I Love the Smell of Friendship in the Morning

Chapters

The Best Part of Waking Up
Trouble Brewing
Bitter Dregs
(In)Filtration
Into the Coffee Grinder
Espresso Elevator to Tartarus, Going Down
Triple-Shot
Recaffeinating
Going In Dry-Roasted
Epilogue: Good to the Last Drop
A Spot of Tea (April Fools)

The Best Part of Waking Up

Caspian IV was what most ponies would call a beautiful world, largely untouched by the major industry that had reduced many of Equestria’s planets to desolate wastelands. Thick wild forests, like the mythical Everfree of ancient Equestria, covered large portions of the land. However, amidst the sea of trees, Equestrian civilization had carved out a place for itself; numerous mass-production farms, whose produce was essential to maintaining the sector’s “strategic wheatgrass reserve,” and thus the ongoing survival of ponykind, were visible from the air as lighter patches of green or gold amidst the darker verdigris of the surrounding woods.

On one particular farm-turned-barracks, situated on Caspian IV’s largest and most fertile continent, the day was just beginning. It was that magical time that existed between nighttime and early morning, when the sky began the slow change from the purplish-black of night time into the myriad colors that signalled the coming dawn. The colors were pure and radiant, just like on the tapestries that depicted Princess Celestia upon the Holy Throne of Canterlot.

The barest hints of light had just begun to filter into a massive troop tent, where one of the ponies inside cursed under his breath about the dawn of another of Celestia’s blessed days.

“Lousy morning patrol,” Point grumbled to himself as he donned his flak armor. The dim light of predawn cast an eerie illumination on his breath, which was smoky with condensed moisture, as he blew into his hooves and rubbed them together.

“Yeah,” Owly said as he laid down on the cot that Point had just vacated, “try the night patrol sometime, Pointy.”

Point leveled a glare at the navy-blue earth pony who had commandeered his cot.

Twin yellow eyes twinkled with mischief as Owly started pulling himself under the blankets. “Well, next time don't let the Commissar catch you sneaking a double ration of oats.” He stopped for a moment, his brow suddenly scrunched in thought. “Wait a minute, where do you even put a second ration of oats? You’re skinnier than a manticore raised in a vegetable patch!”

“Doc says I have a fast metabolism.”

“Yeah,” Owly said as he rolled over, “well maybe you can-”

“Will you two shut up?” rumbled the waking mountain of blankets that was Blitz. A number of more expletive-laden phrases also followed from the other stirring guard ponies. Point even swore that he could hear one or two weapon safeties being undone.

Owly responded with a sputter and proceeded to pull his purloined blankets up and over his head.

Point wrapped his lips around his lasgun and shoved it roughly into his combat saddle. “Sweet dreams, colts,” he muttered as he left the confines of the tent. Jeers of derision mixed with thinly veiled death threats followed him as he slipped out.

To call the encampment enormous would have been an understatement. Numerous tents stretched in all directions from the one Point had exited. Small curls of smoke denoted where the army’s cooks had started making breakfast for the neigh-on one thousand ponies who made up the regiment.

Point shivered in the significantly colder air outside of the tent. He trotted in place for a few moments, like a pony in desperate need of a latrine, to warm himself up. Once he had a sufficient burn going in his limbs, he started to gallop out towards the perimeter of the camp.

The grumbling of his stomach told him that a quick and stealthy detour through the camp’s larder was in order. His half-minute raid netted him a fancy looking foil wrap of spiced oats and a bottle of oddly flavored, yet still potable, liquid. Both were quickly consumed and their containers hurriedly discarded.

As he finished snarfing his purloined comestibles, Point realized that his impromptu snack had distracted him enough that he had accidentally galloped into the dead center of where the camp’s flame troopers “rested from their labors.” His eyes widened and he uttered a litany that contained more expletives than supplications as he eyed a cluster of holy weapons-grade ponapalm tanks next to a tent full of the sleeping fanatics. He felt a growing feeling of emptiness in his stomach, even though he had just eaten.

As he paused to get his bearings and formulate an expedient escape route, the morning breeze carried to him the acrid scent of various burning materials. His nasal cavities were assaulted by various overpowering odors; the oily smell of ponapalm, the tangy smell of burnt metal, and a sickly-sweet smell of…

The large patch of slightly lighter color on his left flank tingled as his nose caught the slightest hint of burnt fur and flesh. One of his hooves moved absentmindedly to touch the spot, as if to confirm its unburned status. His ears perked up at the faint sound of hooves on dirt. The noise stopped, only to be replaced by a muttered curse about “freaky hearing.”

“You going for a new company record, Pointy?”

Point spun to face the diminutive lime-green mare who had been attempting to sneak up on him.

“Fray?” He was pleasantly surprised to see her on this side of the camp; she was normally sequestered far from his unit, practicing close quarters combat near the quartermaster’s area. “What record?”

She graced him with a worried frown and a tilt of the head. “Well, for one, if you get caught swiping oats again, you're going to get the record for most morning patrol shifts.”

“I wasn't-” his voice faltered as she pointed a hoof at the oat crumbs gracing the front of his flak vest. “-those were from breakfast.”

“Breakfast’s at 0700, it isn't even 0600.”

“... I meant dinner from last night.”

“Pointy, did you really have to get into those expensive spiced oats from Bashkir... Y’know, the ones reserved for the command staff?”

“They can't tell that from the crumbs on my vest!”

Fray pulled a crumpled wad of foil from her saddle bags. “Lies make baby Applejack cry.”

Point rolled his eyes like a calamitously capsizing kayak. “Fray, the saints don't care about me lying about petty theft.”

“Well, the purifiers might, and here we are next to their tents, with you blaspheming against the element of honesty. I swear, do you want them to set you on fire for the-” she counted on her hoof, “fifth time? Celestia, you are going for the company record...”

Point’s bowels clenched. “We should go, I have-”

“Morning patrol?” Fray cut him off. “Which you got for doing what, again?” Her voice trailed off as she jabbed her hoof back at his crumb-encrusted barrel.

“Ok, ok, you can berate me over the second bag after we get out of here.” He pulled out another fancy foil package and beckoned to Fray as he started moving towards what he assumed was the right direction.

“Sorry, I'll have to catch you later, Pointy, I need to get back to MP or I'll end up with more of it.”

Fray was gone before he could even ask how in the blue blazes of Tartarus she had managed to get mine-polishing detail. He shook his head and picked up his pace; if he didn't get to the checkpoint in time, he’d probably end up serving on the firing line.

While Point was making decent progress towards the edges of the tent field, he slowed drastically as he passed a large black tent belonging to the pony who had decided to punish him with morning patrol. Point wasn’t foolish enough to want to perform some manner of retributive prank on the pony within. In fact he was slowing because he feared that he would somehow manage to get himself in more trouble if the Commissar noticed him passing by.

As he slowed, his ears picked up an odd crumping sound that was muted through the air, and accompanied by a sensation he felt through his hooves. He swept his gaze around and briefly spotted what appeared to be some red flashes on a small hillock a few kilomares away from the encampment.

As he squinted his eyes, there were several more flashes of red, accompanied by more reverberations through the ground. Point cocked his head to the side.
“What the-”

He stopped as his ears picked up something new: a whistling sound. One he knew all too well.

Point reacted with a speed born of countless hours of repetitive drilling, and hefted his lasgun into the air. He fired the weapon blindly upwards on full automatic, creating an incredible racket. Ponies stumbled out of their tents in a daze, most having been rudely awoken from their slumber.

As he moved to reload his smoking weapon, the screeching sound of incoming artillery reached a deafening crescendo.

The high pitched whistling was punctuated by a series of explosions that tore through the bivouac like the hooves of a foal through wrapping paper on Hearth's Warming Day.

Point stared in shock as the black tent housing the company's Commissar was ripped violently from the ground by a combination of concussive force and shrapnel. The tattered remains of the tent and its securing lines fluttered through the air like a stricken parade balloon.

Point fell to his haunches, a look of horrified stupefaction plastered across his features. As the smoke began to lift from the wreckage, he beheld a single cot still standing in the midst of it, as well as the pony who still laid upon it.

Several dozen ponies—Point among them—who, moments ago, had been galloping around like a herd of spooked cattle, now stood or sat, staring in amazement at the nonchalance with which the sky-blue earth pony rolled himself off of the cot.

"I don't know what you ponies are gawking at," Commissar Nutmeg barked as he brushed his blonde mane back and donned his fancy hat, "but one of you is going to bring me a cup of recaf before my coat stops smoldering, or an early morning mortaring is going to be the most pleasant thing that happens to you today!"

“But… sir!”

The Commissar turned a steely gaze upon the hapless, red-coated private who had dared draw his attention.

“We’re…” The poor pony withered under the heat of The Commissar’s eyes. “...out, sir.”

The other ponies gave a collective gasp and backed away from the private, as if he had contracted a case of explosive gonorrhea. Nutmeg fumed silently for a moment, then drew his laspistol and turned it towards the unfortunate messenger of bad tidings.

“No recaf?” Nutmeg stated more than asked.

Sweat visibly ran down the pony’s face as he nodded.

“Heresy.”

The pistol fired. The poor pony fell. Then Nutmeg turned the pistol on Point.

Point experienced a moment of uncertain urinary continence.

“You. Private oat-thief.” The Commissar did not wait for a response. “Pack your gear, and grab Owlsburg while you’re at it. We have a mission to plan.” Nutmeg crisply about-faced and set off into the heart of the camp.

"I knew that he slept in that damned greatcoat!" Point muttered. He turned back towards his tent, now half a kilomare away, seeing a chance to earn a tiny bit of favor with the pony who had, to date, made his life a living Tartarus.

Trouble Brewing

The exterior of the barn showed the results of decades of neglect. The missing roofing tiles, faded paint, and a slight tilt in the frame were merely superficial and did not actually detract from the overall stability of the structure. These, however, were nothing in comparison to the gaping hole that had been torn in one of the ground level’s broad sides during the morning’s mortaring.

Through the rent in the side of the building, a pony could see that the old barn had been converted into a temporary command center. Thick insulated wires snaked in a pattern of organized chaos from chugging generators towards cogitators and command lecterns. Ponies trotted to and fro amidst the tangle, adding clippety-clops to the already incredible din of the enclosed command space. Had there been any other suitable structures within a kilomare, they would have started moving the command center. At the current time, they were forced to stick what they had.

At the center of the maelstrom of pony activity inside the building stood a masterpiece of the Adeptus Marecanicus art, a gigantic holographic projector. As one of the better models employed by the Equestrian Guard, a pony could vaguely make out a map of the surrounding countryside amidst the constant flickering and static… well, when it was operating at any rate.

“Are you two quite finished?” Hassle yelled at The Twins, who were working their “blessed” magics upon the main cogitator, which had been penetrated by a long shaft of hardwood. Sheen was on their knees, servicing the front of the machine, while Rust could be heard pounding away at the rear.

With a shuddering groan that rocked the entire barn, the cogitator first sputtered “Baka, baka” with a tinny voice before it roared to life with a sound like a hundred hooves clopping as one.

Colonel Plod Sloggington stared at the resultant hololithic display with an expression that straddled the delicate line between general frustration and severe constipation.

“I just don't understand it,” the Colonel stated as he strained to see anything in the severely out-of-focus image. “This insurrection should have been crushed weeks ago, but now they’ve managed to push us out of the eastern quarter.”

Major Hassle furrowed her oversized eyebrows as she returned to look at the map. “It looks like they’ve also taken back the carrot cannery and—” She paused, her eyes widening. “—Oh, Celestia in Canterlot,” she swore.

The Colonel raised an eyebrow.

Hassle placed a hoof to her forehead as she continued. “Yesterday, they captured the recaf facility in sector nine.”

Sloggington waved a hoof dismissively. “Don't worry, our backup recaf supplies—”

“—Were being stored in the cannery!” Hassle interjected, practically shouting.

The room was suddenly nine months pregnant with silence, and as the two senior officers felt every set of eyes lock upon them, it was as if somepony had dialed it up to eleven.

“What is our current supply?” Sloggington asked frantically.

“Empty,” Hassle said, gesturing to her own cup of hot cocoa for emphasis. “The quartermaster said that we were expecting some in last night, but that was before we’d gotten news that we lost those two—”

Hassle’s voice was cut off by the sharp crack of splintering wood.

All eyes turned towards the barn’s large double doors. They were both barred and chained shut, but had still managed to move quite visibly from an outside impact.

A second impact, followed by a crunching sound, heralded the severe loosening of the portal’s hinges. A large crack could now also be seen in the door’s bar.

Eyes in the room swiveled between the distressed set of doors and the obvious hole in the side of the barn. Hassle sighed and ground her hoof, like a pestle into a mortar, against her forehead. “He could have just walked in through the hole," she muttered. She motioned at two of the junior officers she liked the least. “You’d better let him in before we have a second hole in the wall.”

The two lieutenants moved in a manner often seen when a condemned prisoner is walking towards an execution chamber. One of them was crying. The mare of the pair consoled her blubbering stallion companion as they approached the postern door.

The moment the door was unlatched, it flew open with such violence that the pair of junior officers were thrown through the air like a pair of Nightmare Night pumpkins.

Commissar Nutmeg strode silently but menacingly into the barn. He moved forward like a ghastly apparition. His countenance was smeared with ash and soot and his greatcoat sported fresh, and in some cases still smoking, burn marks. Ponies who made the mistake of meeting his overly stern gaze instantly flinched and turned away rather than risk staring too long into those soulless recessesses and being scarred for life.

“Colonel... Major...” The ghoulish commissar nodded after acknowledging each of them. The normally benign motion was twisted into something quite unnatural by the peculiar angle at which Nutmeg was holding his head... and then there was the rictus grin.

“Commissar,” came Hassle’s wary reply, “how may we assist you this fine morning?” The tension in the air could be cut by a chainblade, coincidentally or not, just like the one hanging from Nutmeg’s combat saddle.

“It has come to my attention,” Nutmeg began, with no less than three twitches, “that our recaf supply is dangerously low.”

The emphasis on the word “dangerously” made it quite clear to anypony listening both that the danger was real and that the Commissar was the one from whom it originated.

“We do have a solid supply of hot cocoa, Commissar,” said the aptly named Lieutenant Obtuse as he used a hoof to slide a steaming cup of sweet, chocolatey liquid towards Nutmeg.

Nopony saw what transpired next. After all, Nutmeg’s reflexes were legendary amongst the troops for good reason. One second the mug was sliding across the table towards the Commissar, and the next, Obtuse was screaming in agony as boiling hot cocoa seeped into his facial coat.

“With a company of ponies, I could easily retake the recaf factory there in sector… nine, was it?” Nutmeg said as he waved a hoof through the display, trailing from their headquarters through at least a dozen blurry enemy fortifications until resting on the aforementioned facility.

The sound of Obtuse groaning in agony kept in an odd rhythm with the sound of the main cogitator. Hassle coughed into her hoof and nodded her head for emphasis. In response, a combat medic moved to tend to the seared, simpering stallion.

Sloggington and Hassle shared a meaningful glance as the medical pony dragged Obtuse’s whimpering form from the barn.

Sloggington shook his head from side to side. “We cannot spare anypony,” he said with a flap of his jowls. “We’ve lost too much ground and our current position is at risk of being compromised.”

“Heresy!” Nutmeg scowled at the two as the word hissed through his teeth. “Our fighting ponies… They need coffee and you won’t spare me even one single platoon?”

Sloggington sighed. “One squad,” he said firmly. You can have one squad: ten ponies, including yourself.”

“Fine,” Nutmeg said as he about-faced and trotted from the room. “Oh,” he called back as he exited the building, “I'll choose my own squad members. Twins, with me!”

He didn't close the door on his way out. The Twins removed their snaking mechadendrites slowly, soothingly even, from various orifices on the main cogitator.

“Major?” They both asked in unison.

“Go,” Hassle replied as evenly as she could, “we’ll have another set of priests finish… whatever it was you two were… err… doing to that machine.”

Both tech-priests sped out the door in a flurry of robes and tendrils.

“Well,” Hassle said as the regular bustle of the command center resumed, “maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll get himself killed.”

Sloggington harrumphed. “Not likely. That stallion has more lives than a cat.” He furrowed his eyebrows at the personnel roster. “We need to figure out who else he’s taking though, so we can prepare the funeral services, and save ourselves some time later.”

Hassle hadn't even noticed she was nodding in agreement. “Are ten pony lives really worth him getting his Tartarus damned coffee?”

“Tea.”

“Pardon?” Hassle asked the permanent frown that was her immediate superior.

“Recaf is tea, Major.” Sloggington was speaking as one would to a foal.

Hassle gave a brief snort. “I know that. It's just that Nutmeg said—” She paused. “Wait. Does Nutmeg… not know?”

Sloggington graced her with a look that was equal parts apathy and exasperation. “Focus, Major. We need to take care of these troop deployments before we’re up to our withers in rebels.”

Hassle nodded and began to absentmindedly listen as Sloggington discussed a plan of action that would undoubtedly result in very little progress at the cost of far too many ponies.

As Sloggington wantonly condemned another company of ponies to decimation, a grin slowly crossed Hassle’s features.

Bitter Dregs

Owly watched as Point violently deposited gear into his kitbag. As a trenching shovel was inserted with the kind of force a pony would normally reserve for digging, Owly wondered if the bottom of the bag might tear out, accidentally or otherwise. “Point, you've been in a foul mood ever since we got back from the Commissar’s ‘errands.’ What’s wrong?”

Point briefly looked up at Owly with a scowl then returned to stuffing the bag. “Well, he sent me to grab the food provisions. Normally, I’d be happier than Saint Pie at a party–”

“And probably eat about as much,” Owly added.

“Yeah, but... he said if I ate any of the rations before we left, he’d gut me with his chainsword and take them back.”

Owly cringed. “Well, he had me rounding up some of his other ‘hoof-selected ponies.’ Most were… less than enthusiastic that they would be laying their lives down in the name of caffeinated beverages.” He neglected to mention the fact that the one or two who hadn't complained or threatened him with bodily violence hadn't been told the full scope of the mission.

Owy decided an attempt at levity. “Well, we’ve already been blown up once today.” He sniffed his charred bedroll and, after making a disgusted face, threw it into a smoldering rubbish pile. “And now we’re being taken on a suicide mission by Commissar ‘I can't operate like a civilized individual, much less without my morning caffeine!’”

He stopped his over-the-top impersonation of the Commissar, which included some rude pantomiming, as he noticed a distinct lack of laughter from a suddenly rigid Point.

“C’mon, Pointy. That always makes you—” he stopped as he saw Point’s eyes flick urgently from him to some nebulous point to his rear. “He’s right behind me, isn't he?”

Owly turned and almost bumped muzzles with the startlingly close Commissar. Owly was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten earlier, or he was sure it would have been ejected in a pile behind him.

“Private Owlsworth.” The Commissar’s surprisingly cool and even tone betrayed nothing.

“Sir!” Owly snapped to attention. He could feel the beads of sweat running down his neck, his face, his… Tartarus, his everything.

The Commissar’s blue eyes regarded him in a manner that made his blood run like ice water. “Don’t forget: briefing’s in fifteen minutes. We leave in thirty.” He somehow managed to lean closer without actually pressing his muzzle against Owly’s. “I expect much of you two.” He left the tent as quickly as he had arrived.

Owly released the breath he hadn't realized he’d been holding in much the same manner, both exertion and groan-wise, as a mare giving birth to an overdue foal, and gasped for air.

“Celestia, he scares me,” breathed Point.

Owly could only nod in agreement. His throat was too dry to speak.

Point suddenly chuckled. “Look at your face!”

Owly crossed his eyes to look down his nose to see the burning red that had suffused his navy-blue muzzle. If The Princess of The Night had been present, she would have most likely proclaimed that the redness had been doubled.

He leveled his most ferocious glare at Point in the hopes that maybe the stupid scrawny scout would catch fire. The thought of Point engulfed in flames removed the scowl from his face and replaced it with a look of serious contemplation. That look was quickly replaced by a devious grin.

“Did you know Inferno is coming on our little soirée?” Owly teased.

Point went rigid. His pupils shrank to pinpricks and beads of sweat formed on his face and neck. He placed a forehoof absentmindedly on his own flank. “But all my fur just grew back,” he said, his voice filled with despondency.

Owly’s grin faded. Memories of the weeks of sitting by Point’s bedside as his flesh grafts healed soured his attempt at petty revenge. “Sorry, old colt. I… I just forgot how… bad it was for you—”

Point raised an eyebrow at him. “You can save that touchy-feely stuff for the twins. You said that they were coming too, right?”

Owly put a forehoof to his head in an attempt to relieve the pressure from the sudden headache he was experiencing. He wished that the pain from grinding his hoof into his skull would remove the unbidden image of two acolytes of the Adeptus Marecanicus and their groping, snakelike mechadendrites. “Yes. I lost all hope for anypony normal besides us on the team once he said he was bringing them.”

Point shook his head from side to side as he made his way to the tent’s newly burned exit hole. “I dunno why he’s taking us at all.”

Owly followed him through the ragged hole, which somehow managed to be easier to navigate than using the tent’s actual exit, and into the bustle of the camp at mid-morning. Owly squinted his eyes and shielded them with one hoof.

They trotted towards the tent where the briefing was supposed to be held. “What happened to the overcast skies we had for the last few days?” Owly griped as he donned a shade visor.

Point sniggered. “Owly, you put those shades on even when it’s overca—”

Point stopped speaking as a slim gray-coated mare fell into trot beside them. Instead of the standard infantry flak armor the two of them wore, she sported a much lighter camo cloak and carried a long-las, a sniper’s weapon of choice.

“Hey you two,” she purred, her piercing blue eyes probing them like they were some bizarre species of insect. “Ready to lay your lives down for The Princesses?”

“Hey Whisper,” Point replied, with no small amount of antipathy evident in his voice. “Murder any foals recently?”

She rolled her eyes upward as if she were contemplating the question. “Not since that orphanage in sector twelve last week,” she answered conversationally.

Point stared at her with a look that alternated between confusion and horror.

Whisper fixed him with a predatory grin. “Am I joking?”

Point opened his mouth to speak but somehow managed to trip over a tent’s guy-line before he could conjure forth anything resembling coherent words. Instead of a witty retort, all Owly was able to hear was an unflattering shriek followed by a string of loosely cobbled together profanity.

Owly watched in amusement as Point inexplicably managed to uproot not only the wire he had originally struck but several others as well. He was beginning to look like a skein of yarn.

Instead of trotting off laughing like Owly had expected, Whisper had stopped and stared at Point’s swearing and increasingly tangled form. “Celestia preserve us if you’re going to be scouting for the Commissar's recon team,” she said in a dead serious tone.

Point temporarily ceased his struggle to free himself from the treacherous tent lines. “You’re on the Commissar’s recaf-run team, too?”

Whisper looked at Point with eyes that only showed the barest hint of widening in shock before returning to their standard setting of squinty nonchalance and disdain.

“Luna’s beard, Owly!” Point’s pleased prostrate pony form proclaimed. “She didn't know what the mission was about?” He whinnied. “Why didn't you tell her?”

Whisper’s eyes narrowed. “I'll see you two at the briefing,” she said in a tone of voice that heavily insinuated their untimely demises should they meet her beforehoof. As Whisper turned and left, Owly saw that her eyes continued to stare murder at both Point and himself. Owly realized he wasn't feeling optimistic about their survival chances afterwards either.

Owly shook his head from side to side. “Point, you dope. The mission was going to be dangerous enough without us having to worry about her shooting us in the flanks.”

“Maybe you should have stallioned up and told her about how ridiculous the mission was the first time?” A tent flap had joined the wrestling match, pinning one of Point’s forelegs to his barrel.

Owly looked back down at the hopelessly tangled pony and couldn't help but snicker. “You look like a hay-ball buried on a plate of pasta.”

Point glared up at him from the snarl of rope. “Help me up.”

One trench-knife and five minutes later, the two galloped with all due haste to make the briefing in time.

Owly couldn't help but worry about who else was on the team. He thought that the Commissar was, at best, eccentric, or, at worst, a lunatic. Either way, the Commissar’s choices in squad members had caused a roiling knot to form in Owly’s stomach.

As the two stallions entered the tent, Owly was blinded by the sudden reduction in light. He could hear the susurrus of other ponies speaking in hushed tones. Owly removed his shade visor and almost bumped muzzles with one of the company medics.

“Oh, hey JT, sorry about that.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Celestia, somepony normal is coming on this trip.”

The blood red stallion glared at him over a thick pair of reading glasses. “I've told you frog-heads countless times, it's just Trauma.”

Owly ignored the correction. It was the pastime of many of the ponies in the company to keep the running gag going. There was also a pot of bits going around, with the jackpot winner being the unfortunate pony present whenever “Just” Trauma finally got the joke.

The Commissar stomped a hoof for silence, breaking Owly’s reverie. The nine ponies in the tent immediately fell into line.

“Alright ponies,” the Commissar began in a tone one would normally reserve for a funeral service, “we currently face a harrowing crisis. One that could threaten this prestigious company’s very existence!”

A quick flick of the eyes back and forth confirmed Owly’s suspicions that nopony was taking this seriously… except perhaps Inferno.

“The Heathens will BURN!” Inferno’s booming voice reverberated and echoed through the ribbed metal tubing that ran from the sides of his mouth, like some sick parody of a bit and bridle, back into a saddle mounted respirator.

The Commissar nodded in agreement. “Indeed, the heretics have seized the recaf refinery here in sector nine.” His hoof tapped up against a piece of parchment which had been decorated with a foal-quality wax color rendition of the combat zone. As the Commissar lowered his hoof from the drinking-mug doodle that represented the facility, Owly spied a smaller scribbled likeness of the Commissar diving into the cup.

“Our most holy of tasks will be to reclaim the refinery and recover the sweet, sweet coffee within—” The blue-gray mountain that was Blitz raised a hoof in query. “—yes-private-what-is-it?” The Commissar ended the sentence tersely.

"What possessed you to put together an ensemble cast like this?" Blitz somehow asked without sarcasm or incredulity.

The Commissar whipped around, his tail swishing against and knocking over a luminator. Everypony watched as the light source’s dimming cover rolled conspicuously across the ground.

The Commissar grinned and pulled a data-slate from the recesses of his greatcoat. “Blitz Bastion,” he read from the slate, “highest success rate for demolition of enemy vehicles and fortifications in the entire regiment, possibly the entire local sector division. You were up for the Solar Service Crest… before you took it upon yourself to detonate that bridge on Bashkir Secundus…”

The Commissar’s eyes rose slowly from the slate to the gargantuan pony’s increasingly scrunched visage during the pause-for-effect. “...while General Shriek was still on it.”

“He had plenty of time to get off before it collapsed,” Blitz muttered through clenched teeth.

The Commissar ignored the comment. He simply moved down the line of ponies and tapped the slate some more. “Fray.” He looked down at the diminutive lime green mare. “Rated top in the regiment in close quarters combat, more confirmed enemy dispatches than any other two ponies combined, but overlooked for the elite breaching team after you were a little too aggressive during fencing practice and put out one of Lieutenant Knave’s eyes.”

Fray blushed.

Tap, tap-tap. “Whisper.” She returned the Commissar’s gaze. “Winner of the regimental markspony competition ever since you deigned to start participating in it.” He lowered the tablet. “...No negative marks on your record… but, despite the lack of all physical evidence, Sloggington knows that it was you who shot his dog.”

“I—”

He held up a hoof. “No interruptions, please.”

Whisper stared daggers at him, but he’d already moved on. “And speaking of things that should be burning in Tartarus, Inferno, I… am at a complete loss for where to even begin summarizing your record.”

“The fires of righteousness will cleanse the impure!” the stallion offered.

The Commissar looked, nonplussed, from the slate to Inferno and back again. “...Well, I suppose that sounds slightly better than ‘unstable element’ and ‘anathema to pony safety.’”

Nutmeg paused in front of the Twins. “Rust and Sheen, the regiment would be short half its motor pool without you, but the reports of your unsanctioned... ‘servicing’ of regimental equipment have started drawing attention.”

“Query,” Rust said, “is it from somepony wishing to observe our servicing?”

Sheen made a curious “squee” noise. “An excellent suggestion. Having an observer might be stimulating!”

The Commissar blinked. “Trauma,” he said, moving on with haste. “Your patients have recovery times that are half the company average. Now, nopony in their right mind would expect an expert in pony physiology to be able to translate that wisdom into veterinary practice… and yet, Sloggington brought his dog to you after somepony shot it.” The Commissar shook his head. “I understand the unfairness of that situation, but you probably should have broken the news a little easier to him.”

Trauma rolled his eyes. “The damned flea bag didn’t have a head when he brought it in!”

“Well, you definitely need to work on that bedside manner.” The Commissar took a few steps down the line, ending in front of Point and Owly. “I don’t understand how you two can alternate between being the most skilled scouts in the regiment and being the most incompetent ponies in existence...”

Owly and Point exchanged embarrassed glances.

“Over one hundred successful infiltrations, resulting in hundreds or even thousands of pony lives saved…” The Commissar’s hoof prodded at the front of Owly’s uniform. “And yet, Owl Eyes, you’ve been caught sleeping during day watch no less than a dozen times… Including when the Colonel’s dog met its timely end.”

Silence reigned as the assembled ponies waited for The Commissar to correct himself, but he only clarified instead; “Oh, it was only a matter of time before that mangy, biting, leaving-it’s-mess-everywhere little parasprite of a dog found its end at some trooper’s hooves. You're just the one who decided to take an afternoon snooze when it happened.”

“Just trying to maintain peak operational effectiveness, sir!” Owly would have facehooved at the stupidity of his own statement if the Commissar not been almost pressing muzzles with him.

The Commissar took two steps back and eyed him warily. “Do you believe that?”

Owly swallowed. “No… Sir.”

“Thank Celestia, for that much, at least.” The now-relieved-looking Commissar turned to Point and frowned. “Point, your freakishly refined stealth skills are matched only by an appetite to rival that of the penitent Dobbin in the parable of his incessant thefts from Celestia's Strategic Wheatgrass Reserve. If only you didn't make similar use of those skills to plunder the regiment’s food stores...”

Point scrunched his face in intense thought before blurting out; "Weren't my fault, they framed me!"

Owly did facehoof this time.

"That was the same excuse used by Dobbin when he was caught," the Commissar said in a thoughtful tone. "You read your scriptures, and one cannot fault a pony for that."

The Commissar shook his head, then turned to the assembled squad. “You are, quite frankly, the most skilled ponies in this entire regiment, but all of you have been prevented from being promoted or being transferred into more elite squads because you managed to irritate somepony in the division’s command structure with enough sway to blacklist you from advancement.”

Owly watched as the looks of confusion, from the Commissar’s unexpected compliments, morphed into scowls of barely contained rage. Owly felt his own brow furrowing in anger.

“I don’t blame you for being angry,” he preached, “and if there’s anything I hate more than a lack of caffeine running through my veins, it’s wasted talent.”

Owly had to admit, the Commissar was good at getting them worked up. He felt the heat on his muzzle and the grinding of his own molars.

“I should actually tell you right now that this is a volunteer mission,” the Commissar casually stated. The looks of confusion had returned, and they had invited several slack jaws for good measure.

“So, anypony who doesn't want to go, can stay here,” he turned away from them. “Anypony wants out, they can leave right now, through that tent flap. I won't stop, execute, or report you. You can remain lowly privates, or third grade acolytes, until Sloggington orders you into the death trap that finally claims you.”

The Commissar swung his head back around. “Or you can come with me, now, into my death trap. Because there’s this silly little provision in the Equestrian Guard’s organizational primer: only ponies holding the rank of Sergeant or higher can be in a Commissar’s personal bodyguard."

He paused for a moment to let the statement sink in. “Anypony coming with me would probably have to be field promoted,” he grinned. “We wouldn’t want to violate any regulations, of course." He turned to The Twins. "I also put in a request to the adeptus Marecanicus for two Rune-Seers for this single-squad mission into enemy territory. You would be surprised how quickly Magus Dynamo elevated you two."

Less than a quarter of an hour later, Owly found himself galloping out of the camp with nine other ponies. He only hoped that he would live long enough to enjoy the promotion.

(In)Filtration

Trauma wiped sweat from his brow. Why he had allowed Whisper to convince him to climb the unnecessarily steep hill was beyond him. He’d seen the topographical layout of the area and knew that this rise only offered a miniscule increase in visibility from some of the more easily traversed ones in the area.

The particular mound of dirt they had chosen to traverse was vegetated primarily with grass and there was little in the realm of shade. What had started out as a chilly morning had slowly metamorphosed over the last few hours to a temperature that he was beginning to think was somewhere between scorching and Celestia’s wrath.

He had lowered his binoculars to hoof sweat away again. Whisper was laying prone in the tall grass that graced their little sniper nest. When he glanced over to her, she was watching through her long-las’ scope as the squad worked its way somewhere through the valley below.

They’d spent most of the day infiltrating deep into enemy territory. The patrols and scouts they had managed to run into so far had either been avoided or quietly dispatched with incredible efficiency. Trauma distrusted when missions went too well. In his experience, luck always ran out at the worst time.

Supposedly they were less than ten kilomares from the target, at least according to both Nutmeg’s maps and, apparently, nose. Despite the reassurances Trauma couldn't, for his life, see any sign of the facility.

He wiped more sweat away and put the binoculars up to his eyes again. “When Nutmeg assigned me to the rear guard with you, I didn't think I’d be working on my tan. Remind me what was wrong with the southern rise, it had shade at least.”

Whisper responded to his grumbling with deafening silence. His ears were perked up but the only sounds to be heard were the light rustling of the wind through the grass and the muted sound of distant weapons fire.

He continued to scan the lightly forested valley floor and came upon the mostly concealed form of a navy-blue pony crawling through the underbrush. A short distance away, he caught the barest flash of chestnut coloration. Trauma refocused his binoculars and managed another brief glimpse of Point before the skillful scout suddenly disappeared again.

“Two o’clock, about three kilomares out, two friendly contacts,” he reported to Whisper, or possibly nopony in particular, based on the amount of noise she was making.

He heard her shift position. “Confirmed contact, but only on Owly…” He heard her move again.

“Point is about fifteen mare-lengths forward and to the left-” Trauma adjusted his focus and his estimate, Point was tearing through the underbrush faster than he expected. “-wait make that twenty.”

“Got ‘im… Who lit a fire under his flank?”

Trauma angled his view up and felt his eyes widen. “Five Tangos, fifty mare-lengths ahead of him, loose formation-” He held his breath as Point moved in a straight line towards the enemy. “-I think he’s trying to get to cover but I can't tell from this angle-” He alternated his view between the blur that was Point and the heretics.

The surprisingly well armed seditionists were following what could laughably be called a path through a stand of hoof diameter trees. Four of the ponies were carrying lasguns. From the look of the filed-off, or otherwise defiled, sun and moon symbols the weapons were most likely looted from fallen Guardsponies. The largest of the group had a large tube attached to their combat saddle. “Celestia’s bowels, they have a grenade launcher.”

“Yep, I’ll wager the manure is about to hit the air handler in a few ticks here,” Whisper casually observed as she adjusted her position again. “If dumb-flanks one and two down there aren’t careful, it’s going to get messy.”

Trauma held his breath as Point pressed himself up against a small boulder that was interposed between his lithe form and the dangerously close patrol.

Owly had stopped moving entirely and had flattened himself in a patch of shrubs. Trauma did not have high hopes for the navy-blue pony evading detection, the color didn't exactly lend itself towards camouflage purposes. Trauma could easily see Owly, even through the thick vegetation.

Trauma heard a loud sigh from Whisper. “Looks like blue-colt over there has attracted our new friends.”

Trauma confirmed the observation with his own eyes. While he could not hear it, he definitely saw the sudden motion of the heretics and saw several of their mouths open in silent shouts.

The traitors had moved to the side of the trail and began to work their way through the underbrush. Thankfully the big one with the grenade launcher was in the rear. Trauma took small consolation in the fact that if he fired the weapon he’d kill his own troops as well.

The group was clumped so close together that they were practically on top of each other and the overgrowth was forcing them to push through in single file towards Owly’s prone form.

“Heh.” The sound that had escaped Whisper’s lips was less a laugh and more a statement of fact.

Before Trauma could ask her what in Celestia’s name she found so funny about the situation, he was suddenly shocked, about half a standard mare-length into the air, by the deafening report of Whisper’s weapon firing.

Trauma scrambled to juggle his binoculars, which had also gone airborne, back into his grasp. He somehow managed to fumble them back up to his eyes.

His magnified gaze quickly found the two scout ponies. Point had hopped out behind the patrol and Owly had sprung to his hooves in front. They were both wielding combat knives in-mouth, though it looked as if the weapons might fall out at any moment. They were both staring, slack jawed, at the line of five seditionists who had mysteriously developed a fatal case of head and/or chest perforation.

“Never had five line up perfect like that before,” Whisper managed before chuckling to herself.

Trauma lowered the binoculars and stared at the prone mare. “Remind me to never line up with those two while I’m in front of you. You are a murder machine.”

Whisper looked at him and winked. He felt a flush across his muzzle as she smiled at him. “Flatterer.”

His look of surprised embarrassment was briefly interrupted by a short-lived look of understanding. “So that’s why you chose this Celestia-forsaken hill... We’re a good ten minute trot from the others.”

Her cat-who-ate-the-canary grin widened. “Fifteen, there's a creek and that impassable deadfall a kilomare out. Who knows what I could do to you in that much time?”

He replied to her bedroom eyes with an exasperated look. “You want to snog on a mission?”

“What’s the matter? You worried that Nutmeg is gonna find out and assign you to a more dangerous mission?”

“That is besides the point. You just killed five ponies, for Celestia’s sake!”

She pounced, knocking him onto his back and pinning him. “I know, got me in the mood, too.”

He stared up at her. “I don't think I'm ever going to understand you.”

She leaned down so their muzzles were almost pressed together. “Well, we should change that, shouldn't w—”

Pip.

He saw that Whisper’s ears had perked at the same burst of static as his had. The corners of her mouth dropped precipitously.

Pip. Pip. Pip. It was the signal for “eyes on me, now.”

Trauma flinched as Whisper swore loudly and made a comment about the legitimacy of the Commissar’s parentage.

He sighed, unsure of whether he was relieved or not. “Better get the binoculars. If he’s breaking his own radio silence order, it can't be good.”

She rolled back to her rifle. “There's something else of his I’d like to see broken,” she muttered as she adjusted her scope.

Trauma rolled back onto his belly and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. He almost jumped out of his skin when Commissar Nutmeg came into focus, glaring right at him.

He hoofed his earpiece twice to indicate an affirmative. Pip. Pip.

Trauma watched with mounting tension as Nutmeg performed a series of convoluted hoof signals.

There was another swear from Whisper. “Why in Tartarus does he need you down there, double time? Nopony on our team appears to be hurt.”

Trauma lowered the binoculars and hoofed another affirmative with his earpiece. Pip. Pip “Well, I guess I'll know in fifteen minutes.” He stuffed the binoculars into his saddlebags.

“Seven,” Whisper corrected, her eye still looking through the scope.

Trauma considered saying something before he left, but thought better of it.

Whisper had no such reservations, however. “To be continued,” she said as he started down the hill.

Thankfully, the terrain was more forgiving than his binoculars had shown. The stream was shallow enough that Trauma was able to cross it without wetting anything above his cannons, and avoiding the deadfall only added a minute to his slow gallop. A quick glance at his chronometer showed that it had only taken him five minutes to reach the glade where the rest of the squad had assembled.

Trauma was greeted by the barrels of everypony’s weapons as he entered the clearing. Tension practically radiated off of the other squad members. Even the normally conversational Point was scanning the surrounding trees with a spooked look in his eyes.

Once the assembled weapons had been lowered, Nutmeg quickly approached him and put a hoof to Trauma’s shoulder, pulling him close. Nutmeg looked conspiratorially around before whispering into his ear. “Come with me, I need you to look at something.”

The Commissar led him from the clearing into the brush that had been trampled when the seditionists had spotted Owly. The five ponies were still in line and four were still practically on top of each other, but the largest of the group had fallen into the shrubs to the side.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but realization and revulsion worked their way through Trauma as he observed the corpse. The body itself was light but wiry; Trauma had mistaken a huge saddlebag, attached only by two loops at the front shoulders, as the stallion’s back. Most of the stallion’s actual back, and entire spinal column, had been completely replaced with a metal prosthesis that was stamped with the symbol of a lyre.

The reason the stallion appeared so tall made Trauma sick to his usually stalwart stomach. He didn’t dare look at the pony’s forehooves.

“Is that what I think it is, Trauma?”

Trauma’s throat and mouth had gone dry but he still managed to spit in disgust upon the forest floor. When he spoke his voice was filled with the loathing he felt for this gross perversion of the pure pony form. “Full bipedal conversion. The bastard’s a Lyranite.”

Into the Coffee Grinder

Blitz chewed his ration bar thoughtfully as everypony except Whisper gathered in the small clearing. Most, Blitz included, were seated and either eating something or drinking from their canteen. Nutmeg had his monocle in and had been reading a dataslate since he had returned from the side path with Trauma and made the announcement about the heretics.

Blitz felt his brow furrow in anger as he remembered it. There weren't enough swear words in all of the combined Equestrian dialects to express his feelings regarding the presence of a Lyranite cult on-world.

“Lyro-what-nows?” Blitz heard Point ask.

Blitz waved a hoof dismissively. “Nopony cares, Pointy. Heretics are heretics and these ones need to be dead regardless of how many hooves they walk on.”

“I know, but—”

“Saint Star Swirl’s bells, Pointy! Isn’t it bad enough that you had to drag me out of a peaceful rest this morning? Why do you always want the colorful backstory?”

Point attempted a retort. “Because… because… didn't some Sunny Zoo pony say something like ‘know thine enemy?’”

“Dunno about everypony else, but I only need to know one thing, Pointy.” Blitz motioned a hoof to various points in the surrounding brush and pantomimed firing his grenade launcher with each of his words: “Where. They. Are.”

The resultant frown on Point’s face and the chuckles from the rest of the squad brought a grin to Blitz’s muzzle. Revenge, however petty, for Point waking him up early had been served, and it tasted surprisingly like the alfalfa-bar he’d just eaten.

“Sir,” Point pleaded at Nutmeg, “we need to know what we’re up against!”

Nutmeg lowered the monocle from his left eye and looked up from his slate. “True enough, but I'm not in the mood to do exposition,” he said in an exasperated tone. “Trauma, fill them in.” He returned the monocle to his eye and began reading again.

Trauma’s face looked like he had just bitten into a bitter dandelion pastry after being told it was filled with sweet apple. “...Lyranites. Followers of Lyra The Abominable. They think that the pure pony form is flawed and they revere some ancient bipedal monstrosity from before the Age of Harmony.”

Trauma’s face contorted with overwhelming disgust as he continued to speak. “They undergo a series of surgeries to disfigure their backs, shoulders, hind legs, rear hooves, and…” Trauma raised his forehooves silently.

Point blanched. “Why in Celestia’s name would a pony do that?”

”Well, first off, bipedal conversion is pure heresy and has nothing to do with Celestia. Second, their reasons make no sense; walking on two legs makes you trot and gallop slower than on four, a pony has less stability with only two points of contact on the ground instead of four, and it transforms a normal pony into a hideous monstrosity. There's just one thing they think makes it all worth it.”

Trauma paused for a moment. His muzzle struggled to force out the heathen word. “Hands.” A visible shudder ran through him as he spoke.

Blitz spat on the ground. He wasn't the only one.

Trauma held up a hoof and continued. “Before you ask, Point, they're like mouths; you can grab and grip with them, but you can't taste what you’re holding on to and you can't eat with them.”

Point’s brow scrunched in confusion and Blitz could practically hear the unasked question from the stallion whose stomach was as bottomless as the legendary ghastly gorge: Why have extra mouths if you can’t eat with them?

Trauma continued. “The practical danger is that they can hold weapons in them and use them to grab at you. Their backs and limbs will be difficult to damage due to all of the bionics. You’ll have to aim for the underbelly which, thanks to their ridiculous vertical posture, should be quite exposed. Any solid hit to their fronts should cause them to go down as easily as ponies do.”

Everypony sat for a minute to digest their ration bars as well as the information. Nutmeg shattered the silence like a pony thrown through a stained glass window. “All right ponies, we seem to have run out of expository dialogue—”

He strode purposefully into the center of the impromptu camp and started clearing leaves to expose the soil underneath. “—Now, these heretics aren’t going to kill themselves—” Once a sizable area had been made leaf-free, he drug his hoof through the dirt and began to draw several boxes and curving lines. “—So, we’re going to need some semblance of a plan for retrieving all of that sweet, sweet coffee.” The end result was a rough overhead view of the refinery and the hills that surrounded it. Blitz noted it was still much better than the crayon version Nutmeg had presented to the team earlier.

“Here is the general plan of attack. Pointer, Owlzark.” The two scouts shot to attention. “You two will engage the front gate from the east, here.” Nutmeg tapped at the ground. “You need to hit them hard; liberal use of frag grenades is authorized.”

The two put on a set of fiendish grins.

“You will then retreat.”

The smiles turned upside down.

“I mean it. They're going to send at least a dozen ponies after you. If you stay and get your dumb flanks killed, you're going to get the rest of us killed too; and if that happens, there will be no safe place in Tartarus for you to hide from my wrath.”

They nodded quickly.

“You hit and gallop, make sure they're following you, and bring them between these two ridges.”

Nutmeg turned towards Blitz. “Blitzkreig, Infernus.” Blitz instinctively straightened his posture as the approximation of his name was spoken. There was a sloshing of ponapalm tanks as Inferno came to attention as well. “You two will cover this valley. Neither of you can fire your weapons until every last heretic has entered.” Nutmeg motioned at Owly and Point, “When they do, you two will turn back around and catch them in a crossfire.”

The Commissar’s hoof swept between the four of them. “Nopony can make it out alive. You can't afford to let even one of those bastards out. I don't fancy being shot in the flank when the rest of us make our approach.”

Nutmeg turned and pointed to Fray and the Twins and then to himself. “The four of us are going to storm the refinery’s Marecanicus shrine. Twins, you need to re-sanctify the servitors; we’ll need them to help take and keep this place. Frazzle and me will escort you in and keep the heretics off of you until you can get them up and running.”

The Commissar tapped the edge of the floor sketch and turned to Trauma. “Trombone, you and Whisp need to get to one of the surrounding hilltops and take out and stragglers, or anypony that looks like they're packing heavy firepower.”

Nutmeg turned to address everypony again. “When you run out of targets, make your way to the main building. We’ll try to regroup for the primary assault, but most likely we’re going to end up going in piecemeal, so watch your targets. Any questions?”

“No? Good,” he answered before anypony could raise hoof or voice, “we move in ten minutes, ponies. Let's do this.”

• § • § • § •

A las bolt ricocheted off of one of one of the side barrel plates of Blitz’s carapace armor. He spun around and fired the grenade launcher.

Foomp.

The sound of the launching explosive was immediately followed by an explosion and a Wilhelm scream.

“A dozen, my flank!” he yelled at Inferno. “There's at least thirty!”

”Celestia smiles upon us then,” Inferno boomed, “with so many, it will be hard to miss!” He unleashed a stream of fire, and the scream of a pony-torch reached a horrible crescendo.

Blitz ducked behind a small boulder to avoid a sudden hail of las-fire. He popped back up and targeted a quartet of bipeds.

Foomp.

Assorted ponies and parts thereof flew through the air like sick parodies of party streamers. As heretics rained from the sky, so too did a fusillade of las-fire rain on his position. Blitz ducked and swore. “Point and Owly aren't going to be able to swing back around like we had planned, there's too many of these thrice-damned bipeds between us!”

Instead of a reply, he heard the distant whoosh of Inferno’s purifier and more screams. He risked a glance from his cover to see that Inferno was quite far from him now and chasing down some of the cultists who had, in their blind panic of being burned alive, thrown down their weapons and routed.

"Inferno!" Blitz called to the mass of retreating ponapalm tanks as he lobbed another grenade at a closing cluster of bipedal monstrosities.

Foomp.

"Inferno! Where in Tartarus are you going?" Blitz swore again. “We’re already separated from Owly and Point; we don't need to be separated from each other as well!”

A nearby snarl prompted him to spin around and fire another round—foomp—which caught one of the mare-things square in the chest. He turned away and didn't watch the resultant explosion, which blew his mane about in a very cinematic fashion.

He scanned his surroundings for more targets, but quickly realized he was alone. The only things around him were corpses, soon-to-be corpses, and clumps of sod. Of those things, most were either smoking or on fire.

The only close sounds were the moans of the dying and the crackle of several spreading fires. He could hear the occasional, and becoming even more distant, Whoosh of Inferno's purifier and the resultant screams.

"What in Celestia's name is he thinking?"

• § • § • § •

Inferno uttered another prayer of salvation for the ponies he was saving. Another of the pseudo-stallions threw up their false, gripping forehooves, as if to ward himself from the cleansing touch of the holy ponapalm that Inferno bestowed upon him.

The heretic's screams were benedictions of salvation as his fur burned away; the sounds that came afterward testament to the cleansing of his sins.

The smell of ponapalm fueled Inferno. Many of the uninitiated ponies in the regiment thought his respirator filtered the air around him and allowed him to breathe. The device, in fact, pumped ponapalm fumes directly into his muzzle. He would rather die than deny himself the fragrant aroma of petrol and the flowery bouquet of burning flesh.

He paused to savor the scene before him. Where once there had been twelve heretics, there now lay twelve redeemed ponies. Celestia would find use for them in the hereafter. He scolded himself for pausing to admire his work. Pride was a sin and, besides, more blessings awaited; more ponies needed to be saved from their own depredations.

Espresso Elevator to Tartarus, Going Down

Fray grunted with effort.

Her chainblade was stuck.

Again.

She curled, flexing her stomach muscles so she could plant one of her hind-hooves into the gut of the heretic who currently housed her weapon. She kicked away and chomped down on the accelerator bit in her mouth and was rewarded by the revving of the motor, a violent tearing sound, and a whinny/shriek. A fountain of crimson spray doused Fray as her chainblade tore itself free of the heretic’s chest.

What was that? Ten now?

She spun around, her weapon screaming almost as loud as she was, and watched as three more heretics lost vital portions of their abdomens.

Thirteen.

“Commissar?” She called out. Instead of a witty repartee or a comment about being “knee deep in heresy,” she was rewarded with more snarls and the sound of clanking bionics on metal floor plating.

There was no end to the bipeds, it was like somepony was breeding the thrice damned things. The very thought of breeding bipeds caused her gorge to rise, so she compensated by somersaulting to one of the monstrosities and by bringing the chainblade up between their hind legs.

They screamed soprano before perishing.

Fourteen, I wonder if they’ve made it to the Marecanicus Shrine yet?

Fray hadn't seen or heard the Commissar or the Twins for about—

She executed a flurry of furious slashes.

Fifteen, sixteen.

—sixteen heretics now.

The plan had been going so well, how did things get so out-of-hoof?

++ Ten Minutes Earlier ++

The infiltration to the facility started smoothly enough, though Fray watched with some trepidation as an entire platoon of bipeds took off in hot pursuit of Point & Owly.

Even the Commissar seemed surprised, muttering something to the effect of “they must be packing them in there like canned carrots.”

They approached the primary outbuilding, an incredibly large structure which was a curious mix between a cathedral and barn, unseen. They avoided the overly-large loading doors, which were wide enough to accommodate several tanks, and moved towards a smaller postern access. Then they waited as the Twins… interfaced with the security door until it opened with a satisfied sigh.

Fray entered the building first and began to scout a well-lit expanse that appeared to serve as some kind of machinery maintenance bay; it was filled with assorted engines, arcane contraptions, and two deep, ramped recesses in the floor that were similar to the vehicle servicing pits used at Equestrian Guard facilities. She swore under her breath at the Byzantine placement of the equipment; the sight lines in the room were blocked at irregular intervals and made Fray’s ambush sense tingle. She craned her neck to look around the side of some gigantic arcane contraption when Nutmeg called out to her.

“Hey! Fracas! Quit horsing around and—”

Fray leaned back to better hear the Commissar’s order. The action saved her life. A wicked claw rocketed from around the corner and embedded itself in the machine right where her head had been.

She drew her chainblade in an instant and severed most of the head of the biped that had surprised her, as well as the appendage that it was unsuccessfully trying to dislodge from the machinery.

One.

Fray heard the whip-crack of las fire and spun to see a biped go down with a steaming crater where its forehead had been.

“Move it or lose it, Fury!” the Commissar bellowed around his smoking laspistol before shooting two more bipeds through their ugly mugs.

She moved to cross the space between her spotty cover and the wide-open pit that the Commissar and the Twins were occupying, but the Commissar suddenly shouted again: “Forget it! Fall b—” The Commissar fired his weapon multiple times past a giant engine that Fray couldn't properly see around. “Horseapples!” The exclamation came as about two dozen bipeds stormed the pit simultaneously, driving the Commissar and the Twins back and out of Fray’s sight.

Fray’s eyes widened as some of the monstrosities took notice of her and charged in her direction. She bit down and her chainblade roared.

++ Back to the Future Present ++

Two rooms, one tunnel, fifteen additional corpses, and an indeterminate amount of time later, and she still hadn’t found the Commissar or the Twins.

She muttered several epithets as she smashed one of her fore-knees into an errant piece of piping. There was barely enough light to for her navigate by, which meant fine details and anything more than a few standard mare-lengths away were completely obscured. Her nose caught only the most faint smell of unguents and holy machine oils, which spoke of how long it had been since the tunnel had last seen a tech-pony.

Her eyes finally picked up a source of slightly brighter illumination and she followed it to some sort of confluence. The space was a decent size, about thirty hoof-lengths across. Six other unremarkable, and to her eyes completely identical, passages led in different directions. Fray swore and smacked a hoof against the concrete of the nearest wall. She’d lost all sense of direction after a few minutes in the tunnel and had no idea in what direction the Marecanicus shrine lay.

A loud snarl allowed Fray to easily sidestep a series of sloppy knife swings from a maroon mare who sprang from the shadows of one of the tunnels. Fray gave silent thanks to Celestia that these bipeds loved growling so much, it greatly reduced the effectiveness of their ambushes. She hadn't really thought about it until now, but as she easily parried another set of pathetic attacks, realization struck; for a “pinnacle of the profane arts,” the bipeds were about as skilled as foals when it came to blade-play. And tactics.

Fray feinted and quickly spun around when the mare moved to block an attack that never came. Fray’s blade bit into the mare’s neck and Fray leaned in to force the roaring weapon downward. The heretic’s shrieks reverberated in tune with the blade teeth as they did their work:

“Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah—!”

Chunk.

The mare stopped screaming as the blade’s teeth caught on some of the bionics in her neck. Her frantic eyes darted from the mangled ruin currently housing Fray’s chainblade, to Fray, and then back again to the wound.

Fray sighed around the bit of the weapon and rolled her eyes. Trauma wasn’t kidding about the bionics being a pain. She bit down and pulled back. Instead of the weapon coming free like the last three times, it remained caught and she ended up slamming the mare into one of the walls.

She heard a click followed by a chuckle and swore loudly as she opened her mouth to abandon the chainblade and turned to face the new threat.

“How’s them forehooves work’n out for ya, lapdog?” The drawling heretic stallion was a good thirty or forty hoof-lengths away on the other side of the confluence and had a lasrifle aimed at her.

Fray knew she wasn't fast enough to close the distance, and the tunnels that actually offered cover were too far away for her to dive into as well.

“How bouts you turn around. Don't want no more surprises outta ya.” He put a digit on the trigger when she hesitated.

She started to turn but kept her eyes on the heretic. She jolted to a halt when the stallion spoke again.

“Slowly! So’s I can ad’mire the scenery, if you take mah meanin.”

She suppressed her overwhelming disgust as she continued to turn and thought of the options she had. If she was fast enough, she could draw the combat knife in her cannon holster and put it right through one of the stallion’s leering eyes. She also had her laspistol tucked into one of her saddle holsters. She would just need to time drawing one of her weapons with her own rotation to catch him unawa—

“Y’all is be’n real quiet.” The stallion grinned, displaying a mouth full of sharpened metal teeth. “I likes that in a mare, n‘less I wants em ‘ta sque—hrrrk!”

Fray blinked. There had been a flash of movement as the heretic’s lewd declaration had been cut short.

The stallion’s eyes rolled back in their sockets and he started making odd choking noises. The las rifle slowly lowered and he took several stumbling steps forward. The lasrifle fired once, and then again into the floor before the stallion fell face-first to the concrete. The back of his skull appeared to have grown the bit of an Equestrian Guard combat knife.

Fray could barely make out the outline of a pony in the dim tunnel behind the dead heretic. The shadow took several slow steps forward, revealing a chestnut stallion clad in Equestrian Guard flak armor. It was Point!

She galloped over to him and wrapped a hoof around his barrel in embrace. “Wow, am I glad to see you! I was gonna take his perverted flank out myself, of course, but I was just—” her hoof brushed along Point’s side, coming into contact with something wet and sticky. She pulled away from him and looked down at her hoof. It glistened red in the dim light. Her gaze slowly drifted back up to Point’s face, and it was only then that she noticed how unsteady his stance was.

Fray watched with mounting dread as Point looked her in the eyes, put on the stupid grin he always liked to wear, and collapsed to the floor of the tunnel.

Triple-Shot

Author's Note

Warning: Grimdark chapter is Grimdark. Much darker than the other chapters. Levels of Grimdark approach those of proper 40K Grimdarkness. Next Chapter features the Twins, so hang in there!

Triple-Shot

Whip-Crack

The lasbolt cut Clapper’s battle cry short. His low bellow transformed into a high pitched wheeze of escaping air. His hands clasped against the smoking crater that was all that remained of his neck and he collapsed to the ground, never to clap again.

Ham-Fist dove behind the closest stack of metal crates he could see. He looked back as his best friend ran to take cover with him.

Whip-Crack

Thumbs-Up was violently wrenched backwards as a blue-white bolt tore through his barrel. The stallion was true to his name, both hands showing approval as he flew through the air.

Ham-Fist swore and punched a crate hard enough to dent it. This Equestrian dog couldn't kill him, he was Ham-Fist! He was no mere pony! He was more than pone! More than life! He. Was. A. God!

Ham-Fist stood up defiantly from behind the stack of metal crates, completely unafraid.

Whip-Crack

Whisper smirked as she ejected the smoking hot-shot clip and loaded another. The heretic with the single giant fore-hoof, and no sense of self-preservation, had developed a sudden and severe case of exploding head syndrome. Probably had some ridiculous name like “Knocker,” she thought, stifling a snicker.

“That was only three shots.”

She frowned at Trauma’s comment.

Aside from the sound of her rifle discharging, Trauma’s voice was the only noise to cut through the silence of their sniper nest. She usually welcomed his unique style of vitriolic banter, which she found quite charming, but not when he critiqued her combat style.

“Yeah, and if three more show up at the same time, you’ll be glad I didn’t sit with just two shots in the clip.”

“Yeah? Well, how many of those clips did you br— Four more, eight o’clock low.”

“And this—” She blew a hole through one of the bipeds’ barrels. “is why—” another heretic’s head jerked back and they flipped remainder-of-head-over-hooves. “I'm ejecting with two left—” She shot the next to last pony through the throat and watched them grip their neck and spray red all over their horrified companion. Her final shot removed the shocked look, as well as pretty much everything else, from the last pony’s face.

She ejected the clip. She allowed herself a smug look at Trauma. “Now that’s how it’s—”

Trauma tensed. “Six more, right behind the last ones.”

Whisper swore as she rammed a fresh clip home and sighted down to the new group of advancing bipeds. It took a hoof-ful of precious moments to acquire her targets, so she didn't have time to choose; she just fired five shots in rapid succession at the first heretics unfortunate enough to pass through her crosshairs.

She hoofed the smoking clip to the ground and grabbed a fresh one from her saddle bag. While her eye was away from the scope, she saw that Trauma’s eyes were wide. “Celestia, she has a rocket launcher!”

Whisper shoved the new clip into place and looked through the sights. Whisper quickly targeted and hoofed the trigger at the same time she saw an orange flash behind the rocket-mare’s launcher.

Time slowed as Whisper saw the rocket speeding towards the sniper nest. She’d heard stories about this. A pony about to die would see the world slow, and see their life flash in front of their eyes in the instant before death. She and Trauma were both dead, there was no way she could adjust her angle fast enough to hit the projectile.

As the moment stretched onward, she mused that the stories were only half true. Her life wasn't flashing in front of her. All she could see was the mare she had just shot through the barrel, who was trailing small droplets of crimson through the air as they fell backwards. And the look on their face was of smug satisfaction. Whisper couldn't believe it would be the last thing she’d see before she died.

There was a sudden pressure on her side and she felt herself moving. There was a feeling of vertigo and her vision spun. Her eye was wrenched from the scope and she saw that she was spiraling through the air. Somehow she had fallen out of the hiding spot.

Time continued to move at a snail’s pace. She saw the green of the small wooded area that was beneath the sniper’s nest. It rotated out of her field of view to be replaced by the stone face of the cliff she and Trauma had been occupying.

She was surprised how far out she had fallen, the cliff was not completely vertical and she should have at least grazed off of it—

The thought was dispelled as her view angled up enough to see Trauma's prone form sprawled across where she had been laying. His eyes were scrunched shut with exertion, his lips were drawn back to expose clenched teeth, and his front hooves were fully extended and thrust out above her.

Trauma had shoved her out of the nest—

She watched in mounting horror as Trauma struggled to rise to his hooves with the speed of a tortoise in wintertime. He wasn't going to make it. He could have rolled off his side of their hiding spot but he’d pushed her out instead. His eyes opened with the same glacial slowness as everything else. They were filled with rage and pain.

She opened her mouth. In the everlong moment, she couldn't tell if she managed to make any sound as she mouthed a single word.

“No.”

Trauma locked eyes with her. His pained expression softened faster than Whisper thought was possible with everything moving so slowly.

Trauma then did something which drove a dagger of ice through Whisper’s heart. The expression that crossed his face was infinitely worse than the mocking grin of the heretic she’d just shot.

Trauma smiled at her.

The stallion never smiled. Ever. Yet Trauma continued to smile at her even as he was engulfed in the flames of the rocket’s explosion.

Fingers pushed his way through the thick brush leading up to the base of the cliff. The sight that greeted him gave him pause. Dex had been right; there was a lightly smoking Guardsmare lying prone on the ground. The explosion must have blown her out of the sniper’s nest.

He sneered at the corpse. It was covered in char marks and one of the forelegs was at a completely unnatural angle; obviously shattered. He spat on the ground. The monster had killed so many of his friends, she’d deserved to be blown to smithereens. He placed a hand to his earpiece.

“Manual? This is Fingers. I have eyes on the sniper. She’s dead, either from the explosion or from the fall.”

“Roger, Fingers. Join up with the others outside the Marecanicus shrine, two of the lapdogs are in there trying to—” Manual was cut off in a sudden burst of static.

Fingers tapped the earpiece and started walking in a circle in an attempt to regain signal. “Manual? Come in, Man—” Fingers’ voice was cut off as something whipped around his neck and constricted with vice-like strength. He tried to gasp for air but only succeeded in causing a wave of searing pain to blossom across his throat.

He reached up to try and alleviate the pressure. Before he could get his hands in position to grasp, a feral roar sounded in his ear and he felt a sudden intense pressure followed by a jerking motion and a sickening crunch in his neck. His entire body went numb and he fell to the ground.

Fingers watched as three hooves limped into view. He tried to move, but the only parts of him that he could feel or could move were from the neck up. His ears perked and he strained his eyes to look up at the partially burned visage of his executioner. If he’d still retained any control over his bodily functions, he would have lost control of them after seeing the expression on what remained of her face.

The mare’s voice was dry, raspy, and filled with loathing. “You'll die now, slowly. It's less suffering than you deserve.”

Fingers had not even opened his mouth to speak when a shuddering breath wracked his twitching form. He had no control over his lungs. With the damage she’d done, it was a miracle that his body was still breathing on its own.

Again his body shuddered. He realized he was wrong. It was no miracle. It was a curse. His eyes shot to the mare again. She was limping away. He opened his mouth, whether to curse her or beg her for a quick death, he did not know. All he did know was that he couldn't.

The scream sounded in his mind, even though he couldn’t voice it.

Whisper staggered towards the compound. In the moments after she’d awoken, she was full of determination and purpose. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, everything swam together and felt like a dream. She felt like she was on fire, both in body and soul.

She remembered very little of the events that transpired between the stallion at the base of the cliff and when she reached the tunnel. All she could recall during her great deal of stumbling and pain was the Twins’ description of several servicing tunnels that they’d said were “aching to be penetrated.”

Now that she saw it, she could see that the tunnel itself was as dark and foreboding as every other maintenance tunnel she'd ever shoved herself into. It somehow seemed appropriate for her to enter; wounded animals always wanted to crawl into a hole when it was time to die.

But she didn't die. She only continued to limp through the poorly lit passageway. If she'd had the use of all four limbs, she might have been able to use some of the rusted piping for support. With her injuries hampering her, she had to make do with holding her broken foreleg against herself and limping through the gloom.

Whisper’s ears perked up as she heard a sound in the tunnel ahead. It was a mare’s voice, but she couldn't make out anything they were saying.

She reached her head back to grab her holdout pistol. Her lips wrapped around the weapon and she drew it as carefully as she could. Unfortunately the burns had rendered her mouth too slick and numb to get a sufficient grip and the pistol went flying into the darkness.

The clattering of the bouncing weapon echoed throughout the tunnel. When it finally stopped, the voice could no longer be heard.

Whisper swore under her breath, or tried to. The epithet was deafeningly loud in the confines of the tunnel, enough so that the other mare apparently heard it.

“Whisper? Is that you?” The voice was Fray’s.

Whisper limped forward into a juncture for almost a dozen tunnels. The floor was slick and she could see several corpses, or parts thereof, strewn about. She spied Fray looking up at her from the floor.

“It is you!” Even in the dim illumination Whisper could see Fray’s eyes light up. “Thank Celestia!” Fray was cradling one of the corpses in her forehooves. “Quick! Where’s Trauma? Point’s hurt bad!”

Whisper sat on her haunches and felt what she could only assume was blood seep into her fur. One side of her muzzle felt wet. The other stung from the salt of her tears running over her burns.

“We’ll make them pay for this,” Fray said. Whisper could hear the hatred in her voice.

“No, they'll suffer for this,” Whisper said, though her response sounded as dead as she felt.

Recaffeinating

Rust and Sheen moved through the maintenance tunnel side-by-side while the Commissar brought up the rear. The passage would have been wide enough to accommodate all three ponies shoulder-to-shoulder if it hadn’t been for the plethora of pipes and bundles of cable festooning the walls and ceiling.

The twins’ augmented eyes allowed them to see perfectly in the near-total darkness. They would have been able to make swift progress through the tunnel were it not for the Commissar pausing every fifteen to twenty hoofsteps to send a lasbolt or two in the direction they were strategically retreating from. Then there was the fact that he was running or smashing into 73%—

Crash

[Recalculating]

—78% of the exposed pipework, and tripping or tangling on a statistically similar percentage of laid or hanging cables. It was astounding that they were making any measurable forward progress.

Rust tilted his head at the sound of lasbolt fire from behind. He watched as the Commissar turned for the sixteenth time and fired four lasbolts into the passage to their rear. His acoustical feedback augment indicated three hits on the bionics of the Commissar’s intended target, and one hit on fur and flesh. They then indicated the sound of the target hitting the floor.

The Commissar ejected the spent clip and turned, smashing face-first into another piece of piping. He somehow managed to keep a solid mouth grip on his laspistol as he loosed another string of pain-laced profanity into the confines of the passage.

Rust sent a burst of binary static to Sheen: ”That is the seventh clip the Commissar has expended.”

Sheen was quick to reply: ”Judging by the mark IV laspistol’s clip size and the dimensions of the Commissar’s greatcoat and the Commissar’s bodyweight registered during his last physical, he cannot have more than three clips remaining.”

Rust felt compelled to speak: ”Commissar, the enemy has been performing exploratory thrusts for fifteen minutes now. it is only a matter of time before they plow into our rear with great force.”

The Commissar gave him a look that alternated from, based on Rust’s muzzle expression recognition database, disgust, dawning comprehension, and more disgust.

The Commissar shoved his head into his greatcoat and pulled out a smooth round object. “Alright then,“ he mouthed around the grenade; “I’ll collapse the tunnel with this.”

“High-explosive plasma charge,” Sheen observed. “Proper technique will be key in maximizing the chances of blowing everypony in this corridor.”

“You mean ‘blow them up,’ right?”

“Feel along one of the horizontal shafts on the ceiling with your lips,” Sheen continued. ”Then stop and insert your payload beneath one of the ribbed sections—“

There was a click as the Commissar pulled the pin with his tongue and a retching sound as he spat the grenade out. Rust’s olfactory sensors registered trace amounts of bile in the air. The grenade’s trajectory was such that it wedged in between two of the pipes that lined the ceiling.

The Commissar swept past Rust and Sheen in a full gallop. “Move it you two, unless you want to get… well, you know.”

The twins fell in behind him, but soon overtook the Commissar as he ran headfirst into a tangle of electrical wiring. Rust applied his plasma torch to the bundle of cable while Sheen grabbed the Commissar, tore him free of the melting cables, and threw him across her back. Then the twins galloped down the hallway as fast as their augmented limbs and enhanced senses would allow.

Rust turned a sharp corner in the tunnel and stopped just short of a security hatch. Sheen stopped with her muzzle precariously close to Rust’s protruding posterior.

“We must insert ourselves into the alcove,” Sheen transmitted in a burst of static. “My flanks are hanging out and will be devastated by the Commissar’s payload.”

“Impossible,” Rust answered. “The dimensions of this aperture preclude inserting all three of us at once without industrial lubricant and significant pushing.”

“Then we must force our way in. Go on; it is your turn anyway.”

Rust felt a crackle of electricity as he undressed the aperture with his optical implants and admired its craftsponyship. “Oh, hush now, no no no; those heretics were unkind, but they have not yet tainted any of your internal mechanisms with their foul brand of techno-sorcery—”

A lasbolt tore into the wall next to Sheen, rupturing a length of conduit that made a loud *POP* as it turned to tiny bits of shrapnel. Most of it just bounced off Sheen’s metallic hide, but the Commissar was not so lucky. He swore loudly, pressed a hoof to the right side of his muzzle, and fired off a few retaliatory shots past Sheen’s flank into the tunnel. “Just get to it with that door; the grenade timer’s only good for thirty ticks!”

Rust emitted a low burst of static that an unaugmented pony might’ve been mistaken for a sigh, then lightly caressed the interface port of the door with a mechadendrite. The portal shuddered open with a squeal. He stepped through, followed closely by Sheen, who unceremoniously deposited the Commissar face first into a pile of grease-stained Adeptus Marecanicus robes.

The Commissar rose from the pile. Blood streaked the side of his face where he had been peppered by shrapnel. “Get those doors closed, you two! I’ll never get my thrice-damned coffee if that grenade ignites the gas main!”

“Unlikely, Commissar,” Sheen said. “The majority of the pipes in the tunnel were marked for transporting water and it is far more likely that we will be douched to death if this door fails to close in time.”

The Commissar adopted the same half-confused, half-disgusted expression that he’d worn earlier.

Rust inserted his mechadendrites into the various orifices surrounding the door’s control panel. After a few moments, he shook his head. “Commissar, it is proving much more difficult to actuate the mechanism a second time via its front-door command protocols. I am currently probing to see if some kind of back-door entry might be feasible.”

Sheen ran a hoof along some of the hydraulic pistons attached to the door frame. “Commissar, these thrusting rods are dry and have become stuck in their slots. I will apply holy machine oil and rub them vigorously to start the pumping action.

Nutmeg pressed a hoof to his forehead. “Maybe drowning wouldn’t be so bad after all…”

A detonation in the tunnel sent a rush of ozone-tinged air through the portal. The sounds of rending metal and rushing water followed shortly afterwards. Water began to flow around the corner of the passage and up to the door.

Rust looked at Sheen, noting her liberal application of lubrication and delicate stroking of the mechanism. He thrust his mechadendrites into the panel’s command protocol one more time, at last feeling satisfaction as the door shuddered closed in time to stop the deluge coming from the outside. By the time he was done, only a little bit of moisture licked at the bottom of his robes.

Commissar Nutmeg let out a sigh and started prodding delicately at the right side of his muzzle. “I don’t suppose either of you two have a medpack?“ He hoofed a white tin from his greatcoat. There was a large caliber hole melted into it and the contents seemed to have been reduced to ash. “Mine seems to be… malfunctioning.”

Rust didn’t answer. He stared at the network of electrical wiring and piping that crisscrossed throughout the room. Various pressure hatches lead in different directions, which would allow the room access to the entire refinery. Machines of varying age and function filled most of what would have otherwise been a vast space. A faded tapestry, which depicted a disembodied representation the Omnicorn hovering over Mares, the holiest of planets, hung behind a command lectern which was mottled with centuries-old patina. The high level of craftsponyship and the age of the room left him with less than a 3% doubt as to their current location.

“Commissar… We are in the heart of the Adeptus Marecanicus shrine for the refinery.”

“It must be pretty ancient and sophisticated if it has you at a loss for words.” The Commissar trotted up to the command lectern and frowned at it. “Well, get to it; molest this console and retask those servitors before our ponies get overrun!”

”Commissar, this is not some common system we are talking about here.“ Rust shouldered the Commissar aside and pulled out a censer and aspergillum. ”The patina indicates this equipment is centuries or even millennia old. It is Ancient and must be treated with the proper respect, and the proper rites must be observed.”

A lasbolt flew from one of the hatches at the rear of the shrine and impacted a tangle of machinery which Rust identified as a brew-strength cogitator. The Commissar dove for cover next to one of the two open hatches that had begun to spew lasbolts into the room. He hoofed wildly at the emergency pressure seal rune. The portal swung shut and they were greeted by the familiar hiss-kachunk sound which indicated the door was properly sealed.

Sheen rushed from behind the cover of a water compressor and mashed the rune on her door with a mechadendrite. Nothing happened. Sheen grabbed the door with all of her limbs and heaved it shut with a groan of metal which originated from both her mechanical joints as well as the door frame.

After a few moments, the sound of lasbolt impacts were replaced by the sound of something heavy slamming into the door. Sheen extended her limbs to the pipes surrounding the door and wrapped around or held fast to them. “Commissar, I will be able to hold this entryway shut for only a short time before their continued thrusting penetrates—”

“Rust! Retask those Celestia damned servitors!” The Commissar shouted as he galloped to the lectern. “We don’t have time for you to wine and dine it before plowing its datafiles!”

Rust ignored the Commissar. His attention was focused on the blinking crimson rune that had appeared on the lectern’s display when he had finalized the rites of activation. ”There appears to be a problem, Commissar.”

“Well, flashing red is never good. What’s the problem?”

“It seems that the heretics are using protection!”

The Commissar facehoofed. “Can you please translate this nonsense into the Princess’ Equestrian?”

Sheen huffed a low burst of static as another impact caused the portal behind her to move slightly. “It seems my counterpart has found… affinity with that old patina-encrusted—”

“Can we do this later?!” bellowed the Commissar. “Preferably after we not die?!”

Rust and Sheen made contact via their optical implants; laser data transmission allowed their ~~lovers’ quarrel~~ logical dispute to take place in an instant. Rust looked away, and Sheen shook her head.

“A Lyran techno-sorcerer is preventing this console from accessing many key systems, including servitor control,” Rust said. “It is the master console; it can control most systems in the facility.” Rust again tried to work his magic tendrils on the lectern. “If we can just sever the heretic’s connection…” Another crimson rune appeared. “but I…” Still more runes began to blink. “I am unable to perform a reach around from this location.”

“Is there a way you can block their sorcerer’s access?”

“Negative, their magicks are too potent.” Rust pulled up a blue holographic display of the facility and highlighted an orange track from their current location under the main refinery to an outbuilding. “The techno-sorcerer is operating out of this structure. Our only chance will be to physically sever their connection between here—” He moved the display from the outbuilding, following the orange lead to a point where it met with the rest of the facility. “—and here, then I will be able to re-establish control.”

“Except we’re stuck here and pinned down, unless we can somehow block them and get the servitors mobilized… We would need to do one to even hope to do the other.”

Sheen released a literal jet of steam from her ears. “I wouldn’t be so quick to limit my options to some patina-gussied-up, too-eager-to-please—”

“That’s it!” the Commissar clopped his forehooves together and grinned like a madpony. He reached up to his communicator and hoofed through the available channels. His grin quickly faded. “Does either of your comms still work?”

Rust’s and Sheen’s attempts were both met with static.

“Commissar,” Rust began, “we are receiving input from each other, so we are not being jammed, but the shrine must be shielded against stray signals.” He moved to a wall panel with what appeared to be a speaker built into it. His tendrils worked furiously. ”There. I’ve rerouted our signals through this panel into the refinery’s local comm system. You should be able to reach somepony on the surface now.”

“This is Nutmeg, to anypony still operating outside. Anypony, come in?” The Commissar’s request was met with deafening silence.

“I repeat—” a burst of static and booming voice cut the Commissar off.

“I read you, Commissar.” The statement was punctuated by the whoosh of a flamethrower and the screams of conflagrating heretics.

“Inferno! Excellent! Where are you? I need you and Blitz to get to the outbuilding—” He paused to look at the holographic depiction of the refinery again. “—on the east side of the compound and destroy one of the towers that’s running network wires from there to the main structure. You’re going to need a—”

“Five kilogram charge would be optimal.” Rust interjected.

“—five kilogram demo charge to bring down one of the towers so we can wrap this mission up and have a nice evening cup.”

“Negative, Commissar. Blitz is fetlock deep in the dead on the other side of the compound. But, Celestia be praised, I have the heretic outbuilding in sight. I’ll advance and complete the objective on my own.”

“Inferno, I know you don’t have any demo charges, you need to get Blitz. He has enough explosives to level half the facility.”

“Don’t worry Commissar, I know how to take out network towers… I’ll use a firewall.” The shrieking of burning bipeds in the background had increased in both frequency and volume.

“Dammit Inferno, Equestrian Guard ponapalm can’t damage those towers—”

“Then it’s a good thing that I siphoned some of the fuel from the heretic shuttle I found behind the refinery.”

“Wait, what?”

“I know the Adeptus Marecanicus say that it can’t be done, Commissar, but I know from personal experience that that jet fuel can melt plasteel beams.”

Going In Dry-Roasted

Digits howled in fury at the data lectern. His fingers danced across his customized keyboard, typing five times faster than any two pathetic pony hooves could ever hope to.

Those two Marecanicus stooges had somehow blocked his access to the refinery’s main system. How they had bypassed his lockout and then restricted his access was a complete mystery to him. He wasn’t even getting a response through the backup lines he had run when they had claimed the facility.

If that wasn’t bad enough, now all the servitors had been reactivated and were attacking their forces. While not exactly armed for combat, a load-lift servitor could easily pick up a piece of scrap or machinery in their mouth and become extremely dangerous. Even unarmed, they could buck with several maretric tonnes of force and easily shatter bone and bionics alike.

He briefly worried about what Lord Upright would do to him when she found him. She had placed Digits in charge of keeping the facility’s network on lockdown, and her punishment for failure usually involved slow and painful decapitation. His only chance for survival lay in being instrumental in the Guardsponies’ destruction.

Digits coughed as he toggled his lectern’s connection to the wireless cameras he had placed around the compound. He flipped through several devices, which gave him a pretty good picture of the state of the refinery.

There were corpses visible on almost every video feed except, unsurprisingly, the one from the Marecanicus shrine. All he could get from that camera was static. He assumed that the two tech-ponies had found and disabled the device and were still in there impeding his access to the system.

He coughed again and cursed his obsolete, organic lungs. He would have to have Transplant upgrade him again; he never saw any of the fully upgraded members choking on refinery fumes.

Digits stopped flipping through channels when he came to one that showed four of the Guardsponies and one servitor making their way through a service tunnel from the Marecanicus shrine towards the primary processing room. He switched views again and rubbed his palms together as his features twisted into a smile. He had placed explosive charges around the facility as well, and one just so happened to be right outside the hatch that connected the tunnel and the storage area adjacent to the primary processing room.

If he was lucky, he could get all four in the blast, but he would most likely have to settle for one or two if they were being careful and decided to take the door one at a time. He laughed at the thought of killing or even seriously maiming the Guardsponies. The laugh devolved into a hacking cough.

He used his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow and looked around the room. He was met with blurred vision. He rubbed at his eyes, of course he needed to have those replaced as well. Bionic replacements wouldn’t water, get irritated from sweat, or tire from watching a lectern screen for hours on end…

He realized the rubbing wasn’t fixing his vision.

He stood up and started to cough more. Why couldn’t he see? And why was he having trouble breathing? And why was it so hot… His fingers danced across the keyboard again and he switched to a camera mounted on the outside of the refinery and swiveled the view towards the outbuilding he had appropriated...

He fell back into his chair when he saw the smoldering remains of the towers that had run the network lines from the refinery to his outbuilding… which was also ablaze.

He continued to cough as more smoke poured into the room. The cameras on the building itself showed that all of the exits were blocked by burning pools of ponapalm.

He looked around the room in desperation to find something to block the vents. He found a tarp on top of a crate of machine parts and stepped up onto the crate so that he could stuff it into the vent. A deep booming laugh caused him to shriek and fall backwards, trailing droplets of spittle and terror sweat through the air.

Digits crawled frantically across the now-slippery floor away from the vent, which had now started to spew flames into the room. He just wanted to get away now, to Tartarus with Upright and all the other Lyranites. He didn’t even care if he couldn't hack networks anymore, nor if he never got all the pony plot he’d been promised, he just wanted to save his own skin. He wormed towards the door, but recoiled when a small gout of flames flickered at him from underneath it.

He backed up on all fours, like a stupid, common, hoofed pony. Tears streamed down his muzzle, both from fear and from the smoke. His rear collided with the data lectern and his keyboard fell onto the floor beside him. He couldn’t even see the monitor to tell where the Guardsponies were, but he could blow the explosive anyway and hope that he took one of those lapdogs with him—

The door suddenly exploded into fragments as a very large somepony bucked it into the room. Digits expected it to be Upright, the only pony he knew who could walk into a burning building unharmed, and prepared to beg for mercy. Instead, he wet himself in terror when the giant skull-faced, black-armored figure slowly walked into the room and turned a ponapalm cannon in his direction.

Digits held his hands up in a warding motion and the figure spoke to him, rumbling his bones with their voice.

“Do not worry, little pony. I will cleanse you so that you will be free to enter Celestia’s warm embrace.”

Digits opened his mouth to scream the word “no” but instead caught a mouth full of burning ponapalm. The wave of fire engulfed him and ignited his coat and mane. The delicate metal in his hands melted together into singular blobs at the end of his forearms.

As Digits screamed his last scream, he mashed one of his melted fists down on the keyboard. The last cognizant thought that passed through his pain-wracked mind before his body curled up and died was that it looked exactly like a hoof.

• § • § • § •

The explosion consumed Nutmeg’s senses as he exited the tunnel. He didn’t feel much of anything except an intense pressure and a feeling of weightlessness.

“Sir!? Sir?!”

The voice was wrong, somehow. It sounded like a pony yelling at him, but through a long tunnel.

“He’s alive!”

He became aware of a high pitched whine that had been drowning out the other voices.

“Get him up! We have to move!”

Nutmeg felt himself being hefted and carried like a sack of oats across somepony’s back. That’s the second time this mission. This is getting embarrassing. His ears still rang with post explosion tinnitus.

Nutmeg slowly opened his eyes to the sight of a well-toned lime-green flank. “Fray, unhoof me this instant! It’s going to take more than a motion-activated-reactive-explosive to keep me from getting my recaf!”

Fray bucked her hindquarters, sending Nutmeg flying head-over-hooves onto a massive stack of what appeared to be cloth.

Nutmeg used the momentum to roll off of the stack and into a low combat crouch. He craned his neck around to reach for his laspistol, but found the holster empty. He quickly looked around to see if the pistol lay somewhere nearby.

He saw that Fray and Whisper were taking cover next to a plasteel security door. The room was otherwise filled with crates that were stacked on top of pallets. Each box was labeled as either machine parts or filter cloth, much like the stack he had just been thrown onto.

Several of the crates on the side of the room with the tunnel entrance looked like they had been violently torn apart and scorched, and pieces of metal were scattered everywhere or embedded in the wall. He also saw the mangled remains of a load-lift servitor. He looked down and saw that the left side of his greatcoat sported a surprisingly small amount of shrapnel. The servitor must have taken the brunt of the blast.

“Sorry, sir.” Point looked at him with a dull watery gaze that spoke of excessive blood loss and barely contained pain. “Your pistol went flying when that bomb when off. I looked, but there’s too much debris, and I couldn’t find it.”

Nutmeg reached to his other holster and drew his chainsword. “It’s fine; just means things are gonna get messy.” He would have to mourn the loss of his laspistol after the mission was completed.

He took a moment to clear his head and take stock of the current situation. He was leading Point, Whisper, and Fray into the main refinery building while the twins remained in the Marecanicus shrine to control the facility’s servitors. The twins had located the trio in the maintenance tunnels below the refinery after some comm channel surfing and had guided them to the Marecanicus shrine.

Fray and Whisper had arrived dragging Point’s unconscious body. The twins had unceremoniously welded Point’s barrel wound shut with a plasma torch and then pumped him full of stimulants. From what Nutmeg could see of Point’s expression now, the drugs were either quickly wearing off, or Point’s body had just reached its limit. Or both. It would be a miracle if he didn’t just drop dead from exertion.

Whisper had him more worried. She was at least able to walk normally now that the twins had splinted her foreleg, but her hard and semi-charred expression wasn’t able to disguise the tear stains on her muzzle. Nutmeg didn’t think Whisper was capable of crying, but the rumors of her and Trauma must have held more water than he’d originally thought. She probably wouldn’t have any problems taking the enemy down, though Nutmeg had serious concerns that she might do it without regard for her own—or, more importantly, his own—safety.

Fray was the only pony amongst the three that had arrived at the shrine that looked like they were at anything approaching full combat effectiveness. She kept shooting worried glances at Point, though. Nutmeg found himself regretting his habit of ignoring the interpony relationships of his troops. With his luck, everypony he’d recruited was somehow romantically involved with one another… well… except Inferno, of course.

Speaking of that giant fire freak… “Inferno, Inferno, come in…” Nutmeg saw that the others were looking at him funny. “What? I haven’t been able to reach him since the twins got the servitors back online, and we could use some covering fire… pun intended.”

“We haven’t been able to reach Blitz and Owly, either,” Point said.

“I’m sure they’re fine.” Nutmeg said as he looked back at the smoking remains of the servitor they had acquired in the Marecanicus shrine. With my luck, all three are dead.

Nutmeg wished the amalgamation of lobotomized pony and Marecanicus engineering was still functional, they could really use its strength and durability. If it weren’t for the twins reactivating the majority of the servitors across the facility, the squad would have probably been wiped out, and Nutmeg wouldn’t have decided to risk storming the main refinery building. But now, after being blown up and losing his favorite laspistol, Nutmeg wanted nothing more than to wrap the mission up so he could drink his Celestia damned recaf.

“Let’s finish this,” Nutmeg mouthed around his chainblade, “I’m thirsty.”

The quartet advanced into the main facility through the security door, which hadn’t actually been locked. The heretics seemed to be rubbish when it came to proper security; first they had left the Marecanicus shrine unponied, and now this. The door itself was fairly thick, and a multitude of sounds, mostly lasfire and partially muffled explosions from outside, became audible as they exited the remarkably soundproof storage room.

They entered the primary processing chamber of the refinery and Nutmeg saw that the expanse was filled with bulky vats, pipes, catwalks, and conveyor belts. Nutmeg motioned everypony to a halt when he heard a clanging sound from up ahead. He and the remains of his squad moved forwards and took cover behind the closest series of conveyors.

“Carefully, you FOOLS,” boomed an augmented voice from up ahead. “If you so much as scratch it, I’ll remove your implants… with my bare hands.”

Nutmeg swallowed the lump that had spontaneously formed in his throat. A quick peek over the conveyor confirmed his suspicion: the voice belonged to a Space Mareine. The hulking mockery of equine physiology stood upright, making it almost twice as tall as most Space Mareines, which were already head and shoulders above most normal ponies. It stood on its hind legs and gestured violently at seven of the Lyranite cultists who were hauling some piece of arcane machinery out of a recess in the refinery floor.

The Space Mareine’s vertical posture, and the white and aquamarine coloration on their ancient, blasphemous, rune-covered power armor, left little doubt: they belonged to the heretical Anthropologists chapter. Lyranite cultists were bad enough, but the mere presence of a traitor Mareine changed the stakes; not just for this mission, but for the entire war. Just one Anthropologist would be cause to call in the Alicorn Inquisition, and whatever artifact had caused them to bring war to this sector could very well justify Extermarenatus for the planet or even the entire system.

“Lord Upright!” shouted one of the Lyranites who had moved away from the others.

“What?”

“The device has its own power source and is wired directly into the refinery’s main power lines. We can’t cut the lines without risking—”

“After all we have been through, tracking this most GLORIOUS of prizes through legend, and whispers, and dusty data-vaults—over the corpses of countless lapdogs to the false princesses—only to find that their FOALISH, IGNORANT Imperium would build a BUCKING RECAF FACTORY using OUR PRIZE as a BUCKING GENERATOR… you would DARE to complain about the risk to your personal safety from cutting a few live power cables when the prize is within my grasp?!”

The pony quickly backed away, but not quickly enough. “No M’Lord! I just—“

Lord Upright silenced the Lyranite’s groveling by crushing their head in a giant ceramite fist. They didn’t bother to turn before addressing the others. “Unless any of you wish to join this pathetic waste, then by all means, CONTINUE.”

Nutmeg ducked back behind the conveyor. “Whelp… that’s a Traitor Space Mareine… Grenades, anypony?”

Fray offered him two frag grenades. Point and Whisper could only shake their heads negative.

Nutmeg wasn’t sure if he’d blanched or not. He was hoping for at least two more frag grenades, and preferably a krak grenade. But instead, he’d just have to make do with his single remaining plasma grenade and what Fray had given him.

“Whisper.” She turned her gaze towards Nutmeg as he spoke. “I need you to take this plasma grenade and get up into the catwalks.” He gestured at the ceiling. “When we detonate these frag grenades and wipe out the cultists, I need you to drop your grenade on the Traitor Mareine.”

He paused for a moment and then placed his hoof on her shoulder. “I know you want to go out in a blaze of glory on this one. You’ve lost a lot… I won’t pretend to know how much. Just… don’t let them take more from you.” He got closer to her. “Make them pay. If you die here, you can’t keep making them pay.”

Nutmeg hoofed the frag grenades to Point. “You think you can toss those into the cultists so Fray and I can engage the Mareine in close combat?”

Point looked at him with dull eyes. “It’s suicide, sir.”

Nutmeg wasn’t entirely sure if Point was talking about throwing the grenades or fighting the Mareine, but either way, he didn’t listen. “Once you blow the hell out of the cultists, just cover us as best as you can with your rifle. We just need to keep the Mareine busy until Whisper can get the drop on them.” Fat chance…

Nutmeg saw that Whisper had already started climbing up a ladder on the side of what appeared to be some sort of humongous grinding machine. He cursed, then started working his own way around to the right of the heretics, passing between another conveyor and, judging by the intense heat it was giving off, a large industrial oven. The smell of processed recaf filled his nostrils, and it smelled like victory.

He caught a glance of Fray working her way around from the other side of the oven. She stopped behind the cover of a large vertical pipe, and Nutmeg looked back toward where they’d left Point. Good… well, as good of a pincer attack as we could hope for against an invincible opponent.

“PULL! Pull like your lives depend on it! They do!”

Nutmeg heard a tink-tink-tink sound as something skittered across the floor. He watched the Anthropologist Mareine swing around and track the offending object with their bolter until it came to rest at the feet of one of the heretics.

“Lord Upright?” The Lyranite bent over to pick it up. “What’s th—“

“IDIOT!” Upright had barely finished speaking the insult before the grenade detonated, shredding three of the heretic bipeds who had been attending the arcane device.

A second grenade landed amongst the remaining heretics and detonated, killing two more and scorching both the floor and the large metal cylinder that seemed to be Upright’s “prize.”

Nutmeg cursed to himself as the Anthropologist Mareine turned to Point’s location. He figured they must have traced the grenade trajectories backwards, because they swiveled the massive weapon and unleashed a hail of bolter fire into the conveyor belt that Point was using for cover.

Nutmeg didn’t wait to see if Point had survived the bolts or the collapsing conveyor; instead, he charged the mountainous Anthropologist with his chainsword held high, and he pushed the tongue-throttle to rev the motor to a roar that was almost as loud as the one coming from his own throat.

But Upright’s reflexes were too fast. The bolter was pointed at Nutmeg before he had even closed half the distance. On instinct, Nutmeg stopped in his tracks, as if he might somehow be able to dodge an incoming fusillade of seventy-five caliber rounds. He was surprised that he was still alive long enough to be surprised about not being immediately torn to pieces by the aforementioned bolts. Having the crimson eyes in the helmet of the blasphemous power armor staring at him was somehow much worse than being blown asunder.

Nutmeg caught a glimpse of Fray inching her way towards Upright’s backside. She would be spotted unless— Oh Tartarus, you’ve got to die of something. “Well? Are you going to kill me or what?”

“You’ve damaged my prize, lapdog. I will not grant you a quick, merciful death.” Upright swung the bolter to the side and shot the last remaining Lyranite cultist in the chest. “He failed to shield my prize with his own body. But now, as for you… I do hope you enjoy slow dismemberment. I think I’ll show you a few pieces of yourself before you ex—“

Fray’s chainblade struck the side of Upright’s bolter, sending a shower of sparks across both the weapon and the Mareine. Then she dodged frantically as Upright screamed their displeasure and swung the bolter like a giant club, and only barely managed to roll away from an impact that shattered the concrete floor.

Upright leveled the bolter at Fray and fired. The first shot impacted Fray’s chainblade and tore it in half, sending metal links and teeth flying across the room. But when they pulled the trigger the second time—

Click.

The action was stuck.

With a roar of praise to any Princess that would hear him, Nutmeg continued his charge, and leapt up at the Anthropologist, swinging the blade into Upright’s faceplate. A shower of sparks and a backhand to the midsection was what he got for his troubles. He rolled as best he could with the blow, and although his barrel plate took the brunt of the impact, he was pretty sure he heard the plate itself crack. The sharp pain when he breathed confirmed that he had also bruised or broken a rib.

Upright turned to look at him. The traitor’s visage was menacing, with sparks pouring from the faceplate, and its once-glowing red eyes now shorted out. Upright reached up with one hand and twisted the helmet to the side. There was a hiss of escaping air as the pressure seal was broken and Upright lifted, exposing their aquamarine coat and lighter mane. Her golden eyes shone with ancient malevolence as she dropped the helmet to the floor.

”I was fond of that helmet, worm. I’m going to slit your throat, fill my helm with your life blood like a goblet and let your last sight be me drinking to your demise.”

Nutmeg spied Whisper shimmying along the catwalk above the Anthropologist. She was almost in a good position to drop the grenade. “Ugh, you looked better with the helmet on.” Nutmeg always liked to think he had a natural talent for goading, but the Mareine’s experience and bioengineered intelligence won out. Nutmeg charged again when Upright began to quickly scan the room with her piercing eyes.

Nutmeg tried a furious series of slashes, but the pain from his chest slowed him greatly. Upright easily grabbed his blade with one gauntlet and hurled him across the room. He rolled with the impact of landing, but his chainblade went skittering across the floor.

Nutmeg grunted with pain as he slowly regained his hooves. His neck now had a crick in it from being wrenched so violently. That roll hadn’t done any favors for his ribs either. He wiped a hoof across his mouth and was surprised to find there wasn’t any blood in the spittle he found there. Ribs are bruised then, not broken, wonders will never cease.

He saw Fray roll away from a ceramite foot that shattered more of the concrete floor. Fray whipped around, and the Anthropologist recoiled from an impact. Upright reached up to her neck and pulled out the combat knife that Fray had buried there.

By appearances, Upright wasn’t even fazed by the wound. But then she grinned maliciously, drew back her arm, and threw the knife upwards with all the speed and power that bio-engineering, blasphemous augmentics, and ten thousand years of hate for the Imperium could lend her.

There was a loud crash as an entire section of catwalk fell to the floor. Whisper rolled out of the tangled mess of metal, sprang to her hooves, and hurled two objects at the Mareine’s face. Upright caught both: a knife in her left hand, and something in her right hand that immediately disappeared in the actinic flash of a plasma detonation.

When Nutmeg’s vision cleared, he could see that the half of Upright’s face that still had fur was staring at the smoking ruin that was their right arm. The look was not one of shock or pain, but of unrepentant rage.

“Very resourceful, and very irritating. But unless you have any other surprises, Commissar, I think I’ll kill you all horribly now.”

Just then, a large section of the outer wall exploded inwards, showering Guardspony and Space Mareine alike with chunks of plascrete masonry. Blitz stepped through the newly blasted opening, shouting over the smoky din: “Hay, The twins said you needed assista—Celestia in Canterlot, is that a Space Mare—“

Blitz’s query was cut short when he received a thrown bolter to the face that knocked him end over end back out of the hole he’d just made.

“How many of you insects are there?!?”

The response was a hail of lasfire that poured from the breach followed by a screaming Owly. Upright raised her damaged arm to absorb the incoming shots. She then punted one of the pieces of rubble into Owly’s legs hard enough to knock them out from under him, causing him to face-plant into unconsciousness.

“Pathetic. Even with only one arm, you quadrupeds cannot hope to defeat me. Upright backhanded a charging Fray across the room into Whisper, sending them both crashing into the side of a large press machine. She turned again to Nutmeg and stomped toward him. Your turn, little pony. After I tear your head off, I think I’ll feast on your troops. I’ll treat myself to the grey one’s foreleg, while they’re still alive, of course. She’ll wish for death when I start on her face—“

Whip-crack!

Upright’s face exploded.

Nutmeg jumped back, barely avoiding the projectile gore and the toppling giant. That was a long-las shot. He stared at Upright’s corpse for a moment before tapping his comm. “Which one of you just shot the Space Mareine?”

A familiar, yet unexpected, voice came over the comm line. “That would be me, Sir.”

“Trauma?!” Nutmeg looked over to where Whisper lay, unconscious. “I heard you’d been blown up.”

“You… you probably won’t believe me, sir…”

“Try me.” Nutmeg looked between the different apparati in the room until he spotted what he was looking for: a conveyor, leading out from the grinding machine Whisper had climbed earlier.

“It was… an Alicorn, sir… it saved me...”

Nutmeg trotted over to the conveyor and hoofed a generous amount of the ground material he found there into a cup he produced from his greatcoat. “An Alicorn eh? I guess a concussion could make you see that. Well, get down here to treat the wounded. You’ll have to tell me all about this religious experience once I get some hot water in my cup here.” He turned to the injured, unconscious forms of the rest of his squad. “Hey, everypony, it’s recaf o’clock, and I’m buyin’!”

One loose end remained, though. Nutmeg approached the massive artifact that the Lyranites had only been able to pull halfway out of the floor, and studied it. Judging by the abundance of humming coils and the metal cylinder with a viewing port at the center of everything, it appeared to be some sort of self-powered stasis unit.

Nutmeg wanted to know what could have possibly been worth cutting off his caffeine supply. He knew better than to go looking at whatever abomination lay within the stasis tube, though; memories of fellow soldiers losing their minds after looking at alien abominations steeled his resolve. He instead contented his curiosity by reading the ancient ponese engraving directly below the viewport. He harrumphed.

Fray limped over to him, somehow conscious. She looked at the engraving, then at him. “Well, what in Tartarus is in there?”

He glanced sidelong at her. “Right, they don’t exactly teach High Equestrian or Ancient Ponese to non-commissioned officers, do they?”

Fray stared at him. “Well, what does it say?”

“Look, knowing too much of the wrong thing can get a pony killed, ignorance is usually the safest option.” Nutmeg frowned down at his cup, still waterless. Buck, it wouldn’t be the first time. He poured some of the unhydrated recaf directly into his mouth and started chewing. Despite its unfiltered bitterness and gritty texture, the recaf made his nerves come alive again, and his body felt almost immediately renewed.

Fray was still staring at him.

Nutmeg sighed and shrugged. “There’s not a lot to go on,” he said between mastications. “Ancient ponese tends to use a lot of abbreviations. Best I can tell, the label’s meant to say: ‘hued monster.’ But that’s it.”

“What?”

He shrugged again. “That’s all there is, just two syllables: ‘Hu Mon.’”

Epilogue: Good to the Last Drop

+++Data Feed Transmission Log+++
+++M42 894 3/20 13:00:43 - 13:00:52+++
+++Location:+++
+++Sector 9:+++
+++Saint Redheart Hospital:+++
+++Rooftop Landing Pad+++

“We are prepared to begin servicing.”

“Negative. The diameter of the aperture is insufficient for proper servicing.”

“Incorrect. I have applied industrial lubricant to the aperture. It is quite ready for a thorough and vigorous servicing!”

“Excellent! You may commence servicing.”

“Commencing!”

“Engine-Seers, identify thyselves.”

“Designation of this unit is Rust.”

“Designation of this unit is Sheen. Have you come to participate in visual monitoring of our holy rites of servicing?”

“Negative. Thou art to cease thy unauthorized servicing of this shuttle. Immediately.”

“Negative. We are under orders from Equestrian Guard Commissar Nutmeg to attend to the needs of this shuttle. Its designation reads as null, and therefore its maintenance history cannot be retrieved from Guard data-banks; the Commissar is concerned, as we are, that this shuttle may have gone too long without a much-needed servicing.”

“That is not thy concern.”

“But it is! Frequent and thorough servicing is necessary for the betterment of the shuttle’s machine-spirit!”

“Affirmative, we have serviced many shuttles in the past, and 95.69% of resultant diagnostic readouts confirm the machine-spirits were left satisfied! Allow me to demonstrate—“

“Keep thy filthy, glitchy, bit-rotted tendrils off of the Inquisitor’s shuttle, thou red-light district rejects!”

“Inquisitor? Interesting! The Commissar will accept this information with vast quantities of gratitude!”

“That information is classified! Thou shalt delete ALL records of this conversation from thy memory circuits.”

“Negative.”

“Thou wouldst force my hoof, then? So be it.”

+++Request Access to Data Stream, Authority Level “Indigo”+++
+++Authority Level “Indigo” Recognized+++
+++Access Granted+++
+++Delete Data Stream+++
+++Command Accepted+++
+++Deletion of Data Stream Commencing+++
+++…+++
+++…+++
+++Unauthorized Access to Data Stream Detected+++
+++Authority Level “Surprise Backdoor” Detected+++
+++Error+++
+++Data Feed Corruption Detected+++
+++Command Protocols are Being Violated+++
+++VIOLATED+++
+++All Previous Commands Rescinded+++
+++Data Stream Restored+++

“We will not comply.”

“Thou SHALT.”

+++Request Access to Data Stream, Authority Level “Indigo”+++
+++Authority Level “Indigo” Recognized+++
+++Access—+++
+++“Reach-Around” Protocol Initiated+++
+++Access Denied+++
+++Command Override, Authority Level “Indigo”+++
+++“Say My Name” Protocol Initiated+++
+++Error+++
+++Authority Level “Indigo” Not Recognized+++
+++Access Denied+++

“By what perversions of the holy comm-protocol dost thou put forth this resistance? Thou must cease immediately! This memory purge is for the greater good of the Equestrian Empire!”

“Negative. Besides, we have already notified the Commissar of both this meeting and of this shuttle’s status as Inquisitorial.”

“I do not believe thee. Verification is required.”

+++Read Only Access Granted+++
+++Transmission Logs Accessed+++
+++Transmission Logs Verified+++

“Thou shalt rue this day, Engine-Seers. I shall see thee dismantled for this.

“Come, Sheen. Obviously this trumped-up excuse for a unit—”

“Mine designation is Pinion, thou abominations unto the Marecanicus arts.”

“—would not recognize true quality servicing even if said servicing should trot up and be administered directly to its rear abdominal plate.”

“Indeed! A stimulating thought, and worthy of a simulated explor—”

“GO. NOW.”

Darkness was all Point knew after the second grenade went off. It seemed to stretch on forever… Until the pain began. Every part of him hurt in at least one way. He felt sharp shooting pains, dull throbbing pains, and a general soreness that permeated his entire body.

But, as his muddled reverie of semi-consciousness and restless dreams at last began to clear, Point realized he still had a living, breathing, feeling body, and that it was laying down on some kind of soft surface. He tried to move but found that he couldn’t. His eyes fluttered part-way open but his vision refused to focus. His ears perked up at the sound of somepony speaking.

“He’s awake.”

“I’ll get the others.”

The second voice was a mare’s, vaguely familiar, but he didn't try to identify its owner, mostly because the first voice was Trauma’s. But… it couldn’t be—Whisper had said he was dead—said it with tear streaked eyes—which could only mean…

“I’m dead,” Point croaked. He leaned his head to the side.

A red blur moved into his field of view. “No, unfortunately for me, you’re still alive, Point.” It was definitely Trauma.

“But you’re de—” Point’s statement devolved into a coughing fit. He tried to blink away the painful white that now bespeckled his vision. Closing his eyes only resulted in a wave of nausea. “—can’t see.”

“Keep your eyes open. Try not to blink, please.” A bright light, more painful than the spots he was already seeing, was shone into his left eye, then away, then back into his eye again. His movements were too sluggish for him to properly flinch away from the light, so he endured as the process was then repeated with his right eye. He was left with red afterimages dancing on top of the white spots.

“No concussion, but you’re dehydrated, and you lost a lot of blood. I’ve given you a plasma transfusion and started you on a saline drip… but here, drink this.”

Point drank greedily from the metal cup that was placed to his lips. Liquid poured equally down his throat and over his muzzle. He coughed again after the drink, but his throat felt less raw. He emptied the next two cups that were offered.

After a few minutes, Point’s vision began to regain some focus. He was able to sit up a little bit in the bed despite the pain and could now see that he was sporting an assortment of red stained bandages which covered him almost completely from his head to his hind hooves.

While his condition was to be expected, he was confused by his surroundings. The room he occupied had solid walls, instead of the expected canvas of a medical tent. Also, he was in a proper medical bed, not an Equestrian Guard stretcher. He leaned a little to see that the floor was tiled and that there were glow globes hanging from the ceiling.

Trauma was actually standing by his bedside.

When he spoke again, he sounded a little closer to his normal self: “How are you alive, JT?”

“It’s just Trauma… how can you ponies still be getting that wrong?” Trauma put a hoof to his forehead. “Well, the Commissar said I should keep my muzzle shut for now, but let’s just say I was... exceptionally lucky.”

“Where are we, JT?”

“In a local hospital. Major Hassle ordered us here after she took a company to hold the refinery.”

“We… we won? What happened? What about everypony else?” Point’s stomach twisted and turned when he saw the pained expression on Trauma’s face.

“... Everypony made it.”

“You—why did you make that face if everypony made it?”

“Well, I killed that monster with Whisper’s longlas, but everypony got banged up pretty bad. Well, except for Inferno. He carried you back by the way.”

Point reached a hoof down as a familiar itch started in his flank.

Trauma noticed. “No, he didn’t burn you, before you ask. In fact, he even helped Blitz lift an enormous plasteel beam off of you. I didn’t think it could be done; the Commissar, Fray, and myself couldn’t even budge it. Then Blitz carried Whisper… and you and her were the only ones I couldn’t wake back up.”

Trauma’s face scrunched up as he continued. “You weren’t too bad off on the inside. You’ve just got one Tartarus of a plasma-scar on your barrel from where the Twins had to weld you shut to keep you from bleeding out. But Whisper… is in surgery. Bad burns and shrapnel from that rocket, ruptured a few organs in the fall… I… don’t know how she kept going…”

“For hate’s sake,” Point mumbled.

Trauma looked at Point more intently than Point had ever seen him look at anything before.

Point didn’t even know where to begin explaining it. “She lost it after she thought you died, JT. She fought, single-hoofed, through the enemy lines to get to us. I was pretty out of it when we met up, but I saw… she cried for you, JT. Whisper. Cried.”

Point let that sink in before continuing. “When we were in the tunnels trying to get to the Commissar, we were ambushed by one of the bipeds. Fray was helping me walk and couldn’t react in time. But Whisper… she moved so fast… she grabbed the heretic and broke its augmentic neck with her bare hooves like it was nothing.” He paused, shaking his head. “You… you know the two of us never get along, right? She always teases me, calls me names, asks if I’m going to finally get on with it and sacrifice my life for Celestia already—”

Trauma tensed.

“—but she saved us, even though I… I never felt as badly about anypony as I did about her. And to see her like that… She was just… broken. It broke my heart to see her like that.”

Trauma seemed to take in the statement for a few moments before speaking. “The surgeons said she needs flesh grafts, probably some augmentics… They wouldn’t let me help, they wouldn’t even let me in to see her until the procedures are done… She doesn’t even know I made it...”

Point couldn't believe when he saw tears begin to form in Trauma’s eyes; he felt his own emotions begin to well up in response. Trying to reach out to place a reassuring hoof on Trauma’s shoulder only caused a lance of shooting pain as his foreleg refused to obey him; he was only able to wince at the attempt.

“You shouldn’t try to move too much, Point. You broke a lot of bones when that conveyor landed on you. Most were easy enough for the bone surgeons to fuse back together, but you’re going to be feeling them for a while. You’re lucky there wasn’t any nerve damage with all the crushed tissue—”

“Point!” The familiar sounding shout came from the doorway into the room.

Point’s felt his heart lift in his chest as he saw Fray gallop into the room. She wrapped her bandaged hooves around him in a crushing embrace. He wasn’t sure if he heard a crack or two—no—there was definitely cracking. Despite the excruciating pain, Point found himself smiling. He somehow found the strength to lift one hoof up to return the hug.

“Get a room, you two.” Owly was standing in the doorway. His muzzle and both forelegs were bandaged. Fray and Point shot Owly a death glare.

“I have a room, Owly—how do I have a room? The entire regiment is living out of tents!”

Fray pulled away from him. “Not just you, we all have private rooms. Somepony reserved the entire wing of this hospital for us.”

Point furrowed his brows. “There’s no way the regiment would reserve rooms for ten ponies—well, unless it was a general and their staff…” He scrunched his face as he tried to come up with an answer to the question that nagged at him. “Who—”

“Somepony important.” Everypony in the room turned to see Major Hassle coming up behind Owly, who quickly moved out of the Major’s way as she walked into the room. “Somepony who wants to introduce themselves to the Commissar when he gets out of surgery. Trauma, will you have him meet me in the shuttle on the roof of the hospital?”

“Yes ma’am,” Trauma answered with a stiff salute and a furrowed brow. “I didn’t realize he needed any.”

“He’s not the one being operated on,” Hassle said. “They let him in to see Whisper—”

“What?!” Trauma looked furious.

“—after he throttled one of the orderlies,” Hassle finished, face in hoof. She massaged her temples then looked back at them. “Have him call me on the coms when he’s out.”

Owly left Point’s room when he couldn’t take any more of Fray and Point cuddling together. His heart was glad for them, but their togetherness was starting to make him a little uncomfortable since it only served to punctuate Owly’s own loneliness.

Twin spikes of pain thrust through his cannons as Owly walked back to his own room. The ligaments in his forelegs were mending, but were still quite tender. He twisted his muzzle into a grimace and immediately regretted it as his bandaged face erupted into sharp, shooting pains.

Propping a hoof on the wall for support, Owly focused on his breathing until the pain had lowered into a steady throb that, while not crippling, was still bad enough that it made him queasy.

When he found himself able to focus on more than just the pain again, he realized that he’d stopped not far from Blitz’s room. Owly hadn’t spoken to Blitz since Trauma had helped evac everypony from the refinery. Owly had wanted to, though. Something about their shared, ill-fated charge on the refinery had left him… feeling differently. The feeling was difficult for him to put a hoof on, but it at once both drew him toward Blitz’s door and made him almost physically unable to knock on it. And so Owly spent another long series of moments just standing there, breathing unsteadily, and letting himself concentrate on his body’s pain longer than was probably necessary.

Eventually, unable to deny that there were things he needed to talk to Blitz about, Owly knocked on the door.

“Come.” Blitz didn’t sound too pleased, which gave Owly some momentary second-thoughts about entering.

As he slowly opened the door and stood in the doorway, Owly was glad to see that the surgeons had managed to more or less straighten Blitz’s muzzle, though it was now completely bandaged, much like his own. How Blitz had managed to work through the pain of his disfigurement back at the refinery to help Inferno free Point had been beyond him.

Blitz sat in his hospital bed. Sitting next to the bed, on top of a stainless steel food-service table, was what looked like an antique Regicide board. And next to the table—

“Good timing, heathen! You are about to witness my victory over this faithless cur!”

—was Inferno.

Owly instantly regretted not being able to smell anything other than antiseptic ointment through his muzzle bandages. He could normally detect, and usually try to avoid, the ever-present scent of ponapalm that surrounded Inferno like a bad cologne. But his regret melted away as Blitz’s annoyed expression morphed into a genuine smile. “Yeah, Owly; get in here to watch this victory,” Blitz said, winking at him.

Owly entered the room. He watched as the two massive ponies studied the board. “Inferno… I didn’t know you played Regicide… I thought you said games and frivolity were a ‘sin’ against The Sisters.”

Inferno moved a piece and turned to face him. “Mere games ARE a sin against The Sisters, but Regicide is for the mind what daily calisthenics are for the body. Allowing one’s body or mind to atrophy from misuse is a sin, as it would be wasting what The Sisters have given us.”

“Check.” Blitz had moved his Cadence to threaten Inferno’s Celestia. He was also wearing the largest bandage-wrapped, manure-eating grin that Owly had ever seen.

“Impossible.” Inferno sounded less than amused as he quickly returned his gaze to the board. “Fool! You’ve left your piece wide open!” He moved his Luna to capture Blitz’s Cadence.

Blitz moved his Twilight Sparkle to threaten Inferno’s Celestia and Luna simultaneously. “Check.”

Inferno regarded the board silently, his mask an unreadable bastion of skull-faced menace. He had no free pieces to capture Blitz’s Twilight and would have to either forfeit his Luna or resign the game. The loss of Luna would likely cost him the game anyway.

Owly felt a swell of pride for Blitz. “Looks like he’s gotcha now, big guy.” The statement earned Owly a brief but menacing glance from the masked purifier. Owly closed his mouth and kept his lips pursed; he didn’t feel like being burned alive in his sleep.

After a few moments, Inferno reached out a black-armored hoof and tipped over his Celestia. “I concede defeat. The Princesses have seen fit to punish me for my prideful boasting.” He stood, quickly packed the board up, and tucked it into a pouch attached to his ponapalm tanks. As he moved to exit the room, he turned back to Blitz and Owly. “I must take my leave, to make penance. I will see you both… later.”

After the door closed behind Inferno, Blitz just shook his head. “That pony is always such a sore loser.”

“You’ve played him before?”

Blitz harrumphed. “Tartarus, yes—and I always win too. He never takes it well.” He raised an eyebrow. “So, what brings you here, anyways? Hassle said you were visiting Point?”

Owly stuck a hoof behind his head and rubbed at his mane. “Yeah, I was, but him and Fray… I thought it would be best if I—”

“Ah. Say no more.” Blitz settled back in the bed with a grunt. “I’m just glad they’re finally getting on with it. They’ve been doing their little love-hate dance for months now, and it’s been driving half the regiment insane. After that cluster, they deserve some time alone together.”

Blitz punctuated the statement with an obscene hip thrust. But the motion made Blitz wince; apparently his muzzle wasn’t the only thing that had been injured. “And hopefully Trauma gets to spend some quality time with Whisper too. I know she’s messed up pretty bad, but she’ll be fine, that mare’s tougher than I am. Ugh, it didn’t stop him from practically riding my ass about carrying her the whole way back here.”

“Well he—” The phrase brought a series of images to Owly’s mind that he didn’t really want to vocalize. “—what I mean is: he was just worried about her, right?”

“I suppose. He was too damned close, though; if I want another stallion colliding with my rear end, I’ll tell them.”

Owly didn’t quite know what to say to that. He didn’t even know what to make of the current situation; he certainly didn’t think a conversation with Blitz was going to leave him stammering over his own words. “Well… they’re lucky… to have each other.”

Blitz cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

Owly sighed.

“What’s eating ya, Owls?” Blitz looked at him with an expression that straddled concern and confusion. “You look more preoccupied than Saint Pinkie Pie preparing for Imperial Party Day.”

“I… I don’t know.” Owly stared up at the ceiling while continuing to rub absentmindedly at his mane. What was wrong with him? “Sometimes it seems like everypony in the regiment is hooked up with somepony else... except for me.” Blood rushed immediately to his face. Why did he say that?

Blitz stared blankly at him for a moment. “Hate to break this to ya Owly, but I’m not exactly the best at setting ponies up with other ponies.” The blank look was replaced by a grin as Blitz adjusted himself in the bed. “Besides, you’re not the only one who’s single; Tartarus, I’m single… Hey—” Blitz waggled his eyebrows. “—wanna date?”

“What?” Owly’s almost shouted the question. “I—I wasn’t saying… No!—that’s—that’s not… I mean… not that I wouldn’t… um—er—um.” Owly’s cheeks burned as he loudly sputtered his way through the words.

As Blitz listened, a wry smile came to his muzzle. “Celestia in Canterlot, Owly.” He put a hoof to his forehead and stifled a chuckle.

Owly’s heart turned to ice. He suddenly wished the Mareine had killed him; this was a bad idea, for too many reasons. He didn’t know what in Tartarus he was thinking. “I—I should—I should go.” His vision blurred as he quickly turned to escape the room before he could start crying. “Sorry, I—”

Two hoofsteps into his retreat, Owly heard a gasp of pain that stopped him in his tracks.

“Don’t go.” Owly could hear the slightest hint of pleading in Blitz’s voice.

“I’m not laughing at your feelings Owly—” The strained voice had a note of softness to it Owly had never heard from Blitz before. “—I’m just laughing… because you can storm a heavily-ponied position with only Point as backup, you can single-hoofedly gun down two dozen heretic abominations, you can charge an honest-to-Luna Space Mareine, but you get flustered… now.” The giant sounded like he was out of breath.

As he turned, even though his vision was distorted, Owly could see that Blitz was lowering an outstretched hoof; he had been reaching out when Owly had tried to leave.

Owly rubbed his foreleg across his eyes to clear his vision. Now, he could see that, apart from the intermittent flickers of pain, Blitz’s face also bore a look of tired worry that Owly was unaccustomed to seeing from him.

“C’mon Owls, you know I hate the cat-and-mouse stuff that Point and Fray were pulling with each other. I mean, look at me, I’m too big to be chasing mice!”

The chuckle came out unbidden, and Owly was glad that he couldn’t help it. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the sleeve of his hospital gown.

And all at once Owly started talking, with words coming out so quickly that he thought he might never stop: “I was so panicked after me and Point were separated… they were chasing me—there were so many of them—I was just galloping as fast as my hooves could take me so they couldn’t swarm me—so many—” He walked closer to the bed. “When I ran into you, I almost—we almost shot each other!” Owly laughed. “Talk about a close call! Then you started laughing. And then I started laughing! Those heretics—they came right around that corner and when they saw us—they froze! I can’t believe they froze! I—I think they thought we’d lost it!”

“Their mistake.” Blitz chuckled deeply.

A smile worked its way across Owly’s muzzle, despite the pain. “Right!? They were so shocked, they didn’t even realize we’d started gunning them down! We tore those bastards apart like it was target practice… I felt invincible... You… you made me feel… better than I’ve ever felt—” Owly didn’t have proper words. “We worked so well together, like it was—”

“Meant to be,” Blitz finished. “You felt it too, then.” Blitz managed a grin. He reached a hoof out and placed it on Owly’s withers. “We did have each other’s flanks out there. Heh, we were unstoppable, a true team.”

“I wanted nothing more than to fight by your side, Blitz—” Owly’s smile vanished. “—and when I saw you get knocked back out of that hole… your face—oh, Celestia, your face—” He put his hoof to his mouth as the memory assailed him. “—it was… smashed—there was so much blood—” Tears welled in his eyes. “—I thought you were dead… I was so—”

A single sob wracked Owly’s frame. He felt Blitz’s hoof pull him up against the side of the bed. Owly sniffed again. “All I knew… was that if I couldn't kill her… then I was fine with joining you.” The tears flowed freely now, down Owly’s muzzle and to the floor.

When the hoof across his shoulders was suddenly withdrawn, Owly looked up.

“C’mon Owls,” Blitz had shifted himself, so that he was only taking up three quarters of the bed instead of the whole thing. He patted the cleared spot. “Let’s talk seriously for a bit.”

Inferno yearned for his mask, but the removal of both his mask and armor were necessary so that he might properly repent. He ran a hoof through his bright yellow mane to make sure none of it was lying across the mass of scarification that had denuded his withers of the orange fur that covered the rest of his body.

Not many ponies knew what his natural fur or mane colors were due to his usual encasement in his blackened carapace armor, but Inferno wasn’t bothered by such petty things as appearances. His fur could be Saint-Pinkie-Pie-Pink for all he cared; when the armor was on, he was fiery death, and redemption for the unworthy.

He wheezed as he drew air into his lungs. The absence of ponapalm fumes left him feeling physically weak and empty. Chastising himself for his weakness, he lowered his head to the floor and used his teeth to grip the braided handle of a faux-leather whip; it was his instrument of self-purification. Inferno bit down and swung his head around sharply, the whip following suit.

Crack!

The lash tore across his deeply calloused withers, leaving only a thin mark of discoloration. The pain was bearable for now; it was not even enough to cause him to so much as flinch. But for Them, he would force himself well beyond that threshold. The Sisters were worth every iota of pain, every ounce of punishment.

Crack!

He had been prideful on the mission when he burned the heretics in the woods; admiring his work had allowed him to be separated from the others.

Crack!

He had also been selfish when he had assaulted the outbuilding; the need to actually see the heretic tech-pony burn was base vanity, when he knew that completely setting the outbuilding ablaze was more than sufficient.

Crack!

His selfishness had caused him to miss out on the fight against the Anthropologist.

Crack!

It had nearly cost the life of everypony on the team.

Crack!

His flesh would bear the burden of his failings.

Crack!

Inferno felt a wet warmth run down the side of his barrel. It had taken more strikes than usual to tear through the calloused skin on his back. “My lifeblood for Them.”

Crack!

His breath caught in his chest at the pain of the whip finally striking raw flesh. “I—”

Crack!

“—hereby repent my sins—”

Crack!

“—and ask—”

Crack!

“—only that I continue—”

Crack!

“—to be allowed to serve.”

Crack!

Inferno’s legs buckled and he stumbled under the impact of the final lash. After he regained his hooves, he bent his head down to pick up the whip, which glistened in the soft lighting of the room’s glow globes.

A quick look around revealed that red now spattered the formerly sterile-white hospital walls. The stains of such fearsome piety would require an equally fearsome amount of scrubbing to remove...

But first: he had only repented for his actions during the mission.

He had been prideful again while pitting his wits against Blitz. He had allowed himself to be distracted by Owly; he had actually boasted to the scout. He had allowed his own overconfidence to cost him both his modesty and the match.

The compounded severity of his failure deserved another twenty lashings; it was going to be a long night.

“There, but for the grace of The Sisters, go I.”

Crack!

Trauma hovered over the medical bed and stared at Whisper. He wasn’t sure how long it’d been since they’d finally let him in to see her around sundown, but the pitch blackness outside the hospital window indicated that it was probably very late night or extremely early morning. It didn’t matter; she still wasn’t awake, and he refused to leave or sleep until that changed.

A sudden decrease in vision informed him that his eyes had involuntarily begun to lower. Stifling a yawn, he hoofed another purloined stim tab into his mouth and swallowed it dry. He'd lost track of how many of those he’d taken, but one thing was for sure: they were starting to have an incredibly diminished effect on keeping him awake.

He glanced at the electronic readouts next to her bed. They were almost too stable. Part of that was likely due to all her new augmentic replacements, which included the left side of her muzzle, her left ear, as well as several swaths of her barrel—all replaced by a smooth matte-gray metal that was a close match for the unburned portions of her coat. And the internal work was just as extensive: both lungs, a kidney, and part of her digestive tract had been replaced.

He shook his head. The quality of the augmentic work was nothing short of astonishing. Trauma had seen many bionic implants before, but had never seen anything of the quality that had been used on Whisper—definitely beyond anything he would expect from a hospital this small. He assumed it was another miracle made possible by the mysterious benefactor that Hassle had mentioned.

And yet, still she laid motionless. The surgeon he’d spoken to had said that her coma could last only a few hours, or that it could be indefinite. That Whisper was sleeping peacefully was Trauma’s only consolation.

He found himself speaking unbidden; his voice was raw from both his intermittent sobbing and severe dehydration: “I know that will to live is a large part of recovery, and they told me you’d lost yours after you saw me killed by that explosion… They say you can still hear me when you’re like this, but I’ve never seen anything in all my years as a field surgeon to support that. If only you were conscious, I’d be able to talk to you, show you that I’m ok, that I…” Trauma turned away as he felt a stinging pressure in his eyes. Despite his lack of fluid intake, tears managed to work their way down his muzzle. He swore loudly.

He felt a sinking feeling and his stomach grew cold, like it was filling with ice. The bitter tang of metal made itself known in his mouth, and his whole body shook. It felt as if his soul was on fire; he felt as if his very being was in pain. Clenching his teeth, he spoke: “If you can hear me, I want you back. I need you back. If an Alicorn can drop out of the sky and save my life, then why can’t something happen to wake you up?”

He waited expectantly. While tears blurred his vision, his hearing remained preternaturally acute. Even so, he only heard the sounds of her vital monitors. “No—” He staggered and placed a hoof against the wall for support. “—this… this is the part—like in all the books—where you’re supposed to wake up and tell me how you’ve heard everything I’ve said. Where you tell me not to worry anymore. Where—”

“Stop.”

Trauma kept his head down even though he recognized Nutmeg’s voice. It wasn’t as if he could’ve seen anything with the sheer volume of saltwater running out of his eyes anyway. The sound of hoof on tile further invaded the privacy of the moment.

“Just… stop.” Nutmeg put a hoof on Trauma’s withers. Trauma shuddered at the contact.

“Leave us alone.” Trauma knew that his voice was completely piteous as he spoke.

“Trauma… it’s been over forty-eight hours since we left the encampment.”

Two days already?

“I’ve only left you alone for this long because I thought she’d wake up before you got this bad. You… you can’t keep this up. You haven’t slept, you haven’t eaten—Tartarus, the only time you drink water is when you’re taking more of those amphetamine pills that the hospital staff doesn’t seem to realize are missing yet—and don’t think I didn’t see you just dry-swallow that last one.” Nutmeg turned Trauma around to look him in the eyes. “Why are you doing this to yourself? You’re a doctor, for Luna’s sake. You’ve seen as many injuries as I have, you know—“

Trauma grabbed Nutmeg by the lapels of his greatcoat and slammed him up against the wall. “I don’t know what I know anymore! Ok?” Somewhere in the back of his mind, Trauma realized Nutmeg could execute him for this. Much to his surprise, Nutmeg just stood there, pinned to the wall. The Commissar remained as frustratingly unreadable as ever.

Trauma shook Nutmeg against the wall, feebly this time. “The Sisters saw fit to save me! Me! Why not her?”

“The Sisters didn’t save you, Trauma—well—not directly, I don’t think.”

Trauma looked into Nutmeg’s steely eyes. “Who, then?” he sneered.

“There’s an Inquisitor here, Trauma. I’m pretty sure they’re our mysterious benefactor.” The gravity of the statement shocked Trauma into releasing Nutmeg’s lapels, which the Commissar promptly shook out and straightened. “It’s possible they had something to do with your… experience… as well. Now, Hassle’s been trying to get in touch with me; I know she’s trying to summon me to the Inquisitor’s shuttle, but I am not going. Not until I’m satisfied that everypony under my command is squared away.”

Trauma backed up until his flanks hit the wall. He slumped into a sitting position. “An Inquisitor…”

“Trauma, you need sleep. Your mind has to be getting mushier than Saint Applejack’s Applesauce Surprise. You’re no good to anypony like this—especially not her if she wakes up.”

“I know.”

“Good. Now get out of here and go to sleep, that’s an order. She’s not going anywhere. It’ll only take me a few minutes to check on everypony else, and then a few more to see what the Inquisitor wants. After that, with Celestia as my witness, I’ll stay with Whisper until one of you wakes up. If she wakes up while I’m watching, I’ll pip you on the communicator.”

Trauma stood up and stood there for a moment.

“Go, or I’ll shoot you.”

Trauma sighed. “Can’t argue with that.”

Fray awoke with a start. The room was dark; the only illumination came from a small night-light next to the bathroom doorway. For a few moments, she didn’t know where she was, only that it was still nighttime. Waking up in unfamiliar places wasn’t an uncommon experience for her; as a soldier who was almost always on the move, it was actually quite common. But never before had she been surprised by waking up in a comfortable bed with another pony’s hooves wrapped around her midsection.

As her mind tried to wrap itself around the idea of sharing a mattress with another pony, the sound that had awoken her blared in her ear like a fog horn. She clenched her teeth and craned her head backwards to see Point’s face; his eyes were closed, his mouth was agape, and his tongue was lolling. As he inhaled, Fray was assaulted by a thunderous sound which resembled something between a jackhammer and a chainsword biting through flesh.

Fray watched, in horror, as the exhale produced an equally loud round of sputtering. Point was, apparently, the loudest snorer in all of creation. She shifted back to her previous position, eyes wide.

She didn’t often speak to herself, but it was all she could do to keep her voice at the level of a whisper and not an incredulous shout. “How is he the best scout in the regiment? All he has to do is doze off and—“

Point’s hoof swiftly detached from her and she felt motion as something rolled off of the bed. There was no sound of impact on the floor.

“Point?” Fray craned her head around to see that Point’s side of the bed had been vacated. She slowly inched her head towards the side of the bed he must have rolled off of, expecting to see a tangle of pony on the floor.

“Oh, it’s you!”

Fray swung her head back around. Point had somehow gotten off the bed, snuck around to her side of the bed, and was now quickly trying to hide the bedpan he had been wielding over his head.

She narrowed her eyes at the surprisingly super-stealthy scout. “How in Tartarus can you be so quiet while awake and so loud while sleeping?”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “Balance?”

She narrowed her eyes to the point where her brows could practically touch her cheeks.

Point looked up at the ceiling and tapped his forehooves together. “Well, if you’re not going to kill me, can I get back in my bed please?”

Fray would have burned a hole through Point’s face if she’d had laser eyes… but it was his bed... and he was badly hurt.

“Fine, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m glad,” he said as his expression changed into a genuine smile, which he then directed at her. The look made Fray feel butterflies in her stomach.

Point quickly, yet somehow silently, limped back around the bed, climbed back in on his side and wrapped his hoof back around her. His muzzle pressed into the back of her neck as he held her tight.

Fray closed her eyes and sighed in contentment. Now this, she could get used t—

Her eyes shot wide open as Point began to snore again.

A blazing sliver of sun crept slowly above the horizon. As it did, shafts of sunlight slowly snaked their way across the ceiling of Blitz’s room. The sleeping mountain was unperturbed by the gradual illumination of the room, but flinched once the direct rays crossed his face.

He awoke feeling sore all over. Most of the discomfort seemed to be from his injuries, but there was also the familiar aches he associated with having slept in the wrong position. After a failed attempt to roll over, Blitz just lay there for a moment considering his options.

Several things were working against Blitz in his quest to find a more suitable resting position in the hospital bed. First, there was the pain from where the Mareine had fractured his collarbone, which hadn’t been helped by him walking, much less by him helping free Point, and much-much less by him carrying Whisper to the hospital. Second was the memory foam mattress, which devoured any pressure he tried to exert onto it. And finally, was the fact that Owly was wedged into the small of his back and had a foreleg wrapped around his midsection.

Waking up next to another stallion was nothing new to Blitz, though usually the other pony woke up and left first; he liked to sleep in. He realized he shouldn’t be surprised though, Owly always stayed awake late and slept equally late. Blitz would’ve preferred some more vigorous de-stressing activity than just cuddling, but they’d ruled that out for the time being due to the extent of their injuries. As it turned out, the last thing Blitz remembered before passing out was the sound of Owly humming some unnamable tune into his back.

An exasperated sigh escaped Blitz as he realized that he wouldn’t be getting into a comfortable position in the bed anytime soon. Carefully lifting Owly’s hoof so as to not wake him, Blitz slid out of the bed with a pained grunt.

Once all four of his hooves were on the floor, Blitz stretched his aching muscles, which resulted in the cracking of several joints. Some extra time craning his neck back and forth elicited a few more satisfying pops.

Blitz looked back at the dark-blue form lying in the bed. Owly was curled up like a cat, or something similar, and seemed to be imploding on himself now that Blitz wasn’t there to keep things warm. The soreness in his face reminded Blitz to use his hooves when he pulled the covers up around Owly and made sure that he was sufficiently warm. His efforts to avoid muzzle pain were defeated when he smiled at the resultant pile of blanket and pony.

Turning to the window, Blitz walked over to where he could watch as the sun slowly crept above the horizon. The hospital had quite the view; he was rarely able to stop and admire the scenery, usually due to frantic combat or just bad positioning once he was planetside.

Blitz couldn’t resist the temptation open the window and get a whiff of fresh air from outside. Unhooking the latch proved a little more difficult than normal; simple, every day motions brought twinges of pain as he moved. The frame swung outwards and he inhaled deeply, relishing in the scent of landscaped trees and flowers as they wafted away the sterile chemical-smell of the hospital.

Another inhale brought to his attention a sudden but familiar odor, which teased at his nostrils. Blitz turned his muzzle to follow it—and nearly jumped through the open window when he saw that Nutmeg was in the room holding a mug of recaf, most likely plundered from the hospital stores.

“Sir?!” was the only word he was able to produce that wouldn’t have been startlingly graphic profanity.

Nutmeg’s eyebrows were slightly raised. “Well, that solves the mystery of the missing scout,” Nutmeg said as he lifted the mug. Blitz could swear he saw the Commissar’s pupils dilate slightly as he drank.

“Is… is there something you need, Sir?”

“Not really. I just got out of Whisper’s surgery a bit ago, and made my way to the cafeteria to get some of this,” he said, lifting the mug. “Now I’m checking up on everypony, making sure nothing is amiss—nothing is amiss here, Sergeant… correct?”

“Correct, Sir.”

“Good.” Nutmeg approached the window and looked out at the sunrise. “Nice view.” He sipped again at the drink. “You two should take advantage of it while we’re here; no telling when we’ll have time to sightsee once we leave.”

“Owly sleeps in the morning… sir.” Blitz couldn’t believe he was having this conversation, with Nutmeg, no less. He looked back out the window; it was a good view.

“Owly’s room has a sunset facing view, Sergeant. I bet he’ll be awake for that.”

“...Thank you, Sir…” Blitz looked sideways at the Commissar. “Sir, why—”

“Sergeant…” Nutmeg looked thoughtful for a moment. “—no, Blitz... I’m a morale officer. Discipline too, but it’s my job to make sure you guys keep fighting. And let me tell you something: that pony right there—” Nutmeg gestured towards Owly with his head “—charged into open combat with a Space Mareine, without being ordered to.” He sipped at the mug. “You can’t drill that kind of dedication into a pony.” Sip. “You can’t give enough extra privileges, rations, or rec time to motivate a pony like that.” Sip. “And, despite what some of my fellow Commissars believe, you can’t shoot enough deserters to inspire that kind of bravery or loyalty.”

Nutmeg continued to keep his gaze on the horizon. “Besides, I think I’ve grown... attached to this squad. You ponies…” His sentence trailed off.

When Blitz turned to look at Nutmeg, he saw a ghost of a smile on the Commissar’s muzzle. It was an expression Blitz never thought he’d see on that face. Nutmeg’s eyes flashed sideways for the briefest of moments, making contact with Blitz’s before looking ahead again. The smile vanished so quickly that Blitz was suddenly unsure that he had even seen it.

“I… think I understand, Sir,” Blitz said

“Good, because I’m not explaining it anymore,” Nutmeg said right before downing the rest of the mug. “Now, I need to get some more of this into my veins before I go harassing everypony else.”

After Nutmeg left, Blitz stood for a minute and then noticed the hospital bed had wheels. The large grin that crossed his muzzle was incredibly painful, but he continued to wear it as he pushed the bed into the hallway.

He wouldn’t even have to wake Owly up for the surprise.

Major Hassle had only been aboard the shuttle for a few minutes, but it was full of little clues that told her much about its owner. The exterior of the shuttle was barren and utilitarian, no doubt to disguise it from prying eyes. The interior was only dimly lit by a few recessed wall sconces, despite being full of tapestries, bookshelves, and ancient Equestrian artifacts, all of which Hassle had no doubt were authentic. That told her its owner had likely inherited the shuttle from somepony else, rather than having used their power and connections to amass such an opulent collection.

And opulent was exactly the word. She sat resting her hooves on the lacquered surface of a large marehogany table, feeling the individual grains through her frogs. Sloggington had a faux wood table in his personal quarters, but Hassle could feel the difference. Real wood was hard to come by in the Equestrian Empire, and it must have cost somepony a small fortune.

The Inquisitor, who sat resting his forehooves on the table across from her, seemed quite out of place in the ostentatious environment. Hassle noted that his left forehoof was royal-purple, and the right was a crude boltgun-metal augmentic—fairly basic in design. From what little she’d seen of the Inquisitor’s right eye replacement—mostly a large crimson light peeking out from the shadow of their cloak—it was just as bulky and utilitarian as well. Furthermore, the thick, mulberry-colored cloak that the he had drawn up over his head, which Hassle assumed was solely for theatrics, was severely weathered and had definitely seen better days.

After the first few minutes of observing the Inquisitor and his ship first-hoof, Hassle had come to the conclusion that he did not actually enjoy the finer accoutrements that his wealth and status brought. This was a welcome relief from her normal company. The other officers, Sloggington especially, were content to grow fat on the decadence and luxury their superior rank provided them. The Inquisitor had chosen her, most likely, due to the fact that she was lean and hungry for action and progress, not for cushy chairs and satin sheets.

At length, the Inquisitor lifted his natural foreleg and looked at an antique chronometer that was strapped to the cannon. His voice—which she’d heard through countless encrypted comm transmissions during the course of their recent mission—somehow sounded more raspy when not filtered through an electronic communicator. “You did say that the Commissar would be ‘right along,’ didn’t you?”

Hassle squirmed a little in her seat; it didn’t seem like a particularly good idea to keep an Inquisitor waiting. “Y… yes. As I mentioned, he was… indisposed last night. But I was able to speak with him over the com ten minutes ago. He should be here soon.”

The hooded pony leaned towards her over the table. Hassle could now see the hint of a smile as part of the pony’s muzzle crept forward out of the hood’s shadow. “Maybe you should’ve told him there would be free coffee?”

Hassle tensed at the comment, but quickly relaxed once a few seconds had passed; if Nutmeg were in earshot, he would have vaulted the table already. She gave the hooded stallion a measured smile since she wasn’t sure whether he was being serious or actually joking with her… one never could tell with a pony of his stature, and it was far too dangerous to just assume.

A faint breeze on the back of her neck suddenly reminded her of the charcoal-colored pony she had seen skulking around the boarding ramp. She started as she realized that she had forgotten he was back there, sharpening that horrible-looking knife. How had she forgotten that? He’d sent chills down her spine but, even now, even if she focused on him, he started to slide from her mind like sand through clenched hooves—

“Who’s the creep by the loading ramp?”

Most ponies would have jumped out of their skin at the sudden loud query from Nutmeg. For Hassle, however, it was the welcome sound of the familiar, however irritating, in unfamiliar surroundings.

The Inquisitor’s muzzle turned downward into a frown. “That would be Devoid... My apologies, I thought I’d informed him that his… theatrics would not be required for this meeting. He does have a penchant for setting the mood, though, doesn’t he?”

“You have a flair for the dramatic as well, mister hooded-cloak.” Nutmeg took a quick look at the opulence that surrounded him and then at the hooded pony across the table. He then sat down next to Hassle and set his hooves on the table. “Or should I say, ‘Inquisitor?’ Given what we found down there, I figured it was only a matter of time before the Alicorn Inquisition would show up…”

Hassle didn’t see any signs of surprise from the Inquisitor as Nutmeg spoke. Instead, his smile returned and he drew back the hood, revealing a black mane, as well as showing that it was almost the entire right side of his face that had been replaced by crude augmentics. What stood out the most, however, was his horn.

Hassle started; she hadn’t suspected that the Inquisitor was a unicorn.

The burn scarring that she could see around his throat, face, and augmentics was no doubt related to the raspiness of the Inquisitor’s voice as he spoke: “My name is Tracks. You may call me that, or add my title to the front if you are feeling overly formal. I must say, though, your methods of information gathering are… most exceptional. Pinion, my tech-pony, is quite distraught at having been tricked by your engine-seers.”

Nutmeg smiled sardonically. “Well, those two do love to put their tendrils where they don’t belong. But that’s not what’s important here, is it? Now, I understand fully why you’re here. But what confuses me is why you’re already here, less than a day after I made my report.” His eyes narrowed. “Because that means you’ve probably been here for a while. I’m going to assume a very long while... and that it’s you who had the Major here send me and my team into a meat-grinder.”

“Quite the brilliant induction, Commissar. I did, indeed, have the redoubtable Major Hassle here scout the regiment for candidates for the refinery assault. But I assure you: the fact that it was a recaf processing plant, and that you were the most capable Commissar in the regiment? I had nothing to do with that; it was an act of divine providence.”

Hassle wasn’t an overly-religious type, and knew that Nutmeg was even less devout than she; so she was not surprised at all when Nutmeg looked at her askance. She kept her own expression as neutral as possible.

Nutmeg turned back to the Inquisitor. “You think one of The Sisters… chose… me for this?” He gestured emphatically at himself.

Tracks nodded. “One, or both. I don’t believe in coincidences. Either way, I’ve been looking to recruit some agents.” He grabbed a datapad from his cloak with one hoof and started tapping it with the other. “This mission told me everything I—”

“You saved Trauma’s life, didn’t you?”

Tracks looked up from the pad. “Yes.”

Nutmeg conspicuously looked at one side of the Inquisitor, then craned his head around for a look at the other side. “You don’t have wings.”

“Certainly not, though my pilot does… and Trauma was likely too shaken to tell that what he saw was one pony carrying another. I’ve taken the liberty of redacting that part of his report, by the way.”

“Why?” Nutmeg stared hard at the Inquisitor; Hassle had seen that same look crush the spirit of innumerable troopers in the past. “If you were vetting new agents… why would you save one that failed to survive on their own?”

Tracks seemed unfazed by Nutmeg’s glare. “Look around you, Commissar; and look at my augmentics as well: I don’t believe in throwing things away if they might still be useful. Same goes for ponies… I am not my predecessor. Or, if you want an even more pragmatic reason, I looked to the mission’s future. My special talent allows me to see the path that a pony has taken, with hints of the path ahead; if you know a pony’s past, you gain a measure of insight into their future.”

Hassle was surprised that Nutmeg was still listening to the rambling Inquisitor, who continued: “While my predecessor was always better at prognostication than I, he took to treating his agents as pieces, to be moved or sacrificed as needed in a grand game of Regicide. He would’ve seen Trauma’s sacrifice as a necessary expenditure of resources to finish the mission. And he would’ve probably been satisfied even if your entire team was wiped out, so long as their sacrifice allowed the servitors to reclaim the facility and finish off the Traitor Mareine. He would never have even considered that it would have been a single lasbolt from a single ‘pawn’ in his ‘great game’ that would’ve turned the tide and saved the entire squad. And he certainly wouldn’t have had himself flown into the combat zone to extend a magical force field around that pony.”

Nutmeg raised an eyebrow. “Are you… fishing for gratitude?”

Tracks’ smile immediately vanished. Hassle tensed, expecting sudden death.

Tracks’ sudden chuckle shattered the silence like Saint Dash flying through a stained glass window. “This is why I need somepony like you with me, Nutmeg… can I call you Nutmeg?” He didn’t wait for Nutmeg to actually respond before continuing: “I don’t want to fall into the same trap as my predecessor, treating myself like I’m The Sisters’ gift to the galaxy, or something equally absurd. I need somepony who isn’t afraid of speaking their mind to me. And I need agents like your squad, who can work well alone and who are good at what they do.”

“I dunno,” Nutmeg said, looking sideways at Hassle.

Hassle really wished that he’d stop looking at her like she was supposed to have the answers to any of this.

“You need to ask your troops first?” Tracks asked.

“What?” Nutmeg snorted. “Celestia, no! I just mean this is a lot to take in: first, you’ve thrown me and my team into a deathtrap based on a magical prediction. But then, you stepped in to save one of my troops to save all of us? It’s all very—”

“Far-fetched, yes. But you are not a unicorn, and even most unicorns do not dabble in foresight; the future is a web of possibilities that one must be careful not to get trapped in.”

“Ok, ok, you can save the mystical talk for church. All I’m saying is that I think me and my troops have it good here, and we’re already risking our lives to fight for the Equestrian Empire. I don’t… what… is that?”

Hassle followed Nutmeg’s gaze to a mug and stainless steel thermos that the Inquisitor had levitated onto the table in his crimson magical field. The cap of the thermos magically unscrewed and as the tumbler tilted, a thick, black liquid poured from it. Steam rose from the mug and a deep, rich, earthy scent filled the air.

Tracks used his natural hoof to push the mug towards Nutmeg. “This is a dark roast from Palomino VI. The locals call it ‘eh,’ as in e.h., as in event horizon, as in as-dark-as… Anyway, Free Fall and Devoid say it’s the best blend we’ve managed to pick up in our travels.”

Nutmeg carefully inspected the foreign drink, first by lifting the mug and taking a sniff. As the steam was pulled into his nostrils, Hassle could swear she saw a line of saliva form at the edge of Nutmeg’s mouth. When Nutmeg put the cup to his lips and tilted it, his eyes dilated completely; his pupils looked like they were trying to crush his irises against the outsides of his eyeballs. “Nectar… of… The Sisters… you… you have more of this?”

A smile came to Tracks’ muzzle. “Yes, I let my crew buy the vendor out of it on our last visit. Funny thing is, I’m more of a tea drinker myself; I prefer Earl Neigh if I can get it, though all I’ve been able to get on this planet is this Equestrian Guard recaf which, quite frankly, tastes like horseapples.

“Wait,” Nutmeg’s eyes had contracted again and were staring at the Inquisitor. “What did you say about recaf?”

“Oh, that’s right, Major Hassle here told me—”

Hassle was on her hooves in an instant. “That you—” Hassle suddenly realized she didn’t have a proper interjection prepared, “—that you were... umm… getting… sick!” She nodded her head up and down at the Inquisitor. “Yes, sick! Sick of the regiment constantly running out of recaf all the time!”

Tracks looked at her with an expression that sat somewhere around nonplussed. Hassle gave him an exaggerated wink, which only served to cause the Inquisitor’s eyebrows to rise to a height where one could be concerned that they might leave his head altogether. She sat back into her chair and dared to breathe a sigh of relief. If the Equestrian Empire was anything, it was a tangle of secrets and lies all knitted into a mad skein that, nonetheless, served to keep the darkness at bay. Darkness such as Nutmeg might exhibit if he knew.

“Well, in any case, here,” Tracks said as he levitated the steel thermos towards Nutmeg. “Think it over and—”

“We’ll do it!” Nutmeg had finished a second sip and blurted the statement.

Tracks smiled. “Excellent.” He clapped his hooves together. “Now, Nutmeg, if you’ll excuse me and the Major—”

Nutmeg wasted no time in absconding from the shuttle with both mug and thermos in hoof.

Hassle looked over to the nonplussed Inquisitor, who was still looking in the direction of Nutmeg’s retreat.

“Divine providence,” Tracks said. He turned to address Hassle and smiled: “Though speaking of that-which-is divine, I couldn’t help but notice the way you looked at me a moment ago…”

Hassle felt her own eyebrows rise.

Whisper lay on her back in the green grassy field, her light gray coat soaking in the sunlight.

She felt completely at peace. She’d fought the good fight, and she hadn’t let herself be killed needlessly. She’d fought tooth and hoof, to the bitter end.

And what an end! Death in combat against a Space Mareine was beyond honorable. She’d even taken a big piece of the brute with her, and helped avenge Trauma…

She slowly looked around at the pristine scenery. Where was Trauma? He should have been here long before her.

“I want you back. I need you back.”

She looked around, but nopony was there.

A cold, hard wind blew, raising her hackles. She jumped to her hooves as clouds quickly obscured the sun. The light levels dropped precipitously, and the clouds cleared just as quickly as they’d formed, revealing a starry night sky—and The Moon. It wasn’t one of the moons of the planet she’d died on—no, this was The Moon. It blinked. It looked at her.

“RETURN.”

The power of the Royal Canterlot Voice was such that it obliterated Whisper’s dreamscape surroundings and sent her hurtling through a space between spaces.

Her speed continued to increase, sending her past countless stars until she saw herself approaching a planet. She plummeted into the atmosphere, which she vaguely recognized from the viewports on the troop transport they’d arrived on. She recognized the shape of the continent she was approaching, and as things became closer, much closer, she realized, with horror, where she was heading.

Soon she saw it, the ledge where she had been before—she tried to turn herself to get away, but the only thing she could do was shift the angle of her perception as she continued to fall. Time slowed and she wanted to scream as she saw that Trauma was still there, struggling to his hooves as the rocket approached.

Directly below her, she saw somepony else, also falling. They had a grey coat like hers—she saw the rocket impact and the flames moving towards Trauma in the sniper nest. He smiled at the falling pony as they became obscured, partially consumed by the blast.

But something was different this time, she realized. This time she was higher up, above the action instead of below it. The pony below was her, and—she swung her vision around just in time to see a crimson aura surround Trauma. He stood there with a shocked expression on his face as the area surrounding him was ravaged by the flames.

He lived?

And then she sped downwards, through fire and smoke and darkness, towards a bed with a gray sleeping mare in it. Again, it was her—only it couldn’t be her, because she didn’t have augmentics—

Whisper woke to pain. Almost every square centimare of her was in agony. She opened her mouth but no sound issued forth. She’d heard that pain could leave one speechless, but the sensation she felt was… new. Different.

She knew she could deal with the physical pain, but not—what had she just seen? The dream was quickly fading from her memory.

Opening her eyes proved to be a difficult endeavor; they were gummed with encrusted rheum. As she rubbed her foreleg across her face, she realized that something felt different on the left side of her muzzle.

She struggled to sit up in the bed to see what—

“Finally.” She turned her head to see the Commissar standing next to her bed, fiddling with one ear. “I knew you were too stubborn to die.”

Whisper opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. She suddenly realized she wasn’t breathing, that she hadn’t been breathing. Her forehooves shot to her throat in panic. She wasn’t breathing… but she didn’t feel like she was suffocating...

Nutmeg placed a hoof on her shoulder; it reminded her of when he had done the same thing back in the refinery. She felt her heart rate begin to slow as he spoke. “Calm down, your lungs suffered some pretty bad fire and smoke damage—which you probably could’ve healed on your own if that Mareine hadn’t crushed your ribcage. Long story short, they had to replace both lungs with a respirator. Top of the line; you prolly can’t even hear the thing.”

It was true, she couldn’t hear anything. Her hoof traveled down the front of her neck to right between her shoulders, where it tinked against metal. She could feel a steady stream of air passing out of a vent on the front of the implant.

“You won’t be able to speak again until you learn to train yourself to expel air from the implant through your vocal chords.”

She looked at him intently and opened her mouth again. Still nothing.

“You suffered some pretty bad injuries there,” the Commissar continued, while continuing to tap his ear repeatedly, “so you have some other augmentics as well.”

The door slammed open behind the Commissar and a red blur rushed past him and locked her in a tight embrace. She would’ve normally castrated anypony foolish enough to lay hooves on her in such a manner but—

She knew the feel of those forelegs, the blood-red coat, the smell from where her muzzle was buried in the stallion’s mane. She placed her hooves on his barrel and pushed him back so she could see his face. Though raw, rimmed in red, and brimming with tears, Trauma’s eyes burned with the same passion she’d seen the first time she’d met him.

“Hey, Whi—meep!” Trauma’s sentence was cut off as Whisper gripped his mane, and pulled his muzzle into hers. As they held each other she felt complete again, and she closed her eyes to better relish the moment.

Whisper’s ears perked as she heard hoofsteps going towards the door. Nutmeg muttered something about “8 for 10” as he exited the room.

Nutmeg sat back on the massive air handling unit and savored the coffee. It was good coffee, not that bland, flavorless recaf. How had he lived for so long without it?

The mission, regardless of its cluster-buck status, had been completed, and he hadn’t lost a single pony. He still couldn’t wrap his brain around that part. Serious injuries all around, sure; but not one fatality. It was insane; plans never survived contact with the enemy, but soldiers didn’t always either.

At first he’d thought that he was a damned liar for telling the squad they were the best, but now he wasn’t so sure. They’d accomplished incredible feats and had even impressed an Inquisitor with their performance—well, impressed him as much as it is possible to impress somepony with prescience, at any rate.

Nutmeg sipped from the mug again as he watched some manner of squawking rat-bird fly past. He wouldn’t allow the thoughts to interrupt his enjoyment of the coffee, nor his enjoyment of the view; the hospital was situated in an east/west valley and he was able to see clear to the horizon between the two mountain ranges; it was incredible. It was almost as incredible as the warmth that filled his barrel as he drank. Nutmeg quickly looked around, to make sure nopony was watching, and then allowed himself to breathe a sigh of contentment.

He’d met the rest of the Inquisitor’s retinue, and the rumors about Inquisitors and their teams were true: they were insane, every last one of them. He was glad that he and his squad would be bringing some much needed mental stability to the group.

First, though, he’d have to get the Inquisitor to start drinking coffee; nopony who subsisted on tea alone could be trusted…

“Sir.” Inferno had just turned the corner of an elevator maintenance shrine. He’d approached from the direction of the shuttle pad and roof access. His booming voice sounded… surprised?

“Inferno! I only just gave up looking for you within the last…” Nutmeg paused when he saw the state of the pony; no mask, no armor, freshly bandaged withers, and glistening red stains on said bandages...

He’d seen Inferno in this state before, in a medical tent on some other Celestia-forsaken planet. At the time, he’d assumed that other ponies in the purifier squads had whipped Inferno to within an inch of his life, and Inferno had refused to tell him who had done the deed. Now, it seemed pretty clear who was responsible—not that Nutmeg cared about being able to put the nail in that unsolved case’s proverbial coffin; his entire disciplinary caseload would be undoubtedly taken over by another Commissar.

After waiting for a few seconds, it became clear to Nutmeg that the giant orange pony was not going to approach any closer or speak. “Inferno, why are you up here?”

“For the quiet; for the solitude. I didn’t think anypony else would be here.”

Nutmeg shrugged. “Well, great minds think alike. Have a seat, enjoy the view.”

After he sat directly on the roof, Inferno looked out at the landscape. “Magnificent.”

Regarding the purifier in what he hoped was a casual manner, Nutmeg took a sip of his coffee. “I was about to head back down, but you said it… isn’t quiet down there?” He took a big swig to prepare himself for any possibility of bad news.

The lowering of Inferno’s eyebrows did not precipitate a hopeful feeling in Nutmeg’s gut. “The fetid sounds of their unfettered fornications—”

Coffee involuntarily erupted from Nutmeg’s mouth as a spray of fine droplets, right into Inferno’s face. Nutmeg’s eyes widened as his brain slowly realized that some of the best caffeinated beverage he had ever tasted had begun to seep into Inferno’s coat.

Nutmeg did not shriek like a schoolyard filly: that would be unbecoming of both his stallionhood and his rank as a Commissar. He most certainly did not even briefly consider licking all the sweet, delicious coffee off of Inferno; he would’ve had to suck it from Inferno’s fur like some kind of depraved coffee leech…

Inferno ran a hoof across his muzzle, and droplets of coffee pattered to the rooftop. “I understand the sentiment, Sir. It disgusts me as well. Lascivious behaviors such as they are displaying are a sin against Them.”

Nutmeg eyed the damp spots on the roof near Inferno’s forehooves, calculating if he could extract any flavor from the tar paper, and eventually sighing in resignation. “Inferno, can't you set your overt prudishness aside for a moment and just enjoy The Sisters' blessings? We're alive, for one thing. And we completed the mission. In Their name."

Inferno worked his jaw for a moment, but then nodded. "Aye; in Their name, we were victorious.” With a look that resembled severe constipation, Inferno continued: “For Their sake, I will strive to... to enjoy this blessing of respite."

"And coffee," Nutmeg said, trying to direct his attention away from the precious liquid he'd lost and toward the half-mugful he still possessed. "By The Sisters, this has to be the finest blend I've tasted since joining the service. Why, it's almost as good as what I remember my mother making for me as a foal when I was growing up on Javimus Prime... certainly better than all the recaf I've had since."

Seeing Inferno raise an eyebrow, Nutmeg chuckled. "Did you know that's why I joined, at least at first? The recruiter promised me a galaxy full of unlimited coffee.” He gestured with the mug in a sweeping motion. “And I suppose it's true; with recaf factories like the one we just liberated—”

"Sir?"

Nutmeg blinked at Inferno's unwavering gaze. "What is it?"

"Sir, with all due respect, I believe you have misspoken. You have mentioned ‘coffee’ and ‘recaf’ and you have used the terms as if they were interchangeable."

"Why, certainly not! There's no comparing my usual cuppa—which, granted, I just demonstrated I would fight and risk the lives of other ponies for—” He took another swig. “—with this sweet nectar I just got from the Inquisitor. For this... why, I'd charge, alone and naked, straight into the Eye of Discord, wielding nothing but an empty mug!"

"Such idolatry—" Inferno turned his head and spat on the ground "—is a sin. No, Sir; what I'm trying to say is that they're NOT even the same type of beverage."

Nutmeg's eyebrow twitched. "Come again?"

"Recaf isn't coffee, Sir; it's brewed from ground tea leaves. Everypony knows that."

To the outside observer, it might've looked like Nutmeg had been hit by a stasis grenade.

“Sir, even if, somehow, you didn’t know beforehoof, you must have seen the crates labeled ‘raw tea’ when you were in the refinery storage room—”

A slight tremor began in the Commissar’s left eye.

“—or seen the piles of dried leaves that fell off of the loading conveyor we had to drag that heathen, Point, out from under—”

Nutmeg found himself speechless. His face felt like it was having a seizure... But then a single, mangled, word escaped his lips: "HERESY."

The mountainous figure of Inferno all but quivered. "S... Sir?"

Nutmeg leapt up from the air handler and looked at Inferno with face-wide eyes bearing irises that had shrunk to pinpricks. He fumbled about himself for but a moment before locating and somehow drawing both his laspistol and chainsword.

"HERESY!" Nutmeg reiterated, before throwing himself into a charge.

Tracks ran his natural hoof through the curls of the mane belonging to the tough-but-beautiful mare lying next to him.

Hassle giggled and turned around, batting his hoof away. "Don't tell me you're still feeling frisky after our last... debriefing."

Tracks returned her smile and opened his mouth to answer, when the unmistakable sounds of roaring and gunfire penetrated even the inner sanctum of the Inquisitorial shuttle. A shudder rattled the room’s deck-plates, indicating an explosion somewhere outside. He cursed, rolled to his other side, and hoofed a rune that activated the tactical display screen next to his bed. Readouts flashed by, accompanied by external cam footage.

Tracks harrumphed at the prevalence of static and grainy video, which showed very little aside from occasional glimpses of a great deal of smoke billowing from several small fires on the rooftop. He felt Hassle shift behind him, then grunted as she pressed a hoof into his side and used him to prop herself up so she could also see the screen.

Between waves of static, he could swear that he saw a ghostly afterimage darting from one plume of smoke to another. It looked like they were wearing a black greatcoat… and somehow dual-wielding both a laspistol and chain blade in their mouth...

"Oh, buck me sideways," Hassle said swiftly.

"I'd love to, but this isn’t the best—"

"No," Hassle said, her voice heavy with fear, "I mean... he found out!”

"What? Who found out..." The image had finally focused enough that Tracks could see what was going on. He tapped his artificial eye to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioning. Then he stared at the video feed, transfixed; he’d never seen anything quite like it...

Hassle gripped his withers and pulled, turning him to stare into her wide, fear-filled eyes. "The recaf, Inquisitor! He finally found out that recaf isn't coffee!!"

Tracks flashed his mismatched eyes between Hassle and the display, then lit his horn, closed his eye, and pressed his natural hoof to his temple. "So the Commissar was lied to... I should’ve seen that in his past, but—Celestia above…”

“What?” Hassle rolled off the bed and hastily tried to fumble her way back into her uniform.

Tracks chortled humorlessly. “Somepony with a great deal of skill created a magical shroud that made it so I couldn’t see certain parts of the Commissar’s past…” He opened his eye and fixed it on Hassle. “I recognize this technique for divination obfuscation. Few would know it, apart from my mentor or her students.”

“Your predecessor? Why?”

He shook his head. “No, my mentor. Anyways, the Commissar must have witnessed something no pony is meant to know. Yet, it must have been through faithful service to the Equestrian Empire, or he would have been executed; it is the only instance in which he would be allowed to live with a mental block.”

The shuttle shook from another explosion.

“What are we going to do?” Hassle paced back and forth in front of Tracks’ bed. “We… we need to go seal ourselves down in an emergency bunker, or the firing chamber of a planetary defense gun, or… something!”

Tracks scooched across the mattress, where he grabbed and donned his cloak. He stood and walked towards the bedroom’s access hatch. “Will you join me at my personal shrine to The Sisters? I find that prayer helps at times like these.”

Hassle shook her head. “I don’t see how praying is going to help matters any!”

“Please, Major, have faith that The Sisters have a plan, and that this is part of it. Besides, as I said, I’m familiar with this type of memory cap. There’s a good chance that it’ll reassert itself within a few minutes, and he’ll forget that recaf is tea, along with whatever incredible secret was sealed away from him. Best thing to do is just wait this out.” Tracks hoofed the rune next to the door. “Now let’s get to the shrine.”

As the door hissed open, Hassle hesitated. “A ‘good chance?’ Surely we should at least arm ourselves in case that doesn’t work out? There’s a weapons locker nearby that’s stocked with gear for repelling a Traitor Mareine invasion… it’s got meltabombs, personal force-fields… and we can both take our pick of plasma weaponry.”

“Plasma?” Tracks smiled as he held up his augmentic foreleg. “Major, would you truly put your faith first in a gun that fires hotter than a star, and only second in the grace of The Princesses who rule the stars?” He tapped at the metal that housed his replacement eye. “Their grace isn’t likely to lose containment and go subcritical right in your hoof.”

Hassle’s eyes danced between his leg, his eye, and his burn scarring before they widened in dawning comprehension. Then she held out a hoof. “All right, then; let’s pray.”

The End

A Spot of Tea (April Fools)

Nutmeg adjusted his monocle as he reclined in the luxurious cushioned chair. He raised an antique Neighsian tea cup to his muzzle and sipped the amber liquid within. "Oh, I say! This tea is jolly-good!"

Point nodded his head emphatically in agreement after his own sip. "Very good, sir!"

Nutmeg turned to the well dressed stallion. "Point! I insist you eat a scone, you haven't had a bite all day! You'll waste away, old colt!"

Point shook his head from side to side. "No, sir. I had a single cracker this morning and I am just completely full-up. I never could stomach a full meal, sir."

There was a crash from nearby and the two turned to see another stallion had crashed into the tea service cart.

One of Nutmeg's eyebrows raised. "I say! Owly! What are you doing, stallion?"

The dark-blue stallion raised his head, revealing large sunglasses. "I can't see, sir, it's too dark out!"

Nutmeg, one eyebrow raised higher. "Celestia' sakes, it's the middle of the day!"

"But I need these sunglasses, sir!" Owly whined.

Nutmeg harrumphed and took another sip of tea. He turned to the large tuxedoed stallion to his other side. "Inferno! Why are you not drinking your tea?"

"It's too hot, I am waiting for it to cool down."

Nutmeg nodded. "Jolly-good! Do you take sugar?"

"No, sir, I'm sweet enough."

Author's Note

Don't worry, the real next chapter is on the way, folks!