"I have not considered such a solution," Gaela said flatly, "a wolf does not negotiate with its prey. It either succeeds and survives, or it fails and dies."

"From what your soldiers have told me, I'm not sure you qualify as the predator in that analogy," Twilight pointed out.

"And yet the point remains the same, doesn't it?" Gaela said with a slight smirk. "The incoming Tau have no reason to negotiate with my unit while they hold military superiority. The 38th Company has no reason to negotiate with the Tau forces for the same reason. We have an impasse."

The whirring of gears came from her power armor as her helmet shifted up into position, the mask sliding up over her mouth as metal folded up and around her face, closing shut with a hiss of pressurized air.

"That means it's killing time."

"But by all indications you're throwing your lives away!" Twilight protested. As much as she didn't want to fight the Tau, she really didn't want to see the humans gunned down in front of her, either. "At least let us hide you, or... or..."

"Hush, Sparkle," came the harsh, static-filled bark from Gaela's vox grill, "our salvation arrives."

The front door to Twilight's library opened up, and Spike quickly moved to hold the door open as Rarity stepped outside.

"Really, I might have expected this from our visitors and even some of my friends, but even Twilight was content to just rush outside without telling me a thing?" Rarity complained as she searched left and right for her companions. "Really, can't a lady take a few minutes to put her face on without being abandoned all by herself?"

"Well, I'm here for you, Rarity!" Spike quickly volunteered, closing the door behind them.

"Yes, yes, I know. Now where did they go?"

As the glamorous unicorn glanced about, Spike looked upward and squinted his eyes. "Well, if I was going to guess, I'd say they'd be wherever those things are landing."

"Landing? What?" Rarity looked up where Spike was pointing, and her eyes widened considerably, her expression matching that of nearly every other resident in Ponyville as three drop rigs descended on the town square like gleaming meteors.

Rockets on the bottom of the drop rigs flared as they approached the ground, slowing the containers down below a threshold that would smash their cargo apart. Even so, the rigs hit the ground with far greater force than the recon probes, shaking the earth as they kicked up dirt and flames.

Each one was much smaller than a drop pod, which most of the men had been hoping for, and was shaped into a rectangular metal block with the Iron Skull stamped onto the side.

Gaela wasted no time, rushing up to the nearest one and gripping an exposed metal handle with her servo arm.

+Access code 3381929300791, tacticae authorization secundus. Engage deployment sequence.+

With her blurt of binary, all three pods split open slightly, air rushing out of their metal shells and small red lights blinking on at the tops of the rigs.

Gaela's servo arm rotated and the drop rig unfolded like a flower, three sides releasing to fall onto the ground as she held up the fourth.

"Ah, I see," Daniels mumbled, watching as four gun barrels longer than he was tall ratcheted upward, "now THAT might put a hole in a devilfish."

Gaela went to work with her servo limbs, hooking up the ammunition hoppers and unfolding the gunner's platform as her mechadendrites activated the targeting computer. Large armor plates shifted up and to the side of a raised platform to shield the gunner from incoming fire, and as the barrels of the quad gun dropped into firing position a pair of hand levers stuck out over the platform.

The moment Gaela stepped away from the active weapon emplacement Dest jumped up onto the platform, taking hold of the levers and pulling on one of them to test the responsiveness of the turret. The entire emplacement swung around with great speed, and the Iron Warrior nodded in satisfaction.

"What are these things?" Twilight finally asked as Gaela stepped past her to unlock the next emplacement.

"Kaius pattern drop rigs, quad gun configuration," Gaela explained as she opened up the next rig, "they can be dropped from orbit and set up in moments to provide heavy firepower for an otherwise outgunned infantry force. Like ours. The jamming signals may be too thick for vox, but without a jammer nearby our ships can pick up our beacons."

As she started connecting the ammo hoppers, she spared a glance at Twilight. "By the way, not that it matters that much to me if we have spectators, but your little xeno friends are going to be at serious risk of injury and death if they stand around watching for long."

Twilight grimaced as she realized that, unsurprisingly, having three alien machines drop into the middle of town from orbit had attracted quite a crowd of amazed and curious ponies. She promptly moved to warn them away.

"All right, this rig is ready!" Gaela barked, stepping back from the platform. "One of you gun monkeys get over here!"

"Aye-aye Acolyte!" Pinkie Pie said in an overly gruff voice before she jumped onto the firing platform and stood up on her hind legs, placing her hooves on the control levers.

Gaela wasted several precious seconds staring incredulously at the pink earth pony.

"What are you doing?" she finally demanded.

"I'm helping!" Pinkie cheered. Gaela had set the controls lower for the benefit of a human controller rather than an Astartes, so Pinkie was barely tall enough on her hind legs to make use of them, but as far as the Dark Acolyte could tell there was still no way for her to use the firing levers without hands.

"Okay, quit that. Get off, now," Gaela demanded. "You can't use this weapon, so you-"

"Ooh! What're these red dots on the screen?" Pinkie asked, tapping a hoof against the quad gun's sensor display.

Gaela recoiled, turning toward the human soldiers. "We have incoming! Take cover, now!"

As the human soldiers rushed to hide behind whatever they could find and the less curious ponies decided that they had better things to do elsewhere, Gaela gave up on talking sense to Pinkie and rushed to the third drop rig.

"Hey, I see it!" Rainbow Dash shouted from high above. "Two of 'em, moving fast!"

The sound of Dest's turret firing marked the beginning of the battle. A noise like thunder hitting the earth in rapid sequence filled the air as the quad gun opened up on the pair of light skimmers the moment they came into view.

One of the relatively small vehicles took a hit straight to the front right away, the autocannon round smashing through the weak plating and blowing the entire thing apart.

The other skimmer turned hard as its wingman vanished in a fiery cloud of shrapnel, and bright yellow tracer rounds from the quad gun followed it as it tried to evade.

"Piranhas! Don't let them get close to the heavy guns!" Daniels shouted, huddled behind a fruit cart. A few of his squadmates fired at the speeding attack craft, but he didn't bother; even sustained lasgun fire wouldn't damage most vehicles.

"What's going on?"

"What are these things?"

"The horror! The HORROR!"

The second Piranha tried to skim over a house and drop in behind it for cover, but as Dest's turret fire closed in it took a round to the engines, blowing one of them out and crushing the antigravity drive. The skimmer spun wildly as fire blasted out of its rear armor, sending it spinning to the ground to dig a scorched furrow in the dirt.

"And that's two," Dest remarked, letting his guns cool as he checked his augurs, "I don't suppose anyone would like to help out with the next wave?"

Gaela finished activating the last quad gun and jumped onto the firing platform, a cable hooking up from the back of her helmet to the control console. "I'm ready!"

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie said brightly. She had been spinning her turret around in circles and giggling since Gaela left, but the pony finally leveled the weapon out properly. Somehow.

"So, I don't really have time to explain everything," Twilight shouted to be heard as the quad guns opened up again, "but things are going to be rather dangerous around here for the next few minutes or so-"

She and many of the ponies she was speaking to flinched when a detonation came from behind her, and a hunk of black poly-ceramic plating bounced along the ground at her side, trailing smoke.

"So you should all stay inside for now, until it's safe!" Twilight finished, giving an uneasy look at the hunk of wreckage.

"So, wait, if these two alien groups are fighting it out, whose side are we on?" asked Bonbon.

"We're not on a side!" Twilight insisted, slicing her hoof horizontally through the air. "We're neutral in this affair!"

"Wait, what? I thought we were friends with the humans." Rarity asked, her and Spike approaching cautiously as two more Piranhas zoomed overhead at top speed.

Twilight groaned. "It's not that simple!"

"Hey, I see a couple big ones over there!" Rainbow Dash shouted, pointing her hoof south.

"Infantry, get ready to charge after we break the APCs open!" Gaela shouted. "Pie, seriously, how are you firing that quad gun with no fingers?!"

Carrot Top quirked an eyebrow. "It sure looks like we're on the humans' side to me."

Twilight pressed a hoof to her face. "That's... It's just... Look, just hide somewhere safe, okay?"

"Go humans! Get those nasty aliens!" Roseluck shouted, pumping her hoof in the air.

****

Fast asleep in her bed, and utterly unaffected by the roar of violence outside, Lyra's ear twitched.

****

A Devilfish transport swung into sight, opening fire as another APC moved behind it to unload its cargo. The hovercraft was bulky but nimble, with two heavy engines mounted on either side of its hull near the back. The hull tapered to a snub nose near the front, with two fins attached to either side of it, and its burst cannon mounted underneath it. The weapon loosed a stream of energy flares that sawed across the ground as it sought targets, eventually settling on one of the defensive emplacements.

A storm of crackling blue splashed against the front of Gaela's turret, and her firing display flickered briefly as the ablative armor plating started to break apart under the barrage.

The Devilfish suffered considerably for the opportunity, and autocannon fire pounded hard against its frontal armor, boring large, smoldering holes in the skimmer's plating. Eventually one shot managed to break through to the reactor core, and the engines flared red briefly before the entire vehicle detonated. Chunks of burning wreckage and ceramic shards went flying from the explosion, and the squad unloading behind it was thrown onto the ground from the shock wave and shrapnel.

"Whee! I got one!" Pinkie yelled, pulling one lever back and sending her turret into a celebratory spin.

"Meh. Lucky shot," Dest grumbled, annoyed that he hadn't been able to land a killing blow first. He then turned to the side to cover against another pair of incoming Piranhas.

*On your feet, Shas'la! Move! Move!* the squad leader got up first, pulling the nearest Fire Warrior to his feet and shoving him forward.

*Into cover! Flank those guns and take down the-*

That was as far as he got before a bright blue pegasus dive-bombed him from behind, sending the Fire Warrior and his subordinate to the ground again.

*What the blazes?* another Fire Warrior watched as Rainbow Dash stomped the soldiers into the scorched dirt and then took off again. *Why are the native inhabitants fighting us too?*

"This is fer mah farm, ya cowards!" came a heavily accented voice from behind him, and the hapless soldier was nearly struck by one of his squadmates sent flailing through the air from a vicious back kick.

He'd seen enough. If the natives wished to stand in their way, then they would fall just like countless other foes. He raised his pulse rifle as the orange pony ran rampant through their unit, kicking wildly at everything within reach, and waited for a clear shot.

His first opportunity was missed when a slug from a stub pistol struck him in the leg, staggering him.

The Fire Warrior turned to meet the new threat just in time for a rifle bayonet to pierce his neck.

"Never met a grayskin that could take a hit," Daniels spat, kicking the Fire Warrior off his blade and rushing toward another that was standing up.

"No mercy for the alien!" Daniels shouted, the other human soldiers bearing down on the hapless aliens while Applejack and Rainbow jumped on any one of them that looked like they might be lining up a shot.

Daniels kicked the rifle out of the Tau's hand, and then put a pistol round into the Fire Warrior's helmet. "Don't stop until they're all dead!"

Dest grunted irritably as another Devilfish APC passed behind a group of buildings surrounding the square, slipping our of his line of fire before he could get a good shot.

He contemplated simply firing at the house, hoping that the shells would penetrate both sides of the building and score a lucky shot, but dismissed it as a waste of ammunition. Besides, he had other targets.

Swiveling around toward another piranha that was making an attack run on their emplacements, the driver lined up his best shot and pulled the hand trigger.

Instead of the heavy thunder of the quad gun firing, however, he only heard the shriek of metal tearing as the gun segment of his emplacement was shorn free of its turret mount and flung backward through the air.

Glancing behind him, Dest observed the four barrels tumbling along the ground along with several other shredded components of the turret. The damage didn't look energy-based; most of the heat scarring looked like it was caused by sheer friction.

"I believe we have a Hammerhead gunship incoming!" he announced, stepping down from the firing platform and taking up his bolter.

"Hee hee! That's a silly name for a tank!" Pinkie giggled as she swiveled her turret around and fired at an incoming Piranha. A few shells detonated across the side of the skimmer, and it veered off hastily to avoid further damage as smoke spilled from its cockpit.

Gaela calculated the trajectory of the shot that had destroyed Dest's gun, thankful that there were enough buildings surrounding the town square to render the Tau's superior range a moot point.

She spotted her new target strafing behind the town's buildings, a series of floating after-images trailing the nimble war machine. Similar in hull design to the Devilfish, it was nonetheless obvious where the attack tank differed from the transport; the gun mounted atop the Hammerhead was as long as the entire vehicle, and nearly a meter wide. Arcs of power buzzed along its length, and the conductor coils within the massive weapon hummed as they charged themselves for the next shot.

"The machine spirits guide my fire, xeno filth!" Gaela shouted, beginning one of the less formal prayers to the machine as she opened up on the bow of the craft, "in iron, I triumph! In flames, you perish!"

Its hull shuddering under the rain of autocannon shells, the Hammerhead fired its railgun again, and Gaela's firing platform shook as one of the gun barrels was ripped apart by a glancing hit. Quite lucky, for her.

The Dark Acolyte calmly disconnected the relevant feed hopper and adjusted the power relay, missing barely a full second of her firing window before the gunship slipped behind another home.

"Spirit within the machine, heed my call and carry destruction to my enemies! Let steel unmake flesh this day, and the xenos' machines be baptized in the blood of their own!"

The Hammerhead once again floated into view, its disruption pods generating a constant illusory haze around it.

"Break," Gaela commanded, firing her first salvo into the center of the machine.

Minus one barrel the quad gun still unleashed an impressive barrage, and the cockpit was quickly obscured by shell impacts as Gaela stitched a line of cracked armor from the head of the vehicle to the left engine block mounted to the side of the turret.

"BREAK," she repeated, empty shell casings spilling onto the ground beneath her as the Hammerhead's turret started humming once again.

"BREAK!"

As if at her chanted command, one of the heavy rounds punched through an exhaust vent and into the engine, detonating horrifically and sending the vehicle into a wild spin as smoke and flame spat from the ruined engine.

The Hammerhead gunship released its prepared shot at a wild angle, and a streak of shimmering blue flew into the air before the sub-munition detonated, casting a bright cyan haze over the battlefield.

The hover tank tried to regain control with only one engine, but Gaela was hardly done with the vehicle. It had regained some semblance of control while facing away from her turret, and she wasted no time in putting a trio of autocannon rounds into the gunship's flimsier rear armor. Fire and shattered metal spilled out of the machine's engines, and the armored skimmer dropped to the ground as its systems went dark.

Gaela drew a deep breath as the enemy war machine died, and the remaining gun barrels of her emplacement glowed red from the strain of the extended barrage.

The brief pause was all the opening the Tau needed, and as a Piranha zoomed through her line of fire, the Acolyte was too slow to take her only shot of opportunity as its fusion blaster lit up.

Her only consolation was that she hadn't been its target.

"PINKIE!"

Twilight was too far away to do much except shout as a bolt of energy like the surface of a star slammed into Pinkie's gun emplacement, dissolving the reinforced armor into so much vapor. All sight of the pony vanished as the ammunition supply exploded, and when the flames receded there was little left of the gun except for cooling slag and bits of scrap.

"By Celestia!" Rarity cried, turning away and covering her eyes with her leg. "I can't watch!"

"Pinkie Pie!" Twilight gasped, her voice trembling. "She's... She's..."

Then the alicorn frowned, an incredulous look spreading over her face. "She's fine. How is she fine?"

Rarity peeked over her hoof and saw that Pinkie was in the air above, waving at them happily as she slowly descended via parachute. Where the hardened durasteel of the quad gun had been dissolved like butter before the fusion blaster, the pink pony didn't have so much as a single burn on her.

"Don't worry! I hit the eject button!" Pinkie explained as she landed lightly, her balloon-patterned parachute falling down over her head.

Twilight gaped briefly before she shook her head and ran over to the pink pony, ignoring the whine of a Piranha zipping by overhead and the rattle of gunfire chasing after it.

"Pinkie, I have only a rudimentary understanding of the humans' technology, but I didn't see anything on that emplacement that looked like it could be an ejection system."

Pinkie poked her head out from under her parachute, a rather condescending smile on her face. "Well, do have a better explanation for how I got out?"

Twilight said nothing, her teeth clenched and her ears pinned.

"Eject button," Pinkie said with a note of finality.

"Hey, they landed more over there!" Rainbow Dash shouted, floating high over the battlefield and directing the soldiers. She then yelped and flew away as a pulse shot blasted by her.

"Twilight, dear, I think it's time you stopped being coy about aiding the humans," Rarity pointed out, a bemused expression on her face, "if we don't help, I think somepony is going to get hurt."

"And what are we going to do if the humans lose?" Twilight asked, a piece of broken armor plating bouncing across the ground between them before a Devilfish passing nearby lost anti-gravity and plowed into the dirt.

Rarity used her magic to ward off the wave of dust kicked up by the vehicle, a distasteful expression marring her features. "Oh, come now, do you think they'd lose with our help?"

"I don't know, but the Tau have already put a lot of resources into this attack already, and they show no signs of slowing down," Twilight pointed out, "these aliens are POWERFUL, Rarity, and so far we've only ended up on the humans' side due to circumstance. I don't want to see anypony hurt or killed over that!"

Rarity rolled her eyes. "I'm inclined to agree in principle, but as you said, circumstances seem to have led us to this point. Do you think things might turn out any better if we just wait things out on the sidelines?"

Twilight frowned. "Well... I..."

"BATTLESUIT!"

The shout brought Dest's attention immediately, and he dropped the Fire Warrior he had been throttling as his hand went to his boltgun.

It landed on a nearby roof, its jet pack flaring and its optics glaring a harsh red. Larger, faster, and even better armed than a terminator suit, the Tau Crisis Suits were a tactical asset as crucial to the Tau as Space Marines were to the Imperium. The battle had yet again taken a turn for the worse.

Gaela swung her turret around to intercept the new threat, but the battlesuit was already in firing position. A pair of plasma bolts from its rifle struck the main gun, frying the firing mechanism even as the suit's rocket pods launched a salvo of mini-warheads at the smoldering gun emplacement.

Gaela disconnected her neural tether, but didn't have time to jump from the platform before the warheads struck, enveloping her in flame and broken metal. Her autosenses shrieked in her ear from overload, and the Dark Acolyte found herself gently lifted from the exploding emplacement as fire swam all around her.

Gently lifted.

That was odd.

As was the lack of any kind of damage readout from her armor status display, which continued to work perfectly despite the point-blank detonation. It was possible for her armor to save her from such an explosion, but there should have been SOME damage...

Gaela belatedly noticed the haze of magic surrounding her as she was carefully placed on a section of ground that wasn't currently on fire. Twisting her head, she saw Twilight standing behind her, her horn aglow and her expression strained as she maintained the barrier.

"You realize that protecting me from harm is still a contribution to the human war effort in this conflict, right?" Gaela asked. "You can't really claim to be neutral any more, if you ever could."

"Do you ever just THANK anyone for helping you?" Twilight asked irritably.

"If it keeps me shielded from more missiles, then by all means: thank you," Gaela said, standing up.

The Crisis Suit surely would have interrupted their conversation with another round of fire, but the mechanized warrior was interrupted by a burst of mass-reactive shells slamming into its torso armor, blowing chunks of ablative plating off of the blocky suit cockpit.

The battlesuit immediately turned its full focus onto the only Astartes taking part in the battle, jumping into the air and hovering briefly before its plasma rifle fired screaming flares of hot energy down below.

Dest ducked back behind the wall of a house, moving behind the building as the plasma bolts splashed against the ground. He had gotten the first shot, but had failed to cause any critical damage. With its full attention on him, the Acolyte could probably get away, but he doubted he could best one of the Tau's heavy infantry on his own.

The Chaos Marine halted before he rounded the corner of the building. Since when was he on his own? True, their bigger guns had been silenced and besides him they had only a handful of cultists and ponies, but he was still surprised to hear very little in the way of noise aside from the steady hiss of the Crisis Suit's jetpack.

A noise that was coming from right above him.

Dest threw himself into a roll as plasma rained onto the ground behind him, cursing his foolishness for trying to outflank a unit that had flight capability and probably a better sensor suite. If he could get close he was sure he could turn the battlesuit's bulk against it in melee - always the Tau's most glaring weak point - but that wasn't going to happen while it had the high ground and a functioning jet pack.

Jumping to his feet and grumbling that he'd never had to worry about such tactical nuances behind the controls of a Rhino, the Chaos Space Marine accelerated to a sprint and rounded the corner of the building.

Just in time to take a pulse round to the abdomen.

Daniels winced as he watched the Iron Warrior collapse forward onto his face, a scrambled cry of pain coming from the warrior's vox grille before he hit the ground. His boltgun slipped from his hands and onto the dirt behind him, well out of arm's reach of Dest's prone position.

"Well, that turned against us rather quickly," the soldier mumbled, his hands on the back of his head. He had been stripped of his rifle, pistol, and knife, as well as his mask. More than two dozen Fire Warriors currently stood behind him, pulse rifles trained in case he or his two surviving men tried anything.

Aside from Dest and Gaela, the latter of whom he didn't see anywhere, half of his squad had been all but vaporized by pulse rifle salvos, and he felt quite lucky that they had fared THAT well. He and the other two men had been subdued in the veritable dogpile that had resulted the moment Dest had left to take on a worthier target.

Tau were a poor sight in a brawl, as everybody knew, but when they outnumbered you five to one...

"Well, that accounts for just about all of you," said the Fire Warrior that had just put down Dest, lowering his pulse rifle. This one had several white stripes on his shoulder pads and some other assorted decoration on his armor. Combined with his good grasp of Gothic, Daniels figured that probably made him a commander.

Three Devilfish floated nearby with their access doors open, ringing the cluster of troops while drone carbines and burst cannons covered the detachment's flank. Another Hammerhead gunship hovered high above a three-story house, its ion cannon scanning for any stragglers fleeing the area.

"Quite a fight you put up for this little piece of ground, gue'la," the commander turned toward the humans, "I'll be hard-pressed to explain these losses to my superior. UNLESS we get some decent intelligence from our prisoners. If you were to be cooperative, the next few days would go much easier for both of us."

Daniels laughed. His fellow gunmen didn't, although to be fair they were probably nursing some broken ribs.

"You think the Iron Warriors tell US anything? You'd better hope our driver there pulls through if you want to know much besides the best place to get tanked when shipside, mate!"

The Fire Warrior glanced at Daniels briefly, and then his eyes scanned the surrounding buildings. The natives had abandoned the battlefield quickly once his convoy had arrived in force, but he could see many of them watching from the windows of their homes.

"How odd," he finally said, turning back toward the only talkative soldier, "I was not aware that your Astartes contingents also commanded ordinary gue'la detachments. Already you have taught me something worthwhile."

"Well, how about that?" Daniels said with a smirk. "Looks like I have more to teach, too. You saps still think we're Imperial."

"You are gue'la. Human, in your language. You use Imperial firearms and your behavior matches that of properly drilled infantry. You are accompanied by the Astartes, the gue'la bio-engineered heavy infantry. And you expect me to believe that you are not Imperial military?"

"I guess not, huh? Bloody shame," the human soldier said with a shrug, "well, I doubt you'll live long enough for it to matter anyhow."

****

"See? What did I tell you? This is EXACTLY what I was afraid of!" Twilight hissed, pointing her hoof accusingly at Rarity.

She and her friends were hiding behind a storage shed, trying to keep out of sight while peeking out at the scene taking place in the middle of the square.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash had been quite enthusiastic about joining the humans in tromping all over the Fire Warriors in a wild melee, but had been forced to back off quickly once the men had been overwhelmed. Luckily the Tau showed no interest in chasing after them, although Applejack's hat now sported a scorch mark from a pulse rifle shot that had come way too close for comfort.

Gaela was huddled against the wall of the shed, restraining herself from speaking. She knew it was useless; her armor gave off enough of a power signature for any halfway decent scanner to pick up. But she was hoping to at least overhear something useful from the commander.

None of this made sense. This kind of detachment could have defeated a mission detachment of Space Marines. And while she and her unit (with some pony help, of course) had done extraordinarily well, this size of a convoy was definitely not just scouting out nice locations for new settlements. Nor were they making any real effort to stay concealed, which should be the priority of a force being pursued planetside from an unfavorable space battle.

The Tau were here in force, that much was obvious. But what were they doing?

"You know, maybe if you had helped out some more, we could've won!" Rainbow Dash complained, her hooves solidly grounded for once. She was pretty sure she had smacked around enough of the Tau that they would shoot at anything blue and flying by reflex, now.

Their hushed conversation was interrupted by the whine of antigravity engines and the rush of air, and Applejack's ears fell flat against her head as she watched four more Devilfish and an escort squad of Piranhas pass over Ponyville. The vehicles didn't even slow down as they flew straight over the houses and Fire Warriors below, apparently satisfied that the situation was under control.

"Ah dunno about that, sugarcube. Ah think we mighta bitten off more'n we can chew, here."

Pinkie sat back on her haunches, frowning. "So does this mean we're switching sides now? Because I don't think any of the other humans can make my Welcome to Equestria party anymore. Well, unless the Tau let them. Do you think they'd let them?"

"Pinkie, hush, the sane ponies are talking," Twilight grumbled, "okay, look, all we can do for now is escape with Gaela. As I've pointed out REPEATEDLY before now, the Tau aren't interested in bothering us; they're here for the humans."

"Wait, are you saying we're just going to leave the others? No way! We have to rescue them!" Rainbow said, her wings quivering.

"How're we gonna do that, sugarcube?" Applejack asked. "Don't get me wrong, Ah'd love ta beat down those alien varmints, but Ah don't like our chances with all their guns and big flyin'... other things with guns."

"Well, there's always the Elements of Harmony," Rarity pointed out.

"Oh, right," Twilight snapped, "we'll just pop into Canterlot, say hi to Princess Celestia, and explain that we need to go save the forces of Chaos! It would almost be worth the trip just to see the look on her face!"

"It's a friendship thing! She'd understand!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

Pinkie Pie frowned, and she walked over to Gaela and tapped her leg with her hoof.

"Hey! What do you think we should do?"

Gaela glanced down at the pink pony. Pinkie wasn't smiling. For the first time since she had met the obnoxious alien ponies, Pinkie actually looked WORRIED.

It left a bad taste in her mouth, somehow.

Gaela shifted uncomfortably. "I think you should go find a better hiding place. I intend to surrender along with the others."

Applejack turned toward her, scowling. "What, yer givin' up?"

"No, I fought and I lost," Gaela corrected, "fighting any further is no longer even a distant possibility, and evasion isn't possible for long. My choices now are to have them shoot me dead or give them the option to take me alive. Not a difficult choice."

"Maybe we could teleport you away from here," Rarity offered, "maybe we could-"

The words died in her throat as the whooshing noise of a Tau jet pack moved close enough to render her inaudible, and her hackles rose as something landed heavily on the shed above them.

"And so the game ends," Gaela mumbled, letting her power axe fall onto the ground and tossing her plasma pistol after it.

*Drop your weapons and surrender, gue'la,* came an amplified voice from above.

The ponies all lowered their heads and crept back as the battlesuit loomed over them, its plasma gun pointed directly at Gaela. It didn't even seem to notice the equines.

"As you say, grayskin," Gaela murmured, her servo arms folding back into rest mode as her arms rose into the air. She didn't understand Tau, but it wasn't hard to guess what it wanted.

The battlesuit activated its comms system. *Good. Shas'vre, we have another unit here. A Techpriest. It has surrendered.*

In her head, Gaela grumbled in annoyance about the Tau's communications apparently being unaffected by their extensive jamming methods. It made perfect sense, of course, but she couldn't help but wonder if she might have found some way to restore her own communications array if only she had been allowed to work on that damn drone last night.

It was a supreme irony that her musings were interrupted by a vox intercept.

"Ah ha, found you. Setting off such pretty fireworks so early in the morning, Acolyte? And you didn't think to invite us?" the voice was derisive, mocking, and entirely welcome.

Gaela's eye widened under her mask, and she deactivated her external vox emitter. "This little gathering is a bit crowded already, my lord. Almost thirty grayskins, a battlesuit, and an assortment of armor to boot."

The Crisis Suit barked something in its native language before swinging its rifle in the direction it wanted her to go. She followed its gesture even as her vox crackled in her helmet.

"Quite a mess you've fallen into! That kind of force will require... no, wait! Don't-"

Gaela flinched as a roaring noise erupted in her ear. At first she thought it was static, but after a moment she realized that her vox wasn't malfunctioning, but rather transmitting the sound of a jump pack activating.

She checked the vox log to determine who, exactly, she had been speaking to. Normally she would have checked that first, but in her current situation desperation had overcome prudence.

Carmine. Steel Reaver squad. A Raptor.

"Uh-oh," she said audibly.

She didn't stop moving, however, as she could still hear the sound of the Crisis Suit's heavy footsteps following along behind her, its plasma weapons still at the ready.

"Gaela, wait." The Acolyte heard Twilight's voice whispering behind her, but didn't turn to look. "Maybe, since they can't understand us, we can-"

"Quiet, Sparkle," Gaela said calmly, "you've done plenty. It seems our Tau friends have attracted a bit too much attention."

Twilight stopped, her hair rising on end as the enormous battlesuit jumped onto the ground next to Gaela. Its rifle was trained firmly on the human, but she was sure she saw one of the smaller optics lights glance her way.

"You might not want to watch what's about to occur," Gaela said hesitantly, "it's going to get very ugly soon."

****

"-and then the Warmaster killed the Emperor, except not really, so he died anyway. This really upset the rest of the rebel Astartes, so they packed up and left the planet, apparently. The rest of the Imperium was just as mad about the Emperor being sort-of-dead, so they chased the rebels all the way to-"

"Stop," requested the commanding Fire Warrior, holding up a hand in front of Daniels, "not that I don't appreciate you being so talkative, gue'la, but your tale makes no sense. And how long ago did you say this schism occurred?"

"About eleven thousand years ago," Daniels answered with a shrug, "give or take a millennium. Where DOES the time go?"

"And you say that the descendants of these so-called 'Chaos rebels' have been fighting the gue'la Imperium ever since?" the Tau commander asked, his skeptical tone evident despite his accent.

"Oh, no, it's mostly the same rebels, not their descendants. Space Marines in general have trouble with the whole 'reproduction' thing," Daniels explained, rolling his eyes.

"That's insane," the Tau stated dryly.

"Sure, but we don't tell them that to their faces."

*Shas'vre, here she is.*

The commander glanced to the side as an armored human approached in front of his detachment's battlesuit, her hands behind her head and her augmetic arms folded into a resting position. He'd need to have those disabled before they re-embarked; Techpriests could get into all sorts of trouble if you let them.

"I've heard enough. We'll continue this conversation back at base." The Fire Warrior nodded to his men and gave a hand signal, and they began moving toward the devilfish.

"Aw, story time's over already?" Daniels mocked. He was rewarded for his snark with the butt of a pulse rifle striking his back as the Fire Warriors drove him forward, although it didn't really hurt much.

*All right, get me a field engineer to disable this one's power armor. You four, drag the Astartes into-*

The commander's orders were interrupted as his comms system went active.

*Shas'vre! We have an incoming heat signature! Interception speed!*

With a mere gesture, the Fire Warriors were moving back into firing ranks.

*Do we have enemy air support? Identify!* A distant roar over the edge of Ponyville alerted his men to the threat, and several spotted a gleaming object zipping through the air above.

*Negative, Shas'vre. Too small. I think it's... evasive! Take evasive maneuvers!*

The Hammerhead moved, its port jets jinking the vehicle to the side as the hover-tank sought to avoid the incoming projectile.

Said "projectile" corrected its own course, curving through the air and trailing flames behind it before slamming into the skimmer's turret.

There was no explosion, although the impact sent the Hammerhead spinning over the rooftops while its pilots attempted to bring the tank under control.

The Tau commander thought he saw something silver attached to the side of the vehicle as it spun, but as soon as the Hammerhead brought itself to a stop, the roar of a jet engine met his ears again and he saw the curious projectile jump off behind a building, out of his line of sight.

*Shas'la, report!* the commander ordered, pointing the Crisis Suit forward while a unit of Fire Warriors moved to flank.

*We've regained control! We were hit by something, but there was no-*

The melta bomb wedged in the ion turret chose that moment to detonate, igniting the main reactor and nearly taking off the roof of the house that the Hammerhead had been hovering over. The Fire Warriors flinched back as chunks of smoldering armor bounced across the town square, and the Crisis Suit was staggered briefly as a piece of the cockpit broke against its leg.

The Tau barely had time to catch their breath before the sound of engines flaring once again dominated the square. Looking up, the Fire Warrior commander got his first good look at their mysterious "projectile" as it ascended to the sky, trails of flame roaring from its back.

It was an Astartes, that much was obvious from the outset; its armor bore the same brushed steel and beaten gold pattern of the Space Marine lying prone behind him. This one seemed... different, however. Its hands bore no separate weapons, but were gripped into fists as curved blades extended from the gauntlets, crackling with energy. Chains were wrapped tight around the Marine's neck and torso armor and were strung with trinkets and battle trophies. The helmet bore large, golden horns that curved forward, and it boasted a curiously oversized vox grille. Finally, on its back the Marine bore a jump pack, obviously, but of a sort the experienced Fire Warriors had never seen before. Rather than just a pair of large turbine engines to propel the massive armor suit and the giant wearing it, this one had numerous metal fins attached to the sides of the jump pack, each one boasting a small engine, such that they resembled a pair of metallic wings that spewed fire and smoke as the Chaos Space Marine rocketed into the sky.

The Raptor's ascent was met with volleys of pulse rifle fire, and streaks of blue chased the gleaming figure while it rose higher and higher. The fusillade began to taper off once the warriors below realized that the Iron Warrior was not making an assault jump toward them, their rifles lacking the accuracy and range necessary to hit something at that range that was moving that fast.

The noise of pulse fire around him slackened, and the Chaos Raptor rolled in the air, casting spirals of smoke behind him as the thrust of his jets finally began to slacken.

For a moment, he hovered in the sky and looked down at the detachment of aliens below, snickering at the insects huddled together on the distant ground.

Then he hit the amplifier on his vox unit, his growling voice transformed into a lunatic roar.

"Hear my name and tremble, xeno worms! Lord Tellis has arrived to end you!"

He spread his arms apart, crackling red arcs of electricity crawling over his lightning claws and arms.

"Iron within, become the iron without! BLOOD! FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

Friendship for the Blood God

Iron Hearts

Chapter 5

Friendship for the Blood God

****

Centaur III - Ponyville town square

*Spread out! Spread out! Devilfish, on standby! Guard the approach vectors! Fire Warriors, open fire the moment the gue'la begins its descent! I don't want anything following us back to base!*

Daniels grimaced as one Tau soldier bound his arms, and he watched the aliens take up firing positions around the wreckage of their vehicles. "So. Tellis?"

"Tellis," Gaela deadpanned, turning to stare at the Fire Warrior binding her augmetic servo limbs. She was surprised that he didn't just shoot them (or her) to disable the devices, but then the Tau seemed to think they still had things under their control.

They were wrong. Very, very wrong.

"You! Gue'la! What was that?" the Tau commander demanded, pointing to Daniels.

"That was a Raptor. Astartes-class assault infantry," Daniels said with a shrug, surprising the alien at how quick he was to answer.

"Is he alone?"

"Him? I guess. Don't really know."

Gaela remained silent. She did know, but she wasn't going to volunteer useful information as quickly as the mercenary.

The commander looked like he was contemplating another order when Daniels continued.

"By the way Sir, I just wanted to say that this has been by far the most pleasant surrender I've ever made to an enemy force. I'm not going to enjoy what's about to happen to you."

The Fire Warrior stared for a moment, and then turned his head away. "You underestimate us, gue'la. We will not fall before one soldier."

Daniels probably had a smart-ass response to that, but their conversation was cut short as the screaming began.

Not the screaming of Tau, although Daniels was sure that was coming soon. It was the howl of wind and burning air as an angry red meteor descended on Ponyville once again.

Volleys of pulse rifle fire started pouring from the village once again as the Fire Warriors tried to shoot down the descending Iron Warrior, but once again he wasn't diving at them, spoiling their aim with his speed and moving at the very edge of their effective range.

Tellis pulled up out of his suicide dive once he neared the ground, cutting through the air at an alarmingly tight arc before shooting toward the nearest Devilfish transport.

The APC conveniently provided a shield from the waves of rifle fire, and the heavy skimmer was too cumbersome to make any real attempt to evade or line up its burst cannon before the Astartes slammed into the side of the vehicle.

Just like the Hammerhead, the Devilfish was sent into a slow spin from the impact, and its unwelcome rider waited several seconds for the tank to stop itself.

The pulse rifle fire did not start up again right away, even when the APC turned to expose Tellis to the infantry's guns; Tau Devilfish were fairly well armored, but pulse rifles were powerful weapons, and a "lucky" shot could carve a hole through a vital power system if the pilots were any less lucky.

As soon as the vehicle had regained some semblance of stability, Tellis jumped from the engine block to the cockpit, his lightning claws dragging along the outer armor for extra traction and leaving a trail of hot sparks behind them. He settled in next to the armored glass on the side opposite the Fire Warriors, and then reared back an arm.

His free hand punched into the armored poly-composite glass of the cockpit, the points of his lightning claws cutting breaches into the barrier thick enough for his armored fist to open with sheer force. The glass shattered inward, and one of the shocked pilots barely had time to mutter a curse in his native language before he was impaled against his chair by the crackling talons.

Tellis felt a pulse rifle shot slam into his shoulder pad, and his optics crackled briefly before he pulled his bloodied claws from the devilfish cockpit and reached for his belt.

"This is going to be HILARIOUS," his vox rumbled as he dropped a krak grenade into the cockpit. Within the next second he had kicked off the side of the Devilfish and taken to the air again, flying with his back to the ground. A burst of much larger plasma bolts zipped over his chest as he escaped, leaving a scorch mark over his chestplate.

"Hm. Crisis Suit," the Khornate Raptor mumbled as he snapped himself upright in the air, hovering briefly behind a building while plotting his next angle of approach to avoid all that pesky small-arms fire. "I hope it has one of those nifty xeno power fists in its arm. This is probably going to be boring otherwise."

The Tau commander watched fire and shrapnel spray out of the hole in the Devilfish cockpit, his teeth clenched. The lights all along the APC flickered as the antigravity slowly powered down, and the edge of the skimmer hit the roof of a house as it fell, tilting the wreck onto its side before it landed.

*He's picking off our vehicles one by one! Pilots, maintain altitude! I want fire teams on-*

*Shas'vre!* called a Fire Warrior backing away from one of the pony homes. *I saw something moving behind the houses!*

The battlesuit chimed in next, its jet pack flaring as it took to the air. *Multiple power signatures detected. Relaying scan data.*

*What?* the Fire Warrior commander silenced his comms and held up his hand to quell his subordinates, and then his blood ran cold as he heard it: the heavy thud of huge metal boots across the ground. It was coming from behind the surrounding buildings, several of them, shielded from view of the town square. They surely would have been spotted had the Hammerhead still been keeping watch, but that gunship was no more.

More Space Marines? Here? How did they get close so fast? They would have noticed if enemy transports had approached the village. Had they teleported in they would have been detected right away by their scanners.

Of course, if they all had jump packs...

"Look at that. Guess he wasn't alone," Daniels murmured.

With an engine roar like a missile salvo and a vox scream like a hundred screeching eagles, the Raptor squad attacked. Giants in gleaming plate of silver and gold leapt over the rooftops, their backpacks trailing flame and their pistols firing wildly into the square. The Fire Warriors only managed to release a single useless salvo in panic before the Iron Warriors crashed into them, and although they outnumbered the Astartes almost as badly as they had the humans, the calculus of victory was much different with Space Marines involved.

Chainswords decorated with black and yellow warning chevrons roared to life, and soon the screaming was indeed that of the xeno soldiers.

****

"Humans are winning again! Party's back on!" Pinkie said brightly.

Twilight flinched as she heard the sound of heavy boots pounding on dirt behind them, and she turned in time to see two more Raptors sprinting into view, coming up behind another home that encircled the town center.

Their jump packs activated and the pair vaulted over the building, their vox grilles screeching a war cry that sent ice down down the alicorn's spine.

"Do those men have SWORDS that are also CHAINSAWS?" Rarity asked, looking squeamish.

"Whoa! They do! That's awesome!" Rainbow Dash said, grinning.

After a few seconds, her grin weakened considerably. "Wow. They're, uh, pretty messy, aren't they?"

"Look! They're takin' the others away!" Applejack shouted, pointing a hoof at the edge of the battle. The Tau commander was making a break for one of the transports, with several of his warriors dragging along their human prisoners.

"We have to save them!" Rainbow Dash shouted, jumping into the air and hovering.

Twilight grit her teeth. "All right, all right, we'll go get them!" she finally relented. "But we'll need to-"

"No time for plans! Action now!" Rainbow darted off toward the edge of the battle, Applejack chasing off behind her.

"What? But-? Hey, wait!" Twilight rushed after them, leaving Pinkie, Rarity and Spike behind.

"I think I'll stay here," Rarity said uncomfortably as a pair of Piranhas zoomed by overhead, buffering them with its antigravity field, "blood and gunfire are hard on a girl's mane."

"Have fuuuuun!" Pinkie called to the ponies dashing into the battlefield as she waved her hoof, although her call was probably lost in the constant rattle of bolter fire.

"Get in! Now!" the Tau commander shoved Daniels toward the devilfish before turning toward a squad leader. "Quickly, take your group and recover-"

The conversation ended when his subordinate's arm exploded under the impact of a bolt shell, throwing the hapless warrior screaming to the ground.

The commander turned in an instant, adding a burst of markedly more accurate fire to the scattered pulse rounds fired by his entourage. Two splashed against a charging Raptor's chest armor with little effect, but the third struck the warrior's leg and sent him stumbling to the ground.

Daniels grunted as he tried to wipe off some of the blood splashed against his leg. "Our boys should be more careful about firing at this unit with boltguns. They have prisoners!"

"I'll be fine. My armor will protect me from anything less than a direct hit," Gaela reassured him.

"Swell. Can I use you as a shield, then?"

The human's conversation was cut short as a Fire Warrior grabbed Daniel's arm, pulling him toward the Devilfish while it shouted at him in its native language.

Daniels promptly slammed a knee into the alien's side, staggering the warrior and causing it to drop its rifle.

"Sounds like it's escaping time, mates!" he kicked the alien soldier away onto its back and then bolted for his injured men.

The Fire Warriors were busy covering their retreat from the town square and watching their fellow soldiers being hacked apart by chainblades, and didn't even notice that the hold-up to their embarking on their transport was running loose until Daniels kicked one of them from behind, knocking him face-first onto the ground.

The other soldier turned with his rifle up, but the two other humans threw themselves on top of the Fire Warrior, wrestling him to the ground as best they could with their hands still tied.

Daniels knocked the soldier's pulse rifle away, rendering the warrior a minimal threat to their escape. The two human soldiers immediately scrambled to get to their feet again. "Come on you two, book it! We're in the middle of a killing field, and-"

The mercenary flinched back as one of his men screamed and stumbled forward, a scorched hole in his back.

"I'm tired of your resistance," the Tau commander said, moving his rifle sights to Daniels, "the Greater Good can do without you fools."

And then a rainbow-colored blur flashed between the two soldiers, and suddenly the Fire Warrior's rifle was gone.

It took a few seconds for the Tau to realize what had happened, his optics rendering Rainbow Dash's form after she had already passed and displaying a still image for his benefit. Even so the Fire Warrior was fairly baffled to turn his head and see the blue pegasus hovering above him with a grin on her face, her front legs wrapped around his primary weapon.

"You're the best, Dash," Daniels said, saluting as best he could with his hands bound as he helped his other soldier up.

"And don't you forget it!" she shouted back.

Gaela stepped past Daniels as she tried to work her servo limbs into cutting their restraints, grumbling beneath her mask about the surprising difficulty of the task.

"You're not going anywhere!" the commander shouted, reaching for his pulse pistol. He only barely caught sight of something approaching from the side at high speed, given that it was much smaller than a human or an Iron Warrior.

Applejack was quite surprised when the Tau leader actually twisted out of the way before she could kick him; all of the other aliens in the blue and black armor had possessed the reflexes of sloths. She was even more surprised when he drew a blade from behind his back and then slashed at her, knocking her hat from her head before lining up a shot with his pistol.

His aim was spoiled as something slammed into the Devilfish hovering nearby, pushing it far enough over the ground to bump into him and disturb his shot.

Gaela heard the impact and glanced back at the vehicle, her eye widening as she spotted the gleaming figure affixing a melta bomb to it. "Run! Run now!"

Daniels and the other human were, quite literally, way ahead of her, but Rainbow and Applejack had to take a moment to wonder at the command before deciding that the Dark Acolyte probably knew what she was talking about.

The Tau commander was more hesitant, and didn't start moving until he heard the sound of a particularly large jump pack taking off from his transport.

And then, explosions.

Gaela grunted as she hit the ground, her armor scraping furrows in the dirt. It did protect her from any injury, however, and her vulcanized rubber robes in turn protected her from the bits of burning shrapnel that peppered her back moments later.

"LORD TELLIS!" she shouted, struggling to stand up.

Before she completely regained her footing the target of her ire landed heavily less than a meter in front of her, nearly knocking her over again.

"What?" Tellis asked flatly, his chains still rattling around him from the sudden stop. Attached to the chain around his neck were three skulls that hung out over the gorget; not ordinary human skulls either, but rather an Astartes skull, an Ork, and one that belonged to some unusual genus of Tyranid.

Gaela took a moment to catch her breath and remind herself that she was speaking to a Chaos Space Marine and not some mortal lackey.

"Were you aware that-"

Tellis' helmet suddenly tilted up as he spotted something behind her.

"Is that horse wearing a HAT? Ha! That's brilliant!" Gaela winced as her autosenses were subjected to the noise of Tellis's vox-amplified laugh.

Applejack - who had cleared the explosion radius of the devilfish in time, it seemed - finished putting her hat back on and shot a bemused glance at the chuckling Raptor, wondering just what was so funny about her wardrobe.

Gaela let out a deep sigh. "Yes, she is. So-"

"Oh, look!" Tellis said suddenly, his voice sounding worryingly happy. "That's the xeno commander, isn't it?"

Applejack turned sharply toward where he was looking, a scowl stretching over her freckled face as she spotted the soldier. He was crawling across the ground toward his pistol, the back plate of his combat armor pierced by shards of burnt poly-ceramic plating.

Before the farmpony could so much as twitch in his direction, however, Tellis was already past her, his jump jets hissing lightly as he hopped over the intervening distance.

The pulse pistol crunched under the weight of the Raptor's boots as he landed on it, and Tellis hummed to himself as he leaned over and picked up the Tau officer by his leg, hauling him off the ground as if he weighed next to nothing.

"You have no idea what you're doing, gue'la," the commander coughed, "you cannot-"

Tellis ignored him and turned toward the battle winding down in the town square. Specifically, to the one combatant that was successfully evading his soldiers through creative use of a jet pack and the occasional spread of missiles to ward off pursuit.

"HEY, FATASS!!" the Raptor Lord called, his voice screeching with such intensity that Applejack nearly fell down from the noise alone.

The pilot of the Crisis Suit didn't understand Gothic at all, but it certainly heard the screaming noise above the din of bolter shells crashing against its armor. It also noticed that the two Raptors that had been chasing it halted, immediately veering away and igniting their jump packs to take flight from the scene.

Turning toward the shout, and still hovering in the air above the massacred bodies of its Sept-brothers, the battlesuit focused in on the sight of its commander being held up by his leg by a crudely decorated Astartes soldier.

*Revolting savage!* the suit's speakers spat as the it made a beeline for its struggling officer. Its plasma rifle snapped up into firing position, although it was obviously impossible to get a clear shot with the Fire Warrior in the way.

*To use our soldiers as living shields is a repulsive act of cowa-*

The suit's rumbling tirade was interrupted as the Tau commander was flung into his torso armor, bouncing off with a cry of pain and plummeting to the ground.

The pilot was so stunned by the senseless turn of events that the battlesuit merely halted in mid-air, not continuing with its charge or diving after its officer, who landed with another agonized yelp.

In fact, the operator didn't make any clear reaction to having his superior used as a projectile until a peal of laughter came from the Raptor Lord.

"HA HA HAAAA!! Did you SEE that?! It even made a little squeaky noise when it bounced off! HAH!"

The crisis suit became understandably enraged, and targeting reticules began lining up over the Chaos Space Marine as he stamped the ground with his foot.

****

"Thank you, Sparkle," Gaela mumbled as she heard the restraints binding her servo limbs hit the ground at her feet. Then she brought her wrists up to her servo tool, using a melta cutter to break those restraints open as Twilight freed Daniels.

"So, he's on your side, right? That Space Marine who keeps screaming, even when he laughs?" Twilight asked, her ears pinned against her head. Really, she would have found the clear differences in psyches between the newcomer and Dest fascinating if he didn't insist on screeching them loud enough to unsettle glass.

"That's Lord Tellis. He is an Iron Warrior and part of the 38th Company," Gaela said.

"That... seemed redundant and curiously specific," the alicorn pointed out as her horn glowed, cutting through the shackles around Daniels' wrists, "almost as if you're only saying it in order to omit something else that we would have assumed otherwise."

"Awww, I think I made it mad!" Tellis called out as he blasted backward across the square. Plasma blasts followed him as the crisis suit pursued, but none came very close to striking him. "Look! It's starting to affect its aim!"

A static-laced groan came from Gaela's vox grille.

"Well, thanks to him you guys have this fight wrapped up!" Rainbow Dash noted. "It's a good thing he came!"

"Arguable," Gaela said simply.

"Ah think ya'd hafta argue with all the burnin' tanks, sugarcube," Applejack said, poking at a crumpled burst cannon with her hoof.

"How to put this..." the Dark Acolyte mumbled, her voice momentarily lost among the sound of rockets. The Crisis Suit loosed another mini-missile barrage, speeding across the ground behind the humans and equines.

"Allow me," Daniels interrupted after putting his optics back on, "you see girls, among the Chaos Marines it takes a very special kind of crazy to be considered a 'loose cannon'," he explained, making quotation marks in the air with his fingers, "among the cults that worship the Chaos God of battle and destruction, it's even harder to stand out as a raving lunatic."

Then he pointed to the Raptor zooming through the air in a spiral as missiles exploded behind him. "Lord Tellis is that lunatic loose cannon."

****

Tellis laughed as the last of the mini-warheads detonated behind him, and twisted just in time to avoid plowing through the wall of a house.

Not that crashing through a wall wouldn't be gut-bustingly funny, but he had slightly higher priorities now. Blood for the Blood God, skulls for yadda yadda.

Curving back around, he blasted straight toward the Crisis Suit, his jet fins spreading as fire spewed from his flight pack.

The battlesuit adjusted to the sudden change in tactics as best it could, raising its plasma rifle to intercept, but before it could get an angle on the shot Tellis had already blasted by it.

A second later the plasma rifle, and the arm that held it, fell to the ground in a fountain of sparks.

Tellis flew low to the ground and headed for the fallen Tau commander, who was evidently so badly injured now that he could not get back up.

As he snatched the xeno up, however, he heard the soldier shout, so obviously he wasn't dead. Yet.

The Raptor Lord heard the Crisis Suit yelling something at him in the Tau's nonsense language, but he ignored it; even the one that could speak Gothic didn't seem to have anything interesting to say.

Curving back into an attack run on the battlesuit, he retracted his lightning claws into his gauntlets and took firm hold of the Tau, one leg in each arm.

The crisis suit tried to move out of the way, but Tellis was considerably more agile than his opponent. The Raptor hit the battlesuit feet first, smashing it out of the air and into the dirt hard enough to dig a furrow in the ground until their momentum bled away.

And there, standing atop that marvel of alien wargear with its commanding officer gripped in both hands, he proceeded to beat the Tau with its own kind.

****

"Bwa ha ha! Ha ha hah hah!" Rainbow Dash was on the ground again, this time rolling from side to side and kicking her feet in laughter at the sight of the Iron Warrior clubbing a battlesuit with a Fire Warrior.

Twilight had to admit that it was kind of funny, at least in the sense that it was silly and pointlessly brutal, but she still didn't feel like laughing.

"Well... I think this battle is over," Daniels mumbled, looking over the rest of the town square. The other Raptors were checking on their wounded and searching the dead aliens for anything of value.

He slapped the other survivor on the back, causing the man to flinch. "You up for a bit of digging, Jacob?"

"You want to make trench lines NOW?" the other merc asked incredulously.

"No, mass graves," Daniels pointed to the Tau scattered across the ground amongst great streaks of blood, "quite a mess out here."

"You're such a thoughtful guest," Gaela said without a drop of sincerity, "and I suppose that leaves me with the task of debriefing the Iron Warriors."

"Well, you're the boss, aren't you? Have fun!"

****

"You know, I knew when I made this decision that the weak, squishy body of your pathetic species wouldn't make for an ideal club. But even I'm disappointed by how quickly this guy's bones broke."

Tellis spoke conversationally as the Crisis Suit swung a fist easily the size of his head at him. He backed out of the way, dodging the blow with ease.

Then he smacked the limp body in his hand against the battlesuit's head, once again failing to do much more than spatter more blood over its sensors.

"He must have died on, what, the second hit? Maybe even the first. You scrawny geeks have really got to add gene-smithing to your list of fancy new technologies to throw at us if you want to stay in the game."

Tellis hopped back from another punch, but then darted forward as the Tau battlesuit tried to break from melee range to use its missile pods again.

The mechanized soldier was entirely outmatched; Tellis was shockingly agile with his flight pack, occasionally adding small bursts of speed to simple hops and turns by flaring his jets. The Tau moved like it was underwater by comparison, flailing about helplessly and trying to swat away the armored super-soldier with its only remaining arm.

Occasionally the suit would shout something at Tellis, but as he didn't speak Mauling Victim (known as Tau to most others) he couldn't even engage in proper combat banter.

That, and he was absolutely sure by now that, no, the crisis suit did NOT have any obscenely powerful hidden close combat weapons.

BORING.

*Enough of this!* crackled the voice of the battlesuit operator. *If we will fall here, I will take you with me, gue'la monster!*

With that last announcement of desperation and hatred, the crisis suit's missile pod moved to aim at the ground, preparing to unleash a barrage at point-blank range that would likely annihilate both warriors.

A flash of crimson lightning crossed the battlesuit's sensors, and then the missile pod bounced across the ground behind it, trailing sparks and slivers of ceramic armor.

"Gue'la this, gue'la that. That's your word for 'human' right? Besides being inaccurate, I have a name, you know." He pounded a fist against his chest. "Tellis! Say it with me: Te-"

Instead the crisis suit punched at him again, and the Raptor Lord turned his head out of the way, causing the mechanized arm to scrape against the side of his helmet.

With a sweep of his claws the battlesuit's remaining arm was sheared from its shoulder, and the combat armor staggered as the last of its weapons fell to the dirt.

"I think I see the problem. You can't hear me in there, can you? Here, let me help you out."

Tellis shoved one set of talons into the crease he saw between armor plates, and then he pulled them along what he presumed was the operator's hatch. The adamantium blades screeched and the energy fields sizzled as they carved away the locks and hatches protecting the pilot from the dangers of the battlefield. Namely, him.

Prying the main hatch off the armor suit, Tellis retracted the claws on one hand and reached in, grabbing the pilot and yanking it out. The hulk of black armor striped with blue wobbled comically for several seconds and then keeled over backward, sparks spewing from the cockpit.

"It's Tellis! T-E-L-I-S! Wait, how many L's did I list? I think there are two."

The pilot, evidently a female Tau, did not seem to want to cooperate, flailing wildly and kicking uselessly at him.

"Bah. You suck." Tellis flung the alien behind him like a piece of trash, glancing around the town square for something else to do.

Now that he was actually looking at the village proper rather than descending on it like a deranged predator, the place was actually quite nice and rustic. Or at least, it seems as if it had been before it had been littered with dead bodies and scorched wreckage. Most of the assaults he had participated in were on hive cities, military bases, and manufactorums, so seeing something so quaint and idyllic was at least rather novel and somewhat intriguing.

Tellis wondered what it would look like on fire.

"My lord," a Raptor's vox screeched as the soldier approached Tellis, his armor sticky with drying blood and slivers of the Tau's poly-ceramic combat armor, "we have two wounded and one dead. Brother Gerran will not fly again."

Tellis pointed to a body lying on the field. "Does that casualty count include him?"

The Raptor turned to look where his commander was gesturing. A single hulk of brushed steel and beaten gold, lying face-down in the dirt behind a xeno homestead.

Data flashed over their visors. "Brother Dest. Driver pool. Huh... I saw no Company vehicles around the settlement."

"A driver without a tank. Hmph."

Without further explanation, Tellis stomped off toward the body.

The watching raptors didn't really know what to make of their lord's sudden distraction, but that was a common situation among their unit.

None of them were terribly surprised when he met the fallen Astartes with a hefty kick that lifted the driver off the ground and sent the ring of metal on metal bouncing throughout the village.

Dest groaned painfully as he rose almost a full meter into the air and then fell back to the dirt again. "Guh!"

"Get up, weakling! You're not dead yet!" Tellis shouted, his talons crackling.

"Hey! Don't be mean to Desty! He's resting!"

Tellis glanced behind him, but saw nothing.

"Down here, darling."

The Raptor Lord turned his gaze downward and saw three small creatures glaring at him. Two were horses, one pink and the other white with a purple mane, while the third was some kind of tiny purple lizard thing with green fins.

"Do you have hats?" the Iron Warrior demanded immediately, "the other one had a hat."

Rarity and even Pinkie seemed surprised by the sudden question.

"Ah, no, not at the-"

"Then I don't want to talk to you," Tellis decided, turning back to the task at hand and completely ignoring the ponies behind him.

Reaching down, he pulled Dest upright by his backpack, revealing the large black hole that had been burned into the Chaos Marine's abdomen.

"There! On your feet!" Tellis let him go and Dest remained standing, although that was surely because Astartes armor naturally stood upright when properly sealed.

"Our driver has suffered a direct hit from a xeno pulse rifle."

Tellis turned his head again as Gaela approached.

"As I'm sure you're aware, the abdominal armor is considerably thinner than the torso plating, and the primary power-"

"You have a little something on your robes, there," Tellis said, interrupting to point at Gaela's leg, "some kind of furry, purple... thing."

Gaela didn't need to look to see what he was referring to. "That's Twilight Sparkle. She-"

"Yes, fine, a Twilight Sparkle," Tellis said, raising his talons, "here, let me get it for you."

Twilight's mane stuck out on end as she stared at the Iron Warrior, and she started to back away.

"It's an honor for you to offer to help a mere Acolyte such as myself," Gaela mumbled, "but Sparkle is an ally, not a piece of debris."

That snapped Tellis out of his stalking pose. "You're allies with a horse?"

"They're ponies, my lord. And they've been curiously helpful, so I was hoping you'd refrain from butchering them for your passing amusement," Gaela bowed her head submissively, and Twilight took careful note of the dynamic between the two to refer to later.

Tellis seemed to dismiss her gesture entirely. "Why isn't it wearing a hat?"

A tired groan came from Gaela's vox, her ire apparently too strong for her to suppress. "Not all the ponies wear hats, my lord."

"If they're going to talk and fight, then they should at least wear hats like the orange one," Tellis decided, pointing his index finger against the Acolyte's helmeted forehead.

"My lord, that doesn't make-"

Once again, Tellis cut her off. "Your ceaseless application of rational thought bores me! I'm going to go carve the wreckage into funny shapes."

As the Raptor Lord stomped off, Gaela hung her head.

"That... was... wow," Twilight could barely find words to describe the encounter, "it's amazing how quickly and completely he demonstrated Daniels' explanation of him."

Another heavy, vox-altered sigh was heard as a Raptor walked up to Gaela, his pistol and chainsword mag-locked to his thighs.

"You did your best, Acolyte. Now, would you care to explain what you're doing here in a xeno settlement with a fraction of a squad left and an entire enemy armored detachment on top of you?"

The Dark Acolyte straightened and then kneeled, quite pleased to be speaking to someone sane. Or saner, anyway. Nobody ever accused the Raptors of being a stable sort.

"Recon mission, my lord. We were to contact the probes that were deployed before planetfall and extract crucial tactical data. We have successfully found the data, and were in the process of attempting to weaken the local vox jamming field when we were assaulted. Enemy presence on this world is much, MUCH heavier than anticipated."

The Raptor chuckled, his laugh not unlike metal nails run across a blackboard. "We were assigned a recon mission as well, to search the estimated landing site of the Tau's mass lander."

"That's some ways off, my lord," Gaela noted, "my deepest apologies that we brought you so far from your target area."

"You didn't. Lord Tellis spotted some kind of giant flying lizard and chased after it to try and cut its wings off mid-flight. For fun." The Raptor wasn't really paying attention to the xenos around them, deeming them a negligible threat, and as such didn't see Spike's horrified expression.

"Before he caught up to it he saw some kind of floating structures in the air in the distance and decided to investigate THAT instead. We were strung along for almost a hundred kilometers off-target before we saw some kind of blue flare light up over the village. Only the confirmation of a battle brought our lord back to a task somewhat resembling our mission."

Gaela sighed, her armored shoulders slumping as she stood up again. "You've endured considerable difficulties yourself, my lord."

"It is an Iron Warrior's only pleasure to serve," the Raptor said, a definite note of sarcasm in his vox-scrambled voice, "now... would you care to explain the pastel-colored horses?"

Gaela glanced down at Twilight, and the purple alicorn grinned back somewhat nervously as she became the center of attention.

Then the Dark Acolyte once again addressed the assault soldier. "They're ponies. They speak Gothic, build primitive things, and are obliviously friendly toward us. The ones with the horns are psykers."

The Raptor observed Twilight critically, and then turned his blood-red optics on Rarity and Pinkie.

"So... there's no need to raze the village yet?"

"It wouldn't make our job here any easier," Gaela agreed.

"Noted. We're going to take the prisoners and our wounded to the edge of the settlement. If you come up with a plan to contact the fortress, let us know. If not, contact me anyway; we'll need you to make repairs on our brothers' armor."

"Yes, my lord. Thank you for your timely intervention. We owe you our lives."

The Raptor turned away, dismissing the thanks as he followed four other jump troopers that were hauling away a few limping Fire Warriors - including the Crisis Suit pilot - away from the town square. Two more Raptors each helped along one of their squadmates, following behind the grim procession.

"Well, that was less useful than I'd hoped," Gaela mumbled, turning toward Dest, "my lord, do you need assistance?"

A garbled groan was her only response.

"You sound fine," the Dark Acolyte decided.

"So... what now?" Twilight asked, looking at the hulks of smoldering alien technology that were now scattered around the village.

Air hissed from the depressurization of Gaela's helmet as it opened up and exposed the Acolyte's pale features to the dusty air.

"Well, now I have to hammer out a plan to contact our main forces or remove the jamming field," Gaela explained, scratching her chin.

"Will that be difficult?" Rarity asked.

"With Lord Tellis around? Probably, yes."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Twilight asked hopefully.

Gaela's lips twitched into something that might have resembled a smile in poor light. "You've already helped us considerably, actually, and at significant risk. But I think you'll be too busy to help with this next part."

"Busy?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Busy doing wha-"

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA HAPPENED HERE?!"

Twilight jumped at the shout, and then remembered that the she, the aliens, and the remains from the recent battle were all lying openly in the middle of town.

It wasn't really any wonder that Mayor Mare was stomping toward the square now that the explosions were over, her expression a mix of fury and horror at the scene of destruction.

"TWILIGHT SPARKLE! YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS, DON'T YOU?!"

"Good luck with that," Gaela said to the downcast alicorn as she walked off, "feel free to blame us, but do try to keep your local enforcers from trying to do anything stupid, would you?"

"Oh, you needn't worry, darling. We practically ARE the local enforcers," Rarity said, following the robed woman.

"That's adorable."

"W-Wait!" Twilight shouted, seeing that her friends were following after the human. "Rarity! Pinkie! SPIKE! Don't-"

Her plea for help was cut off by a hoof poking her wings.

"Miss Sparkle. An explanation, please?"

Twilight whimpered as she slowly turned around to face the mayor. This was going to be a long day.

****

Ponyville outskirts

"I'm amazed that you can use a shovel," Daniels mused as he pushed his spade into the dirt.

Applejack, who had a shovel of her own and was digging out the hole on the opposite side from the human, raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Ah'm a farmer, sugarcube. Diggin' holes ain't exactly new to me."

"No, I mean I'm amazed that you can hold and use a shovel without hands. Shouldn't it have, like, hoof-holds or something?"

"You makin' fun of me, Daniels?" the farmpony asked, though she was smirking.

Daniels stepped aside as the other surviving soldier approached, dragging a pair of dead Fire Warriors behind him by their legs. The man flung the bodies into the hole, and then turned around to go get more.

"Awful morbid work. You do this a lot?" Applejack asked, levering her shovel onto the side of the pit to expand it.

"Not really. We don't do a lot of cleanup in most of our battle zones," he admitted, "but you girls have been so neighborly, I figured it was the least we could do after bringing the Tau to your planet and drawing them here to your village."

Applejack stopped digging for several seconds to think about that. "Yeah, Ah think yer right. That IS the least ya could do."

"Keeping busy, soldier?"

Gaela approached the pit with her helmet down, her attention mostly focused on her plasma pistol. She had recovered it and her power axe from where she had dropped them, and was checking the weapons for any damage or contamination.

Rarity, Pinkie, and Spike were following behind her, although the former paused at the sight of the grave and the latter stopped moving as soon as Rarity did.

"We've had quite an adventure so far, haven't we? How'd the driver check out?" Daniels asked, not pausing in his earthworks.

"He'll be fine. His body is busy trying to regrow his intestines, but once the worst internal damage is healed he'll be battle-ready again even before we can get him to a medicae facility," Gaela explained.

Applejack sighed. "More'n we can say for Jones and Michael. Veers mighta made it out, too, if we'd been a little faster back there. Poor fellers."

Gaela stopped what she was doing. "Who are those people?"

"Our casualties, Acolyte," Daniels answered.

"Those weren't the Raptor's names. And the only one who died was-"

Daniels cut her off. "Our HUMAN casualties, Acolyte."

"Oh." Gaela rolled her eye. "Right. Tragic."

"Aw, c'mon," Applejack stabbed her shovel into the dirt, "ya act like ya don't even care!"

"Casualties are a mathematical inevitability of warfare. And in terms of combat asset value, those men were a trifling loss compared to the Tau squads we slew today." She glanced over at the other rifleman dragging more bodies toward the pit. "Also, there's a reason I don't bother to learn their names."

"That's real cold of ya," Applejack said evenly, standing on her back legs and leaning on her shovel, "Ah know yer in a war'n all, but ya ain't gotta be like that to yer own boys, do ya?"

Daniels chuckled. "Don't worry about it, AJ. In the Mechanicus they don't have much in the way of heart, even before they replace 'em with electric pumps. Even less so on the Dark side, obviously."

"I suppose I could take to lying to my soldiers to make them feel special," the Acolyte said, looking annoyed, "do you think that would help morale, Derrin?"

"His name is Daniels," Spike pointed out.

"Whatever."

"Ooh! Ooh! I know! I think you should smile!" Pinkie shouted, bouncing around Gaela in a circle.

"Oh, I don't think I could handle the shock if she did that," Daniels murmured, "just stick to your dry sarcasm Acolyte, you're really good at it."

"Noted. Now shut up," Gaela said flatly, "I have to come up with a way to contact the base or destroy the larger portion of the jamming field with what assets we have left." Pinkie started climbing on her actuator pack again, and her servo arm twisted backwards to bump her off.

"Has anything really changed, though?" Rarity wondered aloud. "That was your plan, before, right? And now you have those other bru-ahem, Chaos Marines to help."

"That doesn't necessarily make things any easier," Gaela admitted wearily as she pulled her bionic arm away from Pinkie to keep her from playing with her mechadendrites, "but more importantly, we're traveling in a region where we can be ambushed at any time by enough xeno firepower to take out a field base. A handful of Iron Warrior Raptors, even if they weren't led by a complete imbecile, can only help so much with that."

"Don't forget about us!" Pinkie shouted as she poked at the cables wrapped around of the haft of Gaela's power axe.

"I'm trying to, but you do make it very difficult," Gaela admitted, "I will say that I'm surprised and pleased by how... placid the Space Marines have been in dealing with you all. Usually they're far more hostile toward intelligent aliens."

****

Ponyville - town center

"This material is almost worthless. How the blazes do those puny xenos make it into a gunship?"

Tellis grumbled to himself as he pulled a single powered talon through a hunk of mostly undamaged tank plating. The poly-ceramic plating tended to crack easily around breaches, but those cracks tended to loosen small chips of the armor rather than the larger chunks necessary if one were trying to fashion the material into a pointless sculpture.

Stupid aliens had to make everything difficult. Except smashing their squishy faces in, which was the one area of interaction where he actually appreciated a challenge.

Bashing off the edges of the plating, Tellis formed it into more or less the shape he was looking for and then placed it onto another collection of rubble, spearing the block with his lightning claw.

He overcharged the claw, sending tendrils of power lashing around the adamantium blade and cooking the wrecked armor from the inside. An exceptionally crude method of fusing armor segments to one another, but also more fun than most.

Pulling his lightning claw out and then retracting the talon into his gauntlet, Tellis stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"What's that supposed to be?"

Tellis turned around to spot the source of the voice.

A blue pony with wings and a multi-colored mane hovered above him, smirking as she stared at the piled wreckage.

"You don't have a hat. But you're also flying. The prospect of flying horses amuses me," Tellis said bluntly.

Rainbow gave him a look. "What? You've never seen a pegasus before?"

"Not really, no. The infinite wonders of the universe continue to amaze me even as I reduce them all to blood and ashes," said the Raptor, his tone almost reverent as he stared up at the sky.

Then he pointed to his sculpture. "Also, it's a dog. With a burst cannon. It's funny, because dogs don't have burst cannons!"

Rainbow Dash snorted, raising a hoof to her chin. "That's supposed to be a dog?" The clumsily fused wreckage was shaped into a two-legged figure, and while one "arm" did indeed have a broken Tau weapon hanging on the end, the other was little more than a short chunk of armor sticking out.

"Tau salvage is a difficult medium. Maybe it's the ears? The ears need work," the Khornate soldier rested an arm across his chain-crossed chest as his other scratched at the vox amplifier that best approximated his chin.

Then he turned around fully to face the pegasus. "Also, who are you, anyway? I keep seeing you creatures around here and not dead."

"I'm Rainbow Dash," Rainbow answered, an eyebrow rising, "and why would we be dead?"

"Because blood for the Blood God."

Rainbow looked skeptical, flying a slow circuit around the Raptor Lord. "That doesn't sound like a very good reason to me. Besides, we're on your side!" She thrust a hoof into the air, grinning. "Ponies and humans, fighting side by side to save Equestria!"

"That doesn't sound like something we'd do," Tellis admitted.

"Well, actually, I guess it's more like us saving the 38th Company than the 38th Company saving us," Rainbow shrugged, "I'm not sure about the details. I kinda zone out a little when Gaela or Twilight speak."

"Oh, don't get me started about those Mechanicus nerds and their technobabble," Tellis agreed, turning his head, "they invented an entire other language so that they could ramble to each other without bothering the rest of us, so why do some of them still insist on speaking Gothic? It keeps fooling me into thinking they might have something useful to say."

Rainbow chuckled, and then the Chaos Space Marine seemed to remember something.

"You shed and spill blood for the Company, then," the Raptor grunted, "unusual, but not unheard of for us to use xenos as our pawns. Which of the Eternal Lords do you serve, if any?"

Rainbow seemed distracted as she thought over the question. "Uh, Celestia, I guess?"

"Huh. Must be a lower pantheon," he mumbled.

"How do you fly with all that metal on you, anyway?" Rainbow finally asked. The way the man blasted through the air didn't exactly have the grace of a pegasus, but even at a glance it was leagues beyond the short jet-assisted leaps of the other Raptors.

"I don't know, how do you fight when you're barely as big as my arm?" Tellis asked. "Is snatching away guns all you're good for?"

Rainbow narrowed her eyes, but rather than indulging her annoyance she took the chance to boost her ego, flying in an upright pose and placing a hoof against her chest.

"Who do you think you're talking to? I'm Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty! I'm the most awesome pony you'll ever meet!"

"That doesn't sound like an especially challenging standard," Tellis noted, "how awesome are these theoretical future ponies going to be? They'd have to have even better hats than the orange one."

Rainbow was starting to get annoyed now. If he didn't want to get down on his knees and start worshiping her tail then and there, fine, but he didn't have to start treating her entire race like brightly colored hat-racks.

"You want to try me? I'll show you what a pony can do!" the pegasus said, crossing her front legs over her chest as she grinned and hovered above the Chaos Marine's head.

"You don't need to show me that you can bleed profusely; I'd guessed that already," Tellis grumbled, waving her off, "weak offerings such as you will not please Lord Khorne, and you begin to bore me. Begone, blue thing."

Rainbow Dash was practically livid after hearing that, but before she could begin an angry tirade at the winged giant, something he had said seized her attention.

"Lord WHAT?"

Tellis began to walk away. "Lord Khorne, the Blood God, the dark god of slaughter and warfare. I'm sure your 'Celestia' - who sounds like a total wimp, by the way - has heard of him. He's probably the god that beat up your god after god gym class."

To his surprise, Rainbow Dash started laughing.

"Lord CORN? You worship a vegetable? Ha ha haaa!"

Tellis froze mid-stride. His hand twitched, and his lightning claws extended with a crackle of electricity as their destructive energy fields engaged.

Rainbow seemed distantly aware of the weapons as she brought her snickering under control, looking at the Raptor Lord with amusement as she slowly floated backward on the breeze. "No wonder you like Applejack so much! You're both real devoted to farming, huh?"

Well. That was that then. Blue pegasus dies.

One turning launch through the air to make contact. One swipe to seize the pony by the back of her neck. One good shake, and the snap of bones announced the end of the trivial chore, the xeno's neck splintered. It was dead.

Well, that had been the plan, anyway.

Tellis thought it had been a good plan.

The pegasus hovering out of arms' reach probably disagreed, as she had been able to flit away from his grasping metal hands with room to spare.

"Wow, you seemed a lot faster when you were fighting the grayskins," Rainbow noted with a smirk, "but hey, I understand. You're probably tired and all ready to pray to Lord Corn, aren't you? Do you need anything? Like some butter, maybe?"

Tellis spent a moment staring into the grinning face of the rainbow-headed speedster, his blood-red eye lenses betraying nothing.

Then he turned away, a hand moving to the side of his helmet. "Pardon me, creature. I have to make a call."

****

Ponyville outskirts

"I don't suppose it would be insubordination to ask if you're going to help out with the digging," Daniels asked.

Gaela was leaning against a fence post behind him, and sounded somewhat distracted when she answered. "If I was that strict with my cannon fodder I probably would have killed all of you before the enemy could, so be reassured." The Dark Acolyte had her biological eye closed as she sorted through visual data with her bionic optics. "In answer to your implied request, if you need additional help, I might suggest asking Pinkie for assistance. This would have the additional benefit of keeping her from toying with my respirator rig."

Daniels turned his head enough to glance the power armored woman with one eye, and he took a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. "Why do you take the time to learn the ponies' names, but you won't remember mine?"

Gaela didn't budge her head, which was still engulfed in data. Her arms moved plenty, but that was just to keep Pinkie from getting entangled in her loose tubing. "For starters, their survival estimations engagement to engagement are nine times what yours are. Do you want me to go on, or is that depressing enough on its own?"

Before the soldier could reply, Gaela saw a vox signal attempting to connect to her suit's unit. "Hold your foolishness for a moment, this could be important."

The first thing she noticed was that the signal was specifically seeking her, which quashed a brief hope that another squad of lost troopers had stumbled into her mission; such signals would have been searching for any available vox receiver, not hers specifically.

The identity of the individual on the other end of the connection quashed any other general, all-purpose hope she may have had left.

"Lord Tellis. I had suspected that you had gotten bored and flown away on your own," Gaela said evenly. It took every bit of tact she had (not a lot) to say "suspected" rather than "hoped". "What can I do for you?"

The Raptor Lord's voice crackled in her headset. "Acolyte, you are the relative expert on these pony xenos within our forces, correct?"

Gaela idly wondered why the Raptor's vox-voice from within his helmet had the same resonant severity as sounds projected outside the mask. Had he changed the settings deliberately, or had the vox amplifier melded with his voicebox directly?

"Technically, that would probably be soldier Da..." she trailed off, trying to remember the rest of the name.

"Who?" Tellis asked, his voice loud and grating even as he seemed unusually calm.

"Daaa... something. It begin with a 'D'." Gaela glared around at the ponies and the single man as they remained dutifully quiet, exactly as she had instructed. With her helmet open, they could hear the Raptor's words as well. "Whatever, I'll put him on. Just-"

"If you can't remember the dolt's name then he can't be worth speaking to. I'll just ask you: do these ponies abandon their dead, or perform mortuary rituals in which friends and family view the corpse?"

That was an... unusual question to come from Tellis. Not because it was so morbid, but rather because it was so logical and rather intellectual. She had no idea, and would be honestly interested to learn the answer.

The ponies glanced at each other, obviously unsure if they should be worried or volunteer a simple answer.

"I could ask. Why do you wish to know, my lord?" Gaela responded.

"Well, I'd rather not spend the time etching curses and profanities in the corpse I'm about to make if nobody's going to look at it. Research the matter for me while I kill this thing."

The vox line went dead.

****

Ponyville - town center

"Yes, you're absolutely right, Mayor!" Twilight said, nodding in rapid agreement for what must have been the hundredth time. "This is completely unacceptable, and I will relay that sentiment to the humans right away!"

"I should hope so! Just look at our beautiful village! It's a wonder the entire square hasn't burnt up!" the mayor complained. Again. "Who's going to get rid of all this... this JUNK?"

Twilight resisted the urge to reprimand the mayor for calling it that. The old mare wasn't exactly the type to appreciate that several tons of alien artifacts had landed into their village, much of it mostly intact. If Twilight could manage it, she'd claim the wreckage here herself and move it somewhere safe where she could study it later. Just thinking about the things she had seen these vehicles and devices do made her shiver.

"I'll find a way to move the debris," Twilight promised, standing straight with an expression of determination totally disproportionate to the task, "you won't have to worry about it, Mayor."

"And what are those humans doing now? They'd better not be stirring up more trouble!" the older pony snorted, shooting glares at the pair of humans digging a great hole at the edge of town.

The Chaos Raptors were elsewhere, presumably nearby but not close enough to see or hear. Twilight was quite sure Mare would have been more discreet if they were the ones she was eyeing.

"They're not! They're just cleaning up and trying to find a way to continue their... uh, their 'quest' elsewhere! You won't hear a peep out of them again!" Twilight insisted. She had taken a few liberties with the story of the humans' presence in Equestria in order to explain them without causing further alarm. Not lies, really, just... gaping omissions. Omissions that probably would have made Applejack queasy.

"I don't know how you can trust them," the mayor said in a whisper as she approached the alicorn, "these... 'humans' are killers and savages, Miss Sparkle, no different from those other aliens! What's to stop them from turning on us with their weapons?"

Twilight raised her snout dramatically, as if speaking to the heavens themselves. "The magic of friendship!"

When she glanced back down, the mayor did not look convinced.

"Also, the other, more conventional type of magic that can block their projectiles and disarm their soldiers," Twilight continued.

Mayor Mare nodded slowly, her demeanor softening. "I see. That IS reassuring. If there's anypony who can see off a threat to Ponyville, I know it's you girls."

"Thank you, Mayor. But as I explained, that will not be the case. These humans have proven to be very friendly... or at least very non-violent toward us ponies." Twilight's expression softened and became more confident as she sensed that she had finally talked the mayor out of any confrontations they'd all regret. "I'm absolutely certain that none of the humans will attack anypony."

The end of her sentence was marked by the roar of an oversized jump pack coming to life several blocks away, the noise shadowed by a loud and familiar laughing.

"I'LL KILL YOU, BLASPHEMER!!"

"Gotta catch me first, slowpoke!"

Twilight's eye twitched as a blue comet trailing rainbows was chased over the rooftops by a gleaming predator spewing flames. She didn't turn to look though, even as Mayor Mare's eyes tracked them across the breadth of the sky.

"As I was saying," Twilight continued even as a snarled curse came from above and behind her, "I'm absolutely certain that none of the humans will hurt anypony. Excuse me."

Twilight's horn flashed, and then, in a blink of violet, she was gone.

She hadn't moved very far, however, reappearing next to Gaela as the Dark Acolyte hung her head and Daniels leaned against his shovel.

"Ooh, a teleport. That's a neat trick," Daniels whistled.

"What's going on?" Twilight demanded.

"That much should be self-explanatory," Gaela deadpanned.

"YOU WILL PERISH IN A STORM OF BLADES AND FIRE!!"

"No blade and fire storms today, pal! Weather factory's orders!"

They were a rainbow streak being followed closely by a gleaming comet through the sky, cutting wild circuits through the air in dizzying loops and zig-zagging courses.

Gaela was sure that such wild aerobatics would have been far beyond the most agile fighter craft, and judging by the straining burn of his flight pack and subtle inaccuracies in his pursuit arcs, even Tellis - borne to the sky with the wings of a daemon clad in steel - was having trouble trailing his prey.

Applejack whistled. "Yer boy sure seems riled 'bout somethin'."

"What did Rainbow Dash do this time?" Twilight moaned, a hoof to her face.

Gaela quirked her eyebrow. "You're blaming DASH for this? Not the deadly psychotic trying to rip her apart?"

"Gaela has a point," Rarity noted, "this might not be Rainbow's fault."

"STAY STILL, YOU LITTLE BLUE WRETCH!!"

"What's the matter? Too fast for you? Maybe you should pray to your veggie god for help!"

"HE IS NOT A VEGGIE GOD!! YOU SHUT YOUR HORSE MOUTH!!"

The ponies all sighed in tandem except Pinkie.

"Heh heh. Veggie god," the pink pony giggled.

"Really, I would have thought that even Rainbow Dash would have more sense than to taunt one of the Iron Warriors," Twilight grumbled, "never mind the one that might actually be able to catch her."

"Well, Ah don't know about that," Applejack said, returning to her digging, "flyin' fast is RD's best trick. That iron galoot ain't got a chance of catchin' her."

"Oh, I'd wager a ration or two he will. Those Astartes are bloody persistent when they're mad," Daniels noted.

"Ah'll put an apple against yer ration and raise ya two more," Applejack countered.

Daniels thought about pointing out that if Rainbow lost then she'd also die, but decided against it. "One apple is equal to one ration? I don't know about that..."

As the farmer and the mercenary debated the exchange rate of apples and nutrient goop, Twilight considered how to make their bet a moot point.

"They're moving too fast and too far away for levitation or some kind of binding spell to work. There has to be another spell..."

"Can't you fly up and stop them?" Pinkie asked, poking the alicorn's wings.

Before Twilight could say anything, Gaela interrupted. "Not a good idea. In his frenzied state Tellis is quite likely to lash out at any flying pony he sees and can get his claws on," the Acolyte noted, arms crossed, "also, using sorcery on him is a bad idea. He is... resistant."

"Resistant? To magic?" Twilight asked, intrigued. "How?"

"The Warp did it."

Rarity and Spike followed the path of rainbow and fire through the sky with their eyes.

"Well, is there anything you can do about it?" Rarity asked the Dark Acolyte.

Gaela rubbed her chin. "I could call down another emplacement and try to shoot him down."

"You can't do that!" Twilight said, alarmed that she would talk seriously about firing on one of her Company's soldiers.

"You're probably right. By the time it arrived and I set it up, I'm pretty sure this incident would be over," Gaela admitted, "still, it's a nice thought. I could claim I was trying to hit Rainbow but picked up Tellis as the larger bio-signature."

"I was thinking more in the sense of talking him out of it," Rarity clarified.

Gaela raised her eyebrow. "You mean make him even angrier so that he comes down to kill me instead?"

"I mean persuade him not to hurt anypony at all," Rarity clarified, looking slightly worried as she stared at the woman.

"And how would I do something like that?" Gaela asked. "I didn't even know you could incite non-violence in people. Is that some kind of psyker trick?"

"It's called diplomacy," Twilight said with just an edge of sarcasm.

"OH. That. I've heard of that. I don't do that," Gaela said uncomfortably.

"We've noticed," Rarity sighed, looking up again, "oh dear. It looks like they're heading out of town now."

****

Ponyville outskirts - approximate altitude: 130 meters

Rainbow Dash breathed hard as she made another sharp curve through the air, her lungs burning and wings straining.

The pitch in the engine roar behind her shifted slightly, and she heard another unnecessarily loud growl of frustration behind her.

She twisted her body in the air and cut her speed, smiling as Tellis rocketed past her in another missed swipe.

The Raptor was fast. Very fast. But that was probably to be expected from someone who strapped rockets to their back in order to fly. If she had made it a straight-up race to try and leave the Astartes in the dust, there was a (remote) chance that he might be even faster than her.

She was enjoying their current game plenty, however. Sweat dripped into her eyes and adrenaline surged through her body as she curved over the assault soldier's head, the Raptor zooming upward just a moment too late to catch her.

"Hey, is that Big Mac and the fillies?" Rainbow Dash said, glancing below even as she picked up speed again. "I'm gonna go say hi. You can take a breather here; you probably need it."

Tellis turned around, the mini-rockets of his iron wings flaring to neutralize his position in the air while he shook a fist at the diving pegasus.

"YOU'RE the one who needs a breather!" he snarled, his voice amplified to a daemonic howl.

He stopped shaking his fist, his posture slumping slightly in the air. "That was NOT one of my better come-backs."

****

"Sure has been loud out there, ain't it Big Brother?"

"Eeyup."

"Hey, Scootaloo, pass the jam!"

"Here you go. What do you think those explosions from earlier were? I hope nopony got hurt."

+Analysis from heat blooms and vox transmission intercepts suggests that Iron Warriors unit has prevailed against Tau vehicle detachment. Dispatching congratulatory vox message to unit commander.+

Big Macintosh, Crabapple and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were finishing up their breakfast, distantly aware of the skirmish that had ripped through the village. Big Mac had been worried when he saw several blue vehicles with black trim zooming over the rooftops to cross the village, but none of the skimmers had stopped or even slowed down to investigate the freshly painted probe standing sentinel behind his little sister.

They had also spotted a Space Marine with a jump pack sprinting past the restaurant toward the town square, but just like the Tau the Astartes hadn't paid them a moment's notice. It had just been that kind of morning.

Scootaloo twisted her head, catching sight of a smoke trail in the air out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey, is that Rainbow Dash up there?" she asked, suddenly excited.

Big Mac looked up from his plate, scanning the skies briefly. "Eeyup."

"Sweetie Bell quirked an eyebrow. "What's that thing behind her? It's shiny..."

+Unit identified as Iron Warriors Raptor Commander Tellis. Scanning suit cogitator data...+ Crabapple buzzed in binary.

"Is it... chasin' her?" Apple Bloom asked.

Big Mac traced the shiny object trailing Rainbow Dash on a tail of smoke and fire. "Eeyup," he said yet again.

+Suit cogitator has attempted to distribute a scrapcode self-destruct directive via system uplink. Terminating link. Power armor machine spirit is to be considered corrupted and highly dangerous. And also a huge jerk.+

"Ya okay, Crabapple?" Apple Bloom asked. The last Binaric blurt had sounded unusually agitated.

+Data intercepts suggest that unit Tellis is to be considered extremely dangerous. Recommend preparing eulogy and funerary rites for unit Rainbow Dash immediately.+

"Hey, do you think they're playing tag or something?" Scootaloo asked, pointing a hoof at the two flyers tearing up the sky above Ponyville.

Big Mac didn't answer, his expression darkening. He very much doubted it was "tag" she was engaged in.

"Is she... coming toward us?" Sweetie Bell asked, starting to lean away as the stunt flyer dropped into a dive. She was well aware of Rainbow's skill in flying - Scootaloo regularly took the time to remind her friends - but the pegasus also had a reputation for spectacular crashes.

Luckily, Rainbow was on the mark today, as was strictly necessary in order to escape an enraged Chaos Space Marine. She skimmed low to the ground before she decelerated, stopping to a hover next to the table as Scootaloo cheered.

"Hey guys! Mind if I help myself?" without waiting for an answer, Rainbow snatched up a bowl of sliced apples and practically dumped them down her gullet.

"Heya, Dash! Did you see those explosions earlier from the town square?" Scootaloo asked, jumping on the opportunity to talk to her idol.

Rainbow swallowed the fruit, wiping her mouth with her leg. "Sure did! I was almost in one of them! Ha! We sure showed those alien freaks!"

"What are you doing flying around over town like that? Are you being chased?" Sweetie Bell asked.

"Yeah, I'm just messing with one of those Astartes guys," Rainbow grabbed the glass of water next to Big Mac and downed it even faster than the fruit, splashing plenty over her face. "Gotta go! If he catches me he'll kill me!"

"Wait, wha-"

Apple Bloom was interrupted when Rainbow Dash bolted into the air again, which happened at almost the exact same time as Tellis landed in his latest attempt to mutilate her.

The Iron Warrior missed, of course, and his boots hit the ground hard, plowing through the street and leaving a wake of scorched dirt behind him as he slowed to a stop.

"I WILL TEAR YOU INSIDE OUT, INSOLENT BLUE CREATURE!!" Tellis howled.

"I'm too awesome to die!" Rainbow Dash shouted back triumphantly, racing off into the clouds beyond Ponyville's perimeter.

With a roar of jet engines Tellis was airborne again, his daemon-tech wings spread wide as he blasted into the sky in pursuit.

And then, suddenly, his acceleration cut short, and one side of his pack spread to the side, twisting the Raptor around with a burst of thrust.

Tellis stared down at the restaurant he had landed next to, and the figures sitting next to the table.

"Is that... one of our probe automata?" he asked, baffled. It was painted the wrong colors, but it was clearly of Imperial pattern, and he had seen nothing else from the ponies that would have indicated they had access to such technology.

"Bah, whatever." With another burst of flame to his side, Tellis turned again in mid-air. "Now what was I doing again?"

After a few seconds, he remembered. "Ah, right. Maim, kill, burn. Now where did my little victim go?"

To his surprise, he couldn't see Rainbow Dash anywhere. He was pretty sure she hadn't descended and hidden in the buildings or simply zoomed off into the sky. She wasn't THAT fast. Probably.

Rainbow Dash breathed heavily as she curled up as tightly as possible on a cloud above Ponyville, taking a minute to catch her breath.

She didn't really expect to get much respite from the armored killer chasing her, but something had distracted him long enough for her to pull into a cloud for cover, so she'd make the most of it.

She had to admit that she hadn't expected this whole affair to last this long. In fact, she hadn't put a great deal of thought at all into what she would do to ultimately stop Tellis from killing her. She hadn't thought he was being serious at first about killing her over a joke, but when she really thought about it, the guy WAS an insane, murderous super-soldier. And as much fun as it was to fly at this pace against a pursuer, she couldn't keep it up much longer, and he didn't look like he was getting tired.

She needed a strategy to stop him, not just lose him.

"Finally! Geez, it took me way too long to remember I have thermal vision settings on my visor," Tellis grumbled, his flight pack burning hotter, "I found you, you little... are you actually lying ON the cloud? That's impossible, you know."

Rainbow took a deep gulp of air and then took off again. She had gotten her second wind, but she needed to end this soon, somehow.

The building roar of Tellis' flight pack announced that the Raptor had given chase once more, and Rainbow led him around Ponyville outskirts, doing the same circuit of twists and curves as before.

Then, spotting a familiar cottage down below, the speedy pegasus got an idea.

Fluttershy's home was down below and ahead of her, and her window was wide open to allow birds to come and go from within, as it often was when the pegasus was at home.

"All right, Tellis, let's see you do a little stunt flying," Rainbow said, a smile spreading over her face.

"I can't make out what you're saying! Are you mocking Lord Khorne again? Because I hate that!"

"I said I like apples more than corn! Why don't you worship those instead? You and Applejack can build a church together!" Rainbow taunted, starting a swooping dive toward the cottage.

"I don't know who that is, but maybe after I'm done with you I'll mangle them next!" Tellis growled, his flight pack screaming as he vectored into Rainbow's flight path.

He didn't put full power into the dive, though. As the initial fury of Rainbow's taunts had worn off, he had recognized that the pesky pony had been using his rocket-assisted acceleration against him to trick him, sending him into high-velocity runs while she had darted out of the way to escape.

This time Tellis matched her acceleration, not attempting to overtake her. He'd simply match the pegasus for speed and trajectory, and wait for her to exhaust herself. And then...

Well, he'd think of a funny way to desecrate the corpse later. He usually came up with his best material in the heat of the moment.

And on the topic of stupid split-second decisions, was Rainbow actually planning to just ram through that building they were shooting toward?

"YEE-HAW!" Rainbow Dash cheered as she barrel-rolled through the air, slipping through the relatively small opening of Fluttershy's window and then correcting course enough to clear another such open window on the other wall by mere millimeters. She felt the tips of her wings brush the wooden frames, but it was otherwise a perfect move.

She had thought she had heard a loud squeak of surprise as she had shot through, but with her attention entirely on her flight path, she hadn't been able to spot Fluttershy in passing. It could have just been one of her animals, for all she knew.

"Let's see you match that trick, tough guy!" the pegasus called behind her as she pulled up into the sky over the Everfree Forest.

Rainbow Dash was not good at physics.

It was enough for her to know that walls were typically hard, immovable things, while flying individuals were generally stopped dead by such obstacles, and usually with great pain. That was her experience, anyway.

At no point did she wonder if a four hundred pound super soldier wearing half again his weight in rocket-propelled metal would have the same problem.

Rainbow's eyes widened as the wall of Fluttershy's cottage exploded outward in a burst of shattered wood and squawking birds.

Tellis tilted backward to let his engines kill his forward momentum, easing himself into a landing as a pair of goats fled out of the hole behind him.

Then the Raptor Lord reached up and pulled a python off of the right horn of his helmet.

"Begone, serpent," he spat, tossing the snake away.

Then he stared down at a house cat that was clinging to the Tyranid skull hanging from the chains around his neck.

"You may stay, cat. Your casual acts of cruelty and amusingly poor grammar please the Blood God."

The cat apparently had no intention of taking him up on his offer, dropping to the ground and racing off.

"Uhm... e-excuse me... can I get off too? Please?"

Tellis couldn't see behind him, but he heard something speaking from atop his flight pack. Probably entangled in the other chains back there. His armor also detected some kind of tremors from the creature, for some reason.

"Unnecessary, voice near but not within my head: the sudden acceleration will jar you free." His main turbines began to howl as they started spinning, and the hiss of fuel injection filled his autosenses as his iron wings spread once again.

"Uh, not to be a bother," the timid voice returned, "but that doesn't sound very saaaaAAAAAAH!"

Rainbow Dash watched as Tellis ascended once again, Fluttershy tumbling off of his flight pack in a flurry of yellow feathers and jetwash. She'd be fine.

"I hope this doesn't mean we have to fight the humans too, now," Rainbow mumbled as she turned around and took off again. They had turned on the Tau because the extraterrestrials had attacked them and destroyed one of their homes. Now the Iron Warriors had done the same thing.

Then again, it might not count, given that it was her fault this time.

"You can't flee forever, pegasus!" Tellis screeched. "You will pay for... whatever it is you did to enrage me in the first place! Damned attention span..."

Rainbow frowned at that as she and the pursuing Astartes flew low over the treeline of the Everfree Forest. He was right, of course. She'd need another plan to shake him off.

And that was when the shooting started.

Warning runes in his helmet started blinking as a bolt of sizzling blue slashed across his greaves, and Tellis turned hard to the side right before a rail rifle shot zipped over his head, trailing friction-heated air.

"Not as planned! Not as planned!" the Raptor shouted irritably as he turned into a fast evasive curve. Lances of blue fire stabbed out at the air around him, clearly not properly adjusted to hit something moving at his speed.

Nonetheless, lucky hits would do the job if he stuck around long enough. Frustratingly, as his visor scanned the surface below all it returned was ghost signals and magnetic noise. Such readings were about as useful as the view of darkened tree branches that greeted his unaugmented vision, and it meant he couldn't even get a passing count of enemy strength, never mind find a good point to charge in if he wanted.

The hiss of a missile pod unleashing its payload reached his autosenses, and Tellis rocketed straight upward as the mini-warheads ascended in an interceptor spread, exploding behind him even without an impact.

While he gained altitude, a new warning rune indicated that he had been struck by a different kind of weapon: his helmet cogitator had intercepted a data stream that had reflected off the surface of his armor and beamed the altered particle data into a local data network.

A Tau markerlight. That was bad.

Tellis turned again, rocketing back toward Ponyville as blue flares burst and crackled in the sky behind him. He may have been a fearless slaughterer of Khorne, but that didn't mean he was going to let himself get shot down like an idiot without so much as seeing his killer face-to-face.

As yet ANOTHER warning rune lit up on his visor display, he had to admit that it might be a foregone conclusion.

A snub-nosed missile the size of the Raptor's flight pack broke the top of the tree line, trailing bits of wood and leaves as it picked up speed.

Tellis turned, curving through the air as best he could while maintaining "crap-there's-a-missile-coming-at-me" speed, but the seeking missile corrected easily, tracing the Raptor Lord's formidable power signature as it closed the distance between them.

"Damn grayskins and their clever toys," Tellis groaned, the distance indicator on his retinal readout swiftly falling toward zero. The missile blasted toward him, mere seconds away from impact. "Ah, well. Blood for the Blood God."

And then suddenly rainbows.

Rainbow Dash grunted as her hooves hit the body of the missile on her fly-by, striking the deadly projectile as best she could while both she and it were moving near their respective top speeds.

The projectile tilted upward, tearing into a somersault as it tried to correct for such a sudden and dramatic change in its trajectory. Within seconds it lost its tracking data as it tried to turn completely around, and the warhead activated its safeties once it failed to register a target. The missile's engines fizzled, and it fell to the forest below like a stone.

Tellis slowed to a hover as he neared the cottage he and Rainbow had flown through earlier. His vox grille was silent as a pict-capture of the last few seconds hung in the corner of his visor display.

After a few moments Rainbow Dash flew over him, her breath heavy and her flight path unsteady.

Tellis spun around in the air to look the pegasus in the eyes. "Did you just KICK a missile out of the sky?"

"Yeah. Huff... no big deal. Huff..." Rainbow's mane was damp and sticking to her neck, which was certainly one of the less obvious indicators that it actually was a "big deal".

"That was the single most stupid thing I have ever seen," Tellis said flatly as he and Rainbow Dash hung in the air.

"Stupid?" Rainbow demanded, bristling.

"Yes, stupid. Stupid AWESOME!!"

Tellis nearly blasted the pegasus away with the sudden jolt in volume, and he raised a hand up into the air above his head.

It took Rainbow a second to get her bearings again, but once she steadied herself she recognized the gesture and promptly smacked a hoof into the Raptor's metal palm.

"Ha! I told you I was the best!" Rainbow said with a grin.

"You didn't mention that you were crazy, too!" Tellis laughed with the pegasus for a few seconds before he leaned his head in. "How did you know where to strike the seeker missile without detonating it?"

Rainbow blinked. "Detonating? You mean those things explode? I didn't know that. I figured it was just going to ram into you or something."

They stared silently at each other for several seconds as they both came to terms with how close Dash had come to being reduced to rainbow-colored debris.

"BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!" Then they laughed, because it was just that funny.

"Oh, man! I was almost in trouble there, wasn't I?" Rainbow asked between chuckles.

"Not quite as much as me, though," Tellis admitted, cocking his head to one side, "why did you attempt to help me while I was trying to murder you?"

"Aw, like I said, we ponies are on your side! We're like brothers and sisters in the epic struggle against the Tau!" Rainbow insisted, brushing off his question. Then her expression turned sheepish. "Also, I DID kind of make you mad on purpose. And then accidentally led you right over them, too."

Then the pegasus frowned, turning toward the thick and darkened forest. "I had no idea there were some hiding out in the Everfree, though. Those jerks are everywhere!"

"Yes. I suppose I should call that in or something," Tellis mumbled.

"Uhm, excuse me. Mister metal... uh, Sir?" came a timid voice from just below the two, just barely audible over the sound of Tellis' flight pack keeping him aloft.

"Not now, cowardly voice outside my head!" Tellis barked, not noticing the other pegasus hovering below him. "This is important!"

"Eep! I'm sorry! Please go ahead!" Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow as she watched Fluttershy dart back down and fly back into her house, courtesy of the brand new hole in its wall.

"Good. Come Dash, we have to talk to that killjoy in the robes," Tellis swung about in the air and then blasted off, fire spewing from his turbines, "also, the other xenos probably wish to know that you're still alive."

"Right behind ya, Tellis!" Rainbow said, taking off in pursuit at a much more leisurely pace than before.

****

Ponyville outskirts

"You drive a hard bargain AJ, but I suppose I can live with three apples to a ration," Daniels said, rolling a tin around in his hand, "so you'll be wagering three of your apples against my ration tin?"

"Okay, though Ah still think yer gettin' the better deal," Applejack said reluctantly, her eyes narrowed as she raised her hoof in front of the mercenary.

"Are you done making bets on our friend's survival? Because I could use some ideas on how to help her out," Twilight asked, glaring at the pair.

"Doesn't that mess with the odds?" Daniels asked as he shook Applejack's hoof.

Twilight groaned, and then turned toward Gaela.

She didn't speak, however, because she was currently in a conversation over her vox link in Binaric Cant.

+-and you seriously couldn't find some way to contact us physically when you didn't get a vox connection?+

+Survival of Iron Warrior unit is not mission priority. Commander Apple Bloom demanded unit Crabapple's presence for scheduled nutrient consumption,+ came the blurt of code from the metal collar currently made up of Gaela's disengaged helmet.

+Let me inform you where you can relocate your "mission priority"...+

Twilight found Gaela's communication system fascinating. Of course, she found EVERYTHING about the Dark Acolyte fascinating. She hadn't known someone so intelligent and mysterious since she'd met Princess Celestia herself.

Gaela's lips didn't actually move when she spoke Binary, and by now Twilight was fairly certain that the buzzing coming from her throat wasn't at all natural. The sound of Binaric Cant was too far removed from ordinary sounds and syllables to be just another language.

Gaela switched off her vox with a thought and grunted in annoyance. "So we have no new readings to help locate the enemy primary jammer array, and the nearest substation is ten kilometers out."

"So, should we get marching?" Daniels asked. He was shoveling dirt back into the giant pit full of corpses now.

"I WOULD, but the Raptors requested armor repairs," Gaela pointed out, "and Dest as well. Meaning we can't even head out until..."

She trailed off as she heard the sound of a rocket engine approaching fast, and she turned her optics to the sky as Daniels took cover.

"Enemy missile?" the mercenary asked.

"No. Tellis," Gaela grumbled as the IFF sensors in his armor returned his ID. As if it wasn't perfectly obvious who and what the gleaming metallic comet hurtling toward them was.

"I think I'll stay behind here anyhow," Daniels mumbled, crouched behind a wagon with his shovel.

"Is that... Rainbow Dash next to him?" Twilight asked, surprised and quite relieved.

"Well, I'll be..."

Tellis landed without a shred of subtlety, slamming into the ground hard and letting his boots carve furrows into the dirt as he slid to a stop.

Rainbow hovered over him, waving hello to her friends as if she and the Astartes hadn't been in a life-or-death game of tag just minutes earlier.

"You. Dark Acolyte. You're the mission leader around here, aren't you?" Tellis asked. He sounded annoyed, as if actually performing proper intelligence procedures was a tiresome chore.

"Technically, my lord, that would be you, since you outrank me," Gaela pointed out.

"Okay, yes, but you're the mission leader around here who actually remembers what their mission is, aren't you?" Tellis clarified.

Gaela swallowed an irritated groan. "Yes, Lord. How may I be of service?"

"Found a bunch of Tau outside the village outskirts. I was barely a kilometer inside the boundaries of..." he turned to Rainbow Dash. "What was it called?"

"The Everfree Forest," the pegasus answered.

"Thanks. I was barely a kilometer inside it when I came under heavy fire, some of it anti-air. I couldn't get a lock on anything, either. Just thought I should mention that."

Gaela blinked. "I'm surprised that you stopped chasing Dash to report this in."

"Does this mean you didn't catch her?" Daniels asked.

"Is she still alive?" Tellis asked, turning toward the man.

"Sure seems so, Lord."

"Then I didn't catch her," Tellis confirmed, glancing over his shoulder at the grinning pegasus, "you just can't catch this damned horse. She slips through the claws like the wind itself."

"Well, you made a good attempt, though," Rainbow said, snickering as she patted Tellis on his shoulder guard.

Daniels grunted and tossed a ration tin to Applejack, who smiled and caught it without a word.

"My lord, let me access your suit's locator and pict-capture data," Gaela asked, placing a hand to the implant on the side of her head, "perhaps I can parse the readings to get something more substantial out of it."

"Yeah, fine, knock yourself out," Tellis mumbled, finding Gaela's cogitator signal and allowing it access to his suit memory coils.

Gaela checked the data upload, and her expression darkened. "My lord, your suit just uploaded a scrapcode worm trying to make me self-destruct."

"Is it working?" the Raptor Lord asked.

She glared up at him silently.

"By the gods, you Mechanicus geeks really have no sense of humor at all," Tellis grumbled, "try it again."

As Gaela uploaded the data, Rainbow Dash wander over to Applejack and Daniels, staring at the ration tin that had just changed hands.

"Wait, AJ, did you make a bet on that chase just now?" Rainbow seemed offended somehow as she pointed an accusing hoof at the evidence.

"What? Ah just told Daniels that there was no way that some rocket-powered human would be able to catch you," the farmer said defensively, "he wanted to put his money where his mouth was, that's all!"

"I think she's upset that you were making a wager on a matter of life and death," Daniels pointed out.

"No, I'm upset that nopony told me so I could get in on it!" Rainbow complained, crossing her front legs angrily.

"You were kinda busy flyin' for yer life," Applejack deadpanned, "but if it makes ya feel better I'll split the can with ya."

Twilight turned her attention away from the absurd conduct of her friends to pay closer attention to the slightly less absurd conduct of Gaela and Tellis.

"Well, did you find anything out?" the alicorn asked eagerly.

Gaela nodded. "A great deal, actually. What fired on Tellis was not an armored vehicle, but a dedicated anti-air structure. While many of the signals were scrambled, they couldn't have hidden the Tau's drive emissions completely with the electromagnetic fields deployed in this region."

Tellis formed his hand into the shape of a mouth opening and closing constantly, silently mocking the Mechanicus agent.

Gaela's eye narrowed. "Structures mean a field base. Field bases mean centralized command logistics. Command logistics means data. If we take that base, we might just be able to figure out why the Tau are here in strength."

"Swell. I'll round up the Reavers and we'll deploy immediately," Tellis offered, jabbing a thumb toward the spot his subordinates had chosen to hold outside of the village.

"My lord, it's going to be too heavily defended to take with a handful of Space Marines and a few humans as support," Gaela said evenly, "you'll need to fly back to base and inform the Warsmith so he can deploy reinforcements."

"Pft, I'm not doing that," Tellis said immediately, "that would take, like, half an hour or something. Each way! If you don't need me to kill things then leave me alone."

Gaela deflated. "But... my lord, getting this information to base is CRITICAL to our mission success!"

"Yeah, so you do it. I'm busy," then he turned away from the Acolyte, "hey, Dash! Show me how you can treat clouds like a solid, again! That was cool!"

Rainbow turned around, breaking off her conversation with Applejack and Daniels. "Okay, sure! Follow me!"

She took off into the sky, and a second later Tellis had blasted off after her, his jet wash kicking up Gaela's robes around her feet.

"Aww, the crazy man made a friend. That's adorable," Rarity said with smirk as Gaela hung her head.

"Is there any other way to contact your people?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. We could walk," the Acolyte grumbled, "it would take at least a day just to get there, and there's a chance that the Tau might relocate in the interim, but it is absolutely vital Warsmith Solon is informed."

"Maybe a pony could make it there faster?" Applejack guessed.

"Any pony given the task would run a very serious risk of being shot when approaching the landing point. Besides, none of you know the way."

"I know! You could write a letter!" Rarity suggested.

Gaela raised her eyebrow. "And this letter would reach my lord... how?"

Rarity turned toward Spike. "Spike, I don't suppose your fire teleport would work in this case, would it?"

Spike winced, never happy to admit weakness in front of his crush. "It, ah, doesn't really work that way."

"The letters could only go to Princess Celestia," Twilight confirmed. Then her ears fell flat against her head. "Which reminds me... I have quite a letter to send her to try to explain all this..."

"Hey! Did someone mention letters?"

Gaela and the ponies glanced up into the air.

"Oh, hi Derpy," Twilight greeted, "we were discussing a message our friend here needs to get to her boss."

The gray pegasus brightened as she landed in front of the Acolyte. "If you have a letter, I can take it!"

"A live courier system, eh? Quaint," Gaela mumbled, her gaze lingering on Derpy's eyes, "but I doubt you deliver to the Iron Warriors' main base."

"Sure I do!" Derpy said with a smile.

That stopped everybody short.

"You DO?" Twilight asked incredulously.

"It's that smoky city by the Badlands surrounded by all the big, shiny people, right?" the mailmare asked.

"That... is a fair description of the landing point," Gaela admitted, though her expression still spoke of disbelief, "how do you deliver messages through the security perimeter and auto-defense matrix?"

"I don't know what those things are!" Derpy said brightly.

"Ah. Ignorance as a survival mechanism. I should have guessed," the Acolyte mumbled, cupping her chin with her bionic hand, "well... I suppose I don't have many good options in front of me. As long as there's a flyer willing to carry the message along, I suppose I have to try it. Does anyone have some parchment?"

"Spike!" Twilight called.

Without further prompting the young dragon had produced a blank scroll and held it up to Gaela.

She took it and unrolled the blank parchment, holding it up in front of her. Then she hesitated, looking over the page distastefully.

"I feel like a savage trying to recharge a lasgun power cell with a campfire," Gaela admitted ruefully.

"Speaking as someone who's actually DONE that, stop complaining and do what you have to do," Daniels said.

Gaela grumbled incoherently as her welding laser pushed forward out of her servo-tool. After adjusting its power output down to almost minimal levels, she raised the paper up in front of the tool.

"For such a 'primitive' act as writing a letter, you certainly seem to be making a hi-tech show of it," Rarity drawled.

Gaela's cutting laser pulsed rapidly as she slowly ran it across the breadth of the page, burning what appeared to be a single unbroken line into the parchment. Microscopic variations in the length of the markings, imperceptible to the naked eye, marked out the different elements of the binary message, and Gaela moved the page up and over to continue on the next line.

After a few seconds of this, she felt Pinkie climbing up on her shoulder again.

"You misspelled 'particle'; that should be 11010, not 11100," the pink pony said, pointing a hoof at the message.

"Shut up. You can't read binary," Gaela insisted, continuing to write the next line.

A second later the laser tilted upward and zapped a line that she had already passed over, although Gaela said nothing more on the matter.

"It's not encryption, but in case this message falls into enemy hands it should at least confuse them for a while," Gaela said as she burned a final line over the page.

"You have to complicate everything don't you?" Daniels asked.

"How many times to you think you can get away with mocking me before I submit a disciplinary request upon our return, Daggoth?" Gaela asked, folding up the parchment.

"Exactly as many times as it takes before you remember my name, Acolyte," the mercenary replied.

Gaela grunted irritably before holding out the folded parchment to Derpy. "Here. That is to be taken straight to Warsmith Solon postehaste," she said.

"Is he the one with all the legs like a centipede and the wires sticking out of him?" Derpy asked, staring at the paper with one eye while the other pointed off elsewhere.

"No, that's Dark Magos Kaelith. Warsmith Solon is the one with legs like a spider who smells like burning rubber," Gaela clarified. Rarity and Twilight gave each other dubious looks, wondering about that description.

"Oh, yeah! I know him! He's nice!" Derpy said, smiling. She didn't take the message, though.

Eventually, Twilight figured out what was wrong. "It's postage due, Derpy."

"Okay!" the gray pegasus saluted with one hoof while the other finally took the parchment and stuffed it in her saddlebag. Then she took off into the air, curving in the general direction of the Iron Warriors city-fortress.

Rarity quirked an eyebrow at Twilight. "Postage due? Really?"

The alicorn flushed, leaning in next to the snow-colored unicorn. "I always use Spike to send letters! I almost never use postage!"

"I feel ridiculous," Gaela admitted as she scratched the back of her head, "I'm stuck in an alien village with hardly any troops with an enemy base little more than a grenade's toss away, and I'm sending crucial strategic data to my commander via flying pony courier. To top things off, the only especially competent warrior available has formed an inexplicable bond with the last creature he tried to murder and is too busy playing with her to actually help in our mission."

"Plus you have a bright pink pone trying to arm-wrestle your servo limb," Daniels pointed out, "just in case you needed more reasons to feel ridiculous."

As Gaela pried Pinkie off her shoulder, Twilight gave the Dark Acolyte a hopeful look. "Well, now there's nothing much to do but wait for your message to be received, right? We'll get some more time to talk!"

"I was hoping to spend the time repairing our troops' armor, actually," Gaela pointed out, "also, I should check on Dest. We just left him standing in his armor out in the open while he recovered."

"Oh, nonsense!" Rarity cooed, batting her eyes as she tapped a hoof against Gaela's armored calf. "We have no idea how long you're even going to be here; you can't spend your entire trip working!"

"But I'm on a miss-"

Rarity interrupted her as she walked past, seizing the Acolyte's arm with magic. "Oh, I know! Let me show you my boutique! I would just LOVE to come up with a dress for something with your shape!"

Twilight brightened. "Yes, that's perfect!" It would mean that Gaela would be kept immobilized for an extended period of time with nothing better to do but answer the dozens of burning questions that kept bubbling on the surface of her mind, demanding answers. Sweet, delicious answers...

The Dark Acolyte sighed, offering no further resistance as she was magically pulled along behind the white unicorn. "This has a been a VERY strange day..."

Great and Powerful Diversions

Iron Hearts

Chapter 6

Great and Powerful Diversions

****

Centaur III - 7 kilometers outside of fortress Ferrous Dominus perimeter

On a lightly forested plateau bordering the badlands, a lone traveler halted beneath a willow tree to rest in her long journey.

She was a unicorn, deep blue in color with a white mane striped with light blue. Sitting atop her head and obscuring her horn was a pointed, wide-rimmed wizard's cap that matched the cape clasped around her neck.

Tellis would have heartily approved.

Trixie munched on some oats as she wrote down her latest observations and thoughts on a scroll of parchment, one of many that were stuffed inside her saddlebag.

"For too long has Trixie wallowed in self-pity and loathing, motivated by petty revenge and hubris," the unicorn said to herself before she finished her writing, magically rolling up the parchment, "it's time for Trixie to overcome. To start anew. To prove to this world that Trixie is WORTHY of the title 'great and powerful'!"

The unicorn jumped to her hooves, putting away her oat sack.

"But where to begin? If Trixie is to start over, Trixie will need a new caravan. And the funds to build it," she continued musing aloud to herself, walking through the trees toward the edge of the plateau.

"So Trixie must find work, obviously. And preferably in someplace that she's never visited before."

A new city would, of course, be more impressed by her magic act, never having been exposed to it before.

She certainly wasn't trying to avoid places that may or may not be full of disgruntled audiences that might wish to chase her out of town. Certainly not.

"And... what have we here?"

The Great and Powerful Trixie quirked an eyebrow as she spotted some buildings in the distance, along with what appeared to be columns of smoke.

As she moved forward toward the edge of the plateau, she could make out more details of the place, and as she stepped past the last of the trees between her and the cliff, she was finally treated to an unobstructed view of an Iron Warriors fortress-city.

"Big" was the word that Trixie kept returning to as she stared at the fortification. Big buildings covered by big spires mounted big smokestacks that spewed big clouds of smoke and ash into the air. All around the massive buildings, big walls were being placed by big cranes in a big palisade absolutely bristling with big guns.

The palisade wall was incomplete, with several enormous towers having been raised and mounted with weapons before the walls were cut from the starship that was being rapidly cannibalized down to a metal skeleton. The walls were in the process of being put into place, one segment at a time, before being reinforced and fitted with weapon emplacements.

The finer points of fortress engineering were, sadly, lost on Trixie as she rubbed a hoof against her chin, but she could see that behind the walls that were being put into place there was clearly a thriving metropolis.

Funny that she didn't recall a place like this before. Hadn't she been by this region just last month?

"It will do," Trixie declared, levitating some rocks next to the cliff to act as a staircase for her, "prepare yourself... uh... mysterious dark city, for the show of a lifetime!"

****

Ponyville - Rarity's boutique

"I still can't fathom the point of all this."

Gaela stood in place, grumbling to herself with her arms spread wide in the middle of the boutique. Her power armor and actuator backpack sat in the corner of the room, and Rarity was slowly circling her with a hovering length of measuring tape.

"The point is to get you some nice clothes, dear. You can't go tromping about in that armor everywhere; you'll scare the wits out of everypony!"

Gaela rolled her eye. "A paltry concern when me and my unit could be ambushed at any time by enemy soldiers."

"Oh, just indulge me for a bit, darling. Hmm... such interesting form..."

Twilight was stooped next to the deactivated armor, making a sketch for her notes. Spike was next to her, although the young dragon seemed fully absorbed in watching Rarity work.

As Rarity started mumbling to herself, Twilight sensed an opening in Gaela's attention and pounced on it. "Gaela, can you tell me anything about your homeworld?"

Gaela didn't turn her head when she responded. "The human origin world, or mine?" she asked. "I know little about the former, besides what curses my masters lavish upon it."

"Yours, then," Twilight asked, retrieving a fresh sheet of parchment, "I'm trying to get an image of what a human civilization would look like."

"Nearly anything you could imagine, really," Gaela offered with a shrug, "human colonies number in the hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions; we can't even be sure of the total number. Each has its own history, culture, and developments such that it's near impossible to generalize. Though we do our best."

Twilight stared down at her blank paper, feeling overwhelmed. MILLIONS of colonized planets? She could hardly fathom such enormous numbers when applied to astronomical bodies.

"As for my origin world, it doesn't mean much to me now, but it is called Starhaven, a prominent forge world and shipyard among the Imperial colonies on the eastern fringe. A forge world, by the way, is an entire planet given over to heavy industry and manufacture. Usually for military equipment and supplies."

"A whole PLANET?" Twilight asked, "that kind of scale seems... excessive."

"It is ever the hubris of humans to impose our will wherever we go, and leave lasting marks on this universe before it swallows us," Gaela said, her expression coming close to a smirk, "this entire galaxy is nothing but mass and energy, and we happily bleed it dry to make and power our machines."

Although she seemed almost wistful while speaking of humans' unnecessarily huge creations, her expression snapped back to apathetic before she continued to answer Twilight's request.

"Starhaven has shipyards of considerable worth, and sucked metal from many nearby asteroid fields to supplement its resource base. It has long days owing to its wide orbit, and the surface is covered by frost most of the year."

Gaela noticed that while Twilight was writing furiously at her description, Rarity's work had slowed to a crawl; even she couldn't resist the curiosity of learning about an alien world.

"Starhaven's natural surface - mostly metals and rocks - has been almost completely covered by construction, every last square kilometer given over to mines, factories, power plants, and residency arcologies. One side of the globe is built up all around a single massive space elevator that connects to the primary orbitals, giving the planet the appearance of an enormous teardrop covered in lights and glimmering metal."

She glanced at Twilight, and a sudden, inexplicable impulse struck her. "I can draw its appearance from orbit, if you wish."

Twilight could hardly nod fast enough, and Rarity was already retrieving some sketching paper and a pencil from her supplies.

As soon as a short desk had been placed next to her, Gaela went to work on a sketch with her bionic arm, although she looked entirely bored while she drew.

"Did your family come with you, or are they still on Starhaven?" Rarity asked, holding up the tape along Gaela's back as if unsure what to do with the measurement.

"I don't have a family," Gaela said simply, not taking her eye from her sketch.

"What happened to them?" Twilight asked immediately, without considering that such a question could be very sensitive.

Rarity would have reprimanded her, but didn't get the chance.

"I never had a family," Gaela explained, "on Starhaven, rather than leaving population levels to the whimsy of human lust and making do from the results, a majority of the populace is vat-grown according to projected labor needs using sex cells stored from discarded and harvested organs. We are raised, educated, and provided for by the Techpriests on Starhaven to become Techpriests ourselves."

Twilight gaped at the explanation, and Rarity completely forgot about her measurements.

"You're telling me that humans come from factories?" Rarity asked. She didn't know whether to be disgusted or fascinated by the idea. It was such an alien concept to her.

"Some of us do. Not many," Gaela admitted, "even among forge worlds, the industrialization of human reproduction is often considered unnecessary. I personally consider it ingenious, but I suppose I'm biased."

She lifted up her bionic arm and then slid the paper over toward Twilight, who took it eagerly.

The sketch resembled a tack or a short pin more than a teardrop, Twilight decided, with one very tall needle-like spire stretching out from a carved-out sphere and surrounded by smaller spires, like a city of needles stretching toward the sky. At the tips of the taller needles, and completely surrounding the tip of the main spire, were large platforms with rails and scaffolding that seemed to form a good chunk of a whole other world in low orbit above the planet. Other satellites, some shaped like tops and others like diamonds and spheres, floated in carefully plotted orbits marked by shallow dotted lines.

"It's... beautiful..." Twilight whispered, slowly wrapping her mind around what Gaela had said earlier about humans leaving their marks on the galaxy.

"Eh. It meets quota," Gaela said dismissively as Rarity telekinetically checked the width of her arm, "each forge world is owned and run by an Archmagos, and each one is geo-engineered to their specifications, the natural surface carved apart and encased almost entirely in metal and ferrocrete. I will say, at least, that Archmagos Wellen had an artistic touch when molding his planets. Some Archmagi try to keep their planets completely standardized."

As Twilight studied the sketch intensely, Rarity clicked her tongue. "Really, is there ANYTHING we can do about that arm?" she pointed a hoof at Gaela's bionic limb, looking extremely irritated. "I don't think ANYTHING can make that look presentable!"

"What do you want me to do? Take it off?" Gaela asked.

Rarity winced, slapping her cheek lightly with her hoof. "Oh, dear, I'm sorry. That was terribly insensitive of me, wasn't it? It's an actual limb, not a fashion accessory, Rarity!"

Gaela raised her eyebrow. "I was being serious. It can come off. Would it help?"

"Ah... no. That's all right, dear. I'll manage."

As the snow-colored unicorn went back to mumbling to herself, Twilight raised the sketch of Starhaven in front of her.

"What are those things around the platforms? Are those space craft?"

"Yes," the Acolyte confirmed, "I added them to present a sense of scale."

Twilight nodded. "I see. Starhaven isn't a very big planet then, is it?"

"Not really. It's about eighty-two-point-three-one percent the size of your own world by volume," Gaela explained, "the gravity is stronger than expected from a planet of its size due to the heavy ore content, however, which increases its mass substantially."

None of that made any sense to Rarity, who was anyway sketching something while staring intently at Gaela's cranial bionics, but Twilight returned her gaze to the drawing, doing some rough calculations in her head.

"That would make some of these vessels larger than cities," Twilight noted, expecting the Dark Acolyte to realize her mistake and offer a correction.

"Yes, they are. I would have included the Judgment of Mars, the Archmagos' flagship, which was many times larger, but that would have been a misrepresentation. The ship was destroyed when the 38th Company raided the system."

Twilight wasn't really able to imagine that. The idea of something artificial and engineered being so massive was itself challenging to fathom, despite all the grandiose imagery Gaela had subjected them to already, but the idea of something like that being DESTROYED...

She shuddered.

"Why did you leave?" Rarity asked suddenly, still sketching her own designs from across the room.

"I left because an Astartes pointed a boltgun at me and told me to," Gaela said with a shrug, "the 38th Company had disguised itself as a freighter fleet and managed to upload a scrapcode virus into the orbital defenses to confuse their sensors. Once they docked, they managed to take control of the defense network completely and ran rampant through the orbitals, stealing millions of units of cargo and capturing Mechanicus crew by the hundreds. I was one of numerous crew that were assigned to one of those sectors, and I was taken back to their ships to serve the Iron Warriors. During the escape from orbit the 38th was engaged by system defense vessels, but ultimately that only resulted in a much greater loss for the planet when the Judgment of Mars was destroyed."

Twilight and Rarity stared at the cybernetic woman.

"Doesn't that make you... a prisoner?" Twilight asked hesitantly.

"That's one way of looking at it, I suppose," Gaela admitted with a shrug, "I accept my new role without complaint, and in fact prefer serving the Iron Warriors to the Adeptus Mechanicus. I suppose that's the drawback with commoditizing workers: we're not picky about which master we serve."

"Also, if I may say so, your method of reproduction sounds depressingly dull," Rarity pointed out.

"We get that a lot."

Twilight kept staring at the drawing of Starhaven, thinking over everything she had been told. The planet was amazing and excited her just to know of its existence, but it also existed in a galaxy where such abominable scale was necessary, and apparently devoted almost entirely to warfare. A galaxy where battle was commonplace and Chaos was worshiped as some sort of divine force.

"What a wonderful, terrifying universe," she mumbled out loud without really meaning to.

"Oh, to be certain," Gaela agreed, "but it's the only one we've got. So we do our best to hammer it into submission so we can make a decent living out of it. It just keeps fighting back, is the problem."

The alicorn nodded. She could agree with that much. How many threats to Equestria had she put down just to keep the status quo?

"The Iron Warriors..." Twilight started to speak, but trailed off. How to phrase this next question? Were they nice? Of course they weren't nice, she could see that much already. Were they good people? Noble? Meeting Tellis made those prospects unlikely, but it had been stressed that he was unusual.

"What are the Iron Warriors like?" she finally asked, unable to keep a note of distress from her voice.

Gaela turned her head toward the alicorn, and for the first time since any of the ponies had seen the woman, she smirked. It was a small thing, totally devoid of real mirth, but it still would have probably gotten a rousing cheer out of Pinkie Pie.

"Well Sparkle, you can find out for yourself when more of them arrive."

****

Ferrous Dominus - security cordon

As the fortress took shape, it was, of course, necessary to ensure security while construction was underway. The Iron Warriors were all but unopposed on this planet, with military might that could challenge an entire Chapter of Space Marines, but the legion took its defenses most seriously even without credible opposition.

The entire fortress was ringed with defense lines and bunkers, manned by hundreds of human mercenaries and cultists and supported by Predator tanks and Vindicator siege tanks that had been dug into earthwork barriers. The tanks could be redeployed at a moment's notice to better oppose an attack, while patrols of Astartes in Rhino and Land Raider APCs ran circuits around the perimeter. Outside of the perimeter itself, spools of razor wire separated minefields from wide stretches of "safe" approaches, every one of which was covered by overlapping fields of fire to instantly become a killing field. It was a fortress outside a fortress, a more subtle bulwark that would break any force that dared to attack the stronghold during its completion.

"This place is a sight, let me tell you. Damn near a paradise world."

In one such bunker, two human mercenaries were manning the fortification, ensuring that even without an alert its autocannon could be manned immediately in case of enemy attack.

One of them was looking over the landscape through a monocular viewer, while the other sat in the corner, his rifle across his lap as he read a dataslate.

"They'd be hard-pressed to classify any planet with a Chaos fortress a 'paradise world'," noted the mercenary on the floor.

"Well, okay, fine, besides us, though," the other mumbled, "how long do you think we'll be here?"

"Until they retrofit the ships? I dunno. Could be months."

"Well, that'll do just fine for me. This place is MUCH better than Lamnis."

"Well, I'd certainly hope so, given the distinct lack of Tyranids,"grumbled the man reading the dataslate, "the damn hive fleets have been everywhere lately. Don't know why the Imperium puts so much heat on us, when we cost them barely a regiment's worth of material and personnel every few months. The 'nids are taking entire planets."

That didn't get a response from his fellow guard, and the pair were silent for almost a minute.

"Hey, you read that primer, right? The one uploaded this morning by the Warsmith?"

The mercenary looked up from his dataslate. "Yeah?"

"What did it say about the native life forms, again?"

With a few taps, the soldier brought up the relevant notice.

"A species of relatively small equine-derivative aliens. Capable of intelligent communication, speak Gothic, winged, and surprisingly friendly, it would seem. The Warsmith has declared that firing upon them without cause shall be regarded as wasting ammunition and be disciplined appropriately."

Not that there was any kind of significant punishment for "wasting ammunition", given that their ships were loaded near to bursting with spare ordnance, but it was a fairly clear signal that the natives were to be left alone without giving a direct order to that effect.

"Does it say anything about them having hats?"

The other man finally stood up. "Do you see something out there?"

"Yeah. I think we'd better call this in."

A few seconds later the two men had stepped out of the bunker, their rifles at the ready as they approached a group of Chaos Space Marines gathered around a comms amplifier tower while a Dark Acolyte and a pair of servitors worked on the device.

"-with the towers, vox is spotty, reduced to usual combat conditions without any of the interference caused by actual combat."

"And the Warsmith has no plans to eliminate the enemy?"

"What do you expect? Lord Sliver will come up with something, I'm sure."

It was about at that time that one of the Astartes noticed the two humans standing off to the side of the squad, patiently waiting to be recognized.

"You two! Why are you not at your post?" an Iron Warrior demanded, swinging around.

"We have incoming, my lord. I had hoped for your guidance on the matter," explained one soldier, his monocular at his hip.

"Explain."

"One of the native aliens, my lord. The ponies. It's approaching the security perimeter. The primer distributed this morning does not specify how to deal with the creatures as a possible security threat."

The Iron Warrior grunted, clearly annoyed at having such a petty matter brought to him. "How do we normally deal with possible security threats?"

"Right, my lord. The primer says not to fire on them without cause, however."

"I would think that walking into our perimeter is a cause," the Astartes said slowly, his voice menacing.

The soldier with the dataslate saluted promptly, but the other man hesitated.

"Is that an order, my lord?"

The Iron Warrior stared at the man in irritation for a few more seconds. Apparently he wanted to have someone else to blame if he was reprimanded for opening fire.

"Fine, go handle it however you want," the Iron Warrior said, waving off the men as he turned back around, "you have my permission to leave your posts to see it off, if you like."

"Yes, my lord. At once."

As the two mortals scurried off, the Astartes turned back to his squad.

"I'm not sure how 'intelligent' these xenos can possibly be, wandering into a kill zone like this."

"Curiosity, no doubt. Ever the burden of sentience. Do you think we'll ever find the grayskins?"

"Pardon me, brother," a new voice interrupted from behind the marines, smooth and with minimal vox distortion, "if I may have a moment of your time: could you tell me where those two men are off to?"

****

Trixie had to admit that this was a very strange city. And she hadn't even gotten a look inside it yet.

Loops of barbed wire were everywhere on the approach to the city limits, and she could see small buildings and some sort of vehicles ringing the place.

She'd never seen anything like it, but she had to reason that she'd never seen a city like this before, either.

Seeing something up higher, the magician halted on her approach to stare into the sky.

A vessel was descending from the air into the city, its body gleaming in the sunlight as thrusters burned furiously to slow its descent. Trixie had seen flying machines before, from simple hot-air balloons to more exotic contraptions that used rickety propellers, but this craft was easily the size of several houses lined up wall to wall, and flew faster and with greater apparent control than some of the clumsier pegasi she'd known.

"Interesting..." the unicorn started walking toward the city again, making sure to stay within the wide, open lane marked out by the razor wire. The areas beyond the wire were bumpy and marked by metal posts with skulls on them. She didn't really know what they meant, specifically, but they seemed to warn against traveling in the regions inside the wire barriers, and she was perfectly happy to oblige.

"Hm? Well, it seems they sent someone to welcome Trixie to their city! It's about time!" she said to herself.

In the distance were a pair of figures in long red coats wearing rebreather masks and black hoods.

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. Not ponies, definitely. Not minotaurs or dragons or any of the other bipedal species she could think of off-hand, either. What WERE these things?

Well, whatever they were, they were definitely coming to meet her specifically; there was nopony else around. Time to make a first impression.

"Now remember, Trixie: this is your chance to start fresh. To show your good side," she mumbled under her breath as the strange people jogged into earshot, "humility and cheer! That's what everypony wants from an entertainer! Go!"

She cleared her throat.

"Greetings, unwashed denizens of this wretched, forgotten land! You have come to welcome the Great and Powerful Trixie?" she asked, grinning as she sat on her haunches and beckoned to herself.

"Nailed it," she whispered a moment later.

The creatures didn't respond right away, slowing to a walk while unslinging something from their backs.

The objects looked kind of like weapons. Especially with the metal spikes attached to the ends.

Trixie decided she could stand to turn the humility up another notch.

"Ah, is there something Trixie can do for you?" she asked without shouting this time as the pair got closer.

"They really do speak Gothic. Funny," said one of the soldiers as he stopped a few meters away. His voice was muffled somewhat by the mask, but Trixie could still hear him clearly, and she was quite relieved that at least communication wasn't going to be an issue.

"Sorry xeno, but there's no entry up ahead. If you were planning on traveling through this region you'll have to go around," the other soldier said, pointing off to the side.

"Xeno? What is that?" Trixie said. She understood everything else they were saying, but so long as they weren't threatening her she'd try to talk her way in.

"That's you," the other man said, holding his lasgun up on top of his shoulder.

"Trixie is Trixie, not 'xeno'," she insisted, her snout in the air, "and since Trixie has introduced herself, what and who are you two supposed to be?"

The two mercenaries glanced at each other.

"We're humans, mate. I'm Nema and this Gotts. That all you want to know? Curiosity could get you killed around here, you know."

Trixie pointed a hoof at the manufactorum complex. "Would it endanger Trixie terribly to inquire what that city is called? It wasn't here the last time Trixie passed through here."

"That's Ferrous Dominus. And it's less a city than a military base," Nema explained.

Trixie's brow furrowed. That couldn't be right. The largest military center she'd ever seen, or even heard of before now, was the barracks complex in Canterlot for the royal guards. Ferrous Dominus dwarfed the entire city of Canterlot like an ursa major dwarfed a young filly.

Oh well, she wasn't about to start arguing about it with the locals.

"And you two are guards, yes? Tell me, is the local government-"

Gotts cut her off. "No, we're not telling you anything more. We've already revealed enough; anything else could risk a serious security leak, especially with the damn grayskins skulking around. Now beat it, Trixie. We ARE authorized to use force if necessary."

Trixie glared at the man, and then turned her nose up as she turned away. "Very well. If you 'humans' are going to seclude yourself in the middle of nowhere and drive off anypony who comes around, so be it. Your loss."

The soldiers seemed unmoved, and they watched silently as the blue unicorn turned around and started to walk away.

"HOLD."

Trixie and the mercenaries both flinched at the voice, which inexplicably seemed to come from just outside their ear, as if the speaker was standing just over each individual's shoulder.

The men started looking around wildly, while Trixie quickly recognized it for what it was: a simple magical cantrip. Apparently these humans had a few unicorns around somewhere.

All of them turned around to search for the possible source of the voice, and they all quickly found it: a single figure walking toward them along the path to the fortress, as if it had been trailing the soldiers by a few minutes.

It was not a unicorn.

Trixie noted that this new one was similar in form to the humans she had already met, but she still found herself more taken by the differences between them. The soldiers were smaller, for a start, to such a degree that Trixie doubted the newcomer was simply a bigger individual of the same species. The soldiers were covered from head to toe in their armor, masks, and boots, as was the big one. But where the mercenaries wore flak vests, overcoats, leather gloves, and cloth hoods, the newcomer was covered in metal far more extensive and exotic than any kind of armor Trixie had ever seen.

Bands of gold wrapped around plates of brushed steel, and mounted on the left shoulder, as if it had grown naturally from a mundane shoulder pad, was a leering silver face with three eyes that glittered bright green. The other shoulder pad was more mundane, with a much less disturbing silver face merely painted on the otherwise black surface. The helmet of the suit had a T-shaped slit that ran down the face of the helm and glimmered red where the eyes should have been, although no actual part of the man's face was visible. Atop the helmet were a pair of golden horns that curved upwards, a bejeweled eye fixed between them.

The torso piece boasted an eight-pointed star made of beaten gold around a coolant vent, while around the waist a gold belt supported a long black robe that brushed the ground around metal-shod feet.

A book encased in metal binding and various pouches hung from the belt, cementing the arcane appearance around the heavily armored man.

Trixie knew magic and she especially knew arcane showmanship, and the armored fellow absolutely reeked of both. The soldiers were much less experienced in such things, but it was obvious enough that they grew visibly unnerved as he approached.

"Who is that?" Gotts asked in a panicked whisper.

"I don't know! Just... be cool!" Nema blurted, having no better ideas.

Both men were familiar enough with the Iron Warriors to treat the Chaos Space Marines with respectful indifference, but Astartes Sorcerers were an entirely different level of terrifying. Most humans were nervous enough about psykers, but the combination of reality-warping power, post-human physiology, and pacts with the daemonic entities of Chaos put them in a much darker and deadlier league than mundane heretics.

"Were you speaking to Trixie, or to these two?" Trixie asked the newcomer fearlessly, resisting the urge to add "buffoons" to the end of her question.

The Chaos Sorcerer didn't answer right away, his bright red gaze turning to each of the individuals in turn as he stopped about a meter away. Finally he tilted his head down to stare at Trixie's bemused expression.

"I spoke to you, xeno," the Astartes said, his voice a bizarrely smooth purr despite presumably coming from a vox grille. Not that Trixie knew the mechanics of a power suit's helmet, but the humans at least found it bizarre.

"Trixie is NOT 'xeno'!" the unicorn snapped, stamping her hoof. "Trixie is Trixie!"

The men promptly took several steps away, unsure if the intruding creature had angered the Chaos Sorcerer.

Said Sorcerer tilted his head to one side slightly. "I see. Well met... Lady Trixie. I am Serith, of the Iron Warriors 38th Company."

"My lord. We were just-" Gotts began, only to be cut off.

"I am aware of the situation, mortal. You have been vigilant, and the Company thanks you for your efforts." The way that Serith didn't actually turn toward them when he spoke made them doubt how thankful he really was. "You may return to your post at once."

Trixie watched the two soldiers secure their guns and then scurry off like frightened mice, and she couldn't help but wonder what they were so afraid of.

Granted, Serith was of a fairly intimidating size, but he didn't seem very aggressive. Besides, she was smaller than they were, and SHE wasn't freaking out.

"I must apologize for the security, Lady Trixie," Serith said, slowly walking past the unicorn and then circling around her while he stared, "my brothers are ever concerned that enemies wait on their doorstep."

Trixie didn't really know what to make of that, but decided it didn't matter so long as she was getting an apology. "Fair enough, Trixie supposes. Does this mean that Trixie is being granted access to Ferrous Dominus?"

Serith stopped circling the blue pony, for which she was thankful. She already had to crane her neck most of the way around to keep eye contact.

"You wish to enter the fortress, do you? Well, that can be arranged. What is your purpose here?"

Trixie turned around to face the Sorcerer properly, a grin on her face. "You stand before the Great and Powerful Trixie, the best... erm! ONE of the best magicians in all of Equestria!" she said brightly, gesturing to her chest with her hoof. "The Great and Powerful Trixie wishes to visit your city and perform Trixie's magic act so that it may know of her greatness and power!"

Then her head turned to the side. "And contribute funding to the rebuilding of Trixie's livelihood," she added quickly.

Serith clasped his hands behind his back, underneath the spine-riven backpack that supported his power armor. "You are an... entertainer? An unusual profession for a psyker."

Trixie frowned up at the Astartes. "What's with you humans and all your nonsense words for Trixie? Trixie is a unicorn! Have you not seen one before?" she demanded.

"A unicorn? Fascinating. Does that make you different from the other one? You don't have wings, I notice."

Trixie gave Serith an incredulous look, clearly surprised she had to explain this. "The ponies with wings are pegasi. Trixie is a unicorn," she tossed her head backward, causing her hat to slip back behind her horn, "and ponies with neither wings or a horn are earth ponies. Do you humans really not know this already?"

Serith chuckled, the sound seeming to echo from within his helmet. "We're new here. And since you taught me something new, Miss Trixie, I will do the same for you. Among the 38th Company, those of us that are larger and usually dressed in powered armor," he pounded a fist onto his breastplate, "are not actually humans, but superhuman warriors known as Astartes... or, more commonly, Space Marines."

"Trixie sees," the unicorn said with a nod, "and among your people it is only the Space Marines with magical ability?"

Serith paused at the mention of "magic", but didn't bother to challenge the term. "Oh, not at all. Such powers are gifted to an elite few, even among the Space Marines."

Then Serith walked past Trixie again, moving toward the fortress perimeter. "Follow me. We can speak on the way toward the fortress. I will see to it you are granted access to the greater part of our little base, but do be careful not to touch anything important. My brothers can be most... unfriendly with unfamiliar creatures about."

Trixie didn't like the sound of that, but figured that since she had finally gotten access to Ferrous Dominus she might as well use it before Serith changed his mind.

"Trixie imagines you were being facetious when you referred to Ferrous being 'little'," the unicorn remarked, "it's the biggest city Trixie has ever seen."

"Oh? Your people must not have very big population centers, then," Serith noted, "among my species, it is merely larger than the average military base. And even that is only due to the manufactorum facility dominating the center of it."

Trixie chewed over that tidbit for a while, looking up into the sky as another of the airborne vehicles descended from high above.

"Where do your people come from? If you've built cities larger than this, Trixie has to imagine she'd have heard of you before now."

Serith looked over at her. "Well now, if you're asking where humans come from, that would be a world called Terra that lies far, far to the Galactic West of here. If you're asking where the 38th Company comes from, that would be the fleet of starships in high orbit above your planet."

Trixie was silent for almost a full minute as she continued following the Sorcerer, staring at the descending dropship. Deeper into the fortress, she could spot another identical craft lifting up over the enormous buildings, tilting upward as its rear engines burned toward escape velocity.

To leave the planet.

And join other vehicles.

In space.

"Oh... my," Trixie said weakly, suddenly feeling much, much smaller compared to the metal giant next to her.

Trixie and Serith reached the security perimeter in short order, and now that she was closer Trixie could make out dozens of Astartes marching about behind heavy defensive walls. There were just as many humans, but the defenses seemed dominated by the Space Marines and their vehicles, while the humans mostly huddled in the bunkers or lounged against the barricades.

She got no shortage of curious looks as she passed by the defensive line - much to her quiet pleasure - but no one stopped her or spoke to Trixie while she stayed close behind Serith. Humans quickly scurried away to be out of their path, while even the Astartes took a long glance at Serith before finding something else to do and getting out of their way.

"Are you an official here? Perhaps a leader?" Trixie asked, having recovered fully from the revelation that she was walking into a city of militant aliens.

"Hardly. Sorcerers are not given leadership roles in the Iron Warriors. We are not trusted," Serith explained, "the reason no one challenges my decisions is simply because they fear my attention."

Trixie frowned at that, not liking the idea that the magical class of humans were treated so poorly.

"Why is that?" then she walked up closer to ask in a hushed voice, "Are they jealous?"

Serith chuckled again. "Perhaps some are. But my brothers are ever suspicious of powers beyond the realm of their precious science. The Iron Warriors do not reject sorcery as a matter of course, but are keen to never rely upon it. That means that me and my ken are few and not well-respected. On the other hand, such fears mean that I am rarely burdened with duties like so many of my brothers. It allows me to pursue... other projects."

"Oh? Like what?" Trixie asked.

"Such as personally investigating the first psychic signature I sensed, for one," Serith said, "I don't make a habit of wandering around outside of our security corridors."

As they passed by the last of the guards, Serith and Trixie stepped between a pair of gun towers where a gap was awaiting a wall section.

"But enough about me. Tell me of yourself, Great and Powerful Trixie," the Sorcerer asked, his gaze fixed on the unicorn.

"Ah, Trixie's best topic!" Trixie said with a smile. "Trixie has traveled far and wide proving herself the most amazing and skilled unicorn that Equestria has ever seen!"

Then she paused, and added reluctantly, "With some exceptions."

"I see. And what is 'Equestria'? I'm afraid I know as little about your people as you do mine," Serith mumbled.

"Oh, it's the nation your city has been built in," Trixie explained briefly. She was looking around at the interior of the fortress now, marveling at the vast expanses of pipes and thrumming machines that were piled up into great monoliths between avenues. There were many more humans about now than Space Marines, but Trixie noted that many of them had metal parts sticking out of them, for some reason.

"I was not aware your world had a complex political structure," Serith noted.

"Indeed we do," Trixie continued, "all of Equestria is ruled by Princess Celestia, guardian of the sun and current head of Canterlot's royal family."

"Monarchy. And a solar cult. And you say that... 'magic' is commonplace?" Serith asked, as if rolling the word around on his tongue.

"Well, it's a basic tool for about a third of all ponies," Trixie explained, frowning at a chain gang that was hauling a massive steel wagon full of rebar, "although if you ask Trixie, it's pathetic how few unicorns bother to develop their magic beyond basic levitation."

"What a curious society you have," Serith mumbled, stopping and turning toward the unicorn, "may I?"

Trixie looked confused, but nodded hesitantly. "Uh... sure?"

Serith kneeled down so that his visor could look the blue pony in the eyes, and he cupped Trixie's chin in one hand.

Trixie shivered slightly at the Sorcerer's touch; not out of fear, but because his armored gauntlets were disturbingly cold.

"Hm. A shadow of Warp corruption, but it is... old. Faded. As if you had not used your powers for some time," the psyker mused.

Trixie snorted, staring into his helm's glimmering visor. "Trixie practices magic every day. Trixie isn't sure what you're checking for, but you're quite mistaken."

Serith tilted his head one way and budged Trixie's the other. "When our minds touch the Warp and reconfigure reality around us, it leaves... scars. Both in the fabric between the material universe and the Immaterium, and in the mind and soul of the psyker. But perhaps not for unicorns?"

Trixie recoiled, pulling her face out of the Sorcerer's grasp. "T-Trixie has no idea what you're talking about!" she shouted nervously.

Serith stood up, scratching at the chin of his helm. "I suppose not. Well then," he turned toward a short vox amplifier tower that was mounted to the side of an avenue and bristling with antennae, "will you be needing time to prepare?"

"Pardon?" Trixie asked.

"You're going to put on a show for us, aren't you?" Serith asked, tapping a console on the tower. "I look forward to seeing what one of the greatest and most powerful unicorns can do."

Trixie immediately stood up straight. "Of course! Trixie just needs to prepare some props, and-"

"Oh, you needn't worry about such details. I have quite a performance planned for you," Serith said with an echoing chuckle.

His fingers swept across the console for several seconds, overriding much of the routine vox traffic that was organizing the construction and linking the network to his helmet transmitter.

"Attention, all base personnel. This is Lord Serith speaking with a happy announcement to make."

Trixie blinked as Serith's voice was echoed a half-second after him by the speakers mounted on the tower, along with dozens of other such towers such that his words blanketed the base far and wide.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie, a most capable representative of the local species, has graced us with her presence in our humble facility today and offered to perform a show for us to demonstrate the talents of her race. Come one, come all, to the secondary gunnery range in sector 8 to witness her feats of sorcerous might! Any base personnel, humans and brothers, not on active duty and any menials on their rest period may attend. The show begins within the hour."

Serith deactivated the vox link and turned back toward Trixie. "How is that?"

"Perfect!" Trixie said with a hesitant smile. "It's just... what did you mean when you said you were planning Trixie's performance? Trixie runs her own show!"

"Oh, nothing you need worry about. Simply a little game I'd like you to play for the troops. I'm certain it will be ENTIRELY within your substantial abilities," the Sorcerer said, soothing Trixie's unease with a boost to her ego.

Trixie rolled her eyes, accepting the reasoning with a pretentious sigh. "Very well, Trixie will humor you for now. You ARE doing Trixie a favor by letting her in the base, apparently."

"Indeed. Now please, follow me. I'd like to show you your new... resting place."

****

Ponyville - Rainbow Dash's house

"This is the silliest and most awesome thing I've ever seen," Tellis proclaimed, his flight pack hissing as he hovered above Rainbow Dash's house.

"What? This? You're kind of easily impressed, aren't you?" Rainbow chuckled, floating just ahead of the Chaos Raptor. "You can make ships that fly through space, but cloud buildings amaze you?"

"This doesn't make one bit of sense," Tellis said, giggling in a way that would have seemed almost girlish if it wasn't being pushed through his augmented vox grille, "I'm serious, I'm running every scan I can think of with this thing and my visor just keeps reading 'Bullshit. This is BULLSHIT'. It's hilarious!"

Rainbow giggled herself as she landed in front of the entrance, small puffs of cloud wafting up from her hooves.

"Well, I don't know if the inside is going to impress you as much, but come on in!" she opened the door, trying to remember if she had any good snacks left in her kitchen.

Tellis tilted forward to bring himself over the front "porch" of the cloud, and then cut his flight pack.

He couldn't honestly say that he was surprised when his boots completely failed to find any purchase on the surface of the cloud and he plummeted to the ground.

Rainbow Dash blinked, and then she winced when she heard a loud THUD that announced her houseguest's impromptu meeting with the ground.

The pegasus quickly took off and flew down to find him. It wasn't very hard, as he had landed face-down and spread-eagle with his rocket-wings quivering above him.

"So... why didn't you just fly after you fell through the cloud?" Rainbow asked, hovering over the prone Iron Warrior.

"I was busy wondering why either of us thought that might work," Tellis mumbled, pushing his face up out of the dirt and marveling at the impression of his helmet that had been left into the ground.

Rainbow shifted into a seated pose while still hovering. "Well, the way I see it, there are ponies that can fly, and those ponies can stand on clouds. So if there are humans that can fly, shouldn't those humans be able to stand on clouds?"

Tellis stood up properly, clods of dirt falling from his armor. "I see absolutely no flaw in that logic. Maybe the clouds are the problem? They probably just can't support my weight. I get that sometimes even from materials that AREN'T gaseous in form."

As the two mused over the perplexing matter of a physical impossibility actually proving to be impossible, a quiet, timid voice suddenly came from behind Tellis.

"Um, excuse me, M-Mister? Is n-now a better time to talk?"

Tellis tilted his head back, annoyed. "Oh, great, it's YOU again. What do you want NOW, voice outside my head?"

Rainbow quirked an eyebrow. Fluttershy was crouched several meters away from them behind a tree and visibly quivering as she peeked out at the Chaos Space Marine.

"That's just Fluttershy," Rainbow Dash explained.

Tellis tilted his gaze toward the blue pegasus. "You're naming the voices that speak to me now? And you couldn't come up with a better name than that? It sounds like the name of a fawn-like weakling!"

Rainbow pointed a hoof over at the tree.

Tellis turned to look at where she was pointing and saw a yellow pony right before it squeaked and hid completely behind the tree.

"Yeah, it sounds like the name of something like that!" Tellis agreed with a nod, looking back at Rainbow.

Rainbow didn't speak, and continued to hover in place with her hoof pointing toward the tree.

"Ohhhhhhhh. NOW I get it." Tellis turned fully toward the tree that Fluttershy was hiding behind. "So what's wrong with this one?"

"Oh, she's just scared. You DO look kind of dangerous," Rainbow allowed, floating over toward her fellow pegasus.

"'Kind of'?" Tellis asked indignantly.

"Hey Fluttershy, what's up?" Rainbow Dash asked, rounding the tree to find Fluttershy practically wrapped into a trembling ball. "It's okay, it's me!"

Fluttershy slowly stood up to speak to her friend, mindful to stay completely hidden from the terrifying person in powered armor.

"H-Hi Rainbow. Do you know that... uhm..."

"His name's Tellis," Rainbow said, "he's a Chaos Space Marine. Don't worry, he won't hurt you!"

"I can't vouch for the accuracy of that statement," Tellis pointed out, waiting on the other side of the tree, "but I must admit that killing you doesn't seem like it would be much fun."

Fluttershy started shaking again, and Rainbow sighed as she watched the color start to drain from her face.

"Flutter, did you want to talk to me or something? You didn't come out here to meet the aliens, I'm guessing."

Fluttershy composed herself and leaned in toward the other pegasus. "Well, it's just that... Mister Tellis kind of... put a hole in my cottage earlier."

Rainbow's expression went blank, and then she winced, her ears dropping flat against her head.

"Ah. Right. That happened. I kinda forgot."

Rainbow landed and lowered her head. "Well, look, I have to admit that was my fault too. I didn't think he'd just go through the wall like it wasn't there."

"Is THAT what this is about? One lousy hole in a wall?" Tellis asked, finally stepping around the tree.

Fluttershy squeaked and immediately darted behind Rainbow Dash.

"I destroyed a main battle tank, two APCs, a Tau Fireblade, and a Crisis Suit all before noon, and you're complaining about some rough re-modeling on your little cabin? I even managed to get through the first window without tearing anything up!"

"Eep! I'm sorry! I don't know what any of that means, but don't be mad!"

Rainbow rolled her eyes, but lifted a hoof toward Tellis. "Naw, come on, Tellis, this is different. If you break your friend's stuff you've gotta help fix it."

Tellis leaned over to one side, trying to get a good look at the cowering Fluttershy. "My friend? She's not my friend."

"Well, we're friends, right?" Rainbow asked.

"Damn straight! You kicked a missile off my tail!"

"And Fluttershy is my friend. Since I'm friends with her and I'm also friends with you, that makes her your friend too!" Rainbow grinned, obviously proud of the conclusion.

Tellis was silent for several seconds. "I wish I had the wherewithal to dispute that," he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest and rattling the skulls that were hanging over it. "Fine. Lord Tellis is at your disposal, Fluttershy. What do you want me to do to amend for your extremely low-key property damage?"

Fluttershy swallowed nervously, but she did feel somewhat reassured at hearing the Raptor Lord accept her as a friend. She didn't step out from behind Rainbow Dash, though.

"Well, I just thought maybe you could fix the wall? Or maybe just put up a temporary one? If it's not too much trouble, I mean..."

"Actually, yeah, that sounds like a huge hassle," Tellis said, glancing around as if looking for something interesting to do.

As Fluttershy wilted, Rainbow snorted. "Oh, it is not. I have an idea!"

****

Ponyville - Fluttershy's cottage

"There, see? This is crazy easy!"

Tellis might have been inclined to think that was because Rainbow Dash and her more timid friend were simply watching while he did all the work, but even he had to admit that this was way simpler than actually fixing or building a wall.

He was currently carrying two large pieces of poly-ceramic armor carved from the wreck of the hammerhead still smoldering in the center of town. With all that wreckage still lying around, why not put the extra material to use?

Several animals were milling around the gaping hole in Fluttershy's home before the roar of Tellis' flight pack sent them bolting in all directions, and the Raptor Lord landed heavily outside the cottage with the blue-and-black armor held over his head.

"All right, then. One!" He slammed one of the plates of armor in front of the hole, sinking it deep into the dirt around the foundation. "And two!" He did the same with the other piece, adjusting it slightly so that it lined up cleanly in covering the breach.

"See? All done!" Rainbow said with a nod. Fluttershy didn't look so sure, although she wasn't about to complain openly to anyone.

"Not quite. Hold on a microcycle," Tellis mumbled, noting that the plates weren't secured to the wall in any way.

With a crackle of energy his lightning claws sprang from his gauntlets, and he reared a hand back before stabbing it deep into the far side of one plate, slicing through the armor and the flimsy wooden wall behind it.

With a sharp twist of his arm, his claws snapped off of his gauntlet in a burst of crimson electricity, leaving the blades lodged in place.

"Er, Mister Tellis? I, uh, have some nails, um, if you need-" Fluttershy started to speak, but Tellis cut her off as he stabbed the other armor plate.

"You can't push a mundane nail through poly-ceramic silicate. Although it'd be funny to try, just to watch it snap."

He twisted his other arm, snapping off the powered talons.

Stepping back, Tellis planted his fists on his hips as he admired his handiwork.

"Ha! Who needs those Mechanicus dweebs to build a wall? All you need is a few spare blades!"

"Okay, but... didn't you need those?" Rainbow asked, staring at the shards of metal sticking out.

"Eh, they'll grow back."

"They WILL?"

Fluttershy didn't really know what to say, although that was more because she was still uncomfortable talking to the scary psychotic man than because she was overcome by emotion.

"So, are we done here? Because I'd like to get back to solving my problems with murder as soon as possible," Tellis asked.

"What do you think, Fluttershy? That's good, right?" Rainbow asked, beckoning toward the panels of alien materials.

"Well... uhm..." the timid pegasus hesitated, never one to volunteer criticism.

"This is better than your old wall anyway," Tellis insisted, slamming a fist into the barrier and putting a few new cracks into the surrounding cottage structure, "Tau vehicle armor is sturdy, light, and insulates well! Plus it's impervious to small arms fire, unlike the rest of your home!"

The report of a combat rifle came from behind him, and a pair of high-caliber bullets slammed into the panels. They bounced off loudly, but didn't even crack the surface of the ablative paneling. Both pegasi recoiled, startled by the gunshots.

"See? Check it out! Barely a mark! You might even want someone to knock down the rest of your house so you can replace-" another bullet slammed into his shoulder pad and another into his greaves, cracking the outer ceramite. "Oh, hey, Kroot."

Rainbow Dash set her jaw as a tall, spiny-haired alien stepped out from the trees, reloading its rifle. "You guys again? You have a lot of nerve showing up here, jerks!"

Fluttershy hid behind Rainbow as best she could while they were both in the air, having no idea what was going on. Tellis just watched.

The Kroot snarled a threat at the Space Marine, although it seemed surprised that Tellis hadn't responded much to being shot. Several of its kin slowly stepped out behind the trees, each of them hissing happily as they sighted fresh prey.

Some of them were carrying ropes attached to animals hung over their shoulder, while one of them was clutching a net in which several small animals struggled uselessly to escape.

Fluttershy gasped as she spotted one creature in particular squirming angrily within the net.

"Angel Bunny! Rainbow, they have Angel!" Fluttershy gasped, grabbing hold of the blue pegasus and shaking her. "He must have wandered outside while I was gone! We have to save him!"

Rainbow grimaced, looking at the cautiously advancing aliens. "Uh... there's kind of a lot of them, Flutter."

Tellis glanced over at the pair, but continued watching silently.

Fluttershy stopped shaking Rainbow and floated forward, wringing her hooves as she addressed the aliens directly.

"Please, Mister Kroot! Let Angel go! You're hurting him!" she begged, pressing her hooves together in front of her face and staring imploringly at the carnivorous warriors.

Their response was to draw hunting blades. The nearest one licked its beak. The rest, which numbered seven more Carnivores, started to encircle the trio, all of them keeping a wary eye on the Iron Warrior.

As Fluttershy recoiled, Tellis finally shrugged. "This isn't a combat group. These Kroot are just hunters."

Rainbow Dash flew up higher, not liking the way the aliens were looking at Fluttershy. "What does that mean?"

"It means that even without the claws, this is going to be really easy," he turned his helmet toward Fluttershy, ignoring the two Kroot that had circled around him and were approaching his back.

"Hey. You want something in that sack released?"

Fluttershy gaped, and then nodded her head rapidly. "Y-YES! Please!"

"Fine. But after this we're even," Tellis said as the hunters behind him lunged.

The loud crack of splintering bones came from one of the Kroot as a swinging metal backhand struck it in the torso, smashing it aside and into its partner.

"Blood for the Blood God," Tellis said simply, as if the battle cry was a mere formality. And then he charged.

The Kroot armed with a rifle fired a burst as the Raptor leapt toward them, but the shots went wide, only one barely scraping the edges of his bicep armor in a spray of sparks.

Tellis pistoned a fist into that hunter, lifting it clear off the ground as its rib cage crumbled.

The one carrying the net was next, and the alien swung a knife with its free hand desperately once the metal giant blurred toward it.

The blade scraped uselessly against Tellis' vambrace, and he seized the hunter by the neck with both hands, his metal fingers closing tight around its throat.

"I'll be perfectly honest, strangling victim: I don't have anything against you killing random animals in the forest to eat. In fact, I'm not even that excited about wailing on all of you."

The other Kroot had surrounded him now and were hammering away at him from the back and sides, trying to find gaps in his armor for their knives.

"But this is the way of friendship! I guess. I'm kind of new to it."

As the Kroot in front of him collapsed to its knees, dropping the net and clawing desperately at the hand around its throat, Tellis felt a blade slide into the back of his knee. The crude weapon penetrated the exposed tubing and sliced through the gen-enhanced flesh beneath, and the hunter crowed as he pushed his weapon deeper.

In response, Tellis spread the wings of his flight pack and ignited the engines to hovering velocity, and the Kroot screamed and backed away as low-intensity flames and scalding gases blasted into them.

"So, yeah. I'm not technically sorry about this, but I'm not thrilled about it either. I just wanted to let you know that you haven't done anything wrong here, except maybe being a little too gutsy when you only have one real weapon between the lot of you. Goodbye, strangling victim."

The Kroot's body went slack, and Tellis could feel the last minute signs of struggle leave the alien's body.

He let the corpse fall and idly bent his wounded leg, testing it for any severe tendon damage. The blood had already clotted, and the pain was bearable.

"Oh, thank you Mister Terrifying Murderer!" Fluttershy cried as she immediately rushed to the net, pulling it open as fast as possible to free the creatures trapped within.

"Fluttershy, his name is Tellis," Rainbow reminded her.

"I answer to both, actually," Tellis assured her as he glanced around, "hey, where did the other xenos go? I'm pretty sure I only killed three of them." The area around Fluttershy's cottage was now clear, and there were a few animals making panicked runs for Fluttershy's home as the nearest safe haven.

"They booked it right after you blasted them off you," Rainbow Dash said scornfully, pointing a hoof toward the edge of the forest, "those freaks sure can run."

Tellis tapped a metal finger against his vox grill. "Huh. Right back to their base. That gives me an idea."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 9C, secondary gunnery range

The crowd gathered in response to Serith's announcement was a small fraction of the base personnel eligible to attend, although even then there were almost three hundred assembled in the gunnery range.

Partially this was a reflection of their alert status; most of the soldiers were manning the barricades as the palisade went up, while most of the workers were busy building.

Of those that did find themselves free, most ignored the message. Few of the Astartes and Dark Mechanicus units wanted to waste their time on simple-minded diversions, and they were anyway wary of anything that involved sorcery or was endorsed by the Company's most powerful psyker.

The soldiers and menials were more interested, though. Entertainment was hard to come by in an Iron Warrior establishment, and they were more curious about a xeno being given access to the fortress proper. The hapless mortals weren't given much in the way of free time, however, and not too many were willing to give up sleep or a meal for some sideshow.

The secondary gunnery range was quite a large stretch of land on account of it being set up to train with field guns and mortars as well as rifles. There were multiple lifts underneath the range that connected to the fortress' primary tunnel network as well, so that targets could be moved underground into position quickly.

The crowd of spectators were standing or sitting on the range in a ring in front of one such lift, milling about and making idle chatter as they waited for the show to start. Those at the front were almost all soldiers, and they made up the bulk of the crowd, while the menials, little more than glorified slaves, stood behind them and tried to get a look as best they could. There were but a dozen Chaos Space Marines in attendance, and they stood on the fringe of the crowd, waiting silently. Only four Dark Techpriests waited for the show, although they were eagerly chattering with each other in binary as they stood off to the side, just in front of the Astartes, so at least they seemed more interested.

Much of the chatter died down as a figure in heavily stylized power armor began walking through the crowd, and everyone in his path quickly stepped away to open a corridor to the makeshift stage.

Serith paid the spectators no mind as he approached the control panel on the side of the range, stepping up on top of a raised platform and linking his helmet vox to the system installed above before cranking up the volume.

"WELCOME, BROTHERS AND SERVANTS OF THE COMPANY," the Sorcerer's voice boomed over the field and silenced the last few pockets of conversation, "THANK YOU FOR FINDING TIME IN OUR MOST DEMANDING SCHEDULE TO ATTEND THIS DIVERSION. I AM SERITH, HIGH SORCERER OF OUR MOST ESTEEMED COMPANY!"

All of the Iron Warriors knew that, of course, but it came as a surprise to almost everyone else in the field to actually see a Legion psyker. Unlike some other legions, the Iron Warriors did not often give their psykers specific strategic roles or titles, and Serith didn't make a habit of requesting deployment when they reached a mission area.

"BUT YOU'RE NOT HERE TO SEE YET ANOTHER MASTER OF THE DARKER POWERS PLY THEIR MACABRE TRADE. TODAY YOU ARE HERE TO WELCOME... THE GREAT... AND POWERFUL... TRIXIE!"

At the final syllable, floor panels above the central gunnery platform swung upward and a lift started to rise up above the ground as small-scale fireworks fired up and burst low over the crowd.

Atop the lift, which continued rising until it stood about a meter above the ground, was a grinning blue unicorn in a star-covered wizard's hat and cape with a picture of a magician's wand stamped on her flank.

Trixie's entrance was greeted with scattered applause and murmuring, with many people shuffling to get a good look at the alien creature and no one impressed by the fireworks.

Not her best reception, but far from her worst. Ah, well.

"HELLO, CITIZENS OF FERROUS DOMINUS!" Trixie shouted into the vox headset that hung over one ear and fed her voice to the vox casters. "AND WELCOME TO EQUESTRIA, LAND OF WONDER AND HARMONY! IT IS THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE'S UTMOST PLEASURE TO WELCOME YOU OBNOXIOUSLY MILITANT SPACE MEN TO OUR FINE KINGDOM, AND IMPLORES YOU NOT TO BURN IT DOWN!"

That got some laughs from the crowd, although most of them guessed she wasn't joking.

"YOUR CONSPICUOUSLY WELL-ARMORED WIZARD HAS PREPARED A CHALLENGE FOR THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, ONE OF THE MIGHTIEST UNICORNS IN ALL OF EQUESTRIA! WATCH WITH AWE AND WONDER AS SHE BESTS YOUR SORCERER'S TRIVIAL TESTS WITH HER GREAT AND POWERFUL MAGIC!"

She smirked over at the control platform as the applause built significantly, and even the Space Marines paid noticeably more attention as Serith responded.

"INDEED, TRIXIE, I HAVE PREPARED A CHALLENGE FOR YOU. IT'S QUITE POPULAR AMONG MY PEOPLE, AND WILL PROVE A FINE TEST OF YOUR ARCANE SKILLS," Serith said with a hollow chuckle, "WE CALL IT 'ARENA DEATHMATCH'."

With that, the Sorcerer worked at the control panel, and Trixie's platform started to sink down to ground level as another lift opened.

Trixie's smirk vanished. "WAIT. DEATHMATCH?" She couldn't help but notice that the crowd started cheering and whistling once they had heard what her challenge was. "IS THAT LIKE A MAGIC DUEL? BECAUSE TRIXIE HAS ACTUALLY RESOLVED NOT TO-"

Serith continued his spiel, cutting her off. "YOUR FIRST OPPONENT SHOULD BE A SIMPLE MATTER; A TORVID-PATTERN BUTCHER AUTOMATA. ACTIVATING IN THREE..."

Trixie turned hesitantly toward the new lift, and her fur stood on end as she saw a metal sphere larger than she was rising from the opening.

"TWO..."

It was covered by optics lenses and prehensile metal tentacles, each of which ended in grasping claws or spinning blades. It had no legs or propulsion systems of any other kind, and the sphere was lifted up by its many tendrils while others aimed themselves quite obviously in Trixie's direction.

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WHAT IS THA-"

"ONE. GOOD LUCK!"

Trixie yelped as the automata broke into a loping run, its tentacle-legs lashing wildly underneath it as it crossed the distance between them with frightening speed. The spherical body bobbed left and right and down in a basic evasion pattern, and at least a dozen spinning razors were aimed forward directly at the blue unicorn's horrified face as it advanced.

"YEEP! G-GET AWAY!" Trixie recoiled, her horn flaring with magic underneath her hat as she lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

A blast of magical energy engulfed the butcher drone, striking it directly while it was still out of reach of its target.

It didn't slow down, however, and continued stalking forward toward engagement range. The first of the tentacles lashed out, using what little slack it had to bring its weapon point into the target.

It swung just short, swiping closely enough that Trixie could feel the wind from its passing brush her nose, and the unicorn's eyes snapped open again.

Several more tentacle-blades swung and thrust toward her, but these ones fell even further short than the first attack, pulling and straining uselessly toward her face.

The cheering crowd fell silent as the butcher automata's body slowly floated up into the air, its "legs" lifting off of the ground and robbing it of its means of locomotion. The tendrils whipped about wildly, but they seemed utterly helpless to deal with this unexpected obstacle.

The crowd seemed equally flummoxed as the machine floated upward, far out of engagement range. Although the closest ones noticed that the drone's body seemed curiously translucent, and had a string hanging down from a nozzle on the bottom.

"Wait... did she turn the bloody automata into a balloon?"

Trixie took a few seconds to take some heavy breaths. Not because of any great exertion in casting that spell, but simply because her heart was thundering in her chest like it wanted to escape.

Serith watched the automata rise above the crowd, its tentacles lashing uselessly. The crowd had gotten over its shock for the most part, and there was mounting laughter as the men pointed up at the machine's absurd plight.

There was some annoyed muttering coming from the Dark Techpriests, though. They probably felt sorry for the pitiful thing.

"WELL, I MUST DECLARE THAT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE HAS WON." Then, after a moment, he added, "FLAWLESS VICTORY!"

The crowd's cheers and laughter increased threefold, and Trixie's expression quickly shifted as her ingrained showmanship took over.

"WAS THERE EVER ANY DOUBT? WITH A SINGLE SPELL, YOUR CREEPY METAL THING HAS BEEN DELIVERED FROM THE ARENA!"

"YOUR HIND LEGS ARE QUIVERING," Serith pointed out.

Trixie sat down on her haunches immediately, and the crowd's laughter rose up again.

"AHEM! NOW THAT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE HAS COMPLETED YOUR SILLY LITTLE CHALLENGE, SHE WILL-"

"ACTUALLY," Serith's booming voice interrupted Trixie's, drawing a glare from the unicorn, "I HAVE MORE OPPONENTS FOR YOU. THE GAME WILL CONTINUE UNTIL... HM?"

The sorcerer glanced over at a large ammo crate that had been engulfed in magic and was floating up next to his platform, positioning itself over the control panel.

Then it smashed itself against the panel, crushing the various buttons and controls into a useless mess.

Trixie smashed the crate into the control panel two more times for good measure, only releasing her hold on the crate when the controls were a twisted heap of metal spewing sparks.

"AND WITH BUT ONE MORE SPELL, TRIXIE HAS TRAPPED YOUR REMAINING OPPONENTS UNDERGROUND, DEFEATING THEM ALL BY DEFAULT!"

The crowd seemed to like this turnaround a great deal, the laughter swelling again.

"NOW, MAY TRIXIE GO ON WITH HER SHOW, OR DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER LITTLE 'TESTS' FOR HER?"

Serith looked at the mangled remains of the range console and shrugged, his large, ornate shoulder pads shifting upward. "NO, YOU GO AHEAD."

Trixie nodded sharply, and then returned her attention to her audience. That whole affair had been dicey, but she had admit that she had the crowd now like never before.

"TRIXIE'S NEXT ACT IS ONE WHERE SHE CHALLENGES YOU, THE AUDIENCE! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE DOES NOT KNOW IF YOU HUMANS HAVE SPECIAL TALENTS, OR ANY TALENTS OTHER THAN CONSTRUCTING STUPIDLY HUGE BUILDINGS, BUT SHE WILL ACCEPT ANY CONTEST OF WITS AND SKILL! JUST... NO MORE DUELS OR DEATHMATCHES, OKAY?"

The crowd started murmuring to itself as the audience turned inward, discussing what sort of challenges to bring forward and whether it would be safe. They were all fine watching something else get turned into a balloon for sport, but not many among the personnel were willing to challenge a psyker.

It came as a surprise to everyone when the first person to step forward was one of the Iron Warrior spectators.

"You two. Go fetch a crate of boltguns and spare ammunition," the Astartes demanded, glancing toward a few soldiers at the edge of crowd nearest to the "stage".

A lot more than two men dashed off to fulfill his request, and the Iron Warrior continued walking up to the lowered platform.

"AH! A CHALLENGER!" Trixie looked utterly unimpressed by the soldier that towered over her in gunmetal armor, even as she craned her neck up to make eye contact. "SO YOU'RE THE FIRST TO TASTE HUMILIATION AT THE HANDS OF THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, ARE YOU? WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SPACE MARINE?"

The Iron Warrior didn't bother linking to the vox network over the speakers, speaking at normal volume. "I am Myenas. Squad champion of the Burning Talons," he said simply.

The humans came back carrying the requested munitions between them, and the Chaos Space Marine gestured to the gunnery range behind the platform.

"As for the challenge, since we find ourselves on a target range, let us hold a simple one: marksmanship. Basic bolter drill."

Trixie glanced behind the platform, where several boards had been placed at various ranges, each of them cut into outlines that vaguely matched the shapes of humans. The targets had target rings in various vital spots to identify the most precise shots.

"Any target you wish, any range. Get a better hit than I, xeno witch, and you are the victor. If you can even manage a boltgun, that is."

Trixie's expression soured. "THERE IS NO 'XENO WITCH' HERE TO TAKE YOUR CHALLENGE, MYENAS, BUT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE WILL GRACIOUSLY SEE TO YOUR DEFEAT INSTEAD, IF ONLY TO HELP MOVE THE SHOW ALONG. WE WOULDN'T WANT OUR AUDIENCE TO GET BORED, WOULD WE? YOU WILL GO FIRST."

A static-filled snort was all the response she got as the Iron Warrior stepped toward the box full of bolters. He had his own weapon mag-locked to his leg already, but didn't deign to use his own weapons for a petty contest such as this.

Trixie watched intently as the Astartes took up one of the Phobos-pattern boltguns and then loaded it with a magazine from the next crate.

Myenas pulled back the slide, and then raised the battle rifle up to align the iron sights with a target out at mid-field; not the most challenging shot, but still at a range where the boltgun's natural inaccuracy could affect a perfect shot in ideal conditions.

He pulled the trigger, and Trixie flinched as the weapon's retort rang in her ears.

A small explosion hit the target - reinforced so as to detonate the mass-reactive shells of boltguns - marking Myenas' shot. It was at the edge of one of the torso rings; not a marksman's hit by any means, but it was still a fatal blow to anything less durable than a Space Marine.

"Your turn," Myenas said simply, removing the clip from the boltgun and dropping it into the crate.

It was immediately swallowed by Trixie's magical energy and lifted back into the air, and the blue unicorn inspected the gun carefully as it hung over her head. The weapon was big, and even if Trixie had the anatomy to handle a rifle properly she would have struggled to hold the weapon due to its mass. The flat sides of the combat rifle were painted with black and yellow warning stripes, and the there were several attachment points for upgrade parts.

The bolter magazine that Myenas had removed floated up and locked into place, and the slide pulled itself back before Trixie leveled it out at a target about the same distance away as the one Myenas had fired on.

The trigger pulled back, and the boltgun shook mightily in the grip of her magic as it fired downrange.

"Awwwwww..." A wave of audible disappointment came from the audience as the bolt struck a sandbag pile further down the range, having missed the target completely. To be fair, the shot had come surprisingly close considering that the unicorn was firing a bolter for the first time, using telekinesis, and without using the sights properly, but it was still an obvious failure.

Trixie's hackles rose. "TH-THAT WAS A PRACTICE SHOT! A PRACTICE SHOT! THAT DIDN'T COUNT!" she bellowed into her headset.

"It takes months of training and thousands of 'practice shots' to become basically proficient with a bolter," Myenas scoffed, "I'll give you all the 'practice shots' you want, but I don't think your audience has so much time to waste."

Trixie cast a glare at the Chaos Space Marine and then returned her focus to the gun range, lining up the boltgun again as best she could.

Then a magical glow engulfed both the crate of bolters and the ammo crate next to it.

Myenas stepped back in surprise as all the other boltguns in the crate flew out the top and halted all around Trixie, each one aiming downfield in the general direction of the target. An equal number of bolter magazines were flung from the ammo box and fixed themselves into the floating battle rifles with near-perfect synchronization.

The crowd went silent, which allowed the sound of nineteen slides being pulled back to echo over the gun range, unchallenged.

The sound of twenty bolters firing on full auto hardly needed silence to dominate the field, and those members of the audience that started to cheer and laugh were drowned out by the ferocious roar of gunfire.

Trixie grit her teeth as the bolters shook all around her in their relentless barrage, brass casings spilling around her hooves.

After several seconds the bolters clicked empty, smoke pouring from their barrels as they shook and trembled in the air.

Trixie let out a long breath, and at once all twenty guns flew back into the munitions crate.

The target that she had been aiming for had been obliterated. Along with the two nearest targets to it. The ground all around the targets had been chewed apart from the barrage, and the sandbag barrier behind Trixie's mark was now more of a sand pile.

"That's... not how marksmanship contests work," Myenas pointed out, somewhat dumbfounded.

"TRIXIE BELIEVES YOUR TERMS WERE TO SCORE A BETTER HIT THAN YOU DID!" Trixie said with a smirk. "AND THAT'S PRECISELY WHAT TRIXIE DID! PROBABLY." Really, for all she knew the target had been knocked over and torn apart by the inaccurate hits before she had struck any of the target circles, but whatever.

The audience seemed willing to give it to her, judging by the whoops and cheers from the crowd, and the Iron Warrior cast an annoyed glance at the noisy throng cheering his defeat. Even the other Astartes were visibly enjoying themselves, shoulder pads shaking and vox-altered laughs bursting from their helmets.

Serith approached the brooding Space Marine and slapped a gauntlet onto his armored shoulder.

"Don't be a poor sport, Champion. This is, after all, merely a show. Do try to enjoy yourself," the Sorcerer said beneath a condescending chuckle.

Myenas grunted irritably, but turned away from the stage.

Trixie swept away the veritable puddle of spent bullet casings around her hooves, mildly annoyed that the humans' weapons had a tendency to litter.

"THAT WAS AN INTERESTING DISTRACTION, BUT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE REQUIRES A NEW OPPONENT! WILL NO ONE VOLUNTEER TO CHALLENGE TRIXIE?"

Before anyone else could try, Serith, who was still at the edge of the central platform, stepped up to the unicorn.

"VERY WELL, TRIXIE. I BELIEVE IT'S TIME YOU FACED A PROPER CHALLENGE TO YOUR SORCEROUS MIGHT."

Trixie gave the Astartes psyker a wary look, and then quickly raised a hoof to switch off her headset as the Sorcerer had shown her earlier.

"This isn't another combat match, is it? Because Trixie told you, Trixie doesn't do those!"

"THIS IS NO DUEL... AS SUCH."

The Sorcerer chuckled into the vox, and almost the entire audience shuddered at the insidious sound. "THIS IS A SUMMONING CHALLENGE!"

Trixie blinked. "Summoning?"

"INDEED. WE SHALL EACH SUMMON A CREATURE, ON THE SPOT AND WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL MATERIALS OR SACRIFICES."

Several humans in the crowd sighed in relief. Making daemons usually started by the summoner UNmaking the nearest mortals. Without that step they would only have to worry about being ripped apart by the summoned creatures, which at least gave them fair odds at running away.

"THE CREATURES WILL FIGHT FOR US. THE ONE WHOSE SUMMON IS VICTORIOUS IS THE WINNER."

Trixie chewed her lip. Summoning was very serious magic, and not a kind that she had extensive practice in. Serith wasn't just challenging her to some idle game, but asking for a straight-up measurement of their respective powers.

"The show must go on," Trixie mumbled under her breath before switching her headset back on.

"IF THOSE ARE YOUR TERMS, THEN THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE WILL BE ALL TOO HAPPY TO HUMILIATE YOU IN FRONT OF YOUR FELLOWS!"

Another laugh came from the psyker. He could see beads of sweat forming over Trixie's coat.

"AS YOU SAY. I WILL BEGIN."

Serith's summoning ritual was surprisingly short, given the complexity of such things, but visually stunning. Standing away from Trixie, he lifted his arms into the air and began chanting in a language that Trixie - and the vast majority of the crowd - did not recognize. Runic flares flickered to life above his hands in swirls of pale blue wychfire, and Trixie's fur stood on end as the air itself seemed to come alive with an electric charge.

Trixie grimaced at seeing the beginning of Serith's ritual. She had been hoping that she might be able to copy his spell and maybe change it on the spot, but that wasn't possible if she didn't even know what the words meant.

Shimmering psychic hoarfrost surrounded Serith's gauntlets as he turned his gaze skyward, his chanting reaching its apex as dark lightning crackled around his feet.

"SAALUUM-NARAHI-URUHM-NAHSAI..." his arms shaking, the Sorcerer swing his arms down toward the ground. "ARISE, SERPENT OF THE DEEP PITS!"

The lightning ran back and forth along an invisible seam across the ferrocrete floor, and Trixie felt her horn heat considerably as reality cracked open under his feet.

The creature that actually emerged was somewhat underwhelming, especially to the crowd of warriors that were used to fighting alongside the Ruinous Powers. It was a snake with shimmering, prismatic scales and three eyes. A relatively large snake, sure, and it probably had fangs that could pierce adamantium and venom that poison the very soul yadda yadda yadda, but the applause that came from the crowd could only be considered "polite".

"YOUR TURN, OH GREAT AND POWERFUL ONE," Serith said, holding an arm straight out. The snake slithered up over his belt and coiled around his arm, its eyes locked on the unicorn.

Trixie gulped. She, for one, could fully appreciate the difficulty of doing a summoning without any sacrificial materials, and she was plenty impressed with Serith's efforts.

She, on the other hand, had but one spell that could possibly summon a creature big enough to fight. She had only cast it once before with anything approaching success.

That had been while she had been practicing with a certain magic amulet. And even then, it hadn't exactly gone perfectly.

"PFT. IS THAT THE CREATURE YOU EXPECT TO DEFEAT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE'S GREAT AND POWERFUL SUMMON?" she taunted, her mouth running off while her mind raced in a completely different direction. "TRIXIE WILL MAKE BOOTS OUT OF THAT PITIFUL THING!"

And then her own spell began.

The strain showed almost immediately as her horn flared with magic and a runic circle appeared beneath her hooves. Trixie grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, and her tail whipped about wildly as she struggled to work through the spell.

The daemonic serpent around Serith's arm hissed and writhed as it felt reality start to tear once again. Serith himself merely waited silently, although he made sure that his helmet systems were recording this event for later review.

After almost twenty seconds, and despite dozens of soldiers in the crowd starting to chant her name for encouragement, Trixie started to tremble as the circle beneath her flickered.

She couldn't do it. The power just wasn't there. There wasn't enough energy in her, or rather, her horn, to complete the casting.

As she tried to keep from losing the spell, she thought back to the last time she had performed this magic, and the feeling of drawing magic from the Alicorn Amulet. It had been exhilarating and frightening at the same time.

And it was most definitely the source of that "scarring" that Serith had mentioned.

She had known exactly what he was referring to, even if no other unicorn would. The feeling of dipping into the energies outside her horn, the power thick with darkness and hate.

Even now, she could feel it...

The circle stabilized under Trixie's feet, and her horn sparked red.

She COULD feel it. The power swimming just beyond her perception, beyond the flow being channeled neatly and safely through her horn, boiling angrily just out of her reach.

The power that Serith had seized and molded like potter's clay, she realized.

And anything he could do, she could do BETTER, damn it!

Serith backed up a step as the ground started to tremble, feeling a definite change in the flow of Warp energy around the unicorn.

It was very fascinating: whenever Trixie used her horn, it seemed to act as safety conduit for the psychic energies, sucking the power out of the Empyrean steadily and without exposing Trixie's mind to the Warp. He suspected that such a method protected the pony's thoughts from the raw influence of the Warp and prevented vigilant daemons from noticing the use of sorcery.

As a result, it also sharply limited the amount of power a unicorn could draw upon. It was hardly any wonder that unicorns rarely developed their power beyond utilitarian means, as Trixie had told him. For a human psyker, a sixth sense meant constantly having an entire other universe waiting just within your reach, constantly whispering secrets and opening the material world to you in ways that terrorized the sensibilities of mundane men. To a unicorn it meant being able to lift things without touching them.

Something had changed in this case, though, and he could feel the Warp starting to react fully to Trixie's presence, its power spilling into the summoning circle like water into a drain.

The unicorn's eyes flared a bright red, and an updraft of wind that couldn't have possibly come from anywhere but the magic circle kicked up her cape and blew her hat off.

The noise from the spectators began to build louder as they saw the spell reach its apex, but Serith imagined that Trixie couldn't hear them anymore. Her mind was in a different place.

A great red seam split the air, forming an ugly, bleeding wound in the material universe, and then Trixie's beast emerged.

A huge dog-like daemon, twice the size of an Astartes and covered in barbed spines, clawed its way from the breach. Its flesh was stretched unevenly over its muscle, and there were tears in its hide where glistening ligaments were exposed to open air. Its snapping, drooling jaws were disproportionately large, with jagged, uneven teeth.

It also had a copy of Trixie's cutie mark on its hind leg. Serith thought that was a nice touch.

"Well, there's your opponent," the Sorcerer said quickly, backing away as the dog-daemon finished emerging from the breach, "go get it!" He flung his daemonic serpent at the thing exactly as one would hurl a chunk of meat at a hound to distract it, which was almost exactly what was happening.

Trixie's daemon, taking a few seconds to adjust to its physical form, saw the fellow daemon being thrown at it and snapped the creature up out of the air, crushing the serpent in one bite.

A roaring cheer came from the crowd at the completion of the match, with wild applause and howling laughter joined by chants of "TRIXIE!! TRIXIE!!"

As for the unicorn herself, she was slowly backing away from her summoned beast, a horrified expression on her face as she retrieved her hat from the ground where it had landed.

The spell had failed.

Not in the sense that she hadn't summoned anything, obviously; she had brought a terrifying monster into being, and it had done its job. Although Trixie had to admit she would have appreciated something a little less gruesome, she had even manage to brand the daemon's physical form.

But every wizard knew that the hardest part of a summoning spell was not simply yanking things from one plane to the other, but rather imposing control upon the creature once it had arrived.

She had kind of dropped the ball on that one.

"UHM, TRIXIE ADVISES EVERYONE TO GIVE THE SUMMON A BIT OF ROO-"

Her warning was interrupted by a screeching roar from the daemon before it jumped toward the audience.

One man went down screaming as its claws threw him to the ground, and the daemon stretched his jaws wide open before spitting a volley of bone shards into the crowd, cutting down the nearest spectators.

Trixie whimpered and pulled her hat down over her eyes and ears, trying to block out the shrieks.

For the daemon's part, it had gotten the jump on the humans, certainly, but it was currently attacking a crowd of soldiers not unfamiliar with such monsters. As it crushed the body beneath its claw and closed its mouth to replenish it's projectile spines, nearly a hundred lasguns were unslung and aimed, and the first volleys speared into the daemon's body before it could continue its rampage.

Twenty, thirty, fifty, and more bolts of hot light cut into the raging hellbeast, swallowing its vision in red and burning away its un-flesh.

It screeched in anger, but the volleys didn't stop. A few mass-reactive shells from Myenas, who was closer than the other Chaos Space Marines, brought the beast to its knees, and its form slowly came undone as the body absorbed critical damage in a matter of seconds.

In moments the final growls of the daemon were lost to the wind, and the gunfire stopped as the beast crumbled to muddy red dust.

Trixie slowly crept away toward the side of the gunnery range, trying to keep her cool while also looking for any cue to break into a full gallop. It seemed obvious to her now, but she hadn't realized that her audience was so well-armed. It was going to be tricky getting out of Ferrous in one piece.

"This is Las Pegasus all over again," the unicorn grumbled, having already switched her headset off.

"WELL NOW, THAT WAS EXCITING, WASN'T IT?" Serith's voice boomed over the vox. What with his voice being transmitted via his helmet, Trixie couldn't really tell where the Sorcerer was by his voice.

It became pretty clear when his boot stepped on the edge of Trixie's cape to stop her from leaving, however.

"A BLOODY CONCLUSION TO THE FINAL CHALLENGE! BUT WE STILL HAVE BUSINESS TO WRAP UP, DON'T WE?"

Trixie pulled her hat down over her head again, mentally running through her list of spells that might divert the crowd long enough for her to escape.

"YOU HAVE HUMBLED ME, THE HIGH SORCERER. I CONCEDE DEFEAT. THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE IS VICTORIOUS!"

As the crowd erupted into cheers again, Trixie blinked under her hat.

Raising her head again, she was utterly baffled to find herself surrounded by elated humans clapping and laughing brightly.

"Er... Trixie is confused..."

Serith deactivated his vox link before he spoke again. "Well, you did win the challenge. At no point did I state you had to properly control your summoned daemon. That was a brilliant interpretation of the rules, by the way. Most sorcerers would have been fearful of summoning a beast upon which they exercised no command."

The edge of Trixie's lip twitched upward as the humans in the audience started chanting.

"TRIX-IE! TRIX-IE! TRIX-IE!"

"Uh... okay..." then she leaned over toward Serith. "What about those people that Trixie's summon mauled? Trixie is pretty sure they're dead."

The Sorcerer's shoulder pads rose upward. "Meh."

"TRIX-IE! TRIX-IE! TRIX-IE!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - psyker dormitories

"Well, Trixie must admit that went better than she could have hoped," the unicorn sighed, walking onto a pillow and then lying down, "er... aside from those dead humans. Trixie really does feel bad about that."

Trixie and Serith had retired to the room that Serith had requisitioned for Trixie's use while she stayed in Ferrous Dominus. It was in a small (as far as the Iron Warriors were concerned) apartment complex attached to a secondary databank center, and was created specifically for housing the Company's few psyker personnel on the occasion that they might make planetfall rather than stay in orbit among the Harvest.

To Trixie, the room was practically cavernous, although she had to admit that the extremely sparse furniture made the extra room forbidding rather than pleasant. She had a bed and some pillows, a table that was too high for her and a computer console that she probably couldn't physically use even if she knew how it worked.

She wasn't sure if she was going to be staying in Ferrous Dominus for very long, but if so she was definitely going to have to spruce this place up.

"As I told you," Serith insisted, his heavy gauntlets dancing over the command console on the side of the room, "you needn't worry about the casualties. Attrition is a fact of life in our Company, and those killed were no one of import."

Trixie frowned, not entirely comfortable with the idea of having "casualties" from her performances. She wasn't going to insist on incriminating herself, however. She had gotten a break and she was going to seize it with both hooves.

"I must confess that in all my many, many years I have never used my skills for the petty entertainment of others before. It was surprisingly agreeable," Serith admitted.

"Well, it is Trixie's destiny and living. Which reminds Trixie: we should discuss the Great and Powerful Trixie's fee for her performance," Trixie said, her face stretching into a smile. "Although enthralling your citizens with Trixie's amazing prowess would be its own reward, even Trixie can't fill her belly with cheering."

Serith glanced over at the unicorn. "Ah, right. Matters of commerce. Hm."

The Sorcerer finished whatever he was doing at the console and then clasped his hands behind his back.

"This is where your fortune is... mixed, Lady Trixie. You see, the 38th Company is well-placed to purchase services from free agents, given our status as pirates pillaging the Imperium in order to resupply our fellow Legions. Commerce is well known to us."

Trixie blinked. "Wait, did you say you were pira-"

"On the other hand," Serith interrupted, "we are new to this world, and generally disdain alien currencies if not currency altogether. If you wish to be compensated, you will have to accept payment in kind."

Trixie didn't look happy about that, but she had to admit that it probably should have occurred to her earlier. The humans were from space; where would they get bits?

"That's disappointing, but Trixie imagines that you must be very wealthy in your own way to build all of THIS," she pointed her hoof all around, indicated their surroundings.

"To a Space Marine wealth is but a means to an end; resources exist to be expended," Serith explained, "I have little idea of what a pony would want for besides food and shelter, but I can secure almost whatever you wish."

Trixie nodded. "That's quite generous of you, Mister Serith. It's almost like you're trying to make up for loosing a terrifying death robot on Trixie." Her expression wasn't angry, merely annoyed. She probably would have resented the stunt more if it hadn't helped her hook her audience so easily.

"Don't be silly," Serith said between chuckles, "if I was trying to atone for that, I would have merely apologized. I have not done so because I'm not sorry."

Trixie rolled her eyes. "You found it that amusing, did you?"

"I find YOU amusing, Lady Trixie. Investigating and studying alien psykers... or 'magicians' in your case, is something of a hobby of mine. And you have proven to be a MOST intriguing specimen."

Almost anypony would have been creeped out at the revelation that an alien wizard thought of them as a promising science project.

Trixie was not just anypony.

"Of course Trixie is! You couldn't have chosen a greater or more powerful subject!" the unicorn preened, understanding only that she was of unique interest for her talents. "But still, doing that thing where Trixie draws magic power from outside her horn gives Trixie a burning hornache, so try to keep the magic challenges more low-key, okay?"

"Oh, you're no fun," Serith said.

At that point Serith's helmet alerted him to a vox transmission, and a short groan came from his helmet.

"A moment, please." The sorcerer turned away from Trixie as he connected to the transmission. It was very strong, so the source was obviously very close. "Yes, Warsmith? How may I be of service?"

"Sherith! I wish to shee you at once! Meet me in the data center antechamber!" The vox link was cut immediately.

"Ugh. He did not sound pleased. What does that oaf want now?" Serith grumbled to himself.

"Do you need to go?" Trixie asked. She was currently writing down a list of all the non-money things she could think of that she might want as payment.

"I'm afraid so. Unless you wish to meet the Warsmith? He's the supreme commander of the 38th Company."

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. "Is that a good idea?"

"It couldn't hurt. The man is mild-tempered to a fault and quite indulgent," Serith explained with a hefty shrug.

"Certainly, then!" Trixie bounced up and walked behind the Sorcerer as he exited the room into the hallways. "Is there anything in particular Trixie should know when meeting this 'Warsmith'? Any etiquette or something?"

"Just one: try not to make fun of his voice," Serith said. There was usually far more to be aware of when one was meeting a Chaos Lord, but Solon didn't care for petty formalities and feigned respect. Which was good, because he got little of either.

Trixie puzzled over the comment about the Warsmith's voice as they reached the blast doors at the end of the hall.

The doors sensed their approach and slid open, leading into the data center's main antechamber. Cogitator cores were stacked high into numerous support pillars around the room, bristling with memory coils that could be programmed and borrowed at a moment's notice. Piles of dataslates were lying everywhere, although most of the data center's supply was still circulated among the base personnel to explain the important details of their stay on Centaur III.

It was really hard to focus on all of that, though, with the giant mecha-spider-man-thing standing in front of the hallway.

"GAH!" Trixie yelped at seeing Warsmith Solon waiting for them outside the doors, and quickly darted behind Serith's legs.

Serith chuckled lightly. The unicorn dealt with him and the other Astartes fearlessly, but was startled by the Warsmith's massively reconstructed body. Silly creatures, these ponies.

Solon was briefly curious about the blue pony that had sought cover from him, but didn't let that distract him from his purpose.

"Sherith! I hear earlier that you were conducting shome short of magic show for the troopsh!" Solon said, his voice clearly in "reprimand" mode. The Warsmith towered over the Sorcerer on his chassis, and several of his mechatendrils glared and snapped at Serith angrily, sensing the mood.

"That is correct, Warsmith. I was disappointed that you could not attend," Serith said, his voice mockingly sad.

"I am very bushy helping Kaelith conshtruct the ground defenshe batteriesh. I have no time for shideshowsh," Solon explained as if he really needed an excuse not to attend, "but on that matter I wish to know how your little act reshulted in the deathsh of three men!"

Trixie winced badly from where she was listening in behind Serith's greaves.

Serith resisted the urge to sigh. "They were mere mercenaries, Warsmith. And sorcery is never an art that can be taken lightly."

"Then don't make a bloody act of it!" Solon said, pounding two of his six legs into the ground hard enough that Trixie bounced off the floor slightly.

"The show was an unmitigated success, Warsmith. Morale is high among the attendees, and I have received multiple requests for another such program," Serith said defensively, "I hardly think the loss of those three hapless mortals will be felt."

"It'sh the principle of the thing, Sherith!" Solon insisted, although his aggravated tone was weakening. "I know it liesh outshide your concernsh, but manpower ish a reshource, jusht like ammunition and material! I can accept the losh of men during combat, conshtruction, and even Warp travel, but I will not accept deathsh ash entertainment! We are not a blashted cult Legion!"

Trixie hesitantly poked her head out from behind Serith's legs in order to stare.

She'd seen a lot of strange things in her travels, and a great number in this very fortress, but nothing as bizarre or repulsive as this "Warsmith". Humans with metal devices replacing their limbs or mounted on their backs were commonplace from what she'd seen, but this was more like they'd built a horrifying machine and then placed a Space Marine on top.

Added to that, there was something inherently... VILE about the Astartes leader. Just looking at him made Trixie feel ill, and he smelled distinctly of burning rubber.

"T-Trixie would like to apologize for that," the unicorn stuttered, steeling herself as she stepped out from behind the Sorcerer.

Solon turned his attention to Trixie, his optics rotating as he captured data for analysis. "Oh? And who might you be, little one?"

"Th-The Great and P-Powerful Trixie," the blue unicorn said, shivering as she forced a smile.

"Ah. Then you were the shtar of that little show, then."

Solon crab-walked a few steps to the side, such that his full attention was unmistakably focused on the pony.

Trixie had never felt fear quite so keenly as she did at that moment, in the shadow of that metal monstrosity while being scrutinized by those glaring ruby lenses. Solon wasn't even really doing anything, like making threatening gestures or brandishing a weapon. He didn't have to. One sweep of his arm or clumsy misstep with those legs would break her like a soup cracker. She supposed that was true of any of the Astartes, but facing the Warsmith seemed to make her dwell on the matter.

"I expect that in any future performancesh you will keep cashualtiesh at zero, Mish Trixie. Sherith holdsh the livesh of hish brothersh and our shervantsh in dishdain, but I will not shuffer shuch pointlesh loshesh gladly."

"Yes, Warsmith. Your fondness for the human rabble is noted," Serith said, sounding tired.

"Fondnesh nothing!" Solon said, finally turning his metal bulk away from the trembling blue unicorn and stalking across the room. "Our brother Legionsh let their humansh rot in the shub-decksh, feed them to their daemonsh, and butcher them by the dozensh for shport and ritual! And then, when they take to the void, the imbecilesh wonder at the lack of experienced crew and ratingsh! It ishn't jusht gunsh and fuel we shupply to our brothersh, Sherith! The enginesh of war require labor, bodiesh, shoulsh!"

Solon kept on muttering, and Serith leaned over to speak to Trixie. "You must forgive him. He is ever the logistician, more concerned with the facility of warfare than its prosecution."

"Trixie sees what you were talking about with his voice, too," she mumbled back, "if Trixie wasn't rooted to the spot in fear, Trixie would be laughing."

"-more than shlaves to see to the maintenance of a Legion! Which ish why I didn't object to the premishe of pshykersh putting on showsh in the firsht place!"

The Warsmith's torso swiveled about on its chassis, allowing him to face the pair of psykers, and the enormous servo claw behind him jutted forward to point at them.

"If you keep thish in mind, then I have no issue with your performancesh. I demand only a minimal level of dishcretion from my sholdiersh and our agentsh. Ish that clear?"

"Of course, Warsmith Solon," Serith said, his hands still clasped behind his back and his attention elsewhere.

"Absolutely, Mister Solon, sir!" Trixie barked, snapping a hoof up to her forehead. "It was never Trixie's intent to hurt anypony! It won't happen again!"

Solon nodded, and a puff of foul ash blasted out of the smokestacks mounted behind him. "Good! I'm glad we had thish little talk, then, Mish Trixie. If you adhere to protocol then your shervicesh will be mosht appreciated. Will you be shtaying for further performancesh?"

Trixie frowned at that, her body finally easing up under the Warsmith's attention. The more she heard him speak the harder he was to take seriously, which helped enormously in dispelling the persistent sense of terror instilled by his presence.

"Well, Trixie would, but there's the little matter of payment... Trixie isn't sure what to take as compensation since you don't use bits," the unicorn said uncertainly.

"A common matter." He paused briefly, his optics dimming and then glowing again. "I've shent a notice to Mashter Delgan. He'll shee to writing you up a contract and giving you proper shecurity clearancesh. Sherith, sheeing how you've taken the initiative in dealing with theshe pony xenosh, you will be in charge of any further vishitorsh until further notice."

"Of course, Warsmith," Serith said, an obvious tint of annoyance in his voice, "does that include the one being escorted in behind you?"

Solon paused, and then his torso swiveled around so that he could see the main entrance to the data center.

A squad of mercenaries were entering the building with rifles at the ready, a familiar gray pegasus walking between them and looking happily oblivious to being surrounded by masked soldiers.

Trixie quirked an eyebrow, and Solon shook his head. "Oh. Her. No, that'sh okay, that'sh jusht the courier. I don't know what she'sh doing here, though."

The Warsmith turned his chassis around and stomped off toward Derpy and her escorts, and Serith and Trixie followed hesitantly. Neither were under any obligation to stay involved any further, but both found the situation too strange and interesting to leave alone.

"Warsmith Solon! Sergeant Tammil, reporting," the head soldier snapped, saluting sharply. In some Chaos armies mortal soldiers were strictly forbidden from speaking to Chaos Lords on pain of death, the presumption being that such individuals were too important to be bothered by mere humans.

In the 38th Company, such pointlessly sadistic discipline was unheard of. Many Chaos Marines used the mercenaries and turncoats to deal with tasks they didn't feel like addressing themselves, and to some that included reporting to their Warsmith.

"Shpeak, Shergeant," Solon said, his optics rotating as Derpy waved a hoof at him in greeting, "I left inshtructionsh on how to deal with the pony couriersh, did I not? Wash there shome confushion?"

"Not at all, my lord, but she seemed to want to deliver a communication to you personally," the Sergeant felt absolutely ridiculous leading an armed escort for the goofy-looking horse to deliver a letter, but nobody served Chaos Space Marines out of pride.

"Hey, Mister Solon! I have a letter for you!" Derpy said happily, gesturing to her saddlebag. "It's from Twilight Sparkle!"

Trixie recoiled, glancing up at the massive Chaos Lord. "You know Twilight Sparkle?" Solon didn't look like the sort of person Twilight would be friends with so much as the sort of person Twilight would be imprisoning in stone forever.

Solon turned his head toward the unicorn. "I don't even know OF Twilight Shparkle. What ish thish?"

Derpy wrinkled her snout. "Well, actually I guess it was from that person next to her with the metal things on her back?"

"That shoundsh more like it," Solon agreed with a nod, "I will receive your letter."

Derpy reached her muzzle into her saddlebag, and then pulled out the message.

"Very good, Mish Hoovesh," Solon said, leaning forward on his chassis and reaching out an arm.

Derpy made no move to hand it over. "It's postage due," she said in explanation.

Solon tilted his head to one side. "Poshtage what?"

The human soldiers all took a prudent step away from the mailmare. Warsmith Solon was absurdly mild in temperament for a Chaos Space Marine, but none of them wanted to test just how far his patience stretched, or be too close to him when it broke.

"Ugh. Classy, Sparkle, real classy," Trixie grumbled as she took off her hat. Her horn started to glow, prompting the guards to take another cautionary step back.

A single bit flew up out of her hat and slipped into Derpy's bag, and the blonde pegasus grinned as she floated up and dropped her message into Solon's armored hand.

"Well, that's all I have! Goodbye!" Derpy waved brightly with her hoof, and then turned around in the air to fly outside.

Everyone else winced as the pegasus smacked hard into an armorglass window, bouncing off and landing in a heap on the floor.

"Shergeant Tammil, shee her out, would you?" Solon requested, opening his letter.

"Yes, Warsmith Solon. Come on xeno, on your feet!"

As the soldiers led the dizzy pony outside while trying not to feel silly about the whole encounter, Solon's eyes scanned the message Gaela had sent him, his optics extending out of his helmet.

"If I may inquire, Warsmith, who sent that message? 'Person with metal things on her back' covers a great deal of territory." Serith asked.

"It'sh from Dark Acolyte Gaela," Solon explained, "with the vox network down and her transhport deshtroyed, she had to reshort to mailing me an intelligence report."

"Oh? And is this intelligence... actionable?" the Sorcerer asked. He had limited interest in the tactical details of the Company's mission on Centaur III, but he found all of this far too amusing to ignore.

"Oh, yesh," Solon said, rolling up the parchment as ribbons of electricity danced over the wires and churning devices on his chassis, "excushe me, Sherith. I musht deploy an ashault force. We've found the Tau."

Marching On

Iron Hearts

Chapter 7

Marching On

****

Centaur III - Ponyville

"So then the Commissar says to me: 'You turn around and open fire, or I'll kill you myself!' And this, with two bloody Carnifexes barreling down on us! I wasn't an enlisted man, just a mercenary, but that's a petty detail to the Commessariat. So I've got a bolt pistol in front of me and thirty tons of angry, armored alien behind me, and let me tell you, that pistol didn't look half bad compared to being trampled and eaten."

Daniels paused in his story to take a swig of apple cider. The drink was sweet, with a tangy aftertaste, and was easily the most delicious booze he'd ever tasted.

He was currently seated rather awkwardly on a short stool in a juice bar that Applejack had taken him to, with the orange mare nursing a mug of her own cider next to him. Numerous other ponies in the establishment were leaning in around them, fascinated by the alien mercenary and his tales of war drama.

The fact that it was an otherwise familiar scene for him made the differences all the more striking; he couldn't help but feel silly describing his military exploits to a room full of pastel-colored horses while sipping mildly alcoholic fruit juice.

And why did ponies even HAVE stools, anyway?

Applejack took a gulp of cider and then put her mug down with a satisfied sigh. "Were these 'Carnifex' things as big as that Gnarloc varmint that took out mah home?"

"Just as big, and much tougher. And Tyranids are never alone. We'd gotten all the little ones by then, sure, but I knew there were more scuttling in behind the 'fexes. So I swat the Commissar's pistol right out of his hand without a word, and then make a run for it. He actually didn't say anything at first, probably due to pure shock, but I heard him swearing up a storm as the other men saw that I was making a break for it and moved to follow me. He was probably still sputtering insults when the xenos reached him."

Daniels shrugged and drank more cider. "I was a hero to those men that day. For five minutes or so. Then we stumbled into a spawning pool and most of them were eaten alive by Rippers."

He finished the last of his cider and then pushed the empty mug toward the bartender, a pale orange earth pony with a draft tap for a cutie mark. "Gimme another, Sweet Sauce." At first he had assumed that was some sort of flirty nickname given to her by a male patron. He didn't think he'd ever get used to some of these ponies' names.

"Hey, hey, take it easy on the cider, cowboy," Applejack warned the mercenary, although she didn't stop Sweet Sauce from refilling the mug, "this's all on mah tab 'cuz you space men don't carry bits. And Ah can't be too generous with mah farm wrecked!"

"Oh, come on AJ. The Acolyte said she'd rebuild the place, didn't she? She's good for it," Daniels insisted, though he was grinning.

"An' Ah believe her. But that don't mean Ah can start throwin' good bits out the window," Applejack slammed down the remainder of her mug, and then tapped the mug for a refill in stark defiance of her earlier concerns.

"So what happened on the planet? With all the killer bugs?" asked Berry Punch, leaning in from the stool on the other side of Daniels.

Daniels grimaced. "Well, I managed to get off-world, obviously. Snuck aboard a supply lander and hid with the support fleet until the retreat was called. And that was the last time I ever took an Imperial contract." He took another gulp of cider, sighing contentedly before placing the mug back down. "Not that Chaos is any better, mind you, but at least they don't act surprised and get all pissy when we run from a bad fight."

"What happened to the planet you were defendin'?" Applejack asked, tilting up her hat.

"Oh, it's dead now, I'm sure. Tyranids kill, break down, and consume every usable scrap of matter on a planet until its a barren husk, then they move on to the next one. Jaaleed didn't stand a chance."

Several of the ponies winced, although none of them could easily contemplate an entire planet being stripped clean of life and then discarded like a withered apple core.

"That's harsh," Applejack said in a considerable understatement.

"Yes, well, there's a reason humans don't usually get along with aliens," the mercenary explained, grinning, "although you lot are right neighborly!"

The door to the juice bar opened, and Daniels heard one of the ponies near the entrance yelp in surprise.

Dest turned his gaze left and right to take in the interior of the juice bar, although he spotted Daniels and one of the more familiar ponies immediately. The civilian ponies in the bar all stared silently at the new arrival, and those closest to the entrance moved away to give the massive soldier plenty of room.

"Ah, Lord Dest. Feeling better?" Daniels asked as he turned around on his stool. Applejack regarded the Iron Warrior with a brief glance before returning her attention to her cider.

Dest grunted through his vox as he slowly walked toward the bar, one hand on his abdomen. There was still a blackened hole in his power armor where the pulse rifle had penetrated, and several severed power cables also hung loose from the wound.

Dest was carrying his bolter in his hand, as the damage to his armor had deactivated its mag-lock capability. He stepped up to the bar next to Applejack, and then dropped the combat rifle onto the counter, causing every cup and mug placed on top to bounce from the impact.

"I'm alive and our foes are not. That is enough for me," the Iron Warrior rumbled. He didn't sit down, guessing correctly that the pony-proportioned stools would buckle under his weight.

Why would ponies have stools, anyway?

"You want a drink, then? AJ's buying!" Daniels offered with a smirk.

"Hey! Don't you go offerin' mah money up like that!" the farm pony growled, slapping the soldier's arm with her hoof.

Dest couldn't help but marvel briefly at the pony and the mercenary acting like old drinking buddies before he turned his blood red visor on the bartender.

The mare (somehow) holding a glass tumbler in her hooves gulped as she looked up at the Astartes. "Ah... I guess I could give you the first drink on the house? As a welcome?"

"Water," Dest said simply, turning away from the bartender and toward Daniels, "I had to ask around the village for some time to find you. The Dark Acolyte is not responding to vox calls."

Daniels resigned himself to talking about work rather than regaling the locals with tales of his not-very-heroics. "Sparkle and Rarity dragged her off somewhere after she dispatched a message to base. I'm just killing time until the pony psykers bring her back."

"You seem to be enjoying yourself," the Space Marine grunted as Sweet Sauce hesitantly placed a glass of water next to his boltgun.

"I'm taking full advantage of not having her around, yes," Daniels admitted, "the talking horses are far better company."

"Well now, that's just mean," Applejack tsked, "whether or not it's true."

Dest took the glass of water, tilted his head back, and then poured it into the gorget of his armor, letting the cool fluid drain down into the body of the suit. Some of it splashed out of the hole in the torso plating and onto the floor.

"More," Dest commanded, placing the empty glass back down.

"Suit broken but good, eh?" Daniels asked.

"It's like our lord's furnace in this thing," the Iron Warrior grumbled, "on top of my injuries. And our only Mechanicus support is off playing with aliens."

"Rarity didn't give her a lot of choice," Applejack noted with a shrug, turning on her stool to sit with her back to the bar, "besides, y'all ain't goin' nowhere until yer buddies show up, right?"

"That's a very placid attitude to take when this area has already been infiltrated and briefly seized by xeno forces," Dest pointed out, his gaze dipping to stare at the orange mare as he dumped the second glass of water down his armor. "More."

"I'm sure if there's any action Lord Tellis will jump on it with both feet," Daniels reasoned, "and until then, there's hardly much the two of us and AJ here can do about it if the grayskins were to attack again." He drained his next mug of cider, licking his lips before he placed the container down. "Nothing to do but sit around and guzzle ridiculously weak liquor."

Dest didn't argue the point as he took off his helmet and placed it on top of his boltgun. Then he took the next glass of water and drank it, slurping up the entire contents of the glass in one gulp. "More."

Then he glanced over at Daniels, his chiseled, almost stone-like features shifting into a frown. "Wasn't there another human that survived? I thought there were two of you besides the Dark Acolyte."

"There was, my lord. We lost Jacob just recently," Daniels explained as Sweet Sauce poured another glass of water. The bartender was standing stiffly with a pitcher of ice water in front of the Space Marine, looking like she was afraid to leave that spot.

"Ah, he was wounded," Dest rumbled, his fingers tracing the hole in his armor.

"No, my lord. Captured."

Dest's expression hardened even further. "The Tau got him? When?"

"No, my lord. Not the Tau," Daniels said with a shake of his head.

"...... Wait, what?"

****

Ponyville - not far away

"Isn't he great, Bonbon? Can we keep him?"

Lyra grinned as she gestured to the masked soldier in front of her, who in turn stared down at Bonbon through the tinted viewglass of a black respirator mask.

The cream-colored pony looked understandably alarmed, and not a little frightened at the weapons that Lyra's prospective new pet had strapped to his back and belt.

"Lyra, where did you find this thing? Is it dangerous?" Bonbon asked uncertainly.

"Oh, he's harmless! He was wandering around outside near all of those weird burnt-up wrecks that are scattered around town now for some reason. He followed me back here!" the pale green unicorn was almost bouncing hoof to hoof.

"You promised me there would be liquor," Jacob said, looking around the interior of the house he had been led to, "and candy."

Bonbon stared critically at the alien soldier, placing a hoof to her chin. "I don't know..."

"Pleeeeeease?" Lyra begged, her smile stretching as far as possible and her front hooves pressed together. "I'll clean him and walk him and feed him and take care of him all by myself! I promise!"

"I can do those things on my own," the human said flatly.

Bonbon still looked skeptical. "Is he house trained?"

"We speak the same bloody language!"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 4, supply requisitions facilities

Trixie frowned as she looked over the human device - a dataslate, as they called it - and the long expanse of text that it displayed.

"Trixie thinks this is a long agreement for such a simple matter," the unicorn grumbled. Next to her was a canteen of water and an open tin of nutrient paste with a spoon.

Norris Delgan - who was trying VERY hard to stay dignified and serious while negotiating with a petulant blue unicorn - was an older fellow with a thick mustache and facial reconstruction that left an area covering his chin and stretching up the left side of his face replaced with metal. He was well-dressed and groomed, in stark contrast to most of the other humans Trixie had seen so far; his fleet officer's jacket sported gilded buttons and laced edging, and he had an iron Chaos Star pinned to the breast that seemed honestly out of place among the finery.

"The Astartes do what they like in the 38th Company, Miss Trixie, but the rest of us follow a strict code of conduct as established by the Warsmith and the Dark Mechanicus. The rules you will serve under are for your protection, as well as those around you. As Lord Solon says, 'the glory of Chaos is all well and good, but the Dark Gods don't fill bellies, rifles, or fuel tanks'."

"Trixie really has no idea what you're going on about," she mumbled, finally reaching the end of the contract, "but Trixie finds the rules you've outlined here acceptable." She paused to levitate a spoonful of nutrient gruel into her mouth. The stuff didn't taste good at all, but she was hungry and it was free. "Trixie also doesn't mind doing a show every day for your troop rotation or whatever. However, Trixie isn't so sure about this payment you've outlined."

Delgan crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh? You're receiving much better pay than our mercenary officers. And you only got THAT much because you walked in here with a Sorcerer behind you."

Said Sorcerer was keeping himself busy perusing the supply store's manifests. It was a habit of his, Trixie had noticed, to be constantly absorbing knowledge at all times, as much as possible. If Serith wasn't asking her questions or observing something of interest, then he was always reading something or searching for something to read while seeming visibly agitated.

Trixie clicked her tongue. "It isn't the amount that Trixie objects to, necessarily, but if you're going to pay Trixie in trade items, Trixie would prefer less artworks and weapons and more precious metals and gemstones. Also, your food is too awful for Trixie to accept as part of her payment."

Delgan shifted his shoulders, more comfortable since the total compensation amount was not at issue. "We have other food, but it's perishable. You'd be better off with ration tins. As for metals, I'll see what we can spare, but the Company cannot dip deep into its armor and material reserves. We are trying to feed a war machine here, and obviously we prefer to pay our agents with surplus arms and looted trinkets."

Then he tilted his head to the side. "Also, this isn't strictly relevant, but how did your species master Low Gothic without learning first-person pronouns?"

"They didn't," Serith interjected from where he was stooped over a console, "I believe the gray one referred to herself without her name. Lady Trixie just talks like that."

Trixie nodded absently as she looked over the supplies on offer to her, not really interested in their discussion of her speech patterns.

The rumble of heavy engines attracted her attention to the window, where she saw a long line of battle and artillery tanks passing through the wide streets on their way out of the fortress.

Then Trixie's eyes lit up as she got an idea.

"Wait, this fortress is supposed to be a massive factory, right? You build all sorts of things here."

"Yes. Production is already ramping up in the secondary foundries, actually. Did you want to commission something?" Delgan asked happily. Commissioning something would be a hassle to bring to the Dark Mechanicus forgemasters, but it would also be expensive enough to amount for the lion's share of Trixie's contract. He'd rather annoy the Techpriests than the Warpsmiths any day.

"If possible, Trixie would like to have a caravan wagon built, to serve as Trixie's home and a mobile stage," the unicorn said with a smile, "Trixie used to have one long ago, but it... well, it's gone now."

"That doesn't sound difficult at all," Delgan said, taking the dataslate and making the necessary changes.

"Oh! And if possible, Trixie wants it to be built without wheels," she said, her voice lowering, "can you do that? I mean, Trixie would accept that 'tread' design if not. At least that way the wheels are trapped under the belts."

"Uh... huh. Sure. We can do that," Delgan said, choosing to accept the request without dwelling on the peculiar notions of xenos and psykers, "I'll get a Dark Acolyte to meet with you and discuss design specifics. Does everything else there meet your specifications?"

The pony magician wasn't interested in haggling any further, but checked the contract again anyway just to make sure she knew what to expect. There were several bushels of food, a small cache of gemstones, a handful of credits (in case she wanted to trade while on-base, Delgan explained), and...

"What's this last thing? What's a 'domestic'?" Trixie asked, raising an eyebrow.

"That's a title referring to a personal slave," Serith interjected, staring closely at a stack of large, folded banners that bore the Legion emblem, "as opposed to normal slaves, who labor for the Company in general."

Trixie blinked, and then her eyes bugged out. "Slave? What? Slavery is forbidden in Equestria!"

Delgan was silent for several moments, and then he shrugged. "So what?"

"Are you telling me that Trixie is dealing with an army of slavers?" the unicorn demanded angrily.

Serith turned away from the banners, intrigued by the sudden commotion. "It is not our primary trade, but yes. The 38th Company supplies all manner of things to the Iron Warrior battalions that wage war across the galaxy: food, ammunition, fuel, machines, material, and manpower. Surely you remember Warsmith Solon's tiresome diatribe on the value of human life?"

Trixie winced, her ears falling flat against her head. She DID recall him complaining about the dead spectators as lost resources, but she didn't think he had meant it so literally.

"Look, if you don't want a domestic, fine, don't take one. Do you want a servitor instead?" Delgan asked, rolling his eyes.

Trixie was hesitant. "What's a 'servitor'?"

"The same thing, really, only without the intellect or self-awareness to complain about it," Serith explained with a chuckle.

Delgan shook his head irritably. "A servitor is a human-base bio-automata modified to perform technical or menial tasks. As Lord Serith alluded to, they lack free will and intellectual capacity, so it's slightly different from enslavement." His bored, bureaucratic tone made Trixie think that he didn't consider it a distinction of any consequence.

Trixie was about to accept the offer, but then reconsidered her position.

She would really like nothing at all to do with such a horrid and cruel practice, but what could she do about it? She was one unicorn who had stumbled into a city of alien militants and barely gotten inside. She had been treated well (putting aside having to fight robots for a show), but she was under no illusions that she could start telling the Iron Warriors how to run their base.

But even if she couldn't right these wrongs, perhaps she could make a small difference, at least.

"Trixie will accept a... 'domestic'," the unicorn said uncomfortably, as if the word was distasteful to say, "take Trixie to select one at once, please."

Serith ran an armored finger along the chin of his helmet, sensing a curious sense of determination coming from the pony.

"Very well. I will take it from here, Master Delgan," Serith said, "Lady Trixie, we will depart as soon as the contract is confirmed."

Trixie grimaced as she took hold of the stylus with her magic, signing "The Great and Powerful Trixie" at the bottom of the dataslate.

"Good. Now place your hand... ah, hoof, on that pad on the bottom to record your gene-stamp, and everything is official."

Trixie did so, and a light on the side of the dataslate blinked green.

Delgan nodded and presented a blank gunmetal ID badge. "Congratulations, Miss Trixie, you are now an agent of the 38th Company. You will be expected to make full observation of the chain of command and serve at the pleasure of the Iron Warriors Legion. Failure to do so, or any other breach of contract will be punished by firing squa-"

"Yes, yes, fine, whatever," Trixie levitated the badge onto her hat and secured it, and then turned toward the exits. "Let's go, already!"

Serith chuckled coldly as he followed the blue unicorn out the door. "Of course."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 9

"And here we are."

Trixie walked slowly behind Serith, her head craned up to take in the sight in front of her.

The Tau battleship lay in a massive pit below her and Serith, its body carved apart. Entire sections of the starship had already been carved out, along with most of the outer bulkhead plating, giving the hulk an appearance of an enormous dead animal being slowly devoured by insects.

Huge cranes sliced apart sections of plating and carried those sections onto platforms that hovered over magnetic rails to be pushed out of the pit by hordes of slaves in chains and rags. The men in black robes with mechanical limbs were everywhere, some driving along the gangs of forced laborers while others slowly took apart the ship interior panel by panel, enthusiastically scavenging anything they could.

"Don't you people build ANYTHING reasonably sized?" Trixie asked, pointing a hoof at the battleship. "Look at that thing! You're telling me your people fly around inside that thing in space?"

"Oh, no, not at all," Serith answered, shaking his head, "this was the alien flagship we defeated in this system. Our flagship is still in orbit. And of course, it's much larger than this trifling craft."

Trixie sighed, rolling her eyes. "Don't you ever get TIRED of walking for half an hour to reach a restroom?"

Serith laughed, quite amused at the prospect. "You'd have to ask one of the mortals. And speaking of which, why don't we head down and select your new servant, shall we?"

"Yes. Let's go," Trixie agreed, her expression hardening.

They stepped down a long iron stairway that ran parallel to the magnetic tracks, and Trixie stared at the struggling laborers as they hauled cargo in the other direction.

"Why are some of them blue without a nose?" Trixie asked, her eyes narrowing at a couple of slaves who seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. "Is that another type of human?"

"No, those are Tau," Serith explained, "we use humans to labor if they have no useful skills or refuse to work for us when captured, but if enemy soldiers are taken alive then we put them to work as well. Tau, sadly, make feeble slaves. They have poor endurance and their diets are more particular than that of humans. The ones with the pointy ears and all the injuries are Eldar. They're even worse."

Trixie looked around, and then quickly found what Serith was talking about. Frankly she wouldn't have noticed the Eldar if the Iron Warrior hadn't pointed them out, since they looked so much like humans. All of them seemed to be badly bruised and had bandaged limbs, however.

"Why are they all injured?" Trixie asked, curious as to how it would be so common among a certain species and not the others.

"The other slaves beat them. Nobody likes the Eldar," Serith explained, stepping off the stairs into the pit. "Well then, Lady Trixie: choose any one of these wretches you wish, and it shall serve you to the end of its life." The Sorcerer spread his arms to gesture to the gangs of roving people, and every individual nearby, slave or not, rushed to step away from him.

Trixie placed a hoof to her chin. She really wished she could do more for these poor wretches - except maybe for the Eldar, they sounded like jerks - but in her position she would only be able to deliver one pitiful laborer from this misery.

She saw a nearby human stumble, falling face first into the hard-packed dirt below and crying out as the metal container she had been hauling tumbled to the ground. The other slaves merely stepped away so as not to trip, walking more quickly as one of the Techpriest overseers took notice and started moving in.

"That one," Trixie said immediately, pointing her hoof at the slave struggling to stand up.

Serith took a few moments to stare at the selection. The choice was a young woman with short, dark hair and a persistent shake that indicated she was in ill health.

The overseer stopped about three meters away from her and snapped an arm to the side, causing a thick strip of crackling electric wire to emerge from the sleeve of his rubber robe. The overseer said nothing, lashing the electric whip up into the air.

There it froze, immobilized by an aura of pink magic. The overseer twitched and then started to shout in Binary, its voice screeching noisily and causing the nearby laborers to give it an even wider berth.

"Serith! What are you waiting for?" Trixie demanded, her horn pulsing as she struggled to contain the Dark Techpriest's whip against his efforts.

"I was waiting to see what you would do, obviously," the Sorcerer said with zero remorse, "VERY heroic, Lady Trixie."

The unicorn glared at him, and the Iron Warrior chuckled before walking up to the struggling overseer.

"You, there. Halt," Serith commanded, the mirth gone from his voice.

The Dark Techpriest stopped struggling as it saw who was approaching behind it, and as it read Serith's IFF tag on its augmetics the overseer spat something in Binaric Cant.

"Tut, tut, tut. I can understand you, you know," Serith said as the magical field holding the Techpriest in place finally vanished, "you should show greater respect to us 'Legion witches'."

"Why does a Company Sorcerer interrupt my duties?" demanded the overseer, switching to Gothic speech. "Estimated consequences of delay will push back forti-"

"Spare me your prattling, tin man," Serith sighed, waving off the overseer as he stepped up to the terrified slave, "this one is to be reassigned. Find some other beast of burden to carry your rubbish."

The Dark Techpriest squealed something else in machine code, but the electric cord was sucked back up into its sleeve and it turned away without further incident.

The slave, for her part, did not look happy about the rescue, trembling on the ground in terror as she stared up at the psyker. Being a slave to the 38th Company labor yards was a hard and miserable existence, sure, but being a slave to a sorcerer was a short and painful one.

"Are you all right, human? Do you need medical help?" Trixie asked as she stepped up next to Serith.

The dirty young woman looked confused, though not reassured, to see an alien next to the Sorcerer.

Still, appearance-wise it was much harder to be scared of Trixie than Serith, so she locked her eye contact on the blue unicorn and shifted herself into a kneeling position.

"I can work. I am not hurt," she said quickly, lowering her head.

"Hm. Not quite sick, but getting there," Serith mumbled, "malnourished, to be sure. I imagine she's been trading her food rations away."

"Well, enough of that," Trixie said firmly, stamping a hoof onto the ground, "the Great and Powerful Trixie is claiming ownership of you!"

The woman raised an eyebrow, and Serith elaborated.

"The Great and Powerful Trixie is her, by the way."

The slave nodded, lowering her head fully. "I understand."

"And as such, the Great and Powerful Trixie relinquishes ownership of you and declares that, from here on out, you are a free woman!" the unicorn declared, jumping up onto her hind legs and spreading her hooves into the air as if she were completing a work of magic.

The slave woman was stunned by the sudden turnaround, shocked into silence.

"And as a free woman, you will serve as Trixie's assistant!" the unicorn added before falling back down onto all four legs.

And just like that, the dizzying elation of freedom was stripped from the slave woman's senses. "What?"

"You humans are tall and nimble with those 'fingers' of yours," Trixie explained, "Trixie has many chores you could help out with, and having a second body for Trixie's magic act would be welcome as well!"

The young woman risked a glance up at the Sorcerer, as if seeking confirmation that this was really happening.

"I just want you to know that I am enjoying this considerably," Serith said with a chuckle.

The "free" woman sighed, bowing her head again. "Very well Mistress, uh... Trixie. My name-"

"Right! Right! Your name," Trixie interrupted, narrowing her eyes, "I don't know many human names, and I think calling you 'Light Lifter' or something more pony-ish would be kind of demeaning, somehow. Serith, do you have any-"

"Suuna, Mistress Trixie," the slave woman said, deciding she might as well test the limits of her new state of servitude by speaking out of turn, "my name is Suuna."

Trixie looked surprised, as if she had been expecting her to have no identity beyond "slave woman". "Oh. Well, okay. That'll do, then."

The blue unicorn turned around, her head held high as she headed up out of the pits. "Follow Trixie, Suuna! To freedom and harmony!"

"If we're being honest, you probably didn't have much going for you being set free on a random alien planet anyway," Serith pointed out as he followed Trixie, his voice thick with amusement, "and we almost certainly would have just re-enslaved you if the Iron Warriors found you again."

"Yes, of course," Suuna sighed, "whatever you say, my lord."

****

Everfree Forest

Deep in the cold, shifting shadows of the Everfree, a bloodhound slowly made its way between the trees and clusters of foliage, its nose snuffing the ground relentlessly and its tail wagging back and forth.

It appeared to be alone, but trailing the animal by a good distance were a pair of pegasi and a Chaos Space Marine. They couldn't see the canine, but were listening carefully for any sign of distress from their vanguard, ready to leap into action.

Which is to say, Rainbow Dash and Tellis were listening and ready. Fluttershy less so.

"I d-don't think this is a g-good idea, you guys," the pink-maned pegasus stuttered, her body crouched low to the ground as she followed behind Tellis.

"What are you talking about? This is a GREAT idea!" Rainbow argued. As usual, she was hovering above the ground and in the lead.

"Of course it is," Tellis agreed, "it's cunning, violent, and has that little twist of irony for flavor. Now be silent Shy, we need to listen for the sound of your animal's distress."

Fluttershy didn't want to be there at all, obviously, but the plan had called for a dog to sniff out the Kroot hunters through the Everfree, since the aliens otherwise left no trail to speak of. She couldn't leave her animal to the questionable judgment of Rainbow Dash or her new psychotic killer friend, so she had gathered up her courage and committed to following them.

Even she was a little surprised at how quickly that courage had evaporated.

"Are you s-sure we need one of my animals to do this? Isn't there some other way?"

Tellis rolled his eyes behind his helmet. "Not really, unless you ponies can track a scent on your own. I know I can't." Then he hesitated. "I mean, I don't THINK I can. Really, they packed so many ridiculous new organs in us Astartes that I can't even keep track of all my abilities that don't have to do with stabbing people."

Fluttershy whimpered. "But what if she gets hurt?"

"Would it offend you terribly if I informed you that I don't care at all about the safety of your dumb animal?" Tellis asked.

"Yeah, that probably would offend her," Rainbow Dash answered.

"Fine. Then I won't mention that I don't care at all about the safety of your dumb animal," Tellis said, considering the matter closed.

"But... But..." Fluttershy's lip quivered as tears started to well up in the corner of her eyes.

"Is she always like this?" Tellis grumbled, speaking to Rainbow as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Because this 'friendship' thing is starting to wear thin pretty fast."

"Fluttershy is just a little... over-sensitive," Rainbow said diplomatically, smiling awkwardly, "anyway, Flutter, don't worry. We'll jump in and take care of business before anything happens to the dog."

The yellow pony sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her hoof. "How can I not worry? The forest is dangerous enough normally, and now there are all these horrible, scary aliens around!"

"Are you talking about me or the Kroot?" Tellis asked.

"I'm talking about whoever might hurt my poor animals!" Fluttershy whimpered.

"That doesn't really answer the question."

Rainbow Dash groaned, annoyed at having to play peacemaker between her friends. It really wasn't her strong point. "All right, look: Fluttershy, it's important to find those Kroot if you want your animals to be safe, right? This is the best plan we have to get rid of them. Otherwise you're going to have space freaks hunting around your cottage for who knows how long."

As the other pegasus reluctantly nodded, Rainbow turned to face Tellis. "Tellis, punching Kroot is cool. Punching puppies is uncool. Clear?"

The Raptor Lord gave Rainbow Dash a thumbs-up. "Crystal."

"Awesome! Now let's find us some-"

Rainbow Dash was interrupted by a sudden barking, and Fluttershy stiffened. Tellis' flight pack started rumbling as the daemonic engine warmed itself up, and a deep chuckled came from the Raptor.

"Gotcha."

****

Ponyville

"Heya, Mac!"

Big Macintosh, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Bell all stopped and turned as they heard the shout. Crabapple, who was following behind the three fillies, spat something in Binary as it stopped, but neither the group ahead of it or behind it understood machine speak.

"Heya sis!" Apple Bloom piped up. Applejack was trotting up to them, Daniels and Dest following her.

Big Macintosh said nothing, waiting patiently as Applejack gave their youngest sibling a sisterly nuzzle and then stepped up next to him.

"How y'all been?" Applejack asked, her voice sounding just a tad giddy. "Keepin' outta trouble?"

Crabapple buzzed something in response.

"Nobody asked you, tin pot!" Applejack snorted.

"Aw, c'mon sis! Don't yell at Crabapple! She has feelings too!" Apple Bloom protested.

"That's probably true, but still really weird," Daniels mumbled, "anyway, don't mind her. We're just walking off the last few rounds of cider."

"An' lemme tell ya Mac, these humans can DRINK!" Applejack said, shaking her head.

"Well, I don't really think I can get real sloshed on pony drinks. We're a mite bigger than you," Daniels mumbled, glancing over to his side. The unfamiliar fillies were staring up at him and Dest in curiosity.

Applejack lowered her voice and leaned in further to her brother. "Yer makin' sure to keep 'em away from the ruckus in the town center, right? There was some bad applesauce goin' down over there, and as far as Ah know, it's gonna get worse."

"Eeyup," Big Mac said with a nod. Between the explosions, smoke, and Rainbow Dash being chased by some sort of flying iron man, he'd taken the hint that Ponyville might not be completely safe for a while. They had been staying inside Scootaloo's house until then, but with the fillies getting restless he'd convinced them to relocate to their club house. "Ah'm takin' 'em outta town now."

"Ah'd go with ya, but I wanna stick by Gaela fer now. Gotta make sure she comes through on her promise ta fix the farm," Applejack stepped away as Mac nodded, and then bellowed to the sapiens following her.

"Oi, let's get ta Rarity's while Ah've still got some juice in me! Ah've gotta feelin' Ah'm gonna need it fer what she's done ta Miss Gaela."

"And WHAT, pray tell, were you imagining such that you'd need to be DRUNK to appreciate it?" asked a voice from behind the two groups, sounding quite affronted.

Rarity and Twilight were turning around the corner of a nearby building, the former looking quite proud of herself and the latter scribbling intently on a parchment scroll.

Following them was Spike, his eyes fixed on Rarity as expected, and then Gaela.

The Dark Acolyte was out of her armor, and had apparently also been stripped of the black, form-fitting body suit that one normally wore under powered armor. Rarity had dressed her in an off-white sun dress secured at the waist with a dark purple belt that hung at an angle. On her head was a matching wide-rimmed hat with a pearly veil attached that obscured most of her head save the right side of her face, effectively concealing her augments and her lack of hair, but not her tattoo or the bemused expression on her face. The various nerve sockets that usually connected to her armor were covered by silk belts and a scarf that came close to matching her pale skin tone. Despite the other masterful efforts to conceal her metal parts, Gaela's bulky bionic arm was completely exposed, however.

"You look ridiculous," Dest said without hesitation, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived.

Rarity's proud expression broke. "What? What part of her looks ridiculous? Explain yourself, brute!"

Applejack sniggered, raising a hoof to her muzzle. "Ah didn't drink enough, looks like."

"I don't want to hear criticism from YOU," Rarity snapped.

"Can I go put my armor back on now?" Gaela asked, her tone unreasonably weary.

Daniels ran a hand through his hair. "Well, would you like to have an opinion from another human who hasn't had the sex gene-augmented out of them?"

"Yes!" Rarity smiled immediately, jumping at the opportunity, "Surely there must be ONE of you that can appreciate a work of such beauty!"

"You look ridiculous," Daniels said frankly, shattering Rarity's final hope for a compliment, "but in a soft, summery way."

As Rarity ground her teeth, Scootaloo pointed a hoof up at the Dark Acolyte. "What's wrong with your arm?"

"Besides the fact that it apparently doesn't 'go' with anything but brushed steel and rubber..." Gaela began, lifting up her bionic hand and curling it into a fist.

Then she smashed the fist into the wall of the building adjacent, the tritanium knuckles carving a hole in it before she pulled her arm out again.

"... Nothing. Nothing is wrong with my arm," Gaela finished, planting the fist on her hip.

"Ya could've made yer point without bustin' up somepony's home," Applejack pointed out blithely.

"Don't even start with me, horse."

As Big Macintosh finally herded his little sister, her friends, and her extremely confused daemonic robot onto a path out of town, Twilight completed the last line of her letter. She finished signing her name at the bottom with a flourish and a pensive sigh.

"Okay, then. Spike?"

She floated the letter over Spike's head, and the young dragon blew a burst of flame that seemed to engulf it and disintegrate the parchment instantly.

Dest made a disgusted noise behind his vox grille. "This entire village is rife with sorcery."

"I dunno, my lord. They make witchcraft seem kind of fun and whimsical," Daniels said with a snicker.

"Well, I did my best to explain everything that happened to Princess Celestia," Twilight said, looking somewhat nervous, "I hope she understands why I waited so long to contact her."

"Is that likely to affect our upcoming assault?" Gaela asked, crossing her arms over her breasts and then wincing at how it felt without a good plate of metal shielding them from her augmetic.

"Hard to say," Rarity mumbled, "Princess Celestia tends to take a more... hooves-off approach to dealing with threats to the kingdom." The unicorn was circling Gaela and staring intently, trying to figure out what had gone wrong while ignoring the most obvious, glaring flaw with the ensemble.

"Good. Then we can storm the base, salvage their facilities, and then head back to the fortress without interference," Gaela said with a nod, "hopefully before we run into Pinkie Pie again."

Uncomfortable silence and awkward shuffling greeted the Dark Acolyte's words.

Gaela's shoulders slumped. "She's behind me, isn't she?"

"I'm not sure it's just the horned ones that practice Warpcraft, either," Dest mumbled, looking away.

Gaela turned around and was extremely unsurprised to see Pinkie Pie standing there, a jaw-cracking grin on her face. The pink earth pony also had a tray of cupcakes balanced on her back, the baked goods piled high with frosting and sprinkles.

"Ah, so that's whatcha been doin'," Applejack said, "checkin' in with work?"

"Well, I had to let the Cakes know that my Saving Equestria from Certain Doom leave was being extended!" Pinkie explained.

"Saving Equestria from what?" Daniels asked. "Is your country in-"

"Don't," Twilight interrupted, "just... don't bother."

"While I was there, I baked up some yummy-tummy cupcakes for our new friends!"

Gaela turned away. "How nice. I'm sure they'll appreciate it whenever they arrive."

Pinkie laughed, completely undaunted by the Dark Acolyte's sour mood. "Hee hee hee! That was a funny joke!" Then she cocked her head to the side. "Is that a new dress? It's so pretty!"

Rarity lit up like a newly birthed star.

"I really like how it clashes hilariously with the metal arm! It's silly!"

Rarity immediately wilted again.

"Yes, we've already gone over how stupid I look without my armor. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put it back on."

Gaela moved to head back toward the boutique, only to have Pinkie side-step into her path, the cupcakes tilting inexplicably with her movement to keep from falling off.

"Ah ah ah! No leaving until you pay the cupcake-eating toll!" Pinkie sang.

"This is asinine!" Gaela snapped, her visible eye twitching.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Daniels said, stepping up to the pony and taking a cupcake, "stop being a grouchy hag and just eat the bloody treat, would you? Here! Look!"

The mercenary bit into the frosting and cake, chewed in an exaggerated manner, and then made a show of swallowing. "Delicious! And not poisonous or anything!"

Gaela didn't look impressed at Daniels' taste-testing, but it gave her pause when Dest stepped up and removed his helmet.

The Astartes dropped his boltgun on the ground next to him and then took one of the treats between his huge, armored fingers. Then he popped the entire thing into his mouth.

"Pleasant," he decided after chewing for several seconds, "although the flavor may be enhanced considerably by leaving out the paper."

"Yer not supposed ta eat that part, big guy," Applejack informed him helpfully.

With even a Chaos Space Marine accepting the pink pony's gifts, Gaela was forced to admit that she looked irrationally petulant refusing to even try them. Still, she pulled her veil aside so that she could get a good view of the cupcakes with her bionic eye.

"According to surface analytics, this 'cupcake' is almost entirely composed of simple carbohydrates. What is its nutrient value?" she demanded.

"It's chock full of happiness!" Pinkie cheered.

"Happiness is not a nutrient," Gaela countered.

"Maybe that's why you haven't been getting enough from that icky-licky ration slime!"

Gaela rolled her eye and gave up the argument, snatching up one of the cupcakes and taking a quick bite.

The ponies almost gasped in extremely over-dramatized surprise and hope, but then they were puzzled when Gaela suddenly froze, as if her every muscle had locked up.

"Urk!" The Acolyte didn't spit out the cupcake, but as she swallowed she fell to her knees, the rest of the baked treat tumbling from numb fingers.

"Well? Are you happy yet?" Pinkie asked, lowering her head and pressing her nose against Gaela's as she grinned.

The Dark Acolyte's eye came unfocused, as if she couldn't actually see the pony in front of her. "What... What is... this?!" she gasped. "It's taking over... my t-tongue... my mind... Omnissiah... lord of the darkness... that l-lies in the deepest-"

"Oh, grow up, you Mechanicus ninny," Daniels snapped, thoroughly annoyed by her reaction. "It's called 'flavor'. Can't you do anything like a normal person?"

"Don't mind her," Dest said, sounding genuinely apologetic as he leaned over Gaela to take another cupcake, "she's strange." He made sure to unwrap it this time before flicking the entire thing into his mouth, looking pleased with the result.

Twilight reluctantly turned away from the shivering Acolyte, wanting to address Daniels. "Well, if we have more time to wait until you leave, that's great, but before I forget: has anyone seen Rainbow Dash?"

"Negative, Sparkle," Daniels replied, biting into his own cupcake again, "I assume she still zooming around with Lord Tellis."

"Okay, but WHERE?" Twilight asked, scanning the skies and seeing nothing but clouds.

"Well, I did see Lord Tellis flying by earlier with a big plate of the Tau wreckage in his arms, but I'm not going to be the one to guess what's going through his head. I don't know where he was heading, but if he were still around I'm pretty sure we'd know it."

"I'm a little worried, with Rainbow Dash flying around with that man. She doesn't have the best judgment to begin with, and Tellis is..." Twilight trailed off.

"You don't have to complete that sentence," Dest noted as he picked up his boltgun, "we all know what you mean."

"My brain... I can feel it in my brain!" Gaela shouted, gasping for breath. "Changing... neural chemistry. Secreting... new hormones. What's HAPPENING to me?"

"Is it joy? Is your brain filling with joy?!" Pinkie asked eagerly, standing on her hind legs with the cupcake tray held in the air. "Let go of your grump-ness! Embrace the party in your soul! THE POWER OF CUPCAKES COMPELS YOU!!"

"I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable watching this," Rarity said, looking squeamish.

Applejack took a few steps away from the debacle, hoping that she might not be associated with the struggling Acolyte by any of the numerous ponies that had stopped to watch the debacle.

"Look Twi, Ah know yer worried about Rainbow, but give her some credit. She's not gonna go racing off into the Everfree to find more alien critters to fight. She just ain't that dumb."

****

Everfree Forest

The Kroot hadn't thought much of it when they'd stopped to rest and were suddenly accosted by a barking dog.

Granted, they didn't know what a dog was, exactly, and had no reason to think it wasn't another one of the countless other beasts that had harassed them since they had begun prowling the forest surrounding the base.

Two of the alien hunters were nursing burn wounds and another a broken arm, so one of the largely unharmed Kroot drew his hunting blade and walked up to the yapping hound, snarling at it to drive it off.

The hunters' first clue that something was very, very wrong was when a rather familiar blue pony emerged from the brush at high speed, slamming the Kroot in the chest and knocking him flat on his back.

As the others once again drew their weapons, Rainbow Dash shook off the impact and then called out behind her, offering the xenos their second hint that they had not fled quickly or far enough.

"Dog's okay! Come get 'em, Tellis!"

By that point the aliens were hesitating, caught between their instinctive urge to lunge at the small, weak animals attacking them and their tactical logic that informed them that there was probably something much bigger and nastier coming.

The sound of a flight pack roaring to life was their final clue that they should have run, and also their death knell.

"Feel my iron without, chumps! HA HA HAH!!"

The Kroot on the ground glanced back as he saw a figure in gleaming gunmetal armor jump into his unit feet-first, crushing a hunter with each foot before they could even consider defending themselves.

The alien snarled at his mixed fortune as he heard the angry cursing and cries of pain from his brothers; the post-human warrior had them now; there was nothing he could do.

The Kroot started crawling along the ground toward the brush, pushing aside the aching of his ribs where the flying blue creature had hit him. There was almost certainly something broken, but such a small beast couldn't land a killing blow on its own. If he could just get to the brush, there was some small chance that he would be missed by the time the human giant finished with the others, and then-

The foliage he was heading toward shifted, and the Kroot halted as another of the flying local beasts emerged in front of him, this one yellow and visibly trembling.

"I'm, uh, I'm really s-sorry Mister Alien, b-but I c-can't let you escape," Fluttershy apologized to the Kroot hunter, dearly regretting her decision to remain involved.

The Kroot's knife had been knocked away when it was tackled, but the alien hunter was still more than twice the size of the pegasus. He snarled and swiped a three-fingered hand at the timid pony, causing her to flinch away and stumble back into the brush before tripping and then falling onto her side.

Snorting in irritation, the alien hunter began crawling forward again.

And that was when Tellis' boot landed on top of his head.

"Good job keeping the straggler from getting away," Tellis offered as he twisted his leg back and forth to grind the shattered skull underneath him deeper into the dirt, "but you realize these things can't understand our language, right? You're wasting your time talking to them."

Fluttershy blinked, not having thought of that. "But... weren't you talking to them yourself?"

"Well, sure, but I get a pass because I'm crazy," the Raptor Lord reasoned.

"He's gotcha there," Rainbow Dash agreed, floating up behind the Iron Warrior. She was mostly distracted from the conversation, frowning at a splash of blood that had landed on her coat. That was going to be hard to get out of her fur.

Tellis also had his share of blood on him, where "his share" comprised more blood that the Kroot likely had left in their broken bodies. It was splattered all over the shell of brushed steel and gold, and over his gauntlets it had stuck so deeply that barely any trace of the gunmetal coloring was visible.

"Hey, wanna see something cool?" Tellis asked with a snicker, turning toward Rainbow.

The blue pegasus nodded eagerly. Fluttershy was shaking her head no, but Tellis wasn't looking at her and probably would have ignored her anyway.

Tellis spaced his legs apart and held his arms up, clearly posing for some purpose yet to be revealed as his jet-wings spread apart behind him.

And then he screamed.

It was a furious, horrendous bellow, and Fluttershy immediately ducked her head down under her front legs as her dog yelped and bolted away, making a beeline for her cottage. All around the forest, birds shot up out of their roosts and took to the air, terrified for their lives while grounded animals raced away from the epicenter of the haunting sound in a veritable stampede.

Rainbow slapped her hooves over her ears and felt her heart rate skyrocket as an instinctive, primal fear pressed in around her, but she pushed it aside and kept her eyes on Tellis.

The Raptor Lord's armor was shaking, and an aura of bright, angry red blazed around his body as the pitch of his unholy shriek reached its peak.

Then the blood stuck to his armor started to disintegrate. Patches of it just shrank and vanished, like it was evaporating, or was somehow being sucked into the armor. Only the gleaming and somewhat scratched-up detailing of Tellis' armor suit was left behind, from the top of his flight pack to the bottom of his boots. The blood on the ground seemed to peel off the dirt and splatter against his greaves, and then it too vanished. Even the small smear on Rainbow's coat was sucked into the strange phenomenon, leaving her fur a largely unblemished blue and saving her some effort during her next shower.

As Tellis's bellow finally ceased, a grinding noise came from his armor; it was shaking furiously, as if it were alive. Power cables writhed and golden edging seemed to slowly grow and shift, and the flight pack spat bursts of flame in short, uneven bursts as if it were breathing through the jets. Dents and scratches smoothed out, dulled edging became sharper, and the gold trim even seemed to gleam more brightly.

In a burst of sparks and crimson lightning, long, bladed talons burst from the back of Tellis' hands, and then the aura finally faded.

"Ha HAA! New lightning claws! Told you they'd grow back!" Tellis cheered, holding up his new weapon. "Ooh, I'm up to four blades each, now! Thanks, Khorne!"

No sweat. Enjoy, echoed a booming voice in the back of his mind, thick with death and hatred.

"Whoa! Nice!" Rainbow Dash cheered, hovering around the Chaos Space Marine to admire his new weapons. "It looks like even all the nicks and scratches and stuff on your armor healed too! How'd you do that without magic?"

"Being as cool as I am is its own kind of magic," Tellis insisted, "what Sorcerers do with their little rituals and Warp power I do with Awesome."

Rainbow nodded eagerly, liking that line and promising that she'd use it herself at the first opportunity. "So... now what?"

Tellis hesitated. Then he started glancing about the area.

Seeing nothing but shadows, trees, and corpses, the Raptor lord scratched at the side of his helmet.

"Okay, so, normally this is the part of my solo rampage where I check in with command, or maybe one of the guys from my squad, to find out what I'm SUPPOSED to be doing. Those guys always seem to have an idea of where I should be, and when, and breaking what specific thing. You know, tactics and stuff."

"They sound like a bunch of know-it-all eggheads to me," Rainbow said with a snort.

"I know, right? But they're at least good for telling me where more enemies are, and right now I can't contact them."

The Raptor Lord planted his hands on the hips of his armor suit. "Really, I was kind of hoping the screaming would attract some attention. I'm pretty sure everyone in five kilometers heard that."

His musing was interrupted by a terrified yelp some distance away.

"Was that Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash asked, whirling around. "When did she leave?"

"The better question is what she found!" Tellis said eagerly, his flight pack flaring. He couldn't really use it for more than short attack jumps in woodland this thick, but the daemon within the machine was still eager for more violence.

Rainbow took the lead as they bolted toward the source of the noise.

Several seconds later, they emerged on the scene. Tellis was immediately disappointed at the lack of enemies, while at the same time intrigued by the number of corpses.

Rainbow Dash was more concerned with Fluttershy, who was pinned to the ground trembling with her hooves over her face again.

"Fluttershy, what's wrong? Why'd you leave?" Rainbow asked, looking around but finding no living threats.

Fluttershy seemed to snap to attention now that Rainbow was there, focusing entirely on the other pegasus.

"I-I'm sorry! I just th-thought that if you didn't need the dog any more, then maybe I could leave too!"

Rainbow Dash had to admit that made sense, but she shook her head. "It's still way dangerous around here, though. You'd better stick with us."

Rainbow finally turned her attention to the scene around her that had shocked Fluttershy so, feeling her stomach turn unpleasantly at the smell of rotting meat.

A clearing had been carved out here, and corpses positively covered the area. Not of Kroot, Tau, or ponies, but rather the beasts of the Everfree: bears, deer, boars and even larger beasts like manticores were stacked one on top of the other in small heaps.

Some of them looked freshly killed, with knife and rifle wounds.

Some of the bodies had huge bites taken out, while some looked like they had merely been nibbled on. Yet others had been butchered, their meat taken elsewhere while only the carcass was left behind. There had probably been a great number of scavengers here before Fluttershy (or perhaps Tellis) had driven them off. There was even a small pile of scorched timberwolf bodies, although they were more or less intact; the Kroot probably had a hard time figuring out the wooden creatures.

"Well, at least we have a new route into the base," Tellis said, sounding pleased. He pointed to a wide path leading away that was covered in heavy tracks and dried blood. "This is where the hunters have been bringing their kills and probably where they feed their war animals. This path should lead us right into their camp, and probably through a secondary access route that isn't heavily defended."

"Um, Mister Terrifying Murderer? Is that a good idea? To go to their base, I mean?" Fluttershy had her eyes closed and breathed through her mouth to keep out the awful sights and smells, following the Astartes by sound alone.

"Man, you sound just like those know-it-all eggheads from my squad," Tellis tsked, kicking aside a chimera's skull and chuckling as it bounced along the ground, "we'll be fine. As long as reinforcements arrive and begin a push into the base from the other side just before we attack."

Rainbow raised an eyebrow as she hovered over Tellis' shoulder pads. "What're the chances of that?"

"Better than the chances of you kicking a missile out of the air and surviving to talk about it."

"Sweet! Let's go!" Rainbow Dash cheered, filled with new and entirely unjustified enthusiasm.

****

Ponyville - outskirts

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to see the joining of Gold Rush and Sky Sprinter in the bonds of holy matrimony..."

A pegasus mare and an earth pony stallion smiled brightly from atop a raised wooden patio that was serving as an altar for their wedding, their friends and relatives gathered in rows behind them. Soft music played from a small band of ponies as the preacher went on with the ceremony, mixed with the occasional sniffling and murmurs from the delighted crowd.

"This is the happiest day of my life," whispered Sky Sprinter, trying hard not to cry as she fixed her eyes on her new husband.

"I'd have to say mine is the day I met you, Sky," Gold Rush whispered back, "but this is a decent second."

The bride chuckled lightly. "Goldie, I can't tell you how much..." she trailed off, her face shifting to a frown beneath her veil. "Do you hear that? What's that noise?"

"Shhh... live in the moment," the stallion whispered, straightening as the priest reached the vows. There WAS some kind of distant rumbling sound, and given the strange events in Ponyville just that morning he probably should have been more concerned, but he wasn't about to let anything interrupt their ceremony.

"Do you, Gold Rush, take Sky Sprinter to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death to you part?" the priest asked, his voice rising slightly to be heard over the engine noise that was unmistakably coming closer.

"I do!" Gold Rush said, taking his wife's hoof in his.

"And do you, Sky Sprinter, take Gold Rush to be your-"

"Y-Yes! I do!" Sky Sprinter said with a strained smile, her ears twitching at the sound of heavy treads grinding rocks to rubble behind the altar.

"Ah, okay! If anypony has a reason that these two should not be wed," the priest shouted, his voice barely rising above the rumble of the gunmetal and gold vehicles that were now quite visible past the trees around the altar, "speak now or forever hold your peace!"

As if in response to the ultimatum, a squadron of basilisk artillery tanks rolled up over some hedges next to the lot where the wedding was being held. They crushed the brush to a pulp before they halted, lining up in formation next to the tables that held the wedding cake and drinks. As the ponies gaped wordlessly, the engines switched to idling mode, cutting down the rumbling noise. Massive earthshaker cannons, each one large enough for a pony to crawl inside, lowered themselves into firing position, and blasts of gas hissed from heavy hydraulics.

Two men were standing on the firing platform behind the main gun, a loader and a spotter, and while the spotter started exchanging orders with the driver the loader noticed the ceremony that had ground to a halt next to them.

The ponies stared, and he stared back at them through his tinted goggles for several seconds before leaning over the platform railing.

"You can go ahead. We're just parking here."

Gold Rush let out a gasp of relief, and the priest blinked.

"Ah. Uh, okay then! I now pronounce you husband and wife!" he shouted as a convoy of Rhino APCs and Predator battle tanks advanced along the other side of the ceremony. "You may kiss the bride!"

"I'm... uh," Sky Sprinter flinched as a Thunderhawk gunship roared by overhead, briefly buffeting the area with its jet wash and darkening the altar with its shadow, "I'm actually getting a bit of stage fright, here... or maybe it's just the regular type of fright."

"Honey, please," Gold Rush said as he leaned in, "it took two hours to explain to your father that the gold nugget cutie mark makes me a metallurgist, not an aristocrat, so that he'd pay for the wedding. Let's not blow it all now, okay?"

Taking a deep breath, the pegasus met her husband in a kiss, and the couple were met with extremely awkward and nervous cheers from their combined family and friends.

"Hey, Niles! Come look at this! There's a pair of horses making out over here!" shouted the basilisk loader, laughing.

"Oh, DO shut up!" barked the priest.

****

Ponyville

"They've arrived. And so it begins," Gaela said, holding up the veil over her bionic eye. She was already picking up noosphere ID signals through the jamming field, each incoming vehicle being marked out in a green reticule in her field of vision.

"There's... There's a lot of 'em," Applejack noted uncomfortably. She was standing on top of a fence with her forelegs on Daniels' back, giving her a better field of view than the other ponies. "By Celestia, look at the size o' those things! Ah think that one is bigger'n mah house was!"

"This is going to be great! I'll throw the biggest party ever!" Pinkie shouted, being the only pony who seemed happy to see the gleaming boxes of metal rumbling into town. "How many do you think are coming?"

"Well, that depends on how hard the Tau defend their base perimeter," Daniels reasoned with his usual tone of complete detachment when talking about casualties, "you might want to hold off planning anything until we begin the offensive, at least."

Rarity glanced at Gaela uncertainly. The Acolyte had fully recovered from her earlier ordeal, to the extent that eating a cupcake could ever be considered an ordeal worth recovering from. She had been trying even harder than before to ignore Pinkie ever since.

"So... what should we-" the fashionable unicorn got no further before Gaela cut her off.

"You've helped us before, but this operation is now of a scale that's quite beyond you," Gaela said simply, letting her veil fall back down, "if you're going to watch, I can't recommend a safe distance; the further from the front line, the better. Oh, and stay away from the tanks, too. I can't imagine they'd be too happy about having you sniffing around underfoot."

The Dark Acolyte turned to leave as the first Rhino turned onto the main avenue through town, its exhaust ports spewing tendrils of black smoke skyward.

"I'm going to go get my armor. Lord Dest, if you would accompany me, I'll see to repairing yours before we join your brothers in combat."

"It's about time," Dest grumbled, picking his boltgun up off the ground, "let's hurry. I'm baking in this suit without any temp control."

Twilight watched them go pensively, casting sidelong glances at the armor column rolling into town. The Iron Warriors had sent many, many more vehicles than the Tau had. Several looked identical to the APC that had arrived in Sweet Apple Acres just yesterday.

Had this all really started so recently? Twilight lowered her head, only barely aware of a heavy bolter sponson sliding over to track her as a potential target while a towering Leman Russ battle tank lumbered past.

It seemed like an age ago. Her concept of the entire universe had changed radically in an afternoon, and she had seen technological wonders that rivaled some of the most powerful magics she had ever heard of.

And now many of those wonders were racing toward each other, intent on annihilation. A tragedy of astronomical scale, writ large in bursts of plasma and gunsmoke.

The heavy booming noise that startled Twilight out of her melancholy reflections was not cannon fire; the armor column, while on high alert, was too far from the described combat zone and had been explicitly told not to fire on the ponies or their dwelling during the mission. Getting distracted fighting the locals would leave the assault force wide open for ambush was the reasoning, and Warsmith Solon was more concerned about needlessly provoking the "harmless" equines after learning that around a third of them were psykers.

It did, however, resemble weapons fire closely enough to bring the closest tanks to a grinding halt. Their gunners swiveled wildly for hostiles while their drivers checked sensors for any friendlies that had suddenly gone dark. Outside the tanks, Daniels had stumbled from the surprise, sending him face-first into the ground before Applejack yelped and fell on top of him.

Twilight turned around and saw that Pinkie and Rarity were already bowing; the former with a grin and the latter with a strained smile, as if wondering how to explain the numerous gun turrets that were all swiveling toward them.

Within seconds, however, the tanks began moving again. Their weapons turned away and the noise was disregarded as an engine backfire or maybe some strange and irrelevant alien shenanigans.

None apparently considered the larger white pony with the constantly flowing, pastel-colored mane any kind of threat.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight said, barely stopping herself from adding "I can explain" before remembering that this wasn't her fault.

That, and she had already explained things painstakingly in her letter. Which was probably why the Princess did NOT look happy right now.

"Nurgle's beard! Are you trying to get yourself shot up?" Daniels barked as he stood up, shattering the tense silence as he figured out what had just happened. "Teleporting into a war zone is bad enough, but if you'd scared even one of those gunners into thinking they were under attack, we could've all been blown into the bloody Eye!"

Celestia turned her head to regard the mercenary as he spoke, enduring his complaints wordlessly. The ponies winced.

"Uh, Daniels, buddy? Ya might wanna tone it down a whisker," Applejack warned, "this here's the Princess. She's kinda the ruler of our entire country."

To Twilight's relief, the man did seem to check himself, straightening up and keeping his hands away from his weapons. "I'm just saying, it's not safe, is all. I meant no offense, Sovereign."

Celestia's eyes narrowed as she looked over the mercenary. There was none of the love and calming serenity that usually seemed to radiate from the pearly white alicorn; this was the princess that was here to defend her people.

Granted, she was here some two hours after Twilight had sent her letter, and long, long after aliens had started shooting each other on Equestrian land. But there were times she didn't show up at all for these sorts of threats, so it was still quite a meaningful response.

"You. Human. State your name," Celestia demanded.

Daniels saluted. "Rifleman Wyatt Daniels at your service, Sovereign. I hope you don't mind that I stay standing. I only bow to my paymasters. Bit of a personal principle of mine."

"That's fine," Celestia said dismissively, her eyes tracking the vehicles that rumbled by behind the mercenary, "I'm not familiar at all with your ranks, Rifleman. Are you in charge here?"

"About as far as you can get from 'in charge', Sovereign," Daniels said with a chuckle, "though if we're being honest, I'm probably going to be the highest-ranking member of the 38th Company that will talk to you."

"I see," the Princess did not look impressed by the admission, "Twilight informed me of most of the details, Rifleman. I only have a few questions for you."

"Shoot," Daniels said.

"That depends on your answers," Celestia responded.

Twilight laughed nervously at the play on words. "Oh, Princess! That was a good one!"

No one else was laughing. Even Pinkie Pie looked uncharacteristically perturbed at the tension in the air.

"Where are those vehicles going?" Celestia asked, her gaze once again following the train of armor.

"As I understand it, some place called 'Everfree Forest'," Daniels said with a shrug, "they'll set up a muster there, and then assault the enemy base in the forest."

"How long have you and these... 'Tau' been here?" Celestia asked, her wings ruffling irritably.

"Pretty sure we both made planetfall a few days ago," Daniels said, "the Tau slightly sooner than us. Chased them right out of the void, we did."

"For what purpose? Why are you here?" Celestia demanded, her neck straightening as she glared at him. Even in her heightened pose she was still slightly shorter than the human soldier, however, and Twilight had to admit that she probably wasn't very intimidating to someone who had no concept of what she was capable of.

Daniels understood well enough, though. Ruler of ponies aside, the horn meant that this new pony was a psyker, and he simply was not in the habit of pissing off psykers of any species.

"Couldn't tell ya," Daniels said with a tired shrug, "my mission was to escort Acolyte Gaela. I was deployed without any explanation of our greater purpose here on Centaur III, and haven't had any time at base to catch up on Company gossip. I don't know why we're here other than to hunt the Tau, Sovereign."

Celestia's muzzle wrinkled at that.

"Ya named our planet 'Centaur III'?" Applejack asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"If you're referring to us as a species, yeah, we humans named your sun Centaur in the star maps. It's quite a lovely name, actually," Daniels offered.

"A few more questions, human," Celestia said, her voice weary as she stopped referring to the man by his rank, "that trinket around your neck. Do you know what it is?"

"This?" Daniels pulled at the cord of leather around his neck that was attached to a simple golden Chaos star. It had been given to him when he'd signed up with the Company, his name inscribed in the inner circumference. He had many more in his pockets, collected from his dead squadmates.

"This is just a hunk of gold, Sovereign. Pretty, innit?"

The Princess snorted. "So you have no idea of its significance."

"The significance of any hunk of metal depends on what you plan on doing with it, mi'lady. I'd planned on trading this one for a stiff drink when I ran out of credits."

"Fine. One more question, human: who or what does your Company serve?"

Daniels tilted his head to the side. "Well, that's a tough one, actually. I serve the glorious Imperial Credit, the most widely accepted currency in the known galaxy," Daniels said with mock reverence.

"That is not what my student Twilight Sparkle explained to me in her letter," Celestia said, her voice carrying an implicit warning that she thought she was being lied to.

"With respect to Miss Sparkle, she's practically attached herself to our Mechanicus Acolyte's robe since we met her," Daniels explained breezily, shrugging his shoulders, "you ask that question to different people in the Company and you'll get different answers."

The white alicorn stared hard at the human, but to his relief, no magic came forth to smite him from the face of the planet for any perceived insolence.

"I see. Thank you for your time, Mister Daniels," she said curtly, addressing him by name for the first time, "Twilight, follow me please. We must speak."

"Y-Yes, Princess!" Twilight stuttered, almost tripping over herself to follow. Celestia walked in the same direction as the armored convoy was moving, her student trailing closely behind.

"Huh. That went pretty well," Daniels said as soon as the alicorns were out of earshot, "head Inquisitor she ain't."

"Why'd ya keep callin' her 'Sovereign'? Her title is Princess." Applejack said.

"Where I'm from, 'Princess' is a title you give to powerful people to mock them, not show them respect. It doesn't come naturally when I'm trying not to annoy anyone."

"Be that as it may, you should probably be more concerned," Rarity warned the man, "the Princess seemed very disturbed. As I suppose she would be, seeing so many war machines rolling through Ponyville."

"That's not why she was disturbed," Daniels said, surprising the ponies.

"What do ya mean?"

The mercenary gestured to the homes about him. "She knew about the assault, but didn't bring anything resembling troops with her, nor did she order any sort of evacuation of the town. She gave up on even attempting to speak to someone in charge because I said they probably wouldn't listen to her. Your princess is very worried, and likely very scared, but not so much about this."

He gestured to a Baneblade super-heavy tank as it slowly rumbled past, its massive armored chassis barely able to fit between the pony homes that lined either sides of the avenue. Hooks were attached to the side of the treads, and hung on them were power armor helmets of various colors and designs that rattled relentlessly from the engine vibrations. Most of them were a garish combination of pink and black that made Rarity's eyes hurt.

Applejack turned away from the procession of weaponry and frowned. "Then what's she afraid of?"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get a good explanation when Sparkle gets back," Daniels murmured, slipping his Chaos amulet under the folds of his coat.

****

Ponyville - Iron Warriors muster point, just outside Fluttershy's cottage

The Rhinos were the first to unload their cargo when they reached the forest perimeter, halting within rifle range of the tree line and disgorging Chaos Space Marines as Predator tanks watched over them with heavy weapons primed.

The first Iron Warriors unbundled stacks of shaped ferrocrete barricades from atop their Rhinos, and as the second group of transports arrived they began setting up the first fortifications.

This second wave consisted of Chimera armored transports packed with human mercenaries and customized Dark Mechanicus transports that boasted small cranes and heavy welders atop their STC-based chassis.

Lines of Leman Russ battle tanks and Vindicator siege tanks followed as more soldiers were dropped into the front line, and the Dark Mechanicus detachment deployed beacons for drop rigs and began setting up vox signal boosters to facilitate communications through the jamming field.

The super-heavy vehicles came next: the Company's sole Baneblade, the Vengeance of Olympia, took up a defensive position as a pair of Gorgon super-heavy transports split off to either side, packed to the seams with mercenary fighters and cultists.

A pair of Thunderhawk gunships hovered behind the main line, engines roaring furiously as they held a pair of loaded Land Raiders each to await deployment in the assault spearhead or on the enemy flank.

And through it all, a pair of alicorns watched from the avenue below, one in nervous awe and the other with poorly concealed contempt.

"Barbaric, are they not?" Celestia asked, scanning the battle line from end to end. "So many lives, so many machines, so much power. All of it turned toward destruction and hatred. All the humans know is war."

Twilight didn't respond immediately, and the royal alicorn continued. "These 'Tau' seem no better, apparently. They come to our world bringing their weapons and enemies with them. Already, their battle has ensnared my peaceful subjects and exposed them to... to THIS."

Twilight just chewed her lip silently, her mind racing.

She was very glad, in retrospect, that Princess Celestia had met and spoken to Daniels first out of all the humans currently in Equestria. The mercenary, with his grim humor and cautious temperament, was easily the most personable and least offensive alien she had met out of the lot of them. When Celestia had arrived she had seemed almost enraged. Now she seemed to look at the soldiers of the 38th Company with reluctant pity, if anything.

"Maybe all aliens are like that," Celestia grumbled, her eyes turning upward as orbital drop rigs punched through the clouds overhead and plummeted to the ground.

Twilight was momentarily entranced by the sight - she had been too close to the last drop to truly appreciate the magnificence of something being launched from space to the ground - before she snapped her head toward her mentor.

"Wait, Princess... you talk about them as if they're almost... familiar to you. In fact, you don't really seem SURPRISED by any of this!"

Twilight left the question unspoken, but it was perfectly obvious. Celestia didn't respond for several seconds, however.

"Twilight, you are easily one of the most well-read ponies in all of Equestria," the Princess began, "you know the history of our nation better than some of our less dedicated historians. Tell me, have you never read anything in Equestria's history about contact with creatures from another world?"

Twilight shook her head immediately.

"That is because the accounts recorded in our books are not necessarily what happened; they are what the authors wished to tell you about."

"Wh-What are you saying, Princess?" Twilight asked, her mane bristling.

"As little as possible, my faithful student."

Another transport flyer blasted by overhead, buffeting the ponies with jet wash as it moved into hovering position. Hanging from the belly of this one were more than a dozen pairs of mechanical legs, all dangling from boxy metal bodies of various sizes.

Four sentinel scout walkers were released from their attachment points first, their spindly hydraulic legs absorbing the impact with the ground before the light walkers raced off for the front line. The other walkers were deployed more slowly, with magnetic winches extending below the transports to lower the Dreadnoughts and Contemptor-pattern Dreadnoughts to the ground. One by one the walkers were brought to fully awakened status, and the umbilical cables detached before the formation of walking armor began stomping off toward the front.

It was almost another full minute before Princess Celestia spoke again.

"I had hoped to never teach you this lesson, Twilight. It is... galling and rather dark. But some knowledge is too dangerous to learn. Some truths are corruptive and harmful to more than just ponies' feelings. Ignorance is never a strength, but it can protect us."

Twilight's jaw hung open, her ears pressed flat against her head. "I... I don't understand..."

"Yes. That's the point of the lesson," Celestia said ruefully. She turned away from the sight of the battle line, looking tired.

"But... I... they..." Twilight grasped for something to say as she followed the Princess away, but before she could come up with a good question Celestia asked her one instead.

"Twilight, tell me: what do you feel when you stare at those symbols carried by the humans?"

Twilight's hackles rose instantly. She hadn't mentioned the Star of Chaos in her letter. The symbol was everywhere on the vehicles, and Celestia had obviously noted the one carried by Daniels, but Twilight had made every effort to ignore them since learning about their meaning.

Had literally any other pony asked her the question, she would have brushed it off. It was nothing but a symbol, she would have said, just a design that had some unique meaning to the Iron Warriors and nopony else. Why would she feel anything at some random emblem?

But she wasn't going to lie to Princess Celestia. Not about this.

"I feel... like there's something..." Twilight turned her head to stare at the huge golden star bolted onto the shoulder of a Dreadnought combat walker plodding off to join its brothers. She had been avoiding looking directly at the emblems, and the sensation that it brought was immediate. "Like there's something scratching at my horn. I can't see it, or hear it, but I feel like its trying to get to me." She shuddered, turning her eyes away. The sensation quickly faded to nothing. "What is it, Princess?"

Celestia didn't answer her question. "The Tau may have brought war to Equestria, and we will deal with them in time. But these humans have brought something far worse than simple violence."

"You mean Chaos? Like Discord did?" Twilight asked.

Celestia looked uncomfortable at the mention of the former tyrant. "It is... similar. Worse. Discord was a single agent, purely self-interested and mostly quite petty. These humans are many, powerful, and the sort of Chaos they bring is far more insidious. They must be cast back into the void where they arrived from."

Twilight recoiled. "Princess? What are you saying?"

Princess Celestia turned a sad gaze on Twilight. "My faithful student, this may be the most difficult task you ever face, but there is hope. These Iron Warriors have not yet made us their enemies, and you girls seem to have become familiar with some of them."

Celestia turned her gaze away, as if staring at something far beyond Twilight's mundane sight. "There is a bastion far from here, on the very borders of Equestria. A dark, ugly thing that the humans hammered into our lands overnight. I believe that is where this army originates from."

She turned back to the smaller alicorn. "You must travel there, learn the purpose of these Iron Warriors, and if possible, banish their master back to the void from which they came."

Twilight swallowed loudly.

"This is no easy thing, obviously, and more than your magical skill may be tested," Celestia said as she sat down on her haunches, "the powers that these humans carry with them is infectious, and can tempt those of fragile will. But I have faith in you. Can you do this?"

Twilight chewed her lip briefly, but she couldn't seriously entertain the thought of refusing. "If you say they're a threat, then I will face them, Princess," the purple alicorn said firmly, puffing out her chest and spreading her wings, "you can count on me."

Princess Celestia's face broke into a smile for the first time since she had arrived. "Very good, Twilight. Now-"

Celestia's head snapped up at the sound of gunfire behind them, and both ponies glanced back at the battle line.

Muzzle flare and veritable rivers of bright crimson lasfire lit up from the entrenched Iron Warriors, although the larger guns of the tanks remained silent.

Celestia turned away first from the distant standoff, and then her eyes narrowed as she saw three figures approaching. Only one of them was familiar to her: the mercenary Daniels.

Twilight was familiar with all three, although she wasn't especially happy to see them at the moment.

Gaela approached at the head of the trio, armored and robed, although neither her helmet or her hood were up. Dest was behind her, moving much more smoothly and with the hole in his armor patched over. Daniels was behind the two, taking his mask from his belt.

Twilight was about to introduce Gaela and Dest to Princess Celestia when they stepped into earshot, but then stopped as she remembered that they were the subject of a dark power that she was now sworn to oust from the planet.

"Geez, now this is all awkward," the purple alicorn mumbled under her breath.

Daniels didn't feel any such hesitation, pointing out Celestia as they approached. "And that one is their Sovereign, Princess Celestia."

Gaela glanced at the pony ruler precisely long enough to take and label a pict-capture with her optical bionics. "Neat." Her eyes turned back toward the distant battle.

The sound of whirring gears came from her armor as the parts of her helmet slid upward and folded back into place, a quiet hiss marking the pressurization of her suit before her mask optics lit up in its usual green glow.

As she stepped past the two ponies she pulled her hood up, casting the metal shell over her face in shadows. "Rifleman, feel free to join your fellows at the barricade. Lord Dest, if you would accompany me, I have to meet with the assault commander and assist with his tactical briefing.

"No," rumbled the Chaos Marine's voice as he gripped his boltgun, "I will join the barricade. I want to see the xeno filth clearly as they die before me."

Daniels snorted as he pulled his mask down over his face and switched on the tri-optics. "Well, save some targets for the rest of us. They don't pay me to stand around and watch the Iron Warriors do the killing."

And then the warriors were past, trekking toward the carnage at the forest's edge.

Twilight winced badly. "That... probably didn't help your impression of them, did it?"

Celestia sighed. "It is about what I expected. Here, I have something for you."

A pale glow surrounded Celestia's horn, and in a flare of magical light a small wooden chest appeared at Twilight's feet. "Once again I entrust you with the Elements of Harmony, my student. I very much hope you will not need them, but regardless they must not fall into the hands of the humans. Were they to suffer such corruption I fear all of Equestria could not stand against them."

Twilight looked pensive as she glanced at the box, and then over at the line of soldiers and vehicles. She didn't really think Equestria could've stood against the Iron Warriors as it was, regardless of the Elements.

"Farewell, Twilight. If you need further assistance you may contact me at will. Be strong, my faithful student."

And then, in a flare of light, the Princess was gone.

****

Everfree Forest - Tau field camp

*Units 3,4, and 7 head to the East marker. Hunter squads 2 and 3, entrench yourselves by the topmost sentry towers and prepare a kill zone. We're only going to get one shot at this!*

From within a blue-and-black painted Crisis Suit tagged with red rank stripes, the Tau Commander organized his defenses as the collection of hostile power signatures rapidly grew in number at the edge of the sensor net.

The situation wasn't just bad, it was over. He had called in for reinforcements after they had detected an airborne enemy that had escaped their anti-air net, and those extra soldiers had been delivered safely hours ago without difficulty.

He almost wished he hadn't bothered. Now they would probably die too.

The assault force building on the edge of the forest was at least tenfold the size of his own command, and hilariously overgunned in comparison to his defenses. A wrecking ball poised to knock down a tinderbox.

He couldn't really blame the humans for that when he had gone to such lengths to jam their sensors, though. They barely had any idea what they were walking into, and he would at least take advantage of that.

*Shas'ui!* his communicator barked, *the Kroot and advance teams are pinned down at the edge of the engagement zone! Casualties are rising fast! They simply can't hold under that weight of fire!*

The Commander sucked in his breath, the tactical displays of his suit practically bludgeoning him with bad news. *Tell the vanguard to fall back to the kill zone. We'll await the enemy there and destroy them.*

He cut that line of communication in favor of a few new reports stating combat readiness and one reporting on the progress of some Earth Caste technicians escaping through the forest behind the field base. He would have loved to have the rest of his soldiers join them, but it would take the bulk of his forces just to slow down the enemy long enough to allow the technicians' escape, plus the rigging of the base to eliminate any useful data and resources. That would also destroy the primary jamming array that was killing vox transmissions all over the planet, but he didn't have any reasonable chance of preserving it at this point.

The defense plan was simple, and perfectly suited to take advantage of the humans' overwhelming advantage to lead them into a push deep into the forest after the retreating vanguard. There they would be led into numerous overlapping fire zones from hidden Fire Warriors and defensive guns, as well as snare mines to slow the enemy advance and restless Gnarlocs to tear apart walkers. Classic kauyon: the way of the patient hunter.

It wouldn't be enough. The tree cover was too thick for the humans' noisy and cumbersome tanks to make any decent progress, but between the Space Marines, walkers, and sheer numbers they wouldn't need them. This was a last stand, a chance to take a few busloads of enemy soldiers out of action before they were overrun and destroyed.

All for the Greater Good.

A few friendly unit indicators behind the base vanished, and the Commander sucked in a breath through his teeth as the Greater Good took another hit.

*The Earth Caste team is gone! Get me scanner solutions, now!*

Numerous new data readouts appeared in front of him, and he grimaced as he saw a small power signature approaching from the proposed evacuation route. A single Space Marine.

*Damned Imperials and their genetic monstrosities!* the Commander snarled, tagging a small group from his reserves and a battlesuit from his bodyguard retinue to deal with the threat. The defensive guns at the back of the base would probably be enough to deal with the Astartes infiltrator, but he couldn't allow an incursion into the base before charges were set.

****

Ponyville - mustering point around Fluttershy's cottage

Gaela heard the sound of lasgun fire taper off as she approached the cottage, and a brief link-up to the nearest sensor array told her why.

The Tau had launched an offensive on their fortifications, and it had faltered almost immediately. The attacking force had been insultingly small, and nobody was even bothering to call in casualty reports.

Frowning under her mask, she walked toward the collection of Chaos Space Marines and a Dark Techpriest gathered around a tactical hololith.

"And you say that the vox boosters aren't working?"

"Affirmative: the jamming interference in this region seems to be an order of magnitude more intense than that experienced within the base perimeter."

"Then that means we must be close to the source."

"Affirmative: that hypothesis is feasible. Our forces can maintain short-range vox with the assistance of the relays, but we are unable to contact Ferrous Dominus."

"That is acceptable, is it not? We have our orders."

Gaela read the identifier tags as she approached the meeting.

The Marine in charge was evidently Warpsmith Kessler, and his Lieutenant Torrin stood at his side while facing Dark Techpriest Diomen in their discussion of the tactical situation. A fairly normal arrangement for an assault force, and all of them were well experienced.

The fact that they were surrounded by woodland animals detracted considerably from the grim dignity of the meeting. Deer grazed leisurely behind the Chaos Marines, cats stared up in fascination at the Warpsmith's slithering mechatendrils, and a pair of doves were cuddling together on top of Torrin's servo arm. The modified humans all seemed visibly uncomfortable at the proximity and total lack of fear from the wild animals, but none of them wanted to tacitly admit such a thing by shooing away or lashing out at the harmless beasts.

Gaela stepped up to the hololith, waiting to be acknowledged as she rested her power axe against the ground.

"Identification: Acolyte Gaela. Do you have something to contribute to this meeting?" Diomen asked, the Techpriest being the first to address her.

"Perhaps, Techpriest Diomen. May I ask if you've decided on a strategy?" Gaela asked.

Torrin snorted at the presumption that she would ask for a tactical update, but Kessler was more amenable. "Nothing complicated. A straight push after the retreating vanguard back to their base. Human infantry center with Dreadnought support, Astartes on the flanks. Quick advance to cut down the runners," the Warpsmith mused, his bionic hand tracing lines in the flickering hololith of the forest.

"If so, then we should give the order NOW," Torrin insisted.

"I have an alternative, if it pleases my lord," Gaela said.

The Warpsmith paused to swat at one of his mechatendrils that was starting a hissing match with a snake. "Speak, Acolyte."

"Judging from how quick they were to retreat, the Tau offense did little but confirm their presence and cause extra casualties, which was an absurd tactical choice given that they must have realized how badly they were outmatched. I believe the vanguard is acting as bait. It's a common Tau tactic. When backed into a corner, they make that corner a graveyard."

"Ah, kauyon, is it? Mmm," the Warpsmith leaned in to the hololith, drawing new lines for the units, "good point. Move the Gorgons around the north and south perimeters and disembark, before moving the platoons into the forest. Our brother Astartes will advance in a line joining the two advancing columns behind them, with Dreadnoughts in support. The Thunderhawks will run a wide circle behind the engagement zone and deploy the land raiders to cut off any retreat."

Torrin grunted. "An advance that slow will allow the enemy time to flee or sabotage the base."

Kessler nodded. "True, but we have as long as we like to crush the xenos and the resources to chase them all over this world. I'd rather inform the Warsmith of the enemy's escape than of our disproportionate casualties. You know how he gets about unnecessary losses."

Torrin made an indecipherable grumbling noise behind his vox grill. Every Astartes knew of Solon's prattling lectures about meaningless waste and inefficiency. The Dark Mechanicus appreciated such an attitude (to say nothing of the mortals serving the Company's forces), but the other Iron Warriors found the Warsmith's rants tiresome.

"Scanners and vox signals are too patchy for reliable artillery targeting. All units are advised to deploy targeting beacons to call for strikes. Have Chimeras bring up the rear with heavy weapon teams and Mechanicus support, at least as far as they can manage in this terrain."

"Addendum: all forces should be advised that live prisoners are appreciated. Additional labor and subjects for interrogation will aid our long-term mission objectives," Diomen droned.

"Agreed. Torrin, relay the orders and keep a large reserve," Kessler demanded, hoisting his power axe, "I will join one of the flanking forces personally."

"Of course. We march to slay the xeno," Torrin rumbled, kicking off a squirrel that was resting on the toe of his boot, "Iron within. Iron without."

"IRON WITHIN. IRON WITHOUT."

Patient Hunter, Meet Killing Blow

Iron Hearts

Chapter 8

Patient Hunter, Meet Killing Blow

****

Everfree Forest - just outside Tau field base defense perimeter

"That was brutal and unnecessary," Fluttershy pointed out meekly.

"And fun!" Tellis announced, hoisting his arms into the air and splashing fresh blood all around him.

Tau Fire Warriors and Earth Caste engineers, or rather the dismembered parts of those individuals, littered the area in a long streak of carnage. Weapons, equipment, and data readers had been scattered long and wide along with body parts, some of which would have been of definite interest to literally any other Iron Warrior other than Tellis.

But Tellis was, unfortunately, Tellis.

"Well, I'm bored now. Next target?" The Chaos Space Marine started scanning the surroundings, searching for any hint of other aliens.

His helmet notified him that there were incoming vox signals on a Company-wide spectrum. Probably combat orders.

Tellis deactivated his vox receiver. He was too busy killing things to listen to tacticians prattle on about HOW and WHERE he should be killing things. And with all the jamming it probably would have been incomprehensible anyway, so he even had an excuse ready!

The sound of a burst cannon discharging attracted his attention, although he immediately noted that the sound was from far enough away that he couldn't see the source.

"Whoa! Hey, watch it jerks!" came Rainbow Dash's voice from about the same area.

Several seconds later, the blue pegasus came swerving around the trees, halting in front of the Raptor Lord and hovering in place.

"Hey, we've got some kind of machine planted over that way! It started shooting at me the moment it saw me!" she pointed a hoof toward the trees.

"Ah. Fixed defenses. We must be getting close to the base," Tellis mumbled, "this might require some teamwork."

Fluttershy squeaked. "D-Does that mean I have to fight too?"

"No, I see you as more of a 'diversion'," Tellis explained, "like, remember how you stalled that Kroot that one time and then I stepped on its head? Hilarious!"

"Eh, she's not really good with plans," Rainbow murmured, "if you need someone to draw their attention, I'm your mare! They'll never catch me!"

"This all sounds really dangerous," Fluttershy pointed out weakly, "and I really feel like we've done more than enough to protect my animals from these creatures. I think we'd be better off if we went back home."

Tellis tapped a knuckle against the chin of his vox grille. "You're right, actually."

The trio stood in silence for several seconds, and Fluttershy cracked a desperate, hopeful smile.

"Well, those turrets aren't going to dismantle themselves," the Raptor Lord finally said, clashing his claws together with a loud, crackling energy discharge, "you cut an arc around them, Rainbabe. Then I'll break from cover and carve them open. Shyfly, you continue acting as our conscience and sense of restraint while we ignore you."

"Got it! I'm off!" Rainbow Dash shouted, eager to take the lead again.

"Okay," Fluttershy said sadly, trying to focus her gaze on those parts of the immediate area not marred by gore.

Rainbow Dash whooped noisily as she zoomed through the air, a stream of wild blue energy flares trailing behind her.

The Tau defense turrets, a pair of man-sized cylinders with rounded tops that each boasted a twin-linked burst cannon, struggled to track the pegasus as they turned at maximum speed. Their rotary guns ran hot as they sprayed a rain of plasma bolts into the trees, always several feet behind their agile target.

Tellis blasted from the brush as the turrets reached the far side of their targeting arcs. The turret sensors marked him as a priority target immediately, but the guns were facing the wrong way.

They were still facing the wrong way when Tellis landed next to the nearest turret and stabbed one set of claws into the side. Then he ran in a full circle around the emplacement, lightning claws shrieking as they were dragged through the armor plating. Once he reached the spot where he began he yanked his blades out, and the top half of the gun turret tumbled over.

Tellis grabbed it before it hit the ground, holding it up as a shield as the other turret opened fire. Flares of blue pounded against the dead emplacement, making little headway in harming the Chaos Space Marine behind it.

A few second later, Tellis was within arm's reach of the other turret. That close to it, evading its firing arc was a matter of ducking or walking around it.

Instead, Tellis decided to smash its gun mount using the other gun mount as a bludgeon. Because it was funnier that way.

"Hah hah! Dash, you seeing this? This is hilarious!" Tellis raised the half-turret up and brought it down again and again, hammering the burst cannons into so much scrap.

After several seconds of this, the Raptor Lord tossed away the dead hulk of metal, having lost interest. Destroying robots and machines, while always fun, was just never the same as killing living, breathing people. Probably because of the whole Blood God thing.

"Hey, Tellis!" Another shout from the Raptor's favorite pony came from further into the forest, beyond this defense line. "There's one of those battlesuits over here!"

Tellis let out a sigh of contentment as his flight pack let out a tongue of flame. "That's my pony!"

*Get off me, you blasted overgrown bird!*

The Crisis Suit barked noisily as it flailed its arms around, trying to knock off the pegasus that was clinging to the back of its head. The battlesuit's arms couldn't reach back that far, though; the arms of the bulky suit existed to hold and aim weapons, and no engineer would think that the combat suit needed to aim at such an awkward angle.

The Fire Warriors escorting the battlesuit moved to help, but their blood chilled as they heard the roar of a flight pack activating nearby.

"Iron within, become the iron without!" Tellis screamed, landing feet-to-face on one of the Fire Warriors and breaking him instantly. An initial sweep of his arms cut down two more, and a quarter of the squad was dead before they had even turned to see their killer. "Blood for the Blood God!"

The Crisis Suit stopped flailing and aimed its plasma rifle, stepping back as it tried to get a clear shot among the carnage of its fellows.

It was hindered significantly when a pair of blue hooves covered the "face" of the suit, which of course held the targeting arrays and sensors.

"Guess who, chump!"

The Crisis Suit released an electronic growl from its transmitters and then levered a poly-ceramic fist into its head. Which, of course, ended with the battlesuit slugging itself in the optics as Rainbow Dash hopped away and into the air.

The Crisis Suit staggered backward as bits of broken metal and sparking circuitry spilled from its sensor head, trying to get its bearings.

It didn't succeed before Tellis rammed his lightning claws through its torso plating.

"Stabby, stabby, stabbity stab-stab!" Tellis cheered as he thrust his blades again and again into the battlesuit.

The suit quickly went dark, and Tellis only punched a dozen more holes into the combat armor before drawing his claws out, the tips sizzling with fresh blood as it was cooked by the destructive energy field.

The Raptor Lord stared down briefly at his most recent kill, and then up at Rainbow Dash who was hovering over him.

"You know, for someone who's naked and unarmed, you're getting pretty good at this combat thing," the Chaos Marine noted approvingly.

Rainbow scoffed. "Please. I'm good at everything!" Then the pegasus turned around in the air, holding a foreleg up above her eyes as if she had any sunlight to shade against.

"Okay, I think I see some buildings up ahead. They'd be black with blue detail, like the armor, right?"

"Sure, I guess," Tellis said with a shrug, his flight pack hissing fumes. "Let's go! Skulls, skulls, skulls!"

****

Everfree Forest - center advance line

Dest walked through the forest at a leisurely pace, his boltgun at his side.

The crack of mass lasgun fire could be heard all around him through the gloomy woods, along with the shouting of men and the occasional staccato of a heavy bolter firing, but the violence was all out of sight, taking place on the flanks of the advance.

It was an unusual combat for the Iron Warrior, to say the least. Never mind that Dest was a driver, but ordinarily a war zone with Iron Warriors on the field was rupturing with artillery strikes and utterly dominated by streams of heavy weapons fire. This was quite serene in comparison.

He turned his head as three Pathfinders fled into his field of fire from around a tree, their heads down and their recon armor peppered with lasburns.

His bolter was up in an instant, and the first two Tau were cut down by an almost casual burst of mass-reactive rounds. The third one stumbled in shock at seeing its companions die so suddenly, and it froze as it realized that it was now trapped.

Dest accelerated forward, dropping his aim. This Tau looked like a sniper; apparently it had been flushed from its hiding place by the flanking forces before it had even realized there were more guns advancing on it.

The Chaos Marine smacked the sniper rifle out of the alien's hand before it had time to so much as fire a round in panic, and then he seized the hapless alien by the arm as it turned to run.

"Got a prisoner," Dest said conversationally, ramming a knee into his catch - lightly, of course - to knock the wind out of the Pathfinder before he tossed it back behind him.

"Gotcha, my lord," Daniels barked, jumping on the alien soldier and holding it down to restrain it.

Dest moved over to take cover behind a tree, slightly more cautious now that he knew they were coming up on sniper nests. "Have I asked yet why you're advancing with me rather than running with the other mortals?"

"No, my lord. You didn't seem interested until just now," Daniels explained as he kicked the Pathfinder and then stripped its helmet off, "huh. Female, eh?"

The mercenary started binding the Tau as a few other Space Marines reached them from behind, moving from tree to tree.

"I just thought that now that we have a history of service together that you might appreciate some familiar company," the mercenary said with a grin. He finishing binding the alien and left her squirming on the ground behind him. She'd be picked up by the reserves advancing behind them.

Dest started climbing up an incline, his boltgun searching for targets. "I can never tell when you're joking or not."

"That's an easy one, Lord. If you're in the mood for jokes, I was joking. If not, I wasn't," Daniels said as he ran up to the next tree, checking either side for fleeing enemies or ambushers.

The real reason he was there, of course, was because he'd rather have Space Marines in front of him than behind him while part of an advance. But said Space Marines were unlikely to appreciate such tactical nuance, so he kept it to himself.

As Dest reached the top of the incline, they heard an angry roar that nearly shook the ground.

"Greater Gnarloc breaking through," the Rhino driver said, switching his vox to a proximity channel as he took a few shots at Kroot who were advancing around the assault beast. The beast and its escort were still a good distance away, and already buffeted from heavy bolter fire, but it was still a formidable threat.

"This is just like old times, eh?" Daniels mumbled, firing his lasgun at the Kroot riding atop the firing platform and forcing them down.

Dest would have argued the point, given that there were numerous other Iron Warriors about and that several were actually equipped to put down a threat like an assault beast. Any further conversation was lost, however, in the heavy gait of a Dreadnought stomping up the incline behind them, its plasma cannon whining as it built up charge.

Dest froze, fixing his gaze on the Greater Gnarloc before the Dreadnought fired its shot, unleashing a miniature sun into the creature's throat.

The Gnarloc screamed in agony as the plasma discharge tore it apart, nearly dissolving the beast's neck entirely and cooking its chest cavity.

It wobbled pitifully for a few seconds and then collapsed onto its side, smoke spewing from the wound while the Dreadnought's electronic voice laughed at the sight.

Dest finally moved again, stepping over to Daniels as his brothers continued to advance around them.

"I got a great pict-capture of the plasma cannon hitting the Gnarloc," the Astartes explained, "precise moment of impact. It's beautiful."

"Nice! AJ'll like that!" Daniels laughed.

****

Everfree Forest - Tau field base

Tellis stared critically at a boxy object lying at his feet, his visor working to identify the xeno device within through the layers of shielding and scanner-befuddling materials.

He was also smashing a Fire Warrior's head into a power station over and over as it shouted and screamed at him. But the box held the majority of the Raptor's attention.

Rainbow Dash hovered above him, on the lookout for enemies or anything else of interest. The Chaos Marine had already carved a vicious swath through the aliens that had been left at the base, and there hadn't even been very many.

The base itself was kind of a let-down, from Rainbow's perspective. She had been expecting a huge alien structure, like maybe a ziggurat or a pyramid hidden deep within the shadows of the forest. Instead the camp mostly looked like, well, a camp. Maybe a futuristic space-man camp, but most of the buildings were some kind of yurts that were obviously temporary, even if they were made of material Rainbow had never seen or heard of before. On one side of the base were tents that seemed to be made of skinned hides and scavenged wood. These enclosures were decorated with bones and bladed weapons rather than crates and guns, so even Rainbow could guess that they belong to the more primitive Kroot that assisted the Tau in their mission.

Aside from a few glowing, cylinder-shaped towers that were just shorter than the treetops, the only structure of an obviously advanced nature was a wide, short one in the middle. It had a larger footprint than Applejack's barn, and there were lots of fins and antennae sticking out of it.

The cracking of a helmet announced that Tellis's latest victim had finally broken under the Marine's twisted attentions.

"Hey, I think this is some kind of bomb," Tellis finally said, "looks like the grayskins were going to rig this place to blow before we showed up."

Rainbow Dash turned around to give the Raptor Lord a look. "Why would they blow up their own stuff?"

"So that we don't get to have the fun of doing it ourselves," Tellis growled, tossing the corpse in his hand aside, "the xeno bastards!"

"Rainbow! Rainbow Dash, come quick!"

The blue pegasus was quite surprised to hear Fluttershy calling for her, and she whirled around to see her meek friend poking her head out from behind one of the munitions crates.

"Fluttershy, there you are! I was wondering where you went!" Rainbow said, hovering over to her.

"W-Well, I was looking for a place to hide when all that screaming started, and..." Fluttershy looked pensive as she glanced back behind her. "Well, please, follow me!"

Rainbow Dash did so, finally landing as Fluttershy led her toward one of the larger yurts.

"So, um, I was searching the buildings to see if there were any animals that had been trapped here by those Kroot people," Fluttershy explained.

"Heh, that does sound like something you'd do," Rainbow reasoned, "and you found one?"

"Well, kind of," Fluttershy admitted, pushing past the flaps that served as the yurt entrance.

Rainbow Dash followed, and her eyes bugged out when she found who was inside. "Zecora?!"

The zebra was lying down at the back of the structure, trapped within a fairly large cage attached to a thick power cable that ran outside through the wall. There was a trough on one side of the cage full of greens and a bowl of water, making it clear that the enclosure was normally used to hold beasts rather than prisoners.

"Ah, Rainbow Dash, I welcome you. I knew Fluttershy's efforts would pull through," the zebra said. She didn't look especially troubled, although she was clearly happy to see the pegasi.

"What happened? Since when do these Tau jerks take pony prisoners?" Rainbow Dash had been arguably the most aggressive pony in attacking the aliens so far, and the soldiers still tended to react with confusion rather than gunfire when she assaulted them.

Zecora stood up with a sigh. "Five moons ago, my home was attacked, and any defense or call for assistance I lacked. Those Kroot, the tall, ferocious sort, have prowled the forest for meat and sport. They took me back here from one such outing, and happened near some other aliens scouting. When they heard my angry calls, they took me away to these hardened walls. A few of them spoke our language, I found, and that saved me from death, but not impound."

Rainbow Dash felt like there was something strange about that story, but it was hard to focus on the details of Zecora's rhyming. Besides, she was observing the cage closely for any apparent lock or lever to open it.

"Be careful not to get too close; the bars shock with lightning in ample dose," Zecora warned while Rainbow and Fluttershy studied the cage, "and now that you have heard my woes, I am wondering how your story goes. This place was full of enemies last I was aware. Have they left me behind, without guards to spare?"

"Well, did you hear any screaming or gunfire just now?" Rainbow Dash asked, having failed to find any sort of apparent door to the cage.

"I did hear some sort of ruckus outside, but in my current state I could do little but bide," Zecora explained.

"Well, uhm, that was just a new... uh... friend of ours," Fluttershy said awkwardly.

Zecora raised an eyebrow. "A friend of yours was the one screaming? Or am I confused about your meaning?"

"It's a long story, but in a nutshell: you don't have to worry about the aliens around here for much longer," Rainbow said, stepping back, "and maybe he can do something about this cage too, because I can't figure it out. HEY! TELLIS! C'MERE!"

A few seconds later the Raptor Lord walked through the door flap, and Zecora recoiled at seeing the blood-splattered Chaos Space Marine.

"Wassup, R-dawg?" Tellis asked. He was holding a Fire Warrior's helmet in one hand, and it was dripping blood on the ground behind him as he approached the cage. None of the ponies could tell at a glance if there was a head still inside the leaking piece of armor, and none of them were willing to observe it more closely.

"Oh, hey, another pony! Cool! What's your deal?" Tellis asked, staring down at Zecora through lenses of blazing crimson.

Zecora glanced over at Rainbow Dash, who smiled back at her reassuringly.

"I'm not sure to what, exactly, you refer, but I suppose in this case I must defer. Your name is Tellis, so I'm led to believe. Mine is Zecora, and I wish to leave."

Tellis stared for a moment longer, and the bloody helmet slipped from his hand to bounce away over the ground.

"Please tell me she does that all the time," Tellis said.

"ALL the time," Rainbow confirmed while Fluttershy nodded timidly.

"You guys are the best xenos ever," Tellis said brightly.

The zebra frowned up at the Khornate Raptor. "Your sentiment is well-received, but as of now I'm quite aggrieved. This cage is harmful to the touch, and I'd like to be free of it, thank you much."

Tellis stared at the bars silently, and scanning markers appeared on his heads-up display.

"I can't see hinges anywhere. How did they get you inside?" Fluttershy asked.

"On that matter, I'm not entirely sure. I wasn't paying much attention, as it were," Zecora admitted, glaring at the cell around her, "the tools of these Tau are very complex. I'd much rather face magic than deal with these 'techs'."

Rainbow Dash looked up at Tellis. "What do you think? Can you get her out?"

Tellis nodded. "Well, according to my scanners, words words words words words."

Then Tellis surged forward, seizing the bars of the cage with his hands. Almost immediately, thick ribbons of electricity started lashing out over his gauntlets, burning long scars of black across his arms and cooking the blood that had stuck to them.

Zecora recoiled in horror as sparks sprayed over her enclosure, shielding herself and getting as far back as she could without touching the similarly electrified rear bars.

"Hrrrrgh! HAH!" With a harsh cracking noise, Tellis broke the bars off of their mountings, and then threw the conductive nano-tube rails to the side.

"Whoa! Are you okay?" Rainbow asked, tapping the Raptor Lord on the leg with a hoof.

"Oh, sure. That level of current is just meant to stun and inflict pain on the captive, not kill them," Tellis explained even as smoke still rose from his gauntlets, "I barely felt it."

Fluttershy beckoned Zecora forward, noting that the zebra was still crouched near the corner of the cage despite the new opening in her prison.

"It's okay," Fluttershy said gently, "I know Mister Terrifying Murderer is very violent and objectively an awful, horrible person, but Rainbow Dash is doing a very good job of keeping him from harming us."

Zecora slowly crept toward the hole, her eyes fixed on the Astartes. "I realize our plight isn't for the meek, but are you certain we can trust this freak?"

"Zecora! Watch it! He's right here!" Rainbow Dash chided the zebra.

"Hey, as long as she does it in rhyme, she can call me whatever she wants," Tellis said with a chuckle.

Zecora grimaced as she finally crossed the threshold to freedom. "I am not greatly enthused that you are so easily amused. You stink of death, hatred and war. And I know full well what those claws are for."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, everypony wants to get on his case for liking his job too much. But it's thanks to him that we even made it here in one piece! Do you think we would have had a chance on our own? Or that the aliens would have let you go if they were still around to get a say?"

"I know that the possibility was slim. Even so, I'd rather not thank him. Foes of Equestria the Tau certainly are, but to kill them en masse? I'd not go that far!"

Tellis shrugged his shoulder pads, completely undisturbed by the criticism. "Well, you can't please everyone. With murder, I mean. I've heard that sometimes you can please everyone without murder, but that's really not my department."

Rainbow Dash growled lightly, annoyed that Tellis was getting brushed off so easily. Hadn't he risked the most by doing all the fighting? And hadn't it worked? "Whatever. Let's just get out of here."

"I broke the anti-air system, so we can take off over the treetops whenever you guys want," Tellis said, following her toward the yurt's entrance flap.

He pushed it aside for both of them, and then Astartes and pony both paused in surprise at seeing several Fire Warriors and Kroot fighters sprinting by, moving in a mad dash toward the part of the base where they had entered.

"That's weird. Did you miss a few?" Rainbow asked, craning her head up to look at the Iron Warrior.

"I don't think so... hold on."

Tellis could see several more Tau soldiers fleeing in panic, these ones at a slower pace due to exhaustion, injury, or sheer bad luck.

Moving in a reddish blur, he leapt at one who was limping along, punching one set of lightning claws into the front of the Fire Warrior's chest plate and killing him in an instant.

"Ah, I get it," Tellis said, holding the dead alien up into the air as blood ran down his arm, "see those injuries on his leg? That's bolter shrapnel. Apparently my Company is making an assault, and these cowards are fleeing from the front lines."

"So that means it's over, right?" Fluttershy asked hopefully, peeking out of the prison yurt with Zecora at her side. "We can leave and nopony else has to die?"

Tellis was silent for a second, staring at the corpse hanging off his fist. "I don't know... Somehow this seems a little... anticlimactic. Like, shouldn't there be at least ONE moderately challenging battle while attacking an enemy base? Even if we did take them by surprise while most of the army was gone?"

The sound of a plasma rifle discharging reached Tellis a moment before the plasma did, and the Raptor Lord turned just in time for the high-energy bolts to burn into the fleshy body still impaled on his claws.

"Hell-OH dramatic closure!" the Raptor sang, his wings spreading in preparation for another fight.

"Gue'la scum! Your cruel and meaningless predations end today!" the Tau commander snarled in Gothic, his missile pods rising into firing position. He had been covering the general retreat of his forces until he realized that the base hadn't been sabotaged yet, and had returned to see his rearguard butchered.

"Oh, hey! You speak Gothic! Awesome!" Tellis screeched, bursting into the air on a jet of flame as the missile warheads rained down where he had stood. "That makes the combat banter way more fun! I mean, I make do yelling at your subordinates while cutting them down like wheat, but I've been wanting to fight someone again who can actually appreciate how funny I am while I kill them!"

The Tau Commander's battlesuit activated its jet pack, taking to the air as targeting reticules struggled to follow Tellis through the air.

The Raptor was fast, far faster than even a skilled Astartes with a jump pack should have been, but with the thick tree cover being speedy in the air wasn't as useful as it was with open sky. Bursts of plasma and large mini-missile spreads followed the Chaos Space Marine across the length of the base, collapsing tents and blowing open supply crates as he curved and rolled to evade fire.

"Hey, Rainbow? Leave this one to me, okay?" Tellis shouted as he landed behind the central jamming array and ducked behind a field emitter. "You've been a great help so far, but we have this thing about fighting enemy leaders on our own. It's more epic that way."

"Okay, sure!" Rainbow called, standing behind a stack of crates with Fluttershy and Zecora while she watched the Tau flee through the base.

"You'll regret your arrogance, you twisted fool!" growled the Tau commander as he circled wide around Tellis to get a shot past the jamming array. The Space Marine had no ranged weapons - the savage - so as long as he kept enough firepower in front of the possible charging vectors victory was certain.

That was the idea, anyway. As one of the jammer's sensor fins was ripped off and then hurled at him, he was forced to reconsider his tactical assumption.

"Guh!" the Commander shook inside his battlesuit as the sensor fin - easily as large as his suit if not as massive - broke over him, knocking him senseless and throwing him back through the air.

That disturbed his weapons' angles for the moment that Tellis needed. The Raptor Lord made a long leap over the battlesuit, his flight pack and vox screaming in joyous tandem as they rapidly closed with the foe.

Rather than smashing into the Commander, however, Tellis overshot slightly, swiping his claws down as he descended behind the Tau's back.

The Commander tried to turn, but he soon realized that his opponent had just sliced open his jet pack, and his movement through the air started to go out of control as large sections of his damage readouts turned red.

Killing his fuel line, and with his back still facing the enemy, the Commander landed heavily, the thick joints of the battlesuit's legs squeaking from the impact.

There was a dull thud from behind as something hit him in the back, although no fresh damage warnings appeared.

The battlesuit swung a clumsy backhand behind it as it turned around, and Tellis jumped back from the attack with contemptuous ease, gunning his flight pack to float backward over the ground. The Tau Commander was confused as to why his opponent seemed to be breaking from melee range, but barely hesitated before firing another burst from his plasma rifle.

Tellis was chased by the screaming green pulses behind a power station, the energy flares sizzling fiercely as they hit the station's outer casing and burnt through to the core. Tau power generation being inherently stable, however, the station didn't explode, which Tellis honestly had mixed feelings about.

"What's the matter, gue'la? Where's all your bluster and hate now?!" the Commander growled, his auto-loaders preparing another salvo of missiles. There seemed to be a new scanner warning on his readout display, but he ignored it, his attention focused entirely on the enemy.

"Yeah, about that: I changed my mind. I'm done," Tellis explained, sighing as he stretched his arms in an impression of a yawn.

"... What?" that made no sense to the Commander. The humans never stopped until their foes were dead, never showed any pity or remorse, and had an absolutely fanatical hatred of other species.

"Yeah, I was totally giving you too much credit earlier. You're nothing special. Not really worth my time," Tellis went on to say, making a short combat jump over to the stacks of crates where the ponies were huddled, "I've already gutted enough hapless losers for the Blood God today, so I thought of a more creative way to kill you." Tellis could hear the crack of bolter and lasgun fire more clearly now, and the occasional explosion from a defense gun blowing up. The main force was almost here.

The Commander took a step forward, enraged by the enemy's apathy, and then he paused as he recalled the scanner warning from earlier. Looking over the alert, now that he apparently didn't have to worry about being speared through the face while doing so, it seemed as if there was a radio signal pulsing close by, strong enough to be unaffected by the jamming field, yet simple enough that it couldn't be transmitting complex communications.

Actually, was VERY close by.

In fact, it seemed to be coming from his battlesuit.

Rainbow Dash snickered as she watched the heavily armored Tau look around in confusion, unaware of the brightly glowing cylinder wedged into its ruined jet pack. She didn't know what it was, but the sight was funny enough even without comprehension.

Tellis retracted his lightning claws, stepping up to Zecora. "Now boarding flight T, direct service to Ponyville!"

Zecora grimaced, stepping back. "Although this place may be full of danger, I'll be better off on the ground, I'd wager. Please go ahead; I'll make do. I'm not sure those wings of yours can carry two."

"While I'm fine with that, in the interest of full disclosure I must inform you that I just called in a mass artillery strike on this base," Tellis mentioned, "in a few seconds this whole area is going to be a blanket of thunder and flame."

Zecora's eye twitched, but she reluctantly stepped closer to the Raptor Lord as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy took to the air. "You are a bad man, and this is a bad plan."

"I know, Zecora. I know," Tellis said as he reached under the zebra and hoisted her up into his arms.

****

Ponyville

"So you've never considered getting married? Really?"

"Eh, it just isn't for me. Maybe it's the commitment, maybe it's the 'settling down' idea, but I've never wanted to give up the rough military life for the peaceful kind."

The Basilisk loader paused to take a bite of wedding cake. He was leaning on the side of the artillery tank, chatting with the bride's mother as most of the other ponies danced to slow music and the flower fillies decorated a Chimera armored transport parked next to the altar with blossoms and ribbons.

"Oh, I'm sure you just haven't found the right girl yet," the mare countered, "you look healthy enough for one of your kind. I guess."

"That could be true," the soldier admitted around another mouthful of cake, "there aren't many women in the Company, and most of them that are available are in the Mechanicus. Bleagh."

"Hey! Niles! Jericho!" a voice barked as the driver of their artillery tank opened up the main hatch and poked his head out. "Back to your posts! We've got a beacon lock!"

"What? Now?" the gun engineer complained as he put down his cup of punch. "The advance has got to have this all pretty much wrapped up by now!"

"Doesn't matter! We've got a target and we've got ordnance! Now get to work sending one to the other!" The other Basilisk tanks in the artillery squadron were already cranking their guns up into firing position to send the first volley of shells skyward.

"'Scuse me, love. Gotta go blow something up," the loader said as he climbed up the side of his tank while putting his helmet back on, "you might want to cover your ears. Things are about to get loud."

****

Ponyville outskirts - Iron Warriors muster point

Gaela hummed to herself as she watched the formations of green shapes slowly crawl along the strategic hololith in a long arc, like a trawling net creeping along the sea floor.

And what a catch they had.

Red marks would frequently flicker into existence in front of the advance as scanners would detect enemy units and relay their location, only to flicker away in an instant. The friendly markers would flicker and fade too, for that matter, given the constant jamming interference and usual haze of warfare, but they almost always came back in a few seconds.

The red markers did not come back.

+Reported casualty count is well within tolerable parameters. You did well to advise Lord Kessler on the Tau's tactical options,+ buzzed Techpriest Diomen, his numerous augmetic arms folded up behind his back. He spoke more casually outside the presence of superior officers, omitting many of the additional designators common in Binaric Cant.

+It wasn't difficult. The Tau's commanding officer didn't make a very convincing feint,+ Gaela explained, +if all the Iron Warriors were as sensitive to casualties as Warsmith Solon, I'm sure they would have arrived at such a conclusion on their own.+

+If all the Iron Warriors were as sensitive to casualties as the Warsmith, we would quit the pursuit of piracy altogether and take to harvesting scrap and mining asteroid fields for resources.+

Gaela looked up from the tactical display. +Why, Dark Techpriest, that almost sounds like a criticism of our mighty leader.+

A chittering hum came from the Techpriest's vocal emitters. +It matters not to me where our materials originate, and we who support the Astartes are always appreciative of a master who does not neglect his tools,+ Diomen said, +but his... unusual command style grates on his brothers. You know this, even if you're still quite young. He was born to be Mechanicus, not Astartes.+

Gaela snorted, deciding to turn the discussion back toward the battle. +I was surprised to see that Lord Sliver wasn't leading the assault. Is this to prevent contamination of the native villages?+

Diomen looked up at her, his glittering green optics whirling. +What?+

+If Lord Sliver were to take to the field, with or without his coterie, there would have been a chance of a plague outbreak among the native xenos,+ Gaela explained.

+Yes, of course. I am aware of that,+ the Techpriest said, +I am confused as to why you would hypothesize that it occurred to the Warsmith, or that it would be a matter of such priority as to affect his selection of commanders.+

After a few seconds of thought, Gaela realized that he was right. Solon had instructed his troops not to attack the ponies, but that didn't imply that he held the ponies' lives as having any sort of importance. If it would have benefited them in any way to massacre the implausibly innocent creatures then he would have ordered it done, and regardless the Warsmith certainly wouldn't go out of his way to protect them.

Why had it occurred to her that he might?

+In any case, I believe Warsmith Solon's choice of assault commander was... political,+ Diomen mused, +since Lord Sliver is charged with the defense of Ferrous Dominus, he may have proposed waiting until the fortifications were complete before committing our defending troops to an assault. The Warsmith wished to begin the assault at once to collect as much data as possible.+

Gaela sighed under her mask. She had never thought of Solon as a weak leader, as so many others in the Company did, but it was hard to defend his decisions to cut his commanders out of the loop rather than argue with or override them.

+Hmm? Odd. An artillery beacon has been lit,+ Diomen buzzed, tilting his head as a blue marker appeared.

Gaela was about to ask why that was odd, but figured it out almost immediately: the beacon was deep in the forest, far ahead of the advancing lines.

+Did one of the armored fist platoons run off on their own?+ Gaela asked, leaning in to check the positions of the nearest transports.

+Negative. The beacon is signaling a purgatus-spread bombardment. It requires a ranking Iron Warrior officer to call in that level of firepower.+

Gaela nodded, confirming Diomen's instructional. The only issue with that assumption was that all the Iron Warrior commanders were clearly visible on her hololith display, advancing with their units in proper formation. So where did this new Iron Warrior come from, then? What Chaos Space Marine of high rank was wandering around, completely disconnected from the assault?

That the answer came to her so quickly only made it more annoying. "Tellis..."

The distant thunder of artillery batteries and the roar of heavy ballistic rockets covered the unpleasant things she was muttering under her breath, and soon the whistle of outgoing ordnance met her autosenses as the explosives sailed over their heads.

+How strange,+ Diomen said, his optics focused on the beacon marker, +the beacon seems to be moving.+

Then the artillery hit, sending crashing echoes throughout the Everfree Forest as the munitions fell like dozens of clustered thunderbolts.

+Ah. Looks like it stopped moving.+

Gaela was too far from the impact point to feel or hear the barrage as anything but a distant hammer blow, but the kind of spread that had been launched over their heads was enough to cover almost a square kilometer of ground.

The damage wasn't captured by the data being fed to the hololith, as they didn't have scanner range on whatever the artillery was hitting, but the blow was hard enough that their data feeds felt it nonetheless. A shock wave of electrostatic interference blew into the advancing line, causing each one of them to flicker out of contact for a few seconds before blinking back, stronger than before.

Much stronger than before, actually.

+Curious. Signal integrity is rising. Electromagnetic interference has dropped considerably and is approaching zero,+ buzzed Diomen, a few subtle shifts in his Binaric Cant suggesting joy.

+Did we... Did we just knock out their primary jamming array?+ Gaela asked, planting her hands on the edge of the hololith emitter.

The indicators were standing strong now, without any flickering, and the scanners attached to the squads and transports were now quickly expanding their effective range. Gaela could see that the enemy was in full retreat, only barely pulling back faster than the Company could advance on them.

Techpriest Diomen looked up at her. +Preliminary analysis would suggest that Lord Tellis is in fact most responsible for the destruction of the array, Acolyte Gaela.+

+Incidental, I'm sure,+ she muttered back as she watched a friendly unit register on the anti-air scanners as it soared over the tree cover, +unless you mean to hypothesize that our Lord Tellis actually went out of his way to strike a crucial tactical blow against the enemy to assist our advance rather than charging in like a lunatic.+

+One possibility does not necessarily exclude the other,+ Diomen noted, +then again, I'm an optimist. Oh! We have orbital vox again. Establishing contact with the Harvest of Steel...+

As the Dark Techpriest started speaking to the flagship to transmit necessary data, Gaela tapped into the vox traffic.

The battle was largely over, the push a crushing success, but then as she looked over some of the field data she had to figure the enemy never stood any kind of chance. Judging by the number of confirmed kills, even allowing for an expanded margin of error, they could have wrapped up the assault just as well with half as many troops.

Even without Tellis somehow sneaking in behind enemy lines and accomplishing a primary object all on his own. She really wasn't sure how that had happened.

+Hmmm... we're getting some... ODD vox traffic,+ Gaela mumbled.

Techpriest Diomen looked up. +Oh? More interference?+

+No, nothing like that. It's the contents that are odd,+ Gaela admitted, switching on the audio transmitter on the tactical unit.

"Manticore! MANTICORE! Fire now! Everything you've got!"

"This is Manticore unit 2, Lambda Squad. Do you have a beacon for us?"

"No, the target is a manticore! Shoot it!"

"Lambda Squad, this is platoon command; confirm presence of Imperial armor in combat zone."

"No, that's not what I-ugh! Never mind. It's dead already."

"Chimera on the right! Heavy bolter fire on its flank, now! First rank, fire, second rank, fire!"

"Diamond Squad, hold your fire! The nearest Chimera transport should be-"

"IT'S NOT THAT KIND OF CHIMERA!"

Diomen turned off the vox link.

+Talking psyker horses, ancient mythical beasts, and a technological pattern of distinctly human civilization almost forty thousand years old.+ He looked up at Gaela. +This is a very strange planet.+

+I almost feel like we should be thanking the Tau,+ Gaela muttered darkly, +if there wasn't a war to make things more familiar, I might have been driven mad by now.+

****

Ponyville - just outside Iron Warriors muster point

Twilight stared out at the line of soldiers still barricaded around Fluttershy's cottage. The human soldiers were cheering now, pumping their fists into the air and shouting happily. The Iron Warriors, by contrast, seemed to be restraining themselves, having a much darker, more serious temperament.

The purple alicorn turned away and back toward her friends.

Spike was wringing his hands, and Rarity and Applejack both looked very uncomfortable, their ears pinned against their heads. Pinkie Pie looked flat-out devastated.

"So, that's our goal. It's up to us to banish the humans and their corrupt power from our planet. For the sake of Equestria and our entire world."

Rarity sighed, but she and Applejack could see the wisdom behind their objective.

Pinkie Pie, not so much.

"But they're our FRIENDS!" Pinkie said, her eyes glistening.

"That's... debatable actually, but in any case we might have chosen our 'friends' poorly in this case," Twilight pointed out, "they're an ARMY, Pinkie. Every one of the humans and post-humans we've met are killers, and it's sheer coincidence that they haven't attacked us. Even... Even Gaela," Twilight cringed as she said it, "she told me how humans normally treat other species. And she also admitted that the Iron Warriors serve Chaos. Whatever that is, exactly."

"True. I suppose we can't really be surprised that they're a threat to Equestria," Rarity said regretfully, "still, I'm a LITTLE surprised that the Princess put us to the task. She does know that these humans are an army, right?"

Twilight nodded solemnly. "Princess Celestia knows what we're up against. She chose us to deal with this corruption because she knows we're the best choice to stop it."

****

Canterlot Castle - observation balcony

Princess Luna turned away from the telescope mounted on the balcony railing as the door behind her opened.

"Ah, Sister, thou hast returned," the younger alicorn said as Celestia walked up to the deck, "the human bastion grows by the hour, like a tumor of metal and smoke. What news dost thou bring?"

Princess Celestia grimaced as she looked up at the thin trail of dark factory exhaust rising in the distance, visible even without a telescope.

"I told Twilight. She'll take care of it."

Luna's expression darkened. "Art thou serious? What is Twilight Sparkle to do about this force of evil from beyond the void?"

"Tut tut, Luna. Don't underestimate her," Celestia said calmly, "have faith in my student. She has triumphed over every challenge set before her. Mostly. And I left her and her friends the Elements of Harmony. She'll be fine."

The dark blue alicorn raised an eyebrow, but eventually relented. "Very well Sister, We must defer to thy judgment. Did thou at least relate to Twilight Sparkle the dark, forbidden knowledge that she will need to defend herself against the insidious enemy?"

"I don't know, Luna. Please remind me: is it called the 'forbidden knowledge' or the 'knowledge you can feel free to tell anypony if you really want to'?" Princess Celestia rolled her eyes as she headed back out the door.

"Thy sarcasm was unwarranted," Luna grumbled.

****

Ponyville - just outside Iron Warriors muster point

"Look Twi, Ah get where yer comin' from. Really, Ah do. Somethin' ain't right about those big fellers in the armor, and Ah ain't gonna stand against Princess Celestia on somethin' like this," Applejack said, pressing a hoof against her chest, "but can ya at least wait until they rebuild mah farm before we send 'em packin'?"

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "This is BIGGER than your farm, Applejack!"

"Ah know that, but Ah don't know if we can last this winter if we hafta rebuild EVERYTHING!" the farmpony protested.

"Do we have to get rid of ALL the humans?" Pinkie asked sadly, tormenting Twilight with her moist eyes and quivering lip. "Can't we keep the ones we've met? They never did anything wrong!"

"That we know about," Rarity muttered.

"Didn't the humans already admit to being pirates and these 'Tau' people their victims?" Spike pointed out, scratching the back of his head. "So, when you think about it, they're kind of in the wrong already."

"Yeah, yer not gonna get much sympathy for those gray-skinned rotten apples," Applejack spat, her forehead furrowing, "killers or pirates or whatever, anything they do to those Tau varmints is all right by me."

"Yeah, actually, that's the other point I wanted to make," Twilight said as her expression hardened, "I know I've brought it up before, but everything the Tau have done to us - shooting Crabapple, destroying your home, assaulting Ponyville, killing a sheep and even shooting at me - are completely coincidental conflicts that arose from their fighting the Iron Warriors."

Applejack snorted stubbornly and turned away, unwilling to concede the point.

"As the Princess said, the Tau may be no friends of ours, but at all costs we need to stay OUT of their war!" Twilight finished, idly aware of the sound of rocket engines growing in volume behind her.

It was probably because she had already gotten used to the sound of gunships hovering overhead, but Twilight didn't actually realize that the noise was approaching her until her friends started backing away in alarm. Even then, she didn't manage to turn around before the approaching object slammed into the ground behind her, almost knocking her over from the shock wave.

"Hey, guys!" Rainbow Dash said brightly, waving her hoof. "You'll never guess where we've been!"

Applejack took one look at Tellis, who was holding on to a clearly shaken Zecora and still covered in blood splatters. "Ah'm gonna guess you were helpin' the Iron Warriors stomp them Tau critters up in the forest."

"Hay, yeah! I got six of them!" Rainbow said as Fluttershy meekly hovered up behind her.

"No, you only get half a kill each for distracting them until I finish them off," Tellis said, "no inflating your score."

Twilight promptly smacked a hoof into her face. "No, no, no, no, no..."

Tellis felt the zebra in his arms squirming, and he cleared his throat before he spoke again. His voice was changed, somehow managing to sound exactly like that of a young woman. "We have now arrived at our destination, and have began unloading. Please use caution when retrieving your senses from the overhead compartment that is your skull, as they may have shifted during flight. We realize that you don't have a choice when flying Tellis Airways, and thank you for not vomiting while in transit, since our aircraft can't just suck that up like it does blood. Goodbye!"

Tellis placed Zecora on the ground, and the zebra took approximately three steps before she had to stop and lie down.

"Zecora? Are you all right? What happened?" Rarity asked.

"Many things, mostly of a violent sort. My escape from the forest I could not abort," Zecora mumbled, glaring up at Tellis, "your large friend here is quite unkind, and the distress of others he does not mind."

"He is NOT our friend," Twilight said sharply. She could countenance being associated with Gaela, Daniels, and maybe even Dest, but she would not allow people to think she was friends with a lunatic like Tellis.

"Yeah, yeah, I hate you too," Tellis said, his voice returning to normal as he brushed off the snub, "Rainbow, I'll catch ya later. I have to spend a few minutes yelling angrily at my squad for not being around when I didn't need them."

"Gotcha. Catch you later, Tellis," the blue pegasus said, holding out a hoof.

Tellis tapped his knuckles against it, and then the Raptor Lord blasted off into the air, his flight pack igniting with such ferocity that Zecora yelped and jumped up as it scorched her rear.

Fluttershy smiled nervously as she noticed that all of their friends seemed quite bemused by the display of camaraderie. Well, except Pinkie, who just looked sad.

"So, Rainbow, why don't you tell us all what you were up to that you ended up fighting MORE aliens," Twilight said, sounding quite annoyed.

Rainbow Dash didn't seem to notice. "Oh, it was awesome! First we and Tellis were tracking those Kroot jerks through the forest, right? And then after we got them, there were a bunch of those Tau soldiers skulking around!"

"I'm not sure all of them were soldiers, actually," Fluttershy said nervously, looking away as she scratched at her leg with a hoof, "some of them had no weapons and were just trying to run away."

"Really? I couldn't even tell, Tellis was on them so fast," Rainbow mumbled. "Oh! And then these gun turrets were shooting at me, so he smashed those up, and then we took out another Tau patrol, and then we attacked the Tau base and rescued Zecora, and then Tellis called in an artillery strike that blew up the whole thing! It was six different kinds of awesome!"

The other ponies glanced at Zecora, who sighed. "Her tale is correct; there is no exaggeration. I must say I fear for what's to become of our nation. Beings from space march on our lands and make war! Miss Dash may be excited, but I want no more."

Zecora got up from where she laid and started walking off. "I now make my exit at this final phase. I need a bath; I haven't had one for days."

"So now we can add kidnappin' zebras to the list o' Tau crimes," Applejack snorted, looking over at Twilight as Zecora wandered away, "or was that 'coincidental' too?"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Okay Rainbow Dash, thanks for the update. Here's ours: Princess Celestia showed up, and she needs us to get into the Iron Warriors' fortress, defeat their master, and then drive the humans back into space."

Rainbow and Fluttershy froze in slack-jawed shock.

"We... We have to... f-f-fight..." Fluttershy couldn't finish that sentence, but the way she was shaking in terror and pointing a trembling hoof in the general direction Tellis had gone made it clear whom she was afraid of confronting.

"Well, hopefully not HIM, no," Twilight admitted. Gaela had said something about Tellis being resistant to magic, and she was in no hurry to test such an ability, "in fact, technically speaking, we might not need to fight at all. But I don't know if there's much chance of them packing up and leaving if we just ask them nicely."

"Well, ya'd better come up with a plan fer that, sugarcube, 'cuz I don't know if fightin's an option," Applejack mumbled, staring out at the ranks of soldiers.

"Whoa! Hold on one bucking minute!" Rainbow Dash shouted, looking absolutely furious. "What do you mean we have to get rid of the humans?! What did they do?!"

Twilight sighed. "All right, look, girls: I know we've been tip-hoofing around this issue so far, but let's get it right out in the open: the Iron Warriors, if not the entire 38th Company, are evil."

Rarity and Applejack winced, as if the revelation were a physical blow. Pinkie planted her hooves over her ears, not wanting to hear such things. Fluttershy, having been introduced to one of the most violent and brutal soldiers of the Company before building any attachment to him, just looked confused, wondering why the others were hesitant about the subject.

Rainbow Dash was having none of it, however. "Oh, please. They are not."

"Wasn't Tellis trying to kill you at first?" Twilight deadpanned.

"That was totally my fault!" Rainbow protested, rolling her eyes. "Besides, we patched things up! He's really cool once you get to know him! And he has a GREAT sense of humor!"

Behind Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy silently shook her head back and forth, her mane whipping about wildly.

"Well, maybe they're not ALL evil," Applejack allowed, "Daniels don't seem like a bad apple."

"The man is a mercenary, darling. That means he fights and kills for money," Rarity pointed out. As Applejack wilted, the unicorn sighed. "I rather liked these humans too, even if they have absolutely NO taste in clothing, but it would seem Twilight is correct. Princess Celestia has confirmed it."

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth, and then she rose up in the air. "Oh, like hay she is... TELLIS! HEY, TELLIS!! C'MERE!"

The other ponies recoiled in surprise at the shout.

"Rainbow! Stop! What're you doing?" Twilight hissed.

"I NEED TO ASK YOU SOMETHING!"

Tellis stopped slapping his armored hand repeatedly against the face of his subordinate's equally armored helmet, turning his head at the call.

"Sorry, I have to take this," Tellis apologized as he dropped the Raptor onto the ground in a heap, "just pretend that there's someone yelling meaningless abuse and unhelpful criticism at you until I get back to finish."

Tellis turned away from the extremely irritated members of his unit and walked over to the ponies once again. Rainbow Dash had her forelegs crossed over her chest and all the other ponies besides her and the pink one looked terrified, he noticed.

"This is Tellis, the Mad Angel; how can I help you?" the Raptor Lord asked, his otherwise pleasant greeting turned to a hateful shriek by his vox amplifier.

Rainbow Dash took a moment to glance over at her other friends, noting that at some point Fluttershy had moved from hiding behind her to hiding behind Rarity.

"Hey, Tellis, are you evil?"

Twilight smacked her hoof into her face again, and Rarity winced.

"Darling, be careful; you're going to hurt yourself."

To the surprise of the ponies, Tellis went silent. He spent several seconds staring at the blue pegasus through his twisted metal mask before he replied.

"Well, that's a complicated question," Tellis admitted, the screeching feedback effect gone from his voice as he adopted a more serious tone, "after all, what does it mean to be 'evil'? The definition changes depending on who you ask."

His head tilted back, staring at the sky as he waxed philosophical. "We could probably agree that it means something like 'cruel' and 'malicious', but what we label as evil are usually people and things that we don't want to observe and think about, not those things that we've studied and determined to fit the word. We place upon them the shallow and hollow motivation of causing pain for pain's own sake because it's easier; if they had a reason - if there could BE a reason - would we even want to know what it is?"

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow as she worked her way through that chunk of deep thought, while Twilight reluctantly felt a bit of respect grow for the psychotic Astartes.

Then Tellis looked back at Rainbow Dash again. "Anyway, to answer your question, YES. Of course we're evil."

Twilight felt relieved as she promptly discarded the respect she had developed earlier. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, looked stunned by the admission.

"I'm wearing skulls around my neck and my armor drinks blood. The only way I could be more obvious about it would be a neon sign, but I don't think it would survive a combat jump," the Raptor Lord mused.

"But... I mean... you saved Fluttershy's animals and saved Zecora! You didn't have to do either of those things! How was that evil?" Rainbow demanded.

Tellis sighed, his head tilting over slightly. "Look, I try my best, but I can't make sure that every single one of my actions is motivated by childish sadism or contempt for all life. I don't have the attention span for that, and honestly, when someone is trying that hard to be awful it comes off as a little sad instead. I'm better than that, you know?"

Rainbow Dash looked devastated by the explanation, and Tellis waved a gauntlet as he turned away. "Well, I hope that helped, but I have to get back to abusing the blameless soldiers stupidly placed under my command. See you in the air, Rainbabe."

Twilight silently watched the Chaos Space Marine walk off, and waited until he was definitely out of hearing range before speaking again.

"Well, that was pretty stupid, yet somehow, enlightening," the alicorn admitted, "even if I'd called them evil, I didn't really expect them to identify themselves as such."

"I actually think I see what you mean about his sense of humor, though," Rarity said dryly, "if it wasn't coming from a nine-foot tall monstrosity covered in metal and blades, it might be rather charming."

Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be listening, her head lowered and her ears pinned as she landed next to the equally-depressed Pinkie Pie.

Applejack leaned in toward Fluttershy. "RD looks pretty broken up. Y'all think she's up to help with this?"

"I know this isn't easy for you," Twilight said firmly, "it's not easy for any of us. I like Gaela too, and-"

"Of course you do," Rainbow Dash snapped bitterly, "it must be like talking to yourself in a mirror."

Twilight's eyebrow twitched, but she refused to let herself be dragged off-point. "As I was saying, we might have made some new friends here, but we have a duty to our country, Princess Celestia, and each other to be weighed against that. We're already watching the humans' war machines roll through Ponyville at will, just because we happen to know them better than the other aliens that they're killing. We have to confront this new threat before it goes any further."

Rarity and Applejack nodded sadly, and Fluttershy followed their example nervously.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie made no physical assent, but the former clicked her tongue.

"This sucks. I'll help, but I want you to know that this REALLY sucks."

Twilight sighed in relief. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash. It means a lot to us."

"Well, now that we've dealt with all the messy emotional conflict of turning on our new friends," Rarity said in a tone unpleasantly lacking in irony, "do you have a plan for how we're going to actually DO it? I hope you don't think we can just put on the Elements of Harmony and gallop up to their front gate."

"Princess Celestia said they had a fortress," Twilight said, glancing in the general direction that the Iron Warriors' vehicles came, "and most of those vehicles were heavy enough that they definitely left tracks all the way back. We'll follow them back to their fort that way."

Applejack glanced uncertainly at Rarity, who made a face at that.

"Of course, we'll need to stay out of sight of any vehicles returning to the fortress, so that might complicate things, but I should have some appropriate spells in the library that I can bring with me."

Applejack started scanning the mustered assault force of the 38th Company, searching for something.

"The fortress is... well, I don't know what we're going to do about that until I get a good look at it. But given that we're not the sort of creatures that the Iron Warriors normally consider a security threat, we might be able to-"

"Hey! Daniels! Over here!" Applejack yelled suddenly, waving a hoof in the air and startling Twilight out of her musing.

"Applejack! Not you too!" the alicorn complained angrily. "Look, it doesn't matter if he's evil or not! That doesn't change our goal!"

Applejack rolled her eyes as the mercenary approached, stepping out of a long, unbroken line of soldiers marching back from the forest.

"Hey AJ, what's up?" the mercenary said. His face and clothes were dirtier than when he had left, and he was carrying some crude talismans around his arm that had almost certainly come from the bodies of dead Kroot. His mask was on his belt though, so they could all see his face.

"Ya headin' back to yer scary doom fortress now that yer done here?" Applejack asked bluntly.

The mercenary nodded. "Yeah. Most of the force is going to stay and sweep the potential escape routes and check the base, but I've earned a debriefing and a reassignment."

"Congrats. Mind if we tag along?" Applejack asked as Twilight's jaw fell open.

"No problem. I think Dest found himself a new ride. I'll clear you in and tell him to wait, so just come find me once you're ready to go."

Daniels turned around and started walking toward a cluster of transports, most of which were being filled with wounded soldiers and packed with Tau and Kroot prisoners.

Applejack turned toward the others, who were sporting expressions ranging from shocked to reluctantly impressed. "It's best not to overthink these things, sugarcube. We know these guys, right?"

There was something unmistakably tragic about that line of thought, so Twilight decided to take Applejack's advice and not think about it any more. "Well, uh... okay then. Everypony, take some time to get ready to go, because we might not be back for a while."

"Or at all, if this goes wrong," Rainbow Dash grumbled.

"Pessimism doesn't suit you, darling," Rarity said as she turned around, "I need to get some things in order and do some packing. I'll meet you back here later."

"Uhm, Rainbow Dash?" Fluttershy asked, squirming as she glanced over at her home. Her home that was surrounded by soldiers and giant armored vehicles.

"Yeah, okay, I'll go with you," Rainbow said, perking up just slightly at being to help out one of her friends.

"C'mon Pinkie, let's go pack up some treats fer the trip," Applejack said, tapping the other earth pony in her side.

"Okay," Pinkie mumbled, still looking uncharacteristically morose.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, feeling like she'd just crossed a major hurdle. Convincing her friends that an obvious threat to Equestria's peace and security was, in fact, a threat, and that Celestia's orders needed to be carried out was a new kind of challenge for her.

And she couldn't possibly claim that she wasn't bothered by it as well. Twilight didn't know if she could really call Gaela a friend - she certainly didn't think the Dark Acolyte thought of her as one - but if Celestia hadn't directly ordered the human cyborg and her creepy arcane symbols off the planet, then Twilight would have been all too happy to buddy up to her and pry all the secrets of the universe from her brain. Piracy and warfare and happily psychotic Space Marines be damned. And to think about what she might find in the human base...

"Spike, let's head back to the library. I want to have plenty of blank parchment ready for the trip."

The young dragon raised a foreclaw. "Uh, Twilight, you-"

"I KNOW that this is a quest given to me by the Princess, not a field trip!" Twilight said defensively, cutting her assistant off. "Obviously, our mission to get rid of this great evil force takes total priority over studying the humans' amazing technology and accumulated knowledge of the greater part of the entire galaxy! But that doesn't mean I can't take some notes along the way!"

"Yeah. Okay. Fine," Spike grumbled, "I just wanted to let you know that you're drooling."

Twilight rapidly wiped her muzzle with her hoof. "... Thank you, Spike. Let's go."

****

Ponyville - Iron Warriors muster point

Gaela let her mask disengage as she approached the makeshift vehicle pool, the metal sliding away to expose her face to the hot wind whirling around the numerous idling Rhinos and Chimeras.

After she halted to think about it, she wasn't quite sure why she bothered with such a thing so close to a recent combat zone. She'd never felt inclined to expose her face before without an immediate and specific reason. For some reason though, recently she'd felt inclined to keep her mask disengaged whenever there was no immediate and specific reason to have it up. A curious reversal of priorities.

She shifted the load under her arm slightly as she started moving toward the transports again. She probably could have asked for a ride with one of the Dark Mechanicus transports, but all of them were staying behind to entrench the assault force and study the remains of the Tau field base, and she didn't need to interrupt Diomen's operations for a simple trip back to the landing point.

"Hey, Acolyte! Heading back?"

Gaela snapped her head to the side, identifying... well, more like recognizing that one mercenary that had survived her mission.

"I am. I see you've survived yet another operation, Rifleman. Did you need a debriefing?" she asked, annoyance clear in her expression.

"Nah, I just have to head back and get a good nap in, and then they'll probably toss me back out here again." Daniels jabbed a thumb at a Rhino APC idling behind him, its rear access ramp deployed. "Hop in. Lord Dest is at the wheel."

Gaela frowned, although she decided to go ahead and board with the mercenary. "I'm not sure how to feel about developing a sense of familiarity with front-line fighters such that we feel obligated to travel and work together by default. It may discourage me from considering more worthwhile options."

"I know exactly how to feel about fostering an acquaintance with a Dark Mechanicus gal who speaks to me like I'm a casualty figure waiting to happen," Daniels said with sarcastic cheer, "exasperation and dry humor. What a pair we make, eh?"

Gaela didn't deign to answer him, walking up into the empty Rhino and placing her armload on a bench.

Daniels raised an eyebrow as he looked at the bundle. On top was the Tau comms disruption drone that Gaela had never gotten a chance to work on. Folded underneath that...

"Is that the dress Miss Rarity made for you?" Daniels asked, both eyebrows climbing.

"Yes. What of it?" Gaela asked, annoyed that he seemed so intrigued.

"I'm surprised that you're taking it with you. You didn't even seem to like it."

Gaela's expression soured. "In many cultures it's considered rude to refuse a gift, and I have no reason to offend the ponies."

Daniels still looked way too interested as he walked past Gaela and took a seat on a bench nearest to the cab, facing the rear of the transport. "In that case, I'm surprised you care about the ponies' offense versus the negligible effort of bringing it with you."

"Then be surprised. Just keep it to yourself," the Dark Acolyte grumbled. She remained standing as she faced the mercenary; sitting in powered armor wasn't particularly comfortable.

"I don't mean anything by it. It's just not very Dark Mechanicus-like to make nice with local xenos," Daniels said with a slight smirk.

"I hardly think that this qualifies as 'making nice', but frankly it doesn't matter to me what you think of it," Gaela said, her voice rising ever so slightly as she glared down at Daniels with her bionic eye shining, "diplomatic action was required to complete my mission objectives with any success, so I went ahead and 'made nice', as you put it."

She broke the glare, looking up at a control panel near the rear. "Frankly, it will be a joy to get back to work making and repairing things rather than chatting up curious equines. And if I never see Pinkie Pie again, to borrow the nonsensical expression of you dregs, it will be too soon."

Daniels didn't say anything to that, and Gaela looked back down at him to see that the mercenary was staring at something behind her.

"NO. Stop that this instant," Gaela said, her biological eye hardening, "she is NOT behind me. You're a liar."

"You girls ready to go?" Daniels said, clearly not addressing the Dark Acolyte.

"Ready as we'll ever be, sugarcube."

"I wish I had more time to pack. Oh well. Mister Dest, do be careful to avoid bumps; I secured my luggage as best I could with all those hooks and chains, but it doesn't look totally stable up there."

"Uhm, was it okay for you to take off all those bones that used to be attached to them? I think we should have asked first."

"Oh, chill out Fluttershy. The way they're plowing through those Tau jerks they can get more bones whenever they want."

"So, Miss Gaela! I was wondering if you could tell me about this 'Dark Mechanicus' that I keep hearing about. The way I've heard it, it almost seem like it operates as a separate entity from the rest of your army."

Gaela's eye twitched as she stared down at her leg. Pinkie was hugging onto her metal-sheathed calf, looking unusually depressed.

"What have you done?" she demanded of Daniels. "Why are they in our transport?"

"Because it's a long walk to..." Daniels trailed off, then leaned back and banged a fist against the door to the cab. "What's the name of the base again?"

Rather than answering, Dest pressed a button to close the rear access ramp, and the interior lumens flickered on as the light from outside was cut off.

"Next stop, Ferrous Dominus," Dest called as the engine rumbled into gear.

End Book 1

****

Epilogue

*The gue'la attack was successful, I'm afraid. The disruptor array was destroyed and with it, our best chances of evading enemy forces.*

*Damned gue'la! What are they here for? This force is too sophisticated to be mere pirates.*

*Besides hunting us down, their strategic objective is unknown. However, image capture has noted several oddities regarding the enemy force. For one, their heraldry and vehicles seem to have been stripped of the symbol of the gue'la Imperium. In many cases they have been replaced by new symbols.*

*I don't recognize these identifiers. A new faction?*

*Unknown at this time. In addition, the gue'la had assistance from the local aliens, which is frankly unheard of given the Imperial line concerning alien species.*

*Initial assessments placed the local inhabitants' practical military strength near zero. Has this changed?*

*Perhaps. The locals are now known to possess psykers among their population. That can make them highly dangerous in certain circumstances. The conflict with the gue'la has also revealed our presence to the locals.*

*It can't be helped, then. The equine creatures are also our enemy from here on out. Do the gue'la have any inkling as to our mission?*

*We do not believe so. Mission-critical and ranking personnel were killed, not captured. Still, the enemy is taking prisoners, so a leak is possible. What are your orders?*

*This assault force... the numbers are excessive.*

*Shas'el?*

*We may have an opportunity. Gather the cadre. We move.*