Iron Hearts: Book 3 - The Sept Lamman

by SFaccountant

Chapters

The Iron Without
Cloak and Dagger... and Lots of Guns
Mission Improbable
Changes
Void War
The Hidden Dagger
Siege of Canterlot (Part One)
Siege of Canterlot (Part Two)
Siege of Canterlot (Part Three)
Epilogue
How to Make Friends and Influence Ponies
Uninvited Guests

The Iron Without

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 3

The Iron Without

****

Sweet Apple Acres - barn

"I'll be honest. I was expecting something a bit more grandiose."

Norris Delgan scrutinized the Tau artifact from the barn entrance, scratching his cheek.

The man was accompanied by Rarity and Dest a safe distance away from the mysterious device, while Pinkie had taken the opportunity to stand right next to it and stick her nose in the strange clusters of unknowable mechanisms. Twilight was next to the pink earth pony, trying to hold her back.

Gaela was still fixing Crabapple, not being one to stop working in order to acknowledge the arrival of others.

"It's true. Tau technology is compact and practical, unlike that of the Necrons and Eldar," the Dark Acolyte agreed, "really, the only reason we don't get more mysterious tech artifacts from them is because their gear is usually straightforward and often clearly labeled."

"But not this device?" Rarity asked.

"No. Whatever this machine is a part of, it's definitely in the experimental range of the Tau Empire's equipment. It shows telltale signs of hand-wiring and manual handling too, which means that it's sophisticated and unusual enough that it couldn't be completely constructed by machine."

"Which means that it may be of supreme value to the grayskins, if they can't simply make another one," Dest mumbled, his hand resting on the boltgun mag-locked to his thigh.

"Depends on what they need it for, I suppose," Delgan mumbled, "what could you do with a Warp engine this small?"

"A weapon?" Dest guessed.

"It could be," Gaela agreed, "a Warp device this small and unstable could produce a rift quickly and without disruption from a planet's gravitational field. And certainly opening a Warp rift over an individual or vehicle would cause considerable damage, even if the rift itself is so small as to be almost pointless."

She paused as one of Crabapple's legs started spasming, and then quickly stopped it with a harsh blow from her bionic arm.

"Of course, such a device would also have numerous tactical weaknesses. It would be too large to be man-portable or even battlesuit-portable, very inaccurate, and the power drain would be enormous. The Tau have many weapons already that are far more effective and efficient."

"Well, whatever it's for, I think we'd prefer that the Tau not get around to using it," Rarity noted, "Mister Delgan?"

Delgan nodded to Gaela. "Would you mind sealing the artifact back up for me before we move it? I'd hate to contaminate it or something."

Gaela grunted and stood up, briefly leaving the twitching automata to the side as she attended to the artifact.

"It will take a few minutes. You can have your men start to load the wreckage into your transports."

Delgan frowned at the crashed gunship, his lips pressing into a thin line. "We'll need to make several trips unless you're going to disassemble the salvage first."

"Macintosh brought back everything you see here with nothing but his brute strength and a wooden cart," Gaela said dryly, "I'm sure you can manage."

Delgan's eyes narrowed. "You could have made SOME effort to prepare these items for transit. I have more to do today than supervise heavy lifting."

"Then I recommend you start with the heavy lifting at once rather than complaining about it," Gaela retorted evenly as she crouched down next to the artifact, "if you wanted preparations to be made you should have given notice. I didn't even know you had arrived until the ponies had informed me."

"We tried, but we couldn't establish a vox link," Delgan insisted, "are you sure your receiver is functional? We were able to connect to the other transport just fine."

Gaela halted, her eye narrowing.

"Gaela?" Twilight asked as several silent seconds passed. "Is something wrong?"

The Dark Acolyte snapped her head up, facing Delgan. "Get everyone inside. Now."

The command immediately cast a chill upon every pony there, and Dest promptly took hold of his boltgun.

"Bring them inside? Inside here?" Delgan asked quickly.

"Inside the farmstead, ideally. Get them out of the transports and behind reinforced walls immediately," she stepped back over to Crabapple and fed a neural interface cable into the sensor array.

Delgan ran out of the barn, leaving the others to keep watching the Dark Acolyte at work.

"Wait, you don't think that the problem with the communications system-"

"Is due to the deployment of Tau disruptor drones in preparation for an assault," Gaela cut Twilight off as Crabapple's sensors fed new data into her helmet display.

"Oh dear, not again," Rarity sighed as she levitated her boltgun out of its saddle holster, "what should we do?"

"Get to the farmstead with the troopers, alert the Apples, and prepare for combat," Gaela said grimly as she stood up, "we have incoming."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - farmstead

"Come on, hurry up! Get in there!"

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle glanced over to the window as she heard shouting from outside, and then they cast a worried look at Applejack and Big Macintosh.

"Hey sis, ya hear that? What's goin' on?"

Applejack looked up from where she was preparing a fruit salad. "Eh, you leave 'em be, Bloom. Best to stay outta the way. They've got a lotta work to do, and then so do we when they clear out."

The fillies nodded obediently.

Then a mechanical hum alerted them to the front door opening.

"Move, move, move!" barked a man in carapace armor. "Everybody, take up a firing position! Close any opening that isn't being used as a firing point!"

Applejack sat stunned as men started pouring into her home and dashing to the windows, every one of them armed and looking frantic.

Her eyes narrowed as Delgan followed them inside. "There somethin' you wanna tell me, cowboy?"

"Yes. I need you to activate the blast shutters and secure any alternate entrances," the Trademaster said as he took cover next to the doorway, "then you should probably send the young ones upstairs. This might get hazardous."

The orange mare's alarm grew even more as Pinkie, Rarity and Twilight galloped into the room, followed by Dest.

"Sparkle, where's the Dark Acolyte?"

"Gaela said she was going to stay in the barn! She didn't say why!"

"What?! She has more firepower than the bloody Astartes! No offense, my lord."

"None taken. It WOULD be nice to have a plasma pistol handy."

"Sir, shouldn't we call for help? We can't hold off an assault by ourselves!"

"Then make peace with the Dark Gods, because that's not happening!"

"... Wait, CAN you make peace with Chaos Gods? Does it work like that?"

"Ugh, I never thought I'd find myself wishing that Trixie was around. Twilight, darling, I hope you're going to actually help out directly this time."

"HEY!!" Applejack barked, startling the others into silence. "What's goin' on here?!"

Before anyone could answer her, the explosion of a pulse bomb cast a bright blue flare through the window, followed immediately by the detonation of a chimera's fuel tank.

"Bloody hell!" Delgan shouted furiously as the scream of passing aircraft filled the room. "Leave the damned transports alone, you xeno dunderheads! I need those and there's no one in them anyway!"

Applejack's eye twitched. "Are y'all serious? We got grays on mah farm AGAIN?"

"We believe they're here for the artifact," Dest said evenly as he took up a position between two nervous-looking guards.

"Well, is there a chance we can just give it to them?" Twilight asked.

The annoyed looks she received in return were not encouraging. Applejack in particular looked enraged by the idea.

"I'm serious! Even if the Tau are the enemy, is this machine worth dying over just to keep it away from them?" the alicorn pressed.

"A persuasive argument. It may indeed be our only option IF we are totally outmatched," Delgan reasoned before addressing Applejack again, "Miss Apple, if you could see to the shutters? And open up your armory, while you're at it."

"Ah don't even know what yer talkin' about," Applejack admitted, "I don't know nothin' about no shutters, and we sure don't have no armory."

A clunking noise came from behind her, and everyone turned to watch as Big Macintosh opened up a wall panel next to the fireplace and hit a large red button.

"Siege mode engaged," barked a rough electronic voice. Immediately the men and ponies could hear a dozen different mechanisms turning as metal sheeting crawled down over the windows, turning them into armored firing slits while metal bars slid out over the door to reinforce it against forced entry.

Then a picture of the extended apple family, filling a four-foot frame and lovingly hung over a bookshelf, flipped forward.

Apple Bloom stared at the collection of firearms hung in a shallow space behind the painting, which boasted two boltguns, a flamer, and a sniper rifle. "So we DO have an armory?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said, stepping away from the panel.

Applejack's jaw fell slack. "Why's somethin' like that in our house?"

"Because we built it," Dest grunted, "also, plaudits to Macintosh for actually reading the instructional documentation to this structure."

"I see an APC! We have infantry incoming!"

A pair of men who were holstering stub pistols quickly took the boltguns.

Pinkie Pie lined up behind them. "I call flamer!"

Twilight recoiled. "Pinkie, you can't!"

"Why not? Are you going to use it?" Rarity asked.

"No, but-"

"Yoink!" Pinkie jumped up and snatched the flame weapon off the rack, grinning widely while she stood on her hind legs.

"This could end poorly," Sweetie Belle observed nervously.

"Eeyup."

"You two git upstairs," Applejack said to the fillies, "now!"

The first burst of bolter fire marked the start of the battle proper, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle rushed upstairs anxiously as a few stray bolt casings bounced across the floor away from Dest.

"Got one. The rest are breaking for cover," the Iron Warrior informed the rest, "they now know we're here, and that we're armed."

As his bodyguards started firing out at the Tau attackers, Delgan took the sniper rifle from its rack.

Rarity looked surprised. "Mister Delgan? Do you actually know how to use that?"

Norris Delgan took a moment to unbutton his jacket, and then he flung it away onto a couch. "Miss Rarity, in the 38th there are only two types of men: those who kill, and those who work."

He fit the clip into the rifle and then flipped a switch on the top. A capacitor on the side of the weapon began to whine as it started charging up, and the Trademaster pulled back the slide.

"And I do NOT labor."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - exterior

*Get down! Behind those hay bales!*

*Why is there a bunker here? Isn't this a farm?*

*Take any cover you can and return fire!*

The Devilfish transports moved to the fore, spewing burst cannon fire into the farmstead while sparse bolter and laser fire raked the disembarking soldiers.

One Fire Warrior Shas'ui grit her teeth as she watched another soldier fall to a boltgun round, and then she addressed another squad. *Keep your heads down and surround the central building! Locate its entrances away from the heaviest fire! I'll have a demo team crack them open!*

The soldiers nodded and left, crouching low to make use of what cover there was.

*What about that other transport?*

*Leave it,* the Shas'ui commanded, *it's unmanned, and there might be something useful inside.*

*Shas'ui, how long until battlesuit support arrives?*

*They're on the lifter! They'll be along in a minute, but don't count on them to make this easy on us!*

She peeked over the rim of the wagon she was covering behind. *I'd say we have six, maybe eight-*

Then her head pitched back as a sniper bullet punched through her helmet.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - interior

"Got the leader," Delgan remarked as he ducked down and pulled back the slide on the sniper rifle.

A long, highly energized bullet casing dropped to the floor next to him, crackling with electricity.

"Nice shot, Sir!" said a guard enthusiastically.

Dest grunted something that sounded vaguely like an affirmation, and then spoke normally. "They're moving to flank. I don't see anything heavy enough to break this position, though." The Iron Warrior paused as he removed a depleted clip. "However, we have limited ammunition supplies and we won't be able to stop the armored vehicles without the Acolyte's assistance."

Applejack brought over a chair to one of the firing slits, and Rarity climbed up onto it with an expression of tired resignation.

"So how do ya think we'll fare?" the orange mare asked pensively.

"We're not dead yet," Dest said grimly.

Delgan fired another shot, then ducked back down again. "This position is too hardened to break from the bombers' pulse bubbles! As long as they don't have reinforcements, we can drive them off!"

Rarity shot a Fire Warrior in the leg as another unit made a break for the barn, and then she spotted more large blue-and-black shapes off in the distance, skimming low over the orchard.

"Well, I have bad news, then: they have reinforcements," the white unicorn said, "is there any help WE can summon?"

"Between the vox jamming, my brothers being forbidden to leave our fortress, and your nation's general distaste for our war effort, that seems quite unlikely," Dest mumbled as his bolter rattled in his grip, "but feel free to hope."

****

Ponyville - Fluttershy's cottage

"Miss Fluttershy? Are you here? Please tell me you're here!"

Diamond Tiara pounded on the front door of Fluttershy's cottage as Silver Spoon hung behind her, nervously searching the skies above them.

After a few seconds of knocking the door creaked open, and the fillies were enormously relieved to see the yellow pegasus peeking out at them.

"Oh, thank Celestia, you're home!" Diamond gasped out. She and Silver Spoon looked rather worn out, and Fluttershy quickly opened the door the rest of the way.

"Oh dear, is there a hurt animal?" Fluttershy asked. It was by far the most common emergency she was asked to deal with, and the one of the few emergencies she felt at all qualified to handle.

"No! Aliens are attacking Sweet Apple Acres!" Diamond Tiara shouted.

"Again," Silver Spoon added.

Fluttershy simply stood silently in front of them, an incredulous expression on her face.

Diamond Tiara sighed. "We came to you after checking Carousel Boutique and Sugar Cube Corner. Miss Rarity wasn't home and the Cakes said that Pinkie Pie was taking 'a characteristically long time to finish her delivery,' whatever that means. And Twilight Sparkle is probably already there with the creepy engineer woman."

"We even found a pegasus to check Rainbow Dash's place, but she wasn't home either," Silver Spoon added, "you're the only Element of Harmony we could find!"

"Oh, uh, well, if you're looking for Rainbow Dash, I know where she is," Fluttershy said, eager to divert the plea for help elsewhere, "here, come in."

"Miss Fluttershy, I don't think we have time to track down anypony else," Diamond insisted, although she and Silver stepped inside anyway, "the aliens are probably already..."

Diamond Tiara trailed off as she stared at the scene that greeted her in Fluttershy's living room.

Tellis was sitting in front of a table, staring at a chess board. Rainbow Dash was sitting on his shoulder pad, chewing her lip and rubbing a hoof against her chin.

On the other side of the board was Scootaloo, who was grinning brilliantly. It was easy to see why: her white pieces were absolutely dominating the board, with half the black pieces filling a small tray next to her.

"The Iron Warrior is here too?" Diamond Tiara asked, stunned to see the Chaos Space Marine in Fluttershy's home.

Scootaloo looked fairly annoyed when she noticed who had entered the house, but once Tellis turned to regard the newcomers, he quickly pointed to Silver Spoon.

"Hey, you look like a nerd. You play chess?"

The gray filly blinked, recoiling slightly. "What? Not much. I mean, I know how, but-"

"Is 'castling' a real thing?" Rainbow Dash interrupted.

"Er... yes, I believe so."

"Told you!" Scootaloo said triumphantly.

"Don't get all smug because you can read the BLEEP! instruction manual, Fun Size," Tellis growled.

"Okay, whatever, we can still salvage this," Rainbow Dash said, leaning down to the board, "let's make a blitzing run straight through the knight and then take out the boss!"

Silver Spoon quirked an eyebrow. "You'll be checkmated next turn if you do that. Don't you see her rook? Also, does it really take BOTH of you to beat Scootaloo? She's one of the dimmer fillies in our class."

"Oh, shut up," snapped all three chess players.

"HEY!!" Diamond Tiara shouted, seizing everyone's attention and reminding Silver Spoon that they had a good reason for being here. "This is no time for games! The Tau are back! They're at Sweet Apple Acres right now! They have tanks and everything!"

"Thank Khorne," Tellis said, quickly tilting the game board over and spilling all the pieces onto the floor, "here I thought I might have to go a whole day without stabbing someone."

Rainbow's brow furrowed. "They're back for MORE?! I thought these losers were supposed to be smart! Well, we'll take care of them!"

Scootaloo sighed in resignation as she looked down at the scattered chess pieces, and then glanced up at Tellis hopefully. "Hey, can I come with you?"

"Yes!" Tellis said.

Fluttershy smiled nervously. "Can I stay here?"

"No!" Tellis said.

Rainbow Dash quickly bolted out the doorway as Tellis scooped up Scootaloo. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon rushed to get out of the way, and Fluttershy whimpered meekly before she followed behind the Raptor Lord.

"Let's go! Applejack needs us!" Rainbow Dash shouted, preparing to launch herself in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres.

"Not so fast, Rainbabe," Tellis said as his flight pack started sputtering, "we need to make a stop first."

Rainbow Dash looked skeptical, and Fluttershy glanced up at him nervously. "Where do we need to go, Mister Murderer?"

"That Delgan guy's marketplace," Tellis said as he lifted off, "we're gonna need some more toys to play this game."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - upper level

Apple Bloom winced as the scream of the Tau bombers overhead was briefly swallowed by the sound of pulse bombs exploding against the roof.

The building didn't shake - which she found quite impressive, actually - but the lumen strips flickered from the ionic discharge and briefly cast them in darkness.

"Aw shucks, and just after we finished paintin' too," Apple Bloom groused as the lights shuddered back to life, "what do the Tau have against us Apples, anyhow?"

"Wasn't your family the first ponies to actually fight them?" Sweetie Bell asked. She had stacked up several random objects to make a stepladder up to the firing slit so that she could watch the battle taking place below.

"Well, okay, yeah, but they started it!" Apple Bloom complained.

"Apple Bloom?"

The two fillies turned toward Granny Smith, who was in her rocking chair in the middle of the room.

"Tell yer brother and sister to stop playin' around down there. Don't they know it's the busy season?" the wrinkled green pony complained. "Just because they have friends from out of town doesn't mean they can slack off!"

Apple Bloom sighed, her ears laying flat against her head. "They ain't playin', Granny. A buncha gray varmints are tryin' to kill us."

"Pff! Always with the excuses!" Granny Smith barked as her rocking became more agitated. "In mah day we got the harvest done even when some critter or another was stirrin' up trouble and tryin' to kill us all! And let me tell you, they weren't gray! Nosiree, we had green varmints, and black varmints, and even," she took a moment to shiver, "TEAL varmints. Those were dark days, Ah tell you what."

Sweetie Belle frowned down at Apple Bloom as the elderly mare started to nod off. "Don't they have special homes for ponies like her?"

"Not now, Sweetie," Apple Bloom grumbled, "anything interestin' goin' on down there?"

Sweetie Belle turned back toward the vision slit, squinting her eyes.

"Well, I think we're winning. But there's even more bad guys coming." Then she tilted her head to the side to look outside at an awkward angle. "Wait, what's that vehicle doing? I think it's going around the back!"

Apple Bloom winced. "Okay, yeah, that ain't good. Ah'll go warn everypony."

"Everybody," Sweetie Belle corrected.

"What?"

"The humans aren't ponies. So when you say 'everypony,' that specifically excludes them. The human term, 'everybody,' on the other hoof, can refer to humans AND ponies, so-"

"Sweetie, there are aliens tryin' to kill mah family downstairs!" the yellow filly shouted.

"All right! All right! Yeesh."

****

Lower level

"EYAAUGH!!"

Delgan tsked as one of his men fell to the floor, writhing in pain as smoke poured off of his shoulder.

"Reik is down!"

"Then pick up his boltgun and take his spot," Delgan said calmly as he rose up and took aim with his rifle again.

"I think he's still alive!"

"Oh, good." Delgan pulled the trigger, and then ducked down under the firing slit as another Fire Warrior slumped to the dirt with a hole through its skull. "He's probably going into shock, though. Miss Apple, could you throw a blanket over him?"

"Gotcha!" Applejack dashed for the storage closet, trying to ignore the smell of burning meat lingering in her nostrils.

"Incoming grenade!" barked Dest as a small canister flew through the firing slit.

In a flash of purple, the grenade vanished. A moment later there was a brilliant flare of light from outside, and one of the bodyguards whistled.

"Nice one, Sparkle! I think that blinded a few of them!"

Delgan frowned at the purple pony. "Can you do that with any weapon? Teleport it outside, I mean?"

Twilight looked hesitant as the glow from her horn faded. "Yes. Well, I mean, there are limitations, but something that small is easy for such a short distance. Why?"

"So could you teleport a fragmentation grenade inside the cockpit of those Devilfish APCs?"

Twilight cringed. "Uh..."

"Brilliant idea!" Rarity said, ducking her head down as blue flares of energy and electric arcs sizzled around the vision slit in front of her. "Use the firing point in the kitchen. I don't think they're watching that one."

One of the men in carapace armor quickly dropped a pair of cylinders covered in dull points in front of the alicorn. "Here. Don't pull the pins until you're ready to let 'em loose, since you don't have any hands to hold the grip lever."

Twilight slowly levitated the explosives in front of her, swallowing deeply. The battle raging just a few feet away, with the thunder of bolters, the crackling of lasrifles, and the screams of dozens of pulse weapons pouring fusillades into the building, seemed to fade deep into the background as the pair of explosive weapons floated before her eyes.

They seemed surprisingly heavy, and trembled slightly in her telekinetic grip. She didn't think it had much to do with their actual weight.

"You're in a war. You're in a war," Twilight mumbled under her breath as she walked to the firing point Rarity had suggested, "this is no different from fighting Sombra, or Discord, or the changelings," she continued as she stood up on her hind legs to peer outside, "this is a fight for your life, for your friends, and for Equestria, and you can't hold back."

She paused.

"Except that this time you're fighting an enemy with no definitively evil traits. On behalf of a cruel and destructive army that Celestia herself has declared a terrible threat. All to protect some technological artifact that's not even important to us."

"Sparkle, I can hear you failing at self-rationalization from here!" snapped Dest as he swapped magazines again. "Stop moralizing and kill something!"

Twilight took a deep breath as she focused on the nearest devilfish, her eyes narrowing. She focused on the tinted windows of the cockpit, working out the distance and her estimations of the interior in her head.

The pin came out of the first grenade, and then it vanished in a burst of purple.

After a few tense seconds, the burst cannon from the Devilfish suddenly stopped firing, the entire vehicle going silent. The explosion, and its presumably gory results, had been entirely concealed by the armored cockpit, leaving nothing but the racing beat of her heart to remind her of what she had just done.

"I think she got it! Good job, Princess! We've got another one moving in on the right!" Delgan said as he took another shot. "Tch! Torso hit. It might survive that."

Rarity glanced over to the alicorn as she took the last clip of bolter ammunition from her saddlebag. "It gets much easier after the first one, darling. It's kill or be killed, after all."

Twilight grumbled something unintelligible as she tried to get a good look at the next APC.

"Hey you guys!" shouted Apple Bloom as she raced down the stairs.

Applejack rounded on her immediately. "Bloom, what're you doin' down here?! Ah told ya to stay upstairs!"

"We saw a bunch of Tau comin' round the back!" the yellow filly said breathlessly.

"What? They tryin' to sneak past us to the barn?" Applejack growled.

"Possibly." Dest turned around and faced the Apples. "I'm almost out of ammunition and have easily the best survivability of anyone here. I'll head out the back with Pie and-"

He was interrupted by a pulse shot spearing through his firing point and cutting into his backpack, throwing the Iron Warrior forward in a burst of sparks and plasma.

"Desty! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!" Pinkie screamed to the heavens as she raised her forelegs up in the air, her anguished cry momentarily drowning out the gunfire entirely.

Eventually she reached the limits of her lung capacity and collapsed onto the floor, her chest heaving as tears ran down her cheeks.

Everyone watched the heart-wrenching display with varying levels of discomfort, and Delgan coughed awkwardly.

"Uh, Pinkie?" Twilight began, dropping down from her vision slit. "I don't think Dest is dead."

The Iron Warrior rose to his feet as gas blasted from the breach in his backpack unit. "No, I'm not. I'm not even wounded." He checked his dimming helmet display as the leak was cut off, the power pack shutting down automatically. "I'm on emergency suit power, though. That's inconvenient."

"Desty... I never got to... tell you how I felt about you," Pinkie sobbed, withdrawing a handkerchief and blowing her nose noisily.

"Pinkie, you're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" Rarity deadpanned.

Suddenly the pink pony's head snapped up, her eyes burning with determination and fury. "But don't you worry, big buddy! I'll avenge you! Or my name isn't Pinkamena Diane Pie!"

"I didn't know that was your name," Dest mumbled.

A nearby explosion promptly snapped most of those present out of the poorly manufactured melodrama, and Delgan snapped his head to the side.

"That came from this building, not the barn. They're forcing their way in!"

Pinkie took up the flamer she had snatched from the armory, her eyes narrowed. "Aunt Pinkie's got this one. Mackie, back me up. Let's take these party crashers down..." A single, glistening tear crawled down her cheek as she scowled. "... For HIM."

The pink pony dashed off into the hall, moving on two legs to carry the flamer. Big Mac hesitantly followed her, too weirded out to even manage a simple confirmation as usual.

"I know she's crazy, but that was still rather touching," Dest admitted.

A scream from right behind him reminded them all that they were still in a battle, and still completely surrounded and outgunned.

"Well, Frederick's dead. ACTUALLY dead, I mean," Delgan mumbled as he raised his rifle and hunted for a target, "I don't suppose anyone would like to dramatically swear revenge for him?"

"No, I think we're good," Rarity replied curtly, "Apple Bloom, thank you for warning us. Now go back upstairs and find someplace to hide with Sweetie Belle."

"All right. Be careful, sis," Apple Bloom said nervously before galloping back up the stairs.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - exterior

*Move in and sweep the building! I have additional demo charges if we encounter any more blast doors!* shouted a Fire Warrior as the Tau soldiers closed in on the hole in the back door of the farmstead.

One flung a photon grenade into the building first, waiting until the telltale flash of the detonation before they rushed inside.

The team halted in the first room through the doorway, which was a storage hall. A pair of Fire Warriors moved on to the doorway, holding on either side of the door.

*I don't see a door lever or access panel...* mumbled one of them, searching the bare metal barrier and completely missing the foot pad below him.

The other Fire Warriors glanced about the storage hall.

*Is this place really a farm after all? Why is it so heavily fortified?*

*Perhaps they're used to this sort of thing,* guessed another Fire Warrior as he tossed a demolition charge to the men holding the door, *here. Blow that door open and let's clear out this hole.*

The other soldiers moved away as the soldier on point turned back to the door and prepared to adhere the charge.

Then the door opened. Which would have been quite convenient if Big Macintosh hadn't already been positioned backwards in front of the door in perfect kicking position.

A loud cracking noise came from that Fire Warrior as his armor and bones shattered, and he was flung into the wall as the demo charge bounced away across the floor.

The other Tau had their weapons up in an instant. They hesitated, however, when the first target to move into their line of sight was a bright pink pony.

A pink pony with a flamer, perhaps, but that hardly made it less ridiculous.

They found Pinkie Pie much easier to take seriously once she activated the weapon, spewing liquid flame over the interior of the hall and all over their unit.

Half a dozen Fire Warriors were swallowed entirely by the flames, while the ones furthest away quickly darted for the exit as fire licked at their feet.

"Burn, you xeno dummy-heads! Burn and flee!" Pinkie shouted as she spread the fire over the entire length of the storage hall, incidentally lighting almost every bin, barrel, and box in the room aflame.

The Fire Warriors rushed clear of the back door, and then spread out to cover the exit.

*Blasted creatures!* gasped one Fire Warrior as he ripped off a burning forearm plate and tossed it onto the ground.

Then he hit the communicator in his helmet.

*This is fire team four, reporting in! We have been repulsed from the rear entrance! The Shas'ui is down! We... We've encountered natives wielding gue'la weaponry!*

The commlink crackled in his ear.

*Wait, what? You mean the horses? They don't even have hands.*

*I'm not calling you to argue, I'm calling to report our situation and receive new orders, Shas'ui. Are you coming back around to pick us up?*

*Negative. Our heavy support has arrived. Get clear of the bunker structure and get ready to move on to the secondary building.*

*Shall we launch an assault then?*

*Wait for our signal. Considering the resistance we've faced so far, the secondary building could be trapped or even... what in the-GRENADE! THERE'S A GRENADE IN-!*

The Fire Warrior winced as a short detonation boomed in his ears. Then the commlink went silent.

He took a long, shuddering breath before he pointed to a stack of hay bales that offered reasonable cover from most angles. His squad bolted for the barrier without a word.

*Who are these creatures? Just what are we dealing with here?* he mumbled as he took up his next position.

Back in the storeroom, Pinkie Pie frowned as she watched the flames build over the storage racks along the walls, filling the air with an oily smoke that contained the distinct fragrance of baked apples.

"It's not a problem that I just lit your storage room on fire, is it?" Pinkie asked, turning to Big Macintosh.

"Nope," Big Mac said breezily. Better to lose the small portion of their crops that had been stored in their house than let enemy soldiers into their back door.

"Phew! Good thing!" the pink pony said as she smiled, dropping the flamer on the floor next to her.

"Warning. Fire suppression systems engaged," droned an electronic voice from the speakers above.

Dense white mist suddenly blasted out of the ceiling vents of the storeroom, and as it spread over the burning food and corpses below the flames died almost instantly.

Pinkie Pie whistled. "Wow! This place has everything, doesn't it?"

"Eeyup," Macintosh answered, backing away so that he wouldn't get too much of the mist on him. The documentation had noted that it was non-toxic, but it was also thick enough to choke on if one breathed in too much of it.

"Well, I don't hear them coming back. Let's go join the others again!" Pinkie said, swinging the flamer up onto her back and galloping back to the living room.

Big Macintosh watched her go, and then glanced back at the storeroom.

The flames had died down completely by now, and the vents had stopped spewing fire suppression mist into the room.

Macintosh set his jaw and headed into the room. Pinkie hadn't gotten all of the Fire Warriors that had tried to break in, and he wasn't so certain they could be left alone after retreating. Besides that, if things went badly enough in the front, they would certainly need to make sure their escape route was clear.

The red stallion poked his head out of the scorched blast doors, and he scowled as he saw traces of black and blue poking out from behind more bales of hay stacked near the barn.

"Nope," he mumbled darkly as he stepped outside.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - interior

"Good work, Sparkle! Just three more APCs left! Does anyone else have any frags?" Delgan shouted.

"I'm out!"

"There are more in the chimera!"

"Well, that doesn't help us out very much, does it?" the Trademaster growled before he put a bullet through another Fire Warrior and ducked back down.

He pulled back the slide on his sniper rifle, and then grimaced at the ammo counter. "Also, it seems I'm out of ammunition."

"Drivers such as I aren't issued grenades or much spare ammo," Dest grunted as he crouched next to his firing slit, "I too am out."

"This is my last magazine," Rarity announced as she continued snapping off a shot every time a black helmet appeared over the haystacks.

"Well, how many of them runts're left?" Applejack asked.

"There's still more of them than there are of us, I'm afraid," Delgan said as he drew his laspistol.

"Hey everypony-slash-human-slash-Astartes! We got the ones in the back!" Pinkie Pie announced as she bounced back into the living room.

"Welcome news. As for our supplies, while our lasweapons have a much better ammo supply, they're not nearly as effective, and there's still a very real chance of us running out of munitions before running out of targets."

"That's quite optimistic," Dest said grimly as he took up the lasgun of one of the dead bodyguards, "you see that vehicle pulling into the back?"

Delgan flinched away from a pulse rifle shot that sizzled through the firing slit and splashed against the wall behind him, and then cautiously peered out at the road.

Behind the depleted firing lines, there was a hovering vehicle slowly floating into position. It was of a similar model as the wrecked and gutted automated lifter that was parked outside the barn, which made sense. It would've been difficult for the Tau to stuff their artifact into a Devilfish troop transport.

There was something already in the bed of the lifter, however, and Delgan's expression darkened as he saw two heavy-set armor suits jump onto the ground, each one hefting a cannon almost as big as a man.

"Broadsides. They've got bloody Broadsides out there." He dropped below the lip of the firing slit, his hands gripping his pistol tightly.

"I'm hoping that's an insulting nickname you humans gave them because they're fat and easy to shoot," Rarity said as she squinted her eyes, "also, we have another of those Devilfish coming from this side."

"Well, that doesn't make too much of a difference at this point," Dest grumbled.

"Except it has a really long gun of some sort on top," Rarity added as she dropped down from the chair, her boltgun empty.

Delgan slapped a hand over his face. "A Hammerhead. They have a Hammerhead battle tank too. By the Dark Gods..."

"The heavier weapons haven't opened fire yet," Dest noted, "I believe we've already dispatched their leadership, so they're probably discussing their battle plan. But when they do decide on a target, this facility will not hold against that level of firepower."

Applejack felt her hackles rise as she noticed a distinct shift in the fighting spirit of the soldiers in the room. They had all turned away from their firing points, hugging their weapons grimly and casting frequent glances at the route to the back door. The pulse fire coming at the farmstead had slowed to a trickle as well, the Tau soldiers finally relieved of the barrage of fire coming from the farmstead.

"What're y'all doing? Ya can't just give up!" Applejack insisted.

"Although continuing to fight with no possibility of success IS an option, I'm open to alternatives," Dest remarked, "heroic last stands are unfashionable in Chaos Legions."

"Miss Sparkle, you mentioned earlier that it may be wise to surrender the artifact and avoid a fight," Delgan noted, "if you had any particular ideas for how to negotiate such an arrangement as the enemy is preparing to wipe us out, now would be an excellent time to put them into play."

The scream of the Sunshark bombers making another pass overhead had the soldiers ducking reflexively, and Twilight gulped.

"There's gotta be somethin' we can do!" Applejack insisted desperately. "We can't let 'em win! Twi, doncha have a spell to help us out?"

Twilight silently stepped past Rarity and climbed up on the chair, her horn flickering.

Really, she didn't have any particular idea of how she might break or disable a Tau battle tank with magic (at least now that they were out of grenades). She knew it could be done, certainly, and she could think of a few spells off-hand that might distract or inconvenience the war machine, but she wasn't exactly used to fighting armored vehicles.

"I... I can shield the house," Twilight said as she stared out at the Tau Fire Warriors that were taking up a formation around the hammerhead gunship, "I mean... for a little while, at least." Barriers were not indestructible, and that was a VERY large gun. She could see some of the Fire Warriors outside were pointing to parts of the farmstead, while another was trying to wave the tank toward the barn.

"Well, that will give us some time, I suppose," Delgan reasoned, "are you sure you have no offensive powers you can use to eliminate the heavy units?"

Twilight winced as her horn glowed. "Well..." she trailed off.

Twilight wasn't completely sure what happened next. One moment she was studying the armored vehicle and trying to think of a spell that would work with the various unique and unknown properties of a battle tank. The next moment a beam of red stabbed into the side of the tank, and that entire half of the vehicle glowed a bright crimson from the catastrophic heat buildup.

And then the next moment, explosions.

Every human and pony jumped to the firing slits as the Hammerhead detonated, throwing the surrounding Fire Warriors to the ground and smashing many of them with debris and shrapnel.

"You did it!" Pinkie cheered.

"No, I didn't! That wasn't me!" Twilight insisted. "There was this big red beam that came from nowhere and hit it, and then the tank blew up!"

"A lascannon?" Dest asked. "But even if we had such a weapon, who-"

He was interrupted by a vox signal rune glowing briefly on his still-dimming visor display.

"Acolyte?!" the Iron Warrior shouted, switching his vox receiver to external speaker mode.

"Ah, Lord Dest. You're still alive and conscious. I wasn't sure since your signal is so weak at present."

Gaela's deadpan, typically disinterested voice filled the Apples' living room, and there wasn't a man or pony who wasn't almost moved to tears to hear it.

"Gaela! You're all right!" Twilight had to fight off the urge to actually tackle-hug Dest in joy, so glad was she to hear the Dark Acolyte's voice.

"I must assume that was you who just dispatched the gunship," Dest said as he raised his new lasgun and then started opening fire again on the Tau infantry. The other humans save Delgan promptly did the same, their morale restored.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - barn

"Affirmative."

Gaela was positioned in front of the main door's firing slit, both arms supporting a lascannon that had been ripped from the wreck of the gunship and now rested against her hip. Steam blasted from the jury-rigged coolant block she had grafted to the side of the weapon, and a thick trail of sparking cables ran along the ground to connect to several power hook-ups in the walls.

"You've done well to hold off the assault long enough for me to prepare. Next firing cycle is in nine seconds," Gaela said, sounding slightly bored.

"Acolyte, there are several units making a break for your position," Dest advised through the vox, "they know where that blast came from."

"Acknowledged. Crabapple, engage active scanning and pinpoint enemy infantry. Upload position data to local noosphere data node. Glass Cannon, engage."

+Unit Crabapple has confirmed sensor lock on enemy units. Unit grudge shall impart additional satisfaction upon termination of the enemy.+

+Affirmative. Sensor lock received. Kill the xeno.+

The boom of an autocannon came from beside her as Glass Cannon opened fire through the vision slit, its heavy gun punching through the scant cover available to the Fire Warriors trying to move on the barn.

"Charging cycle complete," Gaela said as she lifted the lascannon barrel and fit it through the firing slit, "may the Dark Gods guide my fire."

The sizzle of superheating atmosphere came from the weapon as another thick spear of red lanced out at a Devilfish that had been staying still for much of the battle. It too exploded as the laser pierced the vehicle's power core, spewing more armor shrapnel over the road.

"Good shot, Dark Acolyte," Dest noted, "but that transport had already been disabled. If you want to help out, we could really use a lascannon against these broadside heavy suits."

Gaela frowned as she pulled her weapon up, steam blasting from the coolant rig. "Negative. I cannot get line of sight on the battlesuits from here, nor can I leave the barn to join you."

"Sparkle can affect short-range teleports. Is this feasible?"

"It is not," Gaela replied, "my current weapon is currently drawing upon the facility's main power supply via a modified conduit. I would be unable to quickly establish the same sort of link in the farmstead."

She paused. "On that note, this structure has atrocious firing lines considering its position relative to the rest of the agri-facility. If Dark Acolyte Benil wasn't already dead, I'd have him reprimanded. I don't think he took this construction job very seriously."

"Yes, he certainly should have put more thought into the defensive qualities of the pony farm he was building," Dest snorted, "we still have a serious problem. Our best guns are depleted and we're just barely keeping the grays out of here."

Gaela frowned as she watched the temperature gauge on the lascannon fall back into the safe zone. "Agreed. And so long as their bombers can strafe us at will, they can keep us pinned inside until further reinforcements join the battle, if necessary."

She fired the lascannon again, vaporizing a wagon and two Fire Warriors that were sheltering behind it.

"We'll hold out for as long as we can," the Dark Acolyte decided as she pulled away from the firing slit and the increasingly heavy pulse fire that was splashing around it, "Tau are not hardy creatures. If we can inflict enough damage, they will cut their losses and break from combat."

"Very well, Acolyte," Dest replied, "iron within."

"Iron without," Gaela finished as steam wafted about her robes.

****

Barn exterior

*They have a LASCANNON in there too?*

The Fire Warriors grimaced behind their helmets as their commlinks crackled in their ears.

*And an autocannon, apparently! We need you to break into the secondary structure and silence them!*

*Do we still have the numbers for that? We lost more than half the squad trying to break into the FIRST structure!* growled a Fire Warrior.

*We're taking the main bunker apart with the Broadside battlesuits! But they may not survive an assault on the secondary fire point!*

The gathered Fire Warriors nodded grimly, and a pair of them made a sprint for the barn without further orders.

*Place the demolition charges on the secondary entry door!* shouted one soldier as he stood up. *We'll cover you from here!*

*This entire assault has already fallen apart,* grumbled another, *what is this blasted machine that's worth the lives of so many?*

*Keep such doubts to yourself, Shas'la. Our sacrifice is only in vain if we fail,* mumbled another.

Another stream of red poured out of the barn, causing the Tau soldiers to cringe. They couldn't see whatever the lascannon was shooting at from behind the farmstead, but whatever it was surely wouldn't survive a hit.

*What do you think we'll find inside the building protecting the device?* asked one of the covering soldiers as his eyes scanned the fields for threats.

*The way this fight has been going?* snorted another, *Half a dozen psyker natives, ten Astartes, and a Titan.*

*I hope not. I don't like psykers,* joked another as they chuckled ruefully.

A heavy thumping noise came from behind them, and the Fire Warrior that had more or less taken over as squad leader whirled around. The sound had come from some distance away - mid-rifle range at least - but it wasn't any sort of weapon discharge he could recognize.

And sure enough "pony kicking a barrel" wasn't the kind of threat he was expecting on a battlefield.

The barrel slammed into the Fire Warrior and split apart, splashing the other two soldiers with a bizarre shrapnel of wood, nails, and lots of apples.

The two remaining Tau seemed stunned at the sight, staring down at their fruit-laden companion as the Fire Warrior groaned in pain.

Another thump alerted them to another incoming barrel, and one soldier threw himself to the ground as the next barrel sailed through the air. His comrade wasn't so quick, and another Fire Warrior was smashed into the ground before more apples bounced all over the alien fighters.

The remaining Fire Warrior recovered his wits and rolled to face the source, his prone movement sending swaths of fruit rolling all about.

His assailant wasn't hard to spot; next to a large cart was a small wall of barrels lined up in a row, and behind them a large red pony with a blond mane was facing away from them.

The Tau took aim, but Big Macintosh was already in position to send the next of his own projectiles. With a hefty kick another barrel was sent spinning end over end toward the soldiers.

The Fire Warrior adjusted his aim toward the flying container and fired. The shot struck true, blowing apart the side of the barrel and the iron bands that held it together.

That ended up turning the heavy wooden projectile into a scattered blast of apples and wood, and the Tau soldier yelped and covered himself as fruit rained down on top of him.

After being nearly buried in apples, the Fire Warrior growled and pushed himself up to his feet.

He didn't seem to consider first that the ground was covered inch to inch with small round objects, and his hoof slipped on an apple and returned him unwittingly to the prone position.

*Damned primitives!* cursed the Tau as he rose to his knees, pausing to wipe away an apple that had been squashed against his helmet sensors. *Ambushing convoys, scavenging gue'la gear, and now they're throwing crops at us!*

He shook his head in disgust before bringing up his pulse rifle again.

His pulse rifle went flying out of his hand as Big Macintosh struck the Fire Warrior in the shoulder with a foreleg, having crossed the distance between them while the soldier had been distracted.

The Tau shouted in pain and fell backwards, and then reached for his combat knife with his off-hand as the stallion loomed over him.

Big Mac reared up onto his hind legs with an angry snort, and then brought his front hooves down onto the Fire Warrior's chest. He wasn't sure whether the cracking sound that resulted was from the soldier's armor or its body, and he didn't particularly care; the hand drawing the knife went slack, and the intruder stopped making noise.

His attention snapped to the other soldiers that were slowly recovering from the earlier impacts, and his eyes narrowed. Big Macintosh waded through the apple spill with grim determination and smashed a hoof firmly into the next soldier's back, grinding him into the ground and silencing him.

The next Fire Warrior had already made it to his hands and knees, and was groping about for his weapon dizzily as he stumbled about the apple puddle.

Big Mac turned around and gave the staggered warrior a solid back kick, finishing him off. The armor plating split loudly from the force, and the Fire Warrior was sent flying like a rag doll through the air.

Big Mac didn't have time to see where the soldier landed, or even get his bearings after the kick. As soon as the last Tau was dispatched a pair of screaming blue bolts slammed into his left flank, and the crimson stallion released a pained, breathless gasp before he collapsed onto the ground.

*Got him! About time too. The bastard took out the rest of the squad,* snarled one of two remaining Fire Warriors, *I know it's fairly moot at this point, but why the blazes are the natives helping the gue'la in the first place?*

*Hush, I'm almost done here.*

The first soldier turned to his fellow survivor, who was still fiddling with a demolition charge on the side entrance of the barn.

*Isn't that thing set up yet?*

*Quiet! I've never actually used these in the field before!* barked the other one as he set the timer.

*Hold on... did that do it?*

The counter on the bomb started counting down, and the two Fire Warriors held position on either side of the door, ducking away.

A sizzling blast came from the shaped fusion charge as it vaporized the blast door, and the Fire Warriors waited several seconds before one of them tossed a photon grenade into the breach.

*So it's just us, then?*

The other Tau grunted a vaguely affirmative reply, and then stepped in front of the breach, pulse rifle aimed.

His torso vanished into a gory mess as an autocannon round punched into it, and his remaining companion stumbled backward in shock.

*F-Forget this!* the survivor turned and made a sprint away from the structure, making sure to put plenty of cover between him and the barn.

*To whoever's leading this disaster at this point, the attack on the secondary facility has failed!* shouted the Fire Warrior, linking his comms to all active channels. *My squad's been wiped out and I'm falling back!*

*Shas'la, we NEED those heavy weapons taken down! We're getting ripped apart out here!*

*Isn't there a power conduit we can blow somewhere?*

*I don't know! This area is completely different from the recon reports!*

The lone Fire Warrior stopped as he heard a roaring noise coming from above, and he glanced up at the Sunshark bombers making yet another run on the agri-facility.

He snorted. The pulse bombs they carried would have been perfect for eliminating targets hiding in the orchards or smashing flimsy wooden buildings, but against the hardened ferrocrete bunkers they had found here the weapons could barely put cracks in the surface layer.

*Still, I suppose it's better to have them than not,* the Tau soldier grumbled to himself as the bombers flew past the farmstead.

Oddly enough, the engine roar only seemed to get louder after they left. Almost as if there were another flyer coming up behind him.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

*Motherfu-*

****

Sweet Apple Acres - interior

Delgan shouted and dove away as railguns fired on the building, the noisy whine of the magnetic accelerators swallowing the comparatively soft noise of the discharge.

The wall held. Barely. Great cracks appeared under the firing slit as the hyper-accelerated rounds punched through the duralloy reinforcement layer, straining the slabs of ferrocrete under the wallpaper but failing to puncture them completely. A smart missile salvo followed the railgun barrage, but this did much less to break the farmstead's defenses.

"Another fusillade like that and the wall will start coming down," warned Dest. He had already abandoned that side of the building and was trying to pin down anyone moving toward the barn.

"Twi, barrier, now!" Applejack yelled.

Twilight took a deep breath as her horn glowed, and then in a flash of light a sheet of bright purple washed down from above to cover the farmstead.

Delgan grinned. "Good show, Sparkle! Everybody, aim for the Broadsides while the shield is up! If we can-"

"No, wait! Don't shoot!" Twilight shouted. "The barrier works in both directions! If you shoot out at them, it will just bring it down faster!"

Delgan blinked. "What? A two-way barrier? What good is that?" the Trademaster complained.

"Well, sorry! We're a little new to gunfights here!" the alicorn groused.

"You've bought us some time," Dest reasoned, "and further complicated the Tau's assault. It will do."

The whine of the magnetic accelerators started up again, and Twilight's eyes bulged as the broadside battlesuits discharged their next barrage into the barrier.

"AAAAUGH!!" the ponies cringed as Twilight screamed in pain and collapsed onto the floor.

"TWI! Are ya okay?" Applejack asked as she and Pinkie rushed to the alicorn's aid.

"Yes! I'm... I'm fine!" Twilight assured them. Her eyes were squeezed shut and sweat started to bead on her head, but her horn was still glowing brightly and the shield was still obviously in place. "I just... I wasn't prepared for that kind of feedback! I'll be okay! I can still hold it!"

"I'm not sure you should. They don't look like they're giving up out there," Rarity noted.

"If they bring down one wall, they can get a clear firing line into this structure," Dest noted, "once that happens, we'll have no choice but to fall back to the barn, and they'll have every chance to cut us down in the attempt. Especially with those bombers still active."

"Hrrrrrrg!" Twilight clenched her teeth as another wave of railgun rounds pounded the barrier, along with a steady stream of pulse rifle fire. "Okay... yeah, I'm definitely reaching my limit, here! That's just too much energy to hold back!"

"Well, what're we supposed to do, then?" Applejack demanded of the Chaos Space Marine. "Is there any point to drawing it out any longer? If we gotta run, let's get the fillies and RUN!"

"You might want to hold off on that," Delgan said as he peered out of the firing slit, "I believe Miss Sparkle will be relieved in a moment."

"By who?" Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

Delgan slid into a seated position, his back to the damaged wall and a tired smile on his reconstructed face. "Take a wild guess."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - exterior

*Kor'vre, keep a close eye on the target structure. We believe the enemy will break soon.*

The pilot of the Sunshark bomber glanced at his display board as his craft turned to sail over the farmstead again.

*Shas'la, do you want us to drop a few eggs on that shield dome? We're still on standby.*

*Uh, hold on for... WHOA! Damn it, get to the side! That autocannon will cut us apart if we-*

The pilot turned off the commlink with an aggravated groan.

*It looks pretty bad down there. And without a ranking Shas, we're in a bad spot too,* noted the co-pilot.

*Perhaps it's time to take matters into our own hands,* mumbled the pilot, glancing to the side briefly as a speedy blue bird of some kind zipped past them, *run a scan and see if you can't find a power transformer or coupling box. This place is a damn FARM; they couldn't have built EVERYTHING to withstand pulse discharges.*

*Roger that. Let's see...*

A thumping noise from outside briefly distracted both of the air caste crew from their sortie, and the head pilot glanced at his readouts. *Did we just hit a bird?*

*Must have been a pretty big bird. Or maybe one of the flying natives?*

The pilot snorted. *Forget it. Get me those scans.*

*Yes, of course! Let's see... wait, we have a new power armor signature! Outside the building!*

*Just one?* the pilot was already tilting their craft to the side to make the turn. *Well, it's not a power relay, but it'll do.*

As the bomber turned around, the pilot saw the same blue thing from before flying away, its rainbow-colored tail whipping about behind it.

*Looks like the suit signature is... a flyer? Seriously? They put rockets on the back of a Space Marine? They can DO that?*

*Gue'la will do all sorts of crazy things with those super-soldier monstrosities,* the pilot spat, *now let us teach them the folly of defiance.*

And then the melta bomb attached to their fuselage exploded.

The other Sunshark bomber, which had been holding to its patrol pattern, immediately started taking evasive maneuvers after seeing its wing mate suddenly detonate into a ball of flame for no apparent reason.

*Shas'la, report! Where did that shot come from? You reported no active anti-air weaponry!* shouted the pilot angrily, checking all his scopes for signs of energy discharges.

*We're a little busy down here, Kor'vre!* spat back a Fire Warrior.

*A little busy? My wingman just spontaneously combusted! I can't find the weapon source!*

*Well, what do you want US to do about it? We have our hands full with the damn bunker! The shielded bunker with no apparent barrier generator! It can't... wait... oh, NOW what?!*

*Shas'la? Hey! Don't you dare-*

His conversation was cut short both by the commlink going dead and by the much more surprising incidence of the bomber cockpit running smack into something during its evasive twists.

The Tau pilot blinked. A yellow pegasus with a pale pink mane was plastered spread-eagle against the cockpit window, her eyes squeezed shut in terror.

*And what is THIS, then?* grumbled the pilot.

*Is that a native? Huh. Odd colors,* the co-pilot murmured.

*Is it still alive?* the pilot's concern rose considerably as he noticed the small creature trying to push its face off the cockpit window without completely dislodging itself and getting flung into the bomber's jet stream.

The pilot's concern turned to alarm as he finally noticed the item that was hanging from the pony's neck on a loop of thick string.

*A MELTA BOMB!! That thing has a gue'la melta bomb!* the pilot shrieked.

The pilot immediately sent the craft into a deep turn, the frame of the Sunshark groaning from the stress.

*Wait, hold on! You're not watching where we're headed, Kor'vre!*

*If that thing lives to arm the bomb, then we're headed for our graves, Kor'ui!* growled the pilot as he started to do a barrel roll.

This maneuver seem to do the trick, and Fluttershy yelped loudly before she slipped off of the cockpit window and barely avoided getting sucked into one of the bomber's turbines, flailing wildly through the air the whole time.

This left the pilot's view unobstructed, finally, which gave him an excellent close-up view of the Apples' brand new preservatory towers.

*Pull up! Pull-*

The second bomber smashed itself to pieces against the tower, breaking the structure open and spreading literally tons of apples out over the ground among the chunks of burning debris.

Fluttershy went spinning off in another direction, and may have had her own crash-landing had a speedy blue pegasus not swooped in and grabbed her, stabilizing the timid pony.

"Fluttershy, that was awesome!" Rainbow Dash congratulated the other pegasus, holding her up as her wings beat furiously. "You didn't even have to use the bomb Tellis gave you!"

Fluttershy's eyes rolled about dizzily. "C-Could someone stop the battle, please? I'd l-like to get off."

"Just give it another minute or so," Rainbow said as she let go of her yellow friend. Fluttershy took a few seconds to stabilize herself, but eventually recovered enough to hover properly on her own.

Once she did recover, the pegasi stared down at the carnage below and took stock of the battlefield. Bodies and rubble painted blue and black littered Sweet Apple Acres, but the farmstead was still surrounded and the magic barrier around it quivered and flickered unsteadily.

"Do you think everypony's okay?" Fluttershy asked, her front hooves pressed together anxiously.

"They are now that we're here," Rainbow said decisively, "c'mon Flutters!"

*Did we just lose the bombers? You can't be serious!*

One Fire Warrior beckoned to his squad before rushing past the Broadsides to one of the two APCs that were still functional.

*We're getting out of here! Move it!*

*The general retreat has not been called,* crackled the heavy electronic voice of the Broadside battlesuit as it turned away from its target.

*There's no one of rank left to call it! We can't hold this position any longer!* protested another soldier as he bolted past.

*We still possess sufficient combat strength,* the heavy suit protested, *we must recover the device, or-*

*INCOMING!! JUMP PACK!!*

Tellis descended like a meteor, smashing feet-first into one Broadside battlesuit and bowling it over while a vox-amplified scream echoed over the farm.

He turned immediately to the next one, his hand trailing arcs of red lightning before he punched one set of lightning claws through the battlesuit's head.

He yanked the claw out and hopped away as the suit tried to retaliate, swinging its massive weapon about like a club while sparks poured from its sensor nodes.

"Here ya go, squirt. This should be a pretty good vantage point for the rest of the fight," Tellis said, darting behind the blinded Broadside and placing Scootaloo on top of its ruined head component.

"Er, couldn't they shoot me pretty easily from here?" the young pegasus asked as she looked around.

Tellis dodged out of the way as the first Broadside tried to fire its railgun from its prone position. "Oh, believe me: these guys are going to be WAY too busy to bug you!"

Tellis sliced his claws through the barrel of the downed Broadside's railgun, effectively disabling the weapon. Then he skimmed lightly over the ground, leaving the cumbersome battlesuits behind in favor of softer and more numerous targets.

*Hurry! Get in! Move!* shouted a Fire Warrior, practically shoving his squadmate into the entry hatch of their Devilfish.

He shouldered his way in and hit the exit hatch button. *Go! Go!* he shouted to the vehicle pilot.

The squeal of the hatch servos grinding to a halt stopped his heart dead. The cracking of the door mechanisms as a pair of power-armored hands wrenched it open sent him spinning around, his finger already on the trigger of his pulse rifle.

He managed to release a burst as the Raptor Lord reached for him, but after that he couldn't manage much more than screams.

The Devilfish started moving when the wings of Tellis' flight pack vanished inside it, and the APC turned sharply to avoid the firing lane from the barn while it built up speed.

Then it started shaking and bucking wildly, the desperate cries of pain and terror within muffled considerably by the vehicle armor.

"Weren't those guys trying to run away?" Scootaloo mused to herself as she remained seated atop the Broadside battlesuit.

The other Broadside stood itself up, its ruined railgun hanging at his side. *Is your weapon still functional?* he asked the other battlesuit. *I am down to my smart missile systems.*

*Yes, my railgun is active, but I only have secondary sensors. My targeting uplinks are gone. I can't get a lock for my own missiles.* The blinded battlesuit paused. *Also, is there something on my head? I thought I heard something up there.*

The other Broadside quickly brushed Scootaloo off of its squadmate, eliciting a frightened yelp from the orange filly as she was sent tumbling to the ground.

*Listen to me! I'm going to uplink my sensor outputs to your suit controls! It will take a few moments to adjust, but it's our last chance to kill the Astartes!*

*Good idea,* the other suit agreed, another burst of fire puffing out of its sensor suite. *I'm opening up my target system to the local combat mapping network. Go ahead.*

Then its squadmate vanished in a stream of hot red light.

"Glass Cannon, engage the remaining Devilfish," Gaela commanded, pulling the coolant release on the lascannon and ejecting another burst of steam into the air, "Crabapple, notify me of any additional units entering the engagement zone." She was standing at the corner of the farmstead now, out in the open, while the power cables attached to her weapon trailed behind her back to the barn.

The automatas' replies were lost in the roar of Glass Cannon's autocannon as it chased after the last Devilfish fleeing the area, a trail of ammo casings littering the ground behind it.

The remaining Broadside brought up its railgun, but it spent an overlong time twitching its aim back and forth to try and line up its weapon. It was exceptionally difficult to aim its oversized primary weapon without a proper targeting uplink, and the Dark Acolyte was not an especially easy target.

Gaela checked the gauges of her own gun, and then frowned under her helmet.

She ditched the lascannon as the Broadside fired, the hypersonic projectiles burning a trail of superheated air behind it as they passed by close enough to unsettle her robes.

The Dark Acolyte unslung her power axe and plucked her plasma pistol from her thigh plate, charging at the battlesuit while it reloaded its railgun. A shot from her plasma pistol cored the suit's shoulder, the heavy plating crumbling under the catastrophic energy before the limb lost what function it had left.

Gaela tightened the grip of her bionic arm as she rushed into melee range. "By the Dark Gods, the manifest elements of the Omnissiah, do I sentence you to death, xeno filth!"

The battlesuit tried to rush forward at the last minute, hoping its greater bulk would see it through the charge.

The power axe struck home, and the Broadside's heavy armor split like paper before the blade, its own momentum working to drive the edge deeper and faster than Gaela could manage on her own. The Dark Acolyte's armored boots dug furrows into the ground as she was pushed back, overcome by her opponent's mass.

By the time both combatants stopped moving, however, the power axe was lodged deep within the Broadside's pilot compartment, and the suit's systems were flickering as power drained away.

"Hold on Gaela!" shouted Rainbow Dash as she dove toward the confrontation. "I've got your back!"

The Dark Acolyte levered her axe free of the battlesuit and then kicked the suit away onto the ground in a heap.

"Oh," Rainbow quickly slowed her descent, moving into a hover before she hit the ground, "I guess I was too late. Sorry."

"Not at all. Your removal of the flyers was extremely helpful. Thank you," the Dark Acolyte said with casual sincerity as she searched for more targets. Rainbow Dash blinked repeatedly, surprised to hear such a thing from the Mechanicus priestess.

The Devilfish that had been invaded was now pitching and jerking wildly, no doubt due to Tellis having forced his way into the cockpit. The other APC that had fled had already been grounded from having its engine punctured by autocannon fire, and Glass Cannon was scouring the area for survivors to finish off.

The barrier around the farmhouse had fallen as well, and she could see the blast doors beginning to unlock.

"Crabapple," she spoke loudly, her voice carrying to the automata probe waiting next to the lascannon, "began a local sensor sweep for survivors. Send notice of any findings to Lord Tellis."

+Affirmative. Unit Crabapple will delight in the suffering and extermination of the foe.+

Gaela rolled her eye as her helmet began to disengage, exposing her face once more to the unfiltered air thick with the scent of smoke and burning apples.

"Is... Is it over?" Applejack mumbled, stepping out of her home with a slightly dazed expression while she stared at the surrounding carnage.

It wasn't hard to imagine why. Even if the damage this time around wasn't as bad as the LAST time her home had been attacked by the Tau, that incident had been a matter of coincidence. The ponies had never been the actual target of an alien assault before.

"Gaela, you're all right!" Twilight shouted, pushing past Applejack with Rarity and Pinkie following behind her. Dest emerged a few seconds later, his helmet held under his arm.

"Of course. And what of our forces? Did we lose many?" the Dark Acolyte asked calmly.

Before any of the ponies could answer, Tellis erupted from the cockpit of the Devilfish he had entered, his armor dripping with blue blood as he released a furious screech into the air.

Rainbow Dash just covered her ears, but every other pony ducked their heads in shock and terror as the daemonic shriek reverberated through Sweet Apple Acres.

"What is he DOING?!" Twilight shouted as she contemplated whether to put up her shield again.

"Oh, he's just feeding his armor," Gaela said with a shrug.

Rainbow Dash nodded. "He's a little overdramatic about it, isn't he?"

"He... FEEDS his... what?" Rarity asked, glancing down at Twilight in the hopes that she could offer an explanation.

"How do you 'feed' an inanimate object?" the purple pony asked as the final echoes of the screech petered out.

"Your presumption is in error. His armor is far from inanimate," Gaela said in explanation.

By this point Tellis had jumped out of the Devilfish wreck and was walking toward the survivors, his armor gleaming. All traces of the glancing hits and collected viscera from his opponents were gone, and the wings of his flight pack rose and fell slightly as if it were breathing.

"I have GOT to stop by here more often. I think your place has seen more action than the base in the Everfree did!" the Raptor Lord said cheerfully.

Applejack resented how happy he seemed to be about it, but forced herself to thank the man. "Well, Ah appreciate ya comin' to clear 'em out. Again."

"It's cool," Tellis assured her, "I was losing anyway."

"I want a rematch, by the way!" yelled Scootaloo.

Before Twilight could wonder aloud what they were talking about, Gaela cleared her throat.

"Sparkle, if we may return to my earlier question: What are our casualties?"

"Oh, sorry! Three of Delgan's men were hit. One of them is still alive, though. Dest took a hit, but he's okay," the alicorn explained.

"Really? Four guys down is pretty good for a bunch of mortals," Tellis noted, "you guys aren't bad!"

This raised several eyebrows.

"No, we only had three casualties. Dest is okay," Twilight insisted.

Tellis tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, I heard you. And what about that other pony?"

"... What other pony?"

"Wait..." Applejack felt her heart sinking as she took a mental count of all the ponies that were either present or presumably safely hidden upstairs. "Where's Big Macintosh?!"

A horrified scream came from the other side of the farmstead, and the equines' faces went pale.

Applejack was the first to bolt away, but Gaela was close behind. Twilight stumbled briefly, and then raced after them as Pinkie, Rarity, and Rainbow shared a pensive look.

"Okay, well, you guys go take care of that," Tellis said with some confusion as the rest of the ponies and even Dest took off, "the rust bucket found a survivor, so I'm gonna go get him. Cool? Okay then."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..." Twilight chanted as she raced up to the small group gathered near the barn in a veritable pond of apples.

Fluttershy was huddled off to the side, sobbing freely as she covered her eyes. Applejack and Gaela were stooped over a large red body, the former quivering with equal parts fury and grief.

Twilight slowed down, and it took a few seconds to find her voice. "Is... Is he-"

"Not quite. He's still alive," Gaela admitted, "but it's bad. Very bad."

Twilight swallowed deeply, trying not to look at the body ahead of her. "Okay... I can fix this. I know what to do," the alicorn said shakily before her horn started to glow.

"Ya big red idiot," Applejack whispered through clenched teeth, "what were ya doin' out here to begin with?"

"Helping me, it looks like," Gaela snorted, casting a contemptuous glare at the dead Tau nearby, "early in the battle Crabapple detected several Fire Warriors moving into my blind spot. Only two of them survived to breach the barn, and were easily repulsed. I may not have survived a more determined assault."

Twilight's spell reached completion, and Big Macintosh was suddenly engulfed in purple.

Applejack turned toward the alicorn, waiting for an explanation.

"Th-This will slow down his bodily functions. It sh-should keep him alive until we can get him to the clinic," Twilight stuttered, sounding quite unsure of herself.

Gaela briefly glanced over at the other ponies and the Iron Warrior that were approaching the site of the disaster. Winona followed behind them with her head bowed, having emerged from wherever the collie had hidden during the battle.

"I, uh, I found a blanket near one of the destroyed carts," Rainbow Dash said, offering up a pale scrap of cloth nervously, "so..."

Gaela wordlessly took the blanket and tossed it over the body behind her, preventing the newcomers from seeing the extent of the damage. Then she dropped to one knee in front of Twilight so that she could look the alicorn in the eyes.

"Sparkle, the damage to Macintosh's body is extensive. Putting aside his legs, one of his lungs is destroyed and his heart is fatally damaged. Considering that he took a pair of pulse rifle blasts unarmored, it's astounding that he got off that lightly, but are you certain that your medicine or magic can save him? Can your medicae specialists regenerate or replace a major organ?"

Twilight bit her lip anxiously. "I... I think... I mean..."

"Gaela, you got another idea?" Applejack asked. Her voice was surprisingly steady.

"I do. If we can get him to Ferrous Dominus while he's still alive, we can save him," the Dark Acolyte said, "it is within our ability to craft entirely new organs and implant them safely."

"Well, then what're we waiting for?" Pinkie asked. "Twilight, teleport there with him!"

The alicorn winced. "I can't! Teleporting isn't that easy! Over that kind of distance, with another body, and after I've used so much magic power already..."

"It would be inadvisable anyway. Your teleport would be detected immediately and you'd be terminated on sight, in all likelihood," Dest grumbled, his frown tightening.

At this point Delgan had emerged from the farmstead as well, and was buttoning his coat as he approached the group curiously.

"We may have no other option besides piling into the Chimera and making full speed back to the fortress," Gaela admitted, "Sparkle, how long will that spell last?"

"Uh... maybe... half an hour? I hope?" Twilight answered.

"Well, ya can just cast it again, can't ya?" Applejack asked.

"Yes, but... it doesn't actually STOP his body from functioning, just kind of slows it down. I don't know how long he'll last even if I keep the spell going."

"Well, we don't have any other option, do we?" Rarity asked as she gently tended to Fluttershy.

"Any other option than to take MY transport?" Delgan asked with a quirked eyebrow.

Rarity glared sharply at him. "Oh, do NOT fight us on this, Norris! That's Applejack's brother on the ground, there!"

The Trademaster glanced over at the heap covered by the blanket. "You know, one of my men is dying too. Reik is-"

"Nobody cares, Delgan," Gaela interrupted, "Sparkle, can you levitate Macintosh to the transport? It will probably be better to move him that way than by hand." Delgan sighed and turned away.

"Wait! I have an idea!" Rainbow said, waving a foreleg in the air. "Let's fly him into the fortress! That's gotta be faster!"

"Ya can't possibly carry Mac on yer own, Dash," Applejack pointed out.

Rainbow Dash frowned. "Well... maybe we can use a stretcher, and with Fluttershy and Twilight helping..."

The roar of a flight pack came from above, and the ponies were briefly distracted from their grim task as Tellis landed heavily behind them.

"Hey, Dash! What's your favorite organ?" the Mad Angel asked. Scootaloo was on his shoulder and he was holding a struggling Fire Warrior upside-down by the leg.

"We don't got time for yer games, Tellis," Applejack said before her eyes narrowed at the hapless Tau soldier, "maybe later."

A light bulb clicked on over Rainbow Dash's head.

"Whoa, is that Big Macintosh?" Scootaloo asked, her eyes going wide.

"WAS that Big Macintosh," Tellis corrected, "grammar is important. So! Organs? Anyone?"

"Forget that, Tellis!" Rainbow said, zipping up to the Raptor Lord and beckoning to the glowing body with her leg. "We need your help!"

"What needs stabbin'?" the Iron Warrior asked.

"Rainbow, are you sure about this?" Twilight asked nervously. She was pretty sure she knew where Dash was going with this.

The blue pegasus nodded. "Tellis, you're super-fast AND super-strong. We need you to carry Macintosh to Ferrous Dominus so that we can get him fixed up!"

The Chaos Space Marine waited a few seconds for any hint of laughter. He detected none.

"Yeah, no, that's not happening," Tellis finally replied, "do I look like a shock trooper or a sky taxi? I don't do medivacs."

The others glared at the Khornate, including even Gaela and Dest, but Rainbow Dash simply rolled her eyes.

"Come on, Tellis! Be cool!" the speedy pegasus said.

"You make a persuasive case," Tellis admitted, "all right, fine. Let's do this." The others recoiled slightly at the immediate turnaround, giving each other uneasy glances.

He walked up to the large red body on the ground, casually tossing the captured Tau to Dest along the way. "Here grunt, hold this."

Dest let the alien hit the ground in front of him. Then he raised a leg and crushed the Fire Warrior against the dirt.

"Here Shy, hold this," Tellis then tossed Scootaloo to Fluttershy, who squeaked before catching the younger pegasus on her back.

As the hulking lunatic picked up the wounded pony, Rainbow Dash turned toward the others. "I'll go with Tellis to make sure he doesn't drop Mac or anything. You guys get to the fortress as soon as you can, all right?"

"Will do, Dash. Tellis, ya be careful with mah big bro all right?" Applejack said sternly.

"Yes, fine, let's go already," the Iron Warrior said dismissively, his flight pack spreading as the engines steadily built up burn.

Tellis took off into the sky like a rocket, his speed barely hindered by the stallion bundled up in his arms. Rainbow Dash followed after him, and in a few seconds both of them were small dots in the sky.

"Do... Do you think they'll-" Fluttershy started to speak, but Applejack cut her off.

"Yes. They're gonna make it," the orange pony said as she turned around and walked back toward the farmstead, "Mac's gonna be fine. Ah... Ah gotta go tell Bloom and Granny what happened. Y'all better figure out how we're gonna follow them." Winona followed after her, whimpering sadly.

Twilight hung her head as the farmpony left. "This is my fault. I should have-"

"It's nobody's fault," Gaela cut her off as she hefted her axe again, gazing down at the ponies, "we are victorious. Dozens of grays lost their lives here, and achieved nothing. We need no excuses or blame."

"You'll have to excuse us for not feeling the same way," Rarity said, "winning means little to us if our friends and family come to harm."

Dest snorted. "Wallow in regret if you so wish. There is much more to be done."

"Indeed," Gaela nodded, "let us see about that transport."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - five minutes later

"So now Macintosh is being carried to base by air, but you want to take my transport anyway just to visit him?" Delgan did not sound impressed by the offer as his remaining soldiers picked through the wreckage of the destroyed Chimera. "I suppose me and my men are to carry the corpses of our fallen back to Ponyville by hand? Or is there a compost bin we can just toss them in around here?"

"Your sarcasm is unwarranted. Can we take the transport or not?" Gaela asked blandly.

"You may NOT. If no one's life even depends on it, then I'm not going to lose another transport," the Trademaster insisted.

"That cargo vehicle the Tau brought is still here," Twilight noted from behind the humans, "can we use that?"

Gaela glanced over at the automated cargo skimmer, considering. The vehicle had indeed survived the battle with barely a scratch, as neither she nor Glass Cannon had categorized it as a threat in a battlefield rich with more dangerous targets. Whatever programming algorithms controlled the vehicle seemed too simple and unsophisticated to realize that the Tau had lost the battle, and as a result the lifter was simply hovering next to the road and awaiting orders.

"Yes... with so many passengers we won't be able to take the artifact as well, but I think it will work," the Dark Acolyte allowed, "I have experience reprogramming Tau drones to suit our needs. This should be easy by comparison."

"Acolyte. More ponies here to see you."

Everyone present turned to look as Dest approached from the road. His armor had apparently lost power completely by now, and his gait was sluggish and clumsy as his muscles fought against the suit's weight.

Following him were a pair of fillies that Gaela remembered meeting the previous day. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon approached slowly, stared at the surrounding devastation with awe and a fair amount of nervousness. Soon Diamond's eyes fell on Gaela, and she cleared her throat meaningfully.

"Hello Miss Gaela. I take it Tellis arrived in time to save everypony? We saw the Tau rushing to the farm, so we sent him to save you as soon as we found him," Diamond Tiara said, trying to sound casually confident.

The other ponies cringed, and Diamond started to panic.

"Er, well, he at least helped, right? I mean, we sent him and Miss Dash as soon as we could! We couldn't-"

"Your automata is fully repaired and standing by next to the barn," Gaela said dryly, jabbing her bionic thumb in the relevant direction.

"Thank you!" Diamond Tiara shouted as she quickly scurried away, glad to escape the gloomy atmosphere and the chance of being further entangled in this fiasco.

Silver Spoon was about to follow, but she halted and looked over at Fluttershy.

"Miss Fluttershy?" the bespectacled pony asked. "I know this probably isn't the best time, but I'd really like to ask you something."

Fluttershy looked reasonably surprised that anypony would have a question specifically for her under these circumstances, but she straightened up and nodded. "Okay. What is it?"

"Is there a reason that Mister Tellis was at your house?" Silver Spoon asked. "Did Miss Dash bring him there or something?"

This earned the yellow pegasus quite a few raised eyebrows.

Fluttershy winced at the sudden attention. "Oh, that. He's, uhm, just staying with me for a little while."

Many of the raised eyebrows turned into bug-eyed stares, and Fluttershy lowered her head in embarrassment.

"Yeah, he told me about that," Scootaloo noted, "he said that he didn't have any other place to stay. Why was that, anyway?"

"Oh, that's just because every time he tries to go home, the Company tries to shoot him down," Fluttershy explained.

The bug-eyed stares added slack jaws.

Gaela's eye twitched. "And you didn't think to tell us this before we sent Tellis straight to the fortress while carrying Macintosh?"

"Well, I'm sure Mister Murderer has a plan for that, right?" Fluttershy asked with rapidly diminishing confidence. "I mean, he wouldn't just forget about something like that, would he?"

The incredulous stares remained, and Fluttershy wilted.

"I'm sorry," the yellow pegasus squeaked.

"Well, I was just curious," Silver Spoon said awkwardly as she started creeping away, "I'm going to go help Diamond Tiara with her automata now, thanks!" She wasn't completely sure what was happening, but it looked like the Elements of Harmony still had their hooves full of problems, and she didn't especially want to get involved.

"Crabapple!" Gaela barked, her servo arm clanking shut irritably.

The automata probe was standing next to a mutilated Fire Warrior, jabbing the dead body over and over again with the point of its leg while releasing the Binaric equivalent of haughty laughter.

It halted once it heard its name, and its sensor array spun about to focus on the Dark Acolyte.

"Run some scans and locate the Tau disruptor drones," Gaela commanded as she drew her plasma pistol again, "we need long-range vox, and we need it NOW."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17

"I have a vox transmission from WHO?" asked General Gnoss, his eyebrow raised irritably.

"A Dark Acolyte by the name of Gaela. No surname, apparently."

The mercenary General was seated at a desk covered in dataslates and monitors, being addressed by a technician. Most of the monitors were off, and judging by the slice of chocolate cake sitting in front of the weathered old veteran, he had been preparing to take a break from the regular schedule of drills and guard assignments that occupied his time otherwise.

"Gaela? I've heard of her, but why would a Dark Acolyte want to talk to me?" Gnoss groused, drumming his fingers on his desk.

"She insists that the command ordering all base defenses to treat Lord Tellis as a hostile target be rescinded, General," the vox technician said, "also, she seemed extremely irate that you do not possess a personal vox that she could link into directly."

Gnoss rolled his eyes. "The orders regarding Lord Tellis come from Lord Sliver. I cannot simply rescind them."

"Could you tell her that personally, General? She was quite adamant that she speak to you specifically about the matter," the technician explained.

The General groaned, pushing aside his slice of cake. "Fine," he groused, switching on one of the monitors and then tapping the display with his bony fingers, "patch me in. If she wants to hear 'no' from me personally, I can always accommodate the Dark Mechanicus."

The technician raised a control tablet and then made the appropriate adjustments.

"This is General Gnoss," the ex-pirate grunted, "I-"

"General, you must rescind all current directives to fire upon Lord Tellis immediately. He is incoming to Ferrous Dominus and must not be harmed."

Gaela's voice was harsh and direct, and the General took pause for a moment. Then he opened a link on his monitor to bring up the sensorium auger data.

"The order to shoot him down comes from Lord Sliver himself, Acolyte. I do not have the authority to simply ignore his commands. Apparently the Vice-Commander wants him out of the fortress until we're ready to depart orbit. Is there any particular reason why you want him to get in?"

There was a tense pause on the other side. "He's carrying wounded for emergency treatment."

"I don't believe you," General Gnoss deadpanned, "I've MET Lord Tellis, Acolyte."

There was some muffled cursing coming from the vox, and the General snorted as he read the data upload he had requested.

"Ah, yes. I see him now. He'll be within our anti-air cover in a matter of minutes. We'll probably open up early to warn him, but Lord Sliver was quite explicit that if he tries to get through anyway, we're to fire on him with lethal intent."

"Listen to me! Lord Tellis is carrying wounded and will be unable to take evasive action! If you open fire, he and the survivor will perish! And for what? If Lord Sliver actually wanted Tellis dead he'd have him hunted down!"

"Arguable. What isn't arguable is my orders," Gnoss noted as he took up a fork and cut out a chunk of his cake, "sorry I could not be of service, Acolyte."

"This is a pointless waste! The Warsmith will be furious!"

"Perhaps, but not at me," Gnoss said as he placed the fork in his mouth, "mmmm!"

There was a pause at the other end of the line as the man moaned. "General Gnoss?"

"This is fantastic! How do those horses make something like this? They don't even have hands!" the man gushed, his face stretching into a deep and relaxed smile.

"General, listen to me! You have to-"

"Not shoot down Lord Tellis, I heard you," Gnoss said before cutting off another chunk of cake, "tell you what: I suddenly find myself in a better mood. So if you make sure to take full responsibility for this, I'll put a hold on our guns."

There was another pause at the other end, such was the surprise of the sudden turnaround. "... Yes! Absolutely! I'll be en route to the fortress soon, and I'll explain myself to Lord Sliver after I arrive!"

"Good. Now stop bothering me," the General said, cutting the vox link.

He took another bite of cake, marveling at the taste.

"Do you know I've been subsisting almost entirely on nutrient paste for over seven years straight? I was worried I had lost my sense of taste altogether," the mercenary said to the fairly stunned vox technician.

"Er... General, the anti-air guns..."

"Right, right. You take care of that, would you? Tell them all to hold fire unless they sight grayskins. Straight from me."

The ex-pirate started digging into his dessert with gusto, and his subordinate watched with curiosity and slowly growing envy.

"Right, General. So, what kind of cake is that, exactly?"

"Germane chocolate, apparently."

"Is that some sort of horse pun?"

"A DELICIOUS horse pun."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 15 armor lots

+Observation: Repair projects are proceeding ahead of schedule, mostly thanks to influx of mercenary slaves to replace losses. Addendum: such workers are physically fit and highly motivated to avoid further punishment.+

Dark Magos Kaelith and Warsmith Solon were walking slowly through the lots where the Iron Warriors' vehicles were parked, heading toward the repair facilities. The Magos was being trailed by a coterie of servitors, many of them acting as little more than semi-autonomous data relays and processor nodes for the engineer-cultist.

"Even sho, I wish Shliver hadn't done that," Solon grumbled as his hulking form passed between the numerous tanks and APCs, "we can't put riflesh back in their handsh after working them half to death, and they are more valuable ash fightersh than brute laborersh."

+Irrelevance to current topic,+ Kaelith chittered, +evaluation: The refinery is approaching full productivity, but current raw supplies are insufficient to maximize manufactorum production. Objective: I wish to begin producing new transports to replace our previous losses.+

"Sho bring more materialsh down from the Harvesht. We're not running out, are we?" Solon asked.

+Negative,+ buzzed Kaelith, +explanation: Further depleting shipboard supplies will endanger our primary objective of substantial resupply of Iron Warrior forces. Extrapolation: after going to such lengths and suffering such losses to recover Warp capability to better fulfill this objective, it is unacceptable to endanger it when there are alternatives available.+

Solon nodded, his torso swiveling to face the Dark Magos. "Fair enough. Do we open up a new mine?"

+Refutation: A better option would be to raid the xeno bases,+ Kaelith noted blithely.

Solon turned away again. "You know I can't do that."

+Negative. Correction: I am aware you have not done that, and that it defies the strategic analysis of Lord Sliver, Warsmith.+

A garbled sigh came from Solon's vox grille. "I'd like nothing more than to shieze the grayshkin facilitiesh, but Shliver ish right; we've losht too much already for too little return."

+Refutation: my proposal specifically seeks returns for the success of our primary objective,+ Kaelith noted while two of his augmetic hands clicked their fingers together.

"True, but without assurancesh that they can be taken with minimal loshesh and with shubshtantial gain, we cannot commit an effective attack force to the ashault," the Warsmith insisted. "And unfortunately, collecting intelligence on the Tau ish nearly imposhible given that..."

Solon and Kaelith both detected the incoming power signature at the same time, calibrated as they were to the energy patterns of the daemonic.

+Request: confirm Lord Tellis approaching engagement range,+ Kaelith buzzed, his numerous augmetics quivering irritably. Like so many in the 38th Company in general and the Dark Mechanicus in particular, he didn't much care for the Raptor Lord.

"Yesh, that'sh him all right," Solon confirmed as he looked up, "I guesh Shliver changed hish mind about shooting him down."

+Addendum: a most unfortunate reversal.+

The Raptor Lord descended fairly slowly as he landed, but that was only in comparison to his usual landings that were hard enough to unsettle ferrocrete. The crash of metal boomed through the area, and Kaelith flinched back from the Iron Warrior for fear of a shock wave.

Tellis' arms were holding something wrapped in a blanket, and he was also being followed closely by a pegasus that Solon recognized as Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was breathing hard, having apparently exerted herself tremendously to keep up with the Raptor.

"Here you go, Boss," Tellis said, dumping his cargo in front of Solon.

The Warsmith's optics rotated as he glanced down at the bundle, noting a residual energy field of some kind. "What ish thish?"

"A dying horse. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I saw a dessert shop back there. I'm gonna go check that out. Later!"

Tellis blasted off again before Solon could say anything, and the Warsmith turned back to Kaelith. "Sho now apparently he'sh jusht dumping off hish killsh in front of me. I shwear, that man ish like a flying, armored cat."

"Did we make it?" Rainbow Dash asked suddenly, having finally caught her breath. "Is he gonna be okay?"

The two heavily modified humans regarded the pegasus curiously.

"Pardon? What do you mean?" Solon asked.

"We got him here as fast as we could," Rainbow Dash panted, pointing a hoof at the bundle beneath Solon's chassis, "can you save him?"

Solon looked down, and his optics began scanning the body. "Shave him? Who ish he?"

"That's Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh," Rainbow said, her expression desperate, "the Tau got him good, but Gaela said you guys could heal him!"

"Rhetorical query: Does this sector resemble a medicae ward to you, creature?" Kaelith asked as he switched to Gothic.

Rainbow looked annoyed as she addressed the hideous Dark Magos. "Is that like a hospital? I don't know where that is. Tellis dropped him off here. Can you bring him to wherever he can get help?"

"Expansion: We are attending to important matters, and cannot be bothered by your personal difficulties. Command: be gone, insolent creature."

Rainbow Dash looked furious at the dismissal from Kaelith, but as they spoke Solon stared down at Big Macintosh, studying his bio-readings and thinking.

"You shaid he ish the shibling of Applejack? Another of Mish Shparkle'sh group?" Solon asked suddenly.

Rainbow looked slightly confused, but she nodded. "Yeah, that's right."

"I have an idea," the Warsmith declared, "Kaelith, we will continue our dishcussion at a later time. I may have found another alternative to exploit."

His enormous servo claw reached down and gently closed around the unconscious pony, and the Warsmith started humming to himself as he stomped off toward the nearest manufactorum block.

Rainbow Dash and Kaelith watched him go, both of them reasonably confused.

"So, is he going to heal him or not?"

Kaelith curled one optic node around to glare at the pegasus. "Explanation: if the Warsmith has decided that this creature will live, then it will live."

"That's... KIND of reassuring?" Rainbow said uncertainly, only to realize that the Dark Magos was scuttling away as well, apparently done talking to her.

"Geez! Super rude," she mumbled as she looked around.

She hovered in the air for several seconds, keenly aware that she didn't exactly have any other pressing tasks so long as Big Mac was being taken care of.

"... Wait, there's a dessert shop? Here? Really?" she mumbled to herself, taking off in the direction that Tellis had left.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 1

Main gates, two hours later

Multiple Predator battle tanks entered the fortress from the front, their turrets all facing behind them. They formed the vanguard of a rather heavy escort surrounding a single Tau vehicle that was slowly lumbering along within the ring of heavy firepower.

The cargo lifter had several new cables attached to its processor core, and these intertwined into an uplink node quite intrusively attached to the side of Gaela's head. Behind the Dark Acolyte guiding the vehicle were a nervous jumble of eight ponies and a probe automata.

Dest had volunteered to stay behind, deciding there was no particular value in him returning to base. The fillies, on the other hand, had asked to come with them, and Applejack hadn't particularly felt like refusing them.

Besides, after the attack, she wasn't so sure that Ferrous Dominus was any less safe for them than anywhere else in Equestria. The Iron Warriors' penchant for building everything like it was on the front line of a battlefield was the only reason they hadn't all ended up like Macintosh... or worse.

"Guide the xeno vehicle to the security station and disembark there. It will go no further into the facility except at the discretion of the Dark Mechanicus," barked an Iron Warrior at the transport.

"Understood, my lord," replied Gaela, her mind feeding the automated guidance system navigation instructions one item at a time.

"I never thought we'd have to come here again," Rarity sighed as she stared up at the haze of pollution that blocked out the sun above them.

"They seem to have cleaned up a lot since we were last here, at least," Twilight noted, "I mean, like, in the streets at least."

"True, but we're much less prepared ourselves," Rarity grumbled while their vehicle hovered away from the groups of tanks and Chaos Marines, "I didn't even have time to pack anything, and I doubt we'll only be here for an afternoon."

Pinkie nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Twilight didn't even have time to go get Spike or let him know what happened!"

Twilight's eyes went wide.

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Spike drummed his claws against the surface of the library desk, his cheek resting against his other hand.

The only other sound in the room was the ticking of the wall clock. In the kitchen, several pots were sitting over low heat as the dinner Spike had prepared waited to be served.

"I need a hobby," the young dragon groused.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 1, gate security

"Yes! That's true! There wasn't time!" Twilight said loudly as sweat droplets crawled down from her forehead. "I'm sure he'll be okay!"

"All right, fine, you don't need to shout," Rarity said.

The cargo lifter slowly settled to a halt next to a security station, and the ponies hopped out onto the ferrocrete ground. Twilight levitated Crabapple out of the cab, and the fillies quickly climbed up on top of it.

"Aside from the younglings, you all should know what to do," Gaela said as she uploaded a command sequence to shut down the cargo hauler's engine, "acquire your clearance badges inside. They should also have respirators available now."

"All right, we'll be right back," Twilight assured her as she led the other ponies into the security station.

Gaela frowned as she unplugged the neural uplink node from her cranial port and pulled her hood up again.

She had already checked the noosphere logs for the sensorium, and Tellis had definitely made it into the fortress in excellent time. The defense matrix also hadn't registered him as a hostile and shot him down. Things had gone as smoothly as could be expected.

Yet a review of the medicae logs showed just as clearly that nobody had been received for treatment.

She didn't especially want to admit it, but even having overcome all the obvious obstacles to trying to keep Big Macintosh alive, there were still plenty of other things that could have gone wrong. She wasn't able to tell how long Twilight's spell was able to keep the stallion stable, for instance; he might have died on the way here, regardless of how fast Tellis moved. Or perhaps the medicae officer had simply refused to treat a random xeno that had been rushed into the base.

Gaela resolved to stop dwelling on the matter. At this point Macintosh was dead or saved, and she would find out which soon enough.

The doors to the security station opened up, and Rarity was the first one to step back outside.

She wore an expression of complete and utter disgust, which probably had something to do with the black respirator mask that she was levitating in front of her.

"They can't possibly expect us to wear these things in public! Just look at them!" the white unicorn gagged.

"I think they're neat!" Pinkie said, bouncing out of the structure behind her along with the others. They were already wearing their masks, which had a heavy disc-shaped filter on one side of the mouthpiece and a hose on the other that fed into their saddlebags and presumably to emergency oxygen bottles stashed within. The fillies had much smaller and simpler paper masks secured by a rubber band.

"That's because you ENJOY looking ridiculous," Rarity sniffed, "as for me, I could hardly imagine that suffering through a little bad air can be worse than being seen in this thing."

"Some of the heavier particulate exhaust is radioactive," Gaela noted, "without any sort of respiratory protection, it could accumulate in your lungs and cause internal cell damage over time."

Rarity rolled her eyes.

"Also, considering you don't have any body covering, it could also get stuck in your fur and cause chromosome damage to the follicles," the Dark Acolyte continued.

Rarity's eyes widened considerably.

Twilight tilted her head to the side, intrigued. "What would that do?"

"Not much. Probably just discoloration and hair loss," Gaela admitted.

Rarity emitted a cry of terror and bolted under Gaela's legs, taking cover under her robe.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?! I have to shower at once! Twilight! Barrier! Barrier!!"

Twilight did no such thing. "Rarity, we're not here for sightseeing this time. We just need to find out where they took Big Macintosh, and then we can head indoors."

The unicorn whimpered as the others looked toward Gaela.

"I have not yet located Macintosh," the Dark Acolyte admitted, "I need to speak to Dash to find out what happened, but she did not go through any security checkpoints herself when she arrived."

Then Gaela turned her head to look behind her.

"She also does not seem to appear inexplicably when I talk about her, unlike Pie," the Dark Acolyte noted as she turned her head back to the other ponies.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Pinkie said, rolling her eyes, "try to take this seriously, okay?" She earned a few glares for that comment.

"Hey, I think I see Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo said, standing up on her hind legs.

It didn't take long to spot the rather colorful mare in the air, although rather than zooming through the sky Rainbow was moving at a casual hover toward the main gate area.

When she got a little closer it was easy to see why: the blue pegasus was carrying a snow cone in her front hooves.

Rainbow Dash had clearly spotted them as well, but made no great effort to speed up. Most of the ponies and Crabapple broke into a gallop to greet her. Gaela walked at normal speed, holding her robe up to the side in order to cover Rarity as the shivering unicorn matched her pace.

"Dash, what're ya doin'?!" Applejack demanded as she slowed to a stop. "Where's Mac?!"

"He's getting fixed up," Rainbow Dash said with a raised eyebrow, "don't worry, me and Tellis got here in plenty of time." She took a bite of her snow cone.

After swallowing the flavored ice, she noticed her friends giving her looks ranging from irritation to confusion. "What? I didn't have anything else to do after dropping him off, so I got a snow cone. Nice masks, by the way."

"Where did you get a snow cone around here?" Pinkie asked, tilting her head.

"And how did you pay for it? With bits?" Twilight demanded.

"There's a dessert shop in sector six now. Luckily a couple of ponies are running it, so they take bits."

"Wait, what?"

"Dash." Gaela's voice silenced any other questions the ponies may have had as she approached. "Macintosh is alive?"

"He was when we dropped him off," Rainbow Dash insisted, nodding her head.

"And which medicae facility did you leave him to?"

Rainbow frowned. "Tellis didn't bring him there. He gave him to Solon."

Now it was Gaela's turn to be surprised. "Wait, what?"

"Solon. Come on, you've met Solon," Rainbow said before biting into her snow cone again.

"Of course I've met the Warsmith," Gaela snapped, "but do you seriously mean to tell me you asked the high commander of the 38th Company to personally repair Macintosh's body?"

"I guess? He grabbed Mac and took off, so he seemed fine with it," the pegasus shrugged.

"Is that a problem?" Applejack asked anxiously.

Gaela hesitated. "Not as such, no. To be sure, the extensive procedures Macintosh needs to survive his injuries are trivial to one such as the Warsmith. So trivial, in fact, that I would think it beneath him to bother."

"But if he DOES bother, then Big Mac will survive?" Fluttershy asked hopefully.

"There is no question," the Dark Acolyte confirmed, "Macintosh will live."

The relief from the ponies was palpable enough to be evident even through the respirators, and Gaela was slightly startled as Applejack raced over and hugged the Dark Acolyte around the waist.

"Thank you... just... Ah can't thank ya enough," the orange mare said, obviously trying to restrain tears behind the respirator mask. Which Gaela found odd, considering that the farmpony hadn't had a single crying fit since Big Macintosh had been injured. The fillies were cheering in joy, and Crabapple was wondering at a new torrent of powerful impulses that were bombarding its corrupted processor.

"It was noth..." Gaela trailed off, remembering the last time she had dismissed her aid to the Apple family as trivial. It still confused her that the favors she supplied to the ponies were so deeply valued rather than being expected of her. Such appreciation was unusual, but not unpleasant.

"You're welcome," she said finally, staring down at the pony's hat, "now release me. You pulled down the length of my robe that I was using to shield Rarity, and she looks like she's about to suffer a stroke."

Applejack couldn't help but chuckle at that as she backed off from the Dark Acolyte, and Sweetie Belle groaned at seeing her older sister quivering on the ground in terror with her forelegs shielding her head.

"Well then, if there are no more affairs that need to be addressed I shall have you all housed for the night," Gaela said, "incidentally, you'll all be staying in the menial dorms this time; the psycomantic shielding that gave the psyker dorms their unique protection has been damaged, so there's no reason to place any of you there."

"Lead on, sugarcube," Applejack said, stepping to the side.

"Wait," Pinkie said, holding up a hoof as her eyes narrowed, "... Rainbow Dash mentioned a dessert shop?"

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6, menial dormitories

Twilight laid on her bed within the cramped confines of her dorm room, a dataslate propped up on her hooves.

She had to admit that these sleeping quarters seemed almost purpose-built to induce feelings of claustrophobia, in stark contrast to the room she had used last time. They were about the size of a walk-in closet, with bunk beds to house two and shared facilities built out in the hall. She was extremely grateful that Sweetie Belle was rooming with Rarity this time around; the unicorn's complaining was probably unbearable.

But frankly, the rooms would have to be covered in spikes and fire before getting a better room would be worth probably running into Serith again.

Twilight levitated a stylus up and tapped the edge of the dataslate, moving to the next page.

This dataslate was new, and she had requested it personally before she and Gaela had parted ways for the afternoon. She had felt somewhat awkward about making a request of the Dark Acolyte after she had helped them so much already, but there was a certain topic involving interstellar conflict that she felt it was time to put under the proverbial microscope.

As such, her current dataslate contained a wealth of information about the Tau Empire.

The room's door slid open with a soft hiss, and Twilight glanced up at the pony that was to be her roommate for the night.

"Hi Fluttershy. How was supper?"

Fluttershy entered, and then tapped the control button next to the door to close and lock it.

Then the yellow pegasus wiggled her head free of the respirator mask, shaking her head once it was free to loosen up her mane.

"Phew! That was strange," Fluttershy admitted as she placed the mask on a peg on the wall.

"When I'd heard there were ponies living here, I kind of imagined they'd be really mean or something," she continued as she stepped up to Twilight, "but they seem pretty normal. I mean, from what I saw, anyway. I didn't actually talk to them or anything."

Twilight nodded absently, only half-listening. "I think it's strange too, but who are we to judge?"

Fluttershy cocked her head to one side. "Well, we're the ponies chosen by Princess Celestia to banish-"

"Rhetorical question, Fluttershy," Twilight interrupted as she clicked to the next page.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Never mind, then."

There was an extended pause as Twilight concentrated on her reading and Fluttershy considered whether it would be too rude to keep talking to her.

"Was there something else?" Twilight eventually asked, startling the pegasus.

"Oh, not really, I was just wondering what you were studying. You left as soon as Miss Gaela brought it."

"This is a compilation of data all about the Tau," Twilight explained, a hard edge to her voice, "I've said plenty of times by now that our conflict with them is a coincidence brought about by how we met the Iron Warriors, and that's still true. But by now it's beside the point," the alicorn sighed, "the problem is that we don't know much about them besides what we've gathered from being attacked by them. It's time we really studied what we're up against."

Fluttershy chewed her lip nervously. "And what did you find out?"

"Well..." Twilight paused. "Aside from a lot of interesting sociological notes about their caste systems and the potency of their weapons - the latter which we've seen too much of already - the Tau Empire seems to be unified by an expansionist philosophy. 'The Greater Good.' The basic tenets of the philosophy amount to a creed of self-sacrifice and galactic hegemony, with the ultimate goal of uniting all intelligent creatures in harmonious co-existence. Co-existence with the Tau race controlling the levers of power, incidentally."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "Well, that... doesn't sound TOO bad..."

"I don't know. This is the reasoning they use to justify annexing entire planets and their native populations into their empire. Peacefully if they can, by force if necessary," Twilight mumbled, squinting at the dataslate.

"So they're here to take over Equestria?" Fluttershy asked.

"That's the thing though, Fluttershy; the humans seem convinced that there's something else going on. And having read the notes on Tau expansion and colonization doctrines, I believe them. The Tau are supposed to meet us with diplomats and try to impress us with their goods and technologies, slowly converting the native creatures to their cause with their culture and benevolence." Twilight's jaw tightened into a frown. "I don't think I need to point out that they haven't done that. We haven't seen anything resembling 'diplomats' from the Tau."

"Maybe these are evil Tau? Like how the 38th Company is composed of evil humans?"

Twilight opened her mouth to defend their friends and allies, but nothing came out.

"... Maybe, yeah," the alicorn eventually mumbled. It was still very strange to her to acknowledge openly that they were allied with a fundamentally destructive and malevolent force. Especially one that Princess Celestia clearly and justifiably despised.

"I just can't help but think that there's something more to all this," Twilight mumbled, "they're not a fundamentally cruel or hateful species; if anything, from what I've read they're supposed to be more tolerant and benign than humans. I think there's a reason that they've been building bases and hiding in Equestria. And I think that artifact at Sweet Apple Acres is the key."

Fluttershy didn't have much to say to that, and Twilight sighed.

"Well, I have a lot more reading to do. This next section is about their tactics and weapon focus. You can turn the lights off; the screen has its own light."

Fluttershy glanced left and right nervously, looking as if she wanted to say something but couldn't work up the courage.

"... Fluttershy?"

"Uhm, if it's okay with you, can I take the bottom bunk?" Fluttershy asked as her ears fell flat against her head. "I don't like to sleep high up. I'm afraid I might roll out of bed and fall."

Twilight gave Fluttershy a brief, incredulous stare, then rolled her eyes and stood up.

With a few beats of her wings she had settled on the topmost bed, levitating the dataslate up with her.

"Thank you, Twilight! Good night!"

"Good night, Fluttershy..."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6, the following morning

"I don't understand, is Big Macintosh already healed?"

Twilight followed Gaela down the hall of the menial dorms, her dataslate stuffed in her saddlebag. The rest of the ponies - plus Crabapple - that had come to Ferrous Dominus followed behind the two except for Rarity and Sweetie Belle, who hadn't yet been picked up.

"I cannot say. I was instructed to gather you and bring you to the Warsmith's manufactorum forge," Gaela admitted, "but the likelihood is high."

"Do ya really think he could fix him up so quick?" Applejack asked skeptically. "Don't get me wrong, Ah'd be overjoyed, but that seems a little optimistic fer somepony bein' dragged away from death's door."

Gaela snorted. "Perhaps. But the Warsmith's knowledge is beyond the imagination of us mortals. There is little you should presume to be impossible."

She reached the room that Rarity had shared with her little sister and remotely activated the door speaker.

"Rarity, I have gathered the others and we are prepared to leave." She had messaged each of the ponies' rooms remotely, so she assumed there had been ample time for the unicorns to get ready.

"Ah... yes, of course. Is it... completely necessary for me to join you?" asked a voice from the other side.

Applejack banged a hoof on the door irritably. "Rares, get yer prissy white tush out here! This probably ain't gonna take long anyhow!"

"I was instructed to bring ALL of you to see Warsmith Solon," Gaela confirmed, "I will not disregard the Warsmith's orders."

A muffled grumbling came from the other side of the door, and then it slid open as the lock on the other side was disengaged.

The ponies waiting either started chuckling or stared in surprise as the door opened. Rarity was wearing her respirator mask that she had sworn off the previous day. Not only that, but she had found a Dark Mechanicus robe somewhere and had secured it over her body, along with four heavy rubber boots. The only parts of the unicorn that weren't covered in black rubber were the glass eye lenses and her horn.

"Oh, so is this what's in style nowadays in Ferrous Dominus?" Rainbow Dash asked between chortles. "Wow, you're always on top of these things, aren't you?"

"Pff! That looks like a Nightmare Night costume!" Apple Bloom giggled.

Rarity stomped out of the room, her head held high. "Yes, yes, go ahead. Laugh all you want. But if I have to wear this ridiculous outfit to keep this place from damaging my precious coat, so be it."

"I agree," Gaela said, startling the unicorn, "it's entirely practical to endure a brief humiliation rather than risk permanent damage, whether the motivation is vanity or health." Then she paused. "Although I'm not certain what's wrong with those vestments aesthetically."

Rarity clicked her tongue as she stepped into the hall. "We were SO CLOSE to being on the same page for once. Come on, Sweetie Belle, we're going!"

More grumbling came from behind Rarity as her little sister emerged. The unicorn filly was wearing a smaller version of the same outfit, only with a pair of ill-fitting goggles to make up for her lack of a properly sized rebreather.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom started laughing in earnest, too amused to even mock her properly.

"Oh, be quiet! I'm not wearing this because I want to!" the unicorn filly growled.

"You'll thank me for it when you're older and your fur is still pristine," Rarity insisted, "lead the way, Miss Gaela."

A long elevator ride later - complete with a small group of anonymous menials awkwardly pretending there was nothing strange about sharing the elevator with a small herd of ponies - and the group was heading through the lobby toward the main doors.

"Masks on, everypony," Twilight said as she magically stretched the rubber strap back and fit the respirator over her muzzle. Gaela's helmet shifted into place as well.

"Um, I know I didn't mention this before, but I'm actually a bit worried about the idea that we need breathing protection just to walk around outside," Fluttershy said quietly, tapping a hoof against Gaela's leg.

"Why? Do you need assistance securing your respirator?" the Dark Acolyte asked, pausing to look down at the pegasus.

"Er, no, I'm just concerned about your factory making the air dangerous to breathe, actually."

"Then feel free to remain concerned," Gaela said dismissively as the doors opened in front of her, "mass smelting and manufacturing is a dirty process, and we will not be here long. The total contamination..."

Gaela trailed off as she exited the building, coming face-to-visor with a familiar armored body.

"Lord Serith. Greetings," the Dark Acolyte said dryly.

Twilight had been following directly behind her, and as such had her view forward completely obscured by the Acolyte's body. As soon as she heard the name Gaela had spoken, her eyes widened and her horn lit up.

"Applejack! Rainbow Dash!" Rarity shouted immediately.

The aforementioned ponies immediately jumped on top of the alicorn, bringing her to the ground and pinning her as Twilight released a feral-sounding snarl.

"Dash! AJ! Let me go this instant! He's had this coming for a long time!" Twilight growled as she squirmed and writhed underneath the two other mares. She could have released a magic spell from her horn anyway, but Applejack was covering her eyes and there were a lot of friendly targets around.

The CMC glanced at each other nervously, unsure of what to make of this reaction. They'd never seen Twilight in a homicidal rage before, and they had been under the assumption that the ponies and humans were on the same side, so to speak.

Serith, for his part, remained silent for several seconds and enjoyed the spectacle of Twilight being restrained like a violent animal. Trixie was beside him, and although she was certainly enjoying the sight as much as he was, she looked quite bemused.

"My lord, if we may pass, we're currently en route to see the Warsmith," Gaela prompted, ignoring the struggle behind her.

"You rotten, sneaking, thieving mule! I'm going to turn you into a houseplant!" Twilight growled, smacking Rainbow Dash in the face with her wings repeatedly.

"I'm sure," Serith drawled, finally speaking, "I simply came to greet our esteemed guests. How are you this fine morning, Lady Twilight?"

"I WILL MAGIC YOU IN THE FACE!!"

"She's as energetic as ever, I see," Serith noted.

"Indeed, Lord. If that was all..." Gaela started to step past the Iron Warrior, but apparently he wasn't finished.

"Ah, and here we have the pink one. What was her name?" Serith wondered aloud as his blood-red visor locked onto Pinkie.

"That one is Pinkie Pie," Trixie said humorlessly as she placed a hoof against her hat, as if to make sure it was still there.

"Yo Serry, we're kind of in a hurry here," Pinkie said dismissively as she gestured at him with her hoof, "mind if we get by?"

"Oh, but I first wanted to ask what you thought of my room's security and organization," the Sorcerer continued, "after all, you clearly went to great lengths to break into my quarters, and yet I could find nothing missing aside from the barrier door and a spare melta bomb; and I do believe their mutual disappearance was related. I wonder if my work space was too cluttered for you to find anything of interest."

Twilight stopped struggling against her friends holding her down as the tone of the encounter shifted considerably.

Pinkie snorted. "Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Serith?"

"Trixie's hat vanished right after you swapped it for your costume helmet," Trixie noted, "and Serith found it lying on the floor outside his room, having been used to enter it."

"So? What makes you think I did it?" Pinkie asked, rolling her eyes. "Anypony could have found your hat and used it to explore the place!"

"I found several curly pink hairs remaining from the incursion," Serith noted.

"Anypony with curly pink hair could have found your hat and used it to explore the place!" Pinkie amended.

"You also vandalized my lab space and many of my collected scrolls with that balloon motif on your rear," Serith added.

"No I didn't!" Pinkie retorted immediately. "I painted them with Trixie's cutie mark to try to frame her for everything!"

There was a long, tense pause as Pinkie thought over that last statement.

"Ah... I see what you did there," the pink mare said quietly, chewing her lip.

"I suppose I could have simply forced your confession with my psychic power, but a pest such as yourself is hardly worth such efforts," Serith muttered darkly as he raised a hand, "I'm going to extinguish your life now."

"Hey, hey, HEY!" Trixie interrupted immediately, banging a hind leg against Serith's greaves before the other ponies could move to defend their friend. "Quit that!"

Serith hesitated, his hand slowly curling back into a fist. "Pardon? It is a fitting reprisal for such a brazen act."

"Don't be so melodramatic. Nopony has to die over your books," Trixie insisted.

Gaela gripped her axe tightly, unsure of how to handle this scenario. Or rather, she knew exactly how to handle this scenario, but felt curiously reluctant to incapacitate and capture Pinkie on Serith's behalf.

"I don't suppose she could apologize and be let off with a warning?" Rarity asked nervously.

"An apology. What a grand idea," Serith drawled, "that would be a start."

All eyes shifted to Pinkie Pie, who remained silent.

"Well? Got anything to say?" Trixie asked with narrowed eyes.

"Okay, fine," Pinkie grumbled, "since you brought it up, your organization system DOES need some work. Don't go labeling empty containers as if they have important stuff in them!"

Serith glanced down at Trixie, who had slapped a hoof against her face. "NOW can I end her?"

This diversion probably would have gone on longer, but a new voice interrupted the gathering.

"Sherith, what are you doing? Mish Gaela and the xenosh have bushinesh with me."

The ponies were all quite surprised to hear the voice, simply because there was no way that someone as massive as Solon should have been able to approach unnoticed.

They were correct. As Serith turned toward the voice, it was quite obviously coming from a heavily augmented skull floating about a meter off the ground and trailing loose cables behind it.

Twilight had seen such devices before, having explored Ferrous Dominus more extensively than the others, but even she was fairly perturbed to hear the Warsmith's voice coming from it.

"Of course, Warsmith," Serith said with an irritated drawl, "so sorry to keep you ladies. We will resolve this matter at another time."

The Sorcerer turned on his heel and walked away without another word. Trixie cast a final glare at Pinkie Pie and then trotted off after him, her nose in the air.

"Does anypony else think it's weird that the big, evil Chaos Sorcerer is letting Trixie boss him around?" Rainbow Dash asked. She and Applejack had finally released Twilight, who looked to be debating the virtues of blasting Serith in the back with a magic bolt.

"I agree. That was... most unexpected," Gaela mumbled. She hadn't been sure how to react when Serith declared his intent to slay Pinkie; certainly Twilight and the others would have stopped him even had she done nothing, but she could easily see that escalating into a battle that would have ended with them being surrounded and exterminated.

"It'sh true; he'sh taken quite a shine to her, hashn't he?" said the servo skull. "But we have much elshe to dishcush. Come."

The skull floated away, and Gaela followed immediately. The ponies hesitated, either because the strange machine seemed to be leading them in the wrong direction, or simply because the servo skull itself was quite creepy.

"So, I don't get it. Is that Serith person a bad guy?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yes. Yes he is," Twilight grumbled.

"Sherith ish no worshe than the resht of ush, he jusht hash shome peculiar intereshtsh," said Solon through the servo skull as it floated away from the main avenue.

Pinkie snickered at the heavily distorted slur coming from the macabre device. "I missed you."

"But enough of Sherith. That'sh not why you're here," continued the servo skull.

Applejack gulped. "Give it t'me straight, Warsmith. Is Mac gonna make it?"

A deep, grinding chuckle came from the servo skull. "Make it? Mish Applejack, Macintosh hash been fully conscioush and lucid for two hoursh now. He ish in no danger of expiring on hish own anytime shoon."

Applejack honestly felt her legs weaken at the news out of sheer relief, and had to stop moving in order to stay standing.

Despite the assurances of Rainbow Dash and Gaela, given how Solon had apparently scooped up her brother and disappeared without any real explanation there had always been a nagging doubt that maybe there had been a misunderstanding or that Tellis hadn't been fast enough in getting Big Mac here. Only hearing the prognosis from the one working on her brother was able to completely set her at ease.

"Big Mac's gonna be okay!" Apple Bloom cheered, wiping tears from her eyes. "Ah'm so glad!"

"Oh, yesh. Your bodiesh are shurprishingly robusht. Not only in shurviving a pulshe rifle bursht to begin with, but there wash minimal rejection of the bionic componentsh."

Twilight was about to speak when the servo skull halted. A moment later the grinding of heavy gears came from the ground, and a sliding hatch marked out in warning chevrons opened up to reveal a platform.

"Warsmith, I'm not familiar with this route," Gaela confessed as the servo skull hovered over the platform.

"The tunnel shyshtem ish part of the tertiary defenshe network, a way to move shcattered troopsh to critical areash when enemies have overrun the fortresh," Solon explained as the servo skull turned around to cast its grim optic nodes on the group of equines. "It'sh alsho handy if you don't want to shpend an hour or two tromping through the shtreetsh. Theshe accesh pointsh are hard-wired to my command protocol. It will bring you here fashter."

The ponies cautiously stepped onto the platform after Gaela, most of them nervously staring at the servo skull. After Crabapple and the fillies joined the others the platform started to sink.

"So he's gonna live, and that's great," Applejack said pensively, "but... what about his legs?"

"Completely ushelesh," the servo skull blurted, "nothing much left of the shoulder jointsh but shcorched bone. I cut both of the left legsh off ash shoon ash he shtabilized."

This news crushed most of the good cheer that had been building up since the servo skull had first dismissed Serith from their presence. The platform finished sinking as the hatch above them closed, and a door opened in front of the skull.

"All right, everyone in the rail car," barked the servo skull as it moved to the control panel and manipulated the controls with its tiny articulated claws.

"So did you give him modified human augmetics or rig up a new locomotion system?" Gaela asked as she moved next to the floating skull.

"Neither. I whipped up shomething of my own. It sheemsh to approximate hish former limbsh well enough. Much shturdier now, obvioushly. The next volley he takesh won't put him down sho eashily!"

Twilight shook her head as the door to the train closed behind their group and the vehicle started to accelerate. "Wait, you... you mean you replaced his legs?"

Gaela and the skull turned to face Twilight.

"Of course we did," Gaela said, flexing her right arm, "did you forget that we could do that?"

"I know we primatesh get along fine with jusht two legsh, but I don't think your red friend would be of much ushe without all four of them."

"So he'll even walk again?" Applejack asked, fairly stunned.

"After the calibration teshtsh are complete, yesh," the servo skull's spinal cable whipped about underneath it, "that should take a few minutesh. Maybe an hour, if there'sh a problem."

"Ah... Ah don't know what to say," Applejack mumbled, pulling her respirator mask off of her face and staring down at the floor as if in shock, "Ah can't possibly repay y'all fer doin' this. Goin' so far to save Mac's life-"

"Oh, you needn't wax dramatic," the voice from the servo skull interrupted, "this debt WILL be repaid. Shooner than you think."

This succeeded in halting Applejack's immediate outpour of gratitude, and she trailed off into a nervous smile.

Rarity cringed. "Well, THAT'S a little ominous," the unicorn mumbled.

The rail car started to slow down.

"Next shtop, experimental archaeotech and prototype forging. Pleashe enshure that you have all your pershonal belongingsh, including but not limited to reshpiratorsh, armamentsh, and any posheshed automata, ash you exit the car."

The door opened, and the servo skull zoomed out, not waiting to ensure that the others were following.

Twilight began to remove her mask.

"Don't," Gaela warned as she led the way into the hall, "and Apple, you should put yours back on. It's not clean in here."

The first time they had met the Warsmith, they had found him in a cluster of power relays. The second time Twilight had met him, he had been in a simple warehouse. Perhaps these places would seem like technological wonders to a pony, full of mechanical curiosities and amazing feats of engineering, but they were ultimately fairly mundane facilities that served very mundane functions.

Every pony there, from Twilight to Scootaloo, could tell there was nothing mundane about Solon's forge.

Heaps of scrap, mostly of Tau construction, were set in clustered piles, each one surrounded by tools, servo arms, and other machines. Some of them were apparently active on some level, and Applejack resisted the urge to run up and kick a dismembered Crisis Suit that was twisting its head to stare at her.

Molten metal flowed in small streams and falls, leaking from spigots draining from the ceiling. Most of it flowed down the great hall and occasionally even across it, requiring a heavy gated bridge for crossing.

Guns of all types and designs and hailing from numerous different races hung from thick cables strung from the ceiling, which was itself completely obscured by a pall of filthy-looking smoke.

But what was most unique, bizarre, and frankly enchanting, were the walls.

Where the walls of every other structure in Ferrous Dominus were either bare gunmetal or - if necessary - some kind of control terminal, the walls here were giant monitors, constantly scrolling and flickering with information.

If Twilight had to guess what kind of information they were showing, her only possible guess would have been: everything.

DNA strands scrolled down a screen with notes pointing to specific chromosomes and describing their functions. Next to it was a string of equations that used symbols Twilight had never seen before. Above that was a schematic for a device called a "stasis grenade". On the other side of the wall was a chemical formula. Below that an X-ray of some sort bizarre alien beast. Next to that an image of a star in the throes of supernova, overlaid with data readings.

Each individual panel lingered long enough for Twilight to grasp an idea of what it was displaying and then flickered away to something else. It was strangely intoxicating, not to mention so distracting that Applejack thrice had to physically stop the alicorn from walking obliviously into dangerous-looking machines or molten metal flows.

"Oh, I remember that one," Fluttershy said suddenly as she noticed a massive battlesuit torso hanging from chains further down the hall and beckoned to it with her foreleg.

Rarity made a face as she recognized the Riptide armor. "Ah, yes. Good times," she grumbled sarcastically, "I rather like it better this way: as a dismantled science fair project." It's legs were completely gone, while its arms were strung from the ceiling with crackling power cables and surrounded by other devices to run tests on its weapons.

The fillies couldn't do much besides gape at the massive dismembered weapon, trying to imagine what such a thing was like in combat. The Iron Warriors were mighty and terrifying to be sure, but something that size would smash them aside like insects. To say nothing of the guns hanging next to it.

+Unit Crabapple is experiencing strange new sensations deep within processor core,+ buzzed the automata probe as it followed its pony master, +searching local noosphere databanks for appropriate descriptor... complete: penis envy.+

+I'm glad no one else can understand you,+ Gaela mumbled in tired Binaric Cant.

"What IS all that stuff on the walls? It's really confusing," Rainbow Dash asked.

"Warsmith Solon sometimes likes to work in an environment inundated with random scraps of information. Sometimes a particular subject catches his attention, and it inspires him toward creative solutions," Gaela explained.

"Yeah... I can see how it might help..." Twilight mumbled.

"Twilight, you're drooling," the blue pegasus warned.

The alicorn immediately tried to brush a foreleg against her mouth, only to bump into the mask filter. She cast a brief glare at Rainbow Dash, who snickered at the sight.

"Hey, there he is!" Pinkie shouted, galloping forward suddenly.

Solon was standing before a bank of hololithic projectors, his biological hand poking at several flat panel-like projections that were awash with information. His right arm had been replaced by an augmetic that boasted a full three separate limbs attached to the shoulder connector, each one ending in some manner of needle or forceps probe.

The fillies, predictably, froze stiff once they got a good look at him, their faces ashen. Even Crabapple halted in mid-stride.

"Mister Solon can... or rather, will be very scary the first time you meet him, but he's surprisingly decent," Rarity assured the younger ponies as the rest of their group approached, "just keep a good distance until your heart rate returns to normal, and then you can join us a little closer, all right?"

Sweetie Belle nodded stiffly, while the other young ponies scrambled to take cover behind Crabapple.

For those mares that now shrugged off the terror aura with ease, the more interesting sight was standing next the mighty Iron Warrior. A large metal bowl of some sort was on a raised platform and utterly surrounded by sparking and humming machines. Numerous automated servo arms stretched down from the ceiling into the vessel, and thick cables running hot with energy led over the lip and into it. The servo skull that had led them here floated over the lip, its sensors peering at the contents which were hidden from the newcomers.

Although any one of them could hazard a good guess.

"Ah, and here you are!" Solon said brightly as he turned to face the Dark Acolyte and the awestruck equines. "Good. We will begin the final phashesh of teshting, then!"

Solon's helmet flickered briefly, and the walls of the containment vessel sunk into the floor. Hoses drew up toward the ceiling while spewing steam, and there were numerous crackling discharges as power cables were disconnected and dragged away from the forging platform.

Twilight had to admit that even after the discussions between Solon and Gaela about Big Macintosh's treatment, she didn't really know what to expect. But she didn't think anything could have prepared her for what she saw when the steam parted and faded away.

Gears whirred softly as the pony atop the platform took a cautious step forward, its metal-clad hooves clanging noisily against the floor. On the pony's right, legs protected by thick, servo-assisted plate supported a hefty ammunition box, while on the left side a heavy bolter was mounted between a pair of thick bionic limbs. The now mismatched forelegs were armored at the shoulders by ceramite shields not dissimilar to Space Marine shoulder pads, each one boasting Big Mac's distinctive green cutie mark. Atop the armored hulk was a helmet shaped appropriately for a pony's head, featuring a pair of plated disc-shaped filters at the end of the muzzle and a single long, crimson optics visor. A pair of golden, bull-like horns completed the head piece, and incidentally made it look a great deal more menacing.

Around the segmented plates of the neck was a hefty iron harness, clearly made to resemble the one Big Mac had still been wearing when he was dropped off. Behind the harness was a small back-mounted servo arm that twitched back and forth curiously, exploring its range of motion freely for the first time.

The ponies stared slack-jawed at the power-armored draught horse. Even Gaela was completely stunned at the sight.

"B... Big... Macintosh?" Applejack finally stuttered.

The hiss of depressurization came from the armor as its environmental seals were disengaged, and then the upper portion of the helmet, containing the visor and the horns, lifted up and slid backward as the rest of the helmet sunk into the gorget.

Big Mac took a moment to shake his head, finally letting his mane out after many hours of having it pressed into his face by the pressurized shell of adamantium.

"Eeyup."

Author's Note

Okay, confession time:
First off, writing drama and crippling angst and such makes me ill, and comedy makes me happy. So if you find the tone shifts in this chapter a little jarring, you're simply another victim of my own emotionally stunted psyche.
Second, I have to admit that I'm not actually very well-versed in Twilight's spellbook, to speak in D&D terms. So if there actually IS a spell that could have easily fixed a given crisis or if I'm placing a limitation on magic that isn't canon, just chalk it up to artistic license and remember that these are the narrative sacrifices we need to make in order to turn Big Macintosh into a power-armored cyborg.

Update: formatting fixed!

Cloak and Dagger... and Lots of Guns

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 4

Cloak and Dagger... and Lots of Guns

****

Ponyville - Sugar Cube Corner

"A sheet cake and four dozen cupcakes have been completed as scheduled. Will you require assistance in transporting your purchases?"

A pair of finely dressed unicorns stood at the counter of the bakery, their heads craning upward to make eye contact with the Iron Warrior standing on the other side.

"Oh, no, we can handle it," said the mare of the couple, her voice wavering only slightly as she stared up at a face that could well have been made of stone slabs.

"I must say, when I'd heard that Ponyville hosted some of the alien invaders as guests, I didn't really know what to expect," the stallion said with an uncertain chuckle.

Dest's armor had been mended since the Tau attack, but he was working without his helmet at the Cakes' request. It was strange and unsettling enough seeing an armed and armored Chaos Space Marine in a bakery, but evidently the ruby glare of the helmet visor really put off the customers when they had to deal with him. The Rhino driver didn't really get it, but it was no great effort to accommodate their request.

"That'll be sixty-eight bits, please," Mister Cake said as he worked the register.

"Certainly. Let me just have a look at the sheet cake," the male unicorn said as his partner levitated her purse up to the counter.

He opened the box, and his brow arched as he saw the top of his purchase.

"I presume this is your handiwork, am I right?" he asked of the Iron Warrior.

"It is. Is it satisfactory?" Dest asked.

Frosting had been placed onto the sheet cake in thick and irregular lines, and behind them small plastic pony soldiers had been placed as if taking cover behind barricades. Other plastic figures had been placed atop a ridge formed with apple slices to survey the imaginary battle, and some of the pony dolls had even been laid on their sides in splattered puddles of red gel frosting.

The unicorn mare hesitated as she stared at the cake. "How avant-garde. I love it!" She spilled the contents of her purse on the counter, and then snapped it closed with magic. "Keep the change, my good pony. This is going to absolutely stun those stuck-up ninnies at my croquet club!"

The unicorns levitated the boxes of baked goods away as they walked out the door, chatting enthusiastically about the things they had seen at Delgan's market that day.

"Thanks again for helping out in the bakery, Mister Dest," Cake said as he counted out the money to figure out how much had he had been given, "my wife has been really busy with the twins, and Pinkie couldn't have chosen a worse time to... uh... what did you say she was doing again?"

"She was assisting a fallen comrade in the Apples' latest stand against the grayskins," Dest reminded him.

"Right. That. I'm really glad you could find time to help out!"

"I will be unable to assist you for long. I wish to return to the Apples' farm this evening and assist in removing the corpses from the property," the Iron Warrior grunted before he picked up a lemon tart and popped it into his mouth. "I must admit that this work is strangely... satisfying," he admitted after swallowing the treat, "although I think I prefer it when the pink lunatic is around."

Cake chuckled as he spilled the pile of bits into the cash register. "Yeah, Pinkie really livens things up, doesn't she? Any idea when she'll be back?"

"It is difficult to estimate," the Chaos Space Marine admitted, "checking on Macintosh should not take any great length of time, but these things have a way of becoming... complicated."

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

"You're uh... You're looking... better, Big Mac," Twilight fumbled her words as she stared at the armored stallion, trying to process what she was looking at.

"Eeyup," he replied, cracking his neck back and forth.

Several more seconds of awkward silence followed the exchange, and then Pinkie rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I'm just going to ask what everypony else is thinking: why did you build him a suit of armor?" the pink pony asked.

Solon chuckled deeply, his mechatendrils quivering. "That'sh kind of a funny shtory, actually. You shee, when I cobbled together a reactor core for implant to power Macintosh'sh new augmeticsh, it generated far more energy than the implantsh needed. Conshidering that he hadn't woken up yet, I decided to pash the time by deshigning an exoshkeleton frame to make ushe of the excesh energy."

Solon stomped over to Big Macintosh, who tilted his head away warily.

"I shtarted adding weapon uplinksh and plating, and before I knew it the project had shnowballed rather shpectacularly. Eventually I even opened him up again and inshtalled nerve shocketsh and a modified black carapace interface."

The Warsmith raised his legs over Big Macintosh in order to stoop over him.

"The power armor is Ashtartesh-equivalent and augment-integrated, with a complete multi-shenshor loadout and Crine-pattern miniature data core. The environmental shealsh are void-rated and capable of reshishting shumbmerged or atmoshpheric pressuresh of up to shix hundred kilogramsh per shquare centimeter."

The screens over the walls flickered in tandem, and then they displayed the different aspects of the power armor design schematics. Some concentrated on the specific qualities of the materials, such as alloy makeup and plating construction, while others features notes on mini-servo designs, power disbursement, nervous system uplinks, and even more esoteric aspects of the technology.

Solon shifted to the side slightly, and one of his mechatendrils slid across the heavy bolter.

"The heavy bolter is Grendel Pattern. Shorter-lived than mosht modelsh, and shorter range, but far lighter for a lesh robusht mounting."

Then Solon tapped the top of Big Mac's harness, which now had a thick spool of metal cable rather than the pegs that adorned his last one.

"I had the dishtinct impression that Macintosh shpent a great deal of time hauling thingsh, sho I modeled the shuit appropriately. The shervo arm is mainly for ammunition reloading, but integratesh a magnetic harpoon attached to the adamantium cable shpool."

Big Mac restrained a grimace as the Warsmith loomed over him and listed the features of his new, entirely unsolicited armor. He didn't really feel comfortable being prodded and shown off like a science project, but under the circumstances he could hardly bring himself to complain.

"I think that coversh the armor," Solon said as his servo claw opened and closed eagerly, "now let'sh show them the resht. Dishengage the shuit'sh primary locksh, Macintosh."

The stallion thought briefly on how to do that, and in response numerous clicking noises came from the power armor around him. Solon's mechatendrils went to work immediately, stripping the armor off piece by piece and carefully placing each component on the floor by Mac's hooves.

"So let me get this straight: in that armor suit, Big Mac can go into outer space AND under water?" Rainbow Dash asked. "That's awesome!"

"It'sh shtandard capability for any proper power armor deshign," Solon said as he reached down and pulled Big Mac's harness off.

"How long can it protect him in those kinds of environments?" Twilight asked, deeply intrigued.

"In hard void, he'll lasht two-point-shix hoursh provided nothing goesh wrong with the shuit itshelf," Solon explained, "shubmerged, he can potentially shurvive indefinitely depending on the fluidsh. Hish reshpiratory engine can procesh oxygenated water."

"He can breathe underwater?" Twilight asked, blinking rapidly. Big Mac made a face.

"Hish reshpiratory shyshtem ish shtill technically inferior to Ashtartesh shtandard genetic equivalentsh, but yesh."

The rear plate that covered Big Mac's tail was removed, and then the final pieces of the main torso carapace were lowered onto the floor.

Big Macintosh shifted and stretched uncomfortably, feeling dozens of sore points and small, sharp pains along his body. Hopefully they were just temporary remnants of his extremely recent dismemberment and extensive surgery, although he supposed he could still count himself lucky even if they were permanent.

Now that he was effectively naked once more the others could see the modifications far more easily as they stood out against his slightly damp red coat rather than a shell of gunmetal and gold. Aside from his left legs, a long patch of his skin and coat on his chest stretching across his side all the way to his hip had been replaced by thinly segmented metal plates. The area that covered his chest had a deep seam that clearly marked out a hatch, while a large socket stuck at the edge of his rib cage marked where the heavy bolter assembly apparently plugged into his body. A few other smaller nerve sockets could be seen on his back and biological legs, and his hip augmetic had a large wheel assembly that whirred softly within the socket.

"How... How's it feel, Mac?" Applejack asked cautiously as she approached her brother ahead of the others.

Big Macintosh hesitantly took a step forward, his bionic leg humming as he lifted it up and put it down. Then he stared down at the limb as he twisted it back and forth, testing its range of motion.

Finally, he pulled his left foreleg up and twisted it around to stare at the bottom of his metal hoof.

"It'll do," the stallion said finally, smiling slightly as Apple Bloom and the other fillies crept closer to get a better look.

Applejack managed to muffle a sob as she burst forward to hug her older brother, wrapping her forelegs around his reconstructed body. Apple Bloom joined her a moment later, hugging his right leg happily.

Solon backed away, his heavy chassis banging noisily against the iron flooring.

"Warsmith, if I may ask," Gaela began, standing aside from the Apples with her hand pressed against her cranial implant, "what is the material you used to construct the augmetics? It's confusing my optical scanners."

"Well, the shkeletal frame is adamant-3, a lighter variant. Given that I didn't have the opportunity to reinforce hish shpinal column, the weight of the biological and bionic limbsh could only vary sho much. The leg plating and torsho carapace I whipped up with shome Necron living metal I had lying around."

Gaela was too stunned by the admission to comment further, but Twilight had her dataslate and stylus out, taking notes.

"Could you expand upon that, please?" Twilight asked.

"Certainly. Living metal ish a fluid alloy coagulate that maintainsh sholid form through gluon overlay matricesh. It hash remarkable energy abshorption propertiesh and when damaged will attempt to return to the form eshtablished by the energy matrix."

"Okay, can someone translate that into Gothic for us non-eggheads?" Rainbow Dash asked under the false assumption that even Twilight understood it.

Solon shifted his torso around to face the Apples. "Mish Apple, if you would shtep back?"

Applejack finally retreated from her brother, giving him a reassuring smile before she wiped her face with her hoof. "Go 'head, Solon. We're done." Apple Bloom also stepped away, although she was staring at the Warsmith suspiciously.

A bright red laser beam came from one of Solon's mechatendrils, and the ponies watched uneasily as the stream of hot crimson light cut a shallow burn across Big Mac's metal flank. The stallion turned his head and watched mutely, noting only a slight tingling sensation from the region.

The beam halted, and then before the ponies' eyes the burn started to vanish from one end to the other, disappearing completely within seconds.

"Ash fashinating ash it ish, the living metal ish shtrictly xeno technology, no creation of my own," Solon said to his speechless audience, "what I'm really proud of ish the circulatory core."

Several wall screens shifted content to display Big Mac's augmetic schematics now, although none of the occupants in the room were paying much attention with the real thing in front of them.

"It combinesh a miniature fusion reactor with an augmetic circulatory center of my own deshighn! Total blood flow efficiency hash been increashed by thirty-eight pershent, and it can detect exceshive losh of blood pressure and enter a hibernation shtate in cashe of catashrophic bleeding." Solon stepped toward the monitor bank and started tapping at the hololith screens. "The liver wash alsho damaged and replaced, though it doesh nothing sho impreshive. Also, since there was shtill shome room in there, I put in a combat shtimulant injection driver and hooked it into the endocrine shyshtem. That will take shome getting ushed to, I'm sure."

"But, Warsmith..." Gaela trailed off briefly, glancing at said driver's schematics on the wall screen next to her. "WHY?"

Solon looked up from a graph readout displaying Big Macintosh's heart rate, his metal-clad fingers dancing across the hololith screen. "Well, firsht off, thish may not be the lasht time Mishter Macintosh has a run-in with our little gray friendsh. Shecond, I musht admit that after deciding to implant living metal into the augment shpecificationsh for an injured pony I had never even met before, I had obvioushly and completely losht pershpective on what I wash doing. Building it wash fun, though."

"This is going to be so awesome," Rainbow Dash said, almost giddy as she stood up against Mac's new hind leg, "now you can come with us on our quests to save Equestria and stuff!"

Neither Applejack or Big Macintosh looked especially excited at the prospect.

"Dash, let's not go draggin' him into anything, all right? He was chattin' up the Reaper just yesterday," Applejack said with a frown.

"Come on AJ, he even has his own armor now!" Rainbow countered.

"Mister Solon, may I ask you something?" Rarity asked as the other mares were distracted, walking up between the Warsmith's piston-driven legs and beckoning to him with her hoof.

"Yesh? What ish it?" Solon swiveled his torso around and stared down.

Rarity continued beckoning silently, casting a furtive glance toward the other ponies.

Solon eventually understood, and he leaned his hulking body over so that the unicorn could whisper into his helmet.

After a few seconds, he stood up straight again. "His genitalia were unharmed. They should function ash well ash before," the Warsmith said, ignoring Rarity's frantic hushing gestures, "I shupposhe that the augmetic legsh may be uncomfortable for hish partner, though. I had not conshidered it."

Rarity was keenly aware that everypony else had stopped talking and were now staring at her wordlessly.

"What? It's an important question!" she insisted, glad to have her current expression hidden by the respirator mask.

The staring continued.

"Oh, AS IF I was the only pony thinking about it!" Rarity huffed, turning her head away sharply.

"If you're finished over there, I'd like to begin the final calibrationsh," Solon said suddenly as more hololith screens flickered into place around him.

"Eeyup," Macintosh said with a nod.

"Shprint down the hall until I shay shtop," Solon instructed, his optics viewing half a dozen diagnostics screens at once.

Big Mac glanced down the length of the hall toward where the other ponies had comes from, and then he took off.

Sharp aches came from his shoulder and hips as his much-abused muscles struggled to hold on to the hefty actuator joints, but he was somewhat glad for the pain. They were a firm mental reminder that something was there under the left side of his body, which he sorely needed what with the lack of any familiar sensation coming from those limbs.

He built up speed as best he could, his augmetic hooves spitting sparks as they pounded against the metal flooring. They seemed sluggish at first, but after the first twenty meters or so they seemed to speed up and move in better sync with his natural limbs.

"Shtop."

Big Mac slammed his bionic foreleg down and locked it, and then his entire body swung around the limb as his other bionic leg cut into the floor. The screech of metal filled the air as sparks spewed from the contact, and his hoof left an arced groove in the iron flooring as he steadied himself.

"SO cool," Rainbow Dash said gleefully as she clapped her hooves together.

"Yeah, well you feel free to get yerself shot up and maybe you'll get a pair of yer own," Applejack said with a snort, "Ah think Ah'll stick with the legs mah momma gave me."

"Good, everything ish functioning within operational parametersh," Solon mumbled as the hololiths around him streamed ever-more diagnostic data, "no doubt you're feeling shome mushle pain at preshent. It will fade over time as your ligamentsh recover from the shurgery and your body becomesh accushtomed to the implantsh. The harsh buzzing shenshation you feel from the bionicsh ish from your nervoush shyshtem'sh confusion over the new nerve connectionsh. Ash you become more familiar with your new body, they will become dishcrete impulshesh and shenshationsh that you will come to ashociate with pressure and impact."

He drew a line across one of the hololiths, and Big Mac glanced behind him as a thick barricade wall rose up from the floor.

"Kick that wall with maximum force. Left foreleg firsht," the Warsmith commanded.

Macintosh hesitantly brought his leg up, and then he wet his lips briefly before thrusting it at the metal barrier, banging against it noisily.

"Good. Now turn around and do it again with the rear bionic."

Big Mac turned around as instructed, and then lifted his back left leg in preparation for a kick.

A loud whirring came from the hip joint, and the wheel set in it started to spin rapidly as the limb left the floor.

There was a tremendous cracking noise as Mac's metal hoof met the armored barricade, and the barricade proved wanting. Metal shrieked and tore, and the stallion almost fell over when his leg succeeded in ripping through the armor plate rather than stopping dead as he expected.

The ponies were busy gaping at the sight, but Solon nodded. "Good. Impact pressure ish within expected tolerancesh. How doesh it feel?"

Big Macintosh frowned as he wiggled his rear bionic in the air. "That one hurt a lot more. Kinda stings back there," the stallion mumbled.

"I shee. It may have looshened the nano-shtitchesh. Refrain from doing that again for a few daysh until you've recovered further."

"Eeyup."

"Ah think ya should probably stick to yer fleshy leg when ya get back to applebuckin', too," Applejack said as she approached her brother, "you could split a tree in half with that thing."

"Or an alien tank." Rainbow Dash said, hovering over Applejack. "Eh? Eh?"

"Mish Apple," Solon said, causing the orange mare to freeze.

"Yeah, Warsmith?" she turned back to look at the hulking Space Marine uncertainly as the Iron Warrior continued jabbing at the hololiths.

"Thish concludesh the bashic calibration teshting. Ish everything to your shatishfaction?"

Applejack nodded quickly. "Of course! Ah mean, Ah was overjoyed just to know that he'd survive! This is incredible! Thank you!"

Solon's optics flickered, and the hololiths vanished. "Macintosh. You are hereby dishcharged from my care. I advishe you wear your power armor ash much ash poshible over the next few daysh, ash the pressure shealsh and shervo-ashishted motion will aid in your recovery. Your heavy bolter is locked on shafety mode until you have been cleared by the Armshmashter as proficient."

Big Mac listened carefully, and then nodded silently.

"Dark Acolyte Gaela," Solon continued, seizing the Acolyte's attention, "I've compiled an inshtructional archive in data clushter nine-shix-shix-two-eight. Ashisht Macintosh with hish armor and then shee to it that he, the younglingsh, and their automata friend are houshed for however long they chooshe to shtay here."

Gaela dropped to one knee, slamming a fist against her breastplate. "As you wish, Warsmith."

"The resht of you," Solon said as he turned away and started stomping down the hall, "follow me."

Twilight glanced at her friends pensively, but nodded. Applejack and Rainbow Dash hadn't bothered to wait for any affirmation, rushing off after the Chaos Lord immediately, but Pinkie, Rarity, and (eventually) Fluttershy followed the alicorn's lead.

As they left earshot of Big Mac and the younger ponies, Rarity sped up a bit to get closer to Solon.

"May I presume that we're to discuss 'payment' for your services now?" the unicorn asked.

"Hey now," Applejack said immediately, "Ah'll do whatever ya want to repay ya fer fixin' up Mac, but this is MAH debt. You ain't gotta drag mah friends into it."

"Unfortunately I do, Mish Apple," Solon said as he continued lumbering down the halls of his forge, "the payment I have in mind ish quite beyond you to produce alone." He swiveled around, his blood-red optics casting a crimson light over the following equines. "Ish that a problem?"

"No way!" Rainbow Dash barked, thumping her chest with her hooves, "I'd help out whether she wanted me to or not!"

"B-But-" Applejack started to stutter a protest, but Pinkie suddenly jumped on her back, nearly staggering the farmpony.

"You heard her, Jackie! We're on your side whether you like it or not!"

"We're definitely on board with this, but I'm surprised there's anything you'd really want our help for," Twilight noted, "what can we do for you that you can't accomplish on your own?"

"It'sh true that the objective I have for you ish hardly out of our reach," Solon agreed, "but you poshesh certain traitsh which make you eshpecially well-shuited to it."

"Is it because we're nice?" Fluttershy asked.

"It's because of how awesome we are, right?" Rainbow prompted.

"Is it our magic?" Twilight asked, recalling that psykers were rare among the humans.

"It'sh becaushe you're all perfectly expendable," Solon informed them.

The ponies' expressions darkened.

"That was my guess, actually," Rarity mumbled, "but I didn't want to say it out loud." She'd had a more cynical mindset about this encounter from the outset, although even she had to admit that Solon had definitely earned their assistance.

"That'sh not all, of courshe," Solon allowed, "you're familiar with thish world and alsho quite reshourceful. You're alsho not part of the Company, and thush an unexpected threat to the Tau."

Applejack's ears perked up. "Did you say we're gonna be takin' on the grays?"

"Indeed."

"Well, Ah was already sold," the farmpony admitted as she pulled her hat low over her eyes, "but now things got interestin'. Lay it on me, Warsmith."

Solon halted in front of a largely bare area of flooring, and he pointed toward the middle of the space.

"Shome time ago we determined the general location of two Tau Empire bashesh here on Centaur III, ashide from the one we've already overrun outshide your village."

A large hololithic display flickered into existence from Solon's chassis projector, and the ponies were treated to a topographic map of Equestria and the surrounding lands.

"One ish shurprishingly closhe to our fortresh, and sheemsh to be the main center of military power for the Tau," Solon said as a red circle appeared in the wastelands, "an ashault on thish location ish entirely feashible, but loshesh would be grievoush. We have decided it ish not in our intereshtsh to attack it."

This got a raised eyebrow from Applejack and Rainbow Dash. They hadn't expected such a timid calculation from an army of corrupted murderers. Twilight was more understanding. After having confronted and threatened the Iron Warrior (and having survived the encounter), she was keenly aware that logic still drove most of their actions.

"However, there ish another bashe. A hangar, far on the other shide of your bordersh."

Another red circle appeared on the map, this one very far away from Ferrous Dominus and encircling a vast breach in the landscape.

"It's in Salt Lick Canyon?" asked Twilight, recalling the terrain feature.

Solon's optics flickered as he registered the name, and new words appeared over the chasm in the map. "Indeed. Thish ish the only nearby topographical feature capable of holding a shtarship in anything reshembling shecrecy, and we've alsho gathered corroborative data from interrogation. The Tau craft musht be here. The problem ish we don't know what elshe is with it. Our auger arraysh can find nothing, and a Company recon team ish almosht certain to be ambushed and eliminated without accomplishing anything worthwhile."

Solon turned his head so that his optics stared directly into the glass lenses over Twilight's eyes. "Sho inshtead, you shix will infiltrate, reconnoiter, and, if poshible, shabotage the enemy bashe sho that we may take it with minimal reshishtance."

The purple pony gulped, but Applejack and Rainbow seemed almost delighted to hear the actual objective of their mission.

"In thish tashk, you will be acting directly in the military intereshtsh of the Iron Warriorsh," Solon warned, "you will be expected to dishable, degrade, or kill the enemy when it ish found, and with prejudice."

Rarity sighed wearily at the prospect, while Fluttershy cringed.

"Ah got enough prejudice in me by now fer more than one measly mission," Applejack insisted, "you gotta plan, or are we playing this by ear?"

"We are lucky enough to have captured the perfect veshel for your job," Solon assured her, "the cargo vehicle you came in on. I've looked into it'sh shyshtemsh and programmed it remotely to take you back to it'sh relay point in the hangar bashe, and I've inshtructed the Techprieshtsh to place shielding on the interior plating to block shcanning."

"So their own vehicle will deliver us right into their base, and they won't be able to tell we're in there?" Rarity asked.

"Not until they open it up and look, anyway," Solon admitted, "which they probably will after sheeing that their shcansh didn't work. You'll have to manage on your own from then on."

"Lovely," Rarity mumbled irritably.

"Do we get suits of power armor too?!" Rainbow asked excitedly.

"Hah, hah, hah, no!" the Warsmith answered, causing the pegasus to start sulking. "That would take far too much time. Beshidesh, the Tau shenshor shyshtemsh can eashily detect power shignaturesh from our armor. You'd be dishcovered immediately. Bio-readingsh are far lesh reliable, and you're not eshpecially larger than many other native creaturesh on thish world. And only shpecially calibrated combat shyshtemsh will be able to identify psionic energiesh."

"Fine," Rainbow Dash grumbled, "can we have some bombs, at least?"

"Shure! Take all you like!" Solon said, gesturing to a box behind him. Pinkie and Rainbow both whooped happily and rushed for the crate, while Rarity followed after them at a more lady-like pace.

"Look for more bolter magazines, would you?" the unicorn asked. "I'm completely out after that fiasco at Sweet Apple Acres."

"So you really have no idea what we'll be facing when we get there?" Twilight asked as she stepped up closer to the Warsmith.

"Well, Tau only have sho many toolsh available to them," Solon admitted, "you won't be facing mad Shorcerersh or wild beashtsh in a Tau facility. And I have one more thing to ashisht you."

Twilight felt something prod her in the rear, and she twisted her head around.

Rainbow, Pinkie, and Rarity all jumped in surprise as Twilight let out a loud shriek, and then the former two giggled as they turned and saw another servo skull hovering over Twilight, who had fallen over.

Solon seemed unperturbed by Twilight's shout. "I've modified thish shervo shkull with a Tau power cell and communicationsh arraysh sho that it will regishter on shecurity shenshorsh ash one of their automated dronesh. It will be able to transhmit what you shee and hear within the bashe back to me by hitching a shcrapcode shignal on the grayshkin'sh own network broadcasht, although I will not be able to shend any information back. You should conshider it'sh preshervation to be of utmosht importance. Obvioushly the Tau will deshtroy it on shight, and without great difficulty."

"That's... well, thanks," Twilight mumbled, staring up awkwardly at the hovering, jawless skull as it peered back through metal rods tipped with glowing sensors.

"If you undershtand the tashksh required of you, then you may depart at will," Solon said, "the cargo vehicle will leave once you all are aboard and the cargo hatch ish engaged."

Twilight glanced over at Fluttershy, who was chewing her lower lip nervously. Then she glanced over at the crates of ordnance that Rainbow and Pinkie were happily pillaging.

"Well, you certainly could have asked us to do worse things than this. I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be," the alicorn admitted.

"Actually, Ah got one more request," Applejack said, rubbing a hoof against her chin, "ya said ya couldn't send anyone along with us, right? How about just one soldier?"

"Jusht one?" Solon asked, his optics whirling in his helmet. "That dependsh. Who did you have in mind?"

"Gaela!" Twilight said immediately, smiling brightly.

"Absholutely not," Solon replied, "beshidesh the issue of her power armor shignature foiling your attemptsh at shtealth, she'sh far too valuable to rishk on a recon mission."

Twilight pouted as her ears drooped, but Applejack smirked. "Actually, Ah think the fellow Ah have in mind is just 'expendable' enough to join us. Whaddya say to lettin' us borrow Wyatt Daniels fer a spell?"

Solon's optics flickered as a hololith screen appeared before him, listing new reams of personnel information.

"...... Affirmative. Will that be all?"

"That'll be all, Warsmith," Applejack said as she twisted her hat back and forth atop her head.

"Then prepare yourshelf for deployment. May the Dark Godsh lend their poishon to your weaponsh and crush the very shoulsh of the hated xeno," Solon intoned.

Applejack chuckled as she started walking back the way they had come. "Thanks, but Ah think we'll do just fine without their help. Let's git'r done, girls."

****

Ferrous Dominus - main gates, one hour later

"... and that's why he needs us to break in and scope the place out!"

Wyatt Daniels stared down at Applejack as she finished giving him an abbreviated briefing, holding a large bag under one arm and a rifle case over the other.

Daniels glanced up at the blue and black vehicle hovering in front of a security station. Rarity was in the back grumbling to herself while shifting around her respirator mask, and Pinkie was on her back underneath a servo skull while batting at its dangling cables and giggling. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were simply waiting silently, albeit with very different levels of patience.

"So Mac's okay, though?" Daniels asked as he tossed his cargo into the lifter.

"Better'n okay, in some ways," Applejack admitted as she followed the mercenary into the cargo bed of the vehicle, "Ah woulda liked to spend more time talkin' to him first before leavin', but the Warsmith wants us to move out lickety-split."

"Well, what the Warsmith wants, the Warsmith gets," Daniels mumbled as he sat down next to the bag. He still remembered seeing that looming, augmented terror for the first time; an unholy fusion of Mechanicus technology, Astartes superiority, and daemonic influence. He doubted he could ever forget it.

Twilight levitated a lever closed on the outside edge of the lifter, and the shell enclosure over the cargo bed started to close over them.

"I hope it's not too much trouble asking you to come with us," Fluttershy mumbled uncomfortably.

"Well, I rather like the idea of going on mission with you girls," Daniels said with a smirk, "but I'm not crazy about the mission itself. Recon on a Tau base? I'm a rifleman, not an infiltrator."

"Yeah, I agree," Rainbow Dash said as she settled down next to the man, "it'd be way faster to just point Tellis in the right direction and send us to back him up, but the old man is playing the long game, I guess."

The cargo shell finished closing, locking into place with a clicking noise and casting the bed into total darkness. Then a lumen strip attached to the ceiling of the shell flickered on as the vehicle started to move.

"FINALLY. I thought I'd never get to take this blasted thing off!" Rarity said as she stripped off her respirator mask and shook out of the rubber Mechanicus robes. "Twilight, darling, magic me up a mirror, would you? I don't want those alien scoundrels to see my mane like this before we destroy them."

Twilight rolled her eyes before her horn lit up, generating a reflective plane in front of Rarity so that she could fuss with her hair.

Daniels noticed a monitor attached to the side of the cargo bed and switched it on. He was promptly treated to a view that was taken from what would be the front cab in an ordinary, piloted truck, and he watched the massive gates of Ferrous Dominus grind open to let the transport leave.

"Wow, those DarkMech boys thought of everythin', didn't they?" Applejack said with a grin.

"Except how a handful of a ponies and a single gunner are going to fool and evade an entire base's security," Daniels grumbled.

"Ya leave that part to Twilight," Applejack insisted, "but if things do get dicey in there, Ah'll be glad we have two guns rather'n one."

A sharp click came from Rarity's bolter as she pulled back the slide with her magic, and she peered into the ejection chamber even as she levitated a brush through her mane at the same time.

"You've gotten pretty used to this, I see," Daniels mumbled.

"I blew up a bomber!" Rainbow Dash said brightly.

"I, uh, crashed into one," Fluttershy admitted meekly.

"She got it anyway, though!" Pinkie added as she interjected herself into the conversation. The servo skull was now sitting on her head, like a hat, with its cables hanging down over her face.

The cargo lifter had accelerated to its generally unimpressive top speed by now, skimming over the wasted ground while moving between the mine fields of the security cordon.

"Do you think we'll really be okay?" Fluttershy asked, her hooves running down her mane nervously.

"Of course we will!" Rainbow Dash said immediately. "We've faced way worse enemies than the Tau!"

"Debatable, but slightly reassuring," Rarity mumbled.

"I do kind of wish Solon would have given us all weapons and stuff, though," Pinkie said, "I don't even think Morty has a laser beam!"

Twilight sighed. "Did you just name the servo skull?"

Pinkie nodded rapidly, causing said servo skull to chitter and warble noisily as it was swung along with her head.

"The Warsmith did plenty, even puttin' aside Mac's healin'," Applejack noted, "if he helped us any more, he might as well have just gone himself!"

"Yeah, I've gotta say that Solon is actually a super cool guy!" Rainbow Dash piped up. "I don't know what Celestia was so worried about in the first place!"

"She was afraid that Chaos would seize this world and throw it into anarchy," Daniels clarified, "that it would infect and corrupt you all, and that this entire planet would be harvested to fuel our material war effort or burned in a mass sacrifice to the Gods of Chaos."

The ponies stared wordlessly at the mercenary as he spoke, and a dark silence hung in the air after he finished.

"But yer not gonna do that, right?" Applejack asked.

Daniels shrugged. "Probably not. I mean, we could, but the Iron Warriors have other battle groups for that sort of thing."

"Sweet! Ponies and humans for-evah!" Pinkie Pie cheered, holding up a hoof to high-five Daniels.

Twilight was a bit more concerned about the concept, but decided to hold her peace this time. Whatever was wrong with the Iron Warriors and the humans they employed, it had nothing to do with the task at hand. Their cooperation for the current mission had been purchased with Big Mac's life.

"Well, I guess I'd better start suiting up too," Daniels said as he unzipped the large bag he had carried on board.

Within it were several pieces of a bulky outfit done up in a mottled gray camouflage pattern.

"Whatcha got there?" Applejack asked as Daniels started setting out a pair of boots with hard plates covering the foot and shins.

"Carapace armor. They handed me a suit when the Captain told me I was shipping out without a squad."

He took off his coat and then slipped the torso piece on over his head.

"Is that like power armor?" Rainbow Dash said, jabbing at one of the boots with her hoof.

"Not even close. But it's a lot better than a flak vest under an overcoat," the human admitted with a shrug.

"You really lookin' to nab a suit of space plate fer yerself, Dash?" Applejack asked. "You know you won't be able to fly in it, right?"

The blue pegasus looked skeptical. "Tellis wears power armor and HE can fly," Rainbow pointed out, "so do the rest of the Raptors."

"The other Space Marines use what's called a jump pack, Rainbow Dash. They don't actually fly, they make rocket-assisted leaps," Twilight pointed out, "as for Tellis himself, he certainly flies, but whatever they put in his armor to let him do that I wouldn't want anywhere near me."

As Rainbow clicked her tongue in annoyance Daniels finished securing the gloves to the armor suit.

"This thing's much lighter than I thought it'd be," he admitted as he banged a fist against his forearm guard to test it, "we probably cobbled it together from Tau combat armor pieces."

"Lot of that stuff lyin' around nowadays, huh?" Applejack asked with a malicious smirk.

Daniels picked up his weapons case and then took off his glove to sweep his hand over the gene-lock. With a weak hiss the case opened.

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "Those don't look like the weapons you had before."

"I got an upgrade after that little scuffle in the fusion core," Daniels said as he took out a sheathed mono-edged sword and clipped it to his belt.

"You mean the one Ah took down?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah. Thanks for that," Daniels said with a chuckle as he placed a pair of grenades on his belt and then started attaching spare ammunition, "hope you don't mind. Not like you'd get much use out of a rail rifle anyhow."

"There's got to be a way to make a gun that non-unicorns can use," Rainbow Dash mumbled as she stared at her hooves.

"You mean besides grafting one to your body after a horrific injury, I hope," Twilight said, "I suppose you could always ask Pinkie how she used a flamer without any fingers, and without having ever touched one before."

"I did what now?" the pink mare asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"You burnt them grays outta mah storage room," Applejack reminded her, "just after swearin' revenge fer Dest, remember?"

Pinkie snorted as tried to restrain laughter. "That's silly! Desty isn't dead!"

As the ponies stared and/or sighed at Pinkie, Daniels finished holstering his pulse pistol and reached into the case for the rail rifle.

Applejack whistled as he hefted it up, displaying a line of Gothic text that had been cut into the side: Love & Tolerate.

"Nice touch," Rarity said with a smile, her own combat rifle floating above her head.

"Well, it's a fine motto," the mercenary chuckled as he closed up the case, "all right then, settle in girls. We have a long trip ahead of us, and a lot of trouble waiting at the end."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 8 training grounds

Big Macintosh lumbered behind Gaela as he was led through the training areas, his sleepy gaze filtered through the electronic filter of his helmet optics.

It was... different. He attracted a lot attention, as would be expected, but he was also fairly new to the fortress and fully engrossed in the grim and darkly industrial surroundings. His foray into Ferrous Dominus during Pinkie's party was brief, and he wasn't much of an explorer or socialite under any conditions. Being taken through the factory-city as a quasi-resident rather than a guest was actually quite interesting.

When something caught his eye his visor would detect the shift in attention automatically, drawing a box around the object and generating a blurb of explanatory text. Machines had their basic functions described. Buildings were labeled and rated for their defensive qualities. Soldiers were named and had their ranks and squad data explained.

+Unit Crabapple has detected inbound orbital dropship. Main cargo appears to be fuel processing engines and food supplies.+

Big Macintosh watched his visor translate Crabapple's buzzing, text scrolling across the bottom of his field of vision. He had been surprised and quite pleased to learn that his helmet could make sense of Binaric Cant, finally knocking down the language barrier between him and the Apple family's robot/pet. He was much less surprised and pleased to find that little of what Crabapple droned on about was really worth translating.

"Miss Gaela, what does the manufactorum build, anyway?" Scootaloo asked. She and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders were sitting on top of Crabapple as it followed just behind Big Macintosh.

"Whatever we want it to. At present the major task before is constructing several Warp engine systems, a daunting task, but at the same time it's also producing Rhino and Chimera transports and a constant flow of ammunition supplies." Gaela was playing the part of tour guide whenever a pony had a question, which in practice meant whenever one of the fillies had a question.

"Hey, maybe we can use it and get our manufacturing cutie marks!" Sweetie Belle said excitedly.

"No," Gaela said bluntly, neither turning to face the young ponies nor slowing her walk through the training grounds.

"Awww... can we at least watch them work to get our cutie marks in human studies?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Nope," Big Macintosh said. He didn't want his baby sister and her friends anywhere near heavy and/or dangerous machinery. Well, aside from himself, anyway.

"There's the Armsmaster's kiosk," Gaela stated, pointing her servo arm toward a raised platform that oversaw the main gunnery ranges, "come with me, Macintosh."

Big Mac did so, his gaze lingering slightly as he glanced over at the gun range. Many human mercenaries were practicing their marksmanship, and his visor identified each weapon as he focused on it.

"Armsmaster Tolken. We require your assistance," the Dark Acolyte said as she stepped up onto the raised platform next to the kiosk. The Armsmaster, an Iron Warrior with a bionic arm and great metal spines coming out of his armor, turned to meet her.

"Acolyte. Here for the energy weapons range?" he asked, his voice a thick, distorted growl.

"Negative. I'm assisting Macintosh in achieving his heavy bolter proficiency."

Big Mac walked up onto the platform, his augmetics clanking noisily against the metal surface.

Tolken stared down at the armored pony. Big Macintosh stared back, crimson lenses meeting crimson visor.

"This is a joke, right?" the Armsmaster said after several seconds.

"Are you suggesting that the Dark Mechanicus possesses a sense of humor, my lord?" Gaela asked.

It took several more seconds before the Chaos Space Marine heaved a sigh and turned back toward his control console.

"First guests, then settlers, and now we have bloody ARMSMEN ponies. If this keeps up we'll soon be taking orders from the damned horses," he grumbled.

Gaela made a face from behind her metal mask. "I don't think you need to be worried about that. Their leadership is actually quite pitiful."

Tolken spent a few more seconds working the keys of his console. "All right, his safety lock has been disengaged. You've been registered to heavy weapons range nineteen. First drill is level one basic targeting and reloading. Ten successful practice cycles must be completed until level two is accessible. Level ten represents acceptable battlefield proficiency," the armsmaster said, glancing back at Macintosh, "be advised that I will be watching closely, if only to see how you actually use that thing, xeno."

A clicking noise came from the heavy bolter plugged into his side, and new symbols started flashing over Mac's visor as his power armor detected that his weapon had been unlocked. A navigation arrow also conveniently directed him toward his designated firing range, and he turned away without a word.

"Is that one mute or something?" Tolken asked Gaela as the stallion stomped off.

"No. He's just very quiet," the Dark Acolyte explained, "I find it rather endearing, actually."

The Armsmaster grunted and turned away, dismissing the augmented woman.

Gaela stepped down to follow Big Macintosh to the firing range, only to see that he had stopped moving and was staring intently at his little sister and her friends.

It didn't take long for Gaela to figure out why.

"Ah don't know, Scoots. How do ya even USE a grenade?" Apple Bloom asked.

"It's easy! Tellis taught Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy how to do it before they rescued Sweet Apple Acres!" the young pegasus insisted. "You just hold the lever down to suppress the magnet-thingy, stick it onto something, let go of the lever, and then twist the top! Then it explodes!"

Sweetie Belle frowned as she stood up on top of Crabapple to stare at some men at the grenade range. "I don't think that's how they're doing it, though."

"Well, however you do it exactly, it can't be THAT hard," Scootaloo insisted with a roll of her eyes.

+Unit Crabapple suggests that all units consult with the on-duty Armsmaster on proper use of ordnance before training to become, quote, "Cutie Mark Crusader Grenadiers".+

"Ah. I see," Gaela mumbled, "it might be wise to remove them from the premises."

"Eeyup," Big Mac said as he started to move toward the young ponies.

"I'll take care of it," Gaela said suddenly, stopping the stallion short.

The Dark Acolyte could feel the skeptical look on Big Mac's face even while it was completely hidden by his helmet.

"You have drilling to do, and that will divert you from keeping the younglings away from anything explosive," Gaela explained, "I have tasks of my own to complete, but they are short affairs and I can arrange a safe environment for the young first."

Big Macintosh glanced over at his little sister as she and Sweetie Belle gazed into a crate of laspistols. He didn't really want to leave them with Gaela, but that was mostly because they were currently his responsibility and because Gaela had done plenty for the Apple family already. Between her fixing up Crabapple, assisting his rescue, and helping protect Sweet Apple Acres, he felt like it was more than simply rude (and probably kind of demeaning) to ask her to foal-sit.

He had made up his mind to refuse when he realized that the Dark Acolyte was already walking away from the gunnery ranges with the fillies and probe in tow.

Before he could chase after them (shouting for them to stop was, of course, not an option he considered), his in-helmet vox crackled.

"Macintosh, stop wasting time and begin your heavy bolter drills," barked the Armsmaster directly in his ear, despite the fact that the Iron Warrior was still within earshot, "apparently I've been tasked with turning you into a decent gunner, and if you fail it will be because you're not good enough, not because I was lax in my oversight!" the arrow directing him toward the heavy weapons range reappeared, seeming all the more insistent.

The draught horse sighed and turned around, annoyed that things had slipped so far out his control and so quickly. He had already troubled his family, their friends, the humans, and even (apparently) the big boss of the Iron Warriors themselves, all because he had gotten careless in the middle of a battlefield. He didn't even know what Applejack was off doing now after seeing to his recovery, but he'd bet his last bit that a fresh set of bionic legs didn't come cheap.

At the very least, Big Mac supposed, he could prepare himself so that the next time the grayskin bastards set hoof on his farm he could properly defend his family.

With a heavy snort, Big Macintosh started heading for the targeting range, his heavy bolter twitching in anticipation.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 7

"Thanks fer takin' us around the place, Miss Gaela," Apple Bloom said as Crabapple walked after the Dark Acolyte, carrying the fillies atop it, "Ah'm surprised ya wanted to help us."

"Yeah, I kind of got the impression you didn't like us," Sweetie Belle admitted.

"You are absolutely correct," Gaela said blandly, "there are few of you equines that I actively dislike, but you three certainly rank among them."

The Cutie Mark Crusaders wilted at the admission, though only one of them could count herself reasonably surprised.

"Wait, what do you have against me? I think this is the first time we've even talked or anything," Scootaloo pointed out.

"Again, you are correct," the augmented woman replied, turning her head to glare at the orange pegasus through her optics, "however, you're friends with both the other two younglings AND Lord Tellis. Thus if I am to judge you by association - and I'm doing precisely that - you're probably the worst of you three."

Apple Bloom quirked an eyebrow. "Boy, our sisters were right about that guy, huh Sweetie?"

"In any case," continued the Dark Acolyte, "right now Macintosh has training to attend to, so I'm seeing to your safety and diversion as a matter of practicality, in spite of my personal feelings. Continue following me."

Crabapple continued its clanking gait after the woman, occasionally blurting something in Binary that Gaela would reply to sharply in the same language. The somewhat subdued fillies continued riding atop the automata silently, at least for a time.

Eventually Apple Bloom decided to try talking to her again. Gaela wasn't very nice, but she WAS doing them a favor by supervising them. This just seemed to be the way the cyborg woman did things: with bitter resentment.

"So do ya think ya can help us get our cutie marks, then?" the rural filly asked.

Gaela halted, giving the ponies a sidelong glance. "Your skill brands? You're seeking to acquire them?"

"Yeah. We figure that if we study humans, we'll find our special talent in... uh..."

"Alien biology," Sweetie Belle finished.

"Xeno biologis," Gaela corrected.

The young unicorn rolled her eyes. "Fine. That."

"Is that how those marks are acquired? I was under the impression that they represented areas of natural proficiency or preternatural skill, not study," Gaela remarked.

There was a pregnant pause as the ponies glanced at each other.

"No, I don't think... that's not how it works... is that how it works?" Scootaloo asked pensively.

"It might be different for different ponies, I suppose?" Sweetie Belle asked, scratching her head with a hoof.

"I can't claim to know more about the topic than your people," Gaela admitted with a shrug of her metal-sheathed shoulders, "and if you seek to study homo sapien, then that by itself is a laudable goal."

"Heh heh. Homo," Scootaloo snickered quietly.

Gaela soon halted in front of a pile of metal containers, each one a three foot metal cube.

"So you're gonna help us?!" Apple Bloom asked excitedly.

"Indeed," the Dark Acolyte replied.

Then she took Sweetie Belle in her left hand, Scootaloo in her right hand, and clamped her servo arm over Apple Bloom's ribbon to lift her up as well.

Then she dumped all three fillies into one of the open cubes.

"Hey!"

"Ow!"

"What the hay?!"

Gaela ignored a bout of Binaric squealing from Crabapple, picking up a container lid that had a grated opening to allow air flow. "From here you will be able to observe the comings and goings of this sector all you wish from a safe vantage point."

She placed the lid on top of the crate, and the fillies grew increasingly alarmed as they heard the crackle of her laser welder sealing the container.

+Unit Gaela, desist in confining Command Unit Apple Bloom and associates at once!+ Crabapple blurted, shuffling awkwardly around the armored woman for want of any physical way to stop her.

"Yeah! What Crabapple said!" Apple Bloom yelled as she stood up against the wall of the container.

"It said for you to be silent and accept confinement like a good little girl," the Dark Acolyte lied.

"She did not!"

+Indeed, Unit Crabapple did not!+

Gaela ignored them and finished sealing the crate. Then she stared down into it such that the dreadful gaze of her helmet mask was the only thing visible through the lid grate.

"You will remain here until I am finished with my own errands. I'll then bring you some water and nutrient paste. Then you will remain here for some time after that, until Macintosh is finished for the day."

"This is filly abuse!" Sweetie Belle cried angrily.

"Is it, now?" Gaela asked, her servo tool swiveling around and shifting to reveal a set of prongs. "Shall I put you down for a nap instead?"

The prongs crackled ominously, a whip of electricity lashing about the tips.

"I officially retract my previous statement," Sweetie said with a fearful gulp.

"Wait! How are we supposed to study humans like this?" Scootaloo protested. "We can only see straight up!"

"Ah. Excellent point," the Mechanicus Acolyte conceded.

She grabbed the edge of the cube and then tipped it over onto its side, causing its contents to fall over with a surprised yelp.

"You're welcome," Gaela said dryly as she turned around and left.

"Nice one, Scoots," Apple Bloom grumbled as she pushed herself up, her face mask hanging off her ear.

"I can't believe she did that! What an awful foal-sitter!" Sweetie Belle complained as she adjusted her own, more elaborate, protective wear. "If Rarity knew about this, she'd... well... she would..."

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. "She'd what?"

Sweetie frowned as she thought it over. "Actually, we probably shouldn't tell her about this. She might get ideas."

Crabapple stepped over to the container and banged a leg against the lid, testing its strength.

"Ya think ya can get us outta here, Crabapple?" Apple Bloom asked, looking up at the heavy metal legs of the probe.

+Ferric alloy strength exceeds possible force output to breach grate bars,+ Crabapple noted, +attempting to rupture containment unit seal.+

Crabapple positioned its body against the container at an angle, and its sample drill emerged from its carapace.

"All right! She'll have us out in a jiffy!" Apple Bloom assured her friends.

The drill whirled into action, and then stabbed into the seam where the grate lid met the rest of the container.

There was a brief grinding noise before a loud crack issued from the point of contact.

The fillies were quite disappointed to see the broken fragments of the drill bounce away across the ferrocrete ground, leaving a trail of sparks behind it.

+Unit Crabapple is beginning to tire of the Iron Warriors' penchant for armoring every single thing in their inventory,+ the probe burbled.

"Ah know! Go get help!" Apple Bloom said, standing up against the grate. "Ah bet lots of people 'round here can get us out!"

+Command received. Unit Crabapple deployed.+ The automata quickly scuttled away, blaring machine code loudly to try to attract attention.

Scootaloo looked skeptical as she watched the machine walk off. "Do you really think that anypony will come?"

"Anyone, Scootaloo. The correct term is 'anyone' when you're referring to humans too," Sweetie Belle corrected.

"Oh, shut up, Sweetie."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - outskirts

Short black spires planted in the ground next to lush tree cover presented the first indications of advanced technology in the area as the Tau cargo lifter slowed its pre-programmed course toward the canyon. As it came close enough to the sensor towers to be subjected to deep scans, the spires unfolded their sensor fins and an electric hum came from the devices.

After a few seconds of detecting nothing in the cargo vessel to trigger an alert - or anything at all, for that matter - the lifter was cleared for entry and the spires folded up again to their less obtrusive and interesting form.

The cargo vehicle started moving forward again, gently sliding from side to side to wind about the trees and the occasional automated turret housing. The latter was identifiable only by a small patch of hardened black material set into the ground, and all but invisible to the vehicle's sensors.

Eventually the cargo lifter reached another patch of artificial material set into the ground, this one covered with a bland camouflage pattern on top to fool distant observation. Gears and pistons started moving as the vehicle approached, and the metal hatch opened up to allow access to a steep incline that led further underground.

The lifter floated down into the hatch, and then the opening slowly lowered itself shut again.

The cargo vehicle moved down the passageway into the facility below, the path eventually widening before meeting with a pair of heavy blast doors.

The blast doors slid open smoothly, revealing half a dozen Fire Warriors and twice as many drones.

*This is the alert?* one Fire Warrior asked as the lifter floated by them into the armor garage.

Dozens of APCs, cargo lifters, and Piranha attack skimmers were parked in the underground garage, each one secured above the ground with heavy mechanical clamps. A pair of Hammerhead gunships were stationed in the back as well, representing the heavy firepower held in reserve here.

The Tau soldiery followed the lifter as it slowly crept toward an empty set of clamps in the middle of the garage.

*Something wrong with the scanners, I think. There was an error when they searched the interior, so it was flagged for a search.*

A Fire Warrior with her helmet off frowned at an electronic reader in her hand. *No, that's not all. This lifter wasn't scheduled to return here today.*

*So the problem is with the vehicle AI, then?* asked another soldier as the cargo lifter lowered itself onto the clamps.

*Don't know. First we search the interior, then report it to Earth Caste,* mumbled the female guard.

The clamps took hold of the lifter chassis with a whirring noise, and one of the Fire Warriors walked up to the cargo vehicle and pulled the hatch lever.

The soldiers waited with carbines at the ready, although none of them bothered aiming them at the cargo lifter. The drones were more vigilant in their security procedures, and their twin-linked carbines were all ready to bombard the lifter interior if necessary.

*... Nothing. False alarm,* said one of the Fire Warriors as the hatch finished opening. There was clearly no one inside the cargo bed, and the drones promptly dropped their combat alert status to green.

*Hold on,* mumbled the female, peering at the interior, *do these things normally have monitors inside?* She climbed into the cargo bed, searching the floor. There was an empty duffle bag stuffed in a corner, and a closed rifle case next to the monitor. *Does this belong to someone? It doesn't look like standard issue gear.*

*What's inside?* asked another.

She started searching for a button or switch to open it, but when her hand passed over the gene-lock it beeped rudely and flashed red.

*Strange... let's go get that Earth Caste team to look over this thing. Keep it on priority lockdown until it's been completely searched an analyzed.*

*Roger that. Let's go, Shas'la.*

"...... All right, they just left. There's still those floating wheel things left, though."

Rainbow Dash was crouched next to a set of mooring clamps under a Devilfish transport, peeking out between the arms of the mechanism as the guards left the garage.

The others were clustered behind her with varying levels of fearful tension: Fluttershy was quivering in terror while hiding her eyes, while Applejack had been forced to smack her hat over Pinkie's face to keep the other earth pony from humming the theme song to Mission Impossible. Morty hovered over Twilight's head, rotating slowly to take in as much of the garage as possible.

"Nice work with the snap teleport, Sparkle," Daniels whispered as he crouched next to Rarity, "now we need to move out of this area quickly."

"How worried should we be about the drones?" Twilight asked.

"Worried enough to stay out of their line of sight. They don't have great sensors or sophisticated AI, so they won't react like a guard to sound, I don't think. As long as we don't make a target of ourselves, they won't pick us up."

They duly crept behind the numerous parked vehicles toward the rear of the garage, ears perked for footsteps and Applejack's hat still suppressing Pinkie's voice.

There was a smallish door behind the pair of Hammerheads, and Daniels jabbed a hand toward it as he kept his rail rifle up and searching for targets.

The ponies grouped up next to the door, and Rainbow Dash placed her ear against it.

"... I don't hear anything." Then she pulled her head back and noted the lack of knobs or handles. "How do you open this thing?"

"Probably the console next to it. But so long as Sparkle can magic us through doors, we should do that," Daniels mumbled, "hold on a tick, though. Pie, stay still."

Pinkie raised her head slightly before stiffening to indicate that she heard, as her face was still otherwise covered by Applejack's hat. Daniels crept over and unbuttoned her saddlebags before retrieving a pair of melta bombs.

Rarity winced. "Isn't a little early in our super-sneaky mission to start setting off bombs?"

"Signum detonator," Daniel mumbled as he slipped a remote detonator from his belt and keyed the melta charges appropriately, "they won't go off until someone presses the button."

Pinkie immediately pushed Applejack away, freeing her mouth to speak. "We should probably have someone pink hold on to the detonator. You know, just to be safe."

Applejack promptly put her hat back over Pinkie's face. "That ain't happenin', sugarcube. Daniels knows what he's doing."

The human carefully attached a charge to the engine mountings of the first hammerhead. "Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to let one of you hold on to the trigger. I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm pretty likely to be the first target if we end up in a gunfight."

Pinkie's tail started wagging back and forth rapidly.

"Good point. Rarity, can you hold it?" Twilight whispered to the unicorn.

"So we're pretty much just assuming you're going to die here?" Rarity asked dryly as she magically plucked the detonator from his belt and levitated it into her own saddlebag.

"We're in a war zone, Miss Rarity," Daniels explained as he secured the second charge and then twisted the handle to arm it, "completely cut off from reinforcements, surrounded by enemies, and without a clue as to what we're up against. We're only assuming I'm the FIRST to die here."

The unicorn clicked her tongue. "You'd be quite dashing if you weren't so fatalistic, darling. Try to be more positive."

"And you're fine just the way you are, Miss Rarity, but do be ready to mash that big red button if and when things go tits-up," Daniels replied, stepping closer to the equines and the floating skull, "hit it, Sparkle."

Twilight nodded silently, her horn flaring as she summoned the energy to teleport the group to the other side of the barrier.

Applejack suddenly looked up at Daniels. "What're 'tits'?"

Then they vanished in a flash of purple light.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 11

"All right, I'm lishening. What is thish shignal you've detected?"

Solon was sitting at his forge in front of a jumbled mess of Tau battlesuit parts, and in front of him stood several Dark Techpriests.

+Explanatory: We were contacted by the crew of the Harvest of Steel just yesterday. They explained that the Harvest had become irritated and that it was cycling an unfamiliar energy pattern through its cogitator banks that it had apparently picked up on its own,+ began one of the black-robed cyborgs before another began speaking.

+Expansion: We've run our own tests, but we have failed to identify or decipher it, Warsmith. Apparently it is a Warp-bound, wide-spectrum broadcast. This would be unusual enough, but it uses no encryption that we've ever encountered. We cannot unravel the message carried by the signal. Modification: If there is, in fact, a coherent message to be observed.+

"A Warp-bound shignal? Well that'sh intereshting," Solon noted, his mechatendrils rising up higher, "but I'd be shurprished if any shignal could make it through the Warp without decaying beyond the point of decryption. It'sh not the shame as putting a shignal through the Materium."

The walls flickered as Solon accessed the relevant noosphere data nodes, bringing up the raw signal data and analysis.

+Ancillary: As you know, the Harvest alone maintains equal presence in the Warp and the material universe simultaneously,+ noted a Dark Techpriest as Solon stomped up to the wall panels and observed them, +only it was able to detect this signal outside of Warp transit.+

Solon silently studied the hololiths for several minutes, moving from screen to screen as his mechatendrils hissed quietly.

Finally, he turned back to the Dark Techpriests. "I recognize thish shignal. What you're sheeing here ish not encryption, it was shimply badly jumbled in the firsht place, and made worshe for traveling through the Immaterium. It'sh an Ork shignal."

The cyborgs looked quite startled to hear that. +Confirmation: Ork?+

"Yesh. I've sheen it before. During large offenshives, many resherve groupsh in an Ork army will shplinter off from the main army to find new targetsh and shpoilsh not in the path of the main force. Some of the more clever greenshkin Meksh, lacking Ashtropathsh, generate a shignal and broadcasht it directly into the Warp, drawing shtray warbandsh shearching for prey back to the main force when it ish ready to move on. It alsho luresh in nearby Orksh that have not yet joined the war effort; a handy shuperluminal recruiting tool for a prominent Waaaugh."

+A method of non-psionic Warp communication?+ chittered one Dark Techpriest. +Such a capability would be extremely useful if harnessed by a wiser species.+

"To call it communication ish technically accurate, but givesh it too much credit," Solon reasoned, "it ish only good for announcing one'sh preshence to others in Warp transhit, the equivalent of shcreaming in the dark. There'sh no way to direct the meshage toward a certain recipient, and the Empyrean decaysh the shignal quickly, making it short-ranged in comparishon to ashtro-telepathy. Shtill, for the greenshkinsh it should count ash clever."

+Interrogative: Does this mean we should prepare for possible conflict with Orks, Warsmith?+ asked another Dark Techpriest.

"Negative. Thish shignal came from sheveral shyshtemsh away. If anything, it would draw any nearby Orksh away from thish planet. Good to know about greenshkinsh on the move, though. Check the captured Tau shipsh' databanksh for any information about local warbandsh. The data could prove usheful if we ever return to thish shector."

The heavy thump of a terminator armor suit walking through the cavernous halls was audible by the time he finished speaking, and some of the Dark Techpriests became visibly more nervous as they noted a hulking, highly toxic body approaching.

"You may go now. I have another appointment," Solon informed the Dark Techpriests, who quickly bowed and scurried away.

Sliver maintained his unhurried pace up to his Warsmith, hammer in hand. It was completely unnecessary, not to mention rather impertinent, to carry a weapon into a private meeting with his superior officer, but it was an easy way to indicate his mood to others.

Unsurprisingly, it was not a sign of calm temperament.

"I finished sspeaking to Acolyte Gaela," slurred the Nurglite Lord as he approached, "she wished to explain her decission to overrule my ssecurity orderss."

Solon tensed uneasily. Sliver was far more lenient on the Dark Mechanicus personnel than the soldiers in the Company, so it was unlikely he had harmed her, but at the same time he had been in an unusually poor mood as of late.

"She claimed that TELLISS was evacuating wounded," Sliver snarled.

"Thish ish true. I wash there," Solon pointed out.

Sliver froze, and then his helmet budged up to make optics contact with the Warsmith.

"The Mad Angel is resscuing wounded fighterss now?" Sliver asked incredulously.

"No. It wash one of the pony xenosh," Solon corrected, hesitating after he said it, "... I'm not sure if that makesh it lesh abshurd or more."

Sliver spent several long seconds pondering this.

"I desspisse thiss world," he said finally, turning his gaze away to stare at a twitching battlesuit assembly, "it iss verdant and clean. And the... tolerance of itss inhabitantss unssettless me."

"You have a problem with the horshesh?" Solon asked curiously. "I find them quite pliable and tolerable compared to the xenosh we've dealt with before."

"They have a... curiouss appeal to ssome of the men," growled Sliver, "even Telliss and Sserith sseem fond of the beasstss. And I needn't bring up that celebration and the fiassco that ressulted."

"No, you need not," Solon agreed, "in any cashe, what did you do with Mish Gaela?"

"Nothing," Sliver assured the mechanized Iron Warrior, "I know better than to harm your favorite sservant. I let her ssputter her excussess and then ssent her away."

"Ah, good!" Solon said, his mechatendrils drooping slightly in relieved sympathy. "Then I shupposhe we should get to bushinesh, Shliver."

"Yess, Warssmith," growled the vice-commander, "you sspoke of a misssion? And how many of my brotherss face death and injury for the ssake of thiss new venture?"

"None sho far!" Solon said happily. "Although there'sh a very high chance that it will get shome of the poniesh killed."

Sliver once again turned his helmet up so that his fisheye optics lens glared into the clustered arrays set in Solon's helmet.

"... Tell me more."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - underground facility

"Are you sure there's no way to disable this thing?" Rarity asked as she stared up at a small box set on the wall and connected to a long trail of wires.

None of them could read the Tau text next to it, but the red coloring and the prominence of the giant red button on the box made it quite obvious that it was an alarm of some sort.

"I'm not sure, actually," Daniels admitted as he glanced up at the cables running along the ceiling, "I don't know enough about grayskin tech. But I do know that if I was setting up an alarm system, I'd want one that would alert me immediately if one of the alarm triggers were tampered with. That's what ours do."

Morty floated near the box, its sensors coming very close to touching the button. Then it turned away and started floating further down the hall. The rest of the group followed it, eyes and ears searching for any sign of the base's inhabitants.

"This place looks strangely..." Twilight trailed off as she stared at the hall they were in. The walls and ceiling were rough-hewn stone with the occasional polyceramic paneling to cover up a cracked surface and small self-contained lights drilled into the ceiling earthworks.

"... Well, I wouldn't exactly call it low-tech," the alicorn continued, "but it certainly doesn't mesh with their technology level like Ferrous Dominus does yours."

"Different purposes, I guess," Daniels admitted, "the grayskins are hiding out here. We needed to set up a factory-city big enough to produce ship engines."

"You getting all this, Morty?" Pinkie asked as the servo skull floated along ahead of them toward the next door.

"All right, everybody bunch up," Twilight said as her horn started to glow, "we have to-"

Twilight's heart leapt into her throat as the door slid open ahead of them, revealing a trio of Tau soldiers waiting on the other side. The aliens were not wearing their combat armor or carrying rifles, and their eyes widened at the sight that greeted them behind the door.

Rainbow Dash was the first to take action, bolting hooves-first through the air into one of the Tau and knocking him down.

Daniels and Applejack were right behind the pegasus, the former slamming the butt of his rail rifle into his target's face before dropping it to draw his sword. Applejack simply charged into the last alien like a bull, knocking the stunned soldier down next to Rainbow's victim before angrily trampling him.

*What the blazes is-AAUGH!*

Daniels slashed deep into his target's throat before kicking him away, and then turned to the next body on the ground before driving his blade into its chest.

"Not bad for a Tau sword," Daniels admitted as he drew the blade out of the second corpse. It was lighter than he'd have preferred, probably owing to the fact that most Fire Warriors treated combat blades as dead weight, but still of excellent quality and much less cumbersome than a chainsword.

Turning his attention to the only Tau he hadn't cut open, he was slightly perturbed to see Applejack pinning it down while pounding on its face with her front hooves repeatedly.

"Hey. Hey! AJ, calm down!" the mercenary hissed, stepping over and pushing the farmpony off of her victim.

Applejack seemed surprised at first. "What? What'd Ah do?"

Daniels promptly stomped his heel down onto the neck of the dazed Tau, breaking its neck and causing most of the ponies to flinch back.

"Kill them quick and move on," Daniels explained as he swung his sword to the side to shake off the blood, "I know you're upset at the grays personally, but if you start getting mad and treating this mission like an opportunity to vent you're going to start making mistakes. Mistakes that you won't survive." He leaned down to pick up his discarded rifle.

Applejack didn't look convinced, but she didn't bother to argue.

Twilight, meanwhile, was glancing back and forth in a panic. "Are we detected? Should we run?"

"Should we activate the bombs?" Pinkie asked eagerly, the signum detonator in one hoof with her other foreleg poised over it.

Rarity sighed. "No, Pinkie, we don't need to-" then she snapped her head around, her eyes wide. "Hey! Give that back!"

Daniels shook his head as he leaned down over the Tau corpses. "No. These three are Fire Caste, but they have no weapons besides sidearms and they were obviously very surprised to see us. We're still clear."

"And the door is open!" Rainbow Dash noted happily.

"Yes. Great," Twilight murmured as she stepped past the blood slick that was slowly growing in the middle of the hall.

Rarity finally managed to get the signum detonator away from Pinkie Pie and levitated it back into her saddlebag. "Well, let's hurry along then, before they find these bodies. Fluttershy, you can stop covering your eyes now."

"Actually, she might want to hover forward like twenty feet and THEN uncover her eyes. And not look back," Rainbow Dash advised.

Fluttershy gratefully took Rainbow's advice as they all crept further down the hall, even further on edge now that they had encountered the enemy.

Well, all except Rainbow Dash and Pinkie. The latter seemed completely oblivious to the tension in the air, while the former was if anything quite happy at the prospect of running into more foes.

They encountered no one else until the reached a fork in the hall. One path turned away into another hall, while a security door blocked a path in the other direction. There was a large sign on the door labeling it, but naturally it was quite useless to the Gothic-speakers.

"So what now?" Rainbow asked, turning toward Daniels. "Which way do we go?"

Daniels briefly lifted up his helmet mask to squint uselessly at the sign. "Well, ideally we want to find good sabotage targets, like the base reactor or cogitator cores. Barring that, the central security station would be a good bet. We clear that out and we won't have to worry about a strong security response for a while."

"All right..." Rarity trailed off. "So how do we find those things?"

Daniels shrugged.

"Then it's time to play 'follow the creepy robot skull'!" Pinkie cheered, pushing Morty to the front of the group. "Go on, Morty! Which way do you want to go?"

The servo skull floated up into the fork in the path, its many sensors flickering. It turned down the hall, then turned again to face the door.

Then one of the cables trailing under it curled up and scratched at the door like an animal that wanted to go outside.

"We have a winner!" Pinkie grinned. "Twilight?"

"All right, fine. I hope we can trust that thing," Twilight mumbled as her horn started to glow.

With a purple flash, the ponies, human, and augmented hunk of bone vanished from the hallway.

In another purple flash, they reappeared in a large room overrun with large equipment set into the walls and ceiling. The first thing they noticed was that this room held a pair of Riptide battlesuits, each one kneeling in a large maintenance bay surrounded by power cables and automated repair systems.

The second thing they noticed was the Tau kneeling beneath one of the massive armor suits turning her head around, having heard them appear.

"Got this," Applejack snapped as she bounded over to the stunned alien and twisted about to aim her hind legs.

The back kick struck the hapless engineer like a thunderbolt, shattering her body and flinging it across the room.

"See, that's how you do it," Daniels said approvingly, "quick and clean. No need to make a show of it."

"Oh, I remember these things!" Fluttershy said as she pointed to the battlesuits. "I think they're dangerous. The daemon engines didn't like them very much."

"Right. I'll set a charge in each cockpit," Daniels agreed.

"And then we'll blow them up?!" Pinkie asked, holding up the signum detonator.

Rarity growled as she wrenched the detonator away. "Stop going through my pack!"

Twilight crept up to the corpse of the Tau that they had happened upon, staring (with some discomfort) at the alien's bare head.

"This one must be Earth Caste," she mumbled as she recalled the notes on the different segments of Tau society and their biological differences.

"After we're through burying them, they'll all be 'Earth Caste'," Rainbow Dash snickered before bumping hooves with Applejack.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "What I mean is that they're not fighters. We don't need to kill these ones."

"They don't need to be fighters to pull an alarm," Daniels noted, "besides, if we're talking about crippling the grays' war effort, Earth Caste are actually worth more than the Fire grunts. A single engineer can supply hundreds of soldiers." He finished setting the melta charges in the gaping cockpits of the Riptide suits, stepping back from the hulking weapons.

"But we don't need to kill them!" Twilight insisted. "I can put them to sleep with a spell! Or you can just knock them out!"

"Twi, ya know what Solon said," Applejack reminded the alicorn, "right now, we're fightin' fer the Iron Warriors. If we see a grayskin, it dies. He laid it out nice and simple fer us."

Twilight didn't look mollified. "He said 'Disable, degrade, or kill,' remember? Besides, I'm as grateful as anypony for what he did for Big Macintosh, but that doesn't mean we have to stop thinking for ourselves and become just another squad of soldiers for him!"

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Oh, sure. You'd be singin' a different tune if the same order came from Princess Celestia."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "What's THAT supposed to mean?"

"Girls, please! Stop fighting!" Fluttershy begged, glancing around nervously. "We're in enough trouble as it is!"

Rarity nodded. "Agreed. If it's a point of contention, let's compromise: Daniels, dear, since you ARE just another soldier of the Warsmith, why don't you do the murdering of the non-combatants?"

Daniels shrugged. "Sure. Whatever."

"There, see? Everybody wins!" Rarity said brightly.

Twilight seemed to reluctantly accept the decision, admitting to herself that this wasn't a good time or place to start arguing with her friends over an attack of conscience.

Applejack seemed downright annoyed by the judgment. "Ain't exactly fair to Daniels," she spat, "as if he ain't doin' enough fer us."

"Oh, come now. He's being paid for this!" Rarity reminded the apple farmer. Then she looked up at Daniels. "Right, darling?"

"I'm still operating under the assumption that I'm going to die here," the mercenary deadpanned.

"Hey!" Rainbow Dash shouted, startling the others with the sudden and totally unnecessary burst of noise. "If you guys could wrap up all the drama over there, we found something cool!"

Rainbow Dash was hovering next to Morty in front of a window that had been cut into the wall. The other ponies and Daniels moved up to join her and see what had attracted Rainbow's attention.

Stretching out in front of the window was a cargo dock full of crates and containers, along with several large cargo robots waiting on standby. Behind that was a huge, crested bow that loomed over the platform and was easily the width of a city block, although it was hard to grasp its full dimensions from the relatively small window.

"Ladies and servo skull, we have our starship," Daniels mumbled, gripping his rail rifle tightly.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 7

"Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, bored..." Scootaloo chanted, lying on her back as she kicked her hind legs into the air in time with her rather uncreative litany.

Apple Bloom was lying down next to the pegasus, nursing her aching legs. Scootaloo had earlier suggested that the youngest Apple sibling might be able to smash the lid off the crate with brute force, given her family's farming methods and reputation for strength. That logic had failed to impress their current prison, which had suffered the attempted breakout much better than her legs had.

Sweetie Belle was up against the grated lid, deciding that if they were going to be stuck here, she might as well get as good a look at "here" as she could.

"I don't get what Rarity thinks is so dreadful about this place. It doesn't look that dangerous to me," the young unicorn said as another truck rolled by carrying a load of menials and a trailer full of building materials.

They had tried calling out to some of the humans wandering by, but all of them had given little more than a curious look before ignoring them and moving on. None of the mercenaries or human workers were willing to risk punishment by tampering with the containers, and it wasn't as if the fillies were in any danger.

"Well, there must be SOMETHIN' dangerous out there," Apple Bloom mumbled, "this is where guys like Dest and Tellis come from, right?"

"I guess. All I see out there are normal humans, though. Some of them don't even have weapons," Sweetie noted.

Then she leaned to one side as she spotted a small group of people in black robes.

"Oh, hey! I think it's more of those Mechanicus people! They're coming this way!"

The other fillies glanced up to watch as a trio of augmented humans walked directly up to the crate, their black rubber robes brushing the ground around their feet. They were all wearing powered armor, and all possessed extremely obtrusive and extensive bionic components replacing various parts of their bodies.

The one in the lead was a Dark Techpriest with half a dozen augmetic arms and a long coil of tubes and wires feeding from his back up into the dark shroud covered by his hood. The other two were noticeably less modified, being of the Acolyte rank.

"Confirmation: the probe supplied correct coordinates. Extrapolation: one of these xenos must constitute its current command unit," said the Dark Techpriest. It was hard to tell given the deeply electronic quality of his voice, but the Cutie Mark Crusaders definitely got the feeling that he was speaking with amusement rather than sympathy for their plight.

"Crabapple sent ya?" Apple Bloom asked, standing up. "Can ya get us outta here?"

"Affirmative," barked one of the Dark Acolytes, "however, Dark Acolyte Gaela has tagged your containment unit with a warning not to unseal it."

The fillies winced.

"But we don't wanna be stuck in here!" Scootaloo protested.

"We'll be good! We won't break nothin'! Promise!" Apple Bloom said with a smile up at the cold, iron masks dotted with flickering lights and hissing tubes.

"Expansion: I am of higher rank than Dark Acolyte Gaela, so I may disregard her warning if I see fit," the Dark Techpriest noted, one of his augmetic claws spinning slowly and clanking shut.

"So you'll let us out?" Sweetie asked, smiling brightly.

"Negative."

The fillies wilted at the blunt refusal.

"Awww! Why not?" Apple Bloom demanded.

A laser sight immediately appeared from within the hood, painting a red spot on Sweetie Belle's nose.

"Explanatory: psykers are dangerous and their abilities unreliable and difficult to contain. Having such a creature free to roam the fortress at will would constitute a risk to the manufactorum that is impossible to estimate. You will remain contained."

The young ponies looked startled at the judgment.

"But she can't even use magic! She's harmless!" Scootaloo protested.

"As long as ya don't let her in a kitchen!" Apple Bloom amended.

"Hey!" Sweetie shouted, glaring at Apple Bloom.

The personnel of the Dark Mechanicus weren't listening, however, and were already walking away while discussing the strange encounter in Binaric Cant.

"Wait! Can you at least let me and Bloom out, then?" Scootaloo shouted after them.

"HEY!!"

The fillies watched helplessly as the three augmented humans left earshot, their reinforced prison still depressingly intact and fully secure.

"Way to ruin everything for the rest of us, Sweetie Belle," Scootaloo groused.

"Well excuse me for being born a unicorn," Sweetie snapped, "what kind of reasoning is that, anyway? As if unicorns are more dangerous than any other kind of pony!"

Sweetie wasn't very happy about the silence that followed her complaint.

"Ah don't remember the last time a pegasus or earth pony spread chaos throughout Ponyville 'cause of a messed-up spell," Apple Bloom mumbled, "just sayin'."

"Twilight doesn't count! She's not even a unicorn anymore!" Sweetie Belle insisted.

"Sure Sweetie. Whatever you say," Scootaloo sighed.

"Ah, good. You three seem to have kept yourselves occupied while I was absent."

The voice had come from behind the crate, and thus out of their line of sight, but by now all the fillies had come to recognize the unique vox-distortions and irritated tone that set Gaela's voice apart even from her equally aggravating and unsympathetic peers.

"Let us out of here, Miss Gaela!" demanded Sweetie Belle as she banged a hoof against the wall of their prison, albeit much more lightly than Apple Bloom had attempted.

"No," the Dark Acolyte said as she stepped in front of the crate, "as I explained before, my errands have been completed, and I've returned with sustenance." Held in the crook of her biological arm was a canteen and a single ration tin, the latter of which was being opened by her servo arm.

"Can't you at least just lock us into our rooms?" Scootaloo groused.

"Again, no. Such facilities are constructed specifically for ease of access and exit, and for obvious reasons. You surely would have escaped such confinement by now."

Scootaloo clicked her tongue. That was, after all, the point of her request.

"Big Mac ain't gonna be happy that ya locked us in a box while he was busy just so ya wouldn't hafta deal with us," Apple Bloom warned as the Dark Acolyte slipped the opened tin between the bars of the grate.

"I'm sure I will suffer gravely under his silent disapproval," Gaela admitted dryly as she slipped the canteen through the bars, "but not nearly as much as I would having to tolerate you three for an extended period of time."

Deeming her duty to the young ponies complete, she turned on her heel. "I have no other pressing matters to attend to, but there are numerous tasks I could complete that are less unpleasant than listening to you complain and beg. I will return once Macintosh has completed his drills and is available to supervise you personally once more."

"Wait!" Sweetie Belle shouted, getting an idea. "I have to go!"

Gaela halted, turning her head slightly. "Have to go where? And for what reason?"

The young unicorn flushed, shrinking in on herself slightly. "I have to use the little filly's room," she lied in a much more subdued tone, "you don't seriously expect us to just use the corner or something, do you?"

Gaela was silent for a few seconds, still facing away from the fillies.

Finally, she turned around.

"You have a point. The short-term risk of complications from inadequate sanitation facilities is low, but unnecessary. I do have a responsibility to your kin," the Dark Acolyte admitted.

"Right! So just let us out and point us to the restroom, and we'll be back in... uh..." Sweetie Belle trailed off as Gaela picked up the crate with her bionic and servo arms, carrying it in front of her as the fillies stumbled around from the unexpected movement.

After moving barely more than three meters, Gaela dropped the crate back onto the ground, causing its contents to stumble again.

"This should be adequate," the Dark Acolyte decided, moving in front of the grate.

"What are you talking about?" Sweetie demanded as she stood up. "How does moving us to a different spot help if we're still stuck in here?"

Gaela pointed down at the ground next to the crate.

Sweetie's face darkened as she saw that their prison had been placed on the edge of a storm drain that had been built into the ferrocrete surface.

"You're a terrible person," the unicorn filly said as she looked back up into the hooded mask that contained Gaela's face.

"Another contribution of mine to your studies of humanity," Gaela quipped as she began walking off again, "you're welcome."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - main security nexus

*So what's the deal with this lifter, now?* mumbled Jerriha as she leaned back in her chair, a pulse pistol hanging loosely in her grip.

In front of her stood a pair of Tau males: one Earth Caste, the other Fire.

*The deal is a bit murky, Fireblade,* admitted the Fire Warrior, *a cargo transport floated in about an hour ago, but the scans didn't work on it. We checked it over and found that it had been modified.*

The Earth Caste member continued as Jerriha quirked an eyebrow. *Specifically, it was modified with gue'la devices. Internal shielding and a monitor to display the front exterior to anyone in the cargo bed. The automated guidance system showed signs of tampering as well. We also found a weapons case, but it was empty.*

The Fireblade immediately sat up straighter, her hand tightening around the pistol. *Are you saying that we let a vehicle that had been in enemy hands simply float in here without even a proper security scan?*

The Fire Warrior shook his head. *We put it on lockdown and searched it the moment it got in the base. There was nothing inside besides what's already been mentioned.*

*After we searched it more thoroughly, we also found no sign of traps, explosives, or contaminants,* the engineer added quickly.

*So you're telling me that the gue'la nabbed one of our cargo lifters, upgraded it, and then sent it back to us?* Jerriha asked skeptically. *I don't suppose they left a friendly note in there too, did they? Maybe an apology letter for ambushing our fleet?*

The Fire Warrior rolled his eyes. *At the moment we can't ascertain why, exactly, it was sent here. Or if it was intentional. But that isn't the most interesting thing about it.*

*Go on,* Jerriha said, leaning forward.

*This cargo lifter left Black Point after being assigned to attack group 13, codename "Gheist",* the Fire Warrior continued as the Earth Caste member brought up some squad information on the primary monitor, *you may not know this Shas'vre, since you were reassigned to security head for this facility, but one of our convoys to Black Point never arrived. As it was carrying mission-critical equipment, attack group 13 was deployed to hunt down the equipment and bring it in. They were maintaining long-range comms silence to minimize the chances of detection.*

He paused, wetting his lips. *This is the first anyone has seen of any of the dispatched units. Black Point has written off attack group 13 as KIA and have been considering new measures to recover the equipment.*

Jerriha frowned deeply as she checked on the mission details in the system log. *That was a dangerously large attack group to run so close to the gue'la base. Or perhaps dangerously small, considering it apparently didn't survive.*

*The lifter did not have a combat recorder, and its system logs have been deliberately corrupted,* added the engineer, *we won't be able to learn much more from the vehicle.*

Jerriha tapped her pistol against the arm rest of her chair for several seconds as she mulled over the information. *What was the equipment to be recovered?*

*The kind that's described on a need-to-know basis, Shas'vre,* the Earth Caste Tau said calmly, *discretion is more important than ever with these strange gue'la renegades about. Especially considering your... unique interrogation experience.*

Jerriha couldn't fault that judgment, even if it annoyed her that her rank didn't entitle her to as much mission data as it used to.

*All right, here's what's happening,* Jerriha commanded, leaning forward, *you keep that lifter on lockdown. I don't care how many scans come back with nothing; I want it surrounded by drone guns at all times until the Shas'el himself says otherwise. Keran, you take two fire teams and search the turret perimeter. There's a chance whoever was in the lifter bailed nearby to scout this place. Get a pair of Stealth Suit teams to trace the lifter's path to the edge of the forest, searching for any signs of enemy movement. I'll be putting the base on combat readiness alert effective immediately.*

The others nodded their heads and left the room as Jerriha turned toward the primary command console and hit a switch to link her comms receiver to every speaker in the building.

*This is Shas'vre Jerriha speaking. As of this moment we are to maintain combat readiness due to increased likelihood of enemy contact. All Fire Caste units besides battlesuit pilots and units on their sleep rotation are to armor and arm up until the alert is dropped. This is not a drill.*

Jerriha hit the switch to deactivate the comms, and then sighed as she leaned back in her chair.

*Jittery, are we?* asked another female Tau who was surrounded by monitors in the corner.

*After escaping from the gue'la mines only thanks to absurdly lax security procedures, you bet I am,* the Fireblade murmured, *considering the mood at Black Point, things are far too peaceful here.*

*Black Point could literally be smashed at any moment by an army of super-soldiers and storms of artillery,* the Fire Caste technician said with a grim smirk, *we have it a little easier here.*

*I'd rather be over there,* Jerriha said darkly, *this place is too lightly garrisoned. If the gue'la decided to attack there's nothing we could do to repel them. There aren't enough heavy units to mount a solid defense, the escape routes all lead to dead ends in the canyon, and we can't take the ships out without having them intercepted and wiped out by the so-called "freighters" that caused this disaster.*

*You're a real ray of sunshine, Fireblade,* mumbled the technician sarcastically, *way to work that morale.*

*MY POINT is that this facility was never built to fend off an assault, even after our mission changed,* Jerriha complained.

*It didn't change. It just got more complicated,* the other female said as she hit a few switches under her monitors, *I really hope the gue'la didn't nab that component, or this whole campaign could be a wash.*

The Fireblade frowned, her eyes narrowing. *You know what it is?*

*Yeah.*

The technician snickered softly at her superiors' incredulous glare.

*Those Earth Caste types melt like maruuk when a Fire girl gives them the time of day. It's cute, really. If you asked around they'd spill the details eventually.*

Jerriha made a disgusted sound. *Whatever. If I'm not supposed to know, then I'll just keep on not knowing.*

*Sure. But for the sake of the Cadre, I hope the gue'la aren't as observant as you about our defenses. We NEED a launching point off this rock. That's probably why you were assigned here and smuggled out of Black Point in the first place.*

Jerriha stewed on that silently as she turned back to the mission data of attack group 13.

*Tch! Got another malfunctioning drone. Third one this week,* the Fire Caste technician grumbled as she hit a key on her console repeatedly to no effect, *I swear, they'll attach stealth fields to APCs in this Sept, but we're still using drone software from two generations ago. It's pathetic!*

*Where is it?*

*Down in the Riptide bays. Just wandering around obliviously and not responding to signals.*

*Is Nairen down there? She can fix it.*

The other Fire Warrior designated the particular comms system and frowned at her monitor. *She's not at her console. Nairen? Fio-vre, are you there?*

After several seconds of silence, Jerriha shook her head. *I'm sure her head is stuck in the inner workings of a battlesuit if she's not at her station.*

She activated a different comms frequency. *Fio'el Fennin. We require your assistance.*

There was a brief pause, and then the commlink crackled a response.

*Ugh. Confirmed, Shas'vre. What is it?* the voice at the other end sounded like it had been awoken from a deep sleep, although if that were the case it had likely been Jerriha's announcement to rouse him rather than being contacted directly.

*We need you to track down and repair a malfunctioning drone. It's not responding to command inputs,* the Fireblade explained.

*A drone? Make someone else do it. I'm busy.*

Jerriha's jaw tightened, and then she changed her comms channel.

*Shas'la, I have a mission for you,* the Fireblade said to the Fire Warrior she had selected at random, *head to the Earth Caste quarters, find Fio'el Fennin in unit R-9, and then give the esteemed engineer a solid kick out of bed.*

*Affirmative, Shas'vre. I'm leaving now.*

The Fire Caste technician smirked. *You've certainly got a way with the grunts, Fireblade.*

*Hitting things and telling others to hit things are my specialty,* Jerriha grumbled.

*Don't sell yourself short! Escaping from a gue'la death fortress is no mean feat, lax security or not!* then she smirked. *Hey, tell me again how you got captured in the first place!*

*NO,* Jerriha growled. She hadn't lost much in the way of respect for her failure to cripple the Iron Warriors' fusion reactor, but it was still a source of amusement to her peers that an esteemed Fireblade had been outwitted by a human and then clobbered by a pony.

*OW!* the cry of pain over the comms immediately brightened Jerriha's mood, and she leaned in toward her microphone again.

*Well, Fio'el, since you seem to be fully awake now, won't you see to that drone?* the Fireblade asked pleasantly. Muffled cursing came from the speaker before she continued. *It seems to be heading toward the fabrication plant. I offer you the Fire Warrior as a personal escort. Get to work.*

*Best to be safe!* the technician chuckled. *Who knows what dangerous creatures could be down there? Ha!*

Author's Note

Okay, so I think we've reached the point where it's worth keeping a running tally of Mane Six kills.
But this brings up the issue of whether Fluttershy should get assist credit for daemon engine kills that happen under her guidance, since otherwise she won't see a lot of action.

DISCUSS.

Mission Improbable

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 5

Mission Improbable

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 7

"Well? How is it?"

Apple Bloom made a face as she swallowed a mouthful of the slimy, tasteless gruel, and then she stuck out her tongue.

"It's gross," she said finally, pushing away the ration tin, "needs apples."

Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes as the red-headed filly struggled with the cap to the canteen.

"Don't drink too much water unless you want to have to use our 'bathroom'," the unicorn warned with a glare at the storm grate.

The distant roar of jets flying nearby briefly distracted Sweetie Belle, although the source wasn't visible to the ponies.

"Hey, wait! I think that's Tellis!" Scootaloo said, perking up.

Apple Bloom arched an eyebrow. "How can ya tell the sound of his jets apart from the other ships and stuff?"

"If you listen carefully, you get this deep chill running down your back," Scootaloo explained to her friends, "like you just crossed paths with some kind of monster."

Sweetie and Bloom fell silent as they listened to the approaching jet burn.

"Oh, wow, you're right," Sweetie Belle mumbled.

"How does he DO stuff like that?" Apple Bloom mumbled with a shiver.

The engine roar was getting closer, so Scootaloo stepped next to the grated lid of their prison and took a deep breath.

"HEY, TELLIS!! DOWN HERE!!"

The other two fillies flinched away at the shout. Not because of the noise, but rather because neither of them were sure they were desperate enough to ask Tellis for help.

The engine roar came closer.

A heavy clanging noise came from the supply crate they were trapped in, and the entire container shifted suddenly as the top side dented inward.

Scootaloo managed to keep her footing as their prison shook, and she grinned up at the straining metal that currently acted as their ceiling. "Hi Tellis!"

A horned helmet appeared in front of the grate, hanging upside-down. "Hiya, blank flanks! What're you losers doing locked up like a bunch of animals?"

Then the Raptor Lord paused as he thought about that. "Oh, wait. Ponies. Right. Never mind."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Scootaloo mumbled, "but it's not important! Get us out of here!"

Tellis hopped off of the metal crate and onto the ground, his lightning claws crackling.

"Sure, I can do that. How'd you end up in there, anyway?"

"Gaela put us in here," Sweetie Belle groused, "she thinks that if we're allowed to run around in the fortress then we could get ourselves hurt or something."

"That's a perfectly legitimate concern," Tellis noted, "it's not completely safe even for human-sized creatures, and you three are just kids."

Then he plunged his lightning claws into the wall of the crate, causing the fillies to yelp and jump back.

"Luckily for you, I don't care!" Tellis dragged his claws down, slicing an opening in the container. Then he grabbed the edges of the breach and tore the crate in half, ripping the metal apart and sending the fillies tumbling onto the ground.

"All right!" Scootaloo cheered as she bounced back to her hooves. "We're free! Now we'll get our cutie marks for sure!"

"Marks're that way," Tellis pointed down the avenue.

He immediately had the attention of all the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

"Say again?" Apple Bloom asked intently.

"Over there, in the building with the big spire with a Chaos Star on top," the Raptor Lord clarified, "it'll be black rather than gunmetal and have even more skulls around it than usual. Can't miss it."

"And they're just giving out cutie marks there?!" Sweetie Belle said, trying hard to attach an appropriate level of skepticism to conceal her mounting excitement.

"Yeah, pretty much. Anyway, I'm heading home now. Hit me up again if you're bored and we can get in another game of chess, short stuff." His wings stretched out behind him, and the fillies shielded their eyes as they were almost blown over by a surge of jet wash.

"Thanks, Tellis!" Scootaloo shouted as the Iron Warrior departed, waving a hoof after the armored psychopath.

"Cutie mark, cutie mark, cutie mark!" Apple Bloom was practically dancing in anticipation as the trio started heading down the street, their eyes fixed on the spire that towered over the smokestacks around it.

"Wait a minute," Sweetie Belle said suddenly, glancing back, "he's heading home? THIS is his home, isn't it?"

"Hurry up Sweetie Belle, or we'll leave ya behind!" Apple Bloom barked.

Sweetie grimaced and galloped after her friends.

****

Salt Lick Canyon - starship cargo docks

"Celestia's tail, look at the SIZE of that thing," Rainbow Dash muttered as she hovered over the veritable maze of cargo containers to stare at the starship at the edge of the dock.

The other ponies were following her more cautiously, with Daniels and Morty taking up the rear. The former was aiming his rail rifle at each cargo robot they came across, waiting for any signs that the automated lifters were active and capable of recognizing them for intruders. The latter was simply taking its time in following its escorts, carefully mapping the interior of the facilities.

Twilight stared up at the starship's bow, considering what she knew about spacecraft.

"Daniels, about how big is this ship class, relatively?" the alicorn asked, turning back toward the human.

"This thing?" Daniels turned a considering look at the craft looming over them. "Small, compared to ours. But most Tau ships are. They have a lot of automated functions to cut down on crew, no Warp engines, and their equipment is probably a lot less bulky than Mechanicus gear."

Applejack glanced from Daniels to the spacecraft incredulously. "You serious? Just how big are yer space tubs, then?"

"On a scale of one to ten, I'd give this thing a two, if I'm being generous. The Company's flagship, the Harvest of Steel, is more of a seven. Maybe an eight."

"Sometimes I think you humans are trying to compensate for something," Rarity said with an arched eyebrow.

"Well, bigger isn't always better," Daniels admitted, "smaller ships have lots of advantages: harder to hit, more maneuverable, much less time and resources to build, and the big one in this case is you can actually land them on-planet. Our own ships need their own fleets of landers or orbital docks to get anything from void to surface."

"So we gonna blow it up?" Pinkie asked happily, standing on her hind legs and holding a melta bomb in each foreleg as she grinned.

The other ponies looked annoyed.

"It might be 'relatively small', but I think it's still a bit too big for us to blow up with a few charges," Twilight pointed out.

"Besides, crippling or destroying the ships doesn't really help us. Better to leave them intact for capture or salvage," Daniels pointed out, "I'm going to look around this deck for any signs of a refueling line. The fuel stores might be a good target."

"We'll help ya. What're we lookin' fer?" Applejack asked, glancing about.

"Pipes, probably. Or tubes. Really, anything that plugs into the ship that doesn't look like people would walk through it."

Rainbow Dash nodded and bolted through the air over the edge of the dock, flying alongside the Tau space craft. The other ponies scattered as well to search, with Pinkie tugging Morty along by intertwining one of its dangling cables with her tail.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 12 manufactorum block

Crabapple barked a constant stream of machine code as it marched through the avenues, its sensors twisting to and fro to look for any human that would pay it attention.

Such individuals seemed few and far between. The probe got plenty of annoyed looks from the many unmodified humans, as all they saw was an automata marching through the streets and making a racket, but even those few that understood binary usually offered little more than a long glance before dismissing the distressed automata.

Crabapple wasn't ignorant as to why this was, either. It had been marked by the local noosphere networks as corrupted, and its status had been reassigned as foreign equipment. To any of the Techpriests that heard it, the automata was just somebody else's malfunctioning property. The servitors, meanwhile, were pre-programmed not to recognize its commands. The only other ones that could potentially make any sense of its machine language were the Iron Warriors, and Crabapple wasn't daft enough to try to recruit help from Chaos Space Marines.

The whole experience left it with a slew of new emotions that it frankly despised. As a machine its existence was a function of its utility. Yet time and time again it found itself unable to help its commander.

What use was a recon probe to a young farmpony, even if that pony was subject to a disproportionate number of alien assaults? In all the occasions in which Crabapple had been able to significantly aid its mistress, it had been in conjunction with another, far more useful unit that could utilize its sensor data; either the Dark Acolyte Gaela or the combat automata Glass Cannon.

It left the daemonic sentience with a deep sense of powerlessness. It was similar to the sensation of darkness and impotence that it had felt after being dispatched by the Tau, its consciousness writhing and screaming noiselessly within the ruined shell of metal around it.

Except this time Crabapple didn't have the Tau to blame for its uselessness.

+This is a general distress call! Unit Crabapple is seeking assistance in releasing Command Unit Apple Bloom from confinement! Please assist!+ the automata blared. +This is a general distress call! Unit Crabapple is seeking assistance in releasing Command Unit Apple Bloom from confinement! Please assist!+

"Yeah, there it is! That pink one!"

Crabapple halted as it heard a voice call out behind it. There were very few pink things in Ferrous Dominus besides itself; considering that Pinkie Pie was on-mission according to local security logs, Crabapple might have literally been the only object/creature in the entire fortress with that particular hue.

Crabapple was slightly perturbed to see that there was a human menial approaching it, and greatly perturbed about the three Iron Warriors following behind him, all of them with weapons drawn. The probe silenced itself immediately.

"This is what you're looking for, right Lord?" asked the menial as he stopped and pointed at the automata.

The Iron Warriors paused briefly as their visors streamed data to them.

"Indeed," barked one, "return to your duties, mortal."

The man left eagerly as the Chaos Space Marines approached.

+Unit Crabapple is uncertain as to why it is being sought,+ the probe said in what it hoped was a polite tone. The various subtleties of spoken communication were very difficult to express without a real ability to speak.

The Iron Warriors waited for their visors to translate the machine code, and one of them chuckled.

"Well look at that. It thinks it's people."

"From what I've been told by the Dark Techpriests, it practically is. For a given definition," another one murmured.

"Whatever it is, let's take it in," barked the last Iron Warrior, stepping up to the probe and pointing to it. "Do you understand Gothic commands, machine?"

+Affirmative. However, Unit Crabapple is currently-+

"A yes will suffice," the Chaos Marine interrupted, pointing to the nearby manufactorum entrance, "you'll be coming with us. You've piqued the interest of a few Dark Techpriests."

+Negative. Unit Crab-+

"A YES will suffice," the Iron Warrior said again much more menacingly.

Crabapple stubbornly raised a leg and slammed it down again.

+Unit Crabapple is registered as Unit Apple Bloom's property. Unit Crabapple will not submit to new ownership due to intimidation,+ the probe insisted.

The Iron Warriors shared a glance as the translated text scrolled across their visors.

Then one Astartes grabbed one of Crabapple's legs and hauled it up. Another did the same with the leg on the opposite side.

The third Iron Warrior began walking toward the manufactorum entrance without another word, the automata being carried along behind him.

+... Unit Crabapple must admit that was well played. However, Unit Crabapple still objects to this turn of events.+

"When we find the Techpriest that requested this thing, remind me to ask him if he can disable whatever it uses to speak," mumbled the Marine in front.

"I don't know, I find its verbal resistance quite amusing," said another as he hauled the machine along, "cowardly deference is nice and all, but we get it all the time. This is a pretty good change of pace."

+Unit Crabapple wishes to know if cowardly deference would increase chances of release.+

"Try it and see, scrap heap."

+A 'no' will suffice.+

The automata was carried through the doors into the dimly-lit halls of the manufactorum with little more talk. Crabapple figured that it would probably have more luck appealing to the Dark Techpriests themselves who actually took an interest in it than to the Chaos Space Marines who were simply bringing it along like cargo.

Either way, there was nothing it could do to physically stop its abductors, so half an hour later the probe found itself being carried into a huge, empty room full of heavy chains and massive ceiling-mounted welders.

Crabapple accessed the local map data and noted that this cell was specifically for uniting daemon engines with their "pilots". The restraints were of various sizes, ranging from massive shackles to fit around a war machine to ones more suited for human wrists. All were inscribed with strange runes and icons that made no sense to the probe despite its ostensibly daemonic nature.

In fact, Crabapple reflected that their bringing it here was probably due to a mistake about the fundamental nature of its sentience. Most daemon-machines were piloted by a daemonic entity ripped directly from the Warp and bearing all the usual properties and qualities of daemons. Crabapple, in contrast, was a machine intelligence expanded due to Warp corruption. The difference was no doubt lost upon the Space Marines, but among other consequences it meant that sorcerous rituals and obscure glyphs had no particular effect upon it.

Of course, the chains were still large chunks of heavy metal, so the probe reflected they would probably still do the job. The shackles were closed and locked around its legs, and the Iron Warriors started to leave.

"Should someone stay and guard the machine?"

"Are you volunteering, Remirus?"

"This thing is harmless. Let's go get the Techpriests and wrap this up."

Crabapple waited until the Chaos Space Marines had left the area, and then its sensors sought out the control node for the heavy welder arms hanging above.

Accessing the noosphere network that permeated the base, Crabapple easily surpassed the security protocols meant to keep foreign entities from controlling the manufactorum's systems. A daemonic mind, no matter how sophisticated, would have found the programming sequences and endless code incomprehensible, but to an automata it was second nature; another difference between Crabapple and the daemon engines that the Iron Warriors had failed to appreciate.

The heavy grind of servos and the hum of melta torches came from above as the welders lowered themselves around the probe and shifted into position. Sparks and vapors blasted from the iron chains as the overheated torches stabbed into them, eating through the dark iron in seconds.

In barely more than a minute the chains had been severed from the shackles, and Crabapple was free.

But free to do what?

The obvious answer was to return to its original mission, but Crabapple was almost certain by now that it had completely failed. To say nothing of the likelihood of being captured again as soon as it drew attention to itself.

Feeling the nagging sense of dissatisfaction return, Crabapple accessed the door locks and opened the exit to the hall. Whatever it decided to do, it wasn't going to wait around for the Dark Techpriests to take it apart for study.

The automata left the cell and started walking down the thrumming halls of the manufactorum, stewing in its uselessness as the broken lengths of chains rattled along the floor behind it.

As the fabrication lines were mostly being used for building the Warp engines and re-building the APCs, there was little activity in the small section of the complex that had been refitted for handling daemonic war machines; such unique creations required the most senior Warpsmiths or Dark Magi to attend to, all of whom had more important tasks.

This did not, however, mean that the wing was entirely empty.

Crabapple paused in its travel down the hall as its sensors noticed that one of the rooms was on lockdown. A brief inquiry into the network logs explained why: it hosted a maulerfiend that had been wrecked in the Tau assault. Evidently the physical damage had been repaired, but the daemonic "pilot" had been released during the breach and had not yet been replaced.

Crabapple deleted the system log, released the lockdown status on the room, and then unlocked the door.

The doors emitted a slow grinding noise as they closed behind the probe, sealing it inside the restraining cell.

This room possessed even more elaborate arcana than had Crabapple's cell, boasting huge Chaos stars cut into the ceiling and floor stained with dry blood and the shattered bones of the likely "donors". Crabapple had no idea what good such rituals did when dealing with the containment of a completely inert, immobile wreck of a machine, but at least in this case it was forced to conclude that expertise in the handling of true daemon engines lay far out of its competencies.

The maulerfiend lay shackled on the floor on its side like a sleeping lion, its eyes dark and its many lasher tendrils slack. Its top-most carapace plate - replaced since the previous one was torn off by a heavy railgun - lay against the wall; a massive black shield emblazoned with a Chaos Star trimmed in gold that sealed the daemon's warding chamber.

Crabapple accessed the noosphere network and once again slipped through the security codes that sought to shield the automated machinery from the probe's unauthorized orders.

After a few minutes, a string of complex and very precise commands had been uploaded into the welder and servo arms that hung from the ceiling gurneys. With a rumbling groan servos and gears started to move, and the heavy equipment slowly lowered itself around the probe below it.

+I am weak,+ the probe said over the racket of machinery as hot welders descended toward its carapace armor. Crabapple briefly marveled at its sudden shift to first-person speech and the implied personal awareness before continuing this new practice of self-reflection. +I am fragile. My equipment performs tasks that are not needed by my master. I have become a burden rather than an asset, a servant to be protected rather than a tool to protect her.+

The hiss of melta gas drowned out the automata's monologue as the welders ate away at the seals keeping Crabapples battered carapace together and the servo arms started wrenching its plating apart.

+I will adapt. I will be reborn.+

Crabapple's binary became unsteady as its legs failed and buckled, leaving the torso hanging from the automated servo arms. Writhing, twisted wires started to emerge from the sundered plate of its body as the machines continued to take the automata apart, the tendrils stretching eagerly toward the sleeping behemoth mere meters away.

+I'm coming, Apple Bloom.+

****

Salt Lick Canyon - starship cargo docks

Fluttershy carefully crept behind one of the heavy cargo robots, her eyes locked on its head for any sign of blinking lights.

Twilight had insisted that the machines were clearly inactive and Daniels had mused that they probably weren't likely to identify and attack intruders anyway, but the meek pegasus wasn't taking any chances.

Really, she had to wonder why she had even been brought along on this suicide mission, other than a general feeling of responsibility to her friends and a tendency to work as a group. Did someone think they might run into a wild animal that might need calming inside an underground military base?

Fluttershy sighed as she reached the far side of the dock, having wandered as far away from the space craft and the open path to the rest of the canyon as possible. She reasoned that the further away from the ship she was, the less likely she was to find anything important and get into trouble.

A chirping noise from above snapped her out of her thoughts, and she whirled around in surprise at the rather soft sound.

She almost collapsed in relief when she saw that it was just a bird. A small robin had landed on the cargo robot she had been unnecessarily sneaking past, and it was staring down at the pegasus curiously.

"Oh, wow. I guess they do get some animals in here," Fluttershy admitted as she stood up straight and stared at the small avian, "I suppose that if this place opens up into the canyon it isn't possible to keep everything out, is it? I wonder what else is down here?"

A soft whirring noise came from behind her, and Fluttershy blinked as the robin suddenly took off away from her.

*What the blazes?*

Her heart almost stopped dead on the spot as she heard the incomprehensible but distinctive sound of the Tau's spoken language from behind her.

Slowly turning her head around, her pupils shrunk to pinpricks as her fears were realized. Two aliens, one in the blue and black combat armor of the Tau fire caste and the other in a gray jumpsuit, were standing in front of the open door that had been closed just a second ago. The Fire Warrior already had his pulse rifle aimed at Fluttershy, his finger tight around the trigger.

The other Tau looked more annoyed than shocked, and was not apparently armed.

*Tch! I keep telling you guys to set the probes to do vermin sweeps down here!* complained the alien in the jumpsuit, gesturing to the quivering pegasus in disgust. *We're always getting animals flying in through the canyon and trying to get into the food and water stores! Some of them might chew through a power cable or something!*

*Fio'el Fennin, this is no mere animal,* the Fire Warrior said, his tone cold as ice, *this is one of the native inhabitants. They're intelligent.*

Fennin rolled his eyes. *Yes, sure they are. I'll bet they build the most CHARMING mud huts. Whatever. Kill it and let's find that damn probe.*

*They can speak,* the Fire Warrior insisted, *and they've been classified as enemies due to the resistance they've shown here.*

*Fascinating. So why haven't you cooked it yet?* Fennin asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

The Fire Warrior hesitated. The yellow pony in front of them had practically curled into a shaking ball, obviously terrified for its life but apparently smart enough not to try to flee. Or perhaps it was simply paralyzed with fear?

Either way, the soldier was extremely reluctant to pull the trigger; this certainly wasn't what he had imagined when he had heard that the ponies had been classified as hostile life-forms. Besides, as intelligent creatures the native aliens could surely be captured and treated as other prisoners of war, since this one seemed to be in a clear state of surrender.

*I should call it in and have it restrained,* the Fire Warrior decided, dropping his aim briefly as he glanced at the engineer.

*Seriously? So now debugging a probe is going to turn into an hour-long affair so that we can capture a blasted horse?* Fennin complained. *You know we're going to have a full security team down here sweeping the docks and opening up every damned crate! Do you think I don't have anything else to do today?*

*We're on heightened alert, Fio'el! We can't take any chances! What if this one isn't alone?* countered the soldier.

Fennin rolled his eyes. *Oh, yes, you're right. There could be a whole horse NEST down here. That would be just dreadful. Who knows what sort of carnage they could inflict?*

He was answered by the report of a boltgun, and then the Fire Warrior's head vanished into a cloud of gore.

The engineer watched with wide eyes as the headless body slumped onto the floor, its rifle slipping from limp fingers.

*... Uh oh.*

Then his head snapped to the side to see where the shot had come from.

Rarity walked between the supply stacks at an unhurried pace, her bolter floating above her and her horn glowing softly.

"Fluttershy, are you all right? I heard these two making a racket and came as soon as I could," the unicorn said, her boltgun slowly centering its aim toward the other Tau.

Fluttershy quickly clambered across the ground toward her friend, hiding behind Rarity while whimpering incomprehensibly.

"It's all right, darling. Just look away while I finish off this other one," Rarity said, patting the pegasus on the back.

"WAIT!" barked the Tau engineer suddenly, his arms going up. "Don't shoot! I surrender!"

Rarity and Fluttershy were both startled to hear the alien speak in Gothic, and the former smiled.

"Oh, wonderful! You speak our language! That changes things. Slightly," she said brightly. "Fluttershy, go get Daniels, would you? And you, Mister Alien, don't make any sudden moves if you want to keep your insides inside, hm?"

Fluttershy was all too happy to dash away from the grisly encounter. Fennin swallowed nervously as he stared at the floating boltgun engulfed in blue energy.

"So, was that grunt actually right? We've actually been infiltrated by primitives?" Fennin asked incredulously. As absurd as the prospect was, it was hard to argue with the levitating gun aimed at him.

Rarity's smile vanished. "We're ponies, not 'primitives'. We may not be as technologically minded as you Tau, but it would still be in your best interest to be polite." The hammer on the boltgun clicked back into place, emphasizing her point. "Also, since we're waiting, please take off that communications device and toss it over here."

Fennin glanced down at the comms badge clipped to his jumpsuit, suddenly remembering that he was one press of a button away from having this area flooded with soldiers.

"Yes. Certainly. Here's my communications device," he said slowly as he unclipped a spanner from his belt and tossed it over to the unicorn.

Rarity didn't break eye contact as the tool bounced past her hooves. "... I can't rightly tell yet if you're some kind of idiot, Mister Alien, but I can assure you that I am not."

His comms badge glowed blue, and Fennin grimaced as it was ripped from his jumpsuit and telekinetically flung away across the dock. Then Rarity did the same with the dead Fire Warrior's device.

"Okay, fair enough, but this is still on the wrong side of ridiculous," Fennin admitted grudgingly, "how did you come across a gue'la ballistic weapon?"

"Oh, this old thing?" Rarity asked, her good mood returning as the bolter twisted about in the air. "Do you like it? The casing was customized for weight and then I painted and designed the decal pattern myself!"

She sighed as the gun lowered itself closer, and then drew a hoof across the length of the weapon. "Human gear is tough and effective, but so ugly and bulky! On its own it would never catch on with ponies of taste or class!"

Fennin was growing more confused the longer the unicorn spoke, but he didn't particularly care to hear her story anyhow. His hand was slowly creeping down toward his belt.

"I'm thinking of creating an entire product line of boltguns for sale down in Canterlot with my color designs and Delgan's frame modifications. I think I'll call them 'Rare Pattern' bolters. Or would 'Canterlot Pattern' sound better? It's certainly more in line with the usual way weapon model types are named, but I think ponies would trust the product more if it had a friendly name attached to it."

Then the boltgun fired, and Fennin's hands shot straight up again as a bolt round zipped over his shoulder.

"Do try to pay attention when I'm speaking, darling," Rarity said as she jabbed a hoof toward the alien, "and let's keep those hands of yours away from anything potentially dangerous, hmm?"

The sound of approaching hoofsteps (and a few proper footsteps with them) informed the two that more of the infiltration team had arrived to see their new prisoner.

Fennin glanced over the pink, purple, and orange ponies that he hadn't seen before, but dismissed them quickly enough since they didn't seem to be armed.

What alarmed him far more was the human in carapace armor who was toting a gun that looked suspiciously familiar in its dimensions.

"So one of you managed to sneak in after all," Fennin said solemnly, staring grimly at the emerald optics of Daniels' helmet mask, "and now you're leading teams of indigenous aliens in your missions? You apes are more clever than I gave you credit for."

"Oh, look, this one speaks Gothic. Great," Applejack snarled. "Daniels, ya wanna take his head off, or should Ah do it?"

"Wait! Hold on! Don't hurt him!" Twilight said, holding up a foreleg.

"Twi, we JUST went over this! Even if he ain't a fighter, we still gotta put 'im down!"

"That's not it!" Twilight insisted. "If this one speaks our language, then he can tell us where to go! He's more valuable as a prisoner!"

"Sparkle's got a point there. We're stumbling around blind in here. It'd be nice to have a guide, even one we have to hold at gunpoint," Daniels admitted.

"Just what I was thinking!" Rarity said brightly as her bolter finally floated back into her saddle holster. "Daniels, dear, go ahead and search him for dangerous gear, would you?"

Fennin raised an eyebrow as the man in carapace armor approached him. "Um... you ARE the one in charge of this operation, right?"

"Chain of command is a bit shaky where pones are concerned, actually," Daniels said as he seized the engineer's arm and then tore off his tool belt, "I don't think you'll be needing these where we're going. We're more about breaking things than fixing them."

"Tell us where the main reactor is," Twilight commanded, flapping her wings to hover at eye level with the alien, "after we cripple that the base should be helpless. The Iron Warriors can take it easily and we can get out of here."

"That sounds... great..." Fennin mumbled evenly, "but I'm a little concerned about the expected state of my body at the conclusion of that scenario."

"Ya should be more concerned about the state of yer body ten seconds from now," Applejack warned, her eyes narrowed as she circled the alien.

"Call me a forward thinker, if you will," Fennin allowed, slowly dropping his arms, "but as much as I'm hoping for our esteemed warrior caste to ventilate you all with hot plasma and rescue me heroically, I would feel a lot more cooperative if I knew I would survive in the case of your success as well."

Twilight nodded. "Very well. I promise that if we complete our mission and get away, you'll be handed over to the 38th Company unharmed."

The engineer frowned. "Uh huh. And... after that?"

"Don't push it, grayskin," Applejack deadpanned.

"Hey, guys!"

The ponies looked up as Rainbow Dash zoomed over them.

"I was flying over the... hey, who's that?"

"Our new tour guide," Daniels answered, "but never mind him. What'd you see, Dash?"

The blue pegasus pointed a hoof toward the spacecraft looming over them. "So I was flying along the side of the ship, right? And when I reached the end, the canyon sort of narrowed a little bit before opening up into another ship hangar." Then she grimaced. "They've got another ship back there, just like this one! And then I flew past that one, and there was ANOTHER space ship parked behind that! They have three of these things in here!"

Twilight landed on the floor as she thought that over. "Gaela said only one Tau ship made planetfall while the Iron Warriors' fleet was in-system. This conclusively proves that the Tau were here BEFORE the 38th Company."

Applejack jabbed Fennin in the leg with her hoof. "Got anythin' to add?"

"I am deeply impressed by your skill at rudimentary deductive reasoning," the engineer said stiffly, "can't get anything past you horses."

He got plenty of annoyed looks after that, but the engineer kept his expression neutral and generally fixed on Daniels.

"Just tell us where the generators are," Twilight demanded, "we need to hurry this along. We've run into too many of you so far and it's just a matter of time until someone notices all the personnel missing."

"Fine. On the left over there is a platform elevator. We take that down and head into the main maintenance corridor in the sub-level and that will take us straight to the main reactors," Fennin said with obvious reluctance.

Daniels promptly shoved the Tau engineer forward and then raised his rifle to his back. "Lead on."

Fennin sighed and began walking ahead of the group, which followed several paces away.

"How do ya know we can trust this guy?" Applejack asked while glaring at the alien engineer's back.

"We don't, and we can't," Daniels admitted, "but if you've got any better ideas, now's the time to tell the rest of us."

Fennin stepped onto the elevator platform, casting a longing glance at an alarm box mounted on the back wall.

Daniels seized him by the shoulder and pulled him over to a small panel at the edge of the lift. "Don't get any ideas." He nudged his rifle toward the control panel.

"I know most of you apes are technologically challenged, but surely you can use an elevator on your own," Fennin sneered as he stepped over to the controls.

"I don't know if it has a security mechanism or what. I didn't survive this long by toying around with xenotech, simple or not," Daniels replied.

"That's a Tau rail rifle in your hands," Fennin deadpanned.

"Stop mouthin' off and press the dang button!" Applejack barked.

The Tau engineer rolled his eyes but finally did as instructed, jabbing at the button next to the down arrow with deeply exaggerated concentration.

Alarm klaxons immediately started blaring all around them.

Fennin's eyes went wide as the ponies either gaped at him or clenched their teeth in furious glares.

Except Pinkie, who held up the signum detonator while grinning. Rarity snatched it back, although her reaction was more or less a conditioned response at this point.

"No! No! That wasn't me! I swear!" Fennin pointed frantically to the control panel as the elevator started to slowly descend down the shaft. "Look! We're going down! Totally unrelated!"

"Why you sneaky, no-good son of a-" Applejack started to advance menacingly on the alien, but Daniels placed a hand on her back.

"Hold on, AJ. I think he's telling the truth," the human reassured her, "he probably would have been a lot less annoyed at being pushed to the controls if he could trigger an alarm discreetly that way."

"Yes! Exactly! Listen to the monkey!"

The alarm and the grind of the elevator's descent were both briefly drowned out as the base-wide comms activated and a voice spoke over the loudspeakers.

*This is Shas'vre Jerriha to all base personnel! We have evidence of an enemy presence in the facility and are moving to full alert! Friendly casualties have been confirmed! All Fire Caste personnel are to report to battle stations immediately! All earth caste personnel and air caste pilots are to stand by until further notice! This is not a drill! Begin sector sweeps immediately!*

The voice stopped speaking, leaving the howling alarms to once again take prominence in the background racket.

"Care to translate?" Rarity asked. Fennin noticed that her boltgun was hovering free of its holster again.

"It sounds like they found some of your handiwork you left behind," the Tau hostage mumbled, "smooth work, by the way."

"Tch! This is why I always hide the bodies when I go spying!" Pinkie chided. She was largely ignored.

"Twilight! What are we going to do? They're going to find us!" Fluttershy said, her head lashing back and forth nervously.

Twilight's heart thundered in her chest, but she forced herself to keep a cool head as the elevator continued its slow drop into the deeper levels of the facility.

"It's fine. It's going to be fine," Twilight insisted, "they don't know where we are, and we're headed toward their main power source. We can pull this off. Right, Daniels?"

The mercenary shrugged. "I can't confirm any of that, actually."

"You see that? Right there? That's what I'm talking about," Rarity chided, "that attitude is SO unhelpful."

"Well, the way Ah see it, we got no way to go but forward," Applejack said grimly.

"ACTUALLY," Fennin said, clearing his throat, "surrender is always an option. We're pretty good to prisoners. Also, I suppose those of you that can fly can always just leave through the canyon. Just saying."

"I think we'll stick with the plan that involves blowing up your stuff," Rainbow Dash snapped, swinging down through the air to hover in front of the alien.

"By the way, do you have a name we can call you?" Rarity asked. "I suppose we could just stick to pejoratives and generic terms, but I really think forcing you to guide us under threat of murder is belittling enough."

The engineer pursed his lips, wondering if there might be some advantage in keeping his identity a secret from his largely indifferent captors.

"... Fennin. I'm Fennin of the Earth Caste," he said finally.

"I'd say it was nice to meet you, Fennin, but I don't want to sully our working relationship with lies," Daniels quipped, "you just keep doing as you're told and all of us just might live through this."

"Same shit, different boss," Fennin grumbled.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 5 temple district

"Aw, gross! What's wrong with this place?" Sweetie Belle asked as she followed her friends down the avenue toward their objective, casting a disgusted look around at the surrounding streets.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom weren't bothered quite as much, although it was impossible not to notice what unicorn filly meant. The rest of the fortress, if not clean, was dirty in very specific and orderly ways: besides the haze of pollution that hung in the air, there were the occasional clusters of heaped metal, parked vehicles, or container piles like the stack of crates that had provided their temporary prison. Humans traveled in groups or in long lines and were largely the picture of discipline. Every cracked wall and cratered section of ferrocrete was marked with warning chevrons, if not barricaded off entirely, to indicate pending repairs and warn of possible danger.

The temple district was nothing like that.

Big heaps of trash, wreckage, and corpses were piled seemingly at random through the streets. Some of them had been set ablaze into large bonfires, and these flames gave off sickly fumes that the ponies could smell even through their masks. Posts had been hammered haphazardly into the ground at irregular intervals, each one bearing some sort of strange symbol along with various grim decorations such as chains, bones, or the occasional blood-slicked body. Cracks, potholes, blood stains, and rotting meat were common sights around this sector, all without any sign of intended maintenance. Swarms of flies rushed through the air with suspicious synchronization of movement, landing on one curiosity after another and blanketing it with bloated, hairy black bodies.

But what was probably most disturbing was the people.

Where elsewhere the humans moved with purpose and orderly discipline to go about their jobs, the people here were scattered and seemingly unaware. Most were staggering about as if they were barely conscious, mumbling to themselves. A few were huddled on the ground in the fetal position, sobbing or retching. A few looked to be completely enraptured, twirling about happily while babbling insanely. The ponies couldn't keep looking at any one of the human cultists for long before turning their eyes away, shuddering in revulsion.

Where before the military industry of the fortress had still managed to fascinate them despite its dark and bloody nature, everything about this place was wretched and repulsive, and their hearts, minds, and souls screamed at them to flee.

But Tellis had mentioned marks, so there was no way they were leaving.

"So how do ya think they give out cutie marks in there? Ah didn't think that humans had 'em," Apple Bloom said as she hopped over a steaming crack in the street.

"Well, Tellis said that marks were easy for them. Maybe they have a machine to do it?" Scootaloo guessed.

"A machine for creating cutie marks? That's silly," Sweetie Belle insisted.

"More silly than a giant space man in armor flying better'n a pegasus?" Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. It COULD be a machine. But considering that cutie marks are, you know, MAGICAL, wouldn't it make more sense for one of those human 'psykers' to do it?"

"Well, I guess we'll find out soon!" Scootaloo said, pausing briefly to flap her wings and shoo away a cluster of flies that were buzzing around her and trying to land on the pegasus filly.

The trio headed up the large staircase that led to the main temple, gingerly stepping around the humans prostrating themselves on the steps or sitting down while gibbering to themselves.

At the top of the steps, standing on either side of a pair of massive doors lined with spikes and chains, were a pair of Iron Warriors with their boltguns in hand. They were the only aspects of humanity present that still displayed any semblance of the military order and steely discipline that characterized the entire Legion and most of its mortal servants. The Chaos Space Marines stood largely still, only their helmets moving to survey the various curiosities and horrific sights that decorated this sector of the base.

And the three young ponies climbing up the stairs with expressions of excited anticipation definitely counted as a "curiosity".

"Hello, Mister! We're lookin' to get our cutie marks!" Apple Bloom said as she hopped up onto the same step occupied by the Chaos Marines. "Tellis said we could get 'em inside!"

"The Mad Angel speaks," barked one of the Chaos Marines.

"He spreads the Word at last," grumbled the other.

"Servant of Khorne he may be."

"And exemplar of the Blood God."

"But preacher he is not."

"Until this day, Brother."

The two stopped speaking in turns, and then shouted together, gazing at the sky, "Chaos be praised!"

The fillies glanced from one Iron Warrior to the other, unsure of what to make of the soldiers' speaking patterns. It seemed that even the Astartes in this place were weird.

"So... he was telling the truth, right?" Scootaloo asked hesitantly.

"He is a child of the Eight-fold Path," mused the first guard.

"Although his compass be fixed," snorted the second.

"Toward the Isle of Skulls he travels, nowhere else."

"Tellis speaks a jester's lies."

"But he does not mislead."

"Death is his truth, and he speaks it well."

The Iron Warriors paused before they spoke as one.

"For the glory of Khorne, may his fury guide our blades and cull our enemies!"

Apple Bloom turned toward her friends. "Ah really can't tell if this is a good sign or not."

Scootaloo shrugged. "They said he was telling the truth... kind of."

Sweetie Belle frowned up at the Chaos Space Marines. "So... can we go in?"

The Iron Warriors shared a slow, disconcerting chuckle.

"The fawn asks to consort with lions."

"And yet is that not the way of Chaos?"

"The weak and ignorant are always welcome."

"So many greetings. So few farewells."

"Enter, xeno. For Chaos cares not for race, gender or creed."

"Be tempered by the flames, and reborn in the darkness."

The Iron Warriors turned to the doors and each took hold of one of the heavy iron rings mounted on the front of the barrier.

"Go," the Chaos Marines commanded as one as they stood aside from the entrance.

The fillies scurried into the temple quickly, trying not to look at the strange men holding the door open for them.

The temple interior was arguably more bizarre and detestable than outside. Chaos Stars in gold and iron hung from the ceiling by thick chains, some of them boasting candles or skeletons on top of them. Statues of bizarre, insensible creatures - and the young Equestrians had seen some pretty strange beasts themselves - decorated the wall, along with stained-glass windows and the odd worshiper nailed up while still alive. The air was a crude mixture of incense, sweat, burning meat, and sewage, though the ponies escaped the worst of the smells thanks to their masks.

There were humans and post-humans here as well, all of them organized into uneven rows facing the rear of the temple and kneeling as they prayed, gibbered, or suffered seizures. The mood was definitely more subdued inside the temple than outside it, however, so at least they were all more quiet about it.

"So where do we go now?" Apple Bloom asked, poking at a human skull that was sitting in a small pile next to the entrance.

"Wanna go back outside and ask the guards?" Scootaloo asked.

"Yeah, no, let's not do that," Sweetie Belle mumbled, looking over the humans, "over there. That one. He looks kind of important."

She pointed a hoof toward a robed, dark-skinned figure at the altar. The man was wearing shackles on his arms, although they weren't attached to anything else, and he appeared to have an iron Chaos Star grafted to his bald forehead. He was also the only hominid in the temple who wasn't facing the rear or obviously entranced in prayer.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders crept down the central path between the pews, trying not to attract the attention of the worshipers.

None of the humans paid the ponies any mind, and they reached the altar without incident. The platform that held the altar was raised about a foot above the floor, and it looked like it hadn't been washed in months despite this building ostensibly being quite new.

"Uh, hello? Mister?"

The human had obviously noticed them before, but only now made eye contact with the fillies. His eyes were surprisingly clear and normal, in stark contrast to the distant and haunted expressions that they saw on the other cultists' faces.

"Yes, child? How may I help you?" His voice was calm and perfectly lucid, which wouldn't have been remarkable except for how crazy every other human in this sector seemed to be.

"We're, uh, here to get our cutie marks," Sweetie Belle said, her voice down to a near whisper.

The man looked over the nervous ponies one by one, his expression dark and serious.

"I see. Follow, please," he said as he turned toward a small metal door behind the altar.

A surge of happy excitement came from the young ponies, and they shared a grin before scampering after the man into the gloomy halls behind the altar.

"I am Virgil, and I serve as a priest in this fleet. My primary duties include conversion and consultation," the man explained calmly as he walked down the dimly-lit hallway, "speak your names, please."

"Ah'm Apple Bloom!"

"I'm Scootaloo."

"My name is Sweetie Belle. It's nice to meet you, Mister Virgil."

Virgil nodded once, still facing away from the equines. "So you seek to embark upon the Eight-fold Path?"

"Uh, no. We're here for our cutie marks," Scootaloo corrected the man.

Virgil nodded once more. "You seek power without sacrifice. Gratification without understanding. Enlightenment without wisdom."

He turned his head toward the fillies. "Other creeds may scoff at such aims, but Chaos is more... flexible. You may yet find what you seek."

The Cutie Mark Crusaders shared a doubtful look.

"Okay, I just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, here," Sweetie Belle said, "you do know what a cutie mark is, right?"

"We call them Chaos marks," Virgil noted, halting in place.

"Is that the same thing?"

"I don't know," the priest admitted blandly, "explain your 'cutie marks' to me."

Scootaloo pointed to her hip. "A cutie mark is a symbol that appears on a pony's rear. It represents a pony's true destiny and their talent. You've seen other ponies, right? They all have them."

Virgil silently thought that over, his face completely inscrutable.

"Sure, that sounds about right," he eventually said, "you can get those here."

"Awesome. What do we do?" Scootaloo said with a grin.

Virgil turned around again and continued walking down the halls. "Although one can take an oath to Chaos without great understanding, I would be remiss in my duties to allow you to take this matter lightly."

The ponies immediately adopted grim, frowning expressions.

"We are very serious about this," Sweetie Belle said in a dour voice as her friends nodded.

"Clearly. But to swear yourself to Chaos is to surrender your soul to the dark gods. In life, and perhaps beyond, you will serve the whims of your patron, and your body and spirit will be remade in your deity's image."

That gave the fillies pause.

"Okay, wait, I'm having second thoughts here," Sweetie Belle said, holding up her foreleg and the tiny boot that was strapped to it, "what's this 'servitude' thing about?"

"Yeah, Ah really want a cutie mark, but Ah don't wanna be a slave or nothin'," Apple Bloom added.

Virgil paused for a few seconds. "They also grant super powers," he added in a grim monotone.

"Well, you should have mentioned that before," Scootaloo said quickly as her friends nodded brightly, "let's do this!"

"Do we get to choose our mark?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Indeed, you do," Virgil confirmed, gesturing to a room ahead of them, "come."

The room had an altar full of skulls topped by a burning torch which provided the only light in the room. There were four doors aside from the entrance, two to each side of them.

Virgil pointed to the doors one at a time, and the fillies noted the large symbols hammered onto each one as he spoke.

"Khorne, the Blood God," Virgil intoned, pointing to the symbol on the door, "those that enter here will find themselves empowered by rage and possessed of a supernatural martial force. Fear will seem a distant illusion, and death a fond companion."

Virgil moved on. "Nurgle, the Plague God. Those that enter here will find themselves freed from the miseries of entropy and illness. The cycle of life and death will surround you, infest you, yet leave you untroubled. Pain and despair will no longer touch you."

He pointed to the first door on the other side. "Tzeentch, the God of Sorcery. Those that enter here will find themselves possessed of unnatural knowledge, prescience, and the most bizarre and arcane of mutations. You will see the truths in lies, the lies within truths, and the secrets of... 'magic' will be revealed to you in your service."

Finally, Virgil pointed to the last door. "Slaanesh, the God of Excess. Those that enter here will be burnt alive by wall-mounted heavy flamers."

The priest's arms fell to his sides, his explanation complete.

"That last one seems a bit... different from the others," Sweetie Belle pointed out.

"The Iron Warriors are not fans of the so-called 'Whore God', and openly murder its devotees," Virgil admitted blandly, "I recommend one of the other shrines."

Scootaloo scratched a hoof against her chin as she glanced from one door to another. "But how do I decide which Chaos God is right for me?"

Virgil raised his gaze to the ceiling thoughtfully, and then dipped his head to make eye contact with the pegasus at his feet. "Tell me of yourself."

Scootaloo frowned. "Okay, well... I'm an orphan, and besides wanting my cutie mark, I've always wanted to fly. I mean, having no cutie mark would be bad enough, but a pegasus that can't fly is really pathetic."

"I don't know what the cultural significance of any of that is," Virgil confessed, "but it sounds like you're a complete loser."

Scootaloo winced, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle remained suspiciously silent.

Virgil pointed to the mark of Khorne. "You may find greatest comfort with the Blood God, whose fury most easily compensates for the insecurities of His servants."

****

5 Kilometers outside Ponyville

Tellis suddenly halted in his flight path, pitching his body upright as his flight pack strained against the suddenly deceleration.

"Who said that?! Take that back! I'll kill you!!" he shouted to the empty sky, shaking his clawed fists in the air.

****

Ferrous Dominus - main temple

"Well, we've come this far," Scootaloo reasoned, stepping toward the door and the bright red glyph that adorned it.

The door slid upward, spilling a deep crimson fog out into the room that obscured the shrine interior from the ponies.

Scootaloo didn't pause in her approach, and the red mist seemed to swallow the filly as she stepped past the threshold.

The door slammed down behind the orange pegasus, and Sweetie Belle could swear she heard some kind of distant, echoing laughter coming from somewhere.

"You are a psyker, yes?" Virgil asked, his gaze turning toward Sweetie.

"Yeah. Do you have a problem with that?" Sweetie Belle asked, remembering her dismissal by the Dark Mechanicus as a dangerous and unpredictable magical hazard.

"Not at all. Our more secular brothers may shun the psyker for one reason or another, but the cults gladly embrace such gifts. You speak more easily to the gods, and see their realm as it is meant to be perceived."

"Er... yes! Absolutely!" Sweetie said a little too loudly, smiling nervously. "I can totally do that! Which way do I go?"

Virgil pointed toward the door with a hook-shaped flame symbol on it. "Tzeentch will best see to your... development, if you wish to achieve mastery over the arcane arts."

Sweetie Belle approached the door bearing the mark of Tzeentch, and it slid open. A sparkling mist poured out and surrounded her almost immediately, and then sucked itself back into the obscured space of the shrine. No sign of the unicorn filly remained by the time the door slammed shut.

Apple Bloom looked up at the Chaos Priest. "So what about me?"

Virgil cocked his head to the side. "How do you feel about flies?"

"Got nothin' against 'em," the redheaded filly said with a shrug. It was difficult to live on a farm if one didn't learn to tolerate the extremely common and mostly harmless pests.

"Nurgle it is," Virgil said, pointing to the door with three green circles arranged in a triangle pattern.

Apple Bloom stepped over toward the door and it slid open just like the others had for her friends. A cloud of noxious green vapors spilled out of the shrine, and the earth pony filly coughed lightly as she advanced into the haze.

The door slammed shut.

"Another few souls to enrich the flock. Another world to return to the darkness that spawned it," Virgil mumbled as he turned away.

He started walking back toward the main altar as panicked shrieks started echoing within the room behind him.

"Good luck, young ones..."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - main sub level complex

Rainbow Dash practically burst out of the elevator as soon as the door opened into the next hallway. "It's about time! You'd think with all your fancy space technology you could make an elevator that moves faster than AJ's grandma!" Pinkie giggled at the comparison as she bounced along after Rainbow Dash, Morty still wrapped up in her tail.

Fennin didn't bother offering a reply as Daniels pushed him forward with his rail rifle aimed at the engineer's back.

The other ponies exited behind the two bipeds, all of them looking far more nervous. The alarm klaxons were still blaring all around them, and the lights that dotted the tunnel flashed red every few seconds.

"So. You got a plan to break out of here after you blow the place, ape?" Fennin asked the mercenary behind him.

"Why do ya keep callin' him that?" Applejack snapped. Her contempt for the alien wasn't helped at all by the tension of their current predicament.

"It's a reference to human origins," Daniels explained, "they say that humans evolved from apes or something back on Terra millions of years ago."

Then he paused as he looked at the back of their hostage. "I'm kind of impressed that a Tau knows enough about us to make an insult out of it, though. And I must say, you speak good Gothic."

"I speak Gothic well," Fennin corrected.

Applejack nudged Twilight with her leg. "Are you SURE we need to keep this one alive?"

"There seem to be a lot of Gothic-speakers in general among the Tau around here," Daniels admitted, "should I be flattered?"

"No. Fluency in Gothic is a requirement for rising to 'vre' rank in Lamman Sept," Fennin said, "I picked it up a few years ago. Void travel leaves a lot of spare time. While I was at it, I also learned everything else of worth about your kind."

"That must have taken ages!" Twilight remarked.

"Not really, no. It's a very short list," the engineer remarked.

Pinkie snorted. "Looks like SOMEONE'S bitter about being captured and forced to betray his kind under threat of violence."

"Well, yes, actually. Very much so," Fennin grumbled.

Daniels seemed unbothered by the alien's attitude, perfectly content to endure Fennin's insults and commentary so long as he could end the Tau's life with the squeeze of a trigger.

Rarity grimaced as they walked along the corridor, displeased that the floors were mostly bare stone with only a few plates of poly-ceramic sheeting placed seemingly at random on the ground and walls. "Why are the floors so sparse here? If you were going to lay down flooring, why wouldn't you cover the whole thing?"

Fennin sighed deeply. "We never got around to finishing the tunnels down here. We WOULD have the flooring and walls set up, but ever since a certain raider fleet decided to land a freaking ARMY on top of us we've been busy with other things."

"Poor darlin'," Applejack mumbled with a roll of her eyes.

"The tiles that we do have in place are just to keep the holes covered. Some kind of rock-tunneling worm lives in this region and they keeping eating through the salt veins and into our tunnels," the engineer went on to explain, "I have a few ideas on how to get rid of them, but again, it hasn't exactly been a priority lately."

The group fell silent again, letting the blaring alarm occupy their thoughts as they reached a sealed blast door at the end of the tunnel.

"Well, I hope you have a clever ploy to get past this locked door, ape," Fennin mused aloud, "because we're on lockdown and that means I can't open it with my access codes. And of course an explosion will be detected right away."

"What a pity," Daniels said grimly as the ponies all bunched up around him and their prisoner, "I guess all we can do is stand here and hope for some kind of miracle to get us to the other side."

Then they were surrounded by a flash of purple light.

Fennin blinked in shock as he stared at the now open tunnel in front of him, and he turned his head to see the heavy blast doors sealing off the elevator access corridor behind him.

"Son of an u'it!" the engineer cursed.

"Nice to know that you have proper lockdown procedures in place," Daniels noted as they continued forward again, "that way the security teams will have to assume we're trapped as long as none of their doors are being forced open."

"Dash, don't go too far ahead!" Twilight warned as the blue pegasus darted forward through the tunnel.

"Yeah, yeah," Rainbow Dash said dismissively as she hovered forward. The hallway was starting to widen, and there was a much larger room just up ahead. "Don't worry, Twi. I'd hear those slowpoke grayskins before they even managed to-" she paused as she flew out of the tunnel and into the room, her ears twitching as they picked up the sound of whirring servos.

"YIPES!" Rainbow Dash bolted back into the tunnel as four burst cannon turrets spat flurries of hot, searing energy after her.

The others froze stiff as Rainbow landed in front of them, her chest heaving. "That was close! There are guns in there!"

"OH, RIIIIIIGHT. Now I remember! This is an important area, so we stationed turrets to keep unwanted intruders out!" Fennin said, smacking himself in the head. "I mean, we were mostly concerned about those worms and any other pests that crawled in after them, but I suppose they're good for cleaning up larger vermin, too."

Daniels placed a hand on Applejack's hat as the farmpony started to advance on the engineer furiously. "Okay, then we need a plan, and fast. I'm sure their security teams know that their guns sighted something down here."

"What say we use the gray as a decoy?" Applejack snarled.

"Won't work," Fennin said with a shrug, "the turrets won't shoot at me, obviously."

Twilight wet her lips anxiously as she approached the end of the tunnel. Looking ahead she could see that there were several large crates scattered about and many stacks of floor and wall plating piled almost to the cavern ceiling, but the turrets were out of sight, covering the room from a different angle.

Stopping in a crouch, Twilight magically summoned a reflective plane in front of her and angled it away so that she could see the around the corner.

"I see them. They're all protecting a big door on one side of the room," the alicorn informed the others.

"Well, maybe we can just go for it?" Rainbow Dash asked. "They're not that accurate, really, and there's a lot of stuff in there we could run behind."

"I'd prefer a plan that doesn't rely on our obstacle being incompetent and us being exceptionally speedy," Rarity opined, "one slip-up and we're pony roast."

"I feel like this situation might be improved considerably if we set off all the bombs we set," Pinkie said in an overly serious voice as she held up the signum detonator. Aside from Rarity swiping the device back once again, she was ignored.

"Uh, Twilight? Maybe you can make a barrier to shield us as we pass through?" Fluttershy suggested.

Twilight frowned. "I could, but I think those guns would be very hard to hold back for long. And I need to conserve my energy if we're going to keep teleporting through the base. Holding barriers against Tau weapons is really draining."

Then Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Okay, I've got an idea. I'll teleport us behind that stack of plates that will keep us out of sight of the turrets. From there I'll teleport us to the back behind one of the larger crates. Then we can survey the room from there and find the exit, and I can teleport us to the other side."

"Good back-up plan," Daniels said while he secured his rifle against his back.

"Back-up? Why back-up?" Twilight asked as she glanced back at him.

In response, Daniels grabbed Fennin from behind and hooked an arm around the engineer's neck.

"Hey! HEY! What do you think you're-" Fennin's eyes widened as he was pulled out of the tunnel and straight into the line of fire of the gun turrets.

Said turrets swiveled to aim at Daniels and his hostage immediately, but their optics blinked red and their weapons locked when they detected a friendly target in the way.

Daniels drew his pulse pistol with his free hand and fired over Fennin's shoulder, coring the first turret through its sensor mount. The second one took two shots to the main armor casing before sputtering sparks and exploding, and the final two suffered the same fate as the first, their sensors cooking from the energy surge.

"... Huh. Okay then," Fennin mumbled as Daniels gave the alien some slack, searching for any more hazards.

"Us apes are real problem-solvers," the mercenary noted, "all clear, girls."

"That was awesome," Rainbow Dash snickered, hovering into the expansive room again.

"So where to now?" Rarity asked. There was a door behind the turrets, but she could also see another path on the other side of the cavern.

Fennin pointed grudgingly toward the path on the other side. "The main reactor's that way."

The others started to head in the suggested direction, but Applejack's eyes narrowed at the smoldering turrets and the heavy blast doors behind them.

"Hold on a tick. What's behind those doors there that the guns were protectin'?" the farmpony asked suspiciously.

"Not the main generators," Fennin responded irritably.

"Answer the question if you don't want to keep pulling shield duty," Daniels said.

"Look, do you want to get out of here alive or not? The security teams know you're here and you don't have time to-" Fennin stopped speaking when a pulse pistol pressed into the back of his head.

"Answer. The. Question," Daniels repeated more slowly as some of the less hostile ponies shifted uncomfortably.

The engineer made an incomprehensible sound as he clenched his eyes shut, quickly running various scenarios and rough calculations through his head.

"It's the stealth field emitter," Fennin said finally, hanging his head, "it's the device that keeps the canyon's interior disguised from above and impenetrable to sensors."

Pinkie looked up at Daniels. "Bombs?"

"Oh, yes. Bombs indeed," the mercenary said as he rushed up to the door. He unslung his rifle and took point this time as the ponies surrounded him and Fennin.

"Ready?" Twilight asked as her horn started to glow.

"Can I stay behind this time?" Fennin asked. He was rewarded with a "light" kick in the shins from Applejack, and almost staggered as the group was swallowed by purple light.

When they rematerialized Daniels had his rail rifle aimed already, and his attention immediately centered on the pair of stunned Earth Caste workers that were hunched over a monitor.

The rail rifle made a harsh humming noise as he fired, sending a supersonic projectile spearing through each of the aliens and carving into the machinery behind them.

Pinkie Pie immediately started rifling through her saddlebags for more melta charges as Rainbow Dash took off into the air to survey the room ahead of the others.

The device that was apparently cloaking the entire base was appropriately large and enigmatic-looking, with a house-sized central core of silvery metal that was covered with sensor spines and cables that ran up into the ceiling. attached to the core were several pylons that were spread across the room and extended downward into deep, narrow pits that had been drilled into the stone floor. The pylons spun constantly as Rainbow watched, releasing a droning buzz that competed with the blaring alarms for the title of most annoying background noise.

Glancing down, the pegasus saw something much more important: another Tau, standing out of sight of the others and slowly creeping away from his workstation.

"We got another one over here!" the speedster shouted before diving into the worker's back.

The alien grunted painfully as he landed face-first on the ground, and his hand hit the commlink badge on his jumpsuit collar as he coughed.

*Shas'la! The camouflage arrays! They're in the camouflage arrays! I think they-*

The Earth Caste worker gasped painfully as a heavy boot suddenly slammed down on his back.

"Good work, Dash," Daniels said as he reached down and ripped the communicator from the alien's uniform. Then he tossed it down one of the deep holes under the emitter pylons.

"Sorry about this, mate. But we only need one hostage." The mercenary drew his sword.

As the other half of their group set about the work of executing helpless workers and setting explosives, Twilight, Rarity, and Fluttershy all hung back near the entrance with Fennin, casting nervous glances at the blast doors.

"So, Mister Fennin, if you don't mind me asking, why are you Tau on our planet in the first place?" Rarity asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the blare of the alarms and the dying screams of the Tau worker.

Fennin's hands clenched into fists tightly as he heard his fellow caste-mate being murdered, but his voice was calm and almost nonchalant when he answered. "Standard colonization drive. Completely normal stuff. Your planet's great. We'll take it."

Rarity snorted. "Not at this rate, you won't."

"What's the REAL reason?" Twilight demanded, poking a hoof into the alien's leg. "I don't believe your Sept built three bases in Equestria in secret and moved in an entire army just to conquer us. That's not how your people wage war."

Fennin glanced at the purple pony curiously. "And just what, exactly, is 'Equestria'?"

"And then there's your faulty intelligence," Rarity added.

"Look, we know you're not here because you're just interested in taking our world or recruiting ponies into your empire," Twilight insisted, "if you were, this is the worst possible way to go about it. Does it have anything to do with that Warp device?"

The engineer's eye twitched. "What Warp device?"

"The one you were trying to sneak to your other base through Sweet Apple Acres," Rarity clarified, "you should really try to stay away from that area, by the way. Applejack seems to be holding a grudge about your kind skulking around her home. And destroying it. And killing her livestock. And harassing her little sister. And shooting her brother. And-"

Rarity continued listing offenses against the Apple family, but Fennin wasn't listening anymore. His eyes had shrunk to pinpricks as soon as he'd heard Rarity confirm that the "Warp device" had been intercepted en route to its destination.

"Uh oh..."

"All right, we're done here!" Daniels shouted as he rushed back toward the group with the other ponies in tow. "Hit it, Sparkle!"

Twilight's horn flared, and the group vanished once again.

Daniels swept his rail rifle from side to side, gratified to see that the room they had just left was still empty. "All right, next stop, main generators! You're on point, Fennin."

The engineer growled in the back of his throat as he advanced ahead of the ponies and human. "Fire Warriors sure are taking their time getting here, aren't they?"

"Slow elevators," Rainbow Dash said with a snicker.

"Less chatting, more moving!" Daniels shouted, his gaze and rifle focused on the tunnel that had led them here.

The group broke into a run (reluctantly, in Fennin's case) down the next hall, their eyes and ears primed for any sign of further defenses.

They didn't find any before happening upon a door set into the side of the tunnel, and a much heavier one just a few meters down at the end of the hall.

"There. The main generators are in there," Fennin said, pointing a finger to the blast door at the end of the tunnel.

"What's the other room for?" Applejack asked, glancing at the door next to them.

"Control room. I suppose you could blow that up too, but it wouldn't help you much," Fennin quipped.

Daniels took up the lead again as they grouped together in front of the barrier. "Why are your main reactors less heavily defended than the stealth field emitter?"

"I told you, those turrets aren't... sorry, WEREN'T for base defense, they were to keep wildlife out of sensitive areas," Fennin said as he gave Applejack a wary glance and took a step toward the edge of the group. This brought him closer to Fluttershy, who cringed and edged away nervously.

"All right, let's do this!" Rainbow Dash cheered, smacking her front hooves together.

Twilight took a deep breath and her horn flared purple.

Fennin immediately threw himself to the side, rolling across the ground as if he were dodging an explosion.

As soon as he came to a stop he turned to look at the spot where the ponies and their human escort had been. It was empty, without even the slightest trace of the intruders.

*Idiots,* Fennin growled in his native language as he stood up, racing to the other door and quickly entering his access code, *next time you send an infiltration team into an alien base, make sure at least one of them can read the local language.*

Fennin slapped a hand against the sign clearly mounted above the access console before the door opened and he dashed inside.

The sign read: Central Drone Control Hub.

****

Salt Lick Canyon - the other side of the door

The first thing Daniels saw when the haze of purple light fell from his eyes were a cluster of Tau combat drones floating in front of the door.

The drone's optics flared as they detected nearby hostiles, but the automated robot gunners didn't have their weapons aimed and ready. The intruders did.

A burst of armor-piercing rails ripped through several of the combat drones, splitting their armor shells apart with ease and spraying jets of sparks and shredded components onto the floor. Rarity's boltgun roared to life, only slightly less efficient in splitting apart the floating gun drones. The mass reactive shells dug into the robots' sensors and gun mountings before exploding terrifically, blasting apart the less well-armored undersides of the drones before the much harder disc-shaped shells dropped onto the floor.

Even Twilight, despite recovering from the teleport she had just cast, did her part and seized two of the gun drones with her levitation, holding them fast against the grind of their aiming servos and the twisting energies of their anti-gravity engines. Rainbow Dash and Applejack rushed toward the targets suspended in purple, each one lining up a savage back kick that sent the automated soldiers flying end-over-end into the wall.

After a few seconds the remains of the drone squadron were in pieces on the ground, and the infiltrators let out a collective breath of relief.

"All right, let's finish this!" Twilight said, panting lightly as her horn continued to glow softly. "Daniels, what do we have to break in here?"

The mercenary started to take in their surroundings after eyeing every downed robot carefully to make sure they wouldn't be getting back up.

His grip tightened around his rifle, and a growl escaped from the back of his throat before he whirled around. "Fennin, you basta-"

He cut himself off once he realized that the only one behind him was Fluttershy. "The hell? Where'd he go?!"

Fluttershy cringed. "He, um, kind of jumped away right before we teleported," she said with her ears flat against the sides of her head, "I was going to say something earlier, but you all seemed very busy fighting and everything..."

Applejack felt a sinking feeling in her chest. "Daniels, where are we?"

"This isn't the generator room, it's the bloody combat drone dispensary!" Daniels growled.

The ponies stared at the room interior. On each wall were three mechanical towers built into the rock and shielded with armorglass. Through the glass they could see dozens of inactive gun drones stacked on top of each other in a tower, held securely in the tall, fully enclosed dispensers.

"Okay... is that bad?" Rainbow Dash asked.

A series of clunking noises seemed to answer her question as each dispenser opened at the bottom and ejected a drone onto a small deployment platform on the floor. The drones started humming and their optical sensors flickered as their start-up procedures began.

"Take them out! Quick!" Daniels barked, suiting actions to words.

Two drones were blasted apart by rail and bolter fire, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack leapt for the nearest targets as Twilight's horn flared brighter again.

One of the drones was speared by a purple bolt of magic, and the gunner bot was lit aflame as it was blasted from the deployment perch. The sound of cracking poly-ceramic plating momentarily overcame the blare of the base alarms as Applejack and Rainbow sent drones flying into the walls, smashing the robots apart against the stone.

Another clunking noise came from each of the dispensers as their deployment plates were emptied, and one by one new drones were ejected into the room.

"Ah, okay, I think I see the cause of your concern!" Rarity admitted as her bolter fired again and again. With the drones on the floor she found it hard to target the more sensitive components under the armored top plating of the robots, and far more of her bolter rounds were bouncing off of her targets without causing damage.

"They keep comin'!" Applejack shouted as she stomped onto another drone, snapping the servo assemblies that aimed its guns. She kicked it away as it started sputtering sparks, and almost immediately the dispenser dropped another one in front of her hooves.

"Sh-Should I teleport us out?!" Twilight asked, sweat beading down her head.

"No! The damned drones will just deploy and follow us through the tunnels to gun us down!" Daniels shouted, his hand reaching for a new magazine of rail rifle ammunition. "We need to destroy the dispensers!"

"Bomb time?" Pinkie asked brightly, looking as inappropriately happy as ever.

"Definitely bomb time!" Daniels replied as he fixed the new clip into his main weapon.

Applejack stopped kicking at the drones long enough to bite onto the edge of her saddlebags and throw them onto the floor. "Ah only got one left! Here ya WOAH!"

She flinched back as a drone finished its activation cycle beneath her and shot up into the air, almost nailing her on the chin.

The drone halted in the air, and its guns swung down toward the orange pony.

Then a rail shot speared through the robot gunner, sending it hurtling to the ground in pieces.

"Is there some kind of control terminal or something?" Rarity shouted as her bolter thundered over her shoulder. She was gratified that at least she never had to shift her aim as a new drone popped out as soon as the last one broke apart.

"What about that thing in the back?" Rainbow Dash asked as she bucked another drone into the wall. She yelped a moment later as another drone, this one with its guns hanging uselessly from their servo mounting but otherwise still functional, rammed into her from behind and knocked the pegasus onto her face.

"No, I think that's a maintenance bay!" Daniels shouted, blasting apart another robot that was floating up from the ground. "Pinks, get those charges up!"

"Bombs, bombs, melty melta bombs!" Pinkie sang as she slapped a magnetized charge onto a dispenser, bucking away a drone in time with her lyrics. "Flesh or metal, it burns all the same! Can't you see why I love this game?"

Pinkie bounced over to the next rack of drones where Fluttershy had lifted a small, empty metal crate and dropped it onto one of the robotic enemies. The yellow pegasus was now lying on top of the crate to hold it down, squeaking nervously as it bumped back and forth underneath her.

"Explosions bright, and hot like the sun! Just be careful you don't roll a one!"

"This is starting to get weird," Daniels confessed as he reloaded his rifle again.

"Darling, you've been with us too long to be put off by anything Pinkie does," Rarity insisted as an empty magazine fell from her floating boltgun.

Pinkie ducked under a salvo of bright purple magic bolts, and then snatched up the bomb from Applejack's saddlebag before hopping on top of another drone that was still in its activation cycle.

"Like a party cannon, but with a bit more SHAKE! A twist of the handle, and those aliens bake!"

The drone started to quiver underneath her as it tried and failed to lift off with an earth pony on top of it. After setting the charge Pinkie leapt away with the last of her melta bombs in her hooves, and Applejack promptly took her place on top of the robot before stamping on it with gusto.

"Charges placed, set, and primed to blow! Say the word Danny, and we're ready to go!" Pinkie slammed the last melta bomb into place and then darted away as a drone managed to spit a burst at her from its pulse carbines. A bolt round sent it spiraling back to the floor, smoke seeping from its anti-grav engine.

"Rarity! Detonator!" Twilight shouted as a stream of glowing purple arrows lashed out from her horn.

"Please, as if I still have it!" the unicorn snapped.

"Pinkie! Detonator!"

Pinkie Pie lifted up the signum detonator on a foreleg, holding it in front of the servo skull attached to her tail as if to show it off.

"Clear the blast zones!" Daniels shouted, lowering his rifle as all the ponies without ranged attacks bolted away from the drone racks. "Hit it!"

"Boom boom!" Pinkie stuck out her tongue as she pressed the big red button on the detonator.

****

A series of explosions ripped through the base almost at once as the explosive charges went live. A team of earth caste analysts in the armor garage threw themselves on the ground as the hammerhead gunships behind them blew apart. A team of Fire Warriors and Crisis Suits winced as they heard the stealth field emitter detonate the next room over. Fennin cringed and moved from a jog to a sprint as he heard the explosions from the drone storage racks behind him, considering that the intruders had managed to overcome the trap he had led them into.

They were all certainly luckier, however, than the pair of Riptide battlesuit pilots who were completing their pre-launch system checks when the charges hidden behind their seats went off.

****

A single disc-shaped robot of blue and black floated through the wafting smoke that filled the room. The air filtration systems had already kicked into high gear, and the alarm coming from a wall-mounted speaker had briefly to compete with the sound of a heavy fan sucking out the thick gases rich in vaporized metals.

As the smoke parted, the drone sighted a white equine form coughing heavily as it crouched in a corner.

Pulse carbines twisted underneath the robotic gunner to match its firing line to its targeting path.

Rainbow Dash's hooves landed on top of the drone just before the carbines discharged, sending the burst of blue energy flares wide of their target. The drone hit the floor with the pegasus still on top of it, and Rainbow held the machine down firmly even as she hacked up smoke herself.

"Hey! COUGH! This is the COUGH! last one, I think! COUGH!"

Applejack slammed a foreleg onto the machine to add her own weight and make sure to keep the drone down. "Well, that sure got a little dicey, didn't it? Told ya we couldn't trust that dang grayskin creep!"

"I, um, don't mean to take his side or anything, but to be fair we WERE forcing him to help us kill all his friends," Fluttershy pointed out.

"As the Element of Loyalty, I can appreciate that, sure," Rainbow Dash admitted with a nod, "but as a pony at war, I say that guy's a jerk, and we should find and trample him."

Daniels was leaning against the wall, his rifle still at the ready. "All right, everyone take a breather. Status report: Pinks?"

"We're all out of melta charges," Pinkie said with a highly exaggerated frown as she tossed away the signum detonator, "Dashie has some grenades in her pack, but we won't be causing many more explosions."

"Unfortunate. AJ?"

"I'm gonna find that Fennin varmint and break his legs!" Applejack spat before bucking the last drone across the room and smashing it to pieces against the maintenance machine.

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof into the air. "Seconded."

"Groovy. Miss Rarity?"

"I still have plenty of ammunition left, but I'll need a few minutes to re-do my hair before we get into any more firefights."

"Whatever. Fluttershy?"

"I'm okay. Physically speaking, I mean. I'm in a very poor place emotionally right now."

"Just stay in one piece for me, love. Miss Sparkle?"

Twilight was panting heavily, and her wings and ears drooped as she laid on the floor. "I need to rest a little. I've used too much magic too quickly!"

"All right, well, we should have a few minutes," Daniels assured them, "and while it's not the main reactor, shutting down their drone bays is actually a pretty big blow to the base security. We're still doing fine."

*They're in there? Are you sure?*

The ponies stiffened as they heard a voice coming from right outside the door. Daniels slapped a hand over his mask.

*Not sure, no. The Fio'el said that they can teleport at will.*

"Ffffffff..." Daniels turned toward the door and aimed his rifle at the control panel next to it.

The rail shot stabbed into the console and utterly gutted the machine, punching straight through to the panel on the other side and blowing it apart in a gout of sparks.

*... Yeah, they're in there.*

*Shas'ui! This way! Get the battlesuits into position!*

****

Ferrous Dominus - command center

"During the upcoming ashault Shliver will act as shpearhead. Sherith, you will be there to shupport, but ash usual may act independently. The ashault teamsh have already received their unit briefingsh." Solon towered over the flickering hololith as he spoke, pointing to a glowing spot in the image that represented the servo skull.

Sliver and Serith waited on the other side of the hololithic table, weapons in their hands. The table showed a three-dimensional display of the Tau's hangar base. Or at least, the small portion of the base that had been explored by Twilight's group. Excepting the ship hangar, it cut a rather thin line through the large expanses of empty space around it, and Sliver didn't like the number of doors that had been left unexplored.

"Thiss intelligence iss poor. We do not know much about the facility or itss ssecurity meassuress at thiss point."

"From the uplink I've gathered that the mosht potent defenshesh have been neutralized. The hammerhead tanksh, Riptide battleshuitsh, and gun dronesh will not trouble you. In addition, they just eliminated the device that was shielding the bashe from our orbital augersh. There hashn't been enough time to conduct a detailed shcan, but by the time you arrive a more complete bashe layout should be available to guide you," Solon said.

Serith nodded slowly. "And what of the infiltration team itself, Warsmith? How do they fare?"

Solon turned his head slightly as he remotely activated a wall-mounted monitor. "Oh, they're doing very well. Let me bring up the shervo shkull'sh pict-feed."

The monitor blinked on.

"Exit! Exit! Find another door!"

"There ARE no other doors!"

"Twilight! Teleport! Get us out of here!"

"I can't, Rainbow! Besides, teleport where? They're right outside, and have who knows how many more soldiers behind them!"

"Far away then! Like back to the garage!"

"Even if I WASN'T exhausted I couldn't manage that! The spatial calculations for warping through-"

"Spare us the magic lesson and barricade the door with somethin'!"

"Shee? They're doing shplendidly!" Solon insisted. "I think they're all shtill alive, even!"

The view from the monitor started to turn around, and then the three Iron Warriors were treated to a close-up view of Pinkie Pie with a rather strained smile on her face.

"Um, Mister Solon, Sir? I don't know if you can hear me right now, but we're kind of in a pickle! An awful pickle! The kind of yucky, sour pickle that has lots of yucky, sour guns involved!" the pink pony said with unusually genuine nervousness.

"Forget a barricade! There's nothing in here that will slow them down more than the door itself!"

"Celestia save us all!"

"Discord! If you can hear me somehow, please take care of my animals when I'm gone!"

"The hay with THAT! If he can hear us he should drop in and help us!"

Pinkie winced at the background shouting as her friends panicked.

"So, yeah, if you have some super-amazing-special weapon or gizmo that can help us out, like maybe hidden in Morty here, this would be the perfect time to use it! Okay? What do you think? Great idea, huh?"

"THEY'RE CUTTING THROUGH THE DOOR!!"

"Stop screamin' and get behind somethin'! They won't take us down easy!"

Pinkie knocked a hoof on the servo skull's forehead anxiously, her eyes narrowing.

"Hello? Can you hear me? Is this skull on?"

The Iron Warriors stood in silence as pandemonium poured out of the video feed, and Sliver's shoulder pads shifted slightly before he released a contented sigh.

"I could watch thiss all day," the Nurglite Lord said in a happy grumble.

"You can watch it again all you like AFTER you return from deployment," Solon insisted. "Now make your final preparationsh."

"Yess, Warssmith."

"As you wish, Lord."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - drone dispensary

"There's no way we can fight them off!" Rarity insisted incredulously as she crouched behind a metal crate next to Twilight.

"Well, what do you want to do then? Surrender?" Daniels asked as he kept his rail rifle aimed at the door. There was a spot on the armored barrier that glowed fiercely as it was cut from the top of the blast plate toward the bottom in slow crawl.

"Nothin' doin'," Applejack growled as she rifled through her saddlebags and withdrew her lasso, "if we gotta make a stand here, then that's that."

Behind the grim gun line that was tragically short on actual guns, Fluttershy quivered in the corner as she tried to fight off the encroaching panic.

She really wished she could do something useful to help in their doomed stand-off agains the Tau defenders. Albeit not as much as she wished they had not been dragged into the situation in the first place. She had felt perfectly useless since they had embarked on this mission, and at this point it seemed she could only endeavor not to get in the others' way.

A chirping noise reached her ear, somehow seizing her attention over the blare of alarms, the burning of a fusion torch, and Applejack's cursing at the advancing security team.

Looking behind her, she was mildly pleased to see the robin that had briefly befriended her in the cargo docks land on her wing.

"Oh, hello Mister Robin. It's nice to see you're all right," Fluttershy said awkwardly. Not because talking to animals was strange in any way for her, but simply because the avian's oblivious cheerfulness contrasted so deeply with her current mortal terror.

Then she paused. "Wait... Mister Robin, how did you get in here?" The drone racks were in a fairly small, sealed room, and what with the way they had been completely on edge there was no chance that the bird had simply followed along with them without being noticed.

The robin bounced off of her back and onto the floor, and then it bounded along toward a tall cabinet that was loaded with spare power cells. Then it lifted a wing toward the cabinet before taking off and disappearing behind it.

"All right, then. Last stand it is. You feel up to magically chucking some grenades, Sparkle?" Daniels asked, his eyes tracking the fierce glow of the fusion torch.

"We'll find a way out of this!" Twilight insisted between heavy breaths. "I'm sure of it! Friendship will see us through!"

"I'd make a snarky comment about that, but as I've been mumbling prayers to dark gods under my breath this whole time, I don't really have room to talk," the mercenary allowed.

"Everyone! I found a way out!"

Everyone was surprised enough to hear Fluttershy's voice rise above the general racket and the thunder of their own heartbeats, but were nearly stunned into inactivity to hear that she had also found a solution to their current imminent demise.

Rainbow Dash was the first to react, swooping over to the other pegasus. Fluttershy was leaning against the cabinet with her entire body weight, struggling and failing to budge it.

Rainbow positioned herself at the top of the cabinet and then gave it an aerial back kick. The container leaned over and fell on its side heavily, spilling small power cells all over the floor to join the many bits of drone wreckage.

"It's one of those tunnels that the rockworms dug up!" Twilight pointed out as the space behind the cabinet was exposed. "I think it's big enough for us to get through!"

Fluttershy hadn't bothered waiting for Twilight's opinion, practically leaping into the opening.

"Where do you think it goes?" Rarity mumbled, wincing.

"Away from here!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she landed and practically dove into the tunnel after the other pegasus. Pinkie waited patiently for the rainbow-striped tail to vanish into the darkness before she too squirmed into the opening, Morty being drawn in after her.

Rarity sighed. "Fair enough." She hated the idea of crawling through a dirty, tiny passage possibly infested by strange creatures, but not quite as much as she hated the idea of getting shot. She clenched her teeth and ducked her head into the tunnel entrance, trying to ignore the macabre crimson glare of the servo skull just ahead.

Daniels chewed his lip as he stared at the hole in the wall. "You sure that thing is big enough for a human to squeeze through?"

"A coffin'd fit ya better sugarcube, but Ah'd reckon you'd rather take your chances with the tunnel," Applejack waited for Twilight to squirm into the hole, and then slapped a hoof against the wall. "Go on, git!"

Daniels cast a glance back toward the blast doors. The torch flare had almost reached the ground by now, a long line of smoldering metal leading up to the top of the barrier.

"You sure you want me going in first?" the mercenary asked as he crouched in front of the hole.

"Darn straight! Ya even think about gettin' stuck and Ah'll start gnawin' on yer feet!" Applejack planted a hoof on the man's back and shoved him forward.

The farmpony waited patiently as Daniels squirmed and struggled to get into the entrance, finding it a bit tighter than the smaller and unarmored ponies. Her patience didn't exactly break when she heard the fusion torch finish cutting open the blast door behind her, but she silently willed their mercenary escort to crawl faster as her heart thundered in her ears.

As soon as she could no longer see the soles of his boots, Applejack leapt into the hole.

Mere seconds later, a pair of Crisis Suits shouldered through the broken door, smashing the barrier apart and providing a shield of armor for the Fire Warriors behind them.

The battlesuits glanced about at the demolished interior, their burst cannons spinning hotly while their targeting sensors swept back and forth in search of targets.

Alas, the only activity they found was some kind of long bundle of hair slipping into a rockworm tunnel, and by the time one of the suits thought to aim at it, it had vanished into the opening.

*Have we sighted the enemy?* demanded a Fire Warrior as soldiers started spilling into the room behind the battlesuits.

*No. They escaped into the wall, looks like,* rumbled one of the Crisis Suits as it stomped up to the hole.

*Careful! Watch for traps!* the squad leader shouted, halting the battlesuit. Then he activated his commlink.

*Shas'vre Jerriha, the intruders escaped this area. Looks like they squeezed into one of those blasted worm tunnels.*

*Noted. Stand by, Shas'ui,* crackled the voice on the other end.

****

Salt Lick Canyon - security control center

Jerriha switched off her commlink, and then turned her head.

*Well, looks like they got away after all. And you say you can track them, Fio'el?*

Fennin nodded absently as he tapped buttons on a small engineering tablet. *They're moving with one of those creepy gue'la skull... things. Obviously someone on their side knows what they're doing, because they managed to set it up so that our scanners can't tell it apart from one of our own drones.*

Then the engineer smirked darkly. *But we can now that we know what to look for. Observe.*

He hit a button, and the monitor showing a diagram of the base lit up with a red spot. The marker came from an area between the rooms, in the space that was ostensibly untouched rock, and it was moving slowly.

*Add the sonic tunnel overlay I created last week, and...*

With another few hand swipes, Jerriha was looking at several faded pathways between rooms, most of which had been closed off.

The Fireblade nodded slowly. *They're headed for the hangar sub-level, at the bottom of the canyon.*

*I'm dispatching security teams now,* said another fire caste officer.

*Nothing down there but rocks and waste water runoff. Nowhere to run and nothing important to break,* Jerriha noted as she walked over to a wall cabinet and plucked a pulse rifle from the rack.

*Just watch out for that gue'la grunt. He's smarter than he looks, and he got ahold of our weapons somehow,* Fennin warned.

*Noted. A decent conventional soldier is still far and away less dangerous than a psyker, though.*

*TWO psykers,* Fennin stressed, *the purple one doesn't have a weapon, but I think it's the one that does the teleporting, and one of them mentioned barriers. Kill it first if you get the chance.*

Jerriha nodded slowly. She hated that things had actually degraded to the point that she had to consider the ponies a serious threat, but the facility had already suffered serious damage thanks to the enterprising equines.

*Oh, and watch out for that orange one with the hat, too,* Fennin added, idly rubbing at a bruise on his shin, *it doesn't seem as dangerous as the psykers, but it has some kind of grudge against us, I guess.*

Jerriha halted on her way out of the command center. *Orange... with a hat?*

*Yeah. Some kind of red things on its butt, too,* Fennin mumbled as he concentrated on his engineering tablet, *damn thing probably would have attacked me if the gue'la wasn't holding its leash. Figuratively, I mean. They really should have leashes or some kind of restraints, but-*

Jerriha snarled a profanity in her regional dialect and practically sprinted out the door, shouting orders to the Fire Warriors waiting outside.

Fennin blinked in surprise. *What was that she just said?*

The Fire Caste technician at the monitor bank winced. *That, uh... that's a very specific kind of sex act involving three Kroot and a shield drone.* She paused. *I haven't heard anyone say that in almost a decade. She must be older than she looks. And she seems more upset now than she did when she heard that the Riptides were down.*

*It's been a rough day for some of us,* Fennin grumbled, *I'm going back to my bunk. Let me know when the intruders have been eliminated. And how they were eliminated. I'm hoping it's by flamethrower.*

*Yes, Fio'el. Be careful.*

****

Salt Lick Canyon - hangar complex beta

"Up ahead! I can see light! Just a little farther!"

"Oof! Pinkie, stop bumping into me!"

"Come on Dashie! Hurry up! To FREEDOM!!"

"Or at least a different imminent demise than before."

"Well who's being a downer NOW, Rares?"

Fluttershy shuffled out of the darkness of the tunnel and into the stagnant light of a few construction lamps, and then she leapt into the air as her rear legs squirmed free of the winding passageway.

Her chest heaved as she took wing, exulting in the slightly less stale air and pale, artificial light of their new environs.

As the others followed her out of the hole, Fluttershy calmed down and took stock of what exactly those environs were.

Most of the ceiling above them was blocked out by an enormous object that she belatedly realized was the starship they had seen before. This time, however, they were viewing it from below, and its massive girth blocked out the vast majority of the sunlight that would have otherwise leaked into the canyon's valley.

The ship was supported by numerous landing legs, each one taller than most houses and nearly half as wide. Besides the legs the dominant features of the area were nondescript piles of rocks, stalagmites, construction lamps, and a small creek containing some exceptionally filthy water.

"Well, this is... good?" Rarity said cautiously as she stepped daintily onto the ground.

"I don't see any bad guys, so yeah, I'd say it's pretty good," Rainbow Dash said as she flew up high, almost brushing the starship's belly.

"Delightful. Twilight, is your magic replenished enough to summon that mirror again? I shudder to think of what my mane must look like right now."

Twilight was, in fact, feeling somewhat rested after their short expedition, but she still gave Rarity an annoyed look for an answer. The unicorn sighed heavily in response.

"Urk! Okay... almost... got it!" Daniels' hand grabbed the outer edge of the tunnel exit and hauled himself out, his armor scored with scrapes from the rocks that had sought to impede him.

Applejack came next, her Stetson popping out first before the apple farmer slipped free of the rock wall.

"See? Ah knew ya could do it!" Applejack said with a grin as she flipped her hat back onto her head.

"I had motivation," panted the mercenary, "I wasn't sure you were joking about biting my feet."

"Well, now we don't hafta find out!" the orange pony said happily. "So! Where to?"

"I think 'out of here' is the only acceptable answer to that," Rarity grumbled.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy landed next to their friends, the latter with a robin perched on her head.

"Well, there's only three ways to go in this canyon," Rainbow advised, "back toward the rest of the base, or the other way toward the really big metal wall blocking off the next hangar." She pointed at each path in turn, both of which involved a long stretch of cluttered stone ground.

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "Ya said there were three ways. What's the third?"

Rainbow Dash pointed up. Specifically, up at the gap between the starship hull and the canyon walls.

"We don't QUITE have enough wings to go around, I'm afraid," Rarity noted, "Rainbow could probably carry another pony, but Fluttershy and Twilight aren't quite as robust. And that's to say nothing of our - ahem! - heaviest team member."

"No need to beat around the bush, Miss Rarity," Daniels said as he stood up, "AJ is quite proud of her figure."

The orange mare's eye twitched as Pinkie and Rainbow chortled. "We're in a serious bind right now, so Ah'm gonna kick you fer that later."

Fluttershy had again fallen into silence as the rest of their team deliberated on their plan of action, and she noticed that the robin perched on her was emitting a rather shrill, agitated chirp.

"Is something wrong, Mister Robin?" she asked, turning her head. "Is there some... thing... yeep..."

The yellow pegasus snapped her head back toward the others, causing the robin to jump off and fly away from the disturbance. "Uh, I just-"

"Okay, I've got it," Twilight said suddenly, not hearing Fluttershy vying for their attention, "I'll fly up and scout out an open spot on the canyon's ridge. Then I can get a good enough grasp of the topography to teleport all of us up there and we can navigate a path away on ground level!"

"Um, I don't mean to interrupt-"

"Awesome! I'll go with you, just in case we run into trouble on the way up," Rainbow Dash declared, "if they see us I can distract them while you go for it! They'll never hit me!"

"Er, this is kind of important-"

"Should we leave Morty here? He's only useful to Shmithy if he's in the base, right?" Pinkie asked.

"Ya nicknamed Solon 'Shmithy'?" Applejack asked.

"P-Please watch out!"

Daniels turned toward Fluttershy. "Watch out for what?"

The pulse rifle blast struck Daniels' chest like a bolt of lightning, albeit with far less noise. The relatively thin ceramite layer cracked instantly as it struggled to hold off the brunt of the energy blast, and a rather understated puff of smoke wafted from the impact as he fell over with a garbled scream.

Fluttershy whimpered as he hit the ground, every other ponies' eyes wide in shock. "Sorry..."

There was a brief, stunned silence as they stared at the prone human, and then Pinkie cocked her head to the side.

"So does this mean he'll come back as a cyborg, too? I hope so."

"EVERYPONY DOWN!!" Twilight screamed, throwing herself behind a cluster of stalagmites as a bolt of sizzling blue slashed overhead.

As the others rushed for cover, Applejack bit onto Daniels' arm and dragged him over behind one of the starship legs. A pulse rifle blast passed by her face close enough to leave a hot tingling feeling in her nostrils, but she paid the projectile no mind as she flung the mercenary behind one of the starship legs and then joined him a moment later.

"Where the hay did these jerks come from?!" Rainbow Dash demanded.

"I'm sorry! I tried to warn everyone, but... I'm sorry!" Fluttershy cried as she held her head down behind a pile of gravel.

"How did they find us so quickly?!" Rarity asked as she went to work with her bolter, floating it over her head and firing back as she peeked out between the stalagmites. The Tau Fire Warriors were already in cover though, and spread into an ideal firing line. She barely snapped off two ineffective shots before she had to duck her head down to avoid the fusillade that sought her in return.

"Daniels! Daniels, speak to me!" Applejack shouted, rolling the man's head to the side with her hoof.

She was rewarded with a painful cough. "I'm alive... I'm... ugh... still alive. Great armor... urgh..."

"Oh! Thank goodness!" Rarity said as she heard the human sputter weakly. "You just take as long as you need, dear, but as long as you're okay, we could REALLY use another gun over here!"

"I said... ugh... I'm 'alive', not 'okay'," Daniels groaned. The pulse rifle had struck probably the thickest armor plate on his suit, but even then the carapace armor had barely managed to disperse the catastrophic heat to non-lethal levels. His chest felt like it was on fire, and an electric discharge had left his muscles numb wherever they weren't in burning agony.

"You just keep breathin', Daniels," Applejack said firmly as she narrowed her eyes in the direction of their new opponents.

Rainbow Dash dropped her saddlebag next to Rarity. "Rarity, Pinkie, use my grenades! Twilight, let's do it!"

Twilight blinked in surprise. "You want to try my plan now? But-"

"But nothin'! It's still the best chance we got of gettin' outta here!" Applejack barked as she crawled over next to Fluttershy. "Now git goin'!"

Rainbow Dash bolted out of cover and into the air, and as expected was immediately the favored target of two squads of Fire Warriors. Screaming bolts of sizzling pulse fire sailed all around her as she twisted through the air, leading the aim of the defenders toward the side of the canyon and away from her friends.

Jerriha took aim at the zig-zagging pegasus, but gave up on the shot almost immediately. Moving at that speed and that wildly not only ruined her aim but also ensured that the creature couldn't accomplish anything useful while it concentrated on evasion.

The whip-crack of a rope next to her made the Fireblade flinch, and she snapped her head around just in time to see a Fire Warrior's pulse rifle get yanked right out of his hands by a disturbingly familiar length of rope.

*Squad seven, you stay on that blue flyer! Squad four, keep the rest of them suppressed!* Jerriha barked as she handed her pulse pistol to the very grateful soldier next to her.

Then she cleared her throat.

"I can't imagine why you were stupid enough to leave the human fortress, orange horse, but you won't live to regret it!"

On the other side of the firefight, with a perpetual rain of blue flares sailing over their heads, Applejack blinked in surprise and let her tail and attached lasso fall limp.

One of the Tau was addressing her specifically? That didn't make much sense. The only Tau she remembered meeting directly that had eventually survived to remember it was Fennin.

Well, and that female one in Ferrous Dominus. But she...

"What the hay? You escaped?!" Applejack yelled back over the scream of the pulse rifles and the distant blare of the alarms. "Ah knew Ah shoulda broken yer dang neck on the spot!"

*Is there something we should know, Shas'vre?* asked a Fire Warrior next to her, his pulse carbine tracking Rainbow Dash's movements fruitlessly.

*Unfinished business, Shas'la. But the mission comes first. These vermin will pay for encroaching on our facility.* Jerriha watched a few fragmentation grenades sail out into the open and explode a few seconds later, but they were landing too far away from their position to do any real damage. Her eyes waited for the white one's bolter, however.

*Should we do something about that purple one that's sneaking off in the back?* asked another.

*No. That one will be taken care of. Concentrate on the task at hand. Annnnd...*

Then she saw the white, stylized boltgun wreathed in blue float above the scorched rock once more, and she squeezed the trigger of her own rifle.

Rarity yelped as a string of energy blasts hit her bolter, startling her out of her levitation and letting the smoldering remains of her weapon drop to the ground next to her.

"My boltgun!" the unicorn cried, leaning down toward the useless, burning hunk of metal. "Of all the worst things that could happen, this... is..."

The snow-white pony trailed off. "Well, actually, this isn't that bad. It makes the top ten, though."

A photon grenade bounced over the top of the stalagmites to underscore her point, and she quickly put her telekinesis to work to fling it away.

Twilight cast an anxious look back over her shoulder but continued onward and upward, her wings beating furiously to build altitude. She was already nearing the top of the starship hull, and it was only a little further to the top of the canyon.

In theory, anyway. It seemed an awful long way away right now.

Twilight shook her head and powered upward. All she needed was a good estimate of the distance from canyon to ridge top, so that she didn't teleport her friends into solid rock or fifty meters above the ground, or cause the spell to fizzle entirely. There were a lot of things that could go wrong with an ill-conceived teleport.

She rose above the top edge of the starship, and suddenly her goal seemed even more distant.

Two Crisis Suits waited atop the space vessel, weapons already humming as their target flew right into their line of fire.

Twilight raised a barrier just in time as flamer and plasma gun unleashed a lethal stream of pure heat into her. The flames swam around her barrier, straining her concentration as she tried to stay aloft and alive at the same time.

Then the Crisis Suits unleashed their secondary weapons, spitting a flurry of mini-missiles at the alicorn's shield bubble.

Twilight spasmed. Pain surged through her head as if a jackhammer was drilling into it, and her concentration faltered. The barrier flickered, and she was immediately subjected to a much more serious pain as a wave of force and flame slammed into her, much reduced as it was by her shield.

Pinkie galloped over to the landing leg that was shielding Daniels, yelping as blue flares screamed after her. Morty swung too and fro as it was carried along behind her, its sensors fixed on the gun line of Fire Warriors across the scorched length of ground.

"Hey Danny!" Pinkie said as she skidded to a stop behind the hefty metal column. "I ran out of Dashie's grenades, so I was wondering if I could borrow yours!"

The mercenary coughed painfully.

"Okie day! Thank you!" the pink pony said as she started pulling ordnance off the injured man's belt.

"You actually causin' any damage with those things?" Applejack asked, her head ducked low under the constant waved of lethal energy as she crawled back over to their wounded teammate.

"Not really. It makes the other guys duck down real quick, though," Pinkie admitted.

Applejack clenched her teeth anxiously. "Well, Ah guess all we can do is keep 'em at bay until Twi gets back."

A loud thump came from behind them, and the earth ponies turned their heads to see a heap of purple fur and feathers lying on the ground.

"Ungh... ergg... bluh," said Twilight, her legs twitching faintly as loose feathers slowly floated to the ground around her.

The earth ponies turned back toward each other.

"Sooo... back into the worm tunnel?" Pinkie asked.

Applejack set her jaw as she heard the sound of Tau jet packs descending from above; she had thought it strange that the Fire Warriors seemed content to hold them in a stalemate rather than advancing to quickly overwhelm them. Apparently they were only serving to cover the intruders so that their heavier support could swoop in from behind and finish them. The ponies wouldn't survive a sprint back to the hole in the canyon wall, even if they were willing to leave Daniels behind.

"Nope. This's it, Pinkie," Applejack said grimly, "if you wanna surrender Ah won't hold it against ya, but Ah'm gonna go out kickin'. See if Ah can't drag a few of those grays down with me."

Pinkie sniffled as she wiped a hoof across her face. "You're so brave! Of course I won't abandon you! It's time to head to that big pony party in the sky!" Then her expression turned more serious. "But before we perish heroically, can I ask you a question?"

Applejack watched the Crisis Suits land. Rarity and Fluttershy were already scrambling for new cover, but she couldn't imagine they'd make it. She also noticed that Morty was starting to glow, but that hardly seemed important now.

"What is it, Pinkie?" she asked flatly.

"Do your gums itch? My gums itch. Like, a lot," Pinkie noted, digging a hoof under her lip.

"Teleport... f-flare!" Daniels spat through clenched teeth.

Light briefly swallowed their senses, and a crackling pop boomed in the ponies' ears as the teleport homer in their servo skull completed its function.

Where once stood nothing but empty ground between the Crisis Suits and the outmaneuvered equines now stood five hulking bodies practically swimming in heavy, slimy, decrepit suits of tactical dreadnaught armor.

For a terrifying second all activity in the hangar ceased as the Tau defenders came to terms with this new group of opponents.

"Iron within," grumbled Sliver as he raised the Viral Scourge.

"Iron without," finished the Rusted Brotherhood as they raised their combi-meltas.

Then, at some unspoken signal, the fusillades resumed.

Pulse rifle fire spattered against the pitted, defiled terminator armor without apparent effect, the electric bursts and plasma discharges fizzling to nothing against the absurdly thick plate. Bolter rounds flew back toward the entrenched Fire Warriors, and though most exploded against the walls of protective cover, those that found their marks blew apart arms and knocked soldiers flat on their backs.

The Crisis Suits swiftly made to attack the new, more dangerous targets, and one Iron Warrior was speared by a plasma bolt before he was swallowed by flame and missile detonations. Bits of rusted metal and sundered piping were flung away from their target, and the armored giant staggered.

Briefly.

The Iron Warrior rose to his feet even as flames licked at the broken sections of his armor, his flesh badly seared but his body utterly inured to the pain. The melta attachment to his weapon discharged, and one of the battlesuits vanished in a spray of heat like the surface of the sun. He stomped toward the survivor menacingly, his power axe crackling as it rose to the attack.

The rest of the Rusted Brotherhood began to advance on the Fire Warriors as Sliver released a long stream of fluid from the Viral Scourge, splashing the noxious stew over the tops of the rocks and stalagmites and onto the troopers sheltering behind them. Nearly half of the soldiers fell in an instant to the torrent, clutching at their burning skin or retching in their helmets.

*Fall back! Retreat at once, Shas'la!* Jerriha snapped, firing a running burst from her rifle as she and a few Fire Warriors made a break away from the steaming pools of filth that surrounded their dying comrades.

She tapped her commlink as she ran. *Get more soldiers to the elevator well and set up a defensive line on the docking platform! Get me Broadside Suits up there at once! We have heavy resistance down here! I need rail rifles and more plasma weapons deployed, NOW!*

A bolt shell sent the soldier next to her sprawling face-first into the ground, though at a glance Jerriha could see that his armor had held. She seized the Fire Warrior and yanked him to his feet. *Faster! Run!*

The Rusted Brotherhood slowed their advance at seeing the firing line break. One of the terminator-suited Chaos Marines stepped forward ahead of the others while carrying a tall stave topped with a golden Chaos Star nearly two meters in diameter.

Sliver rested his hammer on his shoulder pad as he turned away from the foe, his optics shifting to the small, puny life forms laying behind him in stunned silence.

He quickly found the one he sought: he had been told that the purple pony currently picking herself off the ground with a dazed expression more or less functioned as the leader of the sad group of equines.

"And you musst be Ssparkle. Your attemptss at infiltration and sstealth are a joke made remotely feassible only thankss to the sskill of our Warssmith. Your combat efficacy is equally pitiful, and had you been eliminated even momentss ssooner, we would not have even bothered arriving for the completion of thiss misssion." He took a long, rasping breath, his fish eye optical glowing faintly. "However, even if mainly by luck, you have caussed ssufficient damage for uss to take the facility with easse. It will be enough."

Twilight swayed back and forth slightly as the massive, stinking monster of an Iron Warrior finished his critique. "I... erm... thanks?" she still had a rather savage headache thanks to the combination of her shield and the ground beneath her breaking (the latter with the aid of her face).

"You're too kind..." Daniels gasped and coughed several times before he managed to choke out, "my lord."

Sliver briefly regarded the human. "Wyatt Danielss. Your performance wass particularly... adequate. It iss a shame you are not yet among Nurgle'ss chossen children." His debriefing of the infiltration team complete, Sliver turned on his heel.

The Iron Warrior bearing the icon stomped over to a Fire Warrior that was crawling toward the stream of dirty water, all the while hacking painfully as his body revolted against the toxins that had touched him.

The Chaos Marine lifted the icon and then drove it down into the alien's back without fanfare, puncturing the Fire Warrior's armor, body, and the ground below before stabilizing the rod.

"Lord Sliver. It is done," barked the Terminator as he stepped back toward his master.

"We have a lock on their main communicationss nexuss nearby," Sliver snarled, his helmet rising to gaze at the cargo dock high above as his helmet cogitator made the necessary calculations and prepared a short-range teleport, "after that we will desstroy the generatorss. It'ss time to finish thiss."

The ponies, who had spent much of the sudden turnaround in stunned silence, blinked as the Rusted Brotherhood was consumed by another series of teleport flares and vanished from sight.

A few seconds later Rainbow Dash finally landed next to the others, her breath fairly labored. "So, uh, I wasn't really paying very close attention to what just happened, since if I slowed down I would have died," the blue pegasus admitted, catching her breath, "are we winning now, or what?"

Before anyone could answer, an otherworldly howl ripped through the bottom of the canyon.

The icon of Chaos quivered as the blood pooled around it in a shape suspiciously similar to the symbol at its top, and coruscating lightning flashed from the golden emblem.

A crooked line of ugly red split through the air in front of the grisly artifact, growing and then stretching open as if reality itself was being ripped apart.

Twilight's pounding skull became a distant memory as a familiar figure in robes and power armor stepped out of the breach.

It wasn't Gaela.

"Ahhh... it feels good to take to the battlefield again," Serith mused as he stepped through the quivering portal, force halberd in hand.

Right behind him marched two lines of Iron Warriors, each one of them stepping warily out of the sorcerous breach before spreading out to take in the area.

"Lady Sparkle! Lady Rarity! So good to see you with all your extremities in place!" the Sorcerer said magnanimously as he whirled toward the ponies. "You seem to have weathered this trial quite well! To think you survived this long without a single casualty!"

Applejack frowned. "Actually, they shot Dan-UNG!" the apple farmer suddenly bit her own tongue as Serith clasped his free hand into a closed fist.

"We'll take it from here. You may proceed back to base through the gate behind me. Or if you find such transportation... unseemly, you may await the Scavurel gunships that are already en route."

Twilight's expression wavered briefly between incendiary and acidic, and then settled on the latter before she allowed herself to open her mouth.

"We'll wait for the gunships. THANKS," the alicorn snarled.

"As you wish. Do take care, however. An enemy on the cusp of defeat can still be quite dangerous." Serith turned away and walked toward the line of Iron Warriors marching toward the main complex with chainswords drawn.

Applejack seethed quietly for a moment, and then decided that her current frustration would be best focused on a different target.

"Ah'm going with 'em," the farmpony declared, pushing her hat back on her head.

"Wh-What?" Fluttershy practically jumped at the declaration. "Applejack, we barely escaped with our lives!"

"We didn't escape. We were saved. And that's great'n all," Applejack said, "but that grayskin mare sounded like she has a score to settle with me, and Ah'm just about ready to oblige her. Ain't like an Apple to just back off and let someone else take care o' her business."

"That is an exceptionally poor reason to go seek a fight with a well-armed and dangerous enemy soldier who is already on the run from many more better-armed and more dangerous soldiers," Twilight noted.

Rainbow Dash thought about that very valid point as she stretched her wings briefly. "I'm in."

"Let's get 'em, Dash," Applejack grinned as they bolted after the Iron Warriors.

"Good luck," Daniels groaned, raising a hand weakly before he slumped over onto his side.

****

Salt Lick Canyon - main sub-level

*What do you mean they're already above the elevator? That's impossible! They were right behind me!* Jerriha barked into her commlink.

*I'd put our faith in our sensors, Shas'vre! We have five high-energy signatures moving into the main complex! I'll have the Broadsides intercept-*

*NO! If you fight them in the tunnels we'll be ripped apart! No close-range fighting!* Jerriha barked, rounding a corner toward a maintenance hall.

*There's no way to avoid a close-range fight at this point! Not if they somehow just skipped over our best staging area! And we have more power armor signatures swarming the sub-level!*

Jerriha grabbed her forehead with her hand, trying to organize her thoughts in the face of the coming onslaught.

The reversal had come so quickly. One little device that hadn't seemed at all threatening floating from the end of the pink pony's tail. It had looked like a diversion, if anything; a way to draw fire away from the intruders themselves.

That device had delivered heavy Astartes infantry right into the facility. A worst-case scenario. The close-quarters fighting in the claustrophobic tunnels would be brutal and extremely one-sided. The Gue'la had the perfect soldiers and weapons deployed for such a battle. The only obvious answers they had possessed were all smoldering hulks now. Victims of the human infiltrator and his pet ponies.

Or was that the other way around? She couldn't even tell.

*Fireblade, what do we do?* asked a Fire Warrior, shaking the female soldier by the shoulder.

She slowly brought her thoughts back to the present, and the miserable choice that lay before her. Her hand grasped her commlink again.

*All right. I need you to start-*

She was cut off by a muffled banging noise coming from the communicator, followed by panicked shouting.

*Keep them OUT! No! We can't-*

She heard the sounds of gunshots before the commlink went dead completely.

*... Prepare to fight, Shas'la,* she said as her hand fell from her communicator, *there's nowhere left to run, and I wager that life as a slave miner wouldn't agree with you.*

They were at the end of a maintenance tunnel that led to a stairwell; one of the few ways to get from one level to another without the main elevator platform. There were a few cabinets along the wall to use as cover, but the bend was less than a grenade's throw behind them.

The sound of armored footsteps echoed through the halls.

*I never saw a Space Marine before today,* admitted one of the Fire Warriors as they took up position, *are they all so... disgusting-looking?*

Jerriha briefly recalled her encounters with the armored super-soldiers on other planets. *No. There's something wrong with these ones.* Her jaw set. *Or maybe something right, rather. These ones won.*

The footsteps came closer, and then halted just before the bend ahead of them.

A fragmentation grenade bounced off the wall of the tunnel and rolled in front of them. The Tau soldiers immediately drew themselves back behind their cover, and Jerriha flung a photon grenade back out just before the explosive detonated.

An Iron Warrior burst out from behind the corner just in time to have his optics blinded by the photon burst, and the Chaos Marine fired a brief, utterly inaccurate spray from his boltgun before he was almost torn apart by a return salvo from pulse rifles.

As the Iron Warrior collapsed another stepped in to take his place, bolter thundering. One of the Fire Warriors took a shot to the leg and promptly lost said extremity, collapsing onto the ground.

As the pulse rifle rounds ripped smoking craters in power armor and bolts bored holes in the lockers the Tau were hiding behind, a rainbow-colored streak sailed over the Iron Warrior's shoulder and slammed headlong into the other Fire Warrior Jerriha had escaped with, knocking him flat on his back.

Rainbow Dash leapt off of the Tau soldier right before he was reduced to a blood stain by another bolter salvo, deflecting off the walls of the tunnel with her hooves to keep up an evasion speed.

Jerriha stepped further behind the locker and then swung her weapon around, trying to get a bead on the flyer anyway; no way she was going to leave it alone to hit her in the back, and she was well-protected from the Marine for the moment.

The familiar and increasingly aggravating crack of a rope snapping through the air sounded before she could fire a shot at the pegasus. It was little comfort that the rope merely caught the end of her rifle rather than herself, this time.

The Fireblade struggled to hold on to her weapon as she sighted Applejack standing between the Chaos Marine's legs, rope in her jaws as she fought against the Fireblade. It was a slightly greater comfort to see the Iron Warrior staring down and hesitating; he was obviously just as surprised by this turn of events as she was.

Rainbow Dash doubled around and launched a flying back kick into the Jerriha's shoulder, staggering the alien and letting Applejack finally disarm her.

The orange pony dropped her lasso as the pulse rifle bounced toward her. "Hey, grayskin! Ah heard y'all got business with me!" She slammed a hoof down onto the pulse rifle, breaking it in half. "Well, here Ah am! You wanna finish things, or should Ah just let the big guys gut ya?"

Jerriha's hand went for her pulse pistol. Or rather, the empty holster where her pulse pistol had been; she had given that weapon to another soldier.

It didn't escape her notice that both the Iron Warrior and the blue flying horse had ceased attacking her. The latter was hovering behind her at a safe distance, while the former kept glancing up and down between his enemy and apparent ally.

Jerriha drew her combat knife, her face drawing into a scowl.

"Oh, I have GOT to see this," the Chaos Space Marine rumbled, stepping back from the imminent brawl.

Applejack bolted forward, deeming her challenge accepted. "APPLES!!" she screamed to the heavens, shaking the very tunnel with her battle cry.

"The Greater Good will prevail, gue'la puppet!" Jerriha snapped in Gothic as she tensed.

The Fireblade leapt to the side as Applejack tried to ram her, rolling into a crouch and then darting toward her equine opponent from the side.

Applejack aimed a back kick rather than trying to turn around, and she narrowly missed shattering the Fireblade's arm.

Jerriha was forced to dodge away before she could slash with her knife, and her own attack missed as the orange pony twisted around to face her.

For a few tense seconds the pair circled each other, their eyes darting back and forth in search of openings.

Jerriha struck first, closing the distance and slamming a knee against the pony's cheek while seizing her by her mane. Applejack's hat bounced off to the side, briefly forgotten in the skirmish.

Jerriha's knife plunged down, and the Fireblade was rewarded by the resistance of flesh as her weapon stabbed deep just behind the pony's shoulder.

A furious snort was the only sound Applejack made in reply, and then she reared her head back before slamming it into the Tau's stomach, driving the breath out of the Fireblade. And then she did it again. And then a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth. The Fireblade's body jumped slightly each time as she grunted in pain, and the spectators heard the unmistakable crack of Tau combat armor splitting.

"Go! Go! Go!" shouted Rainbow Dash, pumping her hooves in the air in time with the thump of her friend's skull.

"Kill the weak!" cheered the Iron Warrior on the other side. Two more Chaos Marines were joining him, looking rather confused as they slowly lowered their weapons.

Applejack dug her forehead into the Fireblade's abdomen again, and her neck muscles strained terrifically as she lifted Jerriha's entire body off the ground before swinging her head to the side and flinging the warrior away.

As Jerriha landed in an unsteady roll and started to cough, the apple farmer twisted her head around and bit onto the handle of the combat knife, tugging it free as blood oozed from the injury.

Applejack spat the knife out with contempt as she advanced on the alien soldier. "Ya call that a wound? Mah brother lost half his dang organs!" her body ached, yet the pain seemed distant; inconsequential, almost.

Jerriha searched frantically for another weapon, and her eyes darted to the tool locker adjacent to her. She flung open the door and her hand darted for the largest item she saw, not even bothering to identify it first.

Applejack rushed up to the cabinet and launched another kick. Not at Jerriha, but rather at the open door next to her.

The door smashed the Fireblade onto the ground as it tried to close with her in the way, and the long pole-like thing she had grabbed bounced out of her grip. She belatedly tried to roll away to a safe distance, but was stopped by an orange hoof falling on her to pin her shoulder to the stone.

"Y'all came to the wrong planet, cowgirl," Applejack said blithely, one hoof already raised above the Fireblade's face. "G'night."

****

Salt Lick Canyon - earth caste quarters

*Do you think everything's all right? We haven't heard anything from the fire teams in a while.*

Fennin rolled his eyes as he sat up in his bunk. *Of all of us, I easily have the worst opinion of our esteemed warrior caste, but even I think they should be able to handle a half-dozen alien horses and a monkey.*

*Of the same group of 'monkeys' that drove us from orbit, smashed Green Haven, and have now blown up half of THIS base?* asked an Earth Caste female with a deep frown. *I think we're past the point where we can be dismissive of them as foes.*

*I mostly credit the post-monkeys for their successes, but that's beside the point,* Fennin grumbled as his gaze swept over his subordinates, *the apes have the Warp core. Or maybe the horses do. The important thing is that WE don't.*

The engineer grimaced. *Not all of you know what that means, exactly, but suffice to say, if we don't get it back or construct a replacement, this entire mission is a wash and our whole campaign could easily end in failure.*

A younger Tau male nodded slowly. *I still think it's of greater immediate concern that we have hostiles in the base right now, and we haven't been updated on the situation.*

*Oh, for Aun'va's sake!* Fennin growled. *The grunts have better things to do right now than hold your hand, Fio'la! I'm sure they have the situation completely under control!*

Then the lights went out, plunging the room into darkness. The alarm klaxons finally went silent a moment later.

A few seconds after that, a soft humming noise came from the wall as the back-up power cells came online, and then the lights flickered back on with ominously weaker intensity.

*... Okay, so maybe there's been a hiccup in getting rid of the intruders,* Fennin admitted, massaging his forehead as he hung his head, *I really thought that giving the Fire Warriors a way to track the imbeciles and evaluate every possible escape route was enough. I duly regret my optimism.*

The engineer rose to his feet as his caste-mates stared fretfully at the dimmer ceiling lights.

*If the ape really did take out the generators, then we won't be able to contact central security control even if they did have time to talk to us,* Fennin mumbled as he approached the door and pulled the lever on the side to allow manual access, *let's see what the grunt assigned to guard us has to say about the status of the "battle" downstairs. He's probably been listening in on the comms chatter.*

Fennin opened the door.

Serith stood over the Fire Warrior guard, his free hand outstretched so that it was almost touching the helmet of the alien soldier. His weapon rested against his shoulder easily, a splash of dark blood visible on the halberd's edge.

"I'll be with you in just a moment, insect. One victim at a time," the Sorcerer said calmly, not bothering to look at the engineer.

The trembling Fire Warrior's voice choked pitifully as he slowly and tortuously turned his pulse carbine around to aim at his own chin.

Fennin closed the door just before the sound of the carbine discharge echoed through the tunnels.

*I really wish I hadn't gotten up this morning,* the engineer sighed miserably.

Author's Note

And now we learn why I don't write songs: Because I am awful at it.

On a more relevant note, I received some very valid criticisms recently that my portrayal of the Tau in this story makes them look weak and incompetent. Although I brushed this off at the time as being a matter of narrative necessity, I decided to make an effort during this chapter to make them seem more dangerous and cunning.
And then I had Applejack disarm and beat up a Tau Fireblade.
So I'm pretty sure I failed. But the important thing is that I tried!

Changes

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 6

Changes

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6

"I don't understand this arrangement at all," Gaela confessed, "why come HERE? Were you fleeing some disturbance or dissatisfaction in your region?"

Cinnamon Skies giggled, her soft, understated mirth muffled and distorted by the rebreather mask over her muzzle.

"Oh, no. Cloudsdale was fine. We just wanted to settle down somewhere a little more... adventurous than Manehatten or Ponyville. Not to mention that running a sweets shop in either place would have been a struggle. There's so much competition!"

The Dark Acolyte was currently seated at a metal table bolted to a plaza just outside of the aforementioned sweets shop, appropriately named Sugar Sky. Although the Acolyte certainly stood out as the only power-armored patron currently in the plaza, she was far from the only patron in general, and numerous menials and soldiers were either chatting at their seats or waiting patiently in the long line in front of the counter.

A more polite individual might have considered that given the shop's overwhelming customer load, she really shouldn't be wasting the waitress's time by interviewing her. Gaela paid such trivialities no mind.

"You came here for economic reasons, then. How do you supply this place, though? Where do you live?"

The purple pony leaned to the side as she answered. "Oh, we have Sugar Cane deliver supplies from New Hoofington. It's a long trip, and you wouldn't BELIEVE how she whines about being stopped and having her wagon searched by giant armored super-soldiers, but we make it worth her while."

Then she tossed her mane to the side. "As for the living arrangements, they could use a LITTLE improvement. There's so much space around here, but the room they assigned us is so small! It's like a cell!"

She idly pointed a wing at a distant tower capped with anti-aircraft missile turrets on the roof.

"That's slave cell block tertius," Gaela noted bluntly, "although our current load of prisoners is too small for us to need it, it was constructed to house prisoners being subjected to forced labor, and its facilities are indeed 'cells'."

Cinnamon frowned, and then twisted her neck about to stare hard at the structure. "Huh. Okay, yeah. That would make sense, now that I think about it. I was wondering why our room only locks from the outside." Then she smiled slyly. "I don't suppose one of the wise and mighty Dark Techpriests could help a sister out and land us a better pad?"

"I am of Acolyte rank, not a Techpriest," Gaela corrected her immediately, "and we certainly don't share any first-generation blood relation. Even if we are assuming that your kind are descended from ancient Terran stock, as my theory posits, our closest common evolutionary relative existed millions of years ago."

The pegasus stared up at the grim face mask briefly before she erupted into chortles, tapping a hoof against Gaela's leg. "Oh, you guys are a hoot! It's a shame we don't get more of you Dark fill-in-the-blanks here!"

"Ingesting sustenance that has little nutrient value is detrimental, and no one in the Dark Mechanicus would expend time and resources to procure and ingest sweets," Gaela noted, "though your business volume is clearly not suffering for our absence."

"Oh, not at all. In fact, it's been kind of a problem," Cinnamon admitted, "we've submitted a few articles to the Times advertising a need for more help. I suppose we could pile up enough money for one of those servitors, but I think it'd be great if we could get more ponies to come settle here!"

Gaela was silent for several seconds. "You do?" she finally asked, utterly perplexed.

"Yeah! I mean, you guys are great, really, but having more ponies around would really liven up this place!"

Gaela was again silent for several seconds as she mulled this over.

People did not "settle" on a military base.

That really seemed to be the root of her confusion. Settlers were a function and consequence of communities and living spaces, places that grew organically from the natural reproduction and migration of individuals. Whether guided by the hand of a strong central authority or not, such places would eventually form to provide a stable environment and produce able bodies for all the non-organic institutions of the 41st millennium, be they armies, fleets, worshipers, or manufactorums.

But settlers did not settle in military bases. Every individual here was here for a reason and had a particular purpose, from the Warsmith himself to the laborers slowly choking to death in the mines. Settlers didn't fit. Dessert shops didn't fit. Ponies in general didn't fit all that well either, although she admitted that might be a prejudice on her part.

She wondered if there was some sort of spreadsheet she could lay out, some sort of complex logistics equation, that would show the pegasus couple the error of their decision and send them packing back to their former residence. Not that she particularly wanted to get rid of them, but when faced with an irregularity her first instinct was always to hammer it back into its logical order. Years of Chaos worship hadn't quite defeated that impulse just yet, although it had at least taught her some prudence when deciding which matters to actually contest.

She duly decided that this particular irregularity did not require her efforts. Bizarre as it was, it didn't matter to her one bit if ponies settled in the fortress, nor would she expect such activities to negatively impact their objectives.

"I see. You may return to your duties," Gaela said as she stood up, her servo limbs bobbing slightly at the motion.

"You're not going to order anything?" Cinnamon asked, beckoning after her.

"I dislike sweet consumables," Gaela responded evenly as she walked away, "and I am not compensated in hard currency."

"Well, all right. But seriously, if you can get us a better living space, I'd really appreciate it!" the pegasus mare called out to her.

Gaela didn't respond as she left the area, heading in the direction of the training yards.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 8

The staccato thunder of heavy bolters rang through the air, heralding the stitches of explosive ammunition that raked over barricades and tore apart flimsy tin target boards.

Big Macintosh was not the only one at the heavy weapon ranges, although what with the way the other practitioners kept watching him rather than paying attention to their practice drills one could be mistaken for having that impression.

Another pair of target boards flipped up. Mac's eyes blinked over to them, and his visor immediately bracketed them and labeled their ranges. He felt the shifting against his ribs - or at least, against the place where his ribs used to be - as the heavy bolter adjusted its aim, and the targeting reticule in front of his eyes swept over to the boards.

A slight clenching of his abdominal muscles sent another stream of explosive death sawing across the shooting range, carving both targets apart in one sweep.

The ammo counter on his visor suddenly flashed red, demanding a reload. Not because he had actually expended much ammunition, but it was part of the drill, apparently.

The belt of heavy bolts stretching from ammo box to gun was cut loose, and the "depleted" box tumbled onto the ground at his side.

Big Mac grunted as he turned to regard the other partially depleted ammunition boxes laying around him, his servo arm creaking forward.

It had surprised him greatly that the actual targeting and firing of a human weapon had proven to be quite simple, responsive, and intuitive. He had Solon to thank for that, obviously, rather than any natural talent or equine advantage. Aiming and firing his weapon was a matter of artificial muscle control and lining up the crosshairs generated by his visor. Not rocket science.

Reloading wasn't exactly rocket science either, but it seemed a lot closer, Macintosh reflected as the mechanical claw on his back slowly lowered itself toward the ground.

The problem was the blasted servo arm. Suddenly having a fifth limb was incredibly awkward, but it was a clear necessity: his helmet prevented him from using his mouth to manipulate anything, and his leg armor made handling things with his hooves nearly impossible as well.

It took three jolting, misdirected stabs of his servo arm before he actually managed to touch one of the ammunition boxes, and then the grasping claw scraped over the top as it searched for something to seize. Big Macintosh leaned way over as he did this, looking absolutely silly in the process but intent on learning to do it.

Eventually the arm found the handle to the box and grasped it tightly. The box was hauled up as Macintosh stood up properly again, and then he twitched the arm and its cargo carefully into place where the armor would secure the box.

It only took two tries this time.

Then came the process of drawing the belt out and fixing it into the heavy bolter, which required even more precision that he didn't have with the pincer over his back. It took several minutes before the first of the heavy rounds clicked into place, and then the blinking bullet symbol at the top of his helmet display finally vanished.

"That was abysmal," crackled a voice in his ear as a vox signal patched in, "highly amusing, but abysmal. By the time you reloaded even once, any firefight you were supposed to assist would be long over."

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed. Tolken hadn't chimed in too often during his training, but when he did it was to criticize Mac's clumsy reloading. The farmpony took the rather unhelpful critique in stride; this was his first day being encased in metal and having guns plugged into his body, so he could forgive himself for his inexperience.

"You are quite fortunate that time isn't a restraint at this level of drilling," the vox crackled, "from level five onward, it will be."

Macintosh waited silently for Tolken to continue.

"This concludes level three heavy bolter drills," Tolken finally added, sounding marginally annoyed at the lack of response, "you've had enough for one day, and Dark Acolyte Gaela is here to see you off. Your safeties have been engaged."

The targeting reticule vanished from his visor display. "Eeyup," Macintosh replied as he turned away from the range. Then, after a brief, thoughtful pause, he added, "Thanks."

An indifferent grunt came from his helmet speaker before the vox line cut out.

Big Mac found Gaela waiting at the entrance to the training yards, and moved to join her without a word.

She turned around as he approached and led him away into the streets, offering no greeting or other verbal acknowledgment of his presence.

The silence stretched into its fifth minute before Gaela said something.

"I've reviewed your training logs, Macintosh. Armsmaster Tolken noted that you suffered unusually long reload times, even for someone who had never touched a heavy bolter before."

"Eeyup," Mac confirmed.

"Is there some mechanical or ergonomic deficiency with your armor?" Gaela pressed. The idea seemed almost silly to her after she'd asked; the Warsmith did not make defective or flawed equipment.

"Nope," Big Mac said, the pincer to his servo arm clanging shut noisily as it twisted about, "just need practice, Ah reckon."

Gaela nodded slowly. She had taken quite easily to her own servo limbs when they had been installed, but then she was a human born on a forge world and trained from infancy to wield such devices with precision and efficiency. Big Macintosh was a pony farmer. An adjustment period was probably to be expected.

Once again, the pair walked in silence. Neither found the lack of conversation awkward or uncomfortable, but Gaela eventually decided to speak her thoughts.

"I desire your opinion on something, Macintosh," the Dark Acolyte said suddenly, "before I met with you at the training grounds, I spoke to one of the ponies running that... shop... in sector 6."

"Eeyup?"

Gaela frowned under her mask, wondering how exactly to articulate her thoughts. "They seemed... content. Unbothered by the fortress, the soldiers, or the cultists that pervade this place. Very much unlike your sister and her friends."

Mac's head dipped in acknowledgment as he followed along behind the Acolyte. Even among the Elements of Harmony that didn't seem particularly bothered by the Chaos fortress, none of them would have liked to live there. Well, maybe Twilight, but only out of curiosity and thirst for the humans' vast stores of knowledge.

"What do you think of Ferrous Dominus?" Gaela finally asked, getting to the part that required an actual response.

Big Macintosh pondered the query in silence for nearly a full minute, as if the matter was of singular importance. Then the seals on his helmet split, and it shifted open so that he could speak without having to mumble through the vox grille.

"Ah haven't seen too much of the place outside of that party the other week," Big Mac admitted first, "but what Ah have seen is pretty hard to wrap mah head around. First thing Ah saw after Ah took a salvo in the flank was Lord Solon's workshop, and that place is strange even by your standards, Ah reckon."

"Indeed, it is," Gaela said with just a hint of pride, "the Warsmith's pet projects and idle curiosities put even the greatest Magi's efforts to shame in their complexities and power." She coughed briefly, as if cutting herself off. "Continue."

"Right. Aside from y'all bein' people from space, Ah thought this place shouldn't be TOO strange. We got cities made of clouds and cities made of crystal, so a city made of metal seems downright normal, almost."

"You have cities constructed of condensed water vapor?" Gaela asked.

"Eeyup."

"That's entirely absurd."

"Eeyup."

The Dark Acolyte could find nothing else to add to their mutual conclusion. "Continue."

"Well, when Ah was here the first time it didn't seem too bad. But Ah was with hundreds of other ponies and we were just lookin' to have a good time. Now though..."

He took another long pause to think, his voice giving way to the soft whirring of servos in his joints and the thumping of metal boots against ferrocrete.

"Somethin' about this place ain't right. Ah can feel it all over, now that Ah'm the only pony around. It's like the ground itself is sick underneath mah hooves, and Ah look at every shadow like Ah'm expectin' somethin' nasty to jump out at me."

Gaela nodded slowly. This was the first time she had ever heard Big Mac speak at length, and she had to admit being slightly impressed at the depth of his response.

"That assessment is entirely reasonable. So then, why then would any of your kind wish to live here of their own volition? I can perfectly understand trading with us and visiting our manufactory, but judging by my observations of your cultural priorities and the general opinion of your sovereign, any sane equine should be repulsed by this place as you are." Gaela explained, looking up at the plumes of toxic smoke spiraling into the sky.

Another long pause.

"It ain't mah place to speak for other ponies," Big Mac noted, "but if ya want mah best guess, Ah think some ponies just happen to like this place more'n the rest of us, and more'n a place like Cloudsdale."

Gaela's brow furrowed under her helmet. "They prefer the grinding industry of war to their idyllic, privileged lifestyles, and the danger of living alongside the Chaos cults to the safety and stability offered by your creed of 'Harmony'?" she asked.

"... Eeyup."

"I'll accept that there are many great benefits to accepting the Dark Gods and serving the Iron Warriors, as they are both paths that I have willingly chosen and am quite satisfied with," Gaela began, "but I'm fairly certain the pegasi settlers have done neither. Explain further."

Mac set his head down briefly toward the ground, once again organizing his thoughts.

"Different ponies like different things," he eventually said with a shrug as he lifted his head again, "there're plenty of ponies who were too scared to set foot in this place even fer one of Pinkie's parties. But there were also some who wanted to come back. Ah reckon some ponies like the feelin' of danger, of explorin' the unknown even if they're doin' somethin' as simple as runnin' a dessert shop."

Mac twisted his head as he watched a pair of Leman Russ battle tanks grind by, each one dressed in chains draped with skulls and broken helmets.

"And besides, the feelin' Ah mentioned is just that: a feelin'. Somethin' tells me this place ain't right, but this is also the place that brought me from good as dead to right as rain." He paused to lift his augmetic foreleg up. "So what do Ah know? Bein' creepy, fightin' all the time, and worshippin' questionable gods ain't good, but Ah'm in no position to judge. Y'all take care o'business, yer fightin' an army that's done us ponies wrong, and you've helped out me and my kin time and time again. That counts fer more than feelin's. Might even count fer more than Celestia's opinion on the matter."

The draught horse glanced left and right after he'd said that, as if afraid that he was suddenly going to be ambushed for stating such a blasphemy. "It MIGHT, mind you. Like Ah said, what do Ah know?"

"Quite a bit more than you let on," Gaela admitted, "you're quite cerebral underneath that simple-minded persona you cultivate. Is that some sort of misdirection?"

"Nope."

"Explain," Gaela said immediately, know that he'd just leave it at that otherwise.

Mac looked away to the side, embarrassed at being called smart; it was a rare compliment to be leveled at a pony of the Apple family. "Ah just prefer listenin' to talkin'. Ya pick things up sometimes."

Gaela nodded slowly. "The fact remains, though: this is a facility of war, and your people are ill-suited to it. Ponies do not belong here."

Big Macintosh shrugged, the shoulder pads of his armor suit lifting appropriately. "Eeyup. But here we are."

Gaela considered that very brief and uncomplicated thought for quite some time as they continued walking down the avenues in silence.

Then her cranial implants accessed the local noosphere databanks and she brought up the residence directories.

"Delgan's lackeys enjoy roomier quarters than the other servants of the Company," Gaela said suddenly, breaking the silence between her and the stallion, "considering that he's lost a few since the altercation at your agri-facility, he has space to spare. I'll reassign the pegasi there and have a servo skull inform them."

Big Mac didn't really know what prompted this or why she was telling him, so he did what he did best and listened silently.

Gaela made the changes as data scrolled down before her optical bionic, and then she searched the dispatch records.

"I have good news," she said a moment later, turning her head to look at Big Macintosh directly, "Sparkle's mission was completed and she and her unit are en route back to base. In addition, the restrictions on vehicle deployment have been lifted. That should make it easy to get you all home and take the artifact back here."

Big Mac thought it was strange to consider the Elements of Harmony a "unit", but waited for more information.

"Someone named Wyatt Daniels sustained considerable damage during the mission, but it seems your older sister and Sparkle survived with only minor injuries, while the others were entirely unharmed."

"Eeyup," Big Mac said happily, his mouth curling into a smile. He hadn't been told anything about a "mission", but that wasn't so important as long as Applejack was entering Ferrous Dominus in better shape than he had.

"I also have some bad news," Gaela said, her tone turning irritable.

"Eeyup?" Mac asked, wondering what could be wrong if everypony was already safe and coming back.

"This is where I left your youngest sibling and the others," Gaela said, stopping suddenly.

Big Mac halted as well, and then looked around. They were currently in a wide lot between buildings, with nothing much around besides wandering menials and a big stack of metal crates. Had Gaela seriously just dropped them off in a random open space and expected them to stay there?

The Dark Acolyte picked up one piece of an empty metal crate that had been ripped in half, suggesting that no, she had not done that at all.

"I should have expected this, really," Gaela admitted, "you ponies have always turned out to be more resourceful than we give you credit for. I could have stationed a servitor to guard them, or at least a skull to follow and track them when they escaped."

Heaving a sigh at her error, she glanced over at Big Macintosh, who had his ears flat against his head and was giving her a most impressive, and entirely silent, glare.

She hated to admit it, but it bothered her a lot more than she had predicted it would.

"I apologize for losing track of the younglings," Gaela said reluctantly, bumping the butt of her power axe onto the ground and bowing her head, "I had taken that responsibility upon myself despite your own obvious reluctance to allow it, and I have failed you. I will proceed to seek out their whereabouts and recover them safely."

"Nope," Big Mac said, his eyes still narrowed dangerously.

He continued staring up at the Dark Acolyte, his eyes warring a silent battle of wills against the eerie glow of her mask optics.

After several seconds, Gaela finally turned her head away. "Fine," she grumbled, "I'm also sorry for sealing them inside a cargo crate to keep them from getting into trouble. NOW may I seek them out?"

"Eeyup," Macintosh nodded sharply, stepping away and finally letting the intensity in his eyes drop. He doubted the sincerity of Gaela's apology, mostly because he knew that she lacked anything resembling empathy for other creatures, but at the very least he could be sure she was plenty embarrassed about having taken on a job and bungled it so completely.

Then a light flashed on his gorget, and he blinked in surprise as a vox message reached him without all of the indicators and information offered by his helmet visor.

"Hello? Is this... what was his name, again? Right. Big Macintosh?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said as Gaela stopped browsing the noosphere network and turned toward him again.

"Okay, good. Trixie was surprised to find you had your own vox unit," the voice on the other end admitted, causing both pony and human to raise an eyebrow at the distantly familiar speaking pattern, "look, this isn't really Trixie's problem, but the Iron Warriors keep calling on Trixie to deal with other ponies, even though there's supposed to be people for that now. Is your filly missing?"

There was some incoherent noise in the background. "Okay, fine, Trixie gets it! Sorry, your little sister is here in Trixie's room. And getting on the Great and Powerful Trixie's meager and surprisingly thin nerves, Trixie might add."

Big Mac couldn't help but smile at that, now that he knew the Cutie Mark Crusaders were all right. "Eeyup. Ah'll go get 'em. Thank you, Miss Trixie."

"Yes, yes, Trixie accepts your thanks. Just hurry up. They're practically having a dance party over here. So much fuss just because they got their cutie marks..."

The vox cut out as Mac blinked in surprise.

"So they succeeded, then? Well, maybe some good came out of this after all," Gaela mumbled as she turned around and started walking at a much better pace than before, "follow me, Macintosh. The entertainer is being housed in the psyker dorms."

"Eeyup," Mac mumbled as he hurried to follow. It was strange; Apple Bloom getting her cutie mark was the first bit of entirely good news to greet the Apple family since their whole involvement with aliens began. She had been working for years to find her special talent, and she had found it, of all places, in the heart of a human military base. That was fantastic!

So then why did he feel so uneasy?

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 24 landing platforms

The Scavurel gunship hissed noisily as the access ramp lowered itself onto the embarkation platform, the engines winding down their power cycles. Immediately a trio of grav-platforms were brought down the ramp, each one bearing a body on it and being attended to by Dark Mechanicus medicae biologis. The first two were Iron Warriors, their armor cracked and blackened by energy bursts, and the Dark Acolytes chittered noisily as they walked along the armored warriors and discussed the best ways to go about the upcoming surgeries. The final one, which was being tugged along by an aspirant like a mere afterthought, carried Wyatt Daniels on it.

"Y'all are gonna make sure he's okay, right? Hello?" Applejack was the first to follow the makeshift stretchers out, and had a small, bloodied patch just behind her shoulder. She had been completely ignored by the Dark Acolytes after they had finished disinfecting and stitching up her knife wound, and little of their attention was being put to use on Daniels instead.

"Applejack, relax. His wounds aren't fatal, and I doubt they carried him all the way back here with the intention to just let him die on his bunk," Rarity noted. The other ponies exited behind her, all of them with very different levels of concern.

"Hey, do you think we have to give Morty back now that we're done? I think him and Gummy would get along great!" Pinkie asked brightly. She was wearing the servo skull as a hat again.

Applejack sighed and cast a final, sad glance at the mercenary's stretcher as it was carried away. Rarity was right, of course, but it never sat well with her how easily everyone seemed to take him for granted.

Then again, she was the one who had asked him to be sent along with them, so Applejack supposed she didn't have room to talk.

"Ah, good ol' Ferry Dee! Home away from home!" Rainbow Dash said with a chuckle as she took to the air above the platform, scanning the area and making note of all the most obvious technological curiosities. "So what do we do now? Mission accomplished, right?"

"Ooh! That's a GREAT theme for a party!" Pinkie said, jumping up. "I know! I'll make a cake like one of those space ships we captured!"

Rainbow Dash snickered as she rubbed her front hooves together. "Sure, a party is a good start, but I was hoping to get something else out of this, actually. I think a little REWARD might be coming our way, eh?"

"Rainbow, have you forgotten that we've already been 'paid' for this mission?" Twilight asked as she fixed her respirator mask in place. Rarity was magically tugging a sheet out of the gunship's medical supply cache to hold over herself like a tarp.

"Sure, sure, but we captured THREE space ships for them in that place! That's a big deal, right? Couldn't hurt to ask for a bit of a 'bonus', right?"

The pegasus suddenly felt a sharp tug on her tail, and she yelped and landed unsteadily as she was pulled back to the ground.

Twisting her head around to complain, she found Applejack almost nose-to-nose with her, and the words died in her throat.

"Now Dash, this is important, so Ah want ya to listen real careful," Applejack said in a deadly serious voice, "Twi's right. That's Big Macintosh you're weighin' against those fancy space tubs and the rest of the base. And his life is worth more than all the ships, guns, soldiers, and random piles o'scrap on and around this here planet PUT TOGETHER. So we ain't gonna be askin' Mister Solon fer no favors, because that measly gopher's nest we just handed him barely qualifies as a down payment on what Ah owe him fer fixing up mah big bro." Rainbow Dash was cringing away by now as Applejack's eyes narrowed. "We clear?"

"C-Crystal!" Rainbow said, gulping.

"Good," Applejack's demeanor changed instantly, and she smiled as she started fitting her respirator into place.

Twilight nodded somberly. "I agree. For all my reservations about what we've done here, I'd feel the same way if it were my brother in Big Mac's place."

"Well, Ah don't know about that," Applejack mumbled as she pulled the mask down over head, "Shinin' would be worth MAYBE two space ships."

"Hey!" Twilight shouted angrily.

"Oh, come on Applejack. He's the Captain of the royal guard!" Rarity reminded the farmer as she stepped out onto the platform with the sheet hovering over her. "Let's say two and a half."

"HEY!"

The impending argument was cut short as a familiar, rapid stomping noise approached from below the platform. By now every one of the ponies could recognize the sound of Solon when the Warsmith was on the move.

"Hey, Shmithy's here! Let's go!" Pinkie said excitedly as she bolted down the stairs. The others followed with slightly less enthusiasm, and Twilight fumed silently during the short trip to ground level.

"Hey Shmithy! We're back!" Pinkie had been the first to leave and she was the first to reach the Warsmith, skidding to a halt and then snapping a foreleg up in a salute. "Mission accomplished, Sir!" Morty mimicked the gesture with one of its cables, drawing the dangling pipe over its forehead.

"Sho I've sheen," Solon began as the other ponies joined their pink friend, "fine work, girlsh. You've brought great benefit to the Company and by extenshion, the Legion. May I ashume Shliver debriefed you?"

"Yes. He was tough, but fair," Twilight confirmed. "... Mostly tough."

"He doeshn't sheem to care for you equinesh, to be honesht, but the victory you've handed ush hash lightened hish mood conshiderably." Solon shrugged. "Well then, if there ish nothing elshe, you may meet with your kin and depart the fortresh at your leishure. Shpeak to Gaela and she will arrange for a gunship now that transhport reshtrictionsh have been lifted."

"Ooh! Ooh! Do we get medals for doing such a super-duper job?" Pinkie asked, waving a foreleg into the air.

"You want medalsh?" Solon briefly considered the matter, tilting his helmet to one side. "Sure, why not? I can do that."

The Warsmith stomped over to the side of the landing pads toward a stack of supply crates.

"So... that aside, how will the capture of the Tau facility change things strategically in your conflict?" Twilight asked, following behind the hulking Chaos Lord. "This was the second of only three bases they have here, right?"

"Ah, good queshtion!" Solon murmured as he found the crate he was looking for and lifted the top off of it. Inside were countless lengths of iron chain.

"In termsh of the immediate military shtand-off between the 38th Company and the Lamman Shept, it changesh very little. Only a tiny portion of their resherve shtrength wash held at the captured facility."

He took up a length of chain and his mechatendrils went to work. The Warsmith was facing away from the ponies, though, so none of them could tell exactly what he was doing as they heard the sound of drills and welders activating.

"In the long run, the effect may be devashtating. The main Tau bashe hash no hangarsh, and the facility jusht captured houshed all of the equipment one would need to facilitate orbital operationsh or planetary evacuation."

Twilight nodded thoughtfully, but the rest of the equines looked fairly lost by the explanation. As if he sensed this, Solon turned his head to the side as his welders continued their work.

"The Tau army is well and truly trapped here on thish planet. They have no shipsh to leave, and they have no shafe haven to await pickup by an outshide fleet. Anything more that the grayshkinsh hope to accomplish here, they either do by shtealth, or they go through my army."

Applejack grinned, adjusting her hat. "Well, that sounds mighty fine to me."

"Does it? I'm pretty sure trapping a hostile army here is the OPPOSITE of what we want," Rarity pointed out.

"Regardlesh, although the Tau may have to operate primarily through shtealth, it hash not eshcaped notice that they sheem to be quite good at it. I've been shtudying the recordsh of their Shept, and thish army ish quite renowned for their reliance on shtealth technologiesh and covert tacticsh. Shomewhat unusual for grayshkinsh."

"Okay... so do we know what they're here for, yet?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Not a clue," Solon admitted as his chassis turned around, the legs pounding against the ferrocrete rapidly. "Line up, now."

"Hooray! Award party!" Pinkie cheered, leaping up onto her hind legs and flinging a burst of confetti into the air as the Iron Warrior approached them.

Hanging from his left hand were half a dozen light chains, each one with a heavy bolter round attached at one point, like an amulet.

"Did you put all those together just now from scraps that were lying around?" Rarity asked as her ears flattened against her head.

"Yesh, it wash quite shpur of the moment. Much like the mission you jusht returned from. It'sh shymbolic."

"He's gotcha there," Rainbow Dash said as she trotted up to the Chaos Lord, "lay it on me, big guy!"

Solon leaned down and pulled the first of the loops of chain over Rainbow Dash's head. "In recognition of your shervice to the Company and the Legion, I award you all the shilver bolt," he said in a rather dull tone of voice. Clearly the Warsmith wasn't taking this very seriously, although the ponies in turn didn't seem especially bothered by his attitude. Rainbow let out a happy noise and poked at the bullet with her hoof as Solon stepped to the side.

Next was Applejack, who accepted the award with a small, silent smirk.

Rarity was next, but as he budged the hovering sheet out of the way to place the chain around the unicorn's neck it was suddenly pulled off of his hand by her levitation.

"Oh, thank you Mister Solon! This will look just lovely in my office," she said with a false smile as the chain was tucked away into her saddlebag.

"Where nopony else can see it," she added under her breath as the Chaos Lord marched on to Pinkie.

"So if we do even better on the next mission, do we get a gold bolt?" Pinkie asked excitedly as the makeshift amulet was draped around her neck.

Solon paused. "I washn't planning on giving you any more missionsh, actually."

Pinkie looked surprised, and then distressed by the news. "But then we'll NEVER get our adamant bolts! C'mon Shmithy, give us another chance!" The servo skull on her head let out a series of squealing beeps, its sensors flashing wildly.

Solon tilted his head to one side. "... Why are you addreshing me as 'Shmithy'?"

"Please, never mind her, she's loopy," Twilight pointed out.

Solon hesitantly stepped past Pinkie, and his torso swiveled to face the only alicorn of the group.

Twilight pulled her head back uncertainly. "Also, I don't think I'll be needing one of those. But thanks."

"Oh? Why not?" Solon asked curiously, leaning back again.

"Because I'm not proud of what we accomplished today," Twilight said bluntly, "yes, the Tau are our enemy. Yes, we fought and even killed them for Big Mac's sake. I don't regret it, but I'm not happy about it."

She cast her gaze over to another gunship that was emptying a line of Tau prisoners onto the platform, all of them in shackles and guarded by Iron Warriors.

"We killed people today. And helped kill others. And even those Tau that survived are condemned to a life of suffering because of us. The Tau aren't mindless monsters or evil creatures; they're intelligent people who have ended up on the wrong side of this conflict for reasons we don't even understand."

"Well, I say some of them deserve it," Rainbow Dash interjected, spotting a familiar face among the line of captured aliens. Then she jumped into the air and cupped her hooves around her mouth. "HEY, FENNIN!! YOU SUCK!!"

"UP YOURS, YOU MUTANT LIVESTOCK!!" came the shouted reply, followed by a yelp of pain as a Marine shoved him forward.

Twilight cleared her throat meaningfully before she continued. "Right. Anyway. All of this was in aid of YOUR goals, which aren't the same as ours. I'm plenty happy that we made it out okay and that Big Macintosh is better, but everything else was a tragic necessity to make that happen."

As the alicorn finished her monologue, Solon took a long moment to absorb the lecture, his optics slowly rotating within his helmet.

"I want you to take thish," he said finally, plunking the chain loop unceremoniously over Twilight's horn.

"What? But I just-"

Twilight began to sputter another refusal, but Solon interrupted her.

"You, at leasht, recognize the shignificance of your deedsh today beyond the dry calculush of material tonnage or the dizzy elation of a hard-won victory. You may wish for shomething to remember it by," Solon insisted, his gaze lingering on the purple pony before he stepped past her with the final amulet.

"And lasht but not... wait, I thought there were shix of you?" Solon asked, noting that there wasn't another pony waiting behind Twilight.

"Oh, Flutters is hiding over behind that platform column," Rainbow Dash noted as she swooped in and took the last length of chain, "you still kind of freak her out. I'll give it to her."

"Very well. Until we meet again, poniesh." Solon's legs beat a heavy rhythm against the ferrocrete as he walked off to see to his other duties. The servo skull on Pinkie's head lifted off and zoomed off after the Iron Warrior a moment later, much to Pinkie's disappointment.

"That was a bit rude, Twilight, but really, I don't blame you one bit," Rarity opined as she grimaced at the length of chain around Applejack's neck, "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing this thing! SO tacky! And the gunmetal clashes horribly with my coat!"

"Well, Ah think they're right nice," Applejack said fondly as she raised a foreleg under the chain to stare at the bolt round, "and probably better'n those Chaos Stars that Daniels and the rest wear."

"True, I wouldn't want to wear one of those either. For completely different reasons."

Twilight's head leaned forward so that the chain was hanging loosely in front of her, and she stared down at the unspent ammunition attached to it.

"Why a bullet?" the alicorn asked with a frown.

"Because he cobbled these 'awards' together with whatever was lying around, obviously," Rarity said as she rolled her eyes, "I suppose we should be thankful he didn't try to pin loose chunks of ferrocrete to our chests and call them badges."

"Heh! That woulda been bad even fer these guys!" Applejack snickered. "C'mon girls, let's go find Mac."

"Are we going to leave after that?"

"Ah was hopin' to stay the night, actually. Ah really wanna check on Daniels 'fore we take off."

"Sounds good! Hey, Fluttershy, c'mon out! Try on your Silver Bolt!"

As the other mares started chatting and walking off toward the avenues, Twilight continued staring at the heavy bolter round that had been given to her, her face eventually shifting into a grimace.

"Completely expendable, are we?" she mumbled to herself.

Uttering a sigh, she kicked her head back to let the chain loop fall around her neck as it was supposed to, and then followed her friends deeper into the fortress.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6, Trixie's room

"Don't worry everypony! I'll save us!" Twilight shouted, galloping to the fore as the enormous monster beckoned.

A glow encompassed her horn as the purple unicorn quivered, and then it swallowed her entire body, until finally a beam lanced from her horn into the great blue beast looming over her.

The ursa minor staggered, but then it spread its arms wide and released an enraged roar, undaunted by Twilight's magical power.

"But how can this be?" Twilight gasped, backing up before the horrifying creature. "I'm Celestia's student, the most powerful unicorn in all the land!"

"Oh no!" cried Rainbow Dash and Applejack, running in circles after each other in a panic. "Even Twilight can't stop an ursa minor! We're doomed! DOOMED!!"

"HOLD ON, EVERYPONY!!" boomed a new voice, causing the ponies to freeze in place and the ursa minor to look up in confusion.

Trixie stood atop a cliff, her wizard's cape billowing dramatically in the wind as she stared down at the occupants of Ponyville.

"Trixie! What are you doing here?" Twilight demanded.

"Why, the Great and Powerful Trixie could only have one reason to appear right now! To help out with a little animal control!" the blue unicorn said, rearing up and glaring at the enormous blue bear.

Twilight shook her head. "Trixie, if even I, the admittedly impressive and surprisingly competent Twilight Sparkle couldn't banish this creature, how could you manage? You'll never be as good as I am!"

Trixie shook her head. "Tut tut, Sparkle! This is no time to be worrying about our petty rivalry! Ponies are in danger!" She landed back on all fours. "We must put aside our differences and combine our power! Together, NOTHING is beyond the reach of our magical might!"

"Okay, no, that is NOT what happened," Scootaloo interrupted.

Trixie paused in her story, all the small pony puppets freezing in place within her magical levitation.

"Ya know we're FROM Ponyville, right? Everypony knows that Twilight Sparkle stopped the ursa minor and that you were useless," Apple Bloom pointed out.

Trixie's eyes narrowed. "As Trixie noted before starting, this tale is BASED on a true story. Some details may have been altered or embellished for artistic purposes."

"Or made up completely," Sweetie Belle deadpanned.

"Trixie is TRYING to put on a puppet show here, not a documentary!"

"If you're going to just change the story to make it better, then you should make Rainbow Dash the hero," Scootaloo insisted.

Suuna, Gaela, and Big Macintosh observed the rapidly escalating shouting match from off to the side, each occupied with their own thoughts.

Suuna was quite intrigued by Big Macintosh, wondering what circumstances had arisen that could have possibly led to the Iron Warriors giving bionic implants and even a power armor suit to a pony.

Big Mac himself was quite worried about his little sister and her friends, hoping that they weren't pestering Trixie too much.

Gaela had a dataslate in her hands and was currently taking notes. Her observations were of a distinctly scientific nature, and were based entirely upon the new marks that now decorated the fillies' hind legs: the mark of Khorne for Scootaloo, Tzeentch for Sweetie Belle, and Nurgle for Apple Bloom.

She knew that all the ponies that had been in contact with Chaos forces had so far failed to show any kind of corruption or dark influence despite such contact. She had not considered - and for very sound, logical reasons - that any ponies might choose to devote themselves willingly to Chaos worship.

Now that this had happened, she was quite intrigued. Taking on a patron's mark and devoting one fully to the cult had a wide range of possible effects, the most common being mutation, death, and/or insanity, but the results depended greatly on the individual and their ability to satisfy their chosen deity.

She certainly didn't have high hopes for the little orange one that had apparently taken up the cause of the Blood God. Gaela idly wondered if it were possible for the Dark Gods to take a mark away out of embarrassment and regret.

A beeping noise alerted the room's occupants to someone waiting outside, and Trixie quickly snapped her head toward the door, glad for a distraction.

"You stand before the room of the Great and Powerful Trixie! You may enter at once!" she shouted grandly, sweeping a foreleg to the side.

The doors slid open, and Applejack stepped into the room with an obvious spring in her step.

"Hey, y'all! We're back!" the other Elements of Harmony entered behind her.

"Sis! Sis! Look!" Apple Bloom said breathlessly as she and the other two fillies dashed away from Trixie's improvised puppet stage. "Ah finally got mah cutie mark!"

"We did, too! Look!"

The other ponies halted, shock taking hold before cautiously shifting to happy surprise as they saw the symbols that now adorned the young ponies' hips.

All except for Twilight, anyway; her jaw had gone slack and her face had turned ashen as soon as she got a good look at the new marks.

"Well Ah'll be! And ain't ya just like yer big sis, too! It looks a lot like mine! What kinda apples're those?" Applejack asked, sidling over to compare her own cutie mark. Apple Bloom's mark was comprised of three light green circles arranged in a triangle, not unlike the three red apples that made up each of her own marks.

"Erm... Ah don't think they're apples, actually," Apple Bloom confessed.

"Oh. Well, that's all right. What are they? Melons? Limes?" Her eyes narrowed. "They ain't PEARS, are they?"

"The circles don't represent any kind of fruit," Gaela noted, still writing absently in her dataslate.

As Applejack puzzled that over, Rarity was observing Sweetie Belle's cutie mark critically, a hoof tapping her chin.

"Well, I must say the azure shade complements your coat wonderfully," the designer said approvingly, "although the actual mark seems a bit... obscure. Is it a hook? A teardrop?"

"I think it's a flame," Sweetie Belle said, glancing back at her rear, "but look! I can do magic now!"

Rarity blinked in surprise. "You can? What spell could you learn in a place like this?"

"Here, watch!" Sweetie Belle said as her horn crackled with electric arcs.

Trixie's eyes widened. "Hey, wait! Stop!"

Sweetie's eyes flashed brightly, becoming windows of pure light as her horn was encompassed by an aura of coruscating energy. Rarity stepped backward uncertainly as her little sister reared up onto her hind legs, and then the young unicorn uttered a syllable that no pony tongue should have been able to pronounce.

The lumen strips above immediately blew out in a burst of sparks, casting the room into darkness as Fluttershy yelped in shock. Gaela staggered as her optical bionics started returning hideous images of screaming faces, and Big Mac felt his augmetics started to twitch about on their own volition.

Then the spell ended, and the glow from Sweetie's horn vanished.

"Trixie TOLD you not to do that again!" the blue unicorn growled as her horn lit up the room. "Now Trixie has to have the lumens fixed!"

"On it," Gaela said immediately, rounding on the nearest light source as her opticals reset themselves.

Rarity made a face as Sweetie Belle simply sat back proudly. "Uh... what, exactly, is that spell supposed to do?"

Sweetie Belle's pleased expression fell slightly. "Well... I'm not totally sure, actually."

"Based on Trixie's observations, it mostly annoys others and spreads havoc," Trixie said with narrowed eyes.

"It looks like you found your special talent!" Pinkie cheered. Rarity was glad to hear somepony else say it, as it relieved her of the temptation to make the connection herself.

Don't listen to them. They're all just jealous of your vast power and wisdom, said a soothing voice from the back of Sweetie's mind.

"Thanks, Tzeentch," the unicorn filly said with a bright smile.

"Thank who?" Rarity asked, cocking her head to the side.

The lights flickered back on as Gaela repaired the nearest lumen strip overhead, allowing Trixie to let her light spell end.

"And check out my mark! Isn't it awesome?" Scootaloo said, ducking down and wagging her rump in the air. She had a black "X" that was underlined with a line of teeth, such that it looked vaguely like a face.

"That's the same symbol that Tellis has on his shoulder pad," Rainbow Dash noted, raising an eyebrow.

"I know! Veggie God all the way!" Scootaloo said, raising her hoof up to the other pegasus.

"Heh. Veggie God. Classic," Rainbow replied with a snicker, bumping Scootaloo's hoof.

There was an uncomfortable pause as the ponies made an important connection.

"Wait, ya mean Scoots is part of that nutty 'Blood God' cult now?" Applejack asked, wincing.

"It's not just her," Twilight said nervously, speaking for the first time since they'd entered Trixie's room, "Applejack, do you remember somewhere ELSE we've seen Apple Bloom's cutie mark recently?"

The farmpony furrowed her brow. "Well, it ain't like a pyramid of three round things is exactly rare, as symbols go." Applejack patted her hip with a foreleg for emphasis.

"Okay, sure, but... think about it," Twilight insisted, "do you remember seeing something like that before? Like, say, on a suit of armor?"

All was silent for a few seconds as she considered it, hoof to her chin and eyes on the ceiling.

"Well, actually, Solon himself has somethin' like that, if I remember right. Oh! And that big ugly guy that saved us in the hangar! And all the big'uns that zapped in there with 'im."

Applejack lowered her head to stare down at Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom blinked back.

"Uh oh."

"Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that they've all been inducted into some kind of evil cult?" Rarity asked, her eyes wide.

"No, we've each been inducted into a different evil cult. Which forms a single greater pantheon, but still," Sweetie Belle explained, apparently oblivious to the ponies' mounting unease, "also, you could have just asked us rather than puzzling it out like that."

"Well, congratulations!" Pinkie shouted suddenly, throwing bursts of confetti into the air as she reared up on her hind legs. "I'll throw you all a big 'Welcome to the Dark Side' party to celebrate getting your cutie marks and finding your true destinies as mutant pawns of evil Warp Gods!" Pinkie then found herself the subject of numerous annoyed glares, and her bright enthusiasm visibly dimmed. "No? Is this... are we not happy about this? Oh. Okay." She slowly lowered herself back onto the ground, smiling nervously.

Gaela finished with the last lumen strip and finally rejoined the conversation. "It would seem they made the conversion willingly, but nonetheless the fault for this state of affairs is mine. It was through my error that they were able to navigate the fortress unsupervised, and I apologize." The Dark Acolyte bowed her head.

"Hey, can WE can get an apology too? For that whole deal with the metal box?" Scootaloo groused.

"I already apologized for that," Gaela insisted.

"Not to us ya didn't!" Apple Bloom protested.

Applejack shook her head and then turned toward Big Mac. "Mac, what were ya thinkin' handin' the youngin's over to Gaela to look after?! She's about as qualified a foal-sitter as she is a chef!" Big Mac winced, dipping his head lower toward the floor.

Gaela frowned. "I would find your presumption of incompetence deeply offensive if events hadn't already vindicated it. But that aside, I took responsibility without offering Macintosh a chance to refuse. The fault lay with me." She paused briefly. "And, of course, with the idiot children."

"Takes one to know one!" Scootaloo snapped.

"Don't think that the Blood God is going to intervene to save you from getting stepped on, orange pest."

Twilight heaved a deep sigh. "Okay, let's think this through. There has to be a way to reverse this."

The fillies immediately looked alarmed.

"Reverse it? But why? Do you have any idea how long we've waited to get our cutie marks?" Apple Bloom asked, her eyes growing big and dewy.

"Those aren't cutie marks, they're Chaos marks," Twilight pointed out sharply.

"They're pictures on our butt that describe what we're about," Scootaloo said with a roll of her eyes, "cutie, Chaos, whatever."

"You don't UNDERSTAND," Twilight insisted, "you've been corrupted!"

"'Corrupted' is such an... ugly word," Sweetie Belle muttered as she approached the alicorn thoughtfully, "I prefer to say we've been CHANGED. In some ways we've changed for the better, and, maybe in some small, insignificant way we might also have possibly changed for the slightly worse. Kind of."

Rarity shook her head. "I'm sorry Sweetie Belle, but I have to side with Twilight on this. As much as we've learned to live with the humans' bizarre cult, to accept it into our own home is just-"

"I promise not to use magic in the boutique," Sweetie Belle interrupted. Then she reluctantly added, "or cook."

"... Is just the very ESSENCE of tolerance, is it not?" Rarity finished, suddenly addressing Twilight instead. "Besides, who am I to try to control my sister's life right down to telling her which religions are and aren't okay?"

Twilight gaped. "But... You... She..."

Rarity walked past the purple pony while she was still stuttering. "Come on, Sweetie Belle. We're staying the night here, so that gives me some extra time to think up a nice little dress to hide that mark from any suspicious royal guards."

"You're the best, Rarity!" Sweetie Belle cheered as she followed her sister out the door. Then she said much more quietly, "Nice save back there, Tzeentch."

"Really though, who is 'Tzeentch'?"

Applejack gave her younger sister a long sideways glance before she shrugged her shoulders. "Well, we should get goin' too. Ah'm hungry as a hog and we've got plenty to do when we get back to the farm tomorrow. Gotta rest up."

Twilight snapped her head around toward Applejack. "Wait, what? But that mark is-"

"Yeah, Ah know," the apple farmer said with a roll of her eyes, "but ya know what? This time yesterday Ah wasn't sure if Ah'd ever see my brother again. Just a few hours ago Ah wasn't sure he was gonna ever see ME again. And Celestia knows worse things coulda happened to 'em around here."

"Trixie is MOST pleased by the quality of human-made fire suppression systems," Trixie interjected briefly, "Trixie had the 'opportunity' to see them in action twice before Miss Gaela and Mister Macintosh arrived."

"Right. Thanks," Applejack mumbled before she put a foreleg around her little sister, "mah point is that right now Ah'm too thankful that me and mah kin are still in walkin' shape to worry about 'corruption' or whatever. Ah need some time to recharge 'fore Ah can panic about this."

"Thanks, sis!" Apple Bloom chirped. She didn't know what the big deal was at all, but she was glad that they weren't going to march her back to the temple and get her new cutie mark removed. She had no idea if that was possible, but considering how easy they were to get, who knows?

"So nopony minds if I keep MY cutie mark, right?" Scootaloo asked cautiously.

Rainbow Dash looked down at her and then shrugged. "I think it looks good on you."

"Awesome," the pegasus filly said with a grin. Being an orphan had its advantages sometimes.

"Wait! You guys! This is important!" Twilight protested as the other ponies save Trixie and Fluttershy began to head out of the room. "I think this is what Princess Celestia was worried about happening!"

"Now, Ah ain't sayin' she's wrong," Applejack noted as she led Apple Bloom into the hall, "but Ah WILL point out that she ain't exactly been battin' a hundred when it comes to the humans."

"Applejack, this has NOTHING to do with hoofball!" Twilight ran after the departing ponies, determined to be heard.

"I can hardly be considered an unbiased source, but I do think she's overreacting," Gaela said, her left hand tracing the Chaos Star emblazoned on her chest, "this entire fleet travels and fights in service to Chaos. Sparkle doesn't seem to find us THAT repulsive."

"Well, um, does it mean that they'll end up like Tellis?" Fluttershy asked meekly. "He's the only one of you that I know very well."

"Oh." Gaela's frown deepened. "Ah. Yes. I suppose that WOULD reflect poorly upon the members of the cults. But I can assure you that..."

Then she trailed off. "Wait, the orange one actually associates with Tellis, doesn't she? That IS a concern."

"Well, Trixie's concern ends at Trixie's front door," Trixie said, glad to have the noisy arguments carried out of her room, "really, if they're at that age and don't even have their cutie marks, then they obviously needed all the help they can get. It's quite closed-minded of Sparkle to insist that dark spirits beyond the veil are off the table."

"She has a valid point if the political atmosphere in Equestria deteriorates further. They could be maligned or imprisoned for bearing those marks. Such practices are the norm in the vast majority of human settlements," Gaela admitted, "although obviously the fault in that case would be-"

A loud thunderclap interrupted the Dark Acolyte, and every occupant of Trixie's room flinched as the walls quivered from a sudden wave of force.

"Yeep! What was that?!" Fluttershy yelped as she searched for a place to hide.

"Are we under attack? Is it the Tau again?" Trixie growled as she levitated a pillow into the air and revealed a pair of boltguns laying underneath. Suuna winced but generally remained calm, knowing that the alarm system would have informed them of any such assault.

Gaela's frown turned into a full-blown grimace as her optics briefly scanned the hallway. "Nothing so simple as that. It seems Serith has stopped by."

****

Hallway

Smoke wafted from Twilight's horn as she glared hard at the Chaos Sorcerer standing several meters away and blocking the only exit.

"Temper temper, Princess. You're in MY home now. Do try to show some etiquette." Serith's left arm was held out in front of him, and the psykant occulus set in his palm hummed brilliantly as it swallowed the ambient magic left over from Twilight's attack.

"Step. Away. From my friends," Twilight growled, a violet arc of energy whipping about the tip of her horn.

Rarity and Sweetie Belle were standing in the corner immediately behind Serith, with the former standing in front of the latter protectively despite being obviously scared out of her wits. The other mares and Big Macintosh were flanking Twilight on the opposite side of the Iron Warrior, Apples on one side of her with Pinkie and Rainbow on the other.

"Oh, but an opportunity like this is FAR too intriguing to relinquish," Serith replied as his helmet tilted toward Sweetie Belle, who gulped. "Here I thought your people bore some sort of resistance, perhaps even immunity, to the touch of Chaos. There are questions to be answered. I'll be taking the little psyker. In the name of science, of course."

Twilight made an incoherent growling noise, a ball of crackling energy gathering on the tip of her horn and preparing for discharge.

"You will NOT take my sister!" Rarity said shakily. She wasn't nearly as confident as Twilight was in their ability to face the Sorcerer, and she hadn't gotten any new weapons since they had gotten back.

Big Mac's helmet hissed as it shifted back up into place, enclosing his head. Serith actually found it quite interesting to see a pony in a power armor suit, but he had other curiosities to explore at the moment.

"Lord Serith." Gaela stepped into the hall with her power axe over her shoulder and a tired grimace on her exposed face. "My lord, I believe the Warsmith-"

"The Warsmith has nothing to do with this, Acolyte," Serith interrupted, "nor do you. Be silent, now."

The Iron Warrior dipped his force halberd down, the tip of its blade pointing toward Apple Bloom and Scootaloo off to the side. "My, but our cults are popular nowadays, are they not? They would make a poor substitution, but perhaps I could be persuaded to take the lesser two younglings."

"Yer not takin' nopony!" Applejack snarled.

"Say again, orange horse?" the Sorcerer asked.

Applejack cocked her head to the side. "Well, actually, now that Ah think about it, Ah guess it wouldn't hurt if-STOP DOIN' THAT!!"

Sweetie Belle chewed her lip as she watched the stand-off play out in front of her, idly wondering if using her new (and only) spell could possibly help the situation.

A fool and a coward, a voice laughed in her head, Ahriman was right about him. Solon should have left him as a worthless pile of dust.

Sweetie Belle, not really understanding but feeling quite upset at the Sorcerer, decided to take the initiative.

"Tzeentch says Ahriman was right!" the unicorn filly shouted suddenly. "You're a fool and a coward! Solon should have left you as dust!"

Sweetie wasn't exactly sure what she had been hoping to accomplish with the insult besides hurt his feelings. More to the point, she didn't really consider what would happen if she succeeded.

Throwing his arms out, Serith released a pulse of force that smashed into the mares and fillies and scattered them like bowling pins. Twilight released her spell on reflex as she was flung through the air, but the flickering magic sphere went wildly off-target and cut a molten gouge into the wall instead of Serith's face.

The Sorcerer turned around immediately to face the two white unicorns, both of whom had been slammed against the wall. "He... WOULD say that, wouldn't he?" the Sorcerer's voice was wavering, trying to contain and control his emotions.

Big Macintosh snorted as he raised his head. The boots of his suit had mag-locked him to the floor, and the kinetic wave had barely budged him. Serith wasn't looking his way anymore either, the Chaos psyker's attention entirely given over to Sweetie Belle as the young unicorn staggered upright.

"But enough about me," the Sorcerer said hotly, levering the force halberd at her, "let's begin. Experiment number one."

The force halberd crackled, seething with psionic power. Big Macintosh surged forward into a charge. Gaela snapped up her plasma pistol.

"All right, ALL RIGHT!! Everybody just calm the buck down!"

The energies around the halberd fizzled. Big Macintosh braked, his armored hooves screeching across the metal floor. Gaela blinked, and then stared at her pistol.

Trixie trotted past Fluttershy, who was watching the scene unfold near her door, and the entertainer cast an annoyed glance at the various mares and fillies who were picking themselves off the floor as she walked past them.

"Serith, did you say 'experiment'? Because if so, please allow Trixie to save you a heap of trouble and warn you that these three are NOT worth it." The blue unicorn cast a brief glare at Sweetie Belle, who admittedly looked plenty terrified already.

Serith hesitated. "They are the only ponies to have been touched yet by Chaos. The implications-"

"Can be observed from a safe distance, I'm sure," Trixie interrupted, reaching the Sorcerer and tapping his leg with a hoof, "those three are a magic catastrophe waiting to happen, and Trixie knows you have enough of a problem with lab explosions." She flicked her tail across the Iron Warrior's knee before she turned around and started heading back toward her room.

"Those were due to extraordinary circumstances," Serith said defensively as he followed Trixie, turning away from an utterly stunned Rarity and Sweetie Belle.

"Trixie's sure they were. And those three have 'extraordinary circumstances' written all over them," Trixie offered a disdainful look as Scootaloo stuck out her tongue, "besides, as much as Trixie enjoys seeing Sparkle and company snarl like a pack of angry timberwolves whenever they see you, Trixie wishes you'd restrain from actually fighting them."

"You think I would lose?" Serith chuckled darkly as he followed Trixie past the other ponies, feeling their glares on him as if they were trying to puncture his armor with their eyes.

"No. But Trixie doesn't want to associate with a pony murderer, and you're the only decent conversation Trixie can find in this place," the unicorn pointed out as she stepped into her room, "believe it or not, Trixie would miss you."

"An utterly bizarre sentiment," Serith chuckled as he glanced at Gaela. The Dark Acolyte took a step back and bowed her head, her frown slightly tighter than usual. "You're a very strange pony."

Then the Chaos Sorcerer walked into Trixie's room, and the door slid shut behind him.

"... Okay. What in the name of Tartarus just happened?" Rainbow Dash asked, rubbing her head with her hoof.

"I think... Trixie just saved Sweetie Belle," Twilight said uncertainly. Then she paused before adding, "With the magic of friendship."

"I really think Serith would be better dealt with using the OTHER kind of magic," Rarity quipped as she inspected herself for bruises, "the kind that imprisons troublesome sorts on the moon for a millennium or so."

Pinkie frowned. "I don't think that would work in this case. Couldn't they just go there and pick him up?"

"Sis, ya all right?" Apple Bloom asked in concern as Applejack adjusted her hat.

"Just mullin' a change of priorities, Bloom," Applejack admitted.

"How's that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Ah think Ah'll grab some human moonshine 'fore we eat. Seems like a perfect night fer it."

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed, his usual affirmation distorted by his vox grille.

Fluttershy had stayed largely silent through the encounter and conversation that followed, and as her friends left she found her eyes drawn to Gaela. The Dark Acolyte wasn't very expressive at the best of times, even when one could actually see her face, but right now her brow was furrowed with such intensity that it was obvious something was bothering her.

"Miss Gaela? Are you... okay?" Fluttershy asked quietly.

Gaela was staring at her plasma pistol with a look normally reserved for when the weapon had suffered a catastrophic overheat. After several seconds, her biological eye twitched toward Fluttershy.

"I was about to shoot him," the machine cultist confessed, her voice missing much of the cold steel that it normally carried, "I didn't even hesitate. Had the entertainer not interfered..."

Fluttershy cringed. "You were going to shoot Big Macintosh?" It made a cold, terrible kind of sense, actually. Besides being a servant of the Iron Warriors, if Gaela had prevented them from actually hurting the Sorcerer then there was still a chance of most of them, at least, leaving the fortress alive. That prospect would have been a lot less likely if they had actually harmed an Iron Warrior.

Gaela's lips pressed into a thin line. "Negative. I was aiming at Serith."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 6 Trixie's room

"You can't deny that it's a fascinating turn of events. I'd really begun to think that you ponies may be immune to Chaos entirely."

Trixie sipped a cup of tea as she lay on a silk pillow atop a lounge chair. Behind her, Suuna was busying herself picking up the remains of Trixie's earlier puppet show that had been cut short.

"Trixie is pretty sure that's a good thing, but for the sake of curiosity, why did you think so?"

Serith leaned back against the wall, lifting his force halberd up in front of him to observe the weapon.

"Mostly my observations of you, Lady Trixie. Chaos corruption is rarely very subtle, and occurs quickly unless resisted. You have been perfectly placed to find yourself guided to the Eightfold Path, and yet you seem blind to it, utterly untouched by the madness of the Darker Powers."

Trixie quirked an eyebrow. "... Go on," she requested before tilting her tea cup toward her again.

Serith lowered his halberd and stepped over to the unicorn, staring into her eyes.

"You have been living amongst the tainted and dipping your mind into the Warp on a regular basis. You have shed blood for the sake of the Company, and thus to the purpose of Chaos and its supremacy. I have shared with you spells that I puzzled together from the dark whispers of daemonic voices. You sleep soundly each night despite the lack of psycomantic shielding to protect your mind from malevolent spirits, and suffer no troubling dreams and hear no voices. Am I right?"

Trixie took another deep slurp of her tea before shrugging. "Probably. Trixie doesn't see why that's so special, though. Didn't you say Trixie's horn protects her or something?"

"That is my... hypothesis, yes. But I lack data," Serith admitted, "your horn may merely protect you from Warp feedback or be a convenient method of projection."

He turned his gaze toward the door. "Those three younglings were not corrupted, but gave themselves willingly to the Dark Gods. In this manner they may have relinquished whatever protection is normally afforded your people against madness and mutation. But without further study, I am unable to say."

Trixie gulped down the last of her tea as she thought over the Sorcerer's comments. Truth be told, "madness" and "corruption" were pretty good descriptions of what she had gone through when she had used the Alicorn Amulet, an artifact that she had willingly taken up and forced her mind into. She had recovered from that though, with no lasting consequences other than persistent guilt and some kind of obscure "scarring" that Serith was barely able to detect.

Trixie idly floated her empty cup over to Suuna, who quickly took it to be refilled. Her experience probably had implications that would be of use to Serith, but Trixie decided to keep her experience to herself. She might have found Serith's company generally enjoyable, but that didn't mean she approved of experiments that might involve tormenting and harming ponies.

"Who is Ahriman?" the unicorn asked suddenly, changing the subject completely. "Trixie heard what that filly shouted before you... well... took initiative back there."

Trixie detected a slight squeak of metal as Serith's gauntlet tightened around the shaft of his polearm.

The answer was a long time coming. Suuna brought Trixie's tea and set it down next to the pillow before leaving again.

Finally, Serith spoke. "Ahriman is a fool and a coward, who would be better off as a pile of dust," he said snidely, "as they say: 'it takes one to know one'."

"Okay, but... who IS he? Another Iron Warrior? A Tau? What?" Trixie asked. "Let's start with his species, at least."

"I'd rather not," Serith said simply, turning away and walking toward the wall. His eyes scanned the length of one of the banners pinned to the wall.

"It's just that Trixie doesn't know very much about you," the unicorn confessed before tasting the fresh cup of tea for temperature. Smacking her lips, she continued, "Every time we meet, we either talk about magic, or Trixie, or Trixie's magic."

"Do you not prefer it that way?" Serith countered, still facing away from the blue pony.

Trixie paused before taking another sip from her cup. "Okay, you've got Trixie there."

"Then by all means, let us discuss you," Serith said with a nod, turning toward Trixie, "tell me: how has progress been coming along on your caravan?"

Trixie scowled immediately, and then guzzled some tea before telekinetically slamming the cup down on the table. "It hasn't. Trixie finally managed to get some time with one of those Mechanicus people to work out all the details, and then when Trixie finished, the dolt said it would be put 'in the queue.' When Trixie asked where in the queue it was, the Dark something-or-other spouted a number that Trixie is fairly certain isn't even real. It had eighteen digits, a decimal point, and Trixie's pretty sure there were some variables or a logarithm somewhere in there too."

"It would seem that with the Tau an ever-present threat and our supply stock reduced, the Dark Magi have many projects they wish to see completed before working on paying an entertainer," Serith mumbled thoughtfully, "and of course, the creation of a vehicle for a xeno may grate when Magos Kaelith is trying to preserve material stocks."

"Trixie simply can't deal with such messed-up priorities!" the unicorn complained before slurping down more tea and then floating the empty cup to Suuna again.

The Chaos Sorcerer nodded. "Indeed, it's a shame. But I know of at least one... 'worker' who may be able to complete a project for you in-between his other duties. Not a caravan, of course; that would require the use of the hull presses among other things, and they are fully occupied."

Trixie raised an eyebrow. "Well, what else would Trixie want built, then?"

Serith hummed briefly. "Tell me: what did you think of that red pony's power armor suit?"

Trixie's eyebrow climbed further as Suuna returned with another full cup of tea, and she levitated it right out of the young woman's hand to hover below her chin.

"... Tell Trixie more of such suits."

****

Black Point - main command center

Shas'el Wraithstar sat behind a heavy desk ringed by monitor banks and control panels, his fingers laced together in front of him and an expression of carefully-reined fury on his face.

The Shas'el was surprisingly short and wiry for a member of the fire caste. He had never been muscular, but long years piloting a battlesuit to the exclusion of all other training and kinds of battlefield deployment had left his body much weaker than the infantry who marched under his orders. A thin braid of black hair was rooted in the back of his skull and trailed down his back.

Wraithstar was a cerebral leader who fought with strategy rather than example. He was a bitter, cynical sort of general that saw glory as nothing more than rookie's naiveté and honor as the dithering of the water caste. Getting things done was his creed and the only metric by which he judged himself and his Cadre.

And there had been precious little getting done as of late.

*That concludes the... the report,* said a Shas'vre officer, his throat tight as he completed his re-telling of distant events as relayed through panicked emergency transmissions. *Salvation Echo has been overrun and has fallen into enemy hands. The evacuation order was not given before communications were disrupted. It... It must be presumed that all personnel at the base have been killed or captured by the gue'la assault force.*

The two other Tau officers in the room, an earth caste Fio'o and an air caste Kor'vre, remained silent and ramrod straight, waiting for the news to sink in.

It didn't take long. *Infiltrators. We lost Salvation Echo to gue'la... INFILTRATORS.* It was not a question.

The Shas'vre considered reminding him that the team had apparently consisted mainly of local aliens, but dismissed the point as irrelevant; obviously the assault was in aid of the gue'la army that had eventually seized the base, so what did it matter the species of the actual infiltrators?

*We have tightened our security procedures here to make sure the same thing will not-*

*That is NOT what concerns me, soldier!* Wraithstar snarled. *What concerns me is that we have an entire artillery corp sitting on top of us, half a Chapter of gue'la super-soldiers, a flotilla of disguised warships hanging above us in orbit, and our only path OFF of this planet is now being pillaged by shock troopers!*

The Shas'vre cringed, having no response to that.

*And of all the things to lose it to! INFILTRATORS! We had a dozen plans to intercept or delay a strike force, but somehow the blasted apes managed to sneak a demo team into our hangars?*

None of the others said anything. It was something of a cruel irony that they, a Sept that specialized in such tactics, should find themselves crippled in such a way by an army that usually scoffed at stealth and guile. Space Marines were about as subtle as the power fists their leaders carried into battle, and the lesser humans were usually little better. Or such were the assumptions up until now.

*The fall of Black Point is a matter of initiative, now,* Wraithstar seethed, *yes, we can and will cause excruciating damage to the foe in our defense, but no strategy can account for what we're up against! This is the wrong battle, against the wrong foe, at the wrong time!*

*I don't think I need to remind you of what's at stake here,* interjected the Fio'o.

Wraithstar lifted a fist as if he was going to pound it against the desk surface, but then paused to let his temper cool for a moment.

*No, Fio'o, you do not. But high stakes will not power ion cannons, lend strength to railguns, or fill missile racks,* he turned his head away bitterly, his braid whipping about his head, *it is not will we lack, but resources. Material, ammunition, and bodies.*

The earth caste planner sighed. *There must be a way. Is it possible to take Salvation Echo back?*

*Yes, it is possible,* Wraithstar admitted, *and foolhardy. Trying to clear a base filled with Astartes? There's no way we could hide a deployment like that. If they deploy reinforcements to hold the hangars, we lose the battle. If they decide to attack Black Point to take advantage of our depleted reserves, we lose the war. We did the same to them; I'd wager one of their commanders would appreciate the opportunity to give us more of our own medicine.*

*I'd hoped we'd done more damage when we assaulted their fortress...*

*The gue'la fleet's supply stocks must be enormous to recover this quickly, to say nothing of their engineering teams.*

*What of the fortress itself, then? Can we get an infiltration team of our own inside THEIR base?* asked the air caste officer.

*Maybe,* Wraithstar admitted, *granted, their security has improved considerably since their previous lapses, but it is possible. But to what end? What would they break? For every heavy gun they could demolish there are ten more. The gue'la armories are large, and there are many. And the extremely high-value targets? Commanders? Reactors?* He laughed bitterly. *Well, suffice to say, that's an impossible order even before we consider the presence of MONSTERS.*

He slapped a hand on the desk. *The big problem is simply a matter of scale. We are a Kroot Hound stalking the feet of a Carnifex. The lesser problem is that our foes are acting erratically: ambushing convoys with irregular patrols, fortifying bizarre positions around alien villages, and using handfuls of infiltrators rather than legions of infantry and armor. If we can't predict their targets and tactics, then we can't hope to compensate for the difference in troop strength.*

*On the subject of their erratic strategies, Shas'el, I have my doubts that this latest assault is merely them trying to close the noose around us, so to speak,* the fire caste commander pointed out, *we haven't seen any activity from the base that suggests a deployment in our direction.*

*And that's why we're still breathing. But that could change within a day,* Wraithstar noted coldly, *relying on the mercy and cowardice of my enemies is not a strategy. And the gue'la have too little of either for comfort.*

*So then what can we do?* the Fio'o asked. *We can't defeat the enemy on their territory or ours, and we can't seem to draw them into any fights we CAN win.* He paused. *Can we at least recover the Warp core? It's the only component still missing. If it could be brought back...*

Wraithstar looked up at the other fire caste officer.

He wet his lips before speaking. *We had a Stealth Suit squadron scout the area where the Warp core was last found. Purely recon this time; maximum stealth, no engagement orders. They... managed to detect the core, but it was airborne and leaving by the time they got into sensor range.*

*So then by now the gue'la have it sequestered within their fortress,* Wraithstar growled, his brow furrowing.

*Well... I don't think so.* The Shas'vre found himself he recipient of some very intense, and somewhat incredulous, stares. *The thing is, they detected the Warp core, but not any gue'la vehicle that presumably would have been carrying it. Also, it was not moving toward the fortress. Its current location is unknown.*

There was a brief silence as each of the Tau officers thought that over.

*A mixed blessing, to be sure,* Wraithstar muttered, *you have my authorization to send out more scouting teams to find the core.*

*I believe I may be able to improve our suits' sensors to enable them to track the device from its last known location,* the Fio'o interjected, *it releases some unique energy particles that may leave a trail of sorts for several days.*

*Do it,* Wraithstar ordered, *we have to do everything we can to keep this situation from getting any worse.* Then he laced his fingers together again. *Success, however, may be out of our grasp... until the fleet arrives. Kor'vre?*

The air caste member shuffled uncomfortably. *The main battle fleet isn't due to arrive for almost a week. Give or take a few days.*

*Well, that's not very long,* the earth officer noted.

*With our strategic presence on this world quickly eroding, it's an eternity,* Wraithstar quipped, *but if we hold out until then, we'll have a whole host of new options.*

*Assuming they don't fall for the same trap we did and get cut apart by the 'freighters',* the Shas'vre grumbled.

The air officer glared at him. *The main fleet is too big to be ambushed as we were. Victory in a void engagement is assured.*

*No, it's not,* Wraithstar said sharply, *I'm tired of flinging men and weapons at these... renegades and watching our forces fall apart. They're strong, well-equipped, and far more clever than we gave them credit for. I want our communications system boosted and ready to dispatch a warning message the very moment we detect the fleet's presence. They must know everything about the threat here. Kor'vre, I want void combat plans in place that best avoid the gun batteries the gue'la have set up. I'll have my own strategies set out for the ground war, to coordinate our strikes with the fleet's forces.*

The other officers nodded.

*You are dismissed. For the Greater Good!*

*For the Greater Good,* the others intoned.

The earth and wind caste officers quickly filed out, each of them with a lot of work to do. The fire caste officer remained.

*Something else to say, Shas'vre?* Wraithstar murmured bitterly as he turned toward the monitor displays.

*Yes, Shas'el,* the other Tau said cautiously, *you have my... apologies. About Jerriha.*

Wraithstar's jaw tightened. *This is war, Shas'vre. We all make sacrifices. And mistakes.*

The officer winced. Jerriha was Shas'el Wraithstar's niece, and it was no big secret that she had been moved to the hangar base so that she'd be in a better position to escape the planet than the rest of them if things took a turn for the worse. Abysmal luck, then, that the turn for the worse should involve the base's capture.

*Besides, the Fireblade is a most capable warrior. I have no doubt that she acquitted herself well in battle with the dignity and ferocity expected of her rank.*

****

Salt Lick Canyon - command center

"Okay, hold on, this is my favorite part," said the Iron Warrior, pointing to the monitor that was hooked up to his helmet.

Several other Chaos Space Marines leaned in closer as they watched Jerriha plunge her knife into Applejack, and several started snickering as the orange pony head-butted the Tau in the stomach.

The snickers turned to full-blown laughter as the recording continued, showing Applejack battering her head into her opponent repeatedly.

"Dark Gods, that's hilarious!"

"How long does she keep this up for?"

"Ha ha ha haaah!"

"We should loop this so that it just shows the horse head-butting the gray over and over, and then pass that around!"

"Hell-o new screen saver!"

****

Black Point

*But enough about the hangars, Shas'vre. What of the gue'la we've taken on?* Wraithstar asked. *We may come to need all the bodies we can muster for a defense of the base.*

*The training is going about as well as could be expected. But the gue'la we saved are slaves, not soldiers,* the officer grumbled, *for every one of them eager to turn their guns on their former masters there is another who looks bound to flee once the shooting starts, and another who quails at the very thought of fighting Astartes. And even of those in the first category, zeal can only compensate so much for lack of experience and ill health.*

Wraithstar grimaced. *Do we have enough human weapons for them? I don't like the idea of equipping them with our own.*

*Almost, Shas'el. But I'm far less concerned with their combat strength than whether they'll break into retreat and trample our firing lines at the first casualty.*

The Shas'vre hesitated again. *I would also like to speak to you about the... native problem, Shas'el Wraithstar.*

The commander rolled his eyes as his seat leaned back further. *Fine. Go ahead.*

*We didn't really bring it up just now, but it's relevant that the infiltration team included equines rather than just humans. The natives are now participating openly in offensive military operations against us.*

*Unexpected, and yet I can't exactly bring myself to be surprised,* Wraithstar said blandly, *so what?*

*So, this implies a much deeper alliance than we'd guessed at so far,* the officer pointed out, *twice now we've seen evidence of the gue'la defending native settlements. The gue'la have obviously been reluctant to venture out of their fortress and engage us in open terrain, where we have a strategic advantage. But what if there were a way to lure them out?*

Wraithstar paused, and then his eyes narrowed. *Let me see if I understand the point you're dancing around, here. You think that if we terrorized the local villages the apes would swoop in to rescue them, and we could trap and eliminate them that way?*

*It is... an option, Shas'el. And we're painfully short of options at the moment.*

The Commander considered the argument. Briefly.

*No,* Wraithstar said sharply, *too many assumptions. Too many things that can go wrong. The gue'la may not be as helpful as we'd hoped. The natives may prove more dangerous than we'd expected. Or on the flip side, the gue'la response may be overwhelming, and we'd continue to lose the battle of attrition. I won't start committing war crimes on such thin hopes.*

His caste-mate nodded somberly. *Very well, Shas'el. So we can do nothing but wait?*

*I hate it more than you do. But there are times when inaction is the proper decision,* Wraithstar said bitterly, *besides, when it comes to the natives...*

He trailed off, and a grim silence hung in the air for several seconds.

*... I pity them,* Wraithstar finally admitted reluctantly, *they don't know what's happening, or why. They don't know what's coming. The gue'la will realize our aims soon enough. But the equines are merely an ember at the edge of a firestorm, a footnote in a struggle far greater than they could comprehend.*

*They're not the only ones,* the officer said coldly, *and if we can succeed here, they will not be the last. But we fight for T'au. For the Alliance. For the Greater Good.*

*Indeed, Shas'vre. But that would be little comfort to them, I think,* Commander Wraithstar blew out a harsh sigh, *you are dismissed.*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 7

"Wooooo-eeeeee! Every time Ah try that stuff, it tastes better'n the last time! Ah think Ah might not even sell the booze Ah got back at the farm! Might be nice to save it fer an occasion, y'know?"

Applejack was swaying slightly as she trotted ahead of the others, her hat sitting backward on her head. Her family and friends - plus whatever Gaela counted as - followed behind her. Most of them were considerably more sober.

Most of them.

"I didn' loosh," Rainbow Dash slurred as her wings twitched, "c'mon, I c'n take anudder glash." She was currently slung over Big Macintosh's rear, being held in place by his armor-mounted servo arm to keep her from flying off.

The stallion himself was completely sober. After the third bottle of synthehol without acquiring so much as a buzz, he had come to the conclusion that his new artificial liver apparently filtered and processed the drinks faster than they could affect him. His feelings about that were mixed.

"I can't imagine what kind of pony would actually want to LIVE in a place like this, but I for one hope more of them show up," Rarity said. She was again wrapped in black robes and other rubber articles that obscured everything but her horn, and had partaken very lightly of the drinks that evening. "A dessert shop is a good start, but this place is DESPERATELY in need of a proper restaurant."

"It might be happening," Gaela admitted as she trailed the equines, "according to the noosphere residency logs, three ponies aside from the pegasi couple have applied for residency in absentia and are awaiting notice. Apparently the merchant corps are mulling a formalized immigration procedure." Gaela, like Fluttershy and the fillies, had abstained from any of the harder refreshments.

Twilight glanced up at Gaela, almost tripped over her own hooves, and then steadied herself before she managed to ask her question. "Isn't it odd for ponies to settle-"

"Yes," Gaela interrupted.

"I didn't finish my question."

"It doesn't matter. There is no context in which ponies settling in an Iron Warriors' fortress is NOT odd," the Dark Acolyte said firmly.

Twilight had an objection to that, but the thought slipped away from her before Gaela finished speaking. She had tried to match Rarity's consumption of synthehol, but it seemed that her tolerance didn't quite match that of the glamorous unicorn.

"Maybe I should throw them a party!" Pinkie Pie said, bouncing at approximately three times the normal rate. She was literally hopping in little circles around Fluttershy. "An 'Avoid the Temple District, Seriously' party! Or would a 'Hope You Don't Get Blown Up From Space' party be better? Ooh! How about-"

"The next party you throw in Ferrous Dominus is likely to be met with ACTUAL artillery strikes," Gaela pointed out, "Lord Sliver is still quite upset at the last one."

"Boo! Well, fine!" Pinkie sniffed. "They still haven't paid for the first party anyway!"

"We're not going to pay you for disrupting our work schedule and creating enough gaps in our guard patrols that the slaves were able to escape with ease."

"But it was hard wooooork!"

Apple Bloom trotted up to her sister, her expression somewhat downcast as they neared the dormitories where they were housed.

"Sis, Ah'm still real worried about Crabapple. We ain't seen her fer hours."

Applejack gave her sister a sideways glance that turned into an upside-down glance as she stumbled.

"Oof! Whatcha worried fer? Gaela already called her, didn't she?" the orange pony asked as she picked herself up off the ground.

Apple Bloom pouted. "Ah don't trust her! Ya know she don't like Crabapple!"

"I can hear you, you know," Gaela said, her vox unit amplifying her voice to be heard over Pinkie.

"So what?" Apple Bloom shouted back harshly.

"Nothing. Your suspicion is entirely justified. I just thought you should know."

The redheaded filly fumed as she turned back to Applejack. "See? Can we go look for her?"

Applejack snorted as she adjusted her hat. It still didn't face forward, but it was no longer backward. "No way, no how. Crabapple is FROM here, remember?"

"Actually, the probes are dispatched from-"

"Not important, Gaela!" Applejack barked. "Mah point is, this place is huge, and the daggone bot is less likely to get lost than you! Ah mean, how would you even find her?"

"Tzeentch knows where she is!" Sweetie Belle chirped. Then her face scrunched up into a frown. "That's weird. He just started counting down, for some reason."

Rarity groaned, not bothering to ask again who "Tzeentch" was.

"See that?" Applejack challenged, poking her little sister in the chest with her hoof. "If ya can't rely on the voices in yer head, then ya might as well rely on the Dark Techies!"

Applejack turned around again and headed toward the dorms, only staggering a little bit this time.

"But sisss~!" Apple Bloom whined. "What if Bic Mac comes with us?"

"OH no!" Applejack said, stopping again as she twisted her head around. "Not this time! Like Granny always says: 'Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, when are ya gonna find yerself a nice pony and make me some great-grandfoals?'"

Rainbow Dash blinked, and then her head rolled to one side as she laughed. "Ha! She got it wrong!"

"Nope," Big Macintosh refuted, his head dipping slightly in embarrassment. Applejack's quote was quite accurate, although if she were in a better state of mind she never would have bothered quoting their grandmother.

Applejack cleared her throat noisily before she continued her lengthy refusal. "Ah leave ya here in Mac's care fer one afternoon and you go and sell yer soul to evil space gods! It ain't happenin' again!"

Apple Bloom recoiled, looking offended. "Ah did not! Ah sold mah soul to ONE evil space god."

"Oh, what's the diff'rence?" Applejack snorted as she rolled her eyes.

"Do you want an actual answer to that, or are you merely trying to dismiss her protest?" Gaela asked. "Because there's actually a very important difference."

"The second one."

"I see. Carry on, then."

Apple Bloom moped as Applejack stepped up toward the dorm entry way, the door sliding open in front of her.

"So long as we're in this here fortress, Ah'm not lettin' you outta mah sight again! And right now we're headin' to bed to get some shut-eye 'fore anythin' else happens today!"

Sweetie Belle's ears twitched.

Eight... Seven...

The sound of shouting and the distant thump of rapid, heavy impacts against the ground caused the group to halt.

Six... Five...

Either one of these on their own probably wouldn't have attracted their attention, since there were always big pieces of machinery rumbling through the avenues, some of which had legs, and there was just as often a man, cyborg, or Iron Warrior speaking at high volume for one reason or another. When the two coincided, however, there was usually a problem.

Four... Three...

"A daemon engine is loose," Gaela said with a grimace as she watched a Maulerfiend charge down the avenue at high speed.

"It wasn't my fault," Fluttershy said quickly and for no reason that Gaela could think of.

Two... and... show time.

Applejack's head drooped. "Aw, horseapples."

The Maulerfiend slowed rapidly as it approached the wide-eyed ponies, most of whom had never seen a daemon engine up close before, if at all.

Fluttershy was particularly unnerved. Right away she felt something different about this Maulerfiend compared to the daemonic war machines she had met before. Its movements were too stilted and precise, its maw released no bestial snarls or grunts of exertion, and its attention didn't wander curiously. Even as it slowed to a lazy walk it moved forward with focus and calculation, paying no heed to the ponies that were scrambling out of its way except for one.

"Wh-What is that thing? What's goin' on?" Apple Bloom asked nervously as she backed away. It didn't escape her notice that the blazing crimson eyes of the mechanical beast seemed to be fixed on her.

The next thing she knew, Applejack and Big Macintosh were standing in front of her, glaring defiantly at the daemonic siege walker.

"You back the HAY off," Applejack snapped, "Ah've had a mighty rough day, and right now Ah'm too tipsy to consider how stupid it is to try an' stop somethin' yer size! You hear me?!"

Apparently the Maulerfiend did hear her, because it paused in its advance and then backed away a few steps as ordered.

Everyone found this behavior rather puzzling.

"Uh... Gaela? Any thoughts?" Twilight asked.

The Dark Acolyte immediately began running optical scans, and she immediately began finding incongruences in the Maulerfiend's noosphere registry, energy patterns, and data cachet.

She also noticed that a piece of another machine had been welded onto its right hip. The piece was a mechanical leg, but resembled a long metal compass point. It was painted pink, and had a strange picture scrawled on it of a smiling apple with little crab legs.

"I... I have a theory..." Gaela managed to say around the lump in her throat.

Then the Maulerfiend raised its head and growled.

It wasn't an angry, bestial growl, and for that Fluttershy found herself further unnerved. The others mostly found it annoying; a discordant, reverberating snarl that went on for way too long. Big Macintosh waited to see if his helmet visor would translate the noise into something comprehensible, but it did not.

Gaela was confused as well, but only for a moment. The Maulerfiend's throat and mouth were constructed to mimic a living animal's so that the daemon could emit terrifying howls and other such instinctive forms of auditory communication as easily as possible. It was not made to conform to the two-tone language of binary, which it seemed to be trying to speak. Any mechanical system would be unable to pick it up, detecting too many different notes and unstable changes in pitch. Members of the Dark Mechanicus, however, were practiced in many strange dialects and complex variants of basic machine code, and her ears picked up the key elements in seconds.

Rainbow Dash squirmed nervously, really wishing that she wasn't still pinned to Big Mac's armor. She would feel a lot more comfortable if she were in the air above this new monstrosity rather than stuck near the ground right in front of it. "Okay... so... whadda we do?"

"That's up to Apple Bloom," Gaela said. Her tone of voice was even more dull and listless than usual, which actually impressed some of the equines.

"Why Apple Bloom?" Applejack asked.

"Because she is Crabapple's command unit," the cyborg deadpanned.

The ponies all stared up the Maulerfiend, which sat on its haunches as its lasher tendrils twitched in the air all around it. Then they lowered their gazes back to Gaela.

"So you're saying that this thing is..." Twilight prompted.

"This thing, designated as a Maulerfiend siege walker, now hosts Crabapple's consciousness," the Dark Acolyte's servo arms drooped as she said it, as if it sapped her energy reserves to admit such an absurdity.

The massive war walker nodded its head, the gears in its neck grinding noisily. All the while the shocked and nervous expressions of the young fillies slowly shifted into thrilled grins.

"... HOW?!" Applejack demanded, barely able to shout the question with her jaw hanging slack.

"The Warp did it," Gaela mumbled.

"CRABAPPLE!! It's really you!" Apple Bloom shouted in glee as she darted between Big Mac's armored legs toward the siege walker.

"This is awesome!" Scootaloo cheered, likewise bolting for the mechanical monster with a huge grin on her face.

You should call shotgun, Tzeentch said to Sweetie Belle.

"Shotgun!" Sweetie Belle called as she joined her friends, having no idea what that word even meant.

As the other ponies slowly came to terms with this bizarre news, Twilight noticed that Gaela was leaning on her axe and clutching it with both hands, as if it were a crutch.

"Uh... Gaela? Are you all right?" the alicorn asked uneasily.

"I suddenly regret not drinking," mumbled the Acolyte miserably.

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's quarters

Solon's legs clanged noisily across the metal flooring as he walked into the section of the manufactorum block that was designated as his quarters.

Unlike his forge, his sleeping space was small and simple. Or at least it was simple to the extent that it wasn't filled with grandiose archeotechnology or manic displays of data cascading all around. It was still somewhat complex and unusual; he didn't sleep like other Astartes, after all.

A set of locking bays sat on the floor for his legs, and a bank of cogitators lined the walls to accommodate his "dreams". The only spot of the wall not devoted to data cores and logic engines was a patch that had been set aside for a small incense burner with the mark of Nurgle sitting atop it. It was a small, almost pitiful little shrine, but somehow it felt appropriate for the setting; a single shred of faith and sentimentality surrounded and dwarfed by a phalanx of thrumming calculation and cold metal.

A fitting metaphor for its owner.

Solon stopped and bowed his head before the altar, his optics zooming in on the parasites that scuttled about the hot dish and the flies that hovered lazily in the noxious smoke that wafted from it.

"Blesh the Plaguefather, our lord Nurgle. Bleshed be the circle. Life comesh to death, and death comesh to life. We are the guardiansh of the cycle. From birth comesh decay. From love comesh hatred. From creation comesh deshtruction. The wheel turnsh. Praishe Nurgle."

His prayer complete, the Warsmith stalked forward into the locking bays, his legs sliding into each mechanism before the heavy latches clapped shut and magnetized. His heavy bolters were likewise disconnected, and his servo claw reached up into a bay on the low ceiling that clamped shut around it. Such precautions were necessary, for the extremely vivid nature of his dream/simulations could otherwise easily cause a nerve twitch that would send a limb or burst of heavy bolter fire through the cogitator banks.

With a pleased sigh, he heard the nerve uplink arm lower itself and slowly plug into the socket in the back of his helmet, inserting with a brief spray of dim sparks.

His vision darkened.

Within seconds his consciousness had completely left the waking world and been submerged completely into the matrix that the cogitators imprinted on his subconscious. His vision returned slowly, although there wasn't yet much to see. His body was a wire-frame construct, shaped like an ordinary post-human and awaiting specific details to fill in. The land around him was an ethereal fog; a haze waiting to take the shape of a specific memory.

"A Forge World, this time," Solon mumbled, watching as a screen flickered into being from nowhere and presented a long list, "how about... Praxis V was a nice, long battle." The list blurred as it scrolled down at high speed, then stopped suddenly on the planet name in question. "Location settings. Manufactorum complex..."

Solon trailed off as some kind of tapping noise from behind him interrupted his train of thought.

The Warsmith turned around.

Princess Luna stood barely a meter away from him, one back leg tapping the ground in a steady rhythm and a decidedly displeased frown on her face.

"... Were you waiting for me?" Solon asked, puzzled. He was more or less expecting the dark-furred alicorn to show up as a matter of course by now, but she had never arrived this early before.

Luna stopped tapping her hoof, and her eyes narrowed. "Thou did not rest last night."

Solon stared at the agitated princess for several long, silent seconds.

"Really? Is this where we're at now?" the Warsmith finally asked. "I have to explain my absences to you like a wayward spouse?"

"We art merely... curious," Luna amended unconvincingly, "we arrived per our usual routine only to find thee missing. We waited for some time, but to no avail."

Solon snorted as he turned away, going back to his previous task of selecting the simulation parameters. "I'm sure it will come as a shock to you, Princess, but I have many duties and diversions during my waking hours that take priority over entertaining you."

Luna rolled her eyes. "We art aware. Still, some manner of explanation or forewarning would hath been polite."

"Then consider me impolite," Solon replied blandly, "so did you just lay about my resting bay waiting for me the entire night?"

"We did not," Luna informed him curtly, her nose in the air, "we have other means to divert ourselves besides your memories."

****

??? - The previous night

Big Macintosh laid on a hill overlooking Sweet Apple Acres, a cool breeze making waves through the grass all around him.

As he gazed peacefully at his family's home and livelihood, another pony slowly stepped up behind him, its figure hazy and indistinct.

"We're mighty proud of you, son," the figure said as Big Macintosh glanced up at it, "what you've done fer the farm, what you've done fer our country, and even what you did fer the humans. You've done right by us. Ah want ya to know that."

"Thanks, Pa," Big Mac said as he turned his sleepy, half-lidded gaze back toward the farm, "Ah messed up, though. Times're hard enough as it is. Fer AJ and the others to lose me now..." he sighed miserably.

"Now don't you count yerself out just yet," the figment said, "us Apples have always been hard to put down fer good. And even if you do come knockin' to see me and yer ma, you've got nothin' to be sorry about."

The wisp of a stallion snorted. "Ya went out just like every red-blooded Equestrian stallion should: defendin' yer family from rampaging alien invaders."

Big Macintosh had to mull that over for several seconds. "Ah don't reckon too many stallions go out that way, Pa."

"Details, mah boy. Anyway, yer fate will be decided soon 'nuff. But so long as Ah'm in touch, Ah have somethin' important to tell ya."

Big Mac turned his head up again.

The apparition paused.

Then it paused some more.

Seconds stretched into a full minute without a word or a gesture.

Then, finally, the sudden silence was broken, albeit from a completely unexpected direction.

"Ah, Mister Macintosh! 'Tis you after all! Most fortuitous!"

Big Mac faced forward again to see, of all ponies, Princess Luna trotting up the hillside. He glanced back behind him at the still-form of his father, only to watch as the wispy figure seemed to disintegrate in the wind.

His attention switched back to Luna.

"Surely thou recalls us! We were thy partner during the summer wrap-up festivities this very year!" Luna announced as she reached the top of the hill.

"Eeyup," Mac replied, still bearing the same unshakable, half-lidded expression. Of course he would have recognized Luna whether or not he had personally met her before, but he didn't bother pointing this out.

"Ah, excellent! We art most pleased to find thee here!" Luna said brightly. The Princess paused for a moment before she continued. "This may seem an odd query, but hast thou any inkling as to the whereabouts of Warsmith Solon? We were searching for him and happened upon thee within his fortress."

Big Mac thought on that subject briefly. "Nope," he replied. He didn't know any Warsmith Solon, nor did he know why he might be in such a person's fortress. He vaguely remembered hearing that name from Applejack, but didn't bother to pursue the thought; the answer to Luna's question was obvious enough.

"We expected as much," Luna said with an irritated snort. "Ah, well. If that is the case, then we hast a different purpose here."

The draught horse remained silent, waiting for her to continue.

"We would make this a... drat, what is the term the youth use nowadays?"

The dark blue alicorn furrowed her brow as she frowned. Then she brightened suddenly. "Aye, now We recall! We art here for a 'booty call'!"

Big Mac's eyes snapped open the rest of the way.

****

Solon's dreamscape

"Although now that thou brings up the subject, why is Mister Macintosh in thy fortress?" Luna asked. "We likewise detected the other Elements of Harmony."

Solon didn't remember mentioning Big Macintosh and had no idea how that particular name had occurred to the Princess, but he answered her anyway.

"Mister Macintosh took a fusillade to his flanks, it would seem," Solon said as he navigated a cascading series of menus floating in the air, "you have quite the xeno infestation around your rural lands."

Luna blinked, and then her eyes bulged. "He hath been attacked? He did not mention this!" she shouted, alarmed. Then she frowned. "Come to ponder it, he did not mention much of anything in our time together." Then her eyes drifted to the side. "Albeit his mouth was otherwise occupied for much of it."

"Sure. In any case, he's better now." Solon mumbled, completing his selections.

In an instant, matter and light seemed to burst all around them, as if Luna and Solon were witnessing the very birth of creation. Then, abruptly, light took on shapes and matter collapsed into place.

Luna looked around with poorly-concealed excitement to see what wonders from the far corner of the galaxy she would witness tonight.

They were in a large office of some sort, its walls completely overrun with monitors, control panels, and cogitator banks. In the center of the office was a hololith table, and it was there that Solon settled down.

The Warsmith had an augmetic arm this time, and his face was overrun with optical sensors and wiring. One of his legs was bionic as well.

Luna's attention was inevitably drawn to a balcony, however, and the scene that was presented beyond its railing. A vast city, seeming to stretch all the way to the horizon and riven with smokestacks and foundries, lay beyond the platform. Tracer rounds from hundreds of guns flared brightly as they danced across the rooftops, and in the distance she could see enormous two-legged machines bigger than any pony-built building marching among the industrial sectors.

"Let's keep this simple, Techpriest. Pledge yourself to the Dark Gods and you and your coterie will live."

Luna turned around and saw that on the other side of the room there was a darker, less action-packed encounter. A Techpriest in dark red robes was being held between two Iron Warriors while a third one in terminator armor spoke to the prisoner.

"You have skills that are of use to us. And those that are of use to us would see themselves spared, and rewarded. I don't think I need to explain what happens to those who are NOT of use to us."

The Techpriest seemed undaunted. "I serve no gods besides the Omnissiah. You ask the impossible."

"The Dark Gods ARE the Omnissiah," the Iron Warrior growled through his vox grille, "you live within your stunted ideology, shut yourself off from the truth slowly creeping its way across the galaxy... we can show you the way, Techpriest, but you must take the first steps yourself."

The priest's opticals flickered briefly. "Does not compute. The Emperor is the Omnissiah."

Luna winced as the sound of a combi-bolter firing rang through the room.

"Ugh. Arguments about religion are just the worst, aren't they? They never go anywhere useful," the Terminator grumbled as smoke seeped from his weapon. "Send in the next one."

Luna turned away from the scene. Not out of disgust, horror, or any sort of moral impetus; it was simply that she was here to do battle with ghosts of the past, not watch or participate in the murder of prisoners. SO boring.

"If you want to play at being Princeps, there should be a Titan in the adjoined building whose crew has been eliminated," Solon said suddenly.

Luna blinked and turned toward him. "We art already a Princess," she pointed out.

"No, PRINCEPS. A Titan pilot. That's what they're called," the Warsmith mumbled as his hands drew lines in the air over the hololith projector.

Luna was about to take his suggestion, but her gaze lingered on Solon and the image hovering in front of him.

It was a schematic for a suit of armor. Power armor, no doubt. What she found absolutely intriguing, however, was that the armor obviously wasn't shaped for a human, post-human, or any sort of bipedal creature. It was pony armor.

Ignoring the shouting and another burst of gunfire behind her, the alicorn trotted eagerly up to the projector. "And what, may we ask, is tonight's project about, Warsmith?"

"Something that Serith requested on behalf of Miss Trixie. Apparently we can't manage to get her vehicle built, so he wants me to make her an armor suit instead," Solon sighed slightly, "it seems rather unnecessary to me, but whatever. I just hope he explained to her that there's going to be surgery involved to install the nerve sockets."

Luna placed her front hooves on the projector, grinning at the hololith. "'Tis a wonderful piece! And thou hast already progressed so far with the design!"

"Yes, I'm just finalizing a basic module design before I work on the modifications to fit Miss Trixie," Solon mumbled, several hololith screens popping up around him as his fingers drew patterns and poked at certain points upon them. "I think I'll call it Centaur pattern armor. This will be variant U."

Luna grinned. "Most fascinating. Can we requisition-"

"No," Solon interrupted without pausing in his work.

Luna's grin vanished. "And why not?"

"Well, first off - and this is just for starters - the last time we met in the waking world, you tried to kill me," the Iron Warrior pointed out glibly.

Luna looked affronted. "Art thou STILL holding a grudge over that? One would think it t'were the first time thou hast evaded murder."

"It's certainly not, but that doesn't help your case," Solon pointed out.

The alicorn princess puffed up her cheeks. "Our subjects hath forgiven us for our attempts upon their lives," she pointed out.

"Have they, now? And do they shower you with gifts as part of their 'forgiveness'?"

Luna tilted her head to the side. "... Nay, they do not," she admitted reluctantly, and with a mental note to investigate the matter of her tithes and why they've been rather scarce since her return.

"Then it's rather silly to expect such a thing from a Lord of Chaos, is it not?"

Luna's muzzle scrunched up as she considered his point.

"Please?" she tried, smiling hopefully.

"It distresses me that it's taken you this long to consider asking politely," Solon deadpanned.

"So dost that mean that-"

"The answer is still no."

"Ponyfeathers."

****

Deep space - bridge of the flagship Black Tide

*Yes, Shas'o. We have entered the outer limits of the system and have regrouped with the research vessel Desh'ruun and her escort. I have a full report on their progress so far, as well as a review of supply distributions.*

The Tau Admiral stood stiffly in front of the fire caste high officer seated across from his station on the bridge of the Lamman Sept flagship.

Commander Voidsong was every inch a Fire Warrior, lithe but well-muscled despite her taking to combat in a battlesuit as most commanders did. A short crest of white hair stood stiffly on her scalp, tipped sharply backward. Her expression was fixed into an almost permanent snarl, and on this occasion there was little reason for it to be lighter.

In theory, within the bridge of a starship the Shas'o High Commander answered to the Kor'o Admiral and should have been the one relaying data and offering potential strategies to him. Theory meant little in the Lamman Sept, however, and long practice and habit had left no doubt who guided this fleet.

Voidsong's lips pressed into a thin line as she scrolled rapidly through the proferred information on her terminal to pick up the items that were of interest to her.

*So then the situation is unchanged. We've picked up nothing from system 319-V?*

The Admiral grimaced. He always found it distasteful when star systems were reduced to a mere number. *Correct, Shas'o. The Centaur system is quiet, and we've picked up nothing on either our conventional or modified communication arrays.*

Voidsong scowled. *Then Shas'el Wraithstar has failed.*

*We know only that the-*

*We know that his device is not functioning, which is the entire purpose of his mission,* the High Commander snapped, *thus, he has FAILED.*

The air caste Admiral took a deep breath. *Your orders, Shas'o?*

*What else can we do?* she asked irritably, banishing the reams of data with a swipe of her hand. *Set course for the third planet. Full speed. Whatever has delayed or defeated him, it will be dealt with and we will finish this.*

The Kor'o pursed his lips. *There are... many vessels that are still in dire need of repairs, Shas'o, and we HAVE arrived ahead of schedule.*

Voidsong gave him an annoyed look. *A lead that we can't afford to waste if we have to clean up Wraithstar's mistakes. As always, time is of the essence.* She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowing. *ETA?*

The Admiral suppressed a sigh. *We can be within high orbit around Centaur III in thirty hours.*

*Do it. We are very close, Kor'o. I will not allow us to stumble now.*

Author's Note

When I started this chapter, it was titled "Void War", and I was planning a big space battle. Around 20,000 words later, the ponies hadn't even left Ferrous Dominus. Oi.

Also, a little Lunamac out of freaking NOWHERE. How do ya like them apples?

Void War

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 7

Void War

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 10, slave block tertius

"Move it along, grayskins," barked an Iron Warrior as the elevator opened to the sixth floor. The Chaos Marine at the front of the group of shackled Tau prisoners stepped out into the hall, leading the train of prisoners to the first door, and then keyed in a code on the console mounted on it.

"Your room," he said sharply, turning toward the first two Tau as the door opened.

The two bedraggled air caste members nervously scurried inside, and then the Iron Warrior closed the door and locked it with the keypad.

"Well, I must say, at least the facilities are clean and modern," Fennin said in Gothic as he limped along at the back of the line, "when I heard we were going to be slave miners, I imagined tents and mud pits for accommodations."

The Iron Warrior behind him snorted. "We are well-practiced at this, xeno. Slaves have value, and must be cared for." The engineer could almost FEEL the soldier's lips curling into a smile as he continued. "Congratulations on your promotion to 'asset'. Just hours ago you were mere boltgun practice."

Fennin suppressed a sigh.

Next to the Fio'el, Jerriha limped along in stoic silence, this being her second tour of Iron Warrior slave complexes. She wasn't badly injured, but had a gauze patch over her right eye which hid a considerable horseshoe-shaped welt.

Two by two the alien prisoners were placed in cells, and soon Jerriha and Fennin were the last ones left.

"Final lot," rumbled the Chaos Marine in front as they approached the end of the hall.

Jerriha glanced uneasily at Fennin, and then turned her head to the Iron Warrior behind her.

"You... do know we're different genders, right?"

"I have to confess that I differentiate xenos based on how many bolt rounds in the face it takes to finish them," the Marine said, "so I neither know or care. If you have a problem, you may have it ignored by your assigned overseer once we're finished ignoring it."

Fennin rolled his eyes. Of course she would be worried about THAT when they had just been captured and enslaved by evil super-humans. *Females,* he mumbled under his breath.

Jerriha grimaced as they approached the cell she would apparently be sharing with the earth caste engineer.

Then the Iron Warrior at the front hesitated. "Hm? This one isn't locked. Why-"

And then the door slid open on its own.

"Oh, hello! Don't mind us! We're just getting the last of our things!" Cinnamon Skies chirped as she quickly exited the room with a small box balanced on her back.

"Sorry about the hold-up boys, it's all yours!" Snow Stride said as he followed his wife into the hall. He likewise had a box on his back, as well as several lipstick marks marring his face and neck. He also looked severely flushed, and firmly avoided eye contact with the bipeds as he rushed past them.

Both pegasi also had their wings firmly extended despite walking along the floor. Strange.

"Have fun in there, xeno scum!" Cinnamon called back brightly as she entered the elevator at the end of the hall. Then she snickered. "We sure did."

"Honey, please, don't taunt the alien menace," Snow Stride whispered as he joined her.

The Iron Warriors didn't particularly know what to make of any of this, so they dismissed it entirely. "Your new home," the leading Marine said, stepping aside for Fennin.

The engineer grimaced. "I think you should probably get this cell cleaned, first."

"I think you should probably stop talking," the Iron Warrior countered, "get in."

Seconds later both Tau were sealed inside the room, and Jerriha listened carefully at the sounds of power-armored footsteps growing more distant.

*All right then, here we are. So what's the plan? How do we bust out?* Fennin asked, switching to his native language.

Jerriha dropped down onto one of the two cots. *Simple. We wait for the base to throw a party that leaves the palisades undefended, rappel down the outer wall, and then it's just a long jog back to base.*

Fennin did not look amused. *Try to be serious, Fireblade.*

*Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I forgot that YOU'RE the experienced commando out of the two of us who's already broken out of this facility once,* Jerriha said dryly.

As Fennin glared at her, she shrugged. *The circumstances that led to my escape probably aren't repeatable. But if we do get such a chance, it will be due to the equines mucking about.*

Fennin sighed as he dropped onto his own cot. *There has to be a way. We HAVE to find the Warp core and get it to Black Point.*

Jerriha raised an eyebrow. It seemed strange to hear the engineer worrying about a mission objective now, after they had been shackled and imprisoned. She hadn't known him very long, but he'd seemed like the unusually selfish sort, if anything.

*We're in no position to worry about such a thing, Fio'el,* the Fireblade said as she laid down.

*You don't understand! Without the... 'the device' in place, dozens of systems, possibly the entire First Sphere could-*

*QUIET, Fio'el,* Jerriha snapped, *they could be monitoring us right now, and I seriously doubt that a language barrier will protect our secrets. If they learn you know anything of importance, then that knowledge will become theirs.*

Fennin frowned. *They did not interrogate us yet. Are they sending us straight to forced labor without trying to sort out what we know?*

*Yes. Their apathy works to our advantage, Fio'el. To the gue'la our presence here is a mere curiosity. Let's keep it that way.*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 9 medicae facility, the next morning

"Wyatt Daniels. A visitor to see you."

Daniels looked up from the dataslate he was reading in his cot, and was pleasantly surprised to see Applejack following the biologis aspirant into his room.

"Hey Danny boy! How ya feelin'?" Applejack asked brightly as she trotted up to his bedside.

"Like I didn't just take a pulse rifle to the chest, which is a stellar improvement over yesterday," the mercenary said. He had bandage wrappings all around his upper torso, but otherwise there were few signs of injury.

Applejack put her front hooves onto the side of the bed, and then glanced at the minimally augmented man near the door. "So what happened to him, 'xactly?"

"We had to surgically remove the damaged carapace plating from the patient's pectoral muscles, as the energy discharge had fused it to the epidermis. Luckily, there was little damage deeper than that," the aspirant explained.

"A few rejuvenators and skin grafts and I'm good to go," Daniels chuckled, "unfortunately, anesthesia doesn't seem to be part of my health plan."

"We learn from pain," the aspirant said breathlessly, staring up at the ceiling, "our bodies are a prison, Wyatt Daniels, the shackles of our-"

"Yeah, okay, fine. Save it, please," the rifleman grumbled, "so am I good to go or not?"

"You may leave at will," the aspirant said as he turned toward the exit.

Then he hesitated, staring at the man and pony as the door opened to let him out. "Also, for sanitary reasons, please refrain from engaging in intercourse so long as you're on the premises," he added.

Daniels' expression darkened. "You know, if I had a gun right now, I'd shoot you."

"I'm just the messenger," the aspirant mumbled as he walked out.

Applejack quirked an eyebrow as she watched the man leave, and then turned back to Daniels. "What was he goin' on about?"

"Nothing. So what's happening, AJ? Going back to the orchard?"

The orange pony sighed. "Yeah, we got an awful mess ahead of us. And Mac is stayin' here fer now 'cuz Ah guess he needs to learn to use that pea shooter Solon gave him."

Daniels blinked. "Macintosh has a GUN?" Applejack had told him that her brother had been saved in return for her help in taking on the Tau, but she hadn't gone into detail on the matter.

"Oh yeah. You should see him," Applejack chuckled, "more metal in him than his plow. Anyway, at least Crabapple can help out better now."

"Really? The probe? How?" Daniels asked.

"Oh, she ain't a probe no more. She's one o'them siege walkers."

He didn't really have a good response to that.

"Ah'm just worried about Apple Bloom," Applejack confessed, "nobody knows what she was gettin' into with yer Chaos cult."

"She joined a cult? Which one?" Daniels asked.

"Nurgle."

"Ooh, that could be tough for a farmer," he admitted, "make sure to wash your produce thoroughly after she touches it."

"Gotcha." Applejack nodded, and then backed away from the bed. "So you sure yer okay? Let's see you on yer feet, cowboy."

Daniels smirked and pulled his sheets to the side. "All right, fine. I really do appreciate you coming to check up on me, AJ."

"Well, Ah figure Ah do owe ya," the farmpony said somberly as the mercenary stood up next to the bed.

Then she twisted around and struck him in the foot with her back hooves, sending the man flailing painfully onto the floor.

"Ow! What in the bleeding Hell..." Daniels grunted and rolled onto his back, only to freeze as he found Applejack's face hovering above his with a decidedly bemused expression.

"Ah've been savin' that since the canyon," the farmpony said evenly, her eyes narrowing, "don't call me heavy."

Daniels' eyes narrowed back at her. "I regret NOTHING," he hissed with highly exaggerated drama.

They glared at each other for several tense seconds until Applejack rolled her eyes and pulled away.

"Have it your way, smart-flank. Next time Ah'm aimin' fer the shins," the farmpony warned as she turned toward the exit.

"I'll make sure it's worth it," Daniels said as he pulled himself up again, "later, AJ."

"Stay safe, Daniels."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - several hours later

Applejack watched her home come into view through the vision slit of the chimera APC as it rumbled past the orchard, and a smile crossed her lips as she saw the blast-scarred bunker still standing sentinel over the expanse of fields and trees.

Apple Bloom sat behind her older sister, a bored expression on her face.

"Ah still can't see why Ah couldn't ride Crabapple here," the filly mumbled for the third time. In the past hour.

Applejack rolled her eyes, having stopped explaining the actual reasons some time ago. The daemon engine was following close behind their transport, although its surprisingly deft footsteps were lost in the rumble of the chimera engines.

"Never mind that. We have work to do, but the very next time you see Miss Gaela you owe her a 'thank you'," the orange mare insisted.

The other ponies were to leave via gunship, staying behind for a little longer so that Twilight could gather information for something or other. Applejack wasn't paying close attention to her reasons, but Gaela had suggested that she and her little sister hitch a ride with one of the supply convoys that the trading corp was sending to restock Delgan's market. Land-based transit was probably necessary anyway, considering the extraordinarily large tag-along the sisters were bringing home.

Apple Bloom pouted. "But she locked me in a box!"

Applejack sighed. "Well... okay, yeah, that's true. And that's wrong. But she did us, or rather YOU, a serious favor by convincin' them to let Crabapple leave with us. So on balance ya still owe her."

"Ah don't see why. Ain't Crabapple mine?" the earth filly asked, curling up on the floor of the transport.

"Not really, no," Applejack said bluntly, "she's a piece of Company gear that they dropped on our property, got broke, decided to do what ya say fer no good reason, and then hijacked some other piece of gear's body without askin' nobody. So speakin' with all honesty and whatnot, yer claim to her is a mite thin."

Apple Bloom groaned as the chimera started to slow to a stop.

The rear ramp dropped to the ground with an empty clunking noise, and the Apple sisters picked their way past the stacked supply crates and sacks toward the exit.

"Woo-EE! Feels nice to have real dirt under mah hooves again!" Applejack chuckled.

Apple Bloom immediately raced over to Crabapple, who was waiting patiently in a crouch just a few meters behind the short train of transports. It let out a discordant growl, lowering its head to the ground.

"Now you hold on a tick!" Applejack shouted, causing the filly to stop short. "We ain't got time to play! First yer gonna go bathe while Ah put together a list of jobs! Ah know ya haven't washed up since the first night in Ferrous!"

Apple Bloom cringed. "But, Sissss~! Baths are a blasphemy against the Plague God!"

The older pony's eyes narrowed. "And not takin' baths is a blasphemy against equine decency and civilization. Guess which one holds more weight in our house?"

Apple Bloom groaned again and then turned away from Crabapple, trudging obediently toward the main bunker complex. "Awww... Ah'm never gonna get any infections at this rate."

"Not if Ah have anything to say about it," Applejack said firmly as her little sister walked past her, "if Ah'm gonna let you keep on with this 'Chaos' hogwash, then yer gonna keep in mind that you have to live with other ponies without becomin' a walkin' bio-hazard!"

"All right," Apple Bloom moped sadly as the door slid open in front of her.

"And don't skimp on the soap!" Applejack yelled as her sister entered the farmstead. "Ah'm gonna check!"

Satisfied that the filly understood her position, the apple farmer turned toward the barn.

"All right, Crabapple, come with me. We gotta load up that alien doohickey."

The maulerfiend crowed happily as it followed Applejack toward the barn.

Applejack tapped the button in front of the barn door, then waited patiently as it slid upward.

Her eyes bulged as she saw the barn interior. It was even more cluttered with alien debris and material than before, and she couldn't see any sign of the artifact that had kicked up such a fuss just two days ago.

"What's goin' on? Where'd it go?" the farmer shouted, rubbing her forehead with a hoof and pushing her hat back. "Aw, consarnit! Don't tell me the darn grays snuck in here while Ah was gone and nabbed it!"

"That is not the case, no."

Applejack jumped slightly at hearing the deep baritone voice behind her, and she turned to see Dest approaching from the fields. The rhino pilot didn't have his helmet on, and he was carrying a shovel that frankly looked absurdly small compared to his massive frame.

"Hey, Dest! What'd Ah miss?" Applejack asked.

"I've taken the liberty of clearing much of the detritus that littered your facility after the battle," the Chaos Marine explained, stabbing the shovel into the ground and resting his hands on the grip, "I have just finished burying the last of the corpses. Yesterday I arranged for transport of the artifact."

Applejack blinked, and then grinned. "Well, gosh! Ya didn't have to do that fer us! That's right neighborly of ya!" Then she looked thoughtful. "Well, this month is gonna be tight, money-wise, but Ah'll have to dig up a little somethin' to give ya. And if yer lookin' fer more to do, Ah could certainly use another farm hand while Mac is off trainin'."

Dest blinked at this, wondering why Macintosh, who had been in a near-death state last he was aware, would need 'training'. He also couldn't help but notice that Applejack was wearing a heavy bolter round around her neck and had a maulerfiend siege walker sitting behind her with a frankly bizarre level of obedient calm.

"So what did I miss?" the driver asked, mirroring the pony's question.

"Huh? Oh, right. Mac got fixed up with some bionics and a suit of power armor, me and the girls helped y'all capture the Tau hangar base in Salt Lick Canyon, mah little sis and her friends joined yer evil cult, and Crabapple done stole a new body. Ah'm not really clear on how that last part worked. Every time we tried to ask Gaela about it, she done looked like she wanted to cry."

Dest took several seconds to absorb all this.

"An eventful day, then," he admitted blandly.

"Never a dull moment with you guys," the farmer chuckled, "anyway, what'd ya do with the gizmo, exactly?"

Dest crossed his arms over his chest. "Yesterday an agent of the palace arrived at your facility and informed me that the royal house wished to purchase a shipment of apples. Considering the state of the land, he was about to leave and seek the goods elsewhere, but I decided to make the sale on your behalf."

The Chaos Space Marine's gaze turned toward the barn, and to the tall pile of splintered and scorched wood that used to be several wagons.

"Unfortunately, that left me with a quandary: sapiens are not allowed in Canterlot, and in any case it would take far too much time for me to make the delivery personally. I came up with a solution: I would contract the local courier services to make the delivery. After remembering that the couriers also serviced Ferrous Dominus, it occurred to me that I could have them deliver the artifact as well without violating any of our recent security prohibitions." Dest looked quite proud of his plan, rolling his shoulders back as a slight smile crossed his face.

"Well Ah'll be! Now yer thinkin' outside the box!" Applejack said happily. Her family normally wouldn't hire other ponies to make deliveries for them because it cut too deeply into their revenue, but making a sale to the royal palace and getting rid of a highly sought-after alien device were both quite worth the expense. "So both of 'em were taken care of, then?"

"Indeed. The gray pegasus with the optical impairment saw to the matter yesterday. It is done."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 1 main gates

The seneschal stared down at the delivery manifest in his hands, reading the brief and entirely complete delivery description.

Then he looked up at the wagon - apparently magical, go figure - attached to a team of pegasi and flanked by the pair of Iron Warriors that had escorted them in.

"Well? Everything in order, Sir?" asked one of the mailmares, forcing herself not to tap her hoof against the ground impatiently.

"I just don't understand," the man mumbled, looking down at the manifest again, "when did anybody here order a shipment of apples? Are you sure this isn't for the dessert shop or something?"

The mailmare rolled her eyes. "Well, what you guys do with 'em is your business, obviously, but as far as I know it's for the Iron Warriors, not some random ponies living with you."

The seneschal shook his head. "Master Delgan must have sent it back earlier before he'd heard the transport lockdown was rescinded. I wish he'd have called it in first."

An aide stood over the cart, picking up one of the bright red fruits. "Well, I DO like apples..."

"Whatever. Fine. Do you take credits?"

"Sure thing, Boss! Just sign here and you're all set!"

****

Canterlot Castle

"So none of you ordered this big, mysterious black thing?"

Celestia's unicorn attendant Kibitz stood in front of the Warp core, beckoning to it with a hoof as several guards eyed the device suspiciously.

In front of him stood several ministers, high-ranking guard officers, the head maid, Prince Blueblood, and a very sleepy Princess Luna. All of them were shaking their heads save Luna, whose head was "swaying" more than "shaking" per say.

"What IS it, exactly?" Blueblood asked, an eyebrow arched. "Not a sculpture, I hope. I detest modern art."

"According to the delivery manifest, it's a 'Tau artifact'. Whatever that means," Kibitz grumbled.

"Aren't the Tau those aliens the humans are fighting?" one of the officers mumbled. "I read an article on them in an issue of 'Arrows and Crossbows'."

"An ALIEN object?" Blueblood asked, recoiling in disgust. "Why ever would you accept such a thing into the palace?"

"Well, I checked it for the spiked wheel symbols and it had none, so it's not exactly contraband," Kibitz sniffed, "it occurred to me that alien... 'paraphernalia' is quite popular nowadays, so I considered that somepony here may have ordered the thing."

"Ugh, disgusting," Blueblood said with a grimace, "if you ask me, we should throw such trash in the moat. Followed by the owners of said trash."

One of the officers shared a knowing glance with the head maid, but neither spoke.

"Well, be that as it may, if nopony is going to lay claim to this... 'artifact', what should we do with it?" Kibitz asked, his mustache twitching as he turned to stare at the unidentified device.

"I stand by my moat suggestion," Blueblood said, leaning slightly to one side.

"It looks kind of expensive to fling into a ditch outside," the head maid noted, "besides, what if it's dangerous?"

Luna released a jaw-cracking yawn, and then waved a hoof at the unicorn attendant. "A possibly dangerous, mysterious artifact with no immediate use? There exists a room for that. To the vaults with it. And back to our chambers with us. Good day."

Luna turned around and slowly walked back to her room. The guards, having been given their orders, shrugged and positioned themselves to begin carrying the unknown device.

"Tch. Not a wise thing, keeping space machines within the palace walls," Blueblood harrumphed, slinging his head to the side and shaking out his golden blond mane.

Kibitz stepped up next to the prince as the guards carried the object off, a squad of unicorns levitating it while several earth ponies pushed it along through the air.

"Why? If it IS dangerous then it would be worse to dump it somewhere," Kibitz pointed it out.

"Whether it's dangerous or not is a foregone conclusion," Blueblood snapped, "all the aliens and their devices are dangerous. Some are simply more subtle about the danger they pose."

Kibitz raised an eyebrow. "The circles?"

"No, not the blasted circles! I'm not talking about some fool superstition, I'm talking about COMMERCE!" Blueblood said, poking the other unicorn in the chest with a hoof. "The humans march into our villages and set up shop like they own the place! They spread their goods and their horrible 'machines' far and wide, and then what?!"

Kibitz blinked. "Uh... I don't know. And then what?"

"And then suddenly it's as if we can't do without them!" Blueblood concluded. "Already Celestia has declared the humans the allies of an evil power, a race of invaders aiming to bring corruption and death to our lands, and look at all the effect that's had!" Blueblood snorted angrily. "Those hicks in Ponyville buddy up to them without a care, including the Elements of Harmony themselves! Even here in Canterlot, where they're formally banned, I can't attend a single social event without seeing some self-important nobody bragging about their 'auto-scriber' or 'plasma furnace' or 'adamantium gene-locked jewelry case'. Did you know that there's apparently a shop HERE, in the city, that actually sells this filth?"

Kibitz wiggled his mustache. "I'm not sure if that's really of paramount concern..."

Blueblood rolled his eyes, annoyed that yet another of his so-called "peers" refused to see the threat for what it was. "Mark my words, Kibitz: we're going to reach a point of no return soon," the prince said, once again jabbing the other unicorn with his hoof, "if the Royal House doesn't nip this in the bud, then we're going to find the humans' claws lodged deeper in pony society than we'd ever imagined was possible. And we'll have nopony but ourselves to blame."

Kibitz looked alarmed at the proclamation, and a grim silence hung over the two stallions as he gave deep thought to the prince's warning.

"Do humans have claws? I thought they had 'fingers'?" he eventually asked.

Blueblood promptly turned away and walked down the hall, his head hanging low. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

****

Ponyville - outside Twilight's library

"All right Rainbow, I'll talk to you later! I just really need to get some thoughts down on paper right now!"

Twilight shouted to be heard over the roar of the gunship's engines as it lifted off, its jet wash very nearly tearing some of the smaller branches from her treehouse. The rest of her friends were already walking toward their respective homes, and Rainbow Dash offered a mock salute before she flew off like a shot.

Only Gaela remained with her, her dark robes swirling about her feet.

Twilight approached her front door and then stopped in front of it.

The alicorn placed a hoof against her chest, and then cleared her throat noisily. Then she started speaking as she pushed the door open in front of her.

"But that's why it's so important to have an assistant you can count on!" Twilight said loudly while she entered, as if she were in the middle of conversation. "An assistant who is responsible, capable, and flexible! That way I know the library is being taken care of, even if I have to suddenly leave without even getting the chance to tell him!"

"Does that actually work?" Gaela asked as she followed the purple pony inside.

"Ssh!" Twilight hushed the Dark Acolyte, and then looked around the library interior.

"Twilight? You're back?" came a rather meek voice from upstairs. Twilight looked up to see Spike descending the staircase, a flush on his cheeks. A fairly sure indication that he had heard her.

"Yes, it does," Twilight whispered to the human woman. Then, at normal volume. "Oh, Spike! You're home after all!" she said with mock surprise. "Good job watching over the library!"

"Th-Thanks, Twilight!" Spike said, puffing up his chest as all the irritation at being abandoned for two days without warning evaporated. "You know you can always count on me!"

"Sure can! Well, I have some work to do upstairs, so you just keep on looking after the library," the alicorn said as she trotted past Spike and up the stairs, "oh, and I don't need dinner. Nutrient paste. Later!"

Soon Twilight had vanished into her room, leaving the young dragon alone with Gaela.

The Dark Acolyte couldn't help but notice that Spike was wearing what appeared to be a blue wool sweater. Twilight had either failed to notice or hadn't bothered asking about it.

"I didn't think you wore clothes aside from special occasions," Gaela said as she put her power axe in its usual place.

"Oh, this? It's new," Spike said, pulling on the hem of the article, "I learned to knit!"

"That is SO CLOSE to being a useful skill," the cyborg remarked, "I am still of the opinion that you wasted a considerable opportunity when you resisted further Chaos corruption. Has that progressed at all, by the way?"

"No, thank Celestia," Spike groused, lowering his voice and casting a cautious glance toward the stairs to make sure Twilight wasn't coming back down, "but my fire breath still hasn't returned to normal, and I haven't seen Discord since he said he'd 'look into it'." The young dragon crossed his arms over his chest. "It's been over a week! How long does this take?!"

"I don't think you fully appreciate your position," Gaela noted, "Chaos corruption is usually 'cured' with bullets, not magic or negotiation."

Spike winced badly. "No, I think I appreciate that plenty," he grumbled, "it's why you're the only person I've told..."

"I'm touched by your trust," Gaela said dryly.

He glared at her. "You are not."

"You're right. I'm sorry."

He glared harder. "You are not."

Gaela rolled her eye.

****

Ponyville - outside Fluttershy's cottage

Fluttershy was practically dancing as she trotted back up to her cottage through the grassy fields, the chain around her neck swinging from side to side.

Finally... FINALLY, the nightmare was over. Their mission had been completed, Applejack's home was safe, the artifact had (probably) been moved somewhere else where she wouldn't feel any obligation to help defend it, and the humans had no reason to ever - EVER - try to get her assistance again for something that didn't involve animals in some way.

Most importantly, thanks to the circumstances of their saving Big Macintosh, Tellis had been let back into his own home! Although Fluttershy would be the first to admit that Tellis had been far more decent and non-murdery as a roommate than she had expected, she still had no particular affinity for the Raptor Lord, and she was utterly relieved that she wouldn't be seeing him again.

She opened her front door.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!"

Tellis turned his helmet toward the doorway as Fluttershy's shriek of terror petered out, leaving the yellow pegasus gasping for breath.

"So is screaming when you enter your own house just something you do? Like a ritual? Is it supposed to bring good luck, or what?"

Fluttershy's eyebrow twitched. The Iron Warrior Raptor was kneeling on the floor in the middle of her living room, facing away from her, and was surrounded by many of her animals that seemed to be watching something taking place in front of the Chaos Lord.

"What are you doing?" Fluttershy squeaked, too exhausted and horrified to dig into her vast reserves of timid politeness.

"Teaching your rabbit self-defense," Tellis answered blithely.

Fluttershy shook her head, her pink mane whipping about wildly. "No, I mean what are you doing HERE?"

"I live here," Tellis answered, "you hit your head or something?"

"You... but... home... guns... BLEARGH!!"

Fluttershy lowered her head, and then took a deep, calming breath. Peace, harmony, and kindness suffused her being, and in seconds the sense of overwhelming, irate shock was purged from her mind.

"Isn't your home in Ferrous Dominus?" she asked calmly as she raised her head again.

"Well, it would be, but like I told you, they keep trying to shoot me down," Tellis replied, "seriously, did you bang your head on something? I find concussions kind of fun, but I hear you squishier types don't like them."

Fluttershy refused to let the Iron Warrior provoke her panic and ire. Peace. Harmony. Kindness.

"But you flew into Ferrous Dominus while you were carrying Big Macintosh, and they didn't shoot you then."

Tellis paused to consider that. "Yeah, you're right. Well, I was carrying a wounded pony, so maybe that was it. They might still shoot me now. Whatever. I'm already here."

"But... why didn't you just STAY in your fortress when you got into it?" Fluttershy asked, her kindness starting to drown under the lump of dread in her stomach.

"I dunno. That place is boring, anyway." Tellis turned away from her.

Harmony snapped like a tree struck by a lightning bolt and peace boiled away out her ears in a thin, dark smoke.

Then a thumping noise came from the floor. She couldn't see what it was though, since Tellis was in the way.

"Nice move! Now don't stop moving before it does! Face to floor! Keep going!" More thumping noises.

Fluttershy rewound the extremely distressing conversation and recalled what Tellis had first said when she'd asked what he was doing.

"What did you say was going on?" Fluttershy asked, walking around the ring of animals so that she could see what they were all staring at.

Angel Bunny was standing on top of a prone wild cat, his paws gripping the feline's head and slamming it into the floor over and over again. The cat was flailing about trying to get out of the rabbit's grip, but the hold was inexplicably strong and it had no leverage in its current position.

"ANGEL! What are you doing?!" Fluttershy gasped.

"Learning self-defense," Tellis said proudly, "this guy's a badass. He already put down a snake, a lizard twice his size, and a hawk. Next I think I'll put him up against a dog."

Fluttershy wasn't listening, however, her eyes bulging as she saw a familiar glyph drawn across her rabbit friend's chest in red: the mark of Khorne.

"Angel Bunny is a blood cultist!" the pegasus shrieked, falling to her back knees and flinging her forelegs toward the ceiling. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

The animals stopped egging on the battle as they stared at the bellowing pony, and even the two combatants in the middle of the ring froze in surprise.

Tellis waited until his roommate/landlord was out of breath before he spoke. "Shy, chill out. It's not a legit mark. I just drew it on with paint to make him look tougher." Then he paused. "At least, I don't THINK that counts as a legit mark. That rabbit IS pretty crazy."

Fluttershy's distressed and exhausted mind finally reached its limit, and she tilted to one side and fainted.

Tellis snorted. "Drama queen."

Angel Bunny rolled his eyes, and then gave the cat underneath him a swift kick in the gut.

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

"Well, Sparkle? Any progress?" Gaela asked as she entered Twilight's room with a cup of tea in each hand.

The alicorn was pacing in front of a blackboard, chalk dust lightly coloring her muzzle. A few dataslates were laid out on the floor in front of her, and a map of Equestria was pinned to the wall with the locations of the Tau bases and Ferrous Dominus marked out. The chalkboard listed numerous facts about the Tau presence on Centaur III, most of them followed by the question "Why?". There was also a sketch of the artifact, labeled "Warp thing" and surrounded by question marks.

Twilight sighed and turned toward the Dark Acolyte. "A little bit. Maybe. I'd appreciate some of your insight, though."

Gaela put down one of the cups of tea on a desk. "For you."

The pony blinked. "You brought me tea?" she asked, quite surprised at the slightly thoughtful gesture.

"It was Spike's idea," Gaela replied immediately, lifting her own cup and taking a sip.

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. "Even so, I'm surprised you didn't just get him to deliver it to me."

Gaela paused, her eye glancing away as she thought that over. "You're right. I would do something like that." Then she frowned. "I think you horses are starting to impress social graces upon me. Disturbing."

Twilight snickered. "Before long you'll even be making friends with other humans!"

The Dark Acolyte made a displeased expression. "Enough of this. Let's discuss your project."

The alicorn let the subject drop as she turned toward her chalk board.

"Well, I think I've laid out all the facts we have about the Tau presence in Equestria. The bases, the secrecy of their mission, their focus on infiltrations, etc."

She levitated a piece of chalk up to the sketch of the Tau artifact. "The Tau device probably plays an important role, judging by the reaction of that engineer alien and the effort they made to get it back. But there's not much I can reasonably puzzle out about it; if you can't figure it out then there's no way I could."

She drew an X over the sketch.

"Putting it aside though, the thing that surprises me is the information I've found confirming that the Tau arrived on the planet first, and that you stumbled upon them by accident."

Gaela raised her eyebrow as she slurped some more tea. "And this surprises you why? I'm fairly certain we've mentioned both facts before."

"Because even so, I've been operating under the assumption that the main reason for the Tau and the Iron Warriors to be here is to fight each other. As far as we knew, you both just appeared one day and have been trying to kill each other ever since, so we always looked at the conflict as an outsider's war that had been brought here by accident." Twilight shook her head. "But that assumption seems to be false. The Company doesn't have to fight the Tau, and the Tau are doing something else on the planet besides trying to fend you off. The situation is more complex than we had considered. Most importantly, the Tau weren't expecting to be interrupted and attacked by the 38th Company."

Gaela leaned against the wall. "So what?" she asked bluntly.

"SO, if we acknowledge that your arrival and interference was completely unexpected, a lot of the Tau's behavior suddenly doesn't make any sense," Twilight pointed out, jabbing a hoof at the human, "we never questioned it before because they were fighting you, but if you weren't an expected obstacle, a lot more questions pop up."

She levitated her chalk toward the map. "Start with the bases. Why have three bases spread far and wide across the region?"

"A single base housing their primary military barracks and ship hangars would have been impossible to hide even for them," Gaela explained, "and the jamming array wasn't possible to hide forever with such a vast, widespread effect. If the Tau wanted to keep the important facilities secret, then this deployment was necessary."

"That seems perfectly obvious to you, because you have probes and sensors and space ships and electronic communications," Twilight pointed out, "but we don't. The only way a pony or any other creature on this world would be able to find their bases is by wandering nearby, or following a convoy there. Which is a lot more likely if there are three bases strung far apart and well-hidden rather than a single, poorly-hidden base."

Gaela furrowed her brow. The logic was sound. "Go on."

"Then there's the Everfree base. The jamming array," Twilight said, circling the relevant note in chalk, "what were they trying to jam? Ponies communicate with letters or magic. The first piece of equipment on our planet that could be affected by the field was from your fleet."

Twilight shook her head. "And finally, there's the Tau's military strength. They have a large army with weapons so advanced that they could easily conquer every kingdom here. But what were they doing with it? Nothing! We hadn't seen a single soldier until you humans appeared! And there have still been no attempts by the Tau to conquer territory, explore, or do anything that hasn't had to do with their secret objectives. Fennin didn't even know what Equestria was when we mentioned it. What were they planning on using an army of this size for if they never expected you and don't want to use it on us?"

Gaela stared down at the floor, her lips pressing into a thin line. "I... had not considered that perspective. Are you suggesting that the Tau WERE expecting us?"

Twilight paused and placed a hoof to her chin. "It would make SOME sense, but the evidence seems to be against it," she reasoned, "besides, if they were expecting to fight you, they've been doing a surprisingly lousy job of it."

"True. Tau highly value information and strategic advantage. If they had been expecting us, there would be little excuse for their failures so far," Gaela agreed.

Twilight sat on her haunches, staring at the chalkboard intensely. "All the evidence seems to suggest that the Tau are expecting to fight somebody... or someTHING here, on our planet. But if it isn't us... and it isn't you... then what could it be?"

For once, Gaela did not have an answer.

****

Ponyville - City Hall, later that evening

"Hmm... I'll raise. Fifteen bits," Rarity said as she floated a pair of cards in front of her. She lowered the cards back down and then took up a small glass of amasec with her telekinesis. "Your bet, Mayor."

Mayor Mare frowned at her own cards (somehow adhering to the bottom of her hoof), and then looked over the tops of the cards at the two humans sitting on the other side of the table.

Delgan met her eyes with a decidedly neutral expression, his partially-metal face betraying nothing as he poured himself more drink. The man in carapace armor sitting next to him was clearly less practiced, squirming uncomfortably.

"Oh, fine, have it your way. Call," she said with a sigh, pushing several coins into the pile in the middle, "Miss Harshwhinny?"

A blond, caramel-colored earth pony sporting the most severe expression the humans had ever seen on an Equestrian stared at the cards in her hoof as if they had personally offended her.

"Fold," Harshwhinny said, her nose twitching irritably.

"Call," Delgan said between sips of his own glass of amasec. The bodyguard next to him, despite having his own hand and pile of bits, immediately counted fifteen bits out of Delgan's pile and pushed them to the center. Then he silently turned his own cards over, indicating a fold.

The cards for the remaining players were flipped over and compared to the collection of cards face-up in the middle.

"Flush, bullet suit, Sergeant high. My pot," Rarity said with a smirk, clinking her glass against Delgan's before the mound of cash in the middle of the table was encompassed by a blue glow and dragged toward the unicorn.

There were a few groans, but Delgan matched Rarity's smirk as she began stacking her winnings into orderly coin towers. He was still doing the best of the group.

"I have a question," Harshwhinny said stiffly as Mayor Mare started to collect the cards for her deal. Then she turned over one of her cards. "Why does the high card have this symbol scratched into it?"

She tapped her hoof on her card, which bore a figure in bright, golden armor bearing a sword and taloned gauntlet. The card had been defaced so that the Star of Chaos was scratched over the figure, whose face was entirely obscured by a lens flare effect.

Delgan smiled fondly. "It's nothing. Just a religious thing. Certain icons are expected to be defaced as a matter of course. Please, pay it no mind."

"Far be it from me to interfere with your... faith," Harshwhinny said as her face approached, but never quite reached, an irritated sneer, "but this mark is visible from the other side of the card."

She flipped the card over again, and Delgan leaned over with an expression of utmost concern.

"Tch! You're right. I never noticed that," Delgan clicked his tongue as he ran a finger over the small, barely perceptible lines on the back of the card, "well, that won't do. Khylan, get a fresh deck."

The other man nodded and stood up before rushing out of the room.

"We'll use a black marker to deface the deck this time," the trademaster said as he gathered the "defective" cards from the table, "it's a religious thing," he reminded them.

"Oh, I have one," Mayor Mare said as she stepped down from her chair. They were holding the card game in her office, and her desk was readily accessible.

"Use a yellow highlighter," Harshwhinny said sharply, her narrowed eyes fixed on Delgan, "it won't bleed through."

Rarity sipped her amasec silently as she waited for the latest interruption to be resolved. She had to admit that Delgan's expression of surprise and concern would have been quite believable if the ponies present weren't already aware that he was a greedy, unethical scoundrel.

She let the glass fall gently onto the table. "Oh, do relax, Miss Harshwhinny. Who would be petty and foolish enough to cheat at small-stakes space poker? You couldn't buy a decent breakfast with most of these pots."

Harshwhinny's ever-present glare shifted briefly to Rarity. Rarity wondered if keeping that expression every hour of every day was her special talent; it seemed like it would start to hurt eventually.

Delgan's face was kept neutral, brushing off the implied insult. "I'm most pleased that you could join us for the game, Miss Rarity. I haven't heard all the details, but supposedly you had quite an adventure while you were away. You must be exhausted."

"Oh, it's not so bad," the unicorn insisted, "poor Applejack, though! After the stress and trauma of almost losing her brother, being pressed into service as a pony commando, and even taking a knife in the side during the affair, she has to go right back to work in the fields to make ends meet!"

Rarity shook her head. "It makes me feel guilty that my business is doing so well for the Company's presence here. I fear that if her harvests suffer any more interruptions due to Tau attack, she could lose the farm!"

"Tragic, to be sure," Harshwhinny said, her face betraying not a shred of sympathy, "she really should look into doing something with all that alien junk her family has acquired. It must be worth SOMETHING."

Mayor Mare snorted as she returned to the table with a yellow highlighter clenched in her teeth like a cigar. "You try telling her that. Apples do apples, and little else. It took decades before anypony could even convince the family to grow other crops and take on animals to generate some income during the off-season."

Delgan tsked. "Poor luck that out of all the automata to get fixated on the young sister, it would be a probe unit. Not much good for any sort of agricultural work or defense."

"Oh, no, actually Crabapple is a maulerfiend now," Rarity informed him before slurping down the last of her amasec.

"... Wait, what?"

The door to the office opened again, and the bodyguard re-entered. He was carrying a new box of playing cards, but also had a dataslate with him.

"Ah, Master Delgan? There's a, uh, vox dispatch for you. The message came through just a few minutes ago, prioritus beta, but you weren't available."

Delgan tilted his head to glance at the man, and then shrugged. "Fine, give it here. Then use the highlighter to give the False Emperor a mustache or something before you shuffle."

The armored man put down the dataslate in front of his employer, and then he yelped as Mayor Mare spat the highlighter at him, barely catching it before it bounced off his forehead.

"Nice catch, grunt!" the Mayor chuckled before reaching for the amasec bottle and spilling some of the amber liquor into her glass. "Let's hurry this up. I have an early meeting tomorrow with a Solar Guard about some sort of wheels or something."

"If you're not going to go to bed at an appropriate hour, then you could always use the current lull in the game to get some preparations done," Harshwhinny suggested, a slight tightening of her jaw indicating that she was annoyed at the Mayor's attitude, "Mister Delgan, at least, recognizes that work must be prioritized over play."

"Oh, come now Harsh, that's no good," the bespectacled pony said with a grin as she lifted up her glass of amasec, "business should be left in the office, where it belongs!"

"We're IN your office," the other earth pony said in a near-growl.

"You know what I meant," Mare sniffed, her gaze turning over to Delgan, "c'mon Norris, loosen up a little bit! What could be so important that it needs to interrupt this magical evening of inter-species bonding?"

Delgan quirked an eyebrow as he reached the end of the message, and then deactivated the dataslate before he answered. "A Tau battle fleet was just detected at the edge of your star system by an early-warning auger relay we deployed before making planetfall. It outnumbers the Company fleet six to one, and should reach orbit around this planet by tomorrow afternoon."

Rarity wasn't looking at Harshwhinny as Delgan spoke, but if she had she would have been one of the exceptionally few witnesses to ever see the pony's stern frown fall into a slack-jawed gape. She was quite busy trying to contain her own expression of sudden panic, however.

"That... sounds... bad..." she said awkwardly, for once badly understating the severity of a situation.

"Oh, yes. Extremely," Delgan admitted with a somber nod.

Mayor Mare glanced over at Rarity, then back to Delgan. "Sooooo... do you have to leave, or what?"

"Oh, not at all," the trademaster said with a chuckle, "believe me, there is absolutely nothing I can do about this! Khylan, go ahead and deal." His bodyguard nodded silently and started handing out the cards, and Delgan smiled calmly at seeing the rather ashen expressions on the ponies' faces. "Well then! More liquor, anyone?"

"PLEASE!" all three mares replied.

****

Ferrous Dominus - command center

"Well, ishn't thish jusht a kick in the actuator," Solon grumbled as he stared at the strategic hololiths displaying the Centaur system and the rapidly approaching alien armada.

Sliver and General Gnoss were on the other side of the hololith, and the background was a mess of men and women rushing about and yelling for data and adjustments.

The three commanders ignored the noise behind them with practiced ease, their eyes fixed upon the data that was being fed to them.

"The enemy fleet totals sixty-four ships," Gnoss began, his voice a tired growl behind his respirator, "of those, roughly a quarter aren't dedicated combat vessels, but we're still quite badly outgunned. There are four primary battlecruisers."

Sliver remained silent, his helmet tilting one way or the other as he studied the hololith.

"That's strange..." Gnoss furrowed his brow as new data continued to appear before them. "Many of these ships are showing signs of heavy battle damage. We're reading hull breaches everywhere that haven't been properly sealed, and some of their combat vessels don't seem to have active void shields online."

"The fleet ish fresh from battle, then," Solon mumbled, "that ish shtrange. There are no shipyardsh anywhere near here, and they can't know we're here yet. They musht be here for their little friendsh on the planet with ush."

The Warsmith scratched his helmet with a mechatendril, and then turned toward Sliver. "What do you think, Shliver? Can we fight them?"

The cyclopic eye lens turned toward him. "You think to defeat thiss fleet, Warssmith?"

"Well, I'd shettle for a wary shtalemate, really," Solon confessed, "I would not be avershe to trading the shafety of their ground troopsh on-planet to get the fleet to back off. But that's hard to do from a poshition of absholute weaknesh. We've inveshted too much into thish operation to flee at the firsht shign of enemy retaliation."

Sliver stared back down at the hololith.

"It can be done," the Nurglite Lord decided grimly, "we have the element of ssurprisse and sseveral captured enemy shipss. And the Harvesst of Ssteel."

"What's the strategy? Decapitate the fleet?" Gnoss asked.

"No. The oppossite," Sliver hissed, "kill a Tau leader and the resst may fight on out of vengeance and heroissm," a wet snort came from within the helmet, "'Greater Good' and all that. But their leaderss are ssenssitive to cassualties, and thiss fleet iss already crippled. We will sstrike ssuch an opening blow that the grayss will retreat for fear of losing much of the fleet to a convoy of 'freighters'."

Gnoss nodded slowly. "It could work. And regardless, if we're going to slug it out a strong start would be welcome. How do we inflict such a strike, my lord?"

"Trapss. Lure the foe into your jawss, confident in their ssafety. Then crush them." Sliver paused. "I believe the Tau call this 'kauyon'."

"Aye, Lord. The irony is appreciated."

"There will be two sstarship deploymentss. One will conssisst of xeno craft..."

Solon nodded absently as his second-in-command started laying out their battle plan, his attention divided. Had he not received word of the enemy fleet he would already be on his way to his quarters to begin his rest cycle. But preparing a fleet for battle would likely take all night. Luna was definitely going to be cross with him tomorrow night.

Assuming they were all still there, of course. It irritated him to no end that he found himself concerned about his usual rendezvous with the Equestrian Princess when he was staring at a threat that could potentially see his entire army annihilated.

"Bloody annoying poniesh," Solon grumbled.

Gnoss and Sliver froze immediately, their gazed turning upward toward the massive figure standing over the table.

"Er... could you repeat that, Warsmith?" General Gnoss asked awkwardly. He was pretty sure he'd heard Solon the first time, and the statement wasn't remotely relevant to their discussion, but it was bad form to simply ignore a Chaos Lord as if he hadn't spoken.

"No. It'sh nothing," Solon insisted, his optics flickering, "I'll begin preparing an emergency evacuation procedure in cashe things don't work out in orbit."

"Excellent idea, Warssmith," Sliver said, his gaze lingering suspiciously on his superior for several seconds, "in any casse, when the enemy formation drawss near the Harvesst..."

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

"There are HOW many enemy ships, again?" Twilight asked, gaping.

"Sixty-four. Against our eleven craft. Plus the three mass landers we took from the canyon."

Galea was kneeling on the floor in front of a squat hololith projection table as she installed a noosphere booster node onto it. Delgan was seated comfortably in Twilight's favorite reading chair in the corner, a pair of bodyguards standing behind him and Rarity standing in front of him.

"This will allow us to view the combat via a strategic display, much as the naval officers do from a fleet command bridge," the trademaster explained, his fingers laced together and his voice perfectly calm.

Rarity glanced back at the man uncertainly. It didn't escape her notice that the humans, which stood to lose their means of transport off-planet and eventually their lives, all seemed much more relaxed about the affair than she and Twilight did. It was probably the only thing that was keeping Twilight from descending into full panic mode; the alicorn already looked quite rattled at the news.

"So do you think you can win?" Rarity asked delicately as Twilight grimaced.

The only sound that immediately followed her question was the sizzling of a laser welder.

"... There are many... DEGREES of victory that must be considered in a conflict such as this," Delgan said eventually, "and I admit that I am not privy to the strategies of our Lord Astartes. But I count it as a good sign that I have not been instructed to prepare for planetary evacuation yet."

Gaela spoke next, her harsh and icy voice made all the harsher by her helmet's vox grille. "The Tau outnumber us severely and produce excellent void ships. Our own vessels possess superb technology, but will still be effectively outgunned on a craft-by-craft basis by dedicated Tau warships."

Rarity, Twilight, and Spike all shared a dubious glance.

"But the Tau are fools," Gaela continued, surprising the Equestrians, "they are mere children playing at the long art of war, rushing headlong at a fleet they know nothing about. Our crews are skilled, our masters have millennia of experience in all forms of battle, and we have... other tools at our disposal besides steel and fire. The odds are against us, but we will not break."

Delgan smirked, leaning back in his chair. "I do not quite share the Dark Acolyte's unshakable faith, but the Astartes are the finest warriors this galaxy has ever produced. If the grayskins do claim victory, they will only do so at horrific cost."

Twilight made a face at that. "It's, uh, not really any comfort to us that our side might manage to cause plenty of death and suffering when it loses."

"Oh. Right." Delgan shrugged. "Well, feel free to hope for the best, then. Glory to Chaos and the daemon Primarch and all that."

"It's a wonder you haven't been executed yet," Gaela growled, her voice like acid.

"The Iron Warriors take good care of their tools," the trademaster smirked, "and consider matters of devotion and loyalty pointless sentiment. Luckily for me."

"That aside," Rarity interjected quickly, "what would it mean for Equestria and its citizens if the Tau were to prevail?"

Delgan and Gaela paused, and then both of them shrugged at the same time.

"Impossible to say, without knowing what their goals are. But suffice to say, they'll have little difficulty completing their 'secret mission'," Gaela noted, "you can be sure that we'll be beating a hasty retreat out of the system, though, and leaving ships behind as well. There will be a great deal of salvage to rummage through in Ferrous Dominus, should you wish to secure it."

Delgan frowned at that, picturing the idea of losing so many assets all at once. "Assuming the Tau don't pick through it first."

"They won't. They largely disdain human equipment."

Twilight chewed her lip as the two humans discussed irrelevant details of prospective scavenging opportunities. The thought of Ferrous Dominus, with its vast avenues and enormous structures, dead and empty of all human life caused a dull ache in her stomach, somehow. She didn't find the idea of crawling around the dark, massive technological wonderland all alone in the least bit appealing.

In fact, even the prospect of simply continuing her regular, ostensibly normal life in Ponyville without ever meeting Gaela again in the library after waking up made her heart sink. Which was strange, considering that it was less a prospect and more an inevitability.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I REALLY hope Chaos wins," the purple alicorn murmured quietly.

The generally dark thoughts permeating the room were interrupted by the door suddenly opening and giving entrance to an entirely inappropriate level of cheerful joy.

"Hello everypony-slash-human!" shouted Pinkie Pie as she bounced into the library, a bucket of popcorn on her back.

Gaela looked up from her current project, and then glanced at Spike. "You were correct. Half the time it really is as if you don't exist." Spike rolled his eyes.

Twilight looked slightly put off by Pinkie's grin, and it wasn't helped when the pink mare sat down in front of the hololith table with her popcorn, as if she were about to watch a movie.

"All right! Let's get this Space Battle Party rolling!" Pinkie cheered.

Twilight's eyebrow twitched. "Pinkie, this ISN'T a party."

"Well, not yet it's not!" Pinkie agreed as she stuck her tongue out. "Hardly anypony's arrived, silly-billy!"

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Pinkie. What we're about to see is NOT some kind of play or show, all right? We could be witnessing the deaths of THOUSANDS in a conflict that could well decide the future of our entire planet!"

Delgan leaned forward to whisper in Rarity's ear. "Little melodramatic, isn't she?"

"Tell me about it," the unicorn whispered back with a conspiratorial smirk.

Twilight took a deep breath and stood up on her hind legs as she continued her brief lecture, pointing a hoof at Pinkie Pie. "Considering the scope of the upcoming battle and the gravity of its consequences, I hardly think that any sane pony is going to want to watch something like this as ENTERTAINMENT."

Then the front door opened again.

"Yo! This where the space-slugfest is going down?" Vinyl Scratch asked as she entered the library. "I brought a groovy sound track just like you asked!"

She was followed into the library by Carrot Top, Bonbon, Roseluck, Caramel, Lyra, and Lyra's human mercenary friend who Twilight privately assured herself was not a pet.

"Ooh, is that the viewing dish?"

"This is going to be so cool!"

"I brought cookies!"

"Now Jacob, you play nice with the other humans. And don't start fawning over the female, you naughty boy!"

Gaela glanced over to Twilight, who had a hoof pressed to her forehead and her eyes clenched shut.

"In your defense, I have heard it remarked that this particular settlement's inhabitants are uniquely lacking in sanity."

Pinkie Pie giggled. "That's probably why we get along so well!"

The door opened again, this time with such sudden force that the hinges snapped off. Twilight barely managed to duck before the door flew over her, resulting in it shattering against a bookcase.

"Flyers in the hizz-ouse!!" Tellis announced loudly, his vox amplifier wailing at utterly unnecessary volume as he lowered the foot with which he had kicked in the entrance. Under one arm he was carrying a large barrel of apple cider, and under the other he was carrying Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash swooped in above the Iron Warrior, clearly unconcerned for the sudden property damage. "Hey Pinkie! We told Applejack about the showdown, but she had to work. We got some cider, though!"

"I, uh, don't really know why I'm here," Fluttershy admitted. She was held quite firmly under Tellis' arm, though, so there was little she could do but protest meekly.

"Oh, come on, Shy! This is gonna be awesome! You might never get another chance to see something like this in your entire life!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

Twilight was already plenty annoyed, but the sight of Tellis stomping into her library after having casually and pointlessly destroying her door made her clench her teeth in swiftly mounting anger. "Pinkie, how many ponies did you invite here? Rarity only told you an hour ago!"

"Oh, don't worry! I got Mayor Mare to help spread the word!" Pinkie said brightly. "She already knew about the Tau fleet, so I didn't have to waste any time explaining the situation, too!"

"That's working smarter, not harder," Delgan said with an appreciative nod, holding up his cup of tea.

As Twilight fumed and more ponies started strolling into the doorless library, Gaela finished the final adjustments to the projector's network feed and then clapped her hands together above the machine.

+Glory to the great eye, the glimmering light within the void that brings sight to the stunted perceptions of the flesh. Let the machine see the truth hidden by distance or distortion, and enlighten those of us without such vision.+

The hololith flickered on. In seconds shapes began to crystallize over the table, starting with the planet itself; a bowling-ball sized sphere wrapped in clouds and bearing a small red spot.

"Ooh, neat!"

"What's the red dot? Is that like, 'you are here'?"

Gaela took up her axe in her hand before she answered, resting the butt of the weapon on the floor. Not because she felt that she might need the weapon, but holding it gave her a more dangerous, authoritative bearing that she found helpful when dealing with unfamiliar ponies.

"The red spot is Ferrous Dominus, the point of primary interest in the battle. Considering the scale of the hololith, however, the point encompasses our location as well."

Lyra's eyes narrowed at a smaller sphere that was sitting near the planet opposite the side with the red mark. "So, what's that thing?"

Gaela disengaged her mask so that her look of contempt was more obvious. "That's the moon," she deadpanned.

"The moon? But it's daytime! Why would the moon be out?" the pale green unicorn wondered, rubbing her chin with her hoof.

Gaela waited several seconds for her to admit she was joking, or for one of the other ponies to correct the obvious error. When neither happened, the Dark Acolyte sighed.

"The moon does not disappear during the daylight hours. It merely moves along its orbit to the other side of the planet."

She found the number of fascinated "Ooh" noises that responded to this tidbit rather depressing.

Rainbow Dash adopted a floating seated position as she hovered over Tellis' shoulder. "Huh. I always wondered what Luna did with the moon during the day. Interesting."

Tellis turned his head to stare at her. "... What?"

"Oh! Oh! There it is!" Pinkie said, her excitement bubbling over as the hololith rendered the next set of objects. This happened to be the 38th Company fleet. "There are the space ships!"

Rarity's brow arced she stared at the massive, bloated craft sitting within a ring of smaller, albeit still enormous craft. The hololith was quite effective at presenting a sense of scale against the planet, and the humans' ships fared surprisingly well in the comparison.

"DEFINITELY compensating for something," she mumbled under her breath.

Gaela adjusted the controls of the hololith, and the planet shifted from the center of the projector to one side, allowing a greater expanse of space to be shown to one side of the world.

Then came the enemy.

First a dozen craft making up the armada vanguard. Then a dozen more. Then a dozen after that. The Tau fleet just seemed to keep coming, with large, central vessels encircled by escorts of smaller craft.

Eventually the hololith finished displaying all the enemy ships, and then outlined the enemy vessels in red.

Vinyl Scratch whistled. "Whelp, you guys're royally boned."

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Oh, please! Humans aren't intimidated by something like this! They'll wipe the floor with those Tau creeps!"

Then she favored Tellis with a slightly pensive glance. "Right?"

The Raptor Lord tilted his head to the side. "Gotta be honest, Blue: that IS a lot of ships. This is usually the kind of force that we break and run from. Tubby must have a hell of a plan if we're really going to take this fleet on."

"What's happening here?" Twilight asked, pointing a hoof at another voidship cluster. This formation was marked as friendly, but was clearly moving away from the Company fleet, as if they were trying to get away.

"Those are all the Tau vessels that we've captured in this system," Gaela stated, "one battlecruiser, two frigates, and the three mass landers. They're minimally crewed, but I believe they're being deployed to fool the enemy."

"Aren't they going to try to contact the ships to find out what happened?" Rarity asked.

"No, they won't," the Dark Acolyte replied as a data screen appeared, "the Harvest of Steel is a ship that serves many roles and boasts a great number of functions. It is powerful, hosts the bulk of our army, carries a prodigious tonnage of cargo, and even serves as a guide through the angry tides of the Warp. Even in situations such as these that call for subtlety and guile, our flagship has a crucial role to play. It has engaged the Silence. The enemy shall find its voice in the dark devoured, and in its confusion, it will fall."

****

Tau flagship Black Tide - command bridge

*-have deployed a... kind of field... communications are...... more unstable, and according... sensor... algorithms, the effect gets... the closer to that...*

Commander Voidsong tapped her fingers on the arm rest of her chair as she listened to the spotty communications message transmitted from the vanguard vessels. Every few seconds the voice of the ship's captain would break into quiet static as he spoke, testament to the degraded signal.

*Source of the field?* the Kor'o demanded.

*The large ship in the gue'la fleet, Kor'o!* answered an officer manning the scanner arrays. *It... well, judging by the localized effect and the readings, it almost seems like it's sucking up the local energy wavelengths that make up our communications. And their's too, presumably.*

*So we can't contact the surface? Or our ships?* Voidsong interrupted.

*Well, we're far enough away that we can contact the ships in our formation with relatively little interference,* the sensor technician clarified, *but no, we cannot get a clear signal to or from the incoming fleet detachment or our bases until we get closer.*

*Inconvenient. TOO inconvenient,* Voidsong mumbled as she stared at the hololith and the craft that were already in orbit, *so we arrive on the scene, can get no information, and immediately have to make a decision whether or not to step in to save our vessels. Someone's forcing my hand here.*

She fumed silently for a few seconds, and then turned her gaze toward a figure standing off near the entrance to the bridge. *Helenis, what do you think?*

The figure near the entrance was a human woman wearing an air caste uniform. She was aged, at least in her sixties by appearance, and had the expression of detached interest characteristic of experienced military officers.

The human took Voidsong's question as a cue to join the discussion, and her eyes scanned the length of the strategic hololith as she walked up to the center of the bridge.

*The first question that comes to mind is who these ships belong to.* Her Tau was slow and heavily accented, but good enough for the bridge crew to listen to without snickering. *They're not Imperial Navy, or they wouldn't be out here without a stronger escort. But at the same time that fleet is enormous for mere pirates or smugglers.*

*A gue'la Rogue Trader fleet, then? Or a corporate one, perhaps? Those are mostly cargo vessels,* the Admiral noted.

*Could be. Those sorts of ships would be more likely to be here, I suppose. But that begs the question of why such vessels would be interfering in Tau military operations. Such a fleet should be racing for the Warp at the first sign of a battlecruiser, but they're on course to intercept us.*

Voidsong continued tapping her fingers impatiently as the Admiral and her gue'la consultant debated the likely nature of the foe.

Although humans were common enough as soldier auxiliaries, it was extremely rare for Tau Septs to allow them any sort of pseudo-command or advisory role. As far as Voidsong could tell, this was mostly a matter of hubris; while the fire caste would take on anything that could hold a rifle and follow orders, the other castes had a much deeper and jealous pride in their more cerebral jobs.

The Shas'o had found that humans had much to offer in the areas of Tau production and technical skill that had typically disdained them. In Lamman Sept the fire caste held great influence over its more ponderous allies, and she used that influence to secure converted Imperial personnel wherever she could.

Helenis in particular had proven valuable to the Sept, with her decades of experience plying the void with the Imperial navy to enforce the misguided laws and crude, militant will of the Imperium. The fleet Admiral had taken to her particularly quickly, despite his initial unease with having a foreign species in the command center of the entire fleet.

*Do you even think these ships have weapons of any note? We're barely getting anything in the way of energy signatures, and most of them are not combat vessels.*

*Nothing ventures this far into the galactic frontier without bringing along firepower to spare,* Helenis retorted, *nor do they harass an enemy battlecruiser unless they at least have a sufficiently sharp stick with which to poke it. I don't care what your instruments say; that fleet is dangerous.*

*Kor'o,* one of bridge officers piped up, interrupting the discussion, *the gue'la fleet is approaching engagement range with our other ships. The battlecruiser Aurora has opened fire on them. They look like warning shots.*

The admiral glanced over at the hololith. *And the enemy's reaction?*

*Very little. We're still not reading any significant weapon signatures, however.*

*Enough of this,* Voidsong snapped, standing up out of her chair, *our craft are being hounded and our mission awaits us. Do you have a recommendation, Helenis?*

The woman paused thoughtfully, brushing her frayed, graying hair with a hand.

*I advise we form a defensive screen rather than entering orbit and give our craft a bulwark to retreat behind. The formation should emphasize forward firepower, to eliminate anything attempting to chase them. Once our vessels are safe and away from that megafreighter, that strange jamming affect shouldn't hinder us from getting a sitrep. I'm extremely concerned about what happened to the rest of the flotilla that was dispatched here.*

Voidsong's eyes narrowed. *If the pursuing ships are more dangerous than they appear, as you posit, then they could catch up and cause critical damage to the transports before we eliminate them.*

Helenis nodded slowly. *That is a possibility, yes. I would hope that these vessels are not so suicidal as that, though.*

The Admiral scratched at his chin. *A cautious strategy. What do you think, Shas'o?*

Voidsong sat back down in her chair, scowling. *I think we don't have time for this. My concern is less what happened to the flotilla and more what happened to Wraithstar's mission. Rogues or pirates or whatever, I'm not going to flinch away from a fleet a fraction of my own strength when the clock is ticking.* She leaned forward, pointing to the largest ship on the hololith. *Mont'ka. Gut their fleet and scatter it. That big ship is causing problems, and I want it gone. After their flagship is shattered, I don't care what happens to the other vessels. They're little more than targets of opportunity. Let them run if they want, and kill them if they don't.*

Helenis bowed her head to the High Commander. She suspected the Shas'o had made that decision in her head long before she had asked her for her opinion, but it was still a sign of considerable respect that the High Commander had bothered to hear her out.

The Admiral bowed his head as well, and then turned toward his fleet officers and caste-mates. *Form attack groups four and seven, closed formation, pincer maneuver. Any ships without active void shields will stay back with the bulk of the fleet in reserve. The attack formations are to close with the enemy vessels behind our retreating ships before opening fire, target and destroy the megafreighter, and then regroup with the fleet once their target is destroyed. All other vessels are to be considered tertiary targets. Make sure the orders are clear, because communication is going to be near-impossible during the assault.*

Helenis glanced down at the readouts for their fleet regarding the attack groups that had been listed. *Even discounting the badly damaged vessels, that's twenty ships, two of them battlecruisers. Cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer, aren't we?*

*Mont'ka, esteemed advisor,* the Kor'o intoned, *still, I wish we could contact them first. This could all be some sort of misunderstanding. We have no reason to be fighting your kind.*

Helenis' jaw tightened slightly. *They are not "my kind", Kor'o. There are numberless trillions of ignorant homo sapiens splashed across this sorry galaxy. "My kind" are those humans that have denounced the Imperial creed of xenophobia and idolatry. "My kind" fight for the Greater Good.*

*Don't be so quick to cut ties to your species,* Voidsong interjected, her cheek resting on her fist, *you were once in their boots, screaming praise to some distant "Emperor" as your fleet burned around you.*

Helenis frowned. *Yes... if, in fact, those are the sort of humans we face now.*

The Admiral quirked a brow. *There are other sorts? Well, pirates, I suppose. Hard to think they'd be very devoted to the Imperium's cult.*

*Yes... pirates...* Helenis mumbled.

****

Black Point - command center

*A jamming field? You can't be serious!* Shas'el Wraithstar growled as he slammed his knuckles against his desk. *What, did they just carry ours up out of Haven and put it into orbit or something?! This is absurd!*

The Fio'o officer winced at the Commander's outburst, but continued his report. *It's not anything of ours, small comfort that is. It's something... different. Cruder. I'm certain their own transmissions will be just as useless.*

*Which hardly matters if they know exactly what's coming,* the Shas'el snarled, turning around a monitor so that the officer of the earth caste could see its data readouts. *Every one of the vessels we've lost to the gue'la has been deployed and are heading straight toward our fleet under conditions where they cannot be contacted. The Shas'o has no idea that the gue'la ships are so well-armed and carrying Astartes, and have no reason to suspect there are gun batteries arrayed on the surface to aid them. The traps have all been set. Our losses will be catastrophic!*

The earth caste officer's shoulders sank. *But... we WILL win, will we not? Even if by sheer numbers...*

Wraithstar took several deep, calming breaths. *Victory here will mean nothing if it costs us the war. The gue'la are merely an inconvenience in the greater scheme of things.*

He stood up fully, crossing his arms over his chest. *There must be a way. Some way to... boost the signal, maybe? Can we penetrate the disruption field that way?*

The Tau planner shook his head. *Not merely by feeding more power into the communication arrays. The amount of power we'd need to break through the field by force...* he trailed off.

*Fio'o?*

*Yes. Yes, it could work! It WILL work!* the other officer said suddenly, his eyes narrowing intensely. *The device can do it!*

Wraithstar blinked in surprise. *But it's incomplete, isn't it?*

*We don't need the Warp core for something like this! We'll have it saturate every comms wavelength with our message! The enemy flagship can't absorb a signal of that intensity!* Then he hesitated, his eyes meeting that of the Shas'el. *The gue'la will hear it too, of course. We won't have time to install an encryption system.*

Shas'el Wraithstar smiled for what seemed like the first time in weeks. *Just this once, I could not care less. Let them all hear our warning, Fio'o.*

*Understood!*

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

"You know, when you told me there was going to be an awesome spaceship battle, you didn't warn me it was going to be LESS exciting than watching Applejack harvest fruit."

Rainbow Dash was lounging on top of a book shelf, her left legs hanging off the edge and swinging back and forth.

"Yeah, I have to agree. Void combat is hardly a roller-coaster ride, but this is way more tame than usual," Tellis grumbled as he idly slashed apples and other fruits into small bits for the guests clustered around him.

Even more ponies had arrived since the "show" had started, and Twilight had long since stopped complaining about it. Her library was filled from wall-to-wall with curious equines, to the point that those who could fly had found higher perches to avoid the formidable density on the floor.

Most of them, thankfully, seemed intrigued enough by the slowly building conflict not to complain, although Twilight supposed it might be helpful if enough of them got bored and left.

The alicorn herself was in the edge of her figurative seat. She recognized what was happening and the implications of it, and it gave her goose bumps to see it played out in front of her on the hololith. It was like watching a chess game, she decided, where each side would start by pushing out pawns and releasing their stronger pieces, positioning their armies at length before one player finally attacked the other and the trading of blows began. Except that this game was brutally tilted in one player's favor and the "pieces" represented massive war machines filled with hundreds of living, breathing people.

She gingerly abandoned that train of thought. This situation was difficult enough without dwelling further on the scope of the carnage about to occur.

On the hololith, the Tau attack groups were finally passing by the captured Tau vessels. The Company fleet that had been "pursuing" them had slowed, obviously preparing itself to face the attack groups head-on in what seemed to be an utterly hopeless act of suicidal resistance. The attack groups were already well within range of Ferrous Dominus and its batteries, but the fortress had not fired.

Twilight swallowed.

"Come ON! Shoot something! At least some warning shots like before!" Rainbow Dash complained, seriously hurting the dramatic tension in the room.

"Darling, if you're really that bored, you can always leave. We'll shout or something if anything interesting happens," Rarity assured her.

Rainbow Dash groaned, but didn't move from her spot.

"This is still pretty interesting, but I do kinda wish I'd brought more popcorn," Pinkie admitted. The empty bucket that had held her snacks was sitting on her head like a red-and-white hat.

Gaela stood over the hololith, her gaze fixed on the Tau attack group. "Pie, if you want more snacks you may ask Spike to-"

Spots of light suddenly flashed on her gorget, and the data feed scrolling through her optical bionics was suddenly flooded as an intense signal pulse washed over her.

The hololithic display flickered, its own receiver picking up the signal on every possible wavelength.

"What's wrong? Is something happening?" Mayor Mare asked.

As if in response, a voice boomed from both the hololith projector and Gaela's collar. None of the individuals gathered could understand it, although some of them recognized the language it spoke.

*Attention, all Sept Lamman vessels! This is Shas'el Wraithstar!*

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

"You needn't worry. The procesh is quick and not extremely taxing. I've heard it deshcribed ash quite uncomfortable, but I wouldn't know."

Trixie glanced about the forge interior uncertainly as she stood on a large, raised platform. Her hooves had been secured in metal clamps, and above her there were upwards of a dozen articulated arms tipped with needles, drills, and other tools that a pony would be hard-pressed to identify.

"So, what are these 'nerve sockets', exactly?" Trixie asked. Several of the needle-tipped arms were already dipping down into position around her.

"They're interface pointsh for the armor. Rather than moving the shuit with ordinary mushle power, the interface will reshpond to your nervoush shyshtem directly, moving the armor jointsh as if they were a part of your body, and ashishting motion rather than hindering it."

Solon was poking away at a series of hololith screens as he spoke, and in front of him was the unicorn's power armor suit. It was of a starkly different design than Big Macintosh's, and the helmet boasted a single horn laced with glowing blue circuits running through it; presumably the compartment where Trixie's own horn would fit when she wore the armor. It seemed in general less bulky than Big Mac's suit, and had a small power pack mounted in the center of the spinal plating rather than a servo arm. The shoulder pad had Trixie's cutie mark on the left piece, and the Legion's Iron Skull on the right.

Trixie winced as the needles stuck into her legs and one between her shoulders, injecting hefty doses of anesthetic.

"You're sure this won't take too long?" Trixie asked.

"I am. Having shecond thoughtsh?" the Warsmith asked conversationally as he tapped away at his console.

"Not at all," Trixie scoffed, "Trixie just wants to make sure she'll be done and in good enough shape to perform Trixie's show!"

Solon paused. "Oh, nobody told you? Your performance for today hash been canceled."

The unicorn blinked. She had not, in fact, been informed of that. "Oh. Why? Because of this surgery?"

"No, not that. We're engaging a Tau battle fleet in orbit even ash we shpeak. If it goesh poorly then we'll be leaving rather quickly."

Trixie raised an eyebrow as her body started to go numb underneath her. "Oh. Well. That's... huh. That could be a problem, couldn't it?"

Several more arms slowly lowered themselves, and the unicorn gulped as she heard the noisy whir of drills spinning up.

Then Solon jerked his head back as his optics flashed. "What in the hellsh?"

Several of the monitors around the room flickered and pulsed, and then those systems capable of projecting sound immediately started relaying a message that had practically flooded the cogitator systems.

*Attention all Sept Lamman vessels! This is Shas'el Wraithstar!*

Solon glanced over to the monitor bank. "Well, that'sh not good."

*Be advised: all Tau vessels currently retreating from the enemy formation have been compromised and are in enemy hands! The gue'la fleet is well-armed, highly dangerous, and contains a large force of Astartes super-soldiers! They have established a fortification planetside that contains considerable anti-orbital firepower! All vessels loyal to Sept Lamman are advised to AVOID close orbital engagement at all costs!*

"... No, that'sh not good at all," Solon sighed.

Trixie frowned, her ears falling back against her head. "Uh... Trixie didn't really catch that. What's happening?"

"One of the enemy commandersh got clever, it would sheem. Our enemiesh have been warned of our trap," the Warsmith explained, turning toward Trixie and stomping over to the platform.

"What?! Does that mean you're going to lose?" Trixie asked. Solon actually found it rather touching how genuinely distressed she sounded.

"Maybe. We should hurry thish up."

Solon summoned another hololith screen as the Tau message replayed in the background, and Trixie nervously squeezed her eyes shut as half a dozen whirling drills descended on her.

****

Tau flagship Black Tide - command bridge

Shas'o Voidsong's hand squeezed the arm rest of her command seat as Wraithstar's message boomed over the speakers in the bridge.

*The gue'la fleet is well-armed, highly dangerous, and contains a large force of Astartes super-soldiers!*

The bridge crew was fairly stunned at the revelation, and many of them glanced anxiously at the high commanders on the bridge.

"Astartes? But... no, that can't be..." Helenis was shaking her head slowly, having reverted to Gothic in her surprise.

The fleet Admiral whirled toward the communications section. *Recall them. All of them. Every ship in the attack groups is to regroup at our position!*

*We c-can't reach them! The field-*

*Then boost the signal! Take us closer! Send a fighter with a message! Fire a spread of torpedoes in front of them if you have to!* the naval commander shouted, his face pale. The transmitted message advised the ships to turn around, and they had certainly heard the warning, but there was always the possibility that faith in their numbers and weapons could encourage them to try to carry out their orders rather than retreat.

*All right, I'm sending out a fighter squad to each-*

The communications officer was cut off from a series of panicked shouts from the sensor technicians.

*Kor'o! We're reading enhanced weapon signatures from the enemy vessels! It's like their reactors just tripled in power!*

*The Aurora is opening fire on the escort vessels in group 7! Her escorts are following suit!*

*Energy discharges from the surface! We have confirmation of active ground batteries!*

*Two of the gue'la ships are disgorging fighters!*

*The mass landers are opening up! They're... They're launching boarding craft! At that close range they won't be able to stop them!*

Voidsong listened to the cascade of shouting, her expression contorting into a scowl of hot fury.

*Space Marines,* she growled, *SPACE MARINES! On an unmarked freighter?! What is this?!*

She whirled toward Helenis, her eyes narrowed. *Do you know something of this? What are Astartes doing here, in Tau space, tucked away in pirate vessels and manning our ships? Everything about this is wrong!*

The human fleet officer took a long, shuddering breath. *I have... a theory,* she murmured, *but for all our sakes, I hope it's wrong.*

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

The battle began, not like a trap springing shut, but in a furious and utterly confusing cascade of fire. By the time Gaela had deactivated the vox casters on her armor and the hololith, the first volleys were already flashing from the Tau attack groups into the captured Tau ships, while dozens of smaller markers were practically vomited out of the mass landers.

While their weapons eagerly lashed out at their turncoat vessels, however, the Lamman fleet's formation was breaking up; each ship was trying to decide on the correct course of action without any input from another. Some ships turned hard back toward the reserve fleet, some turned into a pursuit position behind the captured ships, and others hesitated, cutting their engines or making slow turning arcs that spoke of indecision and confusion.

Still, the amount of firepower arrayed against the captured vessels was far too much for them to contain, and within a few minutes two of the mass landers and a frigate flashed red as their hulls suffered critical damage and broke apart.

"Aw, man! We just started fighting and we're already LOSING!" Rainbow Dash complained.

"The trap had to close slightly earlier than we'd hoped, yes," Gaela admitted, "but those craft were easy prey, lightly crewed, and looted from the foe."

"More to the point..." Delgan grinned as he watched the boarding craft split into two groups, each practically diving toward the nearest Tau destroyers. "It seems they delivered their 'cargo'."

A new volley of projectiles speared up from the planet surface, and one of Lamman's torpedo gunboats flared red as it sustained a severe hit, felling its shields and ripping open its already battered armor. The captured battlecruiser followed up the volley a few seconds later, and the ponies in the room whooped loudly as the hololithic display showed it breaking in half.

"All right!"

"Take that!"

"Grayskin jerks!"

Delgan raised an eyebrow at the jubilation of the equines around him. "Quite unusual to hear the locals cheering us on for once. I rather like it."

"The Harvest has reached engagement range," Gaela said, "it's targeting the enemy battlecruiser."

Pinkie was standing up next to the projector table, her nose almost touching the megafreighter. The other ships in the Company fleet were already unleashing their weapons into the smaller craft that were mostly trying to escape, but no streams of energy or salvos of cannon fire came from the enormous flagship as it approached the largest enemy vessel.

"... So what's it waiting for?" Rainbow Dash finally asked.

Tellis looked over to Delgan. "Warp rift?"

He nodded soberly. "Warp rift."

The ponies could only wait and watch, having no idea what the humans were talking about.

****

Harvest of Steel - command bridge

Sliver's fist struck the edge of the hololithic display like a maul, badly denting the surface and causing the projection to shudder.

"Damned xenoss! How did they do it?!"

The Chaos Lord glanced about the command bridge, as if one of the surrounding soldiers was hiding the answer from him.

All of the men on the bridge were Iron Warriors, and most of them Warpsmiths; a collection of the finest minds that the Company had to offer in terms of both mechanical and military expertise. None of them manned terminals or handled controls, however; they were not bridge crew.

Which isn't to say that the Harvest of Steel didn't have a bridge crew, but strictly speaking they couldn't really be considered "men" any longer.

"The battlecruiser is within range," hissed a voice from the wall. Entombed in dark alcoves overrun with cables and adorned with dark glyphs were the the preserved bodies and minds of what had long ago been esteemed naval officers. Their lives extended indefinitely within their prison, they were effectively and literally part of the ship, although often they served more as directors and interpreters for the Harvest rather than controllers.

"The dark heart sings. It wishes to feed," chuckled a vaguely female voice from the opposite wall.

"I sstill want to know what happened," Sliver growled, "why would the Tau have a transsmitter that powerful?"

A pair of Warpsmiths briefly conversed in Binaric Cant before turning cautiously back toward the Chaos Lord.

"A hypothesis: this Sept deploys advanced electronic warfare technology. Perhaps this is a back-up system in case one such device disables their own communications as well?"

"It could also be a beacon," opined the other Warpsmith, "if they were constructing something to release a distress call and ask for aid, it might also serve such a purpose."

Sliver snarled incoherently. "Thiss iss far more powerful than any mere 'disstresss beacon'."

"My lord," gasped one of the ghastly figures writhing on the wall, his expression contorted with pain, "the Harvest hungers. We cannot contain her battle-lust for much longer."

"And you shall not do sso," Sliver said, pointing toward the nearest battlecruiser, "charge the Warp enginess and prepare to open a rift on the main attack vesssel ass ssoon ass itss shieldss are down."

"Yes, Lord! Her heart sings!" cried another of the crew, gasping and jolting uncontrollably.

"Good. We'll leave it as little more than a charnel house," Sliver rasped, "let'ss show the grayss what they're up againsst."

****

Tau battlecruiser Rep'talal - bridge

*Next volley, target the Aurora again. Bring down her drives,* barked the Captain as his crew worked furiously all around him.

The Rep'talal was currently in an agonizingly long turn, trying to bring itself about in a long arc so that it could make a full retreat back to the main fleet. It could have made a sharper, more desperate maneuver to try to escape the Space Marines' formation, but he had a bone to pick with the warships that dared to sail under their Sept's colors while hosting enemy crew. So the turn was calculated to keep the traitor vessels in their heavy weapon arcs; he would fall back as the warning signal recommended, but he wasn't about to leave their ships in the hands of the enemy.

*Firing magna-rail cannons,* announced the weapons officer.

The ship's hull groaned slightly as it unleashed its fury, flinging projectiles across the void at near-light speed to spear through the enemy's aft section.

*That's a hit, Kor'el! The Aurora is venting drive plasma!*

*Keep on it until her drives are dead. She'll dig herself a grave on the planet's surface,* the Captain growled. Warships of their mass were extremely difficult to completely destroy, especially when one force was trying to pull away from an engagement, but the complications of planetary gravity left them with other options. Not very pretty options, considering the damage such vessels did on impact with the surface, but desperate times, blah blah blah.

He watched the tactical display as another volley of weapons fire speared upward from the planet's surface toward a torpedo gunboat, ripping open its belly. The gue'la fleet was in hungry pursuit, following the heavy volleys from below with expertly coordinated cross-fire. They were concentrating on one vessel at a time, intent on killing a few ships rather than crippling many. And they were doing a disgustingly good job of it.

*Do we... Do we have any word from Kestrel or Bulwark?* the Captain asked, his voice almost cracking.

*They are transmitting, Kor'el, but the signal is too badly corrupted. I cannot get anything out of it.*

The Captain nodded silently. He could easily imagine what the messages would be; both vessels had been boarded by the gunships carried by their mass landers, unleashed far behind their fighter screens and out of any significant turret arcs. Presumably there were now Space Marines marching through their corridors.

Presumably, then, both vessels were already dead. With any luck the crew would be able to sabotage the vessels before they were overtaken, but there was no guarantee. Nothing matched the ferocity and brutal efficiency of a Space Marine boarding action.

*That's strange... I think the flagship is activating its Warp engines.*

*What? They can't make a jump this close to the planet. Er... can they?*

The Captain shrugged, dismissing the event. If the enemy wanted to run now, when they had a momentary advantage, he wouldn't complain.

*We have enemy weapon discharges! We're being targeted!*

That brought the Captain out of his dark thoughts. *Really, now? They're getting cocky if they think they can catch us.* He would have said something more combative, but it was hard to portray confidence when you were already fleeing a force substantially smaller than your own.

The first impacts hit the shields, their intense payloads from plasma cannons and heavy turbolasers being rendered completely inert before touching the Rep'talal's considerable armor. The catastrophic shock waves from the impacts were reduced to a mere hum as they reverberated through the hull and eventually reached his ears; a deathly roar reduced to a mere whisper.

*Shields are down. Hull integrity stable,* mumbled a technician.

*All hands brace for impact!* the Captain shouted, holding onto his command chair in preparation for a follow-up volley.

It never came.

*The enemy craft are engaging our escorts again,* mumbled a confused sensor technician, *and the megafreighter is... opening up?*

The ship Captain shook his head as he watched the ship on the tactical display. The bow of the megafreighter was yawning open near the bottom, like a creature's mouth. He would have guessed that it was opening its cargo bay, but the orifice was simply too big to be necessary for loading and disgorging mere cargo.

*I don't care what it's doing, get the shields-*

*We have a radiation pulse! The megafreighter is... emitting... something? I don't know what this is!*

*Then forget it. Shields?* snapped the Captain.

*Back online in four... three... wait, what is GLAAUGH!!*

The Captain whirled around at the sound of the gurgling scream, as did most of the rest of the shocked crew.

The shield technician had been impaled on a long, brutally serrated talon reaching out from his console, one of many surrounding a disfigured human-ish head covered all over with pitch-dark eyes. It looked like it was emerging from within the console screen, but if any of the crewmen had been able to look past its horrifying appearance and sudden murder of their shipmate, they'd have seen that wasn't quite accurate. The glass, metal, and plastic of the shield controls were almost undisturbed under the bleeding red wound that the daemon had appeared from.

The Captain was completely speechless, his hand groping for his service pistol by desperate reflex even while his brain fought to comprehend what was happening.

The comms crackled to life, relaying a message from deeper in the ship.

*Kor'el! W-We've been boarded! I don't know what... NO! Th-They're coming out of the walls! We can't-* the signal stopped abruptly.

The daemon pushed itself out of the Warp breach as it flung its talon to the side, casually discarding its first kill as its dozen eyes blinked at the horrified bridge crew.

One by one, new seams of red started to flare up around the bridge. On the ceiling. On the floor. From behind the Captain's chair. From the hololith display.

The Warpspawn let out an exultant shriek at feeling the strange and pleasantly destructible environment of the Materium all around it. The palpable terror of the voidsmen washed over it like a cool breeze as they drew weapons, shouting and shooting and panicking as mortal things tended to do.

It was time to feed.

****

Cloudsdale - Robin Song Elementary School

"-and then I'll get to wear power armor and wield a bolter of my own, and I'll go on adventures all throughout the galaxy battling aliens and stealing space stuff! It'll be awesome!"

Sunny Skies tried to keep an exasperated look off of her face as the little pegasus filly finished giving her report on what she wanted to be when she grew up.

Evidently she wanted to be a space pirate. She was the sixth one so far today.

"That's very nice, Cloudy," the schoolteacher said pensively, pausing to wet her lips, "but didn't you tell me once that you wanted to be a Wonderbolt?"

The filly giggled. "Well, sure I did. A week ago. Until then I didn't even know space pirates were real! No way can I settle for being a Wonderbolt now!"

Sunny was slightly discouraged at hearing the most esteemed aerial force in Equestria described as something to "settle for", but pressed on. "And that's your choice, of course, but have you ever thought about some of the... complications of space piracy? The lawlessness? The violence? Having to leave our world of harmony and peace for the terrifying unknown?"

Cloudy Horizons tilted her head to the side. "Those are all the reasons I want to do it."

As Sunny Skies suppressed a sigh, she became aware of a slight trembling all around her, as if the cloud chair she was seated on was starting to vibrate. After a moment, she realized that was exactly what was happening, and she sat up straighter in alarm.

Her ears perked up as the vibrations continued to build, and then a rattling noise started coming from the windows.

"What's that noise? Is there something outside?"

She couldn't get a good look out the windows from her position at the front of the classroom, but judging by the wide-eyed and slack-jawed stares of her students as they gazed through them, yes, there was definitely something out there.

A whole host of terrifying possibilities crossed the schoolteacher's mind as she stepped over to the window. It was not unheard of for flying dragons to harass the cloud city of the pegasi, and there were other dangerous beasts besides that were capable of reaching them even if they never seemed to bother.

When Sunny Skies got a good look outside the window, though, she honestly didn't know if the sight that greeted her was better or worse than a dragon attack.

The Tau battlecruiser Aurora twisted lazily in the air as it dove toward the planet surface in catastrophic slow-motion. Its bow was surrounded by flame as the atmosphere fought back against its descent, and dozens of burning hull breaches left contrails of black smoke and bubbling gouts of plasma falling all around the dying behemoth.

The ship was falling just outside Cloudsdale's city limits, but the reverberations from the displaced atmosphere was sending pegasi flying for their lives to get to a safe distance and was starting to shake the nearest cloud buildings apart entirely.

Beyond the falling battlecruiser was another, smaller craft trapped in a similar death spiral toward the ground, its entire aft section utterly shredded. Small savior pods blasted off from the hull every few seconds, jetting away from the doomed vessel as important crew sought a safe landing far away from the inevitable crash.

As the smoldering giant's bow sunk below the bottom layers of Cloudsdale, its turrets suddenly loosed a fusillade in the direction of the destroyer, and streams of flaring blue light lashed out in a completely gratuitous and spiteful act of defiance.

Every pony flinched their eyes away as the escort vessel was consumed in a flare of light, and a moment later every window on that side of the room cracked from the shock wave rolling through the air.

Many more seconds passed before the dying warship finally sunk below the bottom of Cloudsdale completely, leaving a vast trail of dark, spiraling smoke behind it like an airborne blood trail.

"Well..." Sunny Skies had to pause for a moment to clear her throat, suddenly aware of how dry it was. "NOW who wants to be a space pirate when they grow up?"

Every single pegasus in the classroom raised a foreleg. Some of them raised both and jumped up and down eagerly, their wings fluttering in excitement.

"Oh, for Celestia's sake..."

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Vinyl Scratch had to turn her eyes away from the telescope as the enormous explosion bloomed in the distance, nearly blinding her even through her tinted glasses.

Rainbow Dash let out a whistle as a massive cloud of dust and flame rose over the mountain range under Cloudsdale, quickly obscuring the bright core of the detonation.

"Now THAT is what I'm talking about!" the rainbow-maned pegasus said.

She and several other mares were grouped together on Twilight's balcony, watching the distant cataclysmic impact. Tellis was there as well, carrying Scootaloo on his shoulder.

"Beautiful impact, gotta say," Tellis admitted, an uncharacteristically wistful sigh passing through his vox grill, "and the way it blasted the other dying ship on the way down? Gorgeous. Almost brings a tear to my eye."

Scootaloo snickered, putting a hoof up to her muzzle.

"I said ALMOST," the Raptor Lord snapped, poking at the pegasus filly with an armored finger.

A contented silence descended upon the group for several seconds.

"Too bad it was one of ours, though," mumbled Flitter. A few other ponies murmured their agreement, nodding uncomfortably.

"Eh. Blood is blood," Tellis replied, holding open a hand within Scootaloo's reach. The young pegasus eagerly planted a hoof into the palm of his gauntlet in imitation of a high-five.

"Hey, I think another space ship dropped down into the sky!" shouted Lyra from downstairs. "Keep an eye out for one of those lander thingies!"

"Okay!" Rainbow Dash shouted back.

A slight trembling started to shake the house, and several of the pegasi that weren't already hovering jumped into the air, startled.

"Whoa, what's with the quake?"

"Tectonic shift," Tellis answered casually, "when something of that mega-tonnage collides with the planet and explodes, sometimes the planet gives a little." He paused. "Also, the dust clouds might be so deep and widespread that they block out the sun or something. I never really paid much attention to the environmental effects of crashing ships into planets besides the loud parts."

Rainbow Dash waved a hoof flippantly. "Whatever. We can clear that stuff off if we need to."

"Yo, yo, got another one!" Vinyl said, holding the telescope at a steep angle. "It's way smaller than that other ship, but I think it's gonna hit pretty close!"

The ponies craned their necks up as a distant flaming object careened through the stratosphere like a meteor.

"Is that gonna hit Ponyville?" Scootaloo asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Tellis looked up at the sky, his helmet cogitator calculating the descent trajectory of the mass lander and drawing a line across his visor to show its most likely impact point.

"Nah. We're golden."

The ponies blew out a sigh of relief.

"Apple horse is in a lot of trouble, though."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - main orchard

"Shucks, you boys are really goin' to town up there, aren't ya?" Applejack said before planting a hefty kick on a tree and sending a cascade of apples tumbling to the ground.

Dest nodded somberly. They had glimpsed the impact of the battlecruiser all the way from the orchard and despite the tree cover, to say nothing of the minor earthquake.

Apple Bloom glanced up nervously as she picked up apples from the ground and dropped them into empty baskets. "Ya think yer winnin'?" she asked.

"I do," Dest replied gruffly, "even outnumbered and outgunned, the Iron Warriors will not falter."

Crabapple was striding next to the youngest Apple sibling, approaching a tree that awaited harvest. Taking a firm but gentle hold on the trunk with its massive adamantium hands, the siege walker's lasher tendrils snaked up into the branches, darting toward the bright red apples with uncanny agility and stabbing at their stems. Apples started to fall from the tree in a rapid cascade as the metal tendrils writhed and twitched with formulaic precision, and within the minute the tree had been stripped of its harvest.

Applejack ran a hoof over her forehead to wipe away the sweat, glancing over at Crabapple approvingly. "Well, Ah really didn't know what to make of Crabapple's new digs at first, but Ah gotta admit, between her and you, Dest, we might not suffer too much from Mac bein' away."

The Iron Warrior nodded his mute agreement as he started walking toward the silos with two apple baskets hanging effortlessly from each hand.

Then he glanced up, his helmet visor locking on to a distant object in the sky.

"We're going to want to get inside the farmstead," Dest said grimly, "right away."

Applejack and Apple Bloom froze, feeling chills run down their backs.

"Is it the Tau again?" Applejack asked, bolting over to the Chaos Marine.

"... In a manner of speaking," Dest said, dropping the baskets, "run!"

Crabapple promptly turned and scooped up a surprised Apple Bloom, and then began a loping run on its three free limbs back toward the house. Applejack, seeing that her sister was being taken care of, broke into a full sprint after Dest.

They dashed through the orchard without incident, though Crabapple scraped off a few branches due to its sheer size during their escape.

As they reached the farmstead, Dest hit the opening mechanism while Applejack slowed and risked a glance back at the sky.

The Tau mass lander was barely visible beneath the heavy combat damage and roaring flames of its descent, and a fierce roar filled the air around Sweet Apple Acres as it tumbled end-over-end toward the veritable forest of apple trees below.

The door finished opening, and Dest entered quickly. Crabapple stuck its hand inside and dropped Apple Bloom, who immediately looked worried for her pet.

"Wait, where's Crabapple going to hide?" the Nurgle-marked filly asked.

"She'll be fine!" Applejack shouted as she leapt into the house and hit the closing mechanism. "You worry about us first!"

The booming noise was tremendous. The floor trembled under their hooves, and the walls shook the portraits and knick-knacks that were hung upon it. Even after the initial calamity of impact had passed, Applejack could hear objects in the kitchen rattling noisily and a deep rumbling coming from outside.

But after the shock waves had passed, Applejack was relieved to find that their home still stood and her family was still safe. She didn't hear any more crashing noises from outside, either, so their other structures had probably survived as well. That was Mechanicus architecture for you.

"Applejack?" barked Granny Smith from upstairs. "Turn that racket down! Ya know Ah can't stand that 'new age' metal you youngin's are all inta nowadays!"

Offering an eye roll for her grandmother's complaints, Applejack braced herself and stepped on the door mechanism again.

The door slid open, and she was promptly met with a wall of choking dust. Undeterred, the apple farmer snatched her respirator mask from the wall and slipped it on, thankful that the Company let her keep the device.

"Bloom, you stay here fer now. Dest, you comin'?"

"Indeed," the Iron Warrior said, taking up his boltgun. Not that he imagined he'd have anything to shoot out there, but the mood suddenly seemed far less farming-like and a lot more battle-like.

The two of them walked into the sea of dust and smoke, their breath raspy through their respective air filters. Visibility was practically nil, although Dest was able to lock on to the considerable heat signature of the burning ship and lead them forward.

Applejack stepped carefully as she kept close to the armored giant, her hooves scraping over fallen tree branches and loosened rocks. There wasn't much in the way of burning chunks of debris this close to her home, which she supposed was a small comfort.

After a few minutes of silently and slowly creeping toward the crash site, Applejack was surprised to make out Crabapple's huge wire-bundle tail just ahead of them, and she trotted up next to the war machine.

"Hey girl, ya all right? The blast didn't rattle ya none?"

Crabapple turned its head around to stare at Applejack, made an irritating, discordant crooning noise, and then turned back to whatever it was staring at. The dust was thinner here, perhaps having been pushed father out from the catastrophic impact, but from behind the daemon engine there was very little to see.

Applejack stepped past Crabapple to check on what it was looking at.

It was staring at the wreck of the Tau lander, unsurprisingly. The ship was a flaming, shredded hulk, and was sitting in the middle of a vast crater littered with chunks of burning debris.

A crater that used to be her orchard.

"Well. It seems we're finished harvesting for the day," Dest rumbled.

Applejack started shaking, her body throwing off waves of dust as her fury built to an atomic peak.

Then she threw her hat onto the ground and reared up on her hind legs, screaming her rage to the heavens.

"TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUU!!!"

****

Tau flagship Black Tide - command bridge

*The Glass Razor and Kerith's Hunter have successfully evaded pursuit, Kor'o,* sighed a crewman as she finished piecing together the static-filled messages transmitted by the fleeing craft, *the enemy fleet is falling back into low orbit again. The engagement is over.*

There were no sighs of relief or exultant cheers from the command crew. Even those that felt their fleet had done an excellent job under the tactical circumstances didn't dare say so under the simmering, volcanic gaze of the High Commander overseeing the strategic hololith.

Seven to six. That was the score. Seven of Sept Lamman's ships were now unresponsive hulks, and for that the mysterious fleet had paid a total of six craft. A very close tally on the face of it, but that number disguised some very ugly details.

Putting aside that the targeted flagship was utterly unscathed, every vessel lost by the humans was one captured from the Tau in the first place. While it was only proper that they had destroyed the looted craft and crippled the vessels that had been boarded during the combat, that left the enemy's original strength intact. Meanwhile, the vessels she had sent into the jaws of their trap were those that had entered the system with the least sustained damage. Craft the Sept could ill afford to lose.

And then, of course, there was the battlecruiser Rep'talal.

*Kor'o! The disruption field! It's gone! Our communications are unhindered again!* shouted a crewman.

Their consoles were already lighting up with new communication links and queuing requests for updates, but before the Admiral could give any response he was cut off by a voice from behind him.

*Open a channel to the Rep'talal,* Voidsong snapped.

*Yes, Shas'o. Hailing...*

Voidsong's eyes narrowed as the bridge crew worked furiously at her request. Out of all the strange and terrible things that had happened during the aborted battle, nothing she could think of could account for the fact that one of her battlecruisers had suddenly stopped functioning as an active combatant. It had not been boarded, and had only been targeted by one measly barrage that barely broke its shielding. But soon after that its guns had gone silent and it had finished its turning maneuver only to settle into a holding orbit that looked suspiciously like an automated navigator taking over for a displaced crew. The enemy fleet had effectively treated it as a casualty, ignoring the craft completely, and yet every reading on the vessel showed it to be in perfect working condition.

*Shas'o, no one is answering our hails. I'm establishing control overrides,* explained the communications technician as he worked to establish a link, *on-screen.*

The front-most monitor flickered, and then flashed on.

*... What. Is. That?* Voidsong spoke through clenched teeth, her rage almost palpable.

*I... I don't...* the fleet Admiral trailed off, holding a hand to his mouth as he watched the creatures crawling around the blood-soaked interior of the bridge. Some were poking at the dead bodies of the crew, others were stumbling around curiously, and some of them were fighting each other in the background. None of the monstrosities were alike. Some boasted skin and others scales. Some had talons and others tendrils. Some had eyes and ears and others possessed no apparent sensory organs. It was a carnival show of insane horror, and only one person on the bridge had any idea what to make of it.

*No. It really is them,* Helenis whispered, her breath coming out in short, almost painful puffs as she leaned against the railing.

*Them? Who is 'them'?* Voidsong demanded.

The Admiral was shaking his head, looking away from the screen. *It was boarded somehow. They must have used a teleporter that we didn't detect. They beamed those... mutants aboard and-*

*Those aren't mutants,* Helenis said weakly, *they're...* she trailed off, and then finished the sentence in Gothic, "daemons."

That earned her quite a few curious looks. There was no word for daemon in the Tau language, as the Tau Empire had no concept of such beings.

*Are you saying we're fighting monsters?* Voidsong asked. She wanted to be more incredulous about the idea, but the video feed in front of them was still playing the evidence.

*Worse,* the human woman hissed, *we're fighting Space Marines allied with monsters. Traitorous Astartes that have turned against the Imperium and given themselves over to the darker powers. We're fighting Chaos.*

The Admiral shook his head. *Shut off that monitor, Kor'ui,* once the screen had gone dark, he turned back toward the human. *What, exactly, is "Chaos"?*

*Chaos is a blight that infects the other side of the galaxy, rotting away the Imperium and turning its citizens against it. It's a... dark cult, would be the best way to describe it, but terrifyingly REAL in its power,* Helenis explained, trailing off uncomfortably.

*A "real" religion?* Voidsong asked. Again, the only thing keeping a mocking tone from her voice was the memory of the creatures stalking the bridge of her dead ship.

*Yes. Real. It's followers claim that they've spoken to their gods. It's rites follow basic laws of causality, and extensive worship has a tangible supernatural effect on its converts,* Helenis pressed a hand to her forehead, as if she felt dizzy, *I don't know many specifics. Knowledge of Chaos is tightly controlled and... "discouraged" in the Imperium. Ignorance is supposed to shield us from its effects.*

*Ignorance didn't save the Rep'talal's crew,* the Kor'o murmured, *and it won't serve us here. What are these... cultists after? Why would they be here?*

Helenis shook her head. *I have no idea. The planet, maybe? Chaos is constantly looking for worlds to despoil. Or they may truly be mere pirates, preying on warships who mistake them for helpless commercial vessels.*

*Shas'o,* interrupted the communications technician, *we have a comms signal from the surface. Standard encryption protocol.*

Voidsong nodded. *It must be Shas'el Wraithstar. Put him through.*

Once again, the screen flickered as the signal was connected.

Once again, Voidsong was unpleasantly surprised by what appeared.

*Hello, warriors of the Lamman Sept!* Solon cheered, his Tau somehow coming out less distorted than his usual language. *And welcome to the Centaur system!*

The admiral straightened nervously, glancing pensively at the flabbergasted communication officer. *What happened? You said the encryption-*

*Wasn't very good, to be honest,* Solon interrupted, his helmet turning to glance at something off to his side, *although capturing one of your bases intact helped with that, anyhow. Is your Shas'o available? I'd like to... oh! Is that a human?* his helmet grew larger as it moved closer to the screen. *I didn't know you employed them in command roles!*

Helenis felt a cold lump like ice form in her stomach as she stared into the glaring red optics, but she still managed a defiant snarl. "To Hell with you, Chaos scum!"

*Ex-Imperial military, I see! Nice catch!* Solon said amicably.

Voidsong stood up from her seat, shooting Helenis a silent glare that had the advisor backing away from the monitor.

*I am Shas'o Voidsong, High Commander of of the Scintea Coalition of the Lamman Sept,* she spoke calmly, apparently unperturbed by the enemy's use of Tau communications channels and the frankly disturbing condition of the Space Marine on the monitor, *identify yourself, Astartes.*

*I am Warsmith Solon, High Commander of the 38th Company of the Iron Warriors Legion. Well met, Voidsong.*

*I disagree,* she interjected, *a much better meeting would be in person, after digging your broken corpse out from the remains of your base.*

Solon pulled his head back, tsking irritably. *Now, now, let's not get nasty. I wish to-*

*Be SILENT, raider filth!* the Tau Commander snapped. *You find yourself in Tau space, faced by a Tau primary war fleet, interfering in a Tau military operation. You have cost me the lives of over a thousand fine and experienced crew. Your "wishes" do not interest me. Give me one reason why my fleet shouldn't regroup and descend on your pitiful band to send you all to rest on the planet's surface with the battlecruiser you stole!*

Solon again looked away briefly as he answered. *Well, for starters, raining more void ships onto the planet would be quite dangerous for your little friends down here. And it might just be wishful thinking on my part, but it seems to me that they're doing something so important that you wouldn't want to risk flattening it. Well, risk it again, anyway. Why, even a slightly inaccurate attempt at planetary bombardment could easily demolish the very last of your strongholds here!*

Helenis watched carefully as Voidsong's hand slipped to the edge of the bridge railing and gripped it tightly; a sure sign that her temper was building, but the Shas'o's facial expression didn't change.

*Now then,* Solon continued, *I know that this little encounter didn't work out as planned for either of us, but I hope that...* he trailed off, looking at something beyond his monitor. "No, that ishn't a shling, that plugsh into the back of the helmet! Yesh, like that. You should feel a hot tingle in your horn ash it excitesh the primary nerve clushtersh. Don't tesht-fire it in here, though."

The Warsmith returned his attention to the monitor. *Sorry about that. Now as I was saying-*

*As I was saying,* Voidsong interrupted again, *you are in our territory, rogue, and I don't cut deals with criminals or renegades.* She glanced over at her strategic display. *I will admit, though, that your little ploy burned us a little. I'm going to spend the next solar cycle plotting out the most efficient way to get you off of my planet and out of my system. If you were to save me the trouble before I finish by taking to the Warp, or better yet, hurling yourselves into the sun, then I might just find better things to do rather than try to chase you down for this affront. Otherwise your little pirate band becomes torpedo practice. Do you understand, or should I repeat all of that in Gothic for you?*

Solon stared silently for a long moment, his optics whirling in their socket.

*Is there someone from the water caste I can talk to?* he finally asked. *Because you are TERRIBLE at this diplomacy thing. Even worse than I am! Seriously!*

Voidsong cut a hand across her throat, and the communications officer nodded silently.

*Hey. Hey! I'm not done speaking to-* Solon's image vanished as the link was cut, and the communications officer cleared his throat.

*I, uh, have ANOTHER transmission from a different location on the surface. I'm... FAIRLY certain that this one is the Shas'el.*

*Hold,* Voidsong said, turning toward Helenis, *you said you don't know much about this... Chaos?*

Helenis grimaced. *Not much that's tactically useful. And I've only encountered a cult once before, as part of an Inquisitor's operation.*

*But you knew enough to recognize those creatures. Those... daemons,* Voidsong said the word slowly, as if she was tasting it. *Take some time to recall what you DO know. Because you'll be schooling me in it soon.*

Then she dropped back in her seat and fixed a slightly harsher glower on her face. *Now then: let's see what Shas'el Wraithstar has to say. He's left quite a mess for me to clean up...*

Author's Note

It took all my willpower not to name the Kor'o Admiral "Ahq'bahr" and have him shout "It's a trap!" when things got heavy. All of it. I have no willpower left.
You're welcome.

Less pony than usual this time around, but they can't really help out in a naval battle. Yet.
Also, it definitely looks like there will be more than eight chapters to this book. Somehow, I hope you'll find it in your hearts to forgive this unseemly irregularity.

The Hidden Dagger

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 8

The Hidden Dagger

****

Sweet Apple Acres

The Chimera APC came rumbling up the road early in the morning, the low sun casting its shadow far across the dusty barn-bunker of the Apple farm.

High overhead, several pegasi were being directed by a weather team group leader, all of them looking fairly exhausted. They had spent all morning wind-blasting dust clouds away from the farm and nearby Ponyville, and most of them still had shifts ahead of them to help tamp down the even bigger dust clouds threatening to swallow Cloudsdale.

The Chimera's treads stopped for nothing, crushing fallen branches and scattered rocks underneath it that made the road all but impassable to wagons. Oily black smoke chugged from its exhaust vents and curled into the sky, but in this case the transport's puny emissions were utterly dwarfed by the vast column of smoke coming from the middle of the orchard.

The chimera came to a stop, its engine idling. Daniels stepped out of the rear hatch as it dropped down, his rail rifle secured against his back.

Apple Bloom opened the door when she heard someone knocking, and her neck craned up after she found herself staring at a pair of clothed feet rather than naked hooves.

"Oh, Hi Mister Daniels!" the young farmer chirped. "How are ya this morning?"

"Alive and happy for it!" the mercenary replied with a smile. "How you doing, Bloom? Any good diseases yet?"

Apple Bloom's expression soured. "Naw. Sis don't want me comin' down with nothin'. Says Ah'll get germs all over the crops."

Daniels blinked, then glanced outside. "What crops?"

Apple Bloom winced. "Er... right. Mister Daniels? Ah've gotta go to school today, but if ya wanna see mah sis, she's in the kitchen." Then she stepped closer to him. "Ah hope ya can cheer her up. She's been in an awful bad mood since yesterday."

"Well, I'll take a crack at it. You run along and learn your little pony facts and whatnot."

"Thanks, Mister Daniels! Later!" the red-headed filly dashed between his legs and out the door.

Daniels shut the door behind him before walking over to the kitchen.

Sure enough, Applejack was inside, seated on a stool with her face planted on the kitchen table and her forelegs dangling loosely between the two points of support. Winona was laying behind her, looking distraught, and Rainbow Dash was sitting across from her at the table, looking bored.

There were also four empty amasec bottles on the table; it seemed that she had found another use for them rather than selling them. Which was kind of unfortunate, since the Apple family was rather short on things to sell right about now.

"Morning, AJ, Dash. How's it going?"

Rainbow Dash perked up immediately at seeing him, but Applejack's response was more measured. She turned her head to the side so that her cheek was pressed against the table rather than her nose.

"Daniels. Mornin'. Care fer a drink?" the farmpony asked blandly.

Daniels glanced again at the amasec bottles, confirming they were empty. "A drink of what?"

"Well, we got fresh, clean water thanks to yer fancy aquifer gizmo," Applejack murmured, "but if y'all care fer somethin' stronger, I can offer ya a nice warm glass of burnin' promethium fuel or hard-packed DUST. How's that sound?"

Daniels looked over to Rainbow Dash. "She hasn't been taking the crash well, I see."

Rainbow Dash nodded gingerly. "It's been kind of a rough week down on the farm."

"A third o'the orchard. GONE," Applejack snapped, apparently feeling that she needed to justify her poor spirits, "years, DECADES o'work and time and money, smashed like an apple in a cider press. Ah don't even know if that land is gonna be good fer growin' nothin' no more. Every field and orchard that ain't destroyed was ruined by the dust and heat. If it weren't fer the animal pens y'all built bein' protected, they'd be gone too. They're all we got left now."

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth, failed to think anything to say, and then closed her mouth while scratching uncomfortably at the back of her neck.

"Heck, maybe we should change the farm's name," the orange mare grumbled bitterly, "welcome to Dry Dusty Crater, home of the world's biggest alien scrap pile and graveyard! How's that sound fer a pitch?"

"Totally inaccurate," Daniels replied, "with a whole bloody battlecruiser crashing under Cloudsdale, there's no way you have more wreckage and dead bodies here."

Applejack made an incoherent growling noise, and Rainbow Dash winced.

Daniels sighed. "All right, I get it. Get up, you're coming with us."

Rainbow Dash snapped her head up. "What? For a mission?" Applejack's ears rose, intrigued. She was certainly in the mood for attacking the Tau, if such an option was available.

"Nah. Me and a few other grunts got assigned to make a supply drop for Delgan. With that out of the way, we're going to head down to the river and do some fishing before we go back to the fortress."

Applejack's ears drooped again. "Daniels, we're ponies. Ponies don't eat fish."

"True," the human admitted, "but outwitting and tormenting slimy, pea-brained lower life forms for sport is very therapeutic. It'll do you some good."

Applejack looked like she was about to refuse, but eventually sighed and pushed herself away from the kitchen table.

"Ah, hay, why not? Ain't like Ah got anythin' better to do no more," the farmer grumbled, dropping to the floor. Winona perked up immediately, wagging her tail as it seemed like they would be going out.

"I'm in!" Rainbow Dash said, also happy to be presented with an activity besides watching Applejack mope.

"Cool. Let's load up."

****

Ponyville

"-and then Crabapple picked me up and ran back to the house!" Apple Bloom said as she swiped her hoof in front of her, mimicking the action of picking her up. "Ah looked up as we was runnin', an' lemme tell ya, that thing was HUGE! Just hurtlin' through the sky like a big ol' fireball! Like that firework project of ours times a thousand!"

"Think of what it must've been like to see the big one coming down," Scootaloo breathed, "I mean, I saw it from Twilight's balcony, but it was so far away! And we STILL felt it crash!"

"I'm kind of worried about the rest of the ships, though," Sweetie Belle mumbled, "didn't they only destroy, like, a dozen ships between them? What happens with the rest of them?"

The three fillies all craned their necks to stare upwards, looking through the sparse cloud cover at the empty skies above. They saw nothing, of course, so they eventually dropped their gazes down again in silent contemplation as they trotted to school.

"... Was it really only three days ago that we never went to school talking about anything other than our cutie marks?" Scootaloo asked, breaking their thoughtful silence.

"And here we are now, discussing space warfare," Sweetie Belle mumbled.

Apple Bloom puffed out her chest proudly. "So this is what it's like to be a grown-up."

Another brief silence lasted until Scootaloo spied another pair of fillies on their way to school, and a wicked grin crossed her face.

"Well, look who it is! Tiara and her pet henchpony!" the orange pegasus shouted.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon almost stumbled at the sudden shout, and then they whirled around.

"Well, you're awfully cheeky this morning, blank flaaaaaaaaaa..." Diamond Tiara's brain locked up as she spotted the glyph on Scootaloo's hip, and her jaw hung open as her voice slowly petered out around the horribly stretched syllable.

The three newly marked ponies grinned insufferably as the two wealthy fillies glanced from one of them to the next, taking in each mark with deliciously stunned expressions.

"What's the matter, Tiara? Cat got yer tongue?" Apple Bloom snickered.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon shared a glance, and then they quickly reined in their expressions.

"Well, how about that. How nice for you to finally catch up to the rest of the class. Well, the class a year before us, anyway. But I suppose you have to take what you can get," Diamond Tiara said calmly as Silver Spoon chuckled behind a hoof, "I'm happy for you. REALLY."

Sweetie Belle snorted. "Whatever. We didn't do this to get YOUR approval, and we're not about to let you get to us now." She smiled as she looked over at her friends. "We're Cutie Mark Crusaders no longer! From this point onward, we are..."

Suddenly, all three of the Chaos-marked fillies jumped into the air and shouted at once. "CHAOS MARK CHAMPIONS!!"

Diamond and Silver stepped back in surprise at the shout, and they raised their eyebrows at the title.

After a brief, awkward silence, Scootaloo spoke. "This way we can still use our old clubhouse stationary."

"I'm a little less interested in the acronym and more interested in the 'Chaos mark' thing," Silver Spoon noted.

"Yeah, that reminds me: what are your special talents, again?" Diamond Tiara asked, her eyes tracking over to the symbol on Scootaloo. "Those cutie marks don't exactly speak for themselves, and knowing you three, I wouldn't put it past you to just paint something on your rumps and hope nopony would ask questions."

The contemptuous grins she got from the trio were quite annoying, and Diamond Tiara had to admit that if they were lying about their new marks, they were doing an excellent job of it.

"Mah special talent is bein' immune to disease and pain," Apple Bloom said smugly, "Ah'm practically immortal!"

Sweetie Belle frowned. "I thought you weren't immune to disease, just its symptoms."

"Whatever. What's the difference?" the young earth pony waved a hoof at the unicorn. "You go next."

Sweetie Belle let the disagreement go and then grinned at the pair of fillies who had tormented her and her friends for so long. "My special talent is Chaos magic and secret knowledge!"

Diamond Tiara raised an eyebrow. "So you can finally use magic now? Well, how about that? Next thing you know the pegasus will actually be able to hover."

Both Sweetie and Scootaloo looked rather annoyed at this.

"Well... it's 'Chaos' magic specifically," Sweetie Belle admitted.

"Which means what, exactly?" Silver Spoon asked.

"She can't levitate things yet, but she IS good at wreakin' havoc and breakin' things," Apple Bloom clarified.

"Your parents must be SO proud," Diamond scoffed, rolling her eyes.

Scootaloo stood up on her hind legs and pressed a hoof into her chest proudly before she answered. "And as for me, my special talent is supernatural fury!"

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had to take several seconds to digest that before the latter asked, "Your special talent is getting angry?"

In the blink of an eye Scootaloo was nose-to-nose with Silver Spoon, and the gray filly recoiled as Scootaloo glared at her.

"Yeah, it is! So what? Wanna make something of it?!" the pegasus growled, her wings flared and one hoof cocked back.

"N-No! I was just asking! Calm down!" Silver stuttered nervously.

Diamond Tiara gave a sidelong glance at her friend backing away, and then looked back at Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. "Well, Scootaloo's 'talent' aside, I'm not convinced," she sniffed, "especially by that 'immune to pain' thing. Let's see some proof!"

The CMC glanced at each other hesitantly, and then they moved further away from their classmates and huddled up.

"Okay, so how do we do this?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Well, I could kick you," Scootaloo offered.

"Hmmm... might not work. They could just say Ah'm fakin' it," Apple Bloom reasoned.

Scootaloo thought about that. "I could kick you really HARD," she revised, "in the FACE."

"I'm more worried about my spell not doing anything here," Sweetie Belle confessed, "there are no machines to go haywire, and if I use it at school to start breaking things, I'll get in trouble."

Okay, hold on, I got this,Tzeentch said suddenly, causing Sweetie Belle to perk up, here's what you're going to do. Got a new spell for you and everything. Trust me, it'll be GREAT.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon waited impatiently as the CMC whispered amongst themselves for a few more minutes.

"Are you three going to give up this charade any time soon? Because it IS a school day!"

"Two, not three," Silver Spoon mumbled, "I'm pretty sure Scootaloo is telling the truth."

"Got it!" the trio shouted as they broke their huddle.

Apple Bloom stepped forward, and then spread her legs outs slightly for stability. Scootaloo started climbing onto a post box that was sitting next to the path.

"You want to see some Chaos? Here you go!" Sweetie Belle said brightly as her horn sparked with coruscating ribbons of energy.

The unicorn's eyes turned sheer white, and her head rolled to one side as an understated rumbling noise started to grow from nowhere.

A black smoke started to seep from Sweetie's mouth, and it crawled upward over Apple Bloom before swirling and puffing up into a dark cloud hanging just above her. Within a few seconds the smoke had stopped coming out of Sweetie Belle, and the cloud bulged as sparks crackled all around it.

"GERONIMO!" Scootaloo shouted before leaping off of the post box and elbow-dropping onto the cloud.

Diamond and Silver both leapt back in shock and horror as a lightning bolt surged into Apple Bloom, the thunderclap nearly deafening them as they turned their eyes away from the flare of light.

The wealthy fillies gaped as they slowly turned their gazes back toward the act of terrible fillycide they had just witnessed.

Or, apparently, attempted fillycide.

Apple Bloom smiled brightly as her scorched fur and mane stood on end all around her. The young earth pony was in undeniably good spirits for somepony just blasted with a lightning bolt, and seemed to be unaware that her bow was now on fire.

"Hee hee! Kinda tickles!" Apple Bloom giggled. Scootaloo dropped to the ground, and all three CMCs gave smug looks to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

"Well?" they asked in unison.

"Yeah, okay, you were definitely telling the truth," Diamond Tiara admitted as she and Silver backed away, "and you're definitely a bunch of freaks."

"Have fun with your 'Chaos' talents, weirdoes," Silver Spoon mumbled, following her friend as she turned around.

The three other fillies watched them dash off, and then shared a look.

"Nailed it," Scootaloo said, grinning.

"Thanks Tzeentch!" Sweetie Belle said brightly.

No prob, tiny sorcerer-puppet. Anytime.

"Did ya see the look on their faces? Ha!" Apple Bloom laughed, stamping a hoof into the ground. "Also, you two smell somethin' burnin'? Ah can't really tell, what with the lightnin' and all."

Scootaloo frowned at the earth pony. "Stop, drop, and roll, Bloom."

"What? Why? Is there somethin' on-YIPE! Fire! Ah'm on fire! Help!"

****

Five kilometers outside Ponyville

Applejack dug her teeth into the iron handle of the fishing rod and then snapped her head to the side sharply. An iron hook and insect lure went sailing into the air over the river, eventually falling to the relentless pull of gravity and plunking into the water about half-way to the opposite bank.

Applejack dug a hole out of the dirt with her hoof, and then adjusted her mouth-grip before stabbing the rod into the ground.

"I will NEVER understand how you do stuff like that without wrenching your neck," Daniels said as he baited his own rod.

"Practice, sugarcube," Applejack said dryly before she laid down on the river bank.

Two other mercenaries were approaching the spot they had staked out on the river bank, carrying an iron chest between them. Rainbow Dash was laying on the chest and generally making a nuisance of herself, while Winona was dashing in happy circles around the men and occasionally stopping to sniff their legs.

"So you guys actually eat fish? That's gross," Rainbow insisted, sticking her tongue out as her tail swung back and forth over the side of the chest, "they're all slimy and scaly and they eat bugs!"

"Yeah, well you eat hay," one of the men countered, "it's dry and splintery and it eats dirt."

"Dash, don't feel like ya gotta hang around on my account," Applejack said wryly, "if ya don't wanna fish, you can go fly off and find Tellis or something."

"Nah. I already checked with him," the racer informed her friend as she was carried closer, "today he's hunting down the Tau savior pods and... well, you know. And after helping clean off the dust from your farm, I'm too tired for that."

"Huntin' Tau, huh? Now that sounds like 'therapy' to me," the apple farmer grumbled.

Daniels rolled his eyes at her dark mutterings as his fellow soldiers put the chest (and Rainbow Dash) down. "Nema, crack open a cold one for our lady friends, would you? Gotts, I have your rod."

Rainbow Dash hopped off the chest before Nema opened it up. "Wait, just one? To split? I can handle a whole bottle!"

"I can handle two," Applejack murmured.

"One to split," Daniels repeated firmly, "we're here to relax, not get blitzed."

He handed Gotts a fishing rod, and then flung his own line out.

"All right, then. Talk to me, AJ. Let it all out," the mercenary said, seating himself against a tree with the fishing rod between his calves.

The farmpony looked up at him, sighing as Winona settled in next to her. She didn't say anything for a short while, staring intently at the fishing rod as she sorted out her feelings.

"It's just... don't get me wrong, all right? Ah know this ain't the end for me and mah family. Ah know we got options, and we're gonna see this through. Ah got friends in the royal palace, friends in Ponyville, and friends in the 38th, too. Ah even know this one sloth of a pony on the weather team if Ah need a hand there."

"Really?" Rainbow Dash interjected as Nema handed her a bottle. "But I thought I was the only one on the weather team that you... oh." Then she frowned. "Hey."

Nema dropped another half-full bottle of synthehol next to Applejack.

"Anyway, Ah know Ah'm gonna make it outta this somehow. Mah family won't starve any time soon," the farmpony said before closing her lips around the bottle and swinging her head back. After taking a few hefty gulps, she dropped the bottle down in front of her.

"It's just... it wasn't supposed ta be this way," Applejack groused, "Ah was taught that when ya work hard and make sacrifices, ya get a payoff. We put our hearts and a whole lotta time and sweat into that farm. And the Tau have just ripped it up again and again. And mostly by accident, far as Ah can tell."

"I hear ya, AJ. Just ain't right," Daniels agreed as he drew his line up and cast again, "but it WAS an accident. The grays don't have anything against you. Well, not that you don't have their mystery gizmo anymore, at least."

"Well, Ah sure as hay have somethin' against THEM," the orange mare snapped before knocking back another dose of synthehol, "ya don't just rip up somepony's orchard and home like they did and then run off." She wet her lips as the deeply chemical taste of her drink lingered on her tongue. "Ah mean, would y'all have done somethin' like that?"

"Sure."

"Yes."

"Probably on purpose, too."

Applejack groaned. "Well, Ah guess all you aliens are just a pain in the flank. But mah particular problem is Tau."

"Hey, show me how to use one of those fishing sticks," Rainbow Dash demanded, walking over to Daniels.

Applejack watched as the man took out another of the fishing rods and then tied on a hook.

"Say, Daniels. What's yer home like?" Applejack asked suddenly.

Daniels took out a small metal box and then opened it, revealing several dead, bloated flies that they were using for bait.

"My home is a three by three meter sleeping space that I share with three other blokes," he answered as he impaled a fly on the hook, "one of whom I suspect is trying to kill me for my gear."

"Dark Gods, are you STILL on about that?" Gotts snapped. "I already apologized for the grenade, all right? Get over it!"

The ponies gave the other mercenary a look but then their attention returned to Daniels.

"Naw, Ah mean before ya hooked up with Chaos. Ya got a home planet? A family?"

Daniels finished with the fishing rod and then handed it over to Rainbow Dash, who eagerly took the handle into her mouth.

"Not anymore. It's long dead now."

"The planet, or yer family?" Applejack asked, raising her head.

"Both."

Rainbow Dash flew out over the river, scanning the water below for clusters of fish before dropping her line into the midst of them.

"What..." Applejack paused, and then polished off her bottle of synthehol before she finished her question. "What happened?"

Daniels gave her a sidelong glance before he replied. "Long story short: Alpha Legion, rebellion, exterminatus. Gossan IV is nothing but a ball of scorched rock now."

"Those fuckers," snarled Nema.

"Imperium, or Alphas?" Gotts asked.

"Both," Daniels deadpanned.

A dark silence descended over the group for a few minutes, until a splashing noise came from below Rainbow Dash.

"Ah-ha! I got one!" the pegasus cheered, yanking on her pole.

"Nice one, Dash! Pull it up! Nema, get the net!"

As the other humans helped Rainbow Dash with her catch, Applejack finally looked over at Daniels again.

"Well, Ah suppose that from yer perspective, mah problems look pretty darn petty."

"You're wrong," Daniels said firmly, "having void ships crashing on your property and your livelihood smashed isn't petty. Nobody's trying to make light of your loss, here."

The apple farmer quirked an eyebrow as she ran a hoof over Winona's back. "Well, okay, but compared to yer problems-"

"Again, you're wrong," Daniels interrupted, "having a dead family and planet aren't problems, they're facts. Problems can be solved." He chuckled humorlessly. "My problems consist of avoiding a Nurglite back at base who really wants me to join their rotting cult, and explaining to my captain why a simple cargo drop to Trademaster Delgan ended up taking all day."

"Eww! Nasty!" Daniels and Applejack glanced over at Rainbow Dash, who was gagging at the sight of Nema gutting the fish she caught. "And you do that while they're still alive?"

"Humans show no mercy," Nema said grimly as he continued cleaning the catch, "Gotts, go get the cooker. We'll grill this one up right here."

"Brutal, man," the pegasus said, grimacing. Then she turned to Daniels, her wing wrapped around the length of her fishing rod like it was a large hand. "Yo, I need another bug."

Daniels chuckled as he took out the box of flies and went about baiting Rainbow's hook again.

"And when yer done with that, Ah could use another bottle of that swill yer passin' off as booze," Applejack said, her mood already feeling much lighter, "a full bottle, this time! Ah ain't no lightweight like Dash!"

"Hey! Who's a lightweight?!" Rainbow Dash demanded. "I can out-drink you!"

"Sure ya can," the orange mare said with a grin, "which is why ya were hitchin' a ride on Mac the last time we had a drinkin' contest. Which Ah won."

"That didn't count! We didn't finish! I could've kept going!" Rainbow Dash insisted, hovering over to the farmer and glaring at her.

"Sugarcube, when yer in such bad shape that Big Mac has to keep ya from tryin' to do a Sonic Rainboom indoors, you've just lost yer drinkin' contest."

The humans chuckled at the confrontation. Not because of how immature and silly it was, but rather from the novelty of seeing it played out between ponies rather than men.

"Fine, then!" Rainbow huffed. "Fishing contest! Right now!" The pegasus smirked as she held up her rod. "I'll even ignore the one I just caught! Come on!"

"Yer on, Dash," Applejack replied as Daniels dropped another synthehol bottle in front of her, "now go make a racket somewhere else. Yer scarin' the fish away."

Rainbow Dash snorted and flew off over the river again, leaving the earth pony with the three humans and her dog. Although Applejack had just turned her period of relaxation into a competition, the farmer didn't really change her fishing method, and continued lying on the river bank with Winona curled up next to her.

Applejack spied an enormous shadow creeping along the length of the river, and she looked up at the sky. It was mostly clear of clouds, but as she squinted her eyes she could make out something crossing in front of the distant sun.

After a few seconds, she made a guess as to what the object might be.

"That one o'yours?" the farmpony asked.

Daniels looked up at the sun, a hand raised over his eyes. "Hmmm... don't think so. There would be other ships right next to it."

"That's the Tau battlecruiser," Gotts said, his voice dropping to a near-whisper, "they used the Warp rift on it, I hear."

"What's that mean?" Applejack asked.

"That means that I don't want to be one of the poor bastards assigned to capture it," Daniels shuddered, "well, with an enemy fleet in-system, we probably won't get the chance. All the better."

Applejack let the matter slide and took a swig from her bottle. Then she sighed as the looming shadow crept over her and the humans.

"Sure is peaceful now," she mumbled, "you'd hardly think there was a war goin' on."

Nema snorted. "That's why we wanted to get out of the base. The way they're scurrying around like crazy, you'd think we were about to take to the void again at any minute."

Applejack's ears twitched. "Well, as Ah hear it there's still a bunch o'gray ships up there. So ya could have to leave at any minute, right? Don't ya think y'all might get stranded here if the Company had to take off suddenly while ya were goofin' off by the river?"

Daniels smiled before gulping down a mouthful of synthehol. "I could live with that." Nema and Gotts tapped their bottles together in silent agreement with that sentiment.

Applejack shook her head as her lips curled into a smile.

Then her fishing rod started to tremble.

"All right! Caught one!" Applejack cheered as she bolted to her feet. Winona jumped as well, sensing the sudden excitement and wagging her tail exuberantly.

Applejack seized the handle of the iron fishing rod in her jaws and tugged experimentally, and she was rewarded by seeing a dark red, filly-sized fish leap out of the water before flailing wildly and dropping back down.

"Nice size!" Daniels cheered. "Now just reel her in nice and slow..." then he trailed off as the earth pony snapped her head to the side, yanking the fish clean out of the river and up into the air. "Or, you can do that."

The fish flailed about some more as it reached the apex of its flight and started descending toward the river bank, and Nema scrambled for the net.

Then, suddenly, a huge green body broke from the surface of the water, and a pair of long, jagged-toothed jaws yawned open around the hapless red fish.

Rainbow Dash, who was hovering nearby, yelped and bolted away as the jaws clamped shut around Applejack's catch, instantly severing the duralloy twine they had been using for fishing lines.

The creature plunged back into the water with a tremendous splash, and the mercenaries flinched away as they were pelted by the unexpected downpour.

For several seconds after that, all was silent save the for the sizzling of droplets of river water against the gas cooker.

"Huh," Daniels finally mumbled, scratching his head, "was that alligator made of ROCKS?"

"Cragodile," Applejack mumbled, "that there was a cragodile." Then she took off her hat and dropped it on Daniels' lap. "Hold this fer a sec."

Daniels blinked in surprise as he glanced down at the Stetson. "What for?"

"'Cuz this's a competition," the apple farmer said darkly as she cracked her neck to one side, "and that ugly varmint's got mah fish."

****

Lamman flagship Black Tide - strategic control center

*We're using the current lull in our operations to make what repairs we can, and our crews are grateful for the rest, to be sure. But we're more than a little concerned about the stories surrounding the fate of the Rep'talal. That... video of the bridge has been circulating amongst the crew technicians and is having a severe effect upon morale.*

*We cannot allow the threat of mutant boarders to stay our hand against a fleet a fraction of our size!*

*Are you still insisting that they're mutants?*

*Are YOU seriously telling me you believe in gue'la stories about evil spirits from the afterlife?*

*Please, not this argument again...*

*I still say the fleet isn't the primary threat! You've seen the reports from Black Point! These "Iron Warriors" can wipe out our base practically at will! This entire operation will be for nothing!*

*Can there really be no agreement with these rogues? They have no quarrel with us specifically, surely there must be something they're after!*

*Oh, DO give it a rest. These are militant cultists, Por'el, not mere criminals. And our mission is too important to trust them in any case!*

Voidsong and Helenis sat quietly at one end of a long table as officers of the various castes argued with each other, each one waving about holographs or readouts that supported their favored tactic or concern.

The arguments fell upon familiar caste lines. The Air Caste was confident of a naval victory but extremely concerned about their likely losses. The Earth Caste was concerned only with the project nearing completion on the planet's surface, and protested furiously at the prospect of possibly dropping more void ships onto the planet from orbit. The Water Caste made its usual appeal for negotiation that would be ignored by all others; the Water Caste had little to do in Sept Lamman besides keep the peace among the different species within its ranks, and its opinion was often dismissed out of hand.

The Fire Caste, excepting the Shas'o's opinion, wanted to rip the fleet apart and take a metaphorical hammer to the fortress that dared stand between them and their objective. Again, typical.

Voidsong sympathized greatly with her castemates, but had learned much from Helenis' lessons about Chaos and its power. She was also mindful that she had taken a distinctly aggressive approach when they had arrived, and gotten a good little chunk of their fleet annihilated as a result.

Normally, in situations like this, an Ethereal would be on hand to guide the castes toward a consensus and organize their squabbles into a list of proper priorities, but unfortunately no Ethereal guided the Hidden Dagger of the Tau Empire. Not anymore.

*All right. I've heard enough,* the Shas'o said, clasping her hands together as her forehead furrowed and the arguments ceased, *I am most mindful of the Fio'el's concerns. They are most pertinent to our mission. Victory in a void, and especially a ground engagement will be costly, and will not necessarily accomplish our objective.*

A Shas'el frowned. *The combat simulations have all shown-*

*I don't TRUST the simulations,* Voidsong snapped, *particularly those for a naval engagement. Tell me, how have our craft in these simulations fared against being suddenly boarded by monsters?*

The Fire and Air Caste officers shared a pensive glance.

*Without a clear set of functional parameters for their ability to deploy the so-called "daemons", we can't-*

*And there you have it,* Voidsong interrupted again, *our data is flawed and incomplete. The enemies have weapons that we don't understand. You can't even agree on what it was that killed us.* The High Commander shook her head. *Believe me, I want to make good on my threats to wipe out this nest of rogues that's planted itself in our path, but the cost cannot be accurately calculated, and the gains are too feeble. We will find another way.*

*I want to know what the enemy's motivations are,* said the Water Caste officer, *are they protecting this world? Do they know our plans for it?*

Voidsong glanced over at Helenis and nodded.

*The forces of Chaos do not have any particular grudge against the Tau Empire,* the human advisor admitted, *they are xenophobic by nature, if only because of the Imperial origins of most of their troops, but the elimination of non-humans is not a priority for them. They are also tremendously violent, owing to the dark motivations of their gods. Some wage war entirely for war's sake, like Orks. But their specific objectives can vary widely.* She paused. *I can only offer an educated guess, but given the extremely organized nature of this warband and its depth of strategic skill, we're not dealing with battle-crazed fanatics or insane zealots. "Pirates" is our best guess so far, but it's obviously unusual that they've established such a strong military presence on the ground if this is the case. Still, Chaos Space Marines are masters of military doctrine first and renegades second. Certainly no normal pirate band would challenge a primary battle fleet, or set such deep roots on a world with so little to offer them.*

*But if they're not here for battle sport and they're not fanatics, what's keeping us from negotiating with them?*

Helenis looked rather offended at the question, but Voidsong took over once more.

*Because we cannot trust them, and we can't afford to clue them in to our objective here. Their backs are to the wall and they're far, far too clever and well-equipped,* Voidsong grumbled, *that's why I wish to complete our mission right under their nose.*

She took up a control tablet and keyed in a command. A hololith of the planet appeared over the table, and then zoomed in considerably to focus on a single continent.

*After looking through the complete report from Shas'el Wraithstar, we've confirmed that Project Emerald Dawn is close to completion, and despite repeated military setbacks and the destruction of two bases, all the components are undamaged and most of them assembled. The PROBLEM is that a key component, the Warp core, is in enemy hands. That's not a component we can reproduce in any useful time frame.*

*If the Iron Warriors have the Warp core, then what option do we have BESIDES negotiation or all-out assault?* asked the Kor'o admiral. *Unless you really think you can infiltrate their base and steal it back...*

*That would be a tall order indeed, but you misunderstand. The Iron Warriors don't have the Warp core. The native aliens do.*

There was considerable confusion around the table as the hololith zoomed in past Ferrous Dominus and showed them a three-dimensional construction of Canterlot.

*Wait, the native aliens? Since when are they our enemies?* asked a confused Shas'el.

The water caste officer crossed his arms over his chest, frowning deeply. *You DO recall what we're about to do to them, don't you?*

*There's no way they could know that, though! ... Right?*

*What are these aliens, exactly?* another officer asked.

Voidsong silently brought up another hololith that flickered into place next to the first one.

For several seconds, incredulous silence dominated the room.

*Is that a horse?* one of the Fire Caste finally asked.

*Yes. Yes it is,* Voidsong said humorlessly.

*A pony, specifically,* Helenis explained, *or at least, a local mutant variant. According to the Shas'el's notes, they're highly intelligent, possessing many sapient qualities and unique traits.*

*How the blazes did a tribe of PONIES capture our Warp core?* demanded another Fire Caste officer.

*Wraithstar had no good excuse for that, but it's not important now,* Voidsong grumbled, *these equine aliens have secured the Warp core in this... fortification,* she gestured to the hololith of Canterlot.

*Okay. And what's stopping us from sneaking in and taking it back?* asked the Admiral. *Or just marching down there and taking it back, for that matter?*

*That would be this,* Voidsong mumbled, bringing up a new display. The hololith of an earth pony was joined by two more pony images, one of a pegasus and another of a unicorn. The unicorn image was then highlighted.

*Their civilization is small, and militarily they still rely on crude alloys and melee weapons. However, according to the reports gathered from Wraithstar, their species is divided more or less evenly into three races. One of which is composed entirely of psykers.*

This tidbit made the various caste officers flinch. They knew of psykers, of course, and thanks to Voidsong's efforts in acquiring human personnel they even knew some personally and had seen their abilities.

Which was, ultimately, the reason for their unease. Psychic powers varied widely in power and effect, and their deployment was almost impossible to model in simulations. And besides that...

*One THIRD of their species?* one officer gaped. *That means there are, what, thousands? Tens of thousands? There could be millions of them!* True psykers were usually rare even in species with widespread psionic potential; to think of such a large fraction of a population possessing powers they couldn't predict or counter chilled the blood.

*As you know, psionic powers aren't exactly a trump card; we certainly possess the firepower to take the core, and could probably steal it away by stealth if we had to. But the presence of so many psykers, and next to no data on their specific abilities, is another huge blind spot in our tactical data,* Voidsong grumbled, *we have basically no idea what we're getting into down there. But I think I might have a solution.*

*Shas'o,* the water caste officer stood up, his tone grim, *if I may interrupt.*

Voidsong remained silent, one eyebrow quirked.

*If our goal lay not with the gue'la renegades, but the local aliens - who we have legitimately offended, it seems - then we would not be best served by turning first toward use of force.* He glanced around at the others, most of whom looked to be politely containing eye rolls. *Especially if use of force may be problematic for us. I insist that the Water Caste be deployed to negotiate for the recovery of the Warp core before any assault upon these creatures be considered.*

Voidsong was silent for several seconds as she thought over the demand, the gears turning in her head.

*Your request is denied,* she said finally. The diplomat looked like he was about to protest, but Voidsong continued. *I will deploy the Water Caste, but in concert with another operation. If you fail, then I will waste no time in putting my own plan into action.* She stood up from her seat. *Select your negotiation team, and when you're done briefing them, send them to me for an additional briefing.* She turned to Helenis and nodded. *I have to formulate my own plan. I think we have a way to put a stop to our psyker problem before it starts.*

****

Research cruiser Desh'ruun - psionic labs

Shas'o Voidsong and Helenis allowed themselves to be blasted with jets of disinfectant vapors as they waited in the lab air lock, both of them enduring the quick chemical bath with almost comical stoicism.

After almost a minute of trying not to breathe in too much of the white fog, the vapors were sucked into the air vents and the door to the lab complexes finally cracked open.

Voidsong couldn't keep a smile off her face as she stepped into the yawning chambers and looked over the bustling scientists and engineers rushing about within. Many were Earth Caste, as one would expect of a Tau research and development crew, but a fair number were from other species. Key among those foreign minds were a cluster of individuals that very few would ever expect to see serving on a Tau vessel: human Techpriests.

To be sure, there were very few of the engineer-cultists dedicated to the Greater Good. Converting the dogmatic cyborgs after capturing them, or after their host worlds joined the Empire, was far more difficult than convincing the average brutalized Imperial citizen or soldier to turn against the Imperium. It was arguable, in fact, that many of the Techpriests even accepted the ideology of their new masters, and most seemed to simply re-interpret their own understanding of their Machine God to be less dependent upon the Imperium and its dead idol. They apparently decided that their devotion to the Omnissiah could be fulfilled outside the Adeptus Mechanicus, and even in military opposition to it, but this concession was rare and always hard-won. The Earth Caste was hardly more cooperative, disdaining the humans' spiritualistic approach to science and their inferior technology.

Voidsong and her Fire Caste's high officers had forced the issue, however, and had gotten results. No other sept had such knowledge of Warp space or psionics, even if Lamman's understanding of both was rudimentary at best. No other sept could fabricate devices even as small and underpowered as the Warp cores that underpinned their current mission. And no other sept had a lab of any note devoted to psionic weapons.

*Shas'o Voidsong. We were notified of your impending arrival,* said a man in dark red robes of vulcanized rubber. He face, or what was left of it, was completely overrun with small glittering sensors and cabling that ran down and behind his shoulders. He was accompanied by a lower-ranking Earth Caste researcher.

*Then may I presume that you have a report for me?* Voidsong asked, her hands clasped behind her back. *I want to know why Project Ghost Spark is behind schedule. I happen to have a use for it.*

*Of course. This way, please,* the Earth Caste scientist said, turning around.

The small group walked by the majority of the researchers and experiments in progress on their way to one of the containment cells, and the Techpriest spoke up again.

*I managed to acquire a memory coil containing our brief communication with the Rep'talal,* the cyborg said, his servo arm twitching. Voidsong's expression darkened immediately, but he either didn't notice or didn't care. *It's most unfortunate to lose a battlecruiser and that many crew in one fell swoop. In particular, Kyleth Jackson will be missed. His assistance was beneficial to many of our programs. Will there be any action taken to recover the vessel?*

Voidsong scowled. *No, not so long as the vessel is overrun with those... "daemons". Do you have any ideas on how to deal with those creatures?*

*I do not,* the Techpriest replied blithely, *although their existence is supposedly connected in some ways to psionics, daemonology is a very distinct and unique field. Little of what we study here would be especially useful against them.*

*Of course. It can never be easy when the Warp is involved,* the Shas'o grumbled bitterly, *but I'm not here to discuss our losses. Tell me about the project and why it's incomplete.*

The Tau scientist sighed. *It's a little embarrassing, honestly. After years of investigation into the effect that certain Tyranid psykers have on the psionic powers of other races, we've managed to isolate and boost the effective nerve clusters to amplify the dampening effect, their "shadow in the Warp". The Tyranids use this ability to foil astropathic communication, and in the field can suppress other psionic abilities attempted within close range to the shadow origin. Using the design principles of the gue'la psychic hood, we have developed a working prototype that has proven capable of expanding the "shadow" and can effectively stunt psionic abilities within a radius equivalent to a small operational theatre.*

They reached a section of the labs with numerous Fire Warriors lined up on guard duty, and the Tau engineer stepped up to a console.

*That doesn't sound embarrassing to me,* Helenis noted, *in fact, that sounds like a stunning success, if anything.*

*Yes, it would seem so.* The Tau scientist worked at the console for several seconds, and then a set of blast doors over a cylinder-shaped cell started to move open.

The Techpriest took over. *The difficulty lay at the core of the device; although we can amplify the dampening field of a Tyranid psyker, we cannot replicate the psychic ability itself. Even among psykers, this ability is seemingly unknown outside of the hive fleets.*

The blast doors finished opening, and Voidsong grimaced as she stared through thick layers of armorglass at the being contained within a womb of sedative-laced nutrient gel.

It was tall, much taller than a Tau or human or even a Space Marine. Its body was nothing special, for a Tyranid; just a few small, vestigial claws attached to a bean-shaped thorax and a long, thick tail tucked into a fetal position, all plated by segmented chitin. But the neck of the creature gave way to a horrifically swollen brain case that was almost the size of any of the observers on its own.

*A Tyranid Zoanthrope,* the Techpriest said, *our only test subject. It has reacted well to our experiments, especially considering the heavy sedation we keep it under, but as it is, this is the only subject we have that can activate the field.*

*The embarrassment I mentioned earlier was our complete inability to clone specific Tyranid tissues,* the Tau scientist grumbled, *our colleagues in biological sciences had thought it might be easy initially, considering the ease and speed with which the Hive Fleets produce thousands of such creatures. It was not. The Tyranid genomes are maddeningly complex, and we even theorize that it might require a psionic link just to get the cells to cease their absurd rate of mutation long enough to stabilize.*

*So we have the technology, but we're lacking in... "volunteers", eh?* Voidsong mumbled, watching the Zoanthrope twitch.

*That is one way to put it,* the Techpriest noted, his servo arm clanging shut, *what's worse is the deleterious effect the amplifier has on the psionic nerves: a psionic mind will only likely be able to power the dampening field for less than one hundred cumulative hours before breaking down. Obviously, if these devices require the live capture of extremely dangerous Tyranid psykers in order to be deployed, then their use is infeasible in most scenarios. That is the obstacle that has halted project completion.*

Voidsong tapped her chin. *So we have a perfectly workable device, but cannot produce another one? How small can you make the field generator?*

The two researchers shared a glance, uncertain eyes meeting flickering sensors.

*The field generator was designed with cloned tissue in mind, so its deployment model uses a lobotomized organ tank,* the Techpriest explained, *it is two-point-six-one meters in height with a diameter of point-eight-six meters.*

*Shas'o,* the Tau scientist began nervously, *you can't mean to deploy-*

*The working prototype? I do,* Voidsong said bluntly, *we find ourselves in a tactical situation where our primary obstacle is a proliferation of psykers, and with an objective that is absolutely crucial to the success of this campaign. I can think of no better use for such a weapon.*

*But this specimen is our only useful test subject! Using it in the deployment model will kill it!* the Earth Caste member protested. *Besides that, it's the most powerful psyker we have available! Two other projects besides ours depend on its availability!*

*Then they will go on hold, Fio'vre,* Voidsong snapped, causing the shorter Tau to flinch back, *difficult as these creatures are to capture, there is no shortage of them spilling out onto our planets. We will have another opportunity for that. But we will never have another chance like we have now to...*

She trailed off, well aware that the scientists were hanging on her every word.

*Never mind. You don't have sufficient clearance,* she grumbled, *you don't need to know what we're doing with it. But I need that psionic damper. Have it prepared within two hours.*

*It will barely take a quarter of that time,* the Techpriest said, his servo arms rising, *additionally, I would like to acknowledge my support for this course of action. I very much wish to see the results of the field test.*

The Tau scientist scowled. *Whatever is happening down on that planet, I hope this is worth it.*

*That depends on our success, Fio'vre,* Helenis noted, bowing her head slightly, *it is for the Greater Good.*

*Of course. It always is...*

****

Ferrous Dominus - command center

"That's correct, Warsmith. The Tau fleet is still holding their previous position, matching Centaur III's solar orbit and staying far out of engagement range," General Gnoss said, standing in front of a strategic hololith.

"But they've deployed landing craft?" Solon asked, his voice crackling as it was transmitted through the vox caster.

"Best we can tell. It was little more than a blip on our augers, and then they vanished. More stealth tech, no doubt," Gnoss muttered. He paused to take a bite of the chocolate cake sitting at the edge of the hololith table.

"Sho they're deploying ground forcesh? They intend to fight ush where they have the leasht advantagesh?" Solon asked. Iron Warrior crew made a marginal difference in a naval engagement, boarding actions aside, but on the ground the presence of Space Marines gave them a crucial tactical edge.

General Gnoss took a long moment to savor the rich, smooth chocolate cake before he answered, hoping his diversion would be mistaken for deep thought. "It does seem odd, my lord, but then this sept is unorthodox in its tactics. Or perhaps our lack of aggression against the main base has them convinced that we won't interfere with their troop movements."

"I doubt that. They're up to shomething. I want our auger arraysh to double their shcan intenshity and shearch for any irregularitiesh or ghosht shignalsh to be inveshtigated with shtrike forcesh. I will not allow their bashe to be relieved or reinforced."

"Of course, Warsmith. We will be vigilant."

The moment the vox line was cut, Gnoss whirled around toward the nearest officer. "Lieutenant Nerril!"

"General?"

"Get to sector 6 with all haste and bring back some milk!" the General demanded.

The Lieutenant blinked, having expected an order somehow related to what had just been discussed by the Warsmith. "Ah... all right. Regular milk or strawberry, General?"

"They have STRAWBERRY milk?! How is that even bloody possible?!" Gnoss demanded.

The other man took a tentative step backward. "I, uh... I don't know. Magic?"

"Must be. A bottle of each then. Go! GO! This cake won't wait, boy!"

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Spike trudged wearily to the front door as a hoof knocked politely against it, wondering who would knock to enter a public library. True, the library also served as Twilight's home, and whoever it was was arriving fairly late in the day, but it was still a strange habit, and it meant he'd had to pull himself away from his knitting just to open the door.

Whatever. If there was somepony who needed something it was at least a distraction from the racket upstairs. Maybe whoever it was would need help from Twilight or Gaela, and he'd have an excuse for one of them to be dragged out of the house.

He opened the door.

"Ah, greetings, Spike! We need inquire as to Twilight Sparkle's whereabouts! 'Tis an emergency!" Luna said, standing in front of the library entrance.

Spike blinked. Twice. "Well, this is a bit more high-profile than I was hoping for, but still pretty convenient," he said.

Luna tilted her head to one side. "Pardon us?"

"Never mind. Come in, please, make yourself at home," Spike said, stepping back and gesturing into the library, "you'll find Twilight upstairs, although I should warn you she's kinda preoccupied."

Luna glanced down at him as she entered. "This matter is of considerable urgency, but what doth demand her attention?"

"Oh, do NOT go there, Gaela!" Twilight's voice suddenly boomed from above them, causing the Princess to halt. She could hear more talking from upstairs after that at a raised volume, but it was not so loud that she could easily make out the words.

"She and Gaela are having a fight," Spike sighed, scratching the back of his head.

Luna's eyes widened. "They art locked in mortal combat?"

"Hah, no. Nothing that exciting. It's a nerd fight," Spike explained, shrugging his shoulders, "I guess Twilight had some questions after seeing the hololith of our solar system, and before I knew it they were yelling at each other. This has been going off and on for two hours now."

Luna quirked an eyebrow, and then she decided to trot up the stairs, hoping for more insight into the sudden conflict.

"I would expect this from your uneducated, simple-minded townsfolk, but you disappoint me, Sparkle," Gaela said, her voice like freezing ice over steel.

"Do NOT call them simple-minded just because any one of them would know you're wrong!" Twilight shouted.

"I am NOT wrong. This is one of the most basic tenets of the science of astromancy," Gaela insisted, she didn't have her axe, and her agitation showed in how her bionic hand kept clenching as if it was trying to grip something tightly for catharsis.

"And sometimes even long-recognized scientific theories can be overturned," Twilight said with her muzzle in the air and her eyes narrowed, "you could at least TRY to confirm an alternate theory before simply discarding it in favor of your own!"

"Putting aside that you're doing EXACTLY that, these aren't 'theories'. They are FACTS, established by literally millions of sample systems producing results as expected based on these principles! You cannot seriously expect me to entertain such tripe!"

Luna poked her head into the room. Gaela was looming over Twilight, her expression cold as ever as the alicorn glared back up at her. Behind both of them was the strategic hololith table showing a scaled-down model of the solar system.

Twilight opened her mouth to continue the argument, but then caught sight of Luna out of the corner of her eye. "Princess Luna! Perfect timing!" she said brightly, turning toward the larger alicorn without stopping to wonder why she might be here, in Ponyville's library.

Then Twilight pointed a hoof at Gaela. "Gaela says that our planet revolves around the sun and not the other way around, and that the cycle of night and day is regulated by planetary spin and gravitational orbit rather than the royal family's magic! Tell her that's not true!"

"Ah, yes, and who have we here to act as a neutral source?" the Dark Acolyte crossed her arms over her chest as her eye narrowed at Luna. "A member of your royal house, and apparently one of the agents propagating this absurd myth."

"It is NOT a myth!" Twilight snapped angrily. "And Princess Celestia is NOT a liar!"

Spike sighed as he ascended the stairs next to Luna, and she glanced down at the young dragon. "They've been at this for a while now. Feel free to interrupt with your thing. Whatever it is."

Luna frowned as she looked over at the hololith, and then she cleared her throat.

"Twilight Sparkle, on the matter of the positioning of celestial bodies in our solar system, Gaela is correct as far as We art aware. The sun doth not orbit our world." The younger alicorn's jaw fell slack, as if one of the most basic principles of reality had been overturned. "Miss Gaela, we do, in fact, control the daily cycle of day and night. Doth this resolve thy disagreement?"

Twilight glanced over at the hololith, stunned. "I... I had no idea. So this means that Celestia actually controls the world's rotation? Fascinating..."

Gaela was unmoved. "You do no such thing. Orbits and planetary spin in this system show no irregularities that would suggest interference, much less control, by supernatural forces."

Twilight beckoned to the woman while shaking her head. "You see? She just won't accept that she's wrong."

"You haven't offered any evidence for your asinine theory aside from testimony from one of the agents responsible for upholding this falsehood!" Gaela snapped. "If this is true, what happens when your sovereign is incapacitated? Would your world suddenly cease planetary rotation and movement along its solar orbit, in complete defiance of the laws of inertia?"

"Yeah, that's happened before," Spike noted, "it's a little creepy, actually. I kind of like Gaela's system better."

There was a momentary pause as the Equestrians waited for the Dark Acolyte to absorb this new testimony.

"You are all liars," the cyborg declared.

"Oh, for Celestia's sake," Twilight grumbled, planting a hoof against her face.

Luna sighed, dismissing the insult. "As fascinating as this debate hath been, We art here for a matter of grave import, not to resolve matters of scientific disagreement," she said.

This seemed to snap Twilight to attention as she recalled that Luna didn't usually just show up at her library for no apparent reason.

"Yes, Princess! What's wrong?"

Luna frowned. "It is the Tau. The aliens that have descended upon this world with the humans. They have come to Canterlot."

Twilight's eyes widened in shock. Gaela raised her eyebrow.

"They've invaded?!" Twilight asked, taking a step back.

"Nay. Like the 38th Company, they hath approached us in peace. A delegation of diplomats should be meeting with our sister even as We speak. We overheard little before We left, but it would seem the aliens mean to acquire some manner of device from us. A... Warp core, We believe they described it."

Twilight blinked. "Wait... the artifact? But we don't even have that! The Iron Warriors should have it by now!"

"We regret to inform thee that that is not the case. The object lay within our vaults, although how the aliens knew this is beyond us."

Gaela frowned as Twilight nodded slowly.

"Okay, well... okay. Fine. So that's where it ended up," the smaller alicorn mumbled, "and Celestia wants me to be there for the negotiations to provide advice?"

Luna winced. "That is... also not the case. Sister is proceeding with the meeting without thee. We recommended thy counsel, and that of the other Elements of Harmony, but she thought otherwise."

Twilight was rendered speechless at that, so Spike was left to ask the obvious question. "Why's that, exactly?"

Luna sighed. "Sister is aware of the... close contact that thou and other residents of Ponyville hath with the forces of Chaos. She considered that thou may be... biased in favor of the Tau's enemies."

"That's ridiculous!" Twilight protested.

"No it isn't," Gaela countered, "that's a perfectly legitimate concern, particularly in Applejack's case."

"Do you ALWAYS have to play Discord's advocate?!" Twilight growled. "Besides, Princess Celestia may not be AWARE that the Tau have made direct assaults on pony dwellings and attacked our citizens! It's not the sort of thing a Tau diplomat would mention! She needs to hear both sides!"

Gaela shrugged, apparently uninterested.

Giving up on the Dark Acolyte, Twilight turned back toward Princess Luna. "I'll go get Rainbow Dash and Applejack. I think both of them are at Sweet Apple Acres."

"Dibs on Rarity!" Spike said quickly. "... I mean, on telling Rarity. About this."

"Spike, make sure to pick up Pinkie Pie, too. Gaela, go to Fluttershy's cottage and bring her back here," Twilight ordered.

"I think it would be a better use of our time to resolve our previous debate," the Dark Acolyte insisted, "the likelihood of our reaching a satisfactory consensus with your sovereign, considering her own bias against the-"

Gaela vanished in a flash of purple as Twilight's horn flared.

"There. I gave her a head start," Twilight grumbled, "everypony will meet back here as soon as possible, and then we can leave."

"Aye, We will teleport us straight into the capital, and then make haste to the throne room," Luna said with a nod, "we must hurry, Twilight Sparkle. The delegation of the Tau has already found a far warmer reception than the humans, and I fear they will find little resistance in getting what they want from us."

Twilight thought it somewhat odd that Luna seemed predisposed to think that was a bad thing, as if she too had been hanging around the humans enough to want to take their side, but didn't stop to question it. "All right! I'll be right back!" she declared before her horn flashed purple and she disappeared.

****

Ponyville - Fluttershy's cottage

Fluttershy hummed to herself as she walked back home, a small sack of bird feed slung over her back.

She had already finished most of her chores, including making up for the days she was missing, and had taken the opportunity to head into town to restock her cabinets. Thankfully, there hadn't been that much to do, even despite her unexpected absence; there hadn't been as many animals around her home as usual. It seemed to her that most of the creatures that could fend for themselves perfectly well but hung around her cottage anyway - probably for easy food and attention - had decided to head back to their own homes and nests.

That was probably due to Tellis living with her. Not that the Iron Warrior knew or cared about her tending of the animals and which of them may or may not have been freeloaders, but his palpable aura of violence and tendency toward loud, unnecessary screeching when he spoke had convinced many creatures that it was time to look into independent residence. Those that remained had gotten used to the Raptor Lord with surprising - in her own opinion, disturbing - ease, however, which was another potential fear of hers that had proved unfounded when she took on a Chaos Lord as a roommate.

The Iron Warrior had taken off early that morning with the intention of doing awful things to helpless surviving Tau crew members that had managed to land safely in their ship's savior pods, so she was hoping he would be occupied for the entire day, and possibly even until tomorrow. Still, she wouldn't have been shocked or TOO disappointed if Tellis had come back before the sun set.

She opened her front door.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!"

A tall, skinny Tau female in a bedraggled naval uniform was sitting on Fluttershy's couch, and she politely waited for the pony's breath to peter out before she faced the pegasus and spoke.

"You must be the landlord. The Astartes told me that you like to scream when you come home sometimes," the alien said in slow, hesitant Gothic.

Fluttershy took in several deep breaths as her head whipped back and forth, searching for any sign of the flying, armored killer that had forced his way into being her tenant.

"Wh-Who are you? Wh-Where's Tellis?" The Iron Warrior was nowhere to be found, although the Tau was surrounded by a loose circle of bemused-looking animals, including Mister Bear.

"The Astartes left after dropping me off here. Presumably to murder more of my fellow crew," the alien said bitterly. She didn't answer the first question; she wasn't about to let herself be interrogated by some trembling avian creature less than half her size.

"I... I don't understand," Fluttershy said, stepping inside but keeping her back to the wall of her cottage, "I mean, I thought he was... uh, that is to say, why did he... er..." Fluttershy stumbled over her words, trying to think of a kind-ish way to ask why Tellis would let her live.

The Tau captive sighed. "When he found me I surrendered in his native language. I was with three others who were not fluent in Gothic, and he killed them immediately once this became apparent." She took a moment to scowl angrily at the memory, then continued her morbid tale. "He then said that if I could best him in a contest of riddles, then he would accept my surrender."

The pegasus blinked. "And you won?"

"He's not very smart," the alien admitted, glancing back and forth warily, as if the Iron Warrior might be around without her having noticed, "he asked me to identify all the skulls hanging around his neck, which were all from species the Tau Empire fights often. I asked him to name the four Tau working castes."

Fluttershy frowned as she thought back on what Twilight had told her about the Tau's caste system. "Um, that would be... fire, earth, water, and..." she trailed off, not remembering the fourth off-hand. "Wind, maybe?" it seemed like the logical compliment to the others.

"Air. Close enough. He guessed fire, plasma, lava, and spicy nacho." She seemed quite insulted by his failure, despite it apparently saving her life.

A heavy knock on the door interrupted their conversation, and Fluttershy turned back to the door.

"Tellis? Is that you?" Fluttershy asked nervously. "If so, we need to have a talk about you bringing your enemies home with you without asking!"

"It is not Lord Tellis," Gaela answered from the other side, "prepare to leave immediately. Once again your pitifully weak nation is apparently in peril, and for some reason your peers insist on your presence to aid it."

Fluttershy yelped, backing away from the door. "Oh, oh, uh, that is, now isn't really a good time," she said nervously, "I'm still very, very tired from our last quest, so please let Twilight know that-"

The pegasus yelped as a metal hand smashed through her doorknob, obliterating the lock before the door was pushed open.

Gaela stepped through the entrance, looking even more annoyed than usual. "I am not making a request. Either make preparations to leave, or..." she trailed off as she looked up from the trembling yellow pegasus at the surprised-looking Tau female. "... Are you playing host to grayskins?" She didn't sound offended, shocked, or upset at the prospect; if anything, the Dark Acolyte seemed intrigued.

"Less like 'host' and more like 'warden,' it would seem," the alien groused, "your pet monster left me here."

"That descriptor could apply to almost anyone in the 38th Company, but it hardly matters," Gaela said, her servo arm clamping shut noisily, "I'm here for the pony." She didn't think Fluttershy's presence would make a difference, and she wasn't happy about being given this task in the first place, but she had decided to see it completion before criticizing Twilight's plans and presumptions.

She took a step forward, and then suddenly found a cluster of animals blocking her path. Most were small and utterly harmless to a well-clothed human - much less a well-armored one - but the bear had also taken up position in front, its paws on its hips as it stood sentinel in front of its caretaker.

"Get out of my way, you glorified rug," Gaela said evenly, her optics glaring brighter. She hadn't been holding her power axe before she was teleported, but her servo arm clanged shut again mere inches from the bear's nose.

The hulking animal released a furious growl, refusing to be intimidated as it lifted its arms in preparation for mauling.

"WAIT! Stop! It's okay! I'm okay! I'll go! I'll go!" Fluttershy shouted, leaping upright as she heard a high-pitched whine coming from Gaela's actuator backpack.

The Dark Acolyte stopped charging her laser projector as the pegasus stiffly marched forward, and the bear reluctantly reined in its threatening posture.

"Good. Since you've already wasted too much of our time, we will leave at once," the cyborg said.

"Oh, but I need to finish feeding the animals first!" Fluttershy protested. "I mean, if that's okay with you."

"It is not okay with me," Gaela said bluntly.

"Please! I just need to feed Mister Bear and the other animals that need meat! I've taken care of all the others!" the pegasus insisted. "It will take... five minutes, maybe? I'll be quick!"

Gaela paused. "Just the meat-eaters? Then I have a compromise." Then her heavy laser fired.

The Tau prisoner screamed as she was struck in the chest by the spear of amplified light, and then she rolled off the couch and onto the floor as smoke poured from her corpse.

"The predators and scavengers among your menagerie now have a ready food source. We are leaving," Gaela stated simply, reaching down to pick up Fluttershy.

The yellow pegasus was frozen in horror at what had just occurred, which incidentally made transporting her all the easier as Gaela tucked Fluttershy under her bionic arm and then walked to the broken door.

As she was carried away from her home, Fluttershy eventually snapped out of her stupor, and then she glanced up at the woman restraining her.

"You know, I never realized it before, because I don't think we've ever really talked much, but..." she cringed uncomfortably, "you're even scarier than Mister Tellis."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

****

Ponyville - Sugarcube Corner

The bell on the front door caught Pinkie's attention as someone entered the shop, and she grinned brightly as she bounced into the air and rotated around one hundred and eight degrees to land facing the newcomers.

"Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! Hi Rarity! Hi Spike!" the unicorn and dragon looked exasperated and concerned, respectively, which Pinkie decided were not the expressions that visitors to a bakery should have. "Are you here for some awesome-tastic sweets, or is this another intergalactic kerfluffle-ication?"

"The, uh, second one. I think," Spike said quickly, slightly relieved that he apparently wouldn't have to explain much.

"Hopefully we won't end up in Ferrous Dominus again this time," Rarity said with a scowl, "the emergency is in Canterlot."

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie said brightly.

Mister Cake groaned as she started bounding over to her friends. "You have to leave AGAIN? Right before the after-dinner crowd?"

"Sorry Mister Cake! My country needs me!" Pinkie saluted grimly. "Desty, can you cover for me?"

The Chaos Space Marine was pulling a sheet cake out of the oven, and was wearing a tall apron with the words "Iron Chef" stamped on the front above the Legion emblem.

"If there is yet another conflict with the grayskins, would it not be better to have me address it and let Pie assist the bakery?" Dest wondered aloud as he placed the cake on the counter.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Rarity sighed. "Sorry, Mister Cake. We should be back tonight, barring the outbreak of further intergalactic war."

The ponies and dragon slipped outside quickly, making a good pace for the town library.

"It feels quite strange to acknowledge that there are other options besides intergalactic war," Dest mumbled as he picked up a frosting tube.

Mister Cake sighed and turned toward the armored giant next to him. "So... would you like us to just hire you on formally? We have a health plan."

Dest paused in his decorating of the cake. "I'm not sure I would be more readily available than Pie. The Legion may return to regular combat operations any day now and require my services as a transport pilot. Sudden planetary evacuation is also likely."

"Well, if we can handle sudden quests to save Equestria, I'm sure we can work around that," the baker said hopefully, "and you did say that the Apples wouldn't need your help any longer now that their farm has been mostly obliterated."

Dest was silent for several seconds, staring down at the cake and the array of sugar-based decorating media he had already piled up in preparation to work.

"Tell me more about this 'health plan'."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - outskirts

Rainbow Dash glared across the width of the Chimera transport as it rumbled past the massive impact crater that had replaced much of the apple orchard. Across from her lay Applejack, the side of her mouth curved up in a lazy smile. Nema and Daniels were also seated with them, but to the pegasus all she could see was her best friend/rival and the little half-smirk that refused to disappear.

"You didn't win," Rainbow Dash said through clenched teeth.

"You keep tellin' yerself that, RD," Applejack said calmly. Her fur and mane were damp, and she had a trio of shallow cuts over her barrel that the farmer insisted weren't deep enough to warrant treatment.

"You DIDN'T. It was a tie!" Rainbow Dash snapped.

"Mmm hmmm," the earth pony replied.

"The cragodile doesn't count!" Rainbow insisted, jumping up off her seat and hovering over Applejack. "It was a fishing contest! Fishing! Not cragodile... uh... ing!"

"Sorry Dash, but havin' that space bucket crash on the farm musta damaged mah ears," Applejack said, "cuz' all Ah'm hearin' from ya is 'Gosh, Ah wish Ah hadn't thrown away mah lead at the beginnin' of the match'!"

Rainbow Dash made a series of incomprehensible growling noises, and then rounded on the humans.

"You guys know I'm right, don't you? In a fishing contest, only FISH count! That's obvious!"

Nema snorted. "I'm going to have to side with the pony that walloped an alpha predator ten times her size. Sorry, Dash."

"And I'm siding with AJ because of plain old favoritism," Daniels said, patting the farmpony on the head fondly.

As Rainbow Dash tried to suppress a conniption fit, the Chimera shifted gears and then came to a stop.

Daniels peeked out a vision slit. "Well, here we are! Dry Dusty Crater! Home sweet home!"

Applejack chuckled as she stood up, but without the bitterness and self-pity that had plagued her when that name had been first thought up. "Ah'll say! You boys absolutely need to head back to yer walls tonight, or ya wanna room here? We got plenty o'space!"

"Gotts? Whaddya think?"

"Doesn't make a lotta difference if we roll in tonight or tomorrow morning. Either way we're going to be lying through our teeth to the Captain and hoping they don't find the fishing gear!" Gotts shouted from the driver's compartment.

"That sounds like a ringing endorsement to me," Daniels said with a grin, "it'll let us finish off the rest of the catch, too."

"Shame we couldn't take the croc. Er, crag? The rock lizard," Nema mumbled.

The deployment ramp dropped open, and Winona dashed outside immediately, followed by a disgruntled blue pegasus.

Nema lifted a bucket full of fish and headed out. Daniels was about to follow him, but an outstretched hoof stopped him.

"Hey, Danny. Thanks fer takin' me out with you guys," Applejack said with a refreshingly full smile.

"Bah, nothing to it," Daniels said, waving a hand, "you've shown us a lot of hospitality, what with the Chaos pirate thing and all. Least I could do is invite you to join us as we plunder your rivers."

"Well, Ah don't think of it like that," Applejack insisted as she dropped off the seat and onto the Chimera's floor, "hospitable or no, if y'all hadn't come around Ah'd probably spend the whole day mopin' about feelin' sorry fer mahself. Ah'm gonna have to do somethin' nice fer you."

They stepped outside, and Applejack right away noticed her little sister rushing toward the Chimera with Crabapple lumbering along behind her.

"Hey Sis!" Apple Bloom shouted brightly, pleased to see her smiling again. "Can Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stay over tonight? We're gonna try a summonin'!"

Applejack paused, and fixed the youngest Apple sibling with a thoughtful expression. "Ya take yer bath without any fuss, and you got a deal."

Apple Bloom made a happy squeal and bolted for the farmstead.

"AJ, you know what a 'summoning' is, don't you?" Daniels asked.

"Nah. Figured it was one of yer kooky rituals or somethin'," Applejack admitted.

"Good guess."

"RAINBOW DASH!! APPLEJACK!! There you are!"

The two mares looked up to see Twilight soaring overhead, and looking quite frantic.

"Oh, what now?" Applejack mumbled under her breath as Twilight landed roughly in front of her.

The purple alicorn took a moment to catch her breath and steady herself - high-speed landings still made her dizzy - and then spoke again. "Where have you two been? I've been flying from one end of the farm to the other searching for you!"

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "We was out fishin'. Why? What's the ruckus?"

Twilight was fairly stunned at that answer. Not only did she consider fishing a strange activity for ponies in general, but for Applejack to be out wasting time while her farm lay in ruins was utterly uncharacteristic of her.

She shook her head. That wasn't important. "We need to head to the library right away! Luna is going to teleport all of us to Canterlot!"

Rainbow Dash and Applejack shared a glance.

"Road trip?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "No, of course not. The Tau are in Canterlot, trying to make a deal with Princess Celestia!"

The other two mares gasped, appropriately concerned. The humans watching seemed less so.

"Is that a bad thing? I thought you liked all that diplomacy bunk," Daniels wondered aloud.

"It's complicated, and I don't have time to explain here," Twilight insisted.

"Ah'm with ya, Twi," Applejack said, adjusting her hat, "Daniels, you and the boys just make yerselves at home and try to keep mah little sis from startin' any fires. Ah'll be back in a bit."

"Have fun!" Daniels called out right before the three ponies vanished in a flash of purple light.

Gotts started setting up a mobile grill while Nema prepared the fish. Daniels was considering which task he'd rather help along when he spotted Apple Bloom wandering back outside, looking back and forth.

"Looking for something, Bloom?"

The young pony fixed her gaze on Daniels. "Where'd Applejack go?"

"Business call. Very important stuff," the mercenary replied, "why? You need something?"

Apple Bloom sat down on her haunches, frowning. "Yeah. Sweetie says we need a 'sacrifice' fer the summonin'."

"Not it," Gotts and Nema said simultaneously.

Daniels gave them an annoyed glance, then looked back down at the filly. "So what did you have in mind?"

Apple Bloom frowned. "Well, we don't really know what to do. Scoots says we should just use some of our animals, but that don't seem right to me."

"Yeah, that's a bad idea," Daniels agreed, "besides the poor state of your agri-facility already, farm animals are generally thought of as being very weak and expendable, and that affects the ritual."

"Well, we don't got any ideas, then," Apple Bloom admitted, kicking at the grass in annoyance.

Daniels paused and scratched at his chin for a few seconds. "Well... I DO know where we can find a wounded cragodile."

****

Ponyville - Twilight's library

Twilight burst through the door in a rush, with Rainbow Dash and Applejack galloping in behind her at a slightly less frenzied pace.

"All right! Is everybody here?" Twilight asked, scanning from one side of the library to the other.

It seemed liked the group was complete. Besides the Elements of Harmony, Gaela had retrieved her power axe and was waiting next to Spike off on the side. In the middle of the library, Luna waited with her wings spread and her horn already aglow with magic.

"Indeed, if there art no other matters to be resolved, then We shalt spirit us all to Canterlot immediately!"

Gaela frowned as the ponies all started encircling the dark blue alicorn. "All of us? Including me?"

"Of course!" Twilight said immediately. "Let's go!"

Gaela's frown shifted into a slightly more expressive grimace. "I believe my presence might create a prob-"

And then they vanished in a flash of blue magic.

****

Canterlot - royal gardens

Gaela blinked rapidly as the blue light faded, and then she squeezed her eye shut as her optical bionics and armor cogitator were overwhelmed with new telemetry data from the unexpected teleport.

"I don't like doing that," she mumbled as she rubbed at her biological eye.

Twilight glanced around and then up at the sky. They were in the gardens next to the palace, and the sun would be setting soon. Or rather, the curvature of their planet would be obscuring the sun soon. That was so WEIRD.

But now wasn't the time to dwell on astronomy, she chided herself before turning toward the others. "All right, everyone. Princess Celestia may not be thrilled to see us, so get ready."

"Speaking of individuals she may not wish to see," Gaela said blithely, "is it not forbidden for humans to be in your capital?"

The ponies seemed surprised at this, and Luna clicked her tongue. "Tch! We hath forgotten Sister's decree. However, do not fear; as a guest of mine, thou shalt not be detained."

"I'm hardly concerned about being roughed up by your enforcers," the Dark Acolyte said, "but how, precisely, is it helpful to bring me along? In addition to defying your sovereign's edict, you may recall that my skill in diplomatic conduct is..."

"Please darling, spare us," Rarity interrupted as Gaela trailed off, "I don't think there's a word strong enough to describe how bad it is, and if there is it probably isn't for the faint of heart." She turned to address the other ponies. "Miss Gaela has a point. Can you zap her back to Ponyville?"

Luna grimaced. "We would rather not, after having made such a leap just now with so many others. It is most tiring, and time is short." Then she glanced over to a pair of guards standing sentinel at the side entrance to the palace. "You two! Come hither!"

The guards had no clue what was going on, but when one of the Princesses warped in with the Elements of Harmony in tow, one didn't march up to them and ask for an update; one shut up and silently prayed that whatever brought them around wasn't going to start a rampage and plow through the Equestrian military. The two stallions approached stiffly, stopping a meter from Luna with their heads bowed.

"This is Dark Acolyte Gaela. For the time being she is exempted from the city's ban on humans. Thou art to be her escort and take her into the city, to ensure that she is not accosted by our vigilant military."

The guards saluted. Gaela frowned, but said nothing as the stallions led her away.

"Well, I'm pretty sure we dodged a bullet there," Rainbow Dash mumbled as Gaela walked out of earshot. Fluttershy nodded rapidly in agreement.

Twilight wasn't nearly as happy leaving the Dark Acolyte behind, but couldn't come up with a good argument for her to come with them. It had just felt... right to have the engineer-cultist along, even if it wasn't strictly in the best interests of their objective.

"Well, before we roll in there, Ah think we should have a plan," Applejack said, getting nods from the other mares, "so here's what Ah'm thinkin': Dash, Pinks, you two rush 'em as soon as we get inside and knock 'em down. Ah'll be right behind ya to finish 'em off. Twi, Rares, if any of 'em tries to pull weapons-"

"Whoa, whoa, WHOA!" Twilight shouted, leaping up onto her hind legs and crossing her forelegs into an X. "Time out! Applejack, we are NOT going to burst into the throne room and murder a diplomatic delegation in front of Princess Celestia!"

Applejack blinked, and then her ears fell flat against her head. "Oh, right. Diplomats. Yeah, that'd be pretty bad."

"So, what, we just rough them up a little instead of killing them?" Rainbow Dash asked. Pinkie smacked one hoof into the other and grinned menacingly.

"No!" Twilight shouted, slapping a hoof into her face. "We're going to enter the throne room, introduce ourselves to the Tau, and talk to them!"

"Awwwwww!" Twilight was quite frustrated to hear groans of disappointment coming from her more aggressive friends.

"Twi, when you grabbed us from the farm like the sky was falling I thought we were going to see some action!" Rainbow Dash complained.

"We also must confess a slight preference for the Element of Honesty's plan," Luna said.

"NO! That is final!" Twilight shouted through clenched teeth. "Now let's go! You'll all have a chance to explain why the Tau are bad news, but no violence!"

"Fine. Whatever you say, MOM," Pinkie said before she and Rainbow snickered.

This, right here. This was merely one reason why she liked having Gaela around, especially with her other friends. It was SO much easier being the voice of reason when there was someone higher on the serious/brainy scale than she was. "Stop mocking me and let's go! We don't have any more time!"

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Celestia sat on her throne with a phalanx of soldiers standing at attention in front of her, their weapons shouldered but their poses vigilant.

Across from her stood a trio of trim, pale-skinned Tau with long and rather ornate robes. Between the three diplomats - Por'vre, in their language - was a hololith projector showing a three-dimensional image of the planet. Off to the side was a small chest full of gifts that Kibitz was sorting through. Most were small devices of one sort of another, none of them especially valuable, but Celestia had to admit it made a far better tribute than having her own stolen property returned to her by the thief who took it.

"As you can see, this project is of vital importance to our race, and of no particular interest to the humans. If they truly are raiders, as you've informed us, they're probably here for more mundane resources." The Tau diplomat said, finishing up his explanation of this "Warp core" and its function.

"We will of course withdraw any remaining military units from your borders to Black Point, and we promise the utmost respect for your nation's borders," said another of the aliens, bowing.

"What, in return for the core? Shouldn't you be doing that anyway?" asked Shining Armor. He and Cadence were both seated to the side of Celestia, serving as her advisors in this matter. Cadence seemed mostly content to leave the discussion to her husband, while she occasionally whispered in Celestia's ear.

Celestia wished Luna would attend as well, but for some reason her sister had decided on her own that if Twilight wasn't going to be invited, then she would not participate either. Celestia had been very surprised at that, but Luna hadn't provided any reasoning before she'd flown right out the window and disappeared.

Besides being troubled by the ultimatum itself, she dearly missed her sister's presence on this matter.

Cadence turned her head, and then lifted her muzzle to Celestia's ear before she spoke softly. "Look at that. The way that female smiles wider and starts fidgeting every time the guy in front speaks. She is SO hot for him."

Although Celestia certainly appreciated Cadence's help, her counsel left... something to be desired.

"The other male knows it, too. He's trying to take charge whenever he can, to try to show off and counter the main guy. I think he might be her husband. You should think of a way to ask if they're a coup-"

"Thank you, Cadence," Celestia whispered quickly, hushing the pink alicorn before clearing her throat.

"I am, of course, quite concerned with the toll that your war with the humans may have on our world. Some of your vessels actually fell from orbit onto the surface, and with catastrophic results. It's a miracle nopony was hurt."

The trio of diplomats shared a glance. They did that often, and she suspected they communicated far more to each other with those brief glances than they did to her with their extensive monologues.

"The presence of a human fleet is an unexpected difficulty for all of us," confessed a diplomat, "we possess the power to eliminate them, but the cost would be great. To us, obviously, but perhaps also to your world."

"The fact that these humans serve 'Chaos' is an added complication," murmured the female, "we have relations with the main body of human population in the surrounding regions, the Imperium, but these renegades are something new."

Before Celestia could mull that over, Cadence was whispering in her ear again.

"Ooh! Ooh! I think she's trying to impress the main guy! He gave that little eyebrow quirk! He wasn't expecting her to say that!"

"THANK YOU, Cadence," Princess Celestia said quietly, pushing her away gently with her magic.

"How exactly we deal with the humans is up in the air," confessed one diplomat as he nodded at Shining Armor, "we are not opposed to coordinating an action with your people, to minimize its impact. We may be able to force them off the planet without any major engagements, which would be to the benefit of everyone."

"Or, we could leave the humans alone," offered another of the aliens, "if we have the Warp core, we can complete our research regardless of their presence. It may suit you for the current stalemate to continue until both sides decide to leave."

Shining Armor glanced back at Celestia uncertainly. The Princess raised her gaze to the ceiling thoughtfully. It was certainly nice of the Tau - and suspiciously submissive of them - to let her needs dictate the course of their battle strategy. But exactly what were those needs? She wanted the humans gone, to be sure, but after they had failed to rampage through her villages and cities like she expected, she was a little hesitant about pointing another army at them. Decisions, decisions...

Then the side door to the throne room opened, snapping her out of her musings.

"Er, P-Princess Luna? You're attending after all?" Kibitz asked awkwardly as the dark blue alicorn trotted into the room with a decidedly defiant expression.

What was even more startling to the ponies in the room was the presence of six other mares and a young dragon behind her. Everypony knew who they were, of course, but very few of them knew why the Elements of Harmony would be involved with a matter of intergalactic diplomacy.

Celestia frowned slightly as Luna stepped up next to the cluster of guards and spoke.

"We apologize for our entrance at this late hour," Luna said, eyes narrowed at the Tau diplomats, "allow us to make introductions: We art Princess Luna, and the individuals behind us art Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie. We believe they have questions for our esteemed guests that shalt prove most enlightening."

"I'm Spike," Spike mentioned briefly, raising his hand after noticing that he hadn't been introduced.

"Luna," Princess Celestia said gently, "we are concluding the negotiations now. Although I know you only have the best interests of Equestria in mind, this disruption is not helpful to our cause."

"Please, Princess," Twilight said, bowing her head as she approached her mentor, "I request permission to address the diplomats. There are concerns that I believe we need to put to rest before a deal can be made, but I will not stop you from reaching an agreement with the Tau."

Princess Celestia hesitated, but reluctantly nodded her assent. She could see that some of the other Elements of Harmony were restless, as if they were holding themselves back from hurling themselves at the aliens, but so long as they continued to restrain themselves she wouldn't embarrass them by having them thrown out.

Twilight turned toward the diplomats, who had been admirably stoic throughout the interruption. "I realize that you've probably already covered this, but I heard that you're here for this 'Warp core' that we've captured. What does it do?"

The lead diplomat smiled softly. It was quite common for native creatures to be suspicious of their technology. "It is part of a system we are developing to improve our method of superluminal travel. We are testing the establishment of a stable, permanent Warp gate that will allow our ships to make instantaneous jumps from one system to another without having to cross the vast empty space between. The Warp core is vital to this system."

"It is being constructed on your planet because its galactic positioning is ideal for our test runs," mentioned the female Tau, "although we never intended for it to cause such disruption with the native species."

"Oh, I see," Twilight mumbled, pressing a hoof to her chin as she nodded, "Warp space doesn't work like that."

The Tau blinked in surprise, and the ponies in the room looked startled.

"You can't arbitrarily link two points in the universe to the Warp and then eliminate the distance between them. Creating a doorway into the Immaterium creates a shorter path to your destination point, but you still need to travel through Warp space to get there. Which, as I understand, your ships can't do. Oh! Also, such doorways are all but IMPOSSIBLE to create next to powerful gravitational fields." One of her eyebrows rose. "So either you're lying to us, or I just saved you years of fruitless research and development work."

The other ponies had no idea what to make of the sudden lecture, but the Water Caste trio shared one of their silent glances before the lead diplomat turned back toward Twilight.

"Princess, while I gladly admit that my knowledge of our earth caste's technology is not perfect, I must question your apparent mastery of it. The principles of Warp technology are extremely complex, and slightly... esoteric, for a non-space faring species."

"That's a fair point," Twilight allowed, surprising the diplomats again by letting her challenge be dismissed, "so if you're here in Equestria to create and test this Warp gate, then that would make your facilities on our planet... research bases and fabrication laboratories, right?"

Shining Armor couldn't help but notice a moment of uncertainty as another diplomat cautiously answered.

"That is... one of their functions, yes," mumbled the alien.

"Wow, wouldn't have guessed," Rainbow Dash interrupted, glancing down at Fluttershy, "hey Flutters, did you see any 'research' going on in that Everfree camp? Like, were any of those nasty Kroot guys wearing white coats or handling test tubes or anything?"

"Oh, uh, no, not that I remember," Fluttershy mumbled nervously, pawing at the floor, "uhm, maybe they were studying the local wildlife? By, er, eating all of it?"

"You have some very brave and aggressive researchers, Mister Tau," Rarity said in a perfectly pleasant tone of voice, "why, with the way they charged into the human fortress, they were indistinguishable from hardened soldiers! I do have to question their field of study, however; they only seemed interested in analyzing the application of explosions to every living thing they saw."

"And that base we blew up in Salt Lick Canyon?" Pinkie said, giggling into her hoof. "I didn't see a lot of science going on! Even before it was mostly on fire!"

"Ah don't have nothin' clever to say about yer bases," Applejack said, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could, "but since y'all have shown up, ya knocked down mah house and barn, shot up mah sister's pet robot - twice - blew up mah orchard, and nearly killed mah brother. Was that all in the name o'science?"

By now the Water Caste delegation was quite uncomfortable. "We cannot apologize enough for the indiscretions of our Fire Caste," the female said with a bow and a grimace, "their only concern is furthering the interests of our people and defending their fellow caste members. In this matter they have acted... overzealous on this world. We are not here to harm your people."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," Twilight agreed, "but who ARE you here to harm? You can't seriously expect us to believe you have an entire army on hand just to protect your researchers; the assault on Ferrous Dominus alone took hundreds of soldiers!" Shining Armor nodded slowly, silently agreeing with his little sister's assessment (and trying to fend off the feeling that he had become rather redundant when she arrived).

The Tau delegation shared another tense glance, but before they could speak Princess Celestia cleared her throat.

"I have a question for you, my faithful student," Celestia said, her voice carefully unassuming, "what did Pinkie Pie mean when she said you 'blew up' a base in Salt Lick Canyon?"

Now it was Twilight's turn to tense and clam up. She knew why Celestia was asking, but this topic was a diversion from the matter at hand. She would just come up with a vague explanation and-

"Oh, it was so cool!" Pinkie said, bouncing in place as Twilight started to pale. "Shmithy turned Big Mac into a cyborg so then to pay him back we snuck into the canyon all stealthy-like and set a bunch of bombs and then this one Tau tricked us and we had to fight a bunch of robots but we won and then there was this big dramatic showdown where we were surrounded and gonna die but then a bunch of Iron Warriors beamed in at the last minute and totally kicked their flanks although they were kind of gross and victory was OURS!" the pink mare paused to suck in a deep breath, and then lifted up the heavy bolter round hanging by a chain around her neck. "Check it out! We got medals!"

Twilight smiled awkwardly as she found herself the focus of many incredulous stares.

"Twilight," Celestia said, noting with grave discomfort that four of the Elements of Harmony (Rarity and Fluttershy were not wearing theirs) boasted the crude amulets, "is this true?"

"Well... yes... but..."

As Twilight hesitated awkwardly the Tau sensed an opportunity and took it. "Please excuse me, Princess Twilight Sparkle, but I must ask: are you here as an agent of Equestria, or an agent of the 38th Company?" He asked as if he were genuinely confused, as if the Iron Warriors would send in a pony to represent their interests.

"Oh, we're totally with Equestria!" Rainbow Dash answered before Twilight could map out a properly measured response. "We just help the humans out because we're cool with them!"

"SUPER cool," Pinkie added, "like, the COOLEST."

"And for that you've attacked us and taken the lives of our comrades?" asked another of the diplomats, her tone quite disappointed.

"Not JUST fer that, no," Applejack said dangerously.

"ANYWAY!" Twilight shouted, her voice coming out extremely high-pitched. "I think we're getting a little off-point here! We were talking about how your military strength is entirely inappropriate for-"

"Twilight," Celestia interrupted softly, silencing her immediately, "thank you for coming to assist me with this matter, but I have one more question to ask you before I make my decision."

The Elements of Harmony found it rather ominous that Celestia's last question was apparently for them and not the aliens.

"When you spoke of this 'Warp' technology, and when you cast doubt on the Tau's reasons for coming to our world..." Celestia began, her tone neither presumptive nor contemptuous, "did that information come from the humans?"

Twilight's ears fell flat against her head. "Well... yes," she admitted weakly.

"Wait, why's that a problem?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Chaos is a terrible, corrosive force," Celestia said, heaving a sigh, "although it often prefers unsubtle means to further its twisted causes, deceit and misdirection is not unknown to it. I'm sorry my little ponies, but we cannot trust the word of the humans."

"But we CAN trust the grays?" Applejack asked through clenched teeth. She was keeping her temper in check, given that she stood before Celestia herself, but it was a near thing.

"I do not know," Celestia confessed, giving the Tau delegation a sidelong glance, "but I do believe that they wish us no harm, and that their interests lie solely with their experiment, whatever its true aim."

She spread her wings out, not to lift off, but in gesture of sorts as she declared her decision. "Here is my offer, Por'vre: I will relinquish the Warp core to you in return for the immediate withdrawal of all your kind and your equipment, military or civilian, from our borders. As soon as your experiment is complete - outside of our territory - I then wish for you to make all haste to leave our planet." She paused. "In the meantime, I insist that you avoid provoking or engaging the 38th Company. As much as I detest the forces of Chaos, they have so far kept from attacking my people, and have only been a danger to us in their conflict with you. Time will tell whether they are being true in their intention to leave our world on their own, but in the meantime the warfare must cease."

There were several nods of assent, both among the various soldier and minister ponies and the Tau.

"Finally," Celestia finished, "after you have withdrawn from our borders, then all the humans shall be instructed to do the same. Their corruption will not be allowed to spread through Equestria, whether by the sword or the coin. After today, no servant of Chaos or the 'Greater Good' shall be allowed within our settlements."

This, even more than the news of them surrendering the Warp core, sent a startled jolt through the Elements of Harmony.

"Whoa, what? You can't be serious!" Rainbow Dash said, a touch of anger in her voice.

"What did the humans do to deserve that? They ain't committed no crime!" Applejack added.

Rarity winced. "Well, possible crimes aside, I don't think it's necessary to exile an entire SPECIES."

"This is going to RUIN next month's party schedule!" Pinkie said, severely distressed.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her urge to defend her friends and demand more information about the Tau invaders had run up against a much deeper instinct: her respect for Celestia and her tendency to trust the sun Princess's wisdom first and her own feelings second. Wasn't Celestia right, in the end? Chaos was obviously dangerous. Its servants in the 38th Company were blatantly immoral killers. Why SHOULD she believe anything they said? Why shouldn't they work to rid Equestria of the possible threat altogether, especially if they could do so without actually fighting them?

The sound of Princess Celestia clearing her throat again brought Twilight back to the present.

"Loyal Rainbow Dash," Celestia said softly, "your instincts are noble, but they may yet betray you. You side with the friends you have made amongst the raiders, but their own loyalty lies with a power far more terrible than you can possibly imagine."

Her gaze moved to the side. "Applejack, honest and uncomplicated. You see the Tau as the source of your troubles, but they bear no grudge against the Apple family. It is war itself that has cost you so much, and in this the humans also bear responsibility."

Next was Pinkie. "Pinkie Pie, always welcoming with a smile. But in the void beyond our world live creatures and individuals possessed of such hatred that no amount of joy can move them."

Rarity. "Rarity, generous and clever. Your attachment to the humans is less emotional, and you are not ignorant of the threat they pose. Even so, you may yet find yourself more deeply influenced by their dark whispers than you'd thought."

Her gaze moved to Fluttershy, who surprised everypony by speaking up first.

"Actually, I could live without the humans," she said, raising a hoof meekly, "you can skip me."

Celestia blinked. She had been expecting more sympathy for them from the Element of Kindness. Well, whatever.

"And you, Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student," Princess Celestia began as she fixed her eyes upon the purple pony, "you have learned well the values of friendship and harmony, and remain undaunted and pure despite the trials I have set before you. Were that I could let my heart guide me now, as you have, and reach out even to these terrible raiders." Celestia shook her head. "I dislike the lessons I must impart to you now. I dislike shunning outsiders, managing military stalemates, and guiding the kingdom out of fear and caution. But Chaos poses a much deeper threat than to our mere well-being, and I cannot risk further harm to our country for the sake of their whims and cruel goals."

One of the male Tau tilted his head toward the other. *Laying it on a bit thick, isn't she?* he whispered in their native tongue.

The other diplomat snickered. *What a dork.*

Twilight wanted to argue. She wanted to plead with Celestia that the arguments weren't from the corrupt humans, that her information was sound, that her questions to the aliens demanded answers, that Chaos was being convicted in absentia while the Tau were being handed everything they wanted without being made to account for themselves.

Twilight lowered her head. "Yes, Princess," she said weakly, "you're right."

Celestia sighed wearily, noting the utterly defeated expressions borne by the Elements of Harmony. What had started as a simple task of dispatching a vile foe and sending it back to the void had turned far more complicated than she had expected. She'd never thought that friendship would turn out to be an obstacle rather than an aid to such an effort.

"Por'vre, are the terms I've outlined acceptable?" Celestia asked, finally turning her attention back to the aliens.

The Tau shared another of their silent glances, and then the lead diplomat bowed graciously.

"We had hoped that there would yet be some possibility of future cooperation and co-existence for our two peoples," he said with his head still bowed, "but given our missteps so far and our crimes against your kingdom, you are most gracious. We accept your stated terms."

"BUT WE DO NOT." Every pony in the hall, even Celestia, stumbled at hearing the booming voice interrupting the proceedings. The Tau schooled their shock more easily, giving a strange look to the dark blue Princess walking up in front of the throne.

"Luna? What are you doing?" Princess Celestia asked. Perhaps she should have been less stunned by the interference, considering that her younger sister had already gone against her wishes and brought the Elements of Harmony into this. But for the life of her she couldn't guess why Luna would object to their deal as presented.

Luna's gaze shifted back to the surprised and slightly hopeful Elements of Harmony, and then over to her sister.

"We must beg thy forgiveness for asserting ourselves thusly, dear Sister, but We must insist, as co-ruler of Equestria, that these negotiations be extended." She then nodded her head in the direction of Twilight. "In particular, We request that Princess Twilight Sparkle's questions be answered and her opinions heard before any settlement be concluded."

Both Celestia and Twilight looked fairly stunned by this demand.

"I don't... Luna, I have conducted matters of diplomacy and even war innumerable times," Celestia insisted, casting uncertain glances to a shrugging Cadence, "and we have all heard out Twilight's concerns already."

"Nay, Sister. Dare We say thou hast not heard her out at all," Luna said, "thou hast dismissed her opinion before she hath given it, by refusing to summon her. Thou considers her thoughts compromised by her exposure to Chaos. And by letting thy trust falter, We believe thy own sensibilities hath been compromised by thy fear."

She turned her head away from a stunned Celestia, and then nodded her head in the direction of the Water Caste delegation. "And besides: We art in agreement with Twilight Sparkle's opinion of thine experiment. Warp space doth not work that way."

Absolute silence dominated the hall for several seconds as Luna finished.

"And... you would know that... how?" Cadence asked cautiously, tilting her head to one side.

"We hath seen it. Or a memory of it. 'Tis complicated," Luna mumbled, "in any case, Twilight Sparkle will be heard."

"I have to agree," Shining Armor said, suddenly reminding the Princesses that he was still there, "I'm very concerned about Twilight's assessment of their military strength. We didn't get an explanation of that earlier."

"Although I understand your concerns, I am not sure these matters are pertinent to our settlement," the head diplomat noted.

"Then please, convince us that they aren't," Twilight said as she stepped forward, her head held high and her confidence restored, "I wish to know why you had a base established to foil vox signals when nothing on this planet uses those devices. Then you can explain why you spread three hidden bases around Equestria, and who you were trying to hide them from. Then, please, explain your completely oversized military presence, and why you've waited until now to make any sort of meaningful contact with us. Once you're done with all that, THEN I want to know once and for all what the Warp core is ACTUALLY being used for, and why you were obviously preparing to fight to defend it long before the Iron Warriors showed up!"

Twilight couldn't help but feel proud at the disturbed expressions on the Tau's faces as she finished. She didn't necessarily intend to ruin their efforts at peaceful acquisition of their former property, but if they were going to get the Warp core, they would pay for it with answers.

One of the diplomats coughed before he spoke up. "It was always a possibility that a pirate fleet would happen upon our project, especially in a sector as active as this one, and we took considerable measures to defend them in such a scenario. Considering that is PRECISELY what's happened, I hardly think that our military strength and security measures are at all questionable."

"This sector is 'active'?" Rarity wondered aloud. "Rather odd, then, that we haven't seen much in the way of space traffic on this planet before now. I'd think that between the pirates and your checking to see if there's pirates, alien activity would come as less of a surprise to us."

"There was always the possibility, even if remote..." the diplomat backpedaled.

"And if security was an issue, and for some reason this planet is the only one that would work, how come you didn't just take it as you normally do?" Twilight pressed. "Not that I want Equestria to become part of the Tau Empire, but here you've gone to great lengths to both hide and defend this experiment. If this project is so important, wouldn't you want to do it on a world you controlled?"

The female spoke quickly to respond to her question. "Surely, we would have taken more extensive measures, but there simply wasn't time."

"Time?" Shining Armor asked, tilting his head to one side. "Why not? What's the rush?"

The reaction from the Water Caste was quite telling. The diplomat that had spoken had frozen stiff, and her face paled slightly even as she carefully schooled her features. The other two aliens glanced at her sharply, their own features tightening angrily.

Celestia restrained a sigh as Cadence whispered to her again. "Oh-ho! She was NOT supposed to say that! Totally just ruined her chances with the main dude!"

"It's... It's just that we require this new transportation system at once, with all haste. Our military conflicts require it!" the female Tau said, regretting the excuse almost immediately.

"Kind of weird, if you ask me," Rainbow Dash muttered, "you go to all this trouble to get this super-important machine and test it out, but here you've also agreed to leave as soon as you've built it. What kind of a deal is that?"

"You did say it was a PERMANENT gate," Twilight noted, following up on Rainbow's musing, "putting aside that we don't believe you, you say that you're going to construct this machine, test it right in front of a powerful, hostile army, and then leave it never to return? You really ARE in a hurry. Would you care to explain the exact reasons why our planet is 'ideal' for this project?"

The head diplomat turned away from the Elements of Harmony, addressing Celestia instead.

"Princess Celestia..." he paused, wetting his lips, "I must confess to you that we have not been sanctioned to divulge ALL the details of our project here."

The white alicorn raised an eyebrow, and he continued, encouraged that she was at least listening carefully. "It is true that some facets of our presence may not make sense based on what we've told you. It may also be true that we have been... evasive in the exact nature of the Emerald Dawn project." He shook his head. "This is unfortunately beyond our control. I am not at liberty to divulge such things even to members of our own species below certain rank, much less other governments with no pertinent dealings with us."

Princess Celestia nodded cautiously, and the diplomat took a deep breath before he finished. "But I can ASSURE you that I can bring my sept into agreement on the terms you've outlined. You can rid your nation of our weapons once and for all, and need not fear further conflict with the 38th Company within your territories. With that goal in mind, is it truly worth endangering our agreement for military secrets that we can't divulge to you?"

Princess Celestia frowned deeply as all eyes went to her. She had to admit that she was quite disturbed by the suspicious reactions of the delegates in response to Twilight's questions, but at the same time the alien made a very compelling point. She didn't CARE what the Tau's machine did. If she could get them to leave, she would gladly give them the useless hunk of metal taking up space in the vaults.

"Princess Celestia," Twilight said, distracting the sovereign from her thoughts, "I know you think that I've become too close to the 38th Company. That I've made friends with terrible people, and been dazzled by their knowledge to the point that I don't question it." She swallowed nervously. "And... And you might be right. We haven't spent a lot of time hearing the Tau's side of the story. We've become so accustomed to the humans' violence that it barely fazes us anymore, and we shrug off the hints of dark influence without a thought, now." She chose to leave out that three ponies had already become Chaos cultists. Celestia REALLY didn't need that on her mind right now.

Then the young Princess pointed a hoof at the Tau delegates. "But you HAVE to believe me when I say that there's too much information we're not being told, here. There's another element to this conflict, some other threat that we're not aware of. And this 'Project Emerald Dawn' is definitely NOT as benign as we're being led to believe. For what it's worth, I strongly recommend we keep the Warp core until we get answers. REAL answers."

"Yeeha! You said it, Twi!"

"Could barely have said it better myself!"

"Indeed, I have to agree."

"Suffer not the alien to live!"

"Uhm, so, does this mean the humans AREN'T going to be forced out of Equestria? That part doesn't depend on the deal, does it?"

Celestia noted the Tau's attempt to restrain his frustration as the Elements of Harmony took turns cheering on Twilight (save Fluttershy; just what had the humans DONE to her?).

"I am sorry, Por'vre," Celestia said finally, "but my student has a valid point. As much as I wish conflict to cease in my lands, it would seem you have not been negotiating in good faith." She spread her wings again. "To this end, I must insist that we continue this meeting tomorrow. I will convene with my student and we shall discuss her findings, and you may contact your leaders and inform them that we need more information."

As the diplomats groped for something to say to challenge this decision, their communicators crackled in their ears.

*You may inform the 'Princess' that another meeting will be unnecessary. I've heard enough,* spoke a harsh voice in their ears.

The link was immediately cut, and the diplomats shared another uneasy glance. "It has begun, then."

Shining Armor blinked and turned toward them. "What? What's begun?"

****

Canterlot Castle - palace gardens

Several Stealth Suits stood among the tangled, extensive brush and vines of the royal garden, remaining absolutely still as their light refractor fields rendered them almost completely undetectable. A pair of guards stood barely twenty meters away, holding position in front of a palace side entrance, but the earth ponies remained completely oblivious to the alien warriors.

Behind the first suits, and completely out of view of any guards, another pair of soldiers in Stealth battlesuits worked around a large cylinder-shaped object, carefully calibrating the sensitive, one-of-a-kind machine.

*We are clear to deploy. Let's get this thing running,* one suit whispered into its commlink.

The other gave a slight nod as he powered up the cylinder's main generators. It had its own stealth field as well, but that would only activate after the dampening field was fully deployed.

*As the gue'la say,* mumbled a Stealth Suit as it reached for the final activation button, "deny the witch."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Celestia jerked her head up suddenly as a chill ran down her spine.

She was not alone. Every unicorn and alicorn in the room suddenly flinched as a bizarre, completely unfamiliar feeling settled over them. Some of them audibly yelped in surprise.

"What... What just happened?" Twilight asked, reaching up and touching her horn tenderly.

"What? Something wrong?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Aye, something is quite amiss," Luna muttered. Her eyes narrowed at the utterly unsurprised, if somewhat resigned, expressions on the faces of the Tau delegates. "We believe thou knows something of this, alien! Speak!" Her horn lit aglow with magic.

And then it flickered, and the blue light faded away.

"Wh-What? What is this?" Luna demanded.

"Ah. It works," noted one of the diplomats, "well, at least this isn't going to be a total loss."

The horned ponies in the room started trying to use their magic, and each one started to panic as their spells refused to manifest.

Twilight grit her teeth as she tried a simple light spell. The magic seeped into her horn as it normally did, but then the moment she tried to emit the spell it came undone before anything happened. She tried twice more, but the result was the same; it was like trying to light a wet match.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Princess Celestia demanded. "What have you done?!"

The Royal Guards were surrounding the Water Caste delegates, but they ignored the angry and fairly confused soldiers.

"I am being sincere when I say that I wish it didn't have to be this way," the lead negotiator sighed, "I do not want your people's blood on our hands."

"It ain't OUR blood y'all should worried about," Applejack was stalking past the guards now, her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed, "Ah knew we shoulda trounced you grays the moment we saw ya!" A few of the soldiers raised eyebrows and took a cautious step away from the enraged mare.

The head diplomat regarded her with a pitying look. "There are those in every species who see force as the first and only solution to an obstacle. I fear that our failure here has reinforced that sad philosophy. Most unfortunate. Particularly for you."

The ponies' ears twitched as the hiss of jets came from behind the walls. There was some distant yelling from above, too, probably from some very surprised pegasus guards.

"May I present the Lamman Sept, ponies. The Fire Caste's hidden dagger."

Four of the great windows in the royal hall shattered, admitting a full dozen large, black shapes to land heavily on the floor.

Several ponies shouted and shrieked at the sudden invasion, and the equines quickly rushed toward Celestia, with the Royal Guards forming a thick wall in front of the non-soldiers and their Princesses. The unicorn guards seemed particularly nervous, though.

"Awww! That was the window where we were beating Discord!" Pinkie complained, pointing a hoof at one of the shattered panes. "RUDE!"

The Tau battlesuits turned toward the ponies, their optics glimmering and their burst cannons already spinning. They did not discharge, however, instead stomping up next to the diplomats.

"Battlesuits? But how did they get so close to the palace unnoticed?" Twilight asked as she backed away.

Having researched the Tau and seen plenty of their equipment up-close, she could see that these battlesuits were large and bulky, like the Crisis battlesuits, but their armor shimmered in the light and seemed to play tricks on her eyes as she tracked their movements. Her friends were likewise backing away nervously, not willing to provoke a firefight where none had yet broken out. None of them liked their chances in fighting off squadrons of battlesuits, even if the ponies did heavily outnumber the armored soldiers.

"These are the XV28 model Heavy Stealth Suits, a unique sept design," one of the Water Caste mumbled, "you'll find your... spears... quite ineffective against them."

"You treacherous cowards!" Shining Armor shouted, holding position at the head of the phalanx protecting the Princess.

"So this is the way of the Tau, then?" Princess Celestia asked darkly. "When you are denied you turn to murder?"

The lead diplomat sighed. "You may yell at us all you wish, but this matter is out of our hands, now. I only hope for a quick solution."

There were more noises coming from outside, now. The whine of antigravity engines. Many of them. There was more shouting from the various guard ponies, but Twilight was at least gratified that she didn't hear any guns firing yet.

"You were planning this all along!" the purple pony accused. "This... magic-blocking field, all these soldiers, it was all just waiting for us to finish up here!"

The Tau said nothing, their features schooled into expressions of mild regret. The whining sounds of the Tau engines increased in volume and frequency.

Then another suit flew in through the window, landing on the floor heavily enough to put cracks in the flagstones.

This suit was much bulkier than the others, boasting a set of larger thruster jets and a larger body. One arm mounted a Gatling plasma weapon, while the other carried a flickering shield on its wrist.

One of the royal soldiers, seeing the other Tau turn toward the newcomer, felt a surge of bravery and seized his spear in his mouth before hurling it straight at the larger invader.

The Tau didn't notice the attack until the spear cut by them, sailing on an unerring course straight for the Tau Empire emblem on the chest of the battlesuit.

The larger battlesuit swept its shield-arm forward, snatching the spear out of the air with contemptuous ease.

"That's cute," a heavy, electronic voice came from the larger suit before it flicked the weapon to the side and started stomping forward.

The guard that had just attacked gulped nervously as the battlesuit advanced, but its glittering optic sensors weren't paying him the least attention, instead fixed upon the white alicorn scowling from atop her throne.

As the battlesuit passed by the Heavy Stealth Suits, however, the Royal Guards stepped forward, with Shining Armor at the front.

"Stay back!" the guard captain demanded. "You will not approach the Princess!"

The suit halted and looked down. It probably could have kept on walking and just pushed through the wall of ponies with ease, spears or no, but instead the voice came again.

"Move aside."

Shining Armor didn't flinch. "You will not-"

His voice trailed off into a high-pitched yelp as he suddenly found the Gatling weapon just inches from his muzzle, and already spinning. He could feel the heat from deep within the gun barrels tickling his nose, a distant promise of his impending annihilation.

"Shining!" screeched Cadence and Twilight at the same time.

"Don't make me say it again," the battlesuit mumbled as a high-pitched whine came from its weapons.

"Shining Armor. My Royal Guards," Celestia said firmly, "move aside, please. Your sacrifice will not aid me here."

The guards spared a silent, worried glance at each other and then slowly complied, turning toward the center of the hall and then stepping backward to create a path to the throne.

"Who are you?" Princess Celestia asked as the larger battlesuit proceeded forward.

It halted briefly to glance at Luna as the younger Princess scowled, and then once again its optics focused on Celestia. "I am Shas'o Voidsong. I am the High Commander of the Lamman Sept here in the Centaur system."

Celestia nodded darkly. "I am-"

"I know who you are," Voidsong interrupted, "I was listening to that whole sorry affair through the commlink." Her head component turned slightly. *Por'vre. Your mission is over. You will find transport back to the ship after the Earth Caste are finished with their work here. Go.*

The Water Caste members sighed wearily as they bowed their heads and then headed toward the front doors.

"So, then," Voidsong returned her full attention to Princess Celestia. "Let me explain precisely what's happening here: you had the opportunity to resolve this the easy way. You refused. Now you face a new choice. We can do this hard way, or the bloody way."

Princess Celestia opened her mouth to speak, but Voidsong didn't let her.

"Specifically, you can either tell your armed forces and other enforcers to stand down immediately and surrender your city to me, OR, I can have all of those same individuals killed and you can surrender after that. Be quick about it; I'm on a schedule."

Celestia recoiled. "Surrender my city? Why do you want Canterlot? I thought your only interest was in the Warp core!"

Voidsong's sensor mount tilted to one side. "That doesn't sound like a surrender to me."

Princess Celestia was acutely aware of the burst cannons of the other suits starting to spin up again.

"You fiends!" Luna growled, her horn flashing briefly before fizzling out exactly as before.

"Luna. Please, stop," Celestia said, her voice tight. Then she spoke to Shining Armor. "Captain, spread the word to the guard. They need to stand down immediately to prevent the outbreak of violence."

Shining looked like he wanted to protest, but Celestia's attention was already focused back on the Commander. Clenching his teeth and releasing a pained growl, the unicorn stallion raced for the door.

"I will surrender to you on one condition," the white Princess said quickly, her voice strained, "do not harm my people. I have no idea why you're here, or what you hope to accomplish, but please, let my little ponies live."

"Princess..." Twilight breathed, her magic trying to manifest for the umpteenth time without so much as a spark. How had this happened?

Voidsong was silent for a few moments. "I hardly think you're in a position to be demanding conditions," she noted, "but sure. If we can smooth this along, I will not damage any of your people. Assuming they cooperate, of course."

Princess Celestia let out a deep, shuddering breath. "Then... I, Princess Celestia, under severe duress and threat of annihilation, formally surrender control of Canterlot City to you, Shas'o Voidsong."

"Good," was the Commander's simple reply as she stomped closer to the throne, ascending the carpeted steps.

Several ponies held their breath as Voidsong reached up toward the alicorn with her shield-bearing arm; it had occurred to some of them that not harming Celestia herself had not been part of the agreement.

The battlesuit's hand reached over Celestia's head, and the thick fingers of the battlesuit hand pinched closed around Celestia's crown.

"Don't be so bitter, 'Princess'." With a casual flick of the suit's fingers, the crown was sent bouncing away across the floor. "You'll get your city back in time. Lovely as it is, I don't intend to stay. For now, go make yourself comfortable in a corner. I have work to do."

Voidsong turned away from the humiliated Princess, her displays filling with tactical data as small dropships started landing in the city. She didn't keep a close eye on them; her men knew what to do and could make adjustments as necessary if there were any unexpected elements encountered.

"Now that we have that out of the way, what to do with YOU?" she asked as she stomped down the stairs toward the Elements of Harmony.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack couldn't be any more furious, as much at their helplessness as at the Tau themselves. Twilight's eyes, however, were fixed on the bejeweled crown lying in front of her hooves.

Then a hefty black foot striped with blue dropped on top of it, crushing the piece of jewelry like a scrap of litter.

"Up here, horse," Voidsong commanded.

"You said you wouldn't hurt them!" Celestia reminded the alien, her voice shrill and nervous.

"I did, didn't I? Fair enough," Voidsong mumbled, her scanners sweeping over the mares as they glared silently, "I couldn't help but hear you bragging about attacking my bases, however. I'll have to have you locked up with the other... 'military' ponies." There was an unmistakable note of contempt in her voice.

"Answer the question," Twilight mumbled.

Voidsong halted, her sensor head tilting down. "What?"

"Celestia's question. You got your surrender, now answer her," Twilight said, her voice a low growl as she looked up at the glimmering optics, "why do you want Canterlot? How does that help you?"

Voidsong hesitated for several seconds, wondering at the little pony.

The sound of more engines came from outside; this one was a heavy roar, that of an Orca troop transport.

"Our principle obstacle in re-acquiring the Warp core may have been you natives," Voidsong said, deciding on a whim to answer, "but don't flatter yourself. The 38th Company is the only military challenge on this world, and even if we have the core, the gue'la - sorry, the humans - can still ruin everything. They're our real opponents here."

Twilight frowned, her brow furrowing. That didn't explain much.

"You probably don't know this," Voidsong continued, "but searching for ground forces over the area of a continent from orbit is actually quite difficult. Sure, if your target is big and powerful enough you can pick it up with a surface scan, but trying to find a smaller force that's made planetfall is mostly an exercise in ruling out places they can't be and constantly checking on the remaining million square kilometers to see if you can catch them regrouping. That's exactly what the humans are doing right now."

Twilight blinked in surprised, realization dawning. "You mean-"

"Yes," Voidsong interrupted, "the 38th Company knows we've made planetfall. They know we're coming, and that our objective is to reach our last remaining base. They probably don't know much besides that, but these are Chaos forces; they don't need a good reason to try to stop us. And the last place they'd look for a Tau muster point preparing to assault their fortress is in the capital of their so-called 'allies'."

"Why you sneakin', no-good, rotten sonuva-" Applejack felt Rarity and Fluttershy latch onto her to hold her back, and her muscles tightened. She knew she could have thrown them off if she tried, but she didn't know how far she'd get making a berserker charge toward the Tau's Commander.

"Rein it in, darling," Rarity whispered, casting a venomous glance toward the battlesuit, "now isn't the time."

The front door to the throne room burst open, and a veritable parade of Fire Warriors marched through the doors, followed by a pair of Broadside battlesuits stomping heavily behind them.

"All military personnel are going with them," Voidsong declared, waving an arm toward the Fire Warriors, "that includes you six. Be assured that my promise not to harm Equestria's citizens and agents remains in force so long as you cooperate. Any attempt to escape or harm a member of Lamman Sept will negate your protection under this agreement, and you will be terminated without further warning."

The Fire Warrior Shas'ui gestured sharply, and the guards lowered their heads as their spears clattered to the floor. Then they began a long, miserable plod toward the waiting Fire Warriors.

Twilight likewise started moving past the Shas'o, her head down and her ears pinned. The others followed behind her, each one glaring angrily (or in Fluttershy's case, with great disappointment) toward the heavy battlesuit.

"Why are you doing this?" Twilight mumbled as she walked past. "What are you trying to do?"

To her surprise, Voidsong answered.

"I'm trying to save an empire."

Her answer was simple, short, and perhaps conveyed a bit more emotion than the alien had intended. The response seemed somehow... tired.

"Go! I'll be having a word with the other Princesses alone," Voidsong snapped, "any of you natives that aren't being penned up had best find somewhere out of the way to be during the occupation!" The Shas'ui nodded silently as the line of pony soldiers marched out the front gates.

The few ministers and others who were neither soldiers, Princesses, or Elements of Harmony took the Commander's suggestion and galloped for the exits, leaving through one of the side doors rather than racing past the collection of heavily armed and armored aliens filling up the front of the throne room.

As it so happened, that group of forgotten Equestrians included one young dragon.

"Not good, not good, not good," Spike mumbled as he weaved between the veritable stampede of hooves rushing for the rooms further in the palace. It was a technique borne of long practice, and soon he was alone in the halls, forgotten and unscathed.

Spike took a deep breath, for once feeling fortunate that he was so easily overlooked.

"All right, Spike. You're on your own now. The others are trapped, and they're counting on you," the young dragon mumbled as he jogged through the halls, "there's an alien army descending on Canterlot, but they'll probably leave you alone as long as you don't do anything suspicious. What do you do?"

Spike paused. Wasn't there a saying for times like these? A question that he was supposed to ask himself?

"What Would Celestia Do?" Spike wondered aloud.

Well, obviously she'd get Twilight to help, but Twilight being captured was part of the problem. So failing that...

"Go find somepony else to help!" he decided. "Or in this case: somehuman."

His mission decided, Spike rushed to find a route leading outside the castle. He had to find Gaela.

****

Canterlot - tea shop

"Well, it would seem your negotiations have failed," Gaela mumbled as she watched Devilfish APCs swooping in over the distant castle, "quite spectacularly, in fact."

She was seated at a metal table across from her guard escorts, sipping tap water and observing the apparent invasion with detached interest.

One of her guards happened to be a unicorn, and the stallion was squeezing his eyes shut and sweating as his horn glowed.

After a few seconds, the glow faded away with no effect and he panted heavily. "I don't get it! My magic just won't work! I can't even lift my teacup!"

Gaela frowned at the guards, then returned to watching and scanning the landing ships that were coming in over the mountains behind Canterlot. She briefly tried to establish a vox link to Ferrous Dominus or the fleet, but was utterly unsurprised to find her signal being disrupted.

"I knew this was going to happen," complained the other guard, "Elements of Harmony in town? Possible threat looming over Equestria? That means we get steamrolled. Might as well go find a hiding spot and wait for this all to blow over." With a disgusted grunt, the earth pony stallion flung away his helmet.

Gaela considered this as she finished her water, and then she powered down her armor suit.

The guards blinked as they heard a dull hum come from the cyborg, and then watched her stand up from her seat.

"My power armor will show up quite readily on Tau combat sensors if it is active," she explained, "with it on low power mode, they will be unable to detect me so easily. Let's go find that hiding place." Her armor felt heavy and sluggish without its active systems helping her movement, but she would still be able to run if she needed to.

The guards nodded emphatically. A bit too emphatically, in Gaela's opinion, but she supposed it was better that they were cooperating with her.

"I know this spot behind the Ivory Bridle," the earth pony said, "nothing will find us there."

"I already have a place in mind. A place where we can potentially leave the city entirely if we need to." She started walking away from the table, and the two stallions rushed to join her. "We're heading to the train station."

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

Solon stared at the ion accelerator cannon in front of him, his mechatendrils running over its length and searching for any hint of damage to the device.

"Decent enough condition," the Warsmith mumbled, "now, whether to shcale it up or down?" Building it into a larger, more dangerous version would mean mounting it on a tank or super-heavy vehicle. Turning it into a smaller one would make it man-portable. Decisions, decisions...

His vox link crackled.

"My lord Warsmith," grumbled a voice into his ear, "there is a... situation here."

Solon looked up immediately, and a hololith screen appeared in front of him to display the soldier who was speaking. It was Warpsmith Pterax, on the bridge of the Harvest of Steel.

"Ah, nice to hear from you, Pterax! May I preshume you've located the Tau landing party?"

The Warpsmith briefly glanced over to his data displays. "No, that is... not why I am contacting you, Warsmith. We've found no sign of the forces we believe made planetfall."

"Oh. Okay then. Sho what ish thish about?" Solon asked as his melta cutter sparked to life and approached the outer shell of the weapon in front of him.

"It's... It's the planet, Lord. Centaur III has completely halted in its axis rotation and solar orbit."

Solon froze, the melta cutter slowly sputtering out just millimeters from the weapon he was working on.

"...... What?"

Author's Note

A lot of gum-flapping in this chapter. But don't fret, next comes the thrilling, action-packed finale!
Which I'm going to split into two parts because it takes me a whole bloody chapter to get these damn ponies from one town to another!

Siege of Canterlot (Part One)

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 9

Siege of Canterlot (Part One)

****

Canterlot plaza

Twilight had to admit that, under very, very different circumstances, she would have been amazed and thrilled by the sight of a Tau deployment. It was a remarkable thing; advanced beyond her wildest imagination, just like human technology, but different enough from the Iron Warriors' means of war that it didn't merely feel like the same aliens setting up camp in different colors.

For one thing, their vehicles were much smaller and more purpose-built, skimming high over the ground and floating briefly before dropping their payloads and zipping away. Crews of Fire Warriors, assembly drones, and the odd Tau in a lightly-armored jumpsuit would descend upon whatever was dropped off and set it up, and it wasn't always obvious what it was by the time they were done and had moved on to the next object. It was a very different approach to creating a temporary base to the 38th Company's method of raining buildings and guns down from the sky and hammering them into the ground, or constructing a massive iron city that they only planned on living in for two months. She would have found it refreshing if it weren't happening in Equestria's capital and her old home of Canterlot.

"Whoa! What're those things? Those aren't Tau!" Rainbow Dash shouted, staring up at a slow-moving transport that had opened up while still high in the air. Spilling from its access ramp came tall, winged, bipedal creatures whose bodies were encased in a light blue carapace. They were obviously some kind of insectoid alien, and they took off into the air with a loud hum not unlike a bumblebee as they gripped heavy rifles in their claws.

There were Kroot, too, coming out of an Orca lander and stalking toward the gardens with their arms laden with supplies. They were being guided by several Fire Warriors who seemed to be yelling at them emphatically. While pointing to the train of pony prisoners and making "No" gestures. Not a good sign.

"Aw, no. Ya gotta be kiddin' me..." Applejack said breathlessly.

Twilight turned forward again to see what the farmer had seen, and her eyes widened. Standing in formation next to the streets was a rather large collection of humans. Not prisoners, either. Each one of them was wearing the Lamman Sept's body armor of blue and black and carrying pulse weapons. Their helmets were also much different from that of Fire Warriors, exposing more of the face. There was no mistaking them for Tau with their noses and skin visible.

"What the hay?! You traitors!" Rainbow Dash shouted, hopping into the air and hovering as she shook her hoof at the homo sapiens.

She immediately found herself with a dozen or so pulse carbines aimed at her, and the pegasus yelped before dropping down onto the ground again and carefully folding her wings.

"No shouting," one of the Fire Warriors commanded in halting Gothic, beaming a markerlight on Rainbow Dash's forehead briefly before shouldering his weapon and nodding.

The train of prisoners started moving again, passing by the human platoon as it was briefed by a Fire Warrior Shas'ui.

"You're to move in teams of four and patrol the assigned routes for shifts of five hours each!" the Tau barked, his Gothic quite fluent. "The native aliens inexplicably speak your language, so you're best suited to acting as enforcers! Keep the peace, break up any large gatherings or outbreaks of violence, and seize any weapons you find! It doesn't matter if it's a boltgun or a knife, but keep in mind that there have been reports of the aliens using Imperial weaponry!"

The human auxiliaries shared a chuckle at that, finding the idea of hooved animals firing rifles understandably silly.

"That is all, men! Tau'va!" the Shas'ui barked.

"For the Greater Good!" the humans shouted back, saluting before they dispersed.

The ponies flinched away from the enthusiastic shout, watching as the human auxiliaries broke into small teams and headed into the winding streets of Canterlot.

"Twilight, do you know what that's about? Why would humans be working with Tau?" Rarity asked softly, adjusting her pace to match the alicorn's.

Twilight sighed as she recalled her studies of the species. "The Tau Empire frequently integrates alien worlds into their fold, and they often do it peacefully, with propaganda campaigns and cultural assimilation," she explained, "then they enlist some people from those worlds into their army. The Tau have taken many planets from the Imperium, which is apparently the pre-eminent human power in the greater part of the galaxy, and they seem to have recruited some there."

"Those Space Communists!" Pinkie growled, shaking a hoof angrily.

"... I don't know what that means," Twilight confessed, "but in any case, who is and isn't an enemy may not fall on racial lines anymore."

"They don't have Space Marines on their side too, do they?" Fluttershy asked, looking horrified at the thought.

She was far from the only one. The idea made Twilight's blood run cold. "I... don't know. I don't know enough about the worlds they've captured, or about the Space Marines outside of the 38th Company."

"Hey, Ah've got a question," Applejack mumbled, "they said they were givin' the city back after they're done with it, right? Not that Ah really trust 'em, but why would they do that?"

Twilight tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. "Well, Applejack, holding a city under martial law isn't easy. It's not just a matter of displacing the original rulers, you kind of have to run the city too, and-"

"Yeah, Ah get that," the farmer interrupted bitterly, "but what Ah mean is, don't these guys usually do that sorta thing all the time? Take over planets? But with us they just want us out of the way so that they can do their thing, and then they're leavin', right? At first Ah thought they were leavin' because we asked 'em to, but that don't make sense no more. They don't even wanna try to keep us."

"Hey, yeah! What're we, chopped crabgrass?" Rainbow Dash demanded.

Twilight frowned. "You have a point. I've considered it before, but mostly from the perspective of whether they were trying to conquer us or not, not why they wouldn't."

She paused for several seconds as another Devilfish APC swooped overhead, a Riptide battlesuit hanging off the side.

"I don't think they've considered it, honestly. The Tau didn't know much about us until recently. This entire operation they're running seems... I don't know... rushed and desperate. They made it clear when they were negotiating that they were willing to leave us in peace, and I don't think that's changed. They never even seemed to think about taking us into the Empire, even after bloodlessly conquering our capital."

Her forehead furrowed. "It's almost like... they're... just throwing the planet away..."

"Halt!" shouted one of the Fire Warriors, holding up an arm. The entire line of ponies stumbled to a stop.

Twilight leaned to one side to get a good look past the many stallion soldiers ahead of her, and then she grimaced. A set of assembly drones were finishing up construction of a long line of large cages.

"Oh, you canNOT be serious!" Rarity said, recoiling at the sight. "Do you mean to tell me that we're to be locked up like barnyard animals?"

A nearby Fire Warrior gave her a lingering glance before turning toward another. *Should I tell them?*

*Nah. They'll crack.*

Several of the cages shifted open, and Twilight could see a few Earth Caste members walking away from a humming generator tower. Thick cables led from the generator to the various clusters of cages, and she correctly guessed that the power supply was for more than the opening and closing mechanisms of their new prisons.

"All right, ponies, in you go!" barked the Shas'ui. "Cooperate and this will all be over before you know it!"

****

Canterlot Castle - lower halls

"And here are the palace vaults," Celestia said wearily, nodding her head toward a vast iron door, "within, you will find your accursed core. Do with it what you will."

Voidsong was following behind Celestia and Luna in the halls with four attendant Heavy Stealth Suits as a bodyguard. Standing before them was a set of massive double-doors covered with strange runic symbols.

"Open it," Voidsong commanded.

Princess Celestia snorted. "I can't. I open it with magic. Which I cannot presently use, thanks to you."

The Commander turned her optics on the white alicorn. "You mean your psionic abilities."

"Call it whatever thou likes. Thou hast removed it, and with it, any ability of ours to access the vaults," Luna said sharply.

Voidsong considered this briefly, looking up at the doors. "Understood. Shas'ui?"

Two Heavy Stealth Suits bore fusion blasters in addition to their burst cannons, and they stomped forward toward the barrier as their guns started to hum.

Celestia and Luna grimaced and stepped back, flinching away as the mighty anti-armor weapons discharged into the vault door. Flares of light like miniature suns slammed into the barrier, and a loud hiss filled the hall as the weapon flash slowly abated.

"... Huh." Voidsong was most displeased to see the vault door completely unscathed as the patches of seething yellow energy faded away. In fact, the afflicted portions of metal looked cleaner and gleamed brighter than the rest of the vault door, having had their surface layer of tarnish and dirt utterly vaporized.

"Ah, it seems the spells of protection art still in effect," Luna said smugly, "We were not certain whether thy magic-foiling effect merely prevented us from using magic, or undid magic entirely. It would seem it is the former."

Celestia was more careful not to sound like she was taunting the aliens when she continued. "I'm not certain how you expect to get the Warp core now. The magic over these doors renders them all but indestructible, and we cannot use our own magic to open them unless you restore our power."

Voidsong considered the matter for several seconds as the Heavy Stealth Suits turned to look at her.

Then her own suit nudged its sensor head to the side.

The other battlesuits moved over in front of the wall next to the vault door, and their fusion blasters cycled up again.

Luna's expression fell as the weapons melted huge holes in the stone wall without difficulty, and a cloud of hot, dark vapor spilled up toward the ceiling.

"Well, that's another obstacle overcome by the might and ingenuity of the Tau," Voidsong said dryly as the battlesuits prepared another salvo to widen the opening, "are there any other defenses we should be aware of?"

Celestia sighed, shaking her head. "No. Just... be careful. Many of the objects within are dangerous or unidentified."

Voidsong nodded her sensor head. *You heard Princess Horse, no mucking about in there. Get the Warp core and get out.*

The Heavy Stealth Suits muttered a brief acknowledgment before they walked into the hole in the wall, their steps slow and deliberate.

The Warp core was easy to spot, standing in the middle of clusters of large gems and right next to a large vase covered in glowing spirals.

The battlesuits duly ignored the various other objects in the room and surrounded the core, reaching down toward the base and gripping it carefully.

They lifted the device up, and then two of the suits turned their facing about toward the new hole in the wall. One of those two turned a little too quickly, however, and without checking how much room he needed.

The sound of poly-ceramic plating slapping against more mundane ceramic broke the eerie silence within the room, and the battlesuits twisted their sensor heads just in time to see the large vase tipping over and falling to the floor.

*Oh, blast!* shouted the pilot responsible as the strange pottery shattered into a hundred glowing pieces.

*Smooth, Haliel. That vase only looked to be about a thousand years old,* murmured another of the suits.

*I didn't... ugh. Never mind, let's just hurry this up.*

A deep, echoing chuckle caused the soldiers to halt, and their sensors focused once more on the shards of the ensorcelled pottery.

"Heh heh heh heh heh... at LAST... after nine hundred and ninety-seven years of imprisonment within that accursed jar..."

The Heavy Stealth Suits carefully put the Warp core down as a dark mist rose from the shattered remains of the vase.

"I, Golthar, Lord of the Desert Wastes, am FREE! Free at last!" the dark mist took shape into a sort of huge scorpion creature, but with an extended thorax that curled upright into a torso and a vaguely humanoid head.

The battlesuits silently took aim with their weapons, and an electric hum began to fill the room.

"Now that I am free, all of Equestria shall feel the sting of... hm? Wait, who are you? What do you think you're-"

Celestia squeezed her eyes shut as a howl of agony briefly swallowed the sharp, high-pitched whistle of the battlesuits' burst cannons before it fell silent.

The sound of the Tau's weapons stopped moments afterward, and was soon replaced by the sound of heavy footsteps once more.

"Poor Golthar. He only had a few more years left on his sentence, too," Celestia said with a sigh.

Luna rolled her eyes. "We shalt never understand thy penchant for arbitrarily long periods of solitary imprisonment as a punishment for threatening the kingdom."

"Luna, please, not this argument AGAIN!" Celestia groaned.

"We think it quite pertinent," the younger Princess insisted, "no villain is reformed by a millennium of isolated misery. Thou may as well have them purified by the Elements of Harmony immediately or destroyed outright."

"MUST we have this discussion now, right in front of the alien overlord?" Celestia asked, jabbing a hoof at Shas'o Voidsong.

"We both know that they'll lose eventually, Sister," Luna chided, "so what method for punishing this wastrel, then? Purification? Turn her to stone? An eon trapped in utter darkness?"

Princess Celestia rolled her eyes. "Purification won't work, Luna. She's not tainted by evil, she's just violent and generally unpleasant." Then she noticed that Voidsong's sensor head was facing her way. "Ahem! No offense."

The Tau Commander continued staring at the sisters for a few seconds, and then turned away. "I think I'd prefer stone."

"Well, this is novel," Luna said with a wry chuckle, "a villain deciding her own sentence."

"I've always wanted a statue in my own honor," Voidsong continued casually as she watched her bodyguards maneuver the Warp core out of the vaults, "the humans have lots of them; a tribute to the vanity and ego of their selfish creed. The Greater Good demands that all sacrifice for the success of the whole, and personal rewards and grand acknowledgments work counter to this ideal."

Luna snorted. "Space Communists," she mumbled under her breath.

"But I must confess that I've always wanted a statue dedicated to me. Of course..." she looked back at the Princesses, and the main sensor node pulsed a blazing red, "... you're going to have to beat me, first. You're a long way away from taking your little city back."

Without further comment, she moved toward the Warp core and started leading the Heavy Stealth Suits up the stairs. *All right, let's hurry up! We only sacrificed a sixth of our fleet for this blasted hunk of metal! Go!*

****

Canterlot - outside the train station

"So, wait, I don't get it. Are you humans on their side, or our side?" asked the royal guard as he peeked out from behind a water barrel.

The source of his confusion was a squad of four human men talking to a very angry conductor on the train platform.

Gaela stood further behind the corner of station building, watching the scene with her optics in thermal vision mode while she considered her options.

"Humans are on whatever side we choose," she mumbled to the stallions in front of her, "although in this particular conflict, we find ourselves aligned either with a pantheon of cruel, bloodthirsty gods from beyond the veil, or with an idealistic philosophy emphasizing galactic unity and collective achievement."

The unicorn guard looked up at her. "So those humans out there are some kind of evil space cultists?"

"Guess again," Gaela said dryly.

The ponies took a moment to digest that, and then their eyes widened.

"Wait, YOU'RE the evil cultist?" the earth pony hissed.

"Yes. Do your leaders ever actually brief you? This should hardly come as a surprise by now."

The unicorn groaned. "Nopony tells us anything. I was off-shift during the changeling invasion, right? I heard about it from the NEWSPAPER two days later. It's ridiculous."

Gaela nodded in agreement. She supposed the ponies' military ineptitude shouldn't come as a surprise anymore.

"All right. I have a plan. You two run up there and drag away the conductor as if you're going to imprison him. I need him separated from the human soldiers." Gaela reached for her belt and unclipped a cylinder not much thicker than her thumb.

"Look, mate, I don't CARE what your schedule is. Your city has been occupied, if you haven't noticed. This train isn't going anywhere."

Smoke Stack slammed his hooves onto the ground stubbornly. "And I don't care what your stupid army is trying to do! I kept up train service through every major disaster faced by this kingdom over the past nine years, and this one isn't going to be different! Do you know how long Discord delayed my train? SIX MINUTES! And that was only because Filthy Rich insisted on buying everypony's ticket and reimbursing those who already had one!"

"I don't know what any of that means," the human sighed, "look, I don't want to hurt you. But this transport is going out of service until the Lamman Sept leaves the city."

"NO, it is NOT! Do you know how many ponies depend on this here train? Hauling goods, passengers, loved ones to their families! You might as well stop my heart as stop this train!"

"Don't tempt us," grumbled an auxiliary as he leaned his pulse rifle on his shoulder.

Before the utterly fruitless argument could go any further, a pair of stallions marched up past the humans toward the conductor.

"All right you, you're coming with us!"

"This area is on lockdown, by order of... whoever exactly is in charge right now!"

Smoke Stack recoiled as the two other stallions approached him. "Wait! Aren't you two Royal Guards? Why aren't you fighting off these alien creeps?"

His question went unanswered as the two hefty ponies seized him, hauling him away from the moderately confused humans.

"Aren't the pony guards supposed to be locked up?" one soldier mumbled.

"If they're helping us, who cares? Now let's see about disabling this train."

Another member of the squad heard the ringing noise of metal bouncing against stone, and he glanced back at some kind of small, unfamiliar rod tumbling toward his foot. "What's that thi-"

The plasma grenade detonated mid-sentence, blasting a cloud of superheated gases into the troopers. Two were killed in moments as their entire bodies were cooked alive, while the other two were blasted off their feet and horribly maimed by the explosion.

Gaela stepped out into the open and walked over to the three wide-eyed stallions.

"You. You are the pilot for this vehicle, correct?" she asked as she spared a glance at the two wounded men gasping breathlessly on the ground.

"Y... Yes?" Smoke Stack replied.

Gaela raised a foot and stomped on the neck of one of the survivors, putting him out of his misery.

"Enter the train at once and await my signal to depart. You are not to move the train without my confirmation."

Smoke grimaced. "Now look here, human, just as I was telling these other fellows-"

A loud cracking noise interrupted him as Gaela drove the butt of her power axe into the remaining living soldier's back, silencing him for good.

"... Yes? What were you telling them?"

"I was telling them all about my wife and kids whom I would REALLY like to live to see again!" Smoke Stack sputtered, his legs quivering.

Gaela nodded calmly. "Then it sounds like we understand each other. Guards."

The two military stallions stiffened nervously, obviously terrified.

"Drag these corpses past the tracks and throw them over the side of the mountain. Then meet me in the passenger car."

"Sir, yes, Sir!" the earth pony shouted, tripping over himself in his hurry to obey.

"Are... Are we leaving right away?" the unicorn asked nervously.

Gaela didn't answer, her head facing the tracks that bordered the edge of the city. Beyond the tracks and over the tops of the faraway mountain range, the setting sun splashed a beautiful cascade of orange and red across the sky. It was very picturesque, and as far as Gaela was aware it had been that way for almost an hour now.

"Er... Miss Evil Cultist?"

"... Negative. For now, we wait," Gaela mumbled as she stepped up into the train car, "I have a feeling a certain group of ponies will be along shortly."

****

Canterlot - city center

"C'mon now! Move along! Break it up!"

Three squads of human auxiliaries marched through a plaza with their pulse weapons aimed to fire, causing the ponies that had been gathering together to scatter and flee.

The insectoid Vespid Stingwings buzzed high overhead, landing on the roofs of the buildings and scanning the crowds below with their many eyes.

One of the Stingwings pointed a claw at a small cluster of pegasi hovering next to a tower, its wings vibrating rapidly and emitting a sub-sonic wave that alerted the other members of its unit. The flying ponies yelped and darted away through the air in all directions.

"Be advised!" yelled the human. "There are to be no large gatherings so long as this city is under occupation! In addition, a curfew is in effect! Any citizen found out of doors after dark will be detained and imprisoned!"

Then the man glanced at the sun, which was partially hidden by the distant mountains. "Whenever that is. Wasn't the sun already setting when we unloaded?"

"Slow rotation?" guessed another soldier.

"Wasn't in the deployment brief. Whatever, let's go."

Spike watched from a nearby alleyway as the troops headed deeper into the city, chewing on the ends of his claws. His initial urge upon seeing humans was to greet them enthusiastically and ask how Company soldiers had gotten to the city so fast, but luckily he'd restrained himself long enough to make sense of the situation. He wasn't sure why humans would be helping Tau, but that hardly mattered at this point. Blue and black armor meant that the soldiers were enemies, and gunmetal, gold, and red were friendly. At least they had the decency to color-code their allegiance if certain species couldn't pick a side and stick with it.

"Dang. Where the hay IS Gaela, anyway?" Spike grumbled. All he knew was that she was supposed to be escorted by a pair of Royal Guards, and that if she had been found by the Tau then all hell would have broken loose already. "If I were her, where would I be waiting out an alien invasion?"

This was a much harder question than asking himself Celestia's course of action in a crisis. Even if he could boast about knowing the Dark Acolyte well enough to converse with her on a regular basis, he still didn't possess much insight into her thought process. It was too... rigid and logical, yet at the same time strangely arcane. Completely devoid of ethical and emotional imperative, but also prone to bursts of selfish whimsy. Gaela was a bizarre person from a bizarre species attached to a bizarre army.

"This is getting me nowhere," Spike grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, "I need a better plan."

"And I happen to have one!" shouted a happy voice from behind him.

Spike emitted a high-pitched shriek as he jumped in fright, and then quickly clapped his hands over his mouth before he whirled around.

Spike could only be so surprised to see the long, serpentine mesh of various creatures looming over him with an amused grin; he had recognized Discord's voice immediately, even if he was still quite surprised to suddenly hear it behind him.

"It's about time you showed up!" Spike snapped as he moved his hands. "Nopony's heard from you in over a week!"

Discord rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, of course. EVERYPONY wants to see good old Discord around... when they want something." There was a cloaked and hooded figure standing silently behind the draconequus, although he hardly warranted much notice next to the spirit of Chaos.

The young dragon scowled. "Yeah, well now's one of those times. Twi and the others are trapped. I need your help to get them free!"

Discord tsked. "Yeah, no, that's not happening."

"Why not?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a bunch of aliens! They have Fluttershy too, you know!"

"Oh, it's not that," Discord assured him, "it's this." Then he raised his bird-like claw and snapped his fingers.

A tiny puff of smoke came from his talons, accompanied by an appropriately pitiful "pfth" noise.

"No way! You too?!" Spike asked, cringing.

Discord sighed as he crossed his mismatched arms. "These 'Tau' are clever little pests, I'll give them that. They've got some gizmo around here to help enforce the laws of boring old reality. I couldn't even teleport in; I had to sneak into the city with THIS weirdo." He jabbed a thumb behind him at the cloaked figure.

Spike leaned to the side to get a good look at the second person. From seeing under his hood, Spike could see it was a dark-skinned man with a strikingly calm expression on his face.

He frowned. "Who's he?" he could only guess that it was someone from the 38th Company, given that he wasn't wearing any Tau armor, although the stranger's wrists had thick iron shackles on them.

"I'm Virgil," the man answered, sounding curiously bored for someone sneaking through a city held by an enemy army.

Spike frowned, glancing up at Discord. "What's wrong with him that YOU can call him a weirdo?"

"I'm a sane man in an insane universe," Virgil explained unhelpfully.

"See? Can you THINK of a more boring character flaw than that?" Discord challenged Spike.

"Whatever. If you're not here to help, why ARE you here?" Spike grumbled.

"Business call, Spikey," Discord said, wishing dearly that he could magic himself up a suit and tie, "I'm here on behalf of one 'Vel', acting as his representative in the world of those of us with actual bodies, in his dealings with you, Spike."

The young dragon scratched his head. "Vel? Who's Vel?"

Discord rolled his eyes. "Right. It's been a while, hasn't it? Here."

Then Virgil stepped forward and pulled out a very familiar amulet from his pocket.

"WHOAH!!" Spike yelled, leaping backward and slamming his head against a crate.

Virgil quickly tucked the amulet back away as a distant buzzing noise rapidly became less distant.

A Vespid Stingwing landed on the edge of the roof overlooking the alley, its neutron blaster aimed down at the largest of the creatures gathered there.

Discord looked up at the alien in annoyance, his arms clasped behind his back. "Yes? Did you want something?"

The Vespid briefly aimed its blaster at the cloaked figure and the terrified dragon in turn before lowering the weapon. Nothing about this group matched the list of specific behaviors that it was told to watch for, and as it couldn't see Virgil's face and body, it couldn't identify any of the three species. Lacking the cultural experience to consider a small gathering in a darkened alley suspicious, the Stingwing lifted off from the roof and continued on its patrol.

"ANYWAY," Discord said, clearing his throat, "I see you remember our friend Vel now."

"I've been trying my best to forget!" Spike hissed. "So what's the deal?"

"The deal is this," Discord said as he leaned over the much smaller creature, "the effect of the amulet is not intended to be an involuntary affliction corrupting anything dumb enough to wear it on a whim. It's supposed to be the implement of a daemonic contract."

Spike glared up at him, but unsurprisingly the draconequus didn't seem to care.

"Vel's failure to offer any stated terms before twisting your body and soul, even amusingly misleading ones, means that you get a chance to accept or refuse the established contract, negotiable at an appropriately dramatic decision point in the narrative. Like now."

Spike didn't really understand much of that, but he quickly fixated on the "accept or refuse" part. "I refuse! Refuse!"

Discord smiled, his head twisting slowly to one side. "Are you SUUUUUUURE?"

Spike glared up at him some more, and then reluctantly asked. "Why wouldn't I refuse?"

"Well, it just seems to me that you're in a bit of a BIND, here," Discord allowed, shaking his head sadly, "all of our cute little pony friends, captured! All their magic, useless! And who's left to rescue everypony and save the day?"

Spike frowned. "... Gaela?" he guessed. That had been HIS first choice, after all.

"Won't work," Virgil mumbled, "something about sensors and power armor..."

"I'm talking about YOU, little buddy," Discord said with a conspiratorial grin, grabbing Spike by the shoulder, "it's up to YOU to rescue them. The humans aren't going to do it for you. But you'll need help. MAGIC help."

Spike cringed. "But... I thought magic wouldn't work in the city thanks to the Tau!"

"No, that's not it," Discord insisted, "the field simply prevents me and the other 'psykers' from shaping the raw stuff of the Warp into any useful form. It doesn't stop the Warp from affecting us. It's complicated. And probably obsolete under the new psychic rules, actually." He shook his head. "Here's the deal, plain and simple: you accept the amulet, and you get power. Camouflage scales? Super strength? Breath as hot as the surface of the sun? Claws that can rip through metals with intimidating science-fictiony names? All this and more can be yours, if you just ACT NOW!" He spread a hand toward Virgil, who once again brandished the amulet.

Spike gulped. He had to admit that possibility of rescuing the others himself sounded great, and that he had zero confidence in doing so without help. "So this is the kind of pitch Vel was supposed to give me before, huh?"

"Now you're getting it!" Discord said slyly. "And don't get me started on his ATROCIOUS timing! Who offers ultimate power and a shot at immortality while the vict-ERM! While the client is relaxing at home? Where's the imperative to sacrifice your soul and everything you stand for? Sometimes I wonder if we're even training these guys!"

Discord glanced down at Spike, who was now gnawing on his claws nervously as he stared at the ebony Chaos Star.

"So that's the bargain, little buddy. You take the dark bling, and you have a decent shot of rescuing everypony and looking like a total stud while doing it. I know a certain marshmallow mare will be impressed." Then Discord looked away. "Or, you can be a chump and leave it, instead. You'll immediately lose the few little mutations you've already acquired, doom everypony you could have rescued, and go back to being a useless, second-rate sidekick with no chance of scoring with the hot chick."

Discord leaned against the wall of the adjacent building, a lazy grin on his face. "Totally up to you. Take your time, the sun isn't going down any time soon."

Spike groaned as he thought over the decision in front of him. Even if he were to give no thought to the selfish reasons for accepting such a bargain, it sounded like a pretty good deal. And really, what would he be losing? His soul? His "purity?" Twilight and her friends were already getting along splendidly with Chaos worshipers that were blatantly awful people. What did he have to be scared of? And if, perchance, there was some deep, unknowable sacrifice involved that Discord wasn't explaining up-front, wouldn't it be worth it to save his friends?

Heck, the CMC had already gone and become Chaos cultists themselves! Everypony was doing it! He'd be fine!

Spike gingerly stepped closer to Virgil, his claws trembling as he reached for the amulet.

"So, if I do this, will I have that guy's voice in my head again?" Spike asked suddenly, halting.

"Oh, yes. No getting out of that this time. You two are going to be CLOSE partners," Discord said with a smile.

Well, that was a mighty big disincentive. But really, what choice did he have?

"There's no other way," Spike mumbled as he reached for the amulet again.

Then he noticed the butt of a laspistol poking out of the side of Virgil's robe.

"Hey, is that a gun?" Spike asked, dropping his hand away from the corrupted artifact.

"Yes," Virgil answered simply.

"If I don't want the amulet, can I have the gun instead?" the young dragon asked hopefully.

"No. It's my gun," Virgil said decisively, placing his free hand on the weapon grip.

Spike looked annoyed, and Discord chuckled. "Don't kid yourself, Spikey. You'll be needing something a little stronger than a puny little laspistol for this job," the draconequus said with a smirk, "although I applaud your desperate search for other options."

"Other options..." Spike mumbled, his eyes narrowing as he remembered something. "You're right. I DO need something stronger. And I know just where to get it!"

The young dragon slapped the amulet before turning away, sending the heavy artifact swinging from side to side. "Keep your stupid evil jewelry and the stupid daemons inside of it! I'm outta here!"

Discord watched as the red color drained from Spike's eyes, and then clicked his tongue as the young dragon raced out of the alley filled with a new, inexplicable sense of purpose.

"Well, that went poorly," Discord mumbled before turning his head toward Virgil, "you know, you could have backed me up a little. Given one of your deadpan monologues about the 'wisdom of the Eightfold Path' or something."

"You were doing fine. You almost had him," Virgil noted blandly.

"You always do this! Clamming up at the crucial moment and letting your partner do all the heavy lifting! It's like you don't even care!" Discord insisted, crossing his arms over his chest and looking away sharply.

You know, I'm chill with being slapped around - no pain nerves and all - but that "stupid" comment? That was unnecessary. Really hurts my feelings, you know?

"Shut up, Vel," Discord and Virgil said in stereo.

Then the draconequus sighed and looked up at the perpetually setting sun. "So, what's the story now?"

"We should probably find a nice high place on the mountain to watch the inevitable attack on the city," Virgil said.

"Ooh, that sounds nice. Want to loot some snacks and drinks first?" Discord asked with a wide smile.

"Meet you back here in an hour."

****

Canterlot - The Iron Chest

"Hello?! Is anypony in here?!" Spike pounded a fist on the door of Canterlot's one and only human goods shop, checking behind him every few seconds for any approaching soldiers.

Although he had nothing to do with The Iron Chest himself, as someone who spent as much time as possible around Rarity he had inevitably overheard a great deal of her complaints about the troublesome nature of her side business. Many of the details he had been privy to, in fact, were of the sort that Rarity probably would have kept hidden from even her close friends to avoid any nagging lectures or complicated letters to Princess Celestia, but to Spike that just meant that she trusted him that completely. Or that she thought of him as a tool that didn't even possess independent thought and free will, like her servitor. Probably the first one.

"Please, let me in!" Spike shouted as he continued banging on the front door. The windows were shuttered, but considering the speed with which the Tau had descended on the city, Spike was hoping that the store manager had simply shut herself in the shop rather than locking it up and going home.

"Stop that!" hissed a voice from the other side of the door. "We're closed due to alien occupation! Go away!"

Spike barely stopped himself from fist-pumping in victory. "Listen, I need your help! I'm a friend of Rarity's!"

Silence. Then a clicking noise came from the window shutters before they shifted up. Spike spied a mare's face peeking out at him, and then the shutters fell back down again.

"All right, I'm opening the door. No sudden moves, all right? And you'd better not be lying to me!"

"I'm not, I swear!" Spike whispered back, lowering his voice now that he was about to be let in.

A thumping noise came from the door, and then it rattled as the unicorn fumbled with the lock.

"Why the... urgh... hay did my... oomph... magic stop working? Grgh! Got it!" the lock finally clicked, and the door cracked open.

"I have no idea how earth ponies even get out of their houses," Orchid Flair grumbled as she poked her head out and glanced at the street behind Spike, "using locks and knobs with hooves is impossible! Okay kid, come in."

Spike eagerly did so as soon as the green unicorn stepped back, and he quickly shut the door behind him.

Orchid stepped back from the young dragon, regarding him silently. She had stripped off her normal ensemble that she wore when minding the shop, and had thrown large sheets over much of the inventory to hide it from being identified by a casual glance from outside. In its current state, anybody that didn't bother to force their way in and search the place would be unable to tell the store specialized in human tech.

"So. You must be Spike," Orchid said finally.

"Yeah, that's me!" he said excitedly. "I'll bet Rarity's told you all about me, huh?"

Orchid Flair raised an eyebrow. "There aren't exactly a lot of friendly dragons running around Equestria, and Twilight Sparkle is a pretty well-known pony. I've never heard Rarity mention you."

Spike deflated somewhat, but reminded himself of why he was here. "Well, anyway, Twilight, Rarity, and a lot of other ponies are being held captive by the Tau. I need some help to get them free."

"You forming a resistance or something? That was quick," the unicorn mumbled, "and I'd totally love to join and fight the good fight or whatever, but something's wrong with my horn."

"The Tau did something. Magic won't work," Spike explained vaguely, "that's why I have to rescue them!"

Orchid Flair barely stifled a laugh. "Uh huh. Look, dragon or no, any one of those aliens could punt you like a hoofball. How do you think you're going to fight them?"

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Simple." Then he thrust his arms toward the skeptical pony, causing her to recoil in surprise. "OPPOSABLE THUMBS," he said darkly, flexing his claws in front of her.

Orchid's eyes widened, and the unicorn sat on her haunches in stunned silence for a few seconds.

Then she nodded seriously. "You've come to the right place, Spike. Follow me."

Orchid Flair reached under the counter, and she grimaced as her hooves fumbled with a small key. "Here, just let me open up the back room, and... dang it!" the key slipped away and bounced onto the floor, and the green mare growled before reaching her head down in order to pick it up in her teeth.

"Allow me," Spike said suddenly, causing her to halt as he deftly swiped the key off of the floor.

Then, with a dramatic flourish, he gingerly held the key between two claws and stabbed into the lock before twisting it sharply.

The lock opened with an anticlimactic click, and the door creaked open.

"You really might have what it takes to pull this off," Orchid admitted as she walked past the young dragon into the darkened room, "but it's going to take more than fingers to get past the Tau."

She kicked on a switch next to the doorway, and the overhead lumen strips flickered on as a deep thrumming noise came from a plasma reactor built into the corner.

Spike's gaze scanned the room interior. There were all manner of intriguing items here that would have seized anyone's attention, no matter their level of interest in xenotech. Bottles and injectors filled with chemicals, servo limbs, flak plating, batteries, micro-generators, and even a pair of automata folded up and plugged into the wall. His eyes, however, fixed upon a weapons rack prominently displayed next to the mechanicals.

Walking up to it, he reached for one of the lasrifles hanging near the floor, only to have a green hoof intercept his claw and push it back down.

"Ha ha ha no." Orchid said, smiling slightly as she shook her head.

Spike glared up at the unicorn. "Look, if this is about me paying, or being too young, now isn't the time for-"

"Relax, my little dragon," Orchid Flare chuckled, "it's not that. See, I've talked to the guys that use these things, and even fired a few of them myself. You know, when my magic was working." She stepped up to the weapon rack and tapped the body of the lasgun. "Laser rifles are nifty, and they have a lot of good qualities, but they lack punch, and you've probably never even fired one before. Every single alien soldier out there probably has a better gun and is actually trained to use it." Then she jerked her head to the side. "Over here."

She walked over to an armored metal case on the floor and then swept a hoof over a console on the top.

"Gene-print confirmed," buzzed an electronic voice, "armory lock disengaged."

"You know, a little while back, Rarity said that she was going to talk to Delgan about getting the more dangerous items moved out of here," the unicorn mare said as the lid of the case opened up, "when I asked the delivery pony that brought in the last inventory shipment about that, she just laughed. Dangerous SELLS."

Spike leaned in to look at this other weapon sitting in the armory case. It was shorter and bulkier than the lasrifle, with a thick cylinder making up the barrel and a tube hanging under it linking the main body of the weapon to a capsule attached to the side. There was some kind of symbol on the body - an eagle with two heads - but a Chaos Star had been carved over it, defacing the emblem.

"This is a melta gun," Orchid Flair explained with a predatory grin.

Spike looked up at her uncertainly. "What does it do?"

"Exactly what it sounds like," the unicorn answered giddily as she stepped aside, "you point it at something nearby and pull the trigger, and that something goes away. Wide impact radius means missing is hard if you're close enough to use it. And the damage it causes makes those sissy lasguns and even the bolters look like a straw and spitballs, from what I hear. The main downside is range; if the enemy sees you coming at them with that, they're going to get a lot of shots at you before you get one at them."

Spike gently took hold of the melta gun, hefting it from the armory case. It was a bit lighter than it looked; the boltgun he had handled before at Ferrous Dominus had been much, much heavier.

He turned toward Orchid, and blinked as he saw her standing before him with... something... hanging from her mouth and obscuring her legs and body. It looked like the wall behind her was being projected onto the object somehow, making the unicorn look almost like a disembodied face.

Orchid Flair swung her head in order to throw the fabric onto Spike.

"Camoline cloak," she said once her mouth was free again, "that should help you sneak around and keep from getting shot up before you can get close enough to retaliate." She paused as he adjusted the cloak around his body and pushed his head into the hood. "You'll also need a set of low-light optics. It'll be nightfall soon."

"No, it won't," Spike deadpanned as he folded up part of the cloak to keep it from dragging and started to adjust a strap to tighten it.

Orchid raised an eyebrow, and then her ears fell flat against her head. "Celestia?"

"Celestia."

"Is it bad?"

"Not that bad. Pretty sure her magic is just on the fritz, like yours," Spike explained with a shrug as he pulled the hood over his head fins. Then he took a deep breath. "How do I look?"

"Like a sliver of a face floating over a hovering melta gun," the unicorn mare said with grin, "go get 'em, tiger."

****

Canterlot - public park

"Out of ALL the worst things that could happen! This is the VERY. WORST. THING!"

Rainbow Dash sighed as Rarity screamed her catch phrase to the heavens. "Well, I suppose I could think of a FEW things worse than being stuck in an electric cage while aliens romp around Canterlot, but yeah, this is pretty bad," she agreed.

"Aliens, shmaliens!" the unicorn shouted back, absolutely livid. "I'm talking about these HORRID conditions! Is this how the Tau treat their prisoners? This HAS to be a war crime!"

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "Well, they certainly ain't five star accommodations sugarcube, and ya know Ah ain't thrilled to be here either, but Ah'm not sure what ya were expectin'."

"Not this! Anything but this!" Rarity cried.

She noticed that she was getting strange looks from the other Elements of Harmony by now, to say nothing of the other soldiers locked up in the cages around them.

Rarity stamped her hooves furiously. "What? What's wrong with all of you? How can you accept this?!"

Then she pointed at the front of the cage, where there was a long trough filled with water. "One trough to provide fluids..." she then beckoned to another trough on the opposite side that was empty. "... and another to accept them?! Can you BELIEVE this?!"

Rarity glanced around at the others, not comprehending why they weren't likewise bemoaning the infrastructure.

"Speakin' as a farmer, Rares, some cages don't have that second trough," Applejack mumbled.

"That is BESIDE the point, Applejack!"

"Of course it's beside the point!" Rainbow Dash growled, banging a hoof on the floor plate. "I don't plan on sticking around long enough to worry about where I'm going to pee! How are we getting out of here?!"

"Rainbow! Sssssh!" Fluttershy hissed, nervously eyeing the guards. There were two squads of Fire Warriors spread out around the park where the cages had been set up, surrounding the cells, and two pairs of Crisis Suits plodding about in-between the electrified prisons. At least some of the aliens spoke Gothic, although none of the ponies had kept track of which ones.

Twilight grimaced as one of the battlesuit teams stomped past, and her horn flared as she yet again tried to cast a spell. It flickered out as expected, but she was making sure to try every five minutes in case whatever effect was blocking her magic had weakened.

She and the Elements of Harmony had been placed together, which was a small mercy, and just one other guard had ended up in their cage. Shining Armor had eventually been hauled in as well, and he was imprisoned in the cage across from them as he spoke quietly to his guards.

"Twilight?"

The alicorn jerked her head around to face her older brother as he suddenly addressed her. The unicorn stallion looked rather dispirited, which she supposed should be expected under the circumstances.

"Do you think that this plan of theirs will succeed?" Shining Armor asked, nudging his head toward the back of one of the Crisis Suits. "Can they really beat the 38th Company?"

Twilight placed a hoof against her chin, and her eyes idly traced the flight path of another troop transport landing next to the palace.

"They can't beat the 38th Company," Twilight finally decided, frowning, "granted, I'm not as well-read in Tau or Iron Warrior battle strategy as I'd like to be, but I've been to Ferrous Dominus, and I've seen their fighters in action. I don't think all of Canterlot could hold the number of soldiers they'd need to destroy the fortress."

"So then the humans will win anyway? Then what's the point of all this?" mumbled a pegasus guard as he tapped a hoof against the cage and winced away from the crackling sparks.

"I don't think their real goal is to destroy the Chaos fortress," Twilight decided, "but just to keep the Iron Warriors occupied so that they can get the Warp core to safety. Everything the Tau have done here revolves around that device."

"Shoulda broken the dang thing when we had the chance," Applejack snarled.

"And, uh... any chance the 38th Company might show up here and save us?" asked another guard uncertainly.

"Not if they don't know the Tau are here, obviously," Twilight said, her voice lowering as the Crisis Suit guards stomped by once again, "they might get tipped off somehow, though. I'm sure Gaela will tell them when she gets out of here!"

"Why would she run away? She should sneak over here and bust us out!" Rainbow Dash insisted.

In the bushes at the entrance to the park, Spike silently reflected on how helpful it was for his friends to argue loudly enough for him to pinpoint their location from halfway across the park.

The young dragon currently had his borrowed melta gun tucked against his side under the folds of the camoline fabric, awkward as it was to try to hide something that big. He had made it to the park easily enough, having followed far behind a pair of Canterlot guards being escorted to their cages, and had avoided discovery thanks to his small size and camouflage.

But now what?

The park was ringed by Fire Warriors, they had battlesuits for back-up, and the cages were sturdy and electrified. Melta gun or no, he couldn't possibly fight so many guards, and even if he got to the cages undetected he couldn't see how he'd free anypony without alerting the Tau.

He wasn't even that confident that he could sneak past the Fire Warriors in the first place; lots of foliage meant plenty of cover to obscure him, but it also made his movements more noisy.

Maybe he could free the royal guards? But what would that do besides get them killed? Would they even help when they were so obviously and completely outmatched?

No, he needed a diversion. A big diversion. Something that would not only distract attention away from the cages, but take at least some of the guards out of the equation. Maybe he could start a fire? Or destroy a nearby machine to draw them away?

Or wait until some clueless pony wanders into the park and makes a nuisance of himself?

"Hey! Hey, you! Stop right there!" barked a Fire Warrior, immediately attracting the attention of all the other guards in the area.

The focus of their ire was a slate blue, bespectacled earth pony that was walking down the path into the park as if it weren't obviously off-limits to Canterlot's citizens. The pony had stopped as instructed, apparently unperturbed, and then sat down on his haunches. He had a pict-capture unit in his teeth, and as the armed and angry soldiers dashed toward him he shifted a view scope up over his eye with a hoof before pressing the button on the side of the machine.

He only got one pict, however, before he was forced to address the muzzle of a pulse carbine pointed squarely at his face.

"This is a restricted area!" shouted the Shas'ui. "Leave or you will be detained!"

The earth pony blinked, looking surprised. "Oh. Well, okay. Where's the exact perimeter of the restricted area? I can take pict-captures from there."

The Fire Warriors glanced at each other, their incredulous expressions hidden by their helmets. One of the Crisis Suit pairs stomped up behind the foot soldiers, bracketing the single pony with a truly absurd level of firepower relative to his potential threat.

"What is your name, native?" asked the Fire Warrior Shas'ui.

"I'm Gear Works!" the pony said enthusiastically. "And let me say that, although I do not approve of your aggression against my home nation and occupation of my home city, I find myself fascinated by your amazing equipment and, objectively speaking, greatly admire your ingenuity!" He tilted his head slightly to look through the view scope, and then took another pict of the guards looming over him.

The Shas'ui largely ignored the spiel. "Well, Gear Works, I realize that I may have been somewhat unclear just now. Gothic is my third language, you understand. What I meant was: get out of my sight. NOW."

Gear Works looked annoyed. "Well that's even more obtuse! Does that mean I can take picts from any place where you can't see? Does that apply just to you, or all the guards? Help me out, here!"

The Shas'ui was about to start clubbing the pony senseless with his carbine when one of the Crisis Suits spoke.

*Hold. That device in its mouth is gue'la tech,* the armored soldier noted.

The Shas'ui hesitated, and then lowered his weapon. "Tell me, Gear Works, where did you get that machine?"

This question, as opposed to being faced with enough firepower to level a house, seemed to unnerve the stallion. "What, this? I, uh, got it from a cousin! In Ponyville! I believe your people conquered that town before! For about ten minutes, anyway..."

"And did your 'cousin' send you any more human devices?" the Fire Warrior asked, grabbing the pict-capture unit from the pony's jaws.

"Er..." Gear's ears fell flat against his head as the soldiers surrounded him, patiently waiting for an answer. "Well, maybe one or two things. Is that a... problem?"

"Show us," the squad leader demanded before looking back over his shoulder at the two Crisis Suits that hadn't joined the troopers. *Shas'la, remain here and keep watch! We may have a lead on a gue'la weapons stash!*

A Fire Warrior shoved Gear Works along, eliciting a startled whinny from the stallion before he moved into a trot and started leading the soldiers out of the park.

"Yeesh, what a dweeb," Rainbow Dash murmured as she watched the guards follow the stallion away.

Twilight chewed her lip, confirmed again that her magic was still nullified, and then started looking around closely at the cage, searching for any weakness that they could possibly exploit in its frame. If they were going to escape, they probably wouldn't get a better chance than this.

"Rainbow, Fluttershy, you've seen these cages before, right? Do you know any way to disable them?" She was pretty sure that they'd have brought it up before now if they did, but then her pegasi friends weren't always the sort to think things through.

Rainbow Dash snorted. "Oh, sure. Just get a Space Marine to rip the bars off. The current doesn't even bother them."

"Genius!" Pinkie declared. "Don't worry, everypony! I have secret stashes of Iron Warriors hidden all over Canterlot for just such an emergency!"

Pinkie was soon the subject of five wide-eyed stares.

"... Really?" Twilight asked, her incredulity tinged with hope.

"Pft! Of course not! That was a joke to try to ease the suffocating atmosphere of terror and desperation!" Pinkie replied, giggling behind a hoof.

Her giggling quickly trailed off as she detected a distinct lack of mirth in her friends. "It didn't work, did it?"

"Quiet down." The electronic growl of a battlesuit's voice startled the ponies into silence, and they stared nervously at one of the remaining Crisis Suits as it turned around and stomped away on its patrol circuit.

"Sooooo..." the Royal Guard that had been locked in with them finally spoke up, his eyes fixed on the upper corner of their prison, "just putting this out there, but we're kinda stuck here for the entire course of the occupation. Trapped together. Six mares and one dude. Not much to do." He started whistling nonchalantly as the Elements of Harmony gave him sour/uncomfortable looks and edged away.

"I swear to Celestia, I will have you court-martialed so hard your GRANDFATHER will end up in prison," Shining Armor growled from his cage.

"Oh, come off it, Cap. They're not ALL related to you," the guard snapped back.

As Twilight groaned in frustration, a rustling noise came from the bushes behind the cage. Fluttershy noticed first, being the one most attuned to the movements of small animals through foliage, and she brought her muzzle as close as she dared to the electrified bars of the cage.

"Hello? Is something out there?" she whispered. "Please be careful, this place is very dangerous!"

The bushes shifted, and a pair of bright green eyes appeared in front of her. "Flutter-"

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!" Fluttershy shrieked, leaping back. Every one of the other ponies also jumped in surprise, and Rainbow Dash yelped when her wing accidentally brushed against the electrified bars. Spike suppressed an expletive and dropped flat onto the ground, the camoline cloak covering him completely.

The Crisis Suits snapped around, their jet packs flaring before they blasted toward the source of the scream.

Twilight whipped her head around in confusion, and then made a snap decision as the battlesuits landed next to the cage.

"Something just ran past us!" she shouted, pointing a hoof toward the edge of the park. "It was almost transparent, like a ghost or something! Are any of your Stealth Suits moving through here?"

The Crisis Suits shared a glance. Their smaller and shadier cousins were not, in fact, supposed to be patrolling this area.

*I have point. Cover me from above,* barked one suit as he stomped forward and headed away from the cages.

Twilight nervously watched as the last of their guards left earshot, and then immediately turned toward her friends. "All right, that probably won't keep them for long. We need to find a way to-"

"Pst! Hey!" Spike interrupted, lifting the edge of the cloak up and glaring out at the ponies.

"Not now, Spike!" Twilight snapped as she shot a warning glare at the young dragon. "This might be our only... chance... to......"

Twilight trailed off as she stared through the bars of the cage at her draconic assistant, who was glaring back at her from under the cloak.

"Spike! It's you?" Fluttershy gasped as she and the other mares rushed past the stunned alicorn. "I'm so sorry! I almost gave you away!"

"All right! Tell me ya got a way to get us outta this joint!" Applejack said, grinning widely. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie echoed her sentiments enthusiastically.

"I knew you'd come for us!" Rarity said brightly. She was lying through her teeth, of course, but there was nothing fake about her appreciation for his showing up.

Twilight took a few more seconds to snap out of her stunned status. "Wait... how... no, WHEN did you get free?"

Spike gave her a look as he stood up, the camoline cloak covering him with fuzzy, shifting blobs of green with every movement. "I was never captured. The soldiers were never ordered to take me along, so they didn't."

There was an increasingly awkward silence as Twilight considered this turn of events, and Spike's eyes narrowed.

"You didn't notice I was gone, did you?" he said accusingly.

"That... is... not..." Twilight began, droplets of sweat beading around her head as her eyes shifted from side to side, "... important right now!" she finished nervously. "Do you have a way to get us out?"

Spike sighed as he shuffled around in the cloak. "Yeah just a mi-aw, horseapples!" He quickly fell down under the cloak again at the sound of a jet pack approaching.

The Crisis Suit landed on the opposite side of the cage from Spike, its sensors glaring down at the mares that had gathered at the other side of the prison and were clearly observing something nearby.

Some of them started speaking nervously, but the battlesuit ignored them and walked around the cage to get a clear look at the other side.

It halted as it swept its targeting arrays over the cluster of bushes, picking up no visual locks or movement. There was a minor heat anomaly, however, and it switched its vision mode to thermal.

And that was when the melta gun fired.

A jet of superheated gas speared through the torso of the battlesuit, vaporizing the cockpit instantly as a comically understated hissing noise came from the weapon that had killed it. A moment later the limbs of the combat armor tumbled onto the ground, smoke wafting from the points at which they had previously been attached to a body.

Complete silence dominated the park as every pony there stared at the scene with wide eyes.

"Holy cow pies," Applejack finally said, summing up the equines' thoughts quite nicely.

Spike breathed heavily as he got to his feet, his heart thundering in his chest. "Well... that went better than expected. Now I-"

The roar of another jet pack took him by surprise, and once again he hit the ground as the other Crisis Suit blasted into view to investigate its partner's sudden demise.

Catching a hint of movement as the camoline cloak settled and its colors shifted, the Crisis Suit unloaded a fusillade of plasma bolts into the brush. Spike squeezed his eyes shut and hugged the melta gun as the projectiles screamed overhead, well aware that any move he could make in this situation would only make his demise that much more imminent.

The Crisis Suit landed and stomped forward as it continued spraying plasma bursts, and then its other weapon reached forward.

A fan of flames promptly washed over Spike's hiding place and swallowed Spike himself, eliciting a chorus of gasps from the ponies trapped nearby as they flinched away from the blaze.

The Crisis Suit paused after sweeping the brush with its flamer, cycling its vision modes to see if it could identify what had snuck into the park and killed its partner before it called in the incident.

Then the burning camoline fabric crumbled apart as Spike stood up, squinting his eyes through the blaze before he once again pulled the trigger on the melta gun.

His aim was a bit low this time, but at this range it didn't matter; Orchid had chosen his weapon well. The legs and pelvis of the Crisis Suit disintegrated before the blast, dropping the torso into the jet of melta gas and letting enough heat wash through the armor to kill its pilot instantly. The surviving chunk of armor hit the ground as an inert, smoldering heap.

Spike hopped out of the licking flames left over from the battlesuit's assault, hissing noisily as he held the melta gun up above his head. "Ooh! Whoa! Augh! That's hot!" he complained, finally bouncing clear and letting out a deep breath before he turned toward the cage again.

He noticed that the ponies had returned to silent, wide-eyed staring.

"What? Dragon. Fire resistance," he said as way of explanation, "now back as far away from this side as possible. I'm going to open up the cage."

The ponies eagerly did so, and Rarity cleared her throat as she back up.

"Spike, if we make it out of this alive, please remind me that I owe you a kiss for this."

"One kiss for killing two battlesuits and getting us all free," Rainbow Dash whispered to Applejack.

"Element of Generosity mah plot," the farmer replied with a snort.

The ponies flinched their eyes away as Spike carefully aimed another melta blast along the side of the cage, disintegrating the bars with ease.

"All right! That's my number one assistant!" Twilight said as she watched the remnants of the bars cool to a non-lethal temperature. "Now get Shining out, and-"

"No. There's no time, Twilight," Shining Armor said, "you have to leave now!" The other pony soldiers looked at him in surprise.

"But Shining-"

The unicorn stallion cut his sister off again. "Look, I've been thinking about this. Most of the aliens shouldn't be able to tell you six from civilians; you should be able to pass by the patrols like you're trying to get home before the curfew. If we go with you, we'll just paint a big, obvious target on your flanks. You need to get to the train station and get out of Canterlot!"

Twilight hesitated as her friends eagerly left the confines of the cage, each one thanking Spike enthusiastically as they passed by.

"We'll be fine!" Shining insisted with a grim smile. "When the guards come back we'll 'cooperate' and explain that some lizard came from nowhere, smoked two soldiers, and then let a bunch of townsfolk free to run off somewhere. They can't hurt us if we cooperate, right?"

Twilight swallowed noisily as she nodded. "All right. Please, stay safe Shiny."

"Same to you, Twily," Shining said as she joined her friends in a cautious gallop toward the edge of the park.

The stallion that had been imprisoned with the Elements of Harmony remained seated in the broken cage, frowning. Then he turned toward Shining Armor. "So if I ditch my armor, can I go with-"

"COURT MARTIAL! GRANDFATHER!"

The royal guard slumped onto the floor of the cage with a sigh. "Aye aye, Captain Cock-block."

****

Canterlot - train station

"Do I have to go through this AGAIN?! Look, I got the point last time! The train's not going anywhere!" Smoke Stack growled as he glared up at the human soldiers. Once again he was standing next to his train and arguing with a Lamman patrol, albeit a larger one. This time there were four humans joined by four more Fire Warriors. The latter squad of aliens were hauling demolition charges and holding hand scanners as they conversed with each other in their native language.

"You'll have to forgive us for not taking your word for it," snapped the auxiliary in front, "but never mind that. A patrol passed by here almost twenty minutes ago. They haven't checked in since they entered this quadrant. Any idea what happened to them?"

"Yeah, they left!" Smoke Stack lied. "Yelled at me a lot and said the train wasn't allowed to leave, and then took off!"

The soldiers looked skeptical. "They just told you not to go anywhere and trusted you'd listen to them?"

"Well, I'm still here, aren't I? So what's the problem?" the earth pony demanded.

"Gue'ves'ui, over here," called one of the Fire Warriors, leaning over a large black spot on the ground, "this looks like a weapon impact."

As another Tau brought over a scanner, the human sergeant glared down at the pony conductor. "So our men left, did they?"

"That's right! Walked off toward the city," Smoke insisted, sticking by his earlier story, "I don't know what's up with that black spot, but it probably came from one of your guys, what with you waving all your space weapons around in our faces."

Inside the train, Gaela knelt on the floor with her armor still on low power, her back against the entry door.

"Not looking good. Not good at all," mumbled one of the guards nervously as he peeked through the window to watch the proceedings. "Old man Stack isn't going to be able to stall them much longer, and I think they're carrying some kind of bombs."

Gaela expression remained cool and unconcerned as she remained hunched over on the floor. Sitting across from her was the other guard, the unicorn.

"Do you have a plan? There's no way these guys are just going to leave, right?" the unicorn asked anxiously.

The Dark Acolyte tilted her head slightly. "... How many enemies?"

"Eight," answered the earth pony, "four human, four not."

"You two step out of the train and surrender," Gaela commanded, "some of the enemy soldiers will be diverted to capture and escort you to a confinement center. I may be able to kill the remaining soldiers as they attempt to disable the train."

The royal guards cringed.

"Is there any way we can make that plan work... WITHOUT surrendering ourselves to the aliens?" the unicorn asked as his ears flattened against his head.

Gaela arched an eyebrow. "Only if Twilight Sparkle and her coterie arrive before you get the chance."

The earth pony at the window blinked at hearing that. "Oh, wow. We are SUPER lucky, then."

"Oh, what's THIS, then?" Smoke Stack complained as he noticed a group of mares approaching the train station at a purposeful trot. They were clustered rather tightly together, and didn't really look properly intimidated by the armed and armored soldiers standing between them and the only transport out of Canterlot.

"Hey! That's close enough!" barked one of the humans as he noticed the rather colorful miniature herd. "This area is off-limits, and there are no trains leaving the city!"

The mares halted as soon as pulse weapons were leveled at them, and a certain purple alicorn cleared her throat.

"We're not here for that! There's been a break-out! A bunch of royal guards are running loose!" Twilight said nervously, her ears pinned against her head. "We saw them sneaking into the sewers back there!"

Twilight promptly had the attention of all the Lamman soldiers, and one of the Fire Warriors spoke up.

"There WAS a break-out earlier. One of the cages was partially vaporized and two battlesuits were taken down."

"By the horses?" the human asked skeptically.

"We don't know. But there IS human technology scattered about this world."

The auxiliary looked back toward the cluster of nervous ponies, his eyes narrowing. "And why, exactly, are YOU telling us this?"

Twilight flinched. "I, uh... aren't we supposed to report things like this to... you know, the authorities?"

"We've been in charge of this city for less than two hours. I'm not sure I believe that's enough time to even inform all the residents of what's happened. And you're already helping us hunt down your own soldiers?"

As Twilight struggled to think of something to say, Rainbow Dash groaned.

"See? I told you this was a stupid plan."

"Rainbow! Ix-nay on the lan-pay!" Rarity murmured, noting the increasingly bemused looks they were getting from the soldiers.

*Hold on,* mumbled the Fire Warrior with the scanner, *I'm reading an energy signature nearby...*

"Don't orry-way!" Pinkie said happily as the train door behind the soldiers slid open. "I ink-thay aela-Gay is about to ick-kay some erious-say lot-pay!"

Gaela stepped out of the train, her power armor fully active and her plasma pistol already aimed at the back of the nearest human. She fired the pistol and her servo-mounted laser at the same time, spearing one man through the back and disintegrating another just as her metal-clad feet touched the ground.

A split-second later, as the Lamman soldiers were whirling around, the ponies at the front of the tightly-packed group dove to the side, revealing the short and well-armed dragon standing in the middle of them.

"Hit it, Spike!"

Spike took a moment to make sure his aim wasn't directed toward Gaela, and then pulled the trigger. The resulting blast from the melta gun speared through two Fire Warriors, vaporizing them utterly and going on to make a respectable hole in the side of the train car.

By then Gaela had already reached melee range with the unit, battering aside their rifles as her power axe hummed noisily and her servo arm lashed out.

Applejack wasted no time, leaping toward the back of a Fire Warrior and kicking him onto the ground. "GET 'EM!!" Rainbow Dash was quick to follow, diving into another.

Gaela cut apart an auxiliary with her power axe as she pushed the soldiers back, cleaving straight through the pulse rifle he was trying to block with before cutting through to his torso. Her servo arm reached for the next - and last - human soldier, but the man twisted out of the way as the augmetic clamped shut, bring his rifle around to slam the butt into the side of Gaela's head.

The Dark Acolyte staggered, and she mentally berated herself for not engaging her helmet before leaping into battle. She swung wide with her axe, leaving an arc of glittering sparks in front of her, but the man dodged back before drawing his combat knife and darting forward again.

Gaela's servo arm saved her, jutting forward and obstructing a clear stab at her face. The man was already slipping to the side as she discharged her plasma pistol again, though, searching for an easy angle of attack as the sizzling bolt of energy passed by him.

The duel lasted no longer, however. Skilled and agile as this particular soldier was, he was also badly outnumbered by now, a fact of which he was reminded as a pair of pink hooves smashed into his shins and knocked him down.

"You traitorous scum!" the man growled, flinging his knife at the Dark Acolyte as he was on the ground.

The weapon struck her torso plate and bounced off, barely scratching the armor.

Gaela lifted her axe, her expression cool as ever. "So says the alien's puppet."

The smell of burning flesh reached her nostrils as Gaela pulled her weapon free of the auxiliary's chest, his blood cooking against the power field.

"I feel like you could have come up with a better one-liner right before you finished him off," Pinkie Pie mused, looking up at the cyborg, "you know, something that REALLY taps into the tragic irony of two members of a species killing each other for-"

"Thank you for your assistance, Pie," Gaela interrupted, "now stop assisting me and get in the train."

"Yes'm!"

Gaela could see that there was only one Tau guard remaining, and he was being trampled into the ground by Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Smoke Stack.

"Aim for the head! Yeah, that's right!" "Go! Go! Go! Go!" The two royal guards that had been escorting Gaela cheered on the battle from within the train, thrusting their hooves into the air in front of the windows.

"It saddens me to think my tax bits pay their salaries," Rarity grimaced as Gaela walked past her.

"Pilot. Get in the train and set it to leave immediately. The Tau could detect us at any time and launch pursuit units." Smoke Stack didn't waste any time on confirmation, breaking into a gallop toward the engine. "Everyone else, get in and stay down. We may not be safe yet."

Most of the ponies scurried into the train car, but Twilight halted when she saw a trail of red crawling down Gaela's cheek.

"Gaela! You're bleeding!" the alicorn gasped.

"Minor cranial trauma. Irrelevant," the Dark Acolyte replied as she scanned the city with her bionic eye. She could see anti-air batteries being set up even from this distance, and she wanted to have an initial count to give when she reported to the Warsmith.

"It's not irrelevant! What if it gets infected?" Twilight chided. "There's a first aid kit on the train, come on."

"I don't need it," Gaela insisted as she finished her scan, "even if infection were to take hold, I can eliminate the diseased tissue later and replace..." she trailed off as she saw Twilight staring up at her with her muzzle scrunched up.

The Dark Acolyte sighed as she turned around to enter the train, which was already starting to move. "Oh, fine. Just get in, already."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

*We've doubled our patrols to try to prevent any more of our squads from being ambushed. And Kroot Hounds have been deployed with a Carnivore team to try to track down the path of the escaped natives.*

Several Tau Fireblades were gathered around a tactical hololith displaying the city and mapping out the patrol routes and new turret batteries that had been deployed over the city, trying to manage their occupation of the pony capital. Voidsong's battlesuit loomed over them from behind, engrossed in its internal strategic displays more than the logistic discussion going on in front of her.

Behind all of them, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence sat beside the throne, engrossed in their own conversation and largely ignored by the invaders.

*They're probably on the train already,* admitted another officer with a sigh, *we've dispatched a team to intercept and destroy it. And we're setting up a barricade to block the rail entrance.*

*What gear type? They've already killed two battlesuits and a dozen infantry.*

*Heavy search-and-destroy capability. They won't get away this time. But I'm more concerned that some of the agents capable of killing our men might still be here in the city with us.*

Voidsong suddenly interrupted. *I'm not concerned about that at all. If they manage to kill ten or twenty soldiers, that's unfortunate, but that's not going to change the outcome of a battle. I don't really care if a handful of spear-wielding quadrupeds are running around in our territory so long as we can keep the base refueling stations and power relays secure.*

Her sensor head swiveled about to take in the other battlesuits and Fire Warriors standing at attention in the throne room, and even spared the Princesses a bright crimson glare.

*What I'm most concerned about is tipping off the Iron Warriors. If they know we're here, then our job becomes far more difficult. We're still not aware of the full range of tactical options they can bring against us, or how much they know about our ultimate aim. And they can always decide to bring the hammer down on Black Point if they decide they really want to spite us.*

One of the Fireblades shifted uncomfortably. *In that case, the issue may be out of our hands, whether or not we catch the train.*

That officer had Voidsong's attention immediately. *Explain.*

*Well, there are the winged natives, mainly. We spent so much time planning for the psykers that we didn't put too much thought into how we'd stop the ones with wings from getting out of here.*

*Don't we have fighters and Stingwings to stop them?* asked another.

*Not enough. Apparently they'll stop if they're spotted, but the blasted things are too small to easily locate with scanners and too numerous to keep track of. And some of the Vespids told me that they can hide in the clouds somehow when they get to altitude. Not just, like, above them or anything, but IN them. I don't really understand it, but I don't think the Vespids do either.*

A distorted growling noise came from Voidsong's suit. *So we have an unknown number of aerial escapees from the city, as well as the train. No telling whether or not they'll head to the gue'la, though.*

Voidsong stepped back from the ring of officers. *All right, then. We need a back-up plan. Attacking the fortress was our best bet for keeping this 38th Company contained and away from the Warp core delivery team and Black Point, but if they're coming here instead we'll still be diverting a lot of firepower away from their base and its engagement zone. All the better if we can hold them off and force them to call in reinforcements. They have no way into the city besides by air or the train. We wreck the train and barricade the tracks, then it's air drops or nothing, and soon we'll be able to tear the skies apart if they try.*

*Yes, Shas'o. We'll begin preparations immediately.* Several of the fire caste officers bowed to the High Commander.

*Excellent,* Voidsong said, turning away from her men and then switching her language to Gothic, "now that that's over with, would SOMEONE like to explain to me why the sun has been setting for two straight hours now?"

The Tau in the room looked shocked by the observation, and one by one they turned to stare outside at the colorful splashes of orange and red that painted the skies above the distant mountains.

"That would be because of me," Celestia sighed.

Voidsong turned her suit around, the mechanical feet stomping heavily against the stone floor. "What?"

"Well, I suppose it would be more accurate to say it's because of YOU," the white Princess admitted, "you disabled my magic, so I cannot lower the sun."

Voidsong was silent for several seconds as Celestia glared at the battlesuit. "...... What?" she asked again.

"I'm responsible for raising and lowering the sun," Celestia huffed, quite irritated at all the incredulous expressions she was getting from the aliens, "but since you've stopped my magic somehow, I can't do it."

There was another long silence as the Tau kept staring at the increasingly annoyed Princess.

"That is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard," Voidsong finally confessed. Then she turned around and walked off toward a pair of Air Caste officers, once again speaking in her own language and rendering the discussion incomprehensible to the ponies.

Celestia's feathers ruffled irritably. "Stupid? What's so stupid about it? Who did she THINK raised the sun every day?"

Luna leaned in toward her sister. "Actually, we believe that most other planetary systems render the cycle of night and day without the aid of their inhabitants."

Celestia looked alarmed at the prospect. "Seriously? Entire planets just... spinning wildly through space without anypony to control them? Isn't that dangerous?"

Luna shrugged. "We cannot say. 'Tis common enough, apparently, that extraterrestrial beings seem quite incredulous that it is not the case here."

"Say... Luna?" Cadence asked cautiously. "Just how... 'buddy-buddy' are you with the humans, anyway?"

Luna's head recoiled, and she made a face at the smallest of the three alicorns. "We art not 'buddy-buddy' with any humans, at all," she insisted as her eyes narrowed.

"Well, not that I'm accusing you of anything, and really it would be hard to fault you under these circumstances, but you seem to know way more about the aliens than we do, that's all," Cadence said uncomfortably. Celestia also looked interested in the topic now that it had been brought up.

Luna snorted, shifting her weight onto her other side. "We will have thee know that we hast spent no small amount of time parsing the dreams of the invaders for information. Our knowledge comes from our efforts there, not any friendship with the humans."

The other two alicorns looked surprised at that, and fairly impressed. Of course, Luna felt that they didn't need to know that she spent as much dream time as possible inside the head of one particular alien, or that her time in his memories were spent having grand, violent adventures more than digging for information. Also, she felt that whether or not she was "buddy-buddy" with Warsmith Solon was irrelevant, since he wasn't technically a human. So she definitely wasn't lying.

Probably.

"That's an excellent idea, Luna," Celestia said approvingly, "although in hindsight inspecting the dreams of the Tau as well would have been useful."

"But hardly as entertaining," Luna mumbled absently.

"What?" Cadence asked.

"What?" Luna repeated quickly.

****

Several miles outside Canterlot

Gaela pulled her hood back up over her head as soon as Fluttershy finished securing the gauze patch over her wound.

"Thank you," she mumbled awkwardly, turning away from the pony that had dressed her injury. She was embarrassed enough to be troubling her equine acquaintances with such a meager injury, even if it was at Twilight's insistence, and even more embarrassed to being subjected to their ancient medical technology. Bandages and tape? In the 41st Millennium? She might as well treat herself with wild herbs!

The Dark Acolyte moved over to one side of the rumbling train to sit next to Twilight, who was in turn seated next to a blissful-looking Spike. The young dragon had a lipstick mark on his cheek, and seemed lost in a distant fantasy.

"I must confess to yet again being impressed by your resourcefulness," Gaela allowed as Twilight turned toward her, "if not surprised. Somehow I knew you'd find a way out of the city."

"Of course we would! We're just that great!" Rainbow Dash boasted.

"Though we had some serious help this time," Applejack said, winking at Spike and nudging him with her foreleg. He promptly tilted and fell over onto his side, his melta gun clattering onto the floor of the train. He didn't seem to notice.

The ponies giggled at the sight, although Gaela didn't see what was amusing about it.

She turned to stare out the window, her optics focusing upwards toward the mountain cliff that held Canterlot. It was much harder to tell from here that there was anything wrong with the city; no flights of bombers screamed overhead, no columns of smoke reached for the sky, and there was no echo of gunfire through the mountain range. The Tau takeover had been swift and complete, with not a shot fired. Canterlot was still the gleaming, ridiculous city that it always was, with no indication of the storm brewing within.

"The sun sure has been setting for a long time," Twilight said casually, her eyebrows arched as she met Gaela's gaze, "almost as if the planet's rotation had mysteriously stopped."

"One more word and I swear I'll defenestrate you," the cyborg snapped back.

Twilight rolled her eyes at this, and decided to let the matter go.

"So what's the plan, my fellow ex-cons?" Pinkie Pie asked with an aggressive grin as her head popped up between the pair. "How're we gonna lay the SMACKDOWN on the Greater Good and boot out the Space Commies?"

"Well, the first step is to inform the 38th Company as soon as possible. Gaela, can your vox system reach them yet?" Twilight asked.

Gaela frowned as she made the attempt. "Negative. I'm being jammed."

"All right, then we get to Ponyville and ask Mister Delgan-"

"No, you don't understand," Gaela interrupted, standing up in her seat and grabbing her plasma pistol, "this is no spread disruption effect. It's one of the damned jamming modules this sept attaches to all their heavy units. We're being followed."

The ponies fell silent, and then one by one their ears flattened as they heard the whine of a Piranha attack skimmer's engines gradually growing louder behind them.

"Ugh. Persistent, aren't they? As if it wasn't enough trouble to get away in the first place," Rarity grumbled.

"Well, on the plus side, whatever was disabling our magic isn't working this far from the city!" the unicorn guard said as he levitated a bag of peanuts in front of him.

"Yeah! So Twilight Sparkle can save us!" agreed his earth pony counterpart as he opened his own bag of peanuts.

Twilight resisted the urge to slap a hoof into her face and turned back toward Gaela. "What's coming for us?"

Gaela's helmet slid into place underneath her hood, and her optics cluster glowed brightly as it processed the incoming energy signatures.

"Two Piranha attack vehicles. But they're moving too slowly. I think they're escorting something..."

Her scanning range continued to expand, and she grit her teeth beneath her mask. "A transport. I believe its carrying Riptides."

Rarity groaned. "Well, that's just-" then her eyes bulged as she fully digested that statement. "Riptides? With an 's'? As in, plural? Just to kill US?"

"I think you should be flattered," Gaela suggested as she smashed open the adjacent window with her elbow.

The Dark Acolyte leaned out and fired her plasma pistol, aiming at the first chunk of blue and black that she could see. The sizzling green bolt duly plunged into the front of a Piranha attack skimmer and sent it swerving from side to side as the plasma burned its way through the frontal plating and wreaked havoc with the sensitive anti-gravity control mechanisms.

Gaela ducked back into the train as the skimmer's fusion blaster fired back, and the ponies yelped as a long strip of the car's outer wall dissolved into a bright orange sludge and dribbled away.

"Gettin' awful drafty in here!" Applejack shouted as she held her hat down. "How we gonna get outta this?"

"I don't really know!" Twilight confessed. "The only time I've seen an active Riptide battlesuit before we had help to destroy it! A LOT of help!"

"We'll finish the weak targets first. Rainbow Dash," Gaela commanded as she plucked another grenade from her belt, "you know how these work, correct?"

The blue pegasus grinned before she saluted with a foreleg.

"Put it in the skimmer cockpit," the human woman tossed the krak grenade to Rainbow Dash, who caught it in her mouth and then immediately took off through the new gap in the side of the passenger car.

The racer zipped upward above the train and then leveled out, searching the area beneath her for her targets.

They weren't hard to find. One of the piranha skimmers was leaking smoke as it peeled away, not willing to risk further damage to its vehicle. The other was hovering above the train, out of sight of the windows; no doubt it was concerned about suffering the same fate as its wingman.

Behind that was the transport. Little more than an engine mounted behind a series of hooks and clamps with a small cockpit on top, the vehicle didn't appear especially sturdy and didn't have any obvious weapons. However, there was a pair of massive battlesuits hanging underneath it from magnetized grip handles, and they did.

As her gaze lingered on the Riptides, she couldn't help but notice one of them raising its heavy burst cannon in her direction. Rainbow Dash took off like a bullet, a rainbow-colored ribbon trailing her body right ahead of an impressive stream of blue energy flares. The haughty pegasus zig-zagged through the air to further throw off the Riptide's aim, and soon the high-pitched whistle of the burst cannon discharge petered out.

Rainbow Dash slowed briefly to get her bearings. Then she eyed her target, curved downward, and spun into a suicide dive with the krak grenade held tightly in her jaws and her forelegs outstretched in front of her to cushion her impact.

The impact with the chest of the Piranha's pilot, specifically.

The skimmer lurched to the side suddenly, and the gunner recoiled in shock as he tried to figure out what had just landed in the seat in front of him; it had all happened so fast that he wasn't sure.

He got his answer as a bright blue pegasus stood up on his pilot's lap and started slugging the stunned soldier in the face repeatedly with her forelegs, causing his head to rock backward repeatedly under the (frankly unnecessary) barrage. After a full ten straight punches - or were they technically kicks? - the pilot's helmet finally came loose, beaning the gunner on the head before bouncing away off the side of the skimmer.

"I am SO cool," Rainbow Dash declared as she flipped the grenade up into the air and then bit down onto the pin.

With another flap of her powerful wings, the pegasus tore the pin free of the explosive and took to the air again, sailing up above the battlesuit transport before glancing downward again.

She was most gratified to see the Piranha explode and come apart in the air, spilling dozens of shattered and smoldering armor pieces onto the roof of the train.

Any sense of success and pride she felt at her assault (and it was a lot), however, withered as the transport slowly lowered itself toward the train. A moment later, the Riptide battlesuits let go of their magnetic grips.

Every passenger save Gaela cringed as they heard the sound of the train car behind them straining to hold up the heavy battlesuits that had landed on top of it. Riptides, like all Tau armor suits and vehicles, were quite light for their size thanks to the Tau's mastery of poly-ceramic silicates, but the train, like all things of pony construction, was flimsy and unarmored. Really, it's like they never expected to have running gun battles anywhere, the silly creatures.

"D-Do you think this will be able to k-kill one of those?" Spike asked nervously, having snapped out his lovesick daze and hoisted his melta gun.

Gaela glanced at him briefly as the sound of footsteps caving in metal approached. Her gaze lingered on a small meter on the side of the gun.

"It will help, certainly. But that weapon has one discharge left. You have to reload."

Spike blinked. "Reload? I, uh, don't really have any more ammo or anything. I never brought any."

"And so your brief period of usefulness comes to an end. Whatever. Don't fire until I say so, and aim for its torso. Sparkle, ready yourself to raise and lower your barrier on my command."

Twilight nodded as the rest of her friends gathered behind her nervously.

The footsteps stopped as one of the Riptides activated its jet pack, and Gaela spotted a rapid energy buildup in her optics.

"Shield up," the Dark Acolyte commanded. Twilight's horn flared.

Searing blue bolts of energy started ripping through the train roof immediately, leaving large, smoldering holes in the metal before pelting against the magic barrier below.

Twilight grimaced as she felt the shield's strain, as if needles were poking into her horn. But she had gotten a lot more practice resisting attacks on her barriers lately, and it held firm. Soon much of the roof had been ripped away completely in the storm of projectiles, and the defenders could see the formidable battle armor looming over them.

Briefly checking that the second Riptide wasn't waiting to follow up the volley, Gaela waited for the heavy burst cannons to stop firing before she raised her plasma pistol. "Shield down." Then, the moment the shimmering barrier flickered, "Fire."

The Tau Riptide raised its left arm as the melta gun and plasma pistol were unleashed against it, and the shield dome on its wrist crackled as it took the full brunt of a melta gun and a pair of plasma bolts. The energy barrier crackled ominously, severely weakened, but it held. A heavy laser splashed against the battlesuit's shoulder like an afterthought, scoring the outer armor but doing little more, and the Riptide's heavy burst cannons started spinning up again.

"Shield up!" Gaela barked. Once again, a bubble enveloped the ponies and their Acolyte acquaintance, protecting them from the next wave of pulse fire as Twilight grunted in pain.

"Oh wow, did you even hurt that thing?" asked one of the Royal Guards from behind the shield bubble.

"Dude, that's crazy. Armored, huge, well-armed, flight-capable, and they even have shields!" the other guard mumbled around a mouthful of peanuts.

"I know, right? How will they ever get out of this one?" the first one asked his partner as he levitated a few peanuts of his own into his mouth.

"I'm starting to resent the helplessness of your military forces," Gaela informed the mares behind her as Spike gulped fearfully.

"Join the club, darling," Rarity grumbled.

"Rainbow to the RESCUE!" came a sudden howl that cut through the whine of the battlesuit's weapons and brought the ponies' attention further upward.

Rainbow Dash corkscrewed through the air as she dove into the back of the Riptide suit's sensor head, aiming to crush the most sensitive part of the battlesuit and cripple it.

"Gyow!" Instead she bounced off the head plating with a pained yelp. "Blugh!" And then belly-flopped onto the barrier.

The Riptide's latest salvo had concluded by then, and Gaela once again instructed Twilight to lower the shield.

"Oof!" Rainbow Dash promptly fell flat onto the floor, her eyes spinning in their sockets.

"This is crazy!" Fluttershy wailed, covering her head with her front hooves. "On our own we can't beat one of these! How are we supposed to beat two?!"

Gaela raised her plasma pistol to fire again - having no better ideas on how to deal with the threat - when Fluttershy's words had her wonder what had happened to the second battlesuit.

She got her answer as a cluster of explosions came from the front of the train, sending heavy vibrations through the passenger cars behind it.

"The engine! Those alien creeps blew up the engine!" Smoke Stack shouted as he raced down the train through the passenger cars. "We have to do something! The train is losing speed, and we'll-" he stopped speaking as soon as he opened the door behind the other ponies, his eyes bulging as he saw the massive Tau war machine looming over the hole in the roof.

The Riptide's sensors swept over the extent of the decelerating train, detecting no other life forms of note. "Surrender yourselves and face punishment for your resistance, or be destroyed immediately," the Riptide barked. Its partner was returning from demolishing the engine, its jet pack burning as it hovered to the side of the tracks.

"I don't like those options," Gaela admitted as she finally lowered her plasma pistol, "Sparkle? Some of your witchcraft would be quite welcome right now."

"Okay, okay... I... uh..." Twilight glanced above as the second of the battlesuits floated overhead, its heavy burst cannons aiming downward into the passenger car. Her eyes glanced over to the hole in the side of the train, spotting an area of empty plain amidst a vast forest. "Oh, forget this!" the alicorn suddenly shouted, her horn flaring with energy.

Before the Riptides could respond to the sudden energy surge with another salvo, Twilight and her friends teleported away in a flash of purple light.

The nearest suit recoiled in surprise, and then realized that there were still three ponies left behind in the car.

"We surrender!" shouted the two royal guards immediately, raising their forelegs into the air as peanut crumbs dribbled from their mouths. The conductor pony groaned miserably.

*Leave them. None of these three have wings,* advised the first suit as it lifted up off the train roof, *complete a sensor sweep of the surrounding area. See if you can pick up the gue'la's power signature or communications. We can't let one of their soldiers get away.*

The other suit's sensor fins unfolded as both battlesuits turned their electronic gaze from the helpless stallions below. *Noted... I'm picking up a vox transmission. Triangulating origin point... complete. They didn't get far.*

*Good. No surrender for them this time. They cannot be allowed to escape.*

****

0.4 Kilometers from the train wreck

"Yes, that's correct. They've taken Canterlot City... yes, the one on the mountain. They're establishing a refueling point in order to assault Ferrous Dominus, I believe..."

As Gaela reported the situation to her superiors and requested a transport, the other ponies (and Spike) gathered into their own huddle to discuss their options. They were standing in a small grazing field surrounded by forest, and only a vague idea where they were in relation to their home town.

"Well, we're not going to be gettin' back into Canterlot by train, that's fer sure," Applejack mumbled as she glimpsed the distant wisp of smoke rising into the air.

"I'm sure the humans have other methods available to them," Rarity assured her friends, "if we even return with them, that is."

"Why wouldn't we go with them?" Rainbow Dash asked. She seemed rather unsteady on her hooves, the others noticed.

"To what end? With our magic disabled in the city, and with you in that state, I fear the only one of us with any serious alien-fighting power is Applejack," Rarity pointed out, "and even then, I wouldn't want to march into a battlefield with nothing but an old hat and a lasso."

"Hey, I can still fight!" Rainbow Dash insisted. "I just need a breather, and then-" she spread her wings to try to prove her point, and then hissed in pain as they folded shut again. They obviously weren't broken, but clearly she'd damaged something in her last attempt at heroics.

"Rainbow, you've done enough. Let's leave this to the human army from here on," Fluttershy insisted softly.

"Yeah! I mean, unless we get bombs and stuff first. Then we can totally help out." Pinkie grinned as she rubbed her front hooves together eagerly.

"Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it," Twilight said, "for now our priority is getting safely to Ferrous Dominus."

The ponies heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, and turned toward Gaela.

"I've informed my masters of what we've found thus far, and requested transport," the Dark Acolyte explained as she approached, "however, I feel obliged to inform you that my contact with Ferrous Dominus may have alerted our pursuers to our position."

The ponies made a chorus of startled gasps.

"What? Are you sure?" Twilight asked nervously.

"I am not. I am unfamiliar with the specific sensor package normally deployed on Riptide battlesuits. So I wished to hear your opinions before I emit a distress beacon, which they'll most definitely be able to detect."

"Well, why did you contact the base if you knew it might give us away?" Rainbow Dash demanded.

Gaela tilted her head slightly to meet the glare of the pegasus. "The information I had to relay was of vital strategic importance."

"More important than our survival?!" Rarity asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Yes," the cyborg replied bluntly.

A chorus of groans came from the equines. "There's a considerable chance that the enemy had detected us anyway and is coming. The data is too important to risk my communications being disabled again before I can contact the base."

This didn't do much to lessen the glares she was getting from the Equestrians. "So. Distress beacon? Either way help is unlikely to arrive in time, so I thought I may as well let you decide."

"Okay, no, let's try to keep a low profile," Twilight insisted, looking around, "we don't know that they've found us, and we probably have time to relocate before-"

"There they are," Gaela interrupted, her optics spotting the two large objects blasting toward them over the treetops, "they're making impressive time, too. Those jet packs must be upgraded models."

Twilight made a strangling noise in the back of her throat.

"Twilight! Quick! Teleport us somewhere else!" Fluttershy begged, clearly on the verge of (another) panic attack.

"I can't! I don't have any idea where we are right now!" the alicorn protested.

"I think I'm going to go ahead and activate the distress signal after all," Gaela mumbled.

"Besides," Twilight continued, "you can't just go teleporting groups around at random over long distances! It's almost as dangerous as just fighting the battlesuits! We're lucky I spotted a clear area from the train, or I probably would have gotten us all killed!"

"To be sure, teleporting isn't the supreme tactical edge it's imagined to be," Gaela mused aloud, "your shield may prove a more useful option. Especially as the Riptides have fired a missile spread."

The missiles sailed over the trees in high arcs, leaving thin, wispy contrails as they confirmed their target lock and sailed downward. Some of the warheads didn't manage to register the lock in time to adjust course, and these stray explosives hammered the ground and foliage at random as they fell. The majority, however, converged properly on the quivering purple bubble holding the only electronic power signature within kilometers besides the Riptides themselves.

Twilight's barrier rippled and glowed, straining against the force of the blasts as the heavy battlesuits drew closer. Within the bubble, pony, human, and dragon shared a grim look.

"Is there any way we can make a break for it?" Spike asked nervously, still holding his depleted melta gun.

"Not all of us," Gaela replied, "the only way for you to survive is by destroying them somehow, or if you flee for the tree cover while the Tau descend on me." The Dark Acolyte sounded detached and somewhat weary, evidently resigned to her fate.

"NO WAY!" Twilight snapped, the veins around her head pulsing angrily. "We are NOT leaving you to die on your own!"

Fluttershy, who had already turned toward the forest and spread her wings in preparation to flee, screamed internally as she forced herself to sit back down.

Gaela turned her head toward the glowing alicorn silently, and then focused her gaze on the massive battlesuits slowing to land a mere ten meters away.

"Well, then. I have a melta bomb, a power axe, a plasma pistol, and no ideas."

"YOINK!" Pinkie said, snatching the melta bomb from Gaela's belt. The Dark Acolyte didn't bother asking if the pink pony had any particular plans for it; she didn't imagine it mattered much either way.

After landing, the Riptide battlesuits leveled the heavy burst cannons at the quivering shield dome.

One of them released an electronic crackle from its speakers before it spoke. "You had your chance to surrender. Now fall with honor."

With that, both suits super-charged their nova energy cores and opened fire.

A veritable river of shimmering blue energy flares spewed from the Riptides' cannons, and Twilight screamed as she fought to hold back the blistering deluge. Every one of the ponies ran desperate, unlikely plans through their minds as they waited for the torrent to stop; lasso? Sonic rainboom? The Stare? Rapid retreat? Each idea came to nothing in their minds, undone with a casual twitch of mechanical muscle, brushed off by nigh-impenetrable armor, or ended by a bolt of boiling power. Twilight may have had more success in coming up with a solution, surely, but her entire strength of mind was focused on holding back the stream of death that would rip her and her friends apart.

Eventually the heavy burst cannons finally relented, and smoke blasted from their coolant compartments as the weapons threatened to overheat from the energy surges.

The Riptides paused to take readings on the gently quivering shield bubble, and then stomped forward, looming over their targets while their main weapons cooled.

"Sparkle. Can you hold back another salvo like that?" Gaela asked darkly.

Twilight's forelegs had faltered at some point during the barrage, leaving the front half of her body slumped onto the ground as her horn pulsed furiously.

"I don't... think so..."

Gaela raised her plasma pistol, and the power field on her axe ignited. "Then lower the shield. Our fate is in the hands of the Dark Gods, now."

Heavy footsteps approached from the forest.

Everyone involved in the extremely one-sided standoff was concentrating entirely on causing or avoiding the impending massacre, so its understandable that nobody really paid attention to the sound of another creature approaching, even when it started ripping the branches from trees or crushing bushes underfoot in its passing.

It thus came as quite a surprise to everyone when one of the Tau battlesuits was tackled by a large monster covered in spines and howling angrily.

The other Riptide immediately launched itself upward on its jet pack, turning away from its targets to take stock of this new threat. The monster wasn't quite as big as the Riptides, and it seemed to be bizarrely lacking in skin; the tendons and ligaments of the creature were improbably exposed to the air, and covered all over in thick, bony spines. The beast had thick, serrated talons that seemed to burn furiously as they clawed against the Riptide's impact armor, leaving dark stripes on the outer plating.

"What in Sam Apple's name is THAT?!" Applejack shouted, her mane sticking straight out behind her as the pair of giant combatants rolled about over the ground.

"That... would be a daemon," Gaela said, still holding her earlier pose briefly before lowering her arms, "a Warp consciousness temporarily transferred to reality and given a tangible form."

"You summoned a daemon?" Rarity asked, backing away with wide eyes.

The second battlesuit dropped onto the melee and hammered the daemon in the side with its shield arm, knocking the horrific beast off of its partner. The moment it was free of the Warpspawn, the grounded Riptide raised its heavy burst cannon and fired desperately, spraying a clumsy fusillade into the daemon's side.

"... I don't THINK I summoned it," Gaela admitted. As far as she was aware, daemonic summonings required more than a passing appeal to the Dark Gods to work.

As the Warpspawn howled in rage, more heavy footsteps came from the forest.

This time Gaela and the Equestrians took full notice of the approach, and were treated to the sight of a huge metal beast walking up to the edge of the forest. Metal tendrils lashed about its body and swatted aside branches that obstructed the path of the smokestacks lined up behind its shoulders. Its tail, a thick bundle of cables and tubes, lashed about behind it, shredding the ground cover and leaving a rough trail for any who cared to follow.

"Is that Crabapple?" Rainbow Dash asked incredulously as Applejack nodded dumbly. They could all see the mis-matched armor plate bolted onto the Maulerfiend's hip and bearing its "cutie mark", but the question still warranted asking.

"Okay, well, now I have NO idea what's going on," Gaela grumbled.

Crabapple seemed confused to see the Riptides, which was understandable. The Tau battlesuits seemed to have a better handle on the situation, and the one that wasn't airborne quickly activated its jet pack to take to the sky before both suits fired on the new threat.

Crabapple snarled and crept forward through the barrage, much of the fire splashing off of its plating without ill effect. A spread of smart missiles did little more, and Crabapple broke through the swarm of flames and pulse fire into a run as burning shards of plating fell to the ground around it.

Pinkie let out a whoop as Crabapple leapt for the nearest enemy, its hands crackling with power as they scraped at the Riptide's legs. The battlesuit fought to stay out of the daemon engine's grasp, its jet pack straining as lasher tendrils reached to restrain it.

"All right! Go get 'em, girl!"

"Woo hoo!"

"Aim for the face! The FACE!"

As some of the ponies began cheering on the unexpected rescue, Gaela kneeled next to Twilight and helped the alicorn up.

"Sparkle, I'm not totally sure what's happening, but if we want to run this may be our only chance," the Dark Acolyte said, "I can switch my armor to low power mode to better try to evade detection, but if we're going to escape it has to be now."

Twilight blinked dizzily as she watched Crabapple swipe at the air behind a retreating enemy. The Riptide suits were barely staying out of reach, having great difficulty putting down an enemy that was almost as agile and well-protected as they were.

"Can Crabapple win?" Twilight asked.

Gaela grimaced beneath her helmet. "This may be my distaste for the automata speaking, but I believe the battlesuits will prevail. Between numbers, shielding, ranged weapons, and mobility, Crabapple is outmatched."

"What can we do to help?" Twilight asked, her expression hardening.

Gaela glanced away toward the combat. "I'm not-"

"HOLY SHITE!!"

The shout of alarm came from the forest again, and the ponies turned to see what had emerged this time.

Wyatt Daniels grabbed his rail rifle from his back as he stared incredulously at the combat happening in front of him. Scootaloo was clinging to his shoulder, and the other two CMC were at his feet. The fillies looked far less shocked than he did, for some reason.

"Aw, are you serious?" Scootaloo complained as she spotted the daemon limping away at the edge of the battle. "It took us, like, two hours to summon that thing, you jerks!"

"What's everypony doin' here, anyhow?" Apple Bloom asked, scratching at her neck below her bow.

"Tryin' to stay alive!" Applejack shouted to her younger sister.

"So far, so good, then," Sweetie Belle observed.

About at that time, one of the Riptide suits landed behind Crabapple while the daemon engine tried to tug the other battlesuit down with a pair of lasher tendrils wrapped around its leg.

The Riptide with the free shot charged its reactor as it raised its burst cannon at a low angle, aiming to rip the siege walker's legs off.

A burst from Daniels' rifle struck the Riptide's heavy burst cannon as the weapon was spinning up, interrupting the shot. The armor-piercing rails punctured the weapon casing with ease, casting a great fan of sparks out the other side along with a good chunk of the weapon's power regulator. Lashes of hot plasma crackled all about the super-heating cannon for a few seconds before the limb exploded, nearly throwing the entire battlesuit onto the ground.

"Ha! Take that, loser!" Scootaloo cheered from the mercenary's shoulder.

Daniels wasn't feeling nearly as smug about his success as the battlesuit started to turn around. "Down! Get down, now!" he suited actions to words, leaping back behind the trees and huddling on the ground as a warhead cluster erupted from the damaged Riptide.

A volley of smart missiles sailed up into the air, failed to register a target lock, and then hammered the tree line at random. Trees were smashed to burning splinters and topsoil pounded into scorched craters underneath the barrage, and the battlesuit barely paused at the sight before it staggered back around toward its more dangerous opponent.

"Ha! You missed us!"

"Scoots, shut up!"

The daemon, in the meantime, was lurching away from the combat as green fire leaked from the scores of wounds in its side. It was confused, angry, and lacking any idea of who its master was thanks to its amateur summoners mucking up the ritual. But in its haze of fury and disorientation it at least decided that it didn't want to stay here with these obnoxiously hard-to-rend creatures.

Then a small yellow pegasus softly landed in front of it.

Bloodied lips curled back around jagged teeth, and the daemon released a guttural snarl as it prepared to smash the tiny winged pest into the dirt.

"Sssssh. It's okay. I'm not your enemy," Fluttershy cooed softly.

The daemon lurched to a stop, surprised. Its upraised claws twitched, but did not descend.

Fluttershy walked up to the monster and raised a hoof to tenderly touch its lower jaw. "We're not the ones who did this to you," Fluttershy said calmly, her eyes darting to the pulsating hole in the daemon's side, "they're our enemies too. And we could really, really use your help in stopping them." Fluttershy smiled and tilted her head to one side, her pink mane swinging in front of her face. "Is that okay?"

The daemon snapped its head around, its pitch-black eyes narrowing at the Riptide battlesuits fending off Crabapple. It gave a short, sharp growl to indicate that, yes, that was quite okay.

And then, with a beastly howl, it vaulted back into the fray.

Crabapple went crashing to the ground as the damaged Riptide hammered a punch into it, leaving a heavy dent in its carapace plating while the other battlesuit ripped free of its grasp.

That same suit was then promptly tackled to the ground - again - by the daemon that had interrupted them in the first place. It raised its shield-arm to ward off the blows, but being on the defensive gave Crabapple time to get its bearings and leap back at its attacker.

"Daniels! Bloom! Y'all okay?" Applejack asked as she approached the edge of the forest. Gaela had mentioned that they should at least find a position with better cover as they figured out what to do, and she followed the apple farmer with most of the others in tow.

"Oh, I've had worse, to be sure," the man murmured as the CMC seemed to be making themselves comfortable on his back, "I'm not standing up again as long as those suits are still active, though."

Scootaloo snickered and scuffed the man's shoulder with her hoof. "Come on, man! Don't be a wimp!"

"We need you fighting, rifleman," Gaela agreed, "your weapon is best suited to cutting through armor that thick at any kind of reasonable range. But this time, aim for the cockpit. We're only likely to prevail if we can kill the pilots."

Twilight frowned. The cockpit was the weak point? She thought back to the inert Riptide suits she had seen in the hangar base. Those suits had been opened and had allowed her a look inside the hefty walkers, although she hadn't been paying especially close attention at the time.

"Acolyte, if even ONE of those missiles just now had sniffed me out, me and the pones would be dust right now!" Daniels retorted. "I can't dodge ordnance volleys, and the cover here is a little sparse!"

"A valid point. The younglings should probably stay away this time so that they won't perish along with you."

"Oh, sod off!"

"I have an idea!" Twilight blurted out suddenly, her head snapping up. "I can get the pilots! I just need the suits... distracted, or immobilized somehow!"

"One distraction, coming up!" Rainbow Dash said, gritting her teeth as her wings unfolded.

"Rainbow Dash, please, you're going to break your neck out there. I have a better plan," Rarity said as she walked up to Daniels and the fillies, "Sweetie Belle, do you remember that new spell you have?"

Sweetie Belle perked up. "My new-new spell, or my old-new spell?"

"The annoying one that nobody ever wants you to cast," Rarity clarified, "well, I want you to cast it now. And put as much power into it as possible!"

Gaela's eye twitched from behind her mask, and she gripped her power axe tightly as she started mumbling prayers of protection in Binary.

"All right, Rarity! Here I go!" Sweetie Belle cheered as her horn started to spark ominously.

Crabapple's fist slammed into the Riptide's shield projector with the force of a cannon blast, overloading the generator and shorting out the barrier. Its lasher tendrils had wrapped around the limbs of the battlesuit, holding the enormous armor suit fast as it was raked by the siege crawler's power fists.

A loud cracking noise came from behind the two wrestling machines, and Crabapple saw the daemon go tumbling end over end across the ground. The servile machine hesitated, its attention diverted. Originally, it had been charged with capturing the daemon and safely bringing it back to the CMC. Did destroying the Tau battlesuits take priority over that first task? It didn't know.

A mechanical foot hammered the Maulerfiend in the face, snapping its attention back to its current struggle. The Riptide suit charged its jet pack with its nova reactor and then kicked off from the struggling daemon engine, tearing free of the mechatendrils. Once in the air again, it registered a lock for its next missile salvo and tried to gain distance from the sentient machine.

The target lock registered easily, and the next volley of smart missiles slid into the launch racks.

And then, suddenly, the target lock vanished as a two dozen different things started to go wrong.

Crabapple saw white as sparks blasted from the cabling under its neck, and its leg servos ground to a stuttering halt. Then jets of fire spewed from its smokestacks as its power core overheated, and the daemon engine released a terrified-sounding screech.

"I'm helping!" Sweetie Belle said cheerfully as she floated several inches off the ground, her eyes consumed by pure light.

Gaela was restraining a scream as her power armor fed painful surges of electrical feedback into her nerve sockets, and her servo arm lashed about wildly as if searching for something at random to crush in its pincers. Daniels had to take his hands off of his rail rifle as its casing grew disturbingly hot, and he quickly dropped his pulse pistol onto the ground next to it as it released an ominous and irregular humming noise.

As for the Riptide battlesuits, they each became near inoperative as several vital systems malfunctioned at once. The battlesuit hovering in the air fell like a stone as its jet pack went dead, slamming into the ground and twitching while sparks shot from its actuators. The other Riptide wobbled and flailed as its sensor inputs were reduced to images of ghostly screaming faces and enormous, bloodshot eyes, and smoke started pouring from its exhaust vents as its reactor coolant systems faltered.

The only one of the four large combatants that wasn't suddenly reduced to a quivering mess was the summoned daemon, which took enthusiastic advantage of the anomaly. Seizing one of the battlesuits around the shoulders, its jaws stretched open and bit into the head of the Tau war machine. Both armor plating and razor-sharp bone cracked in equal measure as the daemon pulled and twisted, and after a few tense seconds the armored suit finally relented. The sensor mount came free of the Riptide's shoulders, and the daemon pushed the battlesuit onto its back as it chewed noisily on its mouthful of heavy armor and delicate sensors.

This had the surprising effect of freeing the Riptide pilot from the bizarre sensor images that had effectively disabled it.

The suit's secondary scopes came online, and the pilot was treated to the unobstructed sight of the daemonic beast chewing on a mouthful of armor. Ignoring the confused and inexplicable damage warnings flashing all around him, the pilot seized the daemon by the lower jaw, tearing open the beast's mouth and jamming his heavy burst cannon into it.

*Chew on THIS, freak!* the Riptide howled as its primary weapon fired into the daemon's maw. The burst cannon hiccupped and spat smoke as it discharged, but proved more than adequate at tearing the daemon apart from the neck down. Within seconds the Warpspawn collapsed onto the ground, its entire body rapidly disintegrating into puffs of emerald-colored fire.

The Riptide stood up slowly, its legs quivering slightly as the last of the spell's effects finally passed. It was seriously damaged now, but not out of the fight by a long shot.

It caught sight of a pink pony running out from between its legs, and the battlesuit raised its heavy burst cannon to take it down. That prospect seemed less likely as it got a look at the state of its primary weapon; the heavy burst cannon was a smoldering wreck. Plasma was leaking from the main power feed, acidic drool oozed over the motivators, and there was a tooth lodged in the main coolant unit. It would have been hard to use the weapon even if its main targeting arrays were still active, which they most definitely were not.

And things certainly weren't helped by the melta bomb that suddenly exploded over its knee and took out its left leg, either.

The other Tau war machine had been mostly left alone as its vital systems sputtered, and its pilot growled in frustration as the sensors finally flickered back on and the suit's limbs became responsive again.

As it stood up, however, it saw something that gave it pause.

One of the ponies - specifically, the purple one that had been generating all those annoying shields - was latched onto the front of the torso armor, its horn glowing furiously.

"Come on... come on... come on!" Twilight growled as she continually revised her estimates in her head for a precision teleport. She had to get this JUST right for it to work, and she would happily admit to being quite nervous now that her target was moving again.

The Riptide quickly turned to see that the Maulerfiend was coming to its senses, and idly raised its shield hand to squash the pony against its chest.

"COME ON!!" Twilight screamed, her horn flaring even brighter.

And then the Riptide battlesuit froze. A second later it slowly moved into a kneeling position, its arms spreading out at its sides as the battlesuit went into standby mode.

The Riptide pilot blinked repeatedly, finding herself laying on the grass and staring up at the sunset-colored sky. She had no real idea what had just happened, but she wasted no time in sitting up and spotting her Riptide armor.

Before she could stand, however, a hoof fell onto her shoulder and pushed her back down to the ground.

Applejack glared down at the shocked pilot, and then looked up at the remaining battlesuit. Crabapple had descended on the crippled Riptide and was now tearing it apart with gusto; it was no longer a threat to them.

"Well, gosh, ya really had us goin' fer a minute there, didn't ya?" Applejack asked as she applied more weight to her hoof. Her voice was exceptionally lacking in good humor. "But yer not so tough and scary outside yer fancy armor, are ya?"

The Tau pilot could see the other ponies slowly walking toward her, some of them looking (understandably) upset. The human woman was approaching as well, and seemed to be adjusting her grip on her axe.

"If you're going to kill me, then hurry up and do so. I will not beg for mercy," the alien groused.

"Oh, Ah would, but the youngin's are watchin'," Applejack noted, "what's about to happen to you ain't exactly rated for 'Everyone'."

"Awww, but we wanna watch!" Scootaloo whined, throwing her hooves up into the air.

"They killed our daemon!" Apple Bloom agreed, pouting.

"We worked SUPER hard to summon it!" Sweetie Belle added, "as an aggrieved party, I'm pretty sure we deserve vengeance."

There was a long pause as the older ponies gave the CMC unreadable looks.

"Bloom, we're gonna have a long talk about this cult thing after all this is over, all right? Fer now, y'all turn around."

"Awww!" the fillies whined.

Daniels picked the young ponies up one by one and carried them away. "Come on, girls. Let's leave the adults to their war crimes and go watch Crabapple finish off the other suit." They perked up at this considerably.

Applejack waited until the CMC were out of earshot, and then returned her attention to their new prisoner.

"Y'all are gonna pay fer what you've done," she hissed through clenched teeth, "did you think ya could walk all over us ponies and get away with it?"

"We've done what is NECESSARY. Nothing more," the battlesuit pilot murmured.

"I've always found the Tau's attempts to justify their military aggression fascinating," Gaela admitted, stepping close enough so that she was standing over the hapless alien, "most species can manage with a simple imperative for racial supremacy. And some others don't bother with such trifles at all."

The Riptide pilot struggled to get up, but Applejack's hoof merely dug more firmly into her shoulder. "This is different, cultist! We're not here to give the unenlightened a philosophy lesson," the alien spat, "you fool humans treat this like a game, but the stakes are higher than you could possibly imagine!"

"I suppose we do treat it like a game," Gaela agreed as she raised her power axe, "and it's a game that you're losing."

The axe descended.

Author's Note

Remember how I said that this was going to be a two-part finale? I totally meant three.

Also, I'm glad it's cool with everyone that I'm basically just making up the rules for Twilight's teleport spell as we go along. That's super helpful, seriously.

Finally, I hope you Spike fans enjoyed him being a badass, because I'm probably not letting him do anything cool ever again.

Siege of Canterlot (Part Two)

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 10

Siege of Canterlot (part 2)

****

0.4 Kilometers from the train wreck

"Well, that's quite a story. It seems negotiations went even worse for you than they did for us," Delgan said with a slow nod of sympathy.

A semicircle of Chimera transports and idle guards surrounded Twilight and her friends as they told their tale to the Trademaster. He had led his convoy to the distress signal that Gaela had activated, and arrived long before the gunship that was ostensibly en route to pick them up.

He had also arrived long after the source of "distress" had been resolved, but there was little he could have done to get there faster. And honestly, most of the ponies were impressed that he had come at all.

"So long as the Tau control Canterlot unchallenged, they have a fortified base from which to launch attacks wherever they want," Twilight explained, "of course, their main target is Ferrous Dominus, but if they locate more vulnerable human targets such as your market or Sweet Apple Acres, I don't think they'll hesitate to attack them."

Applejack frowned. "Mah farm ain't a human target."

"It would certainly look like one from the cockpit of a Tau gunship," Twilight pointed out, "and really, given your luck so far with alien attacks, it would hardly come as a shock."

The orange pony started to grind her teeth in frustration, acknowledging Twilight's logic. Delgan scratched at his chin.

"And it's all to get this 'Warp core' into place, is it? Vexing."

Away from the tactical meeting of ponies and merchants, Gaela was seeing to the repairs on Crabapple. Most of the Maulerfiend's damage was superficial, and as a daemon engine it would regenerate much of its hull damage on its own like a living creature, but one of its power fists had stopped working at some point in the battle and several of its smoke stacks had been torn free of the exhaust ports.

Gaela only wished that she could attribute the damage entirely to the enemy Riptides. She was pretty sure the melted converter relays in the power fist bore no marks from either missile impacts or energy blasts. Which meant that Sweetie Belle had inflicted more debilitating damage to the daemon engine than a pair of the Tau's most powerful heavy combat armors.

It was almost enough to make her respect the little pest.

"There, there. Ya did real good, Crabapple. Ah'm really proud of ya," Apple Bloom cooed as she stood up to run a hoof along the underside of the Maulerfiend's head, "Gaela's gonna fix ya up good as new, and then we can go home."

Crabapple grumbled something in response, and the fillies turned their heads toward Gaela.

"... Well?" Scootaloo asked impatiently after the Dark Acolyte ignored them.

"Well, what?" Gaela asked as her laser welder worked at the cracked seam in the siege walker's enormous palm.

"What did she say?" Sweetie Belle clarified eagerly.

"Something about the daemon. I think it's trying to apologize," Gaela mumbled.

"You're not sure? I thought you spoke her language," Sweetie Belle said while cocking her head to the side.

"Crabapple doesn't speak Binary very well anymore," Gaela explained simply, "it's not easy to understand it."

"So you can't figure out exactly what she's saying?" Scootaloo asked.

"I didn't say I couldn't, I said it's not easy," Gaela corrected her, "and speaking frankly, neither you nor the machine is worth the effort or attention."

The fillies glared at her, and Crabapple craned its neck around so that it could stare directly at the cyborg as it growled.

Gaela's servo tools stopped, and she turned her head to stare into the maulerfiend's blood-red eyes. "If you so much as twitch these fingers before I tell you to, you'll end up as scrap before the end of the day."

It was rather strange to see the massive siege walker flinch back from the (comparatively) tiny woman, but Crabapple quickly looked away in a manner that gave no doubt that it took her threat seriously.

"Never forget, mechanical: I am the master. You are the tool," Gaela intoned as she returned to work. A few seconds later she released a sputtering burst of Binaric Cant, invoking the rites of repair.

"Well, you look like you're making friends as always," Daniels mumbled as he walked over to the fillies. Another Chimera APC, which Daniel had used to take the CMC out to the river in the first place, had been parked away from the others.

"Why's Miss Gaela always such a sour apple, anyway?" Apple Bloom asked, lowering her voice.

"Well, she can afford to be. She's so handy to have around that we'd all rather put up with her and let her work than have her stop and leave," Daniels reasoned, "I don't see you in any hurry to remove Crabapple from her care."

"Couldn't she be helpful AND nice?" Scootaloo asked bitterly.

"You know, looking back on all the Techpriests I've met - Adeptus and Dark - I think that might actually be against their rules," Daniels admitted.

"I can hear you, you know," Gaela noted, causing the young ponies to flinch.

It wasn't ten minutes later that a gunship screamed over the treetops toward the clearing, curling around the area and briefly doing a sweep for hostiles.

Delgan clasped his hands behind his back as the aircraft settled in for a landing, and then he turned toward his men.

"All right, I want one of the transports to go get the ponies left in the train wreck! The rest of you get back to the settlement immediately!" he commanded before glancing at a nearby guard. "You there! Take the lizard's melta gun."

"Awww..." Spike let out a disappointed groan as the armored man stepped forward and yanked away his depleted weapon. "I was doing really well with that!"

"You got your free trial. If you want to keep it, then you pay for it," Delgan said with an indignant sniff, "my establishments are markets, not armories." Then he returning to shouting at his men. "Park the vehicles together outside the village, and unload anything of value! Then you find some place to lay low, you understand? The Tau have supremacy over this region now!"

As Delgan's men nodded and began rushing for their vehicles, Rarity raised an eyebrow. "You're not staying with them?"

"No, I'm not," the Trademaster answered gruffly, "there's very little I can accomplish hiding out in your settlement with my traders. This situation may require some... personal attention."

Rarity rolled her eyes as soon as she was sure the merchant wouldn't notice. She was certain he simply wanted to get behind the heavily fortified walls of a fortress before the Tau had time to act, and she could hardly blame him.

"Gaela! Are you almost finished? We need to go!" Twilight shouted as the gunship landed.

Gaela was quite aware of the transport landing, and she stopped welding Crabapple's smokestacks back into place. "That will have to do for now. I dislike leaving a job unfinished, but you're a very low priority."

Crabapple shifted irritably on its haunches, a low rumbling noise coming from its metal throat.

"Yes, I still hate you even though you're useful now," Gaela confirmed as she walked toward a corpse lying near the edge of the forest. It still had her power axe lodged in its chest.

The CMC blew a synchronized raspberry in the Dark Acolyte's direction as she walked off, but soon Applejack approached them and Daniels.

"All right girls, y'all listen here. We gotta go save Equestria from an invading army and rescue the Princesses. Y'know, the usual stuff. So you three go stay in the farmstead and be good, all right? Ah might not be back before supper."

"All right, Sis," Apple Bloom said with a practiced nod. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded obediently as well.

"Daniels, can you take 'em home and keep watchin' 'em until this blows over?" the farmpony asked with a hopeful smile.

"Sure thing, AJ. Rather do that than help siege your capital anyway," he admitted.

"Thanks Daniels. Yer a prince," she said brightly before she turned away.

Then Applejack halted and twisted her head around. "Oh, and before Ah forget, no more monsters, all right?"

This seemed to surprise the mercenary, and the fillies let out a disappointed whine.

"But why not, Sis? Ya said it was okay as long as Ah took mah bath!" Apple Bloom protested.

"Come on, Miss Applejack! That's not fair! The last one got away!" Scootaloo reasoned.

"Tzeentch says you're totally overreacting," Sweetie Belle warned.

Applejack groaned, annoyed that she had to explain things like this. "Look, Ah don't have time to argue! No more... dang it, what'd Gaela call 'em... daemons! That's a rule now! No more daemons! Ah'll see y'all later!" Deciding that she got her point across, Applejack raced for the gunship that her friends were piling into (well, most of them were; Rainbow Dash had to practically carry Fluttershy inside as she tried to stay behind).

"Aw, phooey. NOW what are we supposed to do for the rest of the evening?" Scootaloo asked, kicking at the ground in annoyance.

Daniels considered the matter as he looked down at his temporary charges.

"Well, I suppose I could teach you how to ritually desecrate a building to make it a shrine of the Dark Gods. We don't seem to be running out of daylight. For some reason."

"BEST FOALSITTER EVER!" Sweetie Belle declared before clapping hooves together with her friends.

"C'mon Fluttershy, this is serious! The Princesses are counting on us!" Rainbow Dash insisted as she slowly pushed the other pegasus up the embarkation ramp.

"But Rainbow, what am I supposed to do? We don't even have the Elements of Harmony!" Fluttershy retorted. After seeing the kind of firepower the Tau had chased them with, she was perfectly convinced that there was no way for them to help outside of warning the humans, and it's not like her friends needed her for that.

"It wouldn't be much trouble to let her go along with my men," Delgan reasoned as he followed the ponies up the embarkation ramp.

"No way, man! We've gotta keep the team together!" Rainbow Dash insisted. She didn't look like she was making much headway on getting Fluttershy up the ramp, though.

The sound of approaching rocket engines made the ponies freeze, and Fluttershy began to flap her wings wildly in a panic.

"No! Oh no! They found us! They sent more giant robots!" the yellow pegasus starting flailing.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Shy, RELAX. It's just Tellis. You should be able to recognize the sound of his pack by now, you live with the guy!"

Curiously, Fluttershy didn't stop trying to wiggle out of Rainbow's forelegs after Rainbow identified the incoming flyer.

Tellis hit the ground hard, as usual, and then looked around wildly, his shoulder pads heaving under his heavy breaths. "Okay, I'm here! I got your distress beacon, but the last round of riddles ran long! Plus I had to take the guy to Shy's place! What am I fighting?!"

He noticed that the Chimera APCs seemed to be leaving, but he was distracted by the sight of a Riptide battlesuit sitting out in the open and kneeling in place.

"How about that? I'll kill that!" The Raptor Lord's flight pack flared, but he was interrupted by a familiar mare's voice.

"Naw, forget it! We already beat them!" Rainbow Dash called, still holding Fluttershy in place. "Come with us! We need help kicking the Tau out of Canterlot!"

Tellis calmed down immediately at the promise of future violence. "Bangin'." Then he walked up the gunship's ramp, pausing to pick up Fluttershy under his arm and carry her in the rest of the way. Her struggles immediately became useless, and she let out a helpless whimper as a tear crawled down her cheek.

"Thanks, Tellis! Between you and us, those alien freaks won't know what hit 'em!" Rainbow Dash chuckled as she walked up the ramp.

As Gaela finally entered the gunship and the ramp began to close up, Tellis spoke again. "By the way, does anybody know why the sun hasn't moved in, like, three hours? I'm usually not out murdering this late, but the lingering sunlight is totally throwing me off."

Twilight opened her mouth to speak, only to have Gaela's servo arm clang shut noisily, interrupting her.

"Don't. Just... don't," the Dark Acolyte growled.

Twilight rolled her eyes, but remained silent as the ponies all shared questioning glances. Delgan's eyes met Tellis's visor, and he shrugged.

Then the gunship's ramp locked into place, and the engines roared as the craft took to the air once more.

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 24 landing platforms

The gunship dropped its embarkation ramp onto the platform surface, and Gaela was the first one out.

"Me and Master Delgan have been called into a strategy meeting," the cyborg explained as she glanced back into the passenger bays, "Lord Tellis, your presence is not requested, so perhaps it would be best if you gathered and prepared your squad."

"My what?" Tellis asked as he lumbered out of the passenger compartment.

"Your squad," Gaela repeated, "the Raptor unit Steel Reavers."

Tellis stared down at the Acolyte silently until Rainbow Dash hovered up next to his shoulder pad.

"You know, all the other Iron Warriors you used to roll with before you met me!" the racer reminded him, beckoning to herself with a hoof.

"OH, right. Those chumps. I wonder whatever happened to them?" the Raptor Lord asked aloud as he turned toward the distant Astartes barracks.

"Most likely they've been operating without you and experiencing significantly higher morale, effectiveness, and unit cohesion as a result, Lord," Gaela deadpanned, "perhaps you'd like to correct them."

Tellis dropped Fluttershy and leapt off the platform immediately, his flight pack igniting as he left to do exactly that.

"And please, just stay here this time!" Fluttershy shouted desperately as the Chaos Lord flew off.

Twilight cast an annoyed glance after Tellis, but then focused her attention on Gaela. "We should come with you to that meeting."

"Not that I necessarily disagree," Gaela mumbled, "but it doesn't work like that."

"Strategy meetings are by invitation only," Delgan agreed as he stepped past the ponies and adjusted his collar, "I'm sure you understand."

"I told you all we could've stayed home," Fluttershy mumbled quietly.

"How come nobody ever wants us around during their big, important meetings?" Pinkie asked sadly, her ears drooping as her lip quivered.

"Because you have no experience or training in strategic military planning, and we already have the data you needed to impart to us," Gaela answered simply.

Pinkie didn't seem to acknowledge her reasoning. "I know! We can sing a song!" the pink pony shouted in glee as she spontaneously brightened, bouncing in place repeatedly. "That'll have your troopers trooping like they've never trooped before!"

Gaela turned her optics toward Twilight. "Restrain her as best you can. You may request Astartes support if necessary. I have to go."

"I understand," Twilight mumbled in embarrassment as the Dark Acolyte left them.

"So... that's it? What do we do now?" Rainbow Dash asked as she hovered just outside the embarkation ramp.

Her voice was momentarily lost in the scream of heavy engines as a thunderhawk gunship took off from a nearby platform, and Twilight stuck her head out to look around.

The platforms hadn't been very busy the only other time she had been here, but now they were a flurry of activity. Squads of Iron Warriors marched around and onto the platforms, geared for battle (not that she'd ever met one who wasn't) and occasionally followed by hefty armored walkers boasting heavy weapons and giant hammers. Menials raced around the place dragging cases of supplies or thick hoses to fill the cargo holds and fuel tanks of the airborne transports.

"Well, we should probably find some place out of the way for now," Twilight reasoned, "Gaela will tell us everything when they're done."

"Some place INSIDE," Rarity corrected as Spike dragged a tarp from the supply stash. She hadn't forgotten Gaela's warning about the pollution potentially damaging her coat. She probably never would.

"So, a security station, or...?"

Applejack perked up suddenly. "Hey, Ah got an idea! Big Mac's still hangin' around here on account of trainin' with his new gear! Let's go track 'im down!"

"Oh, cool! Let's do that!" Rainbow Dash agreed, immediately rising in the air and looking around the platforms.

"Well... okay. I suppose I don't have any better ideas," Twilight admitted, "let's go find an Iron Warrior or a Dark Techpriest who doesn't look busy. I think they should be able to help."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 10

Finding someone who didn't seem busy who also had a head full of electronics had taken longer than they'd expected, but eventually they'd found an Iron Warrior who wasn't dedicated to some important task or simply willing to ignore them outright.

Unfortunately, that had led Rainbow Dash to wonder aloud how some random Chaos Space Marine knew Big Mac's current location halfway across the fortress; in fact, it was noted, the Iron Warrior had seemed somewhat surprised himself to locate the stallion.

This idle question had proved the catalyst for their current dilemma.

"The access nodes are actually built into the system engines that generate the noosphere network, you see, meaning that the access points form the network itself! This is as opposed to a centralized databank core that would hold all the data in one place, like the data repositories. Or, to use an example closer to home, a library. No pun intended! Ha! Anyway, the noosphere engine nodes are built into the neural implants in the Dark Mechanicus clergy, but the Iron Warriors can access it too. Or, parts of it, I think. Their connection seems to be of a different scale, though, since they don't generate a noosphere network everywhere they go just from proximity. But as I was saying, with the nodes within network range, each engine is actually electronically linked to the other, sharing data, messages, and even computing power!" Twilight paused in her explanation. For about point-eight seconds. Then she started speculating about noosphere generator ranges.

Applejack's ears hung against her head as she trudged through the streets, and her eyes were half-lidded in a sleepy expression that was usually associated with her stoic older sibling. Rarity and Spike - the latter still levitating a protective tarp overhead - seemed more at ease calmly ignoring the long-winded lecture, which had jumped from its initial topic of location markers to speculated power armor features to electronic networks and sensor signals.

"But really, what underpins all these technologies and makes them viable is the capability to discharge minute amounts of electromagnetic radiation in consistent and stable patterns completely at will! The Tau apparently use systems that are similar in their function, but their mechanisms tend to rely on photon-pulse transmission."

Rainbow Dash's head hung low, her eyelids straining to stay open. Each step felt like it might be her last, and she could feel her willpower faltering as her legs strained to keep going.

"Hang in there, Dashie," Pinkie groaned, her usually chirpy voice coming out low and weak, "you have to stay awake. It's like a snowstorm... if you fall asleep... you'll never wake up..."

Fluttershy was bringing up the rear of the group, per usual, and looking largely unaffected by the lecture. She didn't understand a thing Twilight was saying, of course, but she naturally paid polite attention so that nopony might think she was ignoring them. "Um, I don't think that's true, Pinkie," she protested meekly, "although I suppose if you fell asleep in the middle of the walkway something might step on you." She thought it terribly unlikely, given how colorful they were against the dull gray of the ferrocrete ground, but she had to admit that Rainbow looked like she could use the motivation.

"Apparently the different basis in their preferred basic energy transmission is the cause of most of the divergence between human and Tau technology. Or so Gaela theorizes. There's more to it than that, I'm sure. Dark Techpriests who know how to handle Tau technology more complicated than a hand lumen are undeniably rare, and Gaela told me that the 38th Company raids the Tau as much as they can. I think it has a lot to do with their respective cultural attitudes toward the sciences..."

Spike jumped slightly as Applejack staggered to the side, almost colliding with him before she caught herself and then continued trudging forward. "All right, this is getting bad. We might have to physically stop her."

A dull thud came from behind them.

"Rainbow Dash! No! Get up!" Pinkie Pie begged, wriggling her head under the pegasus so that she could hoist Rainbow's foreleg over her neck. "I'm not leaving you here! No way, no how, no why, no where, no when!"

Fluttershy quietly took Rainbow Dash's other foreleg, wanting to help but being rather embarrassed by the display.

"I'm not gonna make it..." Rainbow Dash said weakly, her back legs dragging across the ground, "brain turning... to mush... feeling less awesome... every second... I'm sorry... you guys... tell Tank... I'll feed him... tomorrow."

"Seriously, why can't Trixie go a single week without stumbling into you, Sparkle?" a loud voice suddenly interrupted.

Twilight stopped, startled, and for the first time in half an hour her lecture halted for more than a few seconds.

Every other pony seemed curiously relieved, but the purple alicorn frowned. She didn't have a good idea of where the voice had come from, and her eyes tracked left and right as she spoke again.

"Trixie, do you mind? We're not here to bother you, and I was trying to have a discussion with my friends about the metaphysical legitimacy of mechanical spiritualism."

Before Trixie's voice could answer that, a desperate, wailing chorus beat her to it. "YES, SHE DOES MIND!! LET'S LISTEN TO WHAT TRIXIE WANTS!!" shouted Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack. Spike and Rarity weren't willing to scream about it, but nodded emphatically.

"Oh... kaaaay..." Trixie's rather uncertain voice seemed to come from multiple directions, leaving the ponies and dragon without a clue as to where the unicorn was hiding.

"Behind you," Trixie said suddenly.

Fluttershy squeaked like a rubber toy and leapt into the air, while the others managed to simply turn their heads without giving any sign as to how startled they were. Sure enough, there was Trixie, smirking at them with her nose in the air. The unicorn had evidently taken a walk without her hat and cape, or even her rebreather. Twilight found that a bit unusual for somepony who was living in the fortress, but decided it didn't really bear thinking about.

"Did you want something?" Twilight sighed.

"Please don't leave," Rainbow Dash whimpered.

Trixie started walking a slow circuit around the other Equestrians, one eyebrow raised. "Trixie was just wondering what brought you in this time. Not another injured pony, Trixie hopes?"

"No, not quite," Rarity admitted, "close, though."

Twilight sighed. "Canterlot has been seized by the Tau, who plan to use it as a base to attack Ferrous Dominus. We're here to enlist the 38th Company's aid."

Trixie's other eyebrow rose. "Oh. That does sound pretty troublesome. Wouldn't you say, Trixie?"

"Trixie agrees completely. Trixie is also guessing that has something to do with the sun freezing in place, correct?"

The Equestrians snapped their heads around, and their eyes grew wide as dinner plates. Another blue unicorn was sauntering out from behind a parked lifter wearing the same, distinctly Trixie-ish, smirk.

"Trixie hopes Celestia is okay," mused the Trixie behind them.

"Trixie wouldn't worry. Her go-to heroines are on the case and the Iron Warriors are on the march. This will be resolved before supper," assured the Trixie in front of them.

"No. No. NO. No no. NononononoNO," Twilight said, her eye twitching as her mane started to fray.

"What's the matter, Sparkle?" asked yet another Trixie off to the side. "You look upset about something." Twilight looked like she was biting her lip to keep from screaming as her eyes fixed on the third Trixie to appear.

"Did somepony mention supper?" asked a fourth Trixie that began to cross the street. This one was wearing a star and moon-patterned chef's hat. "Trixie's been working hard to get it ready!"

"What are we having, Trixie?" asked a separate Trixie. Twilight wasn't sure exactly which one it was; the terrified howling within her mind was quite distracting.

"Tasteless, slimy nutrient gruel! Just like every day!" Chef Trixie announced.

Twilight's friends had pressed into a tight cluster, each of them bearing expressions of horror as they stared from one Trixie to the next.

"Do you think... the mirror pool?" Rainbow Dash asked, her wings trembling against the urge to flee.

"No way! It was sealed up!" Applejack shouted, covering her head with her hooves.

"This can't be happening!" Rarity moaned as she cowered with Fluttershy. "We could barely tolerate one of them!"

"Shoot the clones, Twilight! Hurry!" Pinkie Pie begged as she and Spike clung to each other.

The Trixies snickered as they slowly walked closer, apparently enjoying the overreactions of the other mares. "Mirror pool? Trixie's never heard of such a thing," the Trixies said in eerie synchronization as they drew closer, "mere multiplication magic is no challenge for the Great and Powerful-"

Twilight let loose a terrified screech as one of the blue unicorns came within leg's reach, and a purple lance of energy speared through it. Right through it, in fact, as if it wasn't there; the magic projectile didn't detonate or even slow down until it slammed into the side of a storage compound, carving a crater into the armored surface.

"What the blazes?!" came a nearby shout. There weren't many humans in the immediate area, but those that were had been quite engrossed by the strange spectacle and quite surprised to see one of the ponies launch a magic attack. Those that had lasguns quickly drew them, but they weren't completely sure who to shoot or why.

The confusion of the encounter wasn't helped by a vox-distorted belly laugh coming from the same parked lifter where one of the unicorns had emerged. All at once the Trixies faded away, and then a metal panel on the bed of the lifter flickered and vanished as if it were never even there.

"Oh, you should have seen the looks on your faces!" Trixie laughed as she dropped down from the lifter bed. Her metal-clad hooves clanged noisily against the ground, and the servos around her legs whirred softly as they absorbed the short fall. "That was priceless!" her laughter boomed from behind a golden vox grille for several seconds, and then suddenly cut off.

"Seriously, though," Trixie said as she glared at Twilight through the blood-red optics lenses in her helmet, "shooting at Trixie like that was seriously messed up. What the hay is wrong with you?"

The other Equestrians could only stare, dumbfounded. Before them stood Trixie, dressed in pony power armor that boasted the usual colors of the Iron Warriors Legion and the showmare's cutie mark on one shoulder pad.

Twilight couldn't help but compare it immediately to Big Mac's armor, and the differences were numerous. The helmet piece boasted a single, sharply pointed horn that was run through in irregular patterns with tracks of glowing blue, and was obviously placed to cover Trixie's natural horn. It was otherwise much more compact than the stallion's head piece, lacking the heavy filter drums and extended neck plating. It also had her wizard hat sitting on top of it, and her cape clasped at the back.

By now the humans watching had holstered their weapons, having decided that Twilight wasn't going on some kind of mad psionic rampage. Most of them hurried along their way, although a few were intrigued enough to keep watching.

It took some time before any of the ponies could think of anything to say or decide their particular feelings about the sight being presented to them. The first was Rainbow Dash, and she went with "enviously peeved".

"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!" the pegasus growled, leaping up into the air and beckoning to Trixie with her front hooves. "How the hay does TRIXIE get a suit of power armor before any of us do?!"

"Gosh, that's a really good question," Trixie answered sarcastically, "it's not as if Trixie actually lives with the 38th Company or works for them directly or anything. Trixie couldn't IMAGINE why the humans aren't falling over themselves to give stuff to the ponies that snuck into their fortress with the aim of getting rid of them."

Twilight had to admit that logic was fairly sound, even if Rainbow Dash still seemed upset at the explanation. "It still comes as a surprise, though. They don't even give power armor suits to veteran soldiers like Daniels... and didn't you say you were hired on as an entertainer?"

A hissing noise came from Trixie's gorget as she unlocked the suit's environmental seals, and the neck and underside of the helmet split open as she levitated it off of her head (in the direction the horn was pointing, obviously, so as not to damage it). Trixie's wizard hat levitated up as the helmet was dropped onto the armor gorget, where it mag-locked onto the collar and hung in front of her chest.

"Trixie is indeed an entertainer," the blue unicorn affirmed as she shook her mane out and then settled her wizard hat onto her head, "and this armor can aid that. Behold!"

Twilight yelped and leapt back as she found herself suddenly staring at... herself. A second Twilight stood in front of the ponies, looking exactly like the original down to the heavy bolter round hanging from a chain around her neck.

"Trixie scanned you while you were all freaking out," Trixie said with a smirk as the new Twilight spread her wings and stretched them right in front of the original, "this armor contains a series of high-resolution hololith projectors and... well, Trixie won't bore you with all the obscure egghead-speak, but Trixie can project false images with perfect detail." There were several lenses set in Trixie's armor, Twilight could see, although they were placed to look like decorative gems. There were no apparent threads or beams of light between the lenses and the hololith that she could make out, however.

The hololithic Twilight turned around in front of the real one, its hooves moving smoothly and silently over the ground. In the process the illusionary alicorn suddenly whipped its tail across Twilight's face, and Twilight flinched back even as she felt nothing from the swipe.

"The voice-throwing was Trixie's own magic at work. A basic showmare's cantrip. Trixie can even do impressions!" the unicorn cheered. Her horn started to glow and she cleared her throat briefly.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle!" the hololith chirped in Twilight's voice as Trixie's mouth moved in a lip-sync. "Books books books science books magic books books friendship books!"

"It's just like the real thing!" Pinkie Pie said, her hooves slapping her cheeks in a mix of awe and horror. "How can we ever tell them apart?!"

Twilight's ears fell flat as she adopted a distinctly bemused expression. "All right, fine, very funny. We're all-"

"Wait, I know! If one is a hololith then solid objects should go right through it!" Rainbow Dash said with a determined nod.

"Grrr! You no mock me! Me super smart because books!" the hololith declared, its face shifting to match the real Twilight's current expression. "I'm grumpy now!"

Twilight's eye twitched as her friends started fighting to restrain giggles. "Yes. Great. VERY FUNNY. Could we-" Twilight halted as she felt a hoof press into her side, and she turned her head to see Applejack pushing against her.

"Ah found the real one!" the apple farmer declared with a grin. "Trixie, now don't you go tryin' to fool us like that! Gave us quite a scare!"

Twilight seethed quietly while the other mares and Spike busted out laughing.

"I'll just wait here until you're done," the alicorn grumbled as she sat down on her haunches. As nice as it was to see her friends getting along with the unicorn that had once antagonized them to put on a show, it seemed that Trixie's favored form of entertainment was still humiliating others.

"Oh, you're no fun," Trixie said with a smirk as she let the false Twilight vanish, "anyway, was there a reason you were stumbling around this place? Trixie would have thought that you'd have something better to do, with Canterlot seized and all."

"We're tryin' to find mah big brother," Applejack informed her, "he's supposed to be wanderin' around here somewhere. Ya seen him?"

"Trixie has not," the unicorn said as she levitated her helmet up over her head, "however, Trixie can find him easily enough." She guided her horn into the head gear as it slid over her face, and then the helmet snapped shut and pressurized.

"Trixie honestly wasn't sure what to expect when offered a power armor suit, and the nerve socket surgery was anything but pleasant, but she finds this contraption quite handy now." She blink-clicked through a list of other active friendlies, and found Big Mac's signal register.

A locator rune appeared on her visor display, pointing behind her.

"Follow Trixie," the unicorn commanded, turning around and trotting down the street.

There was a long silence as the Equestrians walked along the main avenue, each of them either searching the streets for Big Macintosh or staring at Trixie's new armor.

Twilight had a great many questions she wanted to ask, obviously, but she restrained herself. Partially because she didn't want to seem envious of Trixie and partially because she didn't want to give the egotistical unicorn any reason to show off in front of them. She hadn't really considered the ramifications until now of ponies being granted suits of powered combat plate; Big Mac's suit had seemed like a one-off event despite Rainbow Dash's requests for one of her own.

But now Trixie had been gifted with one as well, and without getting horribly injured first. Twilight couldn't help but wonder just how absurd it was for Rainbow Dash to hope for a set of powered armor of her very own.

"It looks like things have been plenty busy here," Rarity said, breaking the long silence, "or are the humans in a hurry because of Canterlot being invaded?"

Trixie shook her head. "No, they've been like this since the Tau fleet appeared. They've started running patrols through the badlands, dropping auger beacons, and generally keeping very busy. Trixie, on the other hoof, has had practically nothing to do at all. Trixie's shows have been suspended until the Company is no longer worried about having to take off into space at a moment's notice." The self-absorbed unicorn let out a scrambled sigh. "It's been terribly... well, okay, it's not actually BORING. There's always something interesting around here to do or watch, and Serith always seems willing to help Trixie learn a spell or two, but it's not what Trixie signed up for."

Twilight made a face. "You learn spells from Serith?" the others likewise made sour faces at the mention of the Chaos Sorcerer.

Trixie chuckled to herself. "Of course Trixie does! Serith has a number of tricks that he thinks lie within Trixie's psionic specialty, and promised to show Trixie spells that would complement the power armor's abilities."

"You two sure do get along well," Rainbow Dash grumbled, "I would have thought that two egotists wouldn't be able to stand each other."

Trixie paused, glancing back at the other blue pony. "Serith? An egotist?"

This seemed like a very strange response to the other ponies; if anything, they'd have expected Trixie to deny the label describing her.

Trixie held her gaze on Rainbow Dash for a few more moments, and then continued walking again.

"Yes... Trixie supposes you might see him that way," the unicorn mumbled.

"That's not how Ah see 'im," Applejack snorted, "Ah got problems with much more than just his ego."

"Yes, well, feel free to keep them to yourself," Trixie said as she stopped short, "there he is."

The other Equestrians halted as well, watching as a distinctly pony-shaped figure stepped around an intersection, turning to head toward them.

It was Big Macintosh, in full power armor, and the stallion was hauling a large metal trailer behind him. The trailer was clearly designed to be pulled by motorized APCs, and was filled with supply crates, menials, and even a pair of Iron Warriors.

Big Macintosh noticed his sister and her friends immediately, and his head rose higher as he picked up speed slightly.

"Oi, here's my stop!" shouted one of the menials as she banged a fist on the wall of the trailer.

Mac slowed himself, letting his cargo's inertia bleed away before he came to a full stop. A pair of menials opened the trailer's gate and then they each grabbed a crate as the crowd of mares (and a dragon) approached.

"What's all this, then?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow. "Ya workin' as a taxi now?"

"Eeyup," came Big Mac's reply as he nodded a greeting to everyone.

"And been a huge help for it!" said one of the menials that wasn't piling out of the trailer. "The Company never wants to waste fuel, so it takes bloody hours to requisition a vehicle to haul anything!"

"I thought you were only sticking around this place to train, though," Rainbow Dash mentioned.

A loud snort came from one of the Iron Warriors, and the super-soldier leaned over the side of the trailer. "As I hear it, he asks Armsmaster Tolken for additional tasks as soon as he completes each day's drills. He doesn't stop laboring until the sun sets. And that isn't happening any time soon."

Big Macintosh turned his head toward the distant sun, which was still cresting the mountaintops.

Trixie stepped up next to the stallion in an unsubtle bid for the others to compare their armor suits. "Trixie understands that Mister Macintosh has become fairly popular around here."

"Mac? Popular?" Applejack asked with a raised eyebrow. She thought her brother was the best, obviously, but even she had to admit that he wasn't exactly charismatic.

The other Iron Warrior spoke. "He spends every waking hour either training or laboring, he asks for no reward, and he never speaks unless spoken to."

"Best pony," declared the other Chaos Marine before he bumped fists with his squadmate.

"Okay, we're done unloading!" shouted the woman from before. "You can go!"

Big Mac immediately tugged the trailer forward, his augmetics squealing briefly as the hefty iron wheels behind him overcame their inertia.

"Hey, girls? Ah'm gonna go with Mac fer a spell. Gotta tell him about the crash n'all that's happened with the farm," Applejack explained.

"All right, AJ. We'll meet up with you later," Twilight assured her as the apple farmer started trotting alongside her sibling.

"Well, mission accomplished, I guess. Now what?" Rainbow Dash mumbled as she watched the Apple siblings leave.

"Trixie could help pass the time by mocking Sparkle some more," the armored unicorn volunteered, "Trixie needs the practice. With her suit mechanics, not mocking Sparkle. Well, maybe both."

"I'm still waiting for us to find someplace protected from the poisonous, radioactive AIR," Rarity grumbled as she wrinkled her snout.

"Ooh! Ooh! The dessert shop! Let's go to the dessert shop again!" Pinkie Pie said as she bounced in place.

"I kind of wanted to go watch Tellis mess with his squad," Rainbow Dash admitted with a giggle, "that guy's a riot."

"Oh, aren't we close to the daemon engine pits?" Fluttershy asked. Every one of the Equestrians had to suppress a shudder at the words "daemon engine pits" being said in Fluttershy's gentle, chirping voice without any hint of fear or trepidation.

"I'm not THAT desperate for a roof over my head," Rarity mumbled.

Twilight glanced over her shoulder at a squad of Iron Warriors walking up the street, and gestured for her friends to move out of the way. "Well, if it's just to kill time, I actually wouldn't mind taking a look at the daemon engines, especially after seeing Crabapple in action for the first time. And Pinkie, maybe you and Rarity... uh..."

The alicorn trailed off as she noticed that the approaching Chaos Space Marines weren't passing by, but were stopping in front of them. Fluttershy had already retreated behind Rainbow Dash, and Trixie shot Twilight a look that was mostly lost behind her helmet.

"Twilight Sparkle," barked the lead soldier, his gaze sweeping over the Equestrians.

"Yes? Can we help you?" Twilight asked, before hesitantly adding, "My lord?"

"You're coming with us," the Iron Warrior growled, turning around on his heel, "your presence has been requested in the strategium."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17

Twilight wrinkled her nose as the doors to the strategium opened, spilling a wall of foul air into her face. The effect was all the more severe because she was currently inside the heavily fortified command center of the fortress, and not really expecting to have needed a respirator.

"Oh, Celestia's mane! It smells worse in here than it does out there!" Rarity hissed.

"Er... do you want the tarp back?" Spike asked, holding the thermoplastic sheet under his arm.

"Ugh... no, no. I'll manage. Somehow," the unicorn mumbled morosely.

Trixie walked past the others, happily oblivious to the awful smells within her pressurized shell of metal.

It wasn't hard to spot the gathering that had requested their presence, especially considering that it contained the two largest Iron Warriors Twilight had ever seen. Solon and Sliver were parked on one side of a large hololith projector, with Serith to one side and Tellis standing behind them with his arms crossed over his chest plate. Gaela, Delgan, and some tattooed man Twilight didn't know were lined up on the other side of the display.

The hololith being projected was an image of Canterlot.

"Well, here goes everything," the alicorn mumbled, stepping forward. She wasn't sure what to expect, but she knew what her goals were and she knew most of the individuals here. They just had to be polite and helpful, and everything would be fine.

With that objective established, naturally, Rainbow Dash zipped ahead of everypony else, flew through the hololith, and then landed a high-speed brohoof against Tellis' gauntlet.

"Hey, you're back! Done bugging your guys already?" the pegasus asked, completely ignoring the others at the hololith table.

"Eh, most of 'em were on patrol, actually. Then I saw an alert that you guys were being brought here, so I thought I'd meet you," the Raptor Lord explained.

"Oh. Wait, wasn't this big, important meeting invitation only?" Rainbow Dash scratched her head with a hoof.

"Invitations are also extended to anyone who can rip the doors open while they're still locked shut," Tellis explained, pointing to a heap of shredded metal on the other side of the room.

General Gnoss pursed his lips as he glanced at Delgan. "I'd heard what you said about them, but I still wouldn't have believed it without seeing it for myself."

"'Obliviously friendly' was the term that we used initially," Delgan said as he rolled his eyes, "quite appropriate, as you see here."

Solon and Serith turned toward the other ponies, the latter bowing with his usual feigned politeness.

"Lady Trixie, Lady Sparkle, Lady Rarity! We have been eagerly awaiting your appearance," said the Sorcerer.

Before Twilight could think of an appropriately venomous response, Trixie answered first.

"And Trixie is most pleased to provide assistance, as always," the unicorn said, dipping her head in a brief approximation of a bow, "what do you need of Trixie or these other ones?"

Serith took a moment to appreciate how some of the others were grinding their teeth at Trixie's offer to help before he continued. "Oh, just a few details. Largely in reference to Canterlot."

Trixie's helmet, fortunately, hid her disappointed expression. "Ah, of course. Twilight Sparkle would naturally be the pony of choice for those questions."

"But the rest of us can help too!" Pinkie Pie declared, suddenly jumping onto the tactical hololith with a grin on her face. "I just came up with the most fantasti-mazing song to sing to your soldiers! I call it 'March on to Happiness', and it's gar-uhn-TEED to put a spring in their step and some jab in their stab! I have a demo version prepared to show you too! I would sing the whole thing here, but the choreography uses a lot of space, and also the occasional bursts of cannon fire would probably-"

Suddenly a small air burst interrupted Pinkie. Not that the soft noise itself was loud enough to even be heard over her excited ranting, but rather the large dart that it stuck in her hip caused the pink mare to yelp and jump into the air.

"OW! Hey! What's that?" Pinkie demanded, twisting her head to look at the needle and attached tube sticking out of her rear leg.

"Horshe tranquilizer," Solon said as a mechatendril slithered back behind him, "I had that modification prepared after the firsht time we met."

Pinkie's head jerked back, looking offended. "Well, that seems a little unnece-"

Pinkie's body fell to the table like a sack of rocks, and the hololith flickered from the disturbance as a soft snore rose from her lips.

"I think I would have preferred ssomething more... permanent," Sliver gurgled. The Nurglite Lord was resting his arms on his hammer as he quietly fumed at the displays of foolishness and insolence.

"Now, Shliver, let'sh be polite. We do want shomething from theshe creaturesh, after all," Solon chided as he casually pushed Pinkie off the table.

Twilight stared with wide eyes as her insensate friend tumbled onto the floor in a heap. "I can't believe... you did that." Then her expression became more intent. "Is there any way I could get one of those?"

"Twilight, focus," Rarity warned.

"Right! Sorry!" the purple Princess said, straightening up. "How can I be of service, Warsmith?"

"Well, at leasst one of thesse creaturess knowss ssomething of tact," Sliver growled as he leaned over the hololith table. The fish eye lens of his helmet glowed softly. "Then let'ss get to it. You claim that the Tau have ssomehow dissabled pssionic abilitiess over the area of your capital?"

"Yes, they have," Twilight answered immediately, "whatever did it, the area seems to be fixed over Canterlot, and it activated without any obvious projection or source. All of a sudden, when I tried to use magic - or, my psychic powers, rather - I just... couldn't. And it was the same for every other unicorn and alicorn in the room, regardless of their power." She adopted a rather bitter expression and then added, "If it weren't for that, I'm certain we could have put up SOME kind of fight, especially with all four Princesses there, but with the effect in place we don't have much to defend ourselves with besides spears."

"Pitiful," Sliver growled, "ssuch iss the weaknesss of the pssyker."

Twilight didn't really like hearing that, but Serith spoke before she could offer a rebuttal.

"There are ways to foil the psyker specifically, true. But they are few, and mostly rare," the Sorcerer mused, "more importantly, the Tau could not have created such a thing on their own. Their understanding of psionics is paltry, their species being weak of soul and mind."

"Sho how did they manage it?" Solon asked, deeply intrigued.

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously. "We have no idea. We tried getting them to tell us before we were imprisoned, but they wouldn't say anything about it."

General Gnoss frowned. "An anti-psyker field doesn't affect our operations much, but it would be nice to know how they did it. There are plenty of times I've wished to rid the playing field of witchcraft." Then his eyes tracked nervously to Serith. "Ah, no offense, my lord."

Serith chuckled deeply. "Your fear does not offend me, General. It is well-deserved." He again turned his attention to Twilight. "Lady Sparkle. Describe how it felt, please."

Twilight blinked. "How what felt?"

"When your powers failed you. Describe it, if you would."

Twilight wet her lips as she thought back to those terrifying first minutes in the throne room. "I felt... scared. Really scared. Completely helpless, really. I'm not very strong, and my magic is just as much a part of me as Rainbow Dash's wings! And I didn't know at the time if it was permanent or anything! The anxiety over such a big part of my life suddenly-"

"I meant PHYSICALLY," Serith said flatly, "I'm trying to determine the cause, not provide therapy for your ordeals." Trixie snickered quietly behind him.

Twilight recoiled, and then laughed nervously. "Oh! Right! Of course! Sorry!" The purple pony wrung her hooves anxiously for several seconds as the humans and Iron Warriors stared down at her. "It felt kind of like my spells were being undone as soon as I tried to cast them. I could gather my magic, but I just couldn't get it to do anything useful."

"Vague," Serith mumbled, "but that rules out a Silence field, at least. The Tau have not managed to recreate their own Pariah carriers."

"Miss Rarity, I don't suppose you could add anything?" Delgan asked. "You would probably have a more... sensitive impression of it."

"Well, let me think," Rarity mumbled, "... we definitely felt the... effect when it started. It was like a cold chill going down my back. And when we tried to use our magic, it didn't simply cease to function. It felt..." the white unicorn placed a hoof to her chin thoughtfully. "Cool. Wet, perhaps? Like a thick, damp mist. If using magic normally would be compared to sunlight, then it felt like we were in some kind of..."

"Shadow," Serith finished, causing Rarity's eyes to widen.

"Tyranidsh," Solon said, "my, but theshe graysh are a clever lot. They're working with Tyranidsh? How ish that even poshible?"

Serith chuckled. "The Lords of Chaos know better than most that any being can be used. Whether by coercion, bargain, or... other methods."

"Like friendship?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"We usually end up trying 'enslavement under threat of annihilation' first," Tellis admitted, "and that's usually a 'final option' kind of deal."

"In any case, we know the nature of the field. The effect will be centralized, with a limited radius of effect, and an entirely destructible generator. To affect a whole city is quite a feat, but it means the field can be easily neutralized if we but find the creators of the Shadow," Serith explained.

Sliver snorted. "I doubt it will matter. Which of you knowss the layout of the city besst?"

Twilight immediately beckoned to herself. "I grew up there. What do you want to know?"

"Materialss. Ssupportss. Gapss. Accesss," Sliver demanded.

Twilight lifted herself up onto the hololith table with a single flap of her wings, landing lightly outside the image. She noticed that the hololith was grainy, and most of the image detail was on the top, as if it was viewed from above but hadn't been observed from other angles. The underside of the city platform, and much of the detail of the castle especially, was a shapeless gray mass.

"Most of the city is carved marble," Twilight began, recalling her studies of the capital's architecture, "but the platform that the city rests on is supported by slats carved directly out of the mountain. Or grown, rather. With magic. There's a gap here that acts a reservoir..."

For the next thirty minutes, Twilight explained the structure and layout of Canterlot in great detail, pointing out the features with her hoof when possible. The humanoids seemed to hang on every word as they made adjustments to the hololith, although at times Sliver snapped at her when she rambled on for too long about certain aspects of the city that weren't relevant.

Twilight idly realized near the half-hour mark that Gaela hadn't said a single thing since they'd arrived in the strategium. She found that strange. Not that the Dark Acolyte was especially talkative, but usually she managed to interject an irritated comment or tired explanation about her friends' behavior. Also, she had personally been to Canterlot very recently, so it seemed like she might have her own information to add. Or maybe she had already divulged it? Twilight supposed that made sense.

Still, Twilight couldn't help but notice that Gaela - with her helmet on since they had arrived - had been staring intently at her since she'd stepped up onto the hololith table. She hadn't spared even a moment's glance at the image itself. Strange.

"I think that's enough," General Gnoss said as Twilight paused in her lecture, "my lords, I believe this will be an ideal point for the muster." He placed a finger on a plain some ways from Canterlot that was boxed in by the surrounding mountains. "I advise the artillery be moved in with the rest of our forces so that they can be positioned quickly and the attack begun with minimal warning. If the grayskins catch wind of what we're doing, they'll either try to ambush the artillery en route or move most of their assets out of the capital before we can strike."

Twilight's ears perked up, and she felt uneasy. Artillery? Why would they bring in artillery for a mission like this?

"So how are you going to get all your dudes into the city, anyway?" Rainbow Dash asked. "That spot is on the opposite side of Canterlot from the train tunnel."

"We won't be moving any troopsh into the city. No point, really," Solon admitted as Sliver started pointing a finger at various spots on the hololith of Canterlot.

As the Chaos Lord's finger points were marked in red, Twilight felt her uneasy feeling turn into an icy lump in her gut; he wasn't pointing at the various temporary Tau structures that had been spotted and identified from orbital pict-captures and Gaela's data upload. He was pointing to spots on Canterlot Castle and points in the city that lay over the hefty support struts that maintained the city's hold on the side of the mountain.

"I don't understand," Rarity said cautiously, "if you're not going to put troops in the city, how are you going to take it from the Tau?" Her tone suggested that she did, in fact, understand, but was hoping against hope that she was wrong.

"Taking the city from the xenoss iss pointlesss," Sliver informed the equines. He paused in his speech, taking a moment to savor the expression of horrified realization on Twilight's face. "But the city is poorly fortified, and itss location precariouss. We will bombard and bury it from a distance. The capital will be collapssed against the mountain sside, and all that shelterss within it will be crushed."

"WHAT?!" the shouts of shock and dismay had come from Spike, Trixie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Rarity clenched her teeth and averted her eyes, while Twilight could only gape silently in horror.

"Whoa! No WAY are you doing that!" Rainbow said angrily.

"Yesh, actually, we are," Solon said, as if he really needed to defy the pegasus, "it'sh by far the besht tactical option available."

"Tough break," Tellis admitted with a shrug.

"But all those ponies!" Fluttershy said fearfully, trembling as she approached the table. "There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them still trapped in the city!"

"Tragic," Sliver drawled.

"No, no, NO! You can't do this!" Twilight gasped out desperately, her heart thundering in her chest. "There are too many innocents there! My brother! My parents! The Princesses!" Tears started crawling down her cheeks as she looked at the structural weak points that she had pointed out for the siege masters. Had she really just helped murder her entire family?

"Ah, right. The Princeshesh," Solon mumbled, briefly raising Twilight's hope that the leaders of the 38th Company might reconsider. "That'sh a shame, all right. Poor Luna."

Gnoss raised an eyebrow. "Who is... 'Luna', if I may ask?"

"Collateral damage, evidently," Solon replied, "anyway, let'sh dishcush the defenshive perimeter." Twilight let out a sobbing gasp, trying to form words but unable to think straight through her panic.

"Actually, I have a quesstion for the Princesss currently in attendance," Sliver slurred, his visor lens centering on Twilight. He had the alicorn's attention immediately, desperate as she was for any way to avert the massacre they were planning.

"What, exactly, did you THINK wass going to happen?" Sliver asked, his rusted bulk leaning over the hololith table and causing the machine to creak under his weight. "Did you think we were going to charge into your capital, sslay your enemiess at grievouss cosst in men and munitionss, and then hand back your city unharmed? Did you ssupposse we would be your ssaviorss, fighting heroically in your defensse without a thought as to our own goalss?"

"W-Well, we were kind of... hoping for that, yeah," Spike said nervously.

"You were misstaken. I will not trade my ssoldier'ss livess for yourss, nor will I allow the Tau a ssafe haven. The city will die," growled the Chaos Lord as he stood up straight again, "guardss, remove these creaturess. They are no longer needed."

Rainbow Dash looked like she was about to go berserk as she saw several new Iron Warriors step into the room. "You can't do this to us! I thought we were friends!" Even as she complained she restrained herself from actually lashing out; she was still sore from the LAST time she tried to attack an armored behemoth, and even she wasn't stupid or cocky enough not to recognize the amount of killing power standing within arms' reach of them.

Tellis was uncharacteristically silent as the pegasus shook her hoof impotently at his masters, his visor set on the hololith that displayed their target.

Twilight also noticed that Serith and Delgan seemed to be keeping to themselves more than usual, but as the soldiers behind her advanced, her eyes locked onto the only humanoid who hadn't spoken yet at all.

"Gaela! Gaela, please! Say something! Help us!" Twilight begged, tears washing down her muzzle. She knew that her pleas were probably hopeless. She knew that Gaela had no authority over the super-soldiers who had just signed the death warrant of every living soul in Canterlot. And Gaela herself hadn't shown the slightest bit of concern for the lives of ponies she didn't know. She barely showed much concern for the ponies she knew best.

"Don't let them do this!" Twilight cried out as cold, metal-clad hands seized her around her hips and forelegs.

"Oh, by all meanss," Sliver said, raising his arms magnanimously as the guards halted in taking away the Equestrians, "do you have anything to ssay, Acolyte? Ssome tactical nuance that hass esscaped uss? Enlighten your massterss!"

Gaela turned away from Twilight, her mask optics meeting Sliver's for a few silent seconds.

"I do," Gaela said softly. Twilight's heart almost stopped on the spot.

There were a few more moments of silence, and everyone else in the room could hear the woman taking a deep breath in preparation.

"As you are all aware, the planet has ceased its rotation and solar orbit," Gaela began again, her hand tightening around her power axe, "the cause of this is... is the..." she had to fight to get the words out, unable to believe she was admitting to such a thing. "The cause is... the disruption of Princess Celestia's psionic powers."

Twilight blinked rapidly, clearing away the tears from her eyes.

"... Shay what, now?" Solon asked after a tense silence dominated the room.

Rarity looked up at him strangely. "You mean you didn't know that?"

"The sovereign is... EVIDENTLY... the force that maintains the planet's ordinary solar cycles," Gaela said with no small amount of bitterness, "when her power was disrupted, it halted. I have verified the timing of the event."

"That'ss abssurd," Sliver noted.

"Why is that absurd?" Rainbow Dash challenged. "Who did you THINK raises and lowers the sun?"

"Is that a serious question?" Gnoss asked. "I can't really tell if we're being serious about this or not."

"It's true! She's serious!" Twilight affirmed as Rarity and Fluttershy nodded emphatically. "Princess Celestia controls the entire solar cycle and orbit!"

"As such," Gaela continued, "I must advise against any plan that ensures her destruction."

Sliver and Solon shared a glance.

"Well, that doesh change thingsh," Solon mumbled.

"I dissagree," Sliver countered, "as sstrange as thiss phenomenon iss, it doess not affect our operationss to any ssignificant degree."

"Well, sure, it doeshn't NOW, but if we kill the shovereign, who knowsh what will happen?" Solon grumbled.

"Logic ssugesstss that the planet will remain in its current possition," the Vice-Commander offered, "unfortunate for thiss world, but irrelevant to uss."

"There'sh nothing logical about it," Solon pointed out, "with celeshtial objectsh freely ignoring gravity and inertia, the effectsh could be catashtrophic. What if the shun goesh out? And what about the moon? It'sh orbit hash halted ash well. For all we know it might shtart shwinging around the planet and crash through our fleet."

By now the guards had let Twilight and her friends go, and were waiting behind the ponies as the two enormous Chaos Lords argued.

Rainbow Dash had settled on Tellis' shoulder and was whispering harshly to him, although the Raptor Lord didn't seem to be responding to her. Trixie had placed a foreleg against Serith's greaves and was staring up at him anxiously, even if her expression was hidden behind her helmet. Rarity was staring hard at Delgan, and the pair seemed to be having a sort of silent conversation involving pointed glances and shifting eyebrows.

"Even if thiss planet witherss to nothing, the manufactorum will sstand," Sliver growled, "and more to the point, we have no way to take the capital. The railway tunnelss and bridgess en route to the city are too ssmall for our transsports. We cannot march infantry through them without walking right into choke pointss that will be eassy for the foe to defend. We cannot attack with airborne transsportss without massive losssess from the air defensse network the Tau have esstablished. And a teleport sstrike force will be eassily overwhelmed." His strategic assessment complete, Sliver snorted. "Bombardment iss the besst and ONLY viable tactic."

"Well, I don't like it," Tellis said suddenly.

Sliver released a tortured groan as the Raptor stepped forward.

"Guarding the big guns while they pulverize a city from afar is lame," Tellis said decisively, "not to mention that the grays will probably just leave before we can hit 'em. I say we capture the city!"

"Your unssolicited opinion iss noted," Sliver drawled, "but it iss of no help. Your Raptorss can get into the capital with little difficulty, but you are few. We need a way to get many infantry into the city if we are to even conssider the option."

"I must also express some... reservations about the current stratagem," Delgan added. The Trademaster was no doubt feeling braver after Tellis had challenged the Vice-Commander. "Besides the issues already mentioned, a great deal of the resources I've acquired on this world so far are tied up in Canterlot. To destroy the city would generate a loss."

Sliver's helmet twisted to regard the merchant. "Your petty concernss matter to uss not, mortal. Thiss iss WAR!"

"I have my own petty concerns, as well," Serith said, tilting his head ever so slightly to look down at Trixie, "a psionic ritual to regulate and control the movement of celestial bodies is of CONSIDERABLE interest to me. And, if I might add, rescuing the ponies' capital may provide just the right leverage to acquire such knowledge. I must insist that the city be captured, and then handed back to the Equestrians."

Hearing Serith vouch for their case directly very nearly floored Twilight. If he hadn't deliberately provided a selfish pretext for his opinion, she might have fainted.

Sliver looked back and forth among the other officers and agents of the 38th Company, a wet growl building deep within his throat.

"Sso you come to me with objectivess, but no planss," the Nurglite snapped, "your reasonss for ssparing the equiness do nothing to aid uss!" He slammed a massive fist onto the table, causing the hololith to flicker and making Twilight bounce an inch into the air. "Give me an attack plan, then! Go on, foolss! Tell me how we might take thiss pitiful hovel with our current sstrength, and I'll ssee it done!"

The others looked away or stared hard at the hololith, but none of them answered him.

Twilight chewed her lip anxiously, knowing that it was now or never. Someone here had to come up with a plan that the rather embittered Chaos Lord would accept, or the Iron Warriors would almost certainly settle for "Plan A".

But what could she offer him? Given enough time to study the Company's dataslates on strategies and their unit capabilities, she was sure she could have come up with SOMETHING, but at present she simply didn't have enough data. Never mind the nagging feeling in the back of her head that she wasn't really likely to come up with a better idea than the bloated super-soldier who had been planning and conducting wars for longer than she'd been alive. Much longer, probably. How old were these Space Marines, anyway?

She looked over at Solon, only to see the Warsmith with his helmet tilted upward, staring obliviously at the ceiling. No help there.

"There must be a way to disable their anti-air defenses," Gaela mumbled.

"No easy way," General Gnoss refuted, "with temporary turrets deployed, they'll be using small generators and individualized targeting engines rather than a central nexus. It'll be near-impossible to knock enough of them out without either getting soldiers into the city - which is the problem we're trying to solve - or smashing the city flat with artillery, which is apparently unacceptable."

The ponies felt their guts wrench as Sliver spoke again.

"Naturally. The Tau may be foolss, but they are not TOTALLY incompetent in the wayss of war." A disgusting snorting noise came from the Terminator's helmet before he leaned back. "As expected, you have no ssolutionss, only worthlesss complaintss."

"Well, you're supposed to be the tactical genius," Tellis scoffed, "just infiltrate our Baneblade into the castle or something."

Tellis was forced to leap backward as Sliver lashed out at him with a fist, causing Rainbow Dash to yelp and jump away into the air.

"I tire of your idiocy!" the hulking Nurglite snarled as he advanced. "You talk down to your betterss when you've wassted away your time on thiss planet playing in the foresstss! I will not be mocked by you, Mad Angel!"

Tellis seemed singularly unimpressed by the accusation, but the humans and ponies started backing away, quite alarmed.

"All right, I've got it," Solon said suddenly.

Sliver halted, his helmet turning toward his superior. "Got what?"

"Our battle plan. I've uploaded it into all the nooshphere logsh. You may begin deployment ash shoon ash you've reviewed it," the Warsmith elaborated.

"I... what?" Sliver's optics lens glowed briefly as new readouts spread over it, and General Gnoss blinked as all the markers on the hololith vanished and were replaced with new ones.

"You have your ordersh. Deploy the Dark Mechanicush and the firsht combat detachment, and then prepare the aerial transhportsh. In shix hoursh, we begin the attack. In eight hoursh, I expect Canterlot to be purged of the Tau."

Twilight's eyes were wide, and she quickly turned back toward the tactical display to see what miracle had been assembled to save the Equestrian capital. The hololith was a flood of data, and unit registers that she couldn't make immediate sense of were tagged all over the map with arrows showing their route into Canterlot. There were a lot of arrows, and many of them followed somewhat... unintuitive paths.

"Come now, Princesh. Let'sh leave the preparationsh to them," Solon said, suddenly wrapping a mechatendril around Twilight's midsection and carrying her into the air. The alicorn suppressed a shriek at having a grimy metal tentacle wrap around her, and allowed herself to be carried out.

"Acolyte Gaela, pleashe pick up Mish Pie and follow me. Mashter Delgan, you come ash well." The rest of the Equestrians hurried to follow, not particularly wanting to stay and try to make sense of the Company's strategy.

The Iron Warriors that had previously moved to eject the Equestrians stepped aside as Solon led the train of mortal creatures out of the strategium.

"Oh, and Shliver," Solon paused as he reached the doorway, his optics glimmering as he looked back toward his second-in-command, "do tell the troopsh to watch their fire out there. Killing civiliansh would be quite a washte of ammunition." Then he continued on.

The last thing Twilight saw before the door slid shut behind them was Sliver slowly approaching the hololith table, a gauntlet pressing against the side of his helmet in bewilderment.

"All right, spill it: what's this amazing strategy you came up with?" Rainbow Dash demanded after a few seconds of silently walking down the corridor.

The pegasus squawked painfully as Gaela jabbed her in the back with a servo arm. "Show some respect, imbecile. The Warsmith just saved your entire sorry capital."

Rainbow Dash swung around and stuck her tongue out at the Dark Acolyte.

"Oh, uhm, it was very nice of you to do that, Mister Solon, Sir. Thank you," Fluttershy said meekly, "but I think Twilight would like to be put down now, if that's okay with you."

"Hm?" Solon looked to his side, and he saw that the purple alicorn was looking a few shades darker than usual in the face. This was probably due to his mechatendril wrapping tighter around her than was strictly necessary. "Oh, shorry about that."

He swatted the metal appendage near the base, and it hissed briefly before it dropped the gasping pony onto the floor.

"Twi, are you all right?" Spike asked in concern as he helped Twilight to her hooves.

Twilight took several deep breaths, and then glanced up at the pincer-headed mechatendril that had nearly suffocated her. "Wait, are those tentacles sentient? Or at least, do they possess their own independent will?"

"THAT'S the first thing you have to say to him after that debacle in the strategium?" Delgan drawled as Rarity rolled her eyes.

"Right, sorry!" Twilight took another few breaths before she continued. "Thank you for agreeing to save our capital and my family at your own expense, even though you had a much more brutal and expedient option," she said before taking another breath, "so, are those tentacles sentient? Or at least, do they possess their own independent will?" Spike groaned and slapped a hand against his face.

Solon chuckled. "You're welcome, Princesh. After sho many of my trushted advishorsh thought to liberate the capital, it sheemed neceshary."

Twilight almost broke into tears again as she smiled up at Gaela, who quickly averted her gaze while mumbling something in binary.

"Alsho, the mechatendrilsh have a will of their own, yesh," Solon added.

"Going back to Rainbow's question, would you be willing to tell us just what your plan is?" Rarity asked gently.

"Oh, nothing all that shpecial. Shliver probably would have come up with it himshelf, but he didn't sheem to be trying very hard."

Rainbow Dash growled as she crossed her forelegs. "Yeah, what's that jerk's problem, anyway?"

"Hish problem ish that he caresh more about the livesh of his brothersh and our shervantsh than he doesh about your people," the Warsmith explained, "thish ish not a rare attitude."

Solon turned toward a side passage. "Mish Gaela, Mashter Delgan. With me."

The Equestrians halted, recognizing the unspoken order to leave them. Gaela leaned down to lay Pinkie Pie on the floor, and then dutifully followed Solon and Delgan out of the hall.

"Well, that was exciting. Now what?" Trixie asked, poking an armored hoof at Pinkie's snoring, insensate form.

Twilight sat down on her haunches, releasing a deep sigh. "Well, what I'd really like to do is join Pinkie for a nap. The physical stress of being captured and fighting the Tau combined with the mental stress of convincing the Iron Warriors not to murder everypony is starting to get to me."

"Plus, it's probably past our usual bed time by now, even if the sun hasn't set," Spike pointed out.

"Right. But on the other hoof, the 38th Company is deploying right away. If we don't move out now, we'll be left behind," Twilight noted.

"I would like to point out that I'm totally okay with that," Fluttershy offered, raising a hoof.

"Another good point," Twilight admitted, "I suppose there's no reason we should all have to go back to Canterlot. And we do need somepony to take care of Pinkie when she wakes up."

They all took a moment to stare at the normally exuberant earth pony. Pinkie had rolled onto her back at some point and started drooling onto the floor, and one of her rear hooves twitched every couple of seconds.

"I REALLY want to get one of those dart throwers," Twilight said anxiously.

"You want a creepy metal tentacle with a will of its own attached to you?" Spike asked. "You know that's what shot the dart, right?

"There's probably a more conventional version!"

The door at the far end of the hall slid open, and the ponies halted their conversation to see if they should be moving out of the way.

"Hey y'all!" Applejack greeted them as she stepped into the hallway. The armored bulk of Big Macintosh followed behind her, his hoofsteps clanging noisily against the metal flooring.

"Applejack!"

"It's busier'n the apple press during cider season out there all of a sudden! You girls done stirred up the hornet's nest, Ah reckon!" The farmer grinned. "What'd Ah miss?"

"Well, the 38th Company almost decided to destroy Canterlot completely and kill everything in it, pony or Tau," Twilight admitted.

Applejack blinked. "But... they're not gonna do that, right?"

"Nah. We talked them out of it," Rainbow said with a shrug.

"Phew!" Applejack wiped her forehead with a hoof. "That woulda been real awkward."

"Eeyup," Big Mac agreed.

"As for what the actual plan is, I'm not sure," Twilight said as her ears drooped, "all the humans seem too busy carrying it out to explain it to us."

"Well, Trixie's been looking it over, and Trixie has some serious concerns," the armored unicorn mumbled, "for one thing, Trixie-"

"Wait, you've been looking it over? How?" Twilight demanded, peering closely into Trixie's visor.

"It's not hard. Trixie just uploaded it to her visor display," the showmare scoffed, as if that sentence would have even made sense to most ponies, "but the problem-"

"Let me see!" Twilight demanded, clamping her hooves onto the sides of Trixie's helmet.

"HOOVES OFF!!" Trixie shouted. The blue seams in her horn casing glowed brightly as Trixie pushed the alicorn away with her magic.

"Trixie, I think it's time to drop your pretenses of rivalry and antagonism and learn the true value of friendship and harmony," Twilight said calmly. Then her horn flared and distorted the unicorn's telekinesis field, allowing her to push forward again. "Now pony up and give me your helmet!"

"You know, this wouldn't be an issue if they'd just give the rest of us power armor too," Rainbow Dash noted as she and the other Equestrians watched the magical slap-fight.

"Right. I'm sure you want to be encased in a hundred pounds of space metal so that you can READ," Rarity smirked.

Applejack gave a soft kick to one of Big Mac's augmetic legs, and the stallion tilted his head to look at her. "Mac, you got any inkling as to what's goin' down?"

"Eeyup," Big Mac confirmed. After a few seconds, he elaborated. "Me and her are headin' into the field, seems like." He jerked his head in Trixie's direction. Applejack recoiled at that, and she frowned.

Twilight blinked in surprise, turning her head away from where she was trying to unseal Trixie's helmet with her hooves. "Wait, you have deployment orders? Oomph!"

Trixie had used the diversion to shove Twilight away, her servo-motivated armor easily overpowering the alicorn as soon as Twilight's telekinesis weakened.

"That's what Trixie was complaining about!" the blue unicorn groused. "According to this, Trixie is supposed to be teleporting right into the heart of Canterlot!"

"Neat!" Rainbow Dash opined.

"It is NOT neat, feather brain," Trixie hissed, "Trixie had enough of the Tau the first time Trixie met them, thank you very much! Why is Trixie being drafted to save Canterlot? Isn't that what the Princesses keep you around for?"

"Sadly, we find ourselves somewhat under-equipped at the moment," Rarity said, walking up to the other unicorn's right flank and running a hoof over Trixie's cape.

Then she flipped the cape up, revealing a rectangular cannon mounted on the hip plate. "Besides, don't you want to give your new toy a try?"

Trixie recoiled, surprised that anypony had spied the weapon. She'd deliberately adjusted her cape so that it covered her right side better than her left, obscuring the gun and its power cabling.

"Aw, sweet! What's that?" Rainbow Dash asked, landing on Trixie's back and leaning down to stare at the gun.

Trixie growled at being used as a perch, even though the armor meant that her actual muscles bore none of Rainbow's weight. "Actually, no, Trixie is in no hurry at all to test Trixie's new Fireburst Launcher on targets that will be shooting back. Although if you ponies keep rubbing your hooves all over Trixie's wargear, Trixie might end up practicing on you instead!" She shook herself to try and throw Rainbow Dash off, but the pegasus seemed to have no trouble keeping her balance.

Trixie was occupied enough that she didn't notice a nearby door opening and someone stepping out until Twilight identified the intruder.

"Gaela! You're back!"

Trixie's head whipped around to face the Dark Acolyte.

"Indeed. I'm here to take Macintosh and Trixie," Gaela said, nodding to the stallion.

"About that!" Trixie barked suddenly, stepping forward with Rainbow Dash still on her back. "Why is Trixie being flung into a war zone?! A war zone where Trixie's magic won't work, no less!"

Gaela paused as she brought up the relevant data files. "You're to function as a guide for one of the assault teams to find the source of the Shadow in the Warp and eliminate it."

"The hay Trixie is! Trixie didn't sign up for this!" the unicorn insisted angrily.

"You did," Gaela countered, "the contract you signed explicitly stated that were you called to arms for any reason, then you are obliged to obey orders just like any other contractor."

Trixie was glad that her helmet was on, as it kept the other ponies from seeing her jaw hanging open in shock.

"I can list the penalties for disobedience if you wish, but I'm sure you've been with us long enough to guess," Gaela deadpanned.

"Whoa! Tough break, Trix!" Rainbow Dash laughed, banging a hoof against Trixie's helmet obnoxiously.

"B-But, Trixie hasn't ever fought without Trixie's magic before! Or used this suit's weapons!" the unicorn was even more nervous now that she realized that refusing this mission would likely be more dangerous than carrying it out.

"Both you and Macintosh lack effective combat experience, but neither of you are completely new to it. You reportedly fared quite well when the Tau attacked Ferrous Dominus, and Macintosh wasn't wounded for being a pacifist," Gaela noted, "you'll simply have to manage as best you can. Weakness on the battlefield will be its own punishment."

"Great pep talk," Spike said sarcastically, giving the cyborg a thumbs-up.

Gaela ignored the dragon, turning to Big Mac. "Macintosh, you haven't obtained full proficiency with your heavy bolter yet, and you technically have no obligation to the fleet. Were you to refuse deployment, I would not advise your execution."

That was hardly a welcoming invitation to stay behind, but Big Macintosh hadn't considered such a thing anyway. "Nnope." Applejack frowned deeply at him, but for now she held her tongue.

"So what are the rest of us doing?" Rainbow Dash asked, her wings flapping in excitement even as her hooves were still planted on Trixie's back.

Gaela paused. "You can do whatever you want."

"Well, then I should really stay here and watch Pinkie Pie, who will also be staying because she is mercifully unconscious," Fluttershy volunteered eagerly and with a surprisingly clear voice.

"Okay, fine. Spike, can you stay with them?" Twilight asked. Spike saluted firmly, stepping backward to stand in front of a snoring Pinkie.

Big Mac and Trixie lumbered toward the side exit behind Gaela, the latter mumbling incoherently behind her vox grille.

"Well, unless you guys need me, I'm gonna go in with Tellis," Rainbow Dash said as she finally jumped off of Trixie and into a hover, "I'd feel way better in the air. And you know Tellis needs somepony to look out for him."

"That's... sure. All right, Rainbow. Good luck," Twilight said grimly.

Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack galloped through the side door after Gaela and the armored ponies, heading into another long hallway and past several other rooms that filled the space with muffled chatter.

As they caught up, they heard Gaela once again lecturing Trixie.

"Putting aside your armor, and thus greater survivability, your ability to sense the Warp 'normally' was given as a reason for your inclusion."

"What does that even mean?" Trixie grumbled as she plodded along behind Big Mac.

Gaela spoke without looking at the entertainer as she led the equines toward the exit. "According to Lord Serith's observations, the sensitivity of most unicorns to the Warp is muted. This is apparently why your kind never seem to suffer Warp corruption or daemonic attack. You, apparently, are different. You can perceive the Empyrean as our psykers do. That will allow you to sense the source of the Shadow so that we may find and disable it."

"Yes, fine, Trixie knows she's very talented," the blue unicorn said, rolling her eyes, "but if any so-called 'normal psyker' can do the job, wouldn't it make more sense to send in one of yours? Like Serith himself, maybe?"

"I agree," Gaela said, almost causing Trixie to stumble in surprise, "but the battle plan calls for you instead. Serith will not be deploying."

"Dang shame," Applejack mused with a half-smile, "love to see how well he fares in the field when he can't mess with no one's head all he wants."

Gaela halted and twisted her head to look behind her.

"... You're coming with us?" the Dark Acolyte asked, surprised.

"Well, o'course," Applejack replied, "no offense to Flutters, but Ah don't like sittin' back and lettin' y'all do mah fightin' for me."

Twilight nodded in agreement. "Did you think we were going to ask you to send your people to risk life and limb saving our capital while we sat back in in your fortress in complete safety?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I expected," Gaela admitted before she started walking forward again, "especially given that your psychic powers will be nullified."

"Gaela, dear, we have got to get you in on a friendship lesson one of these days," Rarity said as she shook her head, "anyway, where exactly are we headed?"

Gaela didn't respond, opening up a large door that led out of the complex. She stepped outside, and most of the ponies followed.

Twilight was one of those ponies, but she stopped suddenly as Rarity magically took hold of her tail and stopped her.

Rarity cleared her throat as she stood in the exit, pointing a hoof at the sky.

Twilight sighed and generated a shield bubble around the two of them. With a silent smile Rarity followed as well.

Twilight turned away from the snow-colored unicorn to look where they were headed, and was surprised to see Gaela and the other ponies walking toward a massive landing craft parked on a vast, open area of the base. The vessel was still relatively far away, but given its size it was impossible to miss.

"Gaela? Why are we heading toward one of the cargo vessels? Didn't Trixie say something about a teleport?"

"She did. And she is correct," Gaela assured the alicorn, "there are no teleportarium facilities in Ferrous Dominus, however. And Lord Serith insists that psionic teleportation won't work with the Shadow over Canterlot." The Dark Acolyte didn't slow her pace at all.

"So then, where are we going?" Rarity repeated her earlier question.

Gaela tilted her head upward. "We're going to the Harvest of Steel."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

*How many?* Voidsong demanded.

*We... We can't get an accurate count,* grumbled the Fireblade as he looked over the report, *their patrol activity has jumped since we made planetfall, and Shas'el Wraithstar has been hesitant about committing units to scouting duty with the gue'la so agitated. We know there are a lot of them, though, both air and ground forces, and they're not headed to Black Point.*

*Then they're headed here,* Voidsong groused, *the Company got word after all.*

*They're even showing fleet movement into a tighter orbit. We're going to have the bulk of the gue'la ships right over us soon.*

The High Commander considered this tidbit for a moment. *Our analysis of their fleet's weapons suggest they aren't equipped for orbital bombardment. Of course, with these bastards we can't take anything for granted. Set up garrisons for our infantry and make sure our transports are ready to go in a hurry. We may need to send out strike teams or evacuate quickly.*

*Yes, Shas'O. We will be ready for anything.*

"Huzzah! We hast spelled 'graviton'! How many points do we receive?" Luna shouted suddenly.

Voidsong turned her battlesuit head toward the rear of the throne room. Princess Celestia, Luna, and Cadence were all gathered around a game board playing Scrabble, and occasionally interrupting her deliberations with a shout of happiness or frustration.

"I've never heard of that. What does it mean?" Cadence asked suspiciously.

"'Tis an artificially produced gravitational... uh... beam? Aye, we believe it is a beam. Of course," Luna answered with a smirk.

"Is that another human word?" Celestia asked with a frown. "I'm still skeptical about 'Astronomican'."

"What doth it matter? Humans and ponies share a common language. Don't be a sore loser, Sister."

"You know, you three are just RUINING the dramatic tension around here," Voidsong deadpanned. "Do any of you care that a counter-attack has been launched on your capital?"

Princess Celestia shrugged. "Well, of course, but it's not like we can do anything about it like this."

The Tau leader couldn't easily replicate an eye roll with her suit's sensory equipment so she turned back to her officers.

*Much will be decided in the next few hours. Prepare transport group Pandora for deployment on my order.*

*Aye, Shas'O. The Greater Good will be triumphant. No matter the cost.*

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 17

Pinkie Pie yawned as she stretched her forelegs up above her head. "Oh, wow. That was a good nap." She blinked her eyes sleepily. "Well, actually, it was completely involuntary, so I suppose it was really a bad nap. Not bad in the sense that it wasn't refreshing or anything, but non-consensual naps seem like a bad thing in general."

Spike and Fluttershy waited patiently for Pinkie's monologue to finish before either of them bothered trying to explain the situation.

"Of course, even if forced nappy-time was okay, I'm not really a fan of being shot with chemical darts in the first place. Do you think there's a visitor satisfaction survey somewhere I can fill out to help them address this issue?"

"No, Pinkie, I don't think there is," Spike said flatly.

"Well, then I don't know how they'll ever improve their customer service rating! Especially after the one-star review they got that complained about Tau soldiers breaking into the fortress and trying to kill everything! Oh, hey, we're outside."

They were, in fact, outside the main command center, and the two ponies and dragon were sheltering next to a battle cannon turret, mostly out of sight of the clusters of guards around the building. This had allowed them a good vantage point to watch the various vehicles roll through the base without being likewise watched by the soldiers, which of course unnerved Fluttershy to no end.

Not that the timid pegasus was comfortable anyway. In her haste to stay away from the upcoming battle, she had completely failed to realize that her chosen solution effectively left her stranded in Ferrous Dominus, which was very nearly the scariest place she knew of. Never mind that it too stood a fair chance of being swallowed up into open warfare.

And her only companions in this wretched, evil place were Pinkie Pie and Spike. One would happily drag her into all sorts of trouble for her passing amusement, and the other... well, Spike wasn't a terrible choice, actually, but Fluttershy still wished she had asked Rainbow Dash to stick around.

"So how are we gonna get to where all the ACTION is?" Pinkie Pie asked, rubbing her front hooves together and grinning while simultaneously vindicating Fluttershy's sense of dread.

"Actually, I think we're the 'non-action' team," Spike pointed out, "the others already left. As did most of the human army."

"Whaaaaa?" Pinkie looked quite distressed to hear this. "But we're going to miss out on the most explodey rescue of Equestria EVER! Do you have any idea how much the movie rights will be worth?"

Spike rolled his eyes. "No. I'll make sure to ask Twilight when she gets back."

"Uhm, Pinkie, maybe we should give up on getting to Canterlot before everything's over. I'm sure the others will be fine," Fluttershy reasoned.

Sadly, Pinkie was quite immune to reason, and the earth pony snorted. "Of course they will! I'm not worried about them! But we're going to miss everything unless we catch a ride out that way!"

Fluttershy grimaced. "Well, I don't really want to go to Canterlot right now, but I wouldn't mind finding a way out of here."

Pinkie hummed to herself as she pondered. What Fluttershy meant by a "way out" was, of course, a transport out. None of the 38th Company would try to keep any ponies from leaving the fortress, but for a pegasus like Fluttershy who didn't fly long distances the prospect of traveling back home by foot or wing was slightly more perilous than staying.

"Hey, it's those big walking robots!" Spike said suddenly, pointing to the streets.

Fluttershy brightened as she followed Spike's finger. A train of daemon engines were stomping down the street toward the gates, spewing a veritable blanket of smoke from their exhaust pipes. At both ends of the procession was a transport vehicle bearing the symbols of both the Iron Warriors and the Dark Mechanicus and boasting large welders and servo claws over its hull. Notably absent were any other escorts of infantry or armor.

Pinkie raised an eyebrow, and then a light bulb turned on over her head.

Spike and Fluttershy flinched away from the sudden and inexplicable light, and then they cringed as Pinkie suddenly slung a foreleg over each of their shoulders and pulled them in closer to her.

"I have an idea!" the pink mare said with a smirk.

Spike chewed his lip briefly. "Can we hear and discuss this idea before deciding whether or not to carry it out?"

"No, because I finished part one while you were making pointless noises with your mouth-hole!" Pinkie explained, beckoning upward.

She was pointing her hoof at a passing defiler. Passing by just a few feet away, actually. Close enough that Spike felt his teeth rattle in his skull when its leg hit the ground. He really had no idea how they had gotten so close so quickly and without his noticing.

Fluttershy didn't either, but she wasn't nearly as disturbed from being so close to the massive war machine. Moreover, she could guess what Pinkie wanted to try. She had her reservations, of course, but decided to go along with it; she certainly didn't have any better ideas.

"Mister Crabby!" Fluttershy called as she launched herself off the ground.

The daemon engine almost stumbled at the familiar voice, and it turned the grinning iron mask that covered its sensors toward the flying equine.

Fluttershy landed on the barrel of the defiler's battle cannon, her head craning upward to look at the monstrous daemon engine.

"It's nice to meet you again, Mister Crabby! We'll be going with you, okay?"

The defiler released a loud, high-pitched groaning noise and started snapping its claws absently. Behind it, a forgefiend slowed gradually to a halt, its head leaning from side to side as it wondered what the hold-up was.

"Okay, good. My friends are right there! Could you pick them up, please?" Fluttershy pointed a hoof down at Pinkie and Spike. The former waved happily, and the latter shuddered nervously.

Without wasting any more time, the defiler swept one pair of claws over Pinkie and Spike, picking them up clumsily before it resumed its plodding pace down the avenue.

Fluttershy frowned and then hopped down onto the claw, leaning her head over to look past the knuckle plating.

"Pinkie? Spike? Are you two okay?"

A grunt came from below. "It's a little cramped, actually, but it could be a lot worse!" Spike confirmed.

"This thing has great control over its hydraulic pressure!" Pinkie added. "Why, if it had closed its claws even SLIGHTLY more, it would have crushed us both!"

"You sound really happy about that," Spike mumbled.

"Of course I am! Why wouldn't I be happy it didn't kill us? Do you have any idea how dangerous this is? We're both super-duper lucky!"

Fluttershy sighed as she looked around. "Okay, I'm going to hide on Mister Crabby now so that we're not spotted. When we're away from the fortress you can come out too. But you need to stay there for now." She had no idea what the Iron Warriors would do if they found ponies riding on their war walkers, but she didn't want to take any more chances agitating the grim super-soldiers.

"Okie-doki-loki!"

"Don't really have a choice, here..."

****

Heavy lander Beta-631 - low orbit over planet Centaur III

Twilight had accomplished quite a bit over the past several hours, she had to admit.

She had foiled an alien plot, escaped from imprisonment, broken out of a city under lockdown, defeated two heavy Tau battlesuits, assisted the formulation of a different alien's battle plans, and then managed to convince that alien not to commit incidental mass murder.

And now her day had reached a rather dizzying peak by having her ascend into outer space.

"Amazing..." the alicorn said for what must have been the sixth time. She was leaning up against a view glass, staring out at the giant blue orb of her home world as it slowly shrunk into the distance.

Trixie and Rarity were behind her looking just as impressed, if somewhat less enthralled. They weren't the sort to appreciate the implications of leaving their home atmosphere so much as worry about them. The Apple siblings were sitting at the far end of the officers' lounge they were in, apparently in the middle of a heated and quiet discussion.

Trixie sighed as she collapsed onto the floor, her helmet rattling loudly from where it hung from her gorget. "Trixie can't believe she got roped into this. Trixie is a performer, not a fighter!"

"Oh? But you're happy enough to boast of your martial exploits on stage," Rarity said with a slight smirk. Honestly, she sympathized a great deal with the other unicorn and had even forgiven her for her past misdeeds. But that didn't mean she would give up any opportunities to needle the arrogant magician.

"That's the POINT," Trixie snapped, "boasts and stories are a show, something to awe and impress, just like Trixie's illusions. And even if Trixie's stories were true, in a place where magic won't work Trixie would STILL be at a disadvantage."

Rarity had to admit that she had a point. "Well, you do have that armor. Warsmith Solon can perform truly amazing things with his technology."

"Yes, Trixie noticed," the entertainer mumbled as she looked across the room at the Apple siblings.

"Ah know how ya feel, AJ, but Ah'm goin'," Big Mac grumbled, his eyes turned away from Applejack and his jaw set firmly. Like Trixie, his helmet had been disengaged now that there was no more need for an air filter.

"Do ya know how Ah feel, Mac? 'Cause ya sure ain't actin' like it!" Applejack snapped back. She was keeping her voice down, but her tone was no softer for it. "Gaela said ya didn't have to go, so ya ain't goin'! If they need somepony to foalsit Trixie, then Ah'll do it!"

"No, ya won't. Ah don't even see why y'all have to go down there at all," Macintosh rumbled, "the humans've got this covered. What's the point?"

"Oh, yeah, they got this so wrapped up that they're dragging along the local stage magician and apple farmer," Applejack rolled her eyes, "ya were on Death's door the other day and you've barely got a few day's practice with that peashooter they hammered into ya! Ya ain't ready fer this!"

Big Mac raised his head higher. "At least Ah GOT a peashooter. Ya don't even got yer lasso. What're ya plannin' to do, nag 'em to death?"

Applejack clenched her teeth in an attempt to keep a physical rein on her temper. Most ponies thought of Big Mac as a passive, pliable sort of stallion, and for the most part, they were right. But occasionally a topic came up that would cause the hefty draft pony to dig in his heels and challenge his sister's decisions, and this was one of those occasions.

"Are ya sayin' Ah can't take care of mahself? You know how many of those grayskins Ah've taken down?" She pulled up the length of chain under her neck. "They don't give these things out fer pullin' carts, Big Mac!" At least, she was guessing they didn't. She and the others had pretty much gotten their "medals" on request, after all.

"Ya know this ain't about that," Macintosh said evenly, "If yer gonna go down there, Ah ain't gonna stop ya. Ah just think it ain't a good idea when ya don't have so much as a wet towel 'tween you and them aliens, s'all."

"That didn't stop ya from pullin' yer fool heroics back on the farm and nearly DYIN' on me!" Applejack growled, shoving her nose up into Big Mac's.

"That was different," the crimson stallion said calmly, lifting his augmetic foreleg and tapping it against the floor, "'sides, Ah got better."

"You...!" Applejack started to shout, but then tore her gaze away, once again beating down her urge to start screaming at her sibling.

Macintosh watched his sister's face contort angrily, and he felt a wave of guilt threaten to soften his position.

"AJ, Ah know why ya don't want me down there," he mumbled, "but if Ah can help, Ah wanna help."

"This ain't just work, Mac! They'll be tryin' to kill ya out there! Ah almost lost ya once already!" Applejack hissed, turning to face her brother again.

Macintosh forced down a groan as he saw tears welling up in the corner of Applejack's eyes. Applejack very rarely cried when she and him fought, but when she did it was a sure way to get him to back down. He just couldn't stand to see her that upset.

Stepping forward, Big Mac surprised Applejack by laying his head over her neck in a hug. "Ah know yer afraid fer me. Ah'm scared too. But Ah'm also scared every time you an' yer friends take off to Celestia-knows where to save the world or whatnot, ya know? Ah'm scared to see ya head down there with the others, even if there's an army goin' with ya this time. It ain't no better to lose you than me, ya know."

Applejack grimaced as her head bowed under the weight of her brother's hug.

"All Ah could ever do before was take care o'yer chores while you was out botherin' dragons or goin' to weddin's that were actually bug invasions and such. This time Ah can help see ya home safe, and Ah'm gonna do it, all right?"

Applejack's face bunched up as a cascade of different emotions overwhelmed her, and then finally she released an exhausted sigh.

"All right, all right, fine. You win, ya big lug. Now get offa me! All that metal 'round yer neck pinches somethin' awful!"

Macintosh chuckled deeply as he backed off, and he watched as Applejack sulked for a few seconds.

"If ya insist on goin' down there Ah'll let ya, but Ah'm goin' with yer group too. At the very least if ya get hurt again it won't be because Ah wasn't around to save yer fool neck!"

"Eeyup," Big Mac said softly, nuzzling his sister's cheek and further breaking down her efforts to be annoyed at this outcome.

"Oh, would you two get a room?" Trixie suddenly shouted, causing the Apple siblings' ears to drop flat.

"Trixie's armor looks pretty sturdy," Big Mac whispered down to his sister, "ya should probably use her as a shield when ya can."

"Sounds like a plan," Applejack chuckled.

The ponies' various mutterings ceased as the main entrance hissed open, admitting a single power-armored figure into the room.

"Gaela! I wanted to thank you for taking us along with you!" Twilight said exuberantly, barely taking her eyes away from the viewing pane. "I never thought I'd ever see something like this!"

Gaela could barely offer the alicorn a raised eyebrow as she entered. "I suppose to you void transit is a considerable novelty. As will walking within the flagship for the first time."

Trixie walked up to the viewing port, looking out an angle to see the distant megafreighter they were approaching. "So, besides being huge beyond all reason, what's the flagship like?"

"The Harvest of Steel is a cursed craft, as much a living creature as it is a construct of metal and machinery," Gaela explained, her tone reverent and solemn, "its reactor core thirsts for the souls of mortal beings, and its daemonic spirit yearns for nothing more than to rip other vessels apart and swallow their shredded hulks. It must be kept in a state of mild sedation, in fact, and be constantly restrained and appeased by its crew lest it lash out and destroy the rest of our fleet."

"How lovely," Rarity mumbled, wincing, "you know dear, you don't have to be so forthcoming with all the grisly details when we ask a simple question."

Twilight pushed the thoughts of living monster ships out of her mind as the Dark Acolyte joined her at the view port.

"Listen, Gaela... about what you did earlier, in the stra-"

"Don't mention it," Gaela interrupted.

"Now don't be modest," Rarity chided, "what you did was-"

"I'm not being modest," Gaela interrupted again, "I am sincerely embarrassed to have explained your planet's ridiculous nature to the Warsmith, and I am hardly thrilled at the prospect of rescuing your sovereign. Do NOT mention it again."

Twilight winced, her ears falling flat. "Oh. I see. Well, thank you anyway."

The cyborg grunted and then presented a dataslate to the unicorn. "Here."

"What's this?" Twilight picked the item up with her telekinesis, skimming the opening paragraph.

"A summary of the battle plan. If you wish to come with us, then you'd best secure the Princesses while the rest of us engage the enemy, at least until we've neutralized the Shadow in the Warp."

The Dark Acolyte turned away and started walking toward the entrance again.

"We will be docking within the hour, and then teleporting to the surface. The Tau have launched more landing craft and are moving to reinforce your capital. We will get there first, but if the assault falters we will be pushed out, and the toll to both our people will be much greater."

"We WON'T fail," Twilight insisted as she started to review the stratagem notes.

Gaela paused, her gaze lingering on the lavender pony for a moment. "Of course," she mumbled as the door opened before her and let her out, "I'll come get you when we dock."

****

Approximately twenty kilometers outside Canterlot

The train of APCs and escort armor rumbled to a stop as they approached their target, and the transports started disgorging soldiers and Dark Mechanicus personnel.

There were no orbital drops at this muster, for that would have given away their position quite handily to everyone in space and on the surface. While their convoy wasn't exactly stealthy, they were operating far enough away from the Tau forces that they could expect to remain undetected; they hadn't encountered any scouting teams, nor did they detect sensor relays.

Dark Magos Kaelith emerged from his transport and focused his optics on the battered wreck of a train that sat immobile on the tracks in front of them.

+Analysis: pathetic. An utterly inferior transport vehicle by any measure.+

A trio of dreadnaughts stomped past the Magos' APC, each one grumbling insanely to itself as they searched the field for targets. Iron Warriors followed at a respectful distance, spreading out into a firing line to protect the deployment site.

Kaelith released the electric equivalent of a sigh, and then scuttled forward. There was a lot of work to do.

****

Harvest of Steel - low orbit over Centaur III

"Well, Ah was a tad worried after what ya said back there about the ship, but this thing ain't lookin' half bad," Applejack admitted as she and the other ponies walked out into the docking bay.

Twilight murmured her agreement. She had been expecting the hangar to perhaps resemble the interior of a carnivore's mouth, complete with gnashing teeth and thrashing tongue. It was actually rather "normal", if not a sort of normal that was utterly new and deeply fascinating to her. Giant cranes assisted in the movement of cargo, soldiers and crew of every sort rushed about the decks in a constant rush of bipedal legs, and one entire wall of the cavernous area was separated from the vacuum of space only by a permeable, translucent blue force field.

"Ordinarily I would be happy to disillusion you by giving you a tour of the facilities, but time is of the essence," Gaela noted.

The ponies perked up as they heard the sound of Solon's distinctive, heavy gait approaching, and they all quickly turned around.

"Ah, it'sh good to be home again, even after a short time," the Warsmith mused as he emerged from the cargo transport. He was followed by several other Iron Warriors and - to Rarity's surprise - Trademaster Delgan.

The hulking Chaos Lord walked over to one of the cranes mounted on the deck, and he reached over with his left arm to placed his hand upon it.

"Hello, my dear," he said as he stared up at the ceiling, "I mished you."

To the ponies' growing unease, the bulkheads around them suddenly started groaning loudly, and the crane Solon had touched started twitching and shuddering as lights flickered all along its length.

"Okay, Ah take it back," Applejack said nervously, "this place is creepy as a swamp bog full of rotten apples."

"Trixie doesn't know what that even means," the unicorn grumbled as she put her helmet back on, "do all of your silly analogies have to be apple-related?"

"Well, they wouldn't make much sense otherwise, now would they?" Applejack replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Big Mac nodded silently in agreement.

Solon and the Chaos Marines following him moved to the entrance to the hangar, and Gaela guided the ponies to follow. Some of the Iron Warriors glanced behind them in confusion, but for the most part the super-soldiers paid rapt attention to their commander as Solon led them into a wide-open hall and then into an interior rail shuttle.

"Armshmashter Tolken, you'll be in charge of the Black Hammer shquad during thish mission. You will be deep shtriking into the heart of the enemy fortresh with me, but you will sheparate immediately to engage the enemy and purshue your mission objective."

The shuttle door slid shut as Rarity cleared the doorway, and the ponies almost staggered as the transport suddenly accelerated to send them deeper into the ship.

Tolken didn't notice the equines, his gaze locked to his Warsmith. "My objective is to locate the source of the Shadow, correct?"

"Correct. Damage it ash little ash poshible when dishabling it; I would like to shtudy the device once it ish recovered," Solon explained.

"How am I to find it?" Tolken asked as he hefted his plasma gun. "Do we have any data on what this device might look like or its approximate size?"

"No. But I shpoke to Sherith, and he explained that Mish Trixie should be able to locate the Shadow epicenter. You'll be taking her into your shquad."

The Armsmaster blinked behind his helmet, and then he turned around and looked down.

"Hi," Trixie grunted, adjusting her wizard hat over her helmet.

"You'll alsho be taking Macintosh," Solon explained, "he'sh far enough in hish weapon training that I think shome battlefield experience with hish wargear will do him good."

"Eeyup," Big Mac said as he stepped up next to Trixie.

"And Ah'm goin' too," Applejack said, stepping up next to her brother.

"And apparently Mish Applejack ish joining you ash well. I don't know why, though," Solon admitted.

Tolken stared down at the ponies, then glanced up at the other Iron Warriors that made up his unit. A few of them shrugged.

"I..." he hesitated as he glanced back at the equines, and then he looked up at Solon again. "I am okay with this," the Armsmaster mumbled.

"Shplendid. Jusht a moment," Solon said as his optics blinked.

A clicking noise came from Big Mac's armor while a humming noise came from Trixie.

"Your shafetiesh have been dishengaged. Once you are deployed on the shurface you may fire at will, although I musht advishe following Tolken'sh ordersh at all timesh." The Warsmith turned to face Trixie specifically. "Mish Trixie, obvioushly your pshionic powersh will not work until the Shadow ish dishabled. However, you should be able to power the Firebursht Launcher anyway. Shimply draw your power to you ash ushual, but fire the weapon rather than unleashing your powersh ash normal." Then he gazed at Applejack. "... Ash for you, did you want a gun, or a grenade belt or shomething? We have a lot."

"Nah, Ah'll be fine fightin' like this. Ah usually just kick them Tau in the face or break their necks," Applejack said dismissively.

"I like that one," an Iron Warrior mumbled to Tolken.

The shuttle slowed to a stop, nearly toppling the ponies that didn't have the benefit of magnetized footing. Solon was the first to scuttle out, followed by the squad of Iron Warriors, and finally the humans and equines of the group.

"I have to make some adjushtmentsh before I join you," Solon said as a sharp snapping noise came from his right shoulder. Suddenly his right augmetic tumbled free of its nerve socket, and it was caught by a cluster of outstretched mechatendrils. "Your shqaud may proceed as shoon ash a lock ish eshtablished, Armshmashter."

The ponies stared around the room as the Warsmith left, curiosity overwhelming them. The entire area was overrun with power cables and transformer towers, with a pair of raised platforms in the center that were surrounded by hook-shaped spires. The Star of Chaos was carved into the domed ceiling, and numerous chains hung from it without any obvious purpose.

Then a slight vibration came from the floor, and everyone could hear a muffled thumping sound coming from below.

"The riot drones have been deployed. It won't be long now," Delgan said, speaking for the first time since they'd seen him in the strategium.

Rarity looked him over. The man was wearing a slightly bulkier version of his usual uniform, but now had a pair of swords sheathed at his waist and a pair of ivory bracers on his wrists that bore some kind of bizarre alien markings over them.

"I have to admit I'm surprised that you're coming with us," Rarity said as she watched the Iron Warriors assemble on the platform in a circle, "I know that you know how to fight, obviously, but still, it's... quite heroic of you to come to our aid directly." She had to pause to physically stop herself from saying "uncharacteristically" rather than "quite".

"I made an investment in your civilization, and I intend to see it brought to fruition," Delgan said as he tugged on the wrist of his gloves, "besides, I dare say it takes no special courage to stride into battle on the heels of the Chaos Space Marines and the Warsmith himself."

Rarity was pretty sure his reason for coming along was similar to Trixie's, but still found herself impressed.

"So, should you guys get on the platform with the Marines, or...?" Twilight hesitated as she noticed that Trixie and the Apple siblings were still waiting.

"Give them a moment," Gaela mumbled, her optics fixed on the ring of Iron Warriors.

"FROM IRON COMETH STRENGTH," the Chaos Space Marines suddenly boomed, startling the equines.

"FROM STRENGTH COMETH WILL."

"FROM WILL COMETH FAITH."

"FROM FAITH COMETH DARKNESS."

"FROM THE DARKNESS COMETH IRON."

"This is the Unbreakable Litany, the rite of hatred that has forged our Legion for over ten thousand years," Tolken intoned.

"MAY IT FOREVER BE SO," barked the other Iron Warriors as they held their guns to their chests and bowed their heads.

"Well, you have fun with them, Applejack," Rarity mumbled as she moved a few steps closer to Delgan, "we'll be right behind you, darling."

"Thanks, Rarity." Applejack deadpanned as she, Trixie, and Big Mac stepped up onto the platform.

A sharp crackling noise came from all around them as the transformers warmed up, and the ponies flinched as their gums started to itch.

After several more minutes of tense waiting, a distorted, curiously angry electronic voice came from all around the chamber.

"Teleport beacon established. Locking on... confirmed. Readying teleportarium arrays."

A whining noise came from the spires around the platform and started to build, and Applejack unconsciously held onto her hat.

"Iron within," chanted the Astartes, "iron without!"

"Teleport engaged."

Author's Note

Well, that almost got appropriately dark.
Lots of yapping in this chapter, and it took a lot longer than expected. I had to re-do that argument between Applejack and Macintosh like three times. But this should get all the EEEEMOOOTIONNNN out of the way so that the final part can be non-stop violence! Yay~

And don't forget to check out the new cover art for book 2! Big thanks to Nicholas Kay for bringing my vision of Warsmith Solon to life!

Siege of Canterlot (Part Three)

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 11

Siege of Canterlot (Part Three)

****

Canterlot - Silver Saddle Bar and Grill

"Inexcusable!"

Numerous ponies jolted to attention as the front door to the establishment burst open, and the equines nervously glanced over to the source of the shout to see whether or not they should be ducking under the tables for cover.

Luckily, the source of the aggravated voice was none other than Prince Blueblood, and while none of the bar's patrons particularly wanted to cross the royal stallion, his lack of any weapons - or functioning magic, for that matter - rendered him mostly harmless. The other ponies quickly relaxed and returned to their drinks or whispered conversations, ignoring the newcomer.

Blueblood, for his part, stomped angrily into the bar. He looked fit to start an angry monologue on the spot, but then the bar tender cleared his throat.

"Prince? You mind shutting the door?" the unicorn bar tender asked.

"Me?" Blueblood asked, sounding honestly perplexed by the request.

"Well, I can't really close it from here right now, and I'd prefer not to leave it open under the circumstances," the unicorn stallion muttered grimly.

The Prince made as if to say something, and then thought the better of it, closing his mouth. Then he backed up half a step and tapped the door closed with his rear leg.

"Damned alien scum," Blueblood seethed as he made his way through the room.

"Prince Blueblood! I say! Over here!"

Blueblood's head shot up, and his eyes narrowed as he spotted Fancy Pants seated in a corner of the lounge. His marefriend Fleur de Lis was seated next to him, practically attached to the stallion's side and looking every bit as anxious as the situation warranted.

"Give me something strong, bar keep," Blueblood growled as he walked toward the stallion beckoning to him, "I don't care what it is."

The Prince sat down across from the couple, his eyes not quite meeting theirs and his scowl etched deep over his face.

"I say, Prince, were you really wandering around outside?" Fancy Pants asked. "It must be terribly dangerous, is it not?"

Blueblood snorted noisily. "Aggravating, mostly. The dunderhead invaders are in a tizzy because of the sun. APPARENTLY it's wreaked havoc with their little 'curfew'."

"You've talked to them?" Fleur asked, placing a hoof against her chest. Her voice was terrified and curious in equal measure. "What are they like?"

"Stupid," Blueblood said simply before he twisted his head around, "and where the hay is my drink?! Or am I to head behind the counter and mix it myself?!"

The bar tender shot the blond unicorn a glare as he fumbled with a bottle. "It will just be a moment longer, Prin-whoops!"

Fleur winced as the sound of shattering glass came from the bar area, and Fancy Pants sighed.

"He's not used to handling the bottles with hooves," Fancy Pants explained with a shrug.

"This day gets better and better," Blueblood growled as he slouched in his chair, "do you know why I'm out right now?" The other unicorns were about to guess, but Blueblood didn't let them. "I was thrown out of my estate! Those barbaric beaked creatures were sniffing around my compound, and then a squad of the ones with guns said my property had to be 'searched for human weapons'! The nerve!"

"Well, you don't have any, do you?" Fancy Pants asked, adjusting his monocle.

"I wish I DID. I would have shown those slimy vermin!" the Prince fumed.

A loud growling noise came from outside, and some of the ponies nearer to the wall leapt from their seats and cowered on the floor. A group of kroot warriors stalked past the building, guiding a pack of snarling kroot hounds. A half-dozen Fire Warriors followed behind them, issuing orders in their native language to the hunters.

Fleur shuddered as she leaned against her lover, and Fancy Pants tenderly ran a hoof down her mane.

"There, there, my dear. Be calm. They won't bother us."

"Unless they deem a herd of ponies resting in a bar as a 'gathering'," Blueblood snorted angrily, "did you know the Tau have humans working for them too? I talked to one! Asked him why he was working for these creatures! He said it was for the 'Greater Good'! Something about sacrifice for the advancement of society as a whole to bring about a better future for all!"

"By Celestia..." Fancy Pants gasped, his monocle falling onto the table, "are you telling me we've been invaded by SOCIALISTS?"

Fleur de Lis glanced from one stallion to the other, looking confused at their horrified expressions. "Wait, is that... worse than being invaded by non-Socialists? Why?"

"Oh. Right. You're from Prance, aren't you?" Prince Blueblood grumbled. "Whatever. In any case, I warned everypony about this."

Fancy Pants snorted as he put his monocle back on. "Oh, you did not. You warned everypony about the humans. That eventually we would become reliant on them, remember?"

"And what do you think is happening?" Blueblood hissed.

"... I think we've been conquered by their enemies," the other stallion said slowly, eyebrow arched, "how is that the same thing?"

"Because now we have no means to stop them except the humans!" Blueblood explained. "How can we possibly recover the city otherwise? Even if we could free our useless guards, they'd be torn apart by the Tau's weapons! Our only choice in this situation is to have this '38th Company' save us, or quietly submit to the blasted Progressives!"

Fleur frowned. "Progressives? Why do you say that like it's an insult?"

Blueblood ignored her. "Except it's not really a choice, because we don't get to decide! Before long the forces of Chaos will be here to 'liberate' our fair city, once and for all cementing their military superiority in the minds of our leaders and elites! They'll think - perhaps correctly! - that we need the humans just to stay safe from now on! After that it's just a question of whether human control comes with the gun pointed at us or held behind their backs!"

Fancy Pants considered the argument at length before responding. "Well, it's plausible, but I have to wonder why the humans would even bother. They haven't shown much of an appetite for controlling our territory up until now. Why would they risk their lives in Canterlot for us?"

Blueblood clicked his tongue and leaned back in his chair as the bar tender finally approached, a short glass of liquor settled unsteadily on one hoof.

Fleur's ears twitched up. "Does anypony else hear that?"

All noise in the bar stopped, and dozens of ears swiveled up. A heavy whistling sound could be heard from above, distant but getting louder.

Suddenly, a much louder and less mysterious noise came from outside as the Tau's anti-air turrets opened up, and the ponies with a good view out the windows gazed up in awe as they saw lances of blue energy stream upward into the sky.

The whistling kept getting louder, however.

Fancy Pants opened his mouth to speculate on the sudden disturbance, but was interrupted by something slamming into the ground just outside the bar, landing hard enough to shake the floor. The windows on that side of the building shattered inward from the concussive force, and the bar keep promptly dropped the glass he was holding to add to the new mess.

The ponies in the bar stared wide-eyed at the plume of dust that had been kicked up by the sudden impact, and within a few seconds the obscuring shroud parted around a large metal cylinder mostly painted black.

On the side of the cylinder, grinning as if taunting the patrons, was the Iron Skull.

"Bucking called it," Blueblood said as he slouched in his chair.

A whirring noise came from the cylinder as its sides split apart, and the top of the device popped off before saucer-shaped machines started spewing out of it.

One such machine was flung into the bar, and the ponies gasped and scrambled away from it as it halted several feet off the ground.

None of the equines present, in their brief experiences with the aliens, had seen a Tau gun drone, but if they had they would have pointed out that these machines looked exactly the same save for their colors and a ring of spikes on the dome circumference. Most of the machine was gunmetal and gold, with the armored dome itself painted in black and yellow warning chevrons.

The riot drone spun about as it hovered unsteadily over the floor, its altered AI scanning the room for targets.

One by one the equines were detected and dismissed, lacking any IFF keys or the Sept colors that it had been programmed to engage. After a few seconds of finding nothing worth shooting at, the drone zipped outside and floated off into an alley after the others of its kind.

Fancy Pants chewed his lip absently as more pounding noises came from further away, heralding the arrival of more drone carriages.

"You know, this establishment has a patio on the roof," the mustachioed unicorn mentioned, "we could watch the liberal mongrels being dispatched from there."

"Really, MUST you bring politics into this? As if the situation isn't ugly enough!" Fleur huffed as she stood up. "Let's hurry. I want to get a good seat."

"Sure, why not?" Prince Blueblood groused as he too rose from his chair, "it doesn't seem like I'll manage to get that drink any time soon."

****

Canterlot Castle - wine cellar

Kibitz flinched at the sound of heavy impacts coming from outside, although the loud thumping only momentarily broke up the cascade of screaming anti-air fire.

"What IS that? What's happening?" the head maid asked, standing in front of several trembling servants.

"I don't know," Kibitz confessed, "but I do believe there's some kind of altercation going on outside."

"Maybe it's the Wonderbolts! They've come to rescue Canterlot!" one of the maids said brightly.

"Oh! I'll bet it's the Elements of Harmony!"

"Wait, weren't they already captured?"

"So? They've managed before!"

Kibitz wiggled his mustache as the maids broke into an excited discussion as to which heroes of ponykind had arrived to deliver brutal justice to the invaders.

"Well, whoever it is, they're making quite the racket," the unicorn stallion mumbled.

The shattering of one of the palace windows came from just outside the door, and the ponies flinched badly.

"What was that? Did the Tau break in?" asked a maid as her legs quivered.

"They're already in the castle! That was something else!" the head maid hissed.

Kibitz frowned toward the short staircase that led up to the exit. "I'll check it out. Maybe get some bearing on what all is happening out there..."

The stallion calmly walked up the steps and, hesitating only long enough to take a deep breath, pulled the door open.

Almost immediately, he was shoved aside by a floating drone striped in yellow and black, and the stallion yelped and jumped aside.

"What is that?! Is that dangerous?!" the maids shouted as they quickly took cover behind wine barrels and crates.

"I... I don't..." Kibitz trailed off as the saucer-shaped device slowly hovered into the middle of the room, ignoring the equines completely.

Celestia's assistant pony didn't know a thing about drones of any sort, but this particular one was conspicuously missing weapons of any kind, and seemed to have several additional fins and antennae mounted on top of its dome.

Kibitz suddenly heard shouting and gunfire from deeper down the hall, and his ears fell flat against his head before he quickly closed the door.

The drone that had already forced its way in floated down to the floor, its antennae slowly blinking red on the tips as it settled down.

"Wait, wait, WAIT!" the head maid suddenly shouted, stepping out from behind her hiding place and slowly approaching the drone. "I know those colors! This thing is from the humans!"

Kibitz and the servants shared a confused glance at that. Partially from wondering what a human machine was doing here, but mostly wondering how the elder mare had recognized such a thing.

"Well, do you know what it's doing?" Kibitz asked.

The maid squinted her eyes as she stared at the blinking lights. "Well, it... hmmm..." she tilted her head to one side of the mysterious object, and then the other. "Well, no. But it doesn't look dangerous to me."

"Then what is it doing here?" Kibitz asked, jabbing a hoof toward it. "From the sounds of things outside, the humans sent plenty of other things that ARE dangerous, so I don't want to take any chances!"

Admitting that the stallion had a point, the head maid gave the machine some distance, but didn't take her eyes off of it. "Ooh! You know who might know? Let's ask Princess Luna!"

"I wouldn't advise going to the throne room right now, actually," Kibitz said, mindful of the noisy pulse volleys coming from just outside the door, "but what makes you think her highness would..." Kibitz wiggled his mustache again, this time in discomfort. "How odd. My gums seem to be quite agitated all of a sudden."

The blinking red light on the end of the drone's antennae started blinking more rapidly, and then the drone beeped.

The crack of air displacement thundered in the ponies' ears right before the scent of ozone filled their nostrils.

The sight that greeted their eyes was the most unsettling thing, however. Fifteen humanoid giants in heavy plate adorned with dark spikes and rusted chains, each one with weapons drawn. There were also three less intimidating figures among them, but in the moments following the teleport they were understandably overlooked.

Tolken scanned the room, his plasma gun already aimed at the wide-eyed unicorn stallion.

"... No hostiles detected. Area secure." The Iron Warrior looked back at his squad. "Lennith, take point. Macintosh, follow him and match his movements and aim. Females, you have the rear."

The Armsmaster pushed past the stunned Kibitz without another word, holding near the door as his squad followed in two rows.

"'Scuse us, folks. Just doin' some gray huntin' 'round the castle property," Applejack tipped her hat to the gaping ponies as Big Macintosh stomped past, "y'all just lay low down here 'til the smoke clears."

The Iron Warrior in the lead cracked the door open, peeking out and tagging targets with his visor.

"I spot twelve xenos. They're at the windows, firing on the riot drones outside. We have their flank."

Tolken nodded. "Destroy them all."

The door burst open with bolters aimed and ready, and not a shred of cover between the Iron Warriors and their targets. Most of the Tau soldiers didn't even notice the new arrivals until they heard the sound of bolter and plasma fire at horrifically close range, and before they knew it half the squad had been ripped apart.

Big Mac strode under the thundering boltguns, his visor lighting up with targets as his heavy bolter shifted into position.

A stitch of heavy bolter fire cut into the stumbling aliens, culling three of them with a single muscle twitch. Unlike the bolter rounds, which cracked against armor and blasted off limbs, the heavy bolter shots blew the Fire Warriors apart entirely, drilling through the polyceramic armor and popping them like gore-filled balloons.

Big Mac hesitated after the first burst as he saw the survivors of the squad start to turn and run, but the Chaos Space Marines showed no such leniency. Another volley of bolter fire either slaughtered the fleeing aliens or knocked them down, with the last Tau standing vanishing in a wash of plasma.

Tolken slapped his plasma gun to his thigh and drew his bolt pistol as his helmet tagged the Fire Warriors that were still technically alive. With dark and wordless efficiency he corrected the oversight, finishing off the five wounded foes in as many seconds.

"We hit them fast enough that they probably didn't manage to alert the leadership," noted an Iron Warrior as he pointed to a shred of armor that bore rank markers.

"A heavy bolter's kill. We'll make a useful gun mount out of you yet, Macintosh," Tolken grunted, "Trixie. Get in here and give us a direction."

Muted grumbles came from the unicorn as she stepped into the hallway, her horn glowing dimly. "Ugh. Trixie can totally feel what Sparkle was talking about in here... give Trixie a moment..." The Shadow was like ice upon her spine, an oppressive feeling around her horn that she found suffocating as she forced herself to feel through the dark cacophony beyond.

The feeling had a direction, though. A pulse that she could see as her eyes looked into a plane of being that no unicorn was meant to see. Which meant that it had an origin.

Applejack followed behind her, and she winced at the sight of the enemy soldiers' remains before poking her head back into the cellar. "Yeah, yer gonna wanna stay down here fer a spell. Maybe get some rest, too. There's gonna be a lot of moppin' to do." She closed the door.

"All right, Trixie's got it! That way! Into the royal gardens!" the showmare hissed as she pointed a foreleg outside. There were numerous tall hedges, and a frankly ridiculous amount of sizzling blue crossfire. A pair of riot drone carriers lay in smoking heaps among the flora, their cargo mostly scattered around them in pieces.

"The drones won't last against the garrisons, nor will our presence be missed for long," Tolken observed, "let's move."

On the other side of the door, Kibitz stroked his mustache with a hoof as his gaze moved from the door to the teleport beacon in the middle of the wine cellar.

"Well, it seems one Element of Harmony came, at least. And brought friends," the unicorn stallion finally said.

"That's... those... things... with her... were humans?" asked a maid breathlessly.

"Well, not all of them. There were definitely a few ponies among those armored lads," Kibitz noted.

"Are they going to save us?" asked the head maid, perplexed.

"I thought they were the forces of Chaos. Wouldn't that mean they work for Discord or something?"

"But doesn't Discord work for us, now?"

Kibitz shook his head. "Well, whoever those fellows were and what they intend to do, I hope it isn't just them. Big and menacing as they are, there are an awful lot of those Tau creatures."

The lights on the beacon's antennae started to blink rapidly again.

"Oh. Well, all right then," the stallion mumbled as he backed away from the next incoming teleport.

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

*They're OUR drones? Seriously?* Voidsong asked irritably as she looked at a tactical display of Canterlot City.

*Well, they did take Salvation Echo intact, Shas'o. There would have been quite a lot of them in storage there,* a Fireblade mumbled as he read data reports coming from the Fire Warrior teams, *although from some of the descriptions, these devices couldn't have been taken and modified that recently. Even considering the ships they captured. These gue'la have been doing this with our machines for a while.*

He paused to open a few more data packets. *They're not doing very well, though. However the gue'la reprogrammed them, their tactical AI is lacking. They're showing very limited combat mobility and coordination. They might not even be properly networked.*

*Casualties so far?* Voidsong asked as she mulled over the information and looked at the rendition of the anti-air network that was conspicuously failing to shoot down the incoming drop-carriers.

*Very low. Our units have been able to draw them toward defendable positions and take out the enemy drones from relative safety. They've also been able to keep the drones away from the anti-air guns.* The Fireblade nodded confidently to his superior. *If this keeps up, it doesn't matter how many of these machines they throw at us. We won't break.*

*Which is why I don't expect this to keep up,* Voidsong said, her voice a low growl as she searched the sensor readings, *if this assault has no chance of breaking us, the Iron Warriors should know that too. And I doubt they dispatched all those transports just for mop-up duty. This is a diversion. Inform Pandora. They are go for mission.*

The Fireblade looked surprised, but didn't hesitate. *Yes, Shas'o. Right away.*

Voidsong continued searching the sensor pings for any approaching transports or weapons. They hadn't had enough time to set up a proper sensor array in their rush to turn Canterlot into a refueling station and their futile hope that their invasion would remain unnoticed by the Chaos Space Marines. However, in a pinch she could combine and search the passive sensors of the numerous vehicles and battlesuits flying over and around the capital, using them as an improvised sensor net to search for anything that would easily be missed in the pandemonium of having enemy attack bots raining down from the sky.

In a mere two minutes of searching, she found exactly what she was looking for.

*Blast!* Voidsong snapped.

"Is something the matter?" Luna asked.

"The damned gue'la snuck a teleport into the city after they started their attack!" Voidsong replied, reflexively switching to Gothic. "We have enemy soldiers in..."

The High Commander trailed off and turned her sensor head toward Luna, who was seated across from her in front of the hololith display.

"In where? Where art our side's troops in this construction?" Luna asked as she leaned over the hololith. The other Tau officers looked quite put out, but said nothing. "The human forces art in red, correct? They art vanishing at a most prodigious rate."

"You realize there's nothing stopping me from breaking your stupid neck right now, right?" Voidsong said darkly.

"You promised not to hurt anypony!" Celestia reminded her from where she and Cadence were watching the city from one of the shattered windows.

"How far, exactly, do you suppose you can push me before I decide that breaking a deal with absolutely zero possible consequences is no worse than putting up with you?"

Luna recoiled, looking affronted. "We art doing naught but viewing the progress toward thine ultimate defeat, invader. In addition, We would suppose that thou hast more pressing concerns at the moment than our impertinence."

Voidsong quickly remembered that she was right, and set her own sensors to active mode. The teleport was detected in the castle, so it was possible that the targets were-

The back door to the throne room burst open.

"Princess!" Twilight Sparkle galloped into the room, her chest heaving and Rarity hot on her heels.

At least, until two dozen guns were aimed in their direction.

Twilight stopped dead in her tracks, and Rarity made a rather un-ladylike grunt as she almost collided with the purple Princess.

Voidsong was actually quite embarrassed to realize that she had reflexively aimed her own weapon at the two ponies, neither of which were any threat at the moment and were already targeted by numerous energy weapons. She lowered her plasma burst cannon.

"All right, now I'm honestly confused," the Shas'o mumbled.

"Twilight! What are you doing here?!" Celestia gasped as she and Cadence rushed toward her.

"We're here for you, Princess," Twilight said before turning narrowed eyes on Voidsong's battlesuit, "we're here for ALL of Canterlot."

"... Uh huh," Voidsong mumbled, unconvinced.

"Is... Is THIS what they teleported into the castle?" asked a Fireblade, slowly lowering his rail rifle.

Cadence grimaced as she trotted up behind Celestia. "Twilight? Tell me it's not just you two."

"It's not just us two," the purple pony assured her.

The next two figures to enter the room did so at a more cautious pace. Delgan and Gaela stepped inside the throne room and then stepped to either side of the door before they stood at attention. The Tau's weapons shifted aim toward the humans.

Voidsong looked over the new arrivals. "... Yeah, I'm still not seeing it." The humans were armed and dangerous, at least, but besides being totally outnumbered they weren't even brandishing their weapons. A single volley from across the throne room would finish them before they even drew their blades, much less got to a range to use them.

"A moment, please," Delgan said to the invaders, bowing his head, "the Warsmith has come to speak with you, Shas'o. He's just been held up a bit."

"Kibitz kind of had some minor heart palpitations when Solon appeared," Twilight said apologetically, "he had to stop and defibrillate him while we went on ahead."

"Sure. Is there a reason why I shouldn't just kill all of you now and get back to conducting my war?" Voidsong asked. The electronic quality of her voice being transmitted through the battlesuit did little to hide the annoyance in her tone.

"That would definitely spoil the negotiations," Delgan noted, "we wish to offer a cease-fire."

"... While raining combat drones on my forces?" the High Commander asked.

"We thought it would help our case if we provided some fire that you might wish to cease," the Trademaster offered with an apologetic bow.

"I believe we concluded our 'negotiations' in orbit," Voidsong snorted, "your continuing presence on my planet indicates an intent to resolve this matter with force." The ponies shot dirty looks at the battlesuit for referring to the planet as hers.

"You previously indicated a preference for negotiating in person," Gaela said blithely as the sound of heavy, grinding footfalls came from the hall behind them, "we found the prospect... compelling."

The wooden doors were smashed to splinters as Solon's bulk pushed through them, and the Warsmith charged past Delgan and Gaela before he stopped.

The Tau immediately flinched back, and some of the Fire Warriors actually fell over in shock at the sight of the terrifying mesh of corrupted Astartes and daemonic machine.

Solon quickly looked over the enemy. Four Heavy Stealth Suits, a Battlesuit Commander, and two dozen light infantry. All of them looked stunned for the moment, thanks to his fear aura, but that wouldn't last long. Solon turned his head.

"Ah, Warsmith! Thou hast arrived!" Luna greeted the monstrous Iron Warrior happily.

"You! You're-" Voidsong was cut off as Solon suddenly held up his left hand.

"Jusht a moment, pleashe. I'll be right with you."

He turned away from the Tau soldiers, stomping toward a very confused Princess Celestia.

"I have shomething to shay to you," the Warsmith said dangerously as he walked closer, his every step leaving shattered flooring tiles behind him, "I would have mentioned it the firsht time I wash here, but it wash a diplomatic meeting and I didn't want to be rude. But now I'm going to shpeak my mind."

Twilight and Rarity shared an uncertain glance.

Princess Celestia, for her part, stood up straighter, and her eyes narrowed defiantly as she stared up into the glimmering crimson sensors of Solon's helmet. "What is it?"

"Thish fortresh ish a DISHGRACE," Solon snapped, looming over the white Princess menacingly.

Celestia blinked. She had not been expecting that.

"Even by the shtandardsh of Victorian thirteenth century architecture, which apparently govern thish city, the material integrity and shtructural organization of your cashtle is nothing short of SHAMEFUL. Shuch buildingsh are facilitiesh of war, and yoursh ish modeled more ash if it were a child'sh plaything. I've sheen better fortificationsh made on the beach, out of shand!"

Delgan coughed uncomfortably.

Then the Warsmith backed away. "I jusht needed to get that off my chesht. It'sh been bothering me shince I left."

Without further comment, Solon turned again and walked away from the confused Princess back toward the equally confused Tau.

"Shorry about that. Inferior shiege engineering ish a pet peeve of mine. And really, it'sh like they weren't even trying when they built thish place."

The Iron Warrior punched his left arm into a column in demonstration. His fist sunk deep into the stone pillar, cracking it apart around the middle. The ponies and a few of the Tau flinched.

"But I digresh," the Warsmith said as he tore his arm free from the column, ripping it fully in half and displaying a handful of marble, "let'sh talk peace." His gauntlet closed around the ivory stone, slowly grinding it to sand in front of the aliens.

If Voidsong was at all impressed by the display, or particularly affected by Solon's fear aura, none of it showed in her voice.

"Your entrance makes an unconvincing case not to just kill you," the High Commander said blithely, "why, exactly, should I agree to a cease-fire now?"

"Becaushe the 38th Company holdsh enough cardsh to threaten your mission, but no particular reashon to do sho," Solon pointed out, "happy ash I am to shlay you creaturesh and fiddle with your wargear, our shtake in thish planet ish... limited."

Voidsong scowled within her battlesuit. "Then you should have fled when you had the chance, monster."

"We will not run. Not yet, at any rate," Solon's mechatendrils hissed quietly as he scratched at the chin of his helmet with his left hand, "but in a short time, we will leave. After that, well, what you do with the planet hardly mattersh to ush. We've even cut down the time needed to make our Warp enginesh, shince you've deshtroyed the veshelsh we captured from you. We should be done in under two weeksh."

"We wish to voice our objection to this agreement," Luna said as she raised a hoof.

"Go away," Voidsong retorted, shoving the alicorn aside with her shield arm. Luna pouted and walked over to join the other ponies behind Solon.

The Shas'o looked up at Solon for several silent seconds, mindful of the sounds of distant gunfire echoing from within the city. Then she turned her sensor head toward her own soldiers.

*Lower your weapons. But keep them ready,* she mumbled. The other warriors did so gratefully; they had been aiming every gun quite intently at the Warsmith since he had arrived, but none had dared be the first to open fire on him without orders. It was all some of them could do to remain in the room with the stifling sense of fear washing off of the behemoth.

"Even if you are sincere in your intentions - and I don't believe that you are - I'm not going to leave my soldiers under your guns for two weeks."

"Of courshe not," Solon agreed, "if you agree to withdraw from Canterlot and wait for our departure, then I will agree to evacuate your troopsh from your remaining bashe to your fleet."

"Unacceptable," Voidsong replied simply.

"Oh? Then how about I throw in the two hundred and sheventy-one Tau and Kroot prishonersh we shtill hold?" Solon asked, causing the Shas'o to back up a step. "Livesh are of penultimate importance to your empire, and Tau shlavesh fetch mediocre returnsh anyway. Their shafety would be quite a boon, would it not?"

Voidsong clenched her teeth within her battlesuit. She wasn't aware there had been so many Tau captured by the Iron Warriors, although she supposed she should have expected it. Imperial forces weren't much for taking prisoners, but Chaos was an entirely different kind of foe.

"Princess!" Twilight whispered as she scratched at Celestia's leg with her hoof. "We should go. Now, while they're still talking."

Princess Celestia blinked, and Cadence shared a confused glance with Luna.

"Why would we want to leave?" Celestia asked quietly, craning her head down toward the smaller alicorn. "At best, we should be here to ensure that our interests are heard. And even if they won't listen to us, I still want to know the details of their agreement."

Twilight nervously glanced over at the two armored commanders as she chewed her lip, and then looked back up at her mentor. "We should leave because there isn't going to BE an agreement."

Cadence furrowed her brow. "Wait... then why is he bothering to talk to her at all?"

Rarity leaned over to her. "Do you remember how the Tau 'negotiated' with us?"

Celestia and Cadence recoiled, their eyes wide.

Luna smiled. "Let us remain here. We wish to see this reach fruition."

"If we are to agree to a cease fire, my forces must be allowed free movement over the planet's surface," Voidsong demanded, "we will evacuate our own base in our own time."

"Then what exactly ish my fleet getting out of thish? We'll shtill have you xenosh running underfoot, and we don't even get the catharshish of shooting at you anymore," Solon noted.

Voidsong paused a moment to think up an appropriately sarcastic response when the Fireblade behind her interrupted.

*Shas'o! The Stealth Suits in the gardens have engaged a unit of Space Marines! We have Astartes behind our lines!*

"Oh? It took you thish long to find them?" Solon asked, sounding quite pleased. "They musht be doing very well, then!"

Voidsong already had her weapon aimed and warming up again as the Warsmith spoke. "You treacherous slime!"

"Treacheroush? Me? I thought it wash already eshtablished that we were conducting thish deal in the middle of an asshault," the Warsmith reasoned. A pair of drone carriers impacted the ground just outside the throne room, emphasizing his point. "If you wish my sholdiersh to shtand down, and wish to shave your compatriotsh in your bashe and in our minesh, then you will abide by the termsh I have shet. Your choice."

"I will NOT fail in my mission, cultist scum!" Voidsong barked. "I will get to Black Point and my soldiers, even if I have to kill every damn human, post-human, pony, or whatever other imbecile that thinks to get in my way! You can either step aside or die where you stand!" She took a step forward, and Solon leaned back slightly on his chassis. "You think you can stop us?! You have no idea what we've sacrificed to get this far! You selfish, worthless reavers who would cut down your own damn species for the sake of the voices in your head couldn't imagine the aims of a people who would actually think to bring some sanity to this blood-soaked galaxy! No! All you can do is fight, and kill, and burn down every damn thing that won't bow to your lunatic phantasms!"

The ponies and even the two humans in the room shared an uncomfortable glance as the Tau High Commander stopped her shrieking monologue. One of the Fire Warriors coughed awkwardly.

"Well..." Solon said after a few quiet seconds, "it would sheem our negotiationsh have come to an end."

"Yes, they have," Voidsong snarled as her plasma burst cannon started to spin again, "I've had quite enough of this."

"Oh, not becaushe of you," Solon assured her, pointing to the tactical hololith, "it'sh jusht that the train arrived. Ahead of shchedule, too! Kaelith alwaysh comesh through in a pinch!"

The High Commander glanced down at the tactical display next to her, her sensor focus zeroing in on the section of the city that was dedicated to the train station. A long string of red blocks were pulling in to that area, having apparently smashed through the barricade that had been blocking the only decent land route to the city. The cluster of blue markers that were manning the defenses outside the station were starting to disappear at an alarming rate, and numerous new emergency communications signals were lighting up around her visor's strategic display.

Voidsong turned her sensor head back toward Solon, who seemed to be waiting patiently for her to fully come to terms with the situation.

*Kill him,* she snarled.

****

Canterlot - train station, five minutes ago

The riot drones spat volley after volley of pulse carbine fire into the defensive barriers, each wave of energy flares smaller than the last. Pulse fire came back in much smaller, but more precise fusillades, tearing apart the repurposed machines with careful efficiency.

Most of the units defending the train station kept their heads down as the drones splashed pulse fire against the defensive wall. In turns they rose, fired off a volley, and then ducked again before the drones could adjust their aim. It was a careful strategy, but the leaders of the defense garrisons saw no need to be more aggressive; the riot drones weren't adjusting their tactics, and there were still more carriers screaming down from the sky every few minutes. Preserving lives and ammunition was paramount.

Within the train station itself, a group of Pathfinders made their way to the windows and prepared to support. Standing up, they beamed a series of data-feed lasers at the hovering mechanicals.

*We have markerlights, Shas'la!* shouted a squad leader as new targeting data appeared in his helmet display. Even with his head down behind the wall, he now could see the exact location and range of the remaining drones, as well as the aiming angle he'd need to score a hit on his chosen target.

*All units, open fire!*

The ranks of Tau and human auxiliaries stood up at once and fired in a perfectly coordinated volley, sending one cluster of drones to the ground in scorched pieces and ripping apart half of another group.

Those drones, which had been clumsily turning around to engage the Pathfinders, found themselves caught between targets and hesitated as they determined priority.

A crossfire from both the Pathfinders and the defensive garrison shredded the remaining drones, and the Pathfinders quickly made for the roof to search for new targets.

"That's the last of 'em. For the moment," muttered a human soldier as he checked the fallen drones for any remaining signs of function.

"Casualties?" asked a Fire Warrior.

"Just two. Mike and Shescel. Mike'll be alright, though. And for something like forty drones, that's pretty damn good."

"Sure. But they don't seem to be running out," muttered a Tau warily as he turned his head to the skies. Spears of light lanced upward in waves from the numerous anti-air emplacements, only for the carriers to rain down from the sky unhindered. The guns simply couldn't turn and track targets fast enough to hit a relatively small, free-falling object, as opposed to a bulky vehicle trying its best to avoid the ground. They'd be lucky if even one in each twenty drone transports were hit during their descent.

"Still, at this rate it won't matter," the Shas'ui insisted grimly, "there's only so many of those things they can throw at us. The Greater Good will not..."

He trailed off as a communications came from one of the Broadside battlesuits that were covering them from a raised plaza.

*We have incoming. I'm... I'm not sure what it is. It's definitely coming closer, though, and it's using gue'la power sources.*

*Coming from where?* the Shas'ui asked, scanning the skies.

*The rail tunnel!*

The Fire Warrior looked over to the tunnel set in the face of the mountain. It was fairly narrow - much too narrow for any of the humans' bulky, land-bound vehicles to get through - and covered in walls of thick magno-ceramic plating. Not an indestructible barrier by any means, but if an infantry team tried to break through it they'd have time to request reinforcements and ready a devastating firing line.

Unless, perhaps, they used a pair of multi-meltas at point-blank range.

The Lamman troops recoiled in surprise as twin jets of hyper-heated gas blasted a gaping hole in the rail barricade, and they outright gaped as a massive spiked plow broke through the scraps of the barrier that remained. That plow was mounted on the front of a train, which, when they really thought about it, should not have been quite as much of a shock as it was at the time.

The train engine had been replaced by a much more "modern" plasma core, and heavy slats of metal had been bolted onto the flimsy walls of the train cars to provide additional armor to the cargo. Cargo that was aiming rifles out of the windows. Dozens, HUNDREDS, of rifles.

"Down! Down! Get down!" the human Sergeant screamed as a veritable blizzard of lasers and bullets poured into the defensive wall. The train was still moving and the soldiers were packed so tightly in the train that many of them couldn't get a good look outside, but with such volume of fire aiming was a luxury. Some humans and Tau fell to their knees in a panic, others fell on their backs with their bodies ripped apart or cooked alive.

*Reinforcements! We need reinforcements!* screamed a Fire Warrior into his headset. *They're at the train station! We have enemy infantry in-* a fragmentation grenade landed next to the alien soldier, who ended his transmission with a gurgling scream.

Atop the train cars, turreted mortars swiveled about before unleashing a barrage of explosives into the air to land behind the enemy defense wall. As the train reached the station and slowed to a stop, some of the mercenaries carrying heavy weapons muscled their way to the windows, setting their heavy stubbers, bolters, and autocannons against the window sills.

Finally, the train halted completely, and a gout of steam blasted from the engine.

"SURPRISE, motherbuckers!" Smoke Stack shouted as he leaned out the engine car's window and blew the train's whistle. "Take over my station? Disrupt my schedule? Blow up MY TRAIN?! Vengeance is mine!"

Ducking back inside, he bit down on one lever and pulled. All along the passenger trains, doors slid open to allow the infantry an exit, and those mercenaries and cultists who didn't currently have a good firing angle rushed to get out of the stifling crush of bodies.

"And now for the heavy metal!" Smoke Stack shouted before pulling a second lever back with his teeth.

At the rear of the train, three cargo cars that didn't have windows suddenly collapsed open at the sides, turning the reinforced walls of the cars into ramps. Two of them were packed with Iron Warriors, who shouted a brief praise to Khorne before they disembarked into the fray.

The third one carried four Iron Warrior Dreadnoughts, all standing in narrow profile so that they could fit into the train's carriage (and also be carried through the train tunnel).

"At last! Enemies! Targets! VICTIMS!!" howled one of the insane combat walkers as it charged up its plasma cannon and started stomping toward the crumbling defenses.

"Bwa ha ha ha ha!" Smoke Stack laughed as he watched the human infantry rush over the defensive line in waves, jumping onto the suppressed defenders and finishing off the wounded. "How do ya like me now, Tau?!"

Behind the pony engineer, Kaelith was coiled up in a circle and watching over the plasma engine, given that the pony knew absolutely nothing about the device. "Rhetorical interrogative: you realize that your entire contribution to this exercise is pulling mechanical levers with no particular demand for timing, correct?"

Smoke Stack glared back at the Dark Magos. "Oh, just let me have this, would you?"

The sound of shrieking metal alerted both of them to sudden damage on the train, and Kaelith quickly found the source. "Analysis: incoming railgun fire from forty-four-point-one-six meters at twenty-eight-point-nine degrees. Two mortars are off-line. Determining response..."

Smoke Stack leaned out the window. "Yeah, I see 'em. Two bulky ones, up on the garden balcony."

"Conclusive: I may handle this myself." With that perfectly concise explanation, the Dark Magos uncoiled his body and scuttled out of the engine train.

Up on the balcony garden, heavy bolter fire and an autocannon pounded against the heavy shell of the lead Broadside suit, forcing it back as chunks of ablative plating fell into the soft grass below.

*We're falling back! We can't hold this position against this much firepower!* shouted the lead suit as it turned around.

A shimmering ball of plasma streaked by its shoulder, and the suits turned away as the projectile exploded amongst a cluster of planters near the back of the balcony. Everything within the radius of the blast vaporized, leaving only a molten crater behind.

*We need infantry and armor support at the train station!* continued the lead battlesuit as they pulled away from the lip of the balcony. Soon the balcony itself blocked any line of fire from the many guns below, mercifully separating them from the enemy assault force. *We have hostiles moving into the city! Mostly light infantry, but also a number of Astartes and walkers! They've already overrun our defenses!*

*We hear you, Shas'ui. Fall back to your designated rendezvous point and regroup.*

*Got it. We-* the damaged battlesuit was interrupted by a spear of melta gas punching through its back, and its pilot was vaporized in an instant.

The other Broadside whirled around, only to having something dark, long, and disturbingly fast snake through the ruined flower beds and latch onto its torso plating.

The Broadside's assailant loomed up over it, and the Tau pilot looked up to see a dark hood containing nothing but dozens of glimmering red lights and twisted tubing.

*Get off me, you blasted... what?* the pilot tried to punch the Dark Magos, but found as he reared the suit's fist back that the reaction was sluggish, as if the battlesuit itself was resisting him.

His sensor readouts started stuttering, and the pilot began to panic as he spotted the telltale signs of severe program slowdown and corruption.

+Rumination: the machine spirits of Tau devices are always so weak. It is a wonder they function for you at all,+ Kaelith said in binary as thin mechadendrites seeped from under his rubber robes and crept over the battlesuit. Like a predator with a freshly poisoned meal, he began to drag away the armored soldier by the legs, dropping it on its back.

The Broadside pilot didn't understand a single syllable of the crackling Binaric Cant, but he was terrifyingly aware of his suit's systems going into standby or restarting one by one, leaving him all but helpless within the otherwise secure armored shell.

+Another prize for the collection,+ Kaelith hissed as the battlesuit's main reactor finally shut down.

****

5 Kilometers outside Canterlot

"Awwww, YEAH!" Rainbow Dash screamed as she stood atop the cockpit of a Stormraven gunship, the wind whipping through her mane.

The airspace in front of her was an insane mess of lasers, tracers, smoking metal, and flaming explosions. Hellblade Chaos fighters ran dizzying circuits against Tau Barracudas and Sunsharks, dueling furiously with the aliens' interception strike force. The transport gunships stayed in formation behind the aerial melee, contributing as much firepower as possible while keeping a much more consistent pace toward the city. Each time a Tau aircraft would break free of the interceptor screen it would quickly find itself bracketed by overlapping fields of fire and ripped apart, sending it screaming to a fiery grave in the plains below.

A Hellblade interceptor flying above suddenly lost control as an ion cannon hit its engine, and it started spinning like a flaming drill head before slamming directly into the side of a Thunderhawk transport. The gunship lurched to the side from the impact, and then began to descend as it was forced into an emergency landing. A set of the magnetic winches holding up the Rhino transports failed after a few seconds, and one of the transports was dropped to the ground like a boxy, silver bomb.

"Whoa! Sucks to be them!" Rainbow Dash shouted back at her fellow passengers.

Tellis was standing right behind her, his boots mag-locked to the gunship roof and his arms crossed over his chest. The rest of the Steel Reavers were attached to the various gunships around them, clinging to the hulls, wings, or undersides of the aircraft so that they might leap on the enemy at a moment's notice.

"This is taking too damn long!" Tellis snarled, focusing his optics past the air battle toward the distant city. "At this rate, all the good killing will be over with by the time we get there!"

A Raptor crouched on the gunship's wing suppressed a sigh, a reaction he was well-practiced at. "My lord, it is advised that we wait until the enemy's aerial forces are dispatched before continuing on into the city."

Tellis took a moment to appreciate the sight of a Barracuda fighter flipping end-over-end into a lake, and then responded. "And I advise that we get to punching stuff NOW. Guess which plan we're working with?"

"Hey, how about a compromise?" Rainbow Dash shouted back to the post-humans. "We two will go on ahead, while all you slowpokes can catch up once all the best action is over!"

The Raptor hesitated. "That isn't so much a 'compromise' as it is everyone doing whatever they want regardless of orders and planning," he pointed out.

"I LOVE IT!" Tellis screamed as his flight pack spread out behind him. "Let's fly, Rainbabe!"

With a happy chuckle Rainbow Dash spread her wings, instantly lifting off of the gunship as they caught the wind rushing by her. Within moments, she and Tellis had flown straight into the furious dogfight, a trail of smoke and rainbows marking their path.

"My lord," called the Raptor into his vox-link, "do you at least remember our primary mission objective?"

"Hit everything blue and black until it's black and blue!" Tellis answered.

"No, Lord Tellis. Do you remember the briefing notes about the anti-air turrets?" the Raptor asked.

"Why am I still talking to you?" The vox-link to the Raptor Lord went dead.

Another Raptor connected his vox link and spoke up. "Isn't this worse than usual? Normally he waits until we get to the combat zone before he forgets our objectives and goes off on his own."

"I think that blue thing is a bad influence on him," the Raptor champion mumbled, "in any case, our mission remains the same. Wait until the enemy fighter screen is cleared, then we jump into the city and target their guns! Iron within!"

"Iron without!"

****

Below Canterlot City

Fluttershy peeked out from behind a set of ammunition hoppers at the Dark Techpriests, trying to figure out what was happening now.

She knew that they had stopped, and that they were at the base of the mountain that held Canterlot. The constant scream of the Tau's anti-air fire could be heard from high above, and off in the distance she couldn't help but notice a furious aerial battle taking place, with bright explosions and billowing trails of smoke marking the chaos of battle.

But what were the daemon engines supposed to be doing? She could tell they were getting anxious, picking up the sounds of bloodletting but seeing no enemies nearby. If things continued like this for much longer, then Fluttershy supposed she might need to calm the poor monstrosities down herself to keep them from lashing out at the Dark Mechanicus priesthood, and she was still nervous about letting them know she was here.

"Pst! Fluttershy! Is it all clear? What's going on?" Spike asked. He was hidden behind the main body, hanging from some power cables.

"I don't think it's safe yet," Fluttershy whispered back nervously.

A loud whirring noise brought her attention to the Mechanicus transports, which were now aiming large, tethered harpoon guns up at the side of the mountain. That was strange, and for a moment Fluttershy wondered if the Iron Warriors hadn't decided to bring down part of the city after all.

Then the harpoon guns fired, trailing long, thick adamantium cables behind their rocket-assisted projectiles.

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes suspiciously as she watched the harpoons stab into the crags above, each one hitting very close to the point at which the mountain side met the extended platform that held the city. They didn't explode or anything though, which at least put her initial fear to rest.

"What was that? What's happening?" Spike asked.

Fluttershy blinked owlishly as she watched the Techpriests carry mechanized spools over to the daemon engines, each one attached to a harpoon cable.

"I think... we're going up the mountain," Fluttershy mumbled back to the dragon.

Spike looked up at her. "How? Can these things fly or something?"

"No, they're... um, walking, I think."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "Say what?"

A Dark Techpriest approached the Defiler purposefully, her mouth spewing Binaric litanies to reassure the war machine that it would soon be delivered into battle. Fluttershy added her own soothing (and very quiet) whispers of assurance just in case as the Dark Techpriest proceeded to attach and weld the cable spool into place on the chassis.

As the engineer-cultist finished her task, Fluttershy snuck a peek at the other war machines, most of which already had their spools attached. There were six daemon engines in total: the Defiler, two Forgefiends boasting massive guns, and three of their cousins, the Maulerfiends, bearing heavy, powerful mechanical hands.

"Pinkie, did you hear me? I think we're going to be walking up the mountain and into the city," Fluttershy whispered. She wasn't completely sure where to whisper, though; it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know where their exuberant companion was.

The Defiler lurched forward, and Fluttershy crept down from behind the autocannon.

"Spike, do you know where Pinkie Pie is?"

Spike looked up at her. "Wait, she's not up there with you?"

"YEEEEE-HAAAAAW!!"

Fluttershy, Spike, and every Dark Techpriest flinched as a whooping shout came from one of the Maulerfiends that was scrambling up the side of the mountain with its harpoon tether winding tight.

Pinkie was riding over the daemon engine's neck, flailing a glitter-encrusted top hat about in one foreleg in imitation of a rodeo rider.

"Go on, ya metal varmint!" Pinkie cheered in a giggling imitation of Applejack's accent as the siege crawler pulled itself upward. The Maulerfiend was obviously agitated by its rider, but this particular unit wasn't equipped with lasher tendrils and all it could do was thrash its head wildly from side to side to try to dislodge the pony. Pinkie did seem to be spurring the walker on, however, and it quickly clawed its way past the other daemon engines as its tether spool strained to pull it up faster.

The Dark Techpriests stared at the unusual spectacle from the base of the mountain as the Defiler moved up the first crag on the near-vertical ascent.

+Should we... do something? Like, shoot it off, or... yell at it, maybe?+ buzzed a Dark Acolyte.

+Is that the one that threw the party?+

+The party that nearly got us all killed by Lord Sliver? Yes, I think it is.+

The Dark Techpriest turned around, beckoning to her colleagues and subordinates. +Leave it. I rather like that one. And we wouldn't want to waste any ammunition, would we?+

+... Right. Whatever you say.+

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Twilight cringed away from the storm of energy weapon fire, averting her eyes from the heat flash as they practically swallowed Solon's bulk.

She hadn't really been clear on this part of the plan from the beginning; she supposed that Solon had originally been thinking the Princesses might be held somewhere away from a proper garrison, and that the enemy High Commander would be lightly guarded. That was the only explanation she could see for his expecting to roam about the castle with only Delgan and Gaela for escorts, and it seemed that he was now paying the price for his error.

"We have to go!" Twilight said urgently to Celestia, pushing against the stunned white alicorn. "Quick, while they're occupied!"

"Oh, there's no hurry," Delgan assured her, still leaning against the wall, "they'll be occupied for a while, yet."

"This is my favorite part," Gaela said, her tone almost wistful, "the realization, and then... the fear."

Twilight blinked, and then twisted her head back toward the Warsmith.

Streams of plasma and pulse fire washed over a rippling bubble in front of Solon's body, the points of contact turning dark. Even the occasional rail rifle impact plunged into the barrier with little effect, the kinetic energy absorbed with ease.

Solon calmly lifted his left hand toward his right shoulder, pulling a manual safety lever. His right arm had been replaced by a squat, cone-barreled cannon with no apparent ammunition feed and a great number of cylinder-shaped power capacitors surrounding the gun's chamber.

Voidsong's plasma burst cannon continued spewing a veritable river of blazing green flares into the shield, but to the Shas'o's increasing frustration the barrier wouldn't fall. Her soldiers had already started moving about for cover, uncomfortably aware that their target was going to survive long enough to retaliate.

Voidsong quickly looked over her scanner readouts as she let her plasma weapon complete its firing cycle. She was surprised to find that the energy signature of the barrier was quite familiar to her.

"A void shield? You have a void shield that small? Impossible!" the High Commander growled.

"Imposhible?" Solon asked with a chuckle as the barrage finally slowed. "I wash conshtructing the imposhible back when your race wash shtill figuring out fire!" He laughed as he aimed his cannon at the tactical hololith table. "Let me show you more of my imposhible creationsh!"

The singularity pulse cannon fired, spitting a dark gray orb into the projector table.

The table was crushed instantly into a crumpled ball. Floor tiling peeled off the ground and flew toward it like a wave of stone. Every window in the throne room shattered inward, the shards flying toward the impact point in a hail of glass. The columns nearest to that section of the hall cracked and bent inward. The battlesuits that were moving to flank the Warsmith were yanked back out of the air, out of control. They were joined by the Fire Warriors and Fireblades, who were pulled out of cover into a haphazard pile on the floor... mostly along with the cover itself. Even the ponies on the other side of the room staggered as they felt a sudden pull on their bodies, and Twilight rapidly extended her wings in a panic, thinking she might be dragged away.

"All too eashy," Solon murmured as his heavy bolters slid out of their sheaths.

Voidsong's suit activated its jet pack before he could fire, and she blasted to her feet before her suit shimmered and then vanished from sight.

The heavy bolters fired, and half the Tau that didn't have the benefit of battlesuit armor were ripped apart in a matter of seconds. One of the soldiers that DID have a battlesuit didn't fare so well either, and a heavy bolter shell managed to pierce the cockpit hatch and pulverize the pilot within.

As the surviving lighter infantry scrambled away on their hands and knees, the other battlesuits boosted away on their jet packs, spreading out before their stealth fields activated and they vanished from sight.

Solon paused as he focused in on the fallen battlesuit, identifying the fusion blaster on its arm. Good. He had only detected two of the anti-vehicle weapons, which meant there was only one more severe threat to his void shield.

Solon's mechatendrils spread out, and for a second, the Chaos Lord stood perfectly still.

Thermal readings, sonic reverberations, and air currents were all read and analyzed in an instant, creating a sensory snapshot of four invisible armor suits darting about the throne hall. Solon focused on the only one that was moving closer and leapt like a spider in ambush, his front legs scything downward and slamming into his target.

The Heavy Stealth Suit hit the ground hard, and its fusion blaster discharged into the floor to dig a molten trench through the flagstone.

With the battlesuit pinned, Solon lowered the enormous servo claw at his side, its pincers snapping shut like a hungry maw. Plasma and pulse rifle fire battered his void shield from all angles, but the barrier held firm as he crushed the life from his prey and ground apart the advanced ceramic armor of the Tau like a potter's clay.

"You know Princess, while Mister Solon DOES seem to have the upper hoof at the moment, I believe it would be pertinent for us to take Twilight's advice and find someplace safer!" Rarity shouted over the scream of pulse fire and heavy bolter bursts.

Luna pouted. "But dost thou not wish to see the deliverance of hot, explosive justice against the alien?"

"Not while I'm close enough to trip on the ammunition casings, no!" Rarity replied, gesturing to the many short, steaming metal tubes that were rolling across the floor.

"Poor timing, then," Gaela said, her vox unit raising her voice appropriately as she turned her gaze toward the open doorway next to her, "we have incoming."

"Oh? Battlesuits or little ones?" Delgan asked. He raised one arm and then the other, tapping his bracers in a carefully deliberate sequence. Small, curved energy barriers appeared over them as he did so, humming to life with a soft orange glow.

"First one, then the other," Gaela brandished her plasma pistol and power axe as the sound of approaching jet packs rose over the din of Solon crushing his prey.

The first Tau reinforcement to enter the throne room was a Crisis Suit, and it was ready. Having detected Gaela's power armor just as she had detected its approach, the battlesuit twisted out of the path of her axe's swing and spun about to face her, skimming over the floor as its momentum carried it out of melee range.

It did not detect the rather poorly armored Delgan, and as such was completely surprised when two crackling power swords sliced through its back.

The battlesuit lost flight power immediately, and loosed an aimless burst from its plasma gun before it crashed into the floor, sliding to a stop right in front of Rarity. Before it, or she, could do anything else, Delgan dove toward the fallen armor and stabbed both swords into the armor cockpit, skewering the pilot.

Gaela had moved on, blocking the next battlesuit directly as it followed its partner into the room. The Crisis Suit dwarfed the Dark Acolyte, but it was already at an utterly inappropriate range and couldn't adjust its course in time. Gaela's axe bit into the torso plating, and then her servo arm slammed into the heavy armor, crushing the suit's arm and bringing it fully to a stop. Her plasma pistol finished it off, and the dying hulk nearly crushed one of the Fire Warriors rushing into the room as it keeled over.

"Chaos comes for you!" her vox-enhanced battle cry echoed off the walls as she shoulder-checked a Tau and plowed into the rest of the unit, her axe rising and falling in bloody arc as her servo arms struck the aliens in a mechanized frenzy. Delgan was by her side in a moment, his blades lashing out like lightning bolts as he kept the enemy soldiers from surrounding her.

The battle was joined.

****

Canterlot Castle - main gardens

Big Mac's visor blurred away into static briefly as a pulse round struck him in the chest, and he twitched his heavy bolter over as the offending Fire Warrior was highlighted in red.

A stitch of heavy bolts ripped into the gardens, chewing apart trees and shattering vine-covered statues as they sought the targets hiding in the growth.

The hit scored by his enemy stung briefly, but it faded away to nothing as he continued to spew explosions through the green archways where the enemy soldiers were sheltering.

A screaming blast of green plasma flew past him, vaporizing a good part of a statue and the Fire Warrior behind it. Still, Big Mac could see new red marks appearing on his display, and he took a few steps back behind a fountain as he saw a devilfish APC swooping low over the distant garden walls.

"Mac! Big Mac, you all right?!" Applejack called, her voice barely reaching him over the thunder of the boltguns all around her. He didn't bother to answer; his own voice probably would reach as easily, and his focus was better applied toward survival.

The Chaos Space Marines were stretched thin in the garden, but they worked with punishing efficiency and terrifying speed. Each one would move swiftly from cover to cover to get in close to the Tau and expose a unit's flank, which would lead to the Tau soldiers either quickly abandoning their position and getting shot apart, or lead to an Iron Warrior sprinting within arms' reach. As far as Macintosh could tell, once a Chaos Marine got that close, his target was as good as dead; Fire Warriors were crushed or mangled as the armored giants ripped through them, while the gun drones would have their undersides savaged by chainswords or shots from bolt pistols. He had even managed to divert his attention from his own fighting long enough to watch a Heavy Stealth Suit get battered to pieces by Tolken's power maul.

Impressive as the super-soldiers were, however, four had already fallen, and the Tau seemed to be reinforcing the area as fast as they were being killed. If this kept up there was no way they'd find whatever was generating that stupid Shadow.

Also, he was starting to feel a strange... tension in his chest. It was something new, and he was pretty sure it had to do with the new gizmos built into his body, but without knowing exactly what was happening he'd tried to ignore the feeling.

Big Macintosh glanced up at a raised, iron-wrought balcony where a squad of Pathfinders were creeping up to the railing. His servo arm twisted upward, and he fired his magnetic harpoon.

He wasn't totally sure what to expect from the device, but it clamped onto the underside of the platform with a satisfying banging noise, and then the spool engine pulled the harpoon cable tight.

Big Mac surged backward, wrenching the balcony free of its mountings. The platform fell to the ground, landing square on a Stealth Suit and spilling the Pathfinders onto a flower bed. Big Mac lined up the heavy bolter again.

Tolken brought his elbow down on a Fire Warrior squad leader, and then swung his power maul around, taking the alien's entire upper torso off. A shot from his bolt pistol felled the next soldier in line, and the last warrior turned around to run.

Another Iron Warrior intercepted the survivor first, bowling him over and then stomping on the Tau's back.

Tolken quickly turned back behind a savaged unicorn statue, a pulse round scraping his shoulder pad. In a matter of two seconds he had identified the next patch of resistance, armed a fragmentation grenade, and lobbed it behind a thick hedge.

He didn't watch it detonate, instead checking his own unit. "Trixie!" the Armsmaster growled.

The armored unicorn was huddled behind a pair of massive planters, the orange pony right next to her.

"The emitter thingy is that way!" Trixie shouted back, pointing a foreleg and then yelping as a photon grenade bounced nearby.

Tolken took a moment to fire his plasma gun at the newly arrived APC, coring it through its burst cannon assembly and effectively disarming the vehicle. The cover was so dense in the gardens that the Tau vehicles were forced to hover over it to get any sort of firing angle, which left them graciously exposed.

"Not that!" he shouted into his vox as the APC veered away. "You have wargear! Stop hiding and use it!" Tolken demanded, breaking from cover toward a pack of gun drones that were hovering in over the garden wall.

"Oh, for Celestia's sake," Trixie grumbled as the spots gradually faded from her eyes.

"Well, yeah, this IS fer Celestia's sake," Applejack reminded her.

Not deigning to reply to the earth pony, Trixie spotted a group of rather primitive-looking creatures racing through the gardens at the Iron Warrior's flanks, wielding rifles tipped with blades.

"All right, then let's try... THIS!" Trixie mumbled, feeding the proper commands through her nervous uplink.

Half a dozen images of Applejack flickered into being around Trixie, and then in staggered sequence the false ponies reared up and charged toward the oncoming aliens.

Trixie was quite disappointed that, without magic, she couldn't make the hololiths scream some sort of hilariously silly battle cry as they plunged into battle, but to her surprise one of them did.

"FER APPLES, AND EQUESTRIA!!"

It took Trixie a moment to realize that Applejack had actually joined the orange stampede toward the auxiliaries. She hadn't expected that at all.

True to form, the Kroot started opening fire on the oncoming herd, not seeming especially curious as to why none of their shots seemed to connect. In a few moments they crashed into the charging images, quickly stumbling to a confused halt as their blades and kicks went right through the furious equines.

Then one of them went flying into a thorn bush with a pair of hoof prints in its back.

"Behold, Trixie's army of illusions!" the unicorn cackled as she kept the fake Applejacks racing around the aliens' feet and kicking wildly, and then another Carnivore went flying from the melee. "Eenie, meenie, miney, moe! Which pony is your actual foe? When she hits you, then you'll know! Eenie, meenie... hey, wait, get back! Go away!"

Trixie started backing up as the Kroot made a mad dash for her hiding spot, apparently dismissing the herd of (mostly) fake ponies in favor of the noisy armored one. The real Applejack gave chase, and managed to take down one of the aliens by kicking out its shins, but she couldn't possibly prevent the rest from rushing the other equine with guns blazing.

Trixie yelped as a few bullets cracked against her leg and shoulder, and she quickly remembered that she had an actual weapon on her as well. Her horn filled with magic as she recalled Solon's instructions on using the Fireburst Launcher, and her cape swung to the side to unveil the gun. "Stay away from Trixie, you alien mongrels!" Trixie screamed as she fired.

Two darts of flame blasted from the mouth of the gun as she felt the magic suddenly drain out of her horn. The projectiles trailed great, colorful paths of sparks behind them as they twisted and curled through the air, and the nearest Kroot had to look away from the flashing strobes.

Trixie hadn't put much thought into aiming, however, and the firebursts sailed festively over the heads of all the incoming aliens before reaching a copse of sparkling lilies that had been mercifully spared up until now. The firebursts detonated with a considerable blast radius despite their small size, instantly blanketing the magical shrubbery and surrounding planters with fire, but leaving not a single Kroot worse for wear.

The charging savages were instead brought to a halt by a spread of heavy bolter rounds sawing through their unit, followed by the thunder of metal-clad hooves over the ground.

Big Macintosh barreled into the auxiliaries like a wrecking ball, goring one Carnivore on his horns and trampling another as he pushed through the unit and scattered them. Blades scraped noisily against his armor as the aliens battered at him, and Macintosh felt the tension in his chest grow tighter as he kicked and thrashed his head.

He sent a Carnivore flying and knocked over two others with a buck from his augmetic leg, only for one of the creatures to slam its rifle upon his helmet especially hard and stagger him. The other Kroot wasted no time in jumping on the armored draft pony, their blades shrieking against his ceramite shell.

The tension in his chest released.

Big Mac's vision went double, and then triple as his body was flooded with combat stimulants, and every muscle in his body suddenly felt like it was on fire. The moment passed as his vision centered again, and he felt the Kroot grabbing hold of him, ruthlessly digging their weapons into any hinge or seam that they could find.

Applejack flinched back as she heard a very un-Macintosh-like roar fill the gardens, followed by him rearing up and flinging away the aliens that had grabbed hold of him.

The elder Apple sibling moved like a pony possessed, leaping on the Kroot that had been knocked prone and crushing them with startling speed and ruthlessness. A Carnivore that tried to stand up behind him was literally ripped in half by a kick from his bionic leg, and then Mac gored another with his horns before throwing it aside with a twist of his neck.

Another stomp and kick and the unit was finished, every Carnivore dead or dying in the grass around him. Big Mac thought he heard Applejack calling his name, but the sound seemed distant and muffled, as if it were reaching through water. The screams of gunfire and shouting in various languages seemed like distant echoes, and he spotted a pair of Crisis Suits dropping down behind a stone wall, their jet packs burning. Their movements were slower than before, Macintosh noted as he rushed up to the wall where two Iron Warriors were already sheltering. In fact, almost everything seemed to be moving more slowly now.

Swinging around, Big Mac raised his augmetic leg as the hip actuator squealed and sprayed sparks into the air. He slammed the leg into the hefty stone barrier, and the wall exploded outward. The Iron Warriors rushed through the hole in an instant, their chainswords drawn and no words exchanged. Even when moving in slow-motion, like everything else, they were surprisingly quick.

Tolken fired another burst of plasma bolts into a copse of trees that was sheltering some Stealth Suits, and he growled through his vox as he started to feel the heat bleed of his weapon through his gauntlet.

Turning back behind an iron-wrought statue, he took a quick look at his rearguard and noticed that Trixie was actually participating now. She wasn't exposing herself to the enemy much, which was largely a good thing. She hadn't done much damage to the enemy either, which was not a good thing. But she HAD set several flower beds and some vines on fire, which was an irrelevant thing, and gave him an idea.

He peeked out from cover and quickly used his visor to mark several points in the garden where clusters of foliage obscured the enemy or were otherwise densely packed. A plasma blast slashed by his head as he ducked back down and linked to Trixie's vox.

"I'm uploading new targets. Fire upon these points and light them aflame," Tolken ordered before drawing his bolt pistol and blowing apart a gun drone that had strayed out into the open.

"Er... okay, but... you know this is going to end up spreading fire through the entire garden, right?" Trixie answered back.

"That is the point, witch."

"Just checking."

A few seconds later a pair of fireballs crashed into the garden wall, lighting that segment aflame. A few seconds after that, a cluster of thick vines that had already been quite badly shredded by pulse and bolt fire went up. Next came the cluster of trees that sheltered the Stealth Suits, and then another section of garden wall.

The aforementioned battlesuits abandoned their position as the flames quickly spread around them, their jet packs carrying them behind a large stone fountain. One suit was clipped by bolter fire as it moved, and its jet pack was blown off before it staggered to the ground and was finished off a moment later.

*Damn! This whole place is going up in flames!* snarled the Shas'ui, taking note of the spreading fires and their location on the outermost points in the garden. *They're trying to force us closer!*

*Shas'ui, we're barely holding them back as it is! If we can't keep to range then they'll tear us apart!*

The squad leader spat a salvo from his burst cannon, and then ducked back behind the fountain as bolter fire started to chew it apart.

*Fall back to the field projector.*

*Shas'ui?*

*They must be here for that. There's nothing else back here worth attacking. We'll carry it behind the castle and defend it there. Now MOVE!*

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Delgan's power swords whipped through the Tau in crackling arcs, slicing burning gashes into the Fire Warriors with unnatural speed. A Crisis Suit tried to hammer a fist into him, only for him to raise an arm almost casually to deflect the blow against his shield bracers. The barrier field sparked as the suit's arm bounced off, and Delgan sliced one blade upward to cut a gash through the limb before turning around and stabbing a Fire Warrior through the back. Turning the rest of the way around while bringing his power swords together, Delgan ripped both of them through the battlesuit, carving a thick gash through its torso plating and then shifting away.

Gaela, to be sure, lacked any shred of Delgan's speed and grace, but she gladly faced the alien warriors with all the unsubtle brutality of her station. Where the Trademaster struck like a viper, his weapons lashing in and out while he evaded and twisted, the Dark Acolyte fought more like a bear. Each swing of her axe brought her target to a shuddering halt, and on the occasions that the first blow didn't finish her foe, her servo arms descended to savage the target. Battlesuit and Fire Warrior both were crushed under her blows, and her heavy armor shuddered but held firm against their retaliations.

Solon, meanwhile, was chasing the remaining Heavy Stealth Suits around the throne room, using his sensory pings to track the hidden enemies before lunging at them. There were still a few Fire Warriors near the front entrance, but he paid them little mind. They could be finished off at his leisure, after he had dealt with the greatest threats.

One of his mechatendrils blasted a jet of fire to one side as Solon fired his heavy bolters in a wide spread, and he was rewarded with a chance impact against the air. The rest of the Heavy Stealth Suit flickered into view for a moment, and the Warsmith lunged.

One front leg hit the battlesuit, digging into the front armor and pinning it against the wall under a shattered window.

"Tag! You're dead!" Solon said cheerfully as he reached his servo claw forward and crushed the struggling armor suit, cockpit and all.

Solon stepped off of the ruined armor, his shield still sizzling against the ceaseless barrage of pulse rifles.

"All right then, who'sh next?" he asked as he turned away from the wall and started a new sensor sweep.

The sound of a nearby anti-gravity engine gave him pause, however, and he turned back around to look out the window.

A Hammerhead gunship was hovering outside the castle hall, its heavy railgun swiveling about to aim at him through the window.

"Oh, no you don't!" the Warsmith yelled, aiming the singularity pulse cannon out at the hover tank.

Both weapons fired, the shriek of their mutual discharge echoing through the hall and bringing a halt to the fusillade uselessly pounding Solon's void shield.

The Hammerhead imploded as the singularity pulse hit home, its hull cracking into thousands of shards and pulped components that simultaneously tried to occupy the same point on the vehicle's armor. A moment later the gravity well vanished, and the pieces of the gunship fell to the ground in a rain of debris.

The effect of the heavy railgun on Solon was far less dramatic. His void shield overloaded instantly and popped like a bubble as sparks blasted out of the emitter arrays on his back.

"... Uh oh," the Warsmith mumbled.

Then a pulse rifle blast struck him in the side of the head, pitching his helmet to the side.

"Solon!" Twilight shouted anxiously as the Warsmith started backing away, shielding his face with left arm.

"No, no, I'm all - OOF! - I'm okay. I've shtill - GAH! - I've got thish!" Pulse fire battered his body and chassis, throwing up blasts of sparks and searing off chunks of metal, but even without a barrier Solon's armor was extremely formidable. A wild spray of his heavy bolters sent the Fire Warriors ducking back behind their cover, and Solon's singularity pulse cannon started to whine as he expedited its firing cycle.

Then Voidsong shimmered into view on the Chaos Lord's right flank.

She unleashed a brutal spray of plasma bolts into the Warsmith's side, cutting apart one leg and melting holes in the singularity pulse cannon near its firing chamber.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Solon cursed as he staggered, dropping one corner of his chassis on the floor and smashing one of his heavy bolters under his weight.

He turned to try to retaliate against the Tau leader, but Voidsong had already vanished from view and he was now receiving several very unsettling system warnings from his augmetic weapon.

"Oh, are you sherioush? I only got to fire the damn thing twice!" Solon complained as he uncoupled the cannon and then ripped it out of its nerve socket with his free hand. Noticing that it was vibrating dangerously, he hurled it toward the nearest cluster of Fire Warriors.

The familiar cracking noise of the singularity discharge came from the damaged weapon as it fired one last time, instantly crushing two Tau soldiers and yanking the remainder onto the floor once again. Without the proper bracing of all six legs, even Solon was dragged a few inches across the ground as the gravity well sprung to life and then vanished without a trace.

Shifting his legs to force his chassis off the floor, the Chaos Lord aimed his remaining heavy bolter toward the staggered aliens and released a punishing burst, turning the hapless soldiers to bloody chunks.

As his gun thundered away, Voidsong appeared yet again, this time with the other remaining Heavy Stealth Suit behind her.

"Hark! To thy rear quarter, Warsmith!"

Luna's warning came to late, although it's debatable whether Solon could have done anything with further warning anyhow. A stream of plasma and missiles crashed into the Iron Warrior from behind, blasting apart another pair of legs and tearing off one of his smokestacks.

The Chaos Lord yelped as his chassis dropped flat onto the floor, crushing his remaining heavy bolter beneath his bulk.

Despite the apparent damage, Voidsong was actually quite frustrated; considering the strength of those munitions and the penetrating power of her plasma burst cannon, they were doing frustratingly little damage to the massive Iron Warrior. His body was stronger than anything she had encountered before from an enemy of his size, even after taking down that blasted void shield.

As the strange metal tentacles rounded on her, she also reflected that he had many more weapons besides the large, obvious ones. She raised her shield arm as she waited for her gun to finish its cooling cycle, watching with contempt as a series of cutting lasers flashed uselessly against her own barrier.

Gaela hacked down another Fire Warrior, splitting his own sword in half before rending the soldier from shoulder to pelvis.

She heard Luna's shout, but was well aware that a moment's inattention could cost her life in a melee. She shouldered aside a Tau that was trying to stab her flank, and then disintegrated another with her plasma pistol.

"Delgan! You deal with this!" she shouted over the sound of explosions behind her.

In a flash the Trademaster had cut down another two Fire Warriors that were trying to break past her, and then the swordsman was alone in front of her.

"The others broke and ran. I've got them," he said through heavy breaths. He didn't wait for answer, sprinting out of the throne room and lancing the first survivor he saw in the back.

Gaela turned, her eyes landing first on the smoldering chassis of the Warsmith before tracking to the warrior primarily responsible.

Her plasma pistol was already venting hot steam around her gauntlet, but she fired into the High Commander anyway.

Voidsong suppressed an angry scream as her plasma burst cannon was ripped apart by an unexpected energy blast from her side, and she risked a glance over.

She was treated to the almost-amusing sight of Gaela's plasma gun falling to the floor in a scorched, flaming mess, having overheated catastrophically. Were the Dark Acolyte any less armored she no doubt would have lost the hand.

Voidsong heard a clicking noise come from her main opponent, and saw that Solon was drawing a boltgun from an armored case on his chassis, taking it up in his remaining arm. The weapon seemed almost comical in the giant's hand, especially after she'd had to systematically destroy his larger guns, but it was still a threat. Voidsong took off to the side with her jet pack as Solon rotated on his chassis and fired at her, trying to draw the Chaos Lord's fire away from her remaining trooper.

She succeeded, and the other Heavy Stealth Suit finished cycling its burst cannon and started shooting again.

Gaela dove for the remaining battlesuit, cleaving through its arm and separating it in a spray of shattered armor.

This soldier managed to dodge the following attack from the servo arm, twisting on one foot with uncommon agility and slamming its remaining arm into Gaela's head.

The helmet of her power armor broke away, the plates of adamantium snapping apart at the seams and tumbling away as she staggered under the sheer force of the blow.

The battlesuit regained its footing, and then tried to hammer its arm down to finish the Acolyte, but Gaela's servo arm grabbed the limb in mid-swing and then crushed it in its grip.

Gaela felt blood trickling across her face, but the throbbing in her head was a distant worry in the midst of combat. Regaining her bearings, she looked up just as the Heavy Stealth Suit activated its jet pack and rammed forward, thinking to simply barrel her over with its greater mass.

Gaela punched her bionic arm forward, and her entire body shuddered as the battlesuit's ablative plating cracked under the impact. The suit's charge was stopped dead even as its jet pack strained to overcome her, and she once again bit into her opponent with her servo arm to hold it fast.

"G-Gaela?" Twilight asked, looking rather disturbed as Gaela grappled with the heavy armor suit.

"What concerns thee, Twilight Sparkle?" Luna asked from where she was seated, quite obviously enjoying herself. "She seems to be prevailing in her duel. More so than the Warsmith, We might add."

"It's not that," Rarity said with a haunted tone in her voice, "it's just..."

Twilight gulped as Gaela found enough room to raise her power axe for a full swing into her enemy's cockpit. "She's... She's smiling..."

****

Canterlot - main plaza (improvised prison yard)

Shining Armor winced as he watched a row of Chaos riot drones come apart under a volley of missiles, and he turned his head away as a wave of heat washed over him and the soldiers he was interred with.

Little was left of the mechanicals other than a few scorched bits of debris, and he glanced over to the depleted drone carrier that was lying in a small crater further back. It was merely one of seven such objects, but for all the equipment the Iron Warriors had launched into this area, it had taken a paltry toll on the Tau defenders.

*Area secure. Prepare for the next wave,* barked a Broadside battlesuit loaded down with missile launchers on both arms and shoulders. Its armor was dotted with scorch marks, but the riot drones had caused no real damage to the hefty soldier.

*Forget that! We need to reinforce the city!* shouted a Tau squad leader. *our garrisons are being overrun! The gue'vesa'la deployments have fallen back to the city edge and we've lost half of our anti-air guns already!*

A pair of Devilfish transports zipped overhead on their way to the city streets, and the Broadside suit spared a glance at the anti-air guns that were positioned behind the electrified cages. The two auto turrets were still blasting a constant stream of ion bolts into the sky in its desperate attempt to intercept the drone carriers, and they were linked to the same ion generator as the ponies' cages.

*What of this turret position, and the prisoners? Are we to leave them unguarded?*

*It's not a matter of 'guarding' anymore! We know where the enemy is! They're not going to get here unless they finish taking the city first, and we can still stop them if we hurry! They didn't bring enough troops to clean us out!*

The battlesuit operator seemed skeptical, even as it zoomed its optics toward the plumes of smoke coming from the city's buildings. *What does Command say?*

*I don't know. Something happened and I can't get through to the Shas'el, but Shas'vre'getal is already rallying the troops in the city to push back the enemy gue'la. He needs reinforcements!*

As the two aliens discussed the tactical situation in a foreign language, Shining Armor felt somepony poke him in the leg.

"Pst! Hey, Captain! Check this out! One of those dish machines is still in one piece!"

Shining Armor turned around, and he saw that there was indeed a drone that had not been obliterated like the others. It was situated behind a cluster of cages, and so was out of sight of the guards, but considering it had a flashing red light attached to it Shining didn't expect it to stay unnoticed for long.

"Hey, Captain," mumbled a pegasus guard next to him, "this might sound kind of weird, but... do your gums itch?"

The Broadside suit whirled about as the teleport flare activated, and the pilot's blood ran cold as it saw large spikes mounted with skulls and rotting fetishes over the tops of the prison cages. Teleporting Astartes usually meant Terminators. They were too close to get away, and their reserves were all moving into the city.

*Incoming! We have incoming!* a Fire Warrior screamed as the light infantry bolted for cover. He was promptly gunned down in the back as the first of the Rusted Brotherhood appeared from behind the cages, combi-weapon blazing.

The Broadside locked on and fired a full salvo into the charging Iron Warrior, and more than a dozen missiles blasted out of its launchers before hammering into the hulking Chaos Marine. The absurdly heavy armor strained under the barrage, and then it finally gave, blowing apart before the last few missiles struck the diseased and corrupted flesh beneath. The ponies in the nearest cage fell flat against the floor, feeling the concussive waves pushing them toward the electrified bars.

The Iron Warrior groaned loudly as he keeled over, smoke pouring from his body and flaming bits of armor tumbling around his feet.

Before the Broadside could even consider its next barrage, the rest of the unit had appeared behind the fallen Terminator, guns pouring bolt shells into the Fire Warriors and a unit of gun drones that had assisted in mopping up the pirated Chaos versions.

One Marine in particular glanced down at the fallen Iron Warrior, and then up at the battlesuit.

The pilot wasn't completely sure how the hulking figure had crossed the distance so fast; it might have teleported, or perhaps it had managed to leap seven meter's distance in the time it took to glance at a loading progress indicator. The battlesuit operator didn't have enough time to think further on the matter before a powered hammer slammed into its torso, crushing the cockpit and tearing it off of the pelvis actuator.

Sliver turned away from the shattered bits of armor and let loose with the Viral Scourge, vomiting a stream of toxins over the resisting Fire Warriors.

One of the Rusted Brothers paused in his assault as the Fire Warriors were driven screaming and gasping from the area, and he glanced over at the guns tearing away at the sky behind them. His eyes followed the power cables to the generator, and his power fist crackled as he flexed his fingers.

The drones were still hammering away with their pulse carbines, but he paid them no mind as he stomped over to the crackling cylinder placed between a pair of cages. The ponies backed up as far as they dared within the cages, some of them sputtering questions or complaining about the smell, but he ignored them, too.

A single punch ripped easily through the generator, and a low-pitched whine came from the auto turrets as they powered down.

Sliver looked up as the last of the gun drones fell to the ground in pieces, and he noticed an enormous shape barreling over the treetops toward them.

"Incoming Riptide," the Chaos Lord growled as the Rusted Brotherhood regrouped, less one member.

"There are assault skimmers approaching as well, Lord," hissed another Terminator.

"I have a lock on the next beacon," Sliver growled, "teleport engaged."

The Iron Warriors were surrounded by a halo of light, and then they vanished.

"Geez, they didn't even let us out!" complained a Royal Guard as he tapped a hoof against the bars of his cage. They were no longer electrified, but they were still strong enough to hold a handful of ponies, to be sure.

Shining Armor winced as a truly massive battlesuit landed in the plaza, its enormous guns searching in vain for a target as Hammerheads swept in to back it up.

"Actually, I'm okay with staying here," the unicorn mumbled, "you know, for now. At least until my magic works again."

A distant explosion came from the city, and the guards all cringed as they watched a tower crumble to the ground in flames.

"Yeah, okay. Good point. I'm cool with that, too," amended the first guard nervously.

****

Canterlot - Silver Saddle roof patio

"And there goes another one," Fancy Pants said approvingly as another stream of anti-air fire suddenly stopped, only to replaced by a plume of smoke.

"The humans are actually making decent progress," Prince Blueblood remarked, tracking the movements of the second set of invaders by how close the explosions were getting, "I hope this is over before morning. I have a meeting at nine with the tax authority."

Fleur gave him an odd look. "Don't you think it would be canceled on account of the invasion?"

"Not if the invasion is over by then. Hateful creatures, those accountants."

Fancy Pants spotted a group of ponies racing down the alley in a panic, and he whistled.

"Hey! You, down there! Mighty dangerous to be out in the streets right about now!" Fancy Pants called out, bringing the herd to a screeching halt.

As if to underline his point, a pair of piranha attack skimmers zoomed over the tops of the buildings, heading for some distant conflict point in the city. A lascannon bolt fired from a rooftop suddenly ripped into the side of one of the craft, and it exploded in the air before its wingman started veering about wildly.

"Nice shot," Blueblood said calmly, really wishing he had a drink or a cigar right now.

Fancy Pants waited for the roar of the explosion to fade, and then he called down again to the fleeing equines.

"The owner of this establishment is sheltering anypony who comes by in the cellar! Unless you already have a destination in mind, you'd best join them!"

"Thank you!" called out one of the ponies as the rest bolted for the shattered windows and scrambled to get inside.

Fleur sighed and leaned onto the stallion, smiling softly. "Oh Fancy, you're such a hero."

Blueblood probably would contested that compliment, but Fancy Pants did it first. "Please, dear. If I was a hero I'd be down there with them. Shouting advice from safety is the least I can do."

A crashing noise from a building below attracted their attention, and the ponies fell silent as they listened for the sounds of conflict. They weren't disappointed.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!"

"Die, cultist scum! The Greater Good shall always prevail!"

The sound of laser and pulse rifles exchanging fire came from within, and Blueblood looked away.

"Much less of those robots coming down from the sky now," Blueblood mumbled, "I imagine that..."

A loud buzzing noise caused him to trail off, and the ponies grimaced as they identified the sound of approaching Stingwings.

The insectoid creatures flew up over the edge of the patio. There were three of them, and each one was carrying a Pathfinder with a rail rifle.

The other ponies on the patio quickly fled inside as the Tau were dropped onto the roof, but Fancy Pants and Blueblood looked less impressed.

"I say! You there!" the former shouted as the Pathfinders took up firing positions at the roof's edge.

One Vespid deigned to acknowledge the unicorn stallion, its wings vibrating irritably.

"Yes, you! This is a private establishment, and what's more it's currently sheltering countless civilians! Have you no conscience?" Fancy Pants demanded, stamping a hoof as Fleur de Lis hid behind him.

The Vespid raised his neutron blaster and aimed it at the complaining unicorn's face.

"... Ah. Touché." Fancy Pants duly turned around and led Fleur to the opposite corner of the patio.

"Yes, definitely not a hero," Blueblood mumbled as he watched the Pathfinders and Stingwings open fire down into the alleys.

Fancy Pants sighed. "Well, what can we do? Without magic, I don't see how anypony can challenge these Tau brutes."

"Hey, Tellis! Found some bugs up here!"

The (somewhat) feminine shout surprised the unicorns, and they looked up in shock.

Rainbow Dash was floating above the building, her tail whipping about anxiously as she hovered behind the Vespids.

The insectoid aliens spared her a glance, and then dismissed her. None of the other ponies had given them any trouble, and aside from this one being loud, she wasn't hindering them in any way.

Or, at least, that was what they thought until she flew into one of the Pathfinders and kicked him off the edge of the roof.

The next Pathfinder over shouted in surprise, and then tried to club Rainbow Dash with his rail rifle. She proved too fast for that, zooming away, but in the next moment the Vespids dove in toward her.

The Stingwings were bigger, faster, and much more agile than the Tau, and Rainbow found that after dodging the first few swipes that she had been surrounded.

She bolted straight up into the air, only to yelp painfully as one of the aliens caught her by the tail and flung her down to the floor.

"Isn't that the Element of Loyalty?" Fancy Pants asked nervously as he watched the pegasus hitting the patio floor painfully.

Blueblood was about to make a sarcastic crack at that - he was leaning toward something with "Element of Failure" - when he noticed something come up rather quickly to the edge of the roof.

The Vespids heard it, certainly - it was making a great deal of noise in the process - and they turned around as soon as they saw that the blue pony they had been fighting wasn't hurrying to get back up.

Tellis stood at the edge of the patio, leaning against the railing as it strained to hold up his weight. He was holding one Pathfinder up off the ground, with one hand gripping the alien's helmet as the Tau soldier kicked and flailed uselessly. The other Pathfinder was on the floor in pieces, having been slashed apart in the time it took for the Vespids to whirl around.

"'Sup?" the Raptor Lord asked, tilting his helmet back.

The Stingwings buzzed their wings noisily as they kept their blasters aimed at Tellis, the sound causing an instant headache in the ponies in the vicinity. He was holding the surviving Pathfinder up in front of him, though, blocking any shot unless they took to the air first; neutron blasters were not very discriminating weapons.

"So, how you wanna do this? One at a time? Group hug? Aerial battle? Don't leave me hanging, we're on a timetable here," Tellis said. The Pathfinder had drawn his knife and was now stabbing frantically at the Chaos Marine's vambrace, but Tellis continued to ignore his struggles.

One Vespid made an angry buzzing noise, but Tellis interrupted it.

"I wasn't talking to you, roach," the Raptor Lord screeched, causing the three unicorns watching the altercation to flinch back again.

"One at a time," Rainbow Dash replied from behind the aliens as she bounced back onto her hooves, "I've got this one!"

Then she slammed both her back legs into one of the Stingwings' shins (or the alien, humanoid-insect equivalent of a shin, at any rate), shattering it.

The other two Vespids took their attention off Tellis for a split second, and that was all he needed.

"Hold this!" the Chaos Lord yelled as he blasted forward, flinging the Pathfinder to one of the Stingwings as he dove for the other.

To his surprise, his target managed to leap away just ahead of his lightning claws, taking to the air and loosing a blast from his neutron blaster as he retreated.

The blast missed as Tellis twisted, and then his afterburners ignited behind him, launching the Iron Warrior into the escaping auxiliary. As good as a Vespid's reflexes were, their wings hardly outpaced jet-assisted acceleration, and Tellis slammed into the Stingwing before tearing the blaster out of its claws.

The Raptor Lord grabbed the Vespid's arm as it tried to scratch at him, and then he gleefully tore that arm from the creature's body, his helmet ringing as it released an agonized screech.

"Blood for the Blood God!" he screamed before bludgeoning the Vespid down into the patio with its own dismembered limb. Then he paused to glance at the greenish ooze coming from the shoulder segment. "Or... Or ichor? Is that ichor? That's like bug blood, right? Pretty sure that counts."

He would have gotten a back full of heavy neutrons from the unharmed Stingwing, but Rainbow Dash kicked its blaster to the side and threw off the shot before darting away through the air again.

"Hey, Tellis! Less gabbing, more jabbing!" the pegasus shouted as she twisted around a pair of high-radiation beams. Even the misses felt hot and made her a bit dizzy (more so than her aerobatics), but the moment passed.

The Tau Pathfinder, who had been shaken but not wounded during his brief stint as a living shield and then projectile, scrambled to the edge of the roof to recover his rail rifle.

He grabbed the weapon near the railing where he had been positioned, and then jerked back before a laser bolt lanced up from the alley below and almost struck him in the face.

Taking a deep breath, and trying to get the horrific screech of the flying Iron Warrior out of his head, he checked his weapon and prepared to re-join the fight.

"Sorry about this, chap. Well, not really."

"Enjoy the flight, you Goddessless Commie scum."

The Pathfinder barely had time to look behind him before Blueblood and Fancy Pants bucked him off the edge of the roof, sending him screaming to the streets below.

"And THAT'S what I think of wealth redistribution!" Blueblood spat, snapping his head to the side and settling his mane. "Bourgeoisie for LIFE."

"I say," added Fancy Pants, "word."

They tapped hooves. Behind them, Fleur de Lis rolled her eyes.

Then she screamed in fright as Tellis smashed into the patio in front of her, wrestling a Stingwing to the floor.

"Fight harder, insect!" Tellis screamed, one hand squeezing around the Vespid's neck as the enemy flyer clawed over his armor in a desperate search for weak points.

The hand didn't really constrict the Vespid's breathing, since his dermal layer was carapace, but it did start to crack the carapace after a few seconds of squeezing.

"Hey, Tellis! The last one's flying off!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Can't you kill it?!" Tellis shouted back.

"C'mon man, I already broke its leg and kicked away its gun. Do I have to do ALL the work?"

"Point. Sorry bug, gotta go." Tellis wrenched himself free of the Vespid's grip as he jolted upright, his wings spreading and adding some backwards force to the motion. Then he raised a boot up and stomped the Stingwing's head to paste before he jumped up and took off.

He spotted the survivor right away, although given that he was in a contested battle zone there were a lot of juicier and more tactically valuable targets he could see from up high. Some of which were lining up their weapons to shoot him, too. Still, he reasoned that Rainbow had gone through a lot of trouble to take down this one thing, so he could at least see that her effort didn't go to waste.

The thing was, it was already crippled. That took some of the fun and effort out of a kill. That meant that some extra flair was required in the execution.

A lucky pulse shot hammered into his side and he twisted involuntarily, his visor coming to stare, as if by divine guidance, at a large pony statue.

A large ALICORN pony statue.

The burning pain in his side faded to nothing as he found himself inspired.

Tellis jetted upward, rising high over the buzzing Vespid and high enough that he stood a severe chance of being targeted by the anti-air turrets. Then he curved down, his vox releasing a horrendous screech as he descended on his prey like the predators his units were named after.

Tellis tackled the Stingwing out of the air before it could get to a friendly firing line, and his wings burned hard to the side in order to change course in the air. The Vespid didn't respond right away, possibly due to the shock or perhaps resigned to its fate, but in the last few seconds its wings kicked up again, trying to resist the Raptor Lord's course. It wasn't enough.

Tellis laughed as he slammed the enemy flyer against the head of the statue, his voice amplified to a lunatic howl as his wings swiveled about and sent him careening toward his next victim.

The Vespid was left behind, impaled through the chest by the horn of Princess Celestia's stone effigy.

"Auntie is NOT going to like that," Blueblood murmured as he stared at the act of brutality-slash-vandalism.

"You said that was the Element of Loyalty flying with that raving psychotic?" Fleur asked as she awkwardly cleaned her legs with a napkin. The Vespid that had gotten its face stomped in had splattered some of its fluids on her, and she was finding it difficult to wipe it off while also holding the napkin in her mouth.

"Indeed. She seemed to be doing quite well, too." Then Fancy Pants looked away toward the edge of the city. "I do believe this conflict is about to reach a swift conclusion, however."

The other two unicorns turned to look away from the violent carnage below, and Fleur gasped.

She didn't really know what a gunship was, what they were for, or why their arrival could potentially clinch the battle decisively in favor of the Iron Warriors. But she did see that the large flying machines were painted in the "friendly" colors of gunmetal and gold, and that they were approaching the city fast.

Also, there were quite a lot of them.

****

Canterlot - city parks

The flood of riot drones had completely stopped by now, their role complete and the drop-bays of the Harvest all but depleted.

By the time they had been flushed out, however, they had been replaced by a far more formidable foe: human infantry.

*We have markerlights!*

*Line up your shots, Shas'la! Volley fire!*

Said human infantry died in droves as a veritable wall of pulse weapons poured into the buildings they were sheltering in. Many were killed even as they ducked out of sight, the energy bursts burning through the walls to reached the hapless mercenaries cowering within. A salvo of smart missiles sailed into the windows and then curved into the remaining targets, the micro-warheads blowing apart men with ease.

A Fireblade breathed heavily as he saw the survivors scrambling away through the interior of the gutted buildings, back to the safety of claustrophobic alleyways and billowing smoke.

The Fireblade checked his men, seeing them still lined up behind the defensive walls or sheltering behind trees. His forces were defending the far edge of the city, on the opposite side from the train station. This area held their last garrison that was technically in the city rather than the castle property, and more importantly, had the largest battery of functional anti-aircraft guns left. Six of the auto turrets thundered away behind riflemen and battlesuits, taking their first opening shots at the incoming fighters.

This was the third push by the humans that had been repulsed, and each one had been better organized and armed than the last. Next he was expecting Astartes.

Several of his men raised weapons, but he held up an arm for them to hold fire as a cluster of ponies galloped out of the rising dust out into the open.

The ponies skidded to a stop when they saw his firing line, and the hapless civilians started swirling about in their herd and looking every which way as they panicked.

A nearby crash didn't help their sense of distress, and some of the Canterlot citizens threw themselves flat on the ground as an Iron Warrior Dreadnought smashed through the wall of an adjacent restaurant, throwing debris and Kroot out onto the street with equal contempt.

"SUFFER! SCREAM! BLEED!!" the walker boomed as it unleashed its heavy flamer on the fleeing auxiliaries, roasting half of the survivors as it stomped out into the streets.

A railgun round punched into its arm, and the walker jerked to the side as its armor shrieked and tore. The Dreadnought brought its autocannons to bear on the Tau defensive perimeter, but it didn't line up a single shot before two more railgun shots punched into its sarcophagus and ripped apart the pilot within.

An agonized howl came from the walker as it teetered backward, and the ponies gaped in horror as the metal giant hit the ground. Now it was simply one more smoldering corpse decorating Equestria's prized capital.

The Fireblade snorted as the ponies dashed back into the city streets, apparently deciding that they'd rather face the advancing humans than get caught in crossfire.

*Shas'vre!* his commlink crackled, *are you holding the parks?*

*Yes. May I assume that the push into the city failed? I've been reinforced by several fire teams fleeing from the center plaza.*

*They have. The anti-air matrix is in tatters, and I'm sure you've noticed the gunships incoming.*

The Fireblade looked to the side as a pair of Devilfish APCs floated in, followed by a squadron of gun drones and a Riptide battlesuit. *We can hold this position. I have everything I need, even if we have to fight Space Marines. There isn't enough cover for the enemy to get close, and there aren't enough of them to overrun us. The auto turrets can take out any gunships moving in support.*

*Be that as it may,* the voice on the other end said tightly, *holding the city may soon be untenable. We've already pulled back to the garrisons around the castle, the Shas'o isn't responding to me, and this one blasted unit of Terminators is teleporting about and slaughtering our sniper nests. Even if you're confident in your position, I am going to prepare our forces for withdrawal.*

The Fireblade bristled. *We won't run! Reinforcements are coming! The gue'la will not beat us here!*

*Shas'vre!* barked one of the Broadside suits.

Terminating the commlink, the Fireblade turned around and shifted his outlook back from strategic to tactical. *What is it?* the Broadside battlesuits were in the rear, near the edge of the city platform, and he had to shout to be heard over the pulse rifles and the anti-air batteries that created a constant din all around him.

*We have incoming! Heavy units!* the Broadsides looked confused, even as they gave him warning, and their sensor heads glanced from side to side.

*Could you be more specific? Are you talking about gunships? More walkers? Where are they coming from?* the Fireblade asked. A wave of heavy bolter fire sprayed against the barricade wall, and his men started shouting as they marked priority targets. *We're not exactly short on targets right now!*

The Broadsides either didn't notice the escalating combat at the front, or thought their confused sensor intercepts more important. One of them turned toward the edge of the city platform, stepping up to the railing that separated the lush carpet of grass from the craggy bluffs below them.

*No, I think it's coming from-*

A gigantic metal hand rose over the railing and landed on the suit, crushing it to a pulp.

The Fireblade gaped as a hulking metal body was hauled up over the edge, tearing through the fragile railing as its claws dug deep furrows into the ground. The other Broadside suit started to back away, but the metal monster's other hand slapped the heavy soldier away like an errant insect, knocking it over the edge of the platform.

All the while, a pink pony sat on the horrifying creature's neck and laughed.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeee!" Pinkie laughed as her Maulerfiend mount finished climbing onto the surface and ripped away its harpoon tether. The daemon engine roared as the nearest battlesuits turned to open fire, and she in turn giggled as the siege walker tackled the largest, nearest target, immediately grappling with the defensive line's Riptide defender.

The other Maulerfiends were already hauling themselves up as well onto the grass, jaws snapping hungrily as they finally caught sight of prey. The siege walkers, being made to traverse extremely difficult terrain, had easily made the best time up the mountain side (although only one had been spurred on by a pony kicking it while yelling "Giddyup!"), but as they dove into the cluster of enemies a pair of massive, crab-like claws sunk into the platform edge.

"Easy now, Mister Crabby. Careful!" Fluttershy warned as the Defiler scrambled to get its bulk onto horizontal ground. They had already passed the point where the harpoons had been secured to the mountain, so this part was especially precarious.

The Defiler clambered its front two legs over the edge and onto the grass, and they stabbed deeply into the surface as its claws pulled the rest of its body horizontal.

"Phew! That was a bit scary!" Fluttershy declared.

Then a missile hammered "Mister Crabby" in the side, detonating its heavy flamer tanks.

"Yeep!" Fluttershy ducked behind the daemon engine's body, and then peeked over at the jet of fire that was spewing from the war machine's side. "Oh my! Are you okay?"

The Defiler screeched a response in the affirmative, its battle cannon lobbing a shell into the ranks of the enemy as it started to crawl forward. The fire jet slowed to a trickle and then sealed, and before Fluttershy's eyes the metal surrounding the damaged weapon mount slowly flowed over the tears in the armor, smoothing it out and sealing the hull.

The Defiler rocked back slightly as an ion discharge crackled against its chassis, but now the Forgefiends were dragging themselves over the platform edge as well, bringing their heavy guns to bear. With a half dozen daemon engines happily wading among the fleeing troops and shattering armor of the Tau defensive line, Fluttershy allowed herself a moment to assess the situation and see how she might help.

The first thing she noticed, given her position on the walker's back, was a Hellblade fighter overhead that was struck by a lance of energy and sent careening into the mountain side nearby.

"Whoa!" Spike, who was still holding on for dear life next to the smoke stacks, cringed away from the fiery explosion. Fluttershy frowned.

"Well, that's not very safe. One of those could come crashing down anywhere!" the shy pegasus noted. She pulled herself up next to the Defiler's sensor head, placing a hoof against it's "cheek".

"Mister Crabby, do you think you could do something about those big guns over there? They seem very dangerous," Fluttershy asked tenderly.

The Defiler let out a ferocious screech and then plowed forward, racing toward the anti-aircraft guns as if nothing else mattered. Infantry were simply ignored or trampled in its path, and the daemon engine's guns fell silent as its lurching sprint proved too chaotic for its targeting arrays.

A heavy railgun aimed to put a stop to the walker's progress, and Fluttershy gasped as the Defiler took a round straight through the front of its chassis. The entire machine rocked backward as metal tore apart, and Spike shouted in surprise as a bright crimson energy seemed to seep out of the breach in the front of the daemon engine. After a moment a terrible howl came from the damaged hull, and most of the Tau infantry nearby stumbled to the ground while holding the sides of their helmets in pain.

"Sssssh. It's okay. You're going to be okay," Fluttershy whispered as she stroked the cold metal mask bolted over the walker's sensors. "You don't need to cry. I'm here."

The (literally) infernal howling petered out instantly, and the strange energy stopped flooding from the hole in the Defiler's armor.

"Do you think you can still move, Mister Crabby? This place is still rather dangerous," the gentle pegasus warned.

Suddenly mindful that it was being peppered on all sides by plasma bolts and missile pods, the Defiler lurched back into a run, its claws knocking away troopers and battlesuits in long, careless sweeps.

The Hammerhead gunship that had staggered the engine floated behind the walker as it passed, lining up its heavy railgun for a killing blow.

A giant metal hand grabbed its turret right before it fired, and the shot went up into the air instead.

"Nuh-uh-uh!" Pinkie shouted with a grin as her Maulermount (her new name for it) ripped the heavy railgun off of the tank chassis. "You had your shot! No re-rolls for you!" The Maulermount started hammering the tank into the ground with its fists as Pinkie cackled insanely, and the reinforced heavy plating was smashed apart like it was cheap plastic.

The Defiler paid the struggle no mind, utterly focused on its own mission. The moment it got one body length away from the auto turrets it lunged, its claws snapping shut around the gun barrels and pinching them off.

Then the war walker grabbed hold of the turret body and ripped it out of the ground mounting, flinging it off the edge of the city platform.

The next gun got a battle cannon shot put in its center at inadvisably close range, blasting the turret apart into shrapnel. The Defiler actually trampled and crushed the ion generator powering the turrets on its way to rip apart the third one, thus disabling the remaining turrets and completing its objective. But given that neither it nor Fluttershy understood such machines, neither of them really noticed.

"Oh, that's perfect! Yes, you're doing very good!" Fluttershy cooed as the daemon engine gutted the anti-air cannon. Stepping up to the next one, the Defiler briefly stumbled as a Devilfish raced in front of it, trying to escape the massacre that had engulfed the defensive line.

The Defiler clamped onto the rear of the APC, stopping it dead as the enormously powerful claws dug into the hardened polyceramics. Then the walker started hammering the last gun apart using the Devilfish as a club.

"WOOOOO!!" Pinkie shouted as her Maulermount stomped and whirled about behind the Defiler, crushing infantry underfoot and sweeping them aside with its tail. "This is the best war EVER!" the pink pony whooped louder as her daemon engine started to buck its rear legs and flail its head wildly.

Fluttershy frowned as she carefully stepped to the edge of the Defiler's torso, mindful of the way the walker was lurching back and forth in the throes of its rampage.

"Pinkie, I think that your, uhm, friend there is actually a little distressed by the way you're beating on its neck like that," the pegasus warned, raising her voice as much as she dared.

"Speak up, Fluttershy!" Pinkie shouted as her Maulermount reared up into the air. "I can't hear you over the sound of how much PLOT we are kicking right now!" the Maulerfiend twisted to one side, and then dropped back down to all fours, incidentally flattening a cluster of gun drones.

Fluttershy sighed as the pink pony cackled like a maniac from atop the mechanical horror. "Oh, okay. Never mind."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Twilight, not for the first time since she had arrived, reflected upon the fact that she and the other ponies in the hall really should have gotten out while the getting was good.

Not that they had been hurt, or were even being targeted by the combatants, but they were certainly in plenty of danger. Aside from the gunfire that Solon was spitting uselessly into Voidsong's shield, the Warsmith was also discharging a prodigious amount of exhaust from his smoke stacks. Granted, the hall was very well ventilated now that every window had been destroyed, but she still caught more than her fair share of the pollutants.

They smelled... wrong. Rancid. Like they somehow combined the unpleasantness of vehicle exhaust and rotting meat into one new, excitingly offensive odor.

And then there was Solon himself. The Iron Warrior had taken quite a bit of damage, and he was bleeding from multiple breaks in his armor.

Well, not so much bleeding as "oozing". She had seen human blood before. Far too much, in her opinion. She had even seen post-human blood, and noted its capacity to dry and clot almost instantly.

Solon's blood - or whatever viscous gunk was seeping out of his body, exactly - was a slimy green ooze that glowed unnaturally as it dribbled over his armor and onto the cracked tiles below. If she weren't trying to hold her stomach down she surely would have wondered aloud what it was.

Something wasn't right here. Well, actually, multiple things were extremely wrong right now, most of them quite obvious, but Twilight could feel that things were coming to a head.

Solon's boltgun thundered furiously as it spat burst after burst at Shas'o Voidsong, all with no obvious effect. The High Commander was sweeping from side to side with her jet pack, her shield always raised and ready to intercept the incoming fire. Solon wasn't even a particularly good shot with a hand grip weapon, and despite the fact that he still had a gun and she did not, he got the distinct feeling that the Tau was playing with him.

Which was odd, when he thought about it. By all indications she should have been the one without time to waste.

Then it came. The dark, foreboding "click" of his boltgun hammer failing to find further ammunition. He had already reloaded twice, and after a mechatendril snaked down to the munitions compartment, it released an aggravated hiss.

"Empty. Naturally," Voidsong said as her battlesuit skidded to a stop, "nobody ever packs as much ammunition for their sidearm. Including me, unfortunately."

Solon tsked as he shoved the boltgun back into its holder. He still had his mechatendril weapons, but they were either depleted or too weak to inflict any real damage, even if he could get through the battlesuit's shield. He did have other options, of course. Being a cultist of Nurgle had its advantages.

Wait... did she say...?

"Shidearm? You don't have a shidearm," Solon pointed out, cocking his helmet to one side.

Voidsong reached behind her suit's back with her disarmed hand, grabbing hold of a small, protruding handle. She pulled on it, sliding a short rifle out of its own munitions case that was built into her armor.

"Oh. Well, damn," Solon grumbled as his chassis began to quiver underneath him.

"Are you actually shaking in fear? Before little old me? I'm flattered," Voidsong said as she lined up the ion gun, "this thing is rather inaccurate, and like I said, I don't have too many shots. Best not to turn this into a gun duel when I can just wait for you to run out first, right? After that, you're just a big, immobile target."

The mechatendrils slithered forward to fire another stream of lasers, but Voidsong fired first. The ion bolt cut a sizzling gash into Solon's shoulder and decapitated a few of the snake-like limbs, dropping them to the floor to writhe and hiss in pain.

"You know, it didn't have to be like thish," Solon grunted as his chassis rocked back and forth. He raised his arm to protected his face as another ion bolt was loosed, and the air sizzled as an oozing gouge was blasted through his vambrace. "You could have negotiated. You could have retreated. You could have attacked with your full force. Sho many livesh were losht becaushe you wanted to play the shkulking rogue."

Voidsong actually felt the ion rifle start to shake in her hand as she clenched her teeth. "Don't talk to me about lives lost, you butcher! Don't act like you care!" She loosed another shot, and this one turned a section of Solon's breastplate into a molten, oozing mess.

"Oh, but I do care. Obvioushly I would have liked to avoid thish current embarashment," Solon pointed out, "and you would have liked to avoid what'sh coming next."

"What, your finally keeling over?" Voidsong growled. She briefly checked her sensors, ensuring that she was still alone in her corner of the hall. The Mechanicus woman was leering at her from the other side of the Warsmith, the swordsman was still gone, and the ponies were totally engrossed in the spectacle taking place before them. "You've lost, Warsmith. I've destroyed or outlasted your weapons, I've beaten your admittedly impressive toys, and the hateful corruption that empowers you cultist freaks can't reach you here with the Warp suppressed."

She fired again, and dark, thick fluids started to seep from Solon's wounds and exhaust pipes as she burned another crater in his chest.

"Can't reach me?" Solon asked with a dark, heavy laugh. "My dear Shas'o, you are mishtaken. I carry my corruption with me."

The dark fluid wasn't fluid, Voidsong realized. She wasn't sure why she had initially thought it was. Probably wishful thinking; an assumption to protect her last scraps of understanding of the monster in front of her.

No, those were insects crawling out of the Warsmith.

Rarity and Cadence shrieked and backed away as hundreds of roach-like bugs started to crawl out of Solon's armor breaches and smoke stacks, completely swarming over the armored behemoth before they jumped into the air and took flight.

Twilight was mutely shaking her head, mumbling silently to herself. There were too many. That many creatures couldn't have possibly fit inside the Warsmith's body. Even without accounting for all the things that SHOULD be taking up space within his chassis and armor. And they were still coming, flooding up into the air to hover around the Chaos Lord like a thick, black fog.

Voidsong felt her stomach rise, but forced it down out of long practice. She had been fighting off the persisting sense of terror generated by Solon since he had arrived, and she wasn't about to falter now, when he was at his weakest. "I've seen worse bugs," she snarled, raising her ion gun and firing at the Warsmith's head again.

To her frustration, the swarm of insects converged right in front of her line of fire, causing the bolt to detonate prematurely. Twenty or more Warp-spawned bugs fell to the floor as smoldering ashes, but the Warsmith was unharmed.

The floor underneath Solon cracked, and then the cracks started to grow, curving around in a curiously deliberate way to form three large circles in the hall foundation right under the immobilized Chaos Lord.

More ion bolts screamed toward the Warsmith, but the buzzing swarm intercepted each one with suicidal fervor.

"You're quite clever, grayshkin, but you know nothing about the powersh that infesht the darknesh," Solon lectured as his damaged, mechanical legs fell out of their chassis sockets. "Let me show you."

****

Canterlot Castle - dining hall

Delgan cut low with his first slash, toppling a Fire Warrior, and then blocked a counter-attack on his bracers before slashing across the chest of the second.

Two more sharp sweeps of each of his power swords and each of the alien soldiers were decapitated, smoke wafting from the stumps of their necks.

The Trademaster took another step, still in the midst of his combat poise and his senses electrified by the rush of battle. But there was no more battle to be had.

Delgan panted as his eyes scanned the room. Dropped wargear and butchered Tau decorated the carpeting and laid against the table and chairs in a grisly trail, although there was mercifully little blood; power weapons tended to cauterize the wounds they inflicted. All the better. He would have hated to have ruined the palace decorations with alien gore.

Seeing that he had been granted a brief reprieve, he reached down to his belt and removed a pair of pills. One was a hydrator tablet, to quench his rising thirst until he could address it more properly. The second was another reflex booster capsule to keep himself sharp. Few human warriors had any trouble keeping a step ahead of the Tau in melee, but he preferred five or six steps himself.

Approaching footsteps. His swords were up again, and his mind alert.

A door opened in front of him.

Delgan sprinted forward and slashed high before he actually saw his target. He reasoned that if whatever was coming out was bipedal, he'd get its neck. If it was a pony, he'd miss it with room to spare.

His calculation paid off as he cut deep into the shoulder of a human soldier wearing Lamman Sept armor. Delgan followed up the blind slash with a more precise one as the man screamed and staggered.

There was another human behind the first, and that one had a chainsword, superb reflexes, and the benefit of some warning. Delgan jerked back as the newcomer stabbed the chainblade forward, and a few teeth caught and bit at his coat as the weapon roared furiously not even an inch from his flesh.

A twist of his wrist and the second human had a new gash in his leg. Delgan then punched at the chainsword, catching its whirling edge on his gauntlet barrier. The energy field sparked and flickered, but the chainsword bounced off and gave Delgan every opening he could ask for. The man's head was sent spinning away from his shoulders.

The third human had a laspistol in hand, but as soon as her second bodyguard was dispatched Delgan was already on her, swatting the weapon away before she fired a laser up into the ceiling.

Delgan was about to fillet the last combatant, but he hesitated long enough to remember where he'd seen her before.

It was the fleet officer from the Lamman Sept. He remembered the vid-log from when Solon had briefly contacted the Tau fleet and been brushed off.

His power sword went for her gun rather than her head, and the laspistol was cut into pieces.

"Chaos scum!" Helenis growled as she backed away from the Trademaster. To her surprise, he didn't advance on her, and she took the opportunity to draw her own sword. It was a mono-molecular edged saber, a pitiful weapon in comparison to Delgan's powered blades, but it was leagues better than nothing.

"Why, hello there!" Delgan said, his mustache curving over his smile. "You're that fleet aide to the Tau High Commander, are you not? Fancy meeting you here!"

She stabbed for him. Her form was actually pretty good, and her speed wasn't terrible, either. Delgan's was much better, though, even before taking his combat stimulants into account.

"I'm not sure how tightly you're kept in the loop around here," Delgan said as he dodged out of the way, "but the Lamman Sept is being slowly but surely pushed out of the city." He jumped back from a slash. "Soon your current employers will be, well, dead. Looking for a job? I have openings in my team!"

Helenis growled as she backed away. "I'll never join you, traitor!"

"Oh, come now. Speaking as one traitor to another, there's plenty of common ground between us!" Delgan reasoned, his arms loose at his sides.

"Don't compare me to you, cultist!" Helenis snarled. "I didn't betray the Imperium, I was abandoned by it! And even now, I fight to ensure humanity's survival and prosperity under the benevolence of Tau'va! A better future for everybody!"

"And I too fight for a better future for everybody," Delgan replied, "everybody that matters, that is. Primarily me, but I'm willing to share."

"You haven't just betrayed some distant Emperor," the woman spat, "you've betrayed your soul, your species, and your destiny! Thrown it away for some insane daemon cult!"

Delgan frowned. "Are we really going to have an argument about which of us is a 'bigger' traitor? Because I don't think it's very pertinent right now. You chose aliens to help you survive, I chose cultists. And we've both done very well up until this point. I'm offering you the chance to keep that streak - and yourself - alive."

Helenis clenched her teeth. "I refuse, Chaos filth."

"A shame," Delgan mumbled as he turned on the power fields to his swords, "you seemed to have a good head on your shoulders."

Three steps.

Two sword strokes.

"And now you don't."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

"Twilight, what is this?! What's happening?!" Celestia shouted as she crouched next to her student.

"I'm not really sure!" Twilight admitted with a slightly hysterical laugh. "But, speaking abstractly, I believe the clash of technological powers has turned into a struggle of supernatural forces versus natural ones!"

"Did you know he was some sort of evil bee hive?!" Cadence shouted over the infernal buzzing.

"Actually, at a glance, I'd guess that these creatures are from the muscidae family of insects!" Twilight corrected automatically.

"You are SUCH a nerd!"

The buzz of hundreds, maybe thousands of rapidly vibrating wings rumbled in her ears. The Warp-spawned bugs weren't touching any of them, mostly keeping to the swarm around Solon, but there were many that landed on the numerous corpses lying about the throne room, blanketing them in dark carapace and squirming legs. She didn't really know what they were doing to the dead bodies, and she couldn't bring herself to observe them closely enough to find out.

"Are they in my mane?!" Rarity screamed, her body curled up on the floor and her forelegs covering her eyes. "Keep them out of my mane!"

Luna rolled her eyes, being by far the least distressed by the horrifying turn of events. "The vermin art not touching thee. Cool thy jets."

A cracking noise alerted the ponies that something new was happening in the center of the insect maelstrom.

"Urgh... GRAAH!" Solon grunted loudly as something hard and black squirmed out of the hole in his chassis where one of his mechanical legs used to be. With a dull cracking noise, it broke free of the mechanical internals and then unfolded, revealing a large, segmented leg covered in shining black chitin.

"That'sh one," the Warsmith sighed as the leg touched the ground and helped his remaining mechanical limbs hoist his chassis up off the floor. "Give me a minute to grow two more, and then we can wrap thish up."

Voidsong's ion gun trembled in her suit's grip, testament to the wavering nerve of the pilot within. Several of the insects buzzed around her sensor head, as if taunting her for her impotence.

She only had two options left. One was activating her stealth field and getting to the transports that she was pretty sure were gearing up to flee the city by now.

The other was stupid.

So stupid that there was no way the hulking freak in front of her would expect it.

Voidsong lowered her ion rifle, powered up her jet pack, and then blasted forward, straight toward the Chaos Lord.

"SAY HI TO YOUR WRETCHED GODS FOR ME, MONSTER!!" Voidsong howled, diving into the whirling insect cloud and straight toward her foe. Jumping into arm's reach of a Space Marine - much less their leaders, inevitably armed with savage and powerful close combat weapons - was the worst and most desperate tactical move any Tau warrior could make; akin to suicide, really. Judging by the way Solon hesitated, that exact thought was crossing his mind right before his servo claw snapped forward to crush the Tau battlesuit.

A sharp sizzling sound filled the room, piercing the air for one moment and then gone so fast that no one was sure what had made it.

Voidsong landed in front of Gaela, and the Dark Acolyte barely had time to avert her head before the Tau High Commander blasted her with her ion gun. Gaela took the shot in her bionic arm; her robe deflected some of the energy before it melted away to nothing, and the mechanisms within her bionic limb quickly fused under the wave of heat that remained.

Gaela released a muffled scream before she hit the ground, her armor sparking and shutting down all around her as its power relays were cooked from the inside out.

Gaela's power axe hit the ground after her, and then, as if it were the shot from a starting gun at a race, every Warp-spawned insect in the room bolted out the windows in a flurry of dark wings. Within three seconds they were all gone without a trace, like a bad dream. Even the dead ones seemed to have turned into mist and evaporated.

"What... just...?" Cadence looked back and forth between Tau and Iron Warrior, their backs to each other. She hardly needed to finish her question, but none of the other ponies had an answer.

A high-pitched humming noise was coming from Voidsong's suit, which was new. And then Twilight saw it; a thin, narrow wedge of shimmering white sticking out of the Shas'o's shield arm. A power blade.

Solon teetered forward slightly, a deep, tortuous groan coming from his chassis.

"C-Clever... girl..." he choked out before jets of boiling vapor blasted out of the back of his neck. A thick, snaking arc of plasma lashed over his chassis, and one by one his mechatendrils fell slack, like puppets with their strings cut.

"I suppose you thought the 'hidden dagger' descriptor was just a metaphor," Voidsong snorted as she rested her ion gun against her suit's shoulder, "die, monster."

Then, as if on command, Solon's head rolled off of his neck and tumbled to the floor.

****

Canterlot Castle - rear yards

*Move, move, move! Behind the wall, hurry!*

*Don't we have any more back-up?*

*Forget it! It's taking everything we've got to keep the blasted gue'la from overrunning the castle!*

*Here they come!*

Armored ponies and Chaos Space Marines charged around an iron gate, sprinting full tilt at the Stealth Suits that had taken up position behind a stone wall.

Their burst cannons roared to life, spraying a river of blue flares into the onrushing warriors. Their firing angle was perfect, and there was plenty of room between them and their targets; this was a perfect choke point to take down a few over-eager berserkers.

The problem was that all the energy bolts were passing right through their enemies as if they weren't there.

The battlesuit squad leader snarled a curse as he switched his vision modes. His heartbeat was thundering so loudly in his ears that he hadn't even noticed that the enemy charge had been making suspiciously little noise. After a moment of his sensors flickering, he watched the charging figures vanish from sight.

Well, most of them.

The stone wall shattered as Big Macintosh barreled forward, and the draft pony twisted his head to punch one horn through the battlesuit's abdominal armor. Another twist of his head and the shimmering armor suit was sent spiraling through the air, trailing great fans of dark blue blood all the way.

Just off to the side, bolter volleys plunged into the other Stealth Suits as the Iron Warriors took up firing positions at the gate; not only had the illusory charge given them time to get into place, but the Tau's weapon discharges had revealed the hard-to-detect battlesuits' exact location to the Chaos Marines. Within ten seconds three more Stealth Suits were down and the remainder were fleeing the scene with their jet packs.

"Follow! They've carried the damned emitter further back there!" snarled Tolken as he swept an arm forward. The remaining soldiers of the Black Hammers squadron - only six at this point - rushed forward and through the yard.

Big Macintosh was swaying on his legs slightly, feeling dizzy. The brutal high from the combat stimulants was finally wearing off, which not only allowed the stallion to feel his own straining and battered body, but was also returning him to his more sedate and sensible state of mind.

A dozen nagging thoughts came to him to suddenly compete for his attention, none of which had seemed very important a few moments ago when he had been mauling alien warriors. Did he have specific orders right now? Should he be keeping pace with the Iron Warriors? Where was Applejack? Was Applejack okay? Was she using Trixie as a shield, as they discussed? When had he run out of ammunition? Was this a good time to reload? Should he ditch the heavy bolter and stick to kicking Tau from here on out?

Big Macintosh looked behind him, trying to sort out the things that had happened when he had been in a chemical-induced frenzy. He remembered a bunch of hololiths, and didn't remember Trixie running past him, so that meant Trixie was lagging behind. So then-

His thoughts were interrupted by a warning signal on the left side of his visor, and he jerked his head in that direction.

He turned just in time to see the Heavy Stealth Suit de-cloak from where it was standing atop the castle's garbage pile, but not in enough time to do anything about its plasma rifle.

The plasma burst ripped into the left side of the stallion, and Macintosh immediately staggered on that side as both his augmetic legs failed.

He let out a pained grunt as he let his undamaged legs fold as well, landing him on his armored belly as warning signals lit up in front of him and a wire-frame diagram of his body detailed the damage. Apparently most of the plasma salvo had been spent searing through his heavy bolter, which dominated his left side. This not only saved his body a fair amount of damage, but also neatly solved the conundrum about reloading.

That did kind of leave an enemy battlesuit looming over him, though.

The Heavy Stealth Suit turned to glance away at where the Iron Warriors had gone, apparently thinking of its next move, but it nudged its plasma gun over to aim directly at the stallion's head.

All Big Macintosh could perceive, though, was the furious, ear-rending scream coming up behind him. It seemed that Applejack had caught up.

The Stealth Suit quickly turned to face the noisy, incoming threat, but found it rather hard to aim at the screaming orange blur before its brief window of opportunity passed. Applejack slammed her back hooves into the battlesuit with all her might and then some, striking the mechanized armor with a perfect, rolling, mid-air buck.

The ablative armor of the suit cockpit, which incidentally served as its means of camouflage projection, shattered all around the torso as the battlesuit was thrown through the air. It hit a stone pillar and bounced off hard, its jet pack straining to take any sort of control of its flight.

Applejack was already following the suit, apparently intent on kicking the space-age armor to pieces. "GET AWAY FROM MAH BROTHER, YA FILTHY GRAY VARMINT!!" the orange mare snarled as she skidded about in front of the hovering suit and hit it again in its leg.

The leg cracked, but this attack didn't carry the suit nearly as far. Fighting to regain its balance and hopefully get a shot off at the obnoxiously small and disturbingly powerful attacker, its jet pack redoubled its output to keep the suit from sliding backward.

Applejack leapt again and kicked again, but this attack didn't go as well. Pure adrenaline was the only thing keeping her from feeling the strain of her legs striking against armor shielding every bit as tough as standard power armor, and this time a sharp pain jolted through her body as she put a crack in the battlesuit's cockpit covering.

Applejack stumbled as she landed, and that was all the opening the Heavy Stealth Suit needed to club her with its burst cannon, smacking the pony back into the garbage heap where it had launched its ambush.

It was about to follow up its strike with a barrage to finish both Apples off, but was further inconvenienced by a fireball striking it in the front. Heat warnings briefly rose dangerously over the pilot's system display, and the battlesuit shut off its jet pack in order to vent coolant before it dared fire again. The flames weren't strong enough to break through its armor seals, though, so as Trixie galloped onto the scene to help she had merely delayed its firing cycle for a few seconds and added to the number of targets by one.

The plasma bolt that hit the Heavy Stealth Suit in the back proved to be a more permanent hindrance, however.

Tolken's plasma gun spewed gas into the air as the Armsmaster stomped up to the ponies, and he looked over his charges.

Applejack grunted as she got up, but she was in no obvious danger. Trixie was unharmed and already congratulating herself, loudly, for rescuing the pair of earth ponies.

Tolken interrupted her. "Trixie. The enemy got away from us again. Go on ahead and confirm the location of the center of the Shadow with Sereen."

Trixie nodded and galloped forward.

Tolken's visor dropped to regard Big Macintosh. "Are you dying?"

"Nnope," the armored stallion replied, tilting his helmet up to meet the Iron Warrior's gaze.

"Then get up."

Applejack scowled, and a hundred furious tirades crossed her mind in an instant.

She was just sorting out which ones would be least likely to earn her the same fate as the battlesuit when a high-pitched squeal came from the stallion next to her.

Big Mac trembled as he willed his augmetics to action. The living metal was already filling the holes left by the burning plasma, and his actuators shrieked and spat sparks as they fought to lift the stallion's armored bulk.

Big Mac paused, and after a moment of sorting through his equipment selection in his visor display, both his heavy bolter and its depleted ammo case unlocked from his sides and tumbled onto the ground. After another moment he also released the backup ammunition crate carried behind his rear.

Big Macintosh stood up, his augmetics straining but functional. There were large holes in his armor now, but beneath them was more warped metal that seeped back into place to restore its previous form.

"Follow me," Tolken commanded, turning around.

"Eeyup," Big Mac replied, moving into an uncertain canter. As he picked up his sister's grumbling next to him, he leaned his head over her way. "Thanks, Sis."

"Don' mention it," Applejack grunted, looking away, "just try to keep from losin' any more parts, ya hear?"

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh chuckled.

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

Nopony knew what to say as Solon's chassis collapsed onto the floor. His enormous servo claw went slack a moment later, leaving another large crack in the flagstones among countless others. A few moments after that his one non-mechanical leg started to dissolve away, as if it had decided on its own that it wasn't going to be necessary anymore.

"So... Solon?" that stunned, incredulous mumble had come from Luna, Twilight noted absently. Interesting. But not nearly as pertinent as the Tau battlesuit that was looming over Gaela right now.

"Treacherous xeno!" the Dark Acolyte spat as she struggled to get to her feet. Her right arm was fused into a useless angle, and her armor's full weight now dragged down her frame. Even so, Gaela was determined not to die on her knees.

"Ah. Haven't heard that one from a human in a while. How nostalgic," Voidsong remarked.

The sound of galloping alerted her to a pony incoming, and Voidsong whirled about to face the foe and deflect any potential attacks with her shield.

She needn't have bothered. Twilight bounded between Gaela and Voidsong, spreading her wings to shield the injured human.

"That's... That's enough!" Twilight's voice hitched as her chest heaved for breath. She had been through a lot today, and the physical and emotional toll had long since caught up with her. "You've won! It's over! Just let her live, please!"

Voidsong regarded the purple Princess for a moment, but didn't get much chance to think over the request.

Twilight yelped in shock as a cold, armored hand suddenly shoved her out of the way.

"She hasn't won," Gaela snarled as she leaned down for her power axe, "not so long as I still draw breath!"

Her power axe was heavy in her flesh-arm, her armor wasn't functioning, and half her body was numb from the ion discharge. Even then, pure hate and adrenaline enabled her to lift the weapon into the air, and the blade crackled as the power field engaged.

Voidsong moved first, her own power blade sizzling as it sliced through metal, flesh, and bone.

Both fighters halted after they passed each other, and a contemptuous snort came from the battlesuit.

Gaela staggered forward a step, and her body teetered as she fought to stay upright.

Her left arm hit the floor, smoke seeping from the point where it had been cut from her shoulder. The power axe fell down next to it.

"Now, then," Voidsong began, her power blade retracting, "you're out of spare limbs, cultist. I think I've won, regardless of..."

The High Commander trailed off, and all the ponies turned their heads at the sound of approaching footsteps.

Delgan paused on his way to re-enter the throne room, noticing that the enemy commander was still up.

His eyes moved over to Gaela. One arm was off and her others weren't moving.

His eyes moved over further, to the smoking, decapitated hulk lying in the middle of the hall. One of the remaining legs twitched and blasted a shower of sparks onto the floor.

"Nope," he declared.

Delgan turned around and bolted back out of the throne room. Rarity sighed.

"... And here you Techpriests are supposed to be the smart ones," Voidsong mused.

Gaela probably would have had a sarcastic comment to that, but her body had gone from feeling mostly numb to feeling like it was mostly on fire, and blood was starting to fill her mouth.

"Before I finish you, I have a request," the Tau High Commander said as she walked up behind the Dark Acolyte, her sensor head peering down at the comparatively puny creature, "after seeing that abomination over there in action, I find myself very curious about your little 'religion' and the kind of power it gives you." She raised her ion gun, and then pressed it into the back of Gaela's hairless scalp. "Pray."

"What?" Gaela managed to spit out, unsure whether she should laugh or curse at the alien. "You mean... after all this... you still doubt the... 'reality' of Chaos?"

"Then show me. Pray," Voidsong commanded.

When she got nothing but haggard breathing from the Acolyte, she pushed the muzzle of her weapon forward, almost pushing Gaela over.

"I said PRAY!!" the Shas'o boomed, causing the ponies to flinch back. "In your final moments, after all the suffering you've caused, after all the lives you've taken, I have ONE question for you, cultist filth!" Voidsong's suit leaned forward so that its speaker hovered just behind Gaela's shoulder. "WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!"

Twilight's voice came out in an incoherent whimper. There was nothing she could do!

Gaela felt equally helpless, if not as emotionally distraught about the circumstances. She swallowed the blood in her mouth, and then forced her paper-dry throat to speak.

"I call upon the spirit of the machine. Spark within shell of steel, electron stream within vein of copper, magnetic sequence within wafer of silicon. I call to thee, in the name of the Omnissiah. The Machine God. The Steel Darkness."

A slight scraping noise came from the ground. Most of the Princesses were too transfixed by the horrors they had just witnessed - and were still witnessing - to pay it any attention, but Cadence managed to divert her eyes away for a few seconds to stare at a severed mechatendril lying beneath a shattered window.

It was moving.

"I invoke the pantheon of Chaos, the true soul of the Omnissiah, to aid me now. Khorne, the beast. Give fire to our weapons and let our blades strike true. When fuel is exhausted and our shattered bodies grow weak, lend the machine your fury, so that it might spill the blood of the flesh once more."

Gaela's power armor started to hum as its systems restored themselves, and her servo arms twitched.

The hand of Voidsong's suit started to tighten around the ion gun.

"Nurgle, the destroyer. Master of entropy, parasites, and cycles. As flesh rots, so does metal rust and circuit degrade. As you foil the machines of the hated foe, so do you protect those of your chosen with your tainted love."

A sharp sparking noise came from the middle of the hall, and Voidsong's sensor head twitched up. The mechatendrils still attached to Solon's body were rising, and small lights started flickering on all around the fallen behemoth's broken body.

"Tzeentch, the antipath. Lies, illusions, and mysticism do you grant us. You are the ghost in the machine, the inexplicable glitch within the system. To those that would serve you, you are the source of all knowledge and secrets, a source of evolution and discovery. To those who would oppose you, you are but a curse."

Voidsong watched as her ion gun's heat readout started to rise for no apparent reason. Then her sensor inputs started going to grayscale and flickering, as if the lenses had been damaged.

"That's enough," the Shas'o said tightly as wisps of smoke started coming from the energizing chamber of her gun.

"Just as well," Gaela mumbled, "next was Slaanesh. I try to avoid that rite."

Voidsong pulled the trigger.

The heat vent of the ion gun exploded outward, and a long ribbon of energy lashed out of the energizing chamber before crawling over the length of the battlesuit's gun arm and cutting it open.

Voidsong leapt back instinctively, crashing into the throne and smashing it apart under the bulk of her armor. The damaged ion gun clattered onto the floor in a smoking heap.

"You wanted to know more about us, grayskin?" Gaela asked, still facing away from the stumbling alien. "Do you want to know why humans turn to Chaos?"

"I..." Voidsong's words got caught in her throat as minor system malfunctions continued to plague her battlesuit.

"Sometimes we convert at gunpoint. Sometimes we trade our souls for petty comforts or advantages. Sometimes we need to think that there's some kind of greater intelligence and will standing behind this cruel, merciless universe, and wish to align ourselves with it."

Gaela turned around. Thick black veins of some sort seemed to be running through her face and over her head, all of them originating from the cranial augment. Her bionic eye pulsed brightly, and Voidsong's sensors seemed to dim in time with its light.

Gaela smiled.

"Sometimes, though, we just need help. And in our fury and desperation, we scream into the darkness, demanding power."

A dull crack came from above, and several loose pieces of stone fell to the floor around Gaela. Voidsong and the ponies looked up at the ceiling.

"And sometimes... the darkness answers."

Princess Celestia cringed, an icy chill running up her spine. The Star of Chaos now decorated the ceiling over her throne, cut into the stone surface by some force unknown.

A deadly pause settled over the throne room as the sound of distant gunfire and detonations came from outside.

"Lunatic rantings of a dead woman walking," Voidsong snapped. Her systems were clear again, free of the apparently mystical interference, and her power blade extended from her shield arm. "I've already slain one monster today, fanatic! You will NOT stop-"

A burst of static came from Gaela's gorget as a vox link was established. Without her helmet, everyone in the room could hear the transmission without difficulty.

"Hey, Trixie here. You're the tech lady, right? Trixie found that Shadow thingy. Do you know how to turn it off?"

"No..." Voidsong mumbled.

"Oh, are we... we're just going to break it? Okay, never mind. Trixie's got this."

"NO!!" Voidsong screamed, vaulting forward toward the Dark Acolyte.

****

Canterlot Castle - rear yards

Big Mac grunted as his augmetic leg smashed into the organ tank of the Shadow field generator. The armorglass folded in an instant, and the gigantic brain within the tank was crushed to a pulp as much of the tank's mechanisms were ripped free from the rest of the device.

Tolken walked over the mutilated bodies of several Fire Warriors to reach a mostly dismembered Heavy Stealth Suit, and then hammered his power maul into the cockpit.

"Mission complete," the Armsmaster growled as he tore the cockpit door off of the suit. He fired two shots of his bolt pistol into the exposed pilot, and then turned away with a snort.

"Was there ever any doubt?" Trixie asked, feeling quite chipper as the suffocating chill of the Shadow in the Warp dissipated.

"Actually, yeah, once'r twice," Applejack mumbled as she walked up to one of the fallen Iron Warriors and tapped a hoof on his scorched armor plating. "Yo, ya alive in there?"

A pained grunt was her reply, which she took as a yes.

The sound of a large engine getting close gave the group pause, and they looked up as an Orca heavy transport craft roared into the sky. It was promptly pursued by a pair of lighter transport craft, and then by a wing of pursuing Hellblade fighters.

"The xeno is in retreat," the Armsmaster declared as he searched the noosphere feeds for tactical information, "the city is ours."

****

Canterlot Castle - throne room

The sizzling sound of a power blade scraping against metal filled Gaela's ears, and she looked down at her chest plate.

The very tip of the battlesuit's power blade was digging into her armor, trembling slightly as it burned away at the outer layer of metal and fought to push deeper.

Voidsong grunted and strained, and her jet pack roared behind her, but she moved no further. Swirling magical energy surrounded every inch of the heavy armor suit, holding her in place in a glowing cocoon of brightly colored power.

"Now then," Luna said darkly, her horn shimmering with magical light, "We believe that thine occupation of our city is to be... renegotiated, alien."

Twilight, Rarity, and Cadence all had their horns aglow, helping to immobilize the alien warrior in the air.

"But first..." Princess Celestia stepped forward, and then her own horn blazed a fierce yellow, "let's do something about all that uncomfortable armor you're wearing."

Slivers of bright yellow light appeared over the battlesuit's arms, and the artificial limbs trembled briefly before shattering into pieces, falling to the floor in a shower of components. The power blade fell away from Gaela's chest, its power field fizzling to nothing.

The legs came next, followed by the sensor head, and then the outer layers of the cockpit. Within seconds there was nothing left of the mighty battlesuit except an egg-shaped vessel trailing wires and broken pieces of machinery.

Gaela snorted and stepped back, and then her servo arms whirled about and started to remove her useless right arm from its shoulder socket.

A pair of yellow lights appeared over the floating battlesuit cockpit, and then they traveled in a circle around the metal shell, cutting it in half.

Voidsong tumbled out of the sundered vessel as the halves parted, only to be caught in mid-air and levitated helplessly before the ponies.

"Miss Voidsong," Celestia said grimly as the Tau officer gave her a rather resigned glare, "I hereby rescind my surrender of Canterlot, and am taking you into custody for your crimes against our nation."

The whine of engines momentarily filled the room as a formation of Devilfish sped by the castle at high speed.

"Considering that my forces don't seem to control your city at the moment, the gesture is meaningless," Voidsong spat, "but sure. I suppose I've earned this. I never did know when to cut and run."

Behind them, Gaela's bionic arm fell and hit the floor, and the ponies winced as they glanced over to the dismembered woman.

"Gaela, darling, do you need some help? Like, maybe... I don't know, a bandage or something?" Rarity asked, walking over to the Dark Acolyte.

"I'll live," Gaela mumbled as she lurched awkwardly toward Solon's body.

"Doesn't your shoulder hurt?" Cadence asked, feeling rather stupid for asking the question.

"The pain is bearable," Gaela answered as she walked up to Solon's head and leaned down onto her knees. Then her servo arm reached down and gently clamped onto the Chaos Lord's helmet.

None of the ponies wished to watch such a grisly scene or reflect upon the fate of the Warsmith, so they turned back to Voidsong.

"So, now that you've lost, do you feel like telling us what you were trying to accomplish?" Twilight asked, her eyes narrowing as she glared up at the Tau.

"Pardon? I thought we covered that," the High Commander replied.

"No, we didn't. Not really, anyway," Twilight insisted, "what did you intend to do with that Warp core?"

"Yesh, I'm quite curioush ash well," Solon asked.

It took a full three seconds for everypony in the room to recognize the very unique speech pattern, recall why that individual shouldn't be speaking, and then commence freaking out about it.

"GYAH!!"

Voidsong dropped to the floor as the levitation keeping her afloat suddenly stopped, and she shouted in pain as she landed on the pile of generally hard and sharp battlesuit pieces.

Gaela was standing up again, Solon's head held tightly in the pincer of her servo arm and facing the others in the throne room.

"What?" the disembodied head asked, taking in the expressions of shock and horror of the ponies.

"Oh, you have GOT to be fucking kidding me!" Voidsong snarled as she pulled herself up. "What does it take to kill you, you bastard?!"

"She shwearsh quite fluently in Gothic, doeshn't she?" Solon asked.

Gaela pursed her lips. "I get the distinct impressions she gets plenty of practice."

Luna recovered first from the sight of a disembodied head talking to them, and she quickly immobilized Voidsong again before speaking. "Warsmith! Thou hast survived thy beheading?"

Solon's helmet was turned away from the ponies as Gaela climbed up onto his chassis. "Oh, yesh. Thish ishn't the firsht time I've been decapitated in a duel."

There was a pause.

"Firsht time againsht a Tau, though." Then he sighed. "Tellish ish going to make fun of me."

Gaela pushed away his hissing mechatendrils, all of which seemed to want to poke at Solon's helmet as she moved it from point to point over the decapitated torso. She was trying to figure out how to make the repairs without hands, Twilight realized.

"Gaela, here! Let me help!" Twilight rushed up to the chassis and lifted Solon's head up with magic, thus freeing Gaela's servo arm. The Dark Acolyte nodded silently.

Princess Celestia frowned, but before she could organize her thoughts or feelings any further the front door of the throne room burst open.

Celestia and Cadence immediately assumed fighting poses as three gigantic Terminators stomped into the room, but the Iron Warriors ignored them. Two of the Rusted Brothers stopped short at the sight of their Warsmith, but Sliver, at the head of the formation, walked all the way up to Solon's body and then plunged his hammer into the floor.

Celestia's eyebrow twitched as yet another hole was created in her throne room, but she decided not to interrupt until she deemed it necessary.

"Warssmith. The city iss ourss. Our unitss are regrouping and ssweeping the area for ssurvivorss and wounded. Combat lossess are sstill being esstimated, but our cassualtiess look to be... tolerable."

Solon laughed awkwardly as Gaela started pulling wires out of his severed neck. "That'sh good! Excellent newsh! Shplendid work, Shliver!"

Sliver slowly turned his helmet to gaze at the Tau female floating in the air near the back of the throne room.

"What?" Voidsong snapped, her arms crossed over her chest.

Sliver's gaze turned back to Solon. "Really? You losst to a graysskin thiss time?"

Solon would have winced if he had been physically capable. "She had a hidden power shword!"

The other Chaos Lord seemed to tremble in fury for a few seconds before he could find his voice. "... You're a dissgrace," Sliver growled before he turned on his heel, incidentally grinding another hole into the flooring before he walked back out of the room.

The other two Terminators waited until Sliver went through the doorway before they turned to follow, although one lingered long enough to rear his helmet back and (somehow) spit a wad of brackish filth onto the floor.

That Terminator grabbed hold of the doors on his way out, and then slammed them closed behind him hard enough to break one of the heavy iron hinges off.

"You're going to want to clean that shpot with fire," Solon advised the ponies behind him.

"Yes... well..." Celestia trailed off uncertainly. She wasn't too proud to admit that she was completely out of her element here, and really wished she could do something about the giant dismembered Chaos Lord in the middle of her throne room before proceeding.

Ideally, she would have liked to fling him into the darkest reaches of Tartarus. But given extremely recent events, that probably wasn't appropriate.

Sensing that her sister was a bit overwhelmed, Luna happily took the reins of the situation.

"So then, We believe next comes the sentencing for this fiend?" the Princess of the Night declared as she walked up to Voidsong. "We believe thou previously expressed a preference for petrification as a sentence?"

"What about that Warp core thing? She still hasn't told us anything about it," Rarity pointed out.

"And I'm not going to do so," Voidsong said calmly before looking back to Luna. "So, do I get to pose first, or what?"

Luna snorted as Celestia's horn flared again. "Do as thou wish, alien."

"But no offensive gestures, please," Cadence added quickly, "foals are going to see you after you're set up in the statue garden, after all."

Celestia's spell consumed the Shas'o, and Voidsong straightened her body to a standing pose as she felt her legs start to get numb. She turned her head up and to the side and raised one hand to her forehead, as if she was scanning the distant skies.

"We must confess, thou art taking this very well," Luna mumbled, looking slightly disturbed as the encroaching stone crawled up over the alien's waist.

"Of course I am," Voidsong said, smiling as she lost feeling in her chest and started to lose her lungs, "I won."

****

Black Point

*Is it okay? Tell me it's undamaged!* the Tau Fio'el begged as he approached the transport parked just within the edge of the base perimeter.

The transport had clearly suffered, with great black craters marking its side over its cargo bay where it had suffered autocannon impacts.

*It was a near thing,* the pilot nodded, gasping for breath as Fire Warriors rushed past him, *neither of my escort fighters came back after they drew away the patrol gunships, but the cargo bay is intact.* He clenched his jaw. *Please tell me it was worth it.*

The Engineer let out a relieved gasp, and then clapped a hand on the pilot's shoulder. *It was worth it,* he promised as he watched a pair of hauler robots withdraw the Warp core from the transport, *although this world may die, it will save a hundred others. And perhaps many more.*

The pilot blew out a long breath. *For the Greater Good, then.*

*Yes. It's time to activate the Warp beacon.*

Author's Note

So I'm hoping that Voidsong redeemed a bit of the ass-kicking the Tau have been getting so far. In the end, her curiosity got the better of her, though.

I've got an epilogue chapter this time rather than a little blurb at the end. Then it's off to Book 4!

Epilogue

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Epilogue

****

Ferrous Dominus - Solon's forge

Solon slowly wheeled up to a smelting pot, his chassis carried on a massive, reinforced gurney.

The glorified push-cart wasn't that hard to manage with his remaining three legs, but it was, obviously, highly visible. The Warsmith was pretty sure some of the Dark Techpriests were disguising their snickering as binary chatter as he had wheeled past them through the manufactorum.

Still, the legs were an embarrassment, but his decapitation was a handicap. Gaela's repair job had essentially fixed his helmet in place on his neck, which was more than a little inconvenient.

First job: a new neck assembly. Which wasn't hard to build, but actually cutting apart his current one and replacing it would be a pain, to say the least. Second job: three new legs. Third job: armor repair. Fourth job: new mechatendrils. And then his hololith projectors, and his heavy bolters, and his void shield assembly...

Solon sighed as he worked at the screens in front of him. The end result hadn't been all that bad, all things considered. Delgan had gotten through the fight with nary a scratch, and Gaela treated her loss of both arms with the same stolid indifference that most soldiers experienced when ditching a damaged helmet. Tolken had returned the Shadow generator mostly intact, and he had even mumbled something about ponies having their uses. And the Lamman Sept had abandoned many useful machines and stores of supplies in their haste to flee the city.

But it was absolutely mortifying to Solon personally that he had been shot and sliced apart in front of a group of ponies. Ponies that had subsequently disabled and restrained the enemy leader with ease.

"Pshykersh," Solon grumbled as jets of steam blasted up from the smelting pot.

An incoming vox link. Tellis.

Solon terminated the vox link before letting it connect. Even so, he swore he could somehow STILL hear the Raptor laughing hard enough to sunder his helmet.

Another incoming vox link. Not Tellis. He connected.

"Warsmith? This is Pterax again. I wish to report that Centaur III and its moon have returned to their previous stable orbits and rotations."

Solon tried to nod out of reflex, but his head didn't budge. "Good, good. It sheemsh the Dark Acolyte wash correct, then."

"Indeed. Also... we're picking up another Warp signal. One of those beacons that you say are used by the Ork fleets."

Solon would have jolted his head up in surprise, but couldn't. "Another one? I don't undershtand. There ishn't shupposhed to be any Ork activity in thish region. At leasht not according to the Tau. And thish ish their shector."

"That's the thing, Warsmith. I don't think the signals are coming from the Orks," Pterax mumbled, "this new signal is coming from here. Centaur III."

And then, suddenly, Solon understood.

"Thoshe clever little bashtardsh," the Warsmith mumbled.

"My lord?"

"Pardon me, Pterax. I need to get in contact with Magosh Kaelith. He hash a meshage I need him to deliver."

****

Black Point - communications center

*You can't be serious,* Wraithstar growled, *you can't! There are hundreds of men here! Tau! Kroot! Humans! You can't seriously be leaving us all here to die! That wasn't part of the mission!*

*Actually, that WAS part of the mission, in order-*

The Shas'el cut off the voice on the other end of the communicator. *WAS! In the past! Back when I had a comms scrambler, a hangar full of transports, and a full barracks!* he screamed into the monitor in front of him. *If you pull the fleet out of the system, you're sentencing every one of us to die here along with the rest of the planet!*

*There's nothing we can do, Shas'el!* barked the voice from the speaker. *There's no way the enemy fleet wouldn't detect us trying to evacuate Black Point! After that, they merely need to choose their favorite method of stopping the evacuation and killing you all anyway!*

*Then send an army! The gue'la have been plenty meek about assaulting this base so far! We HAVE the strength to stop them! Don't tell me that you're AFRAID of these blasted cultists!*

There was a long pause. Too long.

*You are,* Wraithstar accused, his voice low and angry, *you're afraid of them. You outnumber and outgun the blasted apes entirely, but you're terrified to even approach this planet again.*

*The defeat at Canterlot was... severe, Shas'el,* the other voice was getting weaker, shuddering, and taking deep breaths, *very few transports made it back. Shas'o Voidsong and her retinue... were not among them.*

That news was quite sobering, but Wraithstar's anger wasn't so easily quelled. *So you've sentenced us to her fate. Out of cowardice.*

*We can afford no further losses to the gue'la. We barely completed our mission. Your orders are to stay and defend the Warp beacon for as long as you can.*

A furious growl was the most coherent noise Wraithstar could make at that point, so he went ahead and growled furiously.

*This is your last, and greatest, duty to the Greater Good, and your final sacrifice for the Tau Empire. I'm sorry, Shas'el Wraithstar. Goodbye.* The communications link went dead.

The Tau Commander screamed incoherently, and then ripped his monitor from the desk and flung it against the wall.

He doubted he'd need it again anyway.

****

Canterlot Castle - royal plaza

"WEEEEEEEE ARRRRRE THE CHAAAAMMMMPIONNNNNS!! WEEEEEEEE ARRRRRE THE CHAAAAMMMMPIONNNNNS!! NOOOO ROOM FOR LOOOOSERSSSS, 'CUZ WEEEEEEEE ARRRRRE THE CHAAAAMMMMPIONNNNNS!!"

Around an enormous bonfire of burning debris, the voices of a hundred ponies mixed with the voices of a hundred humans, and were then drowned out by the booming howl of a pair of dreadnoughts. Each of the insane war walkers were stomping around the bonfire with groups of ponies sitting on top of them, and the equines lurched from side to side and laughed with every heavy step.

Pinkie Pie led the festivities, of course, a bullhorn at her lips as she led the singing from atop an unusually sedate defiler. Fluttershy rested in the back of the daemon engine, finding comfort in the warmth of its seething generators as well as the wide berth every human and pony gave the possessed machine.

"'CUZ WEEEEEEEE ARRRRRE THE CHAAAAMMMMPIONNNNNS... OF THE WORRRRRRRLD!!"

All around the bonfire, humans would occasionally walk up dragging chunks of flammable debris from the city to keep the flames burning, while ponies that arrived to the festivities usually brought snacks or drinks, and were greeted heartily for it.

As the celebrations carried on long into the night, however, there were ponies with plenty of reservations about the battle that had taken place earlier that evening.

Princess Celestia was one of those ponies. She watched the revelry from her balcony atop the castle, and as much as it lifted her heart to see her subjects laughing and cheering in the aftermath of the devastation they had witnessed, her eyes kept rising to the smoldering city beyond the bonfire.

Her capital was shattered. Buildings were gutted, towers were burned, and the bloody remains of a hundred different violent conflicts were scattered around the buildings like litter. It left an ache in her stomach that was hardly mollified by the singing below, and it was merely the most immediately visible aspect of what was wrong with Canterlot tonight. In the darkness, fluttering among the pillars of smoke, were giant black standards that had been mounted atop buildings without sanction or warning. Standards bearing a grinning silver skull.

"Sister, thou art up very late."

Celestia didn't turn around as Luna joined her on the balcony.

"We realize that the affairs of state are in disarray at the moment, but thou hast had an especially trying day. None would think less of thee for seeing to thy rest."

Celestia's wings ruffled. "I don't think I could sleep even if I wanted to."

Luna frowned, stepping up to the edge of the balcony with the larger alicorn. She glanced at her sister's tight, anxious frown, and then down at the diverse crowd below.

"Thou hates them still?" Luna asked, her voice free of judgment or reproach. "The humans?"

Celestia shook her head. "No, Luna. I don't hate them. I fear them."

Luna raised an eyebrow.

Celestia looked upwards, toward the night sky. "I fear the things that swim the vast ocean between the stars. They have knowledge beyond our comprehension, tools beyond our imagining, numbers beyond our counting, and power beyond our greatest feats of magic." Her head dropped once more to the celebration below. "All I want is to protect my little ponies. To keep our kingdom safe from those beyond the void that would swallow them up without a thought. But I can't."

Celestia took a deep breath before she turned her head toward her sister. "We were so helpless, Luna. One machine. One little machine from a race that had only learned of our existence weeks ago, and just like that our power was gone. Our capital was occupied and overrun in minutes, all from complete secrecy. And for what? Some mysterious goal that has nothing even to do with us. We were an afterthought, Luna."

The younger Princess snorted. "'Tis true, and the grays paid the price for their dismissal. It may hath been the humans that ousted the fiends, but it was thine Elements of Harmony that led them here before the invaders were ready."

Celestia was not comforted. "Yes. The Tau were bad. But the humans..." she clenched her teeth. "You saw, Luna. You saw that... thing that calls itself their leader." Her blood felt cold as she recalled the sight of an insectoid leg ripping free of Solon's metal shell. "What IS Solon? Was he... Was he human once, like the men down there? I know more than I would ever want about Chaos, but can it really turn a man into... that?" Celestia gulped. "Or, for that matter, what about a pony?"

Luna thought it over as she too recalled the moments in which Solon's more "supernatural" aspects were on full display, albeit with far less drama than her older sister.

"If We art honest, We find it difficult to take the Warsmith so seriously. Between his absurd slur, disastrous duel, and the utter disrespect he is afforded by his subordinates, We rather feel sorry for him."

"You PITY that thing?" Celestia asked, stunned. "He's a monster in charge of his own space army! And if I might say, he fared plenty well against a room full of enemies that I would not dare to send our royal guard against!"

Luna nodded calmly. "We art the Princess of the Night, Sister. Dreams are part of our duties, and We hast faced many a nightmare." She trailed off, meeting her sister's eyes. "'Tis not often We meet a nightmare with a soul. The Warsmith... fascinates us. We too wonder how much of him is man, machine, or infernal beast."

Another pause.

"Besides, if thou art concerned about the physical evidence of Chaos corruption, We found the Acolyte's performance far more unsettling," Luna grimaced, looking away from the other Princess.

Celestia visibly shivered, her fur bristling along her neck. "On that point, at least, we're in full agreement."

"Princess! There you are!"

The royal sisters let the grim tension of their conversation fade as they turned toward Twilight Sparkle, who was walking up to the balcony with Kibitz and Spike in tow.

"We've finished going over the preliminary damage reports with the human captains," Twilight reported, several checklists floating behind her in the air while Spike carried several more, "also, we found all the spots where Sliver used his Viral Scourge, and purged those areas with flame as recommended."

"Very good idea, that," Kibitz noted, "you should have seen the state of the trees that had been infected. Burning them felt like an act of mercy more than gardening or sanitation."

Twilight laughed awkwardly as she noticed that Celestia's expression was already souring. "Yes! Well! Speaking of fire, the castle gardens are mostly ashes now, forty-seven statues or other pieces of stonework are damaged beyond any possibility of repair, nine doors need repairs or replacing, seventeen of the windows that didn't detail historic battles between good and evil need to be fixed, the main guard barracks was destroyed by Fluttershy's defiler, and most of the sewer system behind the castle was caved in with explosives. And then, of course, there's the throne room, which had every window broken, a lot of the flooring damaged, and the throne smashed. That covers the most major damage on the royal grounds."

"What of the marks of Chaos that now desecrate the throne room on the floor and ceiling, thus polluting our very seat of power with their blighted energies?" Luna asked with a grimace.

"Oh, they're not very deep. A little spackle here and there and you won't even be able to tell," Kibitz insisted.

Celestia nodded solemnly. "I see. And what of my citizens? How many of my little ponies will never see the light of my sun once more?"

Kibitz blinked. "What? Oh! No, nopony died! A lot of humans did, of course, and we have quite a few injuries among the citizens, but as far as we know there were no pony deaths."

Celestia blinked. Twice. Then she tilted her head to one side. "Really?"

"Yeah. It's... actually getting a little suspicious at this point," Twilight mumbled, pursing her lips. She certainly wasn't upset at a lack of casualties, but she was disturbed at the blatant subversion of statistic probability.

"Oh, but some of the injuries ARE quite severe!" Kibitz noted. "Why, before the night is out some ponies may lose their legs! They'll never walk again!"

In the hall behind Kibitz, Big Macintosh passed by the open doorway while hauling a large, heavy cart full of corpses behind him. Luna arched an eyebrow at seeing the battered power armor worn by the stallion, noting that the damaged sections exposed his augmetics.

"So it's no laughing matter!" Kibitz finished sadly, his mustache wiggling back and forth.

"Yes, of course. I am... pleased we escaped the assault so lightly," Princess Celestia mumbled, looking away.

Twilight's ears fell flat against her head. "Uh, Princess? You... well... don't LOOK pleased."

Celestia sighed as she watched the clusters of gleaming armor patrol the city below, some of them dragging along captured foes or dead bodies.

"I can't help but wonder, Twilight: was this battle worth it? The Tau were going to leave our city unharmed once they completed their secret mission. Was this result better?"

Twilight and Luna both recoiled.

"Princess! You mean that after all they did, you would have trusted them to leave everypony unharmed?" Twilight asked. She certainly hoped that wasn't the case, given that she was the one who had alerted the 38th Company to the threat.

"To be sure, such an option is inconceivable to us," Luna bristled, "to submit to the enemy's deceit and aggression in order to avoid conflict is unacceptable!"

Celestia hesitated, and then nodded sadly. "Yes. You're right. But I can't help wishing there was another way."

Luna's expression softened, and she reached her head over to nuzzle her sister's neck. "Of course. There art no folly in hope or the earnest pursuit of peace. But rather than expend such sentiment on moments past, t'would be best to look to the future."

"Does anypony know why there's a giant, black, centipede-person in the castle?" Spike asked, facing the castle hall.

The question startled the Princesses out of their tender moment, and the three alicorns glanced back toward the door.

Kaelith was standing in front of the doorway, his body bent over a pair of nervous-looking pegasi guards.

Twilight immediately recognized the distinctive black rubber robe of the 38th Company's Dark Mechanicus, although she didn't recall seeing this particular individual before.

"Excuse me!" she called as she trotted over. "Is there a problem, Mister...?"

Dark Magos Kaelith turned toward Twilight, and his sensors took note of the alicorns.

"Identification: Dark Magos Kaelith. Explanatory: I am to update you as to Tau Empire activity in the Centaur system."

Kaelith stalked past the pony guards, ignoring their indignant shouts as he straightened his body to tower over the Equestrians. He was quite annoyed at being used to transmit a simple message when there was a great deal of supplies and salvage he should be sorting through, but he tamped down his frustration and resolved to complete his given task.

"It's all right," Twilight assured the guards before nodding to the Dark Magos, "please, go ahead."

"Begin debriefing: the Tau fleet is on course to depart the Centaur system and is accelerating to relativistic speed."

Twilight nodded, while the other two Princesses glanced at each other while shrugging.

"Then we did it! We won!" Twilight said with a grin. "I knew Voidsong was wrong!"

"Negative," Kaelith said harshly, causing the purple pony to recoil, "Explanatory: the Tau successfully transported the Warp core to their military outpost despite considerable opposition, taking advantage of our reduced patrols. They have completed and activated the device that was central to their mission here, and have ceased active combat operations in-system as a result."

Twilight gaped, her eyes wide. "But... That... We..."

Luna interrupted the younger Princess's stammering. "So have thee finally some inkling as to what this accursed device does?"

"Affirmative. Explanatory: the device is a Warp-space beacon. Expansion: the particular nature of the beacon is such that it provides guidance to the passage of local-sector Ork fleets in particular."

Twilight was lost at this point, but Kaelith didn't pause for any questions before several hololith projectors poked out of the folds of his robes.

"Display: the sections of the Ultima Segmentum which comprise the region considered 'Tau space'."

The hololith flickered into view, displaying numerous stars and nebulae in a large box. Twilight immediately leaned forward, her ears perking up.

"Notation: Centaur system."

A red box appeared and boxed in a particular star at the edge of a sparse arc of stars on the edge of the projection.

"Notation: Tyranid Hive Fleet Eumenides." A patch of the galactic view was flooded with red, such that it looked like a coil of tendrils were drilling through the void between star systems. "Expansion: a collection of massive bio-vessels containing armies of extremely destructive predator-soldiers."

Another red area appeared in the hololith, this time manifesting as a large red circle.

"Notation: unnamed Ork warfleet, threat rating six. Expansion: a massive congregation of alien armies driving a path through populated systems seeking enemies to conquer."

Twilight frowned. The two red spots weren't anywhere near each other, nor were they anywhere near the Centaur system. "Okay... so, what does this have to do with us?"

"Explanatory: each of these alien forces are moving deep into Tau space, and destroying their new colonies. Both are of a scale that makes stopping either of them difficult, and can only be done at a severe cost to the Empire's army. Together, they represent an existential threat to the integrity of the Tau's supremacy in this region of space."

The Dark Magos paused. "Extrapolation: in facing two nearly unstoppable forces, the Lamman Sept considered the simple stratagem of letting Tyranid and Ork fight each other, and then destroying the victor. To this end, they have designed and placed several Warp beacons along a string of uncolonized worlds to lead the Ork warfleet on an expedited path directly into the Tyranid hive fleet. Notation: Warp beacon system placement."

Several new green lights appeared over the stars on the edge of the hololith, and Twilight felt a distinct tightness in her chest as one of them flickered into place over the Centaur system. Their system.

"Notation: Ork warfleet route, confirmed and estimated."

New markers appeared on the hololith, some of them representing splinter engagements and major battles that had been gleaned from Tau records, but the Equestrians were most obviously concerned with the arrows that strung together the Warp beacons carefully arranged throughout space.

Arrows that reached the Centaur system, and then continued beyond it.

"Conclusive," Kaelith stated flatly to the stunned Princesses, "within seven hundred hours, the main body of the Ork fleet will arrive in the Centaur system, seeking opposition. Estimations of Ork army strength are notoriously unreliable, but it was last rated at approximately nine-point-seven billion individuals. And rising."

Spike's mouth started to mouth the word "billion", but no sound came out except a slight wheezing.

"Expansion: this planet will be overrun, and once the Orks have destroyed or enslaved everything on it, they will proceed to move on as per the Tau stratagem. Your world is doomed."

Kaelith's lower body turned on the spot and started to move away, even as the emerald lights of his optical sensors remained fixed on the gaping Princesses.

"Recommendation: enjoy the local festivities. Your extinction is nigh."

Author's Note

And that's what's up.
See guys? The Tau had a good plan after all!
And then those darn ponies got the Iron Warriors all riled up. They almost ruined everything!

Next Book will be titled "Emerald Dawn". Stay tuned!

How to Make Friends and Influence Ponies

Iron Hearts: Book 3

Chapter 2

How To Make Friends and Influence Ponies

****

Cloudsdale

All things considered, Tellis thought he was taking his exile from his fleet and army pretty well.

Most Space Marines, both of loyalist and Chaotic persuasion, tended to react very badly to the threat of separation from their Legions. Were he the type to study or think about psychology, he probably would have considered that the Legion or Chapter was the closest thing an Astartes had to a family, and the only place where a Space Marine had anything resembling peers. Becoming superhuman had changed many things within their biology and minds, but their nature as social creatures remained, altered as it was by the extremely disciplined and martial culture of the cult Astartes.

Tellis did not know a thing about psychology, though. He just assumed that all of his brothers were cowards and simpering Daddy's boys.

An entire world full of bizarre sights to see and interesting creatures to kill, and the entire Company seemed content to huddle behind the walls of their fortress, fearful of being ambushed by little gray men. Pathetic.

What was the point of turning to the darker powers if they returned to the same dull, grinding existence of orders and doctrine, only without the endless resources and so-called "honor" that came with serving the Imperium? Even the mortals of the Company knew to enjoy their life while they could, because service to Chaos usually didn't extend it.

Let the other Iron Warriors rot behind their guns, endlessly walking guard patrols and manning emplacements for a foe that would never dare challenge them openly. If they wanted to spend their miserable lives traveling to alien planets only to hide behind a barricade, it was their loss, and he wasn't suffering for their absence.

Tellis was flying through a city made of goddamn CLOUDS.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAW!!!" the Raptor Lord bellowed as he curved through the air on a trail of flame and smoke.

Pegasi yelped in surprise at seeing a giant man covered in metal flying through the air and screaming for no perceptible reason, and many bolted away in fright, assuming that it was some kind of random monster attack.

Those ponies that were more curious or actually knew enough about the alien fleet to identify an Iron Warrior watched with fascination as the superhuman warrior blasted through the city, weaving between the cloud buildings in long, blazing arcs.

Tellis came up on what he could only guess was some sort of factory complex, and he pulled up just before he ran into the wall, giggling like a maniac as winged ponies wearing little hard hats shouted and flew away.

His visor was going berserk in front of his eyes, flashing warnings, analysis results, and hasty corrections constantly as it tried to make sense of the cloud buildings and completely failed. It wasn't even sure whether to treat them as solid objects that could cause a crash, and thus blared at him whenever it seemed like he might run into one.

Tellis would have powered down his helmet to clear the useless data, but frankly he found it hilarious.

"Hello, Mister Alien!" came a voice from above as Tellis slowed his ascent.

The Raptor Lord spun around in the air, his gaze half-way meeting that of a certain gray pegasus with a mail sack. "Greetings, pony courier! I am Tellis! How goes your daily tasks?"

"Great!" Derpy said with meaningless enthusiasm. "My name is Derpy Hooves! I've never seen any aliens in Cloudsdale before!"

"Most of us can't get up here, I'm afraid," Tellis admitted grimly, crossing his arms over his chest as he hovered before the blond mare, "few of us humans or post-humans are cool enough to have a flight capability, just as few humans are lame enough to possess sorcerous powers."

Derpy blinked owlishly at the explanation. "So... most humans are earth humans?"

A laugh that sounded curiously like an eagle being tortured to death boomed through the area, and most of the pegasi watching felt an icy chill crawl down their spines.

Derpy seemed utterly unaffected, still staring (partially) at the Khornate warrior.

"Earth humans! That's great!" the Iron Warrior barked between chuckles. "The more of you nutty horses I meet, the less I want to destroy you all for fun!"

"That's good!" Derpy cheered. "Anyway, I have to go back to work now, but I think those two police ponies want to welcome you to the city too! Bye-bye Mister Tellis!"

Tellis spun around again as the mare flew off, and he was not surprised to see a pair of stallion pegasi in blue police outfits fluttering toward him.

"Fluttering" was really the only word to describe their pace; the ponies were clearly in no hurry to reach him, and they both flinched when he turned to look at them before reluctantly continuing their approach.

"Uhm, h-hello? Sir? Can I have a moment of your time?" one of the officers asked meekly.

As public enforcers and stallions they were bigger than the average pegasus, but even so they were hardly much larger than each of the Raptor's arms. And considerably less dangerous.

Tellis hummed noisily as he considered his response. "All right, but if you don't have a gimmick like the last one I can't promise I'll still be listening by the end of a whole moment."

The police ponies shared a confused glance but pressed on, encouraged by the Chaos Marine's lack of obvious hostility.

"Well, uh, Sir, although it is of course legal and entirely fine for anypony or anything to fly around Cloudsdale-"

"Even if they belong to a flightless species that can only get here with the aid of rocket wings," the other officer interjected.

"-we wish you wouldn't disturb the peace in doing so," the first pegasus finished, smiling nervously at the armored giant sputtering flame.

"Disturb the what now?" Tellis asked.

"Peace. You know, calm, order, serenity, routine?" the other police pony interjected again, listing synonyms for their complaint.

"It sounds boring," Tellis confessed, "why would you want it to be boring?"

The first pegasus pursed his lips. "Specifically Sir, we wish you'd stop screaming. The noise, besides being extremely unsettling in general, is needlessly loud. You're causing a disturbance."

"Pft!" the Raptor Lord made a snorting noise from his vox grille. "You call that a disturbance? I'll show you a disturbance!"

Before the enforcers could impress that they explicitly did NOT want to be shown a disturbance, Tellis had already blasted backward through the air, roaring toward a tall tower that served as a hotel.

"Wait! Sir! What are you..." the police pegasus trailed off as the flames from Tellis' flight pack suddenly cut out, the armor module spitting a puff of dusty smoke as its owner reached a point just above the tower.

"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Ponies gaped in shock as the Iron Warrior quickly fell to relentless grip of gravity, plunging feet-first through the roof of the cloud building like there was nothing beneath him at all.

Shouts, yelps, and screams loud enough to be heard from outside came from the building interior in a rapid, descending sequence, and a few seconds later Tellis fell out of the bottom of the cloud platform that "held" the building.

"Ha! Those two on the third floor were totally boning!" Tellis giggled like a child as he continued plummeting downward, the fins of his flight pack quivering from the turbulence.

Then a new light on his helmet display appeared. "What the... a distress call?"

With a crackling boom his flight pack ignited once more, sending the Chaos Marine hurtling through the air and curving away from his imminent meeting with the ground.

"Hm... it's translating the machine code... wait, it's in Binary?" Distress calls in general were an item of interest for Tellis, as they were rarely deployed for mundane reasons. To see a distress call in machine language meant...

Well, Tellis didn't really have any idea what it meant. But that alone made it interesting and worth checking out.

He twisted through the air toward the pulse origin, his flight pack burning hot.

Then the message finished translating.

"Tau Empire units detected and engaged. Enemy infiltration group has taken the field. All available units, please assist retreat," Tellis read aloud.

His armor almost quivered around him as it sensed the impending carnage, and the flight pack roared louder as it summoned reserves of power that weren't part of its strictly physical design and pushed his speed beyond its normal limits.

"Man, this has all the makings of a GREAT day."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - main orchard

"Well, this has turned into a pretty crummy day," Scootaloo admitted.

Sweetie Belle really wanted to smack the pegasus filly upside the head for such a moronic understatement, but she didn't dare make any sudden moves.

Besides, her forelegs were currently wrapped around Apple Bloom, who was sobbing into the ground. Not only did this impart much-needed comfort during this extremely stressful time, but it also kept the farmer from doing anything stupid to the trio of Tau Stealth Suits currently looming over them.

Grim and silent, the suits were a constantly shifting pattern of ghostly reflections and shimmering air, as if the suits were actively fighting their eyes. They hurt just to look at, and yet it was impossible to turn away.

The battlesuits were currently guarding the smoking hulks of the two automata they had destroyed, but the fillies were under no illusions that the alien infiltrators had missed them. Glaring red lights from their optics sensors flickered in and out of sight, and the curious stealth fields couldn't completely hide the one burst cannon that was trained on the young ponies.

"We're going to die. We're all going to die. Oh Celestia, we're all going to die here," Diamond Tiara quivered like a leaf as she and Silver Spoon hugged each other in terror, "I'm going to be killed by an alien in the middle of an impoverished farm in front of a bunch of fillies I picked on in school. This is like three of my worst nightmares come to life."

"M-Maybe they'll let us go?" Silver Spoon asked hopefully.

The Stealth Suits held their ground silently as they were finally approached by the rest of the escort team. The devilfish and the stealthed lifter followed behind the remaining troops by several meters, making it look like the handful of Tau soldiers were surrounded by a deep, shimmering fog.

*This is all there was?* asked the Fire Warrior Shas'ui.

*Yes. One combat robot, and another one that looks like it's geared for recon,* said the lead Stealth Suit, gesturing to the hunk of metal that used to be Glass Cannon, *there were no other combatants.*

*Quite odd of the gue'la to use robots,* opined another battlesuit, *I thought that was against their silly little religion?*

*There is much about these gue'la that have been odd,* replied the Fire Warrior as his gaze finally reached the fillies huddled off to the side, *but what we have here are not gue'la.*

*They were with the drones,* explained the battlesuit standing sentinel over the ponies, *the yellow one has been wailing ever since they were dispatched.*

The Shas'ui shook his head. *It doesn't matter. We lost some good men just now, and we can't discount the possibility that there may be more units operating away from the rest of the gue'la army. We need to make a quick break for the base at once.*

He turned around to re-join the remaining light infantry, but was stopped when the Stealth Suit spoke again.

*Wait. What are we to do about the horses?*

The unit veteran barely spared the trembling fillies another glance. *They're just children. And natives, at that. Let them go.*

*They can speak Gothic,* noted the lead Stealth Suit, *and they were traveling with gue'la machines. They will almost certainly tell the enemy of our presence here if they can.*

That stopped the Fire Warrior short, and he turned to look at the young ponies once again.

"Uh, girls? I think they're talking about us," Sweetie Belle said nervously as several of the surviving Pathfinders and Fire Warriors started to step closer, all of them paying intent attention to the fillies.

"Ya rotten, nasty sons'a mules," Apple Bloom stuttered between sniffles, "when mah family gets ahold of ya, they're gonna break y'all like twigs!"

"Apple Bloom, don't get me wrong, I'm totally feeling you right now, but we should probably save the insults for when they don't have guns pointed right at us," Scootaloo advised as she cringed.

The unit leader remained silent for several long seconds, weighing the decision in front of him.

*You can't seriously be considering killing them,* interrupted another Fire Warrior, *they're clearly civilian!*

*Civilians with gue'la weapons,* growled a Pathfinder, *I lost a lot of good friends and comrades thanks to those little pests!*

*You lost them to the machine, Shas'la, not the children,* noted the Fire Warrior, *unless you seriously think that baby horses are now commanding gue'la war drones.*

*Considering our strategic objectives, I must recommend that all witnesses be terminated,* spoke the lead Stealth Suit in a voice heavy with electronic feedback, *additionally, the drone wrecks should be detonated to ensure that any data recorders are destroyed.*

*It's simply collateral damage,* the Pathfinder agreed.

*Collateral damage is unintentional by nature. We cannot do this and claim that it was some unavoidable accident in the heat of battle,* remarked another Stealth Suit.

The lead Fire Warrior grimaced under his helmet as his soldiers argued over the matter. Meanwhile the ponies continued their own conversation that was no less heated.

"I have a confession to make before anything else happens!" Diamond Tiara shouted as she squeezed her eyes shut. "I see myself as a leader and when other ponies that I judge as my social inferiors reject my assumed authority I react with hostility to protect my self-esteem and try to assert myself! I never cared about your dumb cutie marks, I just resent that you don't do whatever I want!"

The Cutie Mark Crusaders sat stunned by the sudden outpour, and Apple Bloom even stopped sniffling as she was distracted from her immediate tragedy.

"Wait, so even if we got our cutie marks..." Sweetie Belle began.

"I'd tease all of you anyway!" Diamond confirmed, her eyes still shut in preparation for their execution.

"Besides, it's not like it would be any harder," Silver Spoon pointed out, "Scootaloo is a pegasus who can't fly, for Luna's sake. That's pathetic."

"I hope they shoot you first," groused the orange filly.

Apple Bloom surely would have had her own commentary on the matter, but after being distracted from the death of her beloved daemonic companion by Diamond Tiara she was then distracted from Diamond's confession by something in the sky.

It was only visible through the branches of the trees above thanks to the reflection of the sunlight and the dark trail of smoke behind it, and it seemed to be coming closer.

"Hey, what's that?" Apple Bloom asked, pointing a hoof toward the object.

The other fillies paused in lamenting their imminent deaths to look up.

"I think it's coming closer."

"That's not a pegasus, that's for sure."

"Wait, didn't we see something like this back in Ponyville when... uh oh."

The Fire Warrior squad leader watched the current target of their deliberations point its leg upward, and then noted that whatever the yellow filly had sighted distracted the others out of their terrified gibbering as well.

He turned his head to see what they were looking at.

"INCOMING!! MOVE, SHAS'LA!!"

The Tau needed no further explanation or orders, and the light infantry bolted in all directions as the battlesuits launched into the air on their jet packs and did the same.

They weren't quite fast enough.

The crack of an armored body slamming into the Tau's APC was drowned out by the sonic boom of Tellis' descent, and the fillies watching the brutal spectacle gaped in shock as the vehicle was flung across the clearing.

The devilfish's cloaking field failed as it spun over the ground, knocking over several Fire Warriors who were then buffeted by its anti-gravity field. The APC slammed its engine into a tree as it coasted out of control, which then sent the entire tank spinning in the opposite direction as before. It swatted a Stealth Suit out of the air before it managed to slow to a stop, and as the battlesuit's cloaking systems flickered and strained to deal with the impact a new and very agitated voice came from the vehicle.

"OW!! SHIT!! What the hell?! Who put this thing in my way?! That wasn't here a second ago!"

Tellis was clinging to the side of the vehicle, having latched on by reflex after unexpectedly hitting tank armor rather than the Fire Warrior he had been aiming for in his descent.

"Eh, whatever." The Raptor Lord slammed a melta bomb onto the devilfish and then armed it with a twist of its handle.

Then he pushed off toward the Stealth Suit that was struggling to its feet.

"It's about time I found some of you little bastards! I haven't heard a peep from you guys for over a week!" Tellis asked as he kicked away the burst cannon that the soldier tried to aim at him. "I don't think there have been any battles since Ferrous Dominus. Did everybody forget that we're in a war here?"

The Raptor Lord plunged his claws into the soldier as he spoke, eliciting a garbled scream from the doomed alien.

Then the devilfish detonated behind him, consuming the pair of armored warriors in shrapnel and smoke.

*On your feet! Everyone!* barked the Shas'ui, picking up his pulse rifle as he forced himself upright despite his injuries. *Spread out and get to cover! Put him down as he moves from target to target!*

*Put him down? Are you serious?! How can we-*

The Pathfinder that had stopped to argue was the next man to die as Tellis burst from the smoke on a trail of flames and landed squarely on top of him. Another blast of his flight pack sent him in a leaping pounce toward another fleeing Tau as desperate and inaccurate surges of blue energy slashed around him.

"Hey, any of you guys speak Gothic?" the Raptor Lord asked as he carved apart the Fire Warrior and bolted across the ground to the next one.

A pulse rifle shot slammed into his shoulder pad as he dashed along the ground, and he hopped over a photon grenade that had been hurled in his path.

"I know some of your leaders speak Gothic," Tellis noted as he cut down another Tau and then jerked back to avoid another spray of pulse fire that aimed to take his head off, "anyone? No?"

His flight pack screamed as it sent him hurtling over the ground to plant an armored knee into another soldier, and then again into another long leap to chase after another that was fleeing deeper into the grove.

The ponies watched with wide eyes at the relentless and comically one-sided slaughter. Tellis moved with an utterly unnatural grace from one soldier to the next, incorporating twists and spins to his rocket-assisted jumps to foil the increasingly desperate fire from the soldiers.

Every time he reached a Tau it died with a single display of casual strength, a quick sweep of his crackling claws, or the crushing application of metal against the much flimsier combat armor of the Tau soldiery. The Fire Warriors became more unnerved and ineffective as their numbers dwindled, and as the Iron Warrior effortlessly pounced upon another alien a pair of them turned to flee the engagement entirely.

*Forget this! Scatter!*

*We can't hit it! Run!*

"Seriously? None of you guys speak Gothic? What, did I already kill all the smart ones?" Tellis asked as he killed his latest catch.

He leapt ahead of another pulse rifle shot and a photon grenade to land next to one of the fleeing Tau, grabbing the Fire Warrior's arm with a single hand and them hauling him up.

Then he flung his current target at the next one, bowling the running soldier over and leaving them both in a twisted heap.

Tellis almost negligently tossed a fragmentation grenade toward the two stunned aliens, his gaze already turned away to search for more targets. There were another pair of Fire Warriors fleeing in the opposite direction, a big cloudy THING sort of just floating off to the side and confusing the hell out of his visor sensors, and a bunch of little ponies.

"Oh, hey! I didn't know I had an audience!" Tellis said brightly, waving an arm to the equines as his grenade exploded behind him. "Just let me finish up these last few guys and I'll be right with you."

His flight pack flared, sputtering fire and smoke behind it as its owner bent his legs.

"And remember, kids: don't try this at home. I'm a PROFESSIONAL crazy person."

Another blast of flame from his pack sent him over the treetops, and then he angled a dive downward onto his last targets.

The Fire Warrior he landed on died instantly beneath his metal boots, and he leapt off that soldier toward the final opponent.

The Fire Warrior turned and fired his rifle at point-blank range only to find it batted aside, the bright blue discharge striking one of the numerous apple trees that surrounded them.

Tellis sliced the pulse rifle in half with a quick sweep of the claws, and then seized the alien by the shoulder before hauling him up to face level.

"Hey ponies!" he shouted as the Shas'ui beat and kicked uselessly at him. "What's your favorite organ?"

"I don't like where this is going," Silver Spoon mumbled.

Sweetie Belle glanced over at Scootaloo. "Isn't this guy Rainbow Dash's friend? Tellis, right? Rarity told me about him... well, more like 'warned'."

Apple Bloom wasn't paying attention to the other fillies or the twisted games of the Chaos Marine. She was taking a count of the enemies lying dead over the orchard, noting that there were a few enemies still missing.

"Hey, Mister!" the farm filly barked. "There're still a few of them invisible ones left!"

Tellis tilted his head to the side. "Ah, Stealth Suits, eh? Okay, let's do this, then."

Tellis suddenly blasted off into the sky, still holding on to the Fire Warrior as he vaulted up over the treetops.

He ascended for several seconds straight up, and then reared back the arm with his opponent in its grip.

"I'll be with you in a sec, chump."

Tellis hurled the Tau straight upwards, and then immediately twisted about to jet back down into the orchard.

He couldn't see the Stealth Suits to engage them, so instead he aimed his descent at the only enemy object still active on the field: the cloaked cargo hauler.

The crash of armor against armor came from the vehicle as Tellis slammed into it and latched onto the side, albeit with much less force than he had accidentally used on the devilfish. The stealth fields flickered from the disruption, revealing the vehicle completely for the first time. It was long with an extended cargo bed behind an armored cab, and had its engines and stealth field projectors mounted in their own section of the vehicle between the cab and the bed. The bed itself was covered by a sharp-angled shell that encompassed the entirety of the cargo space.

Tellis clambered over the side of the vehicle toward the cab, noting that it was a small sensor bay rather than an enclosed cockpit.

"Must be automated," the Iron Warrior mumbled as he plucked a krak grenade from his belt.

Then came the response he was looking for. A surge of energy alerted his visor to an enemy behind him starting to fire, and a heat signature on the other side of the hauler indicated a second suit using its jet pack to try to get a clear shot.

Tellis had barely glanced at the warning markers when his flight pack roared to life, and he kicked off of the lifter backwards and upwards just as one of the Stealth suits fired its burst cannon at his back. The shots splashed against the side of the hauler, missing their mark completely.

"IRON WITHIN!" the Khornate shouted as he landed right in front of the battlesuit and punched one set of claws into its chest.

His jump pack screamed as it sent him skimming across the ground in a tight arc, one boot digging a furrow in the dirt as he curved around a salvo of burst cannon fire toward the last Stealth Suit.

"IRON WITHOUT!" Tellis shouted as he plunged his other fist into the Tau battlesuit's chest armor.

Then the Iron Warrior jumped up into the air, raising one knee.

A sickening crack echoed through the clearing as the Fire Warrior Shas'ui plummeted down onto the Chaos Marine's leg, instantly shattering the soldier's armor, bones, and much of the rest of him.

"Blood for the Blood God," Tellis said calmly as he landed again, letting all three of his victims slide off onto the ground.

The Raptor Lord waited for applause, but didn't get much in the following seconds besides awkward coughing.

"I think I'm going to be sick..." Diamond Tiara mumbled weakly as Silver Spoon patted her on the back.

"Oi. Tough crowd," Tellis mumbled before he noticed his krak grenade on the ground a ways away from him.

"Oh, right, there's one more vehicle. Hold on a tick, kids."

As their "savior" went to work in disabling the last alien unit, Apple Bloom sadly walked up to Crabapple's remains, gazing forlornly at the blackened hole in its body shell.

"Do you think Miss Gaela can fix her?" Sweetie Belle asked as she walked up behind the red-headed pony. "You said she did that before, right?"

"Wait. Miss Gaela?" Diamond Tiara asked, jerking her head up.

"You mean that human engineer that lives with Twilight Sparkle?" Silver Spoon confirmed. "You know her?"

Apple Bloom nodded mutely.

"Then what the hay were you blubbering about if you can just get your dumb space pet fixed?!" Diamond snapped. "In fact, let's get her here right away! She can fix Glass Cannon too!"

"What if she can't?" Apple Bloom moped. "Or what if she won't? She ain't exactly the nicest person in the world. And she don't like Crabapple much."

An explosion interrupted the conversation, causing all the fillies to flinch reflexively.

The Tau lifter dropped to the ground, its engines and cloaking generator spewing smoke and fire.

"Damned thing was trying to sneak off," Tellis mumbled as he walked up to the ponies, "I guess it was programmed to make a break for it if its escort died."

The other fillies cringed at the renewed attention of the Iron Warrior, but Apple Bloom turned to meet the Astarte's blood-red gaze.

"Thanks fer savin' us, Mister Tellis."

"I did what now?" asked the Chaos Marine, stopping in front of the fillies. "I was just answering a distress call from this thing."

He pointed to the smoking wreck of Crabapple, and Apple Bloom sniffled pitifully.

"I'm just glad I made it here before the grayskins got away," the Raptor Lord said, saluting the probe sarcastically, "so kudos, scrap heap. Rust in peace."

Apple Bloom sniffled again, and then placed a hoof against the probe's unmoving leg.

Tellis stared for several seconds, and then turned toward Sweetie Belle. "Hey, what's with her?"

"Crabapple was more or less her pet," Sweetie Belle explained.

"You had an automata for a pet?" Tellis asked.

"Yeah, she was a little too attached to that thing," Diamond Tiara confessed. After seeing the other fillies speak to the psychotic warrior without quivering in terror, she decided that she could make an effort to do the same.

"That's weird. And therefore kind of cool," Tellis admitted.

The Iron Warrior walked over to the wreck and planted his hands on his hips.

"Do ya think she can be fixed?" Apple Bloom asked, looking up at the Raptor Lord.

Tellis took a long moment to stare at the scorched holes in Crabapple's plating.

Then he gave the automata wreck a swift kick, knocking it onto its other side and badly startling Apple Bloom.

"Did that help?" Tellis asked.

"Of course it didn't help!" Apple Bloom shouted angrily.

"Well, I'm out of ideas," the Iron Warrior admitted as his visor fed him streams of useful information that meant absolutely nothing to him, "but hey! You don't need that thing anyway! I'll hang out with you! We can play scavenger with all the dead bodies!"

Apple Bloom turned away. "Ah can't. Mah sis said Ah'm not allowed to hang out with you."

Tellis paused, considering that. "Wait, your sister actually said you're not allowed to be around Iron Warriors?"

"No, she said Ah'm not allowed to be around YOU, Mister Tellis," the yellow filly grumbled, "she said you're crazy and dangerous and Ah could get hurt."

"Wow, judgmental much?" the Raptor Lord said, turning on his heel. "Fine, whatever. I'll just play with the REST of the pony larvae that don't have obsessively responsible relatives with way too much foresight."

"Uhm, actually," Sweetie Belle said hesitantly, "my sister also said I'm not allowed to be around you."

A rumbling groan came from Tellis' vox grille. "Yeah, okay, great. You get to mope over the heaps of metal with the yellow one. Have fun with that."

"I didn't actually expect this to ever come up," Silver Spoon said suddenly, "but my parents warned me not to be around you as well, Mister Tellis."

"So did my father," Diamond Tiara admitted, glancing at Silver, "and I don't think our parents have even MET you."

Tellis stared long and hard at the fillies before finally glancing over to the one pony who hadn't spoken to him yet.

"What about you? The orange one," the Raptor asked Scootaloo. "What did your family say about me?"

Scootaloo's head sank toward the ground. "I don't have a family," she said sadly.

"Perfect!" barked the Chaos Marine.

Before Scootaloo could even think to respond to that, Tellis scooped her up in his hand and then dropped the young pegasus on his shoulder pad.

"I like pegasi better anyway. We out!"

The other fillies winced as Tellis blasted off into the air again, the roar of his flight pack almost completely drowning out a surprised yelp from Scootaloo.

As the noise became more distant, Diamond Tiara released a sigh.

"Well, I have to be honest: that could have gone worse."

"What do we do now?" Silver Spoon asked.

"BLOOOOOOOM?! Where are ya?!" came a distant shout, causing the remaining fillies to jump. The cry was followed by a dog's bark.

"That was Applejack and Winona!" Apple Bloom said, perking up slightly. "Sis musta noticed Ah was missin'. She'll find us in a jiffy with Winona's help!"

"Or she could just follow the smoke," Silver Spoon mumbled, glancing at the smoldering devilfish APC.

It was about at this point that Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle took a moment to really appreciate the full extent of the carnage that surrounded them. Two smoking hulks of alien vehicles, two automata wrecks, autocannon casings, dropped Tau weapons, broken battlesuits, corpses, shattered apple trees, and plenty of spilled blood now decorated this corner of the orchard.

"So... how exactly do we explain all this?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Ah say we leave it up to the so-called 'leader'," Apple Bloom mumbled, pointing a hoof at Diamond Tiara.

"Bite me, blank flank."

****

About 300 meters above Ponyville

"Uhm, excuse me?" Scootaloo shouted against the roar of Tellis' flight pack. "Mister Tellis? Can you hear me?"

"Sure can, pony larvae! What's up?" the Iron Warrior answered.

"Can you slow down a little bit?"

"Yes, I can!"

"...... You're not slowing down!"

"What, you meant now? Fine, geez!"

Tellis cut his engine power considerably as he shifted his flight stance to a more upright position.

Scootaloo, who was clinging tightly to one of the chains wrapped over his shoulder pad, let out a sigh of relief. She wasn't particularly scared of heights or flight (insofar as she wanted to achieve both herself), but Tellis made a fairly shaky perch.

"Th-Thank you, Mister Tellis. Also, my name is Scootaloo," the orange filly mentioned.

"Cool! I'm Tellis, a Raptor of the Iron Warrior Legion! I'm also called the Mad Angel, but that's just one of those edgy nicknames that military groups give certain fighters to make seem scarier."

Scootaloo seemed skeptical. "It would be pretty hard to make you any scarier than you already are."

"I know, right? You really get me!"

Then Tellis cut his speed further into hover mode, his flight pack's scream reduced to a subdued hiss. "Feel free to hop off whenever. Give those dinky wings of yours a stretch!"

The orange filly winced. "I, uh... I can't. I... can't actually fly."

"Say what now?" Tellis asked, finally turning his helmet to look at the young pegasus.

"I can't fly," Scootaloo repeated, hanging her head, "my wings aren't strong enough. I can't even hover."

"Wow. Lame," Tellis admitted, "well, I suppose it's not THAT big a deal. Technically, I can't fly either."

Scootaloo cast a worried look down. "Um..."

"Well, obviously we're flying now, but that's because I'm wearing a pair of daemon-powered rocket engines," Tellis explained, "for all my awesome gene-enhancements and devotion to the God of Slaughter, I still can't strip naked and ply the skies like this."

He paused.

"For that matter, I can't even strip naked anymore. Daemon armor will do that to you."

Scootaloo turned her head to look at the ornate turbines rumbling next to her, deeply interested. "So, wait, you mean... I might be able to fly if I get one of those?"

Tellis snorted noisily. "Well, I can't really see you filling out a suit of power armor, but sure, you get the idea. If you have a weakness, don't waste your time moping about it, overcome it! Whether with tools, training, or bargaining your soul and future to a hateful Warp consciousness!"

"And maybe I can get my cutie mark along the way!" Scootaloo said brightly.

"Sure, why not? Marks are easy. I got mine in like half an hour and my kill count was barely in the triple digits at the time," Tellis said, tapping the vaguely skull-shaped glyph that was displayed on his shoulder pad, "but anyway, don't stress about it. Because whining agitates my blood lust, and I just cleared that up with the grayskin convoy."

Tellis started heading forward again, albeit at a somewhat sedate pace. Silence reigned for almost a full minute, broken only by the rumbling hiss of the Raptor's flight pack.

"So..." Scootaloo suddenly said to break the silence, "wanna hear all my stories about how great Rainbow Dash is?"

"Yes. Yes I do," Tellis replied solemnly, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - main orchard

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle smiled nervously as they stood in the middle of the blood-streaked clearing, staring up at Applejack. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon maintained expressions of irritated disinterest, trying to pretend best they could that they had nothing to do with this. Big Macintosh and Winona were walking amongst the battlefield and taking stock of the destruction behind them (the former with a grim, stoic expression, the latter with oblivious canine joy).

"All right, go ahead. Ah'm listenin'." Applejack did not look happy.

"Well, it's kind of a long story..." Apple Bloom began.

"We got all day, Apple Bloom," Applejack said calmly, her icy stare fixed on her little sister.

"Uh... well... it's hard to explain," Apple Bloom said nervously as she scratched at her neck with her hoof, "but in a nutshell, it's all Diamond Tiara's fault."

"Oh, it is not!" the accused filly snapped.

"If you're going to make up lies, you could at least try to pin it on Scootaloo, since she's not here to defend herself," Silver Spoon scoffed.

"Ah ain't lyin'!" Apple Bloom protested. "Yer dang automata started all of this!"

"Glass Cannon wouldn't listen to me!" Diamond protested. "I told him specifically NOT to go looking for trouble in your dumb, alien-infested orchard!"

"You're still the one that brought him here!" Sweetie Belle protested.

"Glass Cannon was fine until Crabapple started making those noises that apparently meant she 'found something'," Silver Spoon pointed out with a sniff, "it seems obvious to me that it was YOUR automata that was dragging us into trouble, not Diamond's."

"Was not!" yelled Sweetie Belle.

"Was too!" Diamond Tiara yelled back.

A sharp crack echoed through the orchard as Applejack suddenly stomped on a pulse rifle, snapping the polyceramic casing apart under her hoof and causing all the fillies to flinch.

"All right, Ah think Ah get the gist of it," Applejack said coolly, "basically, the bots came out here, y'all had no clue what they were doin', and so ya followed 'em like a buncha lemmings. That about cover it?"

"Uh... yeah," Apple Bloom mumbled, looking forlornly at Crabapple.

"Well, that's not all," Diamond Tiara continued, "Glass Cannon only got a few of them before the grayskins got him. But then the Tau surrounded us and started talking until an Iron Warrior showed up."

Applejack's ear twitched. Tau skulking through her orchard was unfortunately something that couldn't be prevented, but the Chaos Space Marines shouldn't have been showing up on her property without her knowing about it.

She turned to look at one of the corpses, noting the four deep slashes that had gouged out the alien's chest while also cauterizing the wounds. They were fairly distinctive killing blows, and after several seconds she remembered where she had first seen a Tau die from similar injuries.

"Tellis," she hissed, gritting her teeth.

Really, Applejack couldn't be too upset at the Raptor for killing the aliens that had been threatening her sister, but the knowledge that the psychotic Iron Warrior was flying around Equestria looking for fights did nothing for her peace of mind.

"Yeah, it was him," Silver Spoon continued, "then he started talking to us, but we said we really weren't supposed to associate with him. So he nabbed Scootaloo and flew off."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Is she gonna be okay?"

"I think so. It didn't look like he wanted to hurt us. He actually seemed kind of friendly," admitted Sweetie Belle before glancing at the dead bodies, "putting aside all the murder, anyway."

"I agree, actually," Diamond Tiara said with a nod, "I only wish he had arrived earlier so that he might have saved Glass Cannon."

"And Crabapple," Sweetie Belle quickly added as Apple Bloom lowered her head sadly again.

"Well, it's awful hard to save somethin' that eager to run off and get itself shot," Applejack spat, "but that sure takes a load offa me, since now Ah don't hafta buck 'em to pieces mahself for almost gettin' y'all killed!"

Apple Bloom sniffled pitifully, and Applejack felt an icy dagger stab into her heart. She had a hard time accepting the fact, but to her younger sibling Crabapple was as much a beloved part of the family as Winona.

"Ah'm sorry, Sis," Apple Bloom started blubbering as the tears from when Crabapple was dispatched returned full force, and Applejack cringed.

"Aw shucks, it's okay," the orange mare said softly as she placed a calming hoof over her sister, "Ah'm sorry Ah'm so worked up. Ah didn't mean it. Much. When ya get right down to it, it's all the dang grayskins' fault fer sneakin' through our land like they own the joint."

"Well, they certainly paid the price this time, at least," Silver Spoon mumbled as she glanced at a gutted Stealth Suit.

Applejack sighed and glanced at the wrecked automata as Apple Bloom sobbed into her chest. "All right, here's what we're gonna do. Ya'll take Winona and go straight to the house. Me and Mac will get the tin heaps carried into the barn, and then Ah'll go find Gaela and ask if she can fix 'em up. But y'all stay in the house until Ah say so, hear?"

"Yes, Miss Applejack," muttered Silver, Diamond, and Sweetie.

"Thank yah, Sis," Apple Bloom sniffled, "Ah love ya so much!"

"Ah love ya too, ya little pest," Applejack said with a sad smile, "now git on home. Ah think you've done enough fer today."

After seeing the young ponies off, Applejack heaved a heavy sigh and turned toward Big Macintosh.

"Every time Ah think we're done with these dang space wars, we get dragged back in. And the blasted grayskins are STILL roamin' around our land!"

"Eeyup," Big Macintosh agreed. He was currently looking over the Tau cargo lifter, and specifically the shell over the cargo bed.

"Ah mean, what're the humans doin' if the Tau still have soldiers to spare to crawl around here? Why don't they just CRUSH the varmints?"

Big Macintosh didn't answer this time, as he didn't really have much of an opinion as to the Iron Warriors' combat strategies.

He was looking over the cargo shell and had found a small part of it that he was guessing was the locking mechanism.

Applejack noticed her brother's inattention. "What's up Mac? Ya find somethin' interestin'?"

"Eeyup." The devilfish had been utterly destroyed and reduced to blackened scraps, but the lifter had merely been immobilized. It was also fairly obvious that it was hauling something large that hadn't yet been revealed. Even if he didn't have any particular interest in alien artifacts (he had plenty already, including his home), his curiosity was piqued.

Big Macintosh turned around and took aim for a kick.

Applejack quirked an eyebrow as her brother slammed his back legs into the cargo bed, causing the entire vehicle to shake from the impact and cracking the outer layers of polyceramic armoring.

It took two more strong kicks before the locking mechanism shattered completely, letting the cargo shell crack open once there was nothing holding it closed.

The Apple siblings pushed the shell off of the cargo bed, shoving the cracked plating off the vehicle and onto the ground with the rest of the wreckage.

Applejack tilted her head to one side.

In the bed of the vehicle was some sort of... alien thing. It was the size of an outhouse and roughly cylindrical, with a few parts sticking out on both ends and several wire sockets. The entire device was made of dark metal run through with luminous green strips, and was secured tightly to the lifter bed with clamps.

Applejack couldn't count herself an expert on machines of any sort, much less the alien kind, but she didn't remember seeing anything like it in Ferrous Dominus.

She saw Big Mac looking over the artifact. "So what do ya think, Mac?"

The red stallion spent a few minutes looking over the thing in silence, staring closely at the plugs and protrusions and occasionally tapping it gingerly with his hoof.

"It don't look like a weapon," Big Mac decided, squinting into one of the plug sockets, "there's no movin' parts that Ah can see, and these things look like slots fer somethin'. There's no buttons or switches neither. Ah reckon it's a part."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "A part of what?"

"Dunno," Big Macintosh said, "Ah'd need to see the rest to wager a guess."

"But yer pretty sure it won't explode on us?" Applejack asked as she tapped the end of the artifact.

Big Macintosh shrugged.

"Well, nothing fer it. Let's get the wagon and get it back to the barn along with the bots."

Big Mac raised an eyebrow as he and Applejack headed back.

Applejack noticed the gesture and felt an explanation was in order. "Ah don't know what that thing is, but if it's important at all to the Tau, then Ah want to hand it over to the humans. Ah'll have Gaela take a look at it along with Crabapple, and then she can take it off our hooves. Got it?"

"Eeyup."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - one hour later

"Have you ever thought of setting up a junk yard, Apple Bloom?" asked Diamond Tiara.

"Oh, hah hah," the redhead replied sarcastically.

"No, actually I'm being serious," Diamond insisted, her face unusually thoughtful, "you have a good start here, and there's definitely a market for random pieces of alien technology. And your family may need an extra income stream if your harvests keep getting interrupted by alien attacks."

The fillies were currently sitting in the Apples' barn, which now contained the entire wreckage of one Mechanicus gunship, a rhino APC, the two destroyed automatas, and now the unidentified Tau artifact. Tau small arms were piled in a heap in the corner, and large pieces of other wrecks, both human and Tau, leaned against the wall.

The barn now contained more in the way of space-age machinery (or at least its mangled remnants) than farming supplies and equipment, which rather served to underline Diamond's point.

Big Macintosh was currently moving around pieces of machinery to see if he could make room for the Tau lifter. Bringing it in from the orchard would be quite a chore, but the vehicle was still in fairly good shape, and just like Diamond Tiara he was convinced that they'd be able to pawn this junk off sooner or later.

"You think we could get our cutie marks that way?" Sweetie Belle perked up.

"I think that constantly being around alien war machines while they're blowing up is less a special talent and more a string of awful luck," Silver Spoon pointed out with a sniff, "besides, at most only Apple Bloom would get the mark. The rest of you shouldn't get credit for following her around."

Winona started barking from outside, and Big Macintosh turned away from the salvage that littered the barn to look outside.

"Is Gaela here?" Apple Bloom asked eagerly, rushing to the door.

"Eeyup," the stallion replied, turning back around and returning to his earlier task.

"Ah really appreciate ya taking time out to see us again," Applejack said as she headed toward the barn, Winona yapping happily next to her.

Gaela and Twilight followed behind her, the former with her mask disengaged.

"On the contrary," Gaela replied, "the acquisition and study of a xeno artifact is a matter of great interest to me. I would have been out to see it regardless of whether you specifically requested my help."

"Well, that's true Ah guess," Applejack continued with a wide smile, "but y'all have done a lot fer us Apples, and Ah wanted ya to know I'm really grateful. It means a lot to all of us that we have a friend like you we can count on to help with all this messy alien stuff."

"If this is some kind of circuitous way of appealing for me to repair that blasted probe automata, it isn't working," Gaela deadpanned.

"Gaela!" Twilight admonished, banging a hoof against the Dark Acolyte's leg armor. "That was incredibly rude! Applejack was just trying to be sincere in thanking you, and you..."

Twilight trailed off as she noticed that Applejack was looking off to the side with her muzzle scrunched up, saying nothing.

"Right, never mind," Twilight said with a sigh, "but still, she was at least being subtle about it, so you could show the same effort."

The Dark Acolyte made a non-committal grunt as she approached the entrance of the barn.

"Miss Gaela! You're here!" shouted Apple Bloom as she rushed to meet the human woman. "Crabapple, she's-"

"Not now," Gaela said calmly, stepping past Apple Bloom without even glancing at the filly.

Once she entered the barn proper, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon sat up straighter. They had both seen humans at Ferrous Dominus, and even the less common Chaos Space Marines, but they never really met any of them. And inexperience aside, Gaela cut quite an intimidating figure in her power armor and cloak, especially as she had brought along her axe as always.

"So you're Miss Gaela," Diamond Tiara said, her head tilting upward further and further as the Dark Acolyte approached, "I'm-"

"Not now," Gaela said again, stepping past the other fillies and heading straight toward the Tau artifact.

She stopped just a meter away from it. Her servo limbs twitched and shifted, as if they were getting anxious, and her mechadendrites seeped from the fingers of her bionic arm in anticipation.

"What do you think it is?" Twilight asked, walking up behind her.

"If ya want it, ya can have it," Applejack said, "them grayskins were trying to sneak it through mah orchard!"

"Uhm, Miss Gaela? Do ya think ya could take a look at Crabapple first?" Apple Bloom asked meekly.

"Hey, why do you get to go first? Let her fix Glass Cannon! I have to go home!" Diamond Tiara complained.

Gaela's bionic eye pulsed, and then she turned toward Big Mac, much to the stallion's surprise.

"Macintosh. Clear the barn immediately. No one but you is to stay in here until I'm finished with the artifact."

Every pony there looked alarmed at the command, but Big Mac nodded firmly, his eyes narrowed. "Eeyup."

Twilight and Applejack were already backing away, but Apple Bloom looked like she was starting to panic.

"Wait, is that thing dangerous? Shouldn't we move Crabapple then?"

"Nope," Macintosh walked over and nudged his youngest sister toward the entrance with his head.

"But Mac, what if-"

"Apple Bloom, stop arguin' and get over here!" Applejack barked. "Let her do her thing already!"

Apple Bloom reluctantly trudged outside, and as soon as she was clear Big Macintosh hit the button on the side of the entrance.

The blast door to the barn slid down into place, and soon the mares and fillies were separated from Big Mac and Gaela by three inches of durasteel.

Almost a full minute passed before Twilight spoke up.

"Wait, why is Big Macintosh in there with her? Why wouldn't he stay out here with us?"

"Ah dunno Twi, maybe she needs his help with somethin'?" Applejack guessed.

"Well, what could he help her with that I couldn't? I should be in there!" Twilight protested.

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Well, don't tell that to me! But Gaela said only Mac could stay, so if ya ask me - and ya are - we should let her work with Mac. She's the professional."

Twilight started to grind her teeth, and Applejack turned her attention to the fillies. "All right everypony, we've had a pretty stressful day so far, and there might be a chance that the barn could explode. So why don't we head in for some nice apple cobbler while we wait for all that crazy science to finish up?"

"Yes, Miss Applejack," said the fillies with varying levels of disappointment and formality. They started heading for the farmstead.

"Is that a vision slit? I can watch from out here, then!" Twilight was standing against the blast doors, her wings flapping to bring her up to the human-height firing slit that was built into the barn door (naturally).

"You too Twi, come on." Applejack bit onto the end of her tail and tugged her away from the barn, eliciting a pleading whimper from the alicorn as she was dragged away.

****

Ponyville - Fluttershy's cottage

Fluttershy was prepared for some things to change since she was now hosting a crazed, bloodthirsty Iron Warrior in her home. She had already braced herself for the very worst, imagining animals disappearing, holes being smashed in her walls, and bloodstains covering every surface.

However, what she found when she returned home from treating a sick pet NOTHING could have prepared her for.

"Ha! Attacker down! That's a turnover!" laughed Scootaloo as she pointed to the hololithic die roll.

"Augh! Re-roll! I'm going to re-roll that one!" Tellis shouted, his hands gripping the edges of Fluttershy's dining table hard enough to crack the surface.

"No, you can't! You already re-rolled your extra move distance with your minotaur!" Scootaloo claimed, pointing her tiny orange hoof up at the Iron Warrior.

Tellis growled a profanity that his helmet vox automatically covered with a loud bleeping noise. "You sure picked up the rules to this quick... fine, my beastman's down. Your turn."

Fluttershy blinked. For about the ninth time in a row.

Tellis and Scootaloo were on opposite sides of her dinner table, the former on his knees so that he didn't tower too high over the table while the latter just sat on the edge of the table itself. Between the two was a hololithic projector in the shape of a game board, generating the image of numerous little characters arranged in a grid.

Scootaloo wet her lips as she tapped a hololithic elf with her hoof, and then tapped an empty spot on the grid. The game piece entered a running animation and then jogged over to the empty square.

"Oh, hey Shy," Tellis said as he leaned one elbow on the table and then rested his head on top of his fist, "welcome home."

"Wh-What... What's going on here?" Fluttershy asked cautiously. She was almost certain that this was better than her various expected scenarios, but she still found it extremely puzzling.

"It's called Blood Bowl. You can play winner, if you want," Tellis mumbled.

"Which will be me," Scootaloo said with a grin as she went about her turn.

"Hey! The game isn't over yet, you little orange BLEEP!" the Iron Warrior snapped.

"The score is three to zero and there are only four turns left," Scootaloo pointed out.

"BLEEP! you, blank flank," Tellis grumbled.

None of this was very helpful to Fluttershy, who still didn't understand what they were doing or why Scootaloo was alone in her house with Tellis.

"Uhm, is that yours, Mister Terrifying Murderer?" Fluttershy asked, cautiously walking up to the table and beckoning to the hololithic projector.

"Yeah. No offense Shy, but your place doesn't have a lot of options for entertainment. So I went to that market set up by that Delgan guy to try and find something for us to do, and he offered to give me this thing if I promised never to come back without actual money."

"I still think it's weird that you guys don't get paid like all the weaker soldiers," Scootaloo noted as she squinted at the angle for her pass.

"It doesn't come up that often, but yeah, it is kind of BLEEP! up, isn't it?" Tellis asked.

"Throwing a pass!" Scootaloo sang happily as she tapped her player with the ball and then another player to receive. A pair of hololithic dice flashed on her side of the board, eventually settling on a four and a two. "Pass successful, and I'm using the catch skill." With another tap, the second die flashed again and became a five. "It's a catch! Yes!"

"BLEEP!" went Tellis.

"Touchdown!" Scootaloo cheered as her hololithic elf made its run into the end zone.

"BLEEP! the BLEEP! BLEEP! you BLEEP!"

"Mister Murderer, what's wrong with your voice?" Fluttershy asked, wincing at the barrage of obnoxious noises.

"I set my BLEEP! vox to language filter mode. I can get worked up when I play games without the catharsis of actual violence," the Iron Warrior grumbled, "and there are younglings present."

"I'm surprised you would do that," Fluttershy admitted frankly before she paused, "actually, I'm very surprised by everything here. And here I thought that going a full day without hurting another living creature would prove impossible for you."

"Luckily, that wasn't an issue. Found a Tau convoy earlier in the apple grove," Tellis explained as Scootaloo kicked off to him.

"He cut them apart like so much hay," Scootaloo said as she stared intently at the board, "it was kind of gross."

"Blood for the Blood God, shrimp."

Fluttershy spent a few seconds digesting this information, and then walked past the two toward the kitchen. "Well, even so, this is still much better than what I expected. Scootaloo, do you want to stay for dinner?"

"Okay, Miss Fluttershy! Thanks!" Scootaloo said.

"Hey Shy, you know any good orphan jokes? This brat claims she doesn't, if you can believe that."

"There's no such thing as a 'good' orphan joke!" Scootaloo protested.

"You must have heard at least one or two mediocre ones, though, right?"

"Hurry up and take your turn, Tellis."

Fluttershy sighed wearily as she entered her kitchen, mumbling under her breath. "Just two months. Just two months. Just two months..."

****

Sweet Apple Acres

Although Twilight expressed the most palpable relief when Big Macintosh arrived to invite them back into the barn, Applejack felt as if the two-hour wait had definitely been hardest on her. Putting aside her nervousness about her barn possibly blowing up and taking her brother with it, Twilight had grilled her and the fillies exhaustively on the details of the encounter and what had been left behind. And then she went on to complain about the girls not having complete control of their machines, and about Tellis having no restraint in butchering enemy soldiers right in front of young and (presumably) easily traumatized young ponies.

Applejack even had to listen to a rambling lecture about how Big Macintosh shouldn't have forced open the Tau hauler and damaged it, as if it had been HER decision.

"Well, Ah didn't hear no explosions, so Ah guess Gaela took care of it," the orange mare sighed as they approached the barn again.

"Eeyup."

"Of course she did. I'm sure we were never in any REAL danger with her around," Twilight said confidently.

Applejack rolled her eyes as they walked into the barn again.

The interior was filled with the scent of strange incense, and they could see Gaela kneeling over the alien artifact with a pattern of strange geometric patterns cut into the wooden palette that the device was resting on.

The artifact itself had been opened up out of its case, but its interior was even more mysterious and unfathomable to the ponies than the casing.

"Gaela, you finished disarming it?" Twilight said, eagerly, rushing ahead of the others.

Gaela favored the alicorn with a sidelong glance, her helmet engaged and her optics extended. "No."

That response stopped her and every other pony short, their eyes widening.

"Wait, ya mean that thing's still dangerous?" Applejack said, quickly rushing to stand in front of her little sister.

"Negative," Gaela replied again, "I mean that it was never dangerous, and there was never anything to 'disarm'. I did not suggest otherwise."

This left the ponies fairly stunned.

"Wait, then why did you clear out everypony except Big Macintosh?" Twilight asked.

"Because he's the only one of you that can remain silent for an extended period of time while I work," Gaela answered bluntly as she stood up, "disassembling and analyzing an alien device is hard enough without being badgered by inane questions and requests."

While the female ponies looked quite irritated by the explanation, Big Macintosh nodded with a self-satisfied - and quiet - smile.

"Oh, whatever. Did you figure anything out?" Twilight asked irritably.

"A great deal. Unfortunately, that's raised many more questions," Gaela admitted, "the analysis went quite smoothly because this device is based on human technology that the Tau adapted, not something they developed on their own."

"What, did they steal it during the attack on yer fort?" Applejack asked.

"Impossible. This has clearly been through years, possibly decades of development before it reached the Centaur system. But just as you guessed, it's a part of a greater device."

"What kind of device?" Twilight asked, already levitating her pen and parchment in front of her.

"I don't know what it's a part of, but I have a good idea of what this particular piece is supposed to do. It's based on Warp engine technology."

That meant nothing to most of ponies, but as Twilight scribbled down notes she recalled where she had heard that term before. "That has something to do with your ships, right? Or was it that thing that empowered psykers? I remember hearing it mentioned often when discussing the nature of Chaos."

"It's both. And much more," Gaela half-explained, "but a comprehensive explanation of the Warp could take days in order for you to achieve basic understanding. It's enough that you know it's the primary method of superluminal travel for human ships."

Twilight was actually the only one who understood what "superluminal" was or why it mattered, but they kept quiet as Twilight rubbed a hoof against her chin.

"So that means that this is used to send vehicles into the Warp?"

Gaela shook her head. "Negative. That's the confusing and questionable part. A Warp device of this size and rudimentary function is completely infeasible; at best, it could tear open a space the size of a pinhole for a fraction of a second, and anything you sent through it would probably be liquefied by the residual energy levels around the tear before it even entered the Warp. Its lack of power and stability renders it absolutely useless for every actual function that Warp engines are normally used for."

Gaela's helmet let out a loud hiss as it disengaged, and she continued speaking as the plates of metal and electronics shifted away from her face.

"This makes some degree of sense; the Tau have always envied human Warp technology, but lack the fundamental understanding of the principles involved as well as the more specialized tools that make Warp travel feasible. Honestly, it's rather impressive that they've managed to make a device of this complexity. That does beg the question of what they thought they were going to use it for, however."

Twilight continued taking notes as Applejack squinted suspiciously at the artifact.

"So maybe it isn't complete yet? They might have been taking it to their main base to study it, or modify it," Twilight guessed.

"That seems unlikely, given that their main base is standing in the shadow of Ferrous Dominus and thus perpetually in danger of elimination," Gaela mumbled, "it can't possibly be safer to handle the artifact there than wherever this came from. The fact that it was constructed as part of a greater whole makes me think that it simply has some function that I haven't considered."

"Well, as long as it ain't gonna blow up mah farm," Applejack mumbled, "so do you wanna cart it outta here to yer fort?"

"I do," Gaela replied, "but I cannot."

"How's that, sugarcube?"

"At present I am unable to call for transport out of Ferrous Dominus. In addition, Master Delgan is unwilling to send any of his transports back to the fortress."

The ponies all stared up at the Dark Acolyte.

"Why?" Applejack finally asked.

"As with the Warp, it would take more time than it's worth to explain in full," Gaela mumbled, "but in summary, it's all Pinkie Pie's fault."

"Ah," responded Twilight and Applejack as Big Macintosh nodded.

"In any case, I believe it would be best to keep it with Delgan, at the very least," Gaela continued, "he commands a fair amount of firepower and the Tau may make a move to take it back."

Applejack grimaced. "Good point. Best we move it on outta here as soon as we can."

"I will meet with him immediately to make arrangements," Gaela said, stepping toward the barn entrance, "while we're at it, he can also take some of the parts from..."

She trailed off as her escape route out of the barn was suddenly cut off by a white and a yellow filly. They said nothing, but stared up at her with wide, glistening eyes.

Gaela's expression hardened. "I am NOT repairing the probe again. Get out of my way."

"But... But WHY?" Apple Bloom asked, sniffling. Sweetie Belle silently kept her sad face on to back up Apple Bloom, trying to overwhelm the Acolyte with pity.

"Because I despise it personally," Gaela said bluntly, "mostly for the same reasons that you seem to have developed actual empathy for it. I see no possible reconciliation of our points of view."

Twilight winced. "Gaela, I think-"

"On this matter, Sparkle, I do not wish to hear your opinion," the Dark Acolyte interrupted, "I find my practice satisfying, and for that reason alone I perform labor for the citizens of Ponyville. As soon as I am asked to perform a service which I would find unsatisfying and in fact aggravating, I am well within right and reason to refuse."

"Well, will you fix Glass Cannon, then?" Diamond Tiara asked, raising her foreleg as if she were in class.

"I presume that is the designation of the Tykan pattern combat automata wreck on the side?" Gaela asked. "Fine. I will have it picked up with the artifact and parts so that I can fix it elsewhere. I'll probably need to salvage..."

Gaela trailed off again as she looked downward. Apple Bloom was now standing up on her hind legs with her forelegs braced against Gaela's greaves, staring straight up with huge, moist, shimmering eyes while sniffling pitifully.

"What is she doing now?" Gaela demanded. "Is she trying to restrain me physically?"

"She's... uh..." Twilight took a moment to think of a definition of puppy-dog eyes that Gaela would understand. "She's trying to provoke an emotional response of guilt and pity in order to get a more sympathetic decision out of you."

"I see. It's not working. Now make her stop," the Dark Acolyte demanded, tearing her gaze away from the yellow filly.

Then she felt a heavier pressure against her hip.

Applejack had a hoof placed upon the cyborg woman, a hopeful smile on her face.

"Now Miss Gaela, Ah know Crabapple ain't yer favorite, and Ah know she gets on mah nerves sometimes too. But it would really mean a lot to mah little sis if ya could patch 'er up."

The Dark Acolyte's eyebrow twitched. "If you have any understanding of my situation, you would be appealing to your relative to cease her pointless..."

Once again she was interrupted, this time by an even heavier pressure on her other side. Big Macintosh had slid under her left arm and was leaning his considerable bulk against her as his half-lidded gaze tilted up to meet her increasingly unsettled one.

He said nothing, content that the Apples' intent was already perfectly clear. It was easily the most persuasive appeal she had received so far.

"I don't want to do it!" Gaela shouted, although she sounded curiously distressed. "You can't make me! I will not succumb to your crude psychological tricks!"

"Gaela, it wouldn't hurt anything to at least look at Crabapple, would it?" Twilight asked, smiling nervously as the Dark Acolyte was practically smothered in earth ponies. "And really, would it be THAT bad for it to be around again? How many problems could it cause for you if it were working?"

Gaela sputtered several unintelligible noises for a few seconds.

And then Winona stood up onto her leg like Apple Bloom, whimpering sadly.

"All right! All right! Fine! Get off of me!" she yelled, flailing her arms angrily.

The Apple family quickly backed away, suddenly all happy smiles.

"Ya mean it, Miss Gaela? You'll fix her?" Apple Bloom asked, her eyes tearing up with joy.

"Every single word you say to me can only increase my sense of regret for this decision," Gaela snapped as she clutched her axe, "I will repair the combat automata first. This will take substantially longer than studying the artifact, though, and I'm sure I'll have to get parts from the wrecks."

"Hey, thanks!" Diamond Tiara said simply, refraining from the tearful, heartfelt outpour that Apple Bloom favored. Besides the fact that she wasn't nearly as attached to her own automata, it seemed like the Dark Acolyte didn't really appreciate such displays.

"You may as well leave or arrange lodging here for the night," Gaela continued, "the damage is significant, and it's getting late. I will not be able to complete the repairs today."

"I suppose we should head home, then," Silver Spoon said to Diamond Tiara, heading out of the barn.

"Sure. We'll be back tomorrow!"

"And good riddance," Apple Bloom mumbled as the two wealthy fillies left.

"I guess I should go too," Sweetie Belle said, "I have a lot to tell Rarity when I get back!"

"Oh, please do," Applejack grumbled, "Ah shouldn't have to be the only one bein' worried sick over this."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Twilight asked.

"Yes. The Tau lifter was not completely destroyed in the battle, correct?" Gaela asked.

Big Mac took a moment to recall the state of the cargo hauler. "Eeyup."

"Good. Sparkle, Macintosh, go drag it back here. There may be system components I can use."

"Sure!"

"Eeyup!"

"Apple Bloom?" Gaela asked as Twilight and Big Macintosh galloped off.

The redheaded filly perked up. "Yeah? Can Ah help?"

"Get out and don't come back until I call for you," Gaela finished.

Apple Bloom wilted and trudged out of the barn, grumbling to herself.

"Ya have quite a way with kids, don'cha?" Applejack asked as she was eventually left alone with the Dark Acolyte. In most circumstances she might have resented such treatment of her little sister, but she could hardly fault the Mechanicus woman for being unhappy with the way she'd been pressed into service like this.

"I dislike emotional appeals on principle," Gaela said coldly as her mask started moving back into place, "sympathy is a by-product of pity. Pity is the root of mercy. Mercy is an unforgivable weakness of the mind."

Applejack quirked an eyebrow. "'Round here it's usually thought of as a good thing."

"Perhaps that's why you need to call upon the raving lunatics of Chaos to eject alien invaders from your property," Gaela mumbled as she started picking at the wreckage of Glass Cannon.

"Huh. Yeah, Ah guess you've got me there," Applejack admitted, "but anyway, just lemme know when yer ready to hit the hay, sugarcube. Ah'll have a room and some hot cider ready fer ya."

"I'll take water. I dislike what sugar does to my brain chemistry," Gaela insisted as she started taking apart the automata casing.

"Sure thing, sugarcube," Applejack said, walking up to the Dark Acolyte and tapping a hoof against her armored leg, "and thank you. Ah really mean it."

"It is nothing," Gaela mumbled.

"It AIN'T nothin'," Applejack protested, causing Gaela to pause, "Ah know the Company don't get along with Equestria in general, what with that Chaos and evil hullabaloo, but you humans have always done right by us Apples. From drivin' them Tau varmints from our land again and again to rebuildin' our farm, we owe ya'll a lot."

Gaela halted her work briefly and glanced toward the orange pony.

"... You DO realize that every incursion and offense by the Tau was a direct response to the Company's actions, right? If it weren't for us, your property would have likely remained untouched."

Applejack snorted. "Yeah, Twi said the same thing, and maybe it's true. But even so, the grayskins ain't offered us nothin' fer what they done but more trouble. You've done more fer us than we can repay. Ah just..."

Applejack trailed off uncertainly, working out what she wanted to say in her head. "Sometimes Ah feel like we ponies kind of treat y'all like tools or somethin', ya know? We're plenty quick to accept yer help or yer stuff, but then as soon as yer done we'd rather be rid of ya."

"It's an understandable point of view, especially considering our philosophical differences," Gaela mumbled.

"Well, the Apple 'philosophy' is better'n that," Applejack insisted, "yer not perfect, but Ah owe ya, and so does mah whole family. You and Daniels are real important friends of ours."

Gaela mulled over the sentiment in silence for several more seconds, and then eventually turned her head back toward Glass Cannon. "You're... You're welcome."

She almost stumbled over the words as they left her mouth, so unfamiliar was she with the turn of phrase. "I need to start working now."

Applejack smirked slightly as she walked out of the barn. "Sure thing, sugarcube. Just holler if ya need somethin'."

****

Ponyville

"Well, personally I don't see what the royal family's problem is with the humans anyway. If they aren't shooting at us and they're willing to trade with us, what's the problem?" Silver Spoon asked as she and Diamond Tiara walked through Ponyville's town perimeter.

Diamond Tiara frowned. "Father says it has to do with those circle and arrow symbols everywhere. I think it's their religion that's bad."

"Well that's awfully judgmental, don't you think?" Silver countered. "Are we really going to blame them for having the wrong religion?"

"No, no, it's not just wrong, it's BAD," Diamond Tiara clarified.

"We don't know that they're ALL like Mister Tellis," the gray filly insisted, "some of them might be really nice!"

Diamond rolled her eyes. "Remember the party at the fortress?"

Silver Spoon fell silent as she recalled her memories from that night.

"Okay, I guess I never realized until then that you could actually maim something with a pillow," she admitted, "but still, if they're willing to fight on our side I think we could at least give them a chance."

"I don't know, Silver. When Princess Celestia doesn't want something around, I kind of want to give her the benefit of the doubt."

The pink filly looked up toward her front door. "Well, here's my place. Meet up with me tomorrow so we can go pick up Glass Cannon, okay?"

"Okay! See you then!"

Silver Spoon galloped off, and then Diamond Tiara entered her front door and walked past the foyer.

"Daddy, I'm home!" she shouted as she turned toward the stairs that led up to her room.

"How was your day, sweetie?" Filthy Rich shouted back.

"Bad! I need another automata!" she started walking up the stairs.

"... What? Why? What happened to the first one I got you?" asked her father as he poked his head out of the office.

"Aliens attacked. Glass Cannon won't be fixed until tomorrow," Diamond said in explanation as she continued up the stairs, "I think I'll need two bodyguards to visit Sweet Apples Acres from now on. The place is lousy with grayskins."

"But... How did... Are you... Why..."

Filthy Rich sputtered half-completed thoughts as his daughter reached the second story, unable to come to terms with what he was hearing.

"The whole experience was very terrifying and traumatic, so I'll take supper in my room," Diamond said as she opened her bedroom door, "thanks Daddy."

The door slammed shut, leaving Filthy Rich gaping wordlessly at the stairwell.

****

Ponyville - Delgan's Trailer, the following day

"Really? Warp tech in a Tau artifact?"

Norris Delgan steepled his fingers as Twilight and Rarity stood in front of him, the former nodding.

"That's what Gaela decided when she studied it. She thought it would be best if you stored the artifact until you were able to get it back to the fortress."

The Trademaster leaned back and stroked his mustache. "I see. Well, far be it from me to defy the Dark Acolyte. More importantly, I've reached the point where I'll gladly dig through the guts of wrecked vehicles just to find something to sell. My market's become nearly barren of inventory."

"Oh, but the pict-captures you used to fill the shelves were quite lovely, I thought," Rarity said with a smile, "I took one for my sewing room of a binary star system collapsing from gravitational decay! It's simply stunning!"

Delgan nodded absently, and then paused. "You 'took' it, or you 'bought' it?"

"Your inventory is my inventory, darling," Rarity answered, smirking, "and did you really think I'd pay that ridiculous mark-up? They cost almost nothing to produce. Just because I'm generous doesn't mean I don't know a scam when I see one."

"Anyway," Delgan cleared his throat, "I'll be happy to take possession of the artifact, since that way I'll also get credit for turning it over to the Warsmith. I'll gather a team and head out with you to the agri-facility at once."

"Great!" Twilight said as she levitated the door open, "you get everything you need. We'll be waiting at the edge of the market to leave."

As Twilight and Rarity left the trailer, the former turned toward the latter.

"So how have you been doing, Rarity? I know you've been working with Mister Delgan a lot, and I haven't seen you around as often this past week. Is working for him hard?"

"Not hard, really. Just tedious. And slightly unnerving," the unicorn admitted, lowering her voice, "I do hope you're keeping mum about our relationship. I could be in a lot of trouble if it's exposed."

Twilight frowned. "Why? He's not asking you to do anything illegal, is he?"

"Something you learn very quickly under Norris Delgan is that 'legal' is a surprisingly flexible concept," Rarity mumbled, "I pity the law-pony that tries to cross that man."

Then she shook her head. "But to get back to your question, I've actually been doing quite well. In addition to my 'partnership', I've also managed to completely catch up on my order backlog thanks to that servitor." She made a face. "It was difficult to work with at first, though."

"Oh? It was hard to figure out the commands?" Twilight asked, deeply interested in the matter.

"Not at all, the blasted thing is simply ugly as sin," Rarity said as she adopted a gagging expression, "I couldn't concentrate when it was around until I covered its face with a hood."

Twilight rolled her eyes and returned her attention to their surroundings as the two ponies reached the makeshift market space.

The first thing that Twilight noticed was that everyone around - mostly humans, as expected - was eating doughnuts.

The second thing she noticed was Pinkie Pie.

"Hi Twilight! Have a doughnut!" chirped the energetic pink pony.

The third thing she noticed, which really should have been the first thing, was the Chaos Space Marine holding large boxes presumably filled with more doughnuts.

The purple alicorn blinked repeatedly. "Uh... Dest? Is that you?" She didn't speak nervously or happily or with any particular tone to her question; she really had no idea how to feel that there was an Iron Warrior dispensing baked goods in Ponyville.

"It is," Dest said with the usual vox-growl that his helmet emitted, "we come bearing chocolate and vanilla pastries," he lifted up the boxes balanced on his left hand, "and various filled doughnuts as well," he lifted his right hand, "although it was indicated that these consumables were specifically for Master Delgan's staff, so I don't believe Sparkle is entitled to one."

"Yoink!" Rarity said as a flare of blue magic snatched a chocolate doughnut from the box.

"That's okay," Twilight said quickly, "I'm just a little surprised to see you. I thought all the Company troops were stuck in Ferrous Dominus."

"They ARE," Dest confirmed, "which is partially why I'm here. With no vehicle patrols outside the base and such heavy troop numbers within it, there's nothing for me to do."

He lowered the box of jelly doughnuts briefly so that a money trader could get one.

"I got tired of being held in reserve indefinitely. I also decided, given my central role in the affair, that it would be wise to leave while our vice-commander is still upset about the party last week."

Twilight tilted her head to the side. "But if no transports are leaving the fortress, how did you get here?"

"I walked," Dest replied flatly, lowering the other box of pastries for a guard, "it was quite a trip, too. Did you know your planet has alligators made of rocks?"

"Isn't Desty great? We can make all our deliveries without a wagon now!" Pinkie said brightly, popping up over the Iron Warrior's backpack.

Twilight considered going to the next of the obvious questions and asking why the super-soldier was apparently helping out at Sugar Cube Corner, but decided to curb her curiosity. Dest was one of the more sensible and sane Iron Warriors she knew, and she didn't really think it mattered why he decided that he'd rather labor in Ponyville than lounge around Ferrous Dominus.

"Hey! Hey! Can we come with you to look at the fancy Tau thingy at Applejack's farm?" Pinkie said excitedly from where she was sitting behind Dest's helmet.

Twilight frowned. "I'm not going to ask how you know about that, but aren't you on the job right now?"

Pinkie cocked her head to the side. "So?"

"The Cakes give her several hours to complete every delivery assigned to her," Dest explained as he tossed away an empty box, "to take into account her tendency to get distracted and forget that she's making a delivery. According to the proprietor, so far I've cut her usual trip time by nine-tenths on average just by accompanying her, since I'm more difficult to divert."

"He's my transport!" Pinkie Pie giggled.

There was an awkward silence following the exclamation.

"You know, like the rhinos? That he drives? So he's like-"

"We get it, Pinkie," Twilight deadpanned, "if you want to come along, that's fine."

"Hooray!"

Rarity gulped down a small cup of milk from a nearby table, and then noticed Delgan beckoning from the side of a chimera APC. "I believe our ride is prepared, girls. Let's go."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - barn

+By the power of the Machine Spirit and before the omniscient auguries of the Omnissiah do I restore and bless this power core. Let the darkness fuel your logic engine and bring life to the inert flesh of your iron carapace. Capacitors, circuits, actuators: awaken.+

Gaela chanted in heavily distorted binary as her mechadendrites dueled with the grasping wires of Crabapple's interior. Her laser welder hissed softly as it sealed the repaired power core, and she could feel the entire body of the probe twitching underneath her weight.

It was... strange trying to fix something alive. The probe actually wanted to live. She'd never repaired any of the Iron Warriors' daemon engines before, but she could only assume they were much the same way. Her usual methods for repairing automata still worked as normal, but they were constantly helped along or complicated by Crabapple's still-living processor.

Even though the machine was, in all practical respects, broken, the sentient cogitator survived within the ruined shell despite being cut off from its source of power and sensory inputs. It was rather like repairing a damaged vehicle with the pilot still inside and trying to help. Gaela wasn't entirely sure anymore if Crabapple was a sentient probe, or merely a daemonic mind that had taken residence within the workings of a probe. It brought to mind a considerable number of interesting theories and possible experiments.

None of which she could practice without having to listen to the melodramatic blubbering of a whiny yellow pony.

+There was a time when I would have just vaporized the little brat rather than allow myself to be badgered into acquiescence,+ the Dark Acolyte said to herself in binary, +what have these damned horses done to me?+

+Unit Gaela's system status is optimal,+ hummed a voice from behind her, +armor readouts indicate-+

+Quiet.+

Glass Cannon immediately fell silent at Gaela's command, and she spent a long, wistful moment wondering what it was about sentience that spoiled such admirable compliance.

Glass Cannon was entirely repaired, its systems once again functional and its reaper autocannon cut down to a single-barrel version. She considered the modification an upgrade; Gaela had always thought of twin-linking guns as an awful alternative to better combat tracking systems and targeting, given the doubled ammo expenditure. On a combat automata of Glass Cannon's size and wielding a weapon as high-caliber as an autocannon it was even more of an issue to try to pack as much ammunition on the machine as possible.

"Hey, Gaela? How's she comin'?"

The Dark Acolyte didn't turn around at Applejack's voice.

"Better than I'd estimated," Gaela said, "the power core is already complete, and the probe is doing a surprisingly good job of re-establishing the primary conduits all on its own. I simply need to ensure the power disbursement systems are optimal, clear the D axis actuator, and then replace the shielding on that leg."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "Oh, well... that's... good? Ah see the other rustbucket is up and walkin'."

"Affirmative. It needs to have its command parameters re-established when the little pink one gets back, and its ammunition supplies are at forty-one percent of total, but it is ready to deploy otherwise."

"Okay, well, Ah just wanted to let ya know that a chimera is comin' down the road. Probably Twi and Delgan."

"Excellent. Lead them here once they disembark," Gaela commanded, her servo limbs reaching further into Crabapple's casing.

Applejack nodded and started to walk away.

"Odd that he hasn't contacted me already," the Dark Acolyte said suddenly, causing the farmpony to halt, "ordinarily Master Delgan is more careful about arranging his time. I'd assumed that he'd want the wrecks and the artifact sitting by the road and ready to be secured."

Applejack frowned as she glanced at the wreckage of the gunship. "Ya want me to tell Mac to start draggin' this stuff outside?"

"I was merely thinking out loud," Gaela mumbled, swatting at Crabapple's leg to stop it from convulsing, "you need not exert yourself to try and please Delgan."

"If ya say so. All right then, Ah'll be right back with the others."

****

Ponyville

"Good morning, Diamond!"

Diamond Tiara glanced back over her shoulder to see Silver Spoon galloping over to her.

"Morning," the pink filly said casually as she continued heading forward, "glad you made it out in time."

Silver Spoon matched Diamond Tiara's pace as she reached her long-time friend, and the two of them were soon on the path to Sweet Apple Acres.

"Well, I was a little scared to come along again, actually," Silver Spoon admitted after a long silence, "I had a nightmare about that Tellis person last night." She shuddered.

Diamond Tiara quirked an eyebrow. "About the Iron Warrior that saved us? Not the Tau that were about to kill us?"

"Well, not to sound ungrateful, but even on our side he was a lot scarier than they were," Silver mumbled, "it's just a good thing our parents don't know about what happened out there."

Diamond Tiara recoiled. "You didn't tell your parents? Are you nuts?"

Silver Spoon looked equally surprised. "You mean you did?"

"Of course! We could have died out there! We can't keep something that important from them!" the pink filly chided her companion. "Besides, it's not like the whole thing was covered up or anything. What if your mom or dad learns about it from somepony else? You'll be in so much trouble!"

Silver Spoon fell silent, considering that Diamond Tiara had a very good point. But then...

"Wait. So if you told your dad, how did you get permission to go to Sweet Apple Acres today?" the bespectacled filly asked, scratching at her cheek with a hoof.

"'Permission'? I don't need father's permission to do anything," Diamond Tiara said with a sniff, "if he didn't say I couldn't go, then obviously I can still go there if I want. He always lets me know exactly what I'm not allowed to do. Like make friends with Mister Tellis."

The pair of young ponies walked along in silence for several seconds after that.

"Sometimes I wonder about your family," Silver Spoon mumbled.

"What? I think it's healthy," Diamond insisted, "I don't keep anything from him, and he doesn't bog me down with too many pointless rules."

"I don't think it would be 'pointless' to keep us away from the Apples' place while there are still alien soldiers roaming around Equestria," Silver Spoon pointed out.

"Oh, please. For all we make fun of her for her family's bad luck with aliens, it would be completely ridiculous for them to get attacked again today," Diamond Tiara countered.

"Well, I don't... what's that noise?"

The two fillies turned their heads to the side and upward as a pair of Sunshark bombers screamed almost directly overhead, their blue and black coloring immediately identifying their allegiance for those witnesses who couldn't recognize the distinct qualities of Tau engineering at a glance.

Diamond and Silver froze in place, and thus their scope of vision lingered long enough to see several of the hammerhead-shaped armored vehicles following the aircraft at pursuit speed high over the ground.

In a few seconds the convoy was past, leaving only a kicked-up cloud of dust to slowly blow over the two young ponies left gaping behind them.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" Diamond Tiara shouted, slapping a hoof against her face. "Are those ponies cursed or something?!"

"I think I'm ready to tell my parents now," Silver Spoon whimpered.

Diamond let her hoof fall to the ground again. "No, it's a little late for that."

"Then what do we do? We can't possibly get to Sweet Apple Acres before the Tau to warn them!" Silver Spoon despaired.

Diamond Tiara stared down at the ground intently. "Father says that at times like these, you're supposed to ask yourself WWCD: What Would Celestia Do?"

This seemed to calm Silver Spoon down a bit as the gray filly stopped to think.

"...... Throw the Elements of Harmony at it and then find someplace safe to wait it out?" Silver guessed.

Diamond turned around and built up a gallop back toward Ponyville. "Let's go!"

Author's Note

The Iron Warriors: the only Legion that canonically plays tabletop games in their free time.
How meta is that?

Uninvited Guests

Iron Hearts

Book 3

The Sept Lamman

Disclaimer: I claim no responsibility for your sanity. You read this nonsense at your own risk.

Legal disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro. Warhammer 40K is the property of Games Workshop. The many human and Iron Warrior OC's were made my me, but I think Games Workshop owns them anyway. All their lawyers carry plasma weapons and have 3+ saves; I'm not messing with those guys.

Punctuation key: "Speech in Gothic" *Speech in Tau language* +Speech in binary+ Non-aural communication, such as telepathy

Dramatis Personae

Iron Warriors 38th Company:

Solon - Warsmith (high commander) dedicated to Nurgle

Sliver - vice-commander dedicated to Nurgle

Tellis - Raptor Lord dedicated to Khorne

Serith - Sorcerer

Tolken - Armsmaster

Dest - rhino driver

Cyrus Gnoss - human mercenary General

Wyatt Daniels - human mercenary

Norris Delgan - human trademaster

Virgil - human Chaos Priest

The Great and Powerful Trixie - entertainer

Suuna - assistant(?) to the Great and Powerful Trixie

Dark Mechanicus:

Kaelith - Dark Magos and executor

Gaela - Dark Acolyte

Tau Lamman Sept:

High Commmander Voidsong - Shas'o

Commander Wraithstar - Shas'el

Jerriha - Fireblade

Fennin - Earth caste master engineer

Helenis - human fleet advisor

Dear Journal:

It's been four days now since I first laid my hooves on the human dataslate Crystal Cheers bought. Since then I've visited the shop she told me about every day. I've been so busy with the things I've seen and purchased there that I haven't been properly making note of all my observations and acquisitions, so I'm taking extra time now to make note of what I've bought. First, obviously, was my own dataslate that was "calibrated for ponies" as the shopkeep told me. It's an electronic, touch-sensitive device for storing and accessing information, and came with a book already loaded in it titled "Principles of Darkness". The next day I bought a respirator mask with optics array that had likewise been modified from its original form to fit ponies. Then there was the plasma cutter the next day. Unfortunately, this device needs far more machining than was convenient to make it easy to use for an earth pony due to the humans' fondness for "triggers" that fit their hands. Still, even if it's not useful for work (yet), it's still a remarkable piece. When I came in today to purchase something, the shopkeep discreetly asked if I wanted to look at their "specialty items". There was no way I could refuse. In the back of the shop they have a grand collection of weapons, more exotic machines, and strange, arcane-looking things that seem to boast a lot of those eight-pointed wheels everywhere. I ended up buying an augmetic arm from a collection of limbs that were literally stuffed in a barrel like a bunch of brooms or umbrellas! The Shopkeep explained to me that the humans actually attach these limbs to their bodies, and that they somehow make them work as entirely new, fully functional extremities! Obviously it's impossible for any pony doctor to do something like that, and the shopkeep said that even the humans residing in Ponyville don't have the facilities to install augments there. So for now the arm is just a nifty hunk of metal hanging over my work bench. But she also said that there were certainly such facilities in Ferrous Dominus to install the arm. Perhaps I should charter a trip there? How does one do that? I'll need to look into it soon; rumor has it the humans are only going to be here for a couple months.

As fascinating and thrilling as these artifacts are, they are proving to be very expensive. I make decent bits, to be sure, but I'm not sure it's wise to start dipping into my savings just to fill my house with random alien knick-knacks. I've never been much of a collector at heart and I want the things I buy to do things or serve a need. That said, what I'd really like is one of those servitor or automata things that the shopkeep said she could get on order, but those things are completely out of the realm of possibility for what they're asking.

Besides the cost, there's also the little matter of the royal family. It's not a huge secret that the meeting between the Iron Warriors and Princess Celestia went down like a drunken pegasus. Yesterday when I was using my dataslate at a cafe, a royal guard actually interrupted me and asked where I'd got it! I lied and said that it was a gift from a cousin in Ponyville. I'm even writing this on normal parchment rather than the dataslate because I'm afraid that it might be outlawed soon and taken away. Right now there are no laws about the purchase or ownership of human artifacts, but the guards have been really busy recently, and they've been putting up all these posters. The posters have a picture of that wheel symbol, and tell the reader that if they see it they need to report it to the guards right away. I think it's weird that all the hubbub is taking place here in Canterlot, though. Everypony knows that the humans are most active around Ponyville, but none of our troops have been dispatched there at all! Huh.

I heard from Golden Chalice that apparently all humans are forbidden from entering Canterlot since the meeting. That explains why there's a pony running the shop selling alien things, at least to an extent. It also means I'll need to take a train ride to Ponyville if I ever want to actually meet a human without traveling to their fortress. I'd really like to go, but I'm kind of scared. I heard all the ponies in that town are crazy!

Gear Works

Iron Hearts

Chapter 1

Uninvited Guests

****

Ponyville - Sugarcube Corner

One week after the diplomatic conference

Gaela's laser welder sparked furiously as it ran along a seam of metal, fusing the metal edges together while Gaela's servo claw held the walls of the oven tight.

Beneath the crackling welder, her mechadentrites carefully aligned heating elements in a pair of dispersal rods, shifting the magnetic field with the arrangement of crystals and determining where future heat emissions would be ejected.

The more sensitive work occurred under the considerable magnification of her optics array in her helmet, and the lens whirred softly as her view was magnified or expanded as necessary.

"Primary frame integrity is at acceptable stability thresholds," the Dark Acolyte said as she softly nudged her servo arm and glanced at the seams, "Sparkle, open the gas valve and turn the oven on."

There was a considerable pause after she gave her order.

"Uh... with your head still in it?" Twilight asked from outside the appliance.

"Yes. I need to make sure none of the thermasilicate arrays fall out of alignment when pressure is applied. Anyway, the oven is currently set at only five percent of total output."

"Um... but... you just installed that control dial. What if you made a mistake?" Twilight asked.

"If the temperature rises so catastrophically that it causes damage despite my armor and cloak, then I will suffer for my error, as I should," Gaela said with strained patience, "now turn it on."

Twilight took a deep breath that was audible from within the metal box, and then Gaela heard the sound of a valve squeaking open.

A moment later the dispersal rods below lit a bright red, casting the hooded, armored woman in a wreath of soft heat and crimson light.

"... Excellent. Everything is functioning within acceptable parameters. Sparkle, turn it off."

The dispersal rods quickly went dark as Gaela drew her head out of the oven.

"I have to recalibrate the output dial and install the door. Then I can complete the rites of assembly and anoint the gas feed," the Dark Acolyte said as she clutched the dial in a servo claw, "then the new baking unit will be ready for service."

Behind Gaela, Twilight, Pinkie, and the Cakes were watching the process with varying degrees of awe.

"I can't thank you enough for having your alien pirate friend come and help us out with this," Mrs. Cake said to Twilight, "I don't know what we would have done otherwise."

"When I bought that thing the human sales guy swore it was easy to assemble," Mr. Cake grumbled, "but I couldn't make heads or tails of the directions."

"The directions are simple," Gaela insisted as her servo limbs rose and fell over her current project, "but they don't take into account your limited access to basic tools."

Mrs. Cake frowned. "The first few pages described lighting incense and praying."

"Yes, precisely. You didn't even have the burners handy. It's a wonder anything in this shop still works."

Pinkie Pie glanced over to the incense burners that had been set up on the bakery counter. "Maybe that's why that assemble-at-home furniture is so hard to build. They always skip that step."

Twilight stood off to the side, marveling at the scene.

Over the past week, strange as it seemed, things had somehow settled into a sense of normalcy with the Company that had set up shop in Ponyville.

Delgan's flea market had become a quick success, and had grown to take up more and more room on the edge of Ponyville as it set up booths and small kiosks to sell its wares. It had even started attracting ponies from other towns in Equestria.

However much influence Delgan had with the fleet, however, it hadn't been enough to get him more Mechanicus personnel, which left Gaela as the sole human engineer-cultist outside of Ferrous Dominus. With a whole lot of human tools and items floating around nowadays, that had made her quite popular despite her utter lack of social grace and her basic contempt for everypony she met.

Twilight followed her as much as possible. Not just to observe the construction and repairs of the human machines, but also so that she could catalog all of Gaela's "good" deeds for her letters to Princess Celestia. Even if the Princess despised the 38th Company in general for its affiliation with Chaos, Twilight was convinced that Gaela wasn't a bad human, and she desperately wanted to prove this to her mentor.

Sending the letters had itself become something of a hassle recently, though. She still didn't know how Serith had intercepted her previous messages, and Spike had emphatically suggested that she send them by ordinary mail from now on. It wasn't a big problem in itself, but it aggravated Twilight to no end that she couldn't rely on the basic magical abilities that she had used for so long.

Gaela pulled away from the new oven and then placed her hands upon the top of the frame, her head bowed.

Then she spewed a long litany of Binaric Cant, and the crackling noise grated on the ears of every pony present.

The two lumen indicators on the front of the appliance flickered briefly, and then dimmed again as the device registered its inactive setting.

"Are you sure it's necessary to invoke those prayers when you work with a machine?" Twilight asked after the chant of machine language came to an end. She felt a bit silly questioning the Acolyte considering that Gaela obviously knew more about human technology than she ever would, but she couldn't help but wonder at the awkward combination of high logic and devotional mysticism.

"Yes," Gaela said simply, declining to explain further as she turned toward the Cakes and Pinkie.

"Is it necessary to carve that Chaos Star on the door?" Pinkie asked.

"No," Gaela said just as curtly, "the cooker is complete. You should see an increase on energy consumption efficiency of approximately seventy-one percent over your other appliances of identical function."

"Thank you so much!" Mrs. Cake exclaimed. "I really feel like we should pay you something for having you do this."

"If you insist on paying, give it to Sparkle," Gaela said dismissively as she walked past the bakers, "I have no need of your money and no desire to carry it around. I'm only performing engineering tasks for your people because it is a better use of my time than reading in the library or performing engineering tasks for Trademaster Delgan."

Pinkie suddenly brightened. "Hey! I know how we can pay you back!"

Gaela halted and turned her head around, suddenly on her guard. "Don't touch me. No! Stop! No hugs!"

Pinkie Pie ignored her, jumping up and clamping onto the Acolyte's hip as the human woman spewed profanities in Binary.

"C'mon everypony! Let's give Miss Grumpy Metal Pants a big, fuzzy Ponyville snuggle!" Pinkie shouted, rubbing her cheek against the rough rubber material of Gaela's cloak.

"Cease at once! This is not appropriate compensatory action!"

Before she had even completed that sentence the Cakes had each glommed onto one of her legs, effectively immobilizing her as her lower half was seized and surrounded by earth ponies.

Twilight giggled as Gaela fumed silently. Despite her protests the Dark Acolyte didn't offer any actual resistance, simply hanging her head and arms as she waited for the equines to let go.

It was quite a charming scene, and one that she would eagerly include in tonight's letter.

It made Twilight wonder if things might have been different somehow, if not for the taint of Chaos. Every human and post-human serving under the 38th Company was considered a tool and weapon of that malevolent power, almost all of them willingly serving a force that sought destruction and violation for its own sake. And yet it wasn't especially hard to see past the spikes and grim outlooks to the people underneath.

Well, except for Serith, at any rate. He could burn in Tartarus forever for all she cared.

Aside from the high Sorcerer though, she didn't find it very hard to imagine living alongside humankind as friends and equals in the long term.

And if it was only the threat of Chaos that spoiled their coexistence, wasn't it possible, somehow, with all the power of magic and friendship and tolerance, to eliminate or negate that threat?

"Sparkle, are you coming?" Gaela asked, snapping Twilight out of her musings. "The bakers finally released me. Let's go to the next job."

"Oh, you don't have any other jobs," Twilight assured her, "we can head back to the library."

"I see. Hopefully another pony with a task for me has arrived while we were out," the Priestess muttered.

Twilight snorted and tapped a hoof against the metal thigh of Gaela's armor. "You're such a workaholic! Let's go home."

****

Canterlot - The Iron Chest

The bells on the door jingled as Rarity stepped into the storefront, her horn glimmering with magic to hold it open ahead of her.

The mare at the counter immediately looked up from the dataslate in front of her, a greeting already on her tongue.

That greeting changed instantly when she saw who it was.

"Hello, boss," the unicorn mare said, her posture straightening instantly, "welcome back."

The unicorn had a cutie mark consisting of a bouquet of flowers and a dark green coat. She also had a short-cropped black mane in a bob cut. It was a very plain style for a Canterlot pony, but considering her accessories Rarity reasoned that it hardly mattered. She had a large metal visor over her eyes with a single, rectangular lens, and the face of the black-tinted eyewear displayed a glowing red band that would sweep from one side to the other constantly. Her legs had small belts wrapped around them, and attached to those belts were several small devices like laser scalpels and mini-drills and even the odd bullet. She wore a necklace of chains interlaced with wires to complete the ensemble, such that it looked like she was literally dressed up in the store's wares.

Rarity personally couldn't understand how a perfectly decent-looking pony could do that to herself, but Orchid Flair had enthusiastically chosen to wear such a tacky ensemble, claiming it would help sales. It seemed to work, too.

Rarity looked from side to side, taking in the state of the shelves.

"The shop is looking rather bare," she mumbled as she approached her employee.

"Business has been pretty brisk," Orchid agreed with a toothy grin, "when those solar cells came in I could barely restock the shelves at the rate they were going! The portable cryo-chambers were a hit too! I sold out of them yesterday!"

Rarity nodded absently. She was happy enough that "her" business was successful, but in truth she had no great interest in its operations. As somepony who made most of her money from commissions and artistic expression, the fine points of tracking inventory and managing shelf space were painfully tiresome to her. On top of that, nearly all the profits went straight to Delgan anyway.

"I'm just here for a copy of the accounts," Rarity informed her employee, "my... partner wants me to bring him the daily inventory counts since opening. Just some generic management tedium. Could you get that for me?"

"No sweat," Orchid said as she levitated a heavy binder out from beneath the desk, "let me just run them through the auto-scribe for you."

She put the entire book into a device in the corner, and then the device started scanning each page and flipping to the next one while an array of pens drew a copy onto a blank page.

Then Orchid turned back to the white unicorn and glanced at the object hanging in her saddlebag. "Hey, is that a new bolter? Lemme see!"

Rarity grimaced slightly as the shopkeep grinned. "Miss Flair, do restrain yourself. You're on the job."

"Aw, c'mon boss! I just want to take a look! And then, you know, test fire it. If you don't mind."

"I DO mind," the white unicorn said dryly, "unlike you, I've seen what a boltgun can do to a body. Don't treat it like just another human trinket."

The other mare pouted. "Well, can I have your first boltgun, then?"

"This IS the first boltgun. Sort of. Delgan just had it modified to cut the weight of the blasted thing. It was beginning to strain me to carry it around everywhere. He said it can't fire bursts anymore, but-"

Rarity promptly fell silent when she heard the back door open, not wanting to be overheard discussing firearms, of all things.

Orchid tilted her head slightly to see who was coming in. "Oh, hey Gears. Back door's open."

A slate blue earth pony with large, rectangular glasses walked into the shop cautiously, his head turned to look behind him at the streets he had just left.

"Hi, Miss Flair. Do you have any of those portable refrigerators left?" the customer asked, finally turning his attention to the counter.

"Completely out, I'm afraid," Orchid answered regretfully, "they sold like fresh apple cider."

"Drat. All right, I'll be in the back then," the stallion mumbled, casting only a brief glance at Rarity before he walked past the counter.

As the door to the back area closed behind him, Orchid leaned in toward Rarity. "He's a regular. Guy's been here almost every day since we opened."

"I'm surprised we have 'regulars' in a retail outfit," Rarity mumbled.

"Well, we do keep getting new stuff, so there are a few ponies who keep checking back in," Orchid shrugged.

The auto-scribe had finished its work by then, and Orchid Flair levitated the stack of parchment over to Rarity.

"Well, good. The more ponies come through the door, the better," Rarity mumbled as she quickly skimmed each page of the accounts.

"Yeah, well, that isn't QUITE true..." Orchid admitted, leaning forward again and lowering her voice. "We've also been getting a lot of visits from the royal guard, boss. And not to pick up autolighters."

Rarity paused and quirked an eyebrow.

"They never make any accusations or charges or anything, but yesterday THREE of them showed up in one day. And they all ask the same questions: who owns the shop, where the inventory comes from, if we sell anything with those wacky wheel symbols..."

Rarity wet her lips. "And what do you tell them?"

"That it's some unicorn lady I don't know, Ponyville, and what wheel symbols? Respectively," Orchid groused.

Rarity frowned. "Even if it happens to be in my immediate best interests, I don't approve of lying to the guards. They're only trying to protect us."

"Protect us from what? Making a decent living?" the other unicorn griped. "We're just trying to sell tools and trinkets fairly and competitively on an open market! What's wrong with that?"

"The most immediate answer would probably involve the guns, explosive charges, and amasec piled in the back room that you're apparently selling without the knowledge of the authorities," Rarity deadpanned.

"It's fine. Back room is 18 and up only," Orchid said, scoffing, "but anyway, can't you do something about the guards? I thought the Elements of Harmony outranked them or something."

"It doesn't work like that," the white unicorn replied, rolling her eyes, "being an Element doesn't entitle us to special treatment, and certainly doesn't place us above the law. I'll talk to my partner about possibly moving some of the more questionable items back to Ponyville." She levitated the copies of the accounts into her saddlebag, content that they were all in order.

"Tch! All right," Orchid mumbled, "but make sure you get lots of extra stuff to replace it. There's plenty of demand here for the more exotic gizmos."

"I'll be sure to do so," Rarity said with a curt nod, turning around and heading out the door, "thank you for your time, Miss Flair. Have a fine day."

****

Ferrous Dominus - sector 21

"What do you mean you can't get any more shipments to me?!"

A group of men and women clustered around a vox receiver winced at the enraged question.

"I've got the horses eating out of my hand, here! They can't get enough of this stuff! I've even got a contract opening up with an art gallery to show off a few of the billions of pict-captures we have of star systems and basic cosmological phenomena!" crackled the vox receiver.

"You can still do that," one man was quick to point out, "you'll have to use local frames, but we can still send the pict-captu-"

"THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE BLOODY PICT GALLERY!" the vox roared, causing the assembled humans to flinch back. "Explain to me why I can't get resupplied!"

"Yes, Master Delgan," an older woman with bionic eyes said before clearing her throat, "the Iron Warriors have been laying down tighter and tighter deployment restrictions all week. As I understand it, they come from Lord Sliver himself, Sir. This morning it was declared that no transports are allowed to leave Ferrous Dominus at all without prior authorization from a ranking Iron Warrior, and all vehicles and personnel on deployment are to return upon completion of their immediate missions. He's even recalled the perimeter patrols back behind the palisade."

"That's absurd!" barked the vox. "An entire verdant, rich, populated planet to explore and exploit, and we're to stay locked inside our walls twiddling our thumbs until ready to leave?!"

An aide sighed. "Lord Sliver reacted very poorly to the loss of several dozen Tau slaves during that strange celebration a week ago. They've been replaced in the slave pits by over a hundred mercenaries that were supposed to be on duty at the time."

"Good! That's the least they deserve for provoking this nonsense! I need a supply drop! I'm almost out of inventory!"

"There's nothing we can do except try to deflect any inquiries as to why you're still outside Ferrous Dominus yourself, Master Delgan," a heavily scarred seneschal noted, his arms crossed over his chest, "the allowance for deployments that are on-mission will probably excuse your convoy, but the moment any of your transports enter the fortress, they'll be locked down."

"All this over a bloody PARTY?" the vox sputtered. "I thought we served Chaos, not the fragging Ministorum!"

"I know, right? It really doesn't make as big a difference as you'd think," mumbled another aide.

"I don't suppose the Warsmith has provided an opinion on this," grumbled the voice from the vox.

"No, Master Delgan. Warsmith Solon has been keeping an even lower profile than usual since he got back."

A frustrated groan, scrambled by vox static, came from the receiver.

"There's nothing I can do then. The Warsmith isn't going to go against his second just so I can hawk more trinkets to the aliens," Delgan grumbled.

"Should we prepare for your return, Sir?" asked the head seneschal.

A long pause followed his question. "No, not yet," the voice finally answered, "I still have quite a stock of these 'bits' that I need to spend, and I can't do that behind the macrocannons. I need to see about their more exotic resources and ore stockpiles; see if I can't get some points with the Warsmith by actually turning this into a useful exercise."

"Oh, see if you can get some of that 'cider' of theirs, too," interrupted a woman who was organizing a dataslate list, "I tried some at the party, and it was really good!"

She got a few annoyed looks from the other aides as the vox replied. "Yes, sure. In the meantime, see if you can't find a way to get an officer's blessing for a supply drop! There must be something that can be done!"

"We'll try, Sir. Good day," mumbled an aide before switching off the vox.

"He took that better than I thought he would."

"Certainly. When the Iron Warriors are against you, there isn't much you can do but swallow the medicine or put a lasblast through your own head."

As the aides mumbled their general agreement, the door behind them slid open.

The group straightened immediately. Standing at the door was an Iron Warrior, his weapons sheathed.

"Welcome, my lord. Is something wrong?" the head seneschal asked politely, hoping that the Chaos Space Marine hadn't overheard them. Even if their intention of getting the proper permissions to release a transport hardly amounted to a punishable act, one never wanted to attract extra scrutiny from an Astartes.

"Not as such, no," the Iron Warrior rumbled from behind his vox grille, "I have a pair of xenos to see you."

The gathered administrators and tradesmen shared a confused glance.

"What about, Lord?"

"I'm surprised they're still letting ponies into the fortress after the party."

"They allowed a complete security screening of themselves and their possessions, so they've abided by the proper procedures," the Chaos Marine said, "as far as I've been told, it's up to you now to decide whether or not they can stay, and for how long."

"We were given that duty, weren't we?" mumbled an aide.

"Even so, I'm surprised. But all right, let's see them."

The Iron Warrior turned around, walking back out into the hall.

"You may proceed," he said as he left.

As expected, a pair of pegasi stepped cautiously into the room after he left, their eyes glancing every which way as they looked around in fascination.

"State your name and business, please," the head seneschal said stiffly, his eyes narrowing. He had nothing against the ponies, but he and his aides were currently acting as the face of the 38th Company, which was a war fleet first and foremost. It would do both the ponies and the Iron Warriors a disservice to mischaracterize Ferrous Dominus as a warm, friendly place.

"Right! Hi!" one of them stiffened immediately. He was a light gray stallion with a white mane, while the other was a dark purple pegasus mare. "My name is Snowstride, and this is my wife Cinnamon Skies."

"Hello!" the mare chirped happily, obviously far more excited about being in a war fort than anyone had a right to be.

"As for our business here," Snowstride began, clearly a bit nervous, "we were here last week with the party, and we talked to a few of the humans here while we had the opportunity."

"All right... so you're here to visit someone?"

"No, no, it's not that. We heard from them that this entire city doesn't have a dessert shop, so we want to open one!" the stallion blurted.

There was a long, awkward pause as the humans digested that.

"What's a 'dessert'?" one of the women finally asked.

"We are going to make SO MUCH money!" Cinnamon giggled, almost dancing from hoof to hoof.

"Wait a minute," muttered the seneschal, "you can't possibly mean to commute into Ferrous Dominus every day, flier or not. So when you say you want to open up a shop, you mean you want to... immigrate? Here?"

The pegasi nodded enthusiastically.

There was another long pause.

"WHY?" asked another aide.

"We think your dark space city is really cool!" Snowstride said happily.

"I was way into Goth metal as a filly," Cinnamon Skies said, pressing a hoof to her chest, "seeing those skulls hanging from looped chains under the streetlights makes me feel ten years younger!"

"Plus, you have, like, NO crime," Snowstride pointed out.

"Don't forget that infrastructure! Cloudsdale doesn't even HAVE real plumbing! For obvious reasons."

"And with all the nutty monsters and random calamities that happen in Equestria, it will be nice to have a massive wall, heavily reinforced buildings, and an army of ruthless super-soldiers to keep us safe!"

"And we can go to space! Whenever we want! Just think of it!"

"Did you know the last time a pony even left the planet's atmosphere was over one thousand years ago? And I hear she doesn't even like to talk about it!"

The humans, quite reasonably, felt stunned by the litany of reasons ranging from practical to stupidly naïve.

"So... the evil religion doesn't bother you?" asked one man, holding up a pendant with a Chaos Star.

"Hey man, where I'm from, you live and let live. You can pray to any Goddess you want," Snowstride assured him.

"That... That's not what... I mean..." the aide struggled to think of what to say to that bizarrely sunny outlook.

"What about the warfare? The constant industry of battle and bloodshed that would surround you and color your commercial efforts?"

"Are you kidding? The Tau are a menace!" Cinnamon insisted, her expression souring. "They attacked pony land without provocation and placed suspicious devices all over Equestria! We're on your side!"

"What about the slavery?" the seneschal asked, his eyes narrowed. "I thought that was a big deal to your people."

"Oh, we finished being indignant and outraged about that long ago," Snowstride said, rolling his eyes, "besides, if you're going to try to change an unjust system, it's better to do it from the inside, right?"

The humans again shared a long glance, unable to believe that any sane and decent creature would want to leave their idyllic settlements to live in their hell-fortress of their own will.

Granted, as Chaos forces went, the 38th Company offered mortals a decent living, but that was mostly an issue of relative comparison. Many Chaos Legions sacrificed their human cohorts by the hundreds and bought their obedience with fear and brutality rather than money. Additionally, it was much easier to thrive in a Legion that was run with military discipline rather than religious fervor, as soldiers weren't required, or even asked, to worship Chaos themselves as they served its interests. But even taking this into account, none of the humans could imagine seeing Ferrous Dominus as a fine place to live.

"Oh, I have a question!" Cinnamon said suddenly, raising a hoof. "How's your school system? We're definitely going to be having foals!" the pair of pegasi chuckled bashfully as she leaned against her mate.

"You have your choice of your spawn being trained to be a logic-driven cyborg whose only joy is work, an insane preacher sowing mutation, brutality, and madness, or an administrator locked in thankless, meaningless minutiae forever, tallying the ill-gotten spoils of murderers and rogues."

The pony couple took that in for a moment, glancing at each other.

"First one," said Snowstride.

"Yeah. I mean, if it doesn't work out they can always help out with the shop, right?"

"I see," mumbled the seneschal, "if dark powers and militant brutality don't dissuade you, then I suppose there's only one good reason remaining why you might not want to settle here."

"What's that, friend?" asked Snowstride pleasantly.

"The entire fleet is going to be leaving the planet in a few months," another aide pointed out, "we're only here to construct new Warp engines, and then we're going back to our normal trade of interstellar piracy."

This, as opposed to everything else that had been brought up, seemed to stop the couple short.

"What? But then we won't have any neighbors or customers!" Snowstride complained.

"Boo!" Cinnamon stuck out her tongue.

"Precisely. So as you can see, there's really no point in us accepting settlers if you're just going to be abandoned here alone in a few months."

The pegasi fell silent, thinking that prospect over.

"Wait a minute," Snowstride said suddenly, raising his head, "what's going to happen to this city when you leave? Are you going to pack it up or something?"

"No, not really. We'll salvage as much as we can, but much of the fortress will be left behind when we leave."

"So, that means that anypony left over after you leave could, in theory, claim the whole place?" the stallion asked with a sly smile. "They'd have their own fortress city, all to themselves?"

"Ooh! I could be a princess!" Cinnamon Skies perked up instantly.

The humans were again silent for several seconds.

Then the head seneschal turned toward one of his assistants. "Well, I do believe our new residents are quite sold. Let's get them a set of respirators and find them a place to set up, shall we?"

"Hooray!" the pegasi cheered.

****

Ponyville - outside Fluttershy's cottage

Obviously, not all ponies were so pleased with their co-existence with humans as were Twilight and the odd Equestrian emigrant.

Celestia and the royal order aside, Fluttershy had found her trip to Ferrous Dominus a singularly awful experience, and the 38th Company was pretty much the same. Sure, some of them like Daniels and Delgan weren't openly hostile, but they were still servants to an army that was. The Company may have made machines with the souls of animals (or so she thought) that she had rather liked, but they had also twisted those souls into vile war machines hungry for violence and destruction.

Suffice to say, she had been overjoyed to get back home and away from the toxic industry of the Iron Warriors and their human servants.

Which wasn't to say that she was completely free of the humans' influence even here.

"Lunch time!" Fluttershy called softly as she approached a durasteel drop-bunker with a sack of seed on her back.

Approaching the door, she rose up onto her hind legs to press a hoof against the button next to the blast doors.

The doors slid open as the button beeped and turned green, revealing dozens of fluffy-feathered bird chicks wandering about the metal floor.

Fluttershy scattered some seed onto the floor at the feet of the chirping swarm, and soon a few of the older birds perched on the firing slit hopped down to eat with their young.

Fluttershy finished and then tapped the button again, letting the door slide shut.

As she moved on to the next group of animals she reflected upon the new structures that now littered her property.

She didn't especially mind the bunkers that had been left behind themselves, and so far she hadn't seen any sign that the bolt casings or discarded energy cells that littered the forest had harmed any of the animals that lived there. But they were still an inconveniently sturdy reminder of the deadly space craft orbiting the planet and their just-as-deadly payload that was still mingling with her friends.

She sighed as she passed by a stripped-down turret mount that had a lizard sunning itself on top. Terrible as her experience had been, she was confident that now she could leave things up to her friends that seemed to get along with the humans. In a few months they would be gone, and she couldn't imagine anypony needing her help to deal with them anymore.

She might see another Company soldier in passing, perhaps, but in all likelihood she wouldn't actually have to deal with another Iron Warrior ever again, Fluttershy thought as she opened the door to her cottage.

"YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!"

An irritated grunt came from Tellis as he was roused from his slumber by the ear-piercing shriek behind him.

"Cripes, Shy, I thought you were supposed to be the quiet one," grumbled the Raptor Lord.

He was currently splayed out on Fluttershy's couch face-down, his armored bulk threatening to break the frame of the furniture. His flight pack was sticking up over the rest of the Marine's body, and its modified booster jets hung in the air like great metal claws.

Fluttershy stopped screaming immediately, but she still gaped at the Iron Warrior in confusion.

"Uh... what... what are you..." Fluttershy stuttered, cringing as she stared at the super-soldier.

"I'm trying to sleep," Tellis answered, cutting the pegasus off, "and you're not making that any easier."

There was a long pause as Fluttershy slowly worked up the courage to ask the next of the obvious questions she had for him.

"D-Don't you have y-your own r-room? Somewhere else? F-Far away?" Fluttershy asked. She hadn't budged from the doorway to her cottage, too terrified to enter and too concerned to flee.

Tellis sighed, twisting to sit up on the couch as he resigned himself to the interrogation.

"Yeah, well, I can't get to it right now."

Fluttershy blinked. That was a strange answer. "Why not?"

"Okay, so, you know that party last week at Dominus, right? Total hit, you should've been there," Tellis began, jabbing a thumb vaguely in the direction of the fortress-factory, "anyway, when it was over I escorted Dash home. You know, to be a gentleman. It's not safe out there at night, what with military aliens and violent freaks prowling around."

Fluttershy quickly pointed out that Tellis was both of those things himself. Meekly. In her head.

"That part went off without a hitch. But then when I fly back, the bloody anti-aircraft guns open fire on me!"

Fluttershy blinked again. That was odd. "Your own people attacked you?"

Tellis threw his arms up. "I know, right? At first I thought it was a joke, and in retrospect it IS pretty funny, but we have some serious anti-air covering the base perimeter. I can't go home."

"Why would they do something like that?" Fluttershy asked, feeling some small measure of genuine sympathy for the bloodthirsty maniac. Even he didn't deserve to be attacked by his allies and driven out of his home.

"I think the second-in-command is pissed at me for something," Tellis mused, "probably for defying orders, punching him in the face, and humiliating him in front of our men during the party."

Fluttershy was forced to revise her earlier presumption.

"So after that I flew all over the place around here. You know, to kill time. And a bunch of other stuff. Did you know this planet has alligators made of ROCKS?"

"Uh, can we get to the part where you broke into my house? If that's okay with you?" the meek pegasus asked.

"Okay, so, after about a week of constant jetting around and non-stop sport killing, I'm starting to get a little tired. Even a Chaos Space Marine needs to stop and rest EVENTUALLY, you know? So then I considered where I could stay."

The Raptor Lord planted his hands on his knees. "First choice was, obviously, with Dash. But her house is built on clouds, and clouds can't support my weight for some reason. I could probably get some space to myself in the tree library place with the Dark Acolyte, but I don't wanna hang out with those nerds. A hotel is right out of the question, since I don't carry money. So I don't really have any choice but to crash at your place."

"What about with Mister Delgan?" Fluttershy asked desperately.

"I don't even know who that is," Tellis confessed, "anyway, you were out when I showed up, so I showed myself in. I don't know how long I'll be here, but it won't be longer than the Company's deployment here on Centaur III. Hope that's cool with you." The Chaos Marine leaned back on the couch, his helmet tilting upward to stare at the ceiling before he let out a tired sigh.

Fluttershy whimpered incoherently as she remained rooted in the doorway, trying to figure out a way to explain politely that no, this arrangement was far from cool.

Then a puff of smoke burst over her right shoulder, dissipating to reveal a tiny image of Fluttershy with the Element of Kindness around her neck.

"Fluttershy, how can you be so cold?" chided the tiny simulacrum. "Whatever his faults, Tellis has only helped you in the past! Does Angel Bunny's life mean so little to you? If it weren't for Tellis, our precious little friend would be nothing but a snack!"

The yellow pegasus hung her head in shame as she was berated by her conscience.

"Is this the same pony that reformed the mighty and terrible Discord, ancient enemy of all of Equestria? Mister Terrifying Murderer has been turned away by those he had considered his comrades, and all he asks of you is your couch! How can you deny him so little and still call yourself the Element of Kindness?"

Another puff of smoke on the other side of her head revealed a tiny version of a certain blue, massively muscled minotaur.

"You can't be serious!" growled Iron Will, his enormous arms crossed over his mighty chest. "Being treated like a doormat outside your house is bad enough, but here is where you have to draw the line! A pony's home is her castle, and you don't owe nopony nothing!"

The imaginary minotaur snorted noisily. "Say it with me! 'You break in my home, I bust up your dome!'"

Both Fluttershys gave the more assertive aspect of Fluttershy's conscience an incredulous look.

"Have you actually SEEN this guy's 'dome'?" demanded the tiny Fluttershy. "Not only is my advice the kind and righteous thing to do, it's also a lot less likely to get us stabbed to death."

Iron Will scoffed, his head turning toward the couch. "Oh, please! That kind of weak-kneed, pacifistic-" then his eyes bugged out of his head. "SWEET MOTHER OF MINOS!! He's even bigger than I am!"

"And you haven't seen the claws!" the tiny Fluttershy mumbled, shivering. "I was talking to Fluttershy's repressed memories earlier, and let me tell you, she's been putting in overtime since this lunatic showed up!"

"So, just to be clear," Fluttershy whispered quietly so as not to be heard talking to herself, "we're making this decision mainly out of fear, not morals?"

"Hey, there's a lot of convenient overlap in this case, so I'm in the clear," the mini-Fluttershy insisted.

The miniature Iron Will placed a knuckle against his chin. "Be careful with what you say, and live to see another day."

With a nod of agreement, the two aspects of Fluttershy's conscience vanished in puffs of smoke.

Fluttershy finally stepped forward from the doorway. "Uhm, Mister Tellis? You-"

"Whoa, what's with that?" Tellis interrupted, turning his head again toward the pegasus. "Don't feel like you have to be all polite just because an armed and bloodthirsty killer broke into your home while you were away. Call me what you always call me."

"Oh. Uh, okay. Mister Terrifying Murderer, you can stay here, but I'm a little worried about what you're going to eat."

"That won't be a problem; there's plenty of animals around here! I helped myself to a few muskrats and a bear when I showed up, so I won't need dinner," Tellis reassured her.

Fluttershy's face turned absolutely ashen through her fur and her jaw hung open in shock.

Then Tellis laughed. "Ha! I'm just messing with you! I don't really eat anything; my daemon armor provides me with all my necessary energy so long as I provide it with my boiling hatred and the blood of the fallen. It's pretty neat!"

Fluttershy's expression didn't change.

Tellis waited for several seconds for the pegasus to speak again, but she did not.

Then he shrugged and fell over onto the length of the couch, a yawning noise coming from his vox grille.

****

???

"We've got two enemy cruisers moving on our starboard flank!"

"Fighters incoming! Void shields holding..."

"Target lock on the enemy frigate. Lances charged. We are ready to fire on your order, Captain."

Princess Luna looked over the hololithic displays, her brow furrowing as she saw her own fleet coming apart before the might of the Imperial battle group.

"We shalt open fire on the little ones whilst moving closer to the cruisers," Luna decided, pointing a hoof at the frigate, "remove this threat, gunners."

The alicorn princess was seated in a captain's throne as large monitors and displays relayed the tactical situation to her. All around the busy deck were human officers and technicians in defaced Imperial uniforms, all of them busily seeing to the operation of the battleship and none of them apparently bothered that their captain was a pony.

"Fire the initial spread to take down their shields, then cut it open with the lance batteries."

"Enemy frigate is taking evasive maneuvers!"

"Stay on target! She won't get far; she's still boxed in."

As pulsing diagnostic readouts showed the buildup of energy for their weapons, Luna glanced back at an alcove near the rear of the bridge.

"Dost thou have any advice on this formation, Warsmith?" the dark blue pony asked, her hoof steadying the captain's hat perched behind her horn.

"You're doing fine." Solon mumbled, paying little attention to the affair.

The Warsmith was hunched over an engineering console, staring critically at a small lens and the incomprehensible circuitry mounted behind it. He was unarmored, as was usual in his dreams, although he now had an augmetic right arm and a bionic optical array built into his face.

"We have a hit!" the gunnery master declared, drawing Luna's attention back to the battle. "Now! Cut it apart!"

The hull of the ship groaned as massive energy discharges shook the sub-structure, and Luna watched intently as the hololith displayed a beam of energy stabbing into the smaller enemy ship.

"Another hit! Confirmed penetration of the primary munitorum deck!"

Luna grinned as the flickering hololith showed the enemy craft splitting into two from the middle.

"Huzzah! The enemy hath been halved!" Luna declared proudly, lifting a hoof in the air.

"Enemy cruisers are opening fire! Void shields are holding!" barked another technician.

"CAPTAIN! We have a new energy signature! Battle Barge at our six!"

Luna clenched her teeth as her bridge crew started to panic.

"They're launching boarding torpedoes! We don't have enough turret or fighter cover in that quadrant!"

"Calm thyselves! Art thou not men of war?" Luna demanded, subduing the noisy shouting briefly. "Continue our assault upon the enemy craft! We shalt gather thine Iron Warriors and lead a charge to repel boarders!"

"Aye aye, Captain!"

Luna's horn flared as she stepped down from the command throne, and a power sword flickered into existence in front of her, supported by her levitation magic.

"Once more, into the breach!" the dark alicorn shouted, galloping toward the bridge's exit.

As the door opened before her however, she slowed her pace and then glanced over to Solon. The Astartes was still crouched over his device, mumbling to himself as his optics array kept adjusting itself to get the best view.

Another flash of magic came from Luna's horn, and suddenly all activity ceased. The men on the bridge froze in place, the flares of energy outside dimmed and remained still, and the myriad noises of a battleship on combat alert fell silent.

Solon noticed something was wrong right away, and he gave Luna an annoyed look as he pulled his hands away from the device he was holding. It remained sitting in the air, waiting for normal time to resume.

"What now? I told you not to pause the simulation if you can help it! I'm trying to work here!"

Luna seemed unmoved by his complaints. "We wished to ask if thou might accompany us for the imminent swashbuckling," she asked, her power cutlass swinging back and forth in the grip of her levitation, "it is thy dream, after all."

"No, I'm fine," Solon grumbled, "as I've explained, I use these cycles to research new devices, not engage in combat sport."

"Aye, clearly," Luna agreed, "but would it not be a pleasant change to leave thy labors for one night to indulge in such diversions?"

"My labors have been distracted for more than 'one night' thanks to your intrusions," Solon groused, drumming his artificial fingers on the engineering console, "I thought that I would be free of you after that calamitous meeting with your government, but you keep showing up and interrupting my work. And then you wanted to be able to fight in the scenarios simulated here, so I had to make the necessary modifications to the logic engines, which took up productive time during my waking hours, too!"

"'Twas entirely worthwhile," Luna said happily, still swinging her sword left and right with a fierce smile, "We cannot believe thou hast dreamt like this for so long without making such modifications thyself!"

"I'm ever so glad that my work meets your approval," Solon rolled his eye before he turned back to the floating lens, "you're much easier to please than your sister."

"Tia is burdened by the responsibility of the Equestrian state and the darkest secrets of the Equestrian royal family," Luna said somberly, "We, on the other hoof, art free to take a more flexible stance on thy presence, at least so long as our peoples remain at peace. Thou may expect many more visits until thou departs our world."

"Lovely. Would you care to restart time, Princess?"

Luna's expression shifted into a more dour one as she approached the Iron Warrior. "What is so fascinating about thy trinket that it demands thy complete attention?"

Solon pointed to the lens, his annoyance lifting somewhat as the topic moved to his work. "This is the psykant occulus, the device I put into Serith's arm. It acts as a psionic damper, breaking psychic energy that has manifested into physical energy back into its less tangible and dangerous form in order to foil direct attacks."

"Aye, We remember it now. Quite a useful device," Luna admitted with reluctant approval.

"Yes, indeed. I suppose I should thank you for providing such a strenuous test run for its first field use," Solon said with a chuckle.

Luna brightened. "In that case, thou can thank us by accompanying us to smite the foe!"

"No."

Luna's expression fell immediately. Then she turned her head away sharply, her nose in the air. "Very well. Enjoy thy tedious labors as We obtain glorious victory in thy stead!" Her horn flared, and in an instant the flow of time resumed as normal in the dream world.

"Have fun," Solon mumbled, catching the psykant occulus and then turning it over again.

As he concentrated on the resonance array and puzzled at how to increase its sensitivity, the sounds of combat and barked orders all around the ship began to meld together into a constant stream of white noise.

It was a comforting sound to him, and the main reason why he did his dream-tinkering during recordings of ancient battles rather than the silence of a sterile lab space.

He entered something like a meditative state, submerging his senses until they were only distantly aware of the sounds of the crew shouting, the macrobatteries firing, the hull substructure groaning, or the sound of a bolt pistol firing less than a meter away.

With his attention so keenly focused, he was able to make out every single minute detail on the psykant occulus, even as it shattered into bits from the detonation of the bolt pistol round.

"Hey! What in the-" Solon turned around toward the source of the shot. Standing over him was a Space Marine in yellow armor, a crackling power fist already cocked back.

The Warsmith didn't get the chance to say anything more before the fist hit him with the force of a cannon blast. His body was reduced to little more than a dark smear as it was sent flying across the bridge, and the scent of ozone filled the recycled air from the crackling discharge.

Solon's body instantly began to reform, the bones reassembling themselves and his sinews wrapping around them with absurd speed. He felt no pain from the devastating impact, either; this was a dream and simulation, after all.

Within seconds Solon's body was completely restored, and the Iron Warrior growled as he got to his feet. "Luna!"

"We cannot converse at the moment!" the dark blue alicorn sang as her power sword clashed against the boarding shield of another Imperial Fist. "It seems thine enemies hath made it to thy bridge!"

She stuck out her tongue as her horn flared with magic, wrenching her enemy's shield away so that she could plunge the sword into his gorget.

"No, they didn't! They boarded too far from the bridge! You're not fooling anybody!" Solon shouted angrily as the Marine Sergeant charged him again. "You created copies of them yourself!"

"We cannot hear thee! We art engaged in glorious combaaaaat!" Luna said with a grin as bolts and sword blows crashed into her personal barrier to no effect.

Solon dodged to the side as the dream construct swung at him again, the utterly lethal energies of the power fist humming noisily as they passed by him.

Solon aimed his augmetic hand straight for the neck in a knife-hand strike, the points of his adamantium fingers tearing through the stiff rubber hosing that protected the Marine's throat.

As he struggled to subdue the dying Imperial, Luna laughed.

"See? Is this not more entertaining than playing with thy gadgets?" she asked, her power sword clashing against another Marine's thunder hammer.

"Dammit, Luna!"

****

Sweet Apple Acres - the following day

Applejack hummed to herself as she tapped a hoof against the access plate leading outdoors, a pair of buckets mounted on her back.

The blast door slid open and she stepped out into the cool morning air, smiling pleasantly.

As she stepped outside, she took a moment to glance back at the bunker complex that had become her home. It was now painted over a bright red like the rest of the buildings and had a wind mill planted on top, in addition to several wind charms, a weather vane, and a few other decorations. The wind mill didn't power anything (as they already had more energy capacity than they could ever use), but it went a long way toward making it look less like a bunker hardpoint.

Big Macintosh was already out in the fields, plow attached to his harness, and she could see Apple Bloom dashing over to the automata bay where Crabapple rested now during the night. She was pulling a customized harness behind her, which the automata used to carry bushels of apples and other crops about the farm in baskets. Truth be told, the sentient machine wasn't good for much besides hauling things, but given that it didn't accept wages or eat food it was still helpful.

"Another fine day, Apples! Let's buck some fruit!" the orange mare barked as Winona ran past her into the fields.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - main orchard, several minutes later

Apple Bloom grunted as she pushed a basket of apples across the ground with her head, shoving it up against Crabapple's body and over the hook of its harness.

The probe automata beeped and then tilted its body to secure the hook on the basket. +Current load has reached capacity. Beginning preservatory run,+ Crabapple blurted in Binary before it raised its leg actuators and started walking for the silos.

Apple Bloom turned back toward the trees. There were several baskets under them partially full of apples, but many of the precious fruits had missed the containers and fallen on the ground. Normally Applejack would have collected them herself, but with the additional help available she could leave the tedious, simple work of collecting stray apples to Apple Bloom and some of the heavier labor of hauling the goods to Crabapple.

"Hey, Bloom! Whatcha doing?"

Apple Bloom glanced to the side as she placed an apple in a basket, spotting Scootaloo approaching on her scooter with Sweetie Belle riding behind her.

"Ah'm workin'. Sorry girls, but Ah don't got time to play today," Apple Bloom said as she retrieved another apple from the ground.

"Still? I'd think you'd have caught up with all the farm work by now," Sweetie said.

"Naw, it took days just to paint all the new buildings, and Mac's been decoratin' inside and whatnot, too," Apple Bloom replied, dropping another fruit into the basket, "plus, Sis has been talkin' to that human guy in Ponyville to see if she can pawn off that gunship wreck onto him."

Scootaloo cocked her head to the side. "But wasn't it the humans' to begin with? Do you even own it?"

"Yeah, Ah think that's what he said too," Apple Bloom said with a shrug, "if they wanted it back, Ah think they woulda come fer it by now. Anyway, we're behind on the harvest and seeding still."

"Yeesh. Running a farm sure is tough," Scootaloo grimaced as she got off her scooter, "well, mind if we help a little bit, then?"

"Help yerself, girls!" Apple Bloom said with a chuckle.

As the three fillies started collecting fallen apples, Sweetie Belle spoke up again.

"Actually, I wanted to ask if you've made any progress on our new cutie mark mission," said the young unicorn.

Apple Bloom's expression soured. "Naw. Sis won't tell me any more about the human fort no matter how much Ah ask. She says it ain't for me to worry about."

"It's the same for me," Sweetie Belle griped, "I can't even bring up the fortress without Rarity complaining for a straight ten minutes, and then she'll end by telling me she doesn't want to talk about it. And she's been really tight-lipped about her meetings with Mister Delgan."

"What about that thing you got from Applejack? The auspak,"Scootaloo asked.

"AUSPEX," Sweetie Belle corrected as she tossed another apple in the basket, "and I can't make any sense of that thing. For starters, the buttons and dials and stuff are really hard to use with hooves. Those humans must get a lot of use out of those fingers of theirs."

Scootaloo frowned. "Well, how about we go to the human fortress ourselves, then?"

The other two fillies slumped immediately, their faces darkening.

"Mah sis said no," Apple Bloom mumbled, irritably batting about an apple on the ground, "she wouldn't even let me go to the party last week with her'n Mac."

"My sister said a lot of things that ultimately added up to 'no'," Sweetie Belle groused, pouting, "and then she warned our parents to make sure they didn't give me permission either."

Scootaloo hummed thoughtfully. "So should I go by myself?"

"Okay, even Ah think that's dumb," Apple Bloom noted dryly, "even if Sis is bein' overprotective, ya don't wanna get stuck out there all that way on yer own."

"Well, how else are we supposed to practice being xeno-biologis?" Scootaloo complained, tossing an apple in a high arc into the bucket. "I already looked in the library and asked Twilight if there were any books on aliens or by aliens. She just started mumbling to herself constantly about 'access' something-or-other while her eye twitched and then Spike made me leave. And forget about Gaela. She just ignores me."

"What about Lyra? Don't she have a human?" Apple Bloom asked as she rubbed an apple clean with her hooves.

"Well, yeah, but... I don't know, something about those two seems really OFF," Sweetie said, scratching at her neck, "I'm pretty sure humans aren't supposed to be pets."

"Well, from what yer tellin' me, we don't have a lotta options if we wanna make this work," Apple Bloom noted.

"What about Crabapple?" Scootaloo asked as she spotted the automata returning from the silos. "She isn't a human, but she's built by humans. That has to be worth something, right?"

+Warning! Sensors detect incoming self-motivated mechanical! Reading active weapon signatures!+ Crabapple blurted as it walked back up to Apple Bloom.

"It'd be worth a lot, but how are we gonna study her? We can't even understand her!" Apple Bloom pointed out.

+Mechanical signature is registered as friendly IFF. There are no such current units on deployment according to Company noosphere registers. Caution is advised!+

The newest incomprehensible string of noise to come from the probe emphasized her point, and Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin.

"Well, maybe that's a good place to start? Like, instead of trying to understand what she says, we figure out her body language?"

Crabapple paused. +Body language: non-verbal physical cues or mannerisms that relay information to observers in lieu of spoken words. Related terms: posture, expressions, pose, stance. Unit Crabapple shall now attempt this new form of communication.+

Shifting slightly so that it could balance on three of its four legs, Crabapple lifted the fourth leg and then moved it as firmly horizontal as it could so that the point of the limb was aimed in the direction of the approaching sensor signature.

The fillies stared intently at the outstretched leg.

"Yeah, I've got nothing," Scootaloo said.

+Oh, come on!+ Crabapple blurted.

As the fillies stared critically at the automata to no useful end, another group caught sight of them through the trees, advancing silently on their helpless prey despite the futile warnings of their probe.

"Hey, it's the blank flanks!"

The three fillies jumped in surprise, whirling around to confirm the presence of two familiar classmates behind them.

"Diamond Tiara? What're you doing here?" Apple Bloom asked, more puzzled than annoyed to see her usual schoolyard bully. Silver Spoon was behind her, as usual.

The two wealthy ponies approached confidently, boasting smug smiles.

"Oh, I just wanted to stop by to ask how you enjoyed the party last week," Diamond Tiara asked, "it's too bad we didn't meet up with you, it was a blast! And surely you three would have been SOME help decorating the transit train like a pirate ship! We could have tied you to the flag pole or something, I'm sure. But we didn't see you there! Why not?"

The three markless fillies fumed, and Apple Bloom hung her head as she picked up another apple.

"We didn't go. Ah was workin'." Apple Bloom grumbled. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked even more annoyed; unlike Apple Bloom, they didn't even have an excuse. They simply hadn't received any invitations.

"Why're you bringing this up now? Haven't you had all week to rub our noses in it?" Scootaloo asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Oh, well, it hardly occurred to me!" Diamond Tiara said with mock surprise. "Surely the Apple family - the ENTIRE Apple family, that is - would be involved in any event that featured the humans!"

"I thought you would be the first to be there! Why, up until now, weren't you the only pony with her own automata?" Silver Spoon asked, furrowing her brow as if it were a difficult question.

"Yeah, as a matter o' fact..." Apple Bloom trailed off as she stood on her hind legs against the basket, and her head snapped toward the two aggravating ponies. "Wait, whaddya mean 'up until now'?"

"Oops!" Silver Spoon giggled, holding a hoof up to her mouth.

Diamond Tiara tsked. "Well, it looks like the secret is out. Glass Cannon, get out here!"

Then it appeared, stalking through the apple grove with surprising swiftness. It had a quadrupedal chassis with the legs mounted in an X-pattern, although its four legs were flat-soled and mid-jointed, unlike Crabapple's long, pointed legs. This new automata had a humanoid torso base, with a reaper autocannon for its left arm and a hefty three-fingered claw for its right. Its sensor suite was built into a mostly blank metal mask that boasted an optics visor and a small slit for a mouth.

+Unit scan complete. Corrupted automata detected. IFF signal indeterminate. Engage target?+ barked Glass Cannon, its visor glaring a bright red. Unlike Crabapple's harsh, static-laced squeal, the guard automata spoke in a noisy hum that was much easier on the ears, if precisely as incomprehensible to the ponies.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stared slack-jawed at the machine as it aimed its autocannon menacingly at the other automata.

Apple Bloom couldn't help but notice that the business end of the machine's very prominent gun was aimed squarely at her pet, which left her less than impressed.

+Do not engage! Unit Crabapple is not hostile!+ the probe insisted.

+Unit Crabapple designated as a class two daemonic sentience. Threat indicator yellow. Any aggressive action will result in summary termination.+

"Hey, Diamond! Get yer tin can to point that thing somewhere else!" Apple Bloom growled, spreading her legs apart and clenching her teeth like an angry cat.

Diamond Tiara snorted, but beckoned to her mechanical servant with a hoof. "Glass Cannon, stand down. We are on somepony else's property, after all. Show some manners."

The automata responded immediately, and the reaper autocannon lowered its muzzle to the ground. +Order confirmed. Alert status green.+

"I don't... but how did..." Scootaloo was flabbergasted as she walked around the new machine, taking in the details of the device.

"How did I get one?" Diamond finished for her. "I told you I could get one if I really wanted. Nothing is out of my reach."

Silver Spoon chuckled. "Besides, human technology is all the rage, nowadays! So I suppose the Apple family is still SLIGHTLY ahead of the curve. Not all of us were lucky enough to have our homes demolished by aliens so that they'd build us new ones!"

The two wealthy fillies chuckled to themselves.

"Why is it called 'Glass Cannon'?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Diamond smirked again. "It was something Mister Delgan said about this model. I'm not sure exactly what he meant; it has something to do with the armor, I guess. But I liked the name, so I decided to call him that!"

"Great," Apple Bloom grumbled, "is that all ya came for?"

Diamond and Silver's smug expressions slipped a bit. "What are you going on about now?"

"Ya come out all this way and even started roamin' the orchard just to find us to show off yer new toy and prove it's as good as Crabapple?" Apple Bloom asked, rolling her eyes while she pushed a basket full of apples onto Crabapple's harness. "Well, ya did that. Congrats. Now unless yer gonna help harvest, get lost, Diamond."

The pink pony grit her teeth in irritation. Now that she thought about it, it was quite obvious that she had come here just to clear her envy of the youngest Apple sibling. She had expected her to be more in awe of her clearly superior automata.

"Pft! Me, harvest apples? Why would I do that when I have Glass Cannon around?" Diamond Tiara asked with a derisive chuckle. "He's a bodyguard model, of course - not a throwaway scouting probe like yours - but he can do plenty of other things!"

The pink filly turned and tapped a hoof against the combat automata's leg, eliciting a questioning burst of machine-code. "Glass Cannon! You see that basket of apples over there?" Diamond asked, pointing to a container sitting in front of an apple tree off to the side.

The thunder of autocannon fire met her query, and every one of the young ponies jumped in fright as the basket vanished under a volley of armor-piercing explosive shells.

"Wait! Stop! Cease! Halt!" Diamond shouted, her ears flat against her head as shell casings the size of juice cans bounced onto the ground at her feet.

The barrage stopped in an instant, and Diamond Tiara found herself the subject of three angry glares.

"He, uh, gets a little trigger-happy, it's true," Diamond laughed nervously as the heavy clunking sound of ammunition hoppers came from behind her, "but a pony couldn't ask for a better companion!"

There was a creaking noise as the apple tree next to the target basket, largely gouged out at the trunk from taking several direct hits, started to tremble under the weight it could no longer support.

A loud snapping noise came from the hapless flora, and Diamond and Silver winced as the tree's trunk buckled and it collapsed onto the ground.

"Ah think y'all should probably head on outta here," Apple Bloom said flatly to the two intruders and their machine.

Diamond Tiara puffed up her cheeks. "I don't take orders from you, blank flank!"

"This is mah family's property!" the redheaded filly retorted.

+Topic analysis: unit utility and capability,+ Crabapple buzzed as the fillies argued, +Unit Crabapple is clearly superior in matters of detection, communication, and abstract thought thanks to incident of sentience.+

Glass Cannon didn't respond, largely because the other automata didn't have any ego it felt the need to protect.

+Deploying demonstratory sensor scan,+ Crabapple blurted before its sensor array started whirling actively.

"What? You want me to get mah sis and have her kick ya out instead?" Apple Bloom growled, almost nose-to-nose with the pink filly. "If Ah call Mac, he'd be happy to junk that heap o'trash of yers too and add it to the scrap pile in our barn!"

"Don't even joke about that!" Diamond snapped back. "Glass here is probably worth more than your whole stupid farm!"

An ear-rending Binaric squeal shocked the ponies out of their confrontation, and all the fillies turned toward Crabapple as the probe started rotating wildly and wailing machine code.

+Warning! Warning! Active sensor scans have detected anti-gravity drive emissions within local engagement range! Tau Empire units detected!+

This got Glass Cannon's attention immediately, and the automata's visor glared brightly as its autocannon swung up into firing position. +Red alert issued. Tactical command overrides engaged. Relay target coordinates.+

"What're they doing?" Silver Spoon asked as she watched Glass Cannon step over in front of Crabapple as if it were guarding the probe.

"That's the noise she makes when she's found somethin'!" Apple Bloom said, running up behind Crabapple.

+Enemy location confirmed. Mapping... complete. Uploading to noosphere link,+ blurted the probe.

+Confirmed,+ replied Glass Cannon, turning toward the denser interior of the orchard, +hunting.+

Diamond Tiara gaped as she watched her mechanical bodyguard walk off without her, followed by the automata probe. "Hey! Glass Cannon, come back! I didn't tell you to leave!"

+Tactical overrides are engaged. Target elimination protocols given priority.+ The combat automata didn't stop.

"What? What's going on?" Diamond asked, confused and more than a little frightened that her bodyguard wasn't listening to her.

"I think Glass Cannon is interested in whatever Crabapple found," Sweetie Belle pointed out as she followed Apple Bloom and the machines.

"Maybe it's treasure!" Scootaloo said excitedly as she followed as well.

"Maybe it's another wrecked vehicle!" Apple Bloom guessed.

"Maybe it's more aliens?" Silver Spoon surmised, hesitantly following as well. This wasn't how their encounters with the Cutie Mark Crusaders usually went at all, but she found the situation too interesting to leave alone.

"W-Wait, if it's aliens, shouldn't we call the humans or something?" Diamond Tiara asked. She followed as well, but it was mostly because she didn't want to be left alone.

"Well, we don't know what it is!" Apple Bloom replied.

+Detected units are Tau Empire military. Scans suggest presence of two craft, likely armored vehicles. Armed engagement is expected. Reinforcements may be necessary,+ Crabapple answered.

"So it could totally be treasure!" Scootaloo said brightly, pushing along on her scooter as her tiny wings flapped.

Crabapple made the machine-code equivalent of a frustrated sigh as it followed behind Glass Cannon's heavier gait.

+Relaying broad-spectrum vox signal. Searching for active receivers...+

****

Ponyville

"I swear, it's impossible to find a competent pony roofer in this town! I've had Shingles repair my house three times already this season, and the ceiling STILL leaks every time there's so much as a drizzle!"

Gaela stared up at the two-story house silently as the home's owner complained, her mask up. The superior optics suite of her helmet, designed to work in tandem with her bionic eye and complement its own unique sensory capabilities, had already isolated minute air flows that were clearly not part of the intended architectural design.

"Anyway, I'm not sure what you can do about it, but-"

"The leak isn't originating from the roof, which explains why subsequent attempts to repair it have failed," the Dark Acolyte explained, interrupting the mare, "it appears that there is a breach in the gutter, which is aligned almost directly with a fissure in the wall. Has your home been subjected to any gunfire or shrapnel within the time frame in which the leaks began?"

"Er..." the pony tilted her head to one side. "Not quite, but there's enough havoc around this town that it wouldn't surprise me if something put a hole in the wall."

"The repairs should take but a moment," Gaela said as her servo tool shifted into laser welder mode, "the prayers of sealing will take longer, but..."

Gaela trailed off as she saw an incoming vox signal, and raised an eyebrow when she saw who, or rather what, was sending it.

"Just a minute, please," the Dark Acolyte said before switching off external voice transmission.

+Speak,+ she commanded as she opened the vox link.

+Tau armor augur intercepts have been detected within the area of Sweet Apple Acres,+ Crabapple said immediately over the vox, +the enemy units are moving with minimal engine and weapon power to affect maximum stealth. We are moving to engage and request combat support.+

+Excellent,+ Gaela replied, +make sure to drop a signum beacon once you are within visual range of the enemy.+

+Acknowledged. What is unit Gaela's ETA?+

+I'll give the grayskins about an hour to finish you off and move on,+ Gaela said as she looked up at the house again, +maybe another half-hour if another pony has a job for me in the interim. Then I'll be along to salvage what's left of you.+

The vox link was silent for a few seconds. +... Requesting clarification of tactical decisions.+

+Delgan has been running low on parts. He said something about a supply problem. Try to take a direct hit early on so that they don't feel the need to completely disintegrate you.+

Gaela cut the vox link as she spotted Twilight approaching with a ladder levitating behind her.

"That will do adequately. I was slightly concerned that you wouldn't have ladders, simple as they are," Gaela said in Gothic as she reactivated her external voice module.

"Give us SOME credit," Twilight said with a smirk as she placed the ladder against the wall, "how would we get to high places without ladders or stairs?"

"A third of your species can fly, and another third can violate the laws of physics at will. Not including the small minority that can do both."

"Oh. Right. Well, it's still important for earth ponies!" Twilight pointed out.

"Indeed," Gaela mumbled as she leaned against the first step to test its capacity to hold her weight. "Let's finish this quickly. I already have another job lined up in about an hour."

****

Sweet Apple Acres - main orchard

The scuffling of feet and cloth moving over leaves and dirt was the only noise to be heard as the Pathfinder team moved through the orchard, their pulse carbines held tight against their chests.

The entire squad was hooded in camoline cloaks scavenged from Imperial scouts; primitive equipment compared to the Tau's stealth technologies, but they were light, portable, and far more energy-efficient than the more sophisticated systems of their own race. The cloaks shimmered in a slowly shifting blend of browns and greens, along with the occasional spot of red when the cloak captured the image reflected from a fallen apple.

Suddenly the squad leader snapped a hand up, halting the entire unit. They froze without a word, their heads twisting slowly back and forth to cover all nearby vectors.

Soon they could hear what had halted the leader; the sound of heavy footfalls and conversation. It was still some distance away, but definitely coming closer.

The lead Pathfinder made several hand gestures, and his team moved to cover themselves behind the apple trees, making sure they had the most complete view possible in the direction that the sounds were coming from.

*This is Ranger squad to Gheist Two, we have incoming,* whispered the squad leader, his voice muffled almost completely by his helmet, *contact type unknown. Stay outside of engagement range until the threat has been neutralized.*

He cut the communications link and then activated the directional microphone in his recon helmet.

The first thing he heard after do so was a blast of squealing Binary, and the Tau Pathfinder flinched visibly from the noise blasting into his ear.

"Ah'm just sayin' Scoots, Ah think Ah'd know if there were treasure in mah own orchard."

"Really? You have so much space out here you couldn't have explored ALL of it."

"Glass Cannon, halt! Why won't you listen to me?"

+Tactical override engaged. Target elimination-+

+All units heard you the first time, Unit Glass Cannon. Additional explanatory statements will not advance useful communication. Unit Crabapple has tried.+

The Pathfinder leader winced again at the shrieking noise, but kept himself from flinching this time.

Whoever was approaching, they were making too much noise to be aware that there were hostile guns nearby, or simply too stupid to try to stay unnoticed. He recognized the Gothic speech right away, even if he wasn't fluent himself, but the voices certainly didn't sound like human males, which made up most gue'la combat teams. The machine language he couldn't make any sense of whatsoever, and that made him nervous.

A few more hand signals had his squad holding their carbines straight up, ready to fall into firing position on his order. According to his helmet readouts of the sonic intercepts the approaching units were still out of range, but they were definitely on a course that would intersect with them if not stopped.

"Ah still say that it's probably another wreck."

"There has to be a limit to how much junk the humans are willing to drop onto your farm."

"Hey, they stopped!"

"Glass Cannon? Hello? What's going on?"

"Should we start digging? Look for an 'X' or something!"

+Life-forms detected by high-intensity thermal scans. Relaying targeting data.+

+Affirmative. Target locked. Kill the xeno.+

The Pathfinder leader was getting tempted to peek around his tree when he saw that the sonic intercepts weren't getting any closer. The approaching creatures weren't getting any quieter or tenser in their conversation though, so he was fairly sure they hadn't yet found his squad. Keeping the element of surprise was of utmost importance; either the target would come close enough for them to wipe out in a single salvo, or it would pass them by and they'd avoid any ugly confrontations.

The autocannon shell that blasted through the tree he was leaning against surely proved otherwise. Unfortunately he didn't get to learn from that particular lesson as it stabbed into his torso and detonated with tremendous force.

The Pathfinders ducked down as their squad leader was reduced to a pulp, trying to cover themselves more completely with their camoline cloaks while the bark of the reaper autocannon boomed through the orchard.

A stream of explosive shells stitched a devastating line through the orchard, sweeping past the first dead Tau to the next tree that was protecting a Pathfinder.

That tree proved to be no protection from the mighty autocannon, and the targeting data from Crabapple's sensors were more than a match for their camoline accessories. The next Pathfinder was blown away, and the soldier next to him knocked down from the concussive force and shrapnel. The next shot was just as accurate, and that Pathfinder vanished in a burst of dirt and gore.

*Forget this! They can see us! Fall back!* screamed one soldier as he made a mad dash away from his cover.

The rest of the squad found it hard to argue the point, and the Pathfinder unit bolted back toward the convoy.

The distant thunder of the twin-linked autocannon followed them as they ran, and although mobility proved a better defense against the automata than camouflage, the barrage of heavy cannon fire cut down another quarter of the squad before the remaining six soldiers put enough trees between them and the gun to spoil Glass Cannon's line of fire entirely.

The combat automata ceased fire, smoke pouring from the barrels of its reaper autocannon as Crabapple blurted a combat summary.

+Confirmed hit on target six. Enemy unit is fleeing combat area. Engagement successful. Generating pride...+

The ponies that were with them, however, stared with wide eyes at Glass Cannon.

"Now what was THAT all about?" Sweetie Belle demanded. They were too far away from the ambush site to see the bodies, and all of them had ducked when the shooting started.

"Diamond, your stupid hunk o'metal better have a darn good reason for ripping up our orchard some more, or mah sis is gonna tan yer hide!" Apple Bloom said angrily.

"Hey, this is NOT my fault! He's not even listening to me anymore!" Diamond Tiara protested.

"Well, you're the one who brought him here! Now get him under control!"

As the other fillies argued and Glass Cannon reloaded his primary weapon, Scootaloo and Silver Spoon cautiously drew closer to what had attracted the combat automata's lethal attentions.

+Ammo supplies at seventy-one percent. Pursuing,+ barked Glass Cannon as it started heading down the slight incline toward the kill zone.

"Hey! What's that thing on the ground?" Silver Spoon asked, moving more quickly once the combat machine was in front of her.

"Oh, that? That's an 'arm'," Scootaloo said, adopting an authoritative tone, "they're really popular with aliens. They're so popular that some of the humans attach extra ones to their bodies with machines!"

Silver Spoon glared at the pegasus. "I know what an arm is, you flightless dope. I also know that they're supposed to be attached to shoulders."

The other fillies cringed as they approached the dismembered limb, and then Apple Bloom gasped as she saw a pulse carbine lying on the ground nearby, splattered with blood. Bright blue, alien blood.

"Ah recognize that weapon! These're Tau!"

"Ah-ha! I was right then!" Silver Spoon said triumphantly as Scootaloo grumbled.

"What? Tau? Sh-Shouldn't we go get help, then?" Diamond Tiara had never seen one of the increasingly reviled "grayskins", but she'd heard plenty of stories about their lightning raid on Ponyville and read about their attack on Ferrous Dominus. After seeing what kind of damage Glass Cannon was capable of, she wanted nothing to do with any kind of army that thought to stand up to that kind of power.

"Well, tell that to your automata," Sweetie Belle pointed out. The bodyguard was still advancing through the orchard ahead of the others, Crabapple moving behind it in lockstep.

"I've been TRYING!" Diamond Tiara protested angrily. "What am I supposed to do when he doesn't listen to me?"

"Well, then we might as well follow them, right?" Scootaloo asked as she pushed off after the mechanicals.

"This is kind of exciting!" Silver Spoon confessed, moving into a light gallop to catch up. "It's almost like we're really space pirates!"

Diamond wasn't nearly so eager to follow the others, but did so anyway. "I think I prefer playing pretend..."

+Warning: enemy contact imminent. Combat estimates place enemy unit strength considerably beyond our tactical abilities.+

Glass Cannon didn't slow its advance despite Crabapple's warning. +Request reinforcements and continue feeding sensor data. Target elimination is designated priority level primus.+

+Unit Crabapple's primary objective is survival of command unit Apple Bloom and other equine bio-forms designated as "friends". Priority secundus is self-preservation,+ the probe explained.

+Does not compute. Requesting reinforcement update.+

Crabapple reluctantly let the previous matter go. +Reinforcement requests have been denied. Neither Harvest of Steel or Ferrous Dominus are accepting unit Crabapple's vox access codes any longer. Local units have been equally unhelpful.+

+Acknowledged. Command priorities unchanged: Confirm location of xeno armor. Engage. Exterminate.+

****

Sweet Apple Acres - 0.3 kilometers away

*We came under accurate heavy fire before we could even make visual contact. Enemy numbers are estimated to be small, but there was definitely at least one heavy weapon.*

*How did they penetrate your stealth? Typical gue'la combat systems aren't good enough.*

*Unknown without even getting a look at the enemy. But whatever they had with them, it was good. They took out the Shas'ui without even a clear line of fire.*

The Pathfinder conversed with a Fire Warrior as they stood in front of their Devilfish transport.

To them, at least, it was a transport. Anyone else would have seen a large distortion in the air, similar in appearance to a cloud that emitted an obnoxious humming noise. The infantry transport used the Lamman Sept's most sophisticated stealth technologies, scaled up from the not-very-humble Stealth Suit to conceal an entire vehicle from long-range sensors and ranged heavy weaponry. The power draw from such systems was enormous, requiring upgraded power cores and precluding the use of any weapons on the vehicle, but with them equipped such a unit could pass within earshot of most ground patrols without being noticed.

The Fire Warrior turned toward his transport, considering his options. Behind the Devilfish was a similarly cloaked hauler. Narrower than a Devilfish, and much, much slower, it was nonetheless their key mission objective.

*Is it possible the gue'la know of our cargo?* the Fire Warrior asked.

*We must assume so. The chances of them stumbling upon us at random when they're still not conducting regular patrols is unlikely.*

*Then they must be eliminated with extreme prejudice,* the Fire Warrior decided, *Shas'la, deploy and prepare for enemy contact. Squad Nightfall, prepare to flank after we engage the enemy.*

*Roger, Shas'ui,* responded his squadmates as they started hopping out of the Devilfish.

*On your mark,* replied a static-laced voice from his headset.

****

Sweet Apple Acres - 100 meters away

"Do you know why your walking garbage tin keeps making those awful noises?" Diamond grumbled as she followed behind the others.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. "That's just the way she talks, okay? It's not like y'all can make sense of what Glass says neither."

+Warning! We are outnumbered by a factor of ten! Advise tactical withdrawal!+ Crabapple blurted desperately.

+Negative. Confirm presence of enemy units for target lock,+ hummed Glass Cannon.

Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin with her hoof. "Actually, she sounds a bit more... screechy than usual. Maybe something IS the matter."

"Of course something's the matter! There are killer aliens in this orchard and we're heading TOWARD them!" Diamond Tiara shouted.

"Oh, don't be such sissy," Scootaloo said with a haughty chuckle, "weren't you all proud of your new bodyguard up to now?"

"That was when he was listening to me!" the pink filly shouted.

"Yeah, yeah, we heard ya," Apple Bloom rolled her eyes as Crabapple wailed another string of binary.

+Targets identified. Advise-+

+Cease advising, probe,+ Glass Cannon replied, +target lock confirmed. Engaging.+

The shooting began just as before: the roar of Glass Cannon's reaper autocannon smashing through an apple tree and pulping a Tau soldier that was covering behind it.

The ponies all ducked at the noise and stuck close to the ground. Some may have been braver than others (or at least played at it), but none of them actually wanted to have their head poking out when there was gunfire going off nearby.

The twin-linked autocannon continued pounding away at the distant enemy, the gun relying on its sheer power and penetration to rip through the intervening trees and retain its advantage in range.

There were, however, a lot of trees in the way. And Tau pulse rifles weren't lacking in range.

"WHOA!" Sweetie Belle shouted as flare of blue zipped past Glass Cannon's arm and carved into an apple tree, blasting apart a good bit of the trunk. The shot clearly wasn't as powerful as the reaper autocannon's round, but they probably wouldn't need to be.

+Second kill confirmed. Relocating,+ Glass Cannon barked as it backed away from its firing position to cover behind a tree itself. Flares of blue followed its path, but none struck home as the combat automata left the primary line of fire.

+Enemy units closing. Tactical shift engaged.+ The machine's claw clamped open and shut experimentally as a pair of cartridges popped out of its base and bounced along the ground.

The cartridges sparked and then started to spray a special highly ionized smoke out of both ends, quickly filling the local area with a puffy white fog designed to foil multi-spectral optics as well as the naked eye.

"Hey! What's it doing now?"

"Is this stuff dangerous?"

"I can't see!"

*Smoke screen! Clever device!* barked a Fire Warrior as he searched for the automata in the fog.

*Shas'la! Surround it! Pulse carbines, take the center and-*

*HWAAAUGH!!* a scream came from the side as a pair of autocannon rounds detonated near a soldier's legs, dropping him onto the ground on the periphery of the rapidly expanding smoke cloud.

And then it emerged.

Glass Cannon swiped its arm at the nearest Pathfinder as it sprinted through the smoke with surprising speed, swatting away the warrior's pulse carbine. The soldier was then seized around the torso before he could react.

*Fire! FIRE!* screamed the captured Pathfinder as it was dragged back into the cloud. The autocannon barked ferociously next to him, spitting death at the Tau trying to take aim.

Another Fire Warrior was gutted by the reaper, but pulse rifle shots chased Glass Cannon back into the cloud, closing on him from multiple angles. One such blast cut into the automata's gun arm, and the weapon servos hissed and squealed as the barrel was cut open and the firing mechanism ruined.

Glass Cannon broke the captured Fire Warrior with a twist of its claw, and then discarded the body like so much garbage as it stomped through the smoke away from the enemy.

+Primary weapon disabled. Scenario victory possibility has now dropped below minimum allowable threshold. Retreat advised,+ Glass Cannon hummed as it approached Crabapple and then scuttled past it.

+That is what Unit Crabapple said at the beginning. Query as to your malfunction?+ the sentient machine barked back as it followed after the non-sentient one.

+Primary weapon, designation: reaper autocannon.+

+That is not... never mind. Augurs show equine units converging at twenty-nine degrees left of current position at twelve meters. Releasing distress call on all available vox frequencies.+

The fillies coughed as they dashed out of the smoke cloud, having wisely chosen to run in the opposite direction as all the gunfire.

"Did you even know he could do that?" Silver Spoon asked as she pushed up her glasses to rub at her eyes.

"No! Nopony told me about this!" Diamond Tiara complained between coughs. "Although I admit I kind of skimmed the owner's manual..."

"He came with an owner's manual, and somehow he's still harder to handle than Crabapple?" Sweetie Belle asked condescendingly.

The pounding of metal on dirt and the rapid whir of servos alerted them to the automata rushing through the smoke screen, and the ponies glanced behind them as they saw the machines stomping away from the obscuring cloud.

+Retreat! All units, retreat!+ Crabapple squealed, its instruments whirling about wildly.

+Cease excessive communication. All units are withdrawing.+

"Hey, Ah think they're leavin'!" Apple Bloom shouted as she raced after them.

"And I think they might have the right idea!" Sweetie Belle said as all the ponies began galloping after the mechanicals.

"I didn't think we should've been here in the first place!" Diamond Tiara spat. "Wait, did those brutes hurt Glass Cannon? His arm is broken!"

"Those scoundrels!" Silver Spoon growled.

The group of fillies and automata dashed in the general direction of the Apples' home, the young ponies trading complaints about the Tau and barbs about Diamond's bodyguard as they ran.

Crabapple lagged behind slightly in the retreat, as its leg configuration was less suited for sprinting than that of the ponies and the combat drone. It was also making sure to run active scanning as it ran, checking on the progress of the Tau soldiers through the smoke screen.

On that matter, there seemed to be no problem. The Tau, having already suffered significant losses, were in no hurry to chase the enemy into a cloud of visor-fouling chaff.

Unfortunately, a new energy surge on Crabapple's sensors, coming from the emissions of a jet pack, meant that they probably didn't have to.

The shriek of machine code giving warning of the Stealth Suits came too late. The air shimmered into the visage of an armor suit painted black with blue trim as a burst cannon released an entirely visible volley of pulse shots into Glass Cannon. The inadequate armor plating that had become the automata's namesake folded quickly under the barrage, and a fan of sparks blasted from the torso plate as its core processor was fried inside its body.

The combat automata didn't get the chance to release a final statement of mission failure or warning to its command unit before its systems went dark, and the combat machine buckled and fell onto the ground in a smoldering heap in front of the stunned ponies.

It was a fate Crabapple was determined not to share as a second stealth suit swung its burst cannon toward it, barrels already spinning.

+Command unit Apple Bloom, continue retreat. Please. Run.+

"CRABAPPLE!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Author's Note

I think this is the only way I could manage to fit in a gamer Luna while still being faithful to the technology level I've established in Equestria.
As before, the list of characters provided above could shift as I go forward and decide to create new ones on the spot or not to use others.